Dying for Chocolate (14 page)

“You sure you’re okay?” she wanted to know. When I nodded she said, “We need to get Amour Anonymous started up again.”

Our version of AA had to do with being addicted to relationships instead of liquor. Unfortunately, Marla and I were the only steady members, and virtually every one of our conversations was devoted to our problems anyway.

I said, “Why?”

“Because otherwise,” she hissed, “I don’t know what’s going on in your life until something like this happens.”

“I’ll let you know the time and date of my next mugging.”

She waved that off and gave me a look of deep concern. “The Jerk been bothering you lately?”

I told her about the clay pots and the general’s timely appearance.

She said in a low voice, “Think
this
could have been him?”

“Hard to tell. He usually behaves himself in public. Plus I don’t know how I could have pissed him off.” I felt my spirits sink, as if the adrenaline generated by the attack suddenly had worn off. Had I
ever
known what pissed off The Jerk?

Marla helped herself to a large slice of French bread from the basket on our table and slathered it with butter. She offered it to me and I took it with my free hand. But I wasn’t ready to eat yet.

“I have to admit,” Marla said, “I mean if you don’t mind talking about it, that when I heard Philip had been killed I immediately suspected our ex.”

Sweat prickled across my brow and under my arms. I said, “You must be joking.”

“No. So I called The Jerk’s office Monday morning, got the secretary, gave the name of one of his patients, and said I had a problem with my checkbook. What day had I come in? Said I thought it was last Friday morning. She said no way because the doctor was at the hospital for an induction at eight.” She paused. “So I called a nurse I know at Lutheran and got a confirmation.”

I took a bite of the sliced baguette. It was warm, moist, and could not have come out of the oven more than twenty minutes before. Minced fresh basil speckled the unsalted butter. Food always made pain recede. I said, “Why did you think John Richard would even care what Philip did?”

She raised her eyebrows. “Oh, don’t. You can’t possibly be that naive.”

“How could he be jealous? We’ve been divorced for four years!”

Marla spread the soft herbed butter to the edge of another chunk of baguette. She said, “You’re joking. You start going out with Miller. The Jerk starts driving by your house, making anonymous phone calls, giving you a hard time. Jealousy, I’m telling you.”

“Ready to order, ladies?” said the same waitress who had helped me get up. “Or do you still need a little time? That was a horrible thing out there. Unbelievable.” While she was talking, the manager came up to see if I was okay. In a tone I tried not to think of as accusing, he said the rest of the staff was out cleaning up the mess. Then he swished off and we quickly ordered the tart, greens with vinaigrette, and coffee.

I turned Marla’s words over in my mind as the coffee arrived. It tasted like sludge. When the waitress had gone, I said defensively, “I went out with Tom Schulz for four months.”

Marla waved off this comment with both hands. “Please. The Jerk is not going to be threatened by a cop who looks as if he belongs in the woods with a camouflage suit, a high-powered rifle, and a six-pack. A gorgeous professional fellow, a wealthy shrink fellow at that, is another thing altogether.” She signaled the waitress.

I said, “I never thought dating would cost me the installation of an expensive security system.”

The waitress rushed up.

“Darling,” Marla said to her. “My friend has just been mugged and she needs better coffee than this. Was it made from ancient beans? Do us all a favor and make a fresh pot. Please,” she added with a smile that fooled nobody.

The waitress sniffed. “We serve one hundred percent Colombian coffee.”

Marla opened her eyes wide. “Really. Then it must be from the District of Columbia, honey, and I’m not drinking any more of it. Neither is my friend. So either make us some fresh or bring us tea. Your choice.”

“I’m sorry,” the waitress said, although she didn’t sound it. “Things have been crazy. During your. . . accident the people at that table over there,” she motioned, “stiffed us for a twenty-two-dollar tab. Comes out of my salary.” Before we could say anything, she whisked away.

I said, “Poor woman. Don’t be hard on her.”

“I swear,” said Marla, “I wish that damn food critic would come to this place.”

“That reminds me—”

“Don’t. You don’t want to see it. Have your lunch first.”

“Marvelous. Let me get sick on a full stomach.”

Marla
tsked.
She said, “Before we got sidetracked by coffee, we were going to have a little mini-meeting. Talk about relationships.”

“Apart from a strained friendship with Schulz, I don’t have any at the moment.”

“But you did.”

Our salads arrived. I thought of Philip, the balloons and chocolate, the lovely inviting smile. I remembered sitting on the deck of my old house each morning.
Somebody loves me.
I thought of Philip’s rumored affair with Weezie Harrington.

I said, “I cared about him. I thought he cared about me.

“But you’re not sure.” I did not answer. She went on, “You wanted something.” She began on her salad. “Did the two of you do things with Arch? Hike, go to a movie?”

I felt a flood of embarrassment. I was unmasked. I said, “I’ve just been physically attacked, for God’s sake.” I paused. “No, nothing with Arch. Philip used to say things like, It’s nice to have you to myself. Besides, we’d only been seeing each other for a month, and he seemed so interested in knowing all about me. I just was hoping so much for . . .”

She leaned across the table, held my hand snugly in hers.

“Hoped for more than was there? Forget about it, Goldy. Maybe even hold out for the cop.”

I pulled my hand away. “Can we change the subject?”

“Tell me how you’re getting along with my sister.”

I looked at Marla, my best friend. Her probing did not bother me. I knew she cared. Living with an abusive husband all those years had revealed my own skills at denial. Especially when it came to men.

“Are you doing okay with Adele?” she asked again.

I said, “Fine.”

“The general?”

I said, “Ditto. He’s odd, but nice.”

Marla was shaking her head. “I don’t understand their attraction. Of course, I really don’t know either of them very well.”

I said, “Your own sister?”

The red onion tart arrived. The smell of basil was deep and wonderful, and I remembered that, with its high concentration of plant oils, basil was a reputed aphrodisiac. Marla murmured an apology to the waitress, something along the lines of bad coffee making her crazy. The waitress accepted this with a nod and set a pot of tea on the table.

“Take this back pain, for example,” Marla said as she dug into the steaming tart. There was bitterness in her voice. She said, “Fifty-year-olds don’t walk with a cane.”

“The heck they don’t.”

Marla gestured with her fork. “Repressed emotion, if you ask me.”

“What’s this, the psychological.explanation of illness? Give me a break.”

The waitress came up to check if we were okay, and Marla ordered two glasses of chablis. Whatever it was she wanted to talk about, she needed wine to do it: the psychological explanation of alcohol.

Marla waited until the glasses arrived.

“Adele and I were close when we were little,” she said after a few sips. “I mean, we fought, you know, and she was so much older. But we cared enough about each other that when she left for college there were lots of tears, hugs, and daily letters. That kind of thing.”

“And when you weren’t little anymore?”

She lifted one shoulder in a tiny shrug. “You go your separate ways. Her first husband was a doctor.” She laughed harshly. “Runs in the family.”

“Divorce?”

Marla drank again, shook her head. “He died. Massive heart seizure at a cocktail party. One minute Dr. Marcus Keely was talking to his lovely wife Adele, the next minute he was dead in her arms.”

“Good God. How old was she?”

Marla pursed her lips in reflection. “Nineteen years ago. She was thirty-one.”

“How old was he?”

“Late thirties. History of heart disease in the family. High blood pressure, type A, all that.”

To my surprise, Marla had tears in her eyes.

I said, “I thought you didn’t know him.”

She shook her head, drank more wine. “I didn’t.”

“Well?”

She put her glass down and leaned toward me. “Goldy, if you had a sister you’d grown up with, and cried with every time the two of you had to part, and told about the first time you kissed a boy and all that, wouldn’t you think that one of you would seek out the other one when her husband died?”

“And she didn’t?”

Marla sniffed and delicately wiped her eyes with her napkin. “She came out west to visit when our parents retired here. The doctor left her a lot of money. Her way of dealing with grief was to spend it. She bought a place in Sun Valley and part ownership in a condo in Aspen. That’s probably worth a mint. She should sell it. You can’t ski Aspen if you walk with a cane.”

I nodded. It usually worked the other way around, though. You skied Aspen, you ended up with a cane.

“She spent some time with me, even bought some land here, where their house is now. But did she talk to me about how she felt? Did she cry in my arms? Did she need me? No.”

“Well,” I said slowly, “maybe she only did that when you were little.”

“I wanted to help her,” Marla said. Her eyes were red and leaking again.

I remembered the flicker of judgment in Adele’s eyes when Marla had appeared at her house last Friday. And then there had been Marla’s bent head, her embarrassed acceptance of that judgment. For a moment, I had seen Marla as she must have been afraid her slender, perfectly groomed older sister saw her—as too heavy, too scatterbrained, too frowsy, too frivolous.

I said, “Adele doesn’t like others, even Bo, to help her. Well, unless it’s for some greater cause, like fund-raising. She doesn’t like to seem dependent, I think.”

“It’s not the same.”

I said evenly, “You wanted her to love you—”

“Don’t say it.” Marla dabbed her eyes, blew her nose.

We had finished our lunch. The heavy conversation was over. Our waitress brought us lemon mousse, on the house, she said, to make up for the coffee.

Marla insisted on paying for lunch. As we began to walk out, I told her I had forgotten something at the table. I hobbled back and left the waitress a twenty-two-dollar tip.

15.

Marla wanted me to leave the van at the café. She would drive me home, she announced. I politely declined. In addition to hating cowboys, Marla could not abide the flood of summer tourists in Aspen Meadow. There you’d be with her behind a car from Kansas, Texas, or Nebraska going ten miles per hour on a mountain road. She’d let down the Jaguar window and yell, “Admit it! You’re
lostl”

So I let her follow me back to the Farquhars. She wanted to make sure I could manage my vehicle. This was no easy task. My arm ached from the makeshift bandage, but I gritted my teeth. Something twisted inside my chest upon seeing the repaired Thunderbird in the garage. I invited Marla in, but she begged off.

“Adele and Bo haven’t asked me over once since they’ve lived here. I’m not going to traipse in uninvited. But the next time your neighbor has an aphrodisiac dinner, why don’t you get her to include me? I’ll think of some fellow to bring. And believe me, Goldy, I’ll make sure the food works.”

“How did you know about the dinner?”

She drew her puffy cheeks down into a scowl. “I’d be willing to wager the whole town knows, now.” Reluctantly, she reached into her capacious purse and pulled out the new issue of the
Mountain Journal,
then handed it to me with a dour look. “Don’t do anything rash,” she said before grinding the Jag around in a thirteen-point turn to get out of the driveway.

I tucked the paper under my arm and started up to the house for bandages and an aspirin. The wine had not killed the pain. My aches swelled like a chorus.

Before I reached the house, something caught my attention: the door to the magazine side of the garage was open. Its edge was just visible where the two walls met. Either somebody was in there or somebody had left the door ajar.

I walked through the garage, making as much noise as possible. Peering into the magazine’s near-darkness, I could see General Farquhar surveying rows of weapons arrayed over a banquet-size table. He had been alert to my arrival, and nodded to my knock on the open door.

He saw me holding my arm. “Don’t tell me that bastard—”

I said, “No, no. At least, I’m not sure.”

“What happened?”

“I sort of had an accident.”

“Another one?”

I told him about the shove at the café, although I did not tell him what the attacker had said. “It’ll be all right. The main damage was to the café, I think. What’s all this?” I gestured at the weapons on the table.

“Just doing some cleaning,” he said. “After all those flowers and shops in Vail, I needed to do something constructive.”

I didn’t know how cleaning weapons was constructive, but I let it go.

“May I sit down?” I asked tentatively. “Will I be buzzed by some electronic ray?”

“It’s all turned off,” he assured me. But he did stop to watch me enter. His blue eyes looked dark in the windowless room. Neon rectangles overhead lit neat piles of cardboard boxes pushed against cement walls. There were No Smoking, No Fires, and No Matches signs, along with an NRA poster. On the far wall was what looked like an antique gun cabinet with a glass front. It was a beautiful piece, probably mahogany. But no way would a gun cupboard fit Adele’s traditional decor, hence its placement in the magazine. I shivered and looked for a place to sit.

General Bo came around and helped me to settle on a sturdy wooden box.

“Where in the world did you get all these weapons?”

“Part of my research,” he said as he lifted one carefully and I shifted back. “Don’t worry, it’s not loaded. This is an AK-47, Chinese made. Favorite of terrorists. It’s getting hard to get over here. I got this one in Morocco.”

“Why?”

His brow furrowed. “I’m one of the few people in this country who knows the dangers of what we’re facing. If I can do enough research, maybe someone will start listening.”

Instead of treating you like an outcast, I thought.

“But why trek around the world looking for weapons? I mean, it’s not like recipes or furniture. You can’t swap them or take them to the flea market.”

He regarded me patiently, as if I were a dull child. “Because I wanted them, that’s why. It’s a dangerous world we live in, Goldy, in case you hadn’t noticed with that husband of yours. He’s the kind of person you want to look out for,” he added firmly.

“Ex-husband.”

“Like Adele,” he said as if he had not heard me. “I love her, too, and I was determined to get her. I thought they’d appreciate us in Washington, but they did not. So I built this house and this storage area. Through my research, the truth will be told.”

I resisted the impulse to ask,
Truth about what?
I was fairly sure the general and I did not share a world-view. Still, I liked the man. He was eccentric, but his heart was in the right place. Where his mind was I was not sure. In any event, I was not up to a political discussion. I merely nodded and looked around. Brilliant sunlight from the open door made it hard to see in the neon-lit room. The boxes bore stamps that were meaningless to me. On the open door were numerous admonitions to lock up. Which reminded me.

“Ah, General Bo,” I began. What was I supposed to call him, anyway? We had never quite worked that out. “Ah, I was wondering if I could talk to you about Julian. . . .”

The general squinted at me, continued his cleaning motion with the gun.

He said, “What about him?”

I felt uncomfortable complaining. But maybe he could give me some insights, since he and Julian did seem genuinely friendly.

“Tell me about him,” I said. It wasn’t just the hostility that bothered me. There was also Julian’s distinct discomfort at the dinner Saturday night. And someone had attacked me. Someone strong, perhaps wearing a wig. “He doesn’t exactly seem like someone who was raised with. . .” I tried not to say
money or class,
but couldn’t seem to find the right words.

“Doesn’t seem like someone who knew what all those little forks meant?” The general turned his back to me as he put the pistol back in its cabinet.

“Not just that. He’s so hostile.”

“To you, maybe,” the general replied.

“But why?”

“Because of the food! He helps me with the garden, as you know. Originally he claimed he could handle all the cooking, too. But Adele wanted a professional caterer. Ergo, hostility for the caterer.”

“I see. But there’s something else. He seems awfully uncomfortable around . . . money.”

“Stands to reason, Goldy.” General Bo eyed me before turning his gaze on another weapon and carefully picking it up. “Recoilless rifle,” he explained. “If it hadn’t been for our scholarship for science students, Julian would still be making candy and Navajo fry-bread down in Bluff.”

“Meaning?”

He turned the corners of his mouth down, shrugged. “You know how Adele gets a bee in her bonnet. Coordinating the church music conference. Raising money for that pool at Elk Park.” He shook his head. “We had sold our house in Washington and were planning this house, when she read a long sad story in the
Post
about a fellow down on one of those reservations who got thrown in jail for theft. Turns out he was a real bright fellow, just poor. She says, That does it, we’re going to set up a scholarship for some youngster.”

I squirmed on the box. My back and legs were beginning to hurt, I said, “Just like that?”

He nodded. “Of course, I wanted to do an athletic scholarship for a young man to go to military preparatory school and then West Point. But she was having none of it, said she’d like to see the person who won the scholarship. Watch his progress.”

I imagined a wealthy client coming out to the kitchen to watch my progress on beef Wellington. I wouldn’t allow it. Teenagers were a different ball game, however. Their resistance to control usually manifested itself as rebellion against authority. Or resentment of a more experienced cook. Julian’s hostility was beginning to be a lot more understandable.

“So she called her sister,” the general was saying, “and asked about this prep school over in Elk Park, since it was near her property. My only request, since it was my money, too, was that the boy be athletic.” He grinned. “I didn’t want to rule out the possibility of West Point.”

I assumed a polite tone. “Of course not.”

The general went on, “She called the school and offered the scholarship money. Ha! Took them about ten seconds to decide, although they made a great show out of taking it to their board of trustees and so on.” He laughed, remembering. “When Adele told them she was moving out here, they said, Well, we just happen to have a trustee vacancy here, how about it? And it’s been all pool fund-raising ever since.”

“How can they afford a pool but not afford a boarding department?”

The general moved over to his cabinet and retrieved a large weapon.

I said, “Gosh, General Bo, that looks like something you see in the movies.”

“Grenade launcher,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone. “You were asking me something about Elk Park. . .”

I said, “The pool. Why have that instead of a boarding department?”

“Attract more locals that way,” said the general. “Elk Park has learned it can’t compete with the eastern boarding schools for students. So many of those have gone out of business in the last decade anyway. What’s amazing is that Elk Park lasted as long as it did. Although I don’t think Adele was bargaining on the boarding department closing as soon as we moved out here.”

“Or bargaining on inheriting your scholarship student.”

“No,” he said thoughtfully, “that either.”

A sudden darkness billowed into the room. The general muttered under his breath as he peered outside. I followed his gaze. Dark clouds had swept eastward from the mountains.

“Don’t worry,” I said to him. “That means it’s officially summertime. Every afternoon melting snow in the high country to the west will form clouds, move east, and give us a shower. It’s only dangerous if there’s lightning and you’re out swimming or climbing.”

“Beg to differ,” he said, his voice crisp. “Lightning is dangerous if you’re sitting on hand-held surface-to-air missiles.”

I looked cautiously down at the box where I was perched. What exactly
was
under it?

He said, “Not literally, Goldy. It’s all over there,” and he pointed to a long cabinet built along the wall. In the dimness I had not even noticed it. Now I saw that the cabinet door had a bulky lock. “But,” he went on, “I would feel better if you closed that door. The building is grounded. Nevertheless, I don’t want to take any chances.”

I slid off the box. “I have to be going anyway. Arch forgot to roll the garbage can down.”

“I’ll do it,” he said. “You’re in no condition to do chores.”

I couldn’t exactly argue with that. I waited while he packed up the remaining weapons.

“What was that policeman’s name,” he asked with his back to me, “the one who helped you the day of the accident?”

I said, “Schulz,” and wondered if the general’s tone was just a tad too nonchalant.

“Did he mention anything about that explosion? I mean, afterward?”

“No,” I said, somewhat tentatively. “He just told me to be careful.”

The general drew his bottom lip up over his top teeth and brought his eyebrows together, a studious attitude of reflection. He said, “You didn’t tell him about the magazine, did you?”

“No,” I said. But I will, I thought. I said, “Why? What you’re doing is legal, isn’t it?”

He lifted the last of the guns and placed it in the cabinet.

“Oh, of course. It’s just that law-enforcement agencies can get so jealous of each other. I wouldn’t want the locals poking around here, you know?”

As usual, I did not.

“In any event,” the general said when he had locked the cabinet, “when you see him I’d appreciate your not mentioning this room. He’ll probably think I’m some kind of wacko instead of a bona fide researcher.”

As far as I was concerned, the jury was still out on whether the general was wacko. But I just said, “It’s going to start raining. If we’re going to do the trash, we need to hustle.”

The general locked and armed the entry door.

“Too heavy for a young boy,” he observed as he tilted the garbage cart back on its wheels. I tried to help guide it and overcompensated with my good arm. The cart tipped over with a resounding crash. Coffee grounds, orange halves, bills and letters, meat trays and plastic wrap, cans and bottles spilled, rolled, broke, and skittered across the garage floor.

Two catastrophes in one day. I wondered about the Guinness record for mess-making as I gathered up soaked envelopes from Utah, rifle shells, empty bottles of Adele’s Estée Lauder cream and Julian’s peroxide, as well as bits of cut rope and empty fertilizer bags.

I said, “Why do you suppose Julian dyes his hair?”

“Probably to disguise his upbringing among the Indians,” the general said, exasperated. “Although you’d think he’d choose another style.” He scooped up mounds of fruit peelings sanded with coffee grounds, old newspapers, and empty chocolate boxes. He lifted one of these and said, “Sometimes you can’t believe you ate this stuff in the first place.”

Large raindrops had begun to splat down on the driveway when he finally towed the trash wagon to the curb. It was not until we were walking into the house together that it even occurred to me to wonder how the general knew I was going to see Schulz again.