Tough Cookie gbcm-9 Page 21

  I jumped from the Rover. “He’s home?”

  “Yeah. The kitchen drains were delivered and he’s putting them in.” My son turned and took huge footsteps through the deep snow to get back to packing snow-missiles.

  “How’d the work with Lettie go?” I called after him.

  “Fine!” he yelled before throwing a new white grenade. So much for sociable chitchat.

  Tom was sprawled on his back on our kitchen floor. Strewn by his legs were two dozen plumbing tools and pieces of dismantled cherry cabinet. The top half of his torso disappeared beneath the sink.

  I leaned down. “How’s it going, O multitalented mate?”

  With a grunt, he slid out and heaved himself upright. His face and work clothes were filthy. Undaunted, he smiled hugely, white teeth in a portrait of grime.

  “Your pipes and drains arrived.” He got to his feet. “I’m not assigned to any cases now, so I convinced the lieutenant to let me take two vacation days and put’em in.”

  I hugged him, hard. “Thank you!” In my enthusiasm I backed over a wrench and almost crashed onto Arch’s second spatter-pattern experiment, the dried frosting on a cookie sheet. “But, why can’t we hire a plumber? There’s no reason you should have to—”

  Tom winked, set me upright, then lowered himself again to the floor. “Don’t trust me, eh?” He slid back under the sink. His muffled voice said: “I’m doing it because I want to know exactly what kind of plumbing we have. I’ll be done in a few hours.”

  “Tell me what your heart desires for dinner. Anything.”

  “Ah, Miss G., I am very much in the mood for a curry. I bought some fat raw shrimp, peeled and deveined, in the hope that you would make just such an offer. But you’re going to have to do the sink work in the bathroom. Want me to come out and help?”

  “Of course not. Shrimp curry it is. But listen, I’ve got something to tell you—”

  “I want to hear it, but there’s something I forgot,” his hollow voice boomed. “You need to call your buddy the wine guy before six.”

  Uh-oh. Had Arthur discovered the raid on his cellar? And what would my husband the cop think of my subterranean foray?

  “Actually, Tom, Arthur Wakefield is who I need to talk to you about—”

  “Call him first, okay? I promised you would.”

  It was five-thirty. A long chat with Arthur would make preparing a curry dinner impossible. I washed my hands in the ground floor bathroom, then rinsed the shrimp and half a pound of fresh, plump mushrooms. After drying, trimming, and chopping the mushrooms, I minced shallots, onions, and garlic, swirled oil in a wide sauté pan, and tossed in all the vegetables. They sizzled and filled the room with a yummy scent. Once they were tender, I measured in curry powder and flour, stirred the pungent mixture for a couple of minutes, then removed it from the heat, crushed dried thyme over it, and poured in homemade chicken stock, cream, and dry white French vermouth. I suppressed a smile. Only a true wine geek would insist on pouring fifty-dollar-a-bottle Grand Cru chablis into curried shellfish. Still, by the time I added the shrimp, this thick, flavorful dish would be a suitable reward for Tom’s hard work.

  He again reminded me to call Arthur; I promised him I would as soon as I started the raisin rice. In another skillet, I sprinkled rice into sputtering melted butter, stirred until the kernels were toasted golden brown, and dropped in a handful of moist raisins. Then I poured in more homemade chicken stock, lowered the heat, and gently placed a lid on top.

  “Sure smells fantastic up there,” was Tom’s sub-sink comment.

  “Thanks.” I punched in Arthur’s number, tucked the phone under my ear, and gathered my dishes to rinse in the bathroom. He answered on the first ring.

  “My guests are due in ten minutes,” he said hurriedly. “I have my wines ready. Your wonderful food is heating. Thank you for everything,” he gushed.

  “No problem, Arthur.” Compared to his attitude that afternoon, he sounded suspiciously mellow.

  “I feel awful for not paying you. We’re still on for lunch Wednesday?”

  I felt a frisson of unease. “You bet—”

  “Wednesday will be three years since Mother’s funeral,” he interrupted dolefully. “I … I want to show you the spot,” he said quickly, then hung up.

  Show me what spot on the anniversary of his mother’s funeral? The spot where she was buried? The place where she died? Now there was a cheerful incentive to join the man for lunch.

  “Tom,” I called downward, “may I talk to you about this Killdeer mess?”

  “Yes,” came his echoing-inside-the-pipe voice.

  I started filling bowls with sour cream, chopped peanuts, chutney, coconut, pineapple chunks, chopped hard-cooked egg, and more raisins. “Doug Portman was about to leave for Puerto Escondido before he died. It’s a small town on the Pacific coast of Mexico. I, uh, I found his plane ticket hidden in Arthur Wakefield’s wine cellar. So I’m a tad concerned about having lunch with Arthur on Wednesday.”

  “What?” Banging on metal was followed by a groan as Tom worked to extract himself again. By the time I’d finished setting the table, he was leaning on the marble counter and giving me a skeptical look. “What did you do, exactly?”

  I checked the refrigerator for beer—our preferred drink with curry—and soft drinks for the boys. “Look, I know I wasn’t supposed to snoop around Arthur’s place, but the man is obsessed with the Portman case.”

  “I know, I know, everybody in the Department of Corrections is sick of Arthur Wakefield and his letters about Portman. But you’re the one who decided to go through his stuff.”

  “I didn’t steal anything.” Tom grunted and I went on: “Look, he’s got nineteen million dollars at stake. My best guess is, when you’re trying to get a will set aside because you think someone exerted undue influence over your rich mother, you try to make that influential someone look bad. Very bad. In this case, that person is Jack Gilkey, who was granted parole by Doug Portman. So you also want to find out everything negative you can about Doug Portman. If Arthur can prove Portman took a bribe to grant Gilkey parole, he’d be in better shape to have his mother’s second will overturned. Of course he’d steal Portman’s mail, if he thought it might help him find out exactly what Doug was up to. If you want to get a warrant,” I added hastily, “the ticket-issuers were Copper Mountain Worldwide Travel.”

  “Oh, Miss G., why do you do this to me? Tickets don’t prove anything by themselves. You want to lose your bonding? Did you think about that?” But he was reaching for the phone.

  “I didn’t take the ticket,” I repeated stubbornly.

  Tom did not reply. He was using his answering-machine voice to ask Marla if she could meet me at eleven o’clock on Wednesday at Killdeer, to ski for a couple of hours and have lunch. He’d phone again later to confirm.

  “What are you doing?” I demanded of him. “Marla hates skiing.”

  Tom hung up and regarded me intensely. “Yeah, but she’s a good skier, I’ve seen her. I want her there.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t want Arthur Wakefield to make any unexpected moves on a caterer who’s broken into his wine cellar and riffled his papers. You better pray he didn’t discover what you did,” Tom commented as he moved off to clean himself up.

  “Arthur will never know if you don’t tell him,” I shot back.

  Discouraged, I scraped the moist, tender raisin rice onto a heated platter and covered it. Then I stirred the shrimp into the curry and called Todd, Arch, and Tom, who emerged showered, dressed, and smelling as sweet as ever. He seemed to have forgiven me for my morning’s escapade at Arthur’s. Or if he hadn’t, he was letting it go for now.

  Everyone busied themselves with the condiments. I sprinkled peanuts onto my chutney-topped bowl of curry and took a bite. The crunch of nuts combined with the succulent shrimp robed in its spicy-hot, luscious sauce was out of this world. Tom winked at me in thanks. Somewhat dramatically, Arch announced that he and To
dd would like to recite their Spenser to us tonight. They were, he informed us, splitting a stanza. I looked at Tom and he grinned. They would begin right after dinner, Arch concluded. They’d have their backs to us, though, as they couldn’t yet handle an audience’s faces.

  When we’d finished, Tom scraped the dishes and insisted on washing them in the bathroom. Pretending to be flipping through a cookbook, I took surreptitious delight in watching Todd and Arch huddle over Spenser’s Complete Works.

  Todd had stuck by Arch during the worst of my trials with The Jerk; in return, Arch had invited Todd to sleep over numerous nights after Eileen kicked her husband out. Todd, shorter than Arch but heavier, still had endearingly cherubic cheeks that were now deeply flushed at the prospect of performing. His unevenly shorn black hair had nothing to do with style and everything to do with his unconscious habit—developed after his father’s troubles were exposed—of tugging out his shiny curls. But he’d stopped pulling his hair out, Arch had assured me. I stared down at the cookbook, then peeked back up. Even though the two boys had gone from bikes to fantasy-role-playing games to snowboarding, they were still best friends, and I was glad of it. Friendship was a great blessing; we all needed to remember that. With a pang, I thought of Rorry.

  Tom returned. The dishes were soaking in the tub. Arch announced that they were ready to begin.

  “Book Five, Canto Two, Stanza Thirty-nine,” Todd began stiffly as he faced the convection oven. He cleared his throat twice, then woodenly recited:“Of things unseen how canst thou deem aright,Then answered the righteous Artegall,Since thou misdeem’st so much of things in sight?What though the sea with waves continualDo eat the earth, it is no more at all.…”

  He turned and nodded uncomfortably at Arch. I held my breath and glanced at Tom. Should we be encouraging and clap at this point? Tom gave a tiny warning shake of the head. Arch stood facing the stove and began:“Nor is the earth the less, or loseth ought,For whatsoever from one place doth fall,Is with the tide unto another brought:For there is nothing lost, that may be found, if sought.”

  “Excellent, Arch! Todd, wow! Fantastic!” Tom and I gushed, clapping wildly.

  Todd reached up to scratch his fuzzy scalp, then remembered not to. Instead, he nabbed the Rockies baseball cap he usually wore, but had politely removed for dinner. “Thanks, Mrs. Schulz. My mom liked it, too. She said I didn’t need to work with Arch tonight, but I told her I did.” I suddenly remembered Arch’s remark—made when Jack had fixed us dinner at Eileen’s condo—that Todd spent tons of time at our house because he didn’t like Jack Gilkey. How would Todd fare if Eileen married Jack? If they did tie the knot, I only hoped poor little Todd would do better than Arthur Wakefield had.

  The boys clattered off, promising to practice in front of each other. Tom disappeared, then reappeared carrying clean dishes, which he dried and clanked back onto shelves. Then he pulled out invoices to check that he’d received all the plumbing supplies he’d ordered. I stared at our shiny silver-and-white marble counters, darkly glowing cherry cabinets, and butter-golden oak floors. I had no more professional cooking to do until this week’s final PBS show.

  I sighed. When I had a big event to prepare for, I always complained. Without work, I ached for it.

  I quickly fixed myself a cup of cocoa. Unfortunately, the hot, creamy chocolate drink did not stave off the sudden pangs of emptiness. No work felt like no life. Whenever I was up to my elbows in coulibiac and flourless chocolate cake, I fantasized about the crocheting I would one day do, the beaches Tom and I would one day stroll. But here I was, as free as I had ever wanted to be, and my big worry was whether eight-thirty was too early to go to bed.

  Outside, snow had begun to fall. I gathered my ski equipment, packed it into the Rover, and said goodnight to Tom. The boys—who had traded Elizabethan poetry for rock music—thanked me for dinner, swore they had their verses nailed, and promised to go to bed soon. I took a long, hot shower and fell into bed.

  But slumber eluded me. Hours crept by as I stared at the snowflakes swirling around our street lamp. The pounding music stopped. Tom slid into bed. I did fall asleep at some point, because when the telephone jangled through my consciousness, it sounded very far away.

  I blinked at the clock: The business line was ringing? At six-fifteen on a Tuesday morning? Somebody must want a catered holiday dinner wicked bad.

  Tom groaned. “Want me to get it? It’s probably the department—”

  “They never call on this line.” I fumbled for the receiver and mumbled my business greeting.

  “Goldy Schulz of Goldilocks’ Catering? This is Reggie Dawson of the Furman County Register.” The voice was high and brittle, almost a falsetto. Reggie Dawson? I was not a regular reader of the Register, so the name rang no bells. The paper paid poorly, and staff turnover was high, I knew. Every now and then, I did an extremely low-budget going-away party for one of the reporters who’d been let go.

  “You have regular business hours, Mr. Dawson?” I hissed. “Could you call me back? I’m not catering any business coffees or lunches at the moment—”

  “The way I heard it, Mrs. Schulz, you might be out of the catering business entirely.”

  Now he had my attention. I wished desperately we had caller ID on our phones. “What are you saying?”

  “Four days ago, Douglas Portman died while skiing at Killdeer. You discovered his body, and you had prior ties to Portman.”

  “So?”

  “We’ve received information that you were renewing a romantic relationship with Portman. Can you confirm or deny this?”

  Well! I’d watched a press conference or two in my day. “Deny,” I said fiercely.

  “Were you rendezvousing with Portman because you wanted him to do something for you?”

  “Like what?” My mind was reeling, and I was shivering in the early morning cold. Could there be an easy way to end this conversation? Was it better to talk to an obnoxious journalist, or cut him off? The wife of homicide investigator Thomas Schulz, local caterer Goldy Schulz, I imagined reading, whose abusive ex-husband, Dr. John Richard Korman, is serving time for assault, refused to answer questions regarding her secret relationship with parole-board chief Douglas Portman….

  Reggie Dawson persisted: “Did you bribe Portman to ensure that your ex-husband would stay incarcerated?”

  “No. Of course not. Look, could you call me back—”

  “Was that the favor he was going to do for you?”

  “There was no favor—”

  “Does your current husband, top cop Tom Schulz, know about your extramarital involvement?”

  “There is no, there was no, extramarital—”

  “Was your involvement with Portman another attempt on your part to crack crimes in Furman County?”

  I didn’t answer right away, because I was not going to be interrupted again. To my surprise, this time the reporter waited for me to reply. Finally, into the lengthening silence, I said firmly, “I was skiing with Doug Portman. Period.”

  “So now you’re trying to cover up your relationship with Doug Portman?”

  My mind flitted to the undervaluation of the skis. “There is absolutely nothing to cover up.”

  “Were you doing some kind of deal with Portman so you could bail out your failing business?”

  “Now, listen here, Mr. Dawson, there is no failing business. I have a TV job in Killdeer—”

  “Mrs. Schulz! Given what you’ve experienced in Killdeer, don’t you think it’s dangerous to be snooping around while your son snowboards alone?”

  Icy fear washed through me. My mouth opened; no sound came out. Wording of state laws covering implied threats and explicit threats swam up from my unconsciousness.

  I said, “Listen, you, you—”

  But the line was dead.

  Now sleep was officially impossible. Fingers shaking, I flipped through the phone book: no Reggie or R. Dawson or Dausson or anything close to it in the entire Denver metropolitan area, incl
uding all of Furman County. Tom brought me a pen and clean pad of paper. He urged me to write down every word of the conversation. While I did this, he called the department to see if they could expedite ID on the call. They promised to try.

  Tom fixed me coffee, then started frying bacon for the boys. A lump had formed in my throat. I couldn’t even swallow coffee. Once the boys were digging into bacon and toast, Tom clasped my hands in his.

  “Miss G. Do you want the boys to stay home while I finish the plumbing?”

  The boys squealed in protest. There was nothing to do at home, and today they were supposed to get their classroom ready for the Christmas party! I said if Tom felt they would be safe, they should go to school. Tom called the department again and was assured a deputy could be sent to the school to protect some kids who’d been threatened. In response to the proliferation of high school shootings, Elk Park Prep parents had insisted on the erection of a new security gate attached to the electrified fence, and the round-the-clock presence of an armed guard in the school. Tom would also alert the guard to the possibility of danger, and instruct him to call the sheriff’s department at the first sign of suspicious activity. Okay?

  “Yes. Thanks.” Even to my ears, my voice sounded full of doubt. Just before eight, Tom and the boys took off through a drapery of snowflakes. As soon as they pulled out, I called the food editor of the Furman County Register. There was no Reggie Dawson working there. Dawson could be doing something freelance, my friend added. But she doubted it.

  So did I, I thought as I put on several compact discs of Christmas carols and gathered all the presents I still needed to wrap. Still, it was hard to stop thinking about the events in Killdeer. Who was my early morning caller? Why was he asking questions about my relationship with Doug Portman? Had he truly been threatening Arch? Or had I just misunderstood?

  I unfurled foil paper and shiny ribbon, and began snipping, folding, and tying. Did Arthur Wakefield know that his attempt to publicize my presence at Cooking at the Top! in the Killdeer paper had backfired so miserably? On the other hand, could it have been Arthur on the phone? If what Rorry had said about the rumor mill in Killdeer was true, then anyone could know by now that my business was in jeopardy; that Arch snowboarded in Killdeer; that my ex-husband was in jail.