Prime Cut

not allowed to do that. Nor can I keep you here against your will. I’m suspended, remember?”

She whirled in her seat and gave him an icy look. “I did not kill Gerald.”

“Good for you,” Tom countered with a smile. “We’re just wondering what’s going on, that’s all. Eliot was murdered. He was a terrible contractor and an even worse security guard. He had done work for a lot of people who didn’t like him, including unfinished work for Ian’s Images, out at the Merciful Migrations cabin. Then right after his death, my wife’s teacher died suddenly, just when he was working for Ian’s Images. Is there a connection?”

“I don’t know,” Rustine said uncertainly.

Tom went on: “But you must not have found what you were looking for when you were out here searching around. If you had, you wouldn’t be hanging around us, saying you just happened to bump into Julian.” He paused, then said, “Is it because you think Andre might have told us something? Something that somehow got him into trouble, too?”

She immediately muttered, “Oh, crap.”

Julian’s face in the mirror registered distaste mixed with disappointment. Some picnic.

Rustine seemed to be turning something over in her mind. After a moment, she gave me a girls-only grin. “Actually, my little sister really does think your son is cute, Goldy. And smart, too.”

“If your cute little sister breaks my son’s heart,” I retorted calmly, “I will lop off her cute little blond braid.”

Rustine wrinkled her nose and scowled at me. “Man! What is it with you?”

“Sorry,” I mumbled. I felt a sudden wave of sympathy for Rustine. After all, what had she been doing out here? Playing detective in the wake of losing a loved one? Wasn’t that precisely what I was doing?

Julian pulled up to the picnic tables at the trailhead for Smythe Peak. Tom opened the back door of the Rover and announced that we could continue talking while we ate. We set out the platter of shrimp, the torte, a basket of rolls, and two salads Julian had made. The first was comprised of avocado chunks, romaine lettuce, and sugared walnuts tossed with a champagne vinaigrette; the second was a delectable melange of fresh grapes and pineapple chunks robed in a buttermilk dressing. I put a pitcher of iced tea next to the rolls and recalled my first day at the cabin, when Rustine had come into the kitchen seeking coffee. What had she said? You’re the caterer who figures things out

“Start with your relationship with Gerald Eliot.” Tom proceeded to pull the tail off a shrimp, dunk it in our homemade cocktail sauce, and stick it in his mouth. He chewed and winked at me, as if to say, Good food. Good interrogation. I was happy to discover that Julian’s green salad was out of this world.

Rustine ran her fingers through her luxuriant red hair and shook it over her shoulders. She waited until she had our attention, then announced, “Gerry had found something that was going to make us rich.” Julian moved his gaze to the rosy-feathered clouds fringing the mountains. Less assuredly, Rustine added, “Or so he said.”

“What was it he found? And when did he find it?” asked Tom. “Was it at the cabin or at the museum?”

“I think I should begin at the beginning,” she said, almost apologetically. “Gerry and I started going out in June. I was up there doing the shoot for Prince and Grogan’s July R.O.P.—that’s run of press—their ads for July, to be in the Post and News. Gerry was tearing out the wall in the cabin kitchen to put in windows. He never finished, of course.”

I groaned.

Rustine’s tone became defensive. “Look, I know all about Gerry taking your money/ But … he’d been fired by Ian’s Images in the middle of July. They never even paid him for his work, even though he’d given Leah his bills. Rufus said that Hanna wanted Gerry out because Gerry was involved with me. But I never believed that.”

Tom studied another plump pink shrimp. “Why did Eliot—Gerry—scam my wife and keep a crummy security job, if he’d found something to make him rich? And are you going to tell us what it was? Or do you even know?”

Rustine’s perfectly powdered brow furrowed. “I … don’t know what it was exactly … whether it was a thing, or some dirt on somebody … or what.” She faltered. I had the distinct impression that she was lying. “Gerry was in a real financial bind, though,” she went on. “His last credit card had been canceled. He’d had to put down cash for some of the windows he’d ordered for projects.” I thought of Cameron and Barbara, with their pink and blue sheets of glass winking in the sunlight, of the cabin kitchen and my own cooking space, both with glued plywood over the sink. Rustine assumed a sad tone. “Yes, Gerry took the Burrs’ money, and Goldy’s, too. But it was just to stay afloat until he could get to the next project.”

Rather than dwell on how dumb and trusting I’d been, I helped myself to more avocado salad.

“So he didn’t tell you what he’d found, or found out?” Tom pressed.

The edges of Rustine’s lipsticked mouth turned down. “He said he’d found a weapon.”

“A weapon?” I interjected. I immediately thought of the strange marks on Andre’s hands. Could they have been caused by a weapon? “What sort?”

“I don’t know. I was hoping you guys might tell me. Like, that you’d come across … something?” She looked at us expectantly. “Or maybe,” she continued, “that Andre had told you some secret he’d found out? Say, about Charlie Smythe, who used to live in the cabin? Maybe something to do with cooking in that kitchen, that Gerry and Andre might both have found out,” she added desperately.

Julian cut himself some more torte. “That makes a lot of sense, Rustine. Something to do with cooking in that kitchen that would have contributed to two guys’ deaths.”

Rustine closed her eyes and shrugged. “Well, Andre cooked, didn’t he? And Gerry had been doing work in the cabin kitchen, too, right?”

My mind went back to The Practical Cook Book, but I said nothing.

“Here’s what we’ve got,” Tom said. “A contractor hated by his clients gets fired from a job where he’s having an affair with an employee.”

“I wasn’t an employee—” Rustine interrupted indignantly.

Tom cocked an eyebrow. “Item two.” Rustine pressed her lips together. “Eliot claimed to this Ian’s Images employee that he’d found something, or maybe found out something that he claimed would make them rich. It might be a weapon or it might be information, right?” Rustine nodded once, quickly, then licked her Ups. “At Eliot’s second job,” Tom went on, “security guard at the Homestead Museum, where he arrived the evening of Sunday, August seventeenth, he was strangled to death in what appeared to be a faked burglary attempt. Law enforcement officials believe the perp was one of Eliot’s disgruntled clients. Of whom there are at least three still living in or near Aspen Meadow.” He pointedly avoided looking at me. “The perp—and at this point we still think we’re looking at one person, one crime—stole some things from the museum. Is that what you were looking for?”

“What?” Rustine asked innocently.

“Something stolen from the museum?”

“What was that?”

Tom tried again. “C’mon, Rustine, help us out. Were you looking for something?”

Rustine replied, “What are you missing?”

The blankness of Tom’s cop face made me smile. I’d read enough about law enforcement cat-and-mouse to know that the last thing he’d identify for Rustine was what the sheriff’s department was still missing. And if Rustine knew about the fourth cookbook, then she knew a lot more about Gerald Eliot’s murder than she was letting on.

Tom cleared his throat, then said, “Andre Hibbard also worked at the cabin, in the kitchen, in fact, and he died under what may be questionable circumstances. And yet, the coroner is about to rule Chef Andre’s death accidental.”

Rustine added eagerly, “But who knows what really happened? Andre worked at the Homestead Museum one day of the shoot, don’t forget that. And that guy who’s under arrest for Gerald’s murder? Burr? He’s like, the president of the historical society, which has its headquarters at the Homestead. So … I figure somebody with