“We don’t want to cause a ruckus,” Chris said soothingly.
“Then answer my questions,” Marla insisted.
“Yes,” Chris said softly. “There were problems at ACHMO. It was not a happy place to work.”
“You all look so solemn. People are wondering what the five of you are discussing out here,” our priest said, joining us.
“Nothing,” Marla said gaily. She always sought gossip but rarely shared it when there was no hope of reciprocal din. She tugged me away and I muttered good-byes to the two men and Tina. Marla pulled open the door to her Mercedes. I got in on the passenger side. After the van, sitting in the low-slung four-wheel-drive Mercedes always made me feel like an astronaut en route to Uranus.
“I can ask Brandon Yuille and Chris Corey a few questions if I want,” Marla said defiantly as she slammed her door and prepared to blast off.
“Yeah, right. You can see how well it went.”
“Tough tacks.” She revved the car and zoomed out of the lot, then slowed behind a van crammed with tourists from Kansas. “So who should we be talking to if you’re going to help Arch? And what are we supposed to say? Or haven’t you figured that out yet? ‘Hi, we’re the two ex-wives of the doctor who’s been busted for murder! Can we come in for tea and a little interrogation?’ “
Chris, Brandon, and Tina stared at Marla, open-mouthed.
“That’s not…” Chris began. “You can’t expect us to discuss ? “
“Oh, yes, we can,” Marla continued brazenly. “You guys are department heads with a big corporation. You need to be responsive to the public, or at least to the ex-wives of the guy who’s been charged with murdering your boss. So what we’ve heard is … there were problems with firing at that HMO. Were there problems in the Human Resources department, Brandon? Did everybody hate her?” When he gaped blankly at her, she turned to Chris. “Can you answer our questions? Please?”
I was embarrassed. This wasn’t asking a few questions. This was grilling, with no hot dogs in sight.
“Ah.” I leaned in for a few confidential, light-hearted words with Tina Corey. “That doesn’t look like a Babsie outfit that I recognize. Let’s see… could it be … Babsie-as-a-Choir-Director?”
Tina’s face became rigid. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Goldy, please,” interjected Chris, “could you not ? “
“Babsie-as-AItar-Guild-Director?” I attempted, undeterred.
“Be quiet,” said Tina.
Startled by her harsh tone, I pulled back. Apparently, Babsie wasn’t a churchgoer. “Sorry,” I muttered. “Er, how’s the cat?”
Tina’s face remained stonelike. She said nothing. Maybe the cat had run away, and she blamed me. I wished I’d kept my mouth shut. Some people just can’t shoot the breeze when they’re about to plan a funeral. I shot Marla a pleading can-we-leave glance.
Chris squinted over Marla’s shoulder and waved to the priest, who was heading our way with a worried look on his face.
“We don’t want to cause a ruckus,” Chris said soothingly.
“Then answer my questions,” Marla insisted.
“Yes,” Chris said softly. “There were problems at ACHMO. It was not a happy place to work.”
“You all look so solemn. People are wondering what the five of you are discussing out here,” our priest said, joining us.
“Nothing,” Marla said gaily. She always sought gossip but rarely shared it when there was no hope of reciprocal din. She tugged me away and I muttered good-byes to the two men and Tina. Marla pulled open the door to her Mercedes. I got in on the passenger side. After the van, sitting in the low-slung four-wheel-drive Mercedes always made me feel like an astronaut en route to Uranus.
“I can ask Brandon Yuille and Chris Corey a few questions if I want,” Marla said defiantly as she slammed her door and prepared to blast off.
“Yeah, right. You can see how well it went.”
“Tough tacks.” She revved the car and zoomed out of the lot, then slowed behind a van crammed with tourists from Kansas. “So who should we be talking to if you’re going to help Arch? And what are we supposed to say? Or haven’t you figured that out yet? ‘Hi, we’re the two ex-wives of the doctor who’s been busted for murder! Can we come in for tea and a little interrogation?’ “
I sighed. “Let’s go talk to Frances Markasian. You said she came to visit you, why didn’t she come to visit me? I think she lives in the Spruce apartments.”
Marla pressed the accelerator. “Now there’s an upscale address.”
The Spruce apartment building was a four-story stucco edifice that had probably been constructed when Aspen Meadow was rapidly expanding in the sixties. Spruce up was just what the building owners had not done, unfortunately. The seventies had seen the apartment house, which sat perched on a hill overlooking Main Street, painted a blinding yellow. I was willing to wager there’d been no repainting since. Warped and rotted cedar-shake shingles curled on the roof or lay helter-skelter between the crab-grass and the drooping lodgepole pines that flanked the building. Marla pulled the Mercedes next to a wall of yellow cinder blocks that marked off the front parking area. I didn’t see Frances’s Subaru, but knew there was another cracked-asphalt blacktop behind the building where the residents kept overflow cars.
“Tell me again why we’re here,” Marla said doubtfully.
“All this happened to John Richard yesterday,” I reminded her. “You know Frances Markasian. She’s a fast and efficient snooper. If somebody knows anything, she will.”
“All I know is that she’s also covering the doll show at the lake,” Marla grumbled. “Maybe she’s doing a story on Coroner Babsies.”
The elevator was out of order. We walked up the stairs to apartment 349, the Markasian residence, and knocked. No one home. An elderly man came out into the third-floor foyer and unabashedly watched us as Marla rapped harder. The elderly man cleared his throat.
“Hey, you girls!” he snarled. His white hair had been brutally shaved in a crewcut, and his deeply lined face looked malevolent. “What do you want? You’re not more of them, are you?”
I held my index finger up to Marla: Let me handle this. To the elderly gent I said pleasantly, “More of whom?” He made an impatient gesture. “Parade of people all day. That woman’s not a reporter, she’s a bureaucracy. Get out of here, you’re ruining the place.”
I felt my cheeks redden. :: But Marla wasn’t merely blushing. She was purple with rage. “Cool your jets, fella! If we want to look for somebody, we’ll look, you got it? We’ll knock on every door in the place if we want to. Ever heard of freedom of the press? Do you know where we can find Frances Markasian?”
“Look, you two!” he cackled. “You want stories on your dolls? Grow up! Dolls for grown women,” he spat. “You want Frances Markasian, go down to the lake and find her!”
I was ready to retreat, but Marla insisted on having the last word, as usual. She wagged a lilac-painted nail at the man.
“Watch your mouth, please! Collecting is a venerable hobby. And it’s a smart investment! Not only that, but you’re rude!”
“I may be rude, but I’m not crazy!” he cackled before disappearing into 350.
Marla shot after him and I had to limp along behind her to catch up. Fortunately, the man’s apartment door slammed before Marla could force her way in for a confrontation. Marla rapped hard and repeatedly on his door. Squeals of “Shut up!” and “Go away or I’ll call the cops!” issued from other apartments. But our white-haired, unpleasant critic did not reappear.
11
In the afternoon sun Aspen Meadow Lake shimmered like sugar on ice. Several dozen cars in the dirt parking area made me wonder if there was a waiting line for skiffs and paddle boats. We got out of the Mercedes and approached the LakeCenter’s front door.
The LakeCenter was a jewel of that architectural species known as “mountain contemporary.” Constructed of row upon row of massive blond logs, wide, soaring trapezoids of glass, polished plank flooring within, aprons of flagstone without, and topped with a phenomenally expensive all-weather shingle roof, the structure was the glory
