Dark Tort (25 page)

Wink was uncharacteristically silent for a few minutes, and as Julian drove past the For Sale sign outside Richard and K. D. Chenault’s big stucco house, I thought we’d been disconnected. “Wink? You there?”

“Yeah,” she said tentatively. “I know a little bit about him. You mean Donald’s father-in-law, right?”

“That’s right,” I said, immediately on guard myself. She’d been forthcoming before. Why was she hesitant now? “Something wrong?”

“No. Well, not exactly. Bishop Uriah just gives me the creeps when he comes sprinting over to the office from their house, supposedly to say hi to Donald. And he’s always all covered with sweat, like he’s been in a race. Sometimes I’m afraid he’s going to collapse on our floor, and I’m going to have to do CPR.”

“You’re saying he runs over to H&J?” I’d seen Uriah running, too, along the Upper Cottonwood before the snow had moved in. But I’d learned in Med Wives 101 that folks with arrhythmia were supposed to walk. Walk slowly. Maybe it had been too many years since I’d been a med wife to know the latest thinking in the cardio department.

“Yeah,” Wink went on. “I thought one time that he was trying to get there before anyone else arrived. Once? I caught him going through our trash in back of the law firm. He said he’d lost something.”

“How could Uriah Sutherland have lost something in the firm’s garbage?”

“I don’t know. Plus, when he comes in? Even though he says he’s there to see Donald, I just always get the feeling that that’s not what he’s there for. I mean, it just feels weird. He likes to poke around, ask questions. He’s nice and all, but just . . .” She left the sentence unfinished.

“What kind of questions does he ask when he pokes around? Does he have legal problems?”

“If he did have legal problems, Goldy, he sure wasn’t going to tell me, the lowly receptionist. But the questions he has asked me are all stupid stuff, like, ‘How long does it take to get a will through probate, anyway?’ That kind of thing. Dusty and I would always tell him just to ask his son-in-law. We didn’t know whether he ever did. So Dusty and I used to wonder if Donald charged him.” She laughed.

“But, Wink,” I protested as Julian gave me a questioning look, “if the bishop has legal problems in addition to his medical issues, why doesn’t he pay for advice someplace else? He must be able to afford it. I mean, he doesn’t have rent to worry about, and he should be eligible for payments from the church’s pension fund.”

Wink sighed hugely, then seemed to think for a moment. “I don’t think the bishop necessarily has a lot of money. At our staff Christmas party last year, Donald Ellis got a little drunk and complained about his father-in-law. He said Bishop Sutherland had champagne tastes, but Kool-Aid income. Want to hear the dirty details?”

“I specialize in dirty details,” I replied, then put my hand over the receiver and asked Julian to pull over. He groaned, but acquiesced.

According to Wink, who’d gotten her info from the half-inebriated Donald, Bishop Uriah Sutherland had not endeared himself to his daughter any more than he had to his ex-wife, Nora’s mother, Renata. According to Wink via Donald, Renata Sutherland, a transplanted-to-Denver Connecticut socialite, had been smart—or wily, or cruel, depending on your point of view—enough to construct an elaborate prenuptial agreement before tying the knot with Uriah, who was then a priest at Renata’s Denver parish. This agreement had put all of Renata’s considerable dough into an unbreakable trust for any offspring she and Uriah might have, but not for Uriah.

Renata and Uriah’s bitter divorce, when Nora was fifteen, had left Uriah virtually destitute. He’d been forced to live on his very modest priest’s salary, in a house the parish provided. Even worse, Uriah’s daughter, Nora, had blamed her father for the divorce, and had gladly moved to Connecticut with her mother. Nora had made her yearly trips to Denver to visit her father only under duress, until she was twenty. Then she’d suddenly turned enthusiastic about coming to the Mile-High City, but not because of her dad. No: she’d wanted to escape her mother’s obsession with matching her up with the sons of her friends . . . and she’d begun a secret romance with Donald Ellis, then a deeply indebted student at the University of Denver Law School.

According to Donald, Uriah’s parish still loved him, even if his wife didn’t. And Uriah had endeared himself to someone else. When Uriah had been making rounds at a Denver hospital, he’d met a much-younger Charlie Baker, then suffering from shingles. A nominal Catholic since his orphan days, Charlie had been deeply grateful for Uriah’s kindness and daily visits. Charlie, then a chef at a Denver restaurant, had become an Episcopalian. When Aspen Meadow Country Club had needed someone to run their renovated kitchen, Charlie had been hired. He’d moved to our little burg, joined St. Luke’s, and done his painting on the weekends.

Uriah Sutherland’s ex-wife, meanwhile, had died, leaving an übersize packet to Nora. Nora had promptly married the fellow she loved, Donald Ellis. When Donald had graduated from law school and been offered a job at H&J, Nora and Donald had set up camp—a luxurious, mansion-size camp—in Aspen Meadow. Donald had been at H&J almost five full years, and was waiting to find out if he’d made partner. Nora definitely had enough wealthy contacts that she could bring big business to H&J, Donald had told Wink, which could label him a “rainmaker,” thus enhancing his prospects in the partner department.

In the meantime, Uriah Sutherland had been chosen as bishop of the Diocese of Southern Utah. But after only a couple of years, he began experiencing arrythmia. He had taken early retirement at the first of the year . . . and had promptly announced he was coming to live with his daughter, Nora, and her husband in Aspen Meadow.

“I didn’t get the feeling Nora and Donald had invited Uriah to stay, and I certainly didn’t pick up on any good feelings for the bishop.” Wink hesitated. “Is that the kind of information you were looking for?” she asked, clearly relishing her role as gossip provider.

“I don’t know what I’m looking for,” I said ruefully. “But I still think it’s interesting that Bishop Sutherland keeps poking around at H&J. Did he have any connection to Dusty? Did they get along? What about Charlie Baker? Was Uriah mentioned in Charlie’s will?”

“I have no idea. You could ask Alonzo, though. He and Dusty worked out every day, and I know they were close.” This last was delivered in a way that again sounded off-key. I decided to press my luck, even if it sounded a tad nosy.

“Wink? You and Dusty were friends. According to a couple of people I’ve talked to, Dusty and Alonzo were friends. But you and Alonzo aren’t friends. Am I getting this straight?”

She sighed. “I’m not quite cool enough, or pretty enough, for Alonzo. Nor do I quite measure up to being noticed by his squash-playing bitch of a wife, Ookie.”

“Ookie’s a bitch?” I asked innocently. “Was she a bitch to Dusty?”

“I don’t know. All I know is that when Nora Ellis invited me to play squash over at the club’s courts? Ookie came up to me and said, ‘Excuse me! These courts are for members only.’ ”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing! I was too surprised. Then Nora sauntered up and said, ‘Now, now, girlfriend. You know as well as I do that these courts are for members and their guests.” Wink tsked. “I think that Nora and Ookie are friendly to each other on the surface, but underneath they’re a couple of sumo wrestlers. Skinny sumo wrestlers.”

Now there’s an image, I thought. Still, all this stuff about Uriah poking around at H&J, literally and figuratively, was pretty interesting. I wondered if I’d get a chance to poke around at the Ellises’ house, maybe to see why Uriah was so interested in trash. Pretty risky, even for me.

Julian and I had to get a move on, but Wink had offered a lot of information, data that might prove useful at some point. “Just one more question,” I said. Beside me, Julian exhaled. “Where’d you get the name Wink?”

“From my father. It was a nickname. Just think, I could’ve gone through grade school with kids yelling, ‘Catch the ball, Mildred!’ ”

“That’s not so bad.”

“Maybe to you it isn’t.” She signed off.

As Julian began driving again, I tapped the dashboard and tried to think. Bishop Uriah Sutherland had had heart problems, I did know that. But he’d recovered sufficiently by the time he’d been in Aspen Meadow a short while to start helping out at St. Luke’s. When our rector, Father Pete, had had a heart attack—was there something about being a clergyman that induced cardiovascular illness?—Bishop Uriah had smoothly and kindly stepped in and taken over liturgical, pastoral, and administrative duties. The St. Luke’s budget had been stretched paying two salaries, it was true, but nobody wanted to deny a recovering Father Pete his income. I’d asked myself—but nobody else—why we had to pay Uriah Sutherland, too, since he lived at his daughter and son-in-law’s palatial estate in Flicker Ridge. But my wondering had seemed smug and self-righteous even to me. If Uriah had been an arrhythmia-prone caterer who’d suddenly had to go back to work, I wouldn’t have wanted to deny him pay, would I?

And now I knew what he spent money on: stuff that folks with champagne tastes always spent money on: fashionable clothes, fancy cars, extravagant vacations, jewelry . . . wait a second.

Was it even possible that Bishop Uriah had been “New O.” in Dusty’s diary? Had he given her the bracelet? He was old enough to be, well, almost her grandfather. But she’d already had a fling with an older man, Mr. Ogden. Was it possible?

Well, I suppose anything was possible. It just didn’t seem probable. It also was very odd that Uriah had been poking around at H&J.

What had he wanted to find, or find out? Something in general or something in particular? And if he had champagne tastes, why not indulge them by getting a downtown Denver lawyer to answer his queries?

I pursed my lips, recalling what Wink had said about Bishop Uriah being an old friend of Charlie Baker’s. The bishop and I had chatted briefly at Charlie Baker’s last show in March, the night before Charlie died. That night, Uriah seemed much less of his usual charming self. In fact, he appeared downright upset, swallowing and looking from picture to picture, as if paintings of cookies and brownies were more indecipherable than quantum theory. I thought of the bishop’s arrhythmia, and of Charlie’s incurable cancer. Maybe Uriah was contemplating his friend’s coming death. When I asked if he was all right, he assured me he was fine.

Charlie Baker, his moon face shining, his body weak from failed chemotherapy, laid his hand on mine and patted it.

“Don’t worry, Uriah’s just a worrywart,” Charlie said in his soft voice that always sounded as if he had a slight lisp.

“What’s he worrying about?” I asked.

“Me, probably,” Charlie replied, his voice low and cheerless. “I’m going to die soon, and Uriah knows it. But he’s a clergyman, and he’s not allowed to show his distress the way other people are.”

“Oh, Charlie, please forgive me for being so insensitive,” I protested, feeling like a heel. “Now, what can I bring you? Some of my ginger snaps? Or how about some chips and dip, the recipe for which is none other than our favorite food artist’s?”

His gaze had been forlorn. “Oh, Goldy, I wish you’d let me leave you a painting in my will.”

“Charlie, would you quit being so morbid? I’ve already told you, I can’t afford the insurance. But you’re sweet.”

I’d wanted desperately to get Charlie’s mind off of dying, but I’d been unsuccessful.

And then, without warning, Charlie was gone, and I was awash with the grief one feels when a dear friend dies suddenly, and you’re

left with all the things you didn’t say. You’re such a great friend, Charlie. This is the best dip I’ve ever tasted. The next time we cook together, we’ll make your chicken piccata . . .

Don’t, I reprimanded myself, as Julian slowed the Rover. Charlie had been more than a friend, he’d been a culinary comrade-in-arms. I swallowed and told myself to snap out of it. Caterer’s rule for parties: Let the mood fit the food. It was time to act festive, even if I didn’t feel it.

“What are you thinking about?” Julian asked. “You don’t look so hot.”

“I’m fine, thanks. I’m just concentrating,” I reassured him as he turned onto Woods’ End, the cul-de-sac where the Ellises’ manse was located. I certainly did not want to depress Julian by talking about Charlie. Then we’d both be down, and that was not what we needed before doing a big—and, if Nora Ellis was generous with gratuities, potentially quite profitable—party.

The Ellises’ enormous stucco residence sat on the top of a gentle slope that received enough southern exposure for the sun to have melted most of the snow on their front yard. Between the remaining patches of white, the grass was lushly green, even in October. The perfectly trimmed aspens, plethora of fruit trees, and long serpentine rock wall topped with stunning shrubs all screamed Professional Landscaping Service. The house itself, which was at least twice the size of the Chenaults’ mansion, boasted numerous jutting spaces capped with red tile roofs. There was a massive, three-story entrance. The whole place looked as if six Taco Bells had been used as building blocks: four on the bottom, two on top.

“We should have brought burritos,” Julian mused as the Rover crunched over some residual melting ice on the long driveway. When he’d pulled the Rover halfway up the driveway, he craned his neck back to check out the underside of one of the tile roofs. “I didn’t know lawyers made this much money. Isn’t Donald Ellis just an associate at H&J? Not a partner, right?”

“Not yet,” I replied. “But Nora’s the one with the dough, as she told me at least fifteen times when she was booking this event. She inherited twenty million from her mother. And if we do a great job today, maybe some of that dinero will come our way. Are you up for it?”