Fatally Flaky (19 page)

“It’s fine, go,” I said. “Thanks for coming.”

“Oh,” she continued, “and Father Pete told me to tell you you should take a few days off from catering, maybe get Julian to fill in, so you can grieve.”

“Wonderful,” I said, unable to conceal my sarcasm. “That just sounds super, grieving all day. And anyway, I don’t need to take off from work, because I don’t have any catered events until next weekend. And I’ve got plenty of money from all the work I’ve been doing lately, so I don’t have to go out and drum up business.”

“Do you want some work?” asked Marla as she gathered up her purse. “If we don’t find those diocesan letters, I’ll bet the position of St. Luke’s church secretary will be opening up mighty quick.”

I said, “Gee thanks!” We hugged again and she rushed away.

Tom said, “I know how much Jack meant to you, Miss G.” He regarded me with his wonderful sea green eyes, then pulled me in for a hug. “Tell me what I can do to help,” he murmured in my ear.

I exhaled. “I don’t know. Truly, Tom, I don’t. One thing I do know, though, I don’t want to sit around and
grieve
.” I pulled away from him. “You tell me—when you have a case that’s really bothering you, that you can’t get over, what do you do? I know you don’t grieve.”

“People grieve in different ways, Miss G. Some people need to sit around and cry. Other people need to be doing something, something they find meaningful, that will help them deal with a death. I fall in that second category. As do most homicide investigators, I might add.”

I canted my head at him. “What did you just call me?”

Tom, genuinely surprised, tucked in his chin. “Miss G. The way I always do. Why?”

“Because Jack always called me Gertie Girl. He never called me anything but.”

“And this is significant because…?”

Where was that piece of paper Jack had scribbled on in the hospital? “Hold on a sec.”

I raced upstairs and found Jack’s note, and his keys, as well as—oops—his Rolex, which I’d meant to give Tom first thing, except the news of Jack’s death had intervened. I wanted to give Tom the watch and show him the note, but I certainly didn’t want to hand over Jack’s keys until I knew exactly why he had wanted me to have them in the first place.

With only a small pang of guilt, I stuffed Jack’s keys into my pajama drawer, then brought the note, plus the watch, still wrapped inside my apron, down to the kitchen.

“‘Gold. Keys. Fin,’” Tom read, after he’d shaken his head, given me a dubious look, and put the Rolex into a brown paper evidence bag. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, I don’t know, but he sure was eager to be writing something for my eyes only,” I said. “Lucas called and told me about the trake Jack had had in the ambo, and how he seemed to be wanting to talk to me, because he’d written ‘Gold.’ Lucas thought Jack wanted him to summon Goldy. But Jack never, ever called me Goldy. He called me Gertie Girl.”

“And what do you think he meant?”

My shoulders slumped. “I haven’t figured that out. Something gold in his house?”

“Did he give you keys to get into his house?” Tom raised one eyebrow at me. “So you could go in there and get what ever it was?”

“I don’t know why he wanted me to have an extra set of keys. I already had a set of keys to his house.”

“You’d better hand over those keys he gave you, Goldy.” He held out his palm expectantly.

Tears streamed down my cheeks. “He didn’t want anybody else to have these keys. He wanted me to have them. Don’t make me give them up, Tom. Please.”

“Don’t use either set to go into his house, Goldy. If he died as a result of this attack on him, then it’s felony murder, and we’ll be going through every inch of that house.” He paused. “Somebody broke into Finn’s house after he was killed.”

“Oh, no.”

Tom said, “Oh, yes. We don’t know what was taken, if anything. But at this point, please, please don’t screw things up for us. I’m begging you.”

“I won’t,” I promised.

Tom groaned, then looked back at the note. “What do you suppose he meant by Fin? Talking about his pal, Doc Finn?”

“I don’t know. You know, sometimes you see that at the end of French movies.
Fin.
It means the end. Maybe he had a premonition he was going to die.”

“You ever know Jack to go to a French film, read all those irritating subtitles? I sure didn’t. And anyway, I think if he meant End, then that’s what he would have written.”

“Maybe. Except he was pretty out of it at the hospital.”

“Out of it enough to misspell his best friend’s name?”

Tom’s cell phone buzzed, and he answered it. Meanwhile, I stared at the cryptic note my secrecy-oriented godfather had left for me. “Gold. Keys. Fin.” I had no idea what Jack had been trying to say.

“I’ve got to go back down to the department,” Tom said. He gave me a worried look. “Let me get Trudy over here to be with you.”

“Gosh, what am I, an invalid? First Father Pete, now you. I’ll be fine.” I glanced at the clock: 7:40. “How about this? I’ll go to church and help Marla with some stuff she’s doing for Father Pete. Finding letters either to or from the diocese, I’m not sure which.”

Tom appeared unconvinced.

“I’ll be fine, Tom,” I assured him.

“Church.” He waggled a warning index finger in my direction.

“Church!” I replied. “For crying out loud, give me a little credit!”

He eyed me skeptically. “Yeah, yeah. I don’t give you too little credit, Miss G. I give you too much credit.”

Once I’d heard Tom’s Chrysler rumble away, I went upstairs, pulled out the set of keys I’d taken from Jack’s jacket in the hospital, and stuffed them into my sweatpants pocket. I slammed my pajama drawer with such violence that it startled me.

Cool it, I said to myself.

All right. I needed to think, and to cook. These would help me grieve, not sitting around crying. In any event, going to St. Luke’s was the very last thing I wanted to do, of that I was sure.

I
n the kitchen, I located my recipe for coeur à la crème. I’d had to give the one I’d made earlier for Tom to Marla for her shindig, so I needed to make another one. No, I thought after a moment. I’d make another coeur, and then…a plain old cream pie for someone else I’d suddenly decided to see. I sighed, then told myself to get going.

The walk-in offered up mascarpone and whipping cream, and the pantry held confectioners’ sugar and imported Mexican vanilla. I beat the cheese, sugar, and vanilla to a smooth, delectable mass, then set it aside and whipped the cream. I lined a sieve with cheesecloth, set it over a bowl, folded the two mixtures together, and scraped half of this concoction into the cloth-lined sieve. After I’d placed one of these into the refrigerator to drain, I put the second mixture—the one for the cream pie—into a separate bowl. Then I located fresh berries of all varieties. These would go on top.

I wanted to offer the cream pie as an attempt to elicit information.

I hoped offering the coeur to Tom would allow him to forgive me for doing stuff behind his back as I tried to figure out what in the hell had happened to my godfather.

And, I added mentally, I wanted to find out what had happened to my godfather’s best friend, Doc Finn. Because now the two deaths, one definitely a murder and the other a death possibly as the result of an attack, seemed more and more inextricably linked.

I made myself a quadruple espresso for a heavy-duty Summertime Special. Then I went out to the living room to think. I unfolded Jack’s note. “Gold. Keys. Fin.” Jack’s clutch of keys jangled as I dropped them onto the table.

As I’d told Tom, it was extremely doubtful that Jack had meant to summon me to the hospital when he had written “Gold.” So what did the “Gold” stand for? Did he have a stash of gold somewhere that neither Lucas nor I knew about? Was he trying to alert somebody to that stash?

What other possibilities were there?

I hiccuped violently and succumbed to a fresh onslaught of tears and sobbing. I wished suddenly for Arch to be here, just so I could hug him and tell him how much I loved and needed him. Maybe I should have let Tom summon Trudy to be with me.

You’ve got to move forward, Gertie Girl,
Jack had said to me before he’d sent the fifty thousand that had gotten me into my own business and out of the marriage to the Jerk.

I nabbed some tissues, splashed cold water on my face, rubbed it virtually raw, and looked at my tired eyes and red-slapped cheek. Beauty contest? No. Able to move forward? Yes.

I went back to the living room, took a healthy slug of the iced latte, and looked again at the note. “Gold.”
Think. Move forward
.

Gold could stand for Gold Gulch Spa. Jack had been digging around in the Smoothie Cabin just a couple of days ago. Had he found what he was looking for? And what exactly had he been looking for?

I made a note to talk to Isabelle. Unfortunately, I didn’t even know her last name. What had she and Jack been up to? When Jack had heard someone coming in, he’d grabbed Isabelle and started smooching her. Then at the reception, he’d been snuggling up to her again. Why?

Jack was secretive, that was certain. Maybe he hadn’t told Isabelle anything. Maybe this note didn’t mean anything; maybe it was just, oh, I didn’t know what.

Doubt squeezed my heart again as I looked at the word “Fin.” Doc Finn had been lured out onto the highway at night, hit from behind, and then killed. Jack Carmichael, his closest friend, had been attacked three days later in a robbery-that-wasn’t-a-robbery. I had to believe the sheriff’s department would demand an autopsy on Jack’s body to determine the exact cause of his death. If the injuries sustained in the attack had led to Jack’s death, then it was felony murder, as Tom had said. Maybe the sheriff’s department was already investigating, and I didn’t even know about it.

I exhaled in frustration, then stared at the extra set of Jack’s keys. Why had he wanted me to have them? I saw the Mercedes keys on this set, plus some others I didn’t recognize. Had he wanted me to go back out to Gold Gulch Spa and get his Mercedes? If so, then why not write that down? Had his mind been wandering so much in the hospital that his notes, and his desires, didn’t really make any sense?

A shiver went down my spine. What if his beloved car was not the issue? If he had wanted Lucas, who already had a set of keys to Jack’s house, to go to Jack’s house for some reason, then why insist on my having this set?

I needed to think some more. First I checked for my keys. Thank God for Julian, who had returned my van during the night, and taken back his Rover.

Then I quick-stepped into the kitchen and made a graham cracker crust. Then I spooned the luscious filling into the crust, scattered blueberries on top, and melted some apricot preserves on top of the stove. Once I’d strained the liquid from the preserves onto the pie, I carefully placed the pie in the bottom of a cardboard box, stabilized my offering with crumpled newspapers, and placed the box in my van.

Then I took off for the Attenborough haunt in Flicker Ridge.

C
HARLOTTE ANSWERED THE
door. I’d called on the way over, saying we’d never finished our business the previous evening. Charlotte, confused, had said she didn’t know what I was talking about. As delicately as possible, I had reminded her that I had not received the last payment for the wedding reception.

“Oh yes, yes, of course,” Charlotte had replied. “I thought you meant, that is, I thought you were talking about Jack.”

“Yes, it’s very sad. I can’t stand to stay in my house. Is this, is it a bad time?”

Her breath caught when she sighed. “No. Come on over, you might as well. I’m just getting packed to go to the spa. I…have to get away. I guess I can’t stand to stay in my house either.”

“I’m bringing you something,” I said, which sounded lame, even to me.

“I hope it’s not flowers.” She exhaled so forcefully, I didn’t have the heart to ask her to explain herself.

When Charlotte ushered me into her living room, I knew immediately what the flower comment meant: at least twenty bouquets from the banquet tables were ranged around the immense living space. The place looked like a funeral parlor and smelled like a perfume factory.

“Well,” I said, unsure of what words to use.

“Horrible, isn’t it?” asked Charlotte, as she swept an arm to indicate the room. She wore a bright pink pleated blouse and designer jeans. But her face was a wreck: deep, dark bags creased the area under her eyes, her eyes were bloodshot, and her skin was mottled.

I handed her the wrapped blueberry-cream pie. “Don’t know how long you’re going to be at the spa, but this should keep a few days in the refrigerator.”

“I don’t know how long I’m going to be there either. Until I feel better, I suppose. Victor’s been trying to convince me to invest in the place. I told him before I did that, he’d have to improve the food. He said I had no idea how much it cost to provide lovely meals to the clients. But he’d let me stay for as many days as I wanted until he closed in October—” She stopped suddenly and regarded me. “Sorry, I’m running on at the mouth, which is what I do when I’m upset.” She pressed her hands into her closed eyes.

Charlotte most definitely was not someone you hugged, even in church, even if she was crying.

“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice low. “It’s just terribly sad. We all…we all loved him.”

“I’m not being very polite,” Charlotte said as she walked quickly into the kitchen. “Would you like some coffee?”

I thought of all the caffeine I’d already had that day, and asked if she had decaf. She said she did. Once she’d put the pie in the refrigerator, set the coffee to brew, and placed cups, saucers, spoons, cream, sugar, and an insulated carafe on her breakfast bar, she seemed to have recovered somewhat. As she poured the decaf into the carafe, she even smiled at me.

“It’s good to have company. Oops, I forgot your check.” She reached into her purse, pulled out an envelope with my name on it, and handed it to me. “With all the chaos last night, I just…”

“Don’t worry about it. Thank you.”

She took a tentative sip of her coffee and asked, “Do the police have any idea what happened to Jack when he went outside?”

I shook my head. “I have no idea. Didn’t someone from the sheriff’s department come talk to you?”

She snorted. “A young fellow asked me questions very early this morning. Did I see anyone leave the dining room with Jack? No. Did I see anyone leave the dining room right after Jack left? No. So why did Jack leave the dining room? To have a cigarette, I told this young fellow, didn’t you find a butt outside? And he said they found marijuana outside. He thought I was trying to make a joke, which of course I never would.”

“Huh,” I said noncommittally.

“Before Jack was attacked, there just seemed to be a lot of organized chaos,” Charlotte went on bitterly. “Afterward, there was just chaos, period.”

“Chaos,” I agreed.

“Oh, God, I do wish I’d paid attention, but I’m afraid I was more focused on the music getting going, the tables, I don’t know, it all seems like such trivia now. So…have they figured anything out?”

“Nobody’s told me anything.”

“It was probably one of the landscapers, staying to see if he could mug a wealthy guest.”

Inwardly, I bristled, since whenever there’s a theft or any other problem at a party, it had been my experience that the help—which includes yours truly—is always blamed. More often than not, though, it’s one of the guests who starts rifling through pockets and purses in the guest room, not a staff person. We’re much too busy. But I knew in order to get information out of Charlotte, which, I admitted, was my chief purpose in racing over here this morning, I would have to park my proletarian sensibilities at the door.

“Have they talked to the landscapers?” Charlotte demanded. “Were
they
smoking marijuana?”

“I don’t know. Sorry.” We were both silent for a moment. I glanced down at Charlotte’s shoes—metallic flats—and said, as if it had just occurred to me, “Oh, nice shoes. Very pretty.”

Charlotte looked at me as if I were crazy. “You’re admiring my shoes? Why, do you want to order some to wear at your next catered event?”

“Sorry, Charlotte. I just think they’re lovely. Wait a minute—didn’t Marla or someone tell me you lost a pair in Doc Finn’s car?”

Charlotte rolled her eyes. “That was another thing this young fellow asked me about. Did I remember when I had left my shoes in Doc Finn’s car? No, I told him, because I’d never been in Doc Finn’s car. I have no idea how they got there. And when I heard they’d been in the car of a person who’d died in a car accident, I wanted to throw them away, but the police insisted on keeping them as evidence.”

“Poor Doc Finn,” I said. “We waited and waited for him at Ceci O’Neal’s wedding, but he never showed. We didn’t know he was dead.”

At the mention of Ceci O’Neal, Charlotte’s eyes became hooded. Well. So…judging by Charlotte’s guilty reaction, the erased name “O’Neal” on the Attenborough blackboard meant something. I just didn’t know what.

“Do you know the O’Neals?” I ventured. “I thought I saw their name on your blackboard when I came over with Jack. But I didn’t see you at the O’Neal wedding—”

Charlotte stood up. “The O’Neals? How are you spelling that?” When I told her, she said, “No, that doesn’t ring a bell. Well, I must be getting over to Gold Gulch. Thank you for the pie.”

“You’re certainly welcome,” I said, feeling uncomfortable. I got to my feet and gathered up my purse. Doggone it, so much for active investigation as a substitute for grieving. I was zero for three in my questioning of Charlotte. She hadn’t seen anyone leave the spa dining room when Jack did—or so she said. She had no idea how her shoes had ended up in Doc Finn’s Cayenne—or so she said. And what ever her connection was to the O’Neals, she wasn’t going to share it.

I had gleaned one possibly useful nugget, though: Victor Lane had asked Charlotte to invest in his spa. So…the spa was having money problems? Was that what Jack had been looking for in the Smoothie Cabin? Indications of money problems at the spa? Why would he do that? I had no idea.

Charlotte had turned to her large living room window, where birds were flocking to her feeder. She’d pulled a hankie from out of nowhere and was dabbing her eyes. My feeling of being ill at ease increased. Funny how we get used to hugging people as a way to comfort them, and then when that’s not an option—

“Do you think he loved me?” Charlotte blurted out. She continued to stare out the window. “He never said he did.”

My mouth turned dry. In fact, I’d been unsure of what Jack’s true intentions, emotions, et cetera in the Charlotte Department had been. But what good—or bad—would it do to say that now? I settled for the verbal equivalent of a hug.

“I know he loved you,” I said emphatically. “He told me he did.”

Charlotte quickly wiped her eyes, tucked the hankie into a pocket of her jeans, and began bustling around the living room. “Take these flowers to the church, would you please, Goldy? They’ll all be faded by the time I get back from the spa.”

And so I said I would. I had to roll the windows down to dispel the pungent, cinnamon scent of the stock in the bouquets. When I got to the church, neither Marla, Father Pete, nor the secretary was in evidence. Luckily, I knew the hiding place for the key to the heavy doors. I placed all the flowers in the sacristy, wrote a quick note to Father Pete, and drove slowly back home.

But again, the thought of going back into our house was not something I could bear. Tom’s car wasn’t anywhere in evidence, but I wouldn’t have expected him to be home yet.

I turned off the ignition in my van and looked disconsolately up at Jack’s house, much as Charlotte had stared at the wild birds on her deck. Without thinking, I reached into my sweatpants pocket and felt for the keys Jack had insisted I take in the hospital. Luckily, I’d also put the note in there that he had written.