add how I’d come upon that bit of information. Surely stealing mail was a federal offense.
Schulz took a deep breath as if to signal he needed to get off the phone. He said, “I can talk to the doctor and the neighbor, but it’s not enough. You’d have to produce something like death threats against Laura. In writing, mind you. Or come up with some new physical evidence, a diary entry, a weapon, new indications somebody forced their way in. You got any of that?”
I paused. “No.”
“Okay then. Let’s go back to what we’re supposed to be worried about, and that is who put the stuff in Korman’s coffee. I found out the name of that particular rat poison. Just One Bite—how about that? I guess just one sip doesn’t work. But get this, it takes more than a bite to kill a human. In fact, you could eat ten times your weight and not die. You’d need a liver transplant, but you’d live. Your slick killer of Laura is incredibly stupid when it comes to poison.”
“I didn’t say it was the same person,” I said.
“Something else,” said Schulz. “The folks down at the Poison Center say it takes thirty to sixty minutes before somebody drinking that stuff would have a real bad stomachache.”
“What does that mean?” I asked. “That it could have been anybody who was around that coffee machine? Which basically means anybody?”
“That’s right.”
I sighed. “Doesn’t exactly narrow the field.”
“Goldy? Listen. I got two other homicides I’m working on. They’re both higher priority than this. But I’m still trying to locate that guy in Illinois. I’ll talk to the doc and the neighbor. Why don’t you just take it easy for a day or so,” Schulz suggested. “Think about your parties or something.”
“I can’t,” I said. “All my parties have been canceled. Besides, tomorrow I’m going on another adventure. This time into a dungeon.”
Without explanation, I hung up.
After the excitement at Laura’s, a fantasy-adventure the next night promised to be a piece of cake. Or batch of cookies. Arch’s all-night games generally required baked goods to accompany the popcorn and soft drinks and assorted snacks he and his friends needed to fortify themselves for their forays into lands thick with polymorphs and other-worldly creatures. Todd was coming over so we would have a threesome. A bedraggled Patty Sue had come home from a make-up appointment with Fritz (since he’d been out Monday) and begged off from a party with eleven-year-olds by announcing she wanted to sleep the entire weekend. Todd and Arch and I were going to start off with a dinner of hot dogs and homemade baked beans and finish with Arch’s favorite sweet for these adventure nights, an oatmeal-raisin concoction I had dubbed Dungeon Bars.
I got out the oats and unsalted butter, then searched for brown and white sugars. Maybe I had made a mistake not to do the fantasy-role bit with Arch before. Had Laura? Had she been closer to him than I was? His behavior had gone from bothersome to worrisome, and he seemed to think I was out to get him.
I reached for the raisins and eggs and tried to remember what I knew about pre-adolescent behavior. It was normal for eleven-year-olds to distance themselves from parents. But as the single active parent, I found this hard to accept. Arch walked away while I was talking to him. He hastily hung up the phone at my approach. He refused to talk about Ms. Smiley. He never showed me his schoolwork anymore. His new teacher, Ms. Heath, was an unknown, except that she was the one who had discovered the body that fateful Monday.
I sighed and looked at my recipe card for Dungeon Bars.
That was the thing about cooking, I thought after mixing up the creamy batter and spreading it in the prepared pan. It was largely predictable. Children, spouses, and the economy were not. Maybe that was why I liked my job. When I had it.
Arch’s bus was due shortly so I set the timer and stepped out into the October sunshine to walk to the stop. The air was like cotton. Sunshine splashed over bright orange and black Halloween decorations in the Main Street store windows. After a few minutes the school bus came huffing toward its stop with a great show of black diesel smoke and blinking yellow and red lights.
“Why’re you meeting me, Mom?” asked Arch after the bus had chugged away.
“Just wondered how things, you know, if you, well, were ready to play tonight.”
He nodded and slung his backpack over his shoulder and started to march home. In earlier years we would have spent some time looking at the accordions of crepe paper in the merchants’ windows or talking about what costume he wanted for Halloween, or what candy he was hoping to get in his treats bag. Other times we would have crossed over to the creek to throw stones into the water. Now I exhaled hard to get the sour smell of diesel exhaust out of my lungs, and trudged up the hill after him.
“You know,” I said as I dug out a scoop of vanilla ice cream to put on his warm Dungeon Bar, “I’ve been thinking about—”
“Ms. Smiley,” he answered for me.
“Yes, how did you know?”
“What are we having for dinner?” he asked as he cautiously cut his first bite.
Dungeon Bars
1 cup all-purpose flour (high altitude: add 2 tablespoons)
? teaspoon salt
? teaspoon baking soda
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
? cup packed dark brown sugar
? cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup raisins
Vanilla or cinnamon ice cream
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter a 9 ? 13-inch baking pan and set aside.
Sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda. Set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter with the sugars until the mixture is light and fluffy. Turn the mixer to low, and beat in the eggs and vanilla until well combined. Carefully stir in the flour mixture, oats, and raisins until well combined.
Spread in the prepared pan (batter will be thick). Smooth the top. Bake from 20 to 30 minutes, until the batter has puffed and flattened, is brown around the edges, no longer appears wet in the center, and tests done with a toothpick. Cool slightly. While warm, cut into 32 bars. Allow to cool completely on a rack. Serve with best- quality vanilla or cinnamon ice cream.
“Beans and wieners. And don’t change the subject. How did you know what I was thinking of?”
“If I eat all my dinner may I have more Dungeon Bars later?” His earnest eyes regarded me.
I said, “Sure. Have you been thinking about Ms. Smiley, too?”
He shook his head and gave a muffled “No.”
“What I was thinking about,” I began again, “is that it certainly is strange she didn’t leave a note or letter or something. Especially since she liked to write letters. To you, for instance.”
Arch narrowed his eyes at me, just a little bit, but I got the message. When he had finished his bite he said, “Maybe she did.” He paused. “Leave a note.”
“Do you know if she did?”
He shrugged.
“Did you know if she was sad? Or upset? Or sick? I need to know, Arch,” I added gently, “because it may have something to do with someone giving your grandfather rat poison over at Ms. Smiley’s house. That attempted poisoning got my business closed.” I paused. “Did you know Ms. Smiley was having problems?”
“Not really.”
