Catering to Nobody (Goldy Schulz Series)

rainbows. Then I turned to my son. His gaze was fixed on the pine trees outside.

“Well,” I began as I filled the mug, “you wrote letters to her. You’re into those fantasy role-playing games. You were her special friend, her special student … I just thought maybe she would be interested in your game spells, especially if she had someone important to her who had died—”

I stopped to sip coffee. Arch turned slowly from the window to face me.

“Mom. What do you think she was, weird?”

“Well, yes, as a matter of fact.” We were both silent. Then I said, “I found the note she wrote you before she died.”

Arch snorted. “Great. You get mad at me about borrowing something from Dad’s office, and then you go snooping through my desk.”

“Arch, this is different. Your teacher called. She’s worried about you, writing stuff like your grandfather has no respect for human life. Why would you write such a thing?”

He shrugged.

I said, “You’re too involved in these games, you’re not getting along with your classmates, you’re getting into fights—”

“You know how you’re always telling me to say what my feelings are? Okay. Now I’m telling you.” He eyed me fiercely and dug his hands into his pockets. His voice broke with the promise of tears. “You’re making me angry,” he cried.

“Arch. It’s just because I’m worried about you—”

He turned to walk out of the kitchen.

“Now where are you going?”

“To the car. I left the rest of my game stuff out there.”

“Please don’t leave. I don’t want us to have a big fight.”

He turned and glared at me. “You don’t want to fight?” I nodded and he went on. “Just make that costume I marked for Marla. Okay? It’s in here.” He riffled through a book of fantasy characters he had left on the kitchen table. “Then after Halloween we can talk about worrying. Okay? I just need to finish this thing that I’m doing right now.”

“Look, just sit down and cool off for a sec, will you? Tell me why you’re so angry.”

He sat, then crossed his legs and arms.

“Mom, why is it okay for you to go through my stuff? I thought you only cleaned for people who wanted you to do it for them. And I don’t.”

I dropped three ice cubes into a Coke glass for Arch.

“Archibald,” I said, “listen to me, would you, please?”

He stared at me from behind the rimmed glasses.

“You can help. It’s like being a detective. After this we can talk about Halloween, I promise. Maybe we could get your Dad to buy a costume.”

“Oh, sure.”

Arch poured his soft drink and slurped the bubbles that climbed the sides of the glass. He wrinkled his nose, brought the glass down with a bang. Upstairs Patty Sue was splashing and singing in her bubble bath.

“She invited you over that Saturday,” I began, “and then said she couldn’t get together after all. Did you go anyway?”

He said, “Yeah, I rode my bike over later. She had company.”

“How do you know?”

“Her blue car wasn’t there. She was having it fixed. She was always having trouble with that stupid car. Anyway, somebody else was there.”

“What kind of car? Foreign? American? Pickup? What?”

“I don’t remember. I just, like, heard the engine.”

“Arch.”

“I don’t. And don’t ask me what time it was because I don’t remember that either. You’re just like that policeman, acting as if I’m guilty of something.”

“Sorry.”

“I got the Good Citizen award in fourth grade, you know.”

“Okay, okay. You went to her house. Did you see anything unusual?”

“No, Mom,” he said, exasperated. “I don’t even know what was usual.”

I paused for a minute. “Do you know about a student of hers named Bebe Hollenbeck?”

“No. Can I go now?”

“Bebe was her special friend,” I said, “as you were.”

“Right.”

“Maybe,” I went on, “Bebe was shy, like you.”

“Maybe they wrote letters,” he said, “and maybe they played D and D. Who cares? I wish you would just stick to cooking.”

“If you want to eat supper, mister, don’t be difficult. I can’t cook until I get this figured out, and I can’t make any money cooking until I get myself cleared in this rat poison mess.”

Arch sighed.

“In her note to you, she said she had something important to do. Do you know what it was?”

He chewed his bottom lip. “Not really.”

“What?”

He looked out the window again.

“Arch,” I said slowly. “Maybe she didn’t commit suicide. Maybe she was—”

“I gotta go, Mom.”

I looked at him, and pain filled the area behind my eyes. How much adult eccentricity could he take? From a screwball grandfather, an alcoholic grandmother, a philandering father, a suicidal teacher, and a demanding mother? Poor Arch.

He stood up and gave me his most bored look.

He said, “Can I go?”

“No.”

He let out a gust of air and flopped back into his chair. “Now what?”

“Just tell me if you know whether for some reason you think someone wanted Laura Smiley dead.”

“No.”

The phone rang.

“No,” I said, “no one wanted her dead, or no, you won’t tell me?”

The phone kept on ringing; Arch glared at me.

“Arch!”

A sob exploded from him. Then another. Tears sprouted from his eyes.

“Leave me alone!” he yelled. “I don’t want to talk about Ms. Smiley anymore! Can’t you see that, Mom? So just stop this! Stop!”

The phone insisted on ringing. I reached out for Arch’s shoulder only to have him whack my hand away. He ran out of the kitchen.

I grabbed for the phone receiver and yelled, “What is it?”

“What is what?” asked Tom Schulz.

“Sheesh.”

“Well, well, Miss Goldilocks, I can see you’re in your usual sunny mood.”

“Why are you calling?”

“Man,” he said, “it is a good thing that I am such a patient kind of guy. I mean, a very good thing. And that I can inquire how you’re coming along on talking to your mother-in-law—”

“Ex-mother-in-law.”

“Sorry there. Ex-maw-in-law. Tell me what she said about her daughter who died. The one who drank.”

“How did you know about that?”