and gave me a deadpan look. “The series he started after The Elegies to the Spanish republic.”
“Do you mind, sir?” I whispered. “Could we please go out to the kitchen? I’m trying to do a job here.” De Groot raised his shaggy black eyebrows. When he didn’t move, I rushed on with: “The Trotfields are very wealthy art collectors. I’ll tell you all about it if you’ll come out to the kitchen and ask your ten minutes worth of questions there.”
De Groot stared straight into my eyes as he said, “Very wealthy like your friend Marla Korman?”
I could feel the color rise in my cheeks. What was going on here? Hersey walked past me into the kitchen. De Groot lifted his pointy chin and swaggered after him. I peeked into the living room. Sandy Trotfield wrinkled his forehead at me and scowled. Doggone it. Caterer caught with cops. I smiled and gave him a thumbs-up, but he looked past me into the foyer, puzzled If this inopportune visit from the sheriffs department ruined this party the way Marla’s fight had wrecked the mine party, I would have Captain Shockley’s head on a platter.
Arch had removed his headphones and was saying, “… Well, she’s my mother,” when I banged through the kitchen door. My son gave me a bewildered look. I asked him to tend to the buffet platters and told him I would be talking to these men for ten minutes or less.
“You know you can’t question a minor without a parent present. What’s the matter with you two?” I demanded angrily once Arch had made a wordless exit. “And what’s so important it can’t wait for me to get home?” Next to the counter where the raspberry pies sat partially decorated and unsliced, De Groot stood at attention. I guessed he wasn’t going to have a go at the Rothko above the kitchen table. Hersey leaned his muscled body against a convection oven. There was a small notebook in one of his meaty hands. For guys who had been in some kind of hurry, they now seemed to have reverted to a designed-to-be-infuriating interrogation technique. Or maybe they were waiting for me to offer them food. It’s not going to happen, guys.
Finally Hersey hauled himself up. “Nothing to worry about, Mrs. Schulz. We just need to ask about an event you catered this past Saturday at the Eurydice Mine. Did you know that was one of the last times anyone saw Albert Lipscomb before his disappearance?”
?No, I guess I didn’t know that,” I replied. I glared at the cops. Maybe I could get information from them. “What do you mean, one of the last times?”
They ignored this. De Groot said, “And your function at the party was what?”
“I’m sure you’re aware I was just the caterer, not a guest. I’d never met most of those people before.” I paused, because I knew they’d want me to clarify that. “Excuse me. The people I knew at the party were Marla Korman, Tony Royce, ah … Eileen Tobey from the bank and… let’s see, the Hardcastles I’ve known for a while and … the Trotfields. Oh yes, and I know Sam Perdue.”
“Did you talk to Albert Lipscomb during the party?” De Groot’s pitted face was inscrutable.
I shrugged. “Not much. He asked about the food I was serving. He said Prospect Financial would consider having me cater a picnic. He was just being polite, I think. Why do you want to know if I talked to him?”
“Please, Mrs. Schulz. Let us ask the questions. So you’re saying… he was enjoying the party,” De Groot concluded. “For a while, anyway. Until he got into a fight with your friend Marla.”
“An argument, I’d call it. Not a fight,” I said firmly.
“Argument about what?” asked De Groot. His eye finally caught the Rothko, but this time, apparently, I was going to be spared further enlightenment on the history of abstract expressionism.
“Who sent you?” I demanded. “Why didn’t Tom come ask me these questions himself?”
Hersey said, “Investigator Schulz isn’t on this case.”
“That’s not normal, is it?” I asked mildly. “Tom does more than homicide, and he usually heads cases like this. He does forgery, mail theft. And missing persons,” I added after a pause.
Hersey retorted, “It’s normal for an investigator to be removed from a case when he knows some of the people in the investigation. We’re under direct orders from our captain. Now, please, Mrs. Schulz. Just tell us about this fight on Saturday between Mr. Lipscomb and Ms. Korman. Did you hear them?”
I paused a beat before saying, “Not really. They were outside of the tent where I was catering, and hail was coming down rather hard.”
“Whose idea was that?” asked De Groot. “To go out in the hail? Your friend Marla’s? How did Albert Lipscomb react to a client dragging him out into the hail to fight?”
“Did Captain Shockley say Marla dragged Albert out into the hail?” I retorted. Neither cop replied. “There was no dragging. Albert went outside first, then Marla followed him.” I tsked. What was their game plan here? Whatever it was, I had to get the raspberry tarts ready. I glared at De Groot. “I need to work, if you don’t mind.”
De Groot moved away from the counter. I quickly spooned the rest of the whipped cream on all the pies, then sprinkled them with fresh, plump raspberries. I cut each tart into eight equal pieces, then levered the thick slices out and put them on individual plates.
Hersey asked, “What were Albert and Marla fighting about?”
Marla had told me the cops had been around her home asking questions, so these guys surely already knew the answer to that one. “The lab doing the assays for Eurydice ore,” I said impatiendy. “You know Marla is a Prospect client. I think she was upset about how Albert was handling an investment. I can’t believe you haven’t been able to learn all you need to know about this from other people who were at the party. Everyone was listening.?
At that moment, Sandy Trotfield pushed into the kitchen. When he saw the two policemen, he recoiled.
“What are you two doing here again? Wasn’t one investigative visit enough?” he demanded. “We’re trying to have a party. First you bother us, now you’re bothering our caterer. Why can’t you keep normal hours?”
“We’ll be done in a few minutes,” De Groot said with a curt nod.
“Some people are asking about coffee and dessert,” Sandy Trotfield announced to me, as if the two policemen weren’t there.
“Coming right up,” I replied. Sandy stormed out of the kitchen. So the two policemen had already visited the Trotfields. Maybe that was when De Groot had gotten his art lesson. To Hersey, I said, “So you’ve talked to everyone who was at the party?”
“Just about.”
I switched on the coffeepot. “Then do me a favor and don’t belabor this. If you’re working directly for Captain Shockley, he ought to be able to tell you what happened.” Emphasis on the ought, I added mentally. “After all, he was there, too.”
Hersey said, “Shockley said you helped break up the fight. You were right next to Albert Lipscomb. How did he seem to you? Like a guy whose scam had been discovered? Like, now that something had come out about the mine, he had to get out of Dodge?”
“Why is Captain Shockley so interested in Marla’s argument with Albert Lipscomb?” I demanded.
Hersey repeated blandly, “How did Albert Lipscomb seem to you?”
I closed my eyes and again saw Albert Lipscomb’s furious thin lips and shining wet pate. “Hard to tell.” I opened my eyes and concentrated on Hersey. “Marla told Albert she wanted to see him Monday morning at the Prospect offices. There was nothing in the way he acted to indicate to me that he was going to run away. He was just… ticked off. It happens at parties. People drink too much. They argue. They sleep it off and call me the next morning with a hangover and ask if they did anything really stupid. If I want repeat business, I always say no.”
“But Albert didn’t say he’d meet Marla Monday morning?” Hersey persisted. De Groot crossed his arms and waited his turn. The coffeepot burbled and hissed, and the wake-up smell of java filled the room.
“No,” I replied evenly. “He didn’t say he’d be there.”
“What about Tony Royce?” asked De Groot. . “What was he doing while they were fighting?”
I gave De Groot a half-smile. “Tony Royce helped to break up the disagreement. He was as upset as I was, and was worried about Marla, as I was. But twenty minutes later he seemed to have recovered. I don’t think he’d had as much to drink as Albert.”
Watching Hersey’s bulging eyes, I wondered vaguely about thyroid medication. Six years the ex-wife of a doctor, and I was still jumping’ in to diagnose.
“Did you know Lipscomb before the party?” Hersey asked.
“Not at all.” Although at this point I was desperately wishing that I had, since he’d successfully absconded with millions of dollars that included some of my best friend’s money. From the tone of their questions, I tried to assess how much these cops knew about Lipscomb. Not a whole lot, it seemed to me.
I asked them, “What do you know about the bank teller who disappeared?”
