Prime Cut

“You want me to call the sheriffs department? Then you can rinse it in the jail shower.”

She turned red. “I was looking for Winnie Smythe’s cookbook, okay?” I waited. “After he’d found the rifle, Gerry came across something else in the wall. It was also a package, and it was wrapped in oilcloth, too. It was … a note from a man to his wife. From Charlie to Winnie.”

“Do you have it?”

She ran her fingers through her slick hair. “No.”

She was lying. “So help me, Rustine—”

“Oh, all right, I have a photocopy that Gerry made. He thought the letter was going to make us rich, and all it did was get him killed. I figured if you could find out who really killed him, or where the cookbook was, then I could … If I help you, will you split what you find with me?”

“Rustine! Show me the note and tell me why you need the damn cookbook!”

“Just listen for a sec. Gerry was so excited about finding this stuff, he was asking all around about the history of the cabin. Everybody knew he was on to something!”

“Would you please give me that note?”

Her excited eyes met mine. Again I recalled her first appearance in the cabin kitchen. You’re the caterer who figures things out.

Rustine’s medicine cabinet door squeaked when she opened it. She pulled out a folded, zippered plastic bag and handed it to me.

Chapter 21

“Mom!” called Arch from the door. “I found my suit. Can Rustine take us swimming now? We’re ready.”

“Can you just … hold off for a few minutes, hon? We’re talking.”

“Let me show you my ham radio,” Lettie added. “Does yours still work?”

“No,” I heard Arch reply. “How do you keep your antenna on your roof?” Their footsteps pattered down the hallway.

I pulled a folded sheet of paper out of the zippered makeup bag. The handwriting, with its bold pen marks, was identical to the handwriting on the letter from Leavenworth:My Dear Wife,

You are my Treasure and I am yours. If there ever comes a time when I am in Heaven and you want me, you know you have only to use my Rifle and your Cookery book, and make the Rolls as I showed you.

Thus will you have our Treasure.

Your Loving Husband

“Well, now, that makes a lot of sense,” I said after I’d read the note twice. “Use the rifle. Make the rolls according to a certain recipe. Then you’ll be rich. Do you stir the batter with the rifle butt? And would that be Parker House or cloverleaf rolls?”

Rustine shrugged. “I just wish I knew who else Gerry showed the note to. Or who has that cookbook. We have to have the cookbook!”

I stood up. No need to mention the photocopies to Rustine. I said, “I need to take this to my husband.”

I missed Arch on the way out, which was probably just as well. In the kitchen, Julian was up to his elbows in sudsy water, singing an a cappella riff on “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” Just like Andre, I thought with a smile, although Julian probably didn’t even realize it. He’d somehow cleared off a spot on the cluttered counter, laid down a dish towel, and heaped up a pile of washed and rinsed pans to drip-dry.

“Please have Arch home by three,” I asked him. “The service for Andre is at four.”

He nodded, and I took off for home. To my astonishment, Tom had finished the plumbing and put in the rest of the bottom cabinets. This is what it must be like to have a contractor who works full- time, I mused. Without a counter, our kitchen still looked like a dusty warehouse, but at least it was beginning to take on the look of a culinary warehouse.

While I looked for lunch fixings, Tom washed his hands, poured a glass of water, and stared at the note I’d given him. “Why in the world didn’t Rustine tell us about this? It affects a murder case, for crying out loud.”

“She was hoping to cash in, once we found out what was going on.” I handed him a wobbly paper plate containing one of two peanut-butter-and-cherry-preserves brioche-toast sandwiches I’d just made fresh in our cramped dining room space. It didn’t look very fancy, but when I hungrily bit into mine, the crunch of homemade toast mingling with slightly melted peanut butter and sweet cherry preserves was out of this world. Now all I needed was an iced latte to go with it.

“This is delicious.” He wolfed his down and reached for the phone to call the sheriff’s department. “You know they’re going to come get this,” he informed me. “And they’re going to want to question Rustine.”

I shrugged. It was time to get ready for Andre’s service. I made a slick fax-copy of the note for my own file. It wasn’t ideal, but with needing to shower and change, I didn’t have time to go to the library and photocopy more copies of stolen historical documents.

In a black Chanel suit and spectator pumps, her freshly coiffed curls tucked behind rhinestone-and-onyx earrings, Marla had morphed back to her old self when I found her in the parking lot of St. Stephen’s Roman Catholic Church. The rain had stopped, but my irascible friend lofted her Louis Vuitton umbrella over her head in triumph.

“I’m done, I’m finished!” she sang. Her peaches-and-cream complexion was flushed with joy. She bustled up to my van. “The IRS guys left today, saying I’d hear from them soon. I said, ‘How ’bout never?’ They weren’t amused. But here’s the deal: they think I’m going to get a refund!”

I hugged her tightly and felt unexpected tears burn. “Oh, Marla. I’ve missed you so much. And there’s something I have to tell you, but you weren’t feeling well, and I wanted to wait until your audit was over, because —”

“Calm down, will you? I can’t listen to whatever it is until I’ve had some food. Let’s see if the guys from Andre’s old restaurant have any goodies set up yet. Where’s Arch?”

“Tom’s bringing him. And the food is for afterwards!”

“You want my stomach to growl through the service?” she threatened as she linked her arm through mine and led me up the steps. “Have to tell you, Goldy, one of those IRS agents was kind of cute.” Her voice turned wistful;. “I suppose it’s unethical for him to date an accused tax-chiseler…. And if he did ask me out, I’d have to wonder. I mean, now he knows I’m rich.”

We entered the parish hall, a long, vaulted-ceiling addition to the ultramodern church. The enticing scents of roasted ham, chicken, pork, and beef wafted toward us. My heart tugged as I waved at two of the servers I knew from the old restaurant days with Andre. After Marla had deftly nabbed a couple of what looked like Andre’s Grand Marnier Buttercream Cookies, I steered her into the stone vestibule. There, lanky, balding Monsignor Fields talked in a hushed tone with Pru Hibbard and Wanda Cooney.

“What I want to tell you is this,” I whispered to Marla as she munched on her cookies. “John Richard has been, and is, trying to get revenge on us. He turned you in to the IRS before he went to jail, and he’s been bankrolling Craig Litchfield from jail.”

Her beautiful brown eyes widened with shock. She swallowed the last mouthful of cookie. “Revenge on us? For what? That son of a bitch!” she hissed. “I’ll kill him!”

“Don’t start!” I warned as I sent the startled monsignor a conciliatory nod. I tugged Marla into the airy, modern church. Because Saint Stephen had been martyred by stoning, the only decoration on the high, pale blue walls was a mass of irregular stone-shaped windows filled with pale blue stained glass. Light abruptly flooded the windows as the sun emerged from behind a cloud. The wall suddenly resembled a jeweler’s cloth strewn with aquamarines. “Look, Marla,” I said softly, “I just wanted you to know he’s being vengeful. In case anything else unexpected happens. Are you vulnerable in any other way?”

“The hell with vulnerable.” She slid into a pew and smoothed the Chanel suit. “That creep has so much money to throw around, I’ll sue him myself. And don’t tell me you can’t sue somebody in jail,