Dark Tort Part 15

Meg stood up. "All right, then," she announced. "I didn't ask you to come here because of Charlie. I wanted to see you because of Dusty." She glared at the tea things, as if they were somehow getting in the way of her story. "Could you bring your tea into my workout room? I'll show you...what has me disconcerted."

Julian and I glanced at each other, then picked up separate mugs. Julian doused his with sugar, and then we dutifully followed Meg down a narrow hallway and into a small log room that had bookshelves on three sides and a wall of wavy-gla.s.sed cas.e.m.e.nt windows overlooking the ridge. Incongruously, a treadmill and two weight machines were placed in front of the shelves and windows.

"Used to be my father's office," Meg said by way of explanation. She moved over to the treadmill, which had been placed next to the bank of windows on the far side of the room. "I walk here, and run a bit, too. Do my exercises, push-ups and working with weights. Looking out the window keeps me from getting bored."

I peeked out the window, which had a view through the pines...to Charlie Baker's house. In profile, the house looked like the gla.s.s prow of a ship, set at anchor overlooking Flicker Ridge. From the window, one also had a good view of the iron fence around Charlie's house, and the gate to his driveway.

"That lot was empty for many years," Meg told us. "When Charlie became successful, he asked me if I would mind if he bought the land from the Flicker Ridge developers. I told him if I was going to have a neighbor, it was better to have him than a member of the nouveaux riches. That's a category that you can put your friends the Ellises in, by the way."

"They're not my friends," I corrected her. "They're my clients."

"Touche," said Meg. "So Charlie built that monstrosity of a house. Talk about people living in gla.s.s houses. Well. When I walked on my treadmill, I would see cars, trucks, repair people, anyone coming and going from that house. I knew Dusty's Civic by heart. Whenever I saw it, it would make me happy, because I knew she was helping Charlie, and that she'd be coming over soon with fresh, warm bread." Meg smiled faintly at the memory.

"So," I prompted her, "you saw something having to do with Dusty?"

Meg lifted her chin. "Dusty told me, after Charlie died, that the law firm had put her in charge of picking up his mail on her lunch hour. She said that was part of settling an estate." She shook her head. "I suppose I was wrong to expect her to keep coming over. I mean, Charlie wasn't there anymore, so there was no bread to bring. And a young girl's lunch hour is only sixty minutes, after all. But...well, it just used to comfort me to see her car in Charlie's driveway every day. All of a sudden, after Charlie died, she began to pull into his garage and put down the door. I don't mean to sound like an old woman, because after all, I am an old woman. But I'd be over here on my treadmill, thinking, The days are getting longer, why doesn't she park outside? And why does it take her entire lunch hour to pick up the mail? She was like clockwork, though, after Charlie died. Drive through Charlie's gate at ten after noon, go straight into the garage-I suppose she had a remote control for that-close the garage door. Then the garage door would open at ten to one, and out would come the Civic. Don't you think that's odd? Does it take an hour to pick up someone's mail?"

"Maybe she had other things to do for the law firm," I offered. "Inventory Charlie's stuff, that kind of thing."

"Right," said Meg, nodding. "That's what I thought, because I asked a friend on one of my softball teams. Lots to do, check out bank account statements, find a.s.sets, and so on. But then..." She stopped talking.

"Then?" asked Julian, his voice betraying a hint of impatience.

"Then Tuesday night of this week, Dusty's Civic was there. She came through the gate at about a quarter to five. Didn't park in the garage. Ran up the steps of Charlie's house and came out less than five minutes later. She was carrying a tube."

"A tube like a tube of toothpaste?" Julian again.

"No, no, no," corrected Meg. "A tube like the kind you send through the mail."

Right, I thought, a tube like the kind you send through the mail. Or like the kind you use for a rolled-up painting.

Dusty was doing the inventory. I may not have learned much of what they did at H&J, but I certainly remembered the lawyers' joke about the "race to the house." That was why you had locks changed right after someone died. Dusty had told me she had received the new locks to Charlie's house from Richard himself, who was Charlie's executor. She'd also told me that no one was allowed to take anything out of Charlie's house until the estate was settled, and that wasn't going to happen until she had completed the inventory, which was extensive.

Would she have dared to take a painting? Why? If she had stolen a work of Charlie's, how could she possibly have thought she would get away with it? I felt more confused than ever.

And what was this with the closed garage doors on her lunch hour?

"Wait," I said, thinking of the "New O." from Dusty's journal. "Do you have any idea what was going on in Dusty's life at the time? Like maybe she had a boyfriend or something?"

Meg's face wrinkled in disgust. "She never discussed her social life with me, Goldy."

"Okay." Now I felt embarra.s.sed, and covered it by taking another sip of tea. "Let's go back to the tube. Did she say Charlie had given her something?" I pressed. "That he had left her something? A painting, maybe?"

"No," Meg said. "And I have no idea what Dusty was doing over there on her lunch hour every day. Working on the inventory? Then why not stay longer? And working on what?" Meg paused. "I never found out any of those things because two days after Dusty came out with the tube, you found her in the law firm. Dead."

CHAPTER 13.

So: Two days before Dusty was killed, she had carried a tube-maybe the kind used to store paintings-out of Charlie Baker's house. She'd been in love with a boyfriend n.o.body, not even her mother, seemed to know anything about. What else? Let's see: When the weather had been blizzardlike, Dusty had parked her Honda in front of Charlie Baker's house, and walked inside to do his legal work. Once Charlie had pa.s.sed away, Dusty had received new keys to Charlie's house, been a.s.signed to inventory Charlie's estate, and do other odd jobs such as pick up his mail every day. But by the time she'd been a.s.signed to do all that, the weather had turned pleasant. Nevertheless, she'd driven her Civic into Charlie's garage when she arrived...and closed the door behind her.

Goodness me, I thought grimly as Julian piloted the Rover back down to the main road that ran through Flicker Ridge, all this info was not helping to clear up anything. I sighed. Dusty Routt had been dead for over twenty-four hours, and all I'd picked up was information that seemed, at best, disconnected. Worse, I'd made no progress trying to figure out what had been going on in her life that had prompted someone to kill her.

I didn't even want to contemplate the inevitable meeting with Sally Routt.

Once Julian was on Flicker Ridge Road, he headed the Rover toward the western edge of the development. Donald and Nora Ellis lived by Flicker Ridge's border, on a dead end that overlooked hundreds of acres of pine forest, all part of Furman County Open s.p.a.ce. It was prime real estate that kids could have run and played in, but the Ellises had no children. If anything, they were a typical example of the housing reversal that had become part of the demography of Aspen Meadow, and perhaps the rest of the country. To wit: the fewer kids and the more money you had, the bigger house and yard you demanded. On our lower-middle-cla.s.s street, the lots were tiny and the houses small. Yet after school every day, kids spilled out of the driveways and onto the sidewalks to kick soccer b.a.l.l.s, throw baseb.a.l.l.s, and toss Frisbees to their dogs. When a blizzard moved through and school was canceled, the kiddos would grab their big toboggans and slide merrily down our road, yelling "Yahoo!" all the way, until they made a sharp right turn into the last driveway before Main Street.

Then again, Nora and Donald Ellis weren't entirely without family, as Bishop Sutherland, Nora's father, had been living with them for almost ten months. What I had picked up from Nora was not an isn't-this-fun-Dad's-come-to-stay-with-us att.i.tude. When I'd booked the party, Nora had tossed her blond hair and announced, "Yes, my father will be at Donald's party, because he will still be living with us. That's why I had to invite Marla, so we'd be an even number at the table. G.o.d! The sooner my father's out of here-" She'd stopped. Then she'd laughed, as if it were all a joke. "Maybe he'll hook up with Marla, get married, and have all kinds of money to spend on medical treatment for that d.a.m.n arrhythmia! Not to mention unlimited funds for clothing, cars, trips, and anything his big old diseased heart desires."

Well, I definitely didn't want somebody with medical problems to hook up with my best friend, who'd already had a heart attack, thank you very much. On impulse, I put in a cell call to Wink Calhoun. Luckily, she was at home.

"Wink," I asked casually after I'd identified myself, "do you know anything about Bishop Uriah Sutherland? I'm just wondering, because he's my closest friend's sort-of date for the party today, and I don't know anything about him, apart from the fact that he's been helping out at our parish for a while."

Wink was uncharacteristically silent for a few minutes, and as Julian drove past the For Sale sign outside Richard and K.D. Chenault's big stucco house, I thought we'd been disconnected. "Wink? You there?"

"Yeah," she said tentatively. "I know a little bit about him. You mean Donald's father-in-law, right?"

"That's right," I said, immediately on guard myself. She'd been forthcoming before. Why was she hesitant now? "Something wrong?"

"No. Well, not exactly. Bishop Uriah just gives me the creeps when he comes sprinting over to the office from their house, supposedly to say hi to Donald. And he's always all covered with sweat, like he's been in a race. Sometimes I'm afraid he's going to collapse on our floor, and I'm going to have to do CPR."

"You're saying he runs over to H&J?" I'd seen Uriah running, too, along the Upper Cottonwood before the snow had moved in. But I'd learned in Med Wives 101 that folks with arrhythmia were supposed to walk. Walk slowly. Maybe it had been too many years since I'd been a med wife to know the latest thinking in the cardio department.

"Yeah," Wink went on. "I thought one time that he was trying to get there before anyone else arrived. Once? I caught him going through our trash in back of the law firm. He said he'd lost something."

"How could Uriah Sutherland have lost something in the firm's garbage?"

"I don't know. Plus, when he comes in? Even though he says he's there to see Donald, I just always get the feeling that that's not what he's there for. I mean, it just feels weird. He likes to poke around, ask questions. He's nice and all, but just..." She left the sentence unfinished.

"What kind of questions does he ask when he pokes around? Does he have legal problems?"

"If he did have legal problems, Goldy, he sure wasn't going to tell me, the lowly receptionist. But the questions he has asked me are all stupid stuff, like, 'How long does it take to get a will through probate, anyway?' That kind of thing. Dusty and I would always tell him just to ask his son-in-law. We didn't know whether he ever did. So Dusty and I used to wonder if Donald charged him." She laughed.

"But, Wink," I protested as Julian gave me a questioning look, "if the bishop has legal problems in addition to his medical issues, why doesn't he pay for advice someplace else? He must be able to afford it. I mean, he doesn't have rent to worry about, and he should be eligible for payments from the church's pension fund."

Wink sighed hugely, then seemed to think for a moment. "I don't think the bishop necessarily has a lot of money. At our staff Christmas party last year, Donald Ellis got a little drunk and complained about his father-in-law. He said Bishop Sutherland had champagne tastes, but Kool-Aid income. Want to hear the dirty details?"

"I specialize in dirty details," I replied, then put my hand over the receiver and asked Julian to pull over. He groaned, but acquiesced.

According to Wink, who'd gotten her info from the half-inebriated Donald, Bishop Uriah Sutherland had not endeared himself to his daughter any more than he had to his ex-wife, Nora's mother, Renata. According to Wink via Donald, Renata Sutherland, a transplanted-to-Denver Connecticut socialite, had been smart-or wily, or cruel, depending on your point of view-enough to construct an elaborate prenuptial agreement before tying the knot with Uriah, who was then a priest at Renata's Denver parish. This agreement had put all of Renata's considerable dough into an unbreakable trust for any offspring she and Uriah might have, but not for Uriah.

Renata and Uriah's bitter divorce, when Nora was fifteen, had left Uriah virtually dest.i.tute. He'd been forced to live on his very modest priest's salary, in a house the parish provided. Even worse, Uriah's daughter, Nora, had blamed her father for the divorce, and had gladly moved to Connecticut with her mother. Nora had made her yearly trips to Denver to visit her father only under duress, until she was twenty. Then she'd suddenly turned enthusiastic about coming to the Mile-High City, but not because of her dad. No: she'd wanted to escape her mother's obsession with matching her up with the sons of her friends...and she'd begun a secret romance with Donald Ellis, then a deeply indebted student at the University of Denver Law School.

According to Donald, Uriah's parish still loved him, even if his wife didn't. And Uriah had endeared himself to someone else. When Uriah had been making rounds at a Denver hospital, he'd met a much-younger Charlie Baker, then suffering from shingles. A nominal Catholic since his orphan days, Charlie had been deeply grateful for Uriah's kindness and daily visits. Charlie, then a chef at a Denver restaurant, had become an Episcopalian. When Aspen Meadow Country Club had needed someone to run their renovated kitchen, Charlie had been hired. He'd moved to our little burg, joined St. Luke's, and done his painting on the weekends.

Uriah Sutherland's ex-wife, meanwhile, had died, leaving an uber-size packet to Nora. Nora had promptly married the fellow she loved, Donald Ellis. When Donald had graduated from law school and been offered a job at H&J, Nora and Donald had set up camp-a luxurious, mansion-size camp-in Aspen Meadow. Donald had been at H&J almost five full years, and was waiting to find out if he'd made partner. Nora definitely had enough wealthy contacts that she could bring big business to H&J, Donald had told Wink, which could label him a "rainmaker," thus enhancing his prospects in the partner department.

In the meantime, Uriah Sutherland had been chosen as bishop of the Diocese of Southern Utah. But after only a couple of years, he began experiencing arrythmia. He had taken early retirement at the first of the year...and had promptly announced he was coming to live with his daughter, Nora, and her husband in Aspen Meadow.

"I didn't get the feeling Nora and Donald had invited Uriah to stay, and I certainly didn't pick up on any good feelings for the bishop." Wink hesitated. "Is that the kind of information you were looking for?" she asked, clearly relishing her role as gossip provider.

"I don't know what I'm looking for," I said ruefully. "But I still think it's interesting that Bishop Sutherland keeps poking around at H&J. Did he have any connection to Dusty? Did they get along? What about Charlie Baker? Was Uriah mentioned in Charlie's will?"

"I have no idea. You could ask Alonzo, though. He and Dusty worked out every day, and I know they were close." This last was delivered in a way that again sounded off-key. I decided to press my luck, even if it sounded a tad nosy.

"Wink? You and Dusty were friends. According to a couple of people I've talked to, Dusty and Alonzo were friends. But you and Alonzo aren't friends. Am I getting this straight?"

She sighed. "I'm not quite cool enough, or pretty enough, for Alonzo. Nor do I quite measure up to being noticed by his squash-playing b.i.t.c.h of a wife, Ookie."

"Ookie's a b.i.t.c.h?" I asked innocently. "Was she a b.i.t.c.h to Dusty?"

"I don't know. All I know is that when Nora Ellis invited me to play squash over at the club's courts? Ookie came up to me and said, 'Excuse me! These courts are for members only.'"

"What did you say?"

"Nothing! I was too surprised. Then Nora sauntered up and said, 'Now, now, girlfriend. You know as well as I do that these courts are for members and their guests." Wink tsked. "I think that Nora and Ookie are friendly to each other on the surface, but underneath they're a couple of sumo wrestlers. Skinny sumo wrestlers."

Now there's an image, I thought. Still, all this stuff about Uriah poking around at H&J, literally and figuratively, was pretty interesting. I wondered if I'd get a chance to poke around at the Ellises' house, maybe to see why Uriah was so interested in trash. Pretty risky, even for me.

Julian and I had to get a move on, but Wink had offered a lot of information, data that might prove useful at some point. "Just one more question," I said. Beside me, Julian exhaled. "Where'd you get the name Wink?"

"From my father. It was a nickname. Just think, I could've gone through grade school with kids yelling, 'Catch the ball, Mildred!'"

"That's not so bad."

"Maybe to you it isn't." She signed off.

As Julian began driving again, I tapped the dashboard and tried to think. Bishop Uriah Sutherland had had heart problems, I did know that. But he'd recovered sufficiently by the time he'd been in Aspen Meadow a short while to start helping out at St. Luke's. When our rector, Father Pete, had had a heart attack-was there something about being a clergyman that induced cardiovascular illness?-Bishop Uriah had smoothly and kindly stepped in and taken over liturgical, pastoral, and administrative duties. The St. Luke's budget had been stretched paying two salaries, it was true, but n.o.body wanted to deny a recovering Father Pete his income. I'd asked myself-but n.o.body else-why we had to pay Uriah Sutherland, too, since he lived at his daughter and son-in-law's palatial estate in Flicker Ridge. But my wondering had seemed smug and self-righteous even to me. If Uriah had been an arrhythmia-p.r.o.ne caterer who'd suddenly had to go back to work, I wouldn't have wanted to deny him pay, would I?

And now I knew what he spent money on: stuff that folks with champagne tastes always spent money on: fashionable clothes, fancy cars, extravagant vacations, jewelry...wait a second.

Was it even possible that Bishop Uriah had been "New O." in Dusty's diary? Had he given her the bracelet? He was old enough to be, well, almost her grandfather. But she'd already had a fling with an older man, Mr. Ogden. Was it possible?

Well, I suppose anything was possible. It just didn't seem probable. It also was very odd that Uriah had been poking around at H&J. What had he wanted to find, or find out? Something in general or something in particular? And if he had champagne tastes, why not indulge them by getting a downtown Denver lawyer to answer his queries?

I pursed my lips, recalling what Wink had said about Bishop Uriah being an old friend of Charlie Baker's. The bishop and I had chatted briefly at Charlie Baker's last show in March, the night before Charlie died. That night, Uriah seemed much less of his usual charming self. In fact, he appeared downright upset, swallowing and looking from picture to picture, as if paintings of cookies and brownies were more indecipherable than quantum theory. I thought of the bishop's arrhythmia, and of Charlie's incurable cancer. Maybe Uriah was contemplating his friend's coming death. When I asked if he was all right, he a.s.sured me he was fine.

Charlie Baker, his moon face shining, his body weak from failed chemotherapy, laid his hand on mine and patted it.

"Don't worry, Uriah's just a worrywart," Charlie said in his soft voice that always sounded as if he had a slight lisp.

"What's he worrying about?" I asked.

"Me, probably," Charlie replied, his voice low and cheerless. "I'm going to die soon, and Uriah knows it. But he's a clergyman, and he's not allowed to show his distress the way other people are."

"Oh, Charlie, please forgive me for being so insensitive," I protested, feeling like a heel. "Now, what can I bring you? Some of my ginger snaps? Or how about some chips and dip, the recipe for which is none other than our favorite food artist's?"

His gaze had been forlorn. "Oh, Goldy, I wish you'd let me leave you a painting in my will."

"Charlie, would you quit being so morbid? I've already told you, I can't afford the insurance. But you're sweet."

I'd wanted desperately to get Charlie's mind off of dying, but I'd been unsuccessful.

And then, without warning, Charlie was gone, and I was awash with the grief one feels when a dear friend dies suddenly, and you're left with all the things you didn't say. You're such a great friend, Charlie. This is the best dip I've ever tasted. The next time we cook together, we'll make your chicken piccata...

Don't, I reprimanded myself, as Julian slowed the Rover. Charlie had been more than a friend, he'd been a culinary comrade-in-arms. I swallowed and told myself to snap out of it. Caterer's rule for parties: Let the mood fit the food. It was time to act festive, even if I didn't feel it.

"What are you thinking about?" Julian asked. "You don't look so hot."

"I'm fine, thanks. I'm just concentrating," I rea.s.sured him as he turned onto Woods' End, the cul-de-sac where the Ellises' manse was located. I certainly did not want to depress Julian by talking about Charlie. Then we'd both be down, and that was not what we needed before doing a big-and, if Nora Ellis was generous with gratuities, potentially quite profitable-party.

The Ellises' enormous stucco residence sat on the top of a gentle slope that received enough southern exposure for the sun to have melted most of the snow on their front yard. Between the remaining patches of white, the gra.s.s was lushly green, even in October. The perfectly trimmed aspens, plethora of fruit trees, and long serpentine rock wall topped with stunning shrubs all screamed Professional Landscaping Service. The house itself, which was at least twice the size of the Chenaults' mansion, boasted numerous jutting s.p.a.ces capped with red tile roofs. There was a ma.s.sive, three-story entrance. The whole place looked as if six Taco Bells had been used as building blocks: four on the bottom, two on top.

"We should have brought burritos," Julian mused as the Rover crunched over some residual melting ice on the long driveway. When he'd pulled the Rover halfway up the driveway, he craned his neck back to check out the underside of one of the tile roofs. "I didn't know lawyers made this much money. Isn't Donald Ellis just an a.s.sociate at H&J? Not a partner, right?"

"Not yet," I replied. "But Nora's the one with the dough, as she told me at least fifteen times when she was booking this event. She inherited twenty million from her mother. And if we do a great job today, maybe some of that dinero will come our way. Are you up for it?"

Julian gave me a high five and pushed open his door. We were still a ways from the arched entrance to the kitchen, which boasted a new carved sign over the lintel: "Welcome to Our Cucina!" it screamed. Cute, very cute. I wondered if Donald Ellis had received it as an early birthday present.

A shout from the end of the driveway interrupted my musings.

"Hey, you two!" came Marla's voice. "Wait up, okay? I've got something to tell you!"

"Hey, Marla!" Julian and I called back in unison. I was happy to see her, but puzzled. It was not quite ten. The party was not set to start until one. Was Marla's news so compelling that she couldn't even wait an extra couple of hours?

"Anyway, I thought you might want some company," she called, in answer to our unspoken question. "Maybe some help, too!" she added. Carefully carrying a stringed shopping bag, she was stomping up the driveway in a politically incorrect mink coat and even less correct mink-trimmed black Italian leather boots. I could only imagine what kind of Halloween-colored outfit she would be wearing. Whatever clothes she wore, they were sure to be made of silk, fur, or something else highly destructible, and there was no way I was letting her near the b.u.t.ter, wines, lemon vinaigrette, or any other of the food necessary for today's lunch prep. Still, Marla's aid was usually of the emotional variety, anyway.

"h.e.l.lo?" said an accented voice from the hacienda doorway. It was a heavy, older woman with short gray hair and an easy smile. Judging by her black uniform with its white ap.r.o.n, she was the maid. I hadn't met her the last time I was here. She introduced herself as Lorraine, and said she worked for Mrs. Ellis. She was here to help, she told me. And Miss Upton would be here shortly. Miss Upton would be helping, too.

"Oh, marvelous!" I replied, trying to sound enthusiastic instead of sarcastic.

"One thing, though," Lorraine said, indicating the Rover. "Won't your work be easier if you pull your SUV into the garage, close to the kitchen? Then you could open the back?"

"Sure, that would be great. Thanks." As Julian traipsed through the ice back to the Rover, I noticed that one of the Ellises' BMWs was parked out on Woods' End. Had that been intentional, too? So that people driving up could see how rich the Ellises were? Somehow, I thought so.

Julian moved the Rover into the end spot of the four-car garage. We shouldered our first loads. Marla, chatting merrily about how snow seemed to melt faster in some parts of town than others, trailed along behind us. I gritted my teeth and told myself to be upbeat.

The kitchen, which I had scoped out on my earlier visit, was a huge, high-ceilinged, light-filled s.p.a.ce that featured a rosy, wide-paneled oak floor, expanses of black-and-silver granite, two bay windows, and long lines of gleaming cherrywood cabinets. The Ellises, or Nora anyway, had spared no expense on two top-of-the-line ovens and a six-burner stovetop. I heaved my first box on the granite-topped center island that was the size of a small barge. I also wondered for the umpteenth time why people who had money for big kitchens almost never actually cooked in them.

"Gosh," Marla trilled as she followed me inside, "I feel as if I'm in a naked centerfold for House & Garden!" She placed her enormous gift bag on the island and shrugged her mink coat into Lorraine's waiting hands. Sure enough, Marla's Halloween-appropriate attire was a pale orange silk dress trimmed in horizontal strips of black silk fringe. It looked great on her, complementing her brown-blond hair and twinkling, diamond-crusted barrettes. But it would look awful splashed with vinaigrette before the party even began.

To Lorraine, Marla said, "Thanks a million. Could you please show me where you're going to put it? Just in case I want to beat a fast exit."

"A fast exit?" cried Louise Upton, whom I hadn't even heard come in. Under a tentlike white ap.r.o.n, she wore a beige turtleneck and a dark gray skirt. Her black shoes were the wide tie-up variety with sensible low heels. "Why would you be making an exit, Mrs. Korman? And since you're one of the guests, why are you here so early?"