Chopping Spree

Tom arched an eyebrow. “I’ll do it,” he told me gently. “Remember, I already told our guys about the shoving incident… that was in the doctor’s report. They went out to the site—logical place to look for a ditch, since Barry worked at the mall. Sure enough, we found two witnesses who claim it was a woman who did the pushing. We’re figuring it was one of Dean’s two girlfriends. Ellie McNeely or that lady who works in lingerie.”

“You’re kidding!” I was incredulous. “That’s it? No description?”

“That’s it,” he said, as he pocketed the pills and gave me a skeptical look.

“Tom, I really meant what I said about being sorry. About hiding the pills.”

“Yeah, yeah, Miss G. Sorry until the next time.”

“No more evidence from crime scenes. I swear it.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

He couldn’t have been too angry. Or maybe I convinced him my contrition was sincere. I say this because a couple of hours later, once snow was again falling quietly and the house was hushed, Tom pulled me up the stairs and we made love. Afterward, wrapped in his warm arms, I drifted off, thinking that it sure would be nice if we could both take a vacation. Then, at least for a couple of weeks, we could make love all the time.

Thursday morning, I awoke feeling groggy. To my astonishment, a new five-inch blanket of snow had muted not only the traffic noise coming up from Main Street, but Arch’s and Tom’s getting-ready-to-go shuffling about. My body had apparently demanded, and received, its long overdue dose of sleep. I went through a slow yoga routine, showered, and dressed. This was the day of the shopaholics meeting at the mall, which I fully intended to attend. Today I also would try to talk to Pam and/or Victor, if they’d see me. Ah, but for the meeting, I needed something else….

I reached for a brown ski hat that I’d crocheted in a burst of domestic-goddess energy, back during one of Goldilocks’ Catering’s slow periods. In the end, the knobbles and swirls I’d crafted into the cap had made it too big and cumbersome for skiing. Now the thing looked like a twenties-era flapper’s cap. Or maybe a chocolate-colored wig. But it was perfect to disguise myself for my foray to Shopaholics Anonymous.

Tom had left me a note on the kitchen counter.Miss G.: The corpse was Lucas Holden. Found in a motel near Durango, dead of a heart attack, no sign of struggle or forced entry. Coroner’s office is looking into the situation, but it’s going to take a while. Sorry to say, our guys didn’t find anything up at that portable toilet. Too much new snow. I’ll pick up Arch today. He says they’re doing lacrosse drills in the gym. See you at six. T.

Remembering my promise to bring cookies to Victor Wilson, the excavator-cum-construction-manager, I removed a batch of homemade currant-cookie dough from the freezer and preheated the oven. Then I pulled a double espresso, reread Tom’s note, and sipped the coffee. Even after the pop of caffeine, a weight seemed to be pressing on my chest and dragging my spirits netherward. I just could not believe that Lucas Holden would have quit his job at the mall in an angry huff, then conveniently died only days later in a motel in southwestern Colorado. Maybe Lucas was the “friend” who’d pushed Barry Dean down. Then again, he hadn’t looked even remotely womanly.

I sliced the log of rich, currant-specked dough into thin disks and popped them into the oven. I set the timer and wondered about these witnesses who’d said a woman had pushed Barry down so that he fell into a ditch. If this included the guy who’d supposedly seen Julian driving the dump truck, then the first thing everybody at the construction site needed—after they had some cookies—was a trip to the ophthalmologist.

OK, say Lucas saw the person who’d pushed Barry into that ditch. And then someone had, someone had, someone had… what? My mind circled back to the idea of Lucas Holden being followed and injected with something lethal. With no autopsy done on an unsuspicious death that resulted in a donated cadaver, there wouldn’t have been a drug or any other kind of screen.

The fragrant smell of baking cookies infused the kitchen. When the tantalizing treats were done, I carefully placed them on racks, and pulled another espresso. I munched thoughtfully on a buttery, crunchy cookie, whose texture was perfectly balanced with the sweet chewiness of the currants. I washed the cookies down with the espresso, and peered out the kitchen window at the new-fallen snow. My face in the glass reflected doubt about all the speculative roads my mind seemed bent on exploring. Then I thought of Julian waking up in jail for the third morning, and phoned Helen Keith, assistant coroner for Furman County.

Helen Keith was a fiftyish, unmarried, longtime colleague of Tom’s. They were also longtime friends. He admired her professionalism; she appreciated his work ethic. Maybe she’d extend that appreciation to my attempts at amateur sleuthing. Then again, maybe not.

Helen answered on the first ring, and I genially reminded her who I was, that we’d visited at sheriff’s department barbecues two summers in a row, and wasn’t it great we could touch base? Not fooled, Helen politely said she was waiting for an important call. I took a deep breath and asked if we could have a quick chat. She assented.

I gave her an abbreviated version of recognizing Lucas Holden’s missing-toe cadaver. In an Oh-by-the-way fashion, I asked if her office could do a standard drug screen on Holden’s body.

“Goldy, I know that you have a friend in jail. But the tests aren’t going to be easy, and the results certainly won’t be quick,” she replied, her voice matter-of-fact. “But since this corpse was connected to a crime, we’d be doing a drug screen anyway.”

“Ah, well. Thanks. Any chance I could find out if he had any drugs in him?”

Helen Keith laughed. “Good-bye, Goldy.”

I guessed that was a no.

On the way to the mall, I tried again to call Pam Disharoon. No luck. Ditto with Kim Fury. Liz Fury, however, answered her cell on the first ring—understandable for a mother who must be worried sick about her son. I told her this wasn’t about catering work. Then I asked about Teddy.

“They haven’t found him yet.” Her concern crackled through the cell. “There was some activity on the credit cards, but it was all over Denver.”

“All over Denver? Er, how’s he getting around?”

Immediately her tone became suspicious. “Why?”

“I just… look, somebody hinted that Teddy stole Ellie McNeely’s car one day at the mall,” I blurted out.

“He did not take Ellie’s car. Teddy… isn’t a very good driver. He hates driving. He wouldn’t steal a car. He has friends who drive him, most of the time…. You’re breaking up, Goldy. I have to go.”

She disconnected before I could ask her if Teddy might like driving big trucks more than he liked driving cars.

At Westside Mall, the blanket of snow had not slowed construction. In fact, the building process seemed more frenzied than ever. I pulled the van up by a plastic fence that now prevented folks from parking in the hard-hat area and watched the flurry of activity in amazement. Workers using pickaxes broke through frozen slush—the former parking-lot drainage lake—to lay pipe. Beyond the newly smoothed sidewalk, two loaders belching black smoke chugged around the rim of a huge pit whose snow-filled bottom resembled a bowl of muddied meringue. Victor, wearing his usual day-glo orange hard hat, strode back and forth, pointing and barking orders. When he’d finished hollering at one group of workmen and yelling at a second, he hopped into a bright green golf cart and bumped over ruts to the next problem area.

“Excuse me!” I hailed him, once I’d stuffed the bag of cookies into my purse, stepped awkwardly over the plastic fence, and skirted a Porsche with the license plate DIRT GUY. Victor was scowling at the clipboard in his hands. When he turned the stare and the scowl in my direction, however, he smiled.

“The caterer!” He sounded plugged up, as if he had a bad cold. Laboring in the snow and cold wind probably didn’t help. “How’re you doing? Bringing us goodies?”

“You bet! If I’d known your crew was working in this weather, I would have brought you cocoa, too. Do you have a minute to talk?”

He tucked the clipboard under his arm. “Great idea. Let’s go into the trailer and have some coffee.”

People were always very cordial in anticipation of food you’d brought, I reflected, as I followed Victor to the construction trailer. I leaped across an area where two workers were putting in pipe, then carefully ascended the wobbly, ice-slick wooden steps to the trailer. Once through the bent aluminum door, I looked around. The trailer resembled the inside of a much-battered can. Worse, it was poorly warmed by glowing space heaters. At the desk