Chopping Spree Read online

  So now, I thought as I continued to massage my kneecaps, I only had to clean up, change outfits, figure out how much food we’d lost, and get on with the event. I knew the party would take place; Barry was determined. Thank God I had learned to keep an emergency pack of catering clothes in my van. I tentatively put one foot in front of the other, immediately registered acute pain in my back and hips, and sternly ordered myself to block it out. I had work to do.

  Apparently Barry had again changed his mind about rushing to his office. He limped back to my side. Julian spoke earnestly into his cell phone. No, no ambulance after all, the injuries were slight. Police, yes. Yes, he went on, the attack had looked intentional, please send both state patrol and the sheriff’s department. Yes, he would wait for them to arrive.

  Barry’s skin was ashen. He squinted, clearly miserable.

  I asked, “You still want to talk? You want to tell me how you knew that was going to happen?”

  Once again I got the beseeching brown eyes. “I do, Goldy.” His voice cracked. “Just not right now.” He rummaged in his pocket and held out a small keychain. “I left the lounge kitchen open for you, but you might want to lock it behind you, to protect the food while you’re setting up, the way you said you needed to.”

  I frowned, but took the key.

  “Could we… Goldy, you’re an old friend of mine.” His mouth twisted in a half-smile. Were those tears in his eyes? “Could we have our little chat later at the party? I have some things I absolutely have to do right now.”

  “Not a good idea, Barry. Come on. At least tell me how you knew that truck was aiming for us.”

  He blushed. “I didn’t say that.” I glared at him. Barry shook his head. “I really don’t know who the driver was. I thought I did, but… Look, I really need to go.” He started limping down to the mall.

  “Barry!” I yelled sternly. “You can’t leave before the cops get here!”

  Barry stopped moving. His eyes slid to the offending truck, now moving slowly back toward the construction site. The vehicle’s yellow auxiliary lights blinked as it lumbered downward. Back on Doughnut Drive, the crew waved traffic around the hills of dirt.

  “Hey, old coffee buddy, I have a job to do.” His voice had become testy. “That mess and the traffic jam need to be cleaned up before the Elite Shoppers arrive. The only thing I have to do is to make sure the shoppers can enter freely. That’s how the mall makes money, remember?” I shook my head. He put his hands into his wet pockets and made his tone charming. “I’ll talk to the cops, don’t fret. I’ll see you up at the lounge. Say, half an hour? Forty-five minutes, at the latest.” He managed a wink before turning away. Good old Barry.

  “But Barry—” I protested.

  He moved forward, determined. After a moment he yelled over his shoulder, “Mall security will investigate this incident! They’ll be my first call.” He gave me a backhanded wave. “The shoppers’ lounge, Goldy. Thirty minutes.” He staggered away, step, hobble, step, hobble, step, hobble. Captain Ahab, managing a mall.

  I shivered and clasped my arms around my ruined jacket. What was going on? It was clear I wasn’t going to find out standing in the parking lot. Would the cops need me, if they already had Julian? Trying to ignore the pain, I walked over to him. Julian was closing his cell phone and shaking his head.

  “Look, Julian, thanks for your help. I… need to get back to work. Barry’s expecting the event to go off on time, I’m sorry to say.”

  Julian grinned ruefully. “I’ll make your excuses to the cops, don’t worry. But I swore on my mother’s Bible that I’d stay here until state patrol and the sheriff’s department arrive. One handles traffic accidents, the other… Oh, hey, we got company.”

  Victor Wilson was hustling toward us. He carried another first-aid box and a wrapped packet that I recognized as my emergency apparel kit. His wide, dirty face was crinkled with concern. Forty yards behind him was Liz Fury. Had she been setting up in the lounge all this time? I checked my watch. Incredibly, only twenty minutes or so had passed since the truck had begun its killer course toward us.

  “Are you all right?” Victor demanded. “Your assistant down there gave me this to bring you.” He moved his load into one hand and offered me his free arm. It was sunburned, rippling with muscles, and streaked with mud. “Come on, lean on my arm. So you’re the caterer? Man, I am just so sorry that happened to you. Is everyone all right?”

  “Barry Dean isn’t,” I muttered.

  “Yeah, well, I figured that.” When Victor talked, it came out as a wheeze. “Look, I am really sorry. I have no idea what happened. Some nut tried to steal a truck, probably. It happens. Let me walk you to the back entrance. There’s a ladies’ room right inside.”

  Still gripping his arm, I hesitated. Liz was telling Julian that she’d heard the crash and the yelling, so she’d quickly left the lounge. Some women in the mall told her about the truck. What had happened? As Julian filled her in, sirens announced the approach of law enforcement.

  Victor guided me gently back to my van, where I gave Liz the key to the lounge kitchen, which had been unlocked when she arrived. She would double-time it, she promised me, transporting the rest of our equipment and supplies. She would also figure out how much we’d lost, and see how we could fill in with emergency back-ups of cheese, vegetables, crackers, and breadsticks. Victor insisted on calling two of his workers over to help with toting the remaining food boxes. I gingerly took my clothing packet as Victor and his crew accompanied me to the mall entrance. Three screaming, flashing prowlers—one state patrol, two sheriff’s department—roared up Doughnut Drive. Julian waved. The cop cars careened in his direction.

  Victor deposited me at the ladies’ room door and told me to go slow, I didn’t look too great. He and the crew would make as many trips to the kitchen as they needed to so that we’d have our supplies. It was the least he could do, he said. Shoppers stopped to look at the hard-hatted construction workers with their raggedy paint-covered clothes. Victor gave the shoppers a defiant look. His crew stared at the floor. I thanked them all.

  It took me almost fifteen minutes to strip off my ruined uniform, splash myself with water and soap, then more water. I wiped down with enough paper towels to fill an entire wastebasket. I downed half a dozen ibuprofen packed with my emergency clothing, wriggled into my clean outfit, then walked out into the bright light of Westside’s marble-paneled hall. I immediately smacked into Liz, who was coming in from the van. She reeled back, but somehow managed to keep her grip on a wrapped vat of meatballs.

  “How’re we doing?” I asked grimly.

  “Great. That construction guy and his crew brought up everything but the meatballs. I’ve hardly had to leave the kitchen at all. This is the last load. The van’s locked.”

  “Wonderful. I’ll have to bring Victor some cookies. Maybe later in the week.”

  As we made our way up the stairs to the lounge, Liz gnawed the inside of her cheek, as if she were pondering something.

  “How old is Julian?” she asked abruptly.

  “Twenty-two. Why?”

  “Oh, nothing, just wondering,” she replied. She was avoiding my eyes. “Actually, I’d just like Julian to… talk to Teddy. If that’s OK.”

  Was it OK for Julian to talk to her son Teddy? At this point in time, before an event and minutes after nearly getting squashed by a three-ton truck, who cared? I felt suddenly overwhelmed. Julian could talk to whomever he wanted. So could Liz. So could the cops. So could Barry. As they say, whatever.

  Truck attack or no truck attack, I had a party to cater.

  CHAPTER 4

  The high-ceilinged shoppers’ lounge bustled with activity. The walls and ceiling sparkled with decorations. Jewelry salespeople (uniformly dressed in trim navy outfits, with keychains dangling from their wrists) hurried to and fro; portly security guys (straining the buttons of mustard-gold suits) paced, asked each other questions, and paced some more. A pair of tuxedo-clad bartenders clanked wine b
ottles onto a long table. In the far corner, a gaggle of long-haired, black-clad young men set up instruments. Ah, the band. Barry had told me what the first tune would be: “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend.”

  I remembered that Barry had also informed me he’d spent a small fortune decorating this new lounge, which didn’t even count the temporary decorations for the cocktail party. Even though I’d visited the lounge before, I was still impressed. Oriental-patterned wall-to-wall carpeting complemented creamy beige silk wallpaper and brass wall sconces. Floor-to-ceiling west-facing windows rose at the far end of the room. Those expanses of glass framed a breathtaking view of the mountains. The furniture had all been moved out to make way for the display cases and buffet tables.

  The cocktail decorations were equally striking. The ceiling and walls glittered with strings of festive lights the color and shape of Easter eggs: sparkling lilac, brilliant green, bright pink. Lush flower arrangements blossomed out of strategically placed shopping bags. Scent was being pumped in from somewhere. The place had a magical air.

  When Liz and I had come to do our table measurements, Barry had proudly pointed out that the lounge had been wired for surveillance, at the insistence of Pennybaker International. Placed overhead were innocent-looking mirrored globes, the kind that hide nests of cameras that a fellow in some far-off security room can focus on individual shoppers or suspicious-acting worker-bees. A moment of staring, as if at a visual puzzle, helped me make out the second set of cameras, which were wall-mounted. The cameras had been painted a creamy beige to match the wallpaper. Very clever.

  Barry was nowhere in sight. I put down my box and hustled around the room to check the distances between the jewelry cases and buffet tables. As we’d planned, the buffet tables had been set up in a line to bisect the room lengthwise. They were topped with creamy beige satin tablecloths to match the walls. The shiny material billowed to the floor, like the skirts of ballgowns.

  A stage had been set up in front of the picture windows. From there, Barry would give his sales pitch. Next to me, a glass case displayed an intricately constructed model of the finished mall, including the storybook-village boutiques and bistros. Minuscule shoppers were ranged along the tiny sidewalks. Stretching in front of the other two walls were the display cases, shiny ziggurats bursting with jewels. Just above the cases, yet more strings of tiny, suspended spotlights made the jewelry sparkle like firecrackers.

  Nobody came rushing up to me, so I assumed that news of the truck debacle had not yet become public. I hightailed it toward the tiny kitchen tucked behind the lounge’s south wall.

  The only box we’d lost was the one with the shrimp rolls, Liz had determined. The rest of the boxes were neatly stacked on the floors and counters. I went through one box until I found the buffet design, then hustled back out to the long table. I debated about calling Tom. Uh, sweetheart? I just avoided being squashed by a dump truck….

  I punched in his office number and reached his voice mail. I left a hasty message about the “accident,” then told him that state patrol and the sheriff’s department were on site, so he didn’t need to worry.

  Time to focus on the task at hand.

  I studied my layout design, placed the dishes on the buffet, then hurried back to the kitchen. There I opened the box with all the cheeses, crackers, and breads. But I needed a pop of energy. To heck with my cut-back-on-caffeine resolution: I needed to make some coffee, even if it was instant. In the back of a cabinet, I finally unearthed a jar of instant Folger’s. Within moments, I was sipping a cup of the dark stuff.

  Liz and I finished organizing the food and supplies by placing all the equipment we weren’t using in a coat closet outside the kitchenette. Then we hurried back out to the buffet, where we placed the serving pieces at strategic intervals before setting the tableware, plates, napkins, and glasses. When Julian raced in at four o’clock, I was dying to ask him how things had gone with the cops. But that would have to wait. From the bottom of one box, we pulled out plain white tablecloths and lofted them over the eating accoutrements set out on the buffet table—the best way to protect the flatware from sticky fingers. We agreed to finish our food prep before taking a dinner break at four-thirty. At five-fifteen, we would reconvene to check the cold dishes, heat up the meatballs and empanadas, and do our final setup.

  In the kitchen, Julian washed the berries, then brandished my new paring knife to trim the strawberries and slice the star fruit. I worked on the cheese platter while Liz started arranging the crackers and breads.

  “I’m not taking a dinner break, Goldy,” Julian announced, “until I hear how you met this Barry guy.”

  I sliced into a hunk of Gorgonzola and gave him a look. Liz giggled.

  I said, “OK, nosy crew. It started with a puzzle. Actually, it started with an exam review class, some class notes, and a fight with The Jerk.”

  Julian raised a questioning eyebrow. “Go on.”

  I moved on to a slab of fragrant Cheddar, and thought back. “In my college days, there was a single place close to campus where you could get espresso drinks: The Hilltop Café. I practically lived there. Clutching a foam cup of cappuccino, I’d quick-step down the Hill to Group Psych class. Barry Dean sat next to me in class, but since I had just become engaged to John Richard, I didn’t really notice him. Didn’t notice him, that is, until he asked me where I got that luscious-smelling coffee.”

  Liz tossed her head of silver hair. “Goodness. That’s the best pickup line I’ve ever heard.”

  “Yeah, well,” I said drily, as the two of them grinned. “On the last day of class before the final, the professor was doing one of those you-need-to-come-if-you-plan-to-pass reviews. The night before, John Richard and I had our first fight.”

  “Was this a fight of the physical variety?” Julian demanded, as he expertly moved aside a mountain of trimmed strawberries.

  “No, all that came later.” I peeled the wrapper off the Camembert. “This particular time, John Richard barged into my dorm room. I’d left a message saying I couldn’t go to a med-school party with him because I was preparing for the Group Psych review and studying for the exam. He shouted and carried on and threw my books, mugs, shoes, and clothes all over the place. When he stomped out, I started crying and couldn’t stop. My eyes got so red and puffy that I couldn’t see well enough to go to the review class. I was sure I’d end up bombing on the exam.”

  Julian and Liz had stopped working and were leaning against the counters, all ears.

  “I cast my swollen eyes over the class list,” I said dramatically, “and who should be listed after yours truly but Barry Dean. It’s really not that big a deal, guys.”

  “Wait a minute,” Julian said, snapping his fingers. “I know that name! Barry Dean had a TV show out in Long-mont, right? Not long ago, he was the answer to a trivia question in The Camera. What C.U. alum ran a short-lived quiz show in a nearby town?”

  “Yup. Only it wasn’t a quiz show, it was a scavenger hunt. Follow the clues around Longmont, learn about the city.” I shook my head. “Barry used to love puzzles. Anyway, I stopped sniffling, called Barry’s room, and left a message with his roommate asking if I could borrow the review-class notes. Next morning, someone slipped an index card under my door. It said: ‘You can run but you can’t hide; don’t let your life go down the BLANK.’ And then he’d written HINT at the bottom of the page: ‘Check the field-house.’”

  “Oh, I wish I’d had a boyfriend like that,” Liz said with a sigh.

  “He wasn’t my boyfriend!”

  “Go on,” urged Julian.

  “So. I went to the C.U. field-house, and found a penciled sign with the Greek letter psyche on the door to the ladies’ room. I was afraid I’d find the notes in a toilet, of course, but taped on the other side of the ladies’ room door was a manila envelope. Writing on it said, let’s see, ‘First third of notes, Goldy. Everything will be just ducky if you BLANK.’ I thought for a few minutes, then zipped over to the campus duck p
ond, where another letter psyche was taped to the bridge, along with a second manila envelope that contained the second third of the class notes. This envelope’s message read, ‘Will just wake up and smell the…’ So of course I dashed to The Hilltop Café, where Barry was sitting at a corner table and smiling like the proverbial Cheshire.”

  “You can run but you can’t hide,” Liz repeated thoughtfully. “Don’t let your life go down the toilet. Everything will be just ducky if you wake up and smell the coffee?”

  “Yeah,” I said with resignation, as I started on the last cheese. “Barry looked at my mottled cheeks and puffed eyes, then glanced at my engagement ring. He said, ‘I see your ring, and I see your face, and I say, don’t marry this guy.’ Which unfortunately brought a fresh outburst of tears from yours truly. And that’s how Barry Dean and I became coffee buddies, driving all over the Boulder-Denver area in his Mercedes with the basset hound in the back, looking for good coffee before I ignored Barry’s advice and married the doctor from hell.”

  Both Julian’s and Liz’s faces looked sad, even stricken.

  “Come on, guys, it’s not that bad. The Jerk is history, and now we’ve got a big gig, thanks to the Quiz King of Longmont Cable. So let’s do it.”

  We finished at precisely four-thirty. Barry had not yet shown up. I figured that he must have decided after all to talk to the cops, instead of to me. Fine. That was what he needed to do. Right before my eyes, Denver’s Most Eligible Bachelor had become its Most Eligible Basket Case.

  Liz gave me the kitchenette key, then offered to treat Julian to dinner at the mall’s new gourmet sandwich shop. Julian arched an eyebrow in my direction. I shrugged and told them to go on. If I planned to follow through on my new resolve to keep better track of Arch, then I needed to give him a call.

  I locked the kitchenette and dropped the key into my apron pocket next to my cellular. Amazingly, I’d remembered to bring the phone from the van. For the first time, I was glad I’d finally given in to Arch’s everyone’s-got-one-but-me cell-phone demand, even though I knew he’d resent what he called my “checking on him.” Tough tacks.