Chopping Spree

“I need you to visit my office,” Hulsey told me. “Will tomorrow morning work?” His office, as it turned out, was half a mile from Westside Mall. What catered event did I have the next day, or rather, that very day, since it was now well past midnight? My beaten-up, woozy mind drew a blank. When do you need me there? I asked Hulsey. Ten A.M. sharp, Hulsey replied. And in the meantime, talk to no one.

Tom, oh dear God, Tom, was waiting for me on a plastic chair in the lobby. He walked toward me swiftly, arms outstretched. Hulsey vanished.

Enfolded in my husband’s arms, my body shook uncontrollably. I swallowed and tried to pull myself together. There was no way I was going to fall apart in the lobby of the sheriff’s department.

“Let’s go,” Tom whispered.

He gently helped me into his Chrysler, and murmured that he’d arrange for my van to be brought back to the house early the next morning. I leaned my head back and inhaled the comforting scent of Tom’s car. I wanted so badly to be in bed, to be asleep. But something was gnawing at me.

“Where’s Marla?” I asked as Tom started the engine. “Did she and Julian take both of their cars back to her house in Aspen Meadow? Or did he go back to Boulder?”

Tom let the engine idle, his hands on the steering wheel. Illuminated by the lot’s pink streetlights, his face was luminescent. Ominous. “Do you know how many cups of coffee Julian drank today? Yesterday, that is. Monday. While he was working with you.”

“What?”

“Miss G., it’s a simple question.”

“I don’t understand…”

“Just think. How many cups?”

I took a deep breath. “OK. He mentioned he’d had two four-shot lattes before he arrived. He brought two more, one for Liz and one for me.” I tried to dive back into the muck of the day’s events. “Liz didn’t want hers, so… I think Julian drank it. Then we made coffee in the kitchen, and he had dinner with Liz, so it’s probably safe to say he had about… oh, the equivalent of fifteen or sixteen cups of coffee over the course of the day. Why?”

Tom pressed his lips into a thin line and shook his head. Then he clasped my hands in his. “Julian drank a ton of caffeine. Then he found you in the department store, unconscious. He also found Barry, with your knife in him. Julian’s a good kid, he was terrified, he tried to pull the knife out of Barry Dean. Then the one security cop on duty at Prince and Grogan spotted him, and yelled at him to back off. Julian freaked out, and when the cops heard he’d had his hands on the knife, they said he had to come in for questioning. When they brought him into the department, he didn’t wait for a lawyer. He insisted on submitting to the polygraph. To prove his innocence.”

My own voice felt as brittle as cracking ice. “What are you telling me?”

“Too much caffeine can screw up a polygraph, Miss G. Julian was found with his hand on the murder weapon. Just as damning, he has no alibi for the time he was loading your van by himself, which was when you were picking up Arch’s guitar. When Julian took the lie detector test, he flunked it.”

“No.”

Tom squeezed my hands harder. “Goldy, Julian’s been arrested for murder.”

CHAPTER 7

We made it up the interstate in silence. The going was slow, as a light snow was falling. At home, our hall clock donged lightly for half past one. I checked our pets—Jake the bloodhound and Scout the cat—who were slumbering peacefully in their separate housing area. Then I stumbled upstairs. I creaked open Arch’s door. He was snoring. So was his pal, Todd Druckman. Just recently, Arch had outgrown his bunk bed, so Todd was curled inside a sleeping bag on the floor.

With a husband in law enforcement and an ex-husband behind bars, our little family had dealt with criminal activity more than most. Still, I was worried about how Arch would deal with the arrest of Julian, our cherished family friend. I also wondered if heart-attack-prone Marla would stay calm. Several years ago, in a bizarre discovery of adoption documents, we’d learned that Julian’s birth mother had been Marla’s dead sister. My old friend had passionately embraced the role of being Julian’s aunt. Would she be able to cope with his arrest?

Would I?

I brushed my teeth, shucked my clothes, and pulled on pajamas. I fell into bed, certain I’d start fretting and never fall asleep.

But I did sleep, so soundly that the creep of daylight into the bedroom, the early shriek of crows, the drone of traffic from Aspen Meadow’s Main Street—not one of these registered. At nine-thirty, Tom tiptoed in to wake me.

He sat on the edge of our bed and asked me how I was feeling. I realized I had a headache, a shoulder ache, and nausea. I assured him I felt fine.

“I took Arch and Todd to school. Oh, and I canceled you out of that wedding reception this afternoon,” he announced matter-of-factly. “Liz said she can handle it. She came over for the food and supplies, and said she’d contact some of her old staff to help. She feels really bad about Julian,” he added. “She’s going to call you later.”

Slowly, groggily, I sat up. The room whirled. “You didn’t need to cancel me out of the reception.”

“You’ve got a slight concussion and need to take it a bit easy. Also, you have Steve Hulsey to meet with today. His secretary called and said he needs to change your appointment from ten to half past two—”

“How’s Julian?” I asked, because I needed to. The fact of his arrest scalded my nerves. “When can I see him? Can he take the polygraph again?”

“It’s probably not a good idea for you to see him. He’ll be advised of charges today. And it looks as if he can take the polygraph again on Thursday.” Tom’s tone was resigned. “And there’s something else…. I heard an unconfirmed report that someone witnessed Julian driving the truck that tried to hit you and Barry.”

“Baloney!” I cried, indignant. “Who would tell such a lie?”

“Miss G., please. I’m not going to tell you things if you’re going to go off the deep end.”

I gnawed the inside of my cheek. “Did you tell Arch what happened?”

“He’s more worried about you, if you want to know the truth.”

“Arch said he was worried about me? I don’t believe it.”

“I promised him that Julian would be out as soon as we got this all straightened out.” Tom sighed. “Arch said if you got hit on the head with the seven-hundred-dollar Epiphone guitar, you must be hurt pretty bad.”

“And I’m sure he asked how badly the guitar was damaged, right?”

Tom chuckled. “Well, yes. But he felt guilty, really, that you’d tried to get something for him, and then gotten beaned with it.”

“Where is the guitar, exactly? As in, right this minute.”

Tom shrugged. “Crime lab, probably. Being checked for prints, fiber, the usual. You probably won’t have it until well after Arch’s birthday. Sorry.”

The morning felt unreal. I was still in bed at nine-thirty. I didn’t know what was going on with Julian, and I wasn’t racing to a catering assignment.

Outside, it was still Aspen Meadow in April. Our front yard pines, laden with new snow, trembled in the cold breeze. Thick white clouds chugged through an expanse of sky, dollops of meringue on a blue plate.

And Barry Dean was dead. My old coffee buddy. I saw his smiling face, heard his teasing. This could not be real.

And yet it was.

“Come on,” said Tom, mustering some cheer. “Can you manage a shower on your own?” When I nodded, he said, “I’ll meet you in the kitchen. I’m making you a Dutch pancake. Oh, forgot to tell you. Two friends of mine from the department stopped by real early. I gave them your keys, and they brought up your van. I’ve already cleaned all your dishes and platters and whatnot.”

“What would I do without you?” I murmured.

Twenty minutes later, after I’d managed only two yoga asanas and a quick shower, I dug into Tom’s warm, light Dutch pancake. It dripped with golden melted butter and genuine maple syrup from Maine. I began to feel a bit