The Cereal Murders

by Diane Mott Davidson

  “Oh, dear,” Father Olson was wailing, “why did this have to happen just when I’ve been named head of the committee?” He slumped morosely into one of the chairs I had just set up. “I really don’t know what to do. I just don’t even know where to begin.”

  Although I thought a prayer for the stroke victim might be in order, I murmured only, “Start by resetting the table” to his unhearing ears. He traipsed unhappily off to the office while I removed the twelfth place setting. The two laymen on the committee came in and sat next to each other. Both had an air of quiet seriousness, as if they were awaiting instructions. The first group of priests plunged through the heavy doors like a gaggle of blackbirds, laughing and jostling and telling clerical Halloween jokes. What do you get when you cross a bat with an evangelical? Heads waggled. You get a hymn that sticks to the roof of your mouth. The two laymen exchanged looks. This was not their idea of a joke. I served a tray of triangles of sourdough toast spread with glistening pesto. Father Olson made his somber appearance.

  “Olson!” one of the blackbirds shrieked. “You’re doing trick-or-treat as a priest!”

  Father Olson chuckled patronizingly, then intoned the blessing. I hustled around with the sole while the meeting began. The food elicited numerous compliments. While the news of the stroke victim was being relayed, the priest of the bat joke even ventured jocularly that I should be the replacement on the committee.

  “Then you could bring food to every meeting!” he said in an astonished tone, as if he seldom had such great ideas.

  It’s a compliment, I reminded myself as I quick-stepped out to the kitchen for the Sorry Cake. When I returned, Father Olson stared at me and ruminated. Perhaps he was reviewing his standards of competence in the light of culinary prowess.

  “You do have some experience as a Sunday school teacher,” he murmured as if we were in the middle of an interview.

  I nodded and doled out large pieces of cake.

  “We are looking to see that the education of seminarians is complete before they begin to minister to others. What are your academic qualifications, Goldy?”

  “I’ll send you a résumé.”

  “Tell me,” he continued, unperturbed, “how would you define faith?”

  “What is this, a test?” Careful, careful, I warned myself. After all, Brad Marensky had had enough faith in me to make me his confessor. And if this group would ever pay, I could always use more bookings. “Well,” I said with a bright smile while they all listened attentively, “I have faith that if I put chocolate cake in the oven, it’s going to rise.” There were a few ripples of laughter. Encouraged, I slapped down my tray and put my hand on my hip. “I have faith that if I cater to any group, even a church group, they’re going to pay me.” Guffaws erupted from the two laymen. “Faith is like …” and then I saw Schulz in my mind’s eye. “Faith is like falling in love. After it happens, you change. You act differently with faith. You’re confident.” I concluded with what I hoped was an erudite lift of the eyebrows. In heaven, my Latin teacher put a jewel in my crown. I picked up the tray.

  “Ah, Lonergan,” said one of the priests.

  Father Olson looked as if he were about to have an orgasm. He cried, “You’ve just paraphrased a prominent Jesuit theologian. Oh, Goldy, we’d love to have you on our committee! I had no idea you were so … learned.”

  I bathed them all in a benevolent smile. “You’d be surprised at what a caterer can figure out.”

  I hightailed it home as soon as the dishes were done, so I could get started on my next assignment of the day. Father Olson was in a state of high excitement, for all the priests had credited him with giving me such a good theological education. I made him promise that if I did cater to the ecclesiastical heavyweights, I would be paid standard food-service rates. Father Olson waved his hands, muttered about the diocesan office, and said something along the lines of money being forthcoming. Good, I said, so was my contract. Education was nice; practicality, essential.

  Arch had left me a surprise note in the mailbox. Mom, it said, Have a great Halloween. Be careful! I will be, too. Forgot to tell you, I got a B on a social studies test. Love, Arch

  When I got inside, the phone was ringing: Audrey Coopersmith. Would it be all right if Heather came down to the Tattered Cover with us? She was supposed to go with a friend, but that hadn’t worked out. Of course, I said. Audrey said they’d be over in fifteen minutes.

  The computer disks! In the rush with the committee, I had completely forgotten them. I pulled the stolen disks Brad had given me out of my apron pocket. Each label was hand-printed with the word Andrews. Call Schulz or see if I … oh, what the heck. I tried to boot first one, then the other, on my kitchen computer. No luck. I pulled out the platters of food for the bookstore reading and phoned Schulz. His machine picked up. I left a three-fold message: A confidential source had just given me Keith Andrews’ computer disks; I would be catering to the prep school crowd tonight at the bookstore; and would he like a little trick-or-treat at my house afterward?

  The doorbell rang: the Coopersmiths. As usual, Audrey clomped in first while her daughter hung back, skeptically assessing the surroundings. Two spots of color flamed on Audrey’s cheeks. Knowing her ex-husband was on a cruise with the long-term mistress, I couldn’t imagine what new crisis would bring such anger.

  “You okay?” I asked unwisely.

  “I have had it with that bitch Ferrell,” Audrey spat out.

  “Now what?” Out of the corner of my eye I saw Heather approach the platters of food on the counter next to the computer.

  “Do you know what college she recommended for Heather? Bennington! Bennington! What does she think we are, hippies?”

  “It’s unstructured,” murmured Heather over her shoulder.

  “She’s getting a kickback,” Audrey fumed. “I just know it. Ferrell recommends some college to the school’s best students, and the college gives her—”

  “What is this?” exclaimed Heather.

  Oh, damn. One Andrews disk was still in the computer, one was on the counter. I’d never make it as a Republican; I couldn’t cover up a thing.

  “How did you get this?” demanded Heather. Her pale eyes narrowed behind the pink-tinted glasses.

  “I … don’t know,” I said, fumbling. “I can’t say.”

  “You stole it,” she accused me. “Nobody can put anything down at that school without it getting lifted.”

  Not anymore, I longed to say. “Please don’t give me a hard time,” I chided the girl gently. “Somebody gave Keith’s disks to me because I found him that night and because Arch was threatened. They thought the disks might help. I can’t make hide nor hair out of them and I’m just going to hand them over to the cops.”

  “Huh,” grunted Heather. Disbelief was heavy in her voice.

  “What is it?” Audrey was momentarily distracted from her harangue against Miss Ferrell. I took the disk out of the drive and slipped it into its sleeve. Audrey picked up the other one from the counter. “Oh, my God,” she said with a sharp intake of breath, “where did you get this?”

  “Never mind.” I reached over and deftly unplugged the computer. The screen flashed and went blank. “The police will deal with it.” I slipped the disks into my purse.

  “They won’t deal with it if they don’t use WordPerfect,” Heather announced smugly.

  “You see how smart she is?” Audrey’s voice gushed pride.

  “We need to hit the road,” I replied. And with that we began trucking platters of goodies out to the van. But if I thought Audrey was going to relinquish the subject of the superior and underappreciated intelligence of her daughter, I was sadly mistaken. As the van sped down 1-70 toward Denver, Audrey ordered Heather to tell me about her summer internship at a Boulder engineering firm, Amalgamated Aerospace. It was a complicated thing dealing with a simulator. To me, virtual reality was something you dealt with when you did your finances. To Heather, it was something quite different.

>   “I was doing Mars,” Heather began in a thin, superior tone.

  “This is why she should be going to MIT, not Bennington,” interjected Audrey. Did this imply MIT students were like Martians? Best not to ask.

  “It was an astronaut-training exercise,” Heather prattled on, “and I was working as an assistant to a programmer in the software department.”

  “Isn’t this wonderful!” her mother exclaimed. “I told her to put this in the essay. They’ll have to take her. Second in her class. You know … now.” An awkward silence descended on us.

  Heather said crisply, “Are you going to tell this story or am I, Mother? Because I wouldn’t want to interrupt you.”

  “Go ahead, dear, I know Goldy really wants to hear it.”

  Goldy really didn’t want to hear it, but never mind. There was a volcanic sigh from Heather. We were clearly testing her superior intelligence to the limit.

  Heather rolled out the words quickly, as if she were a recording put on seventy-eight. “We used photographs taken by the Viking I and Viking II Mars Landers. We developed 800 gigabytes of video image data so that simulated real-time viewing of the Martian surface was possible when the virtual reality simulator display device was in place.”

  “Simulator display device?” I ventured.

  “We used a modified F-16 helmet,” she explained tartly. “Anyway, when you put on the helmet, you saw Mars. Look to the left, red rocks of the Martian landscape to the left. Look to the right, red rocks of the Martian landscape to the right.” She sighed again.

  “Wow!” I said, impressed. “Then what?”

  “The programmer was laid off while he was viewing the surface of Mars. The President postponed the project until 2022, when I’ll be forty-eight, the programmer will be sixty-eight, and the President will be dead.” Sigh. “I think I should go to Bennington.”

  We all silently contemplated that brutal prospect. Then Audrey said miserably, “I can’t afford Bennington.”

  Heather harrumphed. “You can’t afford MIT.”

  Audrey swung around and glared at her daughter. “Do you have to contradict everything? I think I should have a say in where my daughter goes to school. I’ve earned that, haven’t I?”

  “Oh, Mother.”

  16

  When we arrived at the intersection of First Avenue and Milwaukee, I cast a fleeting glance across the street at Neiman Marcus.

  “Did you two know the bookstore building used to house a department store?” Audrey asked brightly as I wound up the concrete ramp to the same entrance I’d used the night of the stir-fry.

  Heather harrumphed. She hadn’t said a word since the flap over tuition money.

  “Yes,” I mused, “I know about when this place was a store …” Did I ever. In fact, I’d often reflected that my acquaintance with different establishments of commerce depended on my financial status at any given stage of life. Neusteter’s had been an upscale department store during my tenure as a doctor’s wife. I had made frequent visits to the jewelry, cosmetics, shoe, dress, and suit departments. Not visits suffused with happiness, I might add, although, I used to think, for example, that getting my hair done for an astronomical sum in the top-floor salon would make me feel better. But it never did. On my last visit there, I winced whenever the hairdresser touched the back of my scalp, because that was where John Richard had slammed me into a wall the night before. Now I much preferred a blunt cut from Mark the Barber in Aspen Meadow. Freedom cost eight bucks.

  I firmly put these memories out of my mind as we unloaded the first trays of concentrically arranged Chocolate-Dipped Biscotti and strawberries. Audrey said the doors were already unlocked, and led the way to the tiny kitchen. The whole area was no more than five feet by five feet, but it would do. In fact, it was so small, we could start the coffee brewing without extension cords. Thank God.

  “What do I do if the lights go out?” I demanded of Audrey when I’d filled the large pot with water and fresh coffee.

  “The lights?” Her look was puzzled.

  “The last time you and I catered this group—Just tell me if there’s an auxiliary lighting system.”

  “Come with me.” Audrey spoke with the resigned tone people use to deal with needlessly worried bosses. She guided me through a maze of shelves to an empty clerk’s desk. The desktop was a jumble of books and papers. Set at an angle was one of those complicated phones with flashing buttons and finely printed instructions on paging and transferring calls. Audrey reached deftly under the desk, yanked, and brought out a flashlight. “There’s one under every employee’s desk in this entire store, in case a thunderstorm or power failure takes the lights out. Satisfied?”

  “Yes,” I said, feeling dumb. “Thanks.” Before we could get back to the subject of food, the trade book buyer, a plump woman with papery white skin and curly black hair, came up and introduced herself: Miss Nell Kaplan. While Audrey replaced the flashlight, I invited Miss Kaplan into the kitchen to taste a biscotto. To be sociable, I had one too. Chocolate oozed around the crunch of almonds and cookie. Wonderful, Miss Kaplan and I both agreed.

  “The chairs are all set up,” Miss Kaplan informed us. “Now all we have to do is find the books the author is going to autograph. You wouldn’t think this happens, but it does. Would you consider sharing that recipe for biscotti?”

  “My pleasure.”

  “You should write a cookbook.”

  “One of these days.”

  Miss Ferrell click-clacked into the tiny kitchen, wearing a black tent dress. A matching black scarf was wound around her bun of hair. I immediately worried how to keep her away from the wrath of Audrey, who was still Bennington-fixated, but was saved from that task by Miss Kaplan. They had found the books, she announced, and now she needed only a returning Audrey to help her open the chilled wine.

  Her face bright with anticipation, Miss Ferrell said, “I’m so glad we’re finally getting back on track with our college advisory nights.” When I made a vague acknowledging gesture, she added in a lower tone, “Has Julian told you his news?”

  “What news?”

  She frowned and wrinkled her nose. “Perhaps Julian should be the one to tell you. We just found out this afternoon.” She giggled. “What a trick-or-treat!”

  Worry nagged behind my eyes. I thought of Julian’s haggard face, the piles of review books. “You … wanted to meet with me tomorrow morning to talk about his college choices. If something has changed, I … think I’d like to hear about it now. If that’s okay.”

  She put a finger mysteriously to her lips and guided me out to the open area where our meeting was to be held. Chairs were set in neat rows facing a table and podium. A bookstore employee was arranging bright, fragrant flowers at the table where the speaker, author of Climbing the Ivy League, was going to sign books. Apart from that we were alone.

  Miss Ferrell leaned toward me. “He’s been given a full scholarship.”

  I jerked back in astonishment. “Who? Julian? To what school?”

  “Any school. He can go wherever he wants now. Wherever he gets in. Perkins just got the news this afternoon from the College Savings Bank in Princeton. Eighty thousand dollars wired to an account for Julian Teller.” She rolled her eyes. “From an anonymous donor.”

  “Does Julian know who this donor is?” I said, confused. General Farquhar, who had given Julian the Range Rover, was in prison and unable to do anything with his money, which in any event had been largely spent on legal fees. I couldn’t think of any other potential benefactor, unless it was a wealthy person at the school. But why a scholarship for Julian? I was utterly baffled. Unless someone wanted something from him … My mind rocketed around wildly. Was Julian being bribed to do something? To keep something quiet? I closed my eyes to stop the chattering in my head. In the face of recent events at the school, paranoia loomed.

  “Is Julian here?” I asked wishfully.

  Miss Ferrell’s smile faded. Perhaps my response was not what she had anticipated.
“I’m sure I don’t know. What’s the matter? Aren’t you thrilled?”

  “I am, I am,” I said unconvincingly. In true paranoid fashion, I didn’t feel I could trust anyone. “It’s just that … I need to talk to him. Now I must go tend to the food. Happy Halloween.” I nipped back to the kitchenette, my mind reeling.

  Heather sidled up while I was arranging the fruit. She straightened her thick pink glasses and whispered, “You didn’t tell Miss Ferrell how mad my mom was, did you?”

  “No, no, no …” Why did these teenagers, first Brad and now Heather, seem to think I was the resident tattler? Perhaps paranoia is contagious. “Miss Ferrell had something else to tell me,” I told her.

  “I heard about Julian’s scholarship. It’s supposed to be very hush-hush.” Heather gave me a quizzical look. “One of the kids said maybe it was you, but then the headmaster’s son said, Nah, you were poor.”

  Audrey rescued me from commenting on this untoward assessment of my financial state by announcing that we had a big problem where we were supposed to be setting up. I was saved from asking her what it was when I heard the all too familiar sound of parents’ voices raised in heated dispute.

  “Oh, come on, Hank. Nobody’s heard of Occidental.” Stan Marensky. “You must be joking!”

  Audrey whispered to me, “I’ll bet Hank Dawson just heard of Occidental himself. He probably thinks it’s a Chinese restaurant. Or an insurance policy, maybe.”