Tough Cookie (19 page)

"She's on the prayer list, but the money request isn't confidential," Marla replied as she licked the last of her salad dressing from her fork. "Thank goodness! I'm so tired of keeping secrets!"

I couldn't help laughing; neither could Tom. Arch grinned, too, perhaps remembering how Rorry had showered him with hugs when he was little. He announced to us all that he was going to do another physics experiment. He shyly added that he was sorry he'd left his stuff in the hall. Then, to my astonishment, he opened his bag of ribbon candy to share with everyone.

-13- The next morning, I stood in my beautiful-but-drainless kitchen and admired the heaping platters of library reception cookies and muffins. Even when things aren't going very well, I consoled myself, it's best to bake. I fixed myself an espresso and filled small vases with cheery sprigs of holly and ivy for the library tables. Tom came in, kissed me, then whipped together a golden German pancake that puffed so hugely even Arch smiled. By seven-thirty, I had everything packed into the Rover and we were ready to roll.

As the Rover chugged behind Tom's Chrysler; snowflakes swirled down from an ominous charcoal sky. Despite the fact that we were heading for the much-complained-about early Sunday service at St. Luke's, Arch seemed less sullen than usual. That might mean Lettie was coming to the service. Then again, maybe it was the pancake.

Marla waved to us from a pew near the front. As we slid in next to her, I shot her a look of surprise. She usually did not get up to attend this service. Maybe her prayer-chain duties demanded she haul herself out of bed at dawn so as not to miss any rumors. Marla hated to think people were having crises without her knowledge.

I focused on the liturgy. At least, I tried to. An unidentified worry gnawed at me. I'd always told the Sunday schoolers to hand their problems over to the Almighty. Now I tried to take my own advice.

When we reached the beginning of the intercessory prayers, one of the ushers handed the priest a note. This practice of passing forward written prayers had been presented as a way to bring us together. It smacked a bit of TV-evangelist-land, but never mind. The priest solemnly intoned that we needed to pray for a former parishioner who was struggling with a pregnancy. This far-flung member of our parish family, he added, had also had her car stolen and vandalized.

"You see," Marla leaned over to whisper. "I told you."

Rorry. Questions about her behavior were what bothered me. And now this. When, I wondered, when was her car stolen and smashed? I would call her as soon as I finished at the library, and make that formal offer to bring casseroles to freeze until her baby arrived. Maybe she'd open up and tell me why she was in such a snarly mood at the fund-raiser in honor of her dead husband. Maybe she'd also share what had happened to her vehicle, so close to the time when mine had been struck.

The service ended. I hugged Arch. Tom kissed my j cheek. Arch had spent Saturday snowboarding and visiting his father at the Furman County Jail, only to come home to a wrecked science project. So this afternoon, he was starting over on the project and memorizing the lines from Spenser he was supposed to recite in English class this week. Tom would take him home, before going down to the department for a few hours. He wanted to check up on the information I'd given him. Marla asked what type of goodies I would be serving at the library. I told her they were delicious, guaranteed to please, and plentiful. What more could a caterer give? She said she'd be first in line. I took off.

Our small-town library, with its brick walls, steeply pitched copper roof, and two peaked reading towers, was an enchanting spot. I was alone in this opinion, though: Hundreds of letters to the local paper had protested the year-old structure as unmountainish. Unless public edifices looked like lodges, Rocky Mountain folks found them repulsive. Ever-resourceful Marla wrote in that we should call the place the "Chateau de Volumes." No one took her up on it.

I squinted through the snowflakes and was surprised to see a very large banner hung across the library entrance. HOLIDAY RECEPTION-REFRESHMENTS! it screamed. Might as well have said FREE CHOW! On the other hand, the thickening snow might deter the hordes.

Tom liked to tease that I was unhappy If there were too many folks, and miserable if there were too few. In other words, like the original Goldilocks, I was too picky.

As it turned out, the event was wonderful, or rather, just right. Over a two-hour period, about sixty well-bundled patrons tramped into the reading tower, shed coats, boots, mittens, and scarves, cozied up to the gas fireplace, and indulged in cookies, muffins, and each other's company. Marla gushed to every single guest that these were the best treats in the universe. People enthusiastically replied, Yes, the best indeed. My heart warmed, especially when a dozen patrons begged me to do their Christmas parties. Rather than shamefully admit to my official closure - with my business shut, I could only give munchies away, I couldn't sell them - I replied that my personal chef work and the TV show in Killdeer had me fully booked up to the new year. To which Marla, ever the optimist, added that I was compiling a waiting list for February. She urged patrons, Call Goldy and order your special Valentine's Dinner, delivered right to your door!

When I shot her a blank look, she winked and gave me a thumbs up. At least ten people swore they'd give me a ring. What would I do without Marla?

The afternoon's only wrinkle came as I was packing up. One of the librarians told me in a low voice that I should not forget to pick up the books I had ordered. When I said I hadn't ordered any books, she said that I had a whole packet of material at the front desk. It had been there since late yesterday, she added. Must be late-arriving reference material for Arch's physics project, I thought. I packed up the Rover, then made my way to the counter.

"There must be some mistake," I told the checkout librarian as soon as I leafed through the contents of a manila file folder and glanced at two rubber-banded books, both labeled for me. "I didn't request these."

"Library card, please." Without looking at me, she held out her hand for my card. I riffled through my wallet, confessed I couldn't find the card, and waited while she tapped keys on her computer, frowning. After a moment, she asked me if I was Goldy Schulz and recited my street address. When I said yes, she frowned some more, tapped more keys, then said I must have forgotten I'd ordered the books and articles, because I'd certainly used my card to request them.

Doggone it. I looked down at the books in my hand: Avalanche Awareness and The Stool Pigeon Murders. The first was a safety manual. The second appeared to be a true-crime slasher story, complete with grisly photographs of corpses left in Boston parking lots. The stool pigeons, apparently, had witnessed crimes, turned in the criminals, and been slaughtered for their civic-mindedness. I set these aside and opened the file with its typed label: GOLDY SCHULZ. The bumper stickers it contained said: Want to Die? and Friends don't let friends kill themselves.

What in the world?

I flipped carefully through a sheaf of photocopied pages. There was no note, not a single indication of who had sent them. The half-dozen articles in the file were from the Killdeer Courier, the weekly Furman County Register, and the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News. Some paragraphs had been highlighted in neon green. I flipped back to the beginning, then cursed softly: Now fingerprinting the pages would be impossible. Then again, a whole slew of librarians had probably already touched the pages. And maybe I was getting a trifle paranoid. Was leaving stuff for somebody else at the library in some way threatening? An invasion of privacy? Could you be booked for impersonating another library patron? I gnawed my cheek while contemplating the true-crime slasher book. Whatever it was, it didn't make me feel good.

To the librarian I said, "Do you have any idea who left these for me?" When she shook her head, I asked if she would be willing to ask the staff if they'd received the manila folder from someone they remembered. The librarian took the file and disappeared. She came back to say one of the volunteers had reported to a staff person that the file had been in the drop box that morning. That meant that someone had left it sometime after closing on Saturday and before opening on Sunday. I tucked the folder under my arm, pressed some leftover cookies on her by way of thanks, and took off for home.

Tom had left an apologetic message on the tape. His captain wanted to see him; he'd be tied up longer than he expected. He'd be listening to the football game on the radio. Maybe he'd be home by the fourth quarter. Would I cheer for both of us?

There was another message, a long one, from Arthur Wakefield. I retrieved his wine list with suggested foods as I listened. He'd been able to rescue all but one of his wines from Customs. Still, he was planning on showcasing all five vintages, and a truck should deliver the sauvignon blanc Sunday afternoon.

He needed food for a dozen people, he went on. He'd invite four more people. He knew he'd only put fish, chicken, and red meat on the list - not very helpful - so this phone call was to spark my thinking. But remember, he himself needed to finish the cooking."

He loved the pork I left for him. He'd bought some pork tenderloins, and I should certainly make that dish again to go with the Châteauneuf-du-Pape. I should bring the ingredients for the marinade, though, then mix them with the red wine at his place. I scribbled madly.

A lot of folks had asked him, Arthur went on airily, about the yummy-looking crab cakes I'd made on TV. He wanted something Mexican to go with the zinfandel, but not the egg rolls, since he didn't want to be running back and forth for appetizers. So please fix a Mexican main dish, he said vaguely, with chicken. Also a fish dish. He'd picked up some fresh sole and spinach while he was in Denver, could I do sole Florentine to go with the chablis? I nodded to his taped voice and continued to make notes.

Last, Arthur said, could I please make the ginger-snaps from the program? He'd gotten a great deal on that wonderful, lush Sauternes, and wanted to give the snaps another try. Had a lot of folks asked him about the cookies from TV, too, I wondered? He didn't say. He did say that he'd pay for the foodstuffs, plus give me forty dollars an hour for labor, and another hundred for the time and travel I'd put in so far. Not bad. I rewound the machine and made sure I had the food requests right. I had a lot of cooking to do at his place tomorrow, no question about that.

I set aside Arthur's directives and gripped the anonymously sent file from the library. I was trying to decide where to sit down and study it when Arch marched into the kitchen. He asked if he could do his splatter pattern with water mixed with confectioner's sugar, dropped onto a cookie sheet. Great idea, I replied. Much better than bleach, anyway.

To give Arch privacy, I fixed myself an espresso and took it along with three cookies and the articles from the library into the living room. I muted the football half-time show and stared at the unopened file. Had The Jerk ordered this weird collection of material for me? My ex-husband had found ways to sabotage me from jail before.

I sipped the thick, dark coffee, especially welcome on a snowy day after working an event, and started reading the first article, dated three years before and headlined: UNSTABLE SNOW MAY HAVE CAUSED TWO DEATHS IN KILLDEER. In it, I read of avalanche victim Nate Bullock, host of PBS's High Country Hallmarks, who had died the previous day in an avalanche in an out-of-bounds area. One source, who asked not to be identified, claimed Nate had gone to the valley to track lynx. But Nate had not left a marked map, the way a pilot might file a flight plan, so no one, not even his wife, had been quite sure what he was doing or where he was going the day he died.

On nearby Bighorn Overlook, the article went on to say, Fiona Wakefield - heir to the Wakefield corn oil fortune, and an intermediate skier - had died in a fall off a snow-covered cliff that was less than fifty yards out-of-bounds. Estimation of time of death for both Wakefield and Bullock was two in the afternoon.

I frowned. The two of them died on the same day, at the same time? Nobody had mentioned this to me, although Jack Gilkey had mentioned the unstable snow that day.

The next article stated: QUESTIONS LINGER IN TWO KILLDEER DEATHS. Mysteriously, this writer claimed, both Bullock and Wakefield had not been alone. When the ski patrol had found Jack Gilkey, his skull had been bloodied and he'd been dazed. The patrol had discovered his wife one hundred feet below him, over the cliff. Dead. Gilkey had claimed he and his wife had been attacked by a strong-built, ski-masked person. The three of them had struggled; Jack had been knocked I unconscious; Fiona had gone over the cliff edge. In trying to rescue Fiona and Jack, the ski patrol had obliterated any sign of other prints in the snow.

In the case of Nate Bullock, the patrol, Forest Service, and sheriff's department had found a set of boot prints beside Nate's, going into the out-of-bounds area. This I already knew from patrolwoman Gail. But only Nate's body had been found in the search. No one else had been reported missing.

The third article screamed: SNOWBOARD TRACKS ON ELK RIDGE VANISHED INTO AVALANCHE ZONE. It was possible, the writer hypothesized, that Nate Bullock had hiked partway up the mountain with a snowboarder. The two had then parted ways, Nate tracking in the valley, the snowboarder ascending the ridge. Had the snowboarder triggered the avalanche that killed Nate?

WAKEFIELD WIDOWER QUESTIONED focused on Jack Gilkey's account of the circumstances surrounding his wife Fiona's tragic death. More details of Fiona's last day had emerged: Fiona had had too much to drink at lunch, she'd boasted she could beat her husband to the Bighorn Overlook, a roped-off area just off one of Killdeer's advanced slopes. The overlook faces the out-of-bounds area that includes Elk Ridge, the writer added parenthetically, and skiers occasionally ducked the boundary line to take in the view. Those pristine mountain forests of Elk Ridge, the article reported, were now earmarked for ski-area expansion. According to Jack Gilkey, Fiona had skied ahead of him and ducked the rope. Fiona and Jack arrived at the overlook, then were attacked by someone bursting from the trees. Jack tried to help his wife and was knocked out himself.