Prime Cut

“Have Tom call me tomorrow.” Then she clicked off.

Sometimes problems, like a well-simmered stock, must be put on the back burner. I couldn’t obsess about Andre’s death any more that day. Nor could I contemplate how long it would be until my kitchen was back in service. Nor did I even want to think about being replaced as the caterer for Weezie Harrington’s birthday party, or of my replacement, Craig Litchfield, wowing the country club divorcee set.

Instead, I forced myself to shove all that aside, and relaxed into our lovely dinner on the deck. If the pizza was a bit cool, the calzones a tad mushy, no one mentioned it. Arch raptly contemplated the sun slipping behind burnished copper clouds. The only thing he told us about his day was that he and Julian had been invited to Rustine and Lettie’s house the next afternoon for lunch. Tom, exhausted from his carpentry labors, fell asleep on a deck chair before Julian could proffer take-out tiramisu. I gently woke him and tugged him up to bed. Julian, bless his heart, offered to clean up. He said he was actually starting to like washing dishes in the tub.

The next morning, Tom was once again up early and hammering away as I pulled myself out of bed and stretched through my yoga. Julian and Arch were sleeping in. We had no catering jobs, although Julian had vowed to experiment with something to take to Rustine’s.

Maybe he didn’t dislike her quite as much as he pretended.

When I came into the kitchen, Tom appeared to be about a third of the way through nailing in the lower cabinets. Unfortunately, huge piles of boxes obscured my ability to admire all of his work.

“What do you think?” he asked happily. He wore a sweatshirt and jeans, a carpenter’s apron, and two days’ worth of beard.

I smiled. “I love it.” No matter what I thought, I had learned over the last few days to say his work was fantastic.

“You’ll have to get your coffee in town, I’m afraid,” he told me. “I had to shut off the water, just for the morning. And Marla called. She’s almost done with the IRS and wants to meet you at St. Stephen’s at three-thirty, before the service.”

Relief swept over me. My friend was finally going to be released from audit agony! “That’s super.” I located the phone and called Lutheran Hospital. Leah Smythe, I was finally told by a nurse I knew, had two broken ribs and lacerations on her face, arms, and legs. The doctor was in seeing her, but the nurse would relay the message that I’d called. And could she find out about Barbara Burr, I asked. I was put on hold, then told sadly that Barbara’s condition hadn’t changed. Next I called Pru Hibbard; the line was busy. I put nightmares of bottom-feeding Realtors out of my head, and hoped the engaged line meant other people were making sympathy calls to Andre’s widow.

Tom eyed me skeptically. “You seem awfully perky for a caterer with no kitchen, no water, and a tenuous business. You must want something wicked bad.”

“Actually, I need you to call the morgue.”

“Oh. Is that all?”

“Tom, listen. Just ask Sheila if there’s any possible evidence to show that Andre’s nitroglycerin overdose wasn’t an accident.”

Tom put down his nail gun and came over to give me a hug. “Miss G., I know you loved him. But you’re going to have to let it go.”

“If I’d been there helping him, he wouldn’t have died.”

“For crying out loud, Goldy, you know how many lives I could have saved if I just would have been someplace at the right time?”

“Please, Tom, I’ll let it go just as soon as I know how and why he died.” I reached for my van keys.

“Now where are you going?”

“Into town for coffee,” I replied innocendy.

“You’ve got that purposeful look about you that’s not just desperation for caffeine.”

Ah, how well the man knew me. “No bail was set for Cameron Burr, right? Because it’s a murder case.”

“Correct.”

“So the next event in Cameron’s life is his preliminary hearing?”

“Ye-es.”

“I need to go visit him at the jail. To talk to him about another oudaw.”

One of the marvelous additions to Aspen Meadow in the last year was one of those drive-through espresso places where you order, answer a trivia question, get a card punched, and lay out in cash the cost of an entire fast- food breakfast for a triple-shot latte. Still, a treat was a treat, I thought as I sipped the luscious, caffeine-rich drink and zoomed down to the Furman County Jail.

Visiting hours during the week were from nine to eleven in the morning and one to three in the afternoon. I arrived just after nine and still had half of my expensive coffee to savor. So I put the cup on the dash, got out pen and paper, and started to scribble the questions I needed to pose to Cameron Burr, president of the historical society, the one person in Aspen Meadow who might know enough to figure out the puzzle of Charlie Smythe. Unwritten, but first on the list, was: Would Cameron, who had not answered any of my phone calls, see me?

Hunched over my paper, my heart quickened unexpectedly when someone passed by the back of my van. I did not move, only looked up at the rearview mirror and followed the movement. The dark-haired man was smoking, walking fast. Usually visitors to the jail at this hour were attorneys. Occasionally, out-of-work family members would straggle in. The man glanced over his shoulder to determine if I was watching him. Catching my eye in the mirror, he flicked his cigarette onto the grass and sprinted to the Upscale Appetite van. A moment later, he revved his vehicle and took off in a nimbus of grit and dust.

Well, now, there was a question I wouldn’t have thought to write down.

Who at the sheriffs department—or in the jail—had just received an early-morning visit from Craig Litchfield?

Chapter 20

The desk officer, a fresh-faced fellow named Sergeant Riordan, was not someone I knew. I handed my driver’s license over the counter and announced my desire to visit Cameron Burr. Riordan nodded and cheerfully tapped an unseen keyboard.

“Do you know my husband?” I ventured. “Investigator Tom Schulz?”

“Schulz. Sure. By reputation, mostly.” Riordan handed my license back. “Why?”

“Well.” How to sound friendly instead of nosy? There wasn’t a way. “The last guy who was here? Craig Litchfield? I … we were wondering … Could you just tell me who he was visiting?”

The cheerful expression drained out of Riordan’s face. “No. No, I can’t tell you that, Mrs. Schulz.” He picked up a phone, punched buttons, and murmured. When he hung up, his warm hazel eyes had gone from friendly to flat. “You have thirty minutes with Cameron Burr, Mrs. Schulz.”

Cameron Burr’s ill-fitting orange prison suit didn’t flatter him. He looked older, thinner, and paler than he had just ten days ago at his home. He flattened his long gray hair against his scalp in a vain attempt to make it appear less mussed. The look in his bloodshot eyes was defeated, angry. With his right hand he picked up the phone.

“Cameron, I’m sorry,” I blurted out. “I had no idea—”

He rubbed his stubbly cheeks. “How’s Barbara, have you seen her?”

“I’ve called Lutheran several times. She’s still on a ventilator.” He nodded as if he knew this already. I said, “How are you?”

He sighed. “Terrible.” The bloodshot eyes turned wary. “Are you going to screw up my case by being here?”

“I hope not.” I gripped the grimy phone. Overhead, a whirring air conditioner labored unsuccessfully to keep the metallic air cool. “I’m trying to help you. You’re right, I probably shouldn’t be here, since I found Eliot’s body and