Sticks & Scones (14 page)

Marla studied my face as I walked back to the table. “You look awful, Goldy, almost as bad as Julian. Are you okay? Where have you been? What took so long?”

I gestured to the suitcase and bag of albums and mumbled that I’d been getting them from the house. I handed the photo of John Richard to Sukie. “Here’s the guy we need to bar from entry. I don’t want to keep him from Arch, but he’s very volatile, and an ex-con to boot. So when he does see Arch, it’s going to have to be in a place with a lot of people.” I omitted the part about the attack from the computer thief, because I didn’t want to upset Sukie.

But Sukie’s blue eyes were full of worry as she handed me back the photo. “You did miss a call, Goldy, from the assistant district attorney. Her name is Pat Gerber? She wants you to call her.” She showed me the phone, tucked between the refrigerator and the glass-fronted kitchen cupboard of Eliot’s meticulously labeled Elizabethan conserves. I peered in at rows of chokecherry and redcurrant jellies, strawberry conserve with champagne, and plum jam. “This is just half of his insomniac production from this summer,” she said airily. “I was beginning to think we should not have destroyed the stillroom.”

As I dialed the district attorney’s office, I wondered how toasted brioche would taste with the plum jam, or
whether I could make a good Cumberland sauce with the currant jelly. I was put on hold and amused myself with the image of a latter-day Jay Gatsby fretting over a bubbling vat of conserve. When I was finally connected with Pat, she said that since I hadn’t specified parental visitation for John Richard in the restraining order, he was squawking to anyone who would listen. If I could work it out with the lawyers, the best thing to do—since everything had become so acrimonious, Pat added—would be to take Arch to a neutral site for the hand-off. I suggested an Aspen Meadow counseling center that included such a service. Good idea, Pat agreed. I told her I’d call my lawyer about letting John Richard have Arch overnight.

“Sounds workable,” she said. I should be prepared for a battle royal in two weeks, she went on, when the temporary order expired and we had to go before a judge and argue about permanent visitation orders. “John Richard’s got a prison record, which should make some difference, but it may not, since he’s got money and position in the community. And by the way, if he does make any threats against you, write them down,” Pat advised sternly. “If you can, have witnesses.”

What do you know
, I thought,
that’s already happened.
After we hung up, I scribbled down what had transpired at our house, put in a call to my lawyer, and outlined the overnight suggestion. He said he’d deal with the Jerk’s lawyer, who had already left three messages for him. Unless I heard to the contrary, I should drop Arch off at the counseling center today after fencing practice, around five-fifteen, with his overnight bag. Then I should pick up my son after school tomorrow. My heart sank as I hung up. Was this what I was looking forward to—a constant shuffling of poor Arch to and from his ex-con father?

Julian slid me a plate arranged with two hot croquettes and two small bowls of dipping sauces. The croquettes were crisp and crunchy on the outside, tasty with a home-made
roux-binder and hot melted cheese on the inside. I made
mm-mm
noises and dunked the second one into both the spicy Dijon mustard and tart cranberry sauces. I virtuously declined more, saying I had to go check on Tom.

I wanted to see Tom, that was true. It was so much better than brooding about the Jerk. But in reality, I mused guiltily as I trod up the carpeted stairs to our suite, I wanted to boot up my laptop—assuming Tom was still asleep—and read all the contents of that disk with its revealing electronic mail.

But he was not asleep. He was talking on the portable telephone, which he carefully put on his end table when I entered the suite. I wondered with whom he’d been talking, wondered if I had the guts to confront him about his communication with Sara Beth O’Malley. Had his state of blood loss, pain, and shock meant he’d forgotten what he’d said to me by the creek?

Was I going to live the rest of my married life like this?

“Sheriff’s department,” he said matter-of-factly, gesturing at the phone. Then he eyed me suspiciously. “What happened to you? You’re so late!”

“Oh, I got knocked out. Boyd will tell you all about it. Somebody stole our computers. How are you feeling?”

“
What? Who
knocked you out? Where? Miss G., I want you to tell me about it.”

“I was at the house.” I told him about being hit, the theft, the threatening visit of John Richard and Viv, and my trip to the shooter’s perch. “So we won’t be going home anytime soon.” I omitted any mention of the mysterious appearance of Sara Beth O’Malley, because I just couldn’t face talking about that. Yet.

Tom stared at me in stunned disbelief. “You put your life in danger for some pictures and a disk
on food?
Why didn’t you just get a police shot of Korman and go to the
library
for cookbooks?”

“Because I typed up very specific stuff for Eliot Hyde.”

“This is all my fault,” Tom said angrily. He shifted in the bed, obviously in pain, obviously peevish. “Damn this case.”

“Forget the case and just get better.”

He groaned and thumped his pillow, unable to get comfortable on the big bed. “I’ll get
better
if I can just figure out how Andy Balachek got himself killed, and who’s beating up on my wife.” He paused, then looked back at me. “The whole thing’s strange….”

“I … saw Andy’s blackened hands. Tom, was he electrocuted?”

“If I tell you, will you promise me not to go back into our house?” When I nodded, Tom said, “He was, but he didn’t die of the shock. That’s what’s so weird. You get a huge electric shock, you figure you can’t go far. Right?”

“Did Andy go
any
where?”

Tom’s eyes were grim. “It looks as if he was electrocuted, then shot. Then the killer put him in the creek, and either hightailed it out of there, or sat and waited for me to show up.”

M
arla slipped into the room without knocking. “Goldy!” she whispered. Her eyes glowed. “I have news!” Then she was instantly apologetic. “Sorry, Tom! I didn’t knock because I thought you’d be asleep.” She tossed her head of brown curls and lifted an eyebrow at me. “Come out into the hall if you want gossip about you-know-who and his you-know-what.”

“Ah,” I said, understanding Marla-speak for the Jerk and his sex life, the Jerk and his money, or both.

“I don’t know about you girls,” Tom teased. His mischievous smile vanished, however, when he moved his shoulder.

“Need a painkiller?” I asked, immediately concerned.

“No.” Typical male response. “I just want some quiet. Go visit with Marla.”

To Marla, I said, “Let’s hear it.”

She giggled and scurried out the door. I kissed Tom’s forehead and told him I’d be back soon to check on him.

Animosity manifests itself in a number of ways, I
thought as I avoided another
Wet Paint
sign in the hall. I possessed
a passive
defensiveness toward the Jerk. I never knew when he might attack, but I had learned not to let down my guard.
Active
animosity, on the other hand, was Marla’s specialty. She fed her obsessive hatred for the Jerk with information. She paid her lawyer a separate monthly fee to employ investigators to keep tabs on our mutual ex-husband’s shenanigans, sexual adventures, and—her favorite—his financial woes. From the triumphant tone in her voice, I suspected her latest news fell in the last category.

“You’re not going to
believe
what he’s up to now,” she began eagerly, once we were standing beside one of the tall windows that overlooked the courtyard.

“Try me.”

“Well,” she reported, her face set in mock disapproval, “it’s a shady financial deal.”

“Begin at the beginning.”

“My lawyer just called.” She ran a bejeweled hand through her hair. “Okay, you remember when he had to sell the Keystone condo?” I nodded. To offset monetary setbacks the previous year, John Richard had been forced to auction off his ski resort condominium. According to Marla, the condo had been the setting of much debauchery. “Okay, then he had to go through the inconvenience of being incarcerated, so he had to sell his practice. He realized about six hundred thou from that, after taxes and whatnot. His legal fees have reduced
that
by about half. So he’s back in his country-club house after … what? Serving less than five months of his sentence. Payments on the house are six thou a month and have never stopped. Add to that, paying you child support. On the plus side, his new salary at ACHMO is, don’t puke, eight hundred thou a year.”

“Eight hundred thousand dollars a year?”

“Uh, yeah. His lawyer landed him a job with the same HMO where his last girlfriend—the one he assaulted, let us not forget—once worked. Now John Richard is tightening up ACHMO’s formularies for prescription drugs. So when you ask,
Who at my HMO sets up the rules to deny me prescriptions?
here’s your answer:
The Jerk.
”

“He’s ratcheted up his stinginess to a grand scale.”

“No kidding.” Marla went on: “Okay, you’ve got an idea of his income, assets, and liabilities. Plus he’s got a prison record now, and getting a
new
mortgage is a tad difficult. So: How do you figure he’s buying a three-million-dollar town house in Beaver Creek?”

“Three
million?”
I gasped. “You have got to be—Wait, maybe he got a signing bonus with ACHMO.”

She shook her head. “Nope. Lawyer’s investigator says ACHMO took a hammering when they gave their new CEO a monster signing bonus. The news made it into the
Post;
the stockholders went ballistic at the annual meeting. ACHMO doesn’t give signing bonuses anymore. But you haven’t heard it all.”

I thought I detected the sound of distant yelling, coming from across the courtyard. “What was that?”

Marla glanced carelessly through one of the windows, then back at me. “Who knows? Now listen, the down payment on this place in Beaver Creek was three hundred thousand. My sources have their ways with the mortgage company, and report that he got a loan for a hundred fifty thou, equity from his place in the country club. His partner in the sale put up the other hundred fifty. Down payment done. Payments are interest only for the first six months, then a big balloon payment. And guess whose names are on the deed?”

“I can’t.”

“John Richard Korman and his new sidekick, Viv Martini.”

“But … he
never
goes for joint ownership. It was one of my problems when we were doing the divorce settlement.”

She waggled a finger at me. “Don’t you think I know that? The sources inside the mortgage company—oh, don’t give me that look, anyone can be bought. Anyway, my investigator says John Richard was making noises that
he
would be making the interest payments for six months. Viv has a modest income from gun sales. But when it came to that five-hundred-thousand-dollar balloon payment?
Viv
was the one asking about when the half-mil would be due,
exactly
, and if the mortgage company would take a check from
John Richard
’s account. My theory is that the balloon payment is
her
responsibility. Otherwise he wouldn’t do the deal, don’t you think? I’m also thinking they’re planning on selling the place for a huge profit, after they make the balloon payment. And they both go away happy. Or at least filthy rich.”

Filthy, indeed. “But if Viv Martini had a hundred fifty thou to blow, why latch onto the Jerk? Why would you do that kind of deal with someone you’d just started going out with?”

When Marla shrugged, her diamond dangle earrings sparkled. “He’s cute. He’s a doctor. What the hell, Goldy, why did
we
hook up with him?”

Because I loved him
, I answered silently. Because he’d promised he loved me, too.
Duh.

“Wait a minute.” I tried to think. “Arch told me John Richard was going to give Viv something when he got out of prison. A Mercedes, he said. Or a trip to Rio. Or maybe a Mercedes and a town house, huh?” I shook my head. “But even if you set aside the hundred fifty thou, where does the half-mil for the balloon come from?”

Marla’s smile broadened. “I figure it’s a drug deal. Prescription meds, sold on the black market at a huge profit.”

While Marla chattered about how she was going to have this or that friend of hers in Beaver Creek keep a lookout on everything John Richard and Viv did up there, I resolved to talk to Sergeant Boyd on the subject of Viv Martini. Boyd would be willing to tell me what the department knew, wouldn’t he? Well … he might if I threatened to follow Viv until I found out what she was doing.
That
wouldn’t only be time-consuming, it would be dangerous. On the other hand, I didn’t reckon it would be as perilous as going into a financial partnership with the Jerk. Viv was either one tough babe, or she was dangerously smitten with Dr. John Richard Korman.

Marla said, “And you know those leather duds Viv wears, well, there’s only one leather specialty shop in Beaver Creek, and the owner is a good friend of mine—”

I nodded, paying little attention. Last month, Furman County had been the scene of the murder of a FedEx driver and the theft of his three-million-dollar cargo. Yesterday, the body of one of the suspected hijackers had been found.
Now
, if I wasn’t making too much of a leap, a former girlfriend of Ray Wolff, the guy accused of masterminding the robbery, was doing a big real estate deal with a doctor whose assault conviction might not be known in ultrachic Beaver Creek. Was John Richard scamming the HMO? Was it possible that Viv Martini was laundering money through real estate? How probable was it that John Richard was being taken for a ride by his new girlfriend? Maybe John Richard would have to go back to jail. A shiver of delight wriggled down my spine.

“What do you suppose is the attraction between those two?” Marla demanded, then answered her own question by launching into a monologue on the subjects of sex and money. I thought of something else: If Viv was
not
doing a drug or other underhanded deal
with
the Jerk, did
he
know how she was getting her money? He had to trust that she’d come up with the cash. Then again, maybe all she
had to do was wrap herself around his torso and ask for the rough stuff.

“Listen,” Marla went on breathlessly, “I’ve found out something else about John Richard that might interest you. Has to do with your current employer.”

I gave her a skeptical look.

“According to Christine Busby, Sukie’s great pal on the labyrinth committee? Sukie’s a cancer survivor.”

“So? Lots of people are, Marla.”

She opened her eyes wide. “Cervical cancer. Detected by John Richard, who did Sukie’s hysterectomy. She’s been cancer-free for five years and can’t say enough to Christine about how wonderful El Jerko is.”

“But she didn’t act as if she knew him when I mentioned his name. Or when I showed her his picture—”

“Hmm. She didn’t confide in me about her illness, either. Maybe she doesn’t want to spill her secrets to her beloved ex-doctor’s ex-wives.”

“Marla, I need to tell Tom—”

Before I could finish articulating that thought, two people appeared on the far side of the courtyard. Both in hooded winter coats, they seemed to be arguing beneath the ground-level arcade that enclosed the courtyard. Their voices carried but the words were unrecognizable. The altercation rose a notch when the two tried to make their points by thrusting pointed fingers in each other’s faces. I shuddered. Unless my own experience was wrong, it wouldn’t be long before the conflict went physical.

Marla, ever willing to be diverted from gossiping about one situation to shoving her way into another, stared down avidly at the squabble. What looked like a tall man and a shorter, stockier one were now slapping each other’s hands away. The short man put his hands on the chest of the tall one and pushed him back. The tall man stumbled, fell, rolled, and then jumped back to his feet. His hood fell off.

“Wow!” Marla exclaimed. “The lord of the manor just went ass-over-teakettle. And Sir Eliot is quarreling with …”

But neither of us could make out the other person until both of Eliot’s hands flew up as if to choke the short man. Startled, the man pulled back and his hood flopped down …and revealed the disheveled white hair of Michaela Kirovsky, who was flailing as Eliot’s hands closed on her throat.

“Good God,” breathed Marla. “It’s that caretaker woman. Goldy—call nine-one-one.”

But there was no need, for at that instant Michaela wrenched violently away from Eliot and pulled a gleaming rapier off one of the covered arch supports. While Marla and I looked on in horror, Michaela slashed downward with the sword and struck Eliot’s left arm. I gasped. It was a move I’d seen Arch perform in fencing practice.

“I’ve got to tell Tom,” I said. “Get someone on the phone—”

“Hey!” yelled Marla, as she banged on the leaded glass. “Stop that!”

Startled, Eliot and Michaela glanced up. I whispered a curse and pulled back from the window. Marla, undaunted, waved both hands over her head and bellowed, “No fighting! Stop that or I’ll call the cops!”

Could they hear her through the glass? Did I care? I just wanted to be someplace else. So, apparently, did Michaela and Eliot, for when I peeked back out the window, both had disappeared through an unseen doorway.

“What in the hell do you suppose that was about?” demanded Marla. “I mean, they didn’t even give us a second look. And anyway! Even if you disagree with someone who works for you, you don’t try to choke ’em. I mean, not unless you coach college basketball.”

“I can’t deal with this now,” I said abruptly, realizing that if Michaela was not at fencing practice, it must have
been canceled. “I’ve got to run.” While Marla waited, I darted into our room—Tom was sleeping—and snagged my purse and jacket.

“Run where?” she whispered when I returned.

“I need to pick up Arch.” I zipped to Arch’s room, grabbed his overnight bag, and trotted back toward Marla. “I’ve got to drop him off for the Jerk, then come back and take care of Tom. And I want to get out of here before Eliot realizes I saw him. Should we report him to the domestic-abuse people, though?”

“Better wait on that,” said Marla, “because I think we might have just saved
him
from being stabbed, gored, and left for dead.” She walked purposefully down the hall. “Think I should tell Sukie? She’s Swiss, she’s used to being neutral, right?”

“Don’t,” I advised as I tried to hurry along behind her. Marla, heavier than I by about fifty pounds, had become devoted to a minimal but effective exercise routine since having a heart attack the previous summer. Still, I was surprised when she quickstepped down the carpeted stairs beside me. Following her, my head throbbed. I said, “Snooping around is hard on your health.”

“Uh-huh,” she replied. “I noticed what it’s doing for yours.” We pulled up in front of the kitchen door. “I just want to know why those two were arguing,” she said, the very picture of innocence. She pushed into the kitchen and merrily asked Julian where Sukie had gotten to. Julian, chopping vegetables, called to Sukie, who peeked out, startled, from where she was crouching inside the hearth. We’d interrupted her scrubbing of the fireplace’s interior walls, and she was not happy. Despite the twice-weekly visits of a cleaning company, Sukie felt compelled to check obsessively for spots they might have missed. Well, I’d probably be critical of any caterer I had to hire, so who was I to judge?

As I pulled out of the garage and accelerated across the causeway, a new question occurred to me:
Did Sukie’s cleaning jobs include straightening out messes made by her husband?

At quarter after three, Arch raced out the school gym entrance. “They’re refinishing the floor of the school fencing loft,” he announced as he heaved his bookbag into the rear of the van, “so Michaela gave us an assignment. She told us to run up and down five hundred stairs.” His tone was weary. “Fifty times ten stairs. Or whatever. But I’m too hungry to do that right now.”