Dark Tort Part 9

I think Charlie would have been content just to keep cooking and painting for himself and his pals forever. But then Father Biesbrouck, a former rector at St. Luke's, had urged him to try selling his paintings at the bazaar. Somehow, a reporter for a national magazine had ended up at our yearly event, and she'd been so taken with Charlie's art that she'd written a long piece about them, including photographs. She'd ent.i.tled the article "Hidden Food Treasures in the West." And the rest, as they say, is history.

Or was. Charlie became prolific and expensive. Oddly, the rector who'd recommended that he sell his art had had a nervous breakdown-cause unknown-and had committed suicide. This past January, Charlie had been diagnosed with the pancreatic cancer that should have been his death knell, if he hadn't suffered a fatal fall in March. Late at night, he'd lost his balance and slipped, the police had hypothesized, so that he'd tumbled down the long, curved staircase at his house. He'd broken his neck. With no signs of foul play and no suicide note, law enforcement had concluded that Charlie's death had been an accident.

Reportedly, he'd left his estate, plus a huge inventory of paintings that were meant to be sold, to benefit two causes: the Christian Brothers High School, where he'd been raised, and St. Luke's Episcopal Church, with the proviso that the funds be used to build a clergy retreat house in Aspen Meadow. Charlie had told me that he wanted clergy to be able to rest and pull themselves together when they were feeling low, instead of taking Father Biesbrouck's suicidal route.

"Look at this one," Marla said, startling me. It was ent.i.tled Chocolate Pie with Pecan Crust. Charlie's thick brushstrokes and lovingly rendered rich tones of brown and gold made the crust look realistically crunchy and the pie filling beckoningly thick and creamy. "Makes me hungry just looking at it," Marla said, her tone morose.

"You see anything you want to make?" Rose's voice rose querulously in the hushed s.p.a.ce. "The booklets with his recipes are over here. I just thought you might want to look at these before you made your decision."

I blinked once, twice. Okay, so I hadn't had more than two hours of sleep since...well, when? Wednesday night? And now it was Friday afternoon. But still, I couldn't help but reflect that my dear, sweet, young neighbor was lying in the Furman County Morgue, and I was here looking at artworks and talking about recipes, trying to figure out if Charlie could have messed up ingredients for any other dish. It was all too much.

"Maybe we should buy that recipe leaflet from you now," I said to Rose, my voice cracking. "I need to pick up Arch and Gus. Thanks for showing us the paintings," I added belatedly.

"I understand," Rose said in a soft voice, and for a moment, I wondered if she had heard about Dusty, too.

Leaflet in hand, I followed Marla back out to her Mercedes. En route, she purchased another fifty dollars' worth of grocery coupons; the kids could use them "however they wanted," Marla said, for their canned-food drive. I shook my head, but my friend muttered that it made her feel good and was cheaper than therapy.

Once Marla had started the engine and eased behind a line of vans and station wagons filled with waiting parents, she asked, "Couldn't we just have gone to the door where the students come out and waited for Gus and Arch? If there was a big crowd of students, we could just call out to them."

I actually laughed. "Not if you value maintaining any shred of your relationship with Arch. Or Gus either, for that matter. You want to embarra.s.s them to death by calling out to them? Forget it. We can just hold on until they notice us. Trust me."

It didn't take as long as she thought it would, for Arch's antennae worked pretty well in the pickup department, even if it was Marla's car and not my trusty van. Gus, who had started chatting with a group of girls, quickly slung his book bag over his shoulder and followed his half brother out to the Mercedes. Belatedly, I remembered Gus's junior-varsity practice. Would we have to wait for him?

"No practice today," Gus announced, as if reading my mind. He tossed his book bag on the floor and scooted into the backseat beside Arch. "Coach is on a business trip. Thanks for getting us. Hi, Marla."

"Yo, kid. You, too, Arch."

"Marla," Arch said patiently, "don't try to talk jive. It doesn't work, okay?"

Marla sighed and hit the pedal. Soon we were on our way back up the interstate. How was I going to gauge if Arch was upset about Dusty? He hadn't ever known her very well, which, at this juncture, I took to be a good thing.

I turned around and faced the boys. Gus, ever energetic, had brought with him the clean smell of boy sweat and notebooks. As he rustled around in his book bag, Arch, quiet and always worried, sat very still and frowned at me for paying undue attention to him.

"What is it, Mom?"

"Just checking on you, that's all."

Gus stopped rummaging around in his books and flopped back on the seat. He raised his eyebrows at Arch, as in What's she talking about?

"Our neighbor, Dusty Routt, died this morning," Arch said quickly. To me, he said, "Does Tom know anything yet?"

"No. Sorry, hon."

"Does that mean we can't sell magazine subscriptions tonight?" Gus asked. "I mean, are the neighbors going to be all upset? We've got a deadline on this drive. Maybe we could go to another neighborhood. Marla, could you drive us?"

Marla opened her eyes wide at me, as in How did I get dragged into this? But she said, "I suppose so."

Thick pillows of gray cloud had moved in while we were waiting for the boys. As we ascended the steepest part of the interstate, snow began to fall. First there were just a few flakes, rushing toward Marla's windshield at a slant. When we crested the peak of the interstate and entered the wide downward curve to Aspen Meadow, the fall of tiny flakes suddenly thickened. On either side of us, cars began to slow; wipers started sweeping away new layers of flakes.

"I guess this means we won't be able to sell subscriptions," Arch said, with the relief audible in his voice.

"Oh, it's okay to sell stuff when it's snowing," Gus replied, his voice as confident as ever. "I used to do it all the time in Utah. Especially if you don't wear a hat and you have, like, icicles frozen in your hair. Then people buy all kinds of stuff, 'cuz they feel sorry for you."

Arch snorted. "I hate people feeling sorry for me. I've had it my whole life, and it sucks."

Gus said, "Trust me, Arch. It's like power. People feel sorry for you, you can get whatever you want."

I wasn't sure that was true. But with the memory of Dusty's inert body so fresh in my mind, I was reluctant to venture an opinion. In our cooking lessons, I'd come to feel heartily sorry for Dusty, with her lack of money and her high ambitions. Now I'd heard the sad story of her bad luck and mistreatment at the hands of a drama teacher. And then, just when she'd gotten a good job and was moving up in the world, someone had strangled her.

Yes, I felt very sorry for Dusty. I also felt painfully sympathetic toward her mother, Sally.

As Marla pressed the accelerator and urged the Mercedes back up the mountain, I bit the inside of my cheek. Gus could talk all he wanted about sympathy generating power. But it seemed to me that neither Dusty nor Sally had, or had ever had, any power at all.

CHAPTER 8.

When Marla swung into the driveway of Aspen Meadow Imports, a tall mechanic with long, droopy cheeks and a gray ponytail came out waving a rag.

"Wait," he called to us. When he was beside the Mercedes, he said, "You can't leave that food truck here. That van. What does it say? Goldilocks' Catering. We've had trouble with a bear coming down every night and foraging in our garbage."

Under her breath, Marla said, "One bear's food is another bear's trash. But still, can mountain bears read?"

I hated it when people made fun of my Germanic maiden name, but I was prepared to ignore my best friend. To the mechanic, I said, "I'm moving it. I was just helping out a friend."

The mechanic's cheeks drooped even farther. "Okay, lady. Those bears can smell food. I wouldn't want to be responsible if one of 'em broke into your vehicle."

"I'm moving it!"

Marla laughed, then promised she would call if she heard anything. I thanked her for the ride and bustled Gus and Arch into the van.

At the boys' request, I left them off three blocks from our house. They swore they'd be home by half past five, because they'd be famished, Gus said, his smile huge. As usual, Gus was upbeat at the prospect of being a fund-raising vendor of magazines. Arch, on the other hand, was morose, as he hated selling more than having his teeth pulled without anesthetic. But I couldn't even try to cheer him up the way I usually did. In point of fact, I didn't feel as if I had any cheer left.

I pulled my van into the driveway rather than parking it on the street. If by some miracle the plow came through that night, I didn't want to get walled in by a hardpacked, man-made snowdrift. I also didn't want to risk leaving my van on the curb again. When I stepped out into the three-inch-deep icy carpet of snow, I shrieked with surprise. But that didn't stop me from traipsing up and locking the van doors with the remote. I pressed the b.u.t.ton twice, so that the security system beeped. This time, I wanted to be sure the van was locked.

Completely chilled, I raced through the fall of flakes to the front of the house. Once I'd slammed the door, I leaned on it and shuddered. I let my coat slip to the floor, limped to the living room, and flopped onto the couch. Tom was rattling around in the kitchen, for which I was thankful. Apparently, he hadn't heard me come in.

But our animals had. Scout the cat and Jake the bloodhound rushed to greet me. Well, I shouldn't say that Scout rushed, because that cat never went quickly to anything, even food. But he did stride into the living room and, sensing I might need comfort, dropped his back on top of my shoes and rolled over, all in one smooth movement. You can pat me if it will make you feel better. I did, while Jake s...o...b..red kisses on my cheeks. The large hound also began to whine between large liquid tonguings. Don't tell me animals can't sense moods.

"There you are," said Tom as he whisked into the living room carrying a silver tray sporting two gla.s.ses of sherry, homemade crackers, and a wedge of sharp English cheddar, his favorite. "It's a bit early for a c.o.c.ktail." His tone was cheery, his handsome face the picture of confidence. "Then again, I thought you might need one."

"What I need most of all is to talk to you."

"One thing at a time, wife."

I smiled my thanks and left to change and wash my hands. By the time I'd pulled on sweats and returned to the living room, Tom had built a cozy fire and set the silver tray on his antique cherrywood butler's tray, which he'd judiciously placed in front of my old sofa when he'd moved into the house. The scene was typically Tom-and-Goldy. On the one hand, there was Tom's lovingly purchased, laboriously polished cherry furniture. He said taking care of his pieces helped reduce stress from the job. And then there was my old sofa. Once I'd kicked out the Jerk, I'd wanted to remove as many memories of his presence as possible, and I'd had every piece in the living room reupholstered in the cheapest fabric available. It was a sunny orange that I'd determinedly told myself was going to match my new circ.u.mstances. Unfortunately, the orange had turned somewhat dingy, and I kept thinking I was going to have everything redone one of these days. But so far, that day had not materialized.

And then there was the sherry, aged and golden, bought by Tom. He'd poured it into antique cut-crystal gla.s.ses that had belonged to my grandmother. These, too, felt like Tom's, since he'd salvaged them from a bas.e.m.e.nt cardboard box that I'd hidden behind our Christmas decorations. Talk about erasing memories: I hadn't even remembered packing up the crystal and putting it out of sight some years before. In any event, the gla.s.ses were what remained of my breakables, as I'd come to think of them, after John Richard had smashed every dish of our Minton bone china, in one of his numerous fits of rage. Thinking about the Jerk didn't do much for my mood. Squinting at Tom's tray, I stood at the edge of the living room, immobile.

"Miss G.! I can tell you're not doing so hot. Come and sit by me. Talk to me. I know what you need." Tom's eyes were steadily trained on my face. "You need to eat, drink, talk, and go to bed. How many hours has it been since you had some real sleep? Too many. Way too many."

"The last thing I want to do is go to bed," I heard my voice say. "I want to be with you, and with Arch...and I'll eat and drink and-" What was that last part? Oh yes, talk. There was that.

"All right," Tom said gently, patting the couch. "Maybe you won't be merry. But at least sit down until you can start cooking and doing again."

"Okay, okay."

I moved with a kind of stiff uneasiness onto the couch. I tried not to think. After a minute, I took the gla.s.s Tom proffered, and sipped. The sherry tasted like liquid fire. But it helped. So did the crunchy, surprisingly flaky homemade crackers. I took a second bite and looked at Tom. Sharp cheddar cheese? Tangy English mustard? Imported cayenne pepper? I couldn't get my mind even to work on that superficial level: food, work, prepping, catering. I blinked at the fire, and realized this was the first time I'd been sitting still and relaxing in the past twenty-something hours. Even so, all my muscles felt bunched up, tense with despair and confusion.

I felt the gla.s.s slip between my fingers. In a voice that seemed to be coming from across the room, I said, "What the h.e.l.l is going on?"

Tom snagged my gla.s.s and put it on the table. "You're tired, wife. You're drained. Maybe you should just go to bed." But instead of ordering me upstairs, he pulled me close and rubbed the small of my back. After a few moments of this, the tautness began to melt.

"I'm afraid to...to think."

"I know, I know," Tom murmured. "Why do you suppose I polish furniture? Just take it easy for a few minutes and don't try to use your brain."

But I couldn't. I pulled away from him. "Tell me what's going on at the department," I demanded. "What have they learned?"

Tom ducked his chin. His sea-green eyes a.s.sessed me. Then he pulled his mouth into a straight line. "Let's go into the kitchen and work. We can talk there."

Mechanically, I followed Tom to our cooking s.p.a.ce. He'd thawed a tenderloin of beef, and I helped him tie it into a perfect roll. Tom had become obsessed with beef lately, and had added to my mail order-the best way to get prime, I'd learned, if not the cheapest-on more than one occasion. In fact, I was serving tenderloins at Donald Ellis's birthday party...oh Lord, I didn't want to think about that.

Tom used one of my new sharp-as-the-d.i.c.kens j.a.panese knives to insert slivers of garlic all along the surface of the beef. Then he rubbed the roll with oil, sprinkled it with dried rosemary and thyme, packed it with a gravelly layer of ground black peppercorns, and sprinkled it with our French sea salt. And suddenly, with that small detail, I felt my mind drifting back here, to our family, to our life together. Salt. Salt. What had my son said about it, when Tom had waxed lyrical on the taste value of the new crystals?

"Yo, Tom! NaCl is NaCl," Arch had observed, shaking his head.

"Oh, ye of little faith," Tom had intoned, before serving us steaks sprinkled with the little nuggets of flavor. I'd thought it was wonderful; Arch had remarked that it was "still just salt."

Remembering this now, I began to cry. No sobbing, mind you, just a wholly unexpected spill of tears. Oh, what was the matter with me?

Dusty, Dusty. She had been part of a family, too, the Routts, a loving family whose loss I could not begin to contemplate. My mind brought up the image of her p.r.o.nated wrist, my seemingly endless attempts to breathe life into her limp body. I'd seen dead people before, of course. But Dusty had been so young, and so loved...

Tom had not seen me start crying, as he was busy inserting a thermometer into the meat. When he placed the pan into the oven next to half a dozen baking potatoes, I ordered myself to get my act together.

Without much forethought, I marched determinedly to the walk-in refrigerator, wrenched open the door, and stared into the cool darkness. What would we have with this particular tenderloin?

Why, bearnaise sauce, I thought, and reached for a small tub of Tom's meticulously clarified b.u.t.ter and a bunch of fresh tarragon. Charlie Baker made a great bearnaise, that's what he would have served, I thought instinctively. Be quiet, I told my mind. Concentrate.

I melted the b.u.t.ter, separated the eggs, and pulverized a handful of tarragon leaves in my herb grinder. Once I'd beaten and warmed the egg yolks and swished in some tarragon vinegar, I whisked in drops of melted b.u.t.ter. The concentration required for these tasks finally began to soften the agonizing tension in my brain. Beside me, Tom was a.s.sembling a salade composee of Wagnerian proportions: steamed fresh grean beans, asparagus, and peas, arranged on a lush bed of arugula leaves.

"What have they looked at, Tom?" I asked. My gaze never left the sauce. "The cops, I mean? The detectives. What have they found?"

Tom continued carefully to lay out rows of green beans. "Well, they haven't found much yet, except that it looks as if she was slapped in the face, got her head bashed into a painting, and then she was strangled to death. The questions they'll ask, investigating? First, was this a robbery gone bad? Was Dusty supposed to be there, or was she an unexpected complication?"

"It didn't look like a robbery. I mean, I didn't see any signs of a break-in."

"There wasn't a forced entry. So it didn't look like a robbery to you. But with so much information on computers and disks these days, who knows? Maybe the office had valuables, too."

"You mean, the kind you'd keep in a safe?"

Tom shook his head. "No. The kind you put on display. Gold clocks. Sculptures by famous-"

"Wait. There were expensive paintings on the walls. You know, by Charlie Baker. Fifty thou each, why wouldn't somebody steal those?"

Tom shrugged. "Kind of hard to shove those into a getaway bag, although you could. That partner, Richard Chenault? He's helping them with an inventory. So is the office manager. Louise Upton." I scowled, but Tom grinned. "I haven't talked to her, but Boyd did. She told him to call her 'ma'am.'" He went on: "Then again, maybe it wasn't a robbery. Say Dusty knew something, had discovered something, had asked questions she shouldn't have, was making a pest out of herself...any of a number of things. So somebody says he wants to meet her before she helps you with the bread. Your unlocked van is on the street, so first he turns the lights and radio on, draining the battery so you'll be late. It doesn't take long to kill someone."

"So, the department is constructing scenarios about what could have happened? Developing suspects from that?"

"Not yet. They have to ask lots of other questions first. Who were her enemies? Did she owe anybody money? Was she doing any dangerous work? Did anyone resent her for any reason? If so, who resented her, and why?" Tom sighed. "But as I say, the very first thing they have to figure out is if she walked in on a burglary, or if someone was waiting for her. Right, no forced entry, so somebody might have had a key. On the other hand, the security at that office was not that tight. Somebody could have come in, posing as a client or delivery person or whatever, and then never went out. He or she waited until everybody left, and then started to rob the place. Dusty could have surprised this person, and he might have killed her to avoid apprehension."

"Or maybe someone was waiting for her and then wanted to make it look like a burglary."

"That, too." Tom's tone was rueful. After a moment, he said, "We did find out one thing concerning her work. From Richard Chenault, her uncle."

"I'm listening."

"He said that Dusty spent quite a bit of time working with Charlie Baker, once he found out he had pancreatic cancer. Charlie wanted to tidy up his correspondence, his bank accounts, his legal affairs. He and Dusty got along well, and he liked having her there to help him out."

"I know she knew Charlie, but I guess I didn't know she was actually working closely with him. How long had this been going on?"

"Since the beginning of this year."

"Have the cops found any connection between Charlie Baker and Dusty that could have spelled trouble for her?"

"Not yet. But they're looking into it."

We worked in silence for a while. I set the heavenly scented bearnaise sauce over barely simmering water and hoped Arch and Gus would arrive home soon. The October evenings were already rushing toward early darkness, and with someone who might have sabotaged my van out there, I felt uneasy.

"Look," I said, "I keep going back to my van. If I hadn't been late to the H&J office, then what? Would I have been strangled, too? Or could I have saved her?"

"I already talked to Arch about the van this morning. He is absolutely sure, completely positive, that he turned off the radio, because he'd come to the end of a Dave Matthews song. Then he remembers picking up his book bag, opening the pa.s.senger door, and slamming it shut. He remembers the slamming because he said he was in such a bad mood. Plus, he recalls staring at the car for a minute, making sure he had everything he needed for his homework."

"Right. And I suppose he's absolutely positive he locked it, too."

"No, that he's not sure of. In fact, he thinks he didn't, because his hands were full with his book bag and books." Tom stopped laying down hard-boiled egg halves and waited until I met his gaze. "He's sure he didn't leave the radio and lights on. He's sure he didn't remember to lock the van."

"So you do think somebody tampered with my car. Or my son has a conveniently slippery memory."

"The former. My theory is, someone was watching you, knew your schedule. Knew when you left for the firm to go make the bread for the Friday-morning meeting." He finished the salad and covered it with plastic wrap. "I told the investigators to send our guys out to canva.s.s our neighbors, check if anyone saw somebody, anybody, messing with your car. We need to know if a neighbor saw someone scouting you out. I also told our guys to look at any folks who might have seen an odd, as in out of the ordinary, vehicle over by H&J that late at night."

Someone scouting you out. I tried to rid myself of the memory of Vic Zaruski and his long, furious face, of his boatlike white convertible, and of the many times it had been parked in the Routts' driveway. In the Routts' driveway or on the street. He wouldn't have messed up my car, would he? He wouldn't have strangled a girl he cared about, or had once cared about, would he?

"Goldy?" Tom queried. "Think. Look back at that scene you came upon in the office. Something missing? Something out of place?"