Sweet Revenge

by Diane Mott Davidson

  Grace said quietly, “And you say that because?”

  Julian shook his head. “‘When’s the event starting, Mr. Wellington?’ I asked him when I catered his dinner party. Six o’clock, he told me. So I got there at four to set up. The door was open, but there was nobody home. Then his guests started showing up at six. Pretty soon it was six-thirty, seven, seven-thirty. The food got cold, people said they needed to leave, but Mr. Inconsiderate was nowhere to be found. When he finally breezed in at eight o’clock, he didn’t even apologize. When I asked him why he wasn’t at his own damn party when it started at six o’clock, he said, ‘Because I knew you would be here. Didn’t you take care of the guests?’ I wish I would have punched him out. But I was still hoping for a tip.”

  “I’m sorry, Julian,” I said.

  “It’s not your fault, Goldy.” Julian went on, still speaking heatedly: “I’ll tell you what, I couldn’t stand how everyone made nice to him, you know, to his face. I didn’t do it. When Neil Tharp—you know, his assistant?—called and asked me to do another dinner party for old Drew, I told him, ‘You get everyone there, your boss included, sit them all down at the table, and I’ll come over and cook.’ He hung up on me, and that was my spectacular finale of catering for Drew Wellington.”

  I shook my head and thought that I might have been tempted to bitch-slap Drew Wellington myself…if I only knew what bitch-slapping was. “What did the bistro owner say?”

  “Aw,” Julian replied, “he said most folks who had to deal with Drew eventually gave up. I said, ‘Thanks a lot!’ He felt so bad he gave me a big gratuity himself, and that was that.”

  Grace set her chin firmly. “Did the bistro owner say who else hated him, or couldn’t get along with him?”

  “Well, I don’t think old Neil liked him very much, in spite of his holier-than-thou attitude, and ‘Don’t we all just love Drew, and isn’t he marvelous, we have to cut him a little slack.’ Go ahead, guy, I finally thought, cut him all the slack you want, and while you’re at it, slit his throat, will ya?”

  “Julian!” I protested. “He’s dead!”

  “I care!”

  “Neil Tharp didn’t like him very much,” Grace echoed. “What specifically makes you say that?”

  I noticed all three of us had stopped working, so I got busy patting the drained chicken with paper towels. Somebody had to feed the garden-club ladies.

  “Oh,” Julian said, “it felt to me as if Neil was frustrated with Drew.”

  “Frustrated because?” Grace pressed.

  “I couldn’t put my finger on it, ’cuz I only catered for Drew that one time.” Julian shook his head. “When Drew finally showed up at his party, Neil seemed to be watching him real carefully, as if he was waiting for the Mighty One to make a mistake, so he, Neil, could go in and clean it up. I’m telling you, Neil Tharp reminded me of Uriah Heep, all squirmy and watchful and waiting for his chance to take over somebody else’s business.”

  “Somebody’s going to have to take over this business,” I interjected, “if the three of us don’t get hot with the prep.” Julian raised his eyebrows and started pulling out his sheets of frozen gnocchi. Grace peered at the prep sheets and began crumbling dried tarragon over the chicken. I hauled out the ganache-topped chocolate cupcakes and began arranging them on chilled dessert plates.

  As it turned out, it was not one of the garden-club ladies who showed up early. Julian, Grace, and I had bent so assiduously to our tasks that we did not hear the kitchen door open. When a male voice shouted, “Hey, Goldy Schulz!” the first thing I thought was that Tom was going to bawl me out for leaving the back door to the kitchen unlocked. Well, maybe it was the second thing. The first thing I actually thought when my head shot up and I saw Larry Craddock striding in my direction was, Will I be able to get rid of this guy before the garden-club ladies show up?

  “I didn’t know who you were at the library,” Craddock sputtered. “I wouldn’t have gotten so upset with you if you hadn’t been rude to me first!”

  “My son,” I answered with some heat, “simply asked you to stop using your cell phone. There are lots of signs saying cell calls aren’t allowed in the library. And you attacked him for it!”

  “I barely touched the kid,” Larry protested. “You broke my phone. And you didn’t have to set the police on me!”

  “The police are talking to everyone who was in the library when Drew Wellington was there, Mr. Craddock, especially people who knew him. And in the meantime, we aren’t supposed to be discussing the matter with anyone else.”

  Larry looked around the kitchen, his eyes wild. His voice became belligerent again. “I need to talk to you. It’s very important.”

  Clearly Larry could not take a hint. The kitchen offered numerous weapons, but was entirely too cramped a space in which to argue with someone as boorish and oblivious as this guy. Plus, he was blocking the way to the back door.

  “I’m afraid we have work to do. You’ll have to excuse us.” I leaned toward Julian and Grace, and whispered, “Out, out, out.” They followed me with some reluctance into the dining room, where there were big double French doors, if we needed to make a quick exit.

  “Hey, wait, I really have to talk to you. Hey, Three Stooges, come back here!”

  Yeah, sure. What I wanted to do right then was run and hide. But I was determined to do no such thing. Instead, I turned around and faced Craddock.

  “I am not going to talk with you,” I said in a loud, measured voice, “when you are screaming at me.”

  Larry’s shoulders sagged a bit and his resemblance to a newly picked red beet subsided. His bald head became pale and gleamed in the dining room’s overhead lights. “I just want to know if the cops found anything on Drew Wellington.” He stamped one of the beautiful rented gold-and-white dishes with his thumb as he talked.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “And could you please take your hand off the china?”

  But he didn’t. “Listen, map collecting runs in my veins. My father collected and so did my grandfather. But for them, it was a hobby. I know about maps and love them, but hey, I’m a businessman. I always want to make a deal.”

  “Larry—” I began.

  “Just listen, will you? Yesterday afternoon, before he turned up dead, Drew Wellington showed me two”—he cleared his throat—“rare maps. He offered to sell them to me. I wasn’t sure of the maps’ provenance, which means where they came from—”

  “We all know what provenance means,” Grace said crisply.

  Larry raised his voice a notch, but not back up to the yelling level. “Drew couldn’t give me a good explanation! So I went to that back reading room, where they have a wi-fi connection. I didn’t have any luck online, so I called this map-collecting attorney I know. He’s another hobby guy.” When Julian took a breath to speak, Larry rushed on: “Never mind, don’t interrupt me. The attorney’s secretary gave me the bum’s rush, said he was in a meeting. I said it was an emergency and she said he’d call me back. I went over to where I’d first met with Drew, over in that corner, and he wasn’t there. I waited and waited for him.”

  “When was this?” I asked. “And how long did you wait?”

  “Jesus, lady, you’re as bad as the cops. It was before you got there. After I waited about twenty minutes, I was sure Drew was double-crossing me, that he was selling the maps to someone else. But his briefcase was on the floor. Okay, I looked inside. I mean, it wasn’t locked! And only one of the two maps was in there.”

  “Larry,” I began again, “you should tell all this to the police.”

  “I did! But they don’t care about the maps. They only care about whether I was an enemy of Drew’s, and I said, ‘It’s more complicated than that!’”

  It sure is, I thought. Complicated in that I had the garden club showing up in less than an hour. Did I dare to glance at my watch? Wait, I thought, I have an idea. “More complicated?” I asked. Larry Craddock’s face turned furious as he
nodded. “Is the issue complicated by a woman named Sandee Brisbane? Did Drew ever mention to you that he knew her?”

  When Larry Craddock drew his face into a puzzled expression, his wrinkled forehead extended up into his bald head. “Sandy who? He knew a lot of girls, but I don’t think she was one of them.”

  “A lot of girls? What do you mean, a lot of girls?”

  “Well,” Larry Craddock said, his tone sarcastic, “if I said he knew a lot of boys you’d know what I meant, wouldn’t ya?” He paused. “Look, I’m just trying to find out what happened to those maps he had on him. I’m not going to let Neil Tharp cheat me out of them. Drew offered them to me first. So, you’re married to an inspector, right? Did he tell you they found those maps?”

  “Buddy,” Julian interjected in a low voice, “we’re trying to run an event here. You need to leave.”

  “Shut up!” he snarled at Julian. “I’m not talking to you.”

  “Please,” I said in the most conciliatory voice I could muster, “don’t lose your temper again. Listen to me. I don’t know about any maps. Why don’t you ask the sheriff’s department what they found?”

  Larry looked at the floor, pulled his mouth into a frown, and shook his head, as if he were trying to converse with an unusually stupid child. My throat constricted. What if the garden-club ladies moseyed in, expecting to see us setting out strawberry salads, and instead found us caught in one of Dante’s circles of hell: trying to talk to a crazy bald guy?

  Larry addressed me with exaggerated patience: “I don’t want to talk to the sheriff’s department because they don’t care about maps. I’m asking you if they found anything, because supposedly you’re the one who knows these things.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t b.s. me, lady. I heard you help the cops with their investigations. So you know! Why won’t you tell me?”

  “Larry, you heard wrong. I don’t know anything. I don’t even know if you’re telling the truth about Drew offering to sell you some maps.”

  Larry Craddock raised his voice several notches. “Are you calling me a liar?”

  “No,” I replied evenly, “I’m calling you a trespasser who needs to leave. Please go, or I’m going to call the police.”

  “Jesus, lady! What the hell did the cops find on Drew Wellington? All you have to do is answer my one question, and I’ll go! They must have found those maps, or the killer stole them, and they’re going to go back out on the black market!”

  I shook my head. Larry finally took his hand off the china and used it to grab my arm. Behind me, Grace gasped.

  “Let her loose,” Julian announced as he moved forward, his swimmer’s body balanced on the balls of his feet, “or I’ll find something to whack you with, and it won’t be a map!”

  “You stay out of this, asshole!” Larry dropped his hold on me and swung wildly at Julian, who ducked out of the way and shot out with his own fast fist. It connected with the underside of Larry Craddock’s chin. Julian’s other hand then popped Craddock’s Adam’s apple. Larry Craddock stumbled backward, emitting croaking noises as he grabbed for purchase on the chairs, tables, the dining-room columns…

  His hand snagged a tablecloth, unfortunately, and as he headed down toward the floor, he took fistfuls of linen with him. I couldn’t believe how quickly a cloth loaded with plates, silverware, crystal, salt and pepper shakers, a filled butter dish, and a magnificent green-and-red centerpiece could crash, break, tinkle, and roll all over the surrounding area. The only thing not crashing around was Larry Craddock, who lay unmoving under an upside-down pinecone-and-spruce-branch floral arrangement.

  “Oh God!” Julian exclaimed. “Goldy, I’m sorry!”

  “We’ll clean it up,” Grace said smoothly. Where did that woman get her calm? I wondered.

  We gingerly called Craddock’s name. When there was no reply, we removed the centerpiece. I didn’t know if it was the hit to the Adam’s apple or the conk against the table or the floor, but Craddock was only half conscious, and he was mumbling unintelligibly. Grace and Julian hauled him out the French doors and left him there, then locked the doors and called the cops. Alas, the centerpiece had landed on Craddock’s pants before bouncing onto his face. So when Sergeant Boyd himself arrived with a patrolman to haul a moaning Craddock away for trespassing, creating a nuisance, “and anything else I can think of,” Larry had a big wet spot right in the area where a man wouldn’t want it.

  “I’m going to get you, Goldy Schulz!” Craddock shouted as he was loaded into the black-and-white. He’d regained his temper apparently.

  Boyd said, “Don’t make me add menacing to your list of accomplishments here, pal.”

  9

  Goldy, God, I’m so sorry,” Julian kept saying as he wiped up flowers, pinecones, spruce boughs, and bits of floral clay. “When are the women due?”

  I checked my watch: quarter to eleven. The women weren’t due for an hour, so we would probably be okay. Thank God Grace had come. She was very swift and sure of herself, I noticed as she first swept, then swabbed the floors with my new mop. She had managed to find a long black apron that she’d tied around her slender waist. My own waist, I thought as I washed my hands in the kitchen sink, could use some, well, narrowing. But I quickly banished the thought from my head as I carried out the plastic bags of cookies. New Year’s with its resolutions would come soon enough, I reflected as I set out the shiny green miniature shopping bags that each guest would take home.

  “Gosh, boss, did you pack all of these cookies we made?” Julian, also recovered from the Craddock interlude, had cleaned himself up and was back in catering mode.

  “I did.”

  “You’re very competent,” Grace said, her voice admiring. “Now just tell me what you need me to do.”

  This I did. Soon the chicken was roasting, the gnocchi were cooking, and a big pot of butter, to go over the gnocchi, was bubbling merrily on the stove. We put out the platters of salad, warmed the rolls, and decorated each cupcake dish with a fresh flower from several bunches left by the same ladies who’d made the arrangements. Julian carefully stirred the sweet-sour dressing for the strawberry salad, then expertly unmolded the holiday molded salads. Finally he began to prep the avocados.

  When I was out in the kitchen, I heard my cell phone making the buzzing noise it does when I’ve left it on vibrate. Cursing, I raced over to the coatrack and dug the phone out of my jacket pocket. Immediately there was Arch’s impatient voice saying, “Mom! Jeez! I about gave up on you!”

  “I’m here, hon, getting ready for the garden-club luncheon.” I kept my voice calm, a sure antidote to Arch getting overexcited or upset. “How was the Latin exam?”

  “Bonus.”

  “You got extra credit?”

  Arch groaned. “No, Mom, it was good, it was all right. I was trying to find out if I could go snowboarding with Todd and Gus, but they might have left without me.”

  “I very much doubt that your best friend and your half brother would leave the school without you. Where are you now?”

  “I’m at home. Mrs. Vikarios brought me back here because I need to know where my ski stuff is. Hall closet? There’s like a ton of stuff in there.”

  “It’s all your stuff,” I replied, still composed. “If you can’t find your mittens and whatnot, you might want to think of organizing the space you’re looking into, and giving away things you don’t use anymore.”

  “Not now, Mom, they’re waiting outside. Do you think my equipment might be in my closet upstairs?”

  “It’s a good possibility. Why don’t you pull everything out and look? Don’t hang up, though, because I want to know what your plan is.”

  “Oh, Mom.” From the background came the tromping noise of him banging up the stairs. This was followed by much crashing and cursing. In my mind’s eye, I saw tumbling books, notebooks, toys, and everything else Arch had accumulated in his fifteen and a half years. Why was he so surprised he could never find anything? “Okay, here we go,
” he said. “Mittens, hat.” More thrashing and grunting was followed by, “All right, I have my snow pants. Gotta go, Mom.”

  “Where are you going snowboarding?”

  “Over at Regal Ridge. You already signed the release, remember? Oh, yeah, and may I drive the Vikarioses’ van?”

  Since I’d taken the interstate down to the Regal Ridge exit in November, then negotiated the winding road up the mountain, all when there was no snow on the ground, I knew the answer to that one. “No, sorry.” I also recalled the ski and snowboard area itself, which abutted the interstate. At one time, the place had been a bona fide, if tiny, ski area, with a single lift. After the operators had been unable to afford the liability insurance, the area had gone up for sale. Although the ski run was supposedly standing unused, renegade boarders had cut a path up the side of the mountain and strung an ad hoc, entirely unsafe rope along the trail. After several kids had ended up breaking their legs and being airlifted out, pressure from parents had induced Furman County Open Space to purchase the hill and make it into a ski and snowboard area—with the old path chained off.

  The Regal Ridge Snow Sports Area, as it had been renamed, had proven to be immensely popular. When I’d seen the place, with its thick crowd of local skiers and snowboarders, my stomach had clenched. I’d hardly been able to look at the rope along the west side of the run, the only barrier between all those snow-sports enthusiasts, the crummy old path between the trees, and a drop of three hundred feet onto jagged rocks. I’d swallowed hard as Arch explained that nobody had been hurt since the new rope had gone in. At that point, he’d started in with “Everyone gets to go, am I going to be the only one whose mommy won’t let him?” Finally, reluctantly, I’d given Arch permission to snowboard there with his pals.

  “Mom, hello? You there?”

  “Yes, yes, go ahead. Will you call me on my cell when you’re ready to come home?”