maybe the assay is from the wrong place… . Do you believe that?”
I didn’t know what to think, but I didn’t say so. It was getting late. I made sympathetic clucking noises and promised to call soon. Then I revved up the van and tried to put the party out of my mind. As I drove out of the country club, I turned on my wipers. The rain had turned to large flakes of snow that splatted on my windshield. Welcome to June fifth in the high country.
At home, my dear, wonderful husband Tom looked delighted to see me. His greeting was the first good thing to happen to yours truly all day. He grinned widely, opened the back door, and relieved me of the first box of dirty pans. I felt the anxiety of the afternoon slide away. Tom’s large body was encased in a sea green terry-cloth robe I had bought him for our first anniversary. It matched his green eyes, which twinkled in his handsome face. I scooted back to the van and brought the second box of pans through the softly falling snow. Tom was cooking, and I couldn’t wait to see what delicacy he’d put together. It is a truism of the culinary world that the caterer never has a chance to eat until all the food is cold, picked over, or gone. When I came back into the kitchen, Tom had set out two fluted champagne glasses and a large bottle of bubbly.
“Uh-oh,” he said. “The caterer doesn’t have that successful event look on her face.” He took the last load from my arms, set the carton on the counter, and wrapped me in one of his warm, tight hugs.
“Gosh, I need this,” I murmured into his warm shoulder that smelled of soap. “It was not only unsuccessful. It was horrible.”
He drew back, and I wanted to say, Lord, but you’re gorgeous, but decided to save it. He gave me a look of deep sympathy. “Weather ruin things?”
“No. Marla nearly got into a fistfight with the host.”
“Gee,” he said with jovial sarcasm. He let me go and squeezed my hand. “What else is new? Hold on a minute.”
I eyed the counter while Tom worked to open the champagne. He appeared to be making cookies. But what kind of treat contained whole wheat flour, nonfat dry milk, and liver powder? Something that went with champagne? I said, “I’m afraid to ask what you’re making. Health cookies?”
He popped the cork. “Not cookies. Homemade dog biscuits. For Jake.” He smiled.
“Oh, Tom, you have got to be kidding.” He put down the champagne bottle and brandished a large cookie cutter in the shape of a dog bone. He wasn’t kidding. As he poured, I glanced at the kitchen clock ? it was almost one ? and sank into one of our kitchen chairs. Tom had put out a crusty loaf of sourdough bread and a large wedge of Bel Paese cheese. He handed me a glass full of spritzy bubbles.
Jake’s Dog Biscuits
2 ? cups whole wheat flour
? cup powdered milk
? teaspoon garlic powder
? teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon brown sugar
6 tablespoons margarine or shortening
1 egg, beaten
3 tablespoons liver powder
? cup ice water
Preheat oven to 350°. In a large bowl, combine flour, powdered milk, garlic powder, salt, and sugar. Cut in shortening. Mix in egg, then add liver powder. Add ice water until mixture forms a ball. Pat out dough ? inch thick on a lightly oiled cookie sheet. Cut with any size cutter and remove scraps. Bake 30 minutes. Cool before serving.
“Here’s to good work situations,” he said seriously, raising his glass.
I clinked my glass against his and sipped. “Speaking of which. I saw Shockley.”
“Please don’t ruin my cooking experience,” he said with the same jolly sarcasm. He turned enthusiastically back to the dog biscuit dough. “And before you say one word, I’ll tell you why I’m doing this. Jake needs to trust us. So we’ve got to pamper him. Show him that we care.”
“I certainly hope making homemade dog biscuits at one o’clock in the morning does the trick.”
Undiscouraged, Tom grinned again. “Besides that, Shockley made me so damn mad yesterday, I’m thinking of having his secretary give him some of these with his coffee Monday morning.”
I groaned. Would that idiot police chief never stop bothering my husband? “Now what?”
“First tell me about your party. The food turned out all right, didn’t it? Did the tent and ovens get there on time? How about Macguire?”
I briefly recapped the evening’s events, concluding with my worry that Marla’s erratic behavior might lead to another bout with heart disease.
“Trouble with an assay?” Tom frowned. “Why didn’t she ask Tony about it before confronting Albert?”
I sipped the champagne. “Discretion and tact have never been Marla’s long suits, Tom. Besides, the mine is Albert’s baby, not Tony’s. Anyway, I’m sure that now she wishes she had had a tete-a-tete with Tony instead of bawling out his partner in front of everybody.”
“This is going to put the captain in a foul mood,” Tom mused. “Glad he’ll have the rest of the weekend to think about it.”
“You mentioned that he had upset you.”
“Upset me? Upset me? You mean, after I’ve worked two months on the case against David Calvin, the fact that Shockley has ruined it for me has upset me? Nah.”
David Calvin had shot and killed his ex-wife not five miles from our home. Calvin hadn’t liked the fact that his ex was going out with somebody, so he’d shot the boyfriend, too. The boyfriend had been in a coma for two months. I knew that Tom had recovered Calvin’s murder weapon and vehicle, and had been confident about getting a conviction.
“Oh, Tom, don’t tell me. What did Shockley do now?”
Tom heaved a huge sigh and fingered his glass. “We have investigative keys. What that means is, say we know a guy was wearing a black shirt, that he used a thirty-two, that he shot the victim four times. Those facts are the keys. They are secret. Very, very secret. The reason we don’t divulge the keys is that we use them in questioning the suspect. Say we ask about the weapon, without being specific. The guy says, ‘But I don’t even own a thirty-two!’ Then we know we’ve got our guy.”
The kitchen began to fill with a savory, homemade-bread aroma. Lucky Jake. I cut myself a slice of sourdough, smeared it with the creamy cheese, and waited for Tom to continue.
“Shockley was so proud of all the work we’ve ? no, wait ? the work I’ve done, that he blabbed about it to a lawyer friend of his. The captain needs to impress people. Anyway, that attorney just became the court-appointed defense lawyer for David Calvin.” He took a last swig of champagne. “Good-bye, case.”
“No, no,” I protested. “You’ve got other evidence, you’ve got ? “
“Trust me,” he said as he brought the sheet of warm bone-shaped biscuits out of the oven. “You lose the keys, you’ve lost the case.”
I rinsed our glasses while he set the biscuits on racks to cool.
“I’m going to take a shower,” I murmured in his ear. “And then I want to have some fun.”
“Oh, woman,” he said with a chuckle. “You better make that a quick shower.”
The snow turned back to rain that pattered on the roof as we made love. Afterward, I snuggled into Tom’s arms, my hair still damp from the fast shower. As I felt his warmth surround me, I pondered what kind of wonderful man would take the time to make biscuits for my son’s new dog after two months of work had been ruined and a killer might go free.
4
Sunday morning I was startled awake by an ungodly canine howl. At first I thought the sound was a dream. Maybe it was the Hound of Heaven’s wail, promising divine retribution. Or perhaps it was the bellow of the I Hound of the Baskervilles, on the trail of a hapless victim.
It was neither. It was good old Jake, the hound of Arch. Our much-desired-although-not-by-me canine pet
