Footprints in the Butter

by Denise Dietz

  “Please sit down.”

  “At first Wylie savored his success,” she said, ignoring my plea to sit. “It brought him money and power and Patty. Pretty Patty. She couldn’t spend my brother’s money fast enough. He encouraged her, laughed when she bought their mansion on Long Island, their status cars, jewelry. But she desperately wanted a movie career, which he wouldn’t buy her.”

  “Why not?”

  “I think the deal was that she could only perform for him. Tit for tat. Patty’s tit for tattered dreams.”

  God, what a great line! Maybe I could write it into my Bonnie Raitt song, the one about doormats. I’d have to make tit a bird or something, but I could call my song Tattered Dreams.

  “Remember how Patty starred in almost every Colorado Springs Community Theatre production?” Woody asked.

  I nodded.

  “Well, I think she married Wylie because he was accumulating mega-bucks and he planned to move to New York. Broadway beckoned. But Wylie wouldn’t let her audition. He was always so damn stubborn.”

  “I know. Once he got an idea into his head, you couldn’t change his mind. He’d simply manipulate—”

  “Mustard or mayo?”

  “What?”

  “I’m fixing you a club sandwich, Ingrid, with chicken, liverwurst and eggs.”

  “Mustard. Just chicken and eggs, please. Kill the wurst. So what happened to rock the boat?”

  “Patty had an affair.”

  “With who? Whom?”

  “Someone who lives in Colorado Springs.”

  “You’re kidding! When did Patty visit the Springs? And why didn’t Alice spread the news?”

  “Are you kidding? Why would Patty broadcast her visits when she was having an affair?”

  “Yeah, right. Good point.” I felt my cheeks bake. “How did Wylie find out? Private detective?”

  “I don’t know. But Wylie knew. And he threatened Patty with divorce.”

  “Why didn’t she take him up on it? With her settlement she could have financed her own play, or even a small movie.”

  “Patty signed a prenuptial agreement. If they divorced, she’d get practically zero. Here’s your sandwich, Ingrid.”

  “Thanks. Why would Patty sign a prenuptial agreement? I thought Wylie wanted his Somebody-I-Adore very badly. He was nuts about her.”

  “He was nuts about you.” Having served the sandwich, Woody finally sat.

  “Me? That’s crazy. He never even gave one hint—”

  “Wylie couldn’t handle rejection, and you would have rejected him. You were in love with Ben Cassidy. Wylie told me intimate details about you and Ben.”

  “The prom! Wylie must have spied on Ben and me. That’s how he knew about the coach’s mail slot. Then there was Stewie’s wake, marathon sex with Ben. Ohmigod! New York!”

  “New York?”

  “I rejected him and he couldn’t deal with that. Never mind. Snagged pantyhose.” Ignoring Woody’s puzzled expression, I stood and leaned against the table. “I presume Patty promised to clean up her act.”

  “Correct.”

  “That doesn’t explain the fortune cookies.”

  “Enter Junior Hartsel.”

  “Junior? I don’t understand.”

  “Eat your sandwich and let me talk.”

  “Sorry.” I plopped my butt onto the chair again. It was a comfortable chair, the white cushions patterned with those adorable Jewish ducks, ducks that wore kerchiefs on their heads and looked like they quacked in Yiddish.

  “Junior had this brilliant advertising scheme,” said Woody. “He wanted to produce fortune cookies with ads inside. For example, the strip of paper might read ‘A single rose for the living is better than a costly wreath at the grave.’ On the back it would say So-and-So’s Flower Boutique, address and phone number. Junior wanted my brother to invest.”

  “But the cookies I saw didn’t—”

  “Let me finish.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I was involved because of my P.R. background. Before I went into layout and composition, I sold ads. Anyway, Wylie thought the idea stupid, but he led poor Junior on a merry chase. They flew to Houston and met with me to discuss details. Junior had computer printouts that showed labor costs, profit margins, test markets, even a name for the corporation. Coyote’s Cookies. Wylie suggested Acme.”

  “Of course. Roadrunner cartoons. Wylie always loved them.”

  “Junior was ecstatic. Then, after weeks of procrastination, my brother reneged.”

  “Why would Wylie do that to Junior?”

  “His thing about jocks.”

  My sandwich tasted like sawdust as I suddenly realized that Wylie had spiked the prom punch on purpose, challenged Dwight on purpose, even if it placed all of us in danger. Wylie had always been intuitive. He knew that Dwight, drunk or sober, wouldn’t let anybody drive his new convertible. Had the top been down? Yes. Wylie had sat on the folded-down top, his legs dangling around Alice. Patty had sat in Stewie’s lap while I had sat in Ben’s. Tad had perched up front, next to Dwight, so that he could cop a feel every now and then. And nobody had suspected Wylie’s ingenuity. Or his duplicity.

  “Wylie,” Woody said, “took it one step further. Using Junior’s computer printout, he established The Four Leaf Clover Company. Then he began to test market his own cookies.”

  “But I thought he thought the idea was stupid.”

  “Wylie didn’t care if he lost money. You see, my brother no longer savored success, don’t ask me why.”

  I didn’t have to ask. I knew why. Wylie honestly believed he’d sold out, and the price of his success wasn’t happiness, or even self-fulfillment. He hadn’t gone from nothing to something, except financially. He hadn’t developed that God-given talent, merely exploited it. Which in my book, and Horatio Alger’s book, was okay. Except Horatio Alger preached hard work and resistance to temptation. In the beginning, Wylie had tempted resisters with his satirical antiwar lampoons. Then he had tempted investors. Finally, inevitably, he had succumbed to temptation.

  Had it led to his death?

  He must have known death was a possibility, else why the treasure hunt? Why leave the painting to me?

  Because once upon a time we were kindred spirits?

  Because, according to Woody, Wylie was nuts about me?

  Had perfect Patty known that Wylie was nuts about me? Could her motive be jealousy?

  Nah, to quote Kim O’Connor. I wasn’t nuts about Wylie. Besides, according to Patty, her husband had been screwing around for years. Why kill him now?

  Or had Junior killed Wylie?

  Maybe they were working together. Patty for her freedom, Junior for vindication.

  On the other hand, who gave a rat’s spit? After my prom revelation, did I really want to identify Wylie’s killer?

  Of course I did. Because the killer was now after me!

  A contemplative Woody refilled my coffee mug. I sipped through steam then said, “Why did Wylie put your address on the cookie wrappers?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “I suppose Wylie sensed his mortality and felt familial. He bought me a brand new Honda for my birthday last summer, and his card read ‘Sell it or drive it, I don’t care. Love Wylie.’ Love Wylie. There was no comma. I was supposed to love him…” She paused and shrugged.

  I didn’t mention that her Prelude still squatted in her carport. Or that her eyes had been very red when I knocked on her door. Truthfully, Woody and Wylie’s love-hate relationship was none of my business. Unless she had traveled to Colorado Springs and bopped her brother over the head. Unless she had seen my rental car earlier, followed me, written it’s time to stray on my motel mirror, stolen my credit cards, and slashed my mattress with a stupid guitar-handled knife.

  “Your address,” I prompted.

  “Before he started test marketing cookies, Wylie put the company in my name. He wanted any profits to go to me, his pet charity. You see,
I would never take a penny from him.” She tried to shrug again, but her shoulders were still humped from the first shrug. “My attorney is dissolving all assets even as we speak.”

  “Are there any assets?”

  “Yes. Wylie didn’t take a bank loan or private loan to pay for his new business. He dissolved his own assets and paid cash for everything. Bakery equipment, a fleet of trucks. It was like that Richard Pryor movie.”

  “Brewster’s Millions. The premise was to spend millions of dollars within a certain time limit. Pryor’s film was a remake. When we were kids, Patty and I watched the original on TV, and we would type up long lists, determining how we’d spend the money. Does Patty know about the fortune cookies?”

  “I guess. Why?”

  “She might have planned Wylie’s murder to stop his wild spending.”

  Woody looked startled, and my guess was that she suspected Junior Hartsel.

  As if she’d read my mind, she said, “I thought about turning the company over to Junior, I really did, but I wasn’t sure Wylie would approve.”

  “How could he approve or disapprove? He’s dead.”

  “I know. But Wylie always promised he’d resurrect as a Stephen King corpse.” This time her shrug was emphatic.

  “Woody,” I said, “your walls are so…unadorned. How come you don’t have any Wylie Jamestone paintings prominently displayed? Every home I’ve entered recently sports at least one.”

  “I own one, but I keep it upstairs, inside the guest room closet.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t like it. Art should be pretty.”

  Rising, she approached the kitchen counter, grabbed a pad and pencil, and returned to her chair. Within minutes she had sketched a truly remarkable representation of Woody Allen. Or was it Wylie? No. It was Allen. The face on the pad wore glasses and he wasn’t bald. His bubbled blurb read: THE LION AND THE CALF SHALL LIE DOWN TOGETHER BUT THE CALF WON’T GET MUCH SLEEP.

  “Woody,” I said, “that’s great.”

  “No big deal.”

  “Who’s the calf?”

  Her lopsided grin appeared. “I underestimated your intelligence, Ingrid. Patty’s the lion.”

  “But you seemed startled when I suggested that Patty might have killed your brother.”

  “True. Then I remembered what you said before, when we first began this inquisition. You said that Wylie had left you a painting of Doris Day.”

  “So?”

  “Patty always wanted to emulate Doris Day. Or Debbie Reynolds. Or Sandra Dee. Audrey Hepburn came in fourth.”

  “No, first. Wait a sec! Wylie never made his clues that easy. And if, in this case he did, why would Patty hand over the painting?”

  “The police had already seen it so she couldn’t pretend it didn’t exist.”

  “The police didn’t believe it meant anything. They thought Wylie was playing one of his dumb treasure hunts.” Woody started to speak, but I held up my hand like a school crossing guard. “Okay, your brother was never dumb. But why didn’t Patty simply give me a different painting?”

  “I don’t know, Ingrid. Maybe she wasn’t thinking straight. Even if she planned Wylie’s murder, she’d still be agitated.”

  “I saw her the day after the murder. She was very calm.” I remembered Patty’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s crying jag. “I guess she wasn’t all that calm.” The Houston sun was beginning to spike the foggy dew. “Maybe Patty thought I couldn’t decipher Wylie’s painting. After all, the virgin clue is a tad obtuse.”

  “What virgin clue?”

  I told Woody about Doris and Rock. “Who did we know before she was a virgin?”

  “You. Patty.”

  “Who else?”

  “Alice Cooper.”

  “How long has Wylie been sleeping with Alice?”

  Woody looked startled again. “How the hell did you know that?”

  “Long story. Answer my question. Please?”

  “It started when he learned about Patty’s affair.”

  “Why Alice?”

  “I think Wylie thought Alice would tell the world, or at least print it in one of her chatty newsletters. Guess what, folks? I boffed Wylie Jamestone.”

  “Buffed.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Alice says buffed for boffed.”

  “For the first time in her life,” Woody murmured, “Alice kept her mouth shut.”

  “An ironic twist of fate!”

  “Wylie wanted Patty to feel embarrassed, maybe even mortified. Revenge.”

  “Damn, Wylie was courting death like a moth drawn to a flame.” I had a sudden thought. “How recent is the painting you’ve hidden away upstairs?”

  “Very. It was on the front seat of my birthday car.”

  “Could I see it?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  Woody led the way up a short flight of shag-carpeted steps, entered a standard guest room, and flicked a light switch—unnecessary, since the sun was now spreading across the sky like soft butter. Opening the closet door, reaching inside, she pulled out the painting. It was unframed, gathering dust.

  I scrutinized the portrait.

  Long black hair, lots of makeup, and a nose the size of Texas. Well, maybe New Mexico. Alice Cooper! His blurb read: THE FUN THING ABOUT BEING SOBER IS MEETING ALL THE FRIENDS I’VE HAD FOR YEARS—ESPECIALLY THE ONE’S I’VE NEVER MET.

  Was Woody’s painting another clue? Could Wylie have meant that Alice was planning to murder him? No. Much too obvious!

  Or was it? Wylie had been sleeping with Alice before the reunion, which explained why he had arrived a few days early. That way he could secretly meet and “buff” Alice.

  Meeting all the friends I’ve had for years.

  Woody had celebrated her birthday last summer. But Alice had touted our fun reunion months ahead of time.

  The fun thing about being sober.

  I drank. Wylie drank. So did Ben. And Tad. And Junior. Dwight didn’t drink, not since the senior prom. Patty didn’t drink either, for the same reason. Yes, she did. The bloody Bloody Marys. Bingo drank. Excessively. Stoli neat. Stoli not so neat, especially after he’d downed a few doubles.

  Especially the ones I’ve never met.

  Had Wylie ever met Bingo? Not that I could recall.

  I glanced toward Woody’s open closet. Was Alice a closet alcoholic? She was definitely a closet nymphomaniac. She had been our friend for years, but we’d never really met her.

  Refocusing on Woody, I saw something I had never seen before. Though mussed, her hair looked as soft as a duck’s downy butt. Her eyes, no longer red-rimmed, were very blue, fringed by thick, dark lashes. She was beautiful, and I had a sudden gut-wrench, ashamed of the nickname we had bestowed upon her. Woody wasn’t a Woody. She was a Diane. No, Diana. Goddess of the forest.

  My gaze darted back to Wylie’s painting. It had to mean something. Our reunion was too coincidental.

  Although I hadn’t mused out loud, Woody nodded. “Ingrid,” she said, “I think you should pay your friend Alice Shaw Cooper a visit.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  My return flight encountered turbulence. I was so scared my spit just about dried up, but saliva deprivation wasn’t caused by my fear that we might crash. It was caused by the mirror message, Wylie’s cruel rejection of Junior, Wylie’s prom duplicity, and Woody’s Alice Cooper painting.

  The plot sickened.

  Mesmerized by my fasten-your-seatbelt sign, I thought about trivialities. Like how I would have to call the credit card companies, apply for a new driver’s license, and—damn!

  If the thief wasn’t a Clover, she now knew my address!

  I had discovered the loss of my license early this morning. Worming my way toward Houston, spying a police cruiser, I had instinctively opened my purse and groped for my license. Habit.

  Last night Butler had accepted Buddy’s introduction and my subsequent correction without proof, probably because I wasn’t chained to some recruitment c
enter gate.

  Had the thief appropriated my house and car keys?

  Yes. Fortunately, I kept a spare car key in one of those miniature magnetized boxes that stick to your fender. Fortunately, I knew how to pry open my kitchen window from the outside.

  I didn’t have to pry.

  Scrunching Jeep’s tires close to my curb, I glimpsed a tall shadowy figure pacing up and down my family room.

  The mirror message kleptomaniac?

  If yes, why wasn’t Hitchcock barking? Because it was probably Barry Isaac Nicholas Gregory Oates, that’s why. And he had probably crept inside my house, just like Kim O’Connor crept inside Patty’s borrowed house. By butt-crawling through Hitchcock’s humongous doggie door.

  Walking toward the front porch, I heard music. Martha and the Vandellas. “My Baby Won’t Come Back.”

  Bingo!

  It had to be Bingo, trespassing bastard!

  It wasn’t. It was Ben. And he hadn’t butt-squirmed through the doggie door because he still had his key.

  “There’s stew simmering in your crock pot,” he said, turning off the stereo, “and some freshly brewed coffee. Or, considering your disheveled appearance, would you prefer a shot of vodka?”

  “No, thanks. The fun thing about being sober is meeting old friends,” I paraphrased.

  “What?”

  “Everybody keeps telling me I look like shit.”

  “I didn’t say you looked like shit.”

  “Where’s your car?”

  “Parked up the block, across the street.”

  “Why?”

  “When I arrived, there was some sort of party next door. My guess would be a baby shower.”

  “Good guess. My neighbor’s daughter got pregnant around the same time as her Collie. Oh, God! I keep forgetting that normal things happen while I play hide and seek.”

  “Kick the can, not hide and seek.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You can kick my can, babe.”

  “I don’t understand.” Wearily, I ran my fingers through my bangs and rubbed my eyes. “Ben, what are you doing here?”

  “Waiting.”

  “Right,” I said patiently, my tone the same one I employed when a producer insisted that he wanted his slasher flick to plagiarize the theme from another movie, Jaws for instance. “May I ask why you’re waiting?”