The Last Suppers (6 page)

Another policeman directed us around the side of the house. Here the property sloped down to Cottonwood Creek. I pulled the donated quilt around my shoulders, and with Helen Keene, Boyd, and Armstrong, skirted the perimeter of taut yellow tape. The four of us made our way down the hill littered with fallen logs and underbrush that sloped to the creek. My wedding shoes skidded over slippery pine needles. I knew there was a short path down to the water out the back of Olson’s home. Because the weather had been unusually warm the night of the dinner meeting last month, the vestry had made the descent to and from the creek while I steamed pork dumplings in the kitchen before the stir-fry. From the noise to our left, it was clear that path was still being scoured for some indication of what had happened.

As I plodded and slipped on the way down, my heart seemed to be taking a thrashing. It was like being caught in the undertow on the Jersey shore where I’d spent childhood summers. Within moments we slid into a narrow strip of meadow. Snow clung thick as dandruff to tufts of withered grass. Bare-branched cottonwoods edged the creek’s path. When I tried to walk toward the water, dark mud sucked on the soles of my shoes. Law-enforcement types trudged along the creek bank: One group was doing a video of the crime scene, another took photographs, a third painstakingly measured distances. A cluster of people stood or crouched around a covered bundle on the snow. A white-haired policewoman from one group noted our presence. She motioned us toward them.

“We’re reconstructing how Schulz was taken,” she said to me without preamble. “Come on over and take a look.” T. Calloway, her nametag said. On the way to the creek bank, she thanked me for coming out and brusquely explained that they would not be ready to move any of the evidence until I identified it. This, she explained, was standard police procedure. “Which was why we needed you right away.”

“So how could Tom Schulz have been kidnapped?”

Investigator Calloway shook her head, then stopped
abruptly at the six-foot drop-off to the water. She pointed to the other side. “The vehicle was over there. A four-wheel-drive of some kind. Somebody appeared to be prodding Schulz to move forward.”

But my eyes were drawn to the creek bed itself, where the mud, sand, and rocks had been churned with activity. I saw footprints and ridges. I saw … ah, Lord.

“I’m sorry,” said Investigator Calloway. “Tell me what you see. I need to know.”

I pointed toward the water. At first my voice refused to engage, but I forced it out. “That’s Tom’s wallet…. That’s his key ring.”

“Look out of the water itself. By that large rock.”

Shallow water rushed around a boulder in the middle of the stream. I squinted. A sandy spit of land almost touched the boulder. On the sand was a small box, which I knew from its size and shape was covered with dark green velvet. The name embossed in gold on the top would be
Aspen Meadow Jewelers.

My headache cut like razor blades. Investigator Calloway’s distant voice said, “The box has a—”

“Yes,” I interrupted. “He would have had that box with him.” I did not need to be reminded of the box’s contents, the thin gold band Tom and I had picked out. His ring was still in Father Olson’s office at the church. I said, “He was so big, strong … I still don’t understand how someone could have, that is, could there have been more than one person—”

Calloway held up one finger. She shook her head. “Besides Schulz’s, there’s only one set of footprints.”

There was a fresh rustle of activity from the group by the creek bank. Investigator Calloway motioned us back toward the voices.

“Yeah, it’s his.”

“I think so.”

“It doesn’t make sense to me …”

Calloway lifted one bushy white eyebrow. “Looks like we might have one more thing for you, Miss Bear.”

Together we walked to a group of police officers by the
thick stand of cottonwoods. My eyes were drawn to the corpse-sized lump covered with dark material. It was hard to believe I would never see Father Olson again. The crowd fell silent, then parted abruptly in front of us.

“Schulz might have tossed it over here. Have her take a look at it.” The speaker was an angular man with shaggy red hair and a gravelly voice. He pointed to a small soggy spiral notebook under the cottonwoods. Someone threw a poncho on the wet grass and mud in front of the notebook. Awkwardly, I knelt as directed, feeling all eyes on me. Investigator Calloway crouched beside me and spoke gently.

“Don’t touch it. Again, you’re more familiar with him, you can tell us if it’s Schulz’s.”

The top page of the notebook was wet. The writing on it was slightly smeared. I barely noticed Boyd as he squatted beside Calloway and me. Slashing strokes written with a blue ballpoint indicated the notes had been hurriedly taken, undoubtedly scribbled in an awkward position. Timidly, I read aloud:

My head throbbed. I reread the scribbles.

“Well?” demanded Inspector Calloway.

I said nothing.

Boyd grunted.

Frustrated, Investigator Calloway asked, “Is there
anything
you can tell us?”

I pulled back and looked into Calloway’s shrewd hazel eyes. Her look and her questions were urgent. I knew she needed my help to find Tom and solve this horrific murder. Pain squeezed my voice. I told her, “The handwriting is Tom Schulz’s. I don’t know what he was trying to say.”

B
oyd pressed his thin lips together, scowling down at the sodden spiral notebook. “Schulz and his notes. Memory enhancer, he called it.” He flung his match into the snow and craned his stubby neck to reread the scribbles.
“GSW times two.
Two gunshot wounds, we knew that.
DD.
Looks like he might have gotten a dying declaration.”

Investigator Calloway sighed. “Now if we could just figure out what the victim said. And we’ll need to read up about Judas.” She concentrated her gaze on me. “Know anybody with a white van? People with names, initials
VM
or B?”

I felt dizzy. His handwriting. I could hear my teeth chattering. A vision of a shotgun welled up. Where was the gun now? How much ammunition did it have?

“Please, Miss Bear. A van. A white Nissan van. Sound familiar?”

“Ah, I have a white van. It says …” I groped for words.
“Goldilocks’ Catering, Where Everything Is Just Right!
on the side. But it’s a Volkswagen, not a Nissan.”

“Is your van missing? Where was it this morning?”

With difficulty, I thought back. My van had spent the morning being filled with platters of food for our wedding reception. I told her so. Investigator Calloway nodded. She assured me her investigative team would check with Olson’s neighbors as well as with people who lived along Upper
Cottonwood Creek Road, to see if anybody else saw a van.

I stared at the wilted notebook that Tom had, presumably, somehow managed to toss into the bushes. The paper in front of me must hold some clue to what had happened out here. Impenetrable hieroglyphics stared back.

“Don’t you cops use some kind of standard shorthand? That’s what it looks like to me.”

Boyd pulled out his pad and began writing on it. “Nothing standard,” he said gruffly. “GSW and
DD
I already told you. Gunshot wounds. Dying Declaration. The victim was alive. The victim was dead. Somebody drove a van. A reference to praying and the Bible. We’ll get you a copy of this. If you can puzzle over it some more, that would sure help.”

“Wait, though,” said Calloway. “Wait. Look at it again, Miss Bear.
VM P.R.A.Y.?
Could all those periods in there have some significance for Schulz? Or something from your church, maybe? Is P.R.A.Y. an acronym for some church organization? Schulz used V for victim on the first line, so could VM refer to that? We’ll check through his files, see what we can come up with. Maybe you have something else he’s written, some notes to you, something with abbreviations?”

I said no and did not mention that Tom Schulz had written me few notes in the time we’d known each other. Our courtship had emerged from crisis. When the attempted poisoning of my ex-father-in-law had led to the temporary closing of my catering business, I had responded reluctantly to Tom’s interest in me. As our relationship developed over the last eighteen months, we’d had phone conversations, barbecues, outings in the mountains or in Denver. These outings invariably concluded with meals I fixed in my professional cooking area or dinners Tom prepared in the fabulously equipped kitchen of his cabin. And only very recently, when we were alone, those meals were followed by lovemaking.

We had not written.

Calloway persisted. “But you must have
something
of
his, a notebook, journal, calendar, anything that might contain some of these abbreviations. If you did, or if such written material existed, would it be at your house? Or his?”

I knew she was doing her job. Trying to find their premier homicide investigator, the police would ruthlessly unearth every scrap of information. But I wasn’t up to discussing our complex domestic arrangements, especially when it involved so much stuff in boxes that had just been moved to my house from Tom’s cabin. In fact, I wasn’t up to discussing much of anything. I said, “I’m not sure. But I’ll look. I promise.”

“Who has keys to his place?” she wanted to know. “And his car? I mean, besides that set in the creek.”

My eyes were burning, my hands were numb with cold. I muttered that I had a set of keys to his home but not with me. Anyway, I added, his place was empty. At that moment, another officer summoned Calloway. She promised that Boyd or Armstrong would stay in touch, and directed that I keep the phone line to my house open. I asked Boyd when I could have the articles Tom Schulz dropped at the crime scene. He clomped off, then reported back that when the lab was done with them, someone would come by my place with Tom’s things.

“Was there any blood?” I asked Boyd. I cleared my throat. “Tom’s blood? You said he was hurt.”

Boyd winced sympathetically. One of his rough hands reached out impulsively for mine. Quietly, he answered, “Looks like he got scratched on the rocks. Maybe he turned his ankle or broke a leg bone coming down the bank. I’m not going to lie to you: He could be hurt bad.” I couldn’t listen, couldn’t look at Boyd, couldn’t bear to have him touching me. I turned my gaze to the snowy ground and pulled my hands away. Boyd went on. “That’s the only way the perp could have overpowered him, we think. If that’s what happened. You know, Schulz is muscular, he’s a tough guy. Street smart and regular smart. We’re going to bring you a copy of the note,” he added, changing the subject, “for you to study.”

A cold, wet breeze swept the frigid meadow. The end of the snow and advent of watery afternoon sunshine had not materialized into anything warm and springlike. I clasped my upper arms but couldn’t stop trembling. Helen Keene shambled over to me and again threw the victim-advocate quilt around my shoulders. Slowly we walked down the muddy driveway to Boyd’s squad car. She asked me for directions and then drove us home. We passed the ranches, the custom homes, the preparatory school entrance. The time spent in Olson’s meadow had been hard on my wedding suit; cold, wet silk clung to my legs. In my mind’s eye, I kept seeing Boyd, Armstrong, and Helen Keene walking across the flagstones to the St. Luke’s office with their terrible news. I couldn’t control a gutteral groan. I needed to get home, to be with Arch and Julian.

“Please keep your phone line open,” Helen said after I’d turned down her offer to come into my house and stay for a while. She handed me her card. “And keep the quilt,” she added softly. “A group of women from your church donates them to the Sheriff’s Department and to Aspen Meadow Outreach just for situations like yours.” The questions bubbled up in my brain: Situations like mine? What exactly was my situation? But Helen held me in her steady gaze. “Goldy—please call me if you need me.”

I thanked her and extricated myself from the police car. On the sidewalk across from my house, a trio of neighbors watched, apparently oblivious to the cold. How bad news traveled so quickly in this town I did not know. Stumbling dizzily toward my front door, it was all I could do to keep the quilt awkwardly clutched around my muddied wedding suit.

Once I had come through our security system, I called for Arch, then Julian. The silent house felt deserted without the customary rich smell of cooking. My suitcase, packed for our honeymoon, sat forlornly in the front hall. I turned away from it.

“Oh, Mom, you’re here!” cried Arch as he galloped down the stairs. He had changed from the tux to a gray sweatsuit. “Julian took Grandma and Grandpa to the airport.
He’s taking our tuxes back, too. I was just about to start putting the food in the walk-in, the way Julian told me. Where’s Tom? How come your clothes are so messy? Where’d you get that blanket thing?”

“Oh, hon. It’s a long story.” I begged off immediate explanations by announcing I would take a shower while he put the platters away. Wearily, I climbed the stairs. Every muscle in my body ached. In the bedroom that Tom had begun only recently to share with me, I stood in front of the mirror and gazed at the ruined beige silk outfit.
A middle-aged Miss Haversham,
my reflection mocked back. A flood of anger sent my fingers ripping at the tiny pearl buttons. Two flew off and
pinged
on the wooden floor. A half-formed sob squawked out of my throat. I carefully removed the churchwomen’s necklace.
I don’t deserve this,
I reflected bitterly. Selfish to worry about what I didn’t deserve, but I didn’t care. Tears leaked out of my eyes as I groped around on my knees until I found the buttons. I
have suffered enough already. Hey, God? Did you hear me? If you’re really there.
After placing the buttons on my bureau, I reached for Tom’s pillow on the bed, then buried my face in it. I sobbed and gasped, then inhaled deeply. Even though he’d spent the last few nights at his cabin, the pillowcase had the wonderful smell of him.