Double Shot (22 page)

“Oh, we got a tee time, all right,” Tom replied.
“But the two of you changed your minds?”
As if thinking over his answer, Tom said nothing. He began calmly fitting candles into crystal candlesticks for the table. Eventually he lowered himself, somewhat wearily, into a kitchen chair. Finally he gave me the full benefit of his sea-green eyes.
“I have news for you. Arch cannot play golf. He doesn’t even know how to hold a club.”
“But that can’t be,” I protested. “He’s been playing twice a week with John Richard for the last month. John Richard hired the pro to work with Arch — “
Tom’s look was even and steady. “I don’t think so. Your son didn’t tell me what he and his father were doing those two afternoons a week. but I can tell you this. Arch has never golf in his life.”
   
* * *
My fragile relationship with Arch at that particular juncture, i.e., right after the violent death of his father, did not permit me to interrogate him on the subject of what, exactly, he and John Richard had been doing every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon for the last month. When we came together at the candlelit dinner table at half-past seven, I thought I’d wait until we were all eating before posing any questions.
A sudden wind brought the temperature down twenty-five degrees, perfect Mediterranean- and Mexican-food weather. When I placed Trudy’s hot, juicy chicken platter next to the steaming enchilada pie, Arch and Tom dug in with enthusiasm. The chicken was succulent and not too spicy. The Mexican-pie mélange of beef, garlic, onions, refried beans, and hot sauces also featured corn chips and enough melted cheese to smother Pancho Villa’s entire army. I’d set out a bowl of rice and dishes of sliced fresh tomatoes and avocados, chopped lettuce and scallions, and a mountain of snowy sour cream. If nothing else, ice hockey did have a way of cranking up the appetite.
“Arch,” I began, “I was wondering — “
But Tom warned me off immediately with one of his He’ll talk when he’s ready looks. Arch gave me a studiously blank stare. If he wanted to discuss his father, the funeral, or anything else, he gave no indication. When the plates were empty, I asked if anyone wanted strawberry-cream pie. Both Tom and Arch groaned and said that they were too full. And then Arch scraped back his chair and asked to be excused. When I acquiesced, he mumbled, “Thanks, Mom,” and took off for his room.
“I know he’s trying to be polite,” I commented to Tom as we cleared the table. “But not only is Arch withholding evidence, he’s going back into the infamous adolescent shell.”
Tom put down a pile of dishes and gathered me into a hug. “We talked a lot this afternoon. He’s torn up, all right.” He kissed my neck and held me tighter. “Miss G., I’m more worried about you. I pulled out the trash container, and saw it was filled with glass shards. What’s that about?”
“Rage. I have a lot to tell you.”
He let go of me. “Rage about what?”
I gave him the executive summary of the morning: the strip club, Lana, the bleeding bald man left on Marla’s car. Then I told him about the afternoon: seeing Holly, encountering the reporters, pie-slapping Mannis. Afterward, I’d broken a few jars in anger, yes. And then I’d read the notes from Cecelia Brisbane. Tom had listened this far without comment, but he held up a hand.
“Stop. Do you have these notes now?”
“You’ll be happy to know that I turned them over to Detective Blackridge. But I did make copies,” I added. I pulled out the copies I’d made of the notes, and again was thankful that Tom had given me a small photocopying machine for my birthday.
“Oh, my Lord,” Tom said, shaking his head. He put down the copies and gave me a hard look. “Do you think it’s true?”
I sighed. “I don’t’ know. Someone is or was trying to frame me for John Richard’s death. And now, all of a sudden, stories about him start surfacing.”
“Are there other stories!” Tom asked.
I told him that Frances Markasian might have unearthed an old debt, to the tune of fifty thou. According to an anonymous source who’d called Frances, Dr. Ted Vikarios had loaned the Jerk the down payment on this very house in which we now found ourselves. The same source said the Jerk had never paid it back. Ted and John Richard had argued outside the Roundhouse. Frances’s theory went, because the Jerk refused to cough up the funds. The implication was that this debt had given Ted the motive to fire a couple of bullets into the Jerk.
To my surprise, Tom laughed, a wonderful long, rumbling guffaw that made the dishes on the counter shake.
“I’m so glad to provide humor for you so soon after my ex-husband has been shot to death.”
Tome wiped his eyes. “Miss G., you’re trying too hard to get into the head of too many suspects. That is a very dangerous place to be. Don’t get into the mind of a killer, either. It’ll make you crazy.”
“I appreciate the pep talk, Hannibal. May I say good night to my son now?”
When I knocked on Arch’s door, I couldn’t tell if he was talking on the phone or if the radio was on. He called, “Just a minute,” immediately ceased the conversation or broadcast, shuffled around a bit, and then invited me in.
He was sitting up in bed, knees to his bare chest, writing in his journal. The lamp on the desk beside his bed was switched on. His window was open, and a cool breeze filled the room. He glanced at me, then at the wall opposite his bed.
“Yes, Mom?”
“I just wanted to say good night.”
“Okay. Good night.”
“Sweetheart, please.” I gripped the door. “You know the cops suspect that I had something to do with your father’s death. But you were right there with me. you know I didn’t shoot him. So . . . could you please tell me what you and your dad were doing two afternoons a week for the last month?”
He glanced at his desk. In the poker world, this is known as a tell. He said, “Nothing. I mean, well, I can’t.”
I ignored the desk. “May I give you a quick hug, hon?”
After a moment, he pushed his glasses up his nose and gave me a long look. “sure. Just, please, you know. Don’t start crying.”
I briskly crossed the room, awkwardly placed my arms around his neck, and hugged his head. I managed this without tears, for which I was thankful.
“See you in the morning.” I released him before he could pull away.
He placed his glasses on his nightstand, closed his window, and snapped off his light. Then he scooted underneath his sheet. I didn’t see what he’d done with the journal — I would never read it or go through his desk, I’d have gone to jail first — but I did notice that he still had the black-and-gold quilt. He pulled it up around his ears, then turned away from me.
“When you leave,” his muffled voice said, “could you please close the door?”
<14>
Thursday morning I awoke to birds squawking, chirping, and singing their way through their June mating ritual. The only thing that bothered me was that this louder-than-usual cacophony started soon after four A.M. I had dreamed of nothing, for which I was thankful. Tom’s warm arms were still holding me. I didn’t want to move, and yet the merry avian racket and chilly air sweeping through the room made additional slumber impossible
I eased out of bed, tiptoes across the cold floor, and peered outside. The hail had finally coaxed out a spurt of late spring growth. Leaves clothing the aspens’ bone-white branches had opened from tightly closed fists to a chartreuse cloud. Periwinkle columbines bobbed along our sidewalk. Pearl-white anemones floated above the mulch that Tom had lovingly patted into place in front of our house. Even the lush native chokecherries between the houses seemed to have doubled their blossoms. The profusion of tube-shaped blooms gave off a sweet, heady scent. A fat robin hopped along the curb where the reporters had beaten their retreat.
I moved through a slow yoga routine. Yes, my body still ached, but getting the circulation going would offer more healing than any visit to the doctor. After breathing and stretching, I showered and put on a cotton shirt, shorts, sweatpants, and zippered sweats jacket. The morning was very cool — right at fifty degrees, according to the outside thermometer — but food preparation would have me shedding layers before long. Still, who cared? Come to think of it, why was I in such a good mood all of a sudden?
I frowned. Wait a minute: the windows. The lovely breeze was flowing into our bedroom because Tom had left the window cracked. For the first time since I’d had the security system installed, Tom had turned it off. A lightness filled my head and a buzzing invaded my ears. With John Richard dead, would we really, truly not need the system anymore?
No, wait. We would need it, at least until my attacker and the Jerk’s murderer were apprehended. Maybe Tom had thought we’d all be fine for one night, with him at home to protect us. Maybe he’d forgotten to set the system. I breathed in another lungful of fresh air and closed the window.
In the kitchen, I bought myself back to reality with a double espresso poured over steamed half-and-half. There was the troubling matter of figuring out who had sabotaged my food and attacked me outside the Roundhouse. When we figured out who had done that, maybe we’d be able to sleep with the doors open.
I booted up my computer and printed out the list of food preparation for that morning. First up was the PosteriTREE committee breakfast. After splitting form the garden club, I wondered why they didn’t call themselves the Splinter Group.
I checked on the vanilla yogurt: It had drained and left behind a thick, smooth, custardlike mass. I whipped a mountain of cream, folded it into the yogurt, and set the soft mixture back in the refrigerator to chill. Then I trimmed and chopped peaches, nectarines, and strawberries to layer with the yogurt mixture in crystal parfait glasses when I arrived at the country club.
With the fruit chopped, wrapped, and chilling, I checked my watch: 5:50. Would Marla be awake yet? Probably not. I desperately wanted the chance to visit with her away from the ever-eavesdropping ladies of the tree-planting committee, but if I phoned too early, her wrath would outweigh her desire to share gossip. I sighed. Next on the agenda was the croissants, and I was debating whether to fix those at home or put them together in the country-club kitchen while the quiches were heating. I couldn’t decide, so I switched computer files from “Committee Breakfast” to “JRK.”
Quickly, I typed in my new questions: Is independent confirmation available that JRK raped a teenage girl? If so, then who was the girl, and when did this happen? Did Ted Vikarios loan John Richard 50K for the down payment on this house, and never get it back? Are these two stories meant to throw the cops off the scent of the real killer? And then there was: What in the world was Arch doing with John Richard for the last month, when they were supposed to be playing golf?
If it was too early to call Marla, it was certainly too early to call the Vikarioses. And besides, what would I say to them? Did my ex-husband betray you, too? And by the way, did you shoo him? I fixed myself another espresso and stared at the computer screen. Poor Holly Kerr. Who knew how much she’d told Frances Markasian, just to get rid of her?
I switched back to the problem with the croissants. As all caterers knew, How does it look? is the number one issue in food service. How does it taste? is number three. With the croissants, I was face-to-face with number two, to wit: How does it hold up? This was a general problem with breakfast and brunch food, but since complaining and worrying only makes the caterer’s job seem longer and more frustrating, I set to work chopping the scallions and artichoke hearts, slicing the croissants, whisking together the crab-mayonnaise mixture, and melting the butter for the delicate crumb-herb topping. If these delectable open-faced sandwiches couldn’t be totally assembled in advance, I decided, then I’d just do the last-minute work in the club kitchen.
And speaking of assembling things, I wondered, just where were the cops in their investigation? The rule of thumb in law enforcement was that murders that were not solved within twenty-four hours generally went unsolved. And yet here we were, at thirty-six hours.
Neither detective had told me a thing. Blackridge had been downright hostile. Tom had announced that Sergeant Boyd would be meeting me at the Roundhouse, and then we would drive to the club together. Boyd would be staying with me through both catered events today. He even wanted to help with the catering! I heartily disliked the idea of a chaperone, but Tom had been insistent. The upside was that Boyd might have new information. The key word there was might.
Meanwhile, once Julian arrived, Toms plan to keep Arch busy included picking up Todd Druckman and taking the three of them to one of Denver’s giant public pools. I’ve always felt that those pools, which feature wave-making machines and gargantuan slides, are meant to make kids puke up their hot dogs, chips, and milk shakes. That way, parents are forced to buy twice the amount of overpriced food than they would have anyway. But Tom had ordered me to not worry about what I couldn’t control. After the pool, Julian would come to help me with the picnic, while Tom saw what else Arch and Todd wanted to do. Bless tom. What would we do without him?
My stomach growled. It was six-fifteen and I hadn’t had anything but coffee. I couldn’t look at the croissants and yogurt. Here again, though, I was saved by Tom.
“Oh, Miss G., do I have a surprise for you.” He swaggered into the kitchen with a sudden confidence that I hadn’t seen for a while. He wore a black polo shirt and khaki pants, and looked utterly spiffy. “I did a very, very big shopping yesterday. Please sit down.”
This I did, while Tom pulled out — from one of the secret corners of the walk-in, where he kept goodies just for the family — thick-sliced applewood-smoked bacon, eggs, and cream. Then, after he perused a new cookbook, he brought the bacon to sizzling and made the lightest, flakiest biscuits imaginable. These reminded me of the biscuits served at the Southern boarding school I’d attended. For some reason, this brought tears to my eyes. I sure seemed to be doing a lot of crying these days.
Tom used his thumbs to wipe my tears away, then gently kissed my cheek and told me to eat while the food was hot. Then he put in a call to someone at the department. After a few “Uh-huhs,” and several requests along the lines of “Well, could you put me through to her?,” and then “Yeah, yeah, hmm,” he signed off. Frowning, he washed his hands and sat down with his own plate of bacon, biscuits, and jam.
“Want to know what the department has so far?”