Crunch Time (4 page)

Yolanda’s eyes flared. “I don’t do drugs, and I don’t do drug
deals.
”

“But you have seventeen thousand in cash,” Tom said. “Was it severance from the spa? Something like that?”

“The spa doesn’t have any money. I don’t know why you looked under my mattress. That’s invasion of privacy.”

“We were looking for the gun that killed Ernest. And you won’t tell us where the money came from.”

Yolanda stared out the window over the sink. A stiff breeze was churning the pine boughs. In our backyard, scarlet leaves of wild grass flattened themselves against flailing wands of gold, white, and pink yarrow. A gust of wind made the locks in the doors clatter.

“Why don’t you go on with your chronology,” Tom said finally.

“I will if you’ll stop interrupting me,” Yolanda shot back. When nobody threatened to jump into her narrative, she said, “I helped Ernest get the little dogs settled. He’d stopped to buy them chow on the way home, and together we brought in the bags from his truck. We gave the pups water, and—”

“When you went out to get the bags,” Tom interrupted, which made Yolanda roll her eyes, “did you have the feeling somebody was watching you? Did you see anything, any movement outside?”

Yolanda exploded. “When I’m outside, I
always
feel as if someone is watching me! I figure it’s either Kris or someone he’s hired to spy on me.” She paused, then went on. “Ernest knew this. That’s why whenever he came in, he opened his garage with the remote, drove inside, and then closed the door with the remote. He knew I was scared. He knew that wherever I went, I was being followed—”

“Hold up,” John Bertram said, actually showing Yolanda a palm. “Did Ernest actually
see
someone following you? Did he get a description, a license plate, or anything like that?”

“I don’t know,” Yolanda said, her voice despondent. “Goldy, may I take you up on that coffee? Do you have decaf espresso?”

“Sure.” Once more, I offered some to Tom and John, who shook their heads. I fixed Yolanda and myself decaf iced lattes.

“So,” Tom said, prompting her, “Saturday morning.”

“Saturday morning.” Yolanda exhaled and stirred sugar into her coffee. “We got up around seven, or at least, Ferdinanda and I did. She’s an early riser, because she worked in a French restaurant in Havana before Castro took over. Back then, it was her job to make breakfast and start on lunch. Anyway, the habit stuck, and I like to help her get ready for the day. The night before, Ferdinanda had made a bread pudding mixture and put it in our refrigerator. We always wanted Ernest to have breakfast, even if I was only hired to make dinners. So I got Ferdinanda through the bathroom routine and getting dressed. I rolled her into the basement kitchen, preheated the oven—how much detail do you want here?”

Tom said, “No detail is too small. Especially if Ernest was acting odd, or you saw something outside the windows, or Ernest said anything that caught your attention.”

Yolanda said, “I put the casserole dish into the oven and set the table. Ernest came downstairs, said it smelled great and that he’d be back in a little bit, after he took care of the puppies. He returned to the kitchen around, oh, eight? He washed his hands and had some of the pudding, which Ferdinanda announced needed more vanilla, cinnamon, and sugar. But Ernest said it was delicious. He wondered if the dentist would get after him for having it right before his appointment.” She shook her head. “At that point he went off to brush his teeth. His dental appointment had been changed to ten o’clock—”

“Changed?” Tom said sharply. “When?”

“I don’t know,” Yolanda said, taken aback. “He just said it had been changed. The dentist had somebody who could only come in on the day Ernest was scheduled. So Ernest’s appointment was changed from two weeks from now to yesterday, Saturday morning.”

Tom and John exchanged a look. Tom poised his pen over his notebook. “Do you know who his dentist was?”

“Yeah, I do,” said Yolanda. “I mean, I do now. Drew Parker.”

Tom nodded to John, who got up and went into the living room to use his cell.

“Go on,” said Tom.

“When Ernest didn’t come home in the early afternoon, the way he said he was going to, I called his cell. There wasn’t any answer. I left a voice mail asking him to call me.”

Tom asked, “When was this?”

“About two? Ernest always called me back. Always. After half an hour, I tried his cell again. There was no answer.”

John Bertram returned to the kitchen. To Tom, he said, “They’re searching for Parker.”

Yolanda looked feverishly at John. “When I couldn’t reach Ernest, I phoned your house! Didn’t you get the message?”

John shook his head. “My wife and I don’t answer our land line on the weekends. If the department wants me, they call on my cell that’s dedicated to that purpose.”

Yolanda closed her eyes. “I couldn’t reach Ernest and I couldn’t reach you. I just, I don’t know, I panicked. I thought maybe he’d been in an accident, maybe he’d been the victim of a hit-and-run, like Ferdinanda—”

My business line rang. Everyone looked at me, so I checked the caller ID. It was the Breckenridges, the hosts for the church fund-raising dinner Yolanda and I were doing Tuesday evening. Saint Luke’s, like every other charitable enterprise in Aspen Meadow, was hurting. Pledges were off, and the plate offering, according to our rector, Father Pete, was way down. Sean Breckenridge, the Saint Luke’s senior warden, had had the bright idea to put on a dinner for the well-heeled. Tickets had been sold to twelve parishioners, who’d ponied up a thousand clams apiece. Father Pete thought he’d died and gone to heaven.

I picked up the phone and went into the other room. “Goldilocks’ Catering—”

“It’s Sean Breckenridge,” our prospective host interrupted me. If he was going to cancel the dinner, for which I’d already bought the food, I would wring his neck, no matter what Father Pete thought of that particular crime.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “We’re still on for Tuesday night, yes?”

“Yes,” he said, but sounded tentative. Sean, fortyish, thin, with babyface good looks and dark hair, a lanky frame, and long fingers, did not work outside the home, although he’d been trained as an accountant. “Well,” he said, “we have a problem.”

“Problem, Sean?” I could just imagine his thin lips twisting as he spoke, his eyes crinkling at the corners, as if everything you said was amusing.

“I hear you have that Cuban woman working for you. The one with hepatitis C.”

My skin broke out in gooseflesh. “First of all,” I said testily, “Yolanda is an American citizen. She was born in this country, just as I assume
you
were
.
And she does
not
have hep C. Who told you that?”

“I heard it at the country club.”

“Ah. From whom?”

Sean cleared his throat and said nothing.

I yelled, “Who did you hear it from, Sean?”

He paused, taken aback. “I’d, uh, I’d rather not say.”

“I see. Well, Yolanda’s fine.”

“Will she be helping you on Tuesday night?”

“Yes, she will, unless you and Rorry want to come out into the kitchen and do the work yourselves.” According to Marla, Rorry Breckenridge was the sole heir of the Boudreaux Molasses fortune, but—wait for it, Marla had said—Rorry had never so much as baked a spice cookie. I very much doubted she’d be willing to stand in for hardworking Yolanda. And Sean? Forget it.

“I just want everyone to be comfortable,” he said. “I don’t want anyone to worry about getting sick.”

“The guests will be fine. Do you want me to make an announcement at the beginning of the dinner as to Yolanda’s health?”

“No, no.” He hesitated. “We had a call from someone who wants to come and bring a date. It’s not too late to add another couple, is it?”

“Oh, Sean, for God’s sake.”

“Is it all right or not? This couple is willing to pay double the thousand dollars a plate. The church could use an extra four thou, Goldy. Besides, Rorry’s table holds sixteen, so everyone would fit.”

“Who is this extra couple?”

“Why does that matter?” Sean asked.

I wanted to say,
Because if it’s Kris Nielsen and another woman, you can cater your own damn party.
As the silence between us lengthened, it became clear Sean was not in a sharing mood. “Oh, all right,” I said finally, wondering feverishly about the number of racks of lamb chops I had on hand. “But no more. Fourteen people, and that’s
it
.”

I thought he was going to sign off, but he said only, “Is your husband home?”

I was immediately wary. “Tom? Yes, why?”

“Does he . . . did he . . . know Ernest McLeod?”

“Let me give him the phone,” I said noncommittally.

But Sean hung up.

Well, now,
that
was interesting. I’d just found out about Ernest McLeod, and even if the news had been on TV, why would Sean call our house instead of the sheriff’s department? And most curious of all, why would Sean Breckenridge be interested in Ernest McLeod?

I stared at the phone.

Had Ernest been investigating Sean, and Sean had somehow gotten wind of it? Or had Sean Breckenridge been one of Ernest’s clients?

I returned to the kitchen, where the interview had apparently reached another stalemate. I wrote a quick note to Tom that Sean Breckenridge was curious about Ernest. He glanced at the note, nodded once, and mouthed, “Thank you.”

“I
did
call the sheriff’s department,” Yolanda said at length, her tone miserable.

Tom said mildly, “When?”

“I told you.”

“Tell us again.”

“When Ernest didn’t come home Saturday afternoon, which was when he said he was going to, and there was no answer on his cell, and no answer at the Bertrams’, I got worried. He had told me how much he was looking forward to the seafood enchiladas that I was making that night. And then he didn’t even give me a ring to say he’d be late? That just wasn’t like him. So that’s when I found out the name of his dentist—”

“Why?” Tom said sharply. “Why would you do that?”

Yolanda’s face crumpled into a look of helplessness. “God, Tom! Because he was late! Because I couldn’t reach him! Because Ferdinanda said he hadn’t looked well when he went out! Because I have a crazy ex-boyfriend, and Ernest had told me about these cases, and I thought . . . oh, I don’t know what I thought. And anyway, Ferdinanda was right, he did look weak when he left—”

“Weak?” Tom interrupted.

“I’m not a doctor.” Yolanda rubbed her eyes. “But I was making his dinners, and even though he said he loved the food, I told you, he didn’t eat very much. Then yesterday morning, he said, ‘I’m going to walk to my appointment, get some exercise.’ But he didn’t come back. We were scared he’d been hit by a car or something. So I went through his Rolodex. Drew Parker has an office just above Main Street, in that new office complex. You know the one? That whole new building above Aspen Meadow Dry Cleaners, Frank’s Fix-It Shop, and Donna Lamar’s old office?”

“I know it,” Tom said tersely.

“Frank’s Fix-It Shop,” muttered John. “The only thing Frank has fixed in the last twenty years is a joint he rolled himself.”

“I know!” said Yolanda. “Saturday afternoon, late? I went to Drew Parker’s office, looking for Ernest. There was nobody there. There was nobody at the dry cleaner, and Donna’s office is for lease. So I went into Frank’s Fix-It with a picture of Ernest, asking if anyone had seen him. Frank was so stoned, he just shook his head. He never said a word. And the place stank of weed. Why don’t you people bust him?”

John Bertram said, “Well, we—”

“Who called Ernest to change the dental appointment, do you know?” Tom interrupted sharply, with a cautionary glance at John.
Let’s not get distracted here.

“I told you, by the time I got over there, nobody was
at
the dentist’s office.” Yolanda’s tone was bitter. “Parker’s the only dentist with an office right in town. So Ernest couldn’t have been going to another dentist. Not on foot. When Ferdinanda and I couldn’t find him, we went back to Ernest’s place. I phoned the emergency clinic that’s just outside of town. No one had been brought in. I called Southwest Hospital. Nothing.”

Tom pressed his lips together. He was watching her, as was John. Anxiety for my friend gripped my heart.

Tom said, “Go back to before you made those calls. What made you go out looking for him, if you were afraid of your ex?”

Yolanda said, “Ferdinanda was driving me crazy, saying, ‘We gotta go look for him.’ I didn’t want to go out.” Her dark eyes implored Tom. “I was afraid. So I tried to be logical. I thought,
Maybe he’s found out something about a case and he’s pursuing it
.
Maybe he’s lost his cell.
And Ferdinanda was saying, ‘Maybe he’s been hit by the same bastard who hit me. Maybe he’s slipped on all the gravel between this house and town. Maybe he’s unconscious in a ditch. We gotta go out in the van and look!’ ”

“You called Ernest. You went to the dentist’s office and Frank’s Fix-It. You came back and called the clinic, then the hospital. You didn’t think to call anyone else?” Tom asked.

“I told you both, I called
John
here, whom I hadn’t even met.” Yolanda turned toward John. “Ernest said he trusted you like a brother. And before you ask, Tom”—she directed her attention back to my husband—“I found the Bertrams’ home number in Ernest’s Rolodex, too.”

“Go on,” said Tom. “You called John. When did you drive out to look for Ernest?”

Yolanda shook her head, dismayed. “Around four? I loaded Ferdinanda into my van and off we went. I drove slowly. I told you, there was nobody at the dentist’s office and the guy at Frank’s Fix-It was wrecked. We came home and I tried to call the Bertrams again.” She gulped. “When Ernest still wasn’t home at midnight, I called the sheriff’s department. Since Ernest used to be a cop? They sent out a car, and the policeman took a report. Wait, I have his card.” Yolanda rooted through her purse, then pulled out a sheriff’s department card, which she handed to Tom. “The guy wrote down what I told him, and said maybe Ernest was working on a case. I told him Ernest would have informed us if he wasn’t coming back for dinner. And he would have taken his truck.”