Sticks & Scones (10 page)

A Furman County deputy was stationed outside the ICU. An older nurse with a flat midwestern accent told me I could see Tom ten minutes each hour, the usual drill. I should not try to wake him.

“It’s going to be a rough twenty-four hours for you, Mrs. Schulz,” she warned, her voice laced with sympathy. “You might want to get some family here with you. Get yourself something to eat.”

“Rough,” I repeated numbly.

But we’re lucky, oh so lucky. Tom is alive.

I told the nurse I would be back in an hour. When she turned to talk to a family whose daughter had just come out of surgery, I walked unsteadily to the ICU waiting room.

T
om opened his eyes once, on my second visit to the ICU. When he turned his head a fraction, I jumped to his side and carefully took the hand not connected to an IV. I asked him how he felt. He groaned but said nothing before the medicated fog reclaimed him. With grim determination, I continued my hourly visits through the afternoon.

At six o’clock, Marla burst into the ICU waiting room with Arch and Julian Teller in tow. To their worried barrage of questions about Tom’s condition, I replied that he’d had surgery and was on the mend. Arch, fighting back tears, gave me a brief squeeze before withdrawing behind Julian and Marla. Julian stepped forward and hugged me hard. His handsome face now boasted a college-grown mustache and goatee. Not tall, he possessed a lean, muscular, swimmer’s body, barely visible as he shoved his hands into pockets of a khaki outfit that resembled an oversize uniform of the French Foreign Legion. When he pulled away, he ran his hand through his tobacco-brown
hair, now a mown thatch, and mumbled that he felt terrible, that he couldn’t believe someone had shot at us, that he wished he could have been at the hospital earlier.

“Julian.” I pulled him in for another embrace. For almost three years, Julian Teller had been a much-loved member of our extended family. Not only was he dedicated to becoming a vegetarian chef, he was a great kid to boot. So I wasn’t going to listen to him apologize about
anything.
“You say you’re sorry again, we’ll have Steak Tartare for breakfast.”

Julian’s mouth twisted into a shy smile. “I left messages for my professors.” His body tensed with energy as he tried to make his shrug appear offhand. “Told them I was taking a few days off for a family emergency. I mean, I was already set to help you with that banquet Friday night. I can stay a few weeks if you need it. And if the people at the castle wouldn’t mind having me,” he added, his eyes pleading. I started to say that he need not leave school indefinitely, but stopped when I glimpsed Arch’s worried face. It would be good for him to have Julian around for a while. Julian was an excellent student and would manage. Whether the Hydes would welcome yet another live-in guest was another matter.

“Let me check with the castle owners,” I murmured.

Marla, her face set in forced jollity, bustled forward in one of her “February is for Valentine’s Day” outfits: a long-sleeved scarlet knit dress patterned with white hearts the size of fried eggs. Her voice was matter-of-fact. “We’re
all
taking a few days or weeks off or whatever Tom needs. Who do these criminals think they are, anyway?” The dish-size hearts trembled as Marla handed me a shopping bag and leaned forward for her hug. “Sweat suit from the Brown Palace Gift Shop. I’m
so
sorry this is happening,” she whispered in my ear. “If I had a husband I loved the way you love Tom, I’d be hysterical. You don’t think El Jerko did this, do you?”

“Not sure,” I murmured, then, in a louder voice, thanked her for the clothes and for bringing the boys. I turned my attention back to Arch. His static-filled brown hair, thick glasses, and pinched expression gave him the look of a young professor whose experiments had all failed. He waited until the others had hugged and spoken to me before giving me another hug.

“Mom.” He kept his voice low. “Did they try to shoot you, too?”

“No,” I said lightly, trying to be matter-of-fact. Arch still suffered from the occasional nightmare, and I needed to reassure him.

“I’m sorry I lost my cool this morning.”

“It’s okay.”

It was not a bad apology, as apologies went. Obviously, he was afraid to ask about Tom yet. I answered the rest of their questions by giving the barest details of what had happened. Tom was almost certainly coming back to the castle the next morning, I said. The Hydes would just have to understand. After all, where else could we go?

We took turns seeing Tom. With his slack, jaundiced face, IV streaming under the bandage on his arm, and his heavy snoring, he looked and sounded terrible. At eight forty-five the priest from St. Luke’s showed up. He saw Tom alone, and then the five of us prayed together briefly in the waiting room.

At nine-thirty, a yawning Marla announced that the boys should come back with her to the Brown Palace. Arch protested that he couldn’t, that all his bags, clothes, and “stuff” were at Hyde Castle, and by the time they drove to Aspen Meadow, picked up his paraphernalia, and schlepped back to Denver, it would be morning and he’d have to leave for school. Julian jumped in to say he had a sleeping bag in his Range Rover and could drive Arch back to the castle. And, he added, he could find the castle at night with no problem. He was willing to sleep
on a couch or even on the floor of Arch’s room, if the Hydes would allow it. Then he could take Arch to and from school and help with the historical cooking. “I’ll stay for as long as you want,” he concluded in a tone that brooked no argument.

“Thanks for the offer,” I told him. “But it’s up to the Hydes.”

Marla left to call Eliot and Sukie about Julian’s request to be housed at the castle. When she returned, she said she’d talked to Eliot, who couldn’t have been nicer.

“‘Yes,’ he gushed,” Marla said, imitating Eliot’s sonorous voice, “‘bring the injured policeman, bring the college student, we’ll have a grand household here just as they did in medieval times.’ He was
slightly
freaked out that you’d found the body of Andy Balachek,” she added. “Apparently, Andy used to come to the castle quite a bit when he was little, because his father, Peter—the excavator, do you know him?—rebuilt the Hydes’ dam after Fox Creek flooded. Eliot didn’t know ‘poor little Andy’ might be involved in illegal activity. So he’s spooked.”

“Great,” I muttered.

“Oh-kay,” Marla went on, “Eliot also asked if you would be able to cater the labyrinth-donor lunch in three days, on Thursday. The police should be finished with the crime scene by then, he figures. Oh, and the St. Luke’s staff is going to call all the donors, to notify them of the change.” She raised her eyebrows at me. “Eliot was also worried that doing both the lunch and the fencing banquet on Friday might be too much for you.” She grinned mischievously. “I knew you didn’t have any catering events until Saturday night’s Valentine’s Day dance. So I told him Thursday would be fine. Hope that’s okay. I also offered Julian’s services both days. The king of the castle,” Marla said with a toss of her head, “was able to retire in peace.”

“Wearing his nightcap, no doubt.”

“Are you kidding? Wearing a
crown.”
She frowned. “So you’re all right with that catering schedule?”

“Absolutely, thanks. Tom needs to rest. Julian and I can do big-time cooking. It’ll be good for us.”

“Really,” added Julian.

“Come on, guys,” Arch pleaded wearily, “I’ve got a
ton
of English homework, and I’ve got to use the binoculars to see what phase Venus is in. The teachers don’t excuse missed assignments unless you
yourself are
in the hospital. Maybe not even then,” he added glumly. Poor Arch!

We made sketchy plans. Elk Park Prep had a late start the next day, so if the hospital released Tom early enough, we might return to the castle before Arch and Julian left for school. After Tom was settled in our castle suite, I’d finally go home for the disk that had my recipes and notes on historic English food, plus information on how castles were run, and background on labyrinths—all areas Eliot had asked me to research. I’d also find a photograph of the Jerk, I added silently, for the benefit of castle security. Then Julian and I would plunge into finishing the planning and doing the cooking for the luncheon and dinner. Before the three of them left, we gave each other one last reassuring hug.

When they’d gone, however, I felt a flood of loneliness, as if the events of the day were just now catching up with me. I changed into the gift-shop sweat suit. But dozing on the waiting-room couch did not seem to be in the cards. The bright overhead lights, intercom announcements, and shuffling and buzzing of folks in the hall, not to mention my own awareness of each upcoming ten-minute visit, all conspired against it. Chardé Lauderdale, I found out from a nurse who was an old friend, had indeed been in with baby Patty for a visit to the neurologist. To my relief, Chardé did not appear again.

Finally, near dawn, slumber overwhelmed me. Bad dreams brought visions of Andy’s body in the creek, the
crack of a gunshot, Tom falling toward me, his arms outstretched. The expression on his face … I unintentionally shouted myself awake, only to look up into the eyes of Captain Lambert.

He’d brought me a still-hot, four-shot latté, bless him, made just the way Tom had once told him I liked it. Chilled and stiff from my restless night, throat sore, eyes gummed from crying, I gratefully sipped the rich drink. The captain waved my thanks away and pointed to a brown paper bag.

“I brought a department sweat suit Tom’s size. And we had your van towed up to the castle. Workmen’s comp is paying for everything, including an ambulance to take Tom back to the castle with you, unless you want to go someplace else. We’ve had lots of offers from his friends. Tom has lots of friends,” he reminded me gently.

“Thanks, but all my cooking equipment is at the castle, and I’m doing two events for the Hydes this week. If Tom’s up to it, I’d love to get out of here ASAP.”

Lambert obligingly pulled strings. I received my instructions about caring for him once he was released. Tom was discharged ten minutes later. That’s the great thing about cops. Even doctors are afraid of them, almost as much as they are of lawyers.

An orderly piloted Tom to the discharge doors and then into the waiting ambulance. Captain Lambert strode along next to the wheelchair and told me Boyd and Armstrong would be up to the castle that afternoon to talk to me. Once Tom was strapped into the back of the ambulance and the wheelchair was folded and stored beside him, I climbed in. A moment later we were bumping out of the parking lot.

“I’m sorry to put you through this,” were Tom’s first words. Nonplussed, I blurted out my own apology. How wrong I’d been not to leave that area by the creek
when he’d told me to. How I shouldn’t have run to welcome him.

He shook his head. “I should have waited till backup arrived.” His voice was hoarse, his breathing labored. “Then you never would have jumped out. No … blame.” When he stopped talking, I knew better than to reply. “Andy,” he added fiercely.

I squeezed Tom’s hand. “Don’t think about him. In fact, Tom? Don’t talk at all.”

“I want to get on with this.” He spoke slowly, insistently. “I need to get back to—”

“Tom,
please.
You’ve got to heal.”

“Working heals me.”

“Tom—”

“Where was I?” He squinted at the beige ceiling of the ambulance interior. “Oh, yeah….Andy just makes me so damn mad.
Made
me mad. And now he’s got himself dead.”

I didn’t care about Andy Balachek; I cared only about Tom. Clearly, he wasn’t going to follow doctor’s orders and stay quiet. He didn’t want that. He
wanted
to talk about the corpse in the creek. “Okay,” I said. “Balachek’s death was avoidable. Why?”

“That kid was the king of communication. Loved e-mail. Sent me a letter with no return address telling me to set up thus-and-such new e-mail address, operated only out of my home. So I did, with the D.A.’s blessing. Balachek said he’d tell me who killed the truck driver if I could get him off.” Tom’s eyes closed. I clasped his hand in mine.

The ambulance began the winding, westward ascent up Highway 203. When we’d left the hospital, shimmering white clouds had been hovering over the forests blanketing the foothills. Peering through the ambulance’s windshield, I could see that the cloud cover had now
turned the color of ash. A freezing fog misted the pine tops. More snow was on the way.

“Andy wouldn’t tell me who his other partners were,” Tom announced abruptly, startling me. “I mean, besides Ray Wolff. Andy wouldn’t divulge information about the stamps. The home address linked with his e-mail was his father’s, who’d kicked him out when Andy stole his excavation truck. And you know we thought Andy was in Atlantic City when he called last Friday.”

I nodded. Andy, frantic, had called our house from a cell phone in Central City, Colorado, where gambling was legal. He was calling from a bathroom, because he’d stolen somebody’s cell phone and wanted to talk to Tom. I’d said Tom was in Atlantic City, looking for
him.
Andy had bitterly replied that he guessed he’d have to go to New Jersey to see Tom, because his partner threw his computer into the lake. Then he hung up. With no leads materializing in New Jersey, Tom had decided to come home. And now he was determined to talk about the case. I sighed.

“Did you ever figure out who the partner was?” I asked. “Are there more than three people in the gang?” I paused. “Ray Wolff is in prison. Whoever the third person is, he or she or whoever couldn’t have known Andy was talking
to you
over the Internet, or Andy would have been killed right then. I mean, if we’re talking about the same person who
did
kill him in the end.”

“I’m willing to bet,” Tom said with great effort, “that the ‘other partner’ is the third hijacker witnesses saw. Maybe there
are
more people in the gang, but you usually don’t use the word ‘partner’ unless you’ve only got a couple of them.”

“So somebody got wind of Andy’s e-mails?”

Tom grimaced. “Don’t know.”

Talking had exhausted him. He closed his eyes as the ambulance passed the sign indicating that Aspen
Meadow was only ten miles away. I was glad he was finally asleep. Every time he opened his mouth, I was afraid he was going to confess to some terrible sin that I couldn’t bear to hear.

Andy wouldn’t divulge information about the stamps.
I felt a pang of envy. Would I ever get to see those Victorian wonders? Like every other eleven-year-old on my block, I’d been a voracious stamp collector. My mother had gotten tired of all the philatelic packets pouring in “on approval,” which meant stamp clubs sent stamps every month and I had to send them back by a certain date, or pay. Unfortunately, I never had the heart to return the beauties, and I’d ended up baby-sitting around the clock to fund my hobby. When my grades fell and I slept through a baby’s sobbing, my mother canceled all my stamp club subscriptions. Heartless! And that, unfortunately, had rung the death-knell for my stamp-collecting hobby.