Killer Pancake gbcm-5

by Diane Mott Davidson

  “The only time I saw Reggie Hotchkiss up close and personal, I was trying to eavesdrop on a conversation he was having with Dusty Routt about Mignon products. She said he was going to get into trouble.”

  Marla sputtered, “The guy’s a genuine yuppie, Goldy. The last thing he would do is get into trouble when he’s trying to take over his mother’s cosmetics business.” She frowned at me. “Haven’t you ever had a facial at his place?”

  I laughed. “No, can’t say that I have. Haven’t had the time, money, or inclination. Especially since I’ve been knee-deep in nonfat dips and chocolate tortes.”

  “And ducking bleach water,” Julian interjected.

  Marla ignored him and handed me a yellow piece of paper. “Well, here’s a free coupon for the facial. You have to buy fifty bucks’ worth of cosmetics from their fall line, though, so you might not want to use it. God knows I won’t be able to.”

  I glanced at the coupon, then flipped through the slick pamphlet from Hotchkiss. The glossy photographs were of boxes, bottles, and jars of soap, cream, toners, makeups of various shapes, sizes, colors. What confused me was how the printing underneath each photograph was imperfectly aligned with the products. It was as if the photos had been taken long before, and the descriptions added hastily, just before the pamphlet went out….

  Wait a minute. Fall into Color with Hotchkiss Skin & Hair! Hadn’t I just had those very words printed at the top of a banquet menu? Hotchkiss Magic Pore-closing Toner with Mediterranean Sea Kelp—tones skin as it closes pores! Hotchkiss Patented Extra Rich Nighttime Replacement Moisturizer with Goat Placenta—slows down the aging process scientifically! Ultra Gentle Eye Cream Smoother with Swiss Herbs—firms eye area with secret European formula! Hot Date Blush. Chocolate Mousse Lipstick. Unbelievable. The words and descriptions were virtually the same. I thought again of Reggie Hotchkiss, the man with the persistent questions at the Mignon counter. But this mailer had gone out yesterday morning. My bet was that it had been hastily printed and FedEx’d the day after the Mignon banquet, when Mignon’s latest products were unveiled.

  He was there. He had been. What had Dusty said? We saw you. Maybe Claire had seen him too. Maybe she wasn’t supposed to.

  I tucked the coupon into the loaned sweatpants. I had to talk to Tom, the sooner the better. I scanned Marla’s face, and saw that fatigue was finally triumphing over her desire—her need—to be with family. Julian and I made noises about leaving.

  Eyes half-closed, she protested weakly. “Tony told me a friend of his played golf three days after he had a heart attack.”

  “Golf sucks,” Julian observed.

  The weak smile widened. Marla shifted her bulky body around under the sheets, trying to get comfortable. “Tony thinks I should go to this dinner party with him tomorrow in the club. Since I’m pressuring Gordon to bust me out tomorrow, it’s a possibility. I can’t imagine anything more depressing than being at home alone when all the fireworks go off, anyway.”

  “A party?” I said, confused. “A golf party?”

  “Golf parties suck,” Julian contributed.

  Now Marla seemed to be having trouble breathing. But she inhaled and struggled onward anyway. The nurse in the corner looked up from her notes. The EKG machine did not seem to be registering any distress, however, so she stayed put. Marla went on. “No, no, at the Braithwaites’ big estate, do you know them? She’s quite the socialite and he’s a—”

  “Scientist,” I said. “I know. Please don’t talk about it Marla, do you need the nurse to come over here?”

  She pressed her dry lips together and shook her head. “Do you know the people having the party?”

  “Yes, of course I know them. But I thought you knew them. I’m catering the dinner, for goodness’ sake. And Babs Braithwaite said you recommended me.” I thought back to Babs’s chatter about Marla. I said, almost to myself, “So how did she hear about me if you didn’t—”

  “Oh, Goldy, for heaven’s sake!” interjected Julian in a harsh whisper. “You’ve got ads. You’re in the Yellow Pages! You’re doing the food fair. Why does it matter how she heard about you?”

  Marla had fallen asleep. Her chest rose and fell regularly. Julian and I tiptoed out of the hospital room and stopped in the hall.

  I faced Julian suddenly. “I’ll tell you why it matters. Babs Braithwaite lied.”

  He gave me a patronizing look. “This is the Braithwaites we’re talking about? The scientist who’s married to the woman who slammed into the Rover”—he demonstrated by whacking his hands together—“when she said I didn’t put on my turn signal? Which I did.”

  “The very same.”

  “Goldy, she’s a cow. She’d lie about anything.”

  “That rich cow called me before she hit you, and said she’d heard so much about me from Marla. Why lie about that?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, resigned. “Look, here’s a pay phone. If you’re going to call Tom, you’d better do it.”

  I got Tom’s voice mail at the sheriff’s department. Where was he? I asked the tape. I added he might want to keep checking into Hotchkiss Skin & Hair, that they seemed to be involved in some very obvious industrial espionage with Mignon, courtesy of Reggie Hotchkiss. Dusty Routt, I said, claimed there was no relationship between Claire and Shaman Krill. I also told Tom there was an observation area behind the mirrors in the ladies’ dressing room on the Prince & Grogan second floor, and that he might want to check out the Braithwaites. And Charles Braithwaite, I said finally, was deeply involved with roses. Blue ones, maybe? Suddenly, I decided not to tell Tom about the bleach water or the threatening note. I knew he would get extremely upset. Julian gave me a curious glance, so I hung up and we took off for the mall garage to get the Range Rover.

  But retrieving the Rover was not that easy. Neither of us could remember where he’d left his car. As we drove up and down and back again, Julian became increasingly agitated. It had been stolen, he insisted. We’ll find it, I assured him. The garage was just very confusing. I began another circle of the levels of the packed parking structure. No Rover. Finally we decided to hunt on foot. I parked in the first available free spot. The parking space was by the shoe store’s entrance where, unfortunately, the Spare the Hares! people were back in force.

  The war-painted crowd was larger and louder. They surged forward each time, someone started toward the doors. They were chanting another slogan that buzzed in my ears.

  “Just walk quickly by them,” I said under my breath to Julian, who had drawn in his chin and was staring at the chanting demonstrators. I absolutely hated walking by them. Every time I did, it seemed, something bad happened.

  “What are they saying?” he asked.

  “Hey, hey, Mignon Cosmetics! Get your hands off helpless rabbits!”

  Julian said, “Far out, man,” and kept on walking. Kept on walking, that is, until Shaman Krill popped out from between two parked cars. The demonstrator was holding something long, furry, and stiff in one hand. I didn’t want to look at it. When I tried to move away, Shaman Krill shadowed me. When I tried to duck around him, he followed.

  “Oh, no,” I moaned. I wanted to look around for the police, but was afraid to take my eyes off Krill.

  “What’s going on here?” Julian demanded. Krill did not heed him. He fastened his wild-eyed, Charles Manson gaze on me and leered. His small, pointed teeth gleamed eerily. Something shifted in the dark eyes of the angry, taut man in front of me. He was gleeful. He knew he was in control. I, of course, had seen that look many times before, in the eyes of the Jerk.

  “Hey!” shouted Krill in an exaggerated mockery of recognizing an old friend. “Food-fight lady! Look what I got! And this time your pig won’t save you!” He yanked the rabbit carcass upward; I recoiled. “You’re history!” he screeched as he tossed the carcass at me. I ducked for the second time that day. The carcass bounced off my back. “That oughta even things up a little!” Shaman laughed hysterically. “No luck from that rabbit’s foot
!”

  “You’re sick!” I shouted. I stood up, my fists clenched. “You’re crazy!”

  “You’re arrested,” said Tom Schulz happily as he grabbed Shaman’s arms. “For assault.”

  Another policeman, a fellow named Boyd whom I knew well, snapped on the handcuffs. The dead rabbit, I noticed, lay by the front left Cadillac tire. I wondered if they would have to take it as evidence.

  “Wow,” said Julian, brightening. “That was cool. Talk about just in the nick of time, man, I’m impressed.”

  “So this is where you’ve been.” I walked quickly over to Tom. “Why didn’t you tell me you were staking out the garage to look for Krill?”

  “Because we haven’t been here that long—”

  “Tom, I really need to talk to you. You wouldn’t believe the things that have happened today—”

  “Life-endangering things?” he queried, holding tight to a struggling Shaman Krill.

  “You pig!” shouted Krill. “You idiot!”

  “Well, not exactly—” I said.

  “Look, Miss G., we just got a tip”—he aimed his remark at Krill—“from a real member of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals that this guy was here. They call you the volunteer cheerleader,” he told Krill. He turned back to me. “Goldy, where’d you get those clothes?”

  “Oh, it’s a long story.”

  “It always is with you.” He eyed Julian. “Is he okay?”

  “Who can tell? Check your voice mail when you’re finished with this guy.”

  “I’ll finish you!” Krill yelled, but no one was listening.

  Officer Boyd picked up the rabbit carcass with gloved hands and put it into a paper evidence bag, and then the three of them took off in a sheriff’s department vehicle. Who, I wondered, was Shaman Krill really working for?

  Two levels down, Julian and I finally found the Rover. Julian drove me back to my van and we arrived home in tandem around six o’clock. When we came through the door, the melancholy rhythm of “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” reverberated down the stairs from Arch’s room. When I called to him, he replied that he was testing a strobe light and would be there in a minute.

  Trying to focus on things domestic in general and on dinner in particular, I opened the walk-in. Wrapped triangles of creamy Port Salut, tangy Brie, and crumbly Gorgonzola cheeses beckoned. Tom had made a sign that said Ours! with an arrow pointing to the shelf below, to distinguish the extravagant purchases of foodstuffs he made for our newly formed family. I could always count on that shelf to bulge with the choicest berries and other produce, the ripest cheeses, the most expensive seafoods. I was trying to decide from the Ours! shelf when Arch arrived in the kitchen, still wearing the Panthers shirt. He’d found a pair of round-framed sunglasses and strap-up-the-legs sandals to go with the shirt. He looked like a beachcomber.

  “I’m hungry,” he announced unceremoniously. “In fact, I’m going to faint if I don’t have some food.” He lifted up the sunglasses and glanced at my outfit, then at my face and hair. “Gosh, Mom, you look weird. I know you like coffee, but don’t you want to advertise your business instead of Pete’s?”

  “Arch, please …”

  “All right, all right. Just … when are we going to eat? I mean, I don’t want to be rude, but it’s been a hundred hours since lunchtime.”

  “Well, I was kind of thinking of taking a shower first,” I said hopefully.

  Arch moved the sunglasses down his nose, clutched his stomach, and made his eyeballs bulge.

  “Oh, stop,” I grumbled. So much for the shower. Marla was coming home the next day, in any event, and if I was going to follow through on my promise to do some lowfat cooking for her, now was the time. “Dinner in forty-five minutes?” I asked brightly.

  Arch looked around the empty kitchen. No food was started. The table was covered with advertisements for the fair. “What are you fixing?” he asked dubiously.

  “Why don’t you let me—” Julian began.

  “Absolutely not,” I broke in, “you’re taking a break. I’m fixing pasta,” I said noncommittally to Arch. Pasta was always a safe bet. What did I have on hand? Hard to remember, since Tom had taken it upon himself to buy so many goodies for us.

  “What kind?” my son wanted to know.

  “Arch—”

  “Maybe you’d just better let me order in from the Chinese place.”

  “Hey, kiddo! What are you, the plumber’s son who can’t get his leaky sink fixed for a year? I’m going to cook dinner! I may be in professional food service, but I always fix the meals around here, don’t I?”

  “Well, not always—” he began, but when he saw my glowering expression, he fell silent.

  Julian came to my rescue. “Come on, Arch, let’s go listen to rock groups for a while.” Julian tousled Arch’s brown hair that stuck out at various angles. Since it was summertime, I never told him to comb it. Worrying about the prep school’s dress and appearance code didn’t start until fall.

  Arch pulled away. “You don’t need to take care of me, Julian. I’m okay.”

  “I’m not trying to take care of you. I really want to listen to some tunes.”

  “But I can’t on an empty stomach!” He narrowed his eyes at me, not to be dissuaded. “What kind of pasta? Fettuccine?”

  “Fettuccine Alfredo,” I pledged. It was his favorite. If I promised it, maybe he’d quit hassling me and allow me to cook. On the other hand, how I would make a lowfat Alfredo—a dish that ordinarily required a stick of melted butter, two cups of heavy whipping cream, and loads of Parmesan cheese—was beyond my reckoning.

  “I don’t believe it,” Arch replied stubbornly.

  “That’s what they said when Eugene McCarthy won the New Hampshire primary,” Julian interjected.

  Arch gaped at Julian in awe. “How’d you know that?”

  “You’d be surprised at what you can pick up,” Julian said mysteriously. “Take the Vietnam protest, which had as one of its favorite slogans Johnson Withdraw! Like Your Father Should Have!”

  I yelled, “Julian!”

  Arch shrieked with laughter and scampered up the stairs.

  “Gosh, Goldy,” Julian said in his get-a-life tone of voice. “Don’t you think Arch knows about sex? Sometimes I wonder about you.”

  Well, I thought as I desperately scanned my freezer for cholesterol-free fettuccine, sometimes I wondered about me too. Miraculously, I found a package of the right pasta. I started water to heat in the pasta pentola. The boys had turned off Sgt. Pepper, perhaps to discuss … well, I didn’t want to think about it.

  I opened the kitchen window. A late afternoon breeze floated in along with trilling notes from the saxophone at the Routts’ place. I smiled. Here we were in rural Colorado, and yet it felt as if our house sat across the alley from a New York jazz club. I chopped some red onion, then washed and sliced slender, brilliant-green asparagus that I had found in a tight bundle on the Ours! shelf. When I’d drizzled a bit of olive oil over a head of garlic and set it to bake in the oven, I thought back on the events of the day. Applying logic, or trying to.

  I’d gone into Prince & Grogan trying to find Claire’s murderer. Tom had said it was all right to do some digging, as long as I didn’t get into trouble. And I had gotten into trouble, or at least been busted by store security, doused with bleach water, and told to go home. But these weren’t my fault, I rationalized.

  Besides, I thought as I got out Wondra flour, I was determined to help Julian recover from Claire’s death. If I just knew why this happened, he had cried so helplessly here in the kitchen. Claire’s life had revolved around Mignon. So it seemed logical to look at what she herself had called “that cutthroat cosmetics counter.”

  And, I also rationalized as I measured, since I was a woman, like it or not I was more able to get gossipy-type information than Tom and his deputies at the sheriff’s department ever would. The Mignon counter at Prince & Grogan, Westside Mall, was a place of high energy, high profit
, high emotional stakes. I mean, where else could you go and be promised beauty and endless youth with such enthusiasm, conviction, and pain to your wallet? Where else did you have to watch for shoplifters, pretend to be decades older than your actual age, worry about spies from rival firms, and fend off wealthy pick-up artists in the form of weird scientists?

  I poked wildly through one of my drawers until I found a grater. I’d been able to help Tom before in his investigations. Of course, he’d never particularly welcomed my involvement until it was all over. And no matter how much I maintained Julian needed my help in figuring out what happened, my protestations would fall on deaf ears.

  Still. I’d heard Dusty say to Reggie Hotchkiss, We saw you. You are going to get into so much trouble. I’d been in that garage. I hadn’t seen anybody except a crazy demonstrator. But I’d found a blue rose close to Claire’s body. And that rose had perhaps been developed by Charles Braithwaite—the same Charles Braithwaite who, according to Dusty, had been infatuated by, and later broken up with, Claire Satterfield. And then there had been Babs Braithwaite, who had run into me at the top of the escalator, claiming that somebody was hiding in the women’s dressing room. Only I hadn’t found anybody in the dressing room. Except I’d unexpectedly encountered her husband again. This time Dr. Charlie had magically turned up on the roof. On the roof, that is, after Frances Markasian and I had been hit with an unhealthy dose of bleach water. I wondered if Charles Braithwaite would have had the courage to do that. He didn’t strike me as the courageous type.

  LOWFAT FETTUCCINE

  ALFREDO WITH

  ASPARAGUS

  2 tablespoons finely chopped red onion

  2½ cups diagonally sliced asparagus with tight tips (tough ends of stalks removed)

  1 teaspoon (about 2 cloves) mashed and chopped baked garlic (see note)