lay on the floor beside the keyboard. The kitchen computer itself was also missing.
I started to cry. Then I yelled and cursed. Of course, there was no question that folks on the street might hear me.
But I didn’t care what the neighbors thought. My own shouted curses miraculously seemed to clear my brain, at least until I could pour myself a glass of Cognac from the dining-room cabinet. Of course, I’d learned in Med Wives 101 that you didn’t treat a head injury with alcohol, but my brain was screaming for reprieve from the pain. I had just taken a first naughty swallow when the front doorbell bonged, making my head spin. Great, I thought, things couldn’t get much worse.
I peered through the peephole at the smiling faces of Sergeants Boyd and Armstrong. Not exactly in the nick of time, were they?
“Somebody broke in,” I announced bluntly as Boyd, his barrel-shaped body somewhat rounder than the last time I’d
seen him, came through the door.
“Here? Just now?” asked Boyd, eyeing me, my trembling hand, and my glass of brandy.
When I replied in the affirmative, Armstrong, whose towering frame and fierce face contraindicated what I knew to be his gentle demeanor, said, “You look as if you’re in pain.” Since I’d seen him last, he’d lost a few more of the sparse brown hairs he combed so diligently over his bald spot.
I said, “I am. Got knocked over the head. But… come on out to the dining room. I know the two of you won’t have a glass of booze while you’re on duty. Before lunch, no less. But I’m treating a nasty bump.”
Boyd and Armstrong told me to wait. In the front hallway, they insisted on separately assessing my noggin, which involved painful pressing on my head, then unblinking assessment of my eyes. Both decreed I should see a doctor that day.
“I can’t. I have to go back to Tom. He’s resting at Hyde Castle.”
“You need to get attention,” Boyd insisted.
“Look, thanks, but I’m aware of the symptoms of severe head injury,” I replied. “Blurred vision, slurred speech, nausea, loss of memory, fainting, and sleeping too much. If I show any of those signs, I’ll call for help. Scout’s honor.”
Armstrong’s scowl deepened. “Show us where this happened.”
“I was sitting there,” I said after I’d led them to the bottom of the cellar steps. I indicated Tom’s swivel chair.
“I was whacked from behind.” I felt
inside my jeans pocket and repressed a sigh of relief. The disk was still there. I knew I should mention to Boyd and Armstrong that I’d downloaded Tom’s files. But I couldn’t. Not yet, anyway. I couldn’t even think. In fact, I did feel a bit dizzy. But I’d be damned if I was going to any damn doctor on this damned day. Was rage a symptom of brain injury?
“Can we go back upstairs?” I asked them. “I need to sit down. You might want to look in the kitchen, because whoever it was stole that computer, too.”
“You pass out on me, I’m gonna get fired,” Boyd announced glumly as we headed up the stairs. In the kitchen, Boyd called for help on his radio while I tossed out the rest of the brandy and made myself an espresso. The computer thief wouldn’t have left prints on my coffee machine, would he?
“To process a crime scene,” Boyd concluded to the dispatcher.
To process a crime scene at the Schulzes’ house, again.
“Can we sit in the dining room?” Armstrong asked me. “We need to get through some questions.”
In the dining room, Boyd opened what looked like the same smudged notebook he’d carried for years. I wondered if he ever bought new ones.
“So what were you doing in the basement?” he began gently. “I mean, what were you doing when you were sitting at Tom’s desk? Working on his computer?”
His black eyes bored into me. I swallowed. “No, not on the computer. I was …looking on Tom’s shelves, for our photo albums. I need a picture of John Richard Korman. You know, my ex. He was released last Friday. The Hydes want a photograph of him, since they need to know what he looks like in case he tries to get into the castle.”
“There were photo albums on the desk down there?” Armstrong looked skeptical.
“I’m not sure…” I lied. But I could not tell Boyd and Armstrong that I was seeking the identity of her. Moreover, I was not ready to admit I thought a) that my husband might be having an affair and b) that I was snooping around in his stuff to get the answer to a).
“I need that picture,” I repeated firmly. “And the photo albums are down there somewhere. I think,” I added. I was trying to sound confused in the aftermath of the attack. I knew full well that our
albums were in an upstairs closet.
“If they’re in the basement, we can’t get them now. We’ll taint the crime scene,” Armstrong murmured. “Do you have any ideas who might have hit you?”
I told them about the bowlegged man who’d showed up claiming he was sent to fix the window. I also told them about the woman in the car. Trudy would be eager to talk about the mysterious beauty in the station wagon, I said, and she had her license plate number, too. Armstrong checked to see if either the glass truck or the car was still outside. Neither was.
“Could you please tell me about Andy Balachek?” I asked when he returned.
Boyd sighed. “They finished the autopsy last night. Did it extra fast because Tom was shot at the scene. But Goldy,” he added hastily, “we need to run through what happened with the window shooting first. Who you think might have done it and why. It may be connected to this attack on you. Then we’ll talk about Balachek.”
And so, for the third time, I told my story. I played Charde‘s message for them. They asked for the tape and I gave it to them.
“There’s something else,” I added. “I saw Charde Lauderdale at the hospital while I was waiting to see how Tom was.”
Boyd stopped scribbling and looked up, frowning.
“What was she doing?”
“Nothing. Standing at the waiting-room window.”
Boyd and Armstrong exchanged a look. Then Boyd took a deep breath. “Mrs. Lauderdale has already complained to Captain Lambert about being questioned over your window shooting. She gave him an earful, especially since she and her husband keep getting calls about the child-abuse case. I guess the newspaper article didn’t help.”
I shuddered when I thought back to the sensationalist Mountain Journal headline: “Caterer in Hot Water Over Attempt to Save Child.” I said, “I’m supposed to see the Lauderdales Thursday at a lunch I’m catering. Charde‘ll probably behave herself there. And if she shows up here or at the castle, I’ll call you right away.”
“All right,” said Boyd, nodding. “Now we need to know about what happened yesterday morning after you left here, up to the point where Tom was shot.”
I recited the events of the previous morning. I added that I hadn’t heard back from Pat Gerber, and they mumbled something about the A.D.A. being the hardest person in the county to reach. I told them Eliot and Sukie Hyde had been extraordinarily nice and welcoming.
Boyd said, “Tell us about finding Balachek.” I hesitated. Boyd and Armstrong worked well together. They dug for the right data and usually shed light on a case. Before, when I’d wanted information on an investigation that involved someone I knew, I’d had to wheedle it out of them. Now I needed their theory on who had murdered Andy Balachek and why. It was highly probable, I reasoned, that Andy’s killer either shot Tom or knew who had. But looking at their impassive, suspicious-cop faces, I was reminded of oysters that no pliers were ever going to open.
“I had to check the chapel to see if the portable dining tables had been delivered for the luncheon. When I parked and looked down at the creek, Andy was in it.” Boyd and Armstrong waited for me to go on. I asked, “So: what was the cause of death?”
When they resolutely said nothing, I thought back. Andy had been wearing a lumberjack plaid shirt and jeans. I didn’t remember seeing a jacket on him, much less blood staining his clothes. What he had had was … wait.
“His hands were black,” I exclaimed. “Was he tortured before he died? Then someone shot him and threw his
