Chopping Spree gbcm-11

by Diane Mott Davidson

  And most importantly: Is there any information that can clear Julian?

  The quiche emerged puffed and golden brown. I cut myself an enormous slice and smiled after the first bite. The bacon gave the pie a lovely crunch, the Gruyère added tang and substance, and the eggs and cream gave the whole mélange a texture like velvet. I awarded myself points for concocting such a dish in the midst of stress. Next time, I would omit the bacon, and make one for vegetarian Julian when he got out of jail. With remarkable discipline, I dutifully carried a newly tossed salad, warmed baguettes, and the rest of the quiche to my next-door neighbor, Trudy. She swooned with joy and complimented me extravagantly. I actually felt happy for the first time in twelve hours.

  Back at home, my answering machine was blinking. I had three messages. Murphy’s law of answering machines: Leave the house for less than ten minutes? You’re going to miss your calls.

  The first was from Tom. His reassuring voice warmed me, but what he had to say turned my blood to ice. The cameras in the lounge had recorded Barry schmoozing with a number of guests, first Ellie, then several others, including Pam Disharoon. Unfortunately, the tapes also showed that Julian had had not one, but two squabbles with Barry. And by the way, none of the cameras captured my knife being transported in or out of the kitchenette. Except for the eight cameras focused on the display cases, there had been only two others, and they had recorded nothing regarding the murder weapon. The only tape the cops hadn’t checked was the one from the roving videographer; the detectives were tracking that fellow down now.

  The cameras on either end of the P & G shoe department, Tom went on, were focused on the cash registers to keep tabs on the employees, and the chairs and couches, where women might be tempted to slip a pair of shoes into another shopping bag. No camera had been focused on the cabinets by the wall. Moreover, with the way the cabinets had been placed, there had been enough room behind them for a person to hide while I was struggling to help Barry. In any event, no videotape showed the murder, me coming in, or Julian finding us.

  Tom concluded by saying he was hoping that his friends in the department would continue to share information with him. That data-sharing would dry up instantly, however, if Julian flunked the second lie-detector test.

  The next message was short and bittersweet. It was from Liz Fury.

  “Goldy, I’m hoping you’re OK. The Grigsons just started their wedding ceremony. Everything looks good for the setup, food, service. I added six dozen frozen spinach appetizers, by the way, from my freezer. Don’t know if Tom told you I got two of my former staffers to help.” She paused. “I, um, really hope you’re feeling better.” Her voice became apologetic. “Goldy, I’m sorry I ever introduced Teddy to Julian. I just thought if Teddy could have a role model, a strong kid like Julian, that he might want to try to turn his life around. I had no idea that Julian would turn violent toward Barry.”

  “Oh, shut up,” I muttered.

  “And,” Liz went on, “I certainly didn’t think that with all those people there, Barry would order Teddy to be escorted from the mall, especially since he was just looking for me.” She let out a harsh laugh. “If you can imagine, the cops wanted to know where I was while Barry was getting himself stabbed. I told them I was looking for my son. After being dragged forcibly out of the mall, he’d gone to his usual haunt, the nearest McDonald’s. That’s where I found him. Look, I have to go. Let’s talk when you feel better.”

  Or even sooner, I thought grimly, as I pressed the button for the final message. Lo and behold, the husky voice of Ellie McNeely burned through the wire. Her tone was of someone trying to get a grip on a situation spiraling out of control, and failing.

  “Goldy. I’m…at the sheriff’s department. Sorry we were interrupted. Do you… did you know…is it true that Julian saw…”She snuffled. “Did you know anything about what the cops found in that runaway dump truck? They were… They were supposed to be a gift… besides, I was having a facial wrap, and I don’t even know how to drive a damn truck! I—”

  And then the message ended.

  Had Ellie once again been cut off? Or had she lost her nerve? No matter what, I now knew another data nugget: That Ellie McNeely had knowledge of the cuff links. So Ellie and I needed to have an extended chat.

  It was almost one o’clock. I typed the contents of all three messages into my new “Barry Dean” file, reread the entire file, and created a list of places I wanted to visit or call, with questions. Rufus Investigations, or somebody who has access to their data. Ellie McNeely. Westside Mall—Barry’s office. Barry’s coworkers. Would Barry’s colleagues be helpful, or as difficult to deal with as everyone else in this case? I knew there was an assistant manager for the mall, but I had no idea what his name was. Find out what Barry was being so secretive about. Why had he wanted to talk to me right away, then changed his mind after the truck incident? And why was he taking painkillers?

  I imagined Hulsey reading this file, and becoming apopleptic.

  I thought of the Vicodin in the freezer and frowned. Not only was I, by keeping something from the crime scene, engaging in evidence-tampering, I was also guilty of possession of a controlled substance without a prescription. There seemed to be many things I needed to avoid telling Hulsey, as well as Tom. My breaking the law would make them both apopleptic. I wondered if the medical examiner would find narcotics in Barry’s bloodstream.

  I had too many questions, and very few answers. I glanced all around the kitchen, as if any of my fancy new paraphernalia—laser printer, copier for menus, plain-paper fax, new standing mixer, new multibladed food processor—could help. My equipment was mute. That’s the problem with technology. The ads promise you’ll be able to improve your life with complicated new machines. But if improved life looked like figuring something out, you were in trouble. Marketing claims to the contrary, machines couldn’t come up with good ideas.

  Still, there were possibilities. Our new printer could create logos, spreadsheets, and all kinds of cool stuff. To find out about Barry’s health problems, I reasoned, I would have to have a logo, an address, and a fax number.

  From my files, I dug out my contract for the Westside Mall events. I always keep a photocopy of the initial check, including the client’s driver’s license number, and—key for my developing investigation—Barry Dean’s Social Security number. Although the client for the Westside events was the mall owner, Barry Dean had been their representative. In the remote event of a bounced check, a collection service tracked the check-writer through the SSN. Sheesh! I’d learned from Tom that there were lots of uses for that good old Social Security number.

  I switched computer programs and began to play. Ten technology-packed minutes later, I was ready. I didn’t want to imagine what Hulsey or Tom would think of what I was up to. If I ended up getting caught, the consequences would probably involve prison garb.

  Once more I reached for the phone.

  “This is Doctor Gertrude Shoemaker,” I announced firmly and matter-of-factly to the receptionist at Dr. Louis Maxwell’s practice of general medicine. Although I’d hated filling in for secretaries who’d walked out on The Jerk, I’d at least learned how doctors who wanted information behaved. Brusquely. “I’m with Aspen Meadow Neurology. A patient of yours is here. He’s paying for his own CAT scan. Diagnosis is chronic headache. I’m not sure he’s telling me the truth as to how and when he first contracted symptoms, and I need a copy of his records. The patient has authorized the release.”

  “Fine, Doctor,” Maxwell’s receptionist replied. “Fax us the standard release form on your letterhead, and we’ll fax his records back to you as soon as possible.”

  “When would that be?”

  “No later than four o’clock today, Doctor.”

  I hung up and prayed that Maxwell’s receptionist had not read the morning paper, which would have told her that Barry Dean was not sitting in my fictitious doctor’s office, but lying in the morgue.

  I quickly put together
a standard release form, then wrote a cover letter on my new fake letterhead for Aspen Meadow Neurology. (As if backwater Aspen Meadow would even have a neurologist! But we did boast nine chiropractors.) I entered Barry’s Social Security number, stared hard at the contract Barry had signed with me, and then carefully forged his signature. Then I faxed the whole thing off to Dr. Maxwell’s office. This was a very long shot, and the diagnosis would probably come back, “Patient claims headaches are stress-related.” Still, if you were going to let no stone go unturned, you had to start upending every rock…and hope there wasn’t a rattlesnake under one of them. And, hope that all the laws you were breaking didn’t come back to bite you.

  And speaking of laws, it was time for me to visit the jail. After that, I would stop by the office of my own criminal defense attorney! Life’s little ironies.

  I stopped first at our town’s drive-through Espresso Place, and ordered and paid for a four-shot latte. Of course I wanted to bring Julian one, but I knew from experience that there would be glass between us, and we’d have to speak to each other via phone. Plus, I didn’t want him to screw up another polygraph. The attendant handed me the drink, and my skin turned cold. Latte had been one of Barry’s favorites.

  Overhead, fast-moving, dark clouds thickened and roiled. An ominous gray nimbus stretched eastward from the Continental Divide. As my window hummed closed, the unmistakable smell of snow drifted into the van. Would I still be catering the next day’s luncheon for the Stockhams? There had been no message, no apology from them for their eruption at the mall. I wasn’t going anywhere close to their huge house near the Aspen Meadow Wildlife Preserve without working things out.

  Despite the rising storm, or maybe because of it, the number of tractors moving dirt around in the new section of Flicker Ridge had doubled since I’d noticed the area the previous morning. The trucks and tractors chugging hither and yon looked like a military operation. Two We Got Dirt trucks rumbled past the Topsoil $70/load sign, which now stood next to a revised sign: Only 2 home sites left! First come, first served! The price had been crossed out, and a new sign taped over it: Open to bidding. Uh-oh. If they’d written Make offer, that would have meant sales were slow. Open to bidding meant folks were scrambling to buy the sites, perhaps because the developer had priced them too low. The trucks growled and swooped over the mounds of dirt. Nothing like avarice to get a job done.

  Half an hour later I was gripping a phone and staring at Julian through a scratched Plexiglas panel. His handsome face looked haggard and weary, and his unshaven cheeks gave him a grizzled appearance. The too-large orange prison suit did not flatter his muscled body. Worst of all, he looked as if he’d neither slept nor showered since the arrest.

  “This is crap!” he exploded into the phone. “I don’t belong here! It’s crap! Can’t Tom help me? I came looking for you, and the next thing I knew, some cop was slapping handcuffs on me. And now this lawyer says—”

  “Julian, please,” I urged. “I’ve got a lawyer, too, an associate of the guy who’s helping you. My guy will probably tell me not to come talk to you, because it would look bad. But I’m here to support you. So, please, please don’t be angry with me. I know you didn’t kill Barry.”

  Julian’s shoulders slumped in dejection. “I was trying to help him.”

  “Begin at the beginning and take me through the time after I left the lounge. Minute by minute. I especially need to know if you saw anyone—anyone—with one of the new Henckels knives.”

  And so Julian took me through it. It was almost exactly as I’d thought. I was disappointed, but not surprised, that he hadn’t seen the knife disappear. After I’d left with Barry Dean’s note—the one Barry had handed off to a musician, the note Julian had read—Julian had finished packing up the dirty dishes and equipment. He had been surprised that I hadn’t shown up by the time he’d completed the loading and cleanup. The security and jewelry people were gone, and the mall was closing. He’d locked the lounge and come looking for me.

  “I wonder why Barry didn’t have one of his security guys lock up the lounge, and take the key.”

  Julian rolled his eyes. “I wish I knew, because then I wouldn’t have had to say I don’t know fifty times to the cops. When they asked me and asked me about the kitchenette key, I kept telling them that clients often ask us to lock up when we leave. And no one’s been robbed or murdered yet. Or at least, not until last night.” He groaned.

  “It’s OK,” I murmured. People who aren’t caterers have a very romantic view of what we do. They think it’s all intriguing recipes, chic food, and glam presentation. They have no clue about, and certainly don’t want to hear about, the ordering, prepping, dealing with clients, dishwashing, cleaning, locking up, and other drudge jobs associated with food service.

  “OK, let’s get through this,” Julian said wearily. “I forgot to tell you that when I finished, about five after nine, I made myself another cup of coffee in that kitchen. Everybody was gone. The coffee was instant, but I didn’t care. I knew I had to drive back to Boulder, and I was afraid I’d fall asleep at the wheel. When I finished it and you still hadn’t come back, I started to get worried. I went to the mall office and no one was there. So I went looking for you.”

  “You remembered from the note to come to Ladies’ Shoes?”

  “Yeah.” His voice was morose. “I saw the store was closing fast, so I hurried over to Shoes. And there you were on the floor. Barry, too. I didn’t think. I turned him over, and when I saw the knife, I just pulled on it. How could I be so dumb?”

  I tapped on the scratched plastic shelf in front of me. “So, no one saw you during the last ten, fifteen minutes before you came into the shoe department?”

  He sighed in despair. “Nope. I saw a few cashiers inside the stores that were closing, but nobody looked out at me, ’cuz they were all busy counting the cash in their tills.” He rubbed his bloodshot eyes. “Anyway, I had just tugged once on the knife, when this department store security guy started hollering at me to move away. He called the cops and eventually I was hauled off. Of course I wanted to take the polygraph, why wouldn’t I? I didn’t do anything! I had no idea Marla was calling a lawyer, and he didn’t show up until the cops were through with me and it was too late. Now I’m behind bars on suspicion of murder. I was advised of the charges today. And—ready for this—even if I pass another polygraph, it might not help, ‘cuz polygraphs are inadmissible. Those cops are gathering evidence to charge me with murder. Unless something turns up, they’re going to hold me until the next regular arraignment day. My damn prints on the weapon are the worst….”

  I shook my head, mute. The unreality of it all was dizzying. Julian had Cleve Jackson plus a team of Hulsey’s investigators working to clear him. But somehow I didn’t trust Hulsey’s people to find out who had really killed Barry Dean.

  I’d known Barry. I’d taken the job he offered me. I was the one who’d found him after he was stabbed. At that unforgettable moment, Barry had uttered a deep, shattering groan. Then the real killer had whacked me with the guitar and, presumably, finished the job on Barry. Not only had I not been able to help my old coffee buddy, I was wondering what in the world I would be able to do for poor Julian.

  Not for the first time, my mind hollered at me that I had to do something. My heart agreed.

  CHAPTER 8

  I promised Julian that Tom, Marla, and I were working hard to get him out. Marla would be coming to see him later in the day. But Julian, his skin grayed by the fluorescent lights, appeared even more discouraged and disheartened. He asked about Arch. I put effort into sounding enthusiastic, but I knew it didn’t ring true. Arch was doing well, I related, forcing a smile. As usual, my son was keeping mum in the social department. He enjoyed lacrosse and was impatient for Julian to come home. After all, Julian needed to bake his fifteenth birthday cake! The family party was set for this Friday!

  “That’s the arraignment day,” Julian said joylessly.

  I swallowed and r
eassured him again that this nightmare would be over soon and that everything would turn out fine.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Julian said, as if he had not heard me. “Look, please don’t call my parents, OK?”

  I looked at him in surprise. Julian adored his adoptive parents, and trekked down to Bluff, Utah, a couple of times a year to visit them. “Don’t you want them to know—”

  “No, I don’t,” he interrupted me. “It’ll give my dad a heart attack. If it goes to trial and all that, I’ll call their neighbors and have them go over and break things to them gently.”

  “Well—”

  Julian shrugged, offered a dispirited wave, and got up to leave. I plastered a grin on my face and gave him a thumbs-up.

  On the inside, of course, my frustration was reaching fury level. I left the jail and raced to Hulsey’s office, frantic for good news. Funny thing about good news. You shouldn’t go to a criminal-defense attorney looking for any.

  Steve Hulsey’s office was decorated in a palette of oxblood leather, ultradark mahogany, cranberry glass, and maroon wool. Maybe this was some deranged decorator’s vision of a bloodbath. Hulsey sat, statuelike, behind the vast mahogany desk, which was the size of a ten-person life raft. And oh boy, I could just imagine desperate clients clinging to it. Hulsey would be telling them what he could and couldn’t do for his fee, which a former client had informed me was a twenty-thousand-dollar retainer, plus eight hundred bucks an hour after that. Hulsey, the very image of a westernized Buddha, was wearing another silk suit, a shimmery silver-gray pinstripe. I wondered if he also wore silk underpants à la Al Capone. One fact was clear: Steve Hulsey might represent desperate hooligans, but they were desperate rich hooligans.