Sticks & Scones Page 10

  “That kid was the king of communication. Loved e-mail. Sent me a letter with no return address telling me to set up thus-and-such new e-mail address, operated only out of my home. So I did, with the D.A.’s blessing. Balachek said he’d tell me who killed the truck driver if I could get him off.” Tom’s eyes closed. I clasped his hand in mine.

  The ambulance began the winding, westward ascent up Highway 203. When we’d left the hospital, shimmering white clouds had been hovering over the forests blanketing the foothills. Peering through the ambulance’s windshield, I could see that the cloud cover had now turned the color of ash. A freezing fog misted the pine tops. More snow was on the way.

  “Andy wouldn’t tell me who his other partners were,” Tom announced abruptly, startling me. “I mean, besides Ray Wolff. Andy wouldn’t divulge information about the stamps. The home address linked with his e-mail was his father’s, who’d kicked him out when Andy stole his excavation truck. And you know we thought Andy was in Atlantic City when he called last Friday.”

  I nodded. Andy, frantic, had called our house from a cell phone in Central City, Colorado, where gambling was legal. He was calling from a bathroom, because he’d stolen somebody’s cell phone and wanted to talk to Tom. I’d said Tom was in Atlantic City, looking for him. Andy had bitterly replied that he guessed he’d have to go to New Jersey to see Tom, because his partner threw his computer into the lake. Then he hung up. With no leads materializing in New Jersey, Tom had decided to come home. And now he was determined to talk about the case. I sighed.

  “Did you ever figure out who the partner was?” I asked. “Are there more than three people in the gang?” I paused. “Ray Wolff is in prison. Whoever the third person is, he or she or whoever couldn’t have known Andy was talking to you over the Internet, or Andy would have been killed right then. I mean, if we’re talking about the same person who did kill him in the end.”

  “I’m willing to bet,” Tom said with great effort, “that the ‘other partner’ is the third hijacker witnesses saw. Maybe there are more people in the gang, but you usually don’t use the word ‘partner’ unless you’ve only got a couple of them.”

  “So somebody got wind of Andy’s e-mails?”

  Tom grimaced. “Don’t know.”

  Talking had exhausted him. He closed his eyes as the ambulance passed the sign indicating that Aspen Meadow was only ten miles away. I was glad he was finally asleep. Every time he opened his mouth, I was afraid he was going to confess to some terrible sin that I couldn’t bear to hear.

  Andy wouldn’t divulge information about the stamps. I felt a pang of envy. Would I ever get to see those Victorian wonders? Like every other eleven-year-old on my block, I’d been a voracious stamp collector. My mother had gotten tired of all the philatelic packets pouring in “on approval,” which meant stamp clubs sent stamps every month and I had to send them back by a certain date, or pay. Unfortunately, I never had the heart to return the beauties, and I’d ended up baby-sitting around the clock to fund my hobby. When my grades fell and I slept through a baby’s sobbing, my mother canceled all my stamp club subscriptions. Heartless! And that, unfortunately, had rung the death-knell for my stamp-collecting hobby.

  We rounded a sharp corner and Tom’s stretcher shook. He groaned but did not awaken. Andy sent e-mails. Andy called. Andy got himself dead.

  Maybe Tom did not blame himself for what had gone wrong in the hijacking investigation. Maybe he didn’t love some other woman. No matter what, it sounded as if he’d gotten himself emotionally connected with hapless, “gotta-talk-to-you” Andy Balachek. And if there’s one thing they teach you in cop school, it’s that you shouldn’t let a criminal live rent-free in your brain.

  CHAPTER 10

  The ambulance made a slow, wide turn onto the castle drive, then moved through the open gates. I checked my watch: eight-ten. We thumped over the causeway across the moat and stopped in front of the gatehouse, where the medics swung open the back doors. With a glance at Tom, I scrambled out. Michaela Kirovsky, her white cloud of hair and pale face the picture of concern, stood by the portcullis. She disarmed the castle security system and helped the medics set up a portable ramp for all the stairs inside the castle. After much grunting, heaving, and clicking of ramp parts, Michaela and one of the medics managed to get Tom inside the castle. An eternity later, they pushed Tom’s wheelchair toward our assigned suite.

  Following them, I felt light-headed with fatigue and hunger. I was thankful we had not run into the Hydes. Still, goose bumps raced down my skin. Why did I feel we were being watched? I glanced around for closed-circuit cameras, but saw nothing except stones, windows, and fading tapestries. Once I thought I caught movement out of the corner of my eye, but whatever it was disappeared before I actually saw anything. Just the day before, though, I’d decided I’d imagined a noise only seconds before our picture window was blown to fragments. I hadn’t believed I’d seen something in the creek, and it had turned out to be poor Andy Balachek. So if I was persuaded I’d seen something out of the corner of my eye, then perhaps I had. I stopped and looked all around again: Nothing. Maybe I was just tired.

  Michaela told me that Eliot and Sukie were out having breakfast, even though Julian had offered to make them his vegetarian Eggs Benedict. She brightened, and added that Julian was making breakfast, anyway, and had promised to go grocery shopping after he left Arch off at Elk Park Prep.

  “I’ll tell you,” Michaela said with a wide grin, as I finished straightening the covers over Tom. “I love having that kid around. He works. You stay here much longer, I’m going to get lazy.”

  I smiled. Yes, Julian was a blessing. But hale-and-hearty Michaela drifting into laziness was impossible to imagine.

  After Michaela and the medic left, Tom murmured, “I feel helpless.”

  “You’re not helpless, you just need rest,” I replied. My hands traced circles on the green-and-pink coverlet. I prayed that Tom wouldn’t start up again on the subject of Andy Balachek.

  “I’ve been here before, you know,” he said mildly. “The castle.”

  “Investigating a case?” I asked, surprised.

  “Not exactly.” He chuckled. “Checking to see if the owner was a loony bird.” He raised his jaunty, sand-colored eyebrows at me.

  “What do you mean?” I demanded.

  “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you later.” He tried to shift his weight. “You stayed in a client’s home once before,” Tom reminded me. “Didn’t turn out too well, as I recall.”

  “That was a family thing,” I replied. Arch’s and my brief stay with Marla’s sister had indeed not turned out well. “This is business—”

  My protest was silenced by twin thudding knocks at the door: Arch and Julian. They tumbled into the room, clustered around Tom, and demanded to know how he was feeling.

  “Need chocolate?” asked Julian. “I was thinking of making cookies or cake after I get back from the grocery store. Plus I just put a frittata and some rolls into the oven. They’ll be done in about ten minutes.”

  “Maybe later.” Tom’s smile was thin. My heart squeezed in sympathy. “Arch.” He tilted his head at my son. “I need to laugh. I need to hear some jokes. It’ll make me feel better.”

  “I just had to write a poem for my Shakespeare and His Times class,” Arch piped up, straightening his glasses. “I could read that to you, if you want.”

  “I do,” Tom said, with a small grin.

  Arch pulled a sheet of paper out of his backpack. He warned, “It’s, you know, aa, bb, cc, dd, like that.” He poised himself at the foot of the carved four-poster bed. He cleared his throat twice, then read:

  Two enemies met in a foreign field,

  Each pointed his spear; each clasped his bright shield.

  I watched from afar, to see the pair fight,

  Chivalry would bind them! Each was a knight.

  Their horses raced forward; a cold wind blew;

  One knight was gored; the spear went right t
hrough!

  Bloodied, he fell; the terrain was rocky.

  “Wow!” I thought. “This is worse than hockey!”

  It was nice to have a laugh; it was great to be together. After a moment, Tom said he needed rest. Julian and Arch raced off for the kitchen, while I sat at Tom’s side. By the time Julian poked his head back into the suite to invite me down for rolls, frittata, fresh fruit, Cheshire cheese, and tea, Tom was asleep. The Elizabethans hadn’t eaten frittata, I was pretty sure. Nor, I’d been surprised to learn in my research, had they drunk tea. But having substituted packaged crackers for regular meals for the past twenty hours, I was ravenous. The heck with food history. Besides, I couldn’t remember what the Elizabethans had for breakfast. That’s what I was going back to our house for, right? To get the disk with all my research. I promised Julian I’d be right down.

  When I entered the enormous kitchen moments later, Julian, Arch, and Michaela were already sitting at the oak trestle table. A cozy fire crackled in one of the kitchen hearths. Soon, I was slathering one of Julian’s hot rolls with soft butter and homemade plum jam that Michaela had retrieved from Eliot’s backup stash in the dining room. Heaven. The creamy, custardlike texture of the frittata provided a tangy complement to the sharp cheese. Relishing the delicious breakfast, I recalled that, indeed, Queen Elizabeth herself had indulged in enormous breakfasts—before she went hunting. I told Arch, Michaela, and Julian as much as I could remember of one menu: cold sausages and powdered neat’s tongue. Arch asked what a neat was, and I replied that “neat” was an archaic term for cow or ox. Michaela grinned and served us steaming cups of strong English Breakfast tea. I asked Arch how the fencing was going.

  “Pretty well,” he answered cautiously, wary of appearing boastful in front of his coach.

  “He’s done brilliantly,” Michaela declared as she split her third roll and piled the center with cheese slices. “I’m going to have him be part of our demonstration Friday night.”

  Arch blushed. Julian slyly added, “That’s not because your former girlfriend is on the team? Maybe Lettie—”

  “Stop!” warned Arch. His face had turned scarlet. I decided to say nothing. Arch had kept me in the dark about his post-Christmas breakup with Lettie, also fourteen. When he’d told me after the fact, he said that he wasn’t going to tell me the reasons, because then I would try to argue with them. Oh-kay, I’d said. Now I wondered idly if the breakup had been so bad that Lettie might have shot at our window.

  I took another sip of tea and told myself not to be ridiculous.

  “Couple of messages for you,” said Michaela as she gathered up the dishes. “One, your tables were delivered yesterday morning to the chapel. Or rather, they weren’t delivered. The police turned the delivery guys away. Eliot asked them to come back early on Thursday.”

  I sighed. If I hadn’t had so much on my plate, I would have called Party Rental and told them what was going on. “Thanks.”

  “No problem. The police have given me the go-ahead to set up the chapel tomorrow. I’ll be unpacking our space heaters, opening our own serving tables and folding chairs, and setting up our screen for Eliot’s slides.” She paused. “Eliot wants to review the menu with you this afternoon. If you’re up to it.”

  I nodded. “No problem. And the second message?”

  “Two detectives want you to call them.” She handed me a note with the names of Boyd and Armstrong, as well as their office and cell phone numbers. Then she loaded the rest of the dishes into the wood-paneled dishwasher, one of the kitchen’s numerous disguised amenities. I thanked Michaela again for helping. She looked at the floor and said it was the least she could do, after what we’d been through.

  After the boys had been assured that Tom and I would be fine, just fine, they gathered up Arch’s gear and Julian’s grocery list—he insisted he was making dinner tonight for everybody—and hustled down to Julian’s Rover. From one of the narrow windows in the well tower, I watched them roar away.

  Back in our room, Tom was still sleeping. I knew I had to go back to our house. I needed to check on the animals, too, and so I used the phone—a portable device placed in our magisterial bathroom, which I hadn’t seen when we’d first arrived—to call Trudy. She reported that Jake the bloodhound and Scout the cat were in good shape. She’d collected today’s mail and would continue to do so until we were home again. The police had come by early this morning, she said, and told her that deputies were working hard on the Balachek murder and the window shooting.

  “Everybody on the street’s watching the place till then,” Trudy added. “We’re even keeping track of unfamiliar license plates.”

  I murmured that that wasn’t necessary. But Trudy interrupted me, her voice insistent. “There’s a strange car out there right now. It looks as if the driver is keeping a close eye on your place.”

  “Is it someone from the sheriff’s department?”

  “I don’t think an unmarked car would be covered with rust, Goldy. Plus, a cop would be more obvious. This guy is being very surreptitious. Actually, it’s a woman.”

  My skin turned to ice. “Trudy, are you sure she’s watching our house—”

  “Goldy, she’s been sitting in her car for two hours now. She’s hiding behind a newspaper. I know she’s not reading it because when I took out my binoculars, I could see her eyes peering over the top of the paper. I’m telling you, she’s just staring at your broken window.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Did you c-call the sheriff’s department?” I asked, cursing the choke in my voice.

  “Not yet. The woman hasn’t actually done anything. I took Jake out there on a leash, though, so I could talk to her. I said we’d just had a shooting on our street and that there were cops all over.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She asked if anyone had been hurt. I said no and very obviously looked inside her car for a weapon. She didn’t have one, or at least, not one that I could see. She said she was waiting for someone. When I asked who, she just drove away. Then a while ago, she came back.”

  It was as if I’d been punched in the solar plexus. Could it be Viv? If the Jerk’s new girlfriend was haunting our street, I would sic Jake on her myself. “Is she skinny, with white-blond hair, big boobs, and a sort of rock-star face? Late twenties?”

  “Nah, she’s older,” Trudy replied promptly. “Probably fifty. Dark hair. Pretty face, but weathered. Looks like she might be tall and slender. Maybe she’s an ex-model who wants Tom to do some investigating for her. Anyway, she doesn’t look like one of John Richard’s bimbos, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  I thanked Trudy and told her I’d be home soon. Then I replaced the receiver, filled a glass of water for Tom, and went back into our room. Holding the glass, I stared out the leaded-glass windows lining the wall of the suite. A snow flurry sent swirls of thick flakes into the moat. She didn’t look like one of John Richard’s bimbos. …

  “I’m awake,” Tom said from the bed. Was that a suspicious note in his voice, or was I being paranoid again? “Miss G.? Want to tell me what’s going on?”

  “I need to get my computer disk with the research for this week’s food prep,” I replied lightly. I didn’t mention the woman lurking on our street. Why worry Tom when he was immobilized? On the other hand, I was not going back to our place without giving the cops—that is, the cops who could do something—advance warning. I needed to call Sergeants Boyd and Armstrong. I went on, “I also have to get a picture of the Jerk, so that the Hydes can know not to let him in.” And I have to check out that woman, I added silently. Not to mention that my curiosity was demanding a trip down to the creek. If the sheriff’s department was no longer processing the crime scene, I wanted to have a look at the place myself.

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go home alone,” Tom replied. “And did you talk to A.D.A. Gerber about visitations for Arch?” So he was worried about John Richard Korman, too. Good old Tom.

  “Not
yet. On my way over, I’ll call Boyd and Armstrong on the cellular. Not to worry. I’ll be fine at the house. Plus, Trudy will be right next door. How are you doing?”

  “I’m bored. I want to get up and call my office. I want to get cracking on this case.”

  I kissed his cheek, which smelled of rubbing alcohol. “I shouldn’t be gone more than an hour,” I promised, as I handed him the water glass and a long straw. “Unless by some miracle the window repair guy shows up. Then I’ll stay and supervise.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Tom assured me, stubbornly placing the glass on the end table. “Just find me a portable phone, would you?”

  I brought him the phone from the bathroom, then left. As I drove down the castle driveway, I put in a cell call to Sergeant Boyd’s voice mail: I was headed to our house, I reported, since I had to pick up a few things, and hoped to meet him there. Oh, and a neighbor had reported a strange woman hanging out in a car across the street. Could the sheriff’s department check it out?

  The snow flurry ended. In its wake, winds in the upper atmosphere had left feathery traces of cirrus clouds. I crossed Cottonwood Creek and waited for the traffic to clear. Below, the narrow stream furrowing through ice banks winked in the winter sunlight. As I passed the bridge that led to the chapel, two uniformed sheriff’s deputies stood outside the yellow crime-scene ribbons, conferring with Eliot and Sukie.

  Next to the Hydes’ matching silver Jaguars was another, newer Jag. To my horror, I recognized the car and its driver. Leaning against her sleek black vehicle, her arms crossed, was Chardé Lauderdale. She lifted her eyes and glanced at the road as I drove by. Recognizing me, she immediately turned back to the Hydes.

  Clearly, I would have to return at a later time.

  I stepped on the accelerator and the tires spun in the snow-frosted road. I needed to see what was going on at our house.

  She was alone, sitting up very straight in the driver’s seat of a beat-up, rust-spotted station wagon that had once been white. The car was parked directly across the street from our house. I drove by slowly and looked at the woman. She had shoulder-length black hair dramatically shot with gray, and Trudy was right: her unmade-up, slender face was quite beautiful.