Sticks & Scones

by Diane Mott Davidson

  Not merely rough around the edges, my mind supplied, but sharp and dangerous.

  We entered the arcade on the west side of the courtyard. Eliot tapped numbers on a security keypad beside a massive wooden door. “Of course,” he added, “Chardé does disrupt us sometimes, coming in unannounced to try new paints and toss swatches all over the place. I bumped into her one night when I was coming over to work on my jams. I didn’t even realize Sukie had given her the security code, but Sukie said Chardé insisted, that it would make the decorating effort easier for everyone.”

  Doggone it, I thought as I moved through the wooden doorway into a hallway lit by new windows on the arcade side. The last thing I could tolerate in the middle of the night was crashing into Chardé Lauderdale. Eliot touched a switch, and electrified torches on the far wall illuminated tapestries of battle scenes.

  “Mr. Hyde,” I began, as I hugged myself to warm up. “We’re very thankful you could have us here. But if Chardé and Buddy Lauderdale can’t be kept out of the castle, then my husband and I need to take Arch and Julian somewhere else. The Lauderdales and I … are in conflict, as you know, from that New Year’s party. They might have shot at our house. They might even be the ones who shot Tom.”

  Eliot’s brown eyes shone with indulgence. “They would never do such things. In any case, dear Goldy, you, your husband, your child, your dear young friend—you are all perfectly safe. Each suite has a security pad outside the room, did Sukie not show you? You determine your own code. Once you set it inside your room, no one can come through your door. The instructions are in your night tables.” He waved at a tapestry of a unicorn. “When Chardé figures out the colors for the last paint jobs, we’ll change the gatehouse codes and she won’t be back.”

  I asked hesitantly, “How much do you really know about the Lauderdales?”

  “We’ve been friends …well, since all the hoopla about the letter, and I bought our first Jaguar. I’ll tell you what I know: The Lauderdales are so concerned about looking rich, they’re lavishing money they don’t have on charity. For example, we’re happy Buddy helped pay for the refurbishment of the labyrinth. But when I tried to convince him to have a salesman recognition dinner here, he said entertaining his employees was not something he really did. My take on it was that a salesmen’s dinner doesn’t pack as much prestigious punch as a lavish gift to the church, and therefore isn’t worth more debt.”

  “Do you know I saw him shake his baby until she passed out? That he was arrested?”

  “Of course,” Eliot replied, with more regal regret. “And I know his reputation has suffered. But I can’t believe that he would go out shooting windows and people.”

  I shook my head. How did you get through to someone who believed the only problem with being caught half killing a child was what it did to your reputation? Without further discussion, Eliot ushered me into his study, a large, mahogany-paneled room. Outside, the clouds had softened to luminescent puffs, and light streamed through a leaded-glass bay window. In the room itself, the illuminated bookcases and massive desk were decorated with models of ships and castles, brass flasks and horns, and other British-male accoutrements. Royal-blue carpeting, blue-and-gold draperies, brass fixtures, and oxblood leather chairs all screamed English Club—no doubt exactly what Eliot had told Chardé he wanted.

  “Lovely,” I breathed.

  “Thank you.” He seated himself at his gargantuan desk and launched into an explanation of what we needed to do. “The lunch menu for the labyrinth donors we have all set, with two minor changes. The priest from Saint Luke’s is allowing me to give a pitch about the conference center after the lunch.” Eliot sniffed. “Awfully big of him, seeing as how Saint Luke’s now possesses a genuine medieval chapel. Anyway, Sukie would like to simplify things and offer caviar with toast points, onion toasts, and English cheese puffs for hors d’oeuvres.” He waved his hand. “We already have these from mail order. But we still need a first course, which should be English-y.”

  English-y. I nodded.

  “Do you have a recipe on your disk for an Elizabethan-style soup?” he asked, worried. “A soup not running and not standing, as they say?”

  “I do,” I said, thankful I had picked up the disk, even if I’d gotten banged up in the process. “How about a hot cream of chicken soup made with rosemary and thyme, both herbs mentioned by Shakespeare?”

  “Wonderful,” Eliot replied with a sigh. “Now, for Friday’s plum tart.” He opened a drawer, drew out a small brass box, then dumped the sparkling contents onto a leather-edged blue blotter. “Zirconia,” he said proudly, “to be tucked into the plums.”

  I nodded, not having a clue how I would conceal the stones so that guests wouldn’t accidentally ingest them. “Okey-doke.”

  “Now,” Eliot continued, as he fingered a miniature brass cannon, “for the banquet. We can’t just have food; the fencing team must have entertainment and games. You don’t suppose the boys and girls would be interested in English country dances, do you?”

  “Uh … no.”

  “It’s too bad we don’t have a small troupe of players to act for us.” He tapped a long finger on the leather blotter. “Or better, musicians.”

  “Sukie said you were researching games?” I ventured. “I seem to remember the Elizabethans loved to make wagers. Right?”

  He looked as if I’d said excrement. “Wagers? Ah, yes, I suppose I do know they were gamblers. But I can’t allow the castle to be the scene of—”

  “I’m not talking Las Vegas. You should steer clear of financial wagers, because the parents won’t be happy if the kids beg for dough. But how about some small ball games, in addition to the fencing demonstration?”

  “Brilliant!” he exclaimed, slapping the desk. “Penny prick! Shuttlecock! We’ll use half of the Great Hall for the games! Can you give the food some game-playing names?”

  “We can have the veal roast with …” I frowned, then inspiration struck. “Penny-Prick Potato Casserole. Raisin Rice with … Shuttlecock Shrimp Curry. I don’t know if you can give molded strawberry salads, steamed broccoli, or chutney and curry side dishes Tudor names. But after the meal, we’ll play games and have the plum tart.”

  “Perfect!” he cried. “I am so delighted I employed you!”

  He beamed, I beamed, the sun beamed in on us. Then he announced he had to go figure out how to arrange the Great Hall. He managed another regal wave, this time in the direction of the telephone, and told me to feel free to make my calls. Mi palacio es su palacio, he announced grandly, then departed.

  The Furman County Sheriff’s Department was first on my list. Once through, I pressed the numbers for Sergeant Boyd’s extension.

  “Listen,” I said after he’d asked about Tom and I’d assured him Tom was on the mend, “you know those intelligence files you keep on people?”

  “For crying out loud, Goldy, you know I can’t give you a file.”

  “I just want to know what you’ve got in one. Viv Martini.”

  “Your ex’s new girlfriend? How do you think that’s going to look, somebody hears I’m giving you that information?”

  “Sergeant Boyd, Captain Lambert already told me she slept with Ray Wolff and possibly Andy Balachek. But now she’s doing a complicated real estate deal with John Richard Korman. To be specific, she plunked down a hundred fifty thousand dollars to go in on a condo sale with him in Beaver Creek. He never agrees to joint ownership, so something’s going on.”

  “Where’d she get a hundred fifty thousand bucks?” Boyd’s voice was distant. He was riffling papers.

  “You tell me.”

  “We watched her bank account after those stamps were stolen. Nothing happened.”

  “Well,” I said, “did you all check any stores besides pawnshops after the stamp heist?”

  “I don’t know. Our guys are supposed to, but sometimes they don’t have time to get to specialty places.” He sighed. “Okay, here’s the file. You breathe a word of this, I’m fired
. Viv’s been hooked up with Wolff since she got out of high school. But, let’s see … it says here a snitch in Golden put Viv Martini back … okay, seven years ago, she was shacked up with your good buddy there at the castle, Eliot Hyde.”

  “What?” I glanced around the room. Any listening devices? Where had Eliot gone?

  “That’s what it says.”

  I gulped. “So Andy Balachek and Tom were shot right near Eliot’s property, and Viv Martini, who’s been involved with Andy, possibly, and definitely Andy’s accomplice, Ray, who was arrested by Tom, this same Viv has an old relationship with Eliot Hyde? Did you guys question Eliot after Tom was shot?”

  “Of course we did! He claims not to have seen Viv in years.”

  I shook my head, puzzled. “What possible attraction could there have been between Eliot Hyde and Viv Martini?”

  “For crying out loud, Goldy! She’s good-looking, he’s not bad, he wanted a cute girlfriend and she figured he was loaded. Our snitch says she wanted him to start an illegal casino there. This was just when gambling was legalized, but only for Central City and Blackhawk. The snitch says Viv wanted to accommodate the home-town gamblers at the castle. They could use all those halls and rooms to hide people, in case of a cop raid.”

  Remembering how Eliot had blanched at my mention of wagers, I still felt skeptical. “Was this casino-castle her idea? Or Ray Wolff’s?”

  “Who knows? All I know is Eliot nixed it, said it would make him look bad if he was caught, and he couldn’t afford that.” Boyd paused, and I thought of Eliot’s sensitivity regarding reputation. Boyd asked, “How’d you find out about the condo?”

  “I have my snitches, too, Sergeant.” When he sighed again, I asked, “What about those specialty stores, then? Any stamps show up there?”

  “Why, you got something I need to know?” When I said I didn’t, he went on: “The insurer for The Stamp Fox is hiring a private investigator, and has promised to share anything he gets. We’re concentrating on the investigations into the deaths of the driver and Balachek.”

  “You must have investigated Viv Martini.”

  “Of course. She was sleeping with your ex-husband all night Sunday night. And they weren’t getting much sleep, according to your ex. Please don’t interrogate either one of them.”

  “Whatever you say,” I replied, then pretended to ponder a bit. “Listen,” I said, trying to sound thoughtful, “do Buddy and Chardé Lauderdale have alibis for the time Tom was shot? A little while ago, they were both here at Hyde Castle, giving me a hard time.”

  “What kind of hard time?”

  I told him about the incident in the Hydes’ kitchen, to which Boyd replied, “Their alibi is each other. Oh, and we checked on Sukie Hyde’s first husband. One of his guys was on the roof with him when he stepped on a stray wire from a bathroom fan. Nobody seemed to think it was suspicious.” He paused. “But here’s something related to the stamp heist. Our friend Buddy Lauderdale was in The Stamp Fox a month before the theft, asking about values. He said he wanted to invest in stamps, but never did.” When I made a hmm-ing noise, Boyd warned me to be careful, that Buddy Lauderdale was reputedly one of the best shots in the county. I promised him I would be, and signed off.

  One thing was certain. There was no way I was waiting for some faraway insurance company to get around to hiring an investigator. Eliot’s lowest desk drawer yielded a Yellow Pages, and under “Stamps—Collectors,” I found four shops in the Denver area. I blithely let my fingers do the walking while presenting myself as Francesca Chastain, collector of any stamp with a picture of royalty. Price, I said, was no object. Even over the phone, you could hear those store owners’ hearts speed up.

  The first three, general dealers in stamps and coins, said they hadn’t seen a cover with Queen Victoria on it anywhere but at stamp shows. But the fourth philatelic dealer, an estate auction agent named Troy McIntire operating out of his home in Golden, gave me an evasive reply.

  “What exactly are you looking for?” McIntire demanded.

  “I collect anything with kings or queens on the stamps. What I’m especially looking for is covers with Queen Victoria on them.”

  “I might be able to help you,” McIntire said, with a forced reluctance that sounded cagey. “If price really is no object, and the price is paid in cash.”

  I eagerly made an appointment for that afternoon, then leafed through the phone book for Southwest Hospital. I talked to three nurses before I located the flight nurse who had helped Tom. Her name was Norma Randall. She was on duty on the third floor, and said she could talk for five minutes.

  “The cop,” Norma Randall said, remembering. “Day before yesterday? Tom? Couldn’t forget him. Or you, either. He’s doing okay?”

  “Yes,” I replied. “Thanks to you all. You … seemed to be … more experienced than most flight nurses.” Once you passed thirty, I’d observed, being experienced was the euphemism for being older.

  She laughed. “I’ve been doing it a long time. Too long, I think sometimes.” She paused. “Weren’t you married to Dr. John Richard Korman?” When I replied that I was, she went on: “I worked with him one time, after we brought in an Aspen Meadow woman with a retained placenta.”

  I made a noncommittal mm-mm noise.

  “Don’t worry, he did a fine job,” she said, reading my mind. “What can I do for you now?”

  “I don’t want to keep you, Norma, but I’m … trying to locate a cousin who’s a flight nurse. Where did you do your nursing training?”

  “Nebraska.”

  “Well,” I said boldly, “do you know anyone at the hospital who would have gone to The Front Range School of Nursing in the late sixties? I’m particularly interested in women who would have had flight nurse training.”

  She said she didn’t know anyone off the top of her head, but her relief had just come in, and she could ask a few people, if I wanted. I thanked her and said I didn’t mind being put on hold.

  “I found one of the older ER techs,” she informed me triumphantly on her return. “He told me there was a flight nurse named Connie Oliver who graduated from Front Range at about the time you’re talking about. He thinks she may have switched to being a school nurse. Denver or Furman County.”

  I thanked Nurse Randall and signed off, then decided to bypass Denver and hope for luck with Furman County Schools’ central office. I was listening to the choices of an automated phone-answering system when rapping at the study door nearly made me drop the phone.

  Julian cried, “Breakfast! And it came from across the North Pole, via the castle garden!” Flourishing a large silver tray, he pushed through the heavy door. Michaela Kirovsky followed him, holding a coffeepot. Julian’s energy filled the study as he bounced forward. “Hey, boss?” he asked me with a grin. “Don’t give me that look like you can’t eat.” When I hastily hung up, he cried, “Hey! Wha’d you swallow, a canary?”

  CHAPTER 17

  You’re going to love this,” Julian announced as he set the tray laden with golden-glazed miniature Bundt cakes on Eliot’s desk. It was actually two trays, one on top of the other.

  “Got multiple orders for room service?” I asked mildly. “When in doubt, Bundt?”

  “I’m putting half of this on the other tray for Tom. He’s still asleep, I just checked. Michaela’s helping because she forgot some equipment and had to come back to the castle.” In addition to the cakes sparkling with orange zest and sugar, there were two plastic-wrapped crystal bowls. Julian pulled off the plastic and revealed snowy yogurt artfully topped with slices of kiwi, strawberry, banana, apple, and plum. “Oh,” he said, “I’m saving that sweet bread you made for later, since it was too hot to cut. I made these orange cakes last night while the dinner was cooking.” He glanced around the study and wrinkled his nose. “Man! What decade is it?”

  “Any decade you want, for a price,” Michaela supplied with a wicked smile.

  “Do I detect animosity toward the decorator?” I asked mildly.
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  Michaela snorted. “Chardé keeps asking when she gets to do my place. I keep telling Eliot: Never.”

  When she didn’t elaborate, I said, “Thanks for bringing the goodies over, guys. I thought if I didn’t have caffeine soon, I was going to pass out.”

  Michaela nodded wordlessly as Julian relieved her of the coffeepot and poured me a steaming cup. I thanked him, took a sip—Zowie! good stuff—and glanced at Michaela. Her pale skin glowed in the daylight. But her eyes remained clouded. She pressed her lips together, and I wondered if she thought she’d said too much about Chardé. But there was something else there…. What? Did she know something she wasn’t sharing?

  “Michaela, I need to ask you a question.” When I put down my cup, it clattered in the china saucer. “As you know, my husband was shot next to Hyde Chapel. By Cottonwood Creek, near where poor Andy Balachek’s body was found. You live in the gatehouse, with a view of the front of the castle. Did you see anything at all late Sunday night? Or early Monday morning? People moving? Cars parked?”

  She flushed deeply. “No. Sorry. The police already asked me about that, when they came over to talk to Eliot and Sukie. I don’t have a view of the creek. I didn’t see anything.”

  She’s not telling the truth, my mind insisted. Why? “How about Andy Balachek? Did you keep up with him after his father fixed the dam?”

  More blushing. “Yes,” she replied, “I knew Andy. His mother died when he was little. We used to have a small … club, I guess you’d call it, for locals of Russian and eastern European descent. In my father’s time, we gathered here at the castle, for the holidays. We’d visit and make our favorite foods. Peter and Roberta Balachek always brought baby Andy.” She cleared her throat uneasily. “And then Roberta got cancer and died, and little Andy grew up and became big Andy. We got gambling in the state, and Andy—well, his addiction just about killed poor Peter.” She looked at her hands, struggling visibly to compose herself. “I know Andy was found near where your husband was shot. You want to know all you can about him. There just isn’t much.” She inhaled. “My free period’s almost over. I need to get back to school….”