Double Shot

“Holly Kerr invited him,” I replied. “You remember Holly, don’t you? Albert’s wife, now widow? She wanted to include all the old gang from Southwest Hospital.” I grunted as I heaved my bag over the lip of the Dumpster.

Marla groaned and clumsily tipped in her sack. I frowned. Her beautiful pink-and-gold silk dress was stained with sweat and spotted with spoiled food. Dear Marla. And here I was going to ask something else of her.

“Uh, girlfriend?”

Marla lifted her chin and shot me a wary look. Her brown curls had come askew from the sparkling barrettes, and perspiration streaked her face.

“Now what?”

“I’m sorry, but when the cops arrive, I need you to do one more thing.”

“It can’t be worse than this.”

“Would you be willing to go home,” I asked quickly, “take a nice shower, put on something really sexy, and find a county employee named Roger Mannis? I’ll give you his work number and address. Then distract him, seduce him, or do something to keep him occupied over the next few hours.”

“You mean Roger Mannis, the health inspector who hassled you at the garden-club lunch? The subject of Cecelia’s column, he of the muskrat eyes? One and the same?”

“Does that mean you’ll do it?” I asked as a sheriff’s-department vehicle finally, finally drove into the lot.

“You know what, Goldy?” Marla wiped her brow, glanced at the cop car, then put her hands on her hips. “If you weren’t my friend, I would have no excitement in my life.”

3

She drove off, as they say in this part of the world, in a cloud of dust. The cop, a brawny blond fellow named Sawyer, had me repeat what had happened and show him the scene of the crime. He frowned at the place where I’d fallen, probed the splintered door frame with his finger, and narrowed his eyes at the bullet hole in the floor. He also told me I should see a doctor. I promised I would when the dust settled.

“Still, Mrs. Schulz, I’m going to stay here with you until your help arrives.”

“Feel like carrying some trash?”

His grin was expansive. “Sure.”

With Sawyer at my side, I hobbled back to the kitchen. The two of us grabbed the last of the trash bags— Sawyer insisted on taking three, so I had only one—traversed the lot, and heaved them into the Dumpster.

“I need you to show me the gun you used in the kitchen,” Officer Sawyer said mildly as we made our way back to the Roundhouse.

I veered toward the van, unlocked it, and flipped open the glove compartment. Then I unloaded the gun and handed it to him. He looked at it briefly before giving it back. His expression was inscrutable.

I put the thirty-eight into the glove compartment and slammed it shut. “My permit’s in the kitchen, in my purse.”

“That’s all right.” He waited for me to close the van door, then walked beside me back to the Roundhouse.

The breeze that had been ruffling the lake’s surface died down. Half a mile away, the lake house was deserted. Paddleboat and skiff rental did not begin until ten, and even the walkers and runners had hightailed away to their daily pursuits. The small commuter rush had abated, and Upper Cottonwood Creek Road was quiet.

I walked slowly. My shoulders ached. My back throbbed. Our footsteps on the gravel were the only sounds. Things seemed, as they also say in this part of the world, too quiet.

“Officer Sawyer?” I said suddenly. “Have you had this kind of attack around here lately? Somebody in a ski mask, vandalizing commercial establishments?”

Sawyer shook his head. “There’s always a first time. I wish you’d go see a doctor.”

I thought, Sure, right after I find some electric fans, get the bleach, clean out the walk-ins, and start setting up….

“I know that we are all thankful for the life of Albert Kerr,” Dr. Ted Vikarios announced, his voice as authoritative as that of Moses descending from Sinai. Dr. V., as we’d always called him, towered over the microphone, his six and a half feet not even slightly reduced by having reached his early sixties. His long, large- featured face was as imposing as ever, although I was pretty sure he was now dyeing his jet-black hair. He still wore it swooped up in front, like a wave cresting toward shore. “We rejoice in spite of our pain!” his voice boomed, and the mourners jumped in their seats.

Tell me about pain, I thought. My back, neck, and knees were still in a world of hurt. I shifted from foot to foot and glanced out at the people gathered for the memorial lunch. Most of the sixty guests had served in Southwest’s ob-gyn department sixteen years ago, during the time that Drs. Kerr and Vikarios had been co–department heads of ob-gyn. And maybe they wished they hadn’t, because Dr. V. had already been preaching to them for twenty-five minutes.

John Richard Korman, looking breezy, nonchalant, and as devastatingly handsome as ever, sat by the French doors. He wore a pink oxford-cloth shirt, patterned gold-and-green silk tie, and khaki pants. Did he look freshly showered? I mean, you would have to fix yourself up if you’d taken time out that morning to attack your ex-wife. At the very least, your naturally blond hair would get messed up underneath that ski mask. Stop it, I ordered myself. You’re not at all sure that John Richard was the culprit.

I returned my attention to the lunch. The only way I was going to get through this event was not to care that he was present. Make that not to care insofar as possible, since I had already noticed how he was charming the women at his table with sly grins, winks, and an occasional backward flip of his careful- to-look-

casual bangs. It did seem that he was studiously ignoring me. Not that I gave a slice of salami about that, either…at least until I could prove or disprove that he was the one who’d attacked me.

Anyway, I certainly wasn’t going to confront him. Not here. Not now.

“We need to focus on gratitude!” Dr. V. shouted. He opened his long, thin arms to their full width, like one of those hang gliders you’re always seeing taking off from Colorado peaks.

Okay, I could focus on gratitude. Clutching a glass of water, I backed into one of the Roundhouse’s dark corners and swallowed four more ibuprofen. I believed that I was more thankful than Ted Vikarios. If I hadn’t been choking on the pills, I would have been giving fervent praise to the Almighty that Julian, Liz, and I had somehow, somehow, pulled this lunch together after all.

“We miss Albert!” Dr. V. moaned, and the mourners groaned in response.

I swallowed hard and wondered if I missed Albert Kerr. Before Albert’s wife, Holly, had returned to Aspen Meadow with Albert’s ashes the previous month, I hadn’t seen either one of them for over fourteen years. But they had doted on Arch when he was a newborn. It hurt not to see someone for a long time. I had liked the Kerrs, and had felt a pang to hear Albert had died of cancer while serving as the priest for a small Anglican congregation in Qatar, of all places. Still, Albert’s lovely wife—widow—Holly had called me to do this event.

We had been close to both the Kerrs and Vikarioses when Albert, Ted, and the Jerk had worked together, Holly had reminded me.

I had gritted my teeth and promised Holly we would have a lovely lunch. And whether we had an anonymous attacker, a herd of mice, or a four-figure cost overrun, I was going to finish this luncheon, by golly. I took a deep breath, which was not a good idea.

Had anyone else noticed that the Roundhouse smelled like a pine forest? I stepped out from the corner and tried to avoid looking at the Jerk, who had put his arm around his new girlfriend. Girlfriend, schmirlfriend, my main question was whether anyone was sniffing the air and making faces. The scent, Organic Pine, could have been called The Woods You’ll Never Get Out Of. It certainly smelled like a denser forest than anything Hansel and Gretel had dealt with. Okay, Liz and Arch had gone too wild with their enthusiastic spraying. They’d coated the kitchen with the stuff, emptied a can each into the refrigerators, and squirted the fragrance into every corner of the old