Prime Cut

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Tom, after asking us how we were, went back to sawing. His old friend Sergeant Zack Armstrong had come up for the morning to help him. Where the back wall had been, there were now three dusty windows decorated with the manufacturer’s stickers. The sudden vista on our backyard opened up by the wall of glass was disconcerting. I knew I’d get used to it, even love it, so I told myself not to make any negative comments.

Zack and Tom had moved on to nailing down the strips of oak that were to be our new floor. Unfinished and dusty, it was hard to tell how they would look. Tom had brought in one of the cherry cabinets; it lay tilted against a hole-pocked wall. Julian and I gushed over how stunning the dark, carved box was. Tom, sweaty and intent, thanked us and then asked us to let him get back to work.

Julian and I brought our crates of dirty dishes through the front door, wiped them with wet paper towels to remove dirt and food particles, and washed them in the downstairs bathtub. If only the health inspector could see us now. … I shuddered. It was nearly four o’clock by the time we finished. Julian offered to pick up Arch, take Lettie home, then get pizza and calzones for dinner. I handed him money from my wallet. It would appear that remodeling a kitchen, in addition to being expensive, was fattening.

While Tom and Zack banged and hammered on the first floor, I took a long shower, wrapped myself in a thick terry-cloth robe, and settled down in our bedroom. First I called Lutheran Hospital, where the E.M.S. said they were taking Leah. No one at the hospital could give me any information yet, unfortunately. Next, I pulled out the packet Leah had given me. The disheveled pages of Andre’s menus and bills to Ian’s Images were meticulously numbered and dated but out of order. I put them in order and opened my calendar. I needed to reconstruct what Andre had told me about his meal-service plans, and how those had been disrupted by Ian’s breaking the window with the temper tantrum that had also cost him a camera and a whole lot of glass.

The first day I had worked with Andre had been Monday, the eighteenth of August. I smoothed out the menu for that day and felt a twinge when I read Models’ Mushroom Soup and Goldy’s Vegetarian Dish—the Florentine cheesecakes. I traced the letters with my fingers, admiring Andre’s faithfully kept resolution to write as well as speak English. Burnt Sugar Cake. He’d given me careful instructions on not burning myself. I steered away from that particular irony While noting that beside the lunch menu for Tuesday, a different hand had written: Andre: Could you please serve lunch inside for the next 3 days? We’ll be working on the deck and need the space. L. Leah. That day, he had proceeded with Vichyssoise, Chilled Stuffed Artichokes, Marinated Beef Salad, Brioche, Fresh Fruit Skewers, and Grand Marnier Buttercream Cookies.

On Wednesday the twentieth, he’d done a coffee break that consisted of Scallion Frittata, Fresh- fruit Pineapple Boats, and Scones with Lemon Curd. Wednesday’s lunch had featured Cream of Corn Soup, Lump Crab Salad, Green Beans Vinaigrette, Dill Rolls, and Chocolate Cake. On Thursday he’d treated the assembly to Spiral-cut Ham, Fruit Plate, and Pecan Rolls for the coffee break, While lunch had been an offering of Western-style Barbecue Ribs, Coleslaw, Potato Salad, Corn on the Cob, and Brownies. American cooking? Incredible.

Friday we had catered together at the Homestead Museum, heard Sylvia’s sad tale of her violated museum, seen the children model. And he’d had his miniattack.

He’d died before serving the Monday coffee break. He’d written the prep plans, though: Creme Brulee Cups for 20—start Saturday. To that he’d added Peach Compote—make Sunday. Heavy on the cholesterol and sugar, but that was the French way.

His bills had been uncomplicated: figuring ten to twenty people per day, service, tax, and gratuity included: ten dollars a pop for the coffee break, eighteen for the lunch. He’d averaged a daily gross of about seven hundred dollars. On Friday afternoon, he had written down the check number of the payment Leah had made to him for the first week’s work. I did not know whether he had ever deposited the check. I sighed and closed the notebook. Downstairs, the loud pow of Tom’s nail gun split the air.

I would be seeing Pru Hibbard the following afternoon, at the memorial service. It would not be tactful to pose any questions about Andre’s week with the fashion folks. The last thing a bereaved widow needed was to imagine there was anything unusual about her husband’s death. Which, of course, there was.

Slowly, I read back over the menus. I visualized Andre working on Sunday, peeling peaches for the compote he would serve on Monday morning for Ian’s Images. First, he would have placed the thickly sliced peaches in a baking dish, then reamed out a lemon for its juice, mixed the juice with some red wine, sugar, a cinnamon stick, and some cloves and a bit of salt. This he would have heated and poured over the glistening peaches before placing them in the oven. Then, for the other dish … Wait a minute.

I closed my eyes and remembered Andre bustling about to prepare creme brulee. He’d insisted on teaching me his old-fashioned way, although I’d ended up developing my own method. Andre would stir and heat eggs with cream to a rich custard, then chill the dish overnight, which is why he would have started it on Saturday. Then on Sunday he would have covered it with a thin layer of light brown sugar, and … Hold on.

To caramelize the sugar, he did not use a hand-held propane torch, as I did. No: Andre used his own salamander, an old-fashioned iron tool heated over a fire and then run over the top of the creme, to make it brulee. Like his butter-baller, his balloon whisks, and battered wooden spoons, Andre’s salamander came from the time before modern kitchen equipment was common. It was a curved, fancy implement that I’d seen many times in his red metal toolbox.

In my mind’s eye I saw Andre’s dead body, his burned hands. Creme brulee crusted by the heat of a salamander. Strangely shaped burns carved into the skin followed by death … or something like that. In any event, because of the shape of the burns, I knew the salamander must have caused the scars. How had it happened? When could the burning have happened? Not Sunday when he’d originally made the custards, or he would have put salve on them, wouldn’t he? Or bandages? He’d told the cabdriver he’d finished making the food … but he had to be at the cabin early for prep. Why? Could there have been some reason why he’d felt he had to make more custards Monday morning? What would that reason be? Could someone have him While he was cooking, as Rustine had startled me today, so that he burned himself, had chest pains, and took an overdose of nitroglycerin? If someone had surprised him, why wouldn’t that person have called for help when Andre collapsed, as Boyd had called for help today?

It still didn’t make sense. But at least I knew one thing. Andre had been burned by his own salamander.

I checked my watch: just before five. I put in a quick call to the morgue, and was astonished to be put straight through to Sheila O’Connor.

“Sheila, it’s Goldy … look, I just didn’t know who else to call—”

“No problem.”

“Remember those marks on Andre’s hands?” When she mm-hmmed, I took a deep breath. “I know what caused them.” I told her about the menus, the creme brulee, and the salamander.

“So, what are you telling me?” she asked patiently. “That he was burned he was cooking? I never thought anything else.”

What was I telling her, exactly? “Of course he was burned While he was cooking, but it just doesn’t add up. Why would he tell the cabdriver he was all done, and then proceed to make more food? If one of the photo people came to the cabin and told Andre extra people were showing up, and then Andre burned himself and collapsed, why didn’t the photo person call for help?”

Sheila took a deep breath. “Goldy, you loved your teacher. I know you did. I know you hate to think of him as old and vulnerable. But he was. Our guys found his empty bottle of nitroglycerin, by the way. His doctor says the bottle should have been full.”

“He took a whole bottle? When he was sensitive to it? Why would he do that? How much was in his system?”

“About two hundred milligrams. It’s a lethal dose. Goldy—”

“Did he have any … internal bruising that would have shown someone forcing pills down his throat?”

“You’re always telling me about Med Wives one-oh-one, Goldy. Remember? Nitroglycerin dissolves in the mouth.”

“Do you have any evidence that might indicate this wasn’t an accidental overdose? Please, Sheila, he was my teacher.”