Chopping Spree

“Begin at the beginning and take me through the time after I left the lounge. Minute by minute. I especially need to know if you saw anyone—anyone—with one of the new Henckels knives.”

And so Julian took me through it. It was almost exactly as I’d thought. I was disappointed, but not surprised, that he hadn’t seen the knife disappear. After I’d left with Barry Dean’s note—the one Barry had handed off to a musician, the note Julian had read—Julian had finished packing up the dirty dishes and equipment. He had been surprised that I hadn’t shown up by the time he’d completed the loading and cleanup. The security and jewelry people were gone, and the mall was closing. He’d locked the lounge and come looking for me.

“I wonder why Barry didn’t have one of his security guys lock up the lounge, and take the key.”

Julian rolled his eyes. “I wish I knew, because then I wouldn’t have had to say I don’t know fifty times to the cops. When they asked me and asked me about the kitchenette key, I kept telling them that clients often ask us to lock up when we leave. And no one’s been robbed or murdered yet. Or at least, not until last night.” He groaned.

“It’s OK,” I murmured. People who aren’t caterers have a very romantic view of what we do. They think it’s all intriguing recipes, chic food, and glam presentation. They have no clue about, and certainly don’t want to hear about, the ordering, prepping, dealing with clients, dishwashing, cleaning, locking up, and other drudge jobs associated with food service.

“OK, let’s get through this,” Julian said wearily. “I forgot to tell you that when I finished, about five after nine, I made myself another cup of coffee in that kitchen. Everybody was gone. The coffee was instant, but I didn’t care. I knew I had to drive back to Boulder, and I was afraid I’d fall asleep at the wheel. When I finished it and you still hadn’t come back, I started to get worried. I went to the mall office and no one was there. So I went looking for you.”

“You remembered from the note to come to Ladies’ Shoes?”

“Yeah.” His voice was morose. “I saw the store was closing fast, so I hurried over to Shoes. And there you were on the floor. Barry, too. I didn’t think. I turned him over, and when I saw the knife, I just pulled on it. How could I be so dumb?”

I tapped on the scratched plastic shelf in front of me. “So, no one saw you during the last ten, fifteen minutes before you came into the shoe department?”

He sighed in despair. “Nope. I saw a few cashiers inside the stores that were closing, but nobody looked out at me, ’cuz they were all busy counting the cash in their tills.” He rubbed his bloodshot eyes. “Anyway, I had just tugged once on the knife, when this department store security guy started hollering at me to move away. He called the cops and eventually I was hauled off. Of course I wanted to take the polygraph, why wouldn’t I? I didn’t do anything! I had no idea Marla was calling a lawyer, and he didn’t show up until the cops were through with me and it was too late. Now I’m behind bars on suspicion of murder. I was advised of the charges today. And—ready for this—even if I pass another polygraph, it might not help, ‘cuz polygraphs are inadmissible. Those cops are gathering evidence to charge me with murder. Unless something turns up, they’re going to hold me until the next regular arraignment day. My damn prints on the weapon are the worst….”

I shook my head, mute. The unreality of it all was dizzying. Julian had Cleve Jackson plus a team of Hulsey’s investigators working to clear him. But somehow I didn’t trust Hulsey’s people to find out who had really killed Barry Dean.

I’d known Barry. I’d taken the job he offered me. I was the one who’d found him after he was stabbed. At that unforgettable moment, Barry had uttered a deep, shattering groan. Then the real killer had whacked me with the guitar and, presumably, finished the job on Barry. Not only had I not been able to help my old coffee buddy, I was wondering what in the world I would be able to do for poor Julian.

Not for the first time, my mind hollered at me that I had to do something. My heart agreed.

CHAPTER 8

I promised Julian that Tom, Marla, and I were working hard to get him out. Marla would be coming to see him later in the day. But Julian, his skin grayed by the fluorescent lights, appeared even more discouraged and disheartened. He asked about Arch. I put effort into sounding enthusiastic, but I knew it didn’t ring true. Arch was doing well, I related, forcing a smile. As usual, my son was keeping mum in the social department. He enjoyed lacrosse and was impatient for Julian to come home. After all, Julian needed to bake his fifteenth birthday cake! The family party was set for this Friday!

“That’s the arraignment day,” Julian said joylessly.

I swallowed and reassured him again that this nightmare would be over soon and that everything would turn out fine.

“Yeah, yeah,” Julian said, as if he had not heard me. “Look, please don’t call my parents, OK?”

I looked at him in surprise. Julian adored his adoptive parents, and trekked down to Bluff, Utah, a couple of times a year to visit them. “Don’t you want them to know—”

“No, I don’t,” he interrupted me. “It’ll give my dad a heart attack. If it goes to trial and all that, I’ll call their neighbors and have them go over and break things to them gently.”

“Well—”

Julian shrugged, offered a dispirited wave, and got up to leave. I plastered a grin on my face and gave him a thumbs-up.

On the inside, of course, my frustration was reaching fury level. I left the jail and raced to Hulsey’s office, frantic for good news. Funny thing about good news. You shouldn’t go to a criminal-defense attorney looking for any.

Steve Hulsey’s office was decorated in a palette of oxblood leather, ultradark mahogany, cranberry glass, and maroon wool. Maybe this was some deranged decorator’s vision of a bloodbath. Hulsey sat, statuelike, behind the vast mahogany desk, which was the size of a ten-person life raft. And oh boy, I could just imagine desperate clients clinging to it. Hulsey would be telling them what he could and couldn’t do for his fee, which a former client had informed me was a twenty-thousand-dollar retainer, plus eight hundred bucks an hour after that. Hulsey, the very image of a westernized Buddha, was wearing another silk suit, a shimmery silver-gray pinstripe. I wondered if he also wore silk underpants a la Al Capone. One fact was clear: Steve Hulsey might represent desperate hooligans, but they were desperate rich hooligans.

His terse greeting was followed by: “You said you wanted to talk to me about your innocence, Mrs. Schulz.”

“Absolutely.” But where to begin? Not at the end, for I knew the Buddha would berate me if I told him I’d just visited Julian in jail. I fidgeted while reminding myself that Barry Dean’s Vicodin and all my machinations over the prescription also needed to go into the don’t-tell-your-lawyer category. Eight hundred bucks an hour! my conscience screamed. At least tell him something!

Hulsey’s eyes were piercing. I was sure he was reading my thoughts. His face turned thunderous; one of the black eyebrows rose. Will I ever be able to put this guilty-looking woman on the stand? he seemed to be asking himself. Probably not.

I took a deep breath, then told Hulsey I’d first met Barry in school, where we’d had a class together. I’d lost touch with him after I got married and he graduated. He’d called me this March, though, to book a couple of parties. Hulsey frowned. I explained that Barry had heard about me from a mutual friend, Ellie McNeely, whom he had either proposed to or was about to. So he’d hired Goldilocks’ Catering to do the cocktail party accompanying the jewelry- leasing event. I was doing another event for him, or at least I was supposed to, this Thursday, a lunch for potential tenants in the mall’s addition… I faltered.

“Did Dean talk to you about his business? Mall business?”

“He told me he’d been working at Westside Mall for the last six months. He’d always been…My suspicion is—” I hesitated.

“Go on.”

“Well, I just thought that if I were the person hiring Barry, it would be not so much for his expertise, even though he might have been super at what he did. But his real assets were his charm and… enthusiasm. They were contagious.”