Double Shot

She flung her sack onto the passenger-side floor, then climbed in beside me. Voluptuously pretty, she wore a hot-pink silk caftan shot through with gold. Gleaming barrettes of pink diamonds and tiny cultured pearls held her brown curls in place. She looked like a sunrise.

I said, “You didn’t put any of my chocolate cakes in that bag, did you?”

“Don’t start. They’re in my trunk.” Marla dug into the bag. “Here, have this.” She handed me one of her special drinks, a Mason jar filled with ice cubes, espresso, and whipping cream. I thought of it as “Heart Attack on the Rocks,” but took it gratefully.

Marla snarled, “I’m sure this was the work of el Jerk-o. The governor might as well have said, ‘Get out of jail free! Go be naughty, we don’t care.’ ”

“I don’t know who it was, I just know that I hurt.” I sipped the luscious, creamy drink. “This is from heaven, though. Thanks.”

“I’d still like to know where our ex was this morning.”

I was back to peering out the windshield. “How about, rolling around in bed with Sandee Blue?”

“Girlfriend almost half his age,” Marla shot back. “It’s a wonder he didn’t have a heart attack, instead of me. Actually, that’s not a bad idea. I can see Cecelia’s headline now: ‘What Prominent Local Doctor, a Convicted Felon, Died of Coronary Arrest While Bonking His Fifty-fourth Conquest?’ ”

I smiled. Cecelia Brisbane was our town’s ruthless gossip columnist. In Aspen Meadow, Cecelia’s weekly feature in the Mountain Journal was more feared, and more quickly devoured, than any national tabloid.

“Wait a minute,” Marla said. “How about ‘Fart’s Heart Departs’?”

“Too obscure. And what makes you so sure Sandee was his fifty-fourth?” Marla’s hobby of obsessively tracking John Richard’s girlfriends, finances, and legal troubles gave her life meaning.

“Put it this way, I’m fairly certain Sandee’s fifty-four. Courtney MacEwan was fifty-three. Ruby Drake was fifty-two. And then there was Val,” she mused, “fifty-one. You don’t suppose one of his old flames could have attacked you, do you?”

I shrugged. “A slightly plump, mid-thirties ex-wife, with a fifteen-year-old son and a husband who’s a cop? Doesn’t sound like a target to me.”

“Maybe, maybe not. But there’s something else I’d like to know. Now that the Jerk is out of jail, where do you think he’s getting his money? You can’t keep a young girlfriend and rent a house in the country club area on your good looks.” She eyed me. “Speaking of appearance, you look like hell. No doubt about it, Goldy needs a chocolate-filled croissant.” She burrowed back in her bag.

I declined the croissant and slugged down the last of the latte. “Listen, could you help me set up? I don’t want to be alone in the Roundhouse.”

“Absolutely. But bring the gun.” She pushed open the passenger door and yelled, “If you’re in Goldy’s kitchen, she’ll shoot you in the nuts!”

“I don’t want to bring the gun.”

She gave me a wicked look. “If the Jerk’s in there, you could pop him off.”

“Not funny.”

“Then give the gun to me. I’ll protect us.”

“Forget it.”

“Goldy, if you don’t take that weapon, and then the cops arrive, they’ll say, ‘What the hell were you doing going into that place unarmed?’ ”

I sighed, handed Marla the entrance key—I thought the cops might want to photograph the kitchen door—and got out of the van. Then I snagged the thirty-eight and pointed it down, safety on, as we approached the Roundhouse’s French doors. But another nasty surprise awaited us.

“Oh my God!” Marla cried after she’d pulled the key out of the lock and opened the doors.

My heart plummeted as I reeled back.

The smell of spoiled food was horrific. I thought, I’m doomed.

2

It’s a body,” Marla whispered. “The killer hit you so you couldn’t witness anything.”

“It’s spoiled food,” I corrected her. I limped inside, still aiming the gun at the floor. The putrid stench turned my stomach. Not meaning to, I took a deep breath. The smell filled my nostrils and I coughed. I panted—anything to avoid using the olfactory gland.

Delicately holding her nose, Marla followed me into the Roundhouse dining room. The place had never served as an actual train roundhouse, but was merely a fifty-year-old hexagonal building constructed of dark-stained pine logs. With a massive stone fire-place at its center, the dining room resembled a giant wooden teepee. The irony was that I’d been looking forward to the Roundhouse’s early morning aroma, where smoke from thousands of barbecued steaks still lingered in the log walls.

“What do you want to do?” Marla asked, her voice nasal.

“Check everything in the kitchen,” I replied. “Trash—every container. Refrigerators.”

I chewed the inside of my cheek. “With a simple assault and vandalism, there’s no way the cops will do prints and all that. Let’s go around to the side. Whoever attacked me came out that way, and probably broke in there, too.”

“Just make sure you’ve got hold of that gun,” Marla ordered.

“That’s the last thing we’re going to need.” My mind seized on the funeral lunch. “What we’re going to need is more food. And quick.”

Our footsteps echoed on the wooden deck as we made our slow way around to the side of the old restaurant. My back still ached and my knees hurt. The sight of the wooden ramp that my attacker had raced down gave me gooseflesh.

A hundred yards away, the sun had risen higher, and Aspen Meadow Lake was a field of sparkles. When I’d signed the lease on the Roundhouse at the end of April, the large deck and magnificent view of the water had been selling points. In Colorado, people want to hold events both inside and outside, and any catering center that doesn’t offer both is sunk. I shook my head, remembering my early enthusiasm for the Roundhouse. While reconfiguring the place for catered affairs, I’d come to wish the lake was full of cold cash instead of chilly snowmelt. But it was still a nice view. Calming. And calm was what I needed at the moment.

When we arrived at the back door, the reek was even more intense. I peered at the spot where the lock had been forced. Splinters littered the deck and the kitchen floor. Yellow wood showed where the hinge had been torn off from the paneling around it. Carefully, Marla and I tiptoed inside. She flipped on the lights—no power outage, anyway—and the spacious, newly painted kitchen popped into view. To my surprise, the place was completely clean.

“Stop. Take the safety off,” Marla whispered. “I hear something.”

Oh, man, I knew we should have waited in the car. Marla pointed to a paper grocery bag on the far side of the floor. With its flap rolled tight, the contents lay shrouded in darkness. But was it… moving?

“Stay put,” I ordered, then advanced, thirty-eight raised, across the kitchen.

Without warning, the bag shuddered open and a dozen mice raced out. Startled, I accidentally shot off the damn gun.

Marla shrieked and ran outside. The rodents scattered. I cursed, eased the safety back on the thirty-eight, and placed it on the counter. Now the place really stank, with gunsmoke in addition to the stench of garbage. And probably a neighbor would call the cops. Maybe that would get them up here quicker, I thought as I pulled over some folding chairs to prop open the wrecked door. If my attacker had planted more mice, we needed to provide an easy exit for the furry little creatures. Plus, I was desperate to air out the place.

“Stop that!” Marla snapped from the deck. “You need to get the cops to get clues from the door.”

“They won’t have time for that, trust me.”

The ibuprofen was kicking in and I could move a bit more easily as I limped back over to the bag, now empty. I didn’t want to ponder how much a fumigator was going to cost. Oh, hell, I thought as I