You have to think the way the thief does, Tom was fond of saying. In this case, you had to start with the facts you knew, try to extrapolate the thinking behind them, and from all that, deduce the identity of the thief.
Yeah, sure. My mind was as clear as … well … unmolded salad.
I mixed the gelatin into the boiling juice, added chilled juice, then folded in all the fruits. Unlike my mother’s generation, I never waited before mixing ingredients into gelatin. No one ever seems to notice if the fruits sink or float, do they? Sinking or floating in real life, on the other hand, is another matter.
In an oversize Dutch oven, I gently sauteed chopped apples and onions in melted butter, then stirred in curry powder, flour, and spices. I shelled, deveined, and cooked the shrimp, then dropped the shrimp tails into bubbling chicken stock. Finally I stirred the stock, vermouth, and heavy cream into the sauce. The mixture gave off a divinely pungent scent.
Once the salad molds and shrimp were chilling in the refrigerator, and the curry sauce was cooling, I powered up with a double espresso, two reheated scones, two thick pats of unsalted butter, and generous dollops of blueberry preserves. Yum. Why Arch preferred chalky, store-bought doughnuts to homemade baked goods was one of the mysteries of the ages.
At quarter to nine, I was seated in my van, sipping another double espresso, and eyeing the front of Aspen Meadow’s endodontist office. What I was actually going to say to Sara Beth O’Malley I had not worked out yet. Of course then again, last time, outside my home, she hadn’t allowed me to say much.
Well, what was I going to say? Hey, Sara Beth! Why didn’t you tell anybody you were alive? Why’d you come back to taunt your old fiance and his family.? Oh, and anonymously donated supplies notwithstanding, why didn’t you go to a dentist closer to home.? Was it because your “supplies” were from a big stamp deal going down here? So you decided to kill two birds with one stone? Or rather; two thieves with one gun?
She came walking up the steps by the dentist’s office as stealthily as a cat, and just as quietly. Had she acquired get-around-in-the-jungle skills? Her eyes scanned the upper lot for Tom. Her distinguished, Jackie Kennedy face and dark hair streaked with gray once again gave me a frisson.
I believed Tom when he said he hadn’t met with Sara Beth - or done worse - in the last month. She was a woman from his past who’d just appeared out of nowhere. What I wasn’t sure of was whether he still loved her. She was certainly one of the most striking women I’d ever seen, especially since in twenty-degree weather she was dressed only in a clingy gray turtleneck and long gray pants. I look fat in gray, and never wear it. Sara Beth didn’t look fat in anything. I sighed, and wondered. The ability to survive cold, the ability to move stealthily. Despite my first impression that she was a nonshooting type, had she also learned the jungle skill of killing a target?
Before I could chicken out, I assumed a friendly demeanor and walked up to her.
“Please don’t run away,” were the first words out of my mouth. “I’m Tom’s wife. Won’t you just talk to me? I’m not going to turn you in. For anything.”
She lifted her chin. She wore no makeup, and looked younger and better for it. Stop it, I scolded myself. In her quiet, rusty-from-disuse English, Sara Beth said, “I am sorry I ever tried to contact Tom.”
“You’ve got a few minutes, right? Please. Just come sit in my van and talk. I need to talk to you about Tom being shot,” I added, studying her face.
She turned so pale I thought she might faint. Startled, she almost lost her balance. When she faltered, I tucked my arm in hers and led her to the van.
Once I’d coaxed her inside, I turned the heat on full blast. She rubbed her hands and shivered.
“I’m Goldy Schulz,” I said.
She gave me a slight smile. “That’s what you said last time. What happened to Tom?”
“Some bad guy shot him Monday morning. He was hit in the shoulder, but he’s mobile and recovering.”
“Was this before or after the window?”
“After. Do you know anything about either shooting?”
Her face darkened and she stared at the windshield. “No. I just came here to get supplies and have my teeth fixed.”
“Here?” I asked calmly. I tried to make my voice soothing, the better to coax out information. “You’ve been away twenty-some years. Why’d you stay in Southeast Asia all that time? Why didn’t you come home to your fiance?”
“Look, I attempted to let him know I’d survived. Not right away, of course. It was too dangerous. I was afraid of trying to get back.”
“So you became a village doctor?”
“I did it for survival,” she replied. Her face was chiseled into seriousness, and I suddenly imagined interviewing her for some postwar documentary. Sheesh! “Stories came back about Saigon as a madhouse,” she was saying. “People were trying to get out before all hell broke loose. Many of them failed. I’d broken my back when the copter crashed. By the time I recovered, the Americans were long gone. The Vietcong weren’t going to say, ‘You forgot somebody! Come on back and pick her up!’ The village people told me I’d never get out alive.
So I stayed, and worked hard, so the villagers would want me there. So they would keep my secret. They adopted me,” she added, “and I grew to love them. The American government did a terrible thing to that country.”
“Uh, thanks. We figured that out, but only after thousands of our own soldiers died.”
“I tried to communicate with Tom. I just never had any luck. For example, fifteen years ago - “
“Fifteen years ago?”
She ran her fingers through her streaked hair. Her voice had turned calm. She was finally reciting a story she’d prepared for a long time. “Fifteen years ago I gave a letter to Tom to a French agricultural worker who showed up in the village. But the Frenchman died when he stepped on a mine beside the railroad track. After that, I didn’t try to communicate anymore, because I figured it would be too disruptive to Tom’s life. And then I had to pick up some supplies and deal with this tooth problem. Another visitor to the village told us about e-mail, so I… changed my mind and tried that once I got to the States, through a friend’s account.” The face she turned to me seemed profoundly sad. “You always think, or hope, maybe, that people haven’t changed. That somehow you can touch base with your old life. I’m sorry I did.” She hesitated. “I’d still like to see Tom, if he isn’t too badly hurt.”
Not so fast, I thought. I still have a couple of questions. Again, I reminded myself to be sweet and polite. “Do you happen to know anything about stamps? As in, the valuable kind that are so easy to fence overseas? Especially in the Far East?”
“What are you talking about? I told you, I used e-mail.” She gave me a wide-eyed Tom-marrid-a-nut look, then reached for the door handle. “I have to go. If Tom can manage, I’d like him to drive me to the airport at four o’clock this afternoon. The dental pain meds will be wearing off by then, and talking will be a challenge. But I’d like to see him before I go. I’m staying in the Idaho Springs Inn, under the name Sara Brand. If he’s not there, I’ll take the shuttle bus.” She opened the door and swiveled one of her slender legs out of the van.
“Wait,” I said. “Just … tell me, do you still love him? Are you here because you’re trying to steal him back? I have to know.”
She lowered her chin and gave me the full benefit of her intense brown eyes. “We had a good relationship, but it’s been over for a long time. Enjoy what you have, Goldy. He’s a good man.”
Without saying goodbye, she trotted toward the dentist’s office.
Great. Either she was telling the truth, or she was an incredibly good actress. Did I care? I wasn’t sure.
The maxim When you feel really low, focus on the food had always proved useful. This time would be no exception. I torqued the van out of the lot and drove to the grocery store, where I bought not one but two quarts of nondairy lime sorbet for lactose-intolerant Howie Lauderdale. I knew he probably wouldn’t eat all sixty-four ounces, even if he was a teenager. But a Caterer’s Basic Rule of Dessert is that you must have plenty of backup food, even for a single special-request treat. Then if eight more folks communicate a sudden desire for lime sorbet, they won’t feel cheated when you say you don’t have any.
I hit the brakes hard halfway through the store parking lot. Behind me, a VW Bug beeped. What had I just said to myself? If eight more folks communicate a desire …
I pulled into a vacant parking space. What had Sara Beth said about my husband? I tried to communicate with Tom. I just never had any luck.
Who else ran out of luck communicating? How about Andy Balachek? First by a letter to Tom at the department, then by e-mail, and finally by telephone, that young man had been obsessed with staying in touch. The
