The taxicab dispatcher’s voice crackled. I identified myself as a cook who worked with André Hibbard, and could I speak with the driver who brought Mr. Hibbard to work this morning? The dispatcher put me on hold. It was unlikely that the police would have questioned the driver already, I figured. If for some reason the sheriff’s department didn’t want me to talk to the driver, then I would have to come up with another strategy.
The line filled with static and then cleared. “Yeah, this is Mike. I took the chef this morning. I’ve been driving him out to that job site. Who’re you again?”
“It’s Goldy Schulz, the caterer. I used to work with André.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve been taking him to work lately. The old guy couldn’t drive. I gotta call here, whaddaya need to know?”
I asked about his schedule this morning. Mike had picked André up at six-thirty, an hour earlier than usual. When I asked why so early, Mike replied, “I don’t know. I ast the chef, What you cooking out there this time of the morning? You already got two big boxes of food. Ain’t you done yet? And he got all huffy, the way he does, you know, and said, Yeah, he was done with the cooking, but that he still had work to do. That was it. Told me he’d call when he was done, the way he usually does, only he didn’t. Did you take him back?”
“No.” I wasn’t going to tell Mike that André was dead; he’d find out soon enough. I forced myself to concentrate on my driving. The Rover hurtled along a winding paved road bordered by a steeply cut cliff. I glanced at the creek and meadow on the right and said, “Was anyone else there? Anyone at all?”
“Nope. The gate was open, and that was what I was worried about, but André had called ahead about that. No cars. I helped him carry the boxes across the creek the way I usually do, then I left.”
“And what was in the boxes?”
“His food and his beaters and whatnot. Why? Some-thin’ wrong?”
“What food? Did he tell you?”
“He told me, but now I can’t remember. Wait … individual custards, he told me. People love ‘em, he said.”
“No fruit to slice, no coffee cake to make?”
“Nope. He’d made muffins to go with the custards. He even gave me one, had orange peel in it. It was good.”
I took a deep breath. “Did you notice his hands? Had he been burned? Did he complain that he’d been burned?”
“I didn’t notice anything wrong with his hands, and he didn’t mention them. What is this about?”
I told Mike it was nothing, thanked him, and signed off. When I’d replaced the cell I gripped the wheel. André had made custards and muffins ahead of time, gone to work early to do unknown extra work, burned himself before or during a coronary attack, and died. Made perfect sense. I wrenched the wheel to the right and turned into the Blue Spruce Retirement Village.
Wanda had Pru settled in her small blue-and-white sitting room. I offered to make tea. The condo was a tribute to Pru’s love of teapots. Every available table, shelf, and cupboard in the sitting room and kitchen was crowded with teapots: fat and gold-rimmed, slender and blue, pink and detailed, new and antique. I’d been in their home only once before, when Pru and André had first moved in and I’d brought over a loaf of oatmeal bread. I veered away from that memory as I found cups, bags of Pru and André’s favorite English Breakfast tea, spoons, lemon slices, sugar, cream, and arranged them on a tray with a plain ivory pot.
“Pru, I want to help,” I said, once I’d served her tea and we were settled in the sitting room on plump blue-and-white slipcovered chairs. Wanda Cooney had excused herself to make phone calls. I told Pru about the church and funeral arrangements. She nodded, sipped from her cup, and smoothed the folds in her pink cashmere skirt. The wall above the couch where she sat was crowded with mounted photos of André: offering a full-size fudge football to a Denver sportscaster, frosting his renowned Stanley Cupcakes for our triumphant Avalanche. I’d later begged for the recipe; of course, he’d given it to me.
“Thank you for the tea,” Pru murmured, her unseeing eyes fixed on her hands, clasped around her fragile teacup.
I took a deep breath; the doorbell bonged. Wanda’s voice murmured into the phone in the next room. When the bell rang again, I rose to answer it.
Through the peephole I was surprised to see Leah Smythe’s half-brother, Bobby Whitaker. The handsome male model was quickly combing his long, dark curls in anticipation of the door being opened. Unfortunately, Bobby, now dressed in a shiny suit, did not appear much more confident than when he’d been ordered to take off his shirt a week ago.
I opened the door. “Bobby? Why are you here?”
“Ah, are you a relative of the deceased?” he said nervously. He was clutching an expensive raincoat. He did not remember me from the auditions. I told him who I was and why I was there.
“Are you here to see Pru?” I asked, confused. As before, I wondered, what is the deal with this guy?
“Yes, well, I’m with High Creek Realty.” He scooped a business card out of his inner pocket and handed it to me. “We … try to meet the needs of mountain residents. You don’t know if … Mrs. Hib-bard’s going into a nursing home, do you?”
“I thought you were concentrating on modeling.”
“I do both, actually. Modeling and real estate. I’m here to see if Prudence Hibbard wants to sell the condo.”
Anger fizzed through my frayed nerves. “We just got home from the morgue, you idiot.”
“Yeah, but I’ve got a client ready to buy this condo—”
I thrust his card back at him. “Go away.”
“You don’t know if she needs the money,” Bobby objected. He held up his hands in a defensive posture. “Hey, listen to me for a sec. How do you know Mrs. Hibbard doesn’t need the cash that’s tied up in the equity of this place?” The wide shoulders inside the shiny, fashionable suit lifted in a gesture of helplessness.
“Scram,” I said tersely. “Don’t ever come back. And if any more vultures like you show up, I’ll boil them for stew to serve at the next High Creek Realty lunch.”
He backed away. I gripped the door hard. Much as I wanted to slam the heavy wood into its casing, I restrained myself. Pru mustn’t be further upset. Think about Pru, I told myself as my heart hammered. And calm down, I added as I leaned against the closed door. Pull it together for Andre’s sake. After a few moments, loud knocks banged against my head. The doorbell bonged, followed by more rapping. I wrenched the door open. If it was another real estate agent, I would kill him with my bare hands….
It was not a real estate agent.
It was a caterer.
Chapter 12
Craig Litchfield’s hair was neatly coiffed, his handsome face carefully blank. He was dressed in a collarless dark brown shirt and matching pants, the mahogany equivalent of the coal-black outfit muddied by Jake the previous week. Was this a uniform you could get in different colors? I wondered. Did he order it from a catalog?
“What are you doing here?” he demanded. He cocked his head and grinned when I didn’t answer. “What, that big dog of yours got your tongue?”
“I’m here to help Pru Hibbard,” I said in a low voice.
“Oh?” he replied, mock-polite. “May I help her, too?”
“I doubt it.”
He glanced down the row of town houses. “Okay, Goldy. I’ve had enough. Let me in. I’m here for the same reason you are.”
Had I missed something? “What reason? Please. You need to leave. You couldn’t be here for the same reason I am. He was my teacher. And an old friend.”
He bristled. “Let me talk to her.”
“No.”
“I’ll take you to court.”
“For what?”
He reconsidered, then softened the muscles of his handsome face and passed a hand over his helmet of manicured hair. Of course, these conciliatory gestures put me even more on my guard. “I want to offer forty thousand for Andre’s client list, menus, schedules, prices, and recipes. Cash.”
He tilted his head, oozing sympathy. “You know you can’t match that. You need to let me see the widow. She might need the money right away, to pay for the funeral, whatever.”
From the sitting room, Pru’s thin voice called my name. I told Litchfield, “I don’t know how you found out André had passed away. But I’m going to close this door now. Don’t knock. Don’t come back. If you want, call Pru’s caregiver and set up an appointment with their attorney.”
His face darkened with fury. He put out his foot. But I was too quick for him and slammed the door.
I returned to the sitting room. The telephone had rung and Pru was speaking into it. Wanda Cooney tugged my arm. I followed her into the kitchen. André’s gleaming copper pans hung clustered from a thick wrought-iron ring suspended from the ceiling. It was a beautiful, spotless kitchen, lined with pans and teapots that André would never sauté with or make English Breakfast in again. Tears pricked my eyes.
“Pru will be all right,” Wanda told me. “I’ve called several of her friends. They all want to talk to her or come over.”
My shoulders relaxed with relief. “Thanks.”
“Who was at the door? We’re expecting Monsignor Fields, but he said he couldn’t be here for about an hour.”
“Nobody, really. Just … a couple of creeps wanting to buy the house, Andre’s business, even his recipes. I sent them packing.”
Wanda was incredulous. “How could they have known—?”
“Oh, somebody at the morgue probably gets paid to tip people off. Anyway, they’re gone, so don’t worry. If anybody comes to the door that you don’t know, call the Furman County Sheriff’s Department.” Wanda, speechless, nodded. I glanced into the sitting room. Pru held the phone to her ear, weeping softly. I took a deep breath and asked, “Should I stay?”
“We’ll be fine,” Wanda replied.
“Do you need food? Shopping done? Please tell me.”
“No.” Her voice was doubtful. “Not that I can think of.”
I went into the sitting room and knelt at Pru’s feet. She told the person on the phone to please hold for a moment, then reached out to touch my hair.
“It’s Goldy,” I said.
“Dear Goldy. Thank you for being with us. He loved you so much.” Tears streamed down Pru’s pale face. “He always bragged about you.”
“I’ll stay in touch,” I assured her. “Call me if you need help with the church, or anything else. Anything at all.”
Pru nodded and went back to her phone call. I checked through her lace curtains to make sure the road in front of her condominium was empty. There was no sign of unwelcome visitors. “I’ll call tomorrow,” I told Wanda Cooney, then left.
I piloted the Rover from the paved maze that wound through Blue Spruce Retirement Village onto the wide dirt road that ran past the complex. The dirt road leading to dense housing was not an uncommon sight in Colorado. A developer would buy acreage in a remote spot along a wide, unpaved road. At such remote locations, the county usually wouldn’t pave roads through residential areas, so the builder took on that task himself, naming his byways “Huntington Green” and “Foxhound Ridge,” as if his subdivision were an outpost of an English manor instead of dense housing in the middle of nowhere. Once the residents realized they were forty minutes from the nearest grocery store, and four times that long in a blizzard, they’d already bought in.
Rain drummed on the Rover roof. I passed a lumbering road grader and tried to ignore the emptiness gnawing my insides. André was now part of that group we ambiguously referred to as the departed. As my signal blinked to make the turn to Aspen Meadow, I cracked my window. Next to the state highway, the wind shuffled through a stand of aspens. A new blue-on-white metal sign swayed in front of the trees: FOR SALE—COMMERCIAL-ZONED LAND EIGHT MILES AHEAD! 200 ACRES! Great, I thought as I negotiated the turn. The Blue Spruce folks might get a snazzy grocery store yet.
A hunger headache loomed and I realized belatedly that it was almost four o’clock. I’d had a minimal breakfast and no lunch. When I’d left the morgue, Julian had been cleaning up salad detritus. Hardly appetizing, but the memory made my stomach growl. Funny how dealing with death does not remove the exigencies of life.
Cook, I decided. Go home and fix something that André would have made for you.
The mist of rain had lifted by the time I nosed the Rover into our driveway. Tom was making a show of feeding his roses; absurdly, I wondered if he’d found Craig Litchfield’s cigarette butt. By the look he gave me, I knew he’d been worried. I felt a pang of guilt: I’d turned off the cellular after calling Mountain Taxi.
“I swear, Goldy.” Tom dumped the last of a solution on a pink-blossomed rugosa. “You were gone so long, I couldn’t—” His shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry. Please. Come here.” I walked toward him and he held me in a very long hug. He smelled of laundry fresh from the dryer. “Are you all right?” I nodded into his shoulder. “How is Pru?”
“Not too bad,” I murmured, holding him tight. “Where are Arch and Julian?”
“Arch is at the Druckmans’. Julian’s cooking for your shindig tomorrow. I was so worried about you I couldn’t stay inside. Come on in,” he urged. “I’ve got something to show you.” He took my hand. Of course I assumed that Tom had been cooking, too. With no job to go to, he’d probably prepared a fudge meringue or tower of shrimp. But when we came into the kitchen, Julian merely glanced up and nodded. Then he went back to cutting a pan of polenta into diamond shapes. I scanned the room. It looked odd. Except for the polenta, there was no food. Come to think of it, there wasn’t even a back door.
“Oh my God, Tom,” I said, astonished. I glanced from the plastic-covered area over the sink on the side wall to large plastic sheets covering a huge, new gash in the back wall. Act grateful, some inner voice warned, but it was once again drowned out. “What have you done?” I murmured to Tom as I gaped at the hole in the wall. “Do you know what’s going to happen to me if the health inspector sees that? I’ll be closed down. I thought you weren’t going to … I mean, how could you … Tom!”
He dropped my hand. “I’ve been working all day on this. At least take a look. I’m going to take out the wall, too.”
I pointed to the area beside the place where, up until this morning, there had been a door. “That wall?”
“That’s where your new windows are going to go.” There was a tick of impatience in his reply.
A buzz filled my brain. “I thought we were just talking about this—”
“Look, Goldy, I am sorry—” Tom began. “But this is what you wanted—”
“I never said—”
“Uh, guys?” interrupted Julian as he rinsed his hands in the sink. “Goldy has, or we have, a big tasting party tomorrow? And we need to work on it. Or I need to work on it.” He dried his hands and then crossed his arms, uncertain. “Look, Goldy, I know I said this before, but you were a great pupil for André. He must have been very proud to be your teacher.”
“Thanks.”
Julian squinted at us and shifted from foot to foot. “I don’t mean to intrude with details, but do you just want me to do this party? I know it’s only for three people, at least, that’s what you told me. I can’t check because I can’t get into your computer anymore, unless you tell me the password—”
Tom held up his hands. “Julian, can you give us a few minutes?”
“Sure.” With his brow furrowed, he levered the polenta diamonds onto a waiting platter, tucked plastic wrap around the edges, and placed it in the walk-in refrigerator. He stripped off his apron. “Want me to go get Arch, pick up some food for dinner?”
“That would be great,” Tom replied warmly, as he pulled two twenties out of his pocket and handed them to Julian. My out-of-work husband, the money man, I thought bitterly. Julian picked up his wallet, keys, and a plastic container that looked as if it contained cookies. He pointed at the plastic-draped hole in my wall.
“May I go through that way, or will I screw som
ething up?” he asked. Tom made a go-ahead gesture. With a rustle of plastic and quick-step across the deck, Julian was gone.
Tom sighed. “Let’s start over,” he said. A moment later, he carefully placed two crystal glasses of sherry on the table. “Please sit down.”
“Thanks.” I looked at the amber liquid without touching it. “I haven’t had any food, so this will probably go straight to my head.”
Tom opened the door to our walk-in refrigerator. In the door’s black reflection, my face looked drawn and angry. Tom brought out some cheese, then pulled a box of crackers from one of our few remaining cupboards. A moment later, he slid an offering of butter crackers and fat wedges of Brie to the center of the table.
“Eat something. Then we can talk about André. That is, if you want to.”
I stared at the crackers and cheese. “I had to identify the body.”
“I heard. I’m sorry, Goldy. Honestly, I am.” He leaned over and squeezed my hand. “And I’m sorry I sprang the kitchen stuff on you before you were ready. It’s just that I have to get started.”
“It’s okay.” I bit carefully into a crisp cracker topped with the creamy cheese. The sherry was like fire in my chest. Fire … I said, “Tom, there’s something that’s been bothering me all day. André had burn marks on his hands.”
“Burn marks? What kind of burn marks?”
“He wouldn’t have done that to himself,” I rushed on. “Plus, he went out to the cabin an hour early to do extra food prep, and that’s not like him, especially when the kitchen there is so small … and for him to die right after Gerald Eliot, and Cameron’s arrest … I mean, it’s all pretty weird….”
Tom’s eyes searched mine, which had again filled without warning. “Start over,” he told me solemnly. He scooted his chair over so he could rub my back.
The comfort of his warm, accepting presence made talk possible. I told him about the call from Sheila O’Connor, about going to the morgue, having the conversation with the cabdriver, who said André had gone to the cabin early. I told him about visiting Blue Spruce, dealing with the intrusions from Bobby Whitaker the Realtor and Craig Litchfield the caterer. I told him about poor Pru. Thinking about what André’s death had done to Pru’s world, a sob closed my throat.
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