Dial M for Mousse

by Laura Bradford

  “Just the kind of things newly divorced women tend to think in situations like this, which, translated, means nothing you should worry your dessert-naming brain over.” Renee waved her hand in the space between them and then pointed toward a sizable gap in the trees just beyond the public access parking lot. “See that over there? I think that’s our turnoff.”

  Winnie followed the path indicated by Renee’s finger and slowly piloted the ambulance onto the gravel lane. Part of her wanted to know what her newly divorced friend was thinking on the subject of Jay, but the part of her that loved what she did for a living knew it was time to focus on the day’s rescues. Like her emergency Dessert Squad, Silver Lake Artists’ Retreat was a fairly new enterprise in town. If Sally was pleased with Winnie’s assorted dessert rescues, it could spell more business in the future . . .

  “Are you ready for your first, second, third, fourth, and fifth rescues?” she asked as they bounced from one gravelly rut to another.

  Renee released a cheerleader-esque squeal that perked Lovey’s ears upright. “Yes! But what do I do? Do I push the gurney? Do you need me to hang the frosting bag on the IV pole?”

  “Just follow behind Lovey, she’ll show you what to do.”

  “Seriously?”

  “You doubt me?” Winnie countered.

  “No, but . . .”

  Winnie slowed to a stop as they reached the first in a row of rustic cabins. “Okay . . . According to the number on the door right there, this is cabin number one. Who did Sally say was assigned to this one?”

  “I’ll tell you in one second.” Renee smoothed Sally’s e-mail across the portion of her lap not covered by Lovey and ran her finger past the details of each artist to the specifics on their accommodations. “It looks like this is Ned Masterson—the comedian.”

  “So Your Jokes Make Me Snicker-Doodles are up at bat.” Winnie shifted the ambulance into park and smiled at her best friend and employee. “You ready?”

  “You bet I am.”

  • • •

  They were just heading out of the fourth cottage with Lovey in tow when Renee grabbed hold of Winnie’s arm—hard.

  “Whoa. Watch those talons, my friend. They’re lethal.”

  Renee brought her lips to within exhale range of Winnie’s ear. “It’s him!”

  Halting the gurney midway down the walkway, Winnie looked left and right. “Who?”

  “The supercute guy from the lake the other night.”

  When she spotted nothing resembling a human, she widened her visual range to include the pathway that ran behind the cottages. Sure enough, a man Winnie judged to be in his midthirties was making his way toward the retreat’s main building, his head dipped down, his hands jammed into the front pockets of his jeans. “You mean the rock skipper who never spoke?”

  “Yes!” Renee shout-whispered. “Isn’t he gorgeous?”

  “I can’t really tell. He’s moving rather fast.”

  “Well, he is. His eyes are almost a charcoal gray and his hair has this playful little swoop in the front.” Renee followed him with her gaze until he was completely out of sight and then turned back to Winnie and sighed. “I swear, it took everything I had not to walk over to him and run my hands through his hair that night.”

  “I bet that would have gotten him talking . . .” Winnie smacked her hand over her mouth only to let it slide down to her chest as she began to laugh. “Oh my gosh, this is too funny.”

  Renee’s slightly overwaxed left eyebrow arched upward. “What is?”

  “You described him the other day as tall, dark, and brooding. But he wasn’t brooding at all.”

  “How do you know?” Renee asked, bringing her hands to her hips. “You weren’t there.”

  “But he’s here. At the artists’ retreat. And if I’m right, we caught him as he was leaving the back door of cabin number five.”

  “So?”

  She pulled Sally’s e-mail from inside the packet and turned it so Renee could see the name residing just below her fingertip. “That’s George Watkins. He’s the mime.”

  “Noooo.”

  “Oh yes. In fact, I’d bet”—Winnie waved the paper at the shelf beneath the gurney—“Lovey, here on it.”

  Hisss . . .

  “But why didn’t he talk at the lake?” Renee protested. “He wasn’t performing.”

  Winnie stuck her tongue out at her bequeathed cat and then continued pushing the gurney toward the Dessert Squad parked at the end of the sidewalk. “I guess he was just practicing. Like I do every time I experiment with a new combination of flavors.”

  Renee’s shoulders drooped. “So he’s not going to be in his cabin for his rescue, either?”

  When Winnie reached the ambulance she pushed the gurney around to the back and opened the gate. “You heard what Sally said when I called her from outside the comedian’s place. Just set the dessert inside on the table and move on.”

  “But what’s the fun in that?” Slowly, Renee headed down the walkway toward Winnie, her stilettos making soft clicking sounds against the concrete. “She could call a regular bakery for that.”

  “Bite your tongue.”

  “Well, she could . . .”

  Winnie waved off her friend’s argument and, instead, focused on placing the plate of assorted hand pies where the plate of string cheese treats had most recently been. “Look, if Sally specified a delivery time and then opted to call a meeting for her recipients in another location at the exact same time, that’s her choice. You heard me offer to make all five of the deliveries to the main building. But she declined.”

  Renee lifted her hands into the air. “I know, I know. It just doesn’t make any sense.”

  “I guess the meeting wasn’t as short as she seemed to think it would be.” Winnie reached into the warming container and extracted the bag of white chocolate drizzle. “Here, can you hang this on the IV pole and follow me up to the last cabin?”

  “But why? We already know he’s not there. Why not just drizzle the stuff on the pies now?”

  “Because that’s not how we do things. Besides, your hot mime could get to the main building only to find out the meeting is already over. He could walk back here in like two seconds.” She shut the back gate and looked down at Lovey. “You ready for round five, Your Highness?”

  Hisss. . . .

  “I’ll take that as a yes, you nasty thing.” Winnie motioned for Renee and the IV pole to follow her onto the walkway. “Do you think this cat is ever going to wrap her pointy-eared head around the fact that I’m her new owner?”

  “When you asked me that the first dozen times or so after Gertie willed her to you, I was certain she would. But now? I’m not so sure.”

  “Great.”

  “An adversarial relationship doesn’t necessarily have to be tragic.” Renee and the pole moved into place alongside Winnie and the gurney. “Just so long as you both keep your proverbial and not-so-proverbial claws to yourself, it’ll be okay. Besides, Lovey has Bridget, Mr. Nelson, and me to give her affection.”

  Winnie stopped the gurney. “To give Lovey affection? Are you kidding me?”

  “Suck it up, my friend,” Renee said. “Suck. It. Up.”

  She looked from Renee to Lovey and back again and then resumed her trek up to the front door of the mime’s cabin, the soles of her paramedic shoes no longer silent against the walkway. “I’m not asking for her to lick my face. I’m not asking her to rescue me from a burning building. I’m simply asking that she stops hissing at me every time I so much as look at her. Is that really that much to ask when I’m the one who provides her food, her shelter, and her unending supply of cat toys?”

  “Apparently, yes.”

  When they reached the door, Winnie straightened up, pushed away her angst with a deep cleansing breath, and knocked.

  “Why are you
knocking?” Renee asked. “We already know he’s not in there.”

  “Maybe, while you were dashing any hope I had for my relationship with Lovey, he came back.” When there was no answer to a second and third knock, Winnie opened the front door as Sally had instructed. “Then again, maybe he didn’t.”

  Winnie reached up, disengaged the IV tube from the bag of melted white chocolate, and drizzled its contents across the top of each and every hand pie. When she was done, she nudged her chin in the direction of the plate. “So what do you think? Does it look good?”

  “It looks fabulous.” Renee lifted the plate of hand pies off the gurney and carried it through the short hallway to the galley-style kitchen.

  “Don’t forget our business card.”

  “Got it, boss.” Three slow inhales later, Renee was back and pulling the door closed behind them. “He’s not even in there and the place smells like masculine awesomeness.”

  Winnie couldn’t help but laugh as Renee took two steps toward the ambulance only to stop and look back longingly at George Watkins’s cabin. “This guy really left an impression on you, huh?”

  “He was amazing with Ty. So patient. So encouraging.”

  “But you said he didn’t speak.”

  “His smile and his head nods said it all.” Renee wheeled the pole down the walkway, collapsed it down to a third of its normal size, and tucked it in the back of the ambulance as Winnie prepared the gurney.

  “We could stop by the main building on the way out if you’d like. You know, just to tell Sally the deliveries have all been made . . .”

  Renee ran around the side of the ambulance and examined her reflection in the passenger side window. Two flicks of her hair later, she was yanking the door open and calling for Lovey to pick up the pace.

  “So I take it you like that idea?” At Renee’s emphatic nod, Winnie slid the gurney into its holding spot in the back, locked and closed the tailgate, and ventured around to the driver’s- side door. Once she was settled behind the steering wheel, she pointed at the cat already seated in her friend’s lap. “This time, Lovey, you stay put. It’s one thing to stow away on the bottom of the gurney where most people don’t notice you, and quite another to just stroll right into a meeting.”

  Hissss . . .

  “Do you see? This cat is out of control.”

  “Try talking to her in a slightly nicer tone of voice.” Renee leaned forward, planted a kiss between Lovey’s ears, and was rewarded for her efforts with a distinct purr. “It’s not rocket science, Winnie. It’s really not.”

  Winnie opened her mouth to protest—to reference all the olive branches she’d offered to the ungrateful beast—but let it go as she piloted the Dessert Squad into the visitor parking spot outside the retreat center’s main building. “Okay. Moving on. Are you ready to meet your hand-flapping hunk?”

  The question wasn’t meant to be rhetorical, but when Renee’s answer came in the form of the blonde bombshell’s rapid exit from the car, it had clearly been interpreted as one.

  Well, alrighty, then . . .

  Winnie slid out of the ambulance and met Renee en route to the door. On the way, she shoved her hand inside the inner pocket of her EDS jacket and extracted a business card. “Might as well leave this with Sally so she’s got it at her fingertips when the next group of artists comes in, don’t you think?”

  Shrugging, Renee pulled open the door and stepped inside, her emerald green eyes dancing with excitement. “You do realize I have a new mission in life, yes?”

  “Oh?” Winnie maneuvered around her friend and led the way down the hallway toward the murmur of voices coming from an open room on the left. They passed a small but well-stocked library and an even smaller business center complete with two computers and a single printer. “And what, exactly, is this new mission—”

  The collective gasp that greeted their arrival in the meeting room doorway had Winnie hooking her thumb over her shoulder and bumping into Renee. “I—I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to interrupt—”

  “Winnie! Look!”

  She followed Renee’s red-tipped finger down to the floor and the sixty-something woman lying facedown at their feet. Before she could process the scene, the man Renee had pointed out to her not more than twenty minutes earlier flopped onto the ground and stared unseeingly up at the ceiling, his hands splayed atop his throat.

  Seconds later, the lone standing female in the group staggered against the wall, her hand moving inside the puppet clutched to her chest. “You mean it’s—it’s . . . over?”

  “Anyone got a fork?” quipped a balding man on the far side of the circle. “That could probably tell us for sure.”

  Another man, this one wearing a top hat, waved a closed fist above the body and—poof!—opened his fingers to produce a fork. “Voilà!”

  “What’s going on in here?” Winnie demanded as her gaze traveled back down to the lifeless body.

  “If I may quote the words of fellow poet Mary Elizabeth Frye: ‘Do not stand at my grave and weep; / I am not there. I do not sleep. / I am a thousand winds that blow. / I am the diamond glints on snow.’” A tall man with a thick crop of dark blond hair met Winnie’s eyes and guided them back toward the ground with his finger. “Or, in the words of the unread masses, Sally Dearfield is dead.”

  Chapter 4

  Winnie followed Lovey onto the front porch and collapsed into the rocking chair next to Mr. Nelson and his one-man chess game. “Well, that didn’t go the way I’d hoped.”

  Pulling his hand from the white bishop, the seventy-five-year-old former navy man consulted his watch. “What took you so long, Winnie Girl? I expected you home hours ago.”

  “Where should I start . . .” She tipped her chin upward and stared at the porch ceiling they’d treated to a fresh coat of paint not more than three weeks earlier. “Wait. I know. It was a disaster—a complete and utter disaster.”

  A flash of movement out of the corner of her eye brought her housemate’s chessboard back into her sight line in time to see the black rook removed from the board in a burst of celebration. “Aha! Gotcha!”

  She swung her attention toward the Dessert Squad and did her best to focus on the bright colors of the logo rather than the memory of Sally Dearfield’s face as Greg and his EMT, Chuck, confirmed what Winnie, Renee, and the five assembled artists had already known.

  “Winnie Girl?”

  Swallowing against the lump she felt forming in the base of her throat, she made herself look at Mr. Nelson once again, the smile she wanted to have for him nowhere to be found.

  “Did something go wrong with your rescues?” he asked as he abandoned his game play in favor of Winnie. “You don’t look too good.”

  “Sally Dearfield is dead.”

  He stared at her over the rim of his glasses and then removed them from his face completely. “You put blackberries in some of those hand pies, didn’t you?”

  “No. But even if I had, she dropped dead in the main building. My desserts were waiting for the artists in their respective cabins.”

  With a quick snap of his fingers, he summoned Lovey onto his lap. “Is that what all those sirens were ’bout two hours ago? Sounded like New York City for a few minutes.”

  “Greg and his crew responded in the eventuality Sally was still alive—but she wasn’t. The cops, of course, came, and a little while later, so did the chief.”

  “Russ Vanwinkle was out there, too?”

  She drew back, confused. “Russ who?”

  “The butcher out at Silver Lake Market.”

  “Noooo. Why would he be there?”

  Mr. Nelson ran his hand down Lovey’s back. “Because he’s the only one who knows quality beef.”

  “Quality beef—” And then she knew. Mr. Nelson’s hearing aid was either too low or in need of a battery. She tapped her ear and waited for him to ma
ke the necessary adjustment. When he did, she took the conversation back to the veer-off spot. “Chief Rankin was out at the scene.”

  “The chief there for any particular reason?” Mr. Nelson asked without missing a beat.

  “Because there was a dead body, I imagine.”

  Mr. Nelson pulled his hand off Lovey and leaned forward. “Do you think there was some hanky-panky involved?”

  The lump was back. Only this time, it tasted a lot like bile. She swallowed it back down and willed herself to breathe. “I don’t know.”

  “Was she alone when they found her?” he asked.

  “All five of the artists in residence at the retreat center this week were with her when it happened.”

  He resumed his petting of Lovey but kept his eyes rooted to Winnie’s. “What do you think happened?”

  “I don’t know. I guess maybe she had a heart attack or something.” Pulling her mousy brown ponytail in front of her shoulder, she played with the ends while she mentally revisited the moment she and Renee walked into the building—the murmur of voices morphing into a collective gasp as they stopped inside the . . .

  She sat up tall. “Wait a minute! That gasp!”

  “Winnie Girl?”

  Rising to her feet, she paced her way around the porch—from the rocker, to the front railing, to the side railing, and back to the rocker, only to do it all over again. Granted, she was probably a little traumatized from everything that had happened that afternoon, but her memory had always been one of her strong suits. There was no reason to think that had failed her now.

  “Mr. Nelson? I think they gasped for our benefit.”

  “Our benefit?”

  “Mine and Renee’s.”

  A familiar flush of color creeped into his cheeks, prompting her to stop midway through her third lap to wave it away lest she lose him to his favorite fantasy world. “Not now, Mr. Nelson. This is serious.”

  He cleared his throat and gave her his best concentration face. “I’m listening.”