Dark Tort

I put my head down on the steel table in the interrogation room. Earlier, earlier, I should have been there earlier, I repeated silently to myself. Birthday or no, Dusty had wanted to discuss “something important” with me. Something to do with the stunning bracelet I’d seen her wearing last week? She’d giggled and promised to tell me about the opal-and-diamond bracelet “soon.” I remembered telling her to practice taking deep breaths, because twenty-one candles on a carrot cake was a conflagration! She had smiled quickly, before her face had turned uncharacteristically grim.

But then there was that issue of my son driving, which Tom had found so humorous. For the past few weeks, I’d been trying to teach Arch to drive in various parking lots…with zero success. Our last session had been the previous afternoon, at our local Safeway. Okay, I admit it, I’d given Arch conflicting directions on reversing, and he’d ended up crushing a line of grocery carts. When we’d finally arrived home, I’d apologized and offered my son another driving lesson on Saturday. But since I’d already lost my temper in the grocery-store lot, then lost it again when I wrote the grocery-store manager a check for the destroyed carts, Arch had refused either to forgive me or to get out of the van.

I’d stomped away, and Arch had left the van lights and radio on—inadvertently, I was sure. So before driving to the firm tonight, I’d had to take Tom away from polishing his beloved antique highboy, which was what he did for relaxation. Once he had located the jumper cables, he’d eased his sedan out into the street and started working on my vehicle. The van engine had ground and groaned, wheezed and coughed, and finally turned over. I’d shown up at the law office with my caterer’s load…half an hour late.

So I’d failed Dusty. I’d failed her monumentally.

Britt reappeared with his clipboard and apologized for the delay.

“We were talking about your meeting with Dusty on Thursday nights, Mrs. Schulz. Was this every Thursday night?”

“Yes, for just over a month.”

“Who else knew that was when you met?”

“I have no idea. Everyone could have known, because we didn’t make a secret of it. She helped me prepare and set out the food for the Friday-morning meeting, and folks sometimes complimented her on it.”

“Who complimented her on the food, specifically?”

I closed my eyes. Well, King Richard always thanked Dusty, proudly and loudly. I told Britt about Richard Chenault, how he was Dusty’s uncle and enjoyed taking pride in her accomplishments.

“Which were by extension compliments for him?” I nodded. Britt went on: “Anyone who wouldn’t compliment her on the food?” Britt asked slyly.

“Well, there’s Louise Upton. She’s the office manager, and she never compliments anyone, except for guys who are higher up the totem pole than she is.”

Britt’s baby face broke into a smile. “Not your favorite person, then.”

I shrugged. “She’s okay, I suppose. She runs a tight ship, and she loves Hanrahan and Jule.”

“A tight ship with a totem pole.”

“Detective, it’s the wee hours of the morning, and I don’t know if you’re making a joke or what. I also don’t know how much longer I can last.”

“Would you say Dusty Routt and Louise Upton were enemies?”

“Not enemies, really. Louise just uses no social skills with people she believes are beneath her.”

“Okay. So you were set to meet Dusty tonight?”

“Yes, at ten, our usual time. But then my car wouldn’t start because my son drained the battery.” I explained about my not looking properly into the rearview mirror and directing my son into a line of grocery carts, and how that had precipitated a furious argument between the two of us, which in turn had led to Arch staying in the car with the lights on and the radio running…

“You were parked in a garage,” Britt asked, “or on the street?”

“On the street,” I said, “because I knew I was going out later, and I didn’t want Tom to block me in when he got home.”

“After this argument with your son, do you know whether he locked the van when he got out of it?”

“No,” I admitted. “I don’t. Gee, do you think…maybe one of my neighbors saw someone messing around with my car.”

Britt took a deep breath. “We’ll canvass your neighborhood. Now, Investigator Schulz gives you a jump, you take off for H&J, and you get there at what time?”

“The exact time?” I sipped more coffee, which tasted as metallic as the building smelled. “I’m pretty sure it was right around ten-thirty. Yeah, pretty sure. I didn’t check my watch, though.” Britt gave me a narrow-eyed look, and my mind conjured up the image of him informing his pals that Tom Schulz’s wife…you know, the caterer?…was as flaky as one of her renowned piecrusts. “I came into the office, and tripped. I didn’t know what was going on. I certainly didn’t think I’d stumbled over a body.” I sighed. “At first I thought it was a joke. The lawyers in the firm like to pull pranks. But then I saw something wrong with one of the paintings in the lobby…”

“Something wrong?”

“You know, it’s one of Charlie Baker’s paintings of food. The firm has several.”

“I’m familiar with his work. Like it, too. But it’s out of a detective salary’s reach. So what was wrong with it?”

“The bread dough I was carrying slopped onto the painting when I fell, which is why I noticed anything. The frame on the painting looked broken and there was a darker stain. I think it may have been blood.” My weak voice indicated a brain thicker than cold oatmeal. “Then when I tried to get up, I saw Dusty lying there. I went to her and realized she wasn’t moving or breathing.”

“So you thought…what?”

I looked him square in his puzzled dark eyes. “I didn’t think. I used to be married to a doctor, and I learned a lot. Not anything good about him, mind you. But I do know about medical procedure, so I did CPR.” I shook my head. “But nothing happened. She had a gash on her forehead, so that might explain the blood on the painting.”

“Was she warm when you started CPR?”

“Yes.”

“How long did you try to revive her?”

“I’m not sure. It seemed like a long time, maybe half an hour, but it might have been less. I couldn’t think about anything except trying to get a pulse…but the CPR wasn’t working. My cell phone was back in the van, and the office phone lines weren’t operating, so then I just left the lobby to try to find help.”

“So you did CPR and then you left. Please, please tell me what time you think it was.”

“I don’t know,” I said through clenched teeth. “I didn’t think to check my watch or a clock. I peeked both ways down the hall, then ran out back to my car, but—”

“Wait. Think back to that parking lot in front of the H&J office building. Before you went around back. Did you see anything there? I need to know precisely, especially if it was something suspicious.”

I frowned. “Well, no. That I can recall, anyway. You see, I went out the service entrance. It leads out back.”

“Did you see Ms. Routt’s car?”

“Not until I went around to the front. I saw her Honda Civic, parked alone in the lot.”

“Did you see anything else around the building? Other cars, trucks, anybody coming in or going out?”

“Not that I noticed.”

“What about when you were on your way up the stairs to the law firm, when you were coming in, or in the office itself? Anything unusual?”

“Not that I haven’t told you. Look, I’m really beginning to feel tired and stressed out. My husband said he’d be waiting for me—”

“Yeah, yeah, we know.” The dark eyebrows knit into a sympathetic expression. “Just a couple more things. Why did you agree to give Ms. Routt cooking lessons at the firm?”

I explained to him about how Dusty and I were friends and neighbors. “We talked a lot. It was fun for both of us. And in the firm’s kitchen, we could cook and visit without the interruption of phones and whatnot.”

“But you’re a thirtyish married woman and she was a twentyish single female. What was so much fun to talk