Prime Cut

window? Eliot was supposed to put one in. I paid for it but never got it.”

“Tha-a-t’s why you’re married to somebody in law enforcement!” Tom said jovially. “Boyd has all Eliot’s paperwork. I may not know about his love life, but I know Eliot ordered your window from The Window Warehouse in north Denver. They’ve got your bay window sitting on their dock. Unpaid for, of course, but we didn’t really think Eliot was going to be that considerate, did we?”

I tried one more time. “Please don’t do this—”

Tom winked at me. I hadn’t seen him so happy since before his suspension four days ago. “You’ll love it, Miss G. Promise.”

Not long after, Arch and I made our way to the jail. There, another shock awaited us: John Richard Korman had been in a fight. He walked into his side of the three-foot-by-three-foot concrete cubicle and seemed reluctant to face us through the pane of glass. Once I saw him, I knew why. His left eye was purple. There was an ugly cut on his forehead and a slash over his right cheek. His blond hair, always expensively cared for, had been ruthlessly shorn by the prison barber. The orange jumpsuit emphasized the fact that he had lost most of his tan, even though he’d only been incarcerated two weeks. John Richard Korman had always been a handsome guy, but it was clear jail did not agree with him.

“Gosh, Dad, what happened to you?” Arch spoke into the telephone, trying hard not to sound worried and stunned.

“Guy wanted to know why his head hurt all the time.” John Richard’s voice spiraled loudly out of the phone. He gave me a sour look. “I told him an empty brain echoes. He punched me.”

Arch murmured that that was too bad, then launched into his recitation of all the things that had happened to him since the last jail visit. I had asked him not to tell John Richard about Tom’s suspension. So, Arch’s news covered the fray resulting from Jake leaping on Craig Litchfield. Predictably, John Richard interrupted him.

“Your bloodhound attacked somebody?” John Richard’s voice crackled. “You could get us sued!”

“But, Dad—”

“I can’t afford to be sued,” he announced. “Put your mother on.”

“Oh, that reminds me,” I said as I took the phone. “How does Arch’s tuition get paid? It’s due now.”

“Ask Leland.” His tone was curt, dismissive.

“Leland? Leland who? What happened to your accountant?”

“Hugh Leland’s my all-purpose guy now. Lawyer, accountant, the works. He’s in the phone book. Need money? Have a heart-to-heart with Leland.” He smirked.

Needless to say, John Richard had not jumped right in with an offer to authorize payment for Arch’s tuition, which a judge had ordered him to pay in full. In the interest of keeping the peace on what was only our third jail visit, I nodded. But I made a mental note to call my own attorney, if the money was not forthcoming. I tried not to think of what my attorney might charge to pull the tuition out of The Jerk. That’s the price for alienation in our day: You have to compensate other people to fight for you.

Arch asked for the phone and I gladly handed it over. “Julian’s back,” he told his father, who could not possibly have cared less. But Arch talked on, undaunted, about summer vacation, playing with Todd, things he and Jake had done. Finally I relieved him of the phone; we were at twenty-eight minutes, thank God.

“See you next week,” I began.

“How’s Marla holding up?” John Richard demanded, his face again flattened with a smirk.

I was noncommittal. The Jerk could use information in twisted and cruel ways, I had learned. “Fine. Why do you ask?”

He only laughed and hung up the phone.

Before leaving, I asked if I could see Cameron Burr. The desk sergeant told me Burr had just started a visit with his lawyer, and was unavailable. I scribbled a note to be delivered to Cameron, with our phone number and begging him to call. But I knew he wouldn’t. Suspended or no, Tom represented the forces that had put Cameron behind bars; Cameron’s lawyer would tell him not to contact us.

When we started back up the mountain, the air was warm, the sky increasingly hazy. I rolled down the window. John Richard’s manner at the end of our visit still rankled.

“Does your dad know that Marla is being audited?” I asked my son.

Arch looked out the window. “I guess.”

I had heard the entire content of John Richard’s last two visits with Arch; no mention had been made of Marla’s troubles with the IRS. As John Richard’s new factotum, Hugh Leland might be aware of what was going on. But how then would Arch know that his father was aware of the audit?

“What do you mean, you guess? Dad told you he knew Marla was going through this IRS thing?”

He hesitated. “Well, don’t tell Marla I told you, okay?”

I sighed. “He didn’t do anything illegal, did he?”

“Oh, no. But when Dad was having financial problems last spring, the HMO’s not paying him his money and stuff, he had this idea of how to make money. I don’t think he knows that I know. I was supposed to be watching TV in his condo, but there was nothing on. When I turned it off, I overheard Dad telling one of his friends about the IRS paying a big reward to whoever turns in a tax cheater. Dad told his friend that Marla was the richest person he knew, and he was going to squeal on her to the IRS. I just thought it was a joke.” He shook his head. “I feel bad telling you, because he’s my dad and all. But I love Marla. I know it’s been awfully hard on her. Sometimes I just think Dad gets sort of like, carried away.”

I didn’t say what I was thinking. It would have exposed Arch to very bad language.

The next morning, Julian, Tom, Arch, and I went to the early service at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church. I called Marla to see if she wanted us to come pick her up; she said she was having severe IRS-produced indigestion and couldn’t move from her bed. Given the circumstances, I decided against telling her about The Jerk’s hand in her current troubles. Julian had made some hazelnut-caramel rolls—Marla’s favorite—that he was eager to offer for tasting at the coffee hour. I didn’t tell her about them, either.

As the congregation began to read the Forty-sixth Psalm—God is my refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble—I realized that I craved very present help in a very big way. A friend of ours was in jail; Tom had been suspended; my business was in danger. Compounding these problems were the facts that our living-space was in an uproar and we were teetering on the brink of insolvency.

The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our stronghold. I prayed for Cameron and Barbara Burr. Without warning, I felt the weight of my ongoing resentment of our dead kitchen contractor. When people hurt you, it’s hard to let them go, no matter how they end up. But as my Sunday School class often reminded me, God will always take somebody in, even when they’re dead. Right, Mrs. Schulz?

I conjured up the bloated face of Gerald Eliot hanging between the sun room studs, and silently let him go.

“I’m sorry to put you through all this,” I told Tom that night as I pulled two loaves of homemade sandwich bread out of the oven. At my request, and in view of my continuing inability to talk to Cameron, Tom had spent an hour trying to find out about the evidence collected at Burr’s home. No one was available to chat about missing cookbooks, so Tom had vowed to go ask Boyd some questions the next day, suspension or no.

Instead of banging about in the wreckage we called our kitchen, Tom had thoughtfully spent the afternoon working on his plans in the basement so we could prepare for the morgue lunch the next day. With Julian’s help, I’d stewed a chicken, seared a London broil—both would go into the following days’ salads—made vichyssoise and a huge salad of barely steamed vegetables that would chill overnight and be lightly dressed with a raspberry vinaigrette the next morning. Tom received a test bowl of the delectable, chive-scented vichyssoise and pronounced it superb.

Before going to bed, I tried to check in with Andre. Pru’s caregiver said Andre had done a great deal of cooking this evening and was already asleep. She promised to ask him to call.

Monday morning dawned bright and cool. I chopped tarragon, celery, and pecans to combine with the moist,