Prime Cut

by Diane Mott Davidson

At the gate, Rufiis Driggle greeted us with a wave. He was wearing worn cowboy boots, torn jeans, and a mis-buttoned red-checkered shirt. A jaunty scarlet bandanna was tied around his neck. It didn’t match his scruffy red beard. He peered into the van.

  “I see you have a new helper.”

  “Boyd the Baker,” the fat sergeant replied matter-of-factly. Julian suppressed laughter. “At your service.”

  “Rufus?” I asked sweetly when he’d closed the gate and squeezed into the van, “when we finish up the coffee fee break, could we chat for a few minutes? I’m looking for people to taste some poppy seed cake I made for another assignment.”

  His cheeks flooded with color. “Uh, sure. I love poppy seed cake.”

  We parked in the lot, lifted the first of our boxes, and headed past the elephant-shaped boulder, across the rushing creek, and up the stone steps to the cabin. As he heaved up one of the boxes, Rufus informed us that only two models would be working that day. Neither had arrived yet. The independent contractors—a stylist and hair and makeup people—were already in place. This was good news. If we were lucky, Rufus went on, the day’s shoot should end soon after lunch. I smiled, thanked him, and told him not to forget about being a taste-tester.

  While Boyd and Julian unloaded supplies, I made a large pot of coffee, set out sugar and cream, and eyed the uneven, dusty wooden floor. This, presumably, was where André had clutched his failing heart one last time, and fallen. There was no blood or other sign of what had happened. I opened all the old wooden drawers and cabinets: they scraped, stuck, and yielded nothing more than rusted spatulas, broken knives, mismatched measuring cups, and a few dented pans. Next I eyed the stove: it ran off a propane tank, as was common in the mountains. The burners all faithfully produced circles of knobby blue flames. What had burned André? I didn’t have a clue. Finally, I examined the sink and the wall above it. I ran my fingers over the rough edges of glue and plywood, Gerald Eliot’s legacy of yet another unfinished job. Something looked different about the plywood from the time we’d catered here before….

  The sudden commanding voice of Hanna Klapper made me jump. “Looking for something?”

  I turned. Carrying a black briefcase, Hanna was a vision in black: T-shirt, jeans, bandanna, and black tooled cowboy boots. The Pony Express meets Polo, at a funeral parlor. Only Hanna wasn’t in mourning; she was being chic. With her free hand, she hitched precision-cut dark hair behind one ear. I said, “No, just looking at the mess. Gerald Eliot worked for me, too.”

  “Well, then. You must be very familiar with his inability to get a job done!” Her voice was as severely clipped as her hair. I sighed: No matter what Hanna said to me, even when she was trying to be jovial, I felt an edge of criticism. It wasn’t my fault I’d hired Gerald, was it? Hanna went on: “I need to talk to you about the schedule for the day.”

  “Sure. How about some coffee? I brought you a cup and saucer.” Hanna accepted a china cup of coffee—with a matching saucer I had brought specially for her, since I remembered from my docent days that she would decline any hot drink brought to her in a mug—and ladled in sugar, then poured in cream. “Hanna? Before we get into the schedule, there’s something I just have to ask you, I mean if you don’t mind. It’s sort of in the social life department.”

  Her facial expression became coy. “Well, Goldy, what kind of problem are you having? I am probably not the one who can help.”

  “Well, really, it’s about Gerald Eliot,” I said hastily, as I got out the buttermilk and flour mixtures for the girdle cakes. “Did Leah really fire him for having an affair with one of the models? You see, my assistant, Julian Teller, is interested in one of the young women, and I didn’t want Julian to get into trouble …” I let my voice trail off

  Hanna sighed. “Yes, that is why he was fired. He was a lustful, secretive man. Of course, he did not confide in me.” She put down her coffee and swung her briefcase up to the counter. I was surprised to see strong, rippling muscles in her arms, quite a different appearance from her modest blouse-of-a-pioneer-woman look during her time at the Homestead. “I tried to be his friend, which is what I told the police. But I think I made him nervous. You know, there are some people you can joke with, some you cannot.”

  “Ah,” I said, trying to imagine anyone who could joke with Hanna. “How far did he get before he was fired? And what was he doing with this wall, anyway?” I pointed to the plywood.

  She motioned to her cup, which meant I was supposed to pour more coffee into it, which I did. She sipped some of her drink, then clinked the cup down in the saucer. “Just outside where that window was situated, there used to be a small stand of pine trees that obscured the view of the mountains. In the late seventies, the pine beetles destroyed them. So Leah had the trees taken out. Then Bobby Whitaker had the bright idea to put in large windows here, so a person in the kitchen could see the mountains. Leah hired Gerald to tear out the wall and put in windows. But he was fired once he’d torn down the wall.”

  I fingered the edges of the wood, where dried glue protruded roughly from the edge next to the old plastered wall. “Why was the old wall plastered instead of being made of logs?”

  She sighed impatiently. “Don’t you remember the exhibit we had on log cabins at the museum?” I shook my head. She said, “It’s all that butter clogging up your mind, Goldy!” I smiled brightly as she continued: “These old cabins are just made of trees, laid on their sides, stacked, and plastered. Inside the cabin, for some living areas such as the kitchen, the early builders would cover the logs with homemade two-by-fours. Then they put up diagonal lath strips, and covered the strips with three coats of plaster. Eliot pulled it all out. He made a terrible mess.” She touched her temple as if the thought of Gerald Eliot had brought on a sudden headache.

  “A terrible mess,” I repeated, staring at the plywood. Finally I saw what I seemed not to have noticed the week before. Or had something changed since then? Along the corner nearest the stove, the wood was compressed and broken, as if Gerald had glued the plywood over the opening, then decided to pry it open to do something else. Near the corner, he’d hammered in a finishing nail.

  “What happened here?” I asked. “It’s like he glued the plywood in place, then decided to move it.”

  Hanna peered at the place I was indicating. “I don’t know what stage of construction Gerald was in when he was fired,” she said, “and I told the police that.” She waved her cup dismissively. “Gerald became secretive after he found what Leah’s grandfather hid in the wall.”

  “What?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Hanna calmly. “One day I was out here with Ian and Leah, planning this shoot. Gerald found the gun that Charlie Smythe had hidden in the wall before he put up the lath strips and coated them with plaster.”

  “Gerald pulled out a hidden gun?” I asked, nonplussed.

  Hanna’s fingers waggled at the wall. “In there. Can you imagine? How was he going to get a weapon out quickly, if he actually needed it to protect his family?”

  Something flickered in Hanna’s dark eyes. “It took Gerald a week of destruction just to find that antique rifle. Although I was impressed, of course, that that old criminal Charlie Smythe had taken such care to wrap his rifle so well in oilcloth. It was ready to go out and shoot somebody with! I mean, if that’s what you wanted to do.”

  Chapter 18

  “Did you all tell the police Gerald found a rifle?” I asked breathlessly.

  “Of course we did.” She tilted her head. “Leah has it hung out in the living room. Haven’t you seen it? Of course, 7 wanted it for the museum. You must try to talk her into donating it, Goldy. No one will ever see it, way out here in Blue Spruce.”

  The Winchester. Yes, of course I had noticed the rifle on the wall.

  Hanna narrowed her eyes. “Leah kept asking, Why would an outlaw hide his rifle in a wall?”

  But of course I did know. Or I thought I did. Tom had concealed his extra Colt .45 and his own Winchester ‘94 behi
nd a false wall he’d built in our garage. Then, if someone broke in, his valuable firearms wouldn’t be stolen. Or be in the hands of someone who could use them for crime. But it didn’t take a week to get to those weapons; Tom’s rifle could be accessed by removing a rectangle of drywall in mere minutes.

  To Hanna I said, “That was it? The rifle was the only thing Eliot found in the wall?”

  “I think so.” She shrugged, a tiny gesture of impatience that I interpreted as we need to get on with our business. “Now, we need to talk about the schedule for the shoot,” she reminded me. When I nodded, she pushed her cup and saucer away, pulled out a black loose-leaf notebook from the dark briefcase, and hooked black half-glasses over her nose. This woman’s fashion palette was so limited, she might as well have worked for a mortician.

  The somber notebook held about twenty plastic-encased pages. Hanna flipped through the sheets, each of which contained a photocopied sketch of that page’s layout in this publication, the first of three Christmas catalogs that P & G would be mailing to its customers. Hand-drawn outlines of bed and table linens, jewelry, shoes, belts, and handbags, splashed across the accessories section. Ian had finished up the still-life shots the first week, before André came on board, Hanna told me. The proofs for these pictures were paper-clipped onto the sketches.

  Then came the fashion sketches, with printed notes about what shot should fill each section. Santa in chair with boy in reindeer pajamas. Yellow bikini & blue maillot for cruise section. Snugged within each plastic envelope were three or four flash-lit Polaroid shots of the items to be modeled. Suspended from coat hangers, the cruise outfits, nightwear, chinos, sweaters, blouses, coats, and dresses looked painfully unglamorous. Hanna flipped through to show three pages of women’s clothes, two of men’s. Each page represented a day of shooting. There were only two pages left. Barring any more equipment failures, the P & G Christmas shoot should finally finish by the next day, Thursday, or, worst-case scenario, Friday. André had been making between six and eight hundred dollars a day, depending on how many people showed up for each meal. I closed my eyes. I would have preferred that André be alive, of course. But I’d known him long and well enough to be sure he would have been glad that I was the one taking over his booking. I also knew he would have rejoiced that this new income would be enough for me to recoup the money lost to the Harrington and Hardcastle refunds.

  To my surprise, I’d recognized the outfits from the two pages with Santa and the children. Even I had to admit these pedestrian outfits had looked pretty good when worn by adorable kids. Especially when those kids were being visited by Santa himself! The trick, of course, lay in seeing that the clothes were still the same bland outfits. Most folks, of course, were fooled. And that was why models were paid so much. It was also, I reflected sadly, why bad caterers—who only care about presentation and not the quality or taste of their food—were able to stay in business. If I ever resorted to that kind of cheating, I hoped to be stripped of my spoons.

  Hanna pointed to the lingerie page. She explained that a black push-up bra with matching panties, a white lace bra and half-slip, and a pastel green granny-style nightgown were to be the outfits of the day. Zowie! I was so glad I hadn’t brought Arch. I told Hanna we were going to offer girdle cakes at the coffee break.

  “That’s pancakes to you and me,” I translated.

  “Fine, then. But at least now you are aware there will only be today and tomorrow or Friday for catering. Depending on how things go. So, that’s it. I’ll take more coffee, if you don’t mind.”

  I poured her a refill and commented, “You seem to manage the uncertainty of when you’ll be shooting pretty well.”

  Her eyes glimmered with seriousness. Her thin lips set in a slight scowl. “I need to work. So I have learned to deal with people’s idiosyncrasies. Or at least, I make a very good show of working around people’s weaknesses,” she said proudly.

  Oh, right, I thought, remembering her caustic words to Bobby Whitaker during the cattle call. I said, “Do you miss working with the folks at the museum?”

  “No, actually.” Without warning her voice turned bitter. “I am sorry for all the years I gave to the Homestead, with no thanks from the historical society, and certainly no monetary appreciation. I know you’re, keenly aware of how divorce can leave you financially stranded, Goldy. I certainly did not expect my husband to leave, forcing me to live from paycheck to paycheck in my midfifties. I did not expect to have to buy a used station wagon from a person selling it by the side of the road. I did not expect to be Living in a tiny apartment at the Swiss Inn, that my parents used to own! And of course, I did not expect to pay a lawyer more for an hour of his time than I spend on a month’s groceries.” She gave me a mirthless, knowing smile. “And I guess in my heart, I hoped the historical society would give me a little monetary gift when I left. Of all people, I am aware of the funds they can spare. But the society did not see fit to do so.”

  “It’s tough,” I murmured sympathetically. When you suffer through a postdivorce reduction in circumstances, it’s a miracle if your attitude doesn’t turn to vinegar.

  “I was lucky to find this job,” Hanna went on, her voice defiant. Her tone was threaded with the old authority.

  The implied message was: And I’ll be damned if anyone’s going to take this job away from me.

  “Hanna, I am happy for you.” Impulsively, I hugged her, but when she remained as stiff as a board, I realized an embrace was a bad idea. I stepped back. “Did you enjoy working with André? He helped me become a caterer back when I, too, was lucky to find a job. Did you like him?”

  She twisted her mouth to one side as if trying to decide how to say something negative. “Oh, Goldy. André was an old man with a lot of stories to tell. He told them whether people were interested or not. I would tease him because he talked too much. When he would tie up one of the photo people with his chatter, then you had two people who were not working.” She picked up her briefcase, as if I had lured her into the same idleness. “My only concern has to be that the shoot run efficiently.” She marched out of the kitchen before I could ask just which photo people André had tied up with his chatter.

  As soon as she left, I asked Boyd about the rifle. He said Fuller’s people had looked at the Winchester, and found that it was clean of fingerprints and had not been fired. I told him what Rustine had said about Gerald’s claim that he’d found a weapon that would make them rich. Boyd said a gun only made you rich if you used it to rob a bank. Great.

  By nine-thirty, Boyd and Julian had set out a crystal bowl mounded with homemade granola and another containing a glistening array of sliced strawberries and kiwi. Crystal pitchers contained cream and skim milk. Carafes of coffee, decaf, and hot water were poised above lit cans of Sterno. I nestled assorted juices and waters into a table-size ice bath. Julian and Boyd had scuttled back to the kitchen, claiming they needed to assemble lunch. I suppressed a chuckle. Apparently, both men were embarrassed to appear openly interested in Rustine’s lingerie shoot.

  They would have been disappointed, I reflected, after I watched Rustine go through her paces. The mother of all granny gowns concealed everything. Since I’d just seen the Polaroid of the gown hanging forlornly on its coat hanger, I knew it was quite ordinary, despite Rustine’s coy looks, dipped shoulder, and hands on hips. Behind his camera, Ian prompted Rustine with That’s it, baby. Keep it coming. That’s it. Don’t lose it now. Rustine simpered and kept moving through her poses. I wondered if the lace-trimmed gown could survive the restless insomnia a worrying cop’s wife endured every night, while waiting for her husband to come home with his bulletproof vest intact.

  Back in the kitchen, I put these thoughts out of my mind and returned to that old soul-restorer: working with food. I hummed as I mixed the cottage cheese, buttermilk, and egg mixture with the sifted dry ingredients to make the girdle cakes. On the griddle, they would rise, develop a crunchy exterior and featherlight interior, and bring joy to the hea
rt, no matter what you were wearing.

  “I’m not staying out there to serve,” Julian announced fiercely, his cheeks pink. “That blond girl, Yvonne, is mean as a skunk. When I asked her what she was doing today, she told me to trot on back to the kitchen and mind my own business. At least Rustine pretends to like me.”

  I murmured sympathetically and skimmed oil onto my electric griddle. I was studiously avoiding conversation with Rustine. I did not want anyone at the shoot even to suspect that she wanted me to act as her informal P.I. I hustled the griddle out to the central room, set it on a table, and plugged it into one of the numerous crooked wall outlets. Yvonne sauntered across the set in black bra and panties while Ian fixed his lens and swore. I frowned and remembered Rustine’s words from the first day: The blonde’s … wearing flesh-colored falsies. Was Yvonne dishonestly stuffed now? And how far had I come from pondering questions of eschatology while catering to the Diocesan Board of Theological Examiners?

  Ignoring these mental digressions, I retrieved the batter and waited for the signal from Ian and company to start heating the skillet. With any luck, the bra shoot would only take twenty minutes. But the voices on the far side of the room rose suddenly, as did the level of activity. There was general scurrying and knocking into chairs. My heart sank as I gave the batter a gentle stir and wondered if we were in for another ruined meal.

  “I told you so, didn’t I?” muttered Rustine at my elbow.

  I jumped and barely avoided spilling the batter. “For heaven’s sake, Rustine! You told me what?” No wonder André had a heart attack, I thought uncharitably, as I righted the bowl.

  Rustine, now clad in a tightly cinched sky-blue terry-cloth robe, gestured toward the far side of the room. Yvonne, in the lacy bra and panties, sat slumped on a chair beside one of the flats that formed the artificially lit three-sided stage that had been constructed for the day’s shoot. What—mountains were too suggestive a backdrop for department store lingerie? In any event, Yvonne blended in with the flats, which were painted a very light, neutral beige. Hanna, Ian, Rufus, and Leah were huddled in a hasty conference. Behind them, the day-contractors—female stylist, younger male hairdresser, older male makeup artist—shook their heads in bemusement.