Crunch Time Page 2

  Eventually Yolanda returned to the kitchen, her eyes puffy and her cheeks cinnamon red. She was wearing black capri pants under a plain white chef’s jacket, and as usual, she looked like a model, not a cook. She seemed oblivious to how gorgeous she was. She hadn’t cared about anyone in any deep sense until she’d met Kris. But hadn’t she told me at the spa that she’d just broken up with Kris?

  Ah.

  The wailing, the pork slamming, and the dash to the bathroom might be because of the breakup with Kris Nielsen. Actually, as soon as this possibility occurred to me, I was sure of it. Tom would say I was jumping to a conclusion without evidence. Even though it was Sunday, Tom had been called into work. So without him there to inject logic, I could be as irrational as I wanted.

  “Is this because of Kris?” I asked, still calm, as Yolanda picked up the first roast and placed it on a rack.

  “That bastard!” Yolanda shrieked, and I jumped. When she whacked the pan back on the counter, the pork sprang off its moorings and bounced twice on the counter before heading for the floor. Yolanda quickly bent sideways with her arms outstretched. She snagged the meat a nanosecond before it landed, like an outfielder diving for a fly ball. Who says Cubans don’t have God-given baseball skills?

  Turning her back to me, Yolanda rinsed off the meat and returned it to the rack. Without elaborating on the bastard status of Kris Nielsen, she cleaned the counter, then washed her hands and placed the other roasts on the pan. Then she washed her hands again—caterers and chefs have the cleanest, driest hands imaginable—and preheated the oven I wasn’t using for the bread. Quickly, as if to avoid my eyes, she strode back to the walk-in and opened the door.

  “Breaking up really is awful,” I called sympathetically in the direction of the cool interior. Yolanda did not reply. Was she thinking of making another dish for the kids the next day? We didn’t have extra ingredients. In fact, the only things I could think of that were new in the walk-in were racks of lamb chops that I was preparing for a church fund-raising dinner, and a ham, which Tom had bought because he wanted it for our family. We were already serving the CBHS kids pork and chicken, so we didn’t need more meat.

  I returned to my own chore. With the bread rising, I needed to get going on the Caprese salad. At the sink designated for produce, I rinsed fresh organic tomatoes, which we would marinate in a basil-oil vinaigrette and serve the following day with chopped fresh basil and ciliegine—small, smooth, fresh mozzarella the size of cotton balls. I pondered Yolanda’s situation as I moved my first pile of the succulent crimson fruit to one side. All right, breaking up is awful. But not always. I actually thought Yolanda had happily dumped Kris, and not vice versa. If he had ditched her, then I could understand the tears.

  So maybe it was something else.

  When I heard Yolanda emerging from the walk-in, I began slicing the tomatoes. I said comfortingly, and I hoped not too nosily, “You’re right, he’s a bastard.” But she said nothing. When I looked over, she was opening the preheated oven. Her forehead wrinkled as she concentrated on sliding the roasting pan holding the pork inside.

  I went back to work. I was aware of who Kris Nielsen was. Tall, muscular, and prematurely white-haired, he was a fixture around town. My best friend, Marla Korman, who was also the other ex-wife of our deceased ex-husband, unaffectionately known as the Jerk, had provided me with Kris’s background. Marla thrived on gossip; the juicier the news, the faster she drank it in. She said Kris Nielsen was in his midthirties, had become stratospherically rich when he sold his Silicon Valley computer start-up, and had moved to Aspen Meadow, where he’d bought a “huge” house. If Marla, who was no slouch in the Wealth Department, said Kris’s place was big, it was probably the size of an aircraft carrier. I hadn’t been inside the house, because Kris had never hired me to cater for him. And he’d had no reason to. Until recently, he’d had a girlfriend who was one of the all-time great chefs. I set a second hillock of tomato slices aside and turned. Yolanda had gone back into the walk-in.

  I said, “So . . . Kris is out of your life now, right?”

  “I wish he was, that son of a bitch.” Again Yolanda’s tone was fierce. When she slammed the door to the walk-in, a thump made me think the ham had catapulted off its shelf. Yolanda, unheeding, strode to the produce sink with bunches of basil in each hand. “I wish Kris was dead.”

  I set my knife aside and entered the walk-in. The ham, still mercifully in its wrappings, lay on the floor. I set it back where it belonged, reentered the kitchen, and silently made us each an iced latte. I wish Kris was dead? This was more than idle kitchen banter.

  “Time for a break,” I announced as I placed the lattes on our kitchen table. I pulled out the sugar bowl and placed it carefully beside Yolanda’s glass. The one time Yolanda’s aunt Ferdinanda had made me a Cuban coffee, she’d put so much sugar into it that I’d gagged. Yolanda always spooned four sugars into her own caffeinated drink. The first time I’d seen her do this, I’d closed my eyes.

  “So,” I began after a sip, “why are you so upset all of a sudden?”

  “The wind scared me,” she said sullenly, “and I’m tired of being scared.” She ladled sugar into her coffee. Not for the first time, I wondered how Yolanda could stay so thin while indulging in so much sweet stuff.

  “Well,” I said, “Kris is out of your life now, isn’t he? I mean, is he . . . doing something to frighten you? Or, I don’t know, are you trying to get some of your belongings from his house, and he won’t let you in? Something like that?”

  “Ha!” Her eyes blazed. Once again, I recoiled. “Having me in the same place with him is what he wants, Goldy. I told him he could take his house and shove it up his ass.”

  “All right, then. No house.”

  Yolanda did not smile. When I’d asked Marla for details about Kris’s place, she’d told me he’d purchased a ten-thousand-square-foot stucco, red-roofed mansion on five acres, smack at the highest point of the ritzy local development known as Flicker Ridge. So not only was Yolanda talking about an anatomical impossibility, it was an anatomically impossible feat of gargantuan proportions.

  I tried again. “So you don’t want to get into his house. But he’s doing something to upset you, and you want him dead. Why?”

  Yolanda lifted her chin defiantly and brushed a mass of curls off her forehead. She was wearing large gold hoop earrings. When she opened her mouth to speak, her citrus scent wafted toward me. She stopped, inhaled, then started talking. “We broke up. Do you remember? I told you about it.” When I nodded, she went on. “We were living together.” She actually blushed, bless her heart. She was Roman Catholic, and I wondered if she’d confessed this sexual tidbit to a priest. If she had, and if she’d continued to live with Kris, could the priest absolve her? Hmm. Then Yolanda spoke so fiercely that I jumped. “Aunt Ferdinanda was with us. No matter where I live, I have to take care of her! And that takes a lot of time and money. You know that.”

  “I do,” I said, remembering how faithful Yolanda had been that summer at pushing Ferdinanda’s wheelchair everywhere. Ferdinanda, a steely-haired veteran—or so she claimed—of Castro’s army, had become disillusioned with communism and, in the sixties, come over on a boat to Miami. Earlier this summer, Ferdinanda had been shopping in Denver when she’d been struck by a hit-and-run driver. With her leg broken in four places, she’d been forced to learn how to use a wheelchair during the long healing process. While Yolanda had been rolling Ferdinanda around, the older woman had protested that she was strong, could take care of herself, and just wanted to be left alone. I said, “So, what’s the problem? Or what was the problem?”

  Yolanda shook her head. “Whenever Kris and I weren’t physically together, with me in the same room beside him, he was on my case. When I was working at the spa? You know we didn’t get good cell phone reception out there. So Kris would call the switchboard, when the food staff and I were in the kitchen, prepping, cooking, serving, or washing the dishes. ‘What are you doing?’ he’
d want to know, once I’d walked over to the office and answered the phone. ‘When will you be back?’ he’d say. Then, the very next day, he’d phone the spa real early, when we were making breakfast. So back I’d go to the office. ‘How’s it going?’ he’d say. ‘When will you be home?’ It didn’t matter what I said, how busy I told him we were. He’d phone all through the day. He always wanted to know where I was going, who I’d be with, when I’d be back. I never asked him where he was going or what he was doing. That was strictly a no-no.”

  I sighed as old memories intruded. I knew the story; it was familiar, as in like-the-Jerk familiar. He would always want to know what I was up to, every minute of the day. But if I asked him why he was home so late? I’d get punched in the face.

  I resolutely put these thoughts out of my head and reminded myself for the millionth time that the Jerk was dead, thank God. Hmm, that wasn’t a very nice thought. Maybe I was the one who needed to go to confession, although in general, Episcopalians aren’t big on confession. Sinning, yes. Spilling our guts in hopes of absolution? Forget it.

  Yolanda took a sip of coffee, added more sugar, and pushed her curly hair away from her face. She never wore a hairnet, as required by the county. She insisted that in all her years of food service, no one had complained. I hoped she was right.

  She went on. “When Kris would ask me all these questions? I’d tell him, ‘I’m in the car, taking Ferdinanda to the doctor,’ or ‘I’m on my way to the grocery store,’ or ‘I’m working, Kris, what do you think I’m doing?’ And he’d always tell me I should quit, so that he could take care of me. But I never would. I don’t care how much money he had or what he promised.”

  I sipped my coffee and nodded sympathetically. When I’d worked briefly at the spa, the staff had told me how, before Yolanda and Kris broke up, someone from the office always had to summon Yolanda to the switchboard. Yolanda would want to know who was calling, and when they told her, she’d just shake her head. When I’d heard this, I’d thought Kris was calling because he cared about Yolanda, or at the very least because he was worried about her. That lasted until Marla enlightened me. She’d found out from one of her sources that Kris was seeing other women while Yolanda was at work.

  Seeing other women could explain why Kris had always insisted on knowing where Yolanda was, what she was doing, and when she’d be back. But I kept that thought to myself, because I didn’t want to hurt Yolanda.

  “So, you broke up,” I said, adding a bit of cream to my coffee. “What, is he taking it hard?”

  “Hard? Is he taking it hard?” Yolanda gave me a look that said, You must be pretty naïve. “Yeah. You could say that. He’s taking it hard.” She glanced out our back windows, at the clouds gathering over the mountains. “At first, right after we broke up, he called our rental house and hung up, called and hung up, called and hung up. His number was blocked, but I knew it was him. Then, maybe twelve times a night, he drove that damned Maserati of his past our place. You remember our little A-frame in Aspen Hills?” When I nodded, she went on. “Luckily, I was able to get back into it after Kris and I broke up, when Ferdinanda and I moved out of his house. But then, with him calling and driving by, I was really creeped out!”

  “Of course you were.”

  “Weird stuff started happening. Twice, at night, Ferdinanda and I thought we saw someone looking in our windows. I talked to the owner, who also acted as the rental agent. She said nobody had asked who was in the house, and she had no idea who would be looking in the windows.”

  “Did you call the police?”

  “After the second time, I did. A cop came out to talk to me, and that was it.” Again she brushed the curls off her forehead. As I looked closer, I could see bags under her eyes and new wrinkles between her brows. When she felt me staring at her, she looked away. “I couldn’t afford to move, because Donna Lamar—that’s the owner/agent—said she didn’t have anything cheaper. Sales are down and rents are up, according to Donna.”

  I groaned. After years of double-digit gains, the real estate market in Aspen Meadow had gotten very bad, very fast. My godfather, Jack, who’d sadly passed away the previous month, had owned the house across the street from us. The real estate agent had told us it could take up to two years for the house to sell—and that it would probably be at a loss. Jack had torn out the cabinets and closets with the idea of fixing it all up, but he hadn’t had the chance to finish what he started. If Yolanda’s rental wasn’t working out, I couldn’t imagine her being able to afford paying the unused part of a lease, making a deposit on another place, then picking up stakes, moving Ferdinanda, herself, and all their stuff yet again.

  “So, are you still in the rental?”

  Yolanda shook her head. “Besides working with you, I, uh, have another job.”

  I didn’t follow. I hadn’t asked if she had another job; I’d asked if she was still in the rental. This was a crucial miss on my part, but at the time, I glossed over it. Yolanda rushed on. “Ernest McLeod, do you know him?”

  “Oh, of course. We adore Ernest,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound too enthusiastic, because I wasn’t sure how much Ernest had divulged of his history to Yolanda. Despite excellent, long-term work for the sheriff’s department, a bad divorce and a slide into alcoholism had led Ernest to rehab and forced retirement. He’d told Tom and me at the last department picnic that being a private investigator “isn’t nearly as sexy as it sounds,” which had made us laugh. To Yolanda, I said, “What are you, ah, doing for Ernest?”

  Yolanda licked her lips, and her tone changed. What’s going on here? I wondered. “I, you know, oh, for a while I was just doing his dinners for him,” she said without looking at me. “He hired me because he . . . wasn’t eating right, and, you know. Oh, I might as well tell you, he didn’t say I couldn’t. Ernest is in AA. He said his sponsor—or maybe it was his doctor? Anyway, this person said she was worried about how Ernest wasn’t eating right, so she told him he should pay someone to cook for him.” Okay, so Ernest had told Yolanda his story, or at least the part about being an alcoholic. Yolanda went on. “So when the strange things started happening in the rental, and it was clear the cops weren’t going to do anything, I asked Ernest if I could do his cleaning for him, too . . . in exchange for Ferdinanda and me moving in with him. It wasn’t, like, a sexual thing—”

  “I didn’t think it would be,” I said hastily, although, why not go that way, if it worked for you? Maybe because Yolanda was so pretty, folks assumed that she got stuff in exchange for sexual favors. Still, she probably wouldn’t entertain the thought, at least not right off the bat. There was that Catholic thing.

  Yolanda continued. “Ernest said yes. When I told him our story, I think he felt sorry for us. Well, anyway. Then once we moved in, I remembered he was a neat freak and that of course he wouldn’t need me to be his housekeeper. So I felt guilty all over again and offered to do laundry or whatever he needed. He said just doing dinners every night would be fine, plus running errands now and then. He said he needed to work with his hands. He liked to clean, he liked to putter around his garden in the summer, and in winter, tend plants in his greenhouse. He said those activities kept him sane and sober.”

  I said, “It’s been a while since I’ve seen him, but yes, Ernest is great.” And yes, he’s a neat freak, I added mentally. “He used to be partners with John Bertram, who’s still on the force. John bought the land below Ernest’s property, then built a place for himself and his wife.” I thought, but did not say, And John Bertram is no neat freak, trust me. “The two of them, Ernest and John, worked for Tom.” When Yolanda said nothing, I prompted her. “So . . . you moved in with Ernest? When? It must have been recent, since you just broke up with Kris.”

  She stirred her coffee, which she had stopped drinking. “Couple of weeks ago. Ferdinanda adores him. So do I, actually. It’s been a long time since I had a man who was a real friend, you know, not trying to get something from me. And Ernest, well, he has that big house th
at he ended up getting in the divorce, so it’s good for him, too, I suppose.”

  “You suppose? Don’t you know?”

  Yolanda swallowed some coffee. “Ernest’s house is scary, too.”

  “Why?” I asked, my voice low, although no one was around except for our dog and cat, and I had no idea where they were.

  “His clients.” She looked around the kitchen, as if someone who had hired Ernest were about to jump out of the pantry. “He doesn’t tell me much about them, but they frighten me.”

  “Why?”

  Yolanda shivered. “Well, somebody’s going through a bad divorce, and Ernest needs to get proof about something with that. We have no-fault divorce in this state. Why do you need proof of anything? Then, you know, maybe I’m just paranoid, but it seems to me that unfamiliar cars are always driving past his house and slowing down.”

  “You think this is someone from the divorce case?”

  “I don’t know. Ernest also has an animal-activist lady who wants him to look into a puppy mill. Why didn’t she just call the cops? You know, Furman County Animal Control? Or the SPCA?”

  “Because those people need proof,” I said, as I picked up my knife and started slicing tomatoes again. “They need evidence if they’re going to move in and close somebody down. And anyway, don’t worry. Ernest can take care of himself. Did he tell you he was investigating anything that would put him in danger? Or put you and Ferdinanda in danger?”

  Yolanda shuddered. “He says he’s looking for something for someone.”

  “Looking for something for someone? Looking for what, and for whom?”

  She said, “I’m not sure, Goldy.” Something about her tone of voice made me stop slicing and turn around. No one was there. When I faced her again, her big brown eyes were round. “Ernest didn’t come home last night.”

  I asked, “Is that unusual?”

  “Yes,” Yolanda whispered. “He said he’d be back in the afternoon. I was fixing him seafood enchiladas for supper, and he said he couldn’t wait. And then he didn’t show up. I couldn’t reach him on his cell. With his cases and his clients and my worry about Kris, I had a bad feeling. So did Ferdinanda. You know, she believes in Santería.”