Sticks & Scones Read online

  “You seem very sensitive to boys. Andy Balachek. My Arch. It’s a gift.”

  She hesitated at the study door. “I didn’t do Andy much good, though, did I?”

  “Whoa,” observed Julian when she’d left. He refilled my cup. “What was that about?”

  “I don’t know. What was she like at Elk Park Prep?”

  A frown wrinkled Julian’s handsome face. “Quiet. Really hard-working. Lonely, it seemed to me, but I didn’t fence, so I didn’t know her very well. One time when we had a senior tour here, we asked her about the baby who’d supposedly been thrown down the well. She said that story was borscht, a mix-up from the ghost story about the duke. She isn’t the most charismatic coach at Elk Park Prep, but she’s, you know, a stalwart. Like Tom. Everybody likes her. Everybody likes Tom. What’s the matter?”

  My ears were ringing. Everybody likes Tom. At this point, I couldn’t talk to Tom, Arch, or gossip-hungry Marla. But I had to talk to somebody I trusted, or the secret was going to explode inside of me. “Julian.” I looked him straight in the eyes. “I’m afraid Tom is having an affair—”

  “Bull!”

  “Or maybe he was having an affair and broke it off.” I choked. “I think he might have been shot by this other woman, who could be his ex-fiancée. Then again, unless she was somehow involved with Andy Balachek, she couldn’t have guessed he would show up at the chapel, right?”

  “Tom’s ex-fiancée? What are you talking about?”

  “Her name is Sara Beth O’Malley. She was a nurse who supposedly died at the end of the Vietnam war.”

  “What?”

  “She reportedly died in a helo crash on the Mekong Delta, but she didn’t. I’m telling you, she’s not dead. She sent him e-mails.” I gulped. “And she was watching our house, too.”

  “Watching the house? When? Did you tell the police?”

  I tore my gaze away from his face: His concern and love tugged at my heart. Outside, the moat reflected the sky. “I told the investigators a woman was there, not who she was.”

  He plopped into one of Eliot’s leather armchairs and softened his tone. “When did you first think this woman wasn’t dead?”

  “After Tom was shot, he said, ‘I don’t love her.’ Then he passed out. Since he got out of surgery, he hasn’t talked about who he meant. I’m not even sure he remembers saying anything.” I felt blood seep into my cheeks.

  “And you saw this same woman outside the house?”

  “Trudy next door saw her first, the morning after our window was shattered. This woman parked outside our house and kept staring at it. I tried to talk to her, but she refused to talk to me. She just took off. From old photographs, I thought she looked just like an older version of the woman Tom was once engaged to. She’s very pretty…. And her name’s Sara Beth O’Malley. Those old photographs? Signed just like the recent e-mails: ‘S.B.’”

  “So she didn’t die over there. Incredible. And now she’s back. But why?”

  “According to her e-mail, she’s here to get supplies. To get her teeth fixed. To hook up with her old flame. All of the above, or none. Besides e-mails from her, there was one from the State Department. Tom had written them to see if there’d been any old or new reports of Sara Beth O’Malley surviving the attack that supposedly killed her. State said no.”

  Julian was pensive. “Goldy … do you want me to ask Tom about it?”

  “No!” My hands clenched. “I just don’t know what to do.”

  Julian stood, picked up the top tray, then moved a silver place setting and the coffeepot to the bottom tray. Using tongs, he transferred one of the miniature Bundt cakes to a small plate, then set out a place mat and silverware on the desk.

  He hefted up the tray and studied me a moment. “Boss, you’ve got a sleep debt the size of a jumbo mortgage. You need to rest, have something to eat, wait until you can think again. There’s too much going on to keep it all straight. Why don’t you just concentrate on Tom, Arch, and our catering jobs this week? We’ll get Tom better, then we’ll ask him.” When I said nothing, he headed for the door. “Look,” he said over his shoulder, “how ’bout I tell Tom about one of my old high-school girlfriends who showed up at C.U. We broke up and she got cancer, supposedly. Then it turns out she got better and decided to go to college, where she looked me up.” He balanced the tray and opened the door. “See what he says.”

  “An old girlfriend of yours? With cancer? Is that true?”

  He flashed a smile back at me. “I wouldn’t tell you, Miss Nosy, if it was.”

  “Thanks, Julian.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  I swigged the rich coffee, spooned up the yogurt, downed half of the succulent cake, licked my fingers, and redialed the Furman County Schools’ central office. After maneuvering through the options network, I was finally connected to an administrator in charge of student medical care.

  “I’m from Aspen Meadow, and I’m looking for a school nurse named Connie Oliver,” I began pleasantly. “I need to check on an outbreak of strep.”

  When I was put on hold, I scanned Eliot’s elegant office. To the right of the glowing bay window, Chardé had placed an Oriental-style silk screen. On the other, I noticed, was a molding-framed opening. With sudden recognition, I realized it was one of those wall indentations that indicated a garderobe. Sheesh! Those medieval folks must have had to go to the bathroom a lot—

  “What strep outbreak?” I was rudely asked. I’d almost forgotten I was on the phone.

  “It was reported in January at our middle school,” I shot back. I knew about the strep outbreak from the Mountain Journal. After several more long minutes of holding, the administrator returned.

  “We can’t search the medical files over the phone.”

  “That’s all right. If I could just speak to Nurse Oliver, we could clear up the question of my son’s medication. She treated him.”

  “Without the files, Ms. Oliver cannot be expected—”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll take the responsibility!” I replied, trying to sound chipper. “I just want to chat for a sec, if she’s available. Do you know which schools she’ll be visiting today?”

  A sigh. “Ms. Oliver will be overseeing vision tests at Fox Meadows Elementary from ten-thirty to noon,” the woman informed me tartly. “Please identify yourself at the school office before seeking her out.” She hung up before I could thank her.

  Bureaucrats!

  I finished the last of the luscious cake and considered what to do next. It was quarter to nine. I needed to work out the prep for the next day’s lunch and then check on Tom. And of course we all had to eat tonight, so there was also dinner for six to consider. But not yet. First, I had to think.

  The drawers to Eliot’s desk were not locked. With only a slight pang of guilt—if he didn’t want folks going through his drawers, he’d lock them, right?—I rummaged for a clean sheet of paper. One drawer yielded pamphlets from conference centers across the country. Under that lay a legal pad filled with painstaking notes comparing prices, accommodations, and length of stay. Apparently, Eliot had no truck with computers, which could have produced such a spreadsheet in seconds. There was no blank paper. The next drawer held worn, slightly dusty pamphlets: Medieval Castles and Their Secrets. Have Your Wedding at Hyde Chapel! And A Brief Tour of Hyde Castle. There were also several copies of the audiotape Eliot had been urging me to listen to: The History of the Labyrinth. I slipped one of the audiotapes in my sweater pocket, then rifled through the pamphlets: There were between six and ten banded copies of each one, so I helped myself to one of each—the better to know the place where I was doing my job, I rationalized—then stuck them in my pocket, too. Finally, I went back to the first drawer and ripped a clean sheet of paper from the back of the legal pad.

  CHRONOLOGY, I wrote at the top of the page.

  January 1. The Lauderdales, in financial trouble, have New Year’s party. Buddy shakes baby. I call cops. The Lauderdales swear revenge.

/>   January 15. Valuable stamps—easily fenced in the Far East—are stolen from FedEx truck. The driver is killed. Witnesses say there were three robbers. Peter Balachek has a heart attack.

  January 20. Frightened, worried that his father will die, Andy Balachek identifies himself to Tom as one of the truck-hijacking gang. Andy tries to make a plea deal. Tells Tom where Ray Wolff will be.

  January 22. Tom arrests Ray Wolff on Andy’s tip. In another e-mail, Andy refuses to give location of valuable stamps.

  January 24. Andy sends a third e-mail to Tom, saying he has a stake and is going to Atlantic City to gamble. Tom takes off for New Jersey.

  February 6. Andy calls me from Central City, desperate to talk to Tom. John Richard Kor-man gets out of jail early. He immediately hooks up with his new girlfriend, Ray Wolff’s old lover, who is also Eliot Hyde’s old lover, Viv Martini. He has told Arch he’s going to buy an expensive present for Viv.

  February 9. Our window is shot out.

  February 9. I find Andy’s dead body in the creek, near Hyde Chapel, where I’m supposed to cater later in the day. Andy had an electric shock, then was shot and killed. Tom is shot.

  February 10. Our computers are stolen. I discover that Tom’s long-lost fiancée, Sara Beth O’Malley, has reappeared after many years of “death.” Supposedly, she is living under an assumed identity in Vietnam, and works as a village doctor. The Jerk is driving a new gold Mercedes from Lauderdale Imports. He and Viv Martini have entered into an unusual real estate venture.

  February 11. Michaela Kirovsky says she knew Andy Balachek when he visited the castle, but acts as if she’s covering something up.

  How were these people—Andy, Viv, John Richard, Eliot, Sukie, Chardé and Buddy, Sara Beth, and Michaela—linked? Or were they? Had Tom been the target of the shooter, or had I? And what event would disrupt our lives next? I did not know.

  I did know one thing, contrary to Michaela’s assertion: Andy was the key. Andy who stole, Andy who gambled, Andy who talked, Andy who ended up dead in Cotton-wood Creek. And I wasn’t going to learn any more about him sitting in Eliot Hyde’s fit-for-a-prime-minister office.

  I tucked the packet of zirconia into my pocket with the pamphlets and tape, then scooped up the tray. I maneuvered my load into the hall and decided that before checking on Tom, I would see if Michaela was still in the castle. If I could convince her that whoever had shot Tom had to be connected to Andy’s death, maybe she’d come up with some information about the dead young man.

  To my left, double glass doors opened onto the hallway that led to the north range and the gatehouse, where Michaela resided. I hesitated when I read a hand-lettered sign spanning the glass doors: UNDER CONSTRUCTION—NO ADMITTANCE! I listened for the bang and clatter of construction workers, but heard nothing. Was this northern side of the west range where Chardé was doing intensive new decorating work, I wondered? Did she insist on being left alone? Did I care?

  I wondered what kind of construction could be taking place. The castle already had a pool, a Great Hall, and a fencing loft. Maybe a movie theater was next. Surely they didn’t mean I couldn’t be admitted, I reasoned, as I pushed through the door. If I ran into Chardé, I could use the tray as a shield.

  The hall looked almost identical to the one next to Eliot’s office. Pale green Oriental runners bisected the dark hardwood floor. Medieval-looking tapestries lined the walls. There were two doors. The first one, Eliot had told me, led to his and Sukie’s bedroom. Past the door at the far end, another glass entryway led, presumably, into the northwest drum tower. I walked down the hall with great care, just in case I encountered a hole in the floor or an unfriendly decorator.

  The construction, such as it was, was used-to-be-fresh paint by the far door—more of the same paint that was elsewhere in the castle—with another Wet Paint sign by the door. Here, it looked as if someone had spilled or thrown a can of the viscous beige stuff on the wall, on the floor, and on the lower half of the wooden door. The door itself had no security pad, but had some holes in it at regular intervals. Above the doorknob was a formidable, new-looking brass padlock.

  I stared at the spilled paint. The hardened, abstract pool of beige looked worse than in the living room or up in the hall by our room. It was so unsightly and random that I wondered if this was what the argument between Eliot and Michaela had been about. Chardé keeps asking when she gets to do my place. Maybe Michaela had spilled the paint, when she was just supposed to dab it around artistically. Had Eliot suspected Michaela of making the mess, and accused her, or caught her? And they’d fought? That seemed pretty silly.

  Hold on. I put down the tray and peered intently at the padlock. Only half of it was completely screwed into place; the other hung limply from a single screw, as if the package containing the lock had not yielded enough of the little suckers that you needed to attach it to whatever you were trying to lock.

  And I thought buying a not-enough-nails package only happened to me.

  I knocked on the door. No reply. Quickly, before I could think about it, I applied the same principle to this door that I had to Eliot’s unsecured desk drawers. If you don’t want me checking on things, better make sure they’re locked up. I pushed through the door.

  “What the heck—” I said aloud, as I stared at stained white walls, arched windows filled with plain, not leaded, glass, and a jumble of bookshelves bursting with toys, worn picture books, wooden blocks, and boxed games. Ranged at the edges of a stained, odd-size pink rug, was battered furniture in shades of green, blue, and pink. What was this room used for? Was Eliot so eccentric that he kept a playroom for the dead duke, in case Ghost-Boy got tired of haunting the castle and wanted a quick game of Chutes and Ladders? Or was this a nursery where Eliot and Michaela had played as children—a place that would be turned into a baby-sitting room for the conference center?

  I thought I heard footsteps coming from the direction of the study. When I peeked around the doorjamb, however, the hall was empty. I scurried out, carefully closing the door behind me, and picked up my tray. Then I continued away from the study, soldiering on down toward the drum tower.

  It must have been some kind of baby-sitter’s room, I decided as I scurried along. I shoved through the second set of glass doors—also marked with NO ADMITTANCE signs—and again encountered the chill of a corner tower. Was the door to the sitter’s room getting a padlock because the Hydes didn’t want Chardé to give it a decorating overhaul? Had visitors in Eliot’s father’s time come to the castle for a tour, and brought the children because there was free baby-sitting? Later, I’d have to check my snitched pamphlets for a Hyde Castle floor plan.

  I pushed into the last hallway, which was identical to the one by Eliot’s office. These two doors, however, were marked with small brass plates that read Private Residence. Hoping to find Michaela, I knocked on each one, but received no reply.

  Finally I walked out onto the ground floor of the gatehouse, where Arch and I had entered upon our arrival. The front portcullis and the massive wooden gates were closed; the alarm was set. Good, I thought. No way for the Jerk to push his way in.

  When I arrived in the empty kitchen minutes later, the air was once again frigid from the open window. I banged my tray down, looked out the window—a forty-foot drop to the moat, with no way for the Jerk or the Lauderdales to climb up—and slammed the errant window shut. I was thankful that the kitchen held only a tiny reminder that the Lauderdales had even been there: Chardé had left a pile of decorating magazines and folders by the hearth.

  Once my dishes were stowed in the dishwasher, I scanned the menu for the following day’s lunch. The boxes of frozen homemade chicken stock I’d brought would form the base for the luncheon’s cream of chicken soup and the banquet’s shrimp curry. I chewed the inside of my cheek and used the kitchen phone to reconfirm with Alicia, my supplier. She had been scheduled to bring all the ingredients for the banquet—veal roasts, frozen jumbo shrimp, fresh strawberries and bananas for the mold
ed salad, and bunches of broccoli—to our house on Friday morning. I left a message asking that the foodstuffs, plus a lamb roast and a couple of extra bags of haricots verts and Yukon Gold potatoes, be brought to Hyde Castle today, if possible. I provided the phone number and a warning that she’d have to alert the residents to the time of her arrival, so they could open the portcullis. Knowing Alicia, she’d think portcullis was a drink, and want some.

  While giving my message to Alicia’s voice mail, I’d found a second, larger microwave oven cleverly hidden inside what looked like a bread box. After some experimentation with programming, I started the chicken stock defrosting, then minced a mountain of shallots, carrots, and celery. Soon the hearty scent of vegetables simmering in a pool of melted butter filled the kitchen. I tried to recall what I’d read that morning from my research disk on English food. After some thought, I sketched out a simple plan for the evening meal: lamb roast with pan gravy and mint jelly, baked potatoes, steamed haricots verts, a large tossed salad with grated fresh Parmesan cheese, and homemade bread. I’d brought the potatoes, beans, bread, and greens from home. If Alicia couldn’t make it today, Julian could go out and pick up the lamb roast.

  For dessert, it would probably be good to make a dish with some historic significance. But the Elizabethans had favored marzipan, and I wasn’t up to doing marzipan anything. My eyes fell on the Stained-Glass Sweet Bread I’d made earlier that morning, but decided it would be better for tea. I chewed the inside of my cheek some more.

  The Hydes’ freezer yielded a gallon of premium ice cream: Swiss Chocolate, no surprise. With ice cream, I’d learned long ago, it’s better to serve at least two different kinds of cookies. One should be crunchy and redolent of a spice, such as ginger, or a flavoring, like vanilla or almond. The other should be soft and rich, smeared with a creamy icing, if possible. After some deliberation, I decided on a shortbread for the former, which I’d name after Queen Elizabeth’s rival to the north, Mary, Queen of Scots. The other, a chocolate cookie whose dark, fudgy essence and brownie-like texture I could already savor, I would call 911 Cookies—for chocolate emergencies. I was in an extended one right now.