Sticks & Scones Read online

  I beat confectioners’ sugar into butter, added a hint of vanilla, and mixed in two kinds of flour sifted with a tad of leavening. I patted the shortbread dough into round cake pans, scored each into wedges, and fluted the rims. Once I’d started the buttery shortbreads on their slow bake to divine flakiness, I melted dark bittersweet chocolate with butter and sifted dry ingredients for the 911’s. Like the sweet bread, these, too, would benefit from a brief mellowing, only in the refrigerator. Once I’d mixed the dough, I covered the bowl with plastic wrap, set it to chill, and slipped up to see Tom.

  “He said he wants to rest,” Julian whispered to me as he precariously balanced the tray while closing the door. “I changed the bandage after he ate. He only had a few bites, but we did have a good visit. He didn’t say anything about getting any on the side.”

  “Julian!” I scolded, “I need to set our security system,” I said, feeling guilty that I hadn’t come up earlier.

  “I did that, too. I found the directions in the bedside drawer of the room Arch and I are in.” Gripping Tom’s tray, he looked all around before whispering, “Both of ’em are set to Arch’s birthday.”

  “Thanks, Julian.” Arch had been born on April the fifteenth, a happy respite from thoughts of the Internal Revenue Service. At least, that was the way I had always viewed it: Joy and Taxes. Julian showed me the red light on our armed door, and the green-lit keypad beside it.

  “One more thing,” Julian warned as we started back down the hall. “Tom wants to start cooking again.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. He has an idea for a hearty breakfast dish.”

  “Good Lord.”

  “Well, at least that means his mind is geting hungry, even if his body hasn’t caught up. He says he’s going to start tomorrow. He wants to get on with his life.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Did you tell him your girlfriend story?”

  “Nah. Didn’t seem right—trying to get the truth out of a cop who’s confined to bed because he’s been shot.”

  After a few moments, we banged back into the kitchen, where—miraculously—the window had stayed closed. I showed Julian the beginnings of the soup and the shortbreads, and told him about the now-thickened fudgy chocolate cookie dough. When I pulled out the shortbreads, Julian dug into Sukie’s perfectly organized kitchen-equipment drawer, extracted an ice-cream scoop, and offered to make the chocolate cookies.

  911 Chocolate Emergency Cookies

  6 ounces semisweet chocolate chips

  6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, broken into large pieces (recommended brands: Lindt Bittersweet, Godiva Dark)

  8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened and divided

  1½ cups all-purpose flour

  ⅓ cup unsweetened Dutch-style cocoa (recommended brand: Hershey’s European-style)

  1½ teaspoons baking powder

  ½ teaspoon salt

  ¾ cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed

  ¾ cup granulated sugar

  3 large eggs

  1½ teaspoons vanilla extract

  Vanilla Icing (recipe follows)

  In the top of a double boiler, melt the chips, chopped chocolate, and 4 tablespoons (½ stick) of the butter. When melted, set aside to cool briefly.

  Sift together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

  In a large mixing bowl, beat the remaining 4 tablespoons of butter with the sugars. When the mixture is the consistency of wet sand, add the eggs and vanilla. Mix in the slightly cooled chocolate mixture, beating only until combined. Stir in the flour mixture, mixing only until completely combined and no traces of flour appear.

  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 25 minutes, until the mixture can be easily spooned up with an ice-cream scoop.

  Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter two cookie sheets.

  Using a 4-teaspoon ice-cream scoop, measure out a dozen cookies per sheet. Bake one sheet at a time for about 9 to 11 minutes, just until the cookies have puffed and flattened. Do not overbake; the cookies will firm up upon cooling. Allow the cookies to cool 2 minutes on the cookie sheet, then transfer them to racks and allow to cool completely.

  Frost with Vanilla Icing.

  Makes 4 dozen cookies

  Vanilla Icing:

  4 tablespoons (½ stick) unsalted butter, softened

  ⅓ cup whipping cream

  ¾ teaspoon vanilla extract

  2¾-cups confectioners’ sugar, or more if needed

  Beat the butter until very creamy. Gradually add the cream, vanilla, and confectioners’ sugar and beat well. If necessary, add more confectioners’ sugar to the icing. It should be fairly stiff, not soupy. Spread a thick layer of icing on each cookie.

  Queen of Scots Shortbread

  16 tablespoons (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

  ½ cup confectioners’ sugar

  ¾ teaspoon vanilla extract

  1½ cups all-purpose flour

  ½ cup rice flour (available at health food stores) or all-purpose flour

  ¼ teaspoon baking powder

  ¼ teaspoon salt

  Preheat the oven to 350°F.

  In the large bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter until it is very creamy. Add the confectioners’ sugar and beat well, about 5 minutes. Beat in the vanilla. Sift the flours with the baking powder and salt, then add them to the butter mixture, beating only until well combined.

  With floured fingers, gently pat the dough into two ungreased 8-inch round cake pans. Using the floured tines of a fork, score the shortbreads into eighths. Press the tines around the edges of each shortbread to resemble fluting, and prick the shortbread with a decorative design, if desired.

  Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the edge of the shortbread is just beginning to brown. Allow to cool 10 minutes on a rack. While the shortbread is still warm, gently cut through the marked-off wedges. Using a pointed metal spatula or pie server, carefully lever out the shortbread wedges and allow them to cool completely on a rack.

  Makes 16 wedge-shaped cookies

  I thanked him and mentioned I should be going. “Taste the chocolate cookies,” I added, “to see if they need icing. We’ll be serving everybody chocolate ice cream, too. Oh, and if Alicia doesn’t show, do you think you could pick up a lamb roast?” I recited the evening meal menu; he said that would be no problem. I told him all the places I’d be that day, if he got a hankering for cellphone communication.

  “I’ll keep an eye on Tom, too,” he offered. “And take him snacks, to jump-start his energy supply.”

  “You’re great,” I said, and meant it. My eyes fell back to the pile of folders and magazines Chardé had left on the kitchen hearth. I picked them up. On the bottom was Chardé’s portfolio, a slick two-page folder with photographs of some of her decorating assignments. On the back of the folder was a photo: a family portrait of Buddy, Chardé, their teenage son, Howie, and their baby girl, Patty. As an afterthought, I snagged one of the framed newspaper photos from the kitchen wall. This one featured a picture of Eliot and Sukie caught in an enthusiastic kiss, with a caption about the auction of Henry’s letter being complete.

  Figuring they could come in handy, I tucked the portfolio and picture into my oversize canvas tote bag. I could show the pictures to the stamp agent in Golden … which, in turn, might lead me closer to finding out who had shot Tom. Impulsively, I climbed up to Arch’s room and grabbed his high-powered binoculars. Constellations at night, bad guys during the day: Not a stellar combination.

  CHAPTER 18

  I blinked at the sunshine that suffused the sky. Fair days in the Colorado winter feature a low-hanging sun glazing snow-covered fields and hills. The glare can become so intensely bright that to drive without sunglasses is to invite disaster.

  I adjusted my shades, set my jaw, and headed east toward The Stamp Fox. Tom had repeatedly told me that the most profitable time to catch a crook was the first forty-eight hours after the commission of a crime. I had jus
t passed that landmark forty-eighth hour, with zero results. I lowered the driver-side visor against the dazzle, and accelerated down the mountain.

  I slowed when I spotted Lauderdale’s Luxury Imports on the north side of the highway. Not too many businesses are situated at the base of the foothills above Denver, as the sloping sites provide monumental construction challenges. But Buddy Lauderdale had found a plateau for his sprawling enterprise, and acres of Jaguars, Mercedeses, BMWs, and Audis glittered enticingly in the sun. I exited the highway, wended along a northbound frontage road, then parked across from the showroom and a lot crammed with late-model Jaguars. Jumping out, I focused the binocs on the eastward view from the offices that flanked the showroom.

  Not surprisingly, the Furman East Shopping Center sprang instantly into view. Designed like a rustic Mexican town, with dark pink stucco and orange-brown roof tiles, the cluster of shops boasted a fake bell tower sandwiched between an upscale women’s clothing store and a glass-fronted independent bookstore. The Stamp Fox was a bit harder to spot, but eventually I nailed it, flanked by an Italian ice cream store and a florist.

  Out front stood a FedEx box.

  So you could see everything from here, if you knew what to look for. Hmm. I jumped back in the van and hightailed it to the mall.

  The Stamp Fox was a tiny, gold-wallpapered shop that resembled a fifties-era jewelry store. Electrified candles from an oversize fixture reflected in the brass-lined glass cases. Inside each case, handwritten envelopes with gloriously colored stamps—covers with frankings, to the connoisseurs—begged to be studied. Maybe stamp-collecting was like riding a bike; you never forgot how. I sighed, and wondered what had happened to my painstakingly collected box of glassine-enveloped stamps. I’d left it behind at home when I’d gone off to boarding school. Probably been eaten by mice in the attic.

  The shop owner was out, according to his overweight, pale assistant, whose name tag informed me he was Steve Byron, Philatelist. This Byron, whose only romantic inclination had to do with postal history, had a round face to match his round body. He was about twenty-two, and had neatly waved short brown hair and small, colorless eyes behind glasses as thick as bottle-bottoms. The Michelin Man as Stamp Guy. Byron finished locking a glass case, parted his thick lips in a hopeful smile, and waddled toward me.

  “Collector?” he asked cheerfully. “Looking for something in particular? We’ve got a brand-new estate sale just in. You’re the first. Top-flight stuff.”

  I blurted out, “I’m Francesca Chastain, and I’m a thematic collector,” before I had a chance to think. I was careful not to touch my purse, as I’d heard that showed a subconscious desire not to spend money. Instead, I put a voracious gleam in my eye and tried to think of a nonexistent theme for my obsolete hobby. “I’m the first to see a new set of covers?” I asked greedily. “Do you take Visa?”

  Steve Byron gurgled with happiness. “Oh, yes. Your collecting theme is …?”

  I gulped. I was looking for news of the Mauritius Queen Victoria stamp theft, and some indication that Sara Beth O’Malley had come back from Vietnam with an agenda that included more than fixing her teeth. Still, I did not want to appear to be the snoop I actually was. I swallowed and tried to think how to mask my intentions while weaseling information out of Byron.

  “A picture of any place or person beginning with the letter V.” To Byron’s look of puzzlement, I waved a hand in the air, à la Eliot. “Uh … Vatican City. Venezuela. Venice. Frankings with pictures of … Queen Victoria.” Steve Byron’s fleshy mouth fell open. “And don’t ask me if I have a Penny Black. I don’t. I’ll buy one from you, though.” Almost as an afterthought, I added, “Stamps from Vietnam.”

  “I didn’t catch your name,” stammered Byron.

  “Francesca Chastain. Do you have any pieces to show me?”

  He licked his lips. “We don’t have anything with Victoria. We did, but they’re gone.” He hesitated. “I do have a couple of covers showing Venice, from a time when there was an international effort to save the city from sinking. And I’ve got one from Vietnam. I’ll show them to you.”

  The first case he led me to displayed a cover from Tunisia depicting a mosaic from Venice’s Saint Mark’s Cathedral. I pretended to show interest. The second cover, though, stunned me. The label indicated that it was from 1973. It depicted a stylized lion, symbol of Saint Mark and, by extension, Venice. The printed words on the stamp were in French: Pour Venise UNESCO. This cover was not from France, however, much less Italy. It was from Cambodia, or, as stated below the lion: Répub-lique Khmère.

  “Where’d you get this one?” I demanded, too sharply.

  He was taken aback. “From the same collector who sold us the one from Vietnam. An American serviceman was stationed over there in the seventies and collected stamps. He came home, became an alcoholic, and was in pretty bad shape when he stumbled into our showroom last fall. He sold his collection to help pay his deductible for thirty days of treatment at a facility.” Byron moved to another case. “The Vietnam stamp he sold us is here. It’s from ’72, from what was then still called South Vietnam. Shows reconstruction after the Tet Offensive. Would you like to see either one of them?”

  “Could I talk to the veteran who sold you these covers?” It was a long shot, but maybe he knew something about a local woman who’d turned up dead … if indeed the “veteran” story was true.

  Byron shook his head. “He died. He got out of treatment, got plastered, and drove his car the wrong way on I-seventy. A tractor-trailer obliterated him.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Trier. Marcus Trier. His family went to our church, but they moved to Florida. Why do you ask? Did you know Marcus?”

  “Just … wondering if we have a mutual friend.” I cursed silently and tried to think what to do next. I was still set to visit the stamp agent in Golden, to check out the long possibility that the stolen Queen Victoria stamps had been fenced there. For that expedition, though, I needed something in particular. “Do you have a current catalog of your items for sale? With prices and pictures?”

  “Not quite current, but I’ll get you what we have.” Byron trundled off. After a moment, he returned with a pamphlet-size catalog. “Only some of our inventory is pictured. The reproductions are in color, though.” He flipped through the pages. “Prices are from three months ago. Only a few would have changed. Oops, here’s some of the Victoria stuff.” He picked up a black marker. “I’ll just cross it out, since we don’t have it anymore.”

  “No!” I shouted. Startled, the poor boy almost dropped his pen. “I want prices for everything.” To his look of surprise, I gushed apologetically, “I’m really a passionate collector.”

  “Guess so.” He handed me the catalog, unhappy not to be making a sale. “We can take your Visa over the phone, once you decide what you want.”

  I thanked him and backed out of the store. I had ninety minutes before I was due at the auction agent’s house in Golden, and in that interval I had to pick up a few things, find Fox Meadows Elementary, and try to get some information out of Connie Oliver. Worse yet, my stomach was growling on a day that held no lunchbreak. The last emergency truffle in my purse was not going to do the trick.

  On the other hand, just ten steps away was that Italian ice cream store….

  Ten minutes later, I was clutching a bag with newly bought school paste, scissors, and blank paper, and diving into a sugar cone with a triple scoop of dark chocolate gelato. Fox Meadows Elementary, the gelato-scooper had informed me, was a mere fifteen minutes away. The creamy chocolate melted in my mouth as I balanced the cone in my left hand and piloted the van with my right—no easy task. I finally came to the turnoff of a new, winding road that led to the elementary school. I crammed the rest of the cone into my mouth—ecstasy!—and hopped out of the van.

  Connie Oliver had just finished testing the vision of the fourth-graders. At least, that was what she said when I introduced myself as Francesca Chastain, my nom de
jour. Nurse Oliver was of medium height, with makeup covering remnants of freckles in a plain face. I judged her to be about fifty. She greeted me and then self-consciously touched her stiff, frosted-to-cover-the-gray hair. I said I was doing a newspaper piece on how Vietnam had affected graduating classes from high schools, colleges, and nursing schools.

  “I wouldn’t know,” she said flatly, as she led the way out of the stuffy, cabbage-smelling cafeteria to a bench overlooking the playground. The air was cold, but our seat in the sun was warm enough. The children, happy to be out of their classrooms, shrieked and chased each other through the swings. Connie Oliver put on her sunglasses and fixed her eyes on the playground. “We’ve never had a reunion,” she said finally. “It would be too sad. Our class was small, fifteen in all. Right after graduation, two died on a helicopter mission into the foothills, freak snowstorm kind of thing. Later that year, another died in a car crash, and one more died in Vietnam. The rest of us didn’t want to get together. It would have been too sad.”

  “Who died in Vietnam?”