Crunch Time

CRUNCH TIME

Diane Mott Davidson

Dedication

To Ryan, Nick, and Josh

With many hugs, besos, and thanks for lighting up our lives

Epigraph

When my love swears that she is made of truth,

I do believe her though I know she lies . . .

Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,

And in our faults by lies we flattered be.

—W
ILLIAM
S
HAKESPEARE
, S
ONNET
138

Contents

1

W
hen I heard that Ernest McLeod had been killed, I should have packed up my knives and left. Well, not
literally
left, because I was in my own kitchen, poised to slice a third pile of juicy heirloom tomatoes for a buffet Yolanda Garcia and I were catering the next day.

Then again, I could have left well enough alone. I also could have kept my mouth shut. But I’ve always had a hard time with that.

Yolanda, a fellow chef and caterer, never asked me for anything. I volunteered. Maybe she was a mind reader, or psychic. Perhaps she thought if she told me some of the things that were going on with her, her great-aunt Ferdinanda, and Ernest McLeod—who’d been housing the two women when he was killed—I would say what I did, which was
You and your great-aunt need to stay with us.

Back before Ernest McLeod was forced to retire, he had been a very good cop. My husband, Tom, a sheriff’s department investigator, had worked with Ernest and admired him.

While Tom was questioning Yolanda, she had repeatedly avoided his gaze. To Tom, this was a clue that more was going on than Yolanda was letting on. And as I already knew, he didn’t trust her.

When Tom listened to Yolanda’s tale, he pointed out that in Ernest’s work as a private investigator, he’d had
clients
. His cases, as related by Yolanda, included helping an animal activist get a puppy mill closed; searching for something for someone, which sounded suspiciously murky; and looking at the circumstances surrounding what could become a very messy, expensive divorce. Not a single one of these investigations sounded particularly dangerous, but you could never be sure.

N
one of this was apparent on Sunday, the thirteenth of September. That afternoon, Yolanda and I were busy slicing, dicing, and sautéing. I hadn’t gotten to the tomatoes yet. In fact, I wasn’t even thinking about them. Instead, I was wishing we could be outside, perhaps picnicking, fishing in Cottonwood Creek, or hiking in the nearby wildlife preserve. Usually, Colorado’s early fall weather is glorious—with the occasional blizzard, of course.

All summer, townsfolk had complained about our extraordinary rainfall. And then we’d had a reprieve. A warm Indian summer had unfurled over Aspen Meadow. Our mountain town is forty miles west of Denver, at eight thousand feet above sea level. Now, in mid-September, yellow cottonwoods lined the creeks. Higher up, golden aspen leaves shook like coins strung from bright branches, in stark contrast to the dusty blue spruce and deep greens of lodgepole and ponderosa pines. All the mountain gardens, including ours, were studded with sprays of purple Russian sage, bunches of amethyst viola, and brilliant daisies. The sweet air was still, as if it were waiting for the first blast of winter.

Alas, instead of enjoying the outdoor life, Yolanda and I were putting together a lunch for the following day. We didn’t talk much as we bustled around my home kitchen, which the county health inspector had once again certified I could use for my business,
Goldilocks’ Catering, Where Everything Is Just Right!
Yolanda was a hard worker, and I was happy to have her at my side. She inadvertently bumped into me when she was retrieving a bunch of fresh basil from the walk-in, a type of refrigerator every restaurant or serious caterer needs. She gave me a tentative smile, which I returned.

At thirty-five, Yolanda, a Cuban-American, was a knockout. She had unruly masses of curly russet hair, a stunning face, large chocolate eyes, and a figure most women wouldn’t get without a trainer. At André’s, the now-defunct restaurant where we’d labored together years ago, at parties since then, and at the spa where Yolanda had worked until recently, I’d seen men give her looks of adoration. I always found this amusing, if somewhat deflating for yours truly, who was short and pudgy, with unremarkable brown eyes and unfashionably curly blond hair.

After several hours, we became so involved with our tasks that we didn’t notice the weather turning blustery. Despite the freeze we’d had the previous night, only a few clouds had salted the sky that morning. Now, without warning, gray masses obscured the sun.

I looked out the window and caught my own reflection. If I’d slimmed down a bit in the past few weeks, it was not from dieting, but from worry. Yes, indeed: worry, unease, apprehension—I had lots of those.

I forced myself to put the anxiety aside as I checked the thermometer. The external temperature had dropped twenty degrees in less than an hour, from seventy degrees to fifty. The fir and aspen that had drooped in the motionless air now slapped the sides of our two-story brown-shingled house off Aspen Meadow’s Main Street. In the west, an ominous charcoal nimbus bloomed over the Continental Divide. Judging by the dark haze obscuring the highest peaks, it had already begun snowing above twelve thousand feet.

Hoping for a breath of coolness, I’d left some windows open when we started working. To me, the breeze was welcome, as the kitchen had become hot. The sudden scent of fall whisking through the house was as sweet as the cherries farmers sold off the backs of their trucks this time of year. When the wind became sharper, as it did before a storm, I actually laughed. Sudden blasts of cold air shrieked through the window jambs. I should have paid more attention to Yolanda, who jumped every time a chilly blast made the house moan. But my friend quickly smoothed her face each time she was startled. I wondered briefly what was bothering her, then dismissed the thought.

As if to calm her nerves, Yolanda ducked back into the walk-in. While I continued to knead the soft dough that would become loaves of Cuban bread, she brought out the last of the marinating pork shoulders, which she was about to roast.

Our plan for the next morning, Monday, was to slice the bread and the pork for the sandwiches that would be the centerpiece of our buffet. They weren’t strictly “Cuban sandwiches,” for which we would have needed several panini presses, mountains of cheese and ham, numerous jars of pickles, and a whole staff of cooks. But they would work for our guests. We were also serving prepared buffalo chicken wings and potato salad that my supplier had brought up from Denver the day before, plus sliced fruit, and Caprese salads served over tossed greens. For dessert we were bringing cookies and fudge—lots and lots of both, because our clients were teenagers.

The Christian Brothers High School had hired us to take the food down to Denver for lunch the next day. Although classes had started, scheduling glitches had prevented the school from administering the annual physicals required of students who played on, or planned to try out for, winter sports. These included basketball, ice hockey, and—most important from our family’s perspective—fencing.

On Monday, the teachers had an in-service, and a full staff of medical personnel had agreed to come for six hours. My son, Arch, who had turned sixteen the previous April and now possessed growth-spurt long arms and legs, had been on the varsity fencing team the previous year. I wanted to be supportive, but when you’re the mother of an adolescent boy, it’s hard to be helpful without your child acting as if you’re driving him nuts. So, to be encouraging without being obnoxious—I hoped—I’d happily contracted to do a buffet lunch for the would-be athletes. The lunch would be held out on the track if the weather was good, or in the gym if it was not.

I still couldn’t believe Arch was now in his junior year. His fencing coach had already confided that he’d probably make varsity again. I’d told Arch that I was proud of his accomplishments, but he needed to keep all pointed weapons away from the house.

A moment before the sudden change in weather, Yolanda and I had been joking. How many rich people does it take to screw up a catered event? One, but she has to be plastered. Then a door slammed upstairs. Yolanda screamed as if she’d been hit.

“It’s all right,” I said, puzzled. “The wind’s picked up. I’ll go shut the windows.” Before leaving the kitchen, I put my hand on her arm. “Are you all right?”

Avoiding my eyes, she shivered and nodded.

When I returned to the kitchen, Yolanda was removing one of the roasts from its marinade. When she saw me, she turned her head. I walked around in front of her. Tears had sprouted from the corners of her eyes.

“Yolanda, what is it?”

She closed her mouth and shook her head. At that point, I didn’t know what was going on. I thought,
It’s only a storm coming, right?
I mean, Yolanda had lived in Denver most of her life. A couple of years ago, when she became the head chef at the Gold Gulch Spa, she’d moved up to Aspen Meadow. So by now she should have been used to the mountain climate. Shouldn’t she?

I frowned when Yolanda sniffed. I wondered if her eyes were watering from ingredients in the marinade. Not likely. Was she mourning her recent job loss? Three weeks earlier, Gold Gulch Spa had been closed by the sheriff’s department. The owner, as it turned out, had been doctoring the guests’ food with illegal drugs. The guy had figured, people will love your food if you put cocaine into it. They’ll have energy, lose weight, and keep coming back, right? You bet they will, until your long-term clients go home and writhe through drug withdrawal. Then you get caught. As Arch would say, duh
.

When the spa closed, Yolanda had called me, begging for a job. She said no place in Aspen Meadow would hire her, despite her impressive résumé. I’d hesitated, because three weeks earlier, financial anxiety had begun to claim me, too.

Unfortunately, the closing of Gold Gulch Spa had coincided with the national economy undergoing one of its periodic convulsions. Months earlier, housing prices had tanked; then the stock market collapsed. Recently, large-scale layoffs had put all kinds of people out of work. The two restaurants on Main Street went out of business. Unemployed secretaries, engineers, and lawyers began traipsing into the Grizzly Saloon, our town watering hole, asking for anything, jobs as dishwashers and busboys included. The Griz said they had all the help they needed. So the newly unemployed stayed to drink, demanding the cheapest booze available. They peppered one another with questions: Know anybody who’s hiring? Heard of any temp openings?

Oddly, the kitchen manager at Aspen Meadow Country Club had told Yolanda he couldn’t have her working in his kitchen because he’d heard she had hepatitis C. Stunned, she protested that she was perfectly healthy. He hung up on her. Later, I called the guy myself, said who I was, and defended Yolanda. He said, “I don’t care whether she’s healthy or not. I can’t hire anybody, period.”

It’s not as if I didn’t know things were bad. Financial meltdowns make wealthy clients cancel bookings, either because they’ve lost their jobs, are afraid of losing their jobs, or think flaunting their money makes them appear insensitive. I’d made it through the summer relatively unscathed, as people still wanted me to cater their wedding receptions. But in the previous three weeks, I’d had so many parties called off, my brain was spinning like a cotton candy machine. I’d given up trying to sleep. I’d lost ten pounds, and not because I wanted to.

Tom, on the other hand, had suffered no decline in his work. Our local paper, the
Mountain Journal,
gave dire weekly reports on how crime was escalating. People were breaking into houses, dealing drugs, shooting at hikers in the wildlife preserve, and perpetrating every kind of financial fraud. In the previous month, Tom had heard all excuses imaginable for thieving, drunk driving, assault, you name it. And everyone, including yours truly, blamed their problems on the economy.

Still, I insisted to Tom after Yolanda called asking for a job, she was in worse shape than I was. I couldn’t just let my old friend be thrown out of work when her great-aunt Ferdinanda—whom Yolanda simply called her aunt—depended on her. Ferdinanda was seventy and confined to a wheelchair after an accident. Yolanda had COBRA benefits and Ferdinanda was on Medicare. But they had no income. I couldn’t just ignore my friend’s needs, could I?

Tom had cocked one of his cider-colored eyebrows at me, the same way he had since before we were married. He shifted his mountain-man build and gave me the benefit of his kind sea-green eyes. Usually when I want to do something he doesn’t approve of, he exhales, thinks for a few minutes, then patiently tells me how completely and totally wrong I am. But when I talked about Yolanda, Tom said nothing, which unnerved me. So I ramped up my argument, pointing out that Yolanda and I had been friends since Arch was in grade school. Furthermore, Yolanda had helped me land my very first job cooking professionally, doing prep under the tutelage of Chef André, my deceased mentor. When Tom still remained silent, I demanded that he say something.

Tom said, “I don’t trust the people she hangs out with.”

“Who does she hang out with?”

“Never mind.”

“Tom! That’s not fair. Does she associate with known criminals?”

Tom shrugged. Sometimes he could be infuriating. “Miss G.,” he said, “you don’t have a whole lot of actual
work
to offer Yolanda.”

“Don’t change the subject. Who does she hang out with?”

“Forget it. If she hasn’t told you, then I shouldn’t.”

“Well, I need her. Or I
will
need her, so I should hire her now. And if she doesn’t mix with folks you like, then that’s her business.”

Tom sighed. “Goldy, just do what you want. You know you’re going to anyway.”

I’d called Yolanda and said she was hired. Tom had not brought up the subject again.

So here we were, on Yolanda’s first day of working with me. On the phone, she’d seemed grateful. Now she was crying. Had she come to regret her decision? That, as Arch would say, was cold.

“Do you want to tell me what’s bothering you?” I asked, my tone gentle. “Is it this storm moving in? I closed all the windows.”

“You’ve been so nice to me. I just—” Her voice caught. She whacked the pork onto the counter and raced to the first-floor bathroom.

Oh-kay,
I thought as I moved back to my bread. The bathroom fan couldn’t quite muffle the sound of Yolanda weeping. I didn’t want to intrude. All right, in all honesty, maybe I was a
tad
nosy about what was going on with her. But I would wait until she wanted to talk.