The Main Corpse gbcm-6

by Diane Mott Davidson

  Sam’s Soups, a year-old eatery by the lake that I had not yet visited, must be doing awfully well, I thought. Sam had prepared the soup for the Hardcastles’ party in the fall, while the bulk of the preparation had fallen to me. But if Sam Perdue could afford to park his cash with Prospect Financial Partners, that meant he’d anted up the minimum investment of a hundred-thousand-dollars. Digging out my soup recipe file seemed suddenly appealing. “Sam?” I tried not to sound envious, merely curious. “Are you getting lots of orders for soup these days? I mean, because of the bad weather?”

  “No,” he said softly. He didn’t appear to be eating anything, and his slender fingers held an iceless glass of water.

  Mrs. Hardcastle, undeterred, raised her voice. “Usually the Prospect Partners have Cherry Creek Caterers. But… I understand CCC couldn’t make it all the way up here, so the partners called you, instead, Goldy.” Her tone made it clear who her first choice would have been.

  “Oh, ah, well,” I started to reply apologetically, “actually it was Marla Korman…”

  “On the other hand, you and Sam did such a lovely job last fall, catering the land preservation fund-raiser at our cabin. People are still talking about that roast pork with… whatever it was.”

  “Cumberland sauce. I’m so pleased to hear this.” I tried to sound gracious, humble, and deserving of more bookings.

  Mrs. Hardcastle went on wistfully, “The weather’s so dreadful this spring, I don’t know when we’ll get up to the cabin again… .”

  Here it comes, I thought. You did a great job last year, but this year we can’t use you.

  “It’s a lovely setting, Mrs. Hardcastle.” I wanted to say, Do the words Bride’s Creek make your daughter think of anything relating to her future? Instead, I assumed a concerned tone. “How is your daughter?”

  “Let’s not talk about it, shall we?” Edna Hardcastle’s face twisted. “Let’s talk about…” Her pained gaze shifted to the mine opening, and she shuddered. She didn’t want to talk about investing in the Eurydice, either. Perhaps it was those nauseating memories of claustrophobia. She sniffed. “Oh, dear…”

  “I’m sorry, I was just hoping that – “

  “Goldy?” Edna Hardcastle’s voice was once again drenched with false cheer. “Are you an investor? I mean, do you invest in food concepts?” She paused, and her face became solemn. “Do you even understand food concepts?”

  “Er, well, sort of.” I glanced at the gaggle of Prospect clients oohing and ahing over the gold bars in the display case. Maybe they hungered for some concept hors d’oeuvre. “It looks as if I might need to check the chafing dish and portable ovens – “

  Edna dismissed my protest by waving a quesadilla in my face. “Tony Royce said you were going to taste the soups at Sam’s place. It’s a concept restaurant,” she said, with a knowing look at Sam Perdue. “And Tony’s thinking of bringing Prospect in. Have you done it yet?”

  “Concept restaurant?” Sweat trickled down the inside of my caterer’s uniform. I knew the restaurant Sam managed was one in a chain. A very short chain, as in two. What was Edna talking about? This was not the time to figure it out, for the bacon smell was getting stronger. “Ah, no. Tony hasn’t mentioned my doing any tasting. Marla does his testing, anyway, or she used to –

  “

  I looked at Sam for help. He was obviously miserable. “I’m hoping the Prospect partners will take my chain public,” he murmured. “If Albert and Tony like my restaurant, it’ll mean I can stay in business.”

  I nodded. So soups weren’t doing so well, either. I didn’t hold out much hope for Sam. Marla said people were always approaching Tony and Albert looking for investors. Which usually meant needing a quick cash bailout.

  Edna quirked hennaed eyebrows that matched her hair. “I told Tony that food was a better investment than an abandoned mine!”

  “Well, perhaps you should tell him again,” I murmured sympathetically as I scanned the tent for Macgulre.

  “I did! I told him –”

  “Excuse me,” I interrupted, “Mrs. Hardcastle? Thanks for the kind words and your… confidence in … food.” It was lame, but it was the best I could do. “I do need to be off now because I’ve really, really got something burning back here.”

  With another sniff that didn’t speak well for my getting future bookings, Edna Hardcastle grasped one of Sam’s elbows, turned on the heel of one of her splattered yellow shoes, and strode away with Sam in tow. Whit Hardcastle patted his white hair, straightened his spackled tie, and waddled after her. Some rich people can’t abide it when a servant terminates a conversation, I’d found. They want the honor of doing that themselves. If I snubbed Mrs. Hardcastle, it would become town news. And I could not afford any bad news with my business in peril.

  At the back of the tent, Macguire was cautiously removing the sheet of bubbling bacon hors d’oeuvre from the oven and muttering, “Uh-oh. I couldn’t tell how long they’d been in. There’s no timer on these ovens.”

  “They’re okay,” I said as I eyed the glistening appetizers. I held up a paper-towel-covered platter. “Just use a spatula to scoop them out to drain.”

  This Macguire did. I held a silver platter over the hors d’oeuvre, flipped the two trays, then handed the platter of wrapped artichokes back to him. He placed a bowl of the Dijon cream sauce in the center of the tray and lumbered off to the group gathered around the display case.

  I visually searched the clutter behind the counter for the chafer I was going to use to reheat the shrimp dumplings. I had managed to sully the space with heaps of trays, pans of appetizers, and row upon row of beer bottles. To my surprise, I caught sight of Tony Royce. He was rummaging through the Cambro.

  “Tony! Why aren’t you mingling with your guests?” Tony uncoiled his athletic body and frowned at me.

  He gnawed on his perfectly trimmed bottle-brush mustache, brushed unseen lint from his khaki pants and khaki shirt, and smoothed his pouffed hair, which had not been flattened by the miner’s hard hat. He looked like Hitler with a blow-dry.

  “Well, Goldy, they’re not all here, for one thing. For another, I don’t want to have to listen to Edna Hardcastle tell me how great Sam’s soups are. We’re going to look at the place, the clients know that. But Victoria tried them and she didn’t…” His voice trailed off, and his eyes darted back to the Cambro.

  I wanted to be polite to Tony, since he was my employer for this particular shindig. I was also keenly interested to know what the late Victoria Lear’s involvement in food concepts might have been. But I had cooking to do and we were in the middle of a party. Besides, I didn’t want to argue with Tony – yet – about his appointing me to be Prospect’s taste tester to succeed Marla and the deceased financial officer.

  “Look, can you help me?” His voice grew desperate. “I need a vodka martini to clear the mine dampness out of my head. I hate that god-awful place. Do you have a freezer back here with some Stoly? Am I looking in the wrong place?”

  I smiled. The new test for machismo, I’d learned, was to take long draughts from an icy bottle of Stolichnaya vodka. Even more macho was to slug down the vodka while gobbling a plateful of jalapeno peppers. “Sorry, Tony. We’ve just got beer and coffee.” I finally spotted the chafer and hurried over to it. “What guests aren’t here?”

  Tony frowned, popped the top off a bottle of stout, and took a long swig. Hey! I’m a guy, I don’t need a glass! “Who’s not here? Marla’s brother-in-law, for one thing. I’ve never even met the guy, but I sure have heard a lot about him.”

  “General Farquhar?” I tried to conceal my surprise by opening the chafer cover in front of my face.

  Tony paused with the stout bottle halfway to his lips and eyed me curiously. “Yeah, after the Medigen IPO got so much publicity, we had all kinds of people wanting to get into the Eurydice venture. Farquhar sent us a check and said he was too busy to come in.”

  100 busy. Right. Too busy in jail. I pretended to be absorbed with the conten
ts of the chafer. Thank heavens Macguire had already filled the bottom pan-the bain-marie—with hot water. Tiny bubbles floated promisingly upward. I heaved up the hotel pan with the shrimp dumplings and lowered it into place.

  “Hey, Tony,” I said. “I need to borrow a watch. There’s no timer on the oven, and we almost burned the bacon appetizers.”

  Bacon-Wrapped Artichokes

  with Dijon Cream Sauce

  5 artichoke bottoms (one 14-ounce can, drained)

  10 slices center-cut bacon

  3 tablespoons Dijon mustard

  ź cup half-and-half or heavy cream

  Preheat oven to 400°. Cut each artichoke bottom into 8 equal pie-shaped wedges. Cut each bacon slice into fourths. Wrap a piece of bacon around each artichoke wedge and secure with a toothpick. Place on a rimmed cookie sheet and bake for 20 to 30 minutes, or until the bacon is crisp. Drain thoroughly. Combine the Dijon mustard with the cream and serve as a dipping sauce.

  Makes 40.

  Note: Occasionally cans of artichoke bottoms will contain 6, rather than 5 pieces. In that case, use 12 slices of bacon to make 48 appetizers.

  Tony glanced at his gleaming Rolex. He said solemnly, “You’re not borrowing my watch.”

  Okay, so his watch probably cost more than my van. I kept -my voice courteous. “Well, could you tell me when ten minutes is up?”

  He nodded, swallowed the last of his stout, and popped the top off another. Albert Lipscomb’s bald head shone like an approaching beacon under the tent lights as he strode toward us. He put down a plate with a half-eaten quesadilla and leaned toward his partner.

  “Tony, Captain Shockley wants to talk to us about Victoria,” Albert said in a low voice. Tony groaned and took a swig of stout from the new bottle. Albert persisted glumly: “He’s very upset. We need to talk to him.”

  “My head’s full of damp air. He’s your friend. You talk to him.”

  Albert sighed and rubbed his scalp. “Oh, all right.” But he didn’t have a chance. Marla strode up, pinched a wad of Albert’s madras jacket, and yanked him in the direction of the shed.

  “I don’t want you to leave before we have a talk,” she announced. “About assay reports. Let’s go in here with the cap lamps and have a chat.”

  Albert, dumbfounded, looked at Tony for help. Then his mournful eyes turned back to Marla. “I don’t understand what… what is so important – “

  “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about,” Marla snapped. She let go of his jacket and put one hand on an ample hip. She shook her other hand in a furious fist under Albert Lipscomb’s nose.

  “Wait, wait,” I implored, with a harried glance out at the center of the tent. “Don’t talk about this now. Don’t ruin the party. .

  . .”

  Tony was suddenly between the two of them. He lifted his dark eyebrows and bit his mustache. He murmured, “For heaven’s sake, guys, this is not the time…” He put his hands on Marla’s shoulders. “Please, sweetheart, you know you shouldn’t distress yourself. You could get sick – “

  Marla shot him a withering glance and slapped his hands away. “I’ll talk to you later, Tony. This whole thing was his idea, not yours, and you’re being duped, too. So move back.”

  Tony, aghast, took two steps away from them. Marla and Albert advanced in the direction of the corrugated metal shed. Or rather, that was as far as Marla could back Albert up. With a hasty glance at the guests, Tony followed them. I used tongs to move the dumplings around, keeping an eye on the confrontation. What had gotten into Marla? Couldn’t whatever it was wait?

  “Absolutely not.” Albert’s voice rose in answer to something Marla had said. He laughed. The chuckle I’d heard earlier from him had been an awkward, uncomfortable one. The new one was derisive, as if Marla had told a particularly absurd joke. “You’re completely mistaken. The Kepler lab is well known, and totally reliable. It – “

  “Oh, I don’t think I’m mistaken,” Marla sniped right back. “My source says the only reliable process is afire assay – “

  Tony once more tried to intervene. “Marla, please. We can all sit down together – “

  Albert snarled at Marla, “You bitch. What are you trying to do?”

  She cried, “It is my money and my investment!” Macguire timidly knocked on the top of the dumpling chafer, as if that could gain him admittance to our uncomfortable little scene at the back of the tent. “Uh, that Captain Shockley guy doesn’t want to come back here and leave the display case out of his sight. But he just asked if there was some kind of problem – “

  Tony must have seen Macguire and guessed his mission, for he hurried back over to the two of us. “No, no,” he said with a desperate wave to dismiss my assistant. “Nothing’s wrong. Tell anybody who asks that it’s about corn futures. Or something. Go pass around some more food. Please,” he added belatedly. Then he darted back to Marla and Albert.

  I didn’t know if ten minutes had gone by, but I used the tongs to arrange a platter of hot dumplings for Macguire to distribute. At that moment, Albert adjusted the lapels of his madras jacket, lifted his chin, and shrugged mightily.

  “And today I got the paperwork to prove it,” Marla shrilled. “But I had to have three glasses of that vile beer before I had the courage to come over here and confront you – !” Perhaps to make certain he was paying attention, she thumped his chest. Caught off guard, Albert dropped his glass, which shattered. Ale foamed across the tent floor. No, no, no, I thought uncharitably, I haven’t been paid yet.

  “Look, guys,” Tony began again. “We need to postpone whatever discussion – “

  “Shut up, Tony,” Marla snarled. I’d never seen her so enraged.

  Albert Lipscomb turned away from Marla. Marla held up her index finger and continued to scold. A blare of sound erupted from the far side of the tent. The chink of glasses and babble of guest voices – not to mention the noise of this fracas – were suddenly drowned under the flood of violin music cascading from the portable speakers. Poor Macguire must have turned the volume way, way up. Over Vivaldi, I heard Marla yell, “And another thing!”

  But Albert didn’t want to hear about the other thing. He stumbled past us, out into the rain. Marla stomped after him. Her crimped brown hair had shaken loose from the twinkling barrettes. Her green-and-gold silk dress drooped off one shoulder, and her bejeweled fingers were clenched. I rushed over to Tony’s side.

  “Doggone it, do something,” I demanded.

  “Like what? You saw how I tried,” he said sourly. “They won’t listen to me.”

  The rain was changing to hail. With her recent medical history, Marla had no business being out in a hailstorm. I wiped my hands, now damp with fear, on my chef’s jacket. Surprised by the unexpected downpour of icy pebbles outside the tent, Albert Lipscomb wobbled on his pale loafers. Perhaps his sudden loss of equilibrium was owing to the beat of hailstones on his bald pate. He extended his long arms to get some balance, but the muddy road proved too slippery and he faltered. To my horror, Marla flew forward to try to catch him. He slipped from her grasp and careened sideways onto a car. Before he could stand up, Marla started yelling at him. The only word I could pick out was creep.

  Tony smoothed his mustache and looked around to see if any guests were watching. He tried to appear nonchalant as he walked along the shed wall to the edge of the tent. With another cautious glance at the guests, he loped after his partner and his girlfriend. I doused the flame on the chafer and scooted around the counter. As inconspicuously as possible, I kicked the broken glass under the shed and headed for the edge of the tent. I needed this job: I was not about to let this party fall apart.

  Out in the parking area, Marla reached into a pocket and flourished a sheet of paper at Albert and Tony. Tony talked rapidly while Albert stood with his arms crossed, his long, pale face a study in disgust. The three seemed impervious to the thickening wash of hail. Why, why, why? I wondered wildly, studying their furious faces. Albert snatched the paper from M
arla’s hand and tossed it into the air. Hail thudded hard on the car roofs and the tent overhead. Oblivious, Marla and Albert continued to yell at each other.

  Since Tony didn’t seem able to pry Marla and Albert apart, I thought I should try, but out of view of the guests. I yanked on the rope that would let down the tent flap. It wouldn’t budge. I signaled to Macguire to take over serving the food. A few guests were straining to get a glimpse of the contretemps outside, but thankfully, most were still looking at the gold, eating, drinking, and chatting.

  I pulled again on the rope: no luck. I had to convince Marla and the partners to stop bickering, because it was not good for Marla to argue. Her excitable temper frequently got her into trouble, although she’d been doing better lately. One of her most notable fights, I recalled as I strode across the tent floor, had been with our violent ex-husband. When the Jerk had come at her with a rolling pin, she’d swung a hanging plant at him and dislocated his shoulder. But post-heart attack, she’d promised to stay cool no matter what the circumstances. I had to stay cool, too. No brawls, I promised myself.

  I opened the storage shed’s flimsy door and peered into the dark interior space, as if I needed to search out more supplies. My footsteps gritted over the dirty floor as I rushed past rows of hard hats, wide belts, and what looked like cloth-covered flasks. When I opened the outer door, I gasped as hail hit my cheeks. I blinked and trotted through the jumble of parked four-wheel-drive vehicles. Attempting a shortcut, I headed through a mass of shrubbery and promptly got caught in a web of branches. Breathing hard and shivering, I untangled my damp skirt from several sandcherry bushes and considered dashing back to the tent. But the raised voices spurred me on.