“Great. Thanks.” I watched in puzzlement as Tom zapped thick-sliced bacon in the microwave, then buttered the brioche. Within moments he was layering sizzling bacon strips on the toasted bread. My mouth watered.
“Bacon sandwich,” Tom offered. “I’m taking this up to Arch.” He lifted the tray to his shoulder, waiter style. “We should be taking off within twenty minutes.”
Upstairs, the water was still running. “Tom,” I protested gently. “He’s still in the shower. Why won’t you just let him have his breakfast after he’s dressed, in the kitchen they way he usually does? Please? I want to see him. Talk to him. Check on how he’s doing.”
Tom hesitated at the kitchen door, still gripping the tray. Finally, his green eyes met mine. “He’s not quite ready to see you, Miss G.”
“What?”
“Just . . . give him some time. All right?”
“What are you talking about?”
Tom hesitated, then put the tray down on the counter. He walked over, embraced me, and murmured in my ear. “Arch needs somebody to blame. Last night he blamed himself. This morning it’s you. He doesn’t understand how you let your gun get stolen. He thinks you should have called paramedics once you found his dad in the garage.” Tom sighed. “He’s not doing well, Goldy. As soon as the department figures out what happened, he’ll have the right person to blame. Just . . . don’t overreact, okay?”
“But I didn’t do anything,” I protested. “Arch was less than thirty yards away from me when I found John Richard, who was already dead.”
“I know that. On some level, he does, too. He’s just real wound up now, and he’s not being logical. He needs a friend, someone he can trust, to start his grieving with. I’m not talking about Todd. Right now, he feels okay with me. let me go with it, will you?”
My face, my ears, every part of my body began to pulse with heat, not to mention embarrassment, shame, and worry. Somehow I had failed my son. I thought I was going to be sick. Trust Tom? I was beginning to feel I couldn’t trust anyone. I couldn’t even think. My ex-husband was dead, and my beloved son wouldn’t even talk to me? What was going on here?
Tom picked up the tray and disappeared. I ran cold water from the kitchen faucet, splashed my face, then dried it with a rough paper towel. I swallowed back the rock in my throat, and tried not to picture Arch’s freckled, innocent face, with his glasses riding down his nose. I tried to imagine him not being angry with me.
Cook, an inner voice advised. It’s better than just standing around feeling bad.
My computer laid out the prep I still had to do. Regardless of whatever problems a dead ex-husband, an alienated son, nosy churchwomen, or bothersome journalists could pose, I had to work. Not only that, but I was determined to do a thorough check of my van to see if anything besides my thirty-eight had been ripped off. The cops wouldn’t have been able to tell that, would they? I took a deep breath and tapped buttons. First I printed out the inventory sheets for my equipment boxes. Then I pulled up the menus for the two upcoming events.
I wondered uneasily if Priscilla Throckbottom had been calling to change the time or place for the committee breakfast. My computer reminded me that I’d already made and frozen her mini-brioches, but that I still had to make the Crustless Fontina and Gorgonzola Quiches. Very early the next morning, I would slice a mega-ton of fresh fruit. Ah, the caterer’s life.
As I pulled out eggs, cheeses, cream, and butter, I worried that Priscilla might be immersed in one of her last-minute crises, where she insisted on adding or subtracting two, three, or six guests. Then again, maybe the death of John Richard had made Priscilla wonder if things were proceeding normally chez Goldilocks. Well, doggone it, they were. And if she wanted to add, subtract, or cancel, she’d be out of luck. More than one person in this world could be hard-nosed!
I pictured Priscilla’s committee as I began crumbling pungent Gorgonzola. Ostensibly, the eight women of PosteriTREE, the ones who’d held the previous day’s bake sale, were doing at own-beautification project. They were raising funds to buy and plant native trees around Aspen Meadow. But as usual with these types of groups, I suspected that the real reason for belonging to the committee was to be able to say that you were on it. I’d heard one woman brag that PosteriTREE members belonged to the crème de la crème of town society.
I set aside the Gorgonzola and started grating the fontina. The crème de la crème of town society? From a caterer’s viewpoint, Aspen Meadow didn’t have any society. At least, we didn’t have anything as identifiable as what you’d see in a major metropolis. I’d worked for clients who’d hailed from the nation’s capital: Two entire shelves in the library had been devoted to their collection of The Green Book, also known as The Social List of Washington. And Washington was not alone. Victorian London had had its Upper Ten Thousand; New York had its Dun and Bradstreet; even early twentieth-century Denver had had its Sacred Thirty-Six. But what did twenty-first-century Aspen Meadow, Colorado, have? A country club that looked like a Holiday Inn, a saloon featuring every band from Nashville Bobby and the Boys to Backhoe Dan and the Dumpsters, and oh, yes, a yearly cultural event that brought in folks from all over the country: the Aspen Meadow Rodeo. I rest my case.
I moved on to beating the eggs and mused about the fact that some folks do need to cling to the idea that by doing this or that they will prove that they are superior. Far be it from me to shatter their illusions. Folks in the catering profession nurture dreams of grandeur, right? It’s our bread and butter.
I fixed myself another espresso and doused it with cream. I’d been intending to cut back on the dark stuff, but I rationalized my current overload by reminding myself that espresso contained much less caffeine than regular coffee. And, at the moment, I needed it for medicinal purposes.
I clicked to a new file in the computer. The next day’s committee breakfast should be a no-brainer. I’d worked in the Aspen Meadow Country Club kitchen before, and the staff — unlike the members — were very friendly. But after the breakfast, I had a larger and much more challenging affair: the retirement picnic for Nurse Nan Watkins.
The Southwest Hospital Women’s Auxiliary had commissioned the party, and I’d been glad to get the booking. Nan was Marla’s and my old friend. Not only had the she survived working for John Richard, she was able to do dead-on impersonations of him. Since Nan was five-two and weighted in at two hundred pounds, these were invariably hilarious. There was John Richard’s frightening steely look, which Nan would imitate as she snapped her fingers in your face and shouted, “Did you hear me?” Sometimes we could convince her to do his seductive routine, which involved Nan running her plump fingers through her short gray hair, tossing her head as she thrust her hips to the side and growled, “You’re new to this hospital, aren’t you?” You couldn’t help but love her.
Nan’s retirement as a longtime ob-gyn nurse at Southwest Hospital promised to bring together many of the same people who’d been at Albert Kerr’s funeral lunch. Nan herself had been at the lunch; she’d nodded to me and given me a thumbs-up. But we hadn’t had time to visit.
I didn’t know how I felt about Nan’s picnic coming on the heels of John Richard’s suddenly turning up dead. Everyone would be buzzing with questions, and I was in no mood to be thinking of answers.
What I did want to know the answer to, though, I reflected as I whisked cream into the beaten eggs, was what it was going to take to restore the relationship with my son. I set aside the silky egg mixture. My stomach protested, so I sliced myself a slab of the luscious fontina. It was heavenly.
Tom and Arch clomped down the stairs while I was chopping scallions. To my dismay, they departed by the front door without saying good-bye. I could just make out Arch saying that his clubs were still in my van from the day before, and would it be all right if he brought his hockey stuff, too? Tom murmured assent, and after some clanking and banging, they were off.
At ten after eight, I slid the first batch of garden-club-meeting quiches into the oven, closed the door, and dialed Julian. Yes, he whispered, he had heard about John Richard. Two investigators were sitting in his apartment. They had driven to Boulder that morning and knocked on his door at seven. They should be leaving soon, Julian said guardedly.
Julian said he was sorry this was happening to me. Was I okay? I told him I was coping, but Arch was not. He cursed under his breath. He’d committed to a full day and evening of work at the bistro. Could he come over first thing tomorrow morning? he asked. He wanted to be with us.
Absolutely, I replied, relieved. I was desperate to know if he’d seen anything at the lunch, anything at all suspicious. But that would have to wait until he didn’t have a pair of Furman County’s finest breathing down his neck. We signed off.
As the quiches baked, I got down to the serious work of prepping the pork chops for Nan’s picnic. Back in the mists of time — that is, in my childhood — everyone’s mother, including my own, had fried pork chops and served them for dinner. But since then pigs had been bred to be so lean that if you tried to fry one of their chops today, you’d end up with a piece of leather. Enter the brine, and as we sometimes say in the catering business, it’s a good thing. Brine recipes had been passed from caterer to caterer like secret codes, and I’d finally found one I liked. The idea of chops rather than the usual hamburgers and hot dogs had intrigued the women’s auxiliary, and we’d settled on them for Nan’s meat main dish.
After the brine tenderized them, I would put them into a garlic-thyme-balsamic-vinegar marinade and cook them until they were golden. The worst part of this particular specialty of Goldilocks’ Catering was getting all the pork chops into and out of the large quantity of brine. If I could manage all that without incident, it would be great. Another good thing.
I had finished mixing what felt like a hundred gallons of brine and was just easing the chops into the solution when the doorbell rang. I groaned: reporters? Irritated, I washed my hands and resolved that they were going to get nothing out of me by coming to the house.
At our front door, I peeked through the peephole.
It was not reporters. It was Marla, whose glare indicated she hadn’t had any caffeine yet. I let her in.
“Is your house bugged?” she whispered.
“Not according to Brewster’s security guy. Come on, I’ll make you an iced espresso and cream.”
She sighed and followed me. “I know I’m early.” She squinted at the vats of pork chops. “But Brewster has been calling you and you’re not answering your phone or listening to your machine.”
My shoulders slumped. Why did being a suspect have to be so exhausting? “Tom turned off all the ringers. Look, don’t say any more until I’ve fixed us both something to eat. I can’t take any more bad news without some breakfast.”
Marla groaned in agreement. She perked up ten minutes alter when I handed her a quadruple iced espresso and cream and a plate of steaming-hot Julian-made chocolate-filled croissants.
“Thank God and thank you.” She took a bite of croissant and rolled her eyes. When my own teeth sank through the flaky pastry, warm chocolate spurted onto my tongue. I felt better already.
I said, “All right, now I can take some news.”
“Brewster wants you to come up with a list of enemies you and John Richard had in common. He also wants you to try to write down the names of any folks who were just the Jerk’s enemies.”
“Is that all?”
“Very funny. Brewster also says you and Tom need to start working on your defense. As in be prepared, that kind of thing. He also wants to know if we can recall the history of the Jerk beating up other girlfriends.”
“Does Brewster mean girlfriends who lived?”
“I think he means all of John Richard’s lovers or women or whatever you want to call them,” Marla replied. “I’ve got my list, and if you don’t have time to do one, I’ll just give him mine, which is probably more complete than any you could come up with. Do you know if the Jerk beat up Sandee? Not that that would be a good thing, but it might make things easier for you.”
“Sorry, but I know
next to nothing about his relationship with Sandee.” I fortified myself with more chocolate croissant, then washed it down with a final espresso.
The doorbell rang just as the buzzer went off for the quiches. Marla held up a chocolate-smeared finger. “I’ll get the door. You get the oven.”
The quiches were puffed and golden brown. I laid them carefully on cooling racks and closed the oven door.
“It’s Frances Markasian and another reporter from the Mountain Journal,” Marla announced. “They’re even wearing press badges! I didn’t let them in. what do you want me to do?”
“Tell them I have no comment, except that they should go away!” I threw the pot holders on the counter. The heat on my face wasn’t coming from the oven. Reporters were showing up to question me, the prime suspect, at half-past eight in the morning? My criminal attorney wanted to start working on my defense? My own son wouldn’t talk to me?
When Marla returned from tongue-lashing the press, I asked her to accompany me to our detached garage. Then I stuffed Brewster’s business card, my new cell phone, and my newly printed inventory sheets into my canvas tote. After checking that there were no journalists out back, I sloshed furiously through the wet grass with Marla on my heels.
It was time to figure out why someone was trying to frame me.
<10>
I flipped on the garage light. With Marla growling, we pulled out all the boxes from the back of the van. After we’d gone through two of them, I used my new cell to call Brewster’s office.
“Aw, Goldy, you’re not on your old cell phone, are you? Gossip columnists can be such a hassle!” Even when Brewster was irritated, he couldn’t manage to sound upset. Aw, man, you’re not telling me you forgot the beer! Dude! I could just picture him, leaning back in a sleek leather executive chair, his blond curls framed in a halo around his head, his eyes contemplating an oil painting of a snowboarder catching air.
“Don’t get paranoid on me, Brewster. I’m using the new one.” I creaked open the door to the garage and glanced all around. “Nobody’s hearing this except Marla. My home phone line started ringing at oh-dark-thirty, and now there are reporters at my front door. I may not be a criminal, but I sure feel like one. So what do you need?”
“How about a self-defense angle?”
“Brewster, he was already dead when I got there.”