Prime Cut

was very angry. With me.

“Don’t you think I can take care of myself, Goldy? Don’t you think I’ve spent enough time in police work to sidestep some five-foot-tall creep? What on earth were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t thinking anything,” I answered honestly. “Tom, I’m really sorry. I just—”

“Why didn’t you get in the van, the way I told you?”

I pressed the handkerchief into my oozing palm and didn’t respond. After all, what could I say?

When we arrived at our house, bedraggled, tense, and silent, we found Arch on the phone with his friend Todd Druckman. The two fourteen-year-olds were avidly discussing telephone encryption: whether they needed it, how much it would cost, whether girls would be able to decode their conversations. Still short for his age, Arch was dressed in an oversized burgundy T-shirt and sweatpants. He shook the straight brown hair off his forehead. “It would be worth it if you thought a girl was tapping your phone,” he observed. “You know how those girls in our class can be”

I washed my hand and bandaged it, then asked Arch to hang up. He pushed his smeared tortoiseshell glasses up his freckled nose and sighed. To Todd, he said, “Later.”

Ordinarily, our family has heart-to-heart conversations in our kitchen. But in the rosy light of early evening, the plastic-draped hole where the window had once been gave the space the discomfiting feel of an abandoned stage set. The kitchen was no longer the heart of our home, thanks to the late Gerald Eliot. Since we weren’t able to retrieve the leftovers from Cameron Burr’s guest house—the cops were going through it—Tom and I set the living room coffee table with bowls of cheese, cold chicken, sliced hard rolls, romaine leaves, chutney, and mayonnaise.

“Julian called,” Arch announced morosely. “He didn’t sound very good. I guess he’s not coming.” My son threw himself down on the couch and surveyed the spread. “He really wants to talk to you, Mom. Anyway, he said he was going to call Marla.”

“Was he in New York?” Tom asked. Arch shook his head and mumbled something about Julian’s being on the road.

“I’m sorry, Arch,” I said, then asked, “Did Andre call? Is he doing all right?”

“He left a message,” Arch said uncertainly. “He’s okay, I guess. Says he’s not going to make enough on the shoot to pay the cost of caring for his wife if some guy wrecks all the food. What’s the matter with his wife?”

“She has macular degeneration, which is a problem with the eyes. She’s virtually blind, and needs a full-time nurse. It’s expensive—”

“Who wrecked the food?”

“Just some guy on our job today. Is Andre’s message still on the tape?”

“Sorry. I erased it because Todd and I were doing some experimenting with dialing. You’re just supposed to call him back. What’s the matter, Mom? You said your hand was just scratched.”

“Remember the guy who made the mess in our kitchen?”

Arch smeared mayonnaise on half a roll. “Gerald Eliot? The builder scratched your hand?”

“No, hon. He’s dead.”

Tom added, “They found his body out at Cameron Burr’s place.”

“No kidding?” asked Arch, incredulous. He put down his roll. “What happened to him?”

“We don’t know yet,” I replied, then hesitated. “Anyway, while we were all out there, I … had a somewhat … physical argument with the assistant district attorney. I … sort of lost it when they arrested Cameron,” I added.

Arch bombarded us with questions. How did Eliot die? Mr. Burr didn’t kill Gerald, did he? I said I couldn’t imagine that he would have. Was Mr. Burr okay? Probably, I replied. Did Mrs. Burr know Mr. Burr had been arrested? It was possible Barbara was too sick to be informed of this news, I told him; it might just make her worse. Arch loved the Burrs. He couldn’t process what this would mean for them. Instead, he decided to focus on my altercation with the assistant district attorney.

Arch’s father, Dr. John Richard Korman—dubbed The Jerk by Marla and me—was currently in jail for assault. Would he now have two parents in jail? Arch asked. Jail time for me was unlikely, I assured my anxious son, after I’d made us steaming cups of hot chocolate and brought them out to the living room. The other deputies had seen Andy Fuller come at Tom first.

“So who’s in trouble?” Arch asked pragmatically. It was hard to tell, Tom and I told him.

The phone rang: Tom held it up so we both could hear.

“Hey!” came a hearty voice. “You should have knocked Fuller out with one of your frying pans!”

“Boyd,” Tom announced, and I smiled and nodded. Despite my increasing worries, it was good to hear our old friend, barrel-shaped and straight-shooting Sergeant Bill Boyd. Despite his perfectly serviceable first name, to us and everyone he was always “Boyd,” since there were too many sheriff’s department deputies with the first name Bill. Boyd had told us he’d gotten tired of getting the wrong call and worse, the wrong pizza. Now, he was glad to hear we were all right. He promised to stay in touch and hung up.

Ten minutes later, Tom’s new captain—a fair-minded, all-business administrator—called. Their conversation was tense and brief. Eliot was being autopsied in the morning; Cameron Burr was being held without bail; his wife was indeed too ill to be notified of the arrest. Moreover, things did not look good vis-a-vis Fuller. We’d know more the next day.

My sleep was predictably fitful. At seven A.M., the phone bleated. Tom, who’d been up and dressed since six, snatched it. He listened and scribbled in his spiral notebook while I hugged a heap of pillows and pretended to be asleep. My hand throbbed. So did my head. I wondered how Cameron was doing. I wondered how I’d gotten so mixed up in this mess, when all I’d done was try to take food over to a friend.

When Tom hung up, he stood, paced, then slumped down on our mussed bed. His face, ordinarily ruddy, was pale. “Problem?” I asked gently.

“Fuller’s demanded a full investigation.” He shook his head.

“Of what?”

Tom took a deep breath. “I’ve been charged with insubordination. And with compromising a homicide investigation.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Believe it. My buddies protested, of course. Some even threatened to quit.”

“Good.”

“Don’t say that, Miss G. The department has a ton of work to do, even if Fuller is screwing things up. Now listen. You’re not in trouble. The deputies all say they saw Fuller swing at me before you got in the way. Still, because this is the bad end of a lot of problems with him, I’m the one being investigated. The process will take four to six weeks.”

“Oh, for crying out loud!”

He held me with his gaze. “During that time,” he continued, “I’ll be suspended without pay.”

Chapter 5

Tom hugged me and told me not to worry. I held his handsome face in my hands and kissed him. Of course I would worry. And feel guilty. If I hadn’t interfered, he wouldn’t be in this mess. Tom kissed me, then said he’d fix me an espresso if I’d stop trying to take the blame for the world’s wrongs. I followed him to our topsy-turvy kitchen.

“What happens to Cameron?” I asked. “Can you tell me? Or am I considered a witness?”

“I can tell you. It’s Cameron Burr who shouldn’t get in touch with you.” Tom filled the espresso machine with water, pawed through the pile of china on the counter, and finally placed two Norwegian china demitasse cups under the doser. “I’m waiting for a fax from Boyd. He’s sending me a map of Blue Spruce showing the Burrs’ place in relation to Open Space.” He pressed the button and a moment later handed me a small, crema-topped drink. “The scenario Fuller is going with is this.” He sipped his coffee. “The window frame incident at the Grizzly Saloon occurred just before eleven the night before last. Fuller thinks Cameron Burr followed Gerald Eliot from the Grizzly to his nighttime security guard job at the Homestead Museum. By the way, it was a job Burr got for Eliot. That doesn’t look too good, Burr knowing exactly where to go.”