Fatally Flaky

by Diane Mott Davidson

  “Tom! I will be fine.”

  He bristled. “Fine? Fine?”

  “I’ll take my cell phone.”

  “Service out there is spotty. That’s what we discovered when we were looking into the attack on Jack.” His shoulders slumped. “All right, if you’re determined to do this, Boyd sticks to you like epoxy, and you go through the spa switchboard if you need me.”

  I agreed. I called Arch. Gus had already invited him to stay at his house for “their last free week before school starts.” So much for Gus’s grandparents’ school-supply shopping plans.

  “It’s not like you’re going to prison next week,” I said to Arch.

  Arch said, “Mom, you haven’t been in an American high school lately.”

  I didn’t want to argue, so I told him I’d be back Thursday. Still, I sensed Tom was worried about this little expedition, Yolanda was anxious that her fake illness would be found out, Marla was bitching about going to numerous exercise classes every day, and Julian was okay with healthful recipes, but was dead set against cooking low-fat food.

  Other than all that, I thought as I stretched into my last asana, everything was, as we say in food service, peachy.

  I took a quick shower and crept down to the kitchen, where I filled an insulated mug with ice, splashed in a goodly dose of whipping cream, and pulled four shots of espresso for a volcanic Summertime Special. I took a long swig, then shuddered when I thought of the menus Yolanda had e-mailed me for that day. For dessert, the clients were getting canned fruit with low-cal whipped topping. That didn’t sound too healthful to me.

  When I’d loaded the cooking equipment I couldn’t live without into the van, my eye snagged on the facade of Jack’s Victorian. The unfinished front porch, with its higgledy-piggledy assortment of flowerpots, made the place look even more forlorn. I looked away, down at the Grizzly Saloon, where an early morning worker was sweeping the porch. By half past ten, the place would be filled with patrons—usually men, sad to say—who couldn’t get through the day without booze, and plenty of it.

  I gunned the engine: time to get out to Gold Gulch Spa. Even if Tom thought I was nuts, I knew what I wanted to do: find out why someone had killed Doc Finn. He’d been investigating something. Then Jack had searched the Smoothie Cabin. Maybe Doc Finn and/or Jack had found what they were looking for, and were threatening to go public with it.

  If either one or both of them had gathered evidence proving some kind of wrongdoing, then that would be it—finito, fin, the end—for the spa.

  If the whistleblower had been Doc Finn, then the note in his trash reading “Have analyzed” could be the key. Had Doc Finn taken a sample from the spa … from the Smoothie Cabin … and put it into a vial? And had he received the news back as to what was in the vial? Had he confronted Victor, and if so, had the old doctor been lethally punished for his efforts?

  And how did Billie Attenborough, now Billie Miller, play into this, if at all? She and Doc Finn, whom she had already professed to hate, had been having a large, loud argument out at Gold Gulch Spa right before he was killed. Billie had said Doc Finn had told her she shouldn’t try to lose weight so quickly. I still didn’t believe this. I couldn’t remember when Craig Miller had said he and Billie would be leaving for the Greek Isles for their honeymoon … I just recalled how much I wanted them to be on it, instead of hanging around Aspen Meadow.

  I also wanted to know what the hell Charlotte was up to. To my mind, she hadn’t really explained what her shoes were doing in Doc Finn’s Porsche.

  Was my theory about Victor possibly having it in for Doc Finn and/or Jack likely or unlikely? What was Lucas up to, if anything? Where did Charlotte, Billie, and her new husband fit in, if at all?

  I pressed my lips together and wound up Upper Cottonwood Creek Road on the way to Gold Gulch Spa. No question, it would pay to be extremely vigilant.

  My cell phone rang, startling me out of my reverie.

  “Okay, boss,” came Julian’s crackling voice, “I’m on the interstate and Sergeant Boyd is right behind me. He said to call you and tell you not to drive into the spa until we catch up. Tom’s orders.”

  “Well,” I said with a nervous laugh, “make it snappy.” I glanced at the car clock: half past five.

  “I would,” replied Julian, “but remember, Boyd’s a cop, and he’s driving like a cop. Right behind me. Slowly.”

  “Is he in a police car?”

  “No, but I have a feeling that if I go twenty miles per hour over the speed limit, he’ll get out the handcuffs.”

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, the five of us—Boyd, Julian, Yolanda’s two female assistants, and yours truly—were madly scrambling eggs, toasting whole wheat bread, and swirling soft tofu with spring water, to mix into oatmeal. The two breakfast servers were filling the skim milk and decaf coffee machines.

  “I thought you said this was a high-class place,” Boyd commented as he peered into the walk-in refrigerator. “I’m not seeing any expensive low-fat breakfast meat in here. In fact, I’m not seeing any kind of breakfast meat in here.”

  “Better for your arteries, Mr. Policeman,” Julian commented.

  “Yeah?” said Boyd. “Kiss my ass, Mr. Vegetarian.”

  “Boys, boys,” I scolded gently, “this is no place for a food fight, even a verbal one.”

  But the two of them were already racing around the kitchen’s big island like a couple of kids. Julian snapped a dish towel at Boyd. Boyd snatched a wet pot scrubber and hurled it at Julian. The two kitchen assistants began giggling as the fight escalated to Boyd and Julian swinging kitchen implements at each other. The assistants’ laughter reached hyena levels. While the two guys banged around and yelled taunts, I prayed that Victor Lane was far away. I also began to wonder where the seven thousand dollars a week that each client paid to visit Gold Gulch went. The kitchen did not hold a single piece of fresh fruit, and only the most desultory collection of fresh vegetables. Frozen chickens, thawing for tonight’s broiling and tomorrow’s lunch, had been bought in bulk, as had the pork tenderloins that I was fixing for the next night’s dinner. Why would Yolanda put up with preparing such foods, instead of insisting on high-quality, fresh ingredients? She must really need this paycheck. I frowned.

  Of course, there was no way I was going to tell Victor Lane how to run his spa. Still, when I’d started out in catering, it had taken me a while to figure out how to calculate what exactly I had to charge to make a profit in food service, and Victor, I was sure, had done the same thing. The basic rule of thumb was that you took your raw ingredients and tripled them. As far as I could figure, Victor Lane was paying less than two bucks a day per person for his raw materials. So if the clients were paying a thousand dollars a day for food, shelter, and exercise, I wondered how much the shelter, cleaning, and exercise classes cost.

  Charlotte had told me Gold Gulch was almost always full, with a waiting list, even year-round. Victor must be making a killing. But if that was true, then why was he trying to convince Marla, Lucas, and Charlotte to invest in Gold Gulch?

  While I was wondering about all this, Boyd and Julian picked up sauté pans and clanked them together like swords. I tried to filter out the racket while looking more closely at the menus Yolanda had posted in the kitchen: Scrambled Eggs and Canned Fruit Cocktail for this morning; Baked Tuna with Tomato Salad for lunch; Broiled Chicken, Cauliflower, and Broccoli for tonight, with packaged Angel Food Cake for dessert. If you were allergic to anything, you got yogurt. Whoopee!

  Tomorrow the clients were getting more Scrambled Eggs with Toast, or Oatmeal with Tofu and Sugarless Applesauce for breakfast; Chicken Salad with fat-free mayo for lunch—I gagged—and Roast Pork Tenderloin with more Sugarless Applesauce plus Steamed Green Beans for dinner, with yet more Angel Food Cake. Another day of Awful, or offal, depending on how you looked at it.

  Even when I’d gone to boarding school as a scholarship student, and we’d all complained about the food, nothing had been as bad as this.

&
nbsp; An enormous crash, squealing, and hollering on the other side of the kitchen stopped me wondering about anything. Julian, Boyd, and the sauté pans they were wielding had collided with the plastic vat of fruit cocktail, which in turn had spilled all over the floor.

  “Oh, hell, boss, I’m sorry,” Julian apologized. “I’ll clean it up.”

  “No, no, I’ll do that,” Boyd said. But then he said, “Wait. Don’t move. Don’t do anything.” He looked a tad ridiculous, I had to say, holding his pan aloft and peering down at the floor, as if he’d seen a giant insect and was about to whack it.

  When Victor Lane bellowed, “Everybody out!” I jumped. I hadn’t heard or seen him come in. Nor had the two combatants. Julian had murmured something about looking for a mop, and Boyd was still staring in confusion at the mess on the floor.

  “Victor, I’m so sorry,” I babbled. “These two, my, my, er, staff people, that is, were just trying to help me. I’ll clean up the spilled fruit, I promise.”

  “Oh, no you won’t,” Victor Lane retorted. His skeletal face loomed too close to mine, and I reared back defensively. “I should have known Yolanda would screw up my place,” he continued angrily. “Appendicitis, my ass. She’s probably visiting relatives. And anyway, she should have let me choose a replacement. There are plenty of cooks out there who could use a job.”

  “Sir,” said Boyd, “please—”

  “Shut up!” screamed Victor, his back to us. “Get out of my kitchen!” He was at the sink, filling a bucket with water. He ignored Boyd and picked up the full bucket.

  Then, to my astonishment, Victor doused the section of the floor covered with fruit cocktail with water. The water, syrup, and about half the fruit were whisked down a floor drain. Victor was cleaning up something? Why? I’d never seen him do anything other than give orders … or criticize.

  “Sir!” said Boyd.

  “Be quiet and get out!” cried Victor.

  21

  That guy is a nut,” said Boyd, his voice low.

  “Naw,” said Julian, “more of a legume. A peanut.”

  “Guys, you’re driving me bonkers,” I said.

  We were sitting outside in my van, the only place we felt safe enough to talk, until we were sure Victor was out of the spa kitchen.

  “Maybe he’s a soybean,” said Julian. “Full of protein but bitter.”

  “Don’t the two of you start up again,” I warned. They were sitting side by side in the backseat, wearing guilty-little-boy expressions. “I don’t want us to get thrown out of here. Listen, Sergeant Boyd, what did you see in the fruit cocktail?”

  He shook his head. “That wasn’t just fruit cocktail. There was something in it. Something that didn’t dissolve.”

  “What?” I asked, thinking of the Smoothie Cabin.

  “I don’t know,” Boyd said carefully. “But you noticed the clients were only supposed to get small cups of it? One little cup each, no seconds?”

  “Yes,” I said thoughtfully. “Okay, look,” I began. Then I told them about Jack searching the Smoothie Cabin, and my conviction that something suspicious was going on behind that particular locked door. “I need to get into that Smoothie Cabin,” I concluded.

  “We’ll go together,” said Boyd, his voice protective.

  “Girls and boys?” said Julian. “How ’bout I take samples of all the food, to get tested?”

  “You’re on,” I said. “I’m just wondering if I should warn—”

  But I didn’t get a chance to finish the thought, because the person I wanted to warn was Marla, now on a path leading from one of the dormitories. She wore a giant pink muumuu, pink sunglasses, and pink flip-flops. She raised one dramatic hand to her forehead, Tallulah Bank-head style, and waved with the other. When she came a bit closer and saw that Julian and Boyd were with me, her waving became genuinely enthusiastic.

  “Three of my favorite people, all in one place!” she cried. “It’s okay for me to be in the van, right? I mean, Victor warned us last night not to fraternize with the help.”

  “What?” I squealed.

  “My sentiments exactly,” said Marla. “We met all the exercise instructors last night, and not one of them is attractive, trust me.”

  “You mean, none of them is an attractive guy,” Julian teased.

  “Well,” said Marla, fluffing out her hair and peering into the backseat, “none of them is as attractive as, say, Sergeant Boyd here.”

  I checked the rearview mirror, and tough-as-steel Sergeant Boyd was indeed blushing.

  “I’m going to have to get back to the sheriff’s department,” Boyd said. “Working at this place is proving beyond my capacities.”

  “I doubt that,” said Marla, keeping the flirtatious lilt in her voice. “And I certainly hope the three of you have been fixing a marvelous breakfast here. Last night we had an intake assessment and a demonstration of the athletic equipment, which we were all required to be involved in, Victor said, for insurance purposes. What the hell does that mean? If you die after the first night, it’s not his fault? Well, anyway, I about dropped dead, but I didn’t, ’cuz I only walked for ten minutes on that blasted treadmill. So now I’m famished, and if whatever you’re giving us today is as pathetic as the fish and fruit they gave us last night, I’m going to quit now.”

  “Fish and fruit?” Boyd asked sharply. “What kind of fruit?”

  Marla paused, then looked over the seat again. “Canned peaches! It’s the middle of summer, and we’re in a state that grows peaches, for God’s sake! So why were we having canned peaches, will somebody please tell me?”

  “What did Victor say?” I asked.

  “Victor didn’t say nada,” Marla replied. “Yolanda was the one in charge last night, and she said Victor had done all the calorie calculating, and only canned peaches worked for his careful dietary whatever. Why?” She was suddenly curious, as if I might give her a gossipy tidbit that would get her through exercise class. “I’ll tell you something else, though. The women say the smoothies are wonderful, and make them feel dreamy.”

  “Dreamy?” I asked. “How can a smoothie make you feel dreamy?”

  “I don’t know,” Marla replied. “But we’re all only allowed one a day, so maybe they limit dreaminess the way they limit calories.”

  A rustling emerged from the backseat. Then Boyd reached forward with two zipped plastic bags. “Could you save me some of your fruit cocktail this morning? And some of your smoothie this afternoon? Please?”

  “Why?” asked the increasingly inquisitive Marla. “What do you think is in them?”

  “I don’t know,” said Boyd flatly. “That’s why I need you to gather some up for me. Preferably when no one is looking, if you can manage it.”

  “But you must suspect—,” Marla had begun, when the bell rang for breakfast.

  “Look, Marla,” I said, “we do suspect Victor might be putting something in the food. We don’t know what.”

  Another bell rang. “Oops, gotta run. Victor said we had one minute after the second bell rang to make it into the chow line, and then the line was closed. That’s what he called it, too, a chow line, like we’re a bunch of dogs who need to—oh, man, I have to run, I’m starving.” She stuffed the plastic bags into a copious pocket of her muumuu, and opened the door. Then she pointed into the backseat with a pink-painted nail. “I’m doing you a favor, Sergeant Boyd, and I’m going to expect a favor in return!”

  “Christ,” said Boyd when Marla shut the door. “I wonder if Schulz will take me back now.”

  “Victor just left,” said Julian. “We’d better hustle in there if we’re going to help with breakfast.” And off we went.

  Inside, I dished out the scrambled eggs, using the little scoops marked EGG MEASUREMENT. Julian and Boyd spooned oatmeal into small bowls for the clients who wanted that instead of eggs. Yolanda’s assistants sprayed butter substitute onto whole wheat toast and put little dabs of sugar-free jam on top. The very few male clients—four, to be exact—were stoi
c, but the women kept commenting that they were ravenous. It made me wish I’d brought some brownies for them.

  “Well, well, what are you doing here?” asked Billie Attenborough Miller, the last woman in line.

  I was so taken aback to hear her voice that I dropped the serving spoon. Julian came rushing over with another.

  “Omigod,” said Billie. “This kid’s here, too? Where’s Yolanda?”

  “Sick!” I managed to squeak. Meanwhile, my brain was madly fluttering with questions. Dr. Craig Miller was nowhere in sight. Was he still in bed? Had they even consummated the marriage?

  “Ah, the bride,” said Boyd, more smoothly than I could have managed.

  “You!” said Billie. “The cop! Why are you here?”

  Boyd said solicitously, “I’m here helping Goldy, since Yolanda has appendicitis.”

  “Your tax dollars at work!” Billie sang. “Is someone going to use a new spoon to give me some eggs, or am I going to be standing here all day?”

  Julian obligingly lifted a new, clean spoon and gave Billie a heaping spoonful of eggs. She eyed it warily. If she complained he’d given her too much, he could take some off her plate. If she complained he’d given her too little, he might say that was all she got, if she expected to lose weight.

  “And why haven’t you left for your honeymoon?” Boyd persisted.

  “My husband wanted to stay here a few days before we leave for our honeymoon,” Billie replied huffily. “Not that it’s any of your business.” With this, she picked up her plate and strode off.

  In the kitchen, the presence of the other workers made conversation among Julian, Boyd, and me impossible. But when the two worker bees announced it was time for them to help the two servers clear the tables, Boyd and I lifted our eyebrows at each other.

  I said, “Billie drove me crazy for months, then after changing the date twice, she finally got married, and they’re staying here, eating this food? Is she trying to lose more weight to fit into her bathing suit? I remember now that Craig Miller told me he had to change their tickets for getting to Greece, but why not stay in a hotel?”