Catering to Nobody (Goldy Schulz Series)

cars, Vonette? I’ve got to get around somehow.”

She mumbled something about seeing what she could do and I hung up.

A sweet-smelling Persian violet preceded Pomeroy Locraft into my room. He held the plant like a shield, which was probably a good thing. Patty Sue was in a cast, but my arm was in good shape. I looked around for a suitable projectile. Luckily for Pomeroy, there wasn’t one.

“Bees may like the smell of Persian violets,” I said sharply as I whacked the pillows behind my back, “but I don’t. Even if my nose isn’t broken.”

He smiled. “Actually, bees prefer wild daisies and clover. Patty Sue thought you’d like these.”

“What’d you bring her, fudge?”

“Honey candy.”

“I should sue your ass for negligence,” I snapped, “or gross incompetence as an instructor, or something along those lines.”

He placed the plant, a pale purple-and-green cloud of fragrance, op the movable tray near my head. Then in one slow motion he unfurled his lanky body into the room’s only chair. His face was pinched with stress. His hand cut wavy furrows through his dark hair. Finally he looked at me.

“Goldy, I’m sorry. The school insurance ought to cover the repair to your van. Patty Sue, I don’t know. I really didn’t think she’d—”

“Be naive and reckless at the same time? Would you even recognize naive if you saw it?” I plopped back on the pillows. “Tell me, Pom. Do your students ever say, You are driving me crazy? You are driving me up the wall?”

He blushed, but for once I was impervious to the charm of vulnerability.

I said, “And while I’ve got you to myself, tell me what Laura Smiley’s science text was doing in your backseat.”

Now he turned really red. My guess as to the ownership of that book had paid off.

He said, “We used to work together sometimes.”

“You were friends, or what?”

He let out breath that was deeper than a sigh. “What difference does it make?”

“A lot.”

He said, “Friends, yes. We’d started working together on that spring project for fourth and fifth grades. Some of the students enjoyed working with the bees. Answer your question?”

“She and Arch were close,” I said. “You know that. He’s taking her death real hard. You know anything else about her?”

He paused. I waited.

“It doesn’t matter now, I guess,” he said. He looked out the window. “We were in Al-Anon together. You know what that is?”

Sundays, noon, Episcopal church. Of course. I nodded. “Sure. It’s the support group for relatives and friends of alcoholics. Can you tell me what she said in there?”

“No.”

“Can you tell me anything about her?”

“Like what? I don’t want to betray her—whatever you’d call it—memory.”

“She’s dead. I don’t believe it was suicide, mainly because things just don’t fit.” I adjusted myself on the pillows. It felt as if the pain pill had turned my bed into a kind of boat floating in a big tub the size of the room. I said, “Do you know anything about her relationship with or to Fritz Korman?”

“Why?”

“Because of that mess with the rat poison, I’m suspected. The health department closed me down. No cooking, no income.”

“Aren’t the cops looking into it?”

“For heaven’s sake, Pom, they’re slow.” I stopped talking long enough to take a whiff of the plant. “I’m trying to get myself cleared before the holiday season. Here’s this nice teacher gone, my catering operation down. I’m trying to open a cleaning business instead, needing for Patty Sue to learn to drive … and then Patty Sue does one of her spaceout routines and my van gets destroyed. So yes, I’m interested in knowing as much as I can about both Dr. Korman senior who somebody tried to kill and Laura Smiley who somebody may have. Which includes anything you might know,” I finished, again out of breath and with my head swimming inside the bed-boat.

Pomeroy said, “What are you looking for, background?”

“Anything.”

He said, “Laura Smiley’s father was an alcoholic. It’s what killed him, finally. He drove himself and Laura’s mother into the back of a pickup over near Conifer. Alcohol level in his blood was three times what they consider to be intoxication.”

“What does this have to do with—”

“Just hold on a sec,” he said and readjusted himself in his chair. “By that time Laura was long gone. She had moved to Illinois to go to school. She had some family, that aunt who was at the funeral, there. She taught high school when she finished at the U. of I.—that’s how she met the Kormans. She came out with them one time on a ski vacation, while they were friends, to be their sort of guide and babysitter, even though she was only twenty-one or -two.

“Not long after,” he went on, “the Kormans left Illinois. Moved to the spot Laura had shown them.”

“Did she know they were here?”

He shrugged. “She knew they had moved to Colorado. She didn’t know they’d moved to her hometown. When her parents died they left her their place, and she moved back. A big coincidence which probably didn’t feel too great to anybody.”

“When she moved back here,” I said, “did she see the Kormans? Have contact with them?”

“Not socially, as far as I know.”

“What do you mean?”

He thought, then said, “Laura avoided the Kormans because there was bad blood between them.”

I said, “Bad blood from what?”

He was still looking out the window. After a minute he said, “That’s something you’d better ask Vonette, I think.”

“Great. What about Patty Sue?” Tasked. “Apparently she and Laura had at least one earth-shattering chat.”

“Yes,” he said, “they did.”

“About what?”

“You talked to Patty Sue?”

“I tried, Pomeroy, but that’s not saying I got any answers.”

“Yes, well.” He shrugged again.

“Why would Laura avoid the Kormans?” I asked. This was the real puzzle to me. “It’s too small a town to try to do that. Did she actually use that word, avoid?”

Pomeroy’s head turned. His brown eyes met mine. He said, “You asked what she was doing in Al-Anon. She had a lot to work through, her parents dying in an accident, her relationship with the Kormans going from closeness to alienation. She had sorrow, a ton of it, and a lot of grieving to do. She, yes, said that she needed to avoid these people, that being involved with them in any way caused her pain. She said that for her mental health she needed to keep her distance.”

I stared at him. I said, “Okay, first, she belonged to the athletic club, to which they also belong. Second, she became very close pals with, their grandson, who just happens to be my son. Third, right before she died she went to see Fritz Korman. She made an appointment, Pomeroy. She had an office visit the day she died. The office sent her a bill, for God’s sake. Explain how all this adds up to avoidance.”

Pomeroy was quiet for a minute. “You know, I don’t have all the answers.” He shifted his weight in the chair and crossed his arms across his plaid flannel shirt. “It seems to me,” he said thoughtfully, “that if you really want to know who would be wanting to get Korman out of the way, you ought to think of who would benefit from his being