Sweet Revenge

by Diane Mott Davidson

  “When were these three threatening e-mails sent?” I asked, my turn to be accusatory.

  “Over the last month,” said Tom, whose ability to display composure never ceased to amaze me.

  I said, “And no one got a good enough look to be able to give a reasonable description of this person.”

  “Nope,” replied Boyd. “Whoever she or he is, they’re pretty handy with disguises.”

  “And at routing e-mail,” Armstrong said.

  I was thinking that the Furman County Library System needed a new surveillance system, or maybe even to replace their computers, if it was proving so hard to find a phantom Internet user who wore disguises but managed to send threats to a former district attorney, without being detected.

  I looked out the windshield. Snow was still coming down steadily, and the glass was blanketed with crystals. Poor Drew Wellington. He probably had thought he was safe at the library. I mean, who wouldn’t?

  Also—if the person I’d seen was indeed Sandee, then had she been there to deliver a threat, or perhaps to deliver on a threat?

  I said, “Why would someone be sending threatening e-mails to Wellington at this point in his life?”

  “We don’t know, Miss G.,” Tom said. “But now that he’s dead, you can bet we’re going to get our intel guys on it. They might be able to figure out something more than a woman in a hoodie. Plus, you know what we’re going to be doing. Tracking Wellington’s movements, seeing who his enemies were, that kind of thing.”

  “Could all this have to do with his work as a D.A.? Some criminal he sent away, somebody who threatened him in court, is now out, and wants revenge? Or maybe a disgruntled voter is holding a grudge. Why was Drew defeated in the election three years ago?” I asked, trying to sound innocent.

  The cops cleared their throats. “Matter of public record,” Boyd said. “Wellington got a DUI, and he tried to have it hushed up.”

  “That’s it?” I asked.

  Boyd sighed. “Goldy, we have work we have to do. As your husband said, we’re going to try to find out who Wellington’s enemies were.”

  Tom reached for my hand and squeezed it. When I glanced at him, he raised his eyebrows and gave me a warning look: Don’t press this now.

  Boyd, Armstrong, and Tom talked in quiet tones about when the county pathologist was going to do the autopsy. I tried not to listen to their conversation, because I preferred not to think about what actually happened during an autopsy.

  Instead, I focused on what else, besides the death of Drew Wellington, I could bring to mind. There was the library event, my library event, a breakfast party I’d been due to put on in the morning. Would the librarians change the venue? Would they cancel? If they changed the location for their party, I would have a lot more transporting to do…and this would push me back on doing the luncheon for the garden-club people. This, in turn, would make me late doing the MacArthurs’ dinner…

  Suddenly I saw all my Christmas bookings collapsing backward, like so many dominoes, and Goldilocks’ Catering, Where Everything Is Just Right! getting squished under an enormous oblong of blackness.

  Boyd’s cell buzzed. When he answered it, Tom reached out and squeezed my hand again.

  “You okay, Miss G.? I mean, these circumstances notwithstanding.”

  I bit my lip and gave a quick shake of my head. “I’ve been trying not to reflect on how much this mess with Drew Wellington is going to impact mundane business issues. But I’m not having much luck. I’m also trying not to worry about the fact that the temperature is dropping very, very quickly. I have foods in the back that don’t take too well to freezing.”

  “Everything will be okay,” Tom whispered.

  “My van’s about to run out of gas.”

  Tom kept hold of my hand, but turned to his deputies. “Let’s finish up here, guys. I need to get Miss G. home.”

  Armstrong opened his door. Boyd hung up his cell, looked at me, and let out an unmistakably self-pitying sigh.

  “Sergeant Boyd,” I said as I retrieved a pair of zip-type freezer bags from behind my seat. “Hand me that tray of Bleak House Bars, and I’ll send you and your partner away happy.”

  5

  On the way home, the snowfall thickened. Once Tom and I were in our kitchen, we called the Druckmans to make sure they’d arrived safely. They had, and their party had increased: Arch had begged for Eileen to pick up Gus that night, too. Arch and Todd had argued that the three boys could do Latin review better together—uh-huh. Gus lived with his grandparents, and according to Arch, they had given an enthusiastic thumbs-up. Since Eileen drove a brand-new Hummer, the Vikarioses had reportedly said they would love for her to take Gus down to Christian Brothers High School for his last exam.

  “Who’ll be doing the driving?” I asked, remembering some car catastrophes Arch had had in October.

  Arch sighed. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Druckman is doing it.” He hesitated. “Is that guy at the library going to be okay?”

  “I don’t think so, hon. The police are there now.”

  In the background, the boys called for Arch, and he signed off. It was good to have company when you needed it.

  I needed it, too, which Tom seemed to know. He expertly built a fire with one hand while using the thumb of his opposite hand to punch in digits on his cell. I could only glean a fourth of what was being said. That is, I picked up on half of Tom’s half of the conversation, because I was making trips to the van. But that was enough to garner some interesting tidbits.

  It seemed that the investigative team was going to meet at the sheriff’s department at nine that night to pool information. As I traipsed in with box after box, I wondered whether getting everybody together in the middle of a snowstorm wasn’t excessive. I doubted very much that the county pathologist would drop everything to come do an autopsy. And without an autopsy—or weapon, as I certainly hadn’t seen a knife, or gun with a silencer on it, anywhere near Drew Wellington—how could they have anything to discuss?

  It didn’t matter, I mused as I stamped through the thick snow sifting down, since nobody was asking me. Still, try as I might, I couldn’t get the image of Roberta trying to revive Drew Wellington out of my mind. What had happened? Why had Sandee—or whoever she was—been there, seeming to be watching Drew Wellington? And why was the sheriff gathering everybody to the department at night?

  I became chilled bringing in the first few loads of food, so I fixed myself a hot chocolate. Tom was still on the phone, so I told myself to think. The victim, Drew Wellington, was technically a member of law enforcement, even if he hadn’t been reelected. For most of his tenure, he’d been a charismatic district attorney, and his supporters and friends would be calling for the sheriff’s head if the case wasn’t solved quickly. Add to that the fact that the media would be scrutinizing the department’s every move. Pressure coming down from the governor, the county commissioners, and who knew who else would be unparalleled. Given all these factors, I thought as I drank the last of the cocoa, it made sense that the pathologist would be called that night and the staff assembled. Damn the torpedoes. The sheriff’s department was going full speed ahead.

  I washed my cup and told myself that I still needed to bring in the grapefruit and coffee cakes. And then another problem occurred to me.

  As mundane as it sounded, who was going to take responsibility to call the librarians who had not witnessed Drew Wellington coming out of the library in a body bag, to tell them their holiday breakfast would not be held in the reading room? Would the rest of the staff show up early the next morning, only to find their beloved book sanctuary ribboned off by police investigators? I shook my head. No matter what, it didn’t seem quite right to ring up Roberta Krepinski right after she’d handled a corpse. Hey, Roberta! What’m I supposed to do with these cheese pies? I knew folks who could be insensitive; as far as I knew, I wasn’t one of them.

  With the phone tucked under his ear, Tom came out to the kitchen. He brushed log dust off his ha
nds and whispered, “If you’ll just wait, I’ll bring the rest of your stuff in for you.”

  I mouthed the words I’m okay, and proceeded back to the van for my last load. The wind rammed a wave of frigid air through the pines. I balanced the tray of grapefruit on top of the coffee cake, then carefully wended my way down the flagstone path that Tom had placed over my old dirt-worn trail between the freestanding garage and our deck.

  Tom had opened the pet-containment area, and now Scout the cat streaked through my legs as I came through the back door. I grabbed the tray before a dozen grapefruits went bouncing across the kitchen floor. Jake, our bloodhound, proved no less a distraction, because he was extremely eager to see me. He let the neighborhood and Tom know the fact through an enthusiastic bout of howling. I stowed the food, held the door open, and yelled for him over the wind. He reluctantly lumbered inside, then tried to knock the ham off the counter.

  I stashed the last of the food in the walk-in, fed the animals, and let them back out. When I called them a few minutes later, the wind had picked up even more force. Temperatures were dropping by the minute, so this time both pets raced back inside. Tom was still on his cell phone; he rolled his eyes at me and wrote me a note: Off soon. He herded the pets to the living room. I closed the kitchen doors, washed my hands, and sat down again at our little oak table.

  Almost immediately, memories of the calamitous events I’d witnessed rose up. I heard Roberta’s groans and cries for help. I felt myself running toward her, but the sensation was like swimming through lead. I saw Roberta trying to lower Drew Wellington to the floor. His heavy chest rose up to greet me.

  Okay, that did it. I had to cook.

  The chicken breasts for the garden club’s Chicken Divine—much lighter than the classic Chicken Divan—was already brining in a buttermilk bath, and I would bake them off just before the lunch. The day after Thanksgiving, Julian had thrown his energy into making and freezing hundreds of potato gnocchi, which he would cook and slather in melted butter once we got to the conference center. He’d also be steaming baby artichokes and asparagus, if he could find some of the latter in Boulder after he picked up ganache-topped chocolate cupcakes from his favorite bakery. The strawberries were trimmed and the dressing made; we’d do the avocados just before serving. The cookies were, so to speak, in the bag. In many bags, as a matter of fact. I still had to bake the gingerbread door prizes. But first, I had to figure out that night’s meal for Tom and me, a meal I would have to prepare quickly, as he’d be heading out the door no later than half past seven. So much for our ragout and relaxing evening together.

  The walk-in yielded half a dozen fresh chicken thighs that Tom had picked up, put in a zip plastic bag, and helpfully labeled “Ours!” I mixed up a simple buttermilk brine to tenderize the chicken. I then donned the surgical gloves required by the state for poultry handling—even though this was going to be a meal for our family, I’d developed the glove habit and was loath to break it—rinsed off the thighs, and plopped them into the solution. I set a big pot of water on to boil, scrubbed a batch of fingerling potatoes Tom had managed to hide from me, stirred up a champagne vinaigrette, and lightly rinsed a bunch of baby arugula, another find of Tom’s. Where did he get these delicacies, I often wondered, and how much did he pay for them? I didn’t care. He loved to surprise me…although he would be the one surprised, since he was getting them for dinner that night.

  I set the table and located our stash of candles, in case things briefly turned romantic…or the power went out. Then I brought out a bowl of bread dough that I’d made that morning. When I’d baked one into a roll to test the recipe, I’d tasted it and decided it was too tangy for the garden club. Frozen homemade rolls would do for them, and we could use the sour-tasting dough for something, I reasoned. I just didn’t know what.

  As I punched down the dough and began to knead it, I thought about Drew Wellington. Like so many folks in Colorado, he’d insisted on immediate familiarity, even though he’d invariably seemed to be looking over my shoulder, to see if there was someone more important he should be talking to. “Just call me Drew,” he’d said vaguely when Tom had introduced him to me at a law enforcement picnic. Within ninety seconds, he’d spotted someone he apparently needed to see, and he was off. See ya, Mr. D.A.!

  Digging my hands into the dough, I also vividly remembered one particular church coffee hour, about two and a half years ago. It was summertime, and Drew had failed to be reelected district attorney the previous November. Immediately after her husband’s rout at the hands of the voters, Elizabeth had handed him another defeat: she’d filed for divorce. Marla had dug ceaselessly to find out the reason for the marriage’s end, but had come up empty-handed, much to her dismay.

  I hadn’t cared, because I thought after years in the spotlight, Elizabeth deserved her privacy. I’d continued to cater the occasional fund-raising lunch, dinner, and cocktail party for her. She’d worked hard at dabbing makeup around her bloodshot eyes and keeping her upper lip stiff. Drew had stopped coming to church, or at least coming in the company of Elizabeth, who’d always been what we Episcopalians call an “eight o’clocker,” i.e., an attendee at the early service.

  This particular June morning, though, Drew had reinvented himself and shown up at the later service, all smiles, with his aura of charisma still glowing. He’d looked dapper in a slim-fitting, obviously expensive gray sport coat and slacks. Instead of appearing downtrodden and depressed, the fiftyish former district attorney had been buoyant, chatting with folks, glad-handing about, making sure everyone knew he was as gleeful as a fellow who’d just lost an election by historically wide margins could be. I never did know if he dyed his hair or if his carefully combed blond-brown mane was natural, but he seemed to enjoy pushing his bangs back from his sculptured face, a face that boasted enviably high cheekbones.

  In charge of after-church snacks that day, I’d made lemonade and several batches of my newly developed recipe for Piña Colada Muffins. Also key to this particular memory was the fact that as I’d mingled among the parishioners with my tray, I was wearing an apron. I’d assessed Drew Wellington surreptitiously at first, while he was talking enthusiastically to Father Pete, who’d just returned to commission after suffering a heart attack.

  As it turned out, Drew had been asking Father Pete to reintroduce him to Marla. I’d happened to be standing next to her, still wearing my apron, still holding my tray.

  When Father Pete had asked if we remembered Drew Wellington, the former prosecutor, Drew had ignored me and said, “Why, Miss Marla, I do believe you need me to tell you about map collecting.” With my invisible status, I’d had no trouble noticing the twinkle in Drew’s eyes and his suggestively furrowed brow. Are you interested in me, Marla? he seemed to be asking. Do you have money you’d like to put in my care?

  Marla had reeled back. “I don’t need a map, ’cuz I know where I’m going. How about you, Drew? Do you have a destination in mind?”

  “I also just apprised you of the presence of our longtime parishioner, Goldy Schulz, whom I believe you know,” Father Pete had said, so clearly aggrieved that I’d blushed.

  Drew had looked at me blankly and said, “Right. You’re the one married to a sheriff’s-department investigator. We’ve met before.” And then he’d asked Marla if she wanted to impress her friends with an old map of Bermuda.

  Marla had said, “How about an antique map of Antigua?” and Drew had chuckled knowingly. Had he known Marla was making fun of him? As I shuffled off, I doubted it.

  I pushed and kneaded the dough. After the coffee hour, Marla had given me the scoop. According to one of the St. Luke’s women, Elizabeth Wellington had agreed, somewhere along the line, to give Drew a large chunk of change, somewhere in the neighborhood of two and a half million. Drew, supposedly recognizing that two and a half mil probably wouldn’t be enough to retire on, was using Elizabeth’s money to invest in real estate and set himself up in the map business. He was also sucking up to women with
lots and lots of money, of which Marla was definitely one.

  In fact, this very evening, Marla had told me that Patricia Ingersoll—the weight-loss queen who’d talked so boringly to the Episcopal Church Women in October—and Drew Wellington had been set to marry. Marry when? And had they had a long-term affair or a short one?

  There was no doubt in my mind that Marla was hot on the trail of finding out.

  I tried to bring Patricia’s face back into focus. Four years ago, Patricia had married Frank Ingersoll, a widower and single father of a twentyish daughter. I’d loved catering their wedding reception, and it wasn’t just because Frank, who’d retired early from a Silicon Valley start-up, had paid for the party. It was also because Frank, who was wealthy, and Patricia, who was gorgeous, had seemed deliriously happy. The reception had been a grand affair, held at the couple’s fabulous new house in Flicker Ridge. Then Frank, who’d only been in his midfifties, had died quite suddenly of an aggressive type of leukemia. Lovely, slender, and now—the gossip had it—heir to the bulk of Frank’s forty million, Patricia could easily have been hypnotized by a prosecutor who had taken on the persona of an extremely charming map dealer.

  Ah, charmers. I had been unhappily married to one for seven years. The ultrasuave Drew Wellington had neither fooled nor impressed me. In fact, both at that long-ago picnic and at the more recent coffee hour, all my dangerous-man signals had rung like the bells of St. Mary’s. I’d avoided Wellington, no doubt about it—and he hadn’t seemed too eager to get to know me either.

  Nor had I been impressed, I reflected as the dough became supple under my fingertips, with the law-and-order message Drew Wellington had been touting during his campaign. Ah, the irony! Now that I knew the particulars of his attempt to hide his DUI, it seemed that Drew hadn’t felt constrained to follow much law and order himself. There had been that article—