“Goldy Schulz?” Charde Lauderdale began, her Marilyn Monroe voice high and breathless. “How dare you tell the police that we shot at your house! After all you’ve put my husband and me through, don’t you think it’s time for you to stop your hate campaign against us? You discuss our conflict with anyone, and you can just add a little defamation suit from us to your list of woes. And by the way, we understand you will be doing some cooking for a group of donors to which we belong. This makes us very unhappy. We are demanding that the hosts find someone else to do that job immediately.”
What was Charde reading from? A text supplied by her lawyer? Or her child-abusing husband? Hard to believe that the former Miss Teen Lubbock could be so articulately bitchy. When I called the cops after her husband had shaken their tiny daughter to unconsciousness, all she’d managed to screech was, “Who the hell do you think you are?”
On our tape, Charde went on stiffly: “If you persist in trying to harm us, we will retaliate. And not just in court,” she concluded breathily, in what sounded like an afterthought.
Hmm. How ‘bout I save this message, I thought, to play for the cops? Ever hear that making a threat of bodily harm is a crime, babe?
I put in another call to Boyd and was again connected to his voice mail. It was half past nine, I said, and I could wait for him at our house, meet with Armstrong
and him in town, or see them later at the castle. His choice. The window repairman was here, I added, and I was grateful to the department for getting the repairs started so soon. Any chance the cleaning
team could come in this week?
Hanging up, I suddenly felt that I had to get back to the castle. Tom might be in pain. But something was holding me back, and it wasn’t just the window repair, which Trudy could supervise, if necessary. That kid was the king of communication. Loved e-mail, Tom had said. Andy Balachek had ended up dead in Cottonwood Creek … and somebody had taken a shot at Tom.
I don’t love her. Don’t love whom?
My eyes traveled to the kitchen’s south wall. After dinner most nights during January, Tom had walked dutifully through that door to the basement. In the cellar, he had his own computer to type up reports, write notes on cases, send e-mails… .
How much investigating of the Andy Balachek case would Tom be able to do from the castle? Probably not much. Unless, of course, I helped him by downloading his files.
This is not because I’m nosy, I thought as I headed down the basement steps. I mean, Tom was the one who kept saying he needed to work, that he wanted to get back to the case, right? And there might be files on this computer that he would need. Maybe he even kept an e-mail address book with Andy Balachek’s screen names. This was all data he would need, data I could bring him. To be helpful.
Uh-huh. Tom’s computer sat on a massive, scuffed, department-discard desk that was piled neatly with files and papers. Morris Hart, the window guy, banged and clattered above as I booted Tom’s computer. While the machine hummed, I scanned Tom’s desk for other files he might need. Or, perhaps, that I might want to have a look at.
What am I doing?
Before this trickle of self-doubt could become a deluge, I stared at the demand for a password, then blithely typed in chocolate, the password Tom and I had laughed at when former clients had used it for their security gate. To my astonishment, the hard drive opened instantly. I slipped in my food-research disk and began to copy Tom’s files. I wouldn’t look at them - not without his permission. Not yet, anyway, I added to myself. I did, however, read the titles of the subfiles: Balachek e-correspondence. Criminalistics course. Current cases. History.
“Mrs. Schulz?” Morris Hart cried from above.
Startled, I composed myself and called that I was in the basement and would be up in a few minutes. But Hart schlepped across the kitchen floor, following my voice, then traipsed down the basement stairs. I clicked madly to finish my copying.
When he was two steps from the basement floor, I made my face impatient to hide my guilt. “I’m just going to be a minute or two longer.”
“Sorry to bother you, but I have a high-powered vacuum to get up those glass shards. It has a tendency to blow fuses in older houses. Just wanted to warn you.”
“Okay, okay,” I said, resigned. “Just go ahead and start it.” I worried briefly about our walk-in refrigerator. But with its surge protector and backup power source, it should be okay.
He grunted and tramped back up. Copy, copy, copy, the computer repeated as my disk filled up. I won’t read this material, I kept telling myself. I’m just being helpful here.
I couldn’t help it: I glanced back at the names of Tom’s files. What did the file named History cover? Tom really wouldn’t mind if I took a quick peek, surely?
I clicked on the file, which contained subfiles with dates. “S.B., January 1.” And “S.B., January 3.” “Follow-up, January 4.” Then, “Conv. W/State Dept., January S.” The State Department? U.S. or Colorado? And who was S.B.? I opened the file from the first of January, when I’d been dealing with the aftermath of the Lauderdales’ party. The file contained an e-mail with the following text:
Do you remember me.? You said you’d love me forever. Your S.B.
My throat was suddenly dry. I should not be doing this, I thought. Curiosity can kill a cat … or a marriage. Still, I had to know. Without reading more, I copied all the rest of the e-mails onto the disk. My mission complete, my heart aching, I quit the program, ejected the disk, and slipped it into my jeans pocket.
I was shutting down the computer when there was an explosion behind me. Or was it on me? A cold, dark pain filled my head. I realized that someone had hit me, was hitting me, again and again and again. My skullbones reverberated in agony.
My sight clouded, then went black. I screamed for help and tried to cover my head, turn around, anything. I couldn’t catch my breath. I’d been listening to the roar of the vac upstairs, reading Tom’s personal correspondence ?
My attacker hit me again and my chin slammed into Tom’s desk. My knees crumpled and I was sliding, helplessly, whimpering, trying to cover my head, my body afire with pain. This isn’t fair. Was I saying it or thinking it? Damn, damn, my inner voice supplied. My knees and then my body banged onto the basement’s cold floor.
John Richard had never said he’d love me always. But Tom had. The day of our wedding. I?ll love you forever, Miss G. Forever and ever.
As unconsciousness claimed me, I remembered Tom’s handsome face that happy day, and the sound of his warm promise.
I?ll love you forever.
-12-
Getting banged up is bad. Gaining consciousness is worse. From my years with the Jerk, I was acquainted with sledgehammer-wedged-in-the-skull pain. The worst part is that you suspect that if you’d used the brain inside your head in the first place, this might not have happened to you. I’d been told that on independent janitorial service was going to clean up the glass. Not some guy
masquerading as a window fixer. Damn again, I thought. You idiot.
Yeah, yeah, Tom had said something about not blaming yourself when you screwed up. So: Wracked with pain, lying sprawled on our basement floor, drowning in self-recrimination, I tried to talk myself into getting up on my feet again and calling for help. After agonizing minutes of thinking about moving, then searching for the least painful way to stand, I fought off nausea, trembling, and visual black clouds to get to my feet. Once upright, I gingerly touched my head until I found the beginnings of a lump. Agh! I sighed and looked around. Tom’s desk was clean, as in, nothing on it anymore. No papers. No files.
No computer.
I blinked and swayed dizzily. My watch said ten-thirty. I walked - slowly, taking steadying breaths - up the stairs, into my kitchen. I called and looked all around; no attacker in sight. Did we have any painkillers in the house? My brain offered no answer. In fact, my thinking was extremely fuzzy, even as to the location of the Cognac I used to make Cherries Jubilee. Everything in the kitchen seemed turned around… or different.
Wretchedly, I realized that things seemed unfamiliar because the smashed monitor of my kitchen computer
