Crunch Time (41 page)

“Sure,” I said.

I fetched the ingredients while Boyd washed his hands and set the table for five. Tom turned the blender motor to its loudest buzz. Thank goodness. Such deafening noise meant I didn’t have to mention the moving van and Maserati across the street, much less my escapade that had ended with the death of Stonewall Osgoode, arsonist, gun thief, puppy-mill operator, and drug dealer.

Ferdinanda asked me to bring the quiches and rolls out of the oven, which I did. As instructed, I put one quiche on a rack to cool, for us to take to Humberto’s that night. The other one I placed on the kitchen table, next to a crystal bowl of field greens, pine nuts, grape tomatoes, and blue cheese crumbles. Tom had already tossed it with his new salad dressing.

The harrowing events of the morning had not diminished my appetite. Ferdinanda’s luscious, cheesy quiche was melt-in-your-mouth fabulous, and Tom’s dressing, the same love potion he’d made the night before, was out of this world.

“Need to talk to you all about a few things,” Tom said casually when we had finished eating.

“Who’s ‘you all’?” asked Ferdinanda suspiciously as I got up to clear the dishes. No matter how gently Tom questioned Ferdinanda and Yolanda, I didn’t want them to read my facial expressions.

“ ‘You all’ are you and your niece,” said Tom.

“Espresso, anybody?” I asked. When Yolanda, Boyd, and Ferdinanda all replied in the affirmative, I put the sugar bowl on the table and began pulling shots.

“Goldy got into a bit of a mess this morning,” Tom said.

“Oh, my,” said Boyd. He grinned and looked my way. “Goldy? In a mess? I can’t
believe
it.”

Tom’s voice was matter-of-fact. “The man who burned down Ernest’s house, who is the same man we suspect of stealing my gun from our garage, the man who tried to break in here—all the same man, right? He was killed today. He had a puppy mill.” Tom paused for a moment. “He was also running a marijuana grow operation.”

Yolanda and Ferdinanda turned stunned faces in my direction. Yolanda said, “What happened?”

“Has either of you ever heard of a man named Stonewall Osgoode?”

They both shook their heads.

Tom pulled out Stonewall Osgoode’s driver’s license. Neither one of them recognized him. “Not any chance you saw him around Humberto at some point?”

Yolanda and Ferdinanda shook their heads again.

“Don’t worry about it,” Tom told them. “I’m just trying to cover all the bases.” When Yolanda said she needed to take a pain pill, Ferdinanda insisted on wheeling into the dining room with her, and Boyd joined them. Tom’s phone buzzed with a text. “I have to go down to the department. Are you going to be all right?” He glanced around the kitchen. “I hate to leave you with this mess.”

“I’m fine,” I said, but felt unconvinced. “I’ll clean up. Are
you
going to be okay?”

“Absolutely.”

“Would you approve of my driving Ferdinanda to Humberto’s tonight?”

“Absolutely not.” He headed toward the hall. “I’ve been invited. I’m driving you. We’ll follow Ferdinanda.”

“Wait. Tom? I always thought when you had a fresh homicide you worked it until you got a break.”

He turned and gave me the full benefit of his sea-green eyes. “I
will
be working the case tonight, when I talk to Humberto and, separately, to Lolly Vanderpool. And anyway, if you think I’m going to let you go into Humberto’s house without me, you are entirely mistaken.”

21

W
hile Boyd, Ferdinanda, and Yolanda spoke in low murmurs in the dining room, I set about doing the dishes. This is always a caterer’s least favorite task. In fact, the one good thing about going to Humberto’s house for dinner was that there wouldn’t be any cleanup.

Once every dish and pan was clean, an inner anxiety told me I had to cook. I didn’t have the time to start on the soup for the Bertrams’ party. Ferdinanda wouldn’t be in the mood to give me her recipe for the luscious pork we’d had the night before. But I did peer into the walk-in and saw that Ferdinanda had replaced the meat she’d used with sliced grilled pork and pork tenderloin.
Mmm
. I could put together a marinade for an old standby of mine, Snowboarders’ Pork Tenderloin. I’d marinate two, one for Boyd and Yolanda to have that night, and one to take to the Bertrams’ house the next night, Thursday, when SallyAnn Bertram had said we’d be cooking out to commemorate Ernest’s life.

Which reminded me! I put in a call to Penny Woolworth’s cell. Once connected to voice mail, I gave the address of the Bertrams’ house and told her about the dinner. Could she please clean the Bertrams’ place when she finished at Kris’s? I’d give her double her usual rate, I promised sweetly, before hanging up.

I gratefully went back to cooking. First I pulled out a pan and mixed together red wine, garlic, Dijon mustard, and herbs for the pork. As I reflected on all that had happened, I whisked in olive oil to make an emulsion. I eased the tenderloins into the silky mixture, turned them over to coat them thoroughly, and covered the whole dish with plastic wrap.

Once I’d placed the meat in the walk-in, I tiptoed up the steps to Arch’s room, where I booted up his computer and reopened the file I’d begun. I stared at the questions I’d asked myself back then. The
messy divorce,
I now knew, belonged to the Breckenridges. At this point it didn’t look as if Ernest had been following
Brie Quarles,
as I’d originally heard; he’d been following Sean Breckenridge. I changed that, but it seemed minor.

Ernest McLeod had had cancer and had been self-medicating with marijuana. Yolanda had been cooking meals for him before she and Ferdinanda moved in full-time. He’d decided to leave his house to her in his will.

The night before he was shot, he’d brought home nine puppies. The next morning, he’d told Ferdinanda, she of the encroaching deafness, that if anything happened to him, she should ask “the bird.” Right. Then he’d left his house on foot for an appointment that had been faked. He’d sensed—according to the department’s theory, which put the time of death at about a half hour to an hour after he left his house—that he was being followed and turned down a little-used service lane. When he’d thought he was in the clear, he’d come out, walked back toward the paved road, and been shot in the chest by someone using the same weapon that had been employed to kill a service-station attendant two years before.

The next night, his house had been burned down by Stonewall Osgoode.

The night after that, Stonewall Osgoode had stolen Tom’s gun and tried to break into our house before he was foiled by Arch.

Why
would Osgoode steal Tom’s gun? I mean, presumably he had his own weapons. Maybe he’d cased the garage, found the hidden compartment with the .45, and then taken it so that we couldn’t use it on him when he broke into our place. Or perhaps he’d figured he’d use it to commit some other crime. I had no idea.

Two days after the incident with the weeder, someone had held what was probably the same gun that had killed the gas station attendant and Ernest McLeod, and killed Stonewall Osgoode.

I sighed.

From Lolly Vanderpool, I’d found out about the necklace belonging to Norman Juarez’s mother, that Humberto had indeed had it and Ernest had stolen it back. Ernest had called Norman with the exciting news that he’d found something belonging to his family. But he’d been killed before he could give it to Norman. I had no idea who was in possession of the necklace now. But there was a much bigger problem than larceny: the first-degree murder of Ernest McLeod.

I was suddenly glad that Tom was accompanying me to Humberto’s. Like Tom, I didn’t trust him, no matter how glossy and smooth-talking he appeared.

I also knew what Ernest had been doing for the person Yolanda had known only as Hermie. Hermie Mikulski had been trying to close a puppy mill. I typed that up and added that I suspected I knew
why
Ernest had stolen nine spayed female puppies from Osgoode. Ernest must have come across the smuggling-seeds-in-puppies operation. He’d decided to steal some back. Because their chow was next to Ernest’s own medical marijuana, I was convinced that he was trying to send a clue, in case something happened to him and his files.

I sat back in Arch’s chair. Had Ernest run afoul of some surveillance equipment out at Stonewall Osgoode’s place? Had Stonewall then found Ernest, killed him, and burned down his house to destroy the puppies, the files, and any other evidence that could incriminate him?

If so, then who had killed Stonewall Osgoode?

I blinked at the screen. Back to the larceny. I still hadn’t found Norman Juarez’s gold and gems, but given what Lolly had told me, I was convinced now that Humberto had indeed stolen them. Problem was, I didn’t feel anywhere close to finding a big cache of anything. Tonight, Lolly was going to photocopy—surreptitiously, I certainly hoped—the contents of Humberto’s wallet. Finding something usable in there seemed like a long shot.

Would I be able to do some surreptitious questioning of Humberto that night? Or would Tom want to have that honor himself, when he talked to Humberto about Osgoode?

I put these thoughts aside while I stared at the screen. There was Kris Nielsen, still a cipher. According to Yolanda, he had been obsessed with her. And of course, I
had
witnessed his repeatedly calling her out at Gold Gulch Spa. Had it been love, as Penny Woolworth insisted, or had it been stalking? Of course, when I’d been working at the spa, Yolanda had not told me about the venereal disease, the attack with the broom handle, or the strange events at the rental, before it was burned to the ground.

Did the disease, the attack, and the strange events at the rental house really happen? Much as I loved Yolanda, if I couldn’t corroborate those facts, then I couldn’t verify them. And what about at the ethnic grocery store, when Yolanda had reacted in such an overwrought way when Father Pete had absentmindedly bumped into her? I shook my head.

Humberto had brought champagne to the dinner. Any caterer worth her chef’s whites knew you had to put a dish towel over a bottle of sparkling wine before you opened it. This was especially true if the wine—in this case, champagne—had been shaken or in any way disturbed. Had an unknown person sabotaged the metal ring holding pots, pans, and dish towels? I’d found a wrench out in the Breckenridges’ grass. If someone knew what they were doing, it would have been easy to loosen the bolt from which the ring had been suspended.

According to Sean Breckenridge, an unknown guest had requested Navajo tacos to be served at the dinner. Making them, Yolanda had been severely burned by boiling oil. Afterward, Kris said she should have been more careful. But was I reading too much into that? Who could have known that Yolanda would be the one making the fry bread? Had I been the target and not Yolanda?

So, really, anyone connected to this case—Sean or Rorry Breckenridge, Kris Nielsen, Brie or Paul Quarles, even Humberto Captain—could have unscrewed the bolts on the frying pan handle and the overhead pot rack.

What had happened to the couple with a family who supposedly bought Jack’s house, and wanted to meet me? Had the deal fallen through? Why had Kris bought the house across the street from us? I’d seen him today on Main Street. Harriet had been getting out of his Maserati. I tried to picture that section of the two-lane road that bisected our little town. Why had he been leaving her off there? Had she been withdrawing money from the bank?

I typed up what I knew about Charlene Newgate, who ran a temporary secretarial service in Aspen Meadow. She was an older, unattractive woman with a shrill voice and a resentful, angry personality. Yet she’d snagged a new boyfriend, Stonewall Osgoode, who had showered her with wealth. Was I being cynical in wondering what Stonewall had received from Charlene, in exchange for his attentions? Had Charlene made up the dental appointment for Ernest? It was entirely possible, I reasoned. Then she’d told Stonewall, who had killed Ernest.

I wondered if Tom would be better at getting information out of Charlene than I had been. Even if you wanted to see a lawyer before you said anything, having your nose broken by your boyfriend was a powerful incentive to talk.

My cell startled me out of concentration. It was Arch.

“We’re all taking a pizza to Peter’s tonight after practice.” He was out of breath. “Is that okay?”

I smiled at the reverse order of this announcement. What ever happened to asking for permission, then doing the activity? “Do you have homework?”

“Not much, and I got most of it done in study hall. I can finish it at Peter’s. Mom, I gotta go run up and down the stairs. That’s what the coach is having us do now to get into shape.”

“All right. Have fun at Peter’s. Tom, Ferdinanda, and I will be out tonight, but Boyd and Yolanda will be here. Please call them before you pull into the driveway. I want Boyd to make sure you get into the house okay.”

“Oh,
Mom
.”

We signed off. I saved what I had written and closed down his computer. I had no idea who had killed Stonewall Osgoode, much less what the motivation had been. But Tom’s gun had not been found at Stonewall’s house, and we had no idea why Stonewall had been trying to break into our house. Call me overprotective, but I didn’t want any member of our family, or any of our boarders, to be going into or out of the house without someone watching over them.

Incredibly, my watch said it was half past three. I still felt shaken by the events of the morning, and my work in the kitchen and typing on Arch’s desktop had not alleviated my sense of unease. I had to get dressed for the dinner. But I needed to do something. What? I realized I wanted to visit our church. Hopefully, that would help me feel more in control.

I quickly put on a black dress, flats, and a blazer. Downstairs, Boyd was sitting in the living room tapping out a text.

I said, “Do you know if the sheriff’s department has brought my van back?”

By way of answer, he held up my key ring. “Out front.”

“Could you walk out with me when I get into it? The morning left me a little freaked.”

“I thought you were going out tonight with Tom.”

“Not to worry. I’ll be back by quarter after five.”

Boyd pocketed his cell and accompanied me through our front door. Together we went down Ferdinanda’s ramp.

I took a deep breath. During late-September afternoons in Aspen Meadow, insects whisper in the browned stalks of field grass, even when chunks of snow stud the ground. A sudden breeze thrashed the pines, shushing the bugs’ chorus. The evening would be cool, verging into downright chilly. But at this moment, as I walked beside Boyd along our damp driveway, the deepening-to-cobalt sky, soft wind, and sinking golden sun made me feel a bit better. But not much.

Boyd helped me into my van. Across the street, the movers had left. The Maserati was not in evidence.

I turned the van around and headed toward Main Street. I had a call to make that I did not want Boyd even to have a chance of hearing. I punched the buttons for Penny Woolworth’s cell and left a message on her voice mail. She’d promised to let me into Kris Nielsen’s big fancy house while she was cleaning it the next day, I said. Did she remember? I’d also left her a message asking if she would clean up the Bertrams’ house. Did she receive the message? I hated to make Penny work so hard, but with her car-thieving husband about to get out of jail, she could surely use the extra cash.

The Saint Luke’s parking lot held three cars: Father Pete’s old Ford, a black Saab that looked familiar, and a blue Lexus that I also thought I’d seen before—and recently, too. I checked my watch again: a quarter after four. These weren’t enough cars for a meeting. Then I remembered that Father Pete had said he had a counseling session late this afternoon.

Well, I was not Marla and I was not about to barge into our rector’s office and say, “Who’ve you got here that needs to talk?” Yes, I needed counseling and comfort, too. But if Father Pete was busy, there was something else I could do.

A vision of the rumpled tarp flung over Stonewall Osgoode’s body made my throat close. I walked quickly through the narthex and down the darkened nave, then knelt at the intercession table. After a brief hesitation, I lit two candles: one for Ernest McLeod, who’d done much good in the world.

The other was for Stonewall Osgoode, who probably hadn’t.

The sound of voices and the door to the rector’s office closing made my skin chill. I held perfectly still and willed myself to be unseen. I really did not want to chat with any parishioners at the moment. It could be embarrassing to them to be seen leaving a counseling appointment. I breathed slowly, deeply. There was no reason for anyone to look into the darkened church, was there? As the voices and footsteps down the uncarpeted hallway receded, I ducked into the opposite hall, which ran parallel to the nave. The closed doors to the Sunday school rooms made the narrow space dark. But after years of teaching the Bible to kids, I knew my way. I took off my flats and scurried forward in my stocking feet, stopping just before the opening to the narthex.

The heavy wooden church door squeaked as it opened. Father Pete bade a muffled farewell. I listened carefully. Both a man and a woman responded.
Wait a minute.
I knew those voices. Why were the two of them being counseled—
together
? I shook my head.
Hurry up, Father Pete, hurry up,
I commanded silently, and finally the door squealed closed. Once I heard Father Pete shuffling back down the opposite hallway, I raced into the narthex and peeked through the barred window in the wooden door.