missing?”
“Why? You know where they are?”
“No,” I said with a sudden yawn I couldn’t suppress. “I don’t have a clue.”
When I crawled back into bed at four, Tom rolled over and said, “I’m beginning to think there’s someone else.”
I started to laugh and couldn’t stop. They were the kind of giggles you get when you’re very young, at camp or a slumber parry, and can’t contain, no matter how valiantly you try.
“Uh-huh,” he said. “You got another statement to make? Some wrongdoing you encountered out on your prowls?”
“I can’t…” I said between giggles, “help it … if I can’t… sleep.”
“Soothe me, then. Tell me where you went.” “To the pastry shop. Had a bear claw. Sorry, I didn’t bring you any.”
He put his arms around me and growled. “Promise me the next time you go on one of these excursions, you take me with you. I feel like a kid who always gets left behind.”
I snuggled into his arms. “Okay. Whither I go, thou goest. Or words to that effect.”
“So did you find out anything about Korman at the pastry shop?”
“Sort of. The missing day’s tapes are for July 14, when Suz Craig called in all the employees who’d complained about her to HQ and threatened to fire them. She must have met with other people that day, too, like Ralph Shelton. So … if you had tapes of yourself blackmailing people, where would you hide them?”
“I’d destroy them.”
“Oh, cop, you’re a lot of help.”
24
My yoga regimen that morning was made more difficult by the phone ringing insistently at six o’clock. I pulled myself out of a contorted asana with the hope that this was the sheriff’s department calling to tell us they’d captured the Jerk. No such luck: over the wire came the commanding voice of the much-dreaded dollmeister, Gail Rodine.
“The board doesn’t want you to use the grill tonight for our final dinner,” she announced without a hint of apology for calling so early. “I mean, after what happened to ReeAnn Collins, we just… feel it’s too dangerous.”
Thinking of the mountains of hamburgers I had made and frozen, and the bags of chicken breasts I had been planning to marinate, my heart plummeted. I could never get them all grilled at home and reheated at the LakeCenter, without ruining them. “What would you like, then?” I asked carefully. “It’ll be impossible to order in more food supplies before tonight.”
“Well… what do you already have on hand?
Anything that you could grill, say, at home and then heat up?”
“Some I could do,” I said confidently. “The last thing I want is for a client to be worried about preparation. But what I have on hand…” I mentally weighed the chicken. “If I grill the chicken I have, it will only feed half your folks. I’ll have to make…” I mentally scanned my refrigerator. “I’ll prepare a Camembert pie to fill things out. It’ll contain shrimp and vegetables, too.” From under the rumpled covers Tom’s sleep-worn face appeared. I held my hand over the receiver and mouthed, “Client needs whole new dish for tonight.”
“Macguire said he wanted to help you,” Tom replied as he rolled back under the sheet. “Give him some chopping to do. He’s worried about how depressed you are about Arch. He really wants to go back to being your assistant.”
“Goldy?” Gail Rodine. “Goldy, are you listening to me? How much extra is this going to cost?”
“I do want you, the board, and the guests to be comfortable, Gail ? “
“Don’t worry,” she said, clearing her throat, “I’ve already called a Denver caterer, and he said no one could meet our needs for a fancy dinner by five o’clock tonight without an exorbitant surcharge.”
“Gail, please ? “
“That’s ridiculous!” she shrieked into my ear. “I told them, ‘You don’t want us to get blown up by a propane grill, do you?’ “
“The Camembert pie retails for approximately forty dollars. You’re already getting grilled Chicken a l’Orange and rice. I can add a tossed salad of field greens and perhaps a molded fruit salad, if I have time. Plus vanilla frozen yogurt with those chocolate cookies you had in your box lunches. There’s only a five percent surcharge for changing the menu at this late date.” I
?Fine, fine, put it on our bill.” She rang off. “I’m afraid to ask what that was about.” Tom’s voice rumbled as he headed for the bathroom.
“Woman doesn’t want to stage her last barbecue tonight,” I said as I groaned before starting a final stretch. “Doesn’t want to end up like Ree-Ann.”
“Figures. Hey, let me see that.” He walked over to me, a manly vision in T-shirt and cotton undershorts. He touched my arm. “My God, Goldy! Look at that bruise! I swear I’m going to kill Korman myself, one of these days.”
I twisted and frowned at the black-and-blue mark that had formed on my lower arm from being banged around by John Richard. I hadn’t noticed it until now. “Uh, well. Say, do you want to go back to bed?”
He smiled at me but touched the bruise gently. “Does it hurt?”
I gave a doctor-style shrug. “I’ll live, if we have a roll in the hay first.”
He obliged, and we had a wonderful, warm, intimate time. Sometimes the best thing you can do in the morning is go right back to bed.
After a while Tom said, “I’m going to help you with this breakfast, and go in late. By the way, I bought you another spiral-cut honey-cured ham. It’s in the walk-in.”
I grinned and kissed him. “You’re marvelous beyond words. And thank you ? I’d love the company this morning.”
I fixed myself an espresso while Tom took his shower. Because the hospital had rebuffed me, and because it was too early to call Marla, I made a quick call to the sheriff’s department: ReeAnn Collins was out of danger and recovering from third-and second-degree burns. John Richard Korman, unfortunately, was still at large. And no, the duty officer informed me, Korman had not shown up at the Druckmans’ house.
I sipped the espresso and wondered how Arch was doing. He’d only been gone one night, but it felt like an eternity because it was so open-ended. I’m going to live with the Druckmans for a while. At least until Dad’s hearing. I got out leeks, tomatoes, and cream cheese, then retrieved two large bags of shrimp from the freezer. When Tom appeared in the kitchen, with his hair freshly washed and a tiny glob of shaving cream stuck under his ear, I was doubly glad he had decided to stay. Nothing like loneliness and a violent ex-husband on the lam to make one brood.
“Give me a job, Captain Cook,” Tom demanded merrily after he’d chugged down the espresso I’d given him and heard the news about ReeAnn and the Jerk. “The less savory the job, sir, the better.”
That was easy: I despise poaching and shelling shrimp. Now I not only needed the shellfish for the doll-club board breakfast, I needed them for the dinner, too. “If you could cook and shell all that shrimp, I’d be eternally grateful.”
He eyed the bulging bags and chuckled. “Aye-aye, sir.”
I started on a brioche-style dough that would form a delectable top crust for the dish I’d decided to call Collectors’ Camembert Pie. While we were both working, Macguire made a sudden appearance in the kitchen. I glanced at the clock: not even seven. “This is unexpected,” I remarked. “What’s up?”
“Give me something to do,” he said bravely, his voice still thick with sleep. “I want to help.”
I cut a glance at Tom, who resolutely bent over the shrimp. These two had conspired to cheer me up, no question about it. Fine. To Macguire, I pointed out the plump tomatoes to be seeded and chopped, artichoke bottoms to be trimmed, asparagus to be steamed and sliced, Camembert to be thickly cut, and Parmesan to be grated.
“I’ll worry about putting it all together when I get home,” I said with a smile.
“Uh,” said Macguire, “that’s a lot of food for breakfast, isn’t it?”
