Prime Cut gbcm-8

by Diane Mott Davidson

  Correspondence between the historical society and donors, government officials, and teachers was filed by years. Each drawer of the cabinets nearest the wall contained three years of correspondence. No help there. I headed to the other file cabinets, and was immediately rewarded for my efforts by tabs for Acquisition Files: Permanent Collection.

  Unfortunately, each of the files within the drawers was labeled only by series of numbers. I pulled out one and read that 90.12.3 was a Hopi basket plaque acquired in 1990; 90.14.6 was apparently a Colt revolver donated in 1990. I pulled all the drawers open: all filed by number. I had no idea when The Practical Cook Book had been given to the museum. And there was no way I would be able to go through all these files, even if I stayed all night.

  My eyes locked on Annie’s computer. As a docent, I’d never used it. But if a cross-reference for the files existed, the museum staff would surely enter it into the computer, wouldn’t they? On the other hand, Sylvia didn’t strike me as the data-processing type; maybe she left it all to Annie. I pressed buttons to boot the computer up, held my breath, then clicked on Permanent Collection. No password! That would teach them. I entered a word-search for cookbook.

  The permanent collection contained twenty-three historic cookbooks. Ten of them, plus the letters from the German-American Society and from Charlie Smythe while he was incarcerated in Leavenworth, had been in the cookbook exhibit. I clicked on The Practical Cook Book by Elizabeth Hiller, and read rapidly through the accession sheet’s description: Brown cloth-bound volume with dark brown lettering; the owner’s name and the year—Winnie Smythe, 1914—inscribed on the title page. Note from husband on second page. The measurements and overall good condition of the book and its heavily yellowed pages were scrupulously noted, including letters of the alphabet written randomly in brown ink.

  The book had been donated in 1975 along with letters and other items from the old Smythe cabin, now headquarters for Merciful Migrations. At the bottom of the accession sheet was the name of the donor: Leah Smythe.

  The computer file itself was made up of two pages: the accession sheet and a list of items found in what the museum called the object file. In the object file, I read, I’d find a photo of the book, photocopy of the pages, and a photocopy of a letter written from Charles Smythe to his wife from Leavenworth in 1916, mentioning the cookbook. Had I found pay dirt? Or was I on a wild-goose chase for a book dumped by Gerald Eliot’s killer somewhere the police hadn’t found yet? Why had André requested this cookbook? And why, two days later, had he ended up dead? Was there a connection?

  The cookbook’s accession number was PC—1975.011.001a. I grabbed a ballpoint, scribbled the number on a piece of paper, and shut down the computer.

  I flipped through the accessions for 1975 and came upon the thick file for 75.011.001a. I checked my watch: the torte needed to be out of the oven in ten minutes. I yanked the cookbook file out of the cabinet, slammed the drawer shut, and raced to the museum exit. Before leaving, I glanced at my decoy baking pan on the kitchen table. Should I take it? Perspiration dampened my face. What about the duct tape on the door’s self-locking mechanism? I riffled the photocopies in my hand. The hundred sixty pages of the small cookbook had been copied as double pages; the whole file looked as if it contained less than a hundred pages. I closed the un locked door, trotted out to my van, and revved up the engine. I would shoot to the library and photocopy the file, bring it back, and pull the tape off the back door at the same time. Before going to the library, though, I needed to zip home, to take my torte out of the oven before it burned to a crisp.

  Cooking puts such unfortunate constraints on criminal behavior.

  Chapter 15

  Jake howled a greeting as my van crunched into our driveway. I tucked the stolen file under my arm and prayed that Tom hadn’t noticed my absence. I also hoped he wouldn’t be there to ask what I was toting.

  The heavenly smell of hot Mexican food greeted my entry through the plastic sheeting covering the hole that used to be our back door. The golden-brown cheese torte steamed on a rack on a cluttered countertop. Julian, who’d undoubtedly taken out the dish, was now gallantly offering a ceramic platter of crudités to none other than Rustine. I was so surprised at the sight of the model, I almost dropped the purloined folder.

  She sat serenely at our kitchen table, her chestnut ponytail loosened to soft waves that fell just to the straps of her black sport bra. She appraised a hillock of glistening grated daikon on the platter Julian offered her. When she crossed her legs, her skintight black leggings made a silky, rustling sound. I gripped the file and tried to look delighted that Julian was making friends. The former lover of Gerald Eliot, no less, although she probably wasn’t in the mood to chat about that.

  “Hey, there …” I faltered. “Welcome, Rustine. Julian? Thanks for saving the torte.” When he nodded, I asked, “Any idea where Arch is?”

  “He’s with my sister Lettie on your front porch,” Rustine supplied smoothly, before Julian had a chance to answer. “Lettie and your son and I all go to Elk Park Prep, as it turns out.”

  “How nice,” I murmured inanely.

  “It was okay, wasn’t it?” mumbled Julian. His brown eyes crinkled in puzzlement. “Bringing people home?”

  “Of course.” I was aware that Rustine was staring at me. Did I look as if I’d just committed a burglary? I wondered if any of the identifying numbers on the file tucked under my arm were visible. “So,” I asked her, too brightly, “you all just ran into each other?”

  “Yep.” Rustine lifted a tiny handful of Julian’s meticulously grated carrots and inspected it.

  “Are you looking forward to school starting?” I asked politely.

  “Not really.” She popped the carrot shreds into her mouth and munched thoughtfully. “Our dad is supposed to get back from Alaska right after Labor Day, so the only thing Lettie and I are looking forward to is seeing him. We’ve been so busy with the shoot we haven’t been able to think about much else.”

  “We’ve been so busy with the shoot?” I prompted.

  Rustine shrugged. “Lettie models, too.”

  Julian plunged in with: “Rustine thinks Goldilocks’ Catering might be able to book the rest of the Christmas catalog shoot. She said Litchfield’s already been out to the cabin, nosing around to pick up the assignment. Why don’t you sit down, Goldy, have some coffee with us?”

  I headed across my wrecked kitchen, stepping over a hammer, two saws, and a nail gun abandoned on the floor. Cater the rest of the shoot where my teacher just died? No thanks. Julian sprang up beside the espresso machine. I said, “I’d love some coffee. I’ll be back in a sec.”

  “We should call Ian or Leah just as soon as possible, Rustine says,” Julian persisted. “Want me to get a bid together? For the photo shoot?”

  I stopped in the kitchen doorway, still clutching the file. Wait a minute. Litchfield had been out there. I gave Rustine a sharp look. “When exactly did Craig Litchfield go out to the Merciful Migrations cabin?”

  She bent back her slender wrist in nonchalance. “Late afternoon, yesterday.” I calculated: Litchfield had gone from Andre’s condo, where he’d confronted me, directly to the cabin? Rustine went on, “Leah told me this other caterer named Litchfield offered to fix hors d’oeuvre to serve at the end ofthat day’s shooting.”

  “And did he?”

  She flicked a wisp of carrot off her fingertip with her tongue, then nodded. “Ian had had to send Rufus in for sub sandwiches, and they weren’t very good, so Leah told Litchfield he could heat up whatever he wanted. They were just egg rolls and spinach turnovers, but everybody liked them.” She chewed the strand of carrot. “Leah thinks Litchfield’s really cute. She offered to give him an audition for the cruise section. But it would be great if you guys did the food. Your stuff was better.”

  Julian raised his eyebrows. “So, Goldy, should I put a contract together for coffee breaks and lunches for Prince and Grogan? They should be shooting through Labo
r Day.” He twinkled as he mouthed: More work.

  “We already have catering jobs for this week,” I replied matter-of-factly. “There’ll be a huge amount to do that will take up most of our time.” I fidgeted and gripped the file. Upstairs, I could hear Tom’s low tones: He was probably on the phone. I hated to feel on the spot, but here I was. Plus, had Rustine and Julian really just run into each other in town? Why the sudden urge to have us cater at the site where my teacher had died? Did I really want this chance to be out there, as I’d thought half an hour ago?

  “Whatever feels right to you. But as I said, your stuff was better,” Rustine commented sweetly, and turned her smile back to Julian.

  “I’ll think about it,” I muttered before heading down the hall. I pulled open the drawer of Tom’s antique buffet and dumped the Homestead file inside, then stepped out the front door.

  On our porch swing, my son was sitting next to an impossibly lovely blond girl dressed in a navy blue shirt and shorts. Freckles splashed over her tanned cheeks as she chatted brightly, blinked thickly lashed eyes, and twirled a French braid dotted with tiny navy blue bows. Arch sat beside her, entranced. I teetered, wondering briefly about the availability of shock medication. Arch glanced up when he felt my presence. Crimson flooded his cheeks.

  “Oops—Sorry.” I cleared my throat. Lettie turned enormous questioning eyes to me. Good Lord, she was pretty. “I’m Arch’s mom. Would you two like some lemonade?”

  Arch’s expression turned instantly thunderous. Miss Sparkle-Plenty scuffed at the porch floor with the toe of her sandal and gave the swing a forceful nudge. “Sure. Can you make lemonade with artificial sweetener?”

  “Absolutely.” Would a snack be appropriate so close to dinner? Should I invite Lettie and Rustine to stay for dinner? When did the library close? I tried to think. Arch caught my hesitation.

  “You can go now, Mom.”

  Ten minutes later, a cowardly mother to the core, I sent Julian to the porch with a pitcher of lemonade and a platter of chilled poached shrimp with cocktail sauce. I averted my eyes while mixing more lemon juice with generic aspartame, and invited Rustine and her sister to dinner. Rustine replied that they could stay, if the two of them could only have shrimp and salad. She was scheduled to model on Friday. She and her sister needed to watch their figures, she reminded me. And what do you think Arch and Julian are doing, I couldn’t help thinking, but asked instead, “How long has your dad been in Alaska?”

  “Since mid-July,” she said. “He’s looking for a job in Juneau. I’ve been taking care of Lettie. Our mom lives in Florida with her new family.”

  “And … will you both withdraw from Elk Park Prep if your dad finds work in Alaska?”

  “Well, I guess. I’m taking a year off from school anyway, and Lettie won’t start eighth grade until after the P and G shoot’s finished.”

  “Why?”

  “Be-cause,” Rustine replied in a you-moron tone, “we each clear a thousand to fifteen hundred dollars every day we work. We make as much as our dad, and he’s an engineer.” She slipped out of the kitchen, presumably to join the other young people on the porch. That girl did have a way of making me feel aged.

  I gratefully swigged the iced latte—made with fatten ing whipping cream—and brought water, seasonings, and the lemon skins to a boil so I could poach more shrimp. With a plentiful salad, the Mexican torte, and a frozen rice pilaf quickly defrosted in the microwave, we’d be okay. I needed to talk to Tom and start prepping Weezie Harrington’s party. But most of all, I knew I absolutely had to copy the Smythe cookbook file and get it back to the museum before it opened in the morning.

  “Look,” I said when Julian returned to the kitchen, “I can’t think about going out to work at the cabin right now. If you want to put together a proposal for them, I’ll look at it tonight. But right this sec I really need to do an errand in town.” I took out the frozen pilaf and pointed to the salad ingredients. “Can you defrost the pilaf and make a salad for the rest of the dinner? I’ll be back in less than an hour.”

  “Sure,” he said enthusiastically as Rustine glided back into the room. I snagged the file, sprinted out the front door, and waved a hasty good-bye to the occupants of our front porch, who ignored me. In a cloud of dust, I reversed the van down the driveway. I doubt they noticed.

  At the Aspen Meadow Public Library, I laid out crisp dollar bills on the copier farthest from prying eyes, and flipped through the file. The Practical Cook Book, written by Elizabeth Hiller—whose stern cameo was featured opposite the tile page—had been published in Chicago in 1910. Only two or three recipes were printed on each of the small pages. Although I’d determined to work as quickly as possible, I was puzzled by a note written after the page with Winnie Smythe’s name and the date 1914. In a different hand that featured severely slanted letters and fine long curlicues was the inscription: My Dear Wife, when you make my Favorite Dessert, remember to make the Rolls the way I taught You. It was signed, Your Loving Husband.

  So, Charlie Smythe gave cooking advice in addition to being a rancher and unsuccessful bank robber, eh? Busy fellow. I slapped the file sheets madly into the machine, and frowned at two pages with random rows of letters in the outside margins. Contained the recipes for German Coffee Cake and Parker House Rolls. In the margin was a row of slanted ink letters that spelled nothing: U, A, A, Z, N, B, K, R, D, L, M, I, E, W, P, Q, R, V, Z, X, T, S, A, U, H, G, F, D, E, Y, T, R, E, P, A, S, L, W, I, C, E, X. Contained two more grids, with rows of different letters in the margin next to the recipes for Bread Pudding and Steamed Apple Pudding. This was the handwriting that made this cookbook a valuable collector’s item? What were these letters? Directions on how to make the rolls the way Charlie had taught Winnie? Now that’s what I called secret recipes.

  The last item in the stolen file was a copy of the letter written to Winnie from Charles when he was in Leavenworth. I’d seen the original in the shattered case at the Homestead:My Dear Wife,

  You must know how very much I love you, and how I would tear out my Heart to see you again. To get to my cell, I pass a wall in which I have tried to carve your name. I remember our cabin Kitchen with its smell of Bread and Pudding, how you would use Cookery to show your love for me. I have only read one book. Sky here is seldom seen. I long for our bed, children, Family tales, rifle, horses, cabin, and beautiful land where I believed to find Riches. One day, my Love. Your Loving Husband

  Hmm. More references to bread and pudding; and it was the pages with those recipes that contained the random letters. But this eighty-year-old puzzle would have to wait until I could go over it, preferably with Tom. He wouldn’t be happy about how I’d obtained a copy of the file, but he’d live.

  I finished the photocopying, reassembled the original file as well as my packet of copies, and hustled out of the library. It didn’t take long to sneak back into the Homestead, replace the original file, and tear the tape off the back door so that this time, it really did self-lock. It wasn’t until I was pulling back into our driveway that I realized I’d left my stupid baking pan on the table of the museum kitchen.

  Arch was standing in the driveway when I returned. He looked embarrassed and frantic, and I had the feeling he’d been lying in wait for me. He hopped out of the way so I could pull into the garage, where I hastily tucked my photocopied file under the van’s front seat. At the moment, Tom was the only person with whom I wanted to share the contents of the pilfered book.

  “Hon, what’s the matter?” I demanded when I hopped out.

  “Lettie and I want to have dinner at the Chinese place.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Please, Mom, may I borrow twenty dollars? I don’t have time for you to take me to the bank to get into my own account, and I don’t want to ask Tom because he’s suspended with no pay. Lettie and I will walk down to the Dragon’s Breath and walk back. So you don’t need to take us.” He kicked at a pebble in the driveway and sent it hurtling down into the street. “Please.”
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br />   I pulled two ten-dollar bills out of my pocket. “Forget borrowing, just take it.”

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  “Remember not to have peppers, they make you sick.”

  Arch just shook his head and ran off.

  In the kitchen, Tom wedged a crowbar behind a drawer to pry it loose. With a sickening shriek, the drawer and cabinet below it tore from their moorings and crashed to the floor. Ignoring the sound, Julian packed up food on our one remaining counter. Our kitchen table had been pushed against the wall. Standing beside it, Rustine watched the destructive drama with undisguised interest.

  “Why are you doing this now?” I cried.

  Tom, who had been peering at the rubble with a satisfied expression, appeared surprised. “I have to get rid of the old stuff today so I can go pick up your new cabinets.” He raised a bushy eyebrow. “I would have asked you about it, but nobody knew where you were.”

  “Where am I supposed to work?” I wailed. “How are we supposed to eat?”

  Tom and Julian exchanged a look. Women, it clearly said. Julian picked up two grocery bags loaded with foodstuffs. “Tom said to pack up the shrimp and torte for a dinner picnic. It’ll just be the four of us here. Did Arch tell you he and Lettie were going out for Chinese? And Tom has some secret picturesque spot for us, right?”

  “You bet,” my husband said cheerfully. He put down his crowbar. “Let me just go get showered. Miss G., why don’t you come upstairs and talk to me?”

  As I sat in the steamy bathroom listening to the shower patter, I realized this was the wrong time to bring up stolen paperwork, especially to a cop. Even if that cop was on suspension. I tried to focus instead on Tom’s patient explanation that he’d be done with the kitchen in a mere month or so.