Patricia smiled at him for the first time. “A two. Very good. Can’t get my clothes and makeup back. Very bad.”
I jumped in with “Listen, there’s something else I need to talk to you about. Um, as you know from Hermie, Elizabeth Wellington ended up getting invited to tomorrow’s lunch at Hermie’s house. Neil Tharp wanted her to come.”
Patricia groaned. “The gruesome twosome.”
I went on: “Hermie doesn’t want you to become upset with her, so she sent me to smooth things out. She still wants you to come to her party.”
“I don’t like the idea of the difficult duo taking shots at me. And anyway,” she said, “as I explained, I don’t have anything to wear, since my best stuff is sitting over at Drew’s place.”
“Could you let her in to get her clothes?” I asked Tom. I didn’t want Hermie to have a meltdown if Patricia boycotted her party.
Tom said, “Nobody can go into that house until our team is done.”
“Say once the team is pulled off the house,” I said to him, “then it would be all right, wouldn’t it?” Tom gave me an acidic look that I ignored. I turned to Patricia. “If you could get your clothes, would you come?”
Patricia brightened. “Yes, there’s a green dress I particularly like that would be perfect. I wore it to one of Elizabeth’s fund-raising lunches, for the Heart Association.”
“Fund-raising luncheon for the Heart Association?” I asked faintly, feeling my heart squeeze with resentment. “Who catered?”
Patricia flicked her hand impatiently. “I don’t remember. It was at the Lake House.” She frowned. “Wait, I think it was Two Pettigrew, from down in Denver. Anyway, Elizabeth made a big point of ignoring me.” She drew her mouth into a tart expression. “But it was a huge party. I don’t know what she would do at a lunch.”
“I’ll do everything I can to help you,” I promised…although I hadn’t had much luck delivering on my promises to her.
“Thanks, Goldy. I’d really love to have that green dress.”
“Okeydoke,” said Tom, heaving himself up from the sofa. “Thanks for looking at Goldy’s picture.”
“You’re leaving?” Patricia asked. Her bottom lip began to tremble. “You’re leaving me alone?”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and meant it. “I’m really going to try to help you.”
Once she closed the door behind us, I could hear her muffled sobs.
20
That did not make me feel great,” I said, once we were settled back in the van and heading away from Patricia’s house.
“Yeah, well, she’ll find a new boyfriend.” Once we were again out on the main road that circled through Flicker Ridge, Tom had to swerve to avoid the same real-estate agent’s Mercedes. My tires caught a patch of bad ice, and we landed in yet another snowbank. “I should give that woman a ticket,” he mused once the Mercedes had passed. He peered into the rearview mirror. “But I doubt your van could catch up with her. Plus, you don’t have a siren.”
“Oh, Tom.”
He cautiously backed up the van until we were no longer perpendicular to the road. Then he did an eight-point turn to get us headed the correct way. But at the stone entry to Flicker Ridge, Tom turned right instead of turning left toward home.
“Remind me why we’re going this way, Tom.”
“You don’t remember your son asking you to come watch him snowboard? I told him we’d pick him up, by the way.”
“No, I don’t remember any of that.” I pressed the buttons on my cell to call Julian. Patricia or no Patricia, we needed an extra rack of lamb chops to make sure there was enough food for everyone at Hermie’s luncheon. Patricia wouldn’t eat much, anyway, but adding Neil and Elizabeth meant we might come up short. When my cell beeped at me, indicating I didn’t have a signal, I waited until we got on the interstate. No signal. When we were finally on the road to Regal Ridge, I tried again. Nothing. I threw the cell phone on the car floor.
“Take it easy, Miss G. You have got to get some distance. This case is filling up your head, and you can’t think clearly if your mind is stuffed with worries.”
“Stuffing is what you make for a turkey.” I eyed the curvy road ahead. “Could you find an open place so I can try to reach Julian?” When Tom grunted his assent, I said, “Speaking of worries, I’m still anxious about the fact that Sandee is floating around out there somewhere. Did your people go see the Barclays?”
“Goldy, I just told them about those folks a couple of hours ago. They’ve got to get a pair of investigators over there, then take the time to question them thoroughly—”
“And meanwhile, a killer is on the loose. Plus, I’ve got a luncheon to cater tomorrow. But don’t fret, we’re going to go be snowboarding spectators.”
When we’d been on the road for half an hour, Tom turned into the parking lot of the Regal Ridge Snow Sports Area. “I swear to God, working with you is exhausting. Go ahead, try your cell. I mean, if you didn’t break it chucking it onto the floor. That was actually a really good hurl; I’m going to call the Rockies pitching staff, see if they need help come spring training—”
I ignored him and again punched in the numbers for Julian.
“Goldy, God, I’ve been trying to reach you!” Julian’s voice boomed. “Elizabeth Wellington has called about six times. She is not a happy camper.”
I closed my eyes and held the phone out from my ear. Was Julian’s voice really coming through the cell extra loudly, or did I just not want to hear what he had to say? Did ex-wives always have to hate their ex-husband’s girlfriends? Or was it just rich ex-wives who hated richer, younger, prettier girlfriends and made you listen to their complaints? Majoring in psychology hadn’t prepared me one whit for dealing with boorish behavior. But, man! I was a whiz when it came to rats in mazes.
“Goldy, are you there?” Julian shouted. “I told her you were going over to the Regal Ridge Snow Sports Area to watch Arch and then bring him home. She said she’d meet you there. By the way, when I left Arch and his pals, he said he couldn’t wait for you and Tom to come see him catch some air.”
“Oh, joy. Did Elizabeth tell you whether she was coming to Hermie MacArthur’s tomorrow?”
“I sort of got the feeling she was. But she wanted you to disinvite Patricia Ingersoll.”
“I figured as much. Look, could you go out and buy us another rack of lamb chops?”
Julian agreed and signed off. I turned to Tom. “Julian says Elizabeth Wellington—”
“I heard. I also picked up on that extra rack of chops. Reminds me of that old variation on a nursery rhyme:
“Mary had a little lamb, a lobster and some prunes,
A piece of pie, a piece of cake, and then some macaroons!
It made the naughty waiters laugh, to see her order so,
And when they carried Mary out, her face was white as snow.”
I shook my head. Okay, I realized as we got out of the van, he was trying to cheer me up. So far it wasn’t working. And when Elizabeth Wellington’s voice cracked the air with “Goldy Schulz! I want to talk to you!”…and sixteen people in the parking lot turned their heads to see this Goldy Schulz she was screaming at, my mood nose-dived even further.
I walked as quickly as I could across the snowpacked parking lot. Near the entrance to the resort, Elizabeth, swathed in a scarlet cape with mink trim, was tapping the toe of what looked like a very expensive leather boot. No question about it, she wasn’t going to wear that outfit on the slopes.
“Mom!” Arch called out of nowhere. “Did you see me?”
I looked around wildly, trying to avoid seeing Elizabeth and her tapping foot. Finally I made out Arch, who was propelling himself across the parking lot the way snowboarders did, scooting his free foot along the snowpack, and gliding with his other foot, which was still buckled into the board.
“So, did you see me or not?” Arch asked when he was beside me. Underneath his knitted ski hat, his face was shiny with sweat and redder than Elizabeth
’s cape.
“Goldy Schulz!” Elizabeth screamed again. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tom ambling over to her. Good, that would shut her up for a couple of minutes.
“I didn’t see you,” I confessed to Arch. “Where were you?”
“Mom! On the slope!” His mitten indicated the right side of the mountain. “That’s where the best jumps are. Watch for me on the far side this time, will you?”
“Okay, okay,” I promised. Then I looked back up at the steeply angled part of the hill he’d indicated. “That looks awful dangerous,” I said. “Maybe you should—”
“Mom, don’t.” As he turned and pushed his board away, I tried to memorize what he had on: a bright blue ski jacket, dark ski pants, and that gray woolen hat. You couldn’t hear anyone calling from the ski slopes. And when Arch was taking skiing lessons at Killdeer, I’d learned the hard way that when you tried to watch for your kid from the bottom of the hill, everyone looked alike.
“I’ve been waiting to talk to you,” Elizabeth announced when she arrived at my side. “First I had to drive all the way over here from Flicker Ridge, and then—”
“I’ve got to go take these two calls coming in,” Tom said, holding up his cell. “Might be some answers to your questions,” he added, which made Elizabeth give him a stare that was unabashedly nosy. He ignored her and walked back to the van.
“Elizabeth,” I said, “before we visit, can we walk over to the bottom of the slope? I promised my son I’d watch for him.”
Elizabeth tsked, but marched her short, stocky body beside me all the way to the base of the RRSSA slope. Around us, crowds of nervous parents stamped their feet as they watched their children whiz down the mountain. I plodded through the snow to the right side of what I thought of as the landing area. Elizabeth, who’d become slightly unwieldy in the high-heeled boots, trudged resolutely beside me.
“Hermie MacArthur called me,” Elizabeth began when we’d taken up our posts at the edge of the base. “She wanted to say she’d invited Patricia Ingersoll to this to-do at her house, and she wanted to make sure it was all right with me. I said of course it was not all right with me. So she said I needed to talk to you, because you were the one doing all the arrangements with the guests. Is Hermie not in charge of her own party?” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Did you, or did you not, invite my deceased ex-husband’s girlfriend to this luncheon?”
I scanned the slopes, but saw no sign of Arch. “Elizabeth,” I said, “I didn’t. Hermie did.”
“The last thing I need,” Elizabeth fumed, as if she hadn’t heard me, “is to be reminded of the girlfriend my s.o.b. ex-husband kept trying to flaunt in my face! Do you understand?”
“I do.” I faced her and smiled. “And I have a possible piece of good news for you. Patricia may not be coming, because she says she doesn’t have anything to wear.”
Elizabeth’s dark eyes were filled with anger. “I don’t know why I should believe anything you tell me. You and Patricia are friends, for heaven’s sake. You did her first wedding reception, and for all I know, you were going to do her reception when she married Drew. You’ve been helping her, everybody says, even though she probably killed Drew.”
“Is that why you didn’t ask me to do your Heart Association lunch? Because you knew Patricia was coming to it and you didn’t want a caterer you perceived as her ally?”
Elizabeth’s cheeks turned as crimson as her cape. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said huffily.
“Forget it. But listen. Elizabeth, you need to let go of your rage and move on. Trust me, I know something about these things—”
“What, you’re in the advice business now? Because I don’t need it,” she snarled. Then she twirled and stomped away.
Goodness me, another visit with a wealthy woman had gone incredibly well. Not.
I turned back to the slope. I shuffled sideways to the far end Arch had indicated, away from the crowd at the base and near the ridge. All alone on that side, I figured I’d be able to wave madly at Arch, and he’d actually be able to tell his mother was admiring his boarding skill.
But there was still no sign of a bright blue jacket and dark pants. I wasn’t worried, I told myself, because I’d made no calculation of the length of the lift lines. As I stamped from foot to foot to keep myself warm, I wondered why there were so few kids skiing or boarding down the right side of the hill. The reason for this, I eventually realized, was that whenever a kid did hurtle down that way, he would hit first one jump, then another, and kid and board would hang in the air for what seemed like an eternity.
Perhaps it was because I was concentrating so hard that I was unaware of someone coming up behind me. Suddenly I was hit very hard in the back. The impact of the blow took my breath away.
“Wait!” I managed to cry. “Stop!”
But whoever it was paid no heed. My attacker grabbed my shoulder and shoved, sending me flying farther to the right, into the trees, and down a slope. We were out of sight of the skiers and boarders now. Below us, I could just make out the chasm that separated the ski area from the next mountain over. If I went over that cliff, I wouldn’t live to tell the tale. I dug in my feet, purposely dropped to my knees, and fell headfirst into the snow. My attacker growled something unintelligible, then quickly jammed a knee into the center of my back, forcing me down into the snow so that I couldn’t breathe.
I struggled furiously, pushing with all my strength to get that knee off my spine so I could roll over. I tried to grab behind me with my arms. But the knee only came down harder, and a gloved hand seized the back of my head. Dizziness assaulted me, and I tried to keep my eyes closed against the snow. Pain exploded in my chest from the lack of air. Then a hot breath and a hoarse voice were next to my ear.
“Stick to your catering, bitch!”
With a final shove, my enemy whacked me even farther into the snow. I saw stars and breathed in ice.
Somehow, and without my realizing how much time had gone by, I regained consciousness. I was inhaling oxygen; I was alive. I’d managed to turn my head to the side, but could not remember doing so. I was still lying in the snow. I tried to move, but my muscles were not responding very well. I was aware that I was very cold. Already it was darker, but I couldn’t have been out that long, I realized. Still, where was Arch? Tom? Did anyone know where I was?
“Mom!” Arch’s voice seemed to be coming from far away. “Are you okay? What are you doing way over here?” When I could only groan, my son’s voice, nearer this time, said, “Wait. Let me call Tom on my cell. Is he here? Should I call 911? Hey, guys!” he cried. “Todd! Gus! Come help my mom!”
“Mrs. Schulz,” said Todd, “what are you doing in the snow? Should we turn you over?”
“Wait, Todd. Aunt Goldy?” This was Gus, using the moniker we’d devised for him. “I’m going to check for broken bones, all right?”
I said, “Mmf.”
As Gus gently, methodically, squeezed all my limbs, I heard Arch talking rapidly into his cell. “Yes, yes, she’s over here. Can’t you see us? Look, Todd will wave to you!” I caught a glimpse of Todd running up the slope, swinging his arms. My chest and throat were burning, and my muscles felt horribly weak.
Gus soon finished with his medical examination. The Jerk was his biological father, after all, and even though John Richard had never known, and wouldn’t have cared, that he’d fathered a child out of wedlock, it looked as if Gus might have inherited some of my ex-husband’s analytical and academic skills. Whoopee.
“I’m going to turn you over now, Aunt Goldy,” Gus’s voice reassured me. “Then Arch and I will take off our jackets and spread them over you. Quickly now, Arch, turn her on three. One, two, three.”
Arch did as directed, and soon I saw my son’s bare hand in front of my eyes. Snow flicked to the side; he was brushing it off my face. “I’m putting my mittens onto your hands, Mom,” he said.
I could barely feel my son’s hands on my cheeks. Most of me felt n
umb. It was as if my body couldn’t remember how to take commands.
“Jesus H. Christ,” Tom cried in the distance. And soon I was aware of his body, too, close to mine. “I’m going to pick you up in a sec,” he said gently. I blinked and made out his face above mine. “Gus, can you keep those jackets over her as we walk back to the van? Arch, here, take my keys and start it up. Todd, can you bring all of your guys’ boards?”
By the time Tom had me back to the van, I’d begun to feel my face again, and my limbs had begun to work, though my lungs still hurt.
“We’re going to the emergency room at Lutheran,” Tom announced as he slid me into the backseat and buckled me in.
“The hell you are,” I said in a voice so raspy it could have grated cheese.
“Todd, you get in front with Arch and make sure he’s going the right way. Gus, get in on Goldy’s other side and hold her hands. I’m going to take her face.”
I griped again that I was fine, that Arch only had a learner’s permit, and that he, Tom, should stay in front. I was just a little cold and weak, I protested, and I certainly didn’t need to be stuck in an emergency room for the next four hours while people with blood oozing from every pore—
“What happened?” Tom interrupted as he gently rubbed my face. “Did you fall? I tried to reach you on your cell, but you weren’t answering, and I couldn’t find you anywhere.”
“I must have gone right past you, Mom,” Arch piped up from the front seat. “I didn’t see you way over there in the trees—”
“Just pay attention to your driving, will you?” I said.
“Ex-cuse me, Mom.” Arch shook his head, which looked abysmally short up there in the front seat. “You always tell me to be careful, and you’re the one who’s always managing to crash into something—”
Sweet Revenge Page 31
