Chopping Spree gbcm-11 Page 11

  “Because a mutual friend, Ellie McNeely, recommended me. Plus, I think he might have seen my picture in the paper.”

  “Which picture was that? The one from a couple of years ago, when you found another body in Prince and Grogan?”

  “No,” I said stiffly. “It was from this February, when I finished a job in Aspen Meadow. Catering for the Hydes. Heard of them?”

  Collins’s lips twitched in a distinctly ghoulish grin. “You mean,” he asked, “that photo in the Suburban section, showing you all wet? After you fell into the moat at Hyde Castle?”

  “I didn’t fall into the moat, I jumped into it. And that was to get away from someone who was chasing me.”

  Hulsey cleared his throat. His eyes drilled into me: SHUT. UP.

  Collins shifted in his chair. “But you didn’t get away from someone who hit you with a guitar. Was that because tonight, you recognized the person who was chasing you?”

  “Nobody was chasing me, that I know of. I didn’t even hear the person come up behind me. If I had, I might have avoided getting whacked with a guitar.”

  “Was that person Julian Teller?”

  “No.”

  Collins shook his head disbelievingly. “The catered event ended. You and Julian Teller made trips to take your equipment back to your van, yes?”

  “Yes. And then I came back and Julian—who is one of my assistants—told me…” I could feel my anger rising. Why had they asked if Julian had hit me? “Actually, Julian handed me a note that Barry had given one of the musicians. It said he—Barry—had my gratuity for me.”

  There was a silence. “We need to see that note,” decreed Sawyer.

  I fished into my apron pocket, careful not to disturb the prescription bottle tucked there, then pulled out the crumpled note and slapped it on the table. So much for fingerprints, I thought belatedly.

  Hulsey asked permission to see the note and to have a photocopy made as soon as possible. The cops nodded yes. My lawyer bent over the paper, pulled out a tiny brushed-gold notebook, and wrote in it. The cops announced that they were going to have the handwriting analyzed. Inwardly, I groaned. Did Barry’s script look like Julian’s?

  Collins gave me a puzzled look. “I have your check, and a tip for you? You called it a gratuity.”

  My frustration clouded to confusion. A tip for you. A tip like a police tip? And earlier, after the truck accident: Goldy, could we have our little chat later, at the party?

  “I did think the check was our gratuity. Barry had wanted to talk to me. Earlier in the day, he had said he wanted to have a chat.”

  “Wanted to chat with you about what, exactly?” Collins rasped.

  “Excuse me.” Steve Hulsey’s deep rumble made me jump. “I won’t allow my client to be taken out in a boat to go fishing with you guys. Finish this up.”

  Collins’s glum expression did not change. “So you went to the Prince and Grogan shoe department, in search of this tip. Any idea why he wanted to meet you in Shoes?”

  “I’m warning you again, Detective,” interjected Hulsey, who moved impatiently in his chair. “Fish again, and I’m reeling in the line.”

  “Mrs. Schulz,” said Collins, unperturbed and persistent. “After you received this note, did you go directly to Prince and Grogan to rendezvous with Mr. Dean?”

  I had never realized how ugly the word rendezvous could sound. “No. I already told you, I had to pick up my son’s guitar at Westside Music. That took,” I added, before he could ask, “about five, ten minutes at most. After I picked up the guitar, I headed into Prince and Grogan, again, as I told you before. The store was closing and people were cleaning up, counting the contents of cash registers, like that.”

  “Who knew you had to get the guitar first?”

  “Well, my two assistants. Liz Fury had asked to take off early, because her son had been forced out of the mall, as I told you. She wanted to find him.” Another glare from Hulsey stopped me from elaborating. “And of course Julian Teller knew I had to go back to the music store. He stayed in the lounge and promised to finish packing up. He’s very good that way. Hardworking. Caring. And honest,” I added, pointedly.

  “Then what?”

  “Well, if you read the note, you’ll see Barry was expecting me about half past eight. But it was quarter to nine by the time I received his message, and I still had to pick up the guitar for my son’s birthday.” I waited for them to ask me how old Arch was or when his birthday was, but they were silent. “So I was running late when I arrived in Shoes. Barry wasn’t there. I asked the cash register lady if she’d seen him. She hadn’t, so I thought I’d try the two salespeople who were cleaning up. But I slipped on the shoes—”

  “You slipped on them,” commented Sawyer, ever the skeptic.

  “Yes. I was carrying the guitar, and it was heavy, and the women had dumped the shoes in piles all over the place. Leather is slippery,” I said fiercely, giving them a glare of my own. “I stumbled, fell, and hit one of those big cabinets. One of the doors came open, and I saw what I thought was a mannequin in a tuxedo, but… it groaned. I… It was Barry. I tried to pull him out, and he groaned again, and then I saw all the blood. I took his pulse. It was weak. And then I guess I was going to do a compression—”

  “You didn’t call for help?” Sawyer again.

  I took a shaky breath. After a moment, I said, “No. I didn’t. I should have, in retrospect. But my theory now is that whoever was trying to kill him was right behind the cabinet, waiting to finish the job. As soon as the salespeople left, after I’d pulled Barry out of the cabinet and checked for his pulse, the killer whacked me with the guitar. He or she wanted to get me out of the way and finish the job—”

  Collins held up a hand, then spoke slowly. “Did you see who hit you?”

  “No, I didn’t see a thing. I didn’t hear anybody’s voice, either. One minute I had Barry’s wrist in my hand, the next my head was smashed and I saw nothing but black. After a bit, I heard Julian calling me, and someone waved ammonia in my face. Then you guys showed up, and I was carted to the hospital. And now we’re here.”

  Collins said, “Did you see the weapon used to kill Barry Dean?”

  There was a silence. I had not told Hulsey about this; now I wondered what in the world to say. The last thing I wanted to do was implicate Julian, Liz, or myself any further. But refusing to answer would look worse. And lying… what would that do?

  “Yes,” I said quietly. “I saw it. It was… one of my knives. From a new set I bought recently.”

  Collins opened his mouth to ask another question, but Steve Hulsey was too quick for him.

  “That does it, gentlemen. Thank you.” He stood and motioned for me to do the same. I got to my feet too quickly and swayed, suddenly dizzy. I blinked, saw my chair, and grabbed the metal back.

  “Mrs. Schulz, please don’t leave town,” intoned Sawyer, as he slapped his notebook closed. My kick-ass lawyer held the door open for me and I walked through.

  “I need you to visit my office,” Hulsey told me. “Will tomorrow morning work?” His office, as it turned out, was half a mile from Westside Mall. What catered event did I have the next day, or rather, that very day, since it was now well past midnight? My beaten-up, woozy mind drew a blank. When do you need me there? I asked Hulsey. Ten A.M. sharp, Hulsey replied. And in the meantime, talk to no one.

  Tom, oh dear God, Tom, was waiting for me on a plastic chair in the lobby. He walked toward me swiftly, arms outstretched. Hulsey vanished.

  Enfolded in my husband’s arms, my body shook uncontrollably. I swallowed and tried to pull myself together. There was no way I was going to fall apart in the lobby of the sheriff’s department.

  “Let’s go,” Tom whispered.

  He gently helped me into his Chrysler, and murmured that he’d arrange for my van to be brought back to the house early the next morning. I leaned my head back and inhaled the comforting scent of Tom’s car. I wanted so badly to be in bed, to be asleep. But some
thing was gnawing at me.

  “Where’s Marla?” I asked as Tom started the engine. “Did she and Julian take both of their cars back to her house in Aspen Meadow? Or did he go back to Boulder?”

  Tom let the engine idle, his hands on the steering wheel. Illuminated by the lot’s pink streetlights, his face was luminescent. Ominous. “Do you know how many cups of coffee Julian drank today? Yesterday, that is. Monday. While he was working with you.”

  “What?”

  “Miss G., it’s a simple question.”

  “I don’t understand…”

  “Just think. How many cups?”

  I took a deep breath. “OK. He mentioned he’d had two four-shot lattes before he arrived. He brought two more, one for Liz and one for me.” I tried to dive back into the muck of the day’s events. “Liz didn’t want hers, so… I think Julian drank it. Then we made coffee in the kitchen, and he had dinner with Liz, so it’s probably safe to say he had about… oh, the equivalent of fifteen or sixteen cups of coffee over the course of the day. Why?”

  Tom pressed his lips into a thin line and shook his head. Then he clasped my hands in his. “Julian drank a ton of caffeine. Then he found you in the department store, unconscious. He also found Barry, with your knife in him. Julian’s a good kid, he was terrified, he tried to pull the knife out of Barry Dean. Then the one security cop on duty at Prince and Grogan spotted him, and yelled at him to back off. Julian freaked out, and when the cops heard he’d had his hands on the knife, they said he had to come in for questioning. When they brought him into the department, he didn’t wait for a lawyer. He insisted on submitting to the polygraph. To prove his innocence.”

  My own voice felt as brittle as cracking ice. “What are you telling me?”

  “Too much caffeine can screw up a polygraph, Miss G. Julian was found with his hand on the murder weapon. Just as damning, he has no alibi for the time he was loading your van by himself, which was when you were picking up Arch’s guitar. When Julian took the lie detector test, he flunked it.”

  “No.”

  Tom squeezed my hands harder. “Goldy, Julian’s been arrested for murder.”

  CHAPTER 7

  We made it up the interstate in silence. The going was slow, as a light snow was falling. At home, our hall clock donged lightly for half past one. I checked our pets—Jake the bloodhound and Scout the cat—who were slumbering peacefully in their separate housing area. Then I stumbled upstairs. I creaked open Arch’s door. He was snoring. So was his pal, Todd Druckman. Just recently, Arch had outgrown his bunk bed, so Todd was curled inside a sleeping bag on the floor.

  With a husband in law enforcement and an ex-husband behind bars, our little family had dealt with criminal activity more than most. Still, I was worried about how Arch would deal with the arrest of Julian, our cherished family friend. I also wondered if heart-attack-prone Marla would stay calm. Several years ago, in a bizarre discovery of adoption documents, we’d learned that Julian’s birth mother had been Marla’s dead sister. My old friend had passionately embraced the role of being Julian’s aunt. Would she be able to cope with his arrest?

  Would I?

  I brushed my teeth, shucked my clothes, and pulled on pajamas. I fell into bed, certain I’d start fretting and never fall asleep.

  But I did sleep, so soundly that the creep of daylight into the bedroom, the early shriek of crows, the drone of traffic from Aspen Meadow’s Main Street—not one of these registered. At nine-thirty, Tom tiptoed in to wake me.

  He sat on the edge of our bed and asked me how I was feeling. I realized I had a headache, a shoulder ache, and nausea. I assured him I felt fine.

  “I took Arch and Todd to school. Oh, and I canceled you out of that wedding reception this afternoon,” he announced matter-of-factly. “Liz said she can handle it. She came over for the food and supplies, and said she’d contact some of her old staff to help. She feels really bad about Julian,” he added. “She’s going to call you later.”

  Slowly, groggily, I sat up. The room whirled. “You didn’t need to cancel me out of the reception.”

  “You’ve got a slight concussion and need to take it a bit easy. Also, you have Steve Hulsey to meet with today. His secretary called and said he needs to change your appointment from ten to half past two—”

  “How’s Julian?” I asked, because I needed to. The fact of his arrest scalded my nerves. “When can I see him? Can he take the polygraph again?”

  “It’s probably not a good idea for you to see him. He’ll be advised of charges today. And it looks as if he can take the polygraph again on Thursday.” Tom’s tone was resigned. “And there’s something else…. I heard an unconfirmed report that someone witnessed Julian driving the truck that tried to hit you and Barry.”

  “Baloney!” I cried, indignant. “Who would tell such a lie?”

  “Miss G., please. I’m not going to tell you things if you’re going to go off the deep end.”

  I gnawed the inside of my cheek. “Did you tell Arch what happened?”

  “He’s more worried about you, if you want to know the truth.”

  “Arch said he was worried about me? I don’t believe it.”

  “I promised him that Julian would be out as soon as we got this all straightened out.” Tom sighed. “Arch said if you got hit on the head with the seven-hundred-dollar Epiphone guitar, you must be hurt pretty bad.”

  “And I’m sure he asked how badly the guitar was damaged, right?”

  Tom chuckled. “Well, yes. But he felt guilty, really, that you’d tried to get something for him, and then gotten beaned with it.”

  “Where is the guitar, exactly? As in, right this minute.”

  Tom shrugged. “Crime lab, probably. Being checked for prints, fiber, the usual. You probably won’t have it until well after Arch’s birthday. Sorry.”

  The morning felt unreal. I was still in bed at nine-thirty. I didn’t know what was going on with Julian, and I wasn’t racing to a catering assignment.

  Outside, it was still Aspen Meadow in April. Our front yard pines, laden with new snow, trembled in the cold breeze. Thick white clouds chugged through an expanse of sky, dollops of meringue on a blue plate.

  And Barry Dean was dead. My old coffee buddy. I saw his smiling face, heard his teasing. This could not be real.

  And yet it was.

  “Come on,” said Tom, mustering some cheer. “Can you manage a shower on your own?” When I nodded, he said, “I’ll meet you in the kitchen. I’m making you a Dutch pancake. Oh, forgot to tell you. Two friends of mine from the department stopped by real early. I gave them your keys, and they brought up your van. I’ve already cleaned all your dishes and platters and whatnot.”

  “What would I do without you?” I murmured.

  Twenty minutes later, after I’d managed only two yoga asanas and a quick shower, I dug into Tom’s warm, light Dutch pancake. It dripped with golden melted butter and genuine maple syrup from Maine. I began to feel a bit more optimistic. Tom had also fried an entire pound of bacon. The salty crunch of meat perfectly complemented the delicate pancake. I told him it was the best breakfast ever. He beamed.

  “I need to take off,” he said. “Do you want me to do anything for you? Did they give you a prescription for a painkiller?”

  “I’ve got both aspirin and ibuprofen,” I replied. “But thanks for worrying.”

  He donned his jacket but seemed reluctant to leave. “Sure you’re OK to drive to Hulsey’s office?”

  “Absolutely.” I stood to fire up the espresso machine. “I’m going to putter around here before stopping at Hulsey’s. I’ll be done in time to pick up Arch at lacrosse practice.”

  “Can I bring home dinner?”

  “Tom. If you don’t let me cook, I’ll go nuts.”

  He kissed me and took off. As the house fell silent, I booted my computer, popped two aspirin, and pulled myself a double shot of rich, dark espresso. Because I needed to take care of myself—didn’t everyone say so?—I
topped the coffee with a mountainous glob of whipped cream.

  And then I thought of Julian, in jail, with no espresso and a bunch of criminals as his new roommates. Tom was off the case. Would Hulsey wait for a new polygraph before he moved forward with his own team of investigators? Probably not. But meanwhile, Julian, with no alibi, was stuck in jail. It would take a few days for the lab work to come back, but trying to pull my knife out of Barry meant, of course, that Julian’s fingerprints were on the murder weapon.

  If I don’t help him, who will?

  I swallowed more espresso, then tapped computer keys to open a new file: BARRY DEAN.

  Tom had told me a hundred times: You have to figure out what you know before you can concentrate on what you don’t know.

  I typed in everything I knew about Barry. His background at C.U. His deep affection for basset hounds. His brief work with the Longmont TV show. Business school. Marketing. His job managing Westside Mall. His status: Most Eligible Bachelor. And then I looked down at my espresso cup. He loved coffee, I typed numbly.

  Both his old classic Mercedes and his rarely used BMW racing car had boasted leather coffee-compartment caddies that fit over the hump between the front seats. Dear old Honey the Hound had presided over our outings, her mournful eyes regarding us from the rear seat. When we’d met the previous week, Barry had said that Honey had passed away, but that he still loved bassets and had just gotten a new one. He’d been so full of enthusiasm for canines, I’d told him about our own hound, Jake. He’d laughed and wanted to know more. Did he howl? His new dog did.

  Who was taking care of his new dog now? The cops? The pound?

  I veered away from that thought and forced myself to concentrate.

  Love interests, I typed. Let’s see. He’d gone out with all kinds of girls at school, but wasn’t as enthusiastic about them as he was about dogs, coffee, or cars. I knew he’d been seeing Ellie McNeely, and that she had recommended my catering company to him. Possibly, he’d also been seeing Pam Disharoon. I’d suspected he’d been seeing Liz, but realized now that their familiarity was probably based on Liz’s nervousness about catering for a fellow who’d barred her son from the mall. The rest was a blank.