Double Shot

Boyd clicked off his radio and called for me to slow down. Meanwhile, two cops were lowering the truck’s winch into the lake.

“I’ll call you back, Tom.”

“I’m on my way over there right now.”

“Thanks.”

“Eddie’s okay,” Boyd reassured me. “So are his friends.” Relief washed over me. “They did find something over there, though.”

The winch beeped and cranked. It was hauling a heavy load out of the water.

“It’s a woman,” Boyd told me grimly.

We were less than twenty yards from the sheriff’s-department cars. A state patrolman signaled us to stay put. Meanwhile, the tow-truck engine growled as its tires bit into the dirt.

At the end of the winch, a car’s grill glittered in the sunlight. I blinked in surprise. I knew that old station wagon. Water gushed out of the sides as more of it surfaced.

And then I saw her, her face pressed to the window. Even in death, I knew those thick glasses, that shovel- shaped face.

It was Cecelia Brisbane.

16

Sirens wailed in the distance. On the far side of the tow truck, a small crowd had gathered behind orange cones I’d missed seeing before. The cops needed more cars, of course. The town gossip columnist would generate more gossip in death than she had in life.

Not long after more sheriff’s-department cars had pulled alongside the tow truck, Tom’s sedan swung onto the lakeside road. A more welcome sight, I could not imagine. I had checked that the tables were being set up inside the tent. But someone still needed to pick up the pork chops from our house. No matter what, I really, really wanted to see Tom.

As Boyd and I walked back to the Roundhouse, he asked me if I wanted him to stick around.

“Tom will want to guard you,” Boyd said with a grin. “You don’t need two cops to do that. Well, maybe you do.”

“You’ve been great. Please let me pay you for this morning’s work.”

“Forget it. That was pure entertainment.” He promised he’d wait for Julian and give him the keys to the Roundhouse. Tom saluted Boyd, who only smiled.

“Do you have any idea what’s going on?” I asked Tom once he was sitting beside me in my van. “Did anyone know Cecelia was missing? How did she end up inside her car at the bottom of the lake?”

“Take it easy, Goldy. I only know what I’ve heard since I talked to you.”

As he recited the facts, a sense of unreality crept over me. I had just seen Cecelia at the bake sale. Then I’d received a piece of mail from her. And now she was dead. I found this literally and figuratively hard to swallow.

About all law enforcement knew, Tom told me, was that Cecelia had been reported missing by her neighbor yesterday. Since Walter had committed suicide, this neighbor had vowed to check on Cecelia every single day, so she’d been sure, she told the sheriff’s department, that something was wrong.

What did I know about Cecelia’s history? Tom asked. Not much, I conceded, except that everyone in town feared being skewered in one of her columns. Of course, she’d hired me to do those posthumous birthday parties every year. And she seemed to pine for her daughter to come home, although she never said anything concrete to me.

Cecelia’s neighbor, Tom said, was an elderly woman named Sherry Boone. Cecelia always told Sherry when she was going somewhere, as Sherry fed Cecelia’s guinea pigs in her absence. When Cecelia hadn’t answered her phone, Sherry had called the Mountain Journal, frantic. Not only was Cecelia not there, she hadn’t phoned the paper that morning, as she usually did, to tell them when she’d be bringing in this week’s column. Sherry Boone had finally convinced the sheriff’s department to send a patrol car out to the Brisbanes’ creek-side residence.

Nobody had been home. Cecelia’s car was gone. In front of the deputies, Sherry retrieved Cecelia’s spare key and went into the house. There was no sign of forced entry, no sign of a struggle, no note—only three hungry guinea pigs, which Sherry Boone immediately took into custody.

“Didn’t anyone think Cecelia might have been so depressed she’d commit suicide?” I wondered aloud.

“Nobody knew her better than her own neighbor. And Mrs. Boone insisted Cecelia had been in a good mood on Tuesday afternoon.” Tom’s face was grim as he opened the passenger door to my van. “And then our guys got this call from Aspen Meadow Lake…” He got out of the van. “Anyway, they’ll know more when they hear from the M.E.”

I followed Tom’s sedan home. When he saw I was shivering, he insisted I have a hot shower. He announced that he was going to do the final prep for Nan Watkins’s picnic. When I protested, he reminded me that I always seemed to want to do an investigator’s job, so wasn’t it hypocritical to stop an investigator from doing my job? I smiled. Was he getting his old sense of humor back? Was the depression over that lost case finally lifting?

When I reentered the kitchen, showered and dressed in a clean caterer’s outfit, the scent of warm rolls filled the air. I couldn’t remember when I’d last eaten. It was just past noon; Julian was probably already at the tent, and Liz would be meeting us there at half-past one. There was a lot going on. Too much. In spite of the shower and Tom’s help, I swayed on my feet.

“Sit down, wife,” Tom ordered. “You haven’t seen half of the stuff I got on my grocery-buying binge.” He bustled me into a chair, then turned his attention back to his work. A copious white apron hugged his waist. He rinsed the brine from the chops, dried them, and set them aside. With studied purposefulness, he then washed his hands and proceeded to peel and halve an avocado. He filled both halves with chunks of cooked lobster. After drenching the whole thing with his homemade remoulade sauce, he put two warm rolls next to his concoction, placed a fork, knife, and napkin on the table, and commanded me to eat.

He didn’t have to tell me twice. Luxuriant lobster and creamy avocado robed in Tom’s signature dressing made a perfect complement for the hot brioche rolls. For a few moments, I was able to forget that I had an event to cater that afternoon. Not only that, but it was the type of affair dreaded by all caterers—the outdoor picnic buffet. Why not just name the occasion Calling All Ants?

Tom stared into the refrigerator and read what I’d scribbled on the storage containers. “Pasta salad and these pies, plus greens for two salads?”

“Mmf,” I said, my mouth full of avocado.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Tom removed pans, bowls, and bags of ingredients, then set them on the counter and winked at me. “You don’t mind if I pack the van, do you, Lobster Girl?”

“Mm—mmf.”

He took that as a yes, too. Within half an hour, he had loaded everything, I had rinsed my plate, and we were almost ready to rock. While I printed out the sheets detailing the picnic prep schedule, Tom called Boyd, who was back at the department. On a whim, I ran up and grabbed Holly Kerr’s old photo album, the one containing pictures of Arch as a baby. When I returned, Tom said Boyd didn’t know any more about Cecelia yet. But the Denver firearms examiner’s report on my gun and the test for the bullets taken from John Richard was expected in a couple of hours. My heart plunged.

Tom thanked him and said that if the department needed him, he’d be with me. He’d drive his own sedan instead of accompanying me in the van, in case there was an emergency and he had to leave in a hurry.

“Which is unlikely,” Tom commented when he’d hung up and we were heading to our vehicles. “The only departmental emergencies generated lately have you at the center of them. So I figure if I stick with my wife, I’ll have a jump on everybody.”

I shoved the photo album into the van and gave him a sour look. “Thanks a lot. You know how much I love being at the center of departmental emergencies.” But he grinned widely, and again the jovial wisecracker I’d married seemed to be peeking out from the funk of the previous month.

Outside, the sunshine had completely dried all remnants of the hail. Spring—or the vestige of that season we