Prime Cut

by Diane Mott Davidson

  “He took a whole bottle? When he was sensitive to it? Why would he do that? How much was in his system?”

  “About two hundred milligrams. It’s a lethal dose. Goldy—”

  “Did he have any … internal bruising that would have shown someone forcing pills down his throat?”

  “You’re always telling me about Med Wives one-oh-one, Goldy. Remember? Nitroglycerin dissolves in the mouth.”

  “Do you have any evidence that might indicate this wasn’t an accidental overdose? Please, Sheila, he was my teacher.”

  “Have Tom call me tomorrow.” Then she clicked off.

  Sometimes problems, like a well-simmered stock, must be put on the back burner. I couldn’t obsess about Andre’s death any more that day. Nor could I contemplate how long it would be until my kitchen was back in service. Nor did I even want to think about being replaced as the caterer for Weezie Harrington’s birthday party, or of my replacement, Craig Litchfield, wowing the country club divorcée set.

  Instead, I forced myself to shove all that aside, and relaxed into our lovely dinner on the deck. If the pizza was a bit cool, the calzones a tad mushy, no one mentioned it. Arch raptly contemplated the sun slipping behind burnished copper clouds. The only thing he told us about his day was that he and Julian had been invited to Rustine and Lettie’s house the next afternoon for lunch. Tom, exhausted from his carpentry labors, fell asleep on a deck chair before Julian could proffer take-out tiramisù. I gently woke him and tugged him up to bed. Julian, bless his heart, offered to clean up. He said he was actually starting to like washing dishes in the tub.

  The next morning, Tom was once again up early and hammering away as I pulled myself out of bed and stretched through my yoga. Julian and Arch were sleeping in. We had no catering jobs, although Julian had vowed to experiment with something to take to Rustine’s.

  Maybe he didn’t dislike her quite as much as he pretended.

  When I came into the kitchen, Tom appeared to be about a third of the way through nailing in the lower cabinets. Unfortunately, huge piles of boxes obscured my ability to admire all of his work.

  “What do you think?” he asked happily. He wore a sweatshirt and jeans, a carpenter’s apron, and two days’ worth of beard.

  I smiled. “I love it.” No matter what I thought, I had learned over the last few days to say his work was fantastic.

  “You’ll have to get your coffee in town, I’m afraid,” he told me. “I had to shut off the water, just for the morning. And Marla called. She’s almost done with the IRS and wants to meet you at St. Stephen’s at three-thirty, before the service.”

  Relief swept over me. My friend was finally going to be released from audit agony! “That’s super.” I located the phone and called Lutheran Hospital. Leah Smythe, I was finally told by a nurse I knew, had two broken ribs and lacerations on her face, arms, and legs. The doctor was in seeing her, but the nurse would relay the message that I’d called. And could she find out about Barbara Burr, I asked. I was put on hold, then told sadly that Barbara’s condition hadn’t changed. Next I called Pru Hibbard; the line was busy. I put nightmares of bottom-feeding Realtors out of my head, and hoped the engaged line meant other people were making sympathy calls to Andre’s widow.

  Tom eyed me skeptically. “You seem awfully perky for a caterer with no kitchen, no water, and a tenuous business. You must want something wicked bad.”

  “Actually, I need you to call the morgue.”

  “Oh. Is that all?”

  “Tom, listen. Just ask Sheila if there’s any possible evidence to show that Andre’s nitroglycerin overdose wasn’t an accident.”

  Tom put down his nail gun and came over to give me a hug. “Miss G., I know you loved him. But you’re going to have to let it go.”

  “If I’d been there helping him, he wouldn’t have died.”

  “For crying out loud, Goldy, you know how many lives I could have saved if I just would have been someplace at the right time?”

  “Please, Tom, I’ll let it go just as soon as I know how and why he died.” I reached for my van keys.

  “Now where are you going?”

  “Into town for coffee,” I replied innocendy.

  “You’ve got that purposeful look about you that’s not just desperation for caffeine.”

  Ah, how well the man knew me. “No bail was set for Cameron Burr, right? Because it’s a murder case.”

  “Correct.”

  “So the next event in Cameron’s life is his preliminary hearing?”

  “Ye-es.”

  “I need to go visit him at the jail. To talk to him about another oudaw.”

  One of the marvelous additions to Aspen Meadow in the last year was one of those drive-through espresso places where you order, answer a trivia question, get a card punched, and lay out in cash the cost of an entire fast-food breakfast for a triple-shot latte. Still, a treat was a treat, I thought as I sipped the luscious, caffeine-rich drink and zoomed down to the Furman County Jail.

  Visiting hours during the week were from nine to eleven in the morning and one to three in the afternoon. I arrived just after nine and still had half of my expensive coffee to savor. So I put the cup on the dash, got out pen and paper, and started to scribble the questions I needed to pose to Cameron Burr, president of the historical society, the one person in Aspen Meadow who might know enough to figure out the puzzle of Charlie Smythe. Unwritten, but first on the list, was: Would Cameron, who had not answered any of my phone calls, see me?

  Hunched over my paper, my heart quickened unexpectedly when someone passed by the back of my van. I did not move, only looked up at the rearview mirror and followed the movement. The dark-haired man was smoking, walking fast. Usually visitors to the jail at this hour were attorneys. Occasionally, out-of-work family members would straggle in. The man glanced over his shoulder to determine if I was watching him. Catching my eye in the mirror, he flicked his cigarette onto the grass and sprinted to the Upscale Appetite van. A moment later, he revved his vehicle and took off in a nimbus of grit and dust.

  Well, now, there was a question I wouldn’t have thought to write down.

  Who at the sheriffs department—or in the jail—had just received an early-morning visit from Craig Litchfield?

  Chapter 20

  The desk officer, a fresh-faced fellow named Sergeant Riordan, was not someone I knew. I handed my driver’s license over the counter and announced my desire to visit Cameron Burr. Riordan nodded and cheerfully tapped an unseen keyboard.

  “Do you know my husband?” I ventured. “Investigator Tom Schulz?”

  “Schulz. Sure. By reputation, mostly.” Riordan handed my license back. “Why?”

  “Well.” How to sound friendly instead of nosy? There wasn’t a way. “The last guy who was here? Craig Litchfield? I … we were wondering … Could you just tell me who he was visiting?”

  The cheerful expression drained out of Riordan’s face. “No. No, I can’t tell you that, Mrs. Schulz.” He picked up a phone, punched buttons, and murmured. When he hung up, his warm hazel eyes had gone from friendly to flat. “You have thirty minutes with Cameron Burr, Mrs. Schulz.”

  Cameron Burr’s ill-fitting orange prison suit didn’t flatter him. He looked older, thinner, and paler than he had just ten days ago at his home. He flattened his long gray hair against his scalp in a vain attempt to make it appear less mussed. The look in his bloodshot eyes was defeated, angry. With his right hand he picked up the phone.

  “Cameron, I’m sorry,” I blurted out. “I had no idea—”

  He rubbed his stubbly cheeks. “How’s Barbara, have you seen her?”

  “I’ve called Lutheran several times. She’s still on a ventilator.” He nodded as if he knew this already. I said, “How are you?”

  He sighed. “Terrible.” The bloodshot eyes turned wary. “Are you going to screw up my case by being here?”

  “I hope not.” I gripped the grimy phone. Overhead, a whirring air conditioner labore
d unsuccessfully to keep the metallic air cool. “I’m trying to help you. You’re right, I probably shouldn’t be here, since I found Eliot’s body and I’m technically a witness. But I’m not here to talk about what I saw up at your house, which is what your attorney would prohibit us from discussing.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “Please, Cameron, first … can you tell me if you were the one who just had a visit from Craig Litchfield?”

  He cast a rueful glance at the painted cinderblocks lining his side of the booth. “No, he wasn’t here to visit me.”

  “Do you know who he was here to visit?”

  His voice turned rough. “Is that why you came up to see me, Goldy? To ask about some other caterer?”

  “No, no,” I said as gently as possible. “Don’t be angry. I was just curious. Actually, I have a few history questions, and you’re the one person I think could answer them.”

  “History questions?”

  “Yes. About Charlie Smythe. But listen, Cameron, if you want me to leave, I will.”

  His free hand splayed against the scratched glass between us. Curiosity momentarily sparked his face, followed fast by fury. “First, I have to tell you something, Goldy. That ridiculous assistant district attorney, Fuller, is a disgrace. The man should be disbarred. I didn’t kill Gerald Eliot.”

  “I know.”

  He hesitated. “Why do you want to know about Charlie Smythe?”

  “I’m just … trying to figure out what Gerald Eliot was up to.” I took a deep breath. “Pulling out a wall in the Merciful Migrations cabin kitchen was one of Gerald Eliot’s last jobs. Have you spent much time up there?”

  He shrugged, again wary. “A fair amount.”

  “The Merciful Migrations people fired Eliot in July. He was killed in August, right after a number of items, including a cookbook once used in that same kitchen, were stolen from the Homestead Museum. Then last Sunday, my catering teacher, a French chef named André Hibbard, died unexpectedly after working in that same cabin kitchen.”

  “I read it in the paper. You have my sympathy.”

  I nodded my gratitude. Then I said, “André had asked for a photocopy of the stolen cookbook before he died.” Cameron looked confused, so I plunged on. “Hanna Klapper told me that back in July, Gerald Eliot found a rifle that had been hidden inside the kitchen cabin wall. I think the rifle belonged to Charlie Smythe.”

  Cameron Burr frowned. “A rifle? Do you know it belonged to Charlie Smythe? How do you know it wasn’t hidden after he died?”

  How did I know the rifle belonged to Charlie Smythe? I didn’t. I’d just assumed it, after the weapon and Charlie Smythe were put together in the same thought by Rustine. She had told Tom, Julian, and me about the weapon, then wondered if André had told you some secret he’d found out? Say, about Charlie Smythe, who used to live in the cabin? How had she happened to put the weapon and Charlie Smythe together? Good question. “Look, I don’t know when it was hidden. But Gerald Eliot told his girlfriend that he’d found, and I quote, ‘something that was going to make us rich.’”

  “Like what?” Cameron’s voice was like gravel. “And why didn’t Leah Smythe notify our society that an item of historical significance had been found at her cabin?”

  “Maybe she did.” I bit down on my impatience. “But … say Gerald Eliot discovered something out at the cabin—something besides the rifle—that got him killed at the museum.”

  “And this is related to the missing cookbook you just mentioned? The one André wanted a copy of?” His forehead furrowed.

  “I don’t know. I’m just trying to figure out how and why my teacher died, working in the same place that Eliot did. This summer, Eliot worked for the museum, for Merciful Migrations, and for you and me.”

  Cameron Burr rubbed his chin. “He didn’t actually finish his work for you, though, did he?”

  “Of course not. He took my money, made a mess, and disappeared. Next thing I knew, he’d been killed at the museum in the course of a fake robbery that might not have been fake. Why might it not have been a faked robbery? Because the cookbook of Winnie Smythe’s that was in the museum still hasn’t been recovered. Now two people are dead, and the only thing linking them is that they both worked at the Smythe cabin. What am I missing?”

  His long, snorting laughter came across the phone like a truck braking on a curve. “You’re missing Charlie Smythe.”

  I glanced at my watch. Twenty minutes left. “I know Charlie was a thief, and ended up in Leavenworth in 1916 for killing a teller While he was trying to rob a bank. He died in prison two years later. What else is there?”

  “All right, Goldy. First, you should know where I heard what I’m going to tell you. Vic Smythe, Charlie’s son, was a friend of mine. Vic was an old-timer with the fire department when I was a recruit.”

  “How long ago did he tell you these stories?”

  “Thirty years.” He went on: “Charlie Smythe was a Confederate signalman during the Civil War. Came out here like a lot of folks after the conflict, restless, wanting a fresh start. Only difference was that he had money. Obtained fraudulently, as it turned out, but still his. He was only seventeen or eighteen, but smart as a whip, and ambitious. He bought land, got married, built that cabin, tried to start ranching and timbering the way mountain folk did. But he couldn’t settle down. He was always leaving Winnie out there in Blue Spruce to fend for herself.”

  “Leaving for where?”

  Cameron shrugged. “According to Vic, Charlie would go wherever there were horses, money, or anything valuable to be stolen. He’d be gone for weeks at a time in the summer, which was the only time you could dependably get around on horseback, if you were avoiding the roads. Word was he was up by Jackson Hole for a While, then down in New Mexico. He’d come back with a lot of cash that he would spend on boozing through the winter. Charlie Smythe never missed his family, according to Vic.”

  Never missed his family? That sounded familiar; Sylvia and I had discussed just that fact. She thought Charlie had repented in prison, of course. “Do you understand that letter they have on display at the Homestead? The one that mentions his wife’s cookbook? In that, Smythe sounds as if he loved family life.”

  “I know, I’ve seen that letter. Only one he ever wrote her that the family kept. Know what? Vic didn’t even believe his father had really written it, it was so full of malarkey. Soon as Vic was old enough, he had all of his parents’ possessions packed up and put away. Leah and Weezie, Vic’s daughters? They gave the whole lot to the Homestead Museum without even going through the boxes.”

  “Could … Charlie … have hidden anything else in the wall, besides a rifle? Did Vic ever say his father boasted about something hidden? There are some strange markings in the cookbook—”

  “I know, I know, I’ve seen them. Barbara tried to figure them out, too, but she didn’t have any luck.”

  “So nobody ever figured out what those random rows of letters mean?” I asked disconsolately. “If anything?”

  “Nope. Winnie had a stroke right after Charlie went to prison. She was incapacitated and never even used the cookbook after he was sent away. So if she ever did know what the letters meant, she couldn’t tell anybody. Plus, before Charlie was finally caught, he was secretive as all hell, according to lie. Charlie would He about anything. Vic even thought his father would read about crimes, then boast that he was the one who’d committed them. When the James gang went up to Minnesota, Charlie claimed to have been with them. When Butch and Sundance ended up in Bolivia, old Charlie swore he was there, but he escaped.”

  “Marvelous. Great reliable source.” I smiled at Cameron. Even if this story wouldn’t help figure anything out, it was good to see him relishing a tale, instead of being angry with me.

  Cameron held up a finger, as if he sensed that he wasn’t giving me helpful data. “Wait, though. There is one thing that’s interesting…. Every now and then, old Charlie He’d get remorseful, the way a drunk al
ways does when he sobers up. One morning, Charlie sobbed to Vic that he was sorry he’d been such a rotten father. He’d been a small-time thief, he said, but he’d pulled off one last big heist and never been caught.”

  I swallowed the words fish story, and only murmured, “One last heist …”

  “On this particular dawn he was feeling very penitent. Old Charlie told his son that he’d never been caught for gettin’ back into his Army of the Confederacy uniform and robbing the last stagecoach that ran in Yellowstone Park.”

  “Oh, please.”

  Cameron shook his head slowly. “That may actually be the one true boast Charlie Smythe ever made. Although no one knows for certain, of course.”

  I sighed. “Right. He made it from Yellowstone back to Blue Spruce on horseback. Alone. Carrying his loot, no doubt. For crying out loud, it takes twenty hours to drive—we’re talking a car, here—from Blue Spruce to Yellowstone. What time of year was it?”

  “You want to hear the story or not?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Morning of July nineteen, 1915, it was raining hard when the last commercial stagecoach started its run from West Yellowstone on its way to East Yellowstone.”

  I grinned. Of course Cameron would know the date, even the weather, for this historic event.

  He went on: “Folks weren’t allowed to carry firearms into the park, so the amazing thing is that more of the stagecoaches weren’t robbed. One thief, Ed Trafton, had already been caught for robbing the stagecoach the year before. But old Trafton was sitting in jail when this particular robbery took place.”

  I sneaked a peek at my watch and nodded. Ten minutes to go.

  “The story gets confused some, whether it was one person or two who did the robbing of that last stagecoach. But one thing’s for sure: Whether it was one or two robbers, he or they wore soldiers’ uniforms. One account says a man seated above the carriage box recognized the robber. Saw him the next day at a dance and called him by name. Called him ‘Charlie.’”