Killer Pancake Part 14

"Goldy, she's a cow. She'd lie about anything."

"That rich cow called me before she hit you, and said she'd heard so much about me from Marla. Why lie about that?"

"I don't know," he said, resigned. "Look, here's a pay phone. If you're going to call Tom, you'd better do it."

I got Tom's voice mail at the sheriff's department. Where was he? I asked the tape. I added he might want to keep checking into Hotchkiss Skin & Hair, that they seemed to be involved in some very obvious industrial espionage with Mignon, courtesy of Reggie Hotchkiss. Dusty Routt, I said, claimed there was no relationship between Claire and Shaman Krill. I also told Tom there was an observation area behind the mirrors in the ladies' dressing room on the Prince & Grogan second floor, and that he might want to check out the Braithwaites. And Charles Braithwaite, I said finally, was deeply involved with roses. Blue ones, maybe? Suddenly, I decided not to tell Tom about the bleach water or the threatening note. I knew he would get extremely upset. Julian gave me a curious glance, so I hung up and we took off for the mall garage to get the Range Rover.

But retrieving the Rover was not that easy. Neither of us could remember where he'd left his car. As we drove up and down and back again, Julian became increasingly agitated. It had been stolen, he insisted. We'll find it, I a.s.sured him. The garage was just very confusing. I began another circle of the levels of the packed parking structure. No Rover. Finally we decided to hunt on foot. I parked in the first available free spot. The parking s.p.a.ce was by the shoe store's entrance where, unfortunately, the Spare the Hares! people were back in force.

The war-painted crowd was larger and louder. They surged forward each time, someone started toward the doors. They were chanting another slogan that buzzed in my ears.

"Just walk quickly by them," I said under my breath to Julian, who had drawn in his chin and was staring at the chanting demonstrators. I absolutely hated walking by them. Every time I did, it seemed, something bad happened.

"What are they saying?" he asked.

"Hey, hey, Mignon Cosmetics! Get your hands off helpless rabbits!"

Julian said, "Far out, man," and kept on walking. Kept on walking, that is, until Shaman Krill popped out from between two parked cars. The demonstrator was holding something long, furry, and stiff in one hand. I didn't want to look at it. When I tried to move away, Shaman Krill shadowed me. When I tried to duck around him, he followed.

"Oh, no," I moaned. I wanted to look around for the police, but was afraid to take my eyes off Krill.

"What's going on here?" Julian demanded. Krill did not heed him. He fastened his wild-eyed, Charles Manson gaze on me and leered. His small, pointed teeth gleamed eerily. Something shifted in the dark eyes of the angry, taut man in front of me. He was gleeful. He knew he was in control. I, of course, had seen that look many times before, in the eyes of the Jerk.

"Hey!" shouted Krill in an exaggerated mockery of recognizing an old friend. "Food-fight lady! Look what I got! And this time your pig won't save you!" He yanked the rabbit carca.s.s upward; I recoiled. "You're history!" he screeched as he tossed the carca.s.s at me. I ducked for the second time that day. The carca.s.s bounced off my back. "That oughta even things up a little!" Shaman laughed hysterically. "No luck from that rabbit's foot!"

"You're sick!" I shouted. I stood up, my fists clenched. "You're crazy!"

"You're arrested," said Tom Schulz happily as he grabbed Shaman's arms. "For a.s.sault."

Another policeman, a fellow named Boyd whom I knew well, snapped on the handcuffs. The dead rabbit, I noticed, lay by the front left Cadillac tire. I wondered if they would have to take it as evidence.

"Wow," said Julian, brightening. "That was cool. Talk about just in the nick of time, man, I'm impressed."

"So this is where you've been." I walked quickly over to Tom. "Why didn't you tell me you were staking out the garage to look for Krill?"

"Because we haven't been here that long-"

"Tom, I really need to talk to you. You wouldn't believe the things that have happened today-"

"Life-endangering things?" he queried, holding tight to a struggling Shaman Krill.

"You pig!" shouted Krill. "You idiot!"

"Well, not exactly-" I said.

"Look, Miss G., we just got a tip"-he aimed his remark at Krill-"from a real member of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals that this guy was here. They call you the volunteer cheerleader," he told Krill. He turned back to me. "Goldy, where'd you get those clothes?"

"Oh, it's a long story."

"It always is with you." He eyed Julian. "Is he okay?"

"Who can tell? Check your voice mail when you're finished with this guy."

"I'll finish you!" Krill yelled, but no one was listening.

Officer Boyd picked up the rabbit carca.s.s with gloved hands and put it into a paper evidence bag, and then the three of them took off in a sheriff's department vehicle. Who, I wondered, was Shaman Krill really working for?

Two levels down, Julian and I finally found the Rover. Julian drove me back to my van and we arrived home in tandem around six o'clock. When we came through the door, the melancholy rhythm of "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" reverberated down the stairs from Arch's room. When I called to him, he replied that he was testing a strobe light and would be there in a minute.

Trying to focus on things domestic in general and on dinner in particular, I opened the walk-in. Wrapped triangles of creamy Port Salut, tangy Brie, and crumbly Gorgonzola cheeses beckoned. Tom had made a sign that said Ours! with an arrow pointing to the shelf below, to distinguish the extravagant purchases of foodstuffs he made for our newly formed family. I could always count on that shelf to bulge with the choicest berries and other produce, the ripest cheeses, the most expensive seafoods. I was trying to decide from the Ours! shelf when Arch arrived in the kitchen, still wearing the Panthers shirt. He'd found a pair of round-framed sungla.s.ses and strap-up-the-legs sandals to go with the shirt. He looked like a beachcomber.

"I'm hungry," he announced unceremoniously. "In fact, I'm going to faint if I don't have some food." He lifted up the sungla.s.ses and glanced at my outfit, then at my face and hair. "Gosh, Mom, you look weird. I know you like coffee, but don't you want to advertise your business instead of Pete's?"

"Arch, please ..."

"All right, all right. Just ... when are we going to eat? I mean, I don't want to be rude, but it's been a hundred hours since lunchtime."

"Well, I was kind of thinking of taking a shower first," I said hopefully.

Arch moved the sungla.s.ses down his nose, clutched his stomach, and made his eyeb.a.l.l.s bulge.

"Oh, stop," I grumbled. So much for the shower. Marla was coming home the next day, in any event, and if I was going to follow through on my promise to do some lowfat cooking for her, now was the time. "Dinner in forty-five minutes?" I asked brightly.

Arch looked around the empty kitchen. No food was started. The table was covered with advertis.e.m.e.nts for the fair. "What are you fixing?" he asked dubiously.

"Why don't you let me-" Julian began.

"Absolutely not," I broke in, "you're taking a break. I'm fixing pasta," I said noncommittally to Arch. Pasta was always a safe bet. What did I have on hand? Hard to remember, since Tom had taken it upon himself to buy so many goodies for us.

"What kind?" my son wanted to know.

"Arch-"

"Maybe you'd just better let me order in from the Chinese place."

"Hey, kiddo! What are you, the plumber's son who can't get his leaky sink fixed for a year? I'm going to cook dinner! I may be in professional food service, but I always fix the meals around here, don't I?"

"Well, not always-" he began, but when he saw my glowering expression, he fell silent.

Julian came to my rescue. "Come on, Arch, let's go listen to rock groups for a while." Julian tousled Arch's brown hair that stuck out at various angles. Since it was summertime, I never told him to comb it. Worrying about the prep school's dress and appearance code didn't start until fall.

Arch pulled away. "You don't need to take care of me, Julian. I'm okay."

"I'm not trying to take care of you. I really want to listen to some tunes."

"But I can't on an empty stomach!" He narrowed his eyes at me, not to be dissuaded. "What kind of pasta? Fettuccine?"

"Fettuccine Alfredo," I pledged. It was his favorite. If I promised it, maybe he'd quit ha.s.sling me and allow me to cook. On the other hand, how I would make a lowfat Alfredo-a dish that ordinarily required a stick of melted b.u.t.ter, two cups of heavy whipping cream, and loads of Parmesan cheese-was beyond my reckoning.

"I don't believe it," Arch replied stubbornly.

"That's what they said when Eugene McCarthy won the New Hampshire primary," Julian interjected.

Arch gaped at Julian in awe. "How'd you know that?"

"You'd be surprised at what you can pick up," Julian said mysteriously. "Take the Vietnam protest, which had as one of its favorite slogans Johnson Withdraw! Like Your Father Should Have!"

I yelled, "Julian!"

Arch shrieked with laughter and scampered up the stairs.

"Gosh, Goldy," Julian said in his get-a-life tone of voice. "Don't you think Arch knows about s.e.x? Sometimes I wonder about you."

Well, I thought as I desperately scanned my freezer for cholesterol-free fettuccine, sometimes I wondered about me too. Miraculously, I found a package of the right pasta. I started water to heat in the pasta pentola. The boys had turned off Sgt. Pepper, perhaps to discuss ... well, I didn't want to think about it.

I opened the kitchen window. A late afternoon breeze floated in along with trilling notes from the saxophone at the Routts' place. I smiled. Here we were in rural Colorado, and yet it felt as if our house sat across the alley from a New York jazz club. I chopped some red onion, then washed and sliced slender, brilliant-green asparagus that I had found in a tight bundle on the Ours! shelf. When I'd drizzled a bit of olive oil over a head of garlic and set it to bake in the oven, I thought back on the events of the day. Applying logic, or trying to.

I'd gone into Prince & Grogan trying to find Claire's murderer. Tom had said it was all right to do some digging, as long as I didn't get into trouble. And I had gotten into trouble, or at least been busted by store security, doused with bleach water, and told to go home. But these weren't my fault, I rationalized.

Besides, I thought as I got out Wondra flour, I was determined to help Julian recover from Claire's death. If I just knew why this happened, he had cried so helplessly here in the kitchen. Claire's life had revolved around Mignon. So it seemed logical to look at what she herself had called "that cutthroat cosmetics counter."

And, I also rationalized as I measured, since I was a woman, like it or not I was more able to get gossipy-type information than Tom and his deputies at the sheriff's department ever would. The Mignon counter at Prince & Grogan, Westside Mall, was a place of high energy, high profit, high emotional stakes. I mean, where else could you go and be promised beauty and endless youth with such enthusiasm, conviction, and pain to your wallet? Where else did you have to watch for shoplifters, pretend to be decades older than your actual age, worry about spies from rival firms, and fend off wealthy pick-up artists in the form of weird scientists?

I poked wildly through one of my drawers until I found a grater. I'd been able to help Tom before in his investigations. Of course, he'd never particularly welcomed my involvement until it was all over. And no matter how much I maintained Julian needed my help in figuring out what happened, my protestations would fall on deaf ears.

Still. I'd heard Dusty say to Reggie Hotchkiss, We saw you. You are going to get into so much trouble. I'd been in that garage. I hadn't seen anybody except a crazy demonstrator. But I'd found a blue rose close to Claire's body. And that rose had perhaps been developed by Charles Braithwaite-the same Charles Braithwaite who, according to Dusty, had been infatuated by, and later broken up with, Claire Satterfield. And then there had been Babs Braithwaite, who had run into me at the top of the escalator, claiming that somebody was hiding in the women's dressing room. Only I hadn't found anybody in the dressing room. Except I'd unexpectedly encountered her husband again. This time Dr. Charlie had magically turned up on the roof. On the roof, that is, after Frances Markasian and I had been hit with an unhealthy dose of bleach water. I wondered if Charles Braithwaite would have had the courage to do that. He didn't strike me as the courageous type.

LOWFAT FETTUCCINE.

ALFREDO WITH.

ASPARAGUS.

2 tablespoons finely chopped red onion 2 cups diagonally sliced asparagus with tight tips (tough ends of stalks removed) 1 teaspoon (about 2 cloves) mashed and chopped baked garlic (see note) cup nonfat dry milk 1 cups skim milk or more as needed 1 tablespoons Wondra instant-blending flour 2 tablespoons light process cream cheese product (not nonfat) cup grated parmesan cheese 9 ounces cholesterol-free fettuccine cup chopped arugula Heat a medium-size nonstick saute pan. Remove from the heat and spray with vegetable oil spray. Add the onion and saute over medium heat until limp, about 5 or 10 minutes. Add the asparagus and the garlic, cover the pan, and turn off the heat. (The steam from the onion will cook the asparagus.) In a large skillet, combine the dry milk and skim milk and whisk until blended. Add the flour, stir, and cook over medium-high heat until thickened. In a small bowl, add 2 tablespoons of the hot sauce to the cream cheese and stir until smooth. Return this mixture to the hot sauce. Add the Parmesan and stir until melted. Keep hot. If the mixture becomes too thick, thin it out with small amounts of skim milk. The consistency should be like cream, not gravy.

Cook the fettuccine in boiling water according to the package directions until it is al dente; drain. Add the hot pasta and the garlic and the vegetables to the sauce in the skillet. Stir and cook over medium-low heat until heated through. Serve garnished with chopped arugula.

Serves 4 Note: To bake the garlic, preheat the oven to 350. Place a whole head of garlic in a small baking pan. Drizzle one teaspoon of olive oil over the head of garlic; add cup water to the pan. Bake the garlic, loosely covered with aluminum foil, for 45 to 60 minutes or until the cloves are soft. The cloves will slip right out of their skins to be mashed, chopped, or served whole. The whole garlic cloves can be served as a side dish with any roast meat; the mashed garlic cloves are also delicious mixed with hot homemade mashed potatoes.

It was the bleach water, and the warning to go home, that made me realize I had to figure out what was going on with the murder of Claire Satterfield, no matter what Tom said. Instead of Frances Markasian being at my side when the chlorine came sailing through the air, it could have been Julian.

It could have been Arch.

Whoever had tried to warn me off would stop at nothing, it seemed. So I was in this thing until the bitter end.

With that decided, I grated the pungent Parmesan cheese into golden strands. Then I rummaged through my cabinets for something that would be like cream and decided on mixing nonfat dry milk into skim milk. It didn't sound as good as whipping cream, it certainly didn't look as good as whipping cream, and I wasn't sure if it would taste anything like, that favorite-and marvelously fattening-ingredient of food service people. But the mixture didn't have any fat in it, so it was definitely worth a shot. For Marla. I also retrieved a package of lowfat cream cheese from my refrigerator-one of the remnants of the Mignon banquet vegetable dip saga-and decided to blend some of that into the sauce, for richness. Or simulated richness, I thought dutifully, as I slowly poured the dry milk mixture over the flour and began to whisk vigorously.

As I stirred I tried to reflect. What could I deduce from my latest visit to the mall? I was becoming quite an expert on that place: the location of the covered catwalk around the entrance, called a "blind" by the security people who liked to lurk there, the intricacies of hidden cameras trained and focused on customer transactions, the not-so-obsolete one-way mirrors. I glanced out my window. The pale leaves of the aspen trees in my backyard shuddered in the wind. The saxophone music lilting through the open windows made me think of Dusty-poor, eager, friendly Dusty, expelled from Elk Park Prep, losing a potential boyfriend in the form of Julian, losing another friend in the form of Claire, stepped on by ambitious fellow sales a.s.sociate Harriet. And living in a house built by Habitat for Humanity, which was certainly a long way from the Aqua Bella mansion she'd yearned for aloud when we were sipping coffee on the mall's garage roof. But looking back on her exchange with Reggie Hotchkiss, it seemed to me that she'd been radiant, teasing, even flirtatious, before they'd argued. If it really was an argument, and not just more of a tease. In that relationship, Dusty was the sought-after one. Dusty was the one with information. Or so, perhaps, Reggie Hotchkiss had made it appear.

And then I thought of Harriet, perfectly coiffed, ambitious, keeping her distance from the inquisitive Reggie, even attempting to prevent Dusty from talking to him. Harriet had been working at that Mignon counter a lot longer than Dusty had, why didn't Reggie Hotchkiss ask her questions? Perhaps he had, or he'd tried to, yet she was loyal to the company. She certainly wouldn't want to jeopardize her commissions by telling secrets to the rival Hotchkiss Skin & Hair. Or would she?

And what about the Braithwaites? Charlie was obsessed by more than science, that much was clear. Had he dropped the improbably hued rose near Claire's body? Why was Babs hanging out-literally-above the cosmetics counter, when I was hauled away by Stan White, Nick Gentileschi's henchman? Did Babs know what was going on between Charlie and Claire, if anything?

I scooped out some of the thickened cream sauce into the dollops of cream cheese, whisked them together, then stirred the mixture back into the sauce. While this was heating I sauteed the red onion and then added the smashed cloves of baked garlic and the asparagus, covered the pan, and put it aside. The water was boiling. I dropped in the ribbons of pasta, decided to serve it with a salad of fresh raspberries and lightly steamed baby peas, and turned my attention to dessert.

If we were going to have pasta with vegetables, then we could handle a dark, rich dessert. I decided on the fudge souffle that I'd stumbled upon in my attempt to make Nonfat Chocolate Torte. When chocolate chips and skim milk were heating in the top of a double boiler, I beat egg whites with sugar, salt, and vanilla until they were fluffed and opaque. Then I swirled the chocolate and egg white mixtures together and put the resulting dark cloud of chocolate back in the double boiler to cook while we ate dinner. Next I stirred the shredded Parmesan into the fettuccine, vegetables, and sauce, heated this until the luscious-looking concoction was just bubbling, and called the boys. I looked at my watch: six forty-five. Amazing. Not that Arch would appreciate my culinary speed and skill, however.

I put a call in to Tom and again got his voice mail. I told him we were eating the most delectable goodies for dinner that he could possibly imagine, and the later he got home, the less likely it was that he would get some. Mean, I knew, but tactics were tactics.

And delectable the meal was. The cheesy, thickened cream sauce coated every delicate strand of fettuccine and crunchy bite of asparagus. The salad was light and refreshingly tart. Arch ate hungrily. Julian consumed nearly nothing. When I asked if they wanted fudge souffle for dessert, he merely shrugged. As I began to clear the dishes, I again suggested to Julian that he go to bed instead of trying to help dean up or work on the Braithwaites' party. He wouldn't be much help on the Fourth if he was too exhausted to do anything. To my surprise, he a.s.sented and trudged up to his bunk. Arch, ecstatic that he'd get a double portion of dessert, gleefully sneaked away with it to the television room.

Grateful for the quiet, I started to rinse dishes and place them in the dishwasher. It was half past eight So much for Tom making it home for dinner. But as soon as I had that thought, the front-door latch popped.

Tom strode in, stood at the kitchen threshold, opened his arms, and said, "You look beautiful."

Hard to ignore my runaway, bleach-splotched hair, my face streaked with makeup, Pete's oversize Virtues of Coffee sweatsuit. "Is that a joke?"

He circled me in an enormous hug. "Never," he whispered in my ear. For the first time that day, I relaxed. But then I tensed, trying to think of how to explain my appearance.

"Some ... bleach water spilled on me today." It was sort of the truth. Half of the truth.

"Well, I wasn't going to ask. How's Marla?" His mouth close to my ear sent shivers down my spine.

"Surviving. Want to taste some of the lowfat food I'm teaching myself to cook for her? Want to hear how I got into trouble today?"

"Do I have to? I'd rather do something else," he murmured.

"Incorrigible."

"Beautiful."

"Later."

On that hopeful note, he reluctantly pulled away from me. I poured him a gla.s.s of red wine, started the fettuccine reheating, and asked if he'd listened to the voice mail.

"Oh, yes," he replied with a broad smile. "Yes, yes. And I listened to my other messages too. Had a little visit with the horticultural powers that be. Seems Charles Braithwaite, Ph.D., is in the process of getting the blue rose patented, which takes quite a while. One thing you have to do when you're patenting a flower? You name it." I put a plateful of the steaming pasta in front of him. He wound up a spoonful of the fettuccine and downed it. His bushy eyebrows arched upward. "Gosh, Goldy, this is delicious. Lowfat?"