Crunch Time gbcm-16

by Diane Mott Davidson

“So,” Tom said, prompting her, “Saturday morning.”

  “Saturday morning.” Yolanda exhaled and stirred sugar into her coffee. “We got up around seven, or at least, Ferdinanda and I did. She’s an early riser, because she worked in a French restaurant in Havana before Castro took over. Back then, it was her job to make breakfast and start on lunch. Anyway, the habit stuck, and I like to help her get ready for the day. The night before, Ferdinanda had made a bread pudding mixture and put it in our refrigerator. We always wanted Ernest to have breakfast, even if I was only hired to make dinners. So I got Ferdinanda through the bathroom routine and getting dressed. I rolled her into the basement kitchen, preheated the oven—how much detail do you want here?”

  Tom said, “No detail is too small. Especially if Ernest was acting odd, or you saw something outside the windows, or Ernest said anything that caught your attention.”

  Yolanda said, “I put the casserole dish into the oven and set the table. Ernest came downstairs, said it smelled great and that he’d be back in a little bit, after he took care of the puppies. He returned to the kitchen around, oh, eight? He washed his hands and had some of the pudding, which Ferdinanda announced needed more vanilla, cinnamon, and sugar. But Ernest said it was delicious. He wondered if the dentist would get after him for having it right before his appointment.” She shook her head. “At that point he went off to brush his teeth. His dental appointment had been changed to ten o’clock—”

  “Changed?” Tom said sharply. “When?”

  “I don’t know,” Yolanda said, taken aback. “He just said it had been changed. The dentist had somebody who could only come in on the day Ernest was scheduled. So Ernest’s appointment was changed from two weeks from now to yesterday, Saturday morning.”

  Tom and John exchanged a look. Tom poised his pen over his notebook. “Do you know who his dentist was?”

  “Yeah, I do,” said Yolanda. “I mean, I do now. Drew Parker.”

  Tom nodded to John, who got up and went into the living room to use his cell.

  “Go on,” said Tom.

  “When Ernest didn’t come home in the early afternoon, the way he said he was going to, I called his cell. There wasn’t any answer. I left a voice mail asking him to call me.”

  Tom asked, “When was this?”

  “About two? Ernest always called me back. Always. After half an hour, I tried his cell again. There was no answer.”

  John Bertram returned to the kitchen. To Tom, he said, “They’re searching for Parker.”

  Yolanda looked feverishly at John. “When I couldn’t reach Ernest, I phoned your house! Didn’t you get the message?”

  John shook his head. “My wife and I don’t answer our land line on the weekends. If the department wants me, they call on my cell that’s dedicated to that purpose.”

  Yolanda closed her eyes. “I couldn’t reach Ernest and I couldn’t reach you. I just, I don’t know, I panicked. I thought maybe he’d been in an accident, maybe he’d been the victim of a hit-and-run, like Ferdinanda—”

  My business line rang. Everyone looked at me, so I checked the caller ID. It was the Breckenridges, the hosts for the church fund-raising dinner Yolanda and I were doing Tuesday evening. Saint Luke’s, like every other charitable enterprise in Aspen Meadow, was hurting. Pledges were off, and the plate offering, according to our rector, Father Pete, was way down. Sean Breckenridge, the Saint Luke’s senior warden, had had the bright idea to put on a dinner for the well-heeled. Tickets had been sold to twelve parishioners, who’d ponied up a thousand clams apiece. Father Pete thought he’d died and gone to heaven.

  I picked up the phone and went into the other room. “Goldilocks’ Catering—”

  “It’s Sean Breckenridge,” our prospective host interrupted me. If he was going to cancel the dinner, for which I’d already bought the food, I would wring his neck, no matter what Father Pete thought of that particular crime.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked. “We’re still on for Tuesday night, yes?”

  “Yes,” he said, but sounded tentative. Sean, fortyish, thin, with babyface good looks and dark hair, a lanky frame, and long fingers, did not work outside the home, although he’d been trained as an accountant. “Well,” he said, “we have a problem.”

  “Problem, Sean?” I could just imagine his thin lips twisting as he spoke, his eyes crinkling at the corners, as if everything you said was amusing.

  “I hear you have that Cuban woman working for you. The one with hepatitis C.”

  My skin broke out in gooseflesh. “First of all,” I said testily, “Yolanda is an American citizen. She was born in this country, just as I assume you were. And she does not have hep C. Who told you that?”

  “I heard it at the country club.”

  “Ah. From whom?”

  Sean cleared his throat and said nothing.

  I yelled, “Who did you hear it from, Sean?”

  He paused, taken aback. “I’d, uh, I’d rather not say.”

  “I see. Well, Yolanda’s fine.”

  “Will she be helping you on Tuesday night?”

  “Yes, she will, unless you and Rorry want to come out into the kitchen and do the work yourselves.” According to Marla, Rorry Breckenridge was the sole heir of the Boudreaux Molasses fortune, but—wait for it, Marla had said—Rorry had never so much as baked a spice cookie. I very much doubted she’d be willing to stand in for hardworking Yolanda. And Sean? Forget it.

  “I just want everyone to be comfortable,” he said. “I don’t want anyone to worry about getting sick.”

  “The guests will be fine. Do you want me to make an announcement at the beginning of the dinner as to Yolanda’s health?”

  “No, no.” He hesitated. “We had a call from someone who wants to come and bring a date. It’s not too late to add another couple, is it?”

  “Oh, Sean, for God’s sake.”

  “Is it all right or not? This couple is willing to pay double the thousand dollars a plate. The church could use an extra four thou, Goldy. Besides, Rorry’s table holds sixteen, so everyone would fit.”

  “Who is this extra couple?”

  “Why does that matter?” Sean asked.

  I wanted to say, Because if it’s Kris Nielsen and another woman, you can cater your own damn party. As the silence between us lengthened, it became clear Sean was not in a sharing mood. “Oh, all right,” I said finally, wondering feverishly about the number of racks of lamb chops I had on hand. “But no more. Fourteen people, and that’s it.”

  I thought he was going to sign off, but he said only, “Is your husband home?”

  I was immediately wary. “Tom? Yes, why?”

  “Does he . . . did he . . . know Ernest McLeod?”

  “Let me give him the phone,” I said noncommittally.

  But Sean hung up.

  Well, now, that was interesting. I’d just found out about Ernest McLeod, and even if the news had been on TV, why would Sean call our house instead of the sheriff’s department? And most curious of all, why would Sean Breckenridge be interested in Ernest McLeod?

  I stared at the phone.

  Had Ernest been investigating Sean, and Sean had somehow gotten wind of it? Or had Sean Breckenridge been one of Ernest’s clients?

  I returned to the kitchen, where the interview had apparently reached another stalemate. I wrote a quick note to Tom that Sean Breckenridge was curious about Ernest. He glanced at the note, nodded once, and mouthed, “Thank you.”

  “I did call the sheriff’s department,” Yolanda said at length, her tone miserable.

  Tom said mildly, “When?”

  “I told you.”

  “Tell us again.”

  “When Ernest didn’t come home Saturday afternoon, which was when he said he was going to, and there was no answer on his cell, and no answer at the Bertrams’, I got worried. He had told me how much he was looking forward to the seafood enchiladas that I was making that night. And then he didn’t even give me a ring to say he’d b
e late? That just wasn’t like him. So that’s when I found out the name of his dentist—”

  “Why?” Tom said sharply. “Why would you do that?”

  Yolanda’s face crumpled into a look of helplessness. “God, Tom! Because he was late! Because I couldn’t reach him! Because Ferdinanda said he hadn’t looked well when he went out! Because I have a crazy ex-boyfriend, and Ernest had told me about these cases, and I thought . . . oh, I don’t know what I thought. And anyway, Ferdinanda was right, he did look weak when he left—”

  “Weak?” Tom interrupted.

  “I’m not a doctor.” Yolanda rubbed her eyes. “But I was making his dinners, and even though he said he loved the food, I told you, he didn’t eat very much. Then yesterday morning, he said, ‘I’m going to walk to my appointment, get some exercise.’ But he didn’t come back. We were scared he’d been hit by a car or something. So I went through his Rolodex. Drew Parker has an office just above Main Street, in that new office complex. You know the one? That whole new building above Aspen Meadow Dry Cleaners, Frank’s Fix-It Shop, and Donna Lamar’s old office?”

  “I know it,” Tom said tersely.

  “Frank’s Fix-It Shop,” muttered John. “The only thing Frank has fixed in the last twenty years is a joint he rolled himself.”

  “I know!” said Yolanda. “Saturday afternoon, late? I went to Drew Parker’s office, looking for Ernest. There was nobody there. There was nobody at the dry cleaner, and Donna’s office is for lease. So I went into Frank’s Fix-It with a picture of Ernest, asking if anyone had seen him. Frank was so stoned, he just shook his head. He never said a word. And the place stank of weed. Why don’t you people bust him?”

  John Bertram said, “Well, we—”

  “Who called Ernest to change the dental appointment, do you know?” Tom interrupted sharply, with a cautionary glance at John. Let’s not get distracted here.

  “I told you, by the time I got over there, nobody was at the dentist’s office.” Yolanda’s tone was bitter. “Parker’s the only dentist with an office right in town. So Ernest couldn’t have been going to another dentist. Not on foot. When Ferdinanda and I couldn’t find him, we went back to Ernest’s place. I phoned the emergency clinic that’s just outside of town. No one had been brought in. I called Southwest Hospital. Nothing.”

  Tom pressed his lips together. He was watching her, as was John. Anxiety for my friend gripped my heart.

  Tom said, “Go back to before you made those calls. What made you go out looking for him, if you were afraid of your ex?”

  Yolanda said, “Ferdinanda was driving me crazy, saying, ‘We gotta go look for him.’ I didn’t want to go out.” Her dark eyes implored Tom. “I was afraid. So I tried to be logical. I thought, Maybe he’s found out something about a case and he’s pursuing it. Maybe he’s lost his cell. And Ferdinanda was saying, ‘Maybe he’s been hit by the same bastard who hit me. Maybe he’s slipped on all the gravel between this house and town. Maybe he’s unconscious in a ditch. We gotta go out in the van and look!’ ”

  “You called Ernest. You went to the dentist’s office and Frank’s Fix-It. You came back and called the clinic, then the hospital. You didn’t think to call anyone else?” Tom asked.

  “I told you both, I called John here, whom I hadn’t even met.” Yolanda turned toward John. “Ernest said he trusted you like a brother. And before you ask, Tom”—she directed her attention back to my husband—“I found the Bertrams’ home number in Ernest’s Rolodex, too.”

  “Go on,” said Tom. “You called John. When did you drive out to look for Ernest?”

  Yolanda shook her head, dismayed. “Around four? I loaded Ferdinanda into my van and off we went. I drove slowly. I told you, there was nobody at the dentist’s office and the guy at Frank’s Fix-It was wrecked. We came home and I tried to call the Bertrams again.” She gulped. “When Ernest still wasn’t home at midnight, I called the sheriff’s department. Since Ernest used to be a cop? They sent out a car, and the policeman took a report. Wait, I have his card.” Yolanda rooted through her purse, then pulled out a sheriff’s department card, which she handed to Tom. “The guy wrote down what I told him, and said maybe Ernest was working on a case. I told him Ernest would have informed us if he wasn’t coming back for dinner. And he would have taken his truck.”

  Tom nodded. Presumably, he knew all of this already. He was testing Yolanda, asking the same details over and over, to see if she’d stick to her story.

  John Bertram seemed pensive. “Did Ernest say anything to you before he left?”

  “Nothing special,” said Yolanda. “I was doing the dishes. Ferdinanda was out on the patio on the lower level. That’s where she likes to sit, when the weather’s nice.” Yolanda gestured impatiently. “It was so she could smoke her cigars. Ernest would”—she pressed her lips together, then composed herself—“he would usually say a few words to her before he left. You can ask her.”

  “We will,” Tom promised. He waited a beat. “Now, could you tell me if you knew whether Ernest had any enemies?”

  “He had his cases, but he didn’t talk much about them.”

  “Do you know if one of the people he was investigating had it in for him?” Tom asked.

  Yolanda looked away. Not for the first time, I thought she was hiding something, or not telling the truth. Or something.

  “Yolanda?” Tom said. “What was he working on?”

  “Well, it would be in his files,” said Yolanda. “They’re in his study.”

  Tom raised his eyebrows. “How do you know where his files are?”

  “Because he called me in there once,” Yolanda replied, her tone steely, “and asked me to bring him a sandwich.”

  “Did you ever open the file drawers, say, when Ernest wasn’t home?” Tom asked, his voice deadpan.

  “Oh, Tom, will you stop?” Yolanda cried. “When Ernest worked at his desk, he sometimes had one of the drawers of his file cabinet open. It was a handmade wooden cabinet, really pretty, not one of those ugly metal ones. I asked him if he made the cabinet. He said that he had. He could build anything.”

  “Did you open the file drawers when Ernest wasn’t home?” Tom repeated.

  Yolanda crossed her arms. “I don’t remember.”

  There was a silence. Tom gave John Bertram a small nod.

  “So,” said John, “do you know what he was working on?”

  Yolanda looked very tired. “I know a bit. Someone was running a puppy mill, I told you. A woman named Hermie needed Ernest’s help with proving neglect or some such thing. She’s an older woman.”

  “Older?”

  “Midforties, or maybe fifty, I’d say, but she looks sixty. She came over once, and I noticed she’s missing a couple of fingers,” Yolanda added. “I didn’t ask her what had happened to her hand. She did tell Ferdinanda and me that her son thinks she’s crazy, with her closing-down-of-puppy-mills crusade. She said her son didn’t want to hear her stories anymore. He said she cares more about dogs than she does about him.”

  “You don’t know her last name?” Tom asked.

  “No.”

  “Um,” I began, but Tom held up his hand. I knew someone named Hermie. Hermie Mikulski was a tall, buxom, gray-haired woman. This Hermie did have a son, and he went to the Christian Brothers High School. But I was pretty sure she had all her fingers, because she ruled the Saint Luke’s Altar Guild with two tightly clenched iron fists.

  To Yolanda, Tom said, “Anything else?”

  “Ernest was working on a divorce case. I think there was a lot of money involved.”

  “The people getting the divorce?” Tom asked.

  “I don’t know,” Yolanda said dully. “There was another thing. Ernest was looking for something for someone. I don’t know the details.”

  “You have no idea what he was looking for?”

  “No. And I don’t know who the client was.” She glanced at the clock, which read ten to five. “I need to be leaving soon, to go get Ferdinanda.
”

  “Where is she again?” asked John Bertram.

  “The Roman Catholic church. Our Lady of the Mountains. She’s at the monsignor’s house. She didn’t want to stay at Ernest’s place today, because he hadn’t come home, and she, well, she said . . .”

  “She said what?” Tom asked sharply.

  Yolanda rubbed her forehead. “She said Ernest looked very bad to her yesterday morning.”

  “You already said that.” Tom prompted her. “Are you talking about health or something else?”

  “Ferdinanda says these things sometimes. She believes in Santería.” I wondered how Tom was going to explain Cuban voodoo to his captain. Well, the captain could listen to the tape.

  Tom asked, “Was there anything you saw that would make you think Ernest looked particularly bad?”

  “His house frightened me,” Yolanda said.

  “Yolanda!” Tom’s voice made me jump. “What scared you about Ernest’s house? Were you worried he’d discover the money under your mattress?”

  Yolanda pressed her clutch of tissues to her eyes. When Tom tried to ask her another question, she just shook her head.

  I said to Tom, “May I see you in the living room for a moment, please?”

  Tom turned off the recorder. “Let’s take a break.”

  Once Tom and I were standing in the living room, I asked, “What in God’s name do you think you’re doing to my friend?”

  “Since she won’t go down to the sheriff’s department, I’m interrogating her here.”

  “Yeah, well, they’ve discovered that torture doesn’t work, you know.”

  Tom did not smile. “You stick to catering, and I’ll stick to interrogation techniques that I have used for years, and that do in fact yield results.”

  “Why are you being so mean?”

  “Mean? When I’m mean, Miss G., you’ll know. At the moment, I want Yolanda to tell us about Humberto Captain. His father, Roberto Captain, brought Ferdinanda, her brother, and the brother’s wife over on a boat from Cuba. The brother and his wife were Yolanda’s grandparents.”

  “The Captains?”

  “Roberto Captain was a good guy. His son, Humberto? Not so much.”