Chopping Spree

“And,” Liz went on, “I certainly didn’t think that with all those people there, Barry would order Teddy to be escorted from the mall, especially since he was just looking for me.” She let out a harsh laugh. “If you can imagine, the cops wanted to know where I was while Barry was getting himself stabbed. I told them I was looking for my son. After being dragged forcibly out of the mall, he’d gone to his usual haunt, the nearest McDonald’s. That’s where I found him. Look, I have to go. Let’s talk when you feel better.”

Or even sooner, I thought grimly, as I pressed the button for the final message. Lo and behold, the husky voice of Ellie McNeely burned through the wire. Her tone was of someone trying to get a grip on a situation spiraling out of control, and failing.

“Goldy. I’m…at the sheriff’s department. Sorry we were interrupted. Do you… did you know…is it true that Julian saw…”She snuffled. “Did you know anything about what the cops found in that runaway dump truck? They were… They were supposed to be a gift… besides, I was having a facial wrap, and I don’t even know how to drive a damn truck! I —”

And then the message ended.

Had Ellie once again been cut off? Or had she lost her nerve? No matter what, I now knew another data nugget: That Ellie McNeely had knowledge of the cuff links. So Ellie and I needed to have an extended chat.

It was almost one o’clock. I typed the contents of all three messages into my new “Barry Dean” file, reread the entire file, and created a list of places I wanted to visit or call, with questions. Rufus Investigations, or somebody who has access to their data. Ellie McNeely. Westside Mall—Barry’s office. Barry’s coworkers. Would Barry’s colleagues be helpful, or as difficult to deal with as everyone else in this case? I knew there was an assistant manager for the mall, but I had no idea what his name was. Find out what Barry was being so secretive about. Why had he wanted to talk to me right away, then changed his mind after the truck incident? And why was he taking painkillers?

I imagined Hulsey reading this file, and becoming apopleptic.

I thought of the Vicodin in the freezer and frowned. Not only was I, by keeping something from the crime scene, engaging in evidence-tampering, I was also guilty of possession of a controlled substance without a prescription. There seemed to be many things I needed to avoid telling Hulsey, as well as Tom. My breaking the law would make them both apopleptic. I wondered if the medical examiner would find narcotics in Barry’s bloodstream.

I had too many questions, and very few answers. I glanced all around the kitchen, as if any of my fancy new paraphernalia—laser printer, copier for menus, plain-paper fax, new standing mixer, new multibladed food processor—could help. My equipment was mute. That’s the problem with technology. The ads promise you’ll be able to improve your life with complicated new machines. But if improved life looked like figuring something out, you were in trouble. Marketing claims to the contrary, machines couldn’t come up with good ideas.

Still, there were possibilities. Our new printer could create logos, spreadsheets, and all kinds of cool stuff. To find out about Barry’s health problems, I reasoned, I would have to have a logo, an address, and a fax number.

From my files, I dug out my contract for the Westside Mall events. I always keep a photocopy of the initial check, including the client’s driver’s license number, and—key for my developing investigation—Barry Dean’s Social Security number. Although the client for the Westside events was the mall owner, Barry Dean had been their representative. In the remote event of a bounced check, a collection service tracked the check-writer through the SSN. Sheesh! I’d learned from Tom that there were lots of uses for that good old Social Security number.

I switched computer programs and began to play. Ten technology-packed minutes later, I was ready. I didn’t want to imagine what Hulsey or Tom would think of what I was up to. If I ended up getting caught, the consequences would probably involve prison garb.

Once more I reached for the phone.

“This is Doctor Gertrude Shoemaker,” I announced firmly and matter-of-factly to the receptionist at Dr. Louis Maxwell’s practice of general medicine. Although I’d hated filling in for secretaries who’d walked out on The Jerk, I’d at least learned how doctors who wanted information behaved. Brusquely. “I’m with Aspen Meadow Neurology. A patient of yours is here. He’s paying for his own CAT scan. Diagnosis is chronic headache. I’m not sure he’s telling me the truth as to how and when he first contracted symptoms, and I need a copy of his records. The patient has authorized the release.”

“Fine, Doctor,” Maxwell’s receptionist replied. “Fax us the standard release form on your letterhead, and we’ll fax his records back to you as soon as possible.”

“When would that be?”

“No later than four o’clock today, Doctor.”

I hung up and prayed that Maxwell’s receptionist had not read the morning paper, which would have told her that Barry Dean was not sitting in my fictitious doctor’s office, but lying in the morgue.

I quickly put together a standard release form, then wrote a cover letter on my new fake letterhead for Aspen Meadow Neurology. (As if backwater Aspen Meadow would even have a neurologist! But we did boast nine chiropractors.) I entered Barry’s Social Security number, stared hard at the contract Barry had signed with me, and then carefully forged his signature. Then I faxed the whole thing off to Dr. Maxwell’s office. This was a very long shot, and the diagnosis would probably come back, “Patient claims headaches are stress- related.” Still, if you were going to let no stone go unturned, you had to start upending every rock…and hope there wasn’t a rattlesnake under one of them. And, hope that all the laws you were breaking didn’t come back to bite you.

And speaking of laws, it was time for me to visit the jail. After that, I would stop by the office of my own criminal defense attorney! Life’s little ironies.

I stopped first at our town’s drive-through Espresso Place, and ordered and paid for a four-shot latte. Of course I wanted to bring Julian one, but I knew from experience that there would be glass between us, and we’d have to speak to each other via phone. Plus, I didn’t want him to screw up another polygraph. The attendant handed me the drink, and my skin turned cold. Latte had been one of Barry’s favorites.

Overhead, fast-moving, dark clouds thickened and roiled. An ominous gray nimbus stretched eastward from the Continental Divide. As my window hummed closed, the unmistakable smell of snow drifted into the van. Would I still be catering the next day’s luncheon for the Stockhams? There had been no message, no apology from them for their eruption at the mall. I wasn’t going anywhere close to their huge house near the Aspen Meadow Wildlife Preserve without working things out.

Despite the rising storm, or maybe because of it, the number of tractors moving dirt around in the new section of Flicker Ridge had doubled since I’d noticed the area the previous morning. The trucks and tractors chugging hither and yon looked like a military operation. Two We Got Dirt trucks rumbled past the Topsoil $70/load sign, which now stood next to a revised sign: Only 2 home sites left! First come, first served! The price had been crossed out, and a new sign taped over it: Open to bidding. Uh-oh. If they’d written Make offer, that would have meant sales were slow. Open to bidding meant folks were scrambling to buy the sites, perhaps because the developer had priced them too low. The trucks growled and swooped over the mounds of dirt. Nothing like avarice to get a job done.

Half an hour later I was gripping a phone and staring at Julian through a scratched Plexiglas panel. His handsome face looked haggard and weary, and his unshaven cheeks gave him a grizzled appearance. The too-large orange prison suit did not flatter his muscled body. Worst of all, he looked as if he’d neither slept nor showered since the arrest.

“This is crap!” he exploded into the phone. “I don’t belong here! It’s crap! Can’t Tom help me? I came looking for you, and the next thing I knew, some cop was slapping handcuffs on me. And now this lawyer says—”

“Julian, please,” I urged. “I’ve got a lawyer, too, an associate of the guy who’s helping you. My guy will probably tell me not to come talk to you, because it would look bad. But I’m here to support you. So, please, please don’t be angry with me. I know you didn’t kill Barry.”

Julian’s shoulders slumped in dejection. “I was trying to help him.”