“No, no, not Keith Andrews …”
“The same. And guess who was trying to get Keith not to publish the articles? Your dear Julian!”
“Oh, God. Are you sure?”
“So I hear. And guess who was sleeping with Schlichtmaier until she supposedly heard the whole background thing from none other than her favorite student, Keith Andrews?”
“I can’t imagine, but I know you’re going to tell me.”
“Mademoiselle Suzanne Ferrell. I don’t know whether they have broken up irreparably, but I’m supposed to find out at the nine o’clock step class.”
“Tell me about this unknown scandal with Miss … who was Schlichtmaier’s predecessor?”
“Pamela Samuelson, I told you.”
“Could you check on it? I’d like to get together with her.”
“She’s moved to another aerobics class, so it’ll be tough.”
“Okay, let me tell Schulz all this.”
Marla giggled suggestively. “Really, I just told this story so you’d have an excuse to call him this morning.”
She rang off with the promise that she would do all this snooping if I paid her in cookies. I promised her Chocolate-Dipped Biscotti, and she swooned.
• • •
I did my yoga, then reflected on the communications network in Aspen Meadow as I dressed. When the town developed from a mountain resort to a place where people lived year-round, the first social institution had been the fire department. In a climate so dry a fire could consume acres of forest in less than a blink, the need for mutual protection had drawn even rugged loners into social contact. With the weather and roads unpredictable in winter, now it was the telephone that people used to tell everything about everybody. That is, if you didn’t have the benefit of step aerobics. But sometimes I would hear so much news about somebody that the next time I saw the person in question, he would look as if he’d aged. Egon Schlichtmaier could easily sprout gray hairs in the next week, and I would never notice.
By the time I got downstairs, the sky had turned the color of charcoal and was beginning to spit flakes of snow onto the pine trees around my house. But the enveloping grayness brought no dark mood. In fact, I realized suddenly, I felt fabulous. The weather was a quilt over a delicious inner coziness. I didn’t want to admit—to Marla, Schulz, Arch, even to myself—what this new state was, but it felt a lot like falling in you-know-what.
Seeing Arch and Julian in the kitchen, however, gave me a jolt of alarm. Julian’s skin was as ashen as the sky outside, and the pouches under his eyes were deep smudges. When we lived and worked at a client’s house over the summer, he went to bed early, was up at six to swim his laps, shower, and dress carefully before setting off for Elk Park Prep. I couldn’t remember when he’d taken the time to swim in the week since Keith’s murder. This morning he looked as if he had had no sleep at all, and he was wearing the same rumpled clothes from the night before. I was beginning to wonder if living with us was the best thing for him. But I didn’t want to get him upset by asking more questions, so I just gave Arch, who was dressed in three layers of green shirts complemented by dark green jeans, a cheery smile. Arch smiled back gleefully.
“Julian’s heating his special chocolate croissants!” he announced. “He says we don’t have time for anything else!” To my look of dismay, Arch added, “Come on, Mom. Have one with your espresso.”
While a chocolate croissant would hardly be Headmaster Perkins’ idea of a nutritious breakfast, I quickly surrendered. Julian was not just a good cook, he was an artist. He had the touch with food and the love of culinary creation that are truly rare, and he’d had early and excellent experience as an assisting pastry chef at his father’s bakery in Bluff, Utah. Given his preference for healthful food, his experimentation with puff pastry was a delightful aberration. In helping with my business Julian had turned out to be worth his weight in Beluga caviar. Or radicchio, which he would prefer. But I knew he had a calculus midterm that afternoon, and I didn’t want him to be bustling around making breakfast in addition to everything else.
“Julian, let me do this,” I said gently.
“Just let me finish!” he said gruffly. He pulled a cookie sheet from the oven. The golden-brown pastry cylinders oozed melted chocolate.
I was saved from having to deal with Julian’s hostility by the phone.
“Goldilocks’ Catering—”
“Feeling good?”
“Yes, yes.”
“How about this, then,” Tom Schulz said. “Are you feeling great?” I could hear his grin. Unfortunately, I could also feel myself blush.
“Of course, what do you expect?” Something about my tone caused both Arch and Julian to turn inquiring faces in my direction. I turned away from them, coloring furiously. “Where are you?”
“At work, drinking probably the worst coffee known to the human species. When can I see you again?”
I wanted that to be soon, and I needed to tell him Marla’s news, but I wasn’t going to say so in front of Julian. “Lunch? Can you come up here? Aspen Meadow Café?”
“If you call the entrees that they serve at that place lunch, then sure. Noon.” And with that summary judgment of nouvelle cuisine, he rang off.
“Arch,” I said when we were all munching the marvelous croissants, “you didn’t tell me you called Tom Schulz about the snake.”
Arch put down his croissant. “Mom,” he said with his earnest voice and look. “What, do you really think I’m going to rely on Mr. Perkins to do anything for me? Come on.”
“Boy, you got that right,” Julian mumbled.
“Still,” I insisted as gently as possible, “I want you to be careful today. Promise?”
He chirped, “Maybe I should just stay home from school.”
“Come on, buster. Just keep everything in your book-bag. Don’t even use your locker.”
Julian lowered his eyebrows, and his mouth tightened stubbornly.
“Hey, I didn’t put the snake in his locker,” I said defensively. “I despise vipers, rodents, and spiders. Detest them. Ask Arch.”
“She does,” said Arch without being asked. “I can’t have hamsters or gerbils. I can’t even have an ant farm.” He swallowed the last bite of his croissant, wiped his mouth, and got up from the table. “You should add insects to that list.”
Arch clomped upstairs to finish getting ready for school. As soon as he was gone, Julian leaned toward me conspiratorially. His haggard face made my heart ache.
“I’m going to help him with his classes. You know, set up a study schedule, encourage him, like that. We’re going to work in the dining room each night, if that’s okay with you. There’s more room there.”
“Julian, you do not have time to—”
My phone rang again. It was going to be one of those days.
“Let me get it.” Julian jumped up and grabbed the receiver, but instead of giving my business greeting, he said, “Yeah?”
I certainly hoped it was not an Aspen Meadow Country Club client. Julian mouthed, “Greer Dawson,” and I shook my head.
Julian said, “What? You’re kidding.” Silence. “Oh, well, I’m busy anyway.” Then he handed me the phone and said “Bitch” under his breath.
I said, “Yes, Greer, what can I do for you?”
Her voice was high, stiff, formal. “I’ve developed a new raspberry preserve I’d like you to try, Goldy. It’s … exquisite. We want you to use it in a Linzertorte that you could make for the café.”
“Oh, really? Who’s we?”
She tsked.
“Let me think about it, Greer.”
“Well, how long will that take? I need to know before the end of the school day so I can put it on my application that I have to get in the mail.”
“Put what on your application?”
“That I developed a commercially successful recipe for raspberry preserve.”
I detest ultimatums, especially those delivered before eight o’clock in the mo
rning. “Tell your mother I’ll stop into the café kitchen just before noon to try it out and talk to her about it.” Without waiting for an answer, I hung up. My croissant was cold. I turned to Julian. “What are you mad at her about?”
“We were supposed to be partners in quizzing each other before the SATs. I didn’t do as well as I wanted to last year, too nervous, I guess, so I really wanted to, you know, review. Miss Ferrell”—he pronounced the name with the profound disgust of the young—“says we shouldn’t need this kind of cramming, but she encouraged us to go over a few things anyway. I quizzed Greer yesterday. But instead of quizzing me, Greer has to rush down to Denver for her last session of private SAT review.” His shoulders slumped. “Oh, well. It’ll give me more time to get started with Arch. We can use the school library.”
“Why don’t you go to the SAT review with Greer?” I asked innocently.
He pushed his chair back from the table. “Where am I supposed to get a thousand bucks?”
It was a rhetorical question, and we both knew it. But before I could say that I would be more than happy to quiz him myself, Julian slammed out of the kitchen.
9
After the boys left, I fixed a cup of espresso and took it out on the deck off the kitchen. Only a few pillows of white now floated across the sky. The heavy, dark clouds had passed after dropping less than an inch of snow. I brushed melting snow and ice off a redwood bench with one towel and sat on another. It was really too cold to be outside, but the air felt invigorating. In the deep blue of the sky, the sun shone. The snow heaped on each tree branch glittered like mounds of sugar.
It was the kind of moment where you wanted every clock and watch in the galaxy to stop. Yes, someone had horribly murdered Keith Andrews. And someone was threatening us; Arch was having trouble in school; loads of bookkeeping, cooking, and cleaning awaited me. I had people to call, food to order, schedules to set. But for the moment, that could all wait. I inhaled snow-chilled air. The espresso tasted marvelously strong and rich. One thing I had learned in the past few years was that when the great moments came, you should stop and enjoy them, because they weren’t going to last.
And then the flowers began to arrive. First there were pots of freesias. Papery white, yellow, and purple blossoms filled my hall and kitchen with their delicate sweet scent. Then came daisies with heather and an enormous basket of gladiolus, astromeria, and snapdragons. Finally, the florist handed me a box of long-stemmed scarlet roses. He didn’t know the occasion and looked to me for signals about whether to act sad or happy. I didn’t give any clues, so the fellow remained stony-faced. They must teach you to be emotionally removed in florist school. I arranged the roses in a tall ceramic vase Arch had made in the same sixth-grade art class that had produced the woodcut at Schulz’s. My kitchen smelled like a florist’s refrigerator.
The phone rang. Apparently Schulz couldn’t wait to see if the greenhouse had begun to arrive.
I trilled, “Goldilocks’ Florist—”
“Huh? Goldy? You okay?”
Audrey Coopersmith.
“No,” I said without missing a beat, “I need you to come help me. You see, after dealing with all these fruitcakes, I’ve gone nuts.”
There was a pause. Tentatively, Audrey began, “Want me to call back in a little bit?”
Depressed people, especially those going through divorce, have a hard time with jokes. They need humor, but it’s like a bank account that has been suddenly frozen. Still, I would be the last one to explain.
“Well, uh,” Audrey continued, floundering, “we’ve got a bit of a problem. Headmaster Perkins just called. He was wondering if we could bring out some cookies around lunchtime. They’re having an unofficial visit from the Stanford rep.”
“Sorry to say,” I replied happily, “I’m busy for lunch.”
“But Goldy”—and there was a distinct whine in her voice—“I can help you. And I think it would be such a great experience for Heather to meet the Stanford representative. You see, Carl doesn’t care at all about where she goes to school, so I’m the one left with the responsibility … can’t you just help me with this? I’m really going through a bad time now … it’s not that big a deal for you, probably, but …”
Heather? What did Heather have to do with the cookies? I had to bake in order to pave the way for Heather Coopersmith to interview for the college of her dreams—correction, her mother’s dreams?
“Look, Audrey, I’m in a good mood and I’m trying to stay that way. Why didn’t Perkins call me himself? I could give the school some ideas about snacks for the Stanford rep.”
“He said he tried to call you earlier but your line was busy. I’m telling you, Goldy, he’s willing to pay for at least six dozen, and I can help by taking them over to the school, with Heather, of course, and the rep—” She hesitated. “You just don’t understand: Stanford never sends a rep to Elk Park Prep. They figure they don’t need to—”
“So give the guy some frozen yogurt! Tell him to pretend he’s in northern California!”
Audrey sighed bleakly and said nothing. I guess I wasn’t acting like a caterer who wanted business, was I? I made a few rapid calculations. Okay, there was the Rocky Mountain Stanford Club, maybe they’d need a big catered luncheon sometime. And Stanford played the University of Colorado in football, so perhaps I could rustle up a tailgate affair in Boulder this fall or next. Impressing the rep might not be such a bad idea.
“All right,” I said. “How about some granola?” Audrey’s silence remained disapproving. “Just kidding. Look, I’ll come up with something. But Perkins needs to make very clear to this guy the name of the caterer making the cookies. And you can also tell Perkins this is going to cost him. Six dozen cookies arranged on trays and delivered, thirty dollars.”
“I’m sure he won’t object. He even asked if you could make a red and white cookie. You know, Stanford colors. He was thinking”—and here she cleared her throat—“of something like, like … barber-pole cookies or … dough candy canes or—”
“One of these days, that guy is going to choke and they’ll do CPR on his tongue.”
Audrey said, “Is that a joke?”
“Also,” I added firmly, “I can’t bring the cookies out to the school because of this lunch engagement.”
“But that’s what I told you. Where are you going to be today? I can pick them up. The logistics are getting a bit complicated anyway—”
“What logistics?”
She took another deep breath and I prepared for a lengthy explanation. “Oh, well, the Marenskys heard from Perkins that the Stanford rep was coming, and they’d already been in to complain to him that Ferrell hadn’t put Stanford on Brad Marensky’s college list, not that he would ever have a chance of getting in there, he’s fifth in the class, you know … let’s see …” She trailed off.
“Logistics,” I said gently, to get her back on track.
“Oh, yes, well. So Perkins told me he called the Marenskys—no doubt because they’re such big donors to the school, although Perkins didn’t mention that—and said Brad should be sure to see the Stanford rep today, and Rhoda Marensky demanded that they get a private audience with the guy—”
The pope from Palo Alto. I could just imagine this young fellow, entirely unaware of the intense power plays that his unannounced visit was engendering, or of the awesome authority currently being conferred on his head.
“—so the Marenskys are picking up the rep at the I-70 exit and driving him to the school, or at least they were until the Dawsons got wind of this private-interview bit, and they insisted that Greer get to meet with the fellow before the reception ever began—”
If in fact it ever did begin, I mentally amended.
“And then Miss Ferrell thought she’d better be present to arbitrate, so she gave her fourth period a study hall, which is when Heather has French, so of course I wanted her to meet the rep, since she did all that extra engineering work over the summer, and if they didn’t have such
a high percentage of minorities at that school, I think it’s forty-seven percent, then she would be a top contender—”
“What is the bottom line here, Audrey?”
“What are you so upset about?” she asked, bewildered. “Where’s your lunch get-together? I’ll pick up the cookies, and bring Heather to meet the Stanford rep, and Miss Ferrell can be there at the same time—”
“I’ll be at Aspen Meadow Café to taste jam at 11:45.”
“To taste jam? Why not do that at home?”
“Well you may ask, my dear Audrey, but it’s the Dawsons’ idea. No doubt they’ll also want you to taste some. I’m sure they will want Julia Child, Paul Bocuse, and the Stanford rep to taste it too.”
She sniffed. “Well, that doesn’t really make much sense, but I’ll see. Oh, something else. The Tattered Cover folks think it might be a good idea for you to come down to the store early, maybe an hour before the signing Halloween night? I could show you where the third-floor kitchenette is, how they usually set up for a buffet, that kind of thing.”
At last we were off the subject of the Stanford rep. Yes, I said, we should definitely case the third floor of the bookstore ahead of time. We decided Audrey would come over to my place after the penitential luncheon Friday so we could head down to Denver together. Then Audrey asked, “Why did you answer the phone like a florist? Are you thinking of expanding your business?”
“Sorry, I thought you were somebody else.”
“… Not meaning to be disrespectful, Goldy, but maybe you need a vacation.”
That made two of us. I was still laughing when Tom Schulz called.
“Doesn’t the caterer sound merry.”
“She is, she is. First she had a great time with this cop last night.” He mm-hmmed. I went on. “This morning, though, she flunked out of surrogate-parenting. But to her rescue came this same cop, who quickly turned her house into the Denver Botanic Garden. Now for the rest of the day she has to make cookies, kowtow to some guy from California, taste jam, and have lunch with the cop.”
The Cereal Murders Page 12
