Double Shot

just could have been there earlier, this never would have happened! Oh, God! It is my fault! Don’t say it’s not my fault when it is!”

Tom motioned me over and mumbled that he was going to get our sleeping bags. I took his warm spot on the quilt and tried a few comforting words of my own. Arch’s body writhed with his sobs.

“Honey, don’t,” I tried. “Please stop crying. You’re going to make yourself sick.” I kept my voice calm, kept repeating the same things, kept hoping Arch would calm down. “Please, Arch. Your dad’s death had nothing to do with you, or when we got to his house. I promise.”

I reached out to rub Arch’s back, but he shrugged me away. Then he lowered one leg and kicked his foot against the floor. The bed wheels creaked and the bed rolled sideways. He didn’t want to be comforted, and that was that.

While I was puzzling over this, a small stone pelted the dark window. My heart jumped into my throat. Soon, another tiny rocket popped against the glass. Then another and another. Handfuls of pebbles were being tossed at the window. I turned on the lamp by Arch’s digital clock. Another flash of lightning brought the room and the pine trees outside into sudden focus. A pile of hail was accumulating on the windowsill. The thunder boomed again. So we were at the last of the Colorado seasons: blizzard, flood, fire, hail. Great.

Tom shuffled back in, clutching a pair of red sleeping bags. Their whispery nylon rustling, combined with the thunder and the drum of hail, startled Arch out of his crying jag. He rubbed his face and reached for his glasses, next to the lamp.

“What’s going on?”

Tom stepped purposefully across the room. “Your mom and I are going to spend the rest of the night in here. It’ll be better if we can all be together tonight. Your mom’ll be over here on Julian’s old bed.” He hefted one of the slithery bags onto the empty mattress by the window. “I’ll sleep on the floor. You need anything, look down and yell for it.”

“Has anybody…” Arch’s voice caught. “Has anybody called Julian? To tell him what happened?”

Above the patter of hail, I promised, “First thing in the morning.”

I hunkered down into the flannel. Yes, we needed Julian. Since he’d helped with the funeral lunch, the cops had probably already talked to him about John Richard. Then again, maybe not. In addition to working for my business a couple of days a week, Julian held down a part-time job in a Boulder bistro. Plus, he was always taking at least one course at the University of Colorado, in pursuit of his degree. He wasn’t the easiest person to find, as the cops would probably discover. Then again, those law-enforcement folks had proved that they could zero in on connections between the murder victim and just about anything they wanted.

The hail continued to hammer the roof. Rat-a-tat-

tat! Do you own a gun, Mrs. Schulz? Rat-a-tat-tat!

Why did hail have to sound so much like a firing squad, anyway?

The phone started ringing at 6:22. The incessant, demanding ringing seemed to be coming from inside my head. I blinked at the red 6:22 on Arch’s digital clock, and wished I had a baseball bat. The kind you break phones with.

My head ached; my body throbbed. I needed quiet. I needed healing. I scooted down into the flannel and pulled the sleeping bag over my static- charged hair. When the ringing stopped, I again poked out my head.

It was a typically chilly June morning in the mountains. Brilliant sunlight glistened through the windowsill’s melting mounds of hail. Rainbows shimmered across the walls of Arch’s room.

I assumed that the unmoving lump on the neighboring bed, still covered with the black-and-gold quilt, was Arch. Tom’s sleeping bag lay flattened and empty. The phone started up again. Who could possibly be calling at this hour? Like a leaden cloak, the events of the previous day descended on my brain. Who could be wanting so desperately to talk? Let’s see: The cops. The local paper. My new criminal lawyer, who would have bad news.

I sat up. Droplets of water gleamed on the pine branches brushing Arch’s window. The previous day’s fierce, dusty wind had indeed pushed in those storm clouds hovering over the Continental Divide. With any luck, the hail would have smothered the fire up in the preserve. At least one thing around here could be under control, and that would be a welcome change.

Tom appeared at the doorway and motioned for me. I shed the flannel-and-nylon cocoon, tiptoed out to the hallway, and followed him into our room. There, I tucked myself into a fresh sweatshirt and pants.

“Who keeps calling?” I asked.

“Tell you downstairs.”

Our wooden steps creaked more loudly than usual as I headed for the kitchen. I listened for Arch, but heard nothing.

“It’s the paper,” Tom announced ruefully, once we were seated at our oak table and he was revving up the espresso machine. “First Frances Markasian, then somebody else from the Mountain Journal. They want to know how long they’re going to have to wait until they can get a statement from you. Then Frances Markasian two more times.”

I couldn’t help myself; I cackled. Frances Markasian, a legend in her own mind, was a so-called investigative reporter at the Mountain Journal. Sometimes, when she wanted information, we were pals. Most of the time, we weren’t.

Suddenly, it was all too much. I laughed as my arm made a sweeping gesture to indicate the entire outdoors. Dazzling remainders of hail sparkled on the aspens, the lodgepole pines, the blue spruce. Our dry grass was spotted with white. The tender shoots of our perennials glistened with unaccustomed wetness.

“Hell has frozen over,” I announced. “But it doesn’t matter. I’m not talking to the Journal.”

Tom added water to the coffee machine. “You’re sounding slightly bitter this morning. Here’s some good news, though. The hail helped the firefighters get that blaze out in the preserve. Unfortunately, with more dry weather on the way, they’re warning that the fire danger is still high. Okay, how many shots of espresso would you like?”

“I’ll take a double, thanks.” Ordinarily I would have had six, but in the last couple of months, I’d been trying to cut back.

Tom warmed a cup and pressed the machine’s buttons. When he set the steaming dark drink on the table, he placed his hand on mine.

“We need to talk. As in, strategy.”

The phone rang again, and I was tempted to throw my luscious cup of hot espresso at it. Reading my mind, Tom checked the caller ID.

“Priscilla Throckbottom?” Tom asked me.

I groaned. Priscilla Throckbottom, head of the St. Luke’s Episcopal Church Women and several other local organizations, had booked me to do the breakfast for her PosteriTREE committee at the country club, to be held the following morning. Now either she wanted me to work with her to plan John Richard’s funeral or she wanted to see if I was still doing her breakfast. Perhaps she wanted her own version of what had happened. Maybe she wanted all three. And at six forty-five in the morning, no less.

“Let’s turn off all the ringers,” I proposed. “I don’t want them to wake Arch. The machine can take the messages. I’ll call Julian at eight or so.”

Tom nodded, fussed with the buttons on the kitchen phone—our home line and my business number had separate ringers—then left to silence the receivers throughout the house. I sipped Tom’s dark brew and felt a bit better, even though my body still ached from the previous morning’s attack outside the Roundhouse. The question of who had sabotaged and hit me, and why, was like a puzzle locked inside a rock. Who hated me that much? Somebody trying to divert attention from himself as the Jerk’s killer? A competitor? Who? The only other catering competition I’d ever had in Aspen Meadow had all switched over to being chefs of the personal (forty or so clients) or private (one big, demanding client) variety. As far as I could see, I posed no threat. Maybe Marla would have a lead on it this morning. You didn’t make all that mess at the Roundhouse and not brag to