undoubtedly designed by the same guy who’d dressed Elizabeth II for her coronation. I glanced at my watch: eight- thirty. I’d made great time. Still, the anxiety in Eileen’s face was worrisome. I told myself I could spend a maximum of thirty minutes here before taking off to find Arthur’s place. But it was important to check on Eileen, and comfort her if she needed it. If Todd was in one of his silent phases and Jack was cooking at the bistro, my friend could be desperate for adult conversation. I’d been there myself.
But Jack answered the door. He was certainly a handsome dude, and I wondered again—although I’d never asked Eileen—exactly what had brought the two of them together. Disheveled half-braided dark hair surrounded his pale, unshaven, impish-looking face. His lustrous dark eyes were as big as Bambi’s. His well-built, slim-hipped torso was shown off to good advantage by a turtleneck and printed chef’s pants. A voice deep in my reptilian brain announced that this guy could melt women as easily as he did butter.
“Enter, O famed culinary one,” he said with a mischievous grin. “I’ve made you a pecan-sour-cream coffee cake.”
I grinned back. No matter what people tell you, caterers
“Want to have an early lunch at Cinda’s?” I called after him.
“No!” floated down the stairs.
“Meet me at Big Map at two, then, buddy!” I called up. A door slammed. At that point, I didn’t really care whether he’d heard me or not. Still, sour-cream coffee cake would do for my sudden need-to-kill-emotional-pain- with-calories.
Eileen, wearing what I now saw was a quilted pink satin robe, appeared from the living room.
“Goldy!” she exclaimed as she clasped me tight. “We’re so worried.” Her pressure on my banged-up arm made me howl with pain. Eileen pulled away. “Oh, my God, you’re hurt!”
“Just a little surface cut.” I had to get to Arthur’s, so I decided not to go into a detailed description of the van being hit.
“Eileen, why don’t you let Goldy relax?” Jack implored her with those eyes.
“I will, I will,” Eileen protested. “But I do need to talk to you.” She hesitated and stared at my arm. Sympathy and her own desires were clearly in conflict. “I need to ask you what we should do.” What to
Jack poured boiling water over coffee grounds in a sterling-and-glass French press, then set the timer. On the wall hung a small but intriguing framed collage made up of a complex design of photos of skis, orange-tinged snow-covered slopes, and open-chair lifts. I stared at it while Jack poured me a cup of coffee and placed it next to a piece of coffee cake. I thanked him and took a bite. The delectably buttery cake was laced with tiny bits of fragrant vanilla bean and the solid crunch of toasted pecans.
“Mm-mm,” I murmured appreciatively, and took a sip of coffee. Marvelous.
“You’ve heard the mountain is closed because of the Sheriff’s department and Forest Service looking into Doug Portman’s death?” Eileen asked without preamble.
I nodded. “So are the boys just going to hang out here until Killdeer reopens?”
“No, I set them up with a snowboarding lesson in Vail,” Eileen announced. “Semiprivate, just the two of them. I’ll take them and pick them up.” I swallowed my coffee too quickly. Eileen read my thoughts and waved them away. “My treat. They’ll be done by noon. We’ll come back to Killdeer, give them some lunch, and Arch can still meet you at Big Map at two. They’re only supposed to close our slopes for a couple of hours. The bistro will stay open, people just have to go up and down on the gondola.”
I was suddenly worried for my old friend, tenderhearted, generous Eileen. Her problem must be serious if she wanted my advice, help, or whatever, in return for an expensive semiprivate snowboard lesson. I pushed away the half-eaten coffee cake and waited.
“We need to talk to you—” She stopped when Jack shook his head, clearly opposed to whatever she was about to share. “
Surprised by her question, I squinted at another collage. This one hung on the kitchen wall. I was pretty sure it was by the same artist who’d done the one above the breakfast bar. Photos of large and small teacups had been set at all angles. It also resembled some of the detailed collages I’d seen behind the watercolors in the Killdeer Art Gallery the day before. Eileen cleared her throat.
“I really don’t know,” I said lamely. “They don’t let me in on the status of—”
“Forget it,” Jack interjected, as he looked sadly at the half-finished cake.
Eileen waved her hand. “Listen, Goldy … Jack’s been out on parole for six months.” She leaned forward, her eyes pained and earnest. “Portman was his caseworker, and—”
“I was convicted of criminally negligent homicide. But I wasn’t guilty of it,” Jack announced matter-of-factly. He poured himself more of the fragrant coffee. No one said anything for several long moments. Jack sighed. “I used to be married. My wife, Fiona, loved to ski as much as I did. Don’t think I’m arrogant, Goldy, I’m just a really good skier. Fiona was more like low-intermediate. One day, we both had too much to drink at lunch. She wanted us to race to an out-of-bounds area beside a black run. It has a great view, and she’d been there once with her son.” His voice had flattened, as if he were reciting his story under hypnosis.
“Jack, don’t make yourself do this,” Eileen implored.
Jack held up a hand. “Please, hon, you wanted advice from Goldy. She needs to hear what happened.” He took a deep breath. “Fiona and I got to the overlook. A minute later, somebody crashed through the trees and attacked us. Fiona lunged for me and I tried to catch her, but she slipped away somehow. The attacker was wearing a ski mask. Whoever it was, was strong and fast. He or she hit me with a rock and I passed out.” He stopped. “Then the attacker must have pushed Fiona over the cliff. Anyway, my wife … was killed.”
“And you were convicted of homicide?” I asked incredulously.
“They had to have somebody to blame. The prosecutor said I shouldn’t have let Fiona ski drunk, that I shouldn’t have taken her down such a dangerous run. She had grabbed my hand when we were trying to defend ourselves against the attacker, and my mitten was by her body when the ski patrol came. They trampled the snow so much, they couldn’t trace our attacker.” He sighed again. “It was a day of unstable snow, too. But that didn’t matter. The police didn’t find enough evidence to charge anyone else, and I was sentenced to three years in prison. I served a year, was granted parole six months ago … I had a record of good behavior.” He snorted cynically.
I felt an ominous tingling at the base of my spine. “If you were granted parole six months ago, what does this have to do with Doug Portman?”
Eileen narrowed her eyes at me. “So you haven’t faced the parole scenario with The Jerk yet, have you?”
“No,” I confessed. “Why?”
Jack grunted. Eileen said, “There were people who were opposed to Jack getting out when he did.” When I looked at her blankly, Eileen added, “Jack’s first wife had a lot of money. Her son is the one who filled her full of wine before she skied off Bighorn Overlook that day. Afterward, he went on and on about how Jack and Fiona weren’t getting along. All crap: Arthur wanted my Jack to be liable for Fiona’s death. Now the money’s all tied up in court. But Jack isn’t going to court, because he doesn’t want Fiona’s money and never did. Only crybaby Arthur doesn’t
“Sheesh!” I said impulsively, then struggled to sort out what Eileen had just told me.
There was a silence. Finally Jack said, “Fiona was drinking wines offered in a sampling by her son. He lives in Killdeer and is a wine expert. You’re working with him in the show. Arthur Wakefield. You probably saw how he gave us the cold shoulder yesterday morning.”
“Arthur
