The Grilling Season (4 page)

Tom said quietly, “You’re under arrest. I’ve just arranged for transport.” He reached in his back pocket for his handcuffs. He must have brought them, I thought, stupefied. Tom must have brought the cuffs and his badge and his weapon, when I told him where I was and what I’d seen.

John Richard leaped forward and swung at Tom; the three neighborhood ambassadors jumped back. John Richard’s fist shot upward again. But Tom was ready for him. He grabbed John Richard’s right arm and swung it forcefully around. Cursing, John Richard fell to his knees. Tom put his other
hand into John Richard’s back and brought him easily to the ground. John Richard yelled, threatened, cursed, and reminded Tom of what he would do to him the minute he got free.

Tom leaned over and said,
“Shut. Up.”

W
ith practiced quickness, the paramedics transferred their energy from trying to revive Suz to pulling back. They authoritatively called out orders and pushed aside the bystanders. No matter: The group of people, which had now grown to five, had turned their attention from Suz and could not stop staring, fascinated, at John Richard. Handcuffed, he knelt in the street. Tom kept him there. Tom’s muscular body leaned toward John Richard. My husband spoke into my ex-husband’s ear. I could not make out what he was saying over the voices of the medics. But if the twisted look of fury on John Richard’s face was any indication, it wasn’t good news.

Tom turned and made an announcement to the mesmerized bystanders. “Okay, you five, here’s the deal. Go stand in different driveways until we’ve stabilized this situation. Police officers will come talk to you when they arrive. Do
not
discuss this among yourselves.” He paused to make sure they understood. Two nodded; the others just stared. “All right, thank you. Go ahead, please, move away. Now.”

As the men promptly defied Tom’s orders by
departing in a whispering cluster, John Richard raised his angry voice, demanding to be let out of the handcuffs. The medics ignored him, as did Tom, who once again pulled the mobile unit off his belt and made a call. I heard him say the words “captain,” “video,” and “team.”

Tom spoke again to John Richard, then helped him to his feet. The Jerk, cuffed, shook loose of Tom’s arm, then stalked angrily to the base of Suz Craig’s tar-streaked driveway. Tall and elegant even with his arms bound at an improbable angle behind him, Dr. John Richard Korman stood shifting his weight from one khaki-clad leg to the other. I thought absurdly that he looked as if he were considering poses for an art class. Above his gorgeous, chiseled face, which occasionally spasmed with rage, his blond hair was only slightly tousied from his exchange with Tom.

I turned away, disbelieving. Was this really happening? There was a buzzing in my ears. My eyes burned. I sat down on the curb and focused on Tom.

Tom knew what he was doing. He could switch into his take-charge mode without a hitch. He nimbly moved his beefy body around the periphery of the ditch. He gave a few more instructions to the paramedics, who plopped down listlessly on the dirt-strewn incline. He had probably told them to do nothing until the coroner arrived. Then, his face set in that intimidating expression I knew so well, Tom walked in the direction of the driveway and John Richard. I tried to remember a time when I had seen these significant men from my life standing next to each other. I failed. And this certainly wasn’t the
circumstance where I wanted to make the comparison of how the two appeared and how they acted. I looked away, up the street.

If I was right about what Tom had told the paramedics, the coroner would be arriving soon in his van. As my eyes skimmed the row of big, beautifully maintained houses, I wondered helplessly about Arch. I still had to go get him. I needed to stand up and put one foot in front of the other and tell Tom I was leaving. But exactly how would I say that?
I’ve got to go tell my son that his father has been arrested for murder?
I stayed put.

Tom, meanwhile, gently took a stiff John Richard by the elbow and guided him up the driveway toward the house. Reluctantly, I stood and followed. The buzzing in my ears was not from the sprinklers.
Get Arch, get out of the club, and get back home.
But who would take care of my son at home, comfort him and talk to him? I had a party tonight. Could Macguire help, even though he was bedridden with mono? Not likely. I would think of something. For now, I had to get away from here. The bystanders, perched like friendly watchdogs on this street full of posh houses and lush green lawns, watched my journey up the driveway with undisguised interest.

“I need to leave,” I announced to Tom. I darted a sideways glance at John Richard. Tom had directed him to the far end of Suz’s porch, where he perched stiffly on the edge of a white wicker couch. I flinched at the sight of his scathing stare and his silent, enraged face. I cleared my throat. “I need to get Arch.”

“You do that!” John Richard exploded, but not, I noticed, loudly enough for the nosy neighbors to
hear. I looked at him curiously. His outburst contained no sadness. No grief. “Go get Arch!” he yelled, his face shaking. “Tell him
why
we can’t go hiking! And be sure to let him know what you and your buddy have cooked up here! Arch is bound to just love it!”

My temper snapped. “Listen!” I yelled back, “I was just driving up—”

“Save it!” John Richard hissed. The cords in his neck strained. “No more child support if I’m in jail! Think about it!”

“Look, you.” I tried to stop the angry shaking of my voice but could not. “I haven’t gotten any child support since—”

“Goldy.” Tom’s passionless tone mercifully stilled the exchange. He waited until he had my complete attention. “Don’t get Arch yet. You need to stay here, make a statement.” His face was calm. “And you should see a victim advocate.”

“Victim advocate?” John Richard bellowed. “What does she need an advocate for?
I’m
the damn victim here!”

I gaped at Tom, dumbfounded. Of course. I had discovered the body. The police had to question me. And the psychologists’ recommendation for a person discovering a body was that that person was traumatized and needed comfort. But this wasn’t the first murder victim I’d found. I’d managed before without an advocate. Still, what was the psychologists’ recommendation if your
ex-husband
was charged with the murder you’d stumbled upon? I couldn’t think. I swayed as I stood between the overturned geranium pot and the wicker furniture. What had I been doing just a moment ago? Oh, yes.
I’d been having an argument with my ex-husband about money. Now I was having a conversation with my current husband about an advocate.

You must get Arch
, my inner voice urged.
You must tell him what’s happened before someone else does.
Trauma? You bet. Undreamed-of trauma. But like most women, I couldn’t take time out from the other crises of my life to be taken care of. “I don’t want an advocate,” I told Tom. “I’m okay.”

Even as I spoke Tom was pulling the phone off his belt. “What’s Marla’s number?”

“Oh, right!” John Richard raged. “Let’s get old
Marla
over here. One big happy family. Hey! I have an idea! Ask that fat dumb broad how she planted my ID bracelet in that ditch.”

Tom ignored him as I recited Marla’s number. Should Marla really come, though? I didn’t want this situation to aggravate her cardiac condition. She should not come here, I muttered. When Tom asked, I gave him the address of Arch’s friend, Sam Rodine. It was near enough to Marla’s house that she could meet me there. While Tom murmured into the phone, the coroner’s black van pulled up beside the curb. A warm breeze swished through the aspens. The babble of voices on the street increased in volume.

“I don’t believe this,” muttered John Richard.

“No, Marla … Goldy’s fine, just upset,” Tom was saying. “But I need you to take care of her for a while. Meet her over at the Rodines’ house and bring some iced coffee or something. Just be with her, okay?” While he was talking, his eyes never left the two men from the coroner’s staff who were going
about their grim work in the ditch. I noticed John Richard’s eyes never strayed toward that spot.

“Look, Marla, Goldy will tell you what’s going on when she meets you, okay? I need to go,” Tom said in his conversation-ending voice. “She’ll be tied up here for about fifteen minutes, so … Sure you can get dressed that fast. Yes, Goldy is with me now. No, we’re not at home. Marla, please … Okay, look, Goldy and I are over on Jacobean, here in the country-club area.”

Marla’s squawk through the receiver was audible across the porch. Of course Marla didn’t need to ask
where
on Jacobean we were. She was the one who had called me seven months ago and in a tremulous, indignant voice, announced the name, address, and all the vital statistics she’d gleaned on John Richard’s latest conquest, Suz Craig.

“No,
don’t
come over, we’ve got enough confusion as it is. Goldy won’t be here too much longer….” Tom sighed. “Yes,” he said finally, “John Richard Korman is here, too. Marla, remember what I said. Goldy will be on her way to the Rodines’ place in a quarter of an hour.” Then he muttered, “See you later,” and disconnected. Well, that was one way to get out of a conversation.

Tom leaped off the porch without explaining where he was going. He stopped to talk to someone from the coroner’s van, then hustled back to us. He held up a hand to me: five minutes.

“Okay, Mr. Talkative,” said Tom to John Richard. He sounded almost cheery as he snapped the phone back on his belt. “You’ve been wanting to talk and now you’ve got your chance. How about telling us exactly what happened here?”

“That’s
Dr.
Talkative to you, schmuck.” John Richard tossed his head, suddenly cairn. His changes in mood, of course, were well known to me. “And I’ve been Mirandized. I’m not saying another word until I talk to my lawyer.
Just
the way you told me to.” Then John Richard turned. His dark blue eyes spit fire at me even as his voice remained hideously even. “But as for you, I
know
you’re behind this. One way or another, I’m going to find out how. And if you tell my son about this in any way that makes me look bad, I’ll have you hauled into court so fast you’ll think our breakup was a caterers’ picnic.”

Oh, sure
, I thought. But I didn’t want to hear his empty threats. I was leaving. Of course, I wanted to ask John Richard what kind of “mixing up” he and Suz had done the night before.
Mixing up.
What a euphemism. How about, “I beat up women when they don’t do what I want?” In the near distance, sirens wailed. I shivered and wondered about the ID bracelet that Suz had so proudly given John Richard. And why would John Richard think Suz wanted to call
me
this morning? The sirens shrieked louder and a police car, lights flashing, burst into view. I knew better than to try to have any further conversation with John Richard.

The police car squealed to a stop behind the coroner’s van. A uniformed policeman and a tall, dark blond plainclothes woman I didn’t recognize came up to the porch and asked if I was Goldy Schulz, the person who’d found the dead woman. Was I ready to make my statement? they wanted to know.

Just then, there was one of those unexplained moments of utter silence. The breeze dropped. The
coroner’s staff in the ditch was still. The speculative buzz on the street ceased. Even the sprinklers stopped their metronomic splatting. Maybe the quiet was in my head. Maybe I was going to pass out.

“Mrs. Schulz?” inquired the tall female officer, who had said her name was Sergeant Beiner. She leaned in close. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” I whispered. “I need … need to go get my son.”

“Very soon,” she replied, as she straightened. Sergeant Beiner was fiftyish. Her six-foot height was somewhat mitigated by a humpback, and her narrow face was actually topped with a rooster-style burst of blond and gray curls. “We’re making an exception so you can go in just a few minutes. You
should
be coming down to the department,” she added, with a wary glance at John Richard. Then her tone turned sympathetic. “But since you have to go pick up your child, Mrs. Schulz, we’ll just ask a few questions now. We know where we can reach you if we need to talk to you some more later. Okay?”

I nodded. “Later,” I said dully, “I’ll be at home.”

The sergeant gently led me off the porch, out of earshot of John Richard and Tom. She motioned for the uniformed policeman to stand by her side as she ticked off her questions: How did you get here? What exactly did you see? What did you do? Did you see anybody driving away? Did you see anybody in the area?

While she made notes, I told her everything: I arrived in Tom’s sedan between six-thirty and seven, I saw a body in the ditch; I called 911 and Tom. No
one drove away. No one showed up except Dr. John Richard Korman, clutching a bouquet. It was a painful recitation. Sergeant Beiner said she or one of the primary investigators would be by to see me later in the day. I walked unsteadily back to the porch.

“I’m leaving,” I told Tom. He stepped off the porch and gave me a wordless hug. I murmured, “I’ll be okay” into his chest. Then I pulled away.

Behind me, the grating noises of a stretcher being wheeled across the pavement disturbed the quiet of the neighborhood. Another meow directed my attention to the porch steps. A small calico ball of fur dashed out and clawed at the upended geraniums. It was Suz’s cat, Tippy. I snagged the small feline and was rewarded with a scratch on the arm. Tippy, shivering and terrified, then scrambled up my arm. When I tried to coax her down, she dug her claws in and remained poised on my shoulder. Her little body trembled next to my head.

Two more police cars wheeled up Jacobean, red and blue lights flashing. I walked to my van with Tippy the cat perched resolutely on my shoulder. I knew the cat was part of the crime scene. But she would be ignored and abandoned if I didn’t care for her. So I took her. Three more uniformed Furman County deputies crossed Suz Craig’s lawn to Tom. Two more hauled equipment toward the ditch. No one noticed me.

The video team began to record the scene. I averted my eyes and opened the van door. The cat leaped into the back. I stared at the keys in my hand. My ring was just like Tom’s: keys to the house, keys to the sedan, keys to the van. I tried hard to remember what it was I was supposed to do
with these keys. It
could have been me.
After a moment of fumbling with the ignition, I started my van, and stepped hard on the accelerator.
It could so very easily have been me in that ditch, if I hadn’t gotten out all those years ago.

The dozen people gathered on porches stared with avid interest as my van chugged down the street. One man shook his head at my noisy progress. His red scalp blazed in the warming sun. Along the street, the velvety lawns glowed like chartreuse carpets.