The Whole Enchilada

by Diane Mott Davidson

  “Not really, Miss G. Unless you drive up a long road, then a steep driveway, the only way you can reach that house is by ascending from the lake, and that involves several staircases anyone could see, or else some serious rock climbing behind boulders that would conceal you. Anyone looking at that place from a distance—say from a boat out on the lake?—would see a person in a uniform, doing what looked like window washing. The end.”

  I exhaled. “Any news on Father Pete?”

  “Still in a coma. Gotta run.”

  I felt guilty that Tom was taking time out to talk to me. But he knew how much I’d treasured Holly, how much I valued Father Pete, and how desperately I wanted to figure this out. After he signed off, I turned to Marla. I told her about Friday’s time frame, which had provided a couple of hours for the saboteur to screw up Holly’s deck.

  “So . . . is Tom thinking someone was watching Holly’s house, and saw her and Drew leave?” Marla asked.

  “Either that or somebody knew Holly was going to be at St. Luke’s on Friday morning. Maybe he saw her calendar when he broke into her house.”

  Incredibly, it was getting on to four o’clock. We had to go back to working on the dinner. Overhead, heavy footsteps indicated that Julian had put Boyd and Armstrong to work. I wondered how they felt about that, and figured they’d probably have preferred to be doing anything else: interviewing witnesses, canvassing neighborhoods, or putting time in at the crime lab, anything besides culinary work.

  But they were hard at it. Armstrong was packing up a freezer box with containers of vichyssoise while Boyd was laboriously peeling the shrimp. Next to him were a mound of firm pink shellfish bodies and another, bigger pile of shells. Boyd’s face was unreadable. Julian, meanwhile, was whirring the sherry vinaigrette in the blender. I felt guilty about our time in the basement. But Julian only looked at us and nodded.

  “Everything okay?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” said Marla. “When we find out what happened to Holly and Father Pete, we’ll give ourselves permission to feel okay.”

  Once my van, Marla’s Mercedes, and Julian’s Range Rover were packed up, we took off for the conference center. Boyd accompanied me; Armstrong followed Marla in the prowler. When the cops said Julian had to stay where they could see him, he sighed, but agreed.

  Marla called my cell. “Tom doesn’t want to take any chances,” she observed. “That’s sweet.”

  Tom didn’t want me to take any chances, I thought sourly, as our little procession made its way up Main Street.

  The sun was beginning to slide toward the western mountains, but it would be another four hours before it set. Fishermen ringed Aspen Meadow Lake. A fresh breeze was splintering the afternoon light on the water’s surface. Boaters paddled furiously toward the boathouse, where rentals were due at five. Gaggles of geese and flocks of duck swarmed the center of the lake, the better to keep away from humans.

  My cell phone buzzed again. This time, Boyd took it and read the caller ID.

  “Yeah, Chief?” he said. We were almost to the conference center. “She’s here. Will do.” He handed the phone to me.

  “I’m going to see you in an hour,” I said, but I could feel the warmth in my voice. I’d just seen him that morning, but I missed him. “Please tell me you’re not calling to cancel.”

  “No way. But I wanted to warn you to get your investigative antennae up.”

  “They are up.”

  “I mean tonight, and I mean way up. With the Inglebys.” I sighed, but Tom went on, “First of all, you should know we talked to Drew. No cardiological condition that he knew of. Our deputy went through Holly’s rental again. No meds, no suspicious notes or files. And still no insurance policy stashed somewhere. So, being as how George Ingleby is a cardiologist, I drove over there, to see if I could find anything else out.”

  “And?”

  “Mustang Sally, the maid? She opened the door and looked frightened. Wanted to know if some of the neighbors had called us about the noise.”

  “The Inglebys don’t have any close neighbors. What noise?”

  “George and Lena were fighting in the kitchen. I mean, screaming at each other. Mustang Sally let me in, and raced toward the kitchen to announce me. Then there was sudden silence.”

  I managed to say, “What were they fighting about?”

  “Oh, Miss G., I wish I knew. Lena stormed out of the kitchen and toward me. She was like a cartoon character with steam blowing out of her ears. She saw me, and hollered, ‘Wanna have sex?’ ”

  “What?”

  “Exactly. Well, not exactly. She didn’t say ‘have sex.’ She used the F-word. You’d think churchgoing people would know better.”

  “Tom! What did you say to her?”

  “Miss G., I have a job to do. I said, ‘Are you offering?’ ”

  “What job is it,” I said, biting each word, “that would involve having sex with Lena Ingleby?”

  Tom laughed. “Aw, love your jealousy, Miss G. I wanted to know what had led her to say such a thing to me.”

  “Did you find out?”

  “I did not. She stomped off, marched through the front door, and slammed it behind her.”

  “And George?”

  “Well, he was all red-faced, out in the kitchen, drinking a glass of water. That man certainly does seem to favor overbearing, demanding women.”

  “Holly was neither overbearing nor demanding.”

  “According to George, she was. But I’d already heard that bit from him. So I just asked if Holly had a heart condition. He hemmed and hawed and finally said, yes, she did.”

  “What kind of heart condition?”

  “You know how the heartbeat is divided into sections? Q, R, S, T?”

  “I was a member of Med Wives 101,” I said impatiently. “What does that have to do with Holly?”

  “According to George, she had a prolonged S-T interval. That’s why she died. The antibiotics. Loquin, to be exact. I just got the side effects from the doc we consulted. With a prolonged S-T interval, if she’d been given enough Loquin, her heart would have stopped—”

  “Oh, my God,” I interrupted.

  “Yes,” Tom said, his voice so infinitely sad that I had no reply. “And somebody knew. George did. And maybe other people, too.”

  I thought back to the visit from Neil Unger on Thursday. On Friday night, there was all the back-and-forth movement in Marla’s kitchen. There were numerous people who could have stirred crushed Loquin into the glasses of wine, or even into the chile relleno torta, a few bites of which Holly had eaten several minutes before she walked out of Marla’s house.

  But I could not bring back a mental image of someone standing over the casseroles. All my mind’s eye tossed up was Holly’s smiling face at Marla’s door.

  We’ll get together soon, and talk.

  17

  True to his word, Tom pulled into the conference-center parking lot just before six. Armstrong peeled off as Arch and Gus, with Sergeant Jones following in her prowler, pulled up in a pale cloud of dust. I knew better than to run out and hug or even greet Tom, much less Arch and Gus. I did watch Tom, though. I was happy to see my family, no question. But the thought of both Boyd and Jones, not to mention Tom, being armed at a church dinner made me swallow hard.

  The three cops took their duties in stride. While Gus and Arch ruefully informed me that Sergeant Jones had, indeed, beaten them to the trailhead, Tom briefed Boyd and Jones on their duties. Jones stationed herself at the French doors, with a clipboard of guests’ names, to be checked off when they arrived. Boyd greeted me when he came into the dining room. He walked all around, checking the shelves and under the tables. I should have reassured myself, thinking we were now more secure. Instead, the cops’ presence made me feel more vulnerable.

  I raced back to my work while Gus and Arch washed up. Tom pushed through the swinging kitchen doors and nodded to Boyd. He then strictly ordered us not to use the exit to the Dumpster until the dinner wa
s over, the guests had left, and one of the three of them had accompanied us outside with the trash.

  “Also,” Tom added, “there’s been no change in Pete’s condition. Still unconscious.” His voice did not betray the emotion that suffused his green eyes. I wanted to hug him, but, again, couldn’t.

  Marla said she did not want to be out schmoozing with the diners. It would make her think of Father Pete. She wanted to be with us, serving. I told her that would be fine.

  While Tom conferred with Boyd, our five-member crew—Julian, Marla, and I, along with the newly deputized Arch and Gus—worked an assembly line. We had enough sense to begin by pouring vichyssoise, of which we had an abundance, into a pair of paper cups, for Boyd and Jones. Arch and Gus reported back that the cops gladly took the offerings. The boys then moved on to filling water pitchers with ice and either water or iced tea. That task finished, they hustled back into the kitchen and asked for the first trash bag. They wanted to get the sergeants’ cups stowed, because the arriving guests were lining up to be checked in.

  Marla and Julian began with laying out chilled bowls in rows. They then brought more cold soup out of the conference-center walk-in, while Arch, Gus, and I readied the trays for drinks.

  Marla, madly ladling soup, said, “I know I wanted to be here with you. And I know I shouldn’t be nervous, but I am.” She slopped soup outside one of the bowls and shrieked, which made Boyd bolt into the kitchen.

  “Just take your time,” Julian told her, once Boyd had been assured there was no calamity. Julian showed Marla how to wipe each bowl with a clean kitchen towel. “Just make it a routine. And remember, the guests want this food. They have paid, and they’re hungry. They need you more than you need them. Okay, Auntie?”

  Marla nodded and went back to her task. When Julian wasn’t looking, I could see her smiling.

  Through the swinging doors, the muffled voice of the supply priest said grace. When the expected Amen! did not arrive, Arch gave me a confused look, while Gus pushed the door open a crack. The priest had launched into a lengthy prayer for Father Pete’s continued healing. Tom muttered under his breath. Even after the Amen! finally arrived, the supply priest found it incumbent upon himself to reassure the guests that Father Pete, who had conceived of this dinner and to whom it was dedicated, was getting better.

  The expected murmur rising from the crowd—Father Pete was improving?—became so disruptive that Tom shook his head. “You shouldn’t give people hope when you don’t have any news.”

  I momentarily stopped searching for the plastic bag of chopped chives that I knew was in one of our boxes. “Father Pete would say there’s no such thing as false hope.”

  Tom grunted.

  The supply priest began to talk about how gratified Father Pete would be when he heard how many of them had signed up for the dinner. St. Luke’s had surpassed the goal set for tonight’s fund-raiser, and if all went well, the columbarium should be built within two years. An appreciative murmur went up from the crowd. But because of the . . . problems Father Pete was having, the priest added delicately, and because of the recent deaths of Holly Ingleby and Kathie Beliar, he would not be outlining ideas for funerals that night. There would be handouts about memorial services, and some ideas for music to be played at those rites, by the entrance. Any guest would be welcome to take home those materials.

  I thought this sounded like a good plan. Raise money tonight; take literature home; wait for Father Pete to recover. Then regroup.

  From out in the dining room, however, the audio system squawked with static. I peered through the round window in the kitchen door. To my dismay, Edith Ingleby had wrestled the microphone away from the supply priest. I swallowed hard.

  Edith’s thin high voice squealed, “Now listen, people! Father Pete would want all of you to write extra checks tonight toward the building of the columbarium . . .”

  An angry buzz arose from the hungry parishioners, who’d already sprung a hundred bucks a pop for their reservations. The supply priest had just told them that things were going well, that money from this dinner was putting us ahead of our goal for the columbarium. So what gave?

  “What ails that woman?” Marla asked. She’d finished ladling the soup and was standing next to me.

  I whipped around and looked for something to do. I seized on the bag of chopped chives. “I don’t know.”

  “Well!” Marla exclaimed. “Since I am paying for this dinner, and, I might add, I’m also serving it, and, I might also add, since our rector’s life is hanging by the thinnest of threads at Southwest Hospital, is it really appropriate for Edith Ingleby to sabotage this fund-raiser with one of her narcissistic power plays?” She tapped her foot. “You know what?” Her voice rose perilously. “I’ve got half a mind to go out there and grab that microphone from her, right now. I don’t care what people think—”

  “You care what people think, and you’re not going anywhere,” Tom’s low voice rumbled.

  “Honestly,” said Marla, turning her attention and argument to Tom. “This is too much. Remember that saying from . . . who was it? Max Planck? Let me think. ‘Science advances, funeral by funeral.’ Actually, we’re not talking about science here. We’re talking about church finances, and she—”

  “Marla,” I interrupted. “Please calm down. I don’t want you to have another coronary.”

  Swathed in a white apron, one hand clutching a ladle, the other on her hip, Marla looked like a furious chef about to paddle an ungrateful guest. “Calm? You want me to calm down? Get that damn woman back to her seat!”

  Another, deeper voice barked into the microphone. Someone was endeavoring to silence Edith Ingleby. I was glad it wasn’t Marla, and I was especially glad to be in the kitchen.

  “Who’s that talking?” I asked Arch, who was now squinting through the swinging door’s window. “Carl, the music director,” he said. He stood listening. “He’s saying he moved the printed material that the supply priest had put by the entrance. He’s telling people to look at the pamphlets in the center of each table, where they will find lists of hymns they can pick out for their memorial services.” Arch shook his head. “Now Carl says he brought a portable keyboard, and he can practice some of those hymns with the guests in just a few minutes. Mom! Can’t we play some music or something?”

  I shook my head. Whoever paid for events in the center usually brought their own music, either in the form of a small band or a disc jockey.

  “Well then,” Arch continued, “maybe somebody could go out there and tell jokes? Something needs to happen, ’cuz the mood needs to change. Big-time.”

  “Ah, mood rings!” Marla trilled, looking over the boxes we’d brought. “I knew we’d forgotten something.”

  “Happily,” said Tom unexpectedly, “we don’t need mood rings. We have just the guy.” He swung through the door and returned with Boyd. “Sergeant Boyd, you’ve been wanting to try out some of your stand-up material. Now’s the time.”

  “Uh, I don’t—” said Boyd. Boyd’s fair skin blushed scarlet to the roots of his salt-and-pepper hair.

  “That’s an order,” said Tom, as he snapped on some latex gloves, picked up a ladle, and began spooning vichyssoise into the second group of chilled bowls Julian had laid out on the counter.

  Julian grinned. Maybe all that time in Boulder had taught my young assistant to go with the flow. Sad to say, this didn’t feel like a flow. It felt like paddling a canoe in very shallow water, with submerged rocks about to make dinner run aground.

  Boyd pushed through the swinging door. Clearly curious but with jobs to do, Julian and Marla helped Tom scoop the rest of the creamy cold soup into bowls. I moved along the line and sprinkled dark green chopped chives on top. It was the old rule of garnishing: light on dark, and in this case, dark on light. Out in the dining room, I was hoping things were going from dark to light. We were interrupted in our feverish work by guffaws from Gus and Arch, whose job, refilling people’s water glasses, then taking the guests
coffee or tea, had not yet begun.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked, but the boys waved away my question so they could listen to the rest of Boyd’s monologue.

  I picked up the first tray of soup bowls and walked to the door. Marla, holding her own tray, crashed into me, but gave only a mini-shriek. I said to my son, “Could you open the door for us? Please?” But he was brushing tears from his eyes. Tom quickly pushed the door ajar so we could pass through.

  “Don’t worry,” Tom said. “I’ve heard all of Boyd’s material.”

  “Arch! Gus,” I hissed over my shoulder. “Please pick up the trays of water and iced-tea pitchers and start checking on the tables!”

  Out in the dining room, Boyd was saying, “So she pointed at me, and said, ‘I know what you’re thinking!’ And I said, ‘Oh, yeah? What am I thinking?’ And she said, ‘You wish I would shut up.’ And I said, ‘No, I just wanted to ask your husband if he knew how fast he was driving.’ And she said, ‘I can tell you that. He always drives too fast when he’s been drinking.’ ”

  The diners howled. Or at least most of them did. I took care to lower the bowls of soup at the table where the Inglebys sat. Edith, having lost the microphone, scowled. George Ingleby, worried about his mother but amused by Boyd, tried to suppress a smile. Lena Ingleby, clearly there under protest, yawned. Carl, the music director, looking lost, sat with empty chairs on each side. He clutched his portable keyboard under his arm and wasn’t eating. The dinner had not gone the way he or anyone else had planned.

  Boyd continued his “Traffic Stops I Have Known” routine while we quietly finished serving the soup. Unfortunately, he was winding down when we cleared the bowls. By the time we schlepped out the prepared entrée plates, complete with their slices of bread and china cups of molded salad, a mournful quiet had dropped over the dining room. I gave the supply priest an expectant look. He seemed to know what I was asking, but just shrugged. Really, where was his stand-up routine about Clinical Pastoral Education? Best not to ask.

  I arrived behind Edith Ingleby and lowered her plate. She was talking indignantly in not so sotto a voce. Really, she was saying, she should march right back up there and try once again to get people to give extra money to the columbarium project. I steeled my nerve. This was my catered affair, and there was no way I was going to allow Edith to take charge of the audio system again.