The Grilling Season Read online

  Soon the guests had munched their way through the main course and I put on coffee to brew. Eventually, the guests were drinking their coffee and eating Stanley Cupcakes topped with slices of ice-cream rink, while lamenting that the beginning of the NHL season was over a month away. I glanced at the clock over the kitchen window. Ten to eight. The sun slid slowly behind the mountains. Just above the jagged, deeply shadowed horizon, thin striations of gray cloud lay in perfect, straight lines. It’s a giant comb, Arch and I would have said, back when he was little. I ran hot water into the sink and put in the first batch of dishes to be rinsed. I couldn’t wait to finish this job.

  Just after nine o’clock I heaved the first of my heavy boxes across my deck. Tom was waiting. As soon as he saw my face, he shook his head. He opened the back door, came out, and took the box from me. A huge dark green apron swathed his body. He’d been cooking, as usual, because he knew I would not have had time to eat.

  “Miss G!” His face furrowed with worry. “What happened to you?”

  “Don’t ask. It’s not that big a deal, anyway.”

  He sighed. “You get into more scrapes in a day than I do in a year. And I’m the one with the dangerous job.”

  “You’ve never catered to hockey fans,” I muttered glumly.

  “True.” He set the box on the counter and chuckled as I flopped into a chair. He stooped to give me a kiss, then eyed my cut cheek. Instead he kissed the top of my head.

  Later, when we’d brought all the supplies inside, I asked, “Where is the rest of this family?”

  He smiled and started the food processor grating potatoes. “Upstairs. Macguire’s had quite a day, his most active in the last month. He’s had a long shower. But I think he may be running a bit of a fever. Arch took the dog and the cat into his room and the four of them are laughing over doll-collecting magazines.”

  “What?”

  Tom deftly beat an egg, dipped in a flour-dusted fish fillet, then rolled it in shreds of potato. I suddenly realized I was starving. “Don’t worry,” he went on, “I gave Macguire some ibuprofen. He had an incident over at the lake with Arch. Oh, and Arch isn’t going to the Druckmans’ tonight, he wanted to stay here and make sure Macguire was okay.”

  “Back up. What incident? Why were the boys at the lake?”

  Tom took a deep breath, not a good sign. “Apparently the health-food store was closed. Macguire was too tired to walk any farther, so the two of them went over to the LakeCenter looking for someone to give them a ride home. One lady—what’s her name, Rodine?—said she would if the two boys could bring in some tables. Do you believe that? Why wouldn’t she just give the kids a ride home?”

  I sighed. “Because she’s a gold-plated bitch, that’s why.”

  “Of course Macguire was too weak to lift a table, and Arch was too small, so they asked if they could do something else to earn their ride. So Mrs. Rodine had them carry in some cartons full of boxed dolls. They hauled a crate up on one of the stands inside the LakeCenter while Mrs. Rodine and her pals were yelling directions to some other underlings outside. So Arch and Macguire, trying to be helpful, started to take the doll boxes out of the crate. Once they had them all out, Arch got worried about Macguire, so he went to a soft-drink machine to get the two of them some pops. Meanwhile, Macguire started to take the dolls out of the boxes—”

  “Oh, no. No, no, no. The collectors don’t want the dolls out of the boxes. The collectors want them NRFB. Never Removed From Box. It makes a huge difference—”

  Tom held up a hand. “When Arch came in with the drinks, he tried to warn Macguire, but it was too late.”

  I repeated, “Too late. Oh, God.”

  Tom seemed resigned to telling this tale of human folly. Yet his green eyes were merry as he drizzled olive oil on the griddle. “Three women screamed and chased Arch and Macguire out of the LakeCenter. Then a guy, one of the helper-husbands, called the sheriff’s department on his cellular phone—”

  I moaned.

  Tom slid the potato-crusted fillets on the hot griddle, where their sizzling sound made my mouth water. “Since I was on my way home from the hardware store, I was the closest.” Another smile quirked the corners of his mouth. “So I answered the call. I’ve done a lot of strange duties in my day. But trying to convince a hysterical trio of women that removing a 1994 Holiday Babsie from its original box is not a chargeable offense—now that was perhaps the most challenging job I’ve had yet.” He chuckled.

  I moaned again. “These women didn’t actually do anything to Arch and Macguire, did they? Why does Macguire have a fever?”

  Tom pursed his lips and flipped the fish. “The Babsie ladies chased our boys to the end of the old pier, where unfortunately Macguire lost his balance and fell into the water. A woman in a shell rowed over and held on to him until someone from the LakeCenter could throw out a life preserver.” Tom carefully scooped the golden-brown fish pieces into a buttered pan and eased the whole thing into the oven.

  I rubbed my aching skull. “I … know that doll collecting is a bona fide hobby. Sort of like being a hockey fan. But I just don’t understand why these pastimes become manias.”

  “I asked the same question. I might as well have asked the ladies’ Bible study to describe the Rapture. One woman told me very seriously that doll collecting was like the best sex you ever had, times ten.

  I let that pass. While the fish was baking, I moved—slowly, painfully—up the stairs to check on Macguire and Arch, who both immediately demanded to know why I looked so awful. I stalled and took Macguire’s temperature. It was one hundred degrees even, not enough to call his doctor, he maintained. Then I told the boys I’d gotten hit by a hockey fan. The fan had been wearing blades, I explained, and I had not.

  “Dude, Mrs. Schulz,” said Macguire admiringly. “You’re brave.”

  “No, just dumb enough to be in his way.”

  Apparently being with Macguire had worked the kind of effect on Arch Marla had predicted it would. My son did not seem preoccupied with his father and the events of the morning. He didn’t even appear to be angry with me. At least not at the moment.

  He pointed to the magazine in his lap. “Check this out, Mom.”

  I bent to look at the page. After a second I moved in closer. I wanted to make sure my eyes weren’t deceiving me. A Never-Removed-From-Box Duchess Bride Babsie was selling for twelve hundred dollars. Another one that had been taken out of the box sold for six hundred dollars. The dolls had sold for less than twenty dollars originally, and I remembered my little childhood friend in New Jersey who had taken such delight in playing with her Babsies. In the catalog, I saw one that looked familiar from my friend’s collection. It was an MIB—Mint-In-Box—Number One Blond Ponytail Babsie. The doll had just gone at auction for six thousand dollars. I felt faint.

  “Mom, are you all right?” Arch asked anxiously.

  “I’m fine,” I assured him. “I’ve already seen a nurse, and she gave me a homeopathic remedy.”

  “Homeopathic?” Macguire grumbled. “What is that?”

  “It means natural,” I explained. “Please don’t stay up too late. I don’t need both of you to get sick.”

  Arch gave me an exasperated look and I closed the door before I could offend him further. Ten minutes later I was scrubbed, robed, and more ravenous than ever. In honor of my service to hockey fans, Tom had named his creation Power Play Potatoes and Fish. He served them with a fine julienne of carrot, steamed baby peas, a small green salad, and southern spoon bread topped with pats of butter. I took a greedy bite of the fish: Tom’s pairing of a crunchy potato crust with the delicate texture and rich taste of Chilean seabass was divine, and I told him so. He smiled and told me the recipe was now taped to my computer screen. Then he frowned.

  Power Play

  Potatoes and Fish

  4 (6 to 8 ounces each) fresh Chilean seabass fillets

  ½ cup flour

  2 eggs

  4 large russet potatoes

>   2 tablespoons olive oil

  Salt and freshly ground black pepper

  Preheat oven to 400°. Butter a 9-by 13-inch baking dish.

  Rinse off the fillets and pat dry with paper towels. Sprinkle the flour on a plate. Beat the eggs in a shallow bowl. Peel the potatoes. Grate them onto a large, clean kitchen towel that can be stained. Roll the potatoes up in the towel and wring to remove moisture. (It is best to do this over the sink.) Divide the potatoes into four piles.

  In a wide skillet, heat the olive oil. Working quickly, dip each fillet first in the flour, then in the egg. Pat half of each potato pile on the top and bottom of each fillet (the equivalent of one grated potato per fillet). Bring the skillet up to medium-high heat. Place the potato-covered fillets in the hot oil, salt and pepper them, and brown quickly on each side. When all the fillets are browned, put them in the buttered pan and bake about 10 minutes, or until they are cooked through. Do not overcook the fish.

  Serves 4

  “What was the name of the guy you said hit you?”

  “Dr. Ralph Shelton,” I mumbled, mouth full of succulent fish. “Remember? I told you about him earlier today. He’s an old friend of ours. Used to be with ACHMO, but according to town gossip he was fired by Suz Craig.”

  “Right. And I was going to check on him, which I did. Which I actually told Donny Saunders to do, more accurately. By the way, did the gossip say why this Dr. Shelton was fired?”

  I indicated a negative and took a bite of the carrots and peas, celestially fresh, sweet vegetables. The spoon bread was as rich and tender as anything Scarlett O’Hara had ever put into her mouth. I made “mm-mm” noises and Tom nodded in acknowledgment.

  “Brandon Yuille, you know him?” he asked, his mind still on work.

  “He’s the head of Human Resources for ACHMO. He’s also the son of a baker in town. He was at Suz’s house when I catered over there. I saw him today, but briefly. Why? Have you talked to him?”

  “Yeah, a whole team went out to talk to the ACHMO department heads, but most of them are in San Diego at a conference. Medical Management, Member Services, Health Services, Quality Management—four of the six people who had to deal with Suz Craig on a daily basis are gone for the week, although they’re coming back early. The only department heads left in town were Human Resources and Provider Relations.” He took a breath. “John Richard Korman is absolutely insistent he’s innocent. The cops who’re questioning him? They’re getting real tired of hearing about Suz Craig doing this to make enemies, Suz Craig doing that.”

  “I hope they’re ignoring him. John Richard Korman is probably the worst enemy Suz Craig ever made. The most dangerous, certainly.”

  Tom shrugged. “He’s the prime suspect, so the department is concentrating on him. But Donny Saunders has asked me to help him out. I agreed.”

  “So where does Brandon Yuille come in?”

  “Korman insists that Yuille and Suz Craig were having some kind of feud. Yuille claims he was with his father at his bakery from midnight to five last night, so he couldn’t have killed Ms. Craig.”

  “You called Brandon?”

  “Caught him unawares. He’ll probably never talk to me again without a lawyer present. And he’s not the most talkative man in the county,” Tom observed. “Anyway, he was awfully vague when I wanted to know why Ralph Shelton left ACHMO.”

  “You asked him that? Brandon was vague or he didn’t know?”

  Tom’s face was unreadable. “Your ex-husband maintains that Ralph Shelton hated Suz, too. I’m wondering if his firing had anything to do with Patricia McCracken’s lawsuit against ACHMO.”

  “What are you talking about? I mean, I know Ralph is an obstetrician, but …” I felt muddled. It had been too long a day.

  Tom stood and picked up my whisker-clean plate. He ran water into the sink, then said, “What I did get out of Brandon Yuille was this: Ralph Shelton used to be associated with an ob-gyn practice down in Denver. Shelton was on call at St. Philip’s Hospital when Clark McCracken brought his wife, Patricia, in the night she lost their baby. There she is, losing blood and disoriented and Shelton tells her he’s with ACHMO. Even though they’re old friends, our Patricia McCracken hauls off and slaps the guy across the face. He fell, and it knocked the wind out of him. That woman’s unbelievably strong, even when she’s sick.”

  “But,” I protested, “we all used to be close. Besides, Ralph Shelton wasn’t the problem. John Richard and ACHMO were.”

  “That night Patricia McCracken sure saw Ralph Shelton as the problem. Then the chain of events goes like this. She files one suit against Korman; she files another against ACHMO. Ralph leaves his practice under a cloud. Our investigation is very preliminary at this point, but it looks as if after that Shelton took an administrative job with another HMO. One named MeritMed.”

  I said reflectively, “But Ralph and the McCrackens seem to have buried the hatchet. I mean, he was invited to their hockey party tonight.”

  Tom grinned. “Yeah, after their little tussle in the hospital Patricia apologized all over the place to Shelton. Maybe she’s trying to be sweet to him these days, so that he’ll tell her some inside stuff on ACHMO that she can use against them in her suit. I mean, now that he’s persona non grata there.”

  “Ralph seems to stick together with another persona non grata,” I commented as I poured two dessert sherries. I told Tom about being tended to by Amy Bartholomew, nurse lately of ACHMO. “She’s involved with natural remedies now.” That reminded me. I sought out my last four arnica tablets and washed them down with the glass of cream sherry. It may not have been what the homeopaths would have recommended, but I thought it was wonderful.

  Tom pulled me into his lap. “Tell me we’re going to have a break from talking about this case tomorrow, Miss G. This guy gets arrested first thing in the morning, and it ends up ruining our entire weekend.”

  It could ruin a lot more than our weekend, I thought glumly, but didn’t say so. “You’re always telling me how if a case isn’t solved in the first forty-eight hours, it’s unlikely it’ll be solved at all.”

  “Wait. One more thing. Suz Craig did deny Korman his bonus. Late last week.”

  I sighed. “That’s what Marla was afraid of.”

  “You still don’t think this case is solved?”

  “I think this case is far from over. But we won’t mention a word of it tomorrow. Besides,” I teased, “I want to talk some more about the joys of doll collecting. I’m not sure I believe their claims. I mean, best sex times ten?”

  “You do have to wonder,” he replied, deadpan, then led me upstairs.

  Chapter 13

  You’d think after all I’d been through, I would have slept without a break for twelve hours. Not me. I slept for two.

  I awoke at midnight damp with sweat, wrenched from sleep by a nightmare starring John Richard. I’d been jolted awake believing I was Suz Craig, and I was being beaten to death. Perhaps my muscles had cramped after my collision with Ralph Shelton. Whatever the reason, sleep was impossible.

  I tiptoed to the kitchen, where I made myself a hot chocolate and topped it with a fat dollop of marshmallow cream. Nothing like chocolate and marshmallow to soothe the nerves. When I was eleven and had failed a social studies test, I’d headed straight to the drugstore and ordered chocolate ice cream slathered with spoonfuls of creamed marshmallow. Did they even make that kind of sundae anymore? I wondered.

  I sipped the chocolate, booted up my computer, and started a new file: JRK ARREST. I remembered Arch’s words: He really needs you. Well, I didn’t care about what John Richard Korman needed. But I was interested in the truth. And I needed Arch to believe I cared about him.

  It had been a tempestuous day. I had promised Tom we wouldn’t talk about the case on Sunday. Still, the information about the crime now bubbling up reminded me of the schools of minnows that can occasionally be seen at Aspen Meadow Lake. If you don’t get out your net right away, you’re going to lose them.


  I began by listing everything I knew about the people involved. Suz Craig had run the Denver office of the AstuteCare Health Maintenance Organization. John Richard Korman, one of the ACHMO providers, had been dating Suz for the past seven months. On the home front, Suz had bought a luxurious house in Aspen Meadow, where she’d been doing an expensive landscape project. On the business front, she had reportedly fired employees without remorse, and refused those she didn’t fire their bonuses. And she had presumably enforced the rules of the HMO, which could have had some implications for Patricia McCracken’s case. Patricia sure thought so. Maybe I had to find out the details of her case, after all.

  QUESTION, I typed. Why exactly is Patricia suing both JRK and ACHMO?

  QUESTION: Did Suz Craig fire Dr. Ralph Shelton? If so, why?

  QUESTION: Was gambling really enough of a reason for Suz to fire Amy Bartholomew, R.N.?

  QUESTION: What did JRK and Suz Craig argue about at the country club?

  I sighed. How would I get the answers to these questions? And why should I? I saved my file, shut down the computer, and sipped the steamy hot chocolate. The marshmallow had melted into a creamy layer on the chocolate surface. I licked it off carefully, the way a child would. Outside my kitchen window, elk bleated. I did not feel the remotest bit tired. I needed to get some sleep. How on earth could I face church in a state of exhaustion? Then inspiration struck.

  Cook! That’ll relax you. Put all these people and all these questions out of your head for a while and whip something up. I fingered the containers of Dutch-processed cocoa and the jar of marshmallow cream I’d left on the counter. Why couldn’t you put these together in a cookie? Surely there could be nothing like chocolate and marshmallow in a cookie to soothe the nerves?