ended up being a cooperative and polite person in spite of his parents.”
“Schulz,” I said. “Please. It’s just that I have some cooking to do.”
“Really? Who’re you cooking for?”
“I am going, as I told you before, over to visit my ex-in-laws. I am taking them a basket of things to eat. This has nothing to do with my business, either, if that’s what you’re thinking. It’s just—” I groped for words. I did not want Schulz to know of my plans to snoop around as well as ask questions. “Just because I am a nice person after all. And this way, if poison turns up in the coffee cake, you’ll know I was the one after all.”
“Uh-huh. I’d say more like you’re going snooping to figure out what’s going on by yourself. Spite of what you say, you don’t trust the police to do their job. Goldy wants to get her business opened without benefit of law enforcement agencies, is what I’m hearing.”
“I could be more helpful than you think.”
“Really,” he said again, unconvinced. There was a pause. “You’re a suspect, you know.”
“Yes, but you know I didn’t do it. In your heart of hearts.”
“My heart of hearts, she says. About which she knows so much.”
“Come on, Investigator Schulz.”
Another pause. Then he said, “Well. You want to be in on the investigation? I’ll give you a chance to do just that.”
“Okay, what?”
“A chance, I said. That means we work together. Within the law.”
“Uh-oh. Can’t take my Uzi when I question witnesses.”
He sighed. “There’s something you might be able to look into. What your son said about Laura and Fritz and Vonette not getting along? Turns out they all lived in the same town for a while. Fritz and Vonette moved here from Carolton, Illinois, in 1967. Ms. Smiley came out about a year later, when her parents died. Not that that tells us anything, it’s just a strange link.”
“They knew each other,” I said. “I already asked Vonette. Laura babysat for them during a vacation. But that was twenty years ago.”
“Still,” he said, “it’s a link. I’m going to call out there to Carolton and see if I can do a little background checking on Laura Smiley, maybe on the Kormans, too. Ask if there was anybody else from that town who moved here. See if we get any more strange links.”
“Like if anyone had a rodent problem twenty years ago.”
He chuckled. “One of these days I’m going to tell you why you’re so tough.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek and didn’t answer.
“Anyway,” he went on, “I thought you were itching to help out. You could do just that in your little chat with your ex-in-laws today.”
“Will do,” I said. “And there’s something I want to find out. I was wondering if you could talk to the deputy coroner or whoever it was that said Laura was a suicide. I’d like to know why he said it was suicide.”
“We’ll see.” He harrumphed. “I am letting you in on all this,” he went on, “because I want to help you. And of course because I care about you. As a taxpayer, of course.”
“You care about me because you’re a taxpayer or because I’m one?”
“As a taxpayer, you help pay my salary, Goldy,” he said with a grin I could hear. “With no income, your taxes will be lower and there goes my salary. Tell you what. How about if we talk more about this over Chinese food tonight? We could compare notes, my treat. Six o’clock at Aspen Meadow’s finest Oriental restaurant.”
“You mean Aspen Meadow’s only Oriental restaurant.”
“Aw,” he said, “you take all the fun out of everything.”
I thought. It would probably be a long time before I had another chance to be taken out to dinner. Still, I wasn’t used to it. I might flunk social adeptness.
“It’s just dinner,” he said. “Come on.”
I could make spaghetti for Patty Sue and Arch. I could even walk to the Dragon’s Breath, since it was just off Main Street.
I said, “Six o’clock,” and hung up.
Nothing equals mixing and baking to clear the head, I thought after I had showered and downed a quart of coffee. Patty Sue had decided to go for a long run, she told me with an unusual amount of explanation, to get in shape for skiing. Fine. The next few hours of cooking in a quiet house stretched out like a dry road after a storm.
The components of Goldilocks’ Cheer-Up Basket usually were the following: three different kinds of baked goods, fresh fruit in season, at least two kinds of fancy cheese, a soup or dinner that could be frozen, and a bouquet of flowers.
For the soup I was in luck. I had already made up a quantity of Goldilocks’ Gourmet Spinach Soup and frozen it. This recipe had actually derived from a miscalculation in making Julia Child’s entree crepes stuffed with spinach and mushrooms. Trying to help Arch with some fourth-grade math homework while making the crepe filling, I had ended up with quadruple the amount I needed for the crepes. After the initial distress, I had thinned out the cheese and vegetable mixture with chicken broth, and the result had been brilliant. The success pleased customers no end. Periodically I made great quantities of the stuff, without crepes, just to keep on hand. So Fritz and Vonette could have some.
The senior Kormans were also partial to coffee cakes. I sometimes saw Fritz in the Aspen Meadow pastry shop indulging in an iced cinnamon roll. Unless I phoned her, Vonette never got up early enough to have a normal breakfast, but she loved my cakes anytime. So I hunted up the buttermilk, took some cream cheese out to soften, and made a New England crumb coffee cake flavored with ginger and nutmeg.
The piece de resistance was Goldy’s Dream Cake. This, too, was a cookbook recipe that I had messed up in the most fortuitous manner. I pulled out the ingredients, made a fingerprint in the cream cheese to make sure it had softened, and then peered at the card.
Vonette and Fritz were not going to get one made ahead. Patty Sue and Arch could have the other one for dessert tonight after their spaghetti. Good thing they were both so thin.
I began to measure and mix. It was all like a cake, I thought. This mess with Fritz, the unknowns about Laura. It was like having a large group of ingredients and not knowing how they were all combined.
And what about Schulz? He wanted to trust me, wanted me to help him with the case. After John Richard, I’d grown suspicious of men and their motives. In Amour
Goldy’s Dream Cake
4? cups all-purpose flour
1? cups sugar
1? cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 1-tablespoon pieces, well chilled
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon bakng soda
? teaspoon salt
6 cups reserved crumb mixture
2 large eggs, beaten
1? cups sour cream
2 teaspoons almond extract
1 pound (two 8-ounce packages) cream cheese, softened
? cup sugar
2 large eggs, beaten
? teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup red raspberry preserves, sieved to remove seeds
? cup raw whole almonds
