The Main Corpse gbcm-6

by Diane Mott Davidson

  While the rice is cooking, bring the quart of water to a boil. Add the Old Bay seasoning and the shrimp. Cook just until the shrimp has turned pink. Drain immediately and discard seasoned water. Do not overcook the shrimp. Peel, devein, and set the shrimp aside until the rice is cooked. Remove the cover from the rice and add the shrimp, pineapple, and peas. Raise the heat to medium and cook, stirring, until the peas are just cooked and the mixture is heated through. Serve immediately.

  Serves 4.

  “When am I getting rid of Tony? The sooner the better.”

  “Marla, please.” I showered grains of rice into the remaining pans. On the other side of the kitchen, Arch was banging cupboard doors open and shut. “Oh, yes. General Farquhar was wondering if you knew the fellow who did the geology for the Eurydice. He also said to ask you about environmental statements. You know, like inspections of the mine.”

  Marla’s face wrinkled in puzzlement. “Why does he want to know? He’s a right-winger, he doesn’t give a damn about the environment.” When I shrugged, she exhaled impatiently. “Tell him they don’t do an environmental impact statement when they’re reopening a mine. And ask him why he cares, anyway, okay?”

  “Chocolate-covered jelly beans,” Arch announced triumphantly. He held up a glass candy jar that he’d somehow uncovered in one of the Trotfields’ cabinets. “Want some? Wait, let me check the ingredients.”

  “You’ve trained your son well,” Marla remarked with a wink.

  “Marla,” I said, “don’t eat candy. Please. What in the world am I fixing a lowfat pilaf for if you’re going to snack before dinner?”

  Arch frowned as he read from the jar’s label of contents. “Uh-oh. Artificial food coloring. Just a second, there it is. Yellow No.5.”

  Marla raised her eyebrows. “Maybe Tony would more willing to break up with me if I broke out in hives.”

  I sighed. Tony called Marla from the other room, and she disappeared. The rice sputtered with the garlic andonions as I drizzled dry sherry, tomato juice, and homemade chicken stock over it. I gently swirled the ingredients and put on the cover. Cocktail refill time. For the guests, that is.

  While I poured drinks in the living room, Edna Hardcastle declared to the other guests that Albert Lipscomb must be in Argentina. That’s where all criminals ended up, she maintained. Whit Hardcastle overruled his wife. She must be thinking of Colombia. Tony Royce somberly told them that the police thought Albert was in California. This prompted Sandy Trotfield, a slender, strawberry-blond fellow who wore a collarless cotton shirt and designer pedal pushers, to observe loudly that he thought California was where all criminals ended up. He guffawed while the guests laughed uneasily. Marla rolled her eyes at me.

  I joined Arch in the kitchen. Friendship notwithstanding, Sandy Trotfield had called Albert’s office not once but twice this past Monday morning, presumably over possible problems with the mine assays. Now that Albert had absconded, though, Sandy appeared oddly blustery. Why would you be in a panic one day, and be making forced jokes about your money manager’s disappearance four days later? It didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Then again, maybe Sandy Trotfield was just a jerk.

  The Trotfields’ calendar was posted on the side of the refrigerator, and I surreptitiously looked it over while drinking a glass of bubbly water. Sandy had flown to Johannesburg a month ago, stayed five days, and come back. Three weeks ago he’d flown to Puerto Vallarta and stayed for another five days before returning. He was off for Rio tomorrow and would be back next week. Apparently pilots with rich wives managed to worry about their money, recover, laugh about it over spinach hors d’oeuvre, and then take off for extensive globe-trotting without a blink.

  The doorbell pealed softly. Mrs. Trotfield had greeted her guests herself, so I felt no compunction to answer it. Arch didn’t even hear the bell. He was listening to the Walkman he’d borrowed from Macguire while rocking unrhythmically but enthusiastically in front of the cookbook shelves. Suddenly he tore the earphones off his head.

  “Receipts?” he cried as he reached for one of the books. “What’s a book of receipts doing in with Julia Child and all that?”

  I said, “Let me have a look,” as the doorbell rang again. Why, indeed, would the Trotfields have a money book inserted between the food volumes? My heart sank, though, when Arch handed me a green publication entitled Charleston Receipts. “Oh, honey,” I said as I flipped through the famous Junior League cookbook, “this kind of receipt means recipe – ” I stopped talking as the book fell open to the title page. A handwritten inscription read: “For my new friends Sandy and Amanda Trotfield, from an adopted Charlestonian! Best regards, Albert Lipscomb.”

  Hmm. The Citadel, I remembered, was in Charleston, South Carolina. More significant, though, was the fact that the Trotfields and Albert were not just friends, but new friends. How new; and what would they do for a new friend?

  The doorbell rang again. I flipped the cookbook closed and peered out the window over the sink. It had started to rain again. All I could see through the curtain of wetness was a line of fancy cars and four other Arnold Palmer Avenue houses. When the bell chimed the third time, I had come out to refill the platters on the buffet. The glistening, ruby-colored pilaf steamed invitingly and the guests ooh-ed. Dingdong, a fourth impatient ring through the loud riffs of Dave Brubeck’s Jake Five. The rat-a-tat-tat of precipitation on the fashionable blue tin roof was so loud, Mrs. Trotfield had turned up her stereo.

  I retrieved the smooth, pink raspberry mousse pies from the refrigerator. When I started to whip the cream, I tapped my electric mixer against the side of the steel bowl in time with Gene Krupa’s Maori-inspired drumbeat, which filtered through speakers the Trotfields had installed above the custom-made maple cabinets. Unfortunately, the doorbell rang again as I was starting to spoon heaping mounds of cream on each pie. Whoever was at the door was not going away. Amanda Trotfield, a slender, fortyish woman with translucent skin and black hair spiked outward in a fashionable punk, appeared in the kitchen. She announced that everyone was here who was supposed to be here, that the ice was just getting broken, metaphorically speaking, and would I please get rid of whoever was at the door? She wanted her guests to enjoy their expensive food.

  “It’s probably FedEx,” she hissed in my ear, “with some more stuff from Jeppesen for my husband.” When I looked confused, she explained, “Maps. But he’s also ordered a load of information on diamond mining in South Africa. If the guy rings again, would you get it? The security’s off” So when the chime tolled for the umpteenth time, I marched out to answer it.

  It wasn’t FedEx. It was the police. One cop was a towering, muscled redhead. The other was slimmer, with an acne-scarred face and jet-black hair above a receding hairline. They wore plain clothes, but their sheriffs department vehicle, invisible from the kitchen window, was pulled conspicuously perpendicular to the Trotfields’ crowded driveway. No one from this party was getting on Arnold Palmer Avenue without these cops’ say-so.

  “Mrs. Schulz?” A familiar, chilly trickle of fear shot through me. “Tom. It’s Tom, isn’t it? Something’s wrong. What’s happened?” I cursed myself for not answering the insistent ringing earlier.

  The short fellow, whose wiry black hair had been severely pomaded down to conform to his missile-shaped head, frowned. “No, nothing’s wrong, we’re just here to talk. Ask a few questions about – “

  “About what?”

  “Mrs. Schulz, please,” said the big redhead, looking uncomfortable. I laughed as relief swept over me. Of course! This had something to do with the Trotfields. Maybe one of the neighbors had complained about all the cars. “Yes,” I said to the two policemen. “I’m sorry. Let me go get Mrs. Trotfield.” Then I hesitated. After all, I was the caterer: I had a professional obligation to protect this party. “Her guests are almost through their entree… any chance you could come back later?”

  “We’re here to see you,” rasped the redhead. His eyes bulged. “Just to ask a few questions,
Mrs. Schulz. Would it be possible for us to see you someplace private? For maybe ten minutes? Someplace where it isn’t raining?” The downpour had soaked through his dark windbreaker.

  My concern about Tom turned to disbelief: The last thing I needed at this moment was another disrupted party and a disgruntled client.

  Are you serious? Can’t this wait?” I hissed indignantly. “Please? Do you know who my husband is? I can come down to the department tomorrow. I’ll answer all the questions you want then.”

  “We know who you are and it can’t wait,” replied the black-haired man grimly. “It’s about Albert Lipscomb.”

  Tom’s words: Shockley’s put himself personally in charge of the investigation. I took a steadying breath. “Let’s get into the kitchen, then.” I opened the door. “Please come quickly before any of the guests see you.”

  They followed me into the foyer, where to my annoyance, they stopped to take in their surroundings. I felt trickle of impatience. Before I met Tom, I’d heartily disliked the police. Perhaps my misgivings about the sheriffs department had developed from the fact that when I was deeply bruised and even more deeply depressed, the cops had been unwilling or unable to lock up the Jerk and toss the key to his cell over the Continental Divide. After the divorce, I’d realized that law enforcement folks, unfortunately, don’t have a whole lot of power in domestic disputes unless someone is killed. Marrying Tom and going through the harrowing experience of having him kidnapped by a would-be killer, I’d also come to realize how dangerous his work with the department could be, and how steadfastly most cops carried out their responsibilities. So my attitude had done a complete turnaround. Nevertheless, in the presence of these two men who now stood brushing raindrops off their clothes in the Trotfields’ art-filled foyer, I couldn’t shake my old feeling of discomfort.

  “Excuse me, but before we go any further, could I see some ID? Quickly?” I asked. I glanced into the living room. No one looked my way.

  The portly redhead with the bulging eyes, I learned, was Investigator Hersey. The black-haired fellow with the missile-shaped head was named De Groot. Neither gave any indication that they knew Tom, which for some reason I didn’t take as a good sign. I handed them back their identification cards, then motioned toward the kitchen.

  Hersey puffed himself up as if to follow, but De Groot kept his muddy boots planted on the Trotfields’ Oriental runner. He patted his greasy black hair and stared intently at the deep blue canvas that had so puzzled Arch. After a few moments he leaned over and brought his face up close to the painted cigarette image.

  “It’s by Robert Motherwell,” I said, still impatient.

  “It’s – “

  “One of his Gauloise paintings,” De Groot said without looking away from the painting. Then he straightened and gave me a deadpan look. “The series he started after The Elegies to the Spanish republic.”

  “Do you mind, sir?” I whispered. “Could we please go out to the kitchen? I’m trying to do a job here.” De Groot raised his shaggy black eyebrows. When he didn’t move, I rushed on with: “The Trotfields are very wealthy art collectors. I’ll tell you all about it if you’ll come out to the kitchen and ask your ten minutes worth of questions there.”

  De Groot stared straight into my eyes as he said, “Very wealthy like your friend Marla Korman?”

  I could feel the color rise in my cheeks. What was going on here? Hersey walked past me into the kitchen. De Groot lifted his pointy chin and swaggered after him. I peeked into the living room. Sandy Trotfield wrinkled his forehead at me and scowled. Doggone it. Caterer caught with cops. I smiled and gave him a thumbs-up, but he looked past me into the foyer, puzzled If this inopportune visit from the sheriffs department ruined this party the way Marla’s fight had wrecked the mine party, I would have Captain Shockley’s head on a platter.

  Arch had removed his headphones and was saying, “… Well, she’s my mother,” when I banged through the kitchen door. My son gave me a bewildered look. I asked him to tend to the buffet platters and told him I would be talking to these men for ten minutes or less.

  “You know you can’t question a minor without a parent present. What’s the matter with you two?” I demanded angrily once Arch had made a wordless exit. “And what’s so important it can’t wait for me to get home?” Next to the counter where the raspberry pies sat partially decorated and unsliced, De Groot stood at attention. I guessed he wasn’t going to have a go at the Rothko above the kitchen table. Hersey leaned his muscled body against a convection oven. There was a small notebook in one of his meaty hands. For guys who had been in some kind of hurry, they now seemed to have reverted to a designed-to-be-infuriating interrogation technique. Or maybe they were waiting for me to offer them food. It’s not going to happen, guys.

  Finally Hersey hauled himself up. “Nothing to worry about, Mrs. Schulz. We just need to ask about an event you catered this past Saturday at the Eurydice Mine. Did you know that was one of the last times anyone saw Albert Lipscomb before his disappearance?”

  “No, I guess I didn’t know that,” I replied. I glared at the cops. Maybe I could get information from them. “What do you mean, one of the last times?”

  They ignored this. De Groot said, “And your function at the party was what?”

  “I’m sure you’re aware I was just the caterer, not a guest. I’d never met most of those people before.” I paused, because I knew they’d want me to clarify that. “Excuse me. The people I knew at the party were Marla Korman, Tony Royce, ah … Eileen Tobey from the bank and… let’s see, the Hardcastles I’ve known for a while and … the Trotfields. Oh yes, and I know Sam Perdue.”

  “Did you talk to Albert Lipscomb during the party?” De Groot’s pitted face was inscrutable.

  I shrugged. “Not much. He asked about the food I was serving. He said Prospect Financial would consider having me cater a picnic. He was just being polite, I think. Why do you want to know if I talked to him?”

  “Please, Mrs. Schulz. Let us ask the questions. So you’re saying… he was enjoying the party,” De Groot concluded. “For a while, anyway. Until he got into a fight with your friend Marla.”

  “An argument, I’d call it. Not a fight,” I said firmly.

  “Argument about what?” asked De Groot. His eye finally caught the Rothko, but this time, apparently, I was going to be spared further enlightenment on the history of abstract expressionism.

  “Who sent you?” I demanded. “Why didn’t Tom come ask me these questions himself?”

  Hersey said, “Investigator Schulz isn’t on this case.”

  “That’s not normal, is it?” I asked mildly. “Tom does more than homicide, and he usually heads cases like this. He does forgery, mail theft. And missing persons,” I added after a pause.

  Hersey retorted, “It’s normal for an investigator to be removed from a case when he knows some of the people in the investigation. We’re under direct orders from our captain. Now, please, Mrs. Schulz. Just tell us about this fight on Saturday between Mr. Lipscomb and Ms. Korman. Did you hear them?”

  I paused a beat before saying, “Not really. They were outside of the tent where I was catering, and hail was coming down rather hard.”

  “Whose idea was that?” asked De Groot. “To go out in the hail? Your friend Marla’s? How did Albert Lipscomb react to a client dragging him out into the hail to fight?”

  “Did Captain Shockley say Marla dragged Albert out into the hail?” I retorted. Neither cop replied. “There was no dragging. Albert went outside first, then Marla followed him.” I tsked. What was their game plan here? Whatever it was, I had to get the raspberry tarts ready. I glared at De Groot. “I need to work, if you don’t mind.”

  De Groot moved away from the counter. I quickly spooned the rest of the whipped cream on all the pies, then sprinkled them with fresh, plump raspberries. I cut each tart into eight equal pieces, then levered the thick slices out and put them on individual plates.

  Hersey asked, “What
were Albert and Marla fighting about?”

  Marla had told me the cops had been around her home asking questions, so these guys surely already knew the answer to that one. “The lab doing the assays for Eurydice ore,” I said impatiendy. “You know Marla is a Prospect client. I think she was upset about how Albert was handling an investment. I can’t believe you haven’t been able to learn all you need to know about this from other people who were at the party. Everyone was listening.”

  At that moment, Sandy Trotfield pushed into the kitchen. When he saw the two policemen, he recoiled.

  “What are you two doing here again? Wasn’t one investigative visit enough?” he demanded. “We’re trying to have a party. First you bother us, now you’re bothering our caterer. Why can’t you keep normal hours?”

  “We’ll be done in a few minutes,” De Groot said with a curt nod.

  “Some people are asking about coffee and dessert,” Sandy Trotfield announced to me, as if the two policemen weren’t there.

  “Coming right up,” I replied. Sandy stormed out of the kitchen. So the two policemen had already visited the Trotfields. Maybe that was when De Groot had gotten his art lesson. To Hersey, I said, “So you’ve talked to everyone who was at the party?”

  “Just about.”

  I switched on the coffeepot. “Then do me a favor and don’t belabor this. If you’re working directly for Captain Shockley, he ought to be able to tell you what happened.” Emphasis on the ought, I added mentally. “After all, he was there, too.”

  Hersey said, “Shockley said you helped break up the fight. You were right next to Albert Lipscomb. How did he seem to you? Like a guy whose scam had been discovered? Like, now that something had come out about the mine, he had to get out of Dodge?”