you can learn more that way. Those gals really know what’s cooking, if you know what I mean.” He winked.
“Ah.” I put down the knife and zapped the lemon zest in the grinder. Then I pulverized the blanched slivered almonds and piled them into a pale mound. “So. What did Suz’s secretary have to say?”
“Well…” He reached for another beer, pried off the top, and took a long swig. “I really shouldn’t say.”
“Why not? Maybe I could help you. Fill in the blanks.”
He harumphed, popped the last of the sandwich into a corner of his mouth, chewed, and licked his fingers. Sometimes I wondered if the only decent food Donny ever got was when Goldilocks’ Catering got mired in one of his investigations. “I’m telling you, Goldy, nobody likes Korman. But nobody liked that Craig woman, either. I mean, nobody. You know, you’d think people wouldn’t speak ill of the dead.
But get right down to it, I’m surprised nobody did her right there in the office. Course, they didn’t have, the pattern, like our Doc Korman.”
I beat unsalted butter with sugar, egg yolks, vanilla, and lemon zest; measured out flour and the other dry ingredients, and then mixed them with the creamed mixture to make a nutty, buttery, heavenly-smelling dough. “Have you been looking at any other facts of the case, Donny?”
“Tha-a-a-at’s why I’m here, right?”
I wondered briefly if I could nip out for one of j the tranquilizers Marla had given me. Maybe Amy’s! herb capsules had sedative powers. But no ? there was a chance Donny’s boastfulness would win out’ and he’d tell me what Suz’s secretary had had to say. If I didn’t appear too eager, that is. So I concentrated on the question of how to provide a high ratio of tart raspberry jam to cookie dough. Scooping the dough into cupcake pans and then topping them with spoonfuls of jam would work. I ignored Donny and set about buttering a pan.
He continued eagerly. “You listening? You wouldn’t have believed how much that secretary, name of Luella Downing, hated Ms. Craig. Luella. was in some kind of state this morning.”
I tsked, but continued assiduously spraying a pan. “See,” he persisted, “this Luella resented Ms. Craig ‘cuz Ms. Craig had made it her business to know some money details of Luella’s divorce.” I looked up from the pan and raised my eyebrows. Donny smirked triumphantly. “I told Luella I wouldn’t prosecute or nothing.” I hid my exasperation and nodded knowingly. He went on. “Come to find out that Ms. Craig knew Luella had liquidated her IRA and put the money into her parents’ account so’s Luella’s ex wouldn’t find it. Our Ms. Craig used that info to get Luella to shut up about the taping.”
I dropped the pan on the counter. “Taping of what?”
He held up a hand. “I’m getting there. And don’t worry, I checked to see where Ms. Luella was over the weekend, just in case she’d gotten it into her head to off her boss over the IRA stuff. Luella was organizing a rummage sale for her parents’ church in Aurora. The story checks out ? Beiner went to the church and interviewed the parents.”
A minute amount of admiration for Donny wormed its way into my brain. “So… what was Luella taping?”
“Luella wasn’t taping. Suz Craig was. Any meeting in her office.” He lowered his voice. “Like the frigging White House, you asked me. See, nobody but Ms. Craig and Luella knew. Luella says if she’d dropped the dime on her boss, she would have lost her job and possibly her IRA bucks.”
“Does Luella know what was on the tapes? Did she transcribe them?”
“No, oh, no. Luella just happened to discover Ms. Craig loading a fresh tape into the machine built into her desk. See, one time Luella walked in on Ms. Craig without knocking, checking on some correspondence or something, and saw her fiddling with this machine. Luella says, ‘What in the world are you doing?’ That’s when Ms. Craig says, ‘You tell anybody about this and I’ll fire you and tell your ex where your IRA dough is.’ The one thing Ms. Craig told Luella was never to touch the machine. The boss lady told Luella she taped the meetings to cover herself. She also labeled the tapes and put them in a locked cabinet.”
“Good Lord. So what happened? How were they discovered?”
“When Ms. Craig turned up blue in a ditch, somebody called Luella. Turns out Luella was already home from the rummage sale. Soon as Luella heard her boss was dead, she called corporate HQ. Somebody was there even though it was Saturday. Luella hollered, ‘You guys need to know about these tapes and go get’ em before the press gets hold of ‘em. Old Suz Craig was such a bitch, there’s no telling what’s on those tapes.’ Corporate HQ has a cow and sends two guys to Denver Saturday night. They’re scrambling like mad to break open her locked cabinets when somebody tips off the sheriff’s department. They show up with a search warrant and seize the tapes they’ve found, plus use Ms. Craig’s keys from her house to search all the office cabinets for more.”
“You learned all this from Sergeant Beiner? Or from Luella Downing?” I asked suspiciously.
“Little of both. My job, you gotta put everything together.”
“And why do you suppose Luella is spilling her guts to you?”
His eyebrows lifted. “Hey, Goldy! Ace caterer amateur detective! Wake up! Luella shouldn’t have called Minneapolis first, she should have told the cops about the tapes first. This morning Luella’s suddenly got a big case of remorse, ooh, ooh, she meant to tell us, but she didn’t want to lose her job, see, is what she’s saying. Meanwhile, our department takes an inventory. Looks like one day’s tapes are missing, and the people at ACHMO swear they don’t have a clue where they are. So, bit later in the morning, the sheriff sends a team back up to Suz’s house. They turn up nothing.”
“Sheesh.”
“So I’m thinking about your ex-husband, see. I’m thinking, why did he and Suz Craig have that catfight on Friday night? And then I think, the missing tapes, of course! John Richard probably has them.
What? I pressed my lips together and turned away. I had to think. Delicate material, John Richard had said. I nudged soft scoops of dough into each cup. And what had ReeAnn said? She wanted him to put some stuff… in a safe place, somewhere the AstuteCare people couldn’t find them. I ladled tart, inky jam on top of each dough disc. At John Richard’s office this morning, Brandon Yuille had asked me the same question: If John Richard has given you anything to hide … I popped the cupcake pan into the hot oven.
“What could be on the tapes?” I asked, perplexed. “And who could have them?”
“Well, now, those are the questions, aren’t they? The execs are scrambling like crazy. Where’re the tapes, these powers-that-be want to know. And, believe me, this morning? All the ACHMO secretaries were pulling up the wall-to-wall trying to find the damn things. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, since Suz Craig’s house has turned up nothing, the duty judge gives our guys a search warrant for Korman’s house. No tapes, but somebody messed up his house bad with paint ? “
“One day’s tapes… What day? What folks met with Suz Craig that day?” I interrupted.
“Luella’s trying to reconstruct that.” He shook his head and burped. “Korman doesn’t have anyplace he hides things, does he?”
“He’s compulsively neat. And he’s just sold his place in Keystone.” I chewed the inside of my lip. “He hasn’t been to his condo in Hawaii since June. I guess he could have stashed the tapes there. But if they’re in Hawaii, what would happen if Suz wanted [hem back?”
“Man, would I love it if the department sprang for a trip to the islands! Damn! You got another beer?”
“Donny. Are you driving?” He pulled his chin into his neck. “Well, yeah, but you don’t need to worry about a coupla beers, Goldy, I can handle it. And don’t worry, I’ll callout to Hawaii for a search warrant. Now, how ‘bout ? “
“Let me fix you some coffee. You know my husband’s a cop. I wouldn’t want you having an accident after drinking beer at our house. It’d look bad.”
“Okay,” he said reluctantly, eyeing the espresso machine on my counter. “Only don’t give me any of that cappuccino crap or I’ll barf.”
I fixed Donny plain black coffee, which he slurped noisily. The nut-scented Linzer tarts resembled circular stained-glass windows when I removed them from the oven. Since they would go in the doll-show box lunches, I decided to call them Babsie’s Tarts. While I was placing them on a rack to cool, I asked Donny if there were any suspects besides John Richard. He said not since Luella’s alibi had checked out. I asked him if they’d caught the vandals who’d defaced John Richard’s house, and he said, “Oh, do they think it was vandals?” Finally I asked him if he knew about the bonus John Richard was supposed to get, but didn’t.
Babsie’s Tarts
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
