Tough Cookie

the sky lightened. Approaching Killdeer, smoke from wood-fires hovered in the valley and turned the air pleasantly acrid. By nine I was pulling into the Elk Ridge Nature Trail parking lot. It was chock-full of brightly clad day-skiers. They were pulling out their skis and poles, calling to each other as steam issued from their mouths, and jouncing along merrily in their ski boots toward the bus stop.

As I wended the Rover through the lot to get to the turnoff to Arthur’s, I passed the glistening humps of snow that marked the base of the Elk Ridge trail. I felt a twinge of jealousy for the skiers. The mid-December day seemed made for skiing: the sun glittered off pristine slopes, the sky extended endlessly in a cloudless periwinkle dome, a light breeze carried fresh, sweet air off the peaks, and five inches of new powder topped an eighty-five-inch base. What more could you want?

Let’s see, I answered myself playfully as I pulled into Arthur’s driveway. How about a friendlier relationship with my son? But I doubted that was really possible with a fourteen-year-old boy. Well, what else would I like? How about a new van, and my business restored? And oh, yes, to find out what had happened to Doug Portman, and why someone had left me a pile of articles about two other Killdeer deaths from three years ago.

The doorbell bing-bonged into the depths of Arthur’s condo. I realized I was going alone into the house of a man I worked with, but didn’t know very much about. Remembering Tom’s admonition I put down the box I was carrying—causing my injured arm to yelp with pain—and pulled the cellular phone out of my pocket. I dialed my husband’s sheriff’s department answering machine and announced to the tape that I was at the doorstep of Arthur Wakefield’s place. It wasn’t exactly protection, but it was something. Arthur pulled the door open. As usual, he was clutching a pink bottle of antacid.

“Come in, come in,” he said.

“Good morning, Arthur! I was just letting my husband the cop know where I was.”

He shot me a curious look, noticed the box at my feet, struggled to get the Pepto into his pocket, then took the carton. “I’m in a phone battle with a supplier. Might have to go over to Vail to look for some cases of the sauvignon blanc.”

“I’m sorry,” I murmured. Being a wine importer did not sound like a whole lot of fun.

“You can set up in the kitchen. Need me to carry in any more boxes?”

“That’s okay, Arthur, I can handle it.” Thankfully, the phone rang. Arthur dumped the box into my hands and rushed to take his call.

In the barely-used-but-beautiful yellow-and-white kitchen, it was slow going finding the utensil drawers, cupboard for baking sheets, and bowl and cutting board cabinets. At least Arthur had made a neat design of the buffet schedule, with meticulous notes beside each entree concerning its placement. Now I just had to teach him how to finish the dishes themselves.

“I heard you had some trouble with Boots Faraday,” Arthur said grimly as he rushed into the kitchen and slammed the portable phone onto the tile counter.

What had Boots Faraday done after we’d met? Spent the rest of the afternoon calling people to complain about me? “I delivered your wine and stayed for lunch. Unfortunately, she didn’t seem to like me very much. And by the way, you didn’t tell me you ran an article that described me as a crime-solver, for goodness’ sake.”

“Sorry, sorry, that’s show biz. Hype. Look, I’ll talk to Boots. The Bullock thing is extremely sensitive to her. Rorry is convinced to this day that Boots was having an affair with Nate. I’m sure they weren’t. Boots was just trying to help Nate with some business venture. But Rorry was so jealous that Nate got paranoid. Boots started calling him from pay phones and using coded messages, and that just made matters worse. She’ll come to her senses, don’t worry. I’ll get her to apologize—”

“Please forget it, Arthur.” I hesitated. “What business venture was Boots helping Nate with?”

Arthur shrugged. “Come on, Goldy. It’s all I can do to keep the wine business straight.”

And speaking of business, I was desperate to ask Arthur about his love/hate connection with PBS. But I figured that his TV work, along with his vintages and his complaints to the probate court, was what kept him on antacids. “All right, then,” I said pleasantly, “We’ve got a lot of cooking to do here. Should we start? Please? How about with the salad? I made one of mixed field greens. Didn’t dress it, though.”

“Thank you. Sorry I didn’t call you back about that. Field greens would be marvelous. No vinegar in the dressing, remember.” He gestured at the row of bottles. “Unfortunately, I have only the single bottle of Sancerre for you to make an oil-and-wine vinaigrette.” He sighed and flipped through his Day-Timer. “I’m up to fourteen people, by the way. Two of my customers just returned from Mexico and they want to come. That’s no problem, is it?”

Rule of catering: Never panic in front of the client. Especially on the day of the event. “Um, fourteen people,” I said, stalling. I’d planned on four main dishes—crab, sole, pork, and chicken. Unless we had massive food allergies, that was no problem. “That’s fine,” I replied cheerfully. “And the clients are … ?”

“In the trade. I’ve got two wholesalers coming,” Arthur ticked off on his manicured fingernails, “plus nine of the best customers west of the Divide. And of course, three retailers, who will fill the orders for the customers. Two of the retailers own wine shops, and the third is a restaurateur, not, I might add, your friend Eileen or her dreadful chef.”

“Jack Gilkey,” I supplied gently, and Arthur grimaced. “I was wondering if you’d be in the mood to talk about him—”

He turned away and opened the refrigerator. “Sorry, but I thought you said we needed to talk about the food. Ah, here we go. Two pork tenderloins.” Pulling out a shrink-wrapped packet and a box of phyllo dough, he placed both on the counter, then frowned at the wine bottles as if they were chess pieces. Finally he pulled one forward. “Here’s the Chateauneuf du Pape—”

“Wait. If you’re finishing the dishes later—”

“I already told you that,” he said crossly.

“Phyllo goes back in to chill.”

He sighed hugely, stuffed the slender box on a refrigerator shelf, then energetically twisted the cork out of the red wine. He bonged the bottle onto the counter. “For the pork marinade. It’s a big red from the southern Rhone, just the ticket for a rich meat dish.”

“Okeydoke. Please, Arthur, Jack Gilkey is living with one of my closest friends. I really need to talk to you about him.”

Arthur whirled away from the refrigerator. “So, was Boots right? All you want to do is interrogate people?” he snarled.

“Arthur, calm down. You and I are friends. Somebody sent me books and articles anonymously. To the Aspen Meadow Library. Was it you? The articles were all about your mother’s death.”

Arthur snorted and turned back dismissively to his refrigerator. “You think I have time to do that kind of thing? If I want you to read something, I’ll give it to you, Goldy.” He pulled out a butcher-paper-wrapped package and slapped it on the counter next to the pork. “This is your sole.”

“Arthur, we work together. Please talk to me.”

He whirled, his face furious. “Jack Gilkey is a gold digger. He married my mother for her money. He was twenty years younger than she was, handsome, attentive, quite the flirt. He systematically got her to cut me out of her will, set up a minuscule trust for me, and made himself the beneficiary. My mother must have felt slightly guilty about all this, so if Jack predeceased her, the money would go to public television, since I’d learned to read watching The Electric Company.” He rolled his eyes. “I didn’t find out any of this until after her death, I’m sorry to say. Only none of Jack Gilkey’s planning and organization worked, because he was a bit too obvious. I’m just glad a jury could see through his story. End of subject.”

“Do you think he bribed Doug Portman to get out of prison early?”

Arthur laughed. “I’m sure he did.”

“Where’d he get the money?”

Arthur put his hands on his hips. “Well, crime-solver, whose dear old friend has scads of money, where do you think?” The phone rang and he grabbed for it. I could tell from the expression the news was not good: the cases of Sancerre still had not arrived.

Eileen had given Jack money to bribe Portman? I didn’t believe it. I washed my