Dark Tort

to think. Moments later, I was in bed. Oddly, I slept a profound, dreamless sleep until twenty after six. I dressed quickly, came downstairs, and found Tom lying, eyes half open, on the living-room couch.

“Is Arch up?” I asked as I sat down next to him.

“Not yet. Friend of mine brought back your van with your supplies. I unloaded everything.”

“You’re the best.” I stared at the fire.

“Did you get any sleep?”

“Couple of hours. Enough.”

I hesitated. “I should be doing something. For the Routts, I mean.”

Tom sat up and ran his large hands through his wavy brown hair. The doorbell startled both of us. Tom sighed, then got up to answer it.

“Who could that be?” I wondered aloud. “If it’s a reporter, get out your gun and use it.”

But it was not a reporter, and the commingled voices in our hallway indicated the new arrival was Julian, my assistant. Of course, Julian would have wanted to be here. So despite the wee hour, Tom had undoubtedly called Julian’s apartment in Boulder and asked him to make the drive to Aspen Meadow to be with us. As they exchanged murmured greetings, I wondered if it would be good for Julian to come with me when I finally did go over to check on Sally. Julian had been close to Dusty for a time. Oh God, I thought as I laid my head on the couch cushion. This was all too much.

Julian’s voice asked: “Goldy? Where are you?”

I heaved myself up on my elbow and turned around. Julian, compact and muscled, stood not quite six feet. His dark hair was tousled; his jeans, wrinkled oxford-cloth shirt, and secondhand leather jacket clearly had been donned in haste. His handsome face was splotched from crying. He shifted from one foot to the other, waiting for me to answer him. With his awkward stance and clenched fists, he looked more shook up than I’d seen him in a long time.

I mumbled, “Thanks for coming.”

“Dusty?” His voice was incredulous. “Who would want to hurt Dusty?” He moved into the living room and sat heavily on one of our chairs. He uttered an expletive and stared at the floor. The three of us were quiet for what seemed like a very long time.

At length, Julian asked, “Are you going over there?”

“Tom says we can’t while the cops are still inside the house. Then he’s going to call the department to see if we’re allowed to go over.”

“You found her?” When I nodded, he said, “Was it bad?”

“I tried to revive her.” I shook my head. “Yeah, it was bad.”

“Do they have any idea who…” But he let the question dangle.

“Not yet,” Tom said. “But we will.”

Silence filled the living room again. Julian stared at the fire. “When we go over, will we be able to take them some food?”

“Sure,” I said.

“I guess…I guess we’d both feel better if we hit the kitchen.”

He was right. I needed to clear my brain, and the way I did that was by cooking. At the moment, that was also the only thing I could do for Sally Routt.

“Okay,” Tom said, “I’m going to go check on Arch and wake him up in twenty. I’ll make sure he’s got his backpack and, uh, learner’s permit.”

“Tom,” I said, “don’t even think about—”

“Just kidding!”

“Have you got anything going today?” Julian asked as he walked slowly down the hallway toward the kitchen. Once there, he flipped on the espresso machine and began hunting through our cupboards for the sugar. Julian never took fewer than four teaspoons of the sweet stuff in his caffeine jolts. The memory of accidentally sipping a titanically sweet, Julian-fixed demitasse popped me out of my stupor. I didn’t want that to happen again. Opening my eyes wide, I clattered two cups under the machine’s spout.

“In the catering department, I haven’t got anything until tomorrow,” I told him. “That’s when I cater Donald Ellis’s thirty-fifth birthday party. I can’t imagine Nora will go forward with it, after what happened to Dusty.” I sighed. “Then on Sunday, Nora’s father is baptizing Gus. Nora’s father is a bishop named Sutherland.”

Julian sat in one of our kitchen chairs, his expression confused. “Sutherland? That name’s familiar.”

“You remember Father Pete had a mild coronary in July?” When Julian nodded, I went on: “Sutherland’s been taking over his liturgical and administrative duties, even some pastoral ones, since then. He was the bishop of the diocese of southern Utah until the end of last year, when he developed heart problems. He took early retirement and moved in with Nora and Donald. Your hometown’s in southern Utah, even though it’s in a different diocese. Think that might be why you recognize the name?”

“Yeah,” he said after a moment. “That’s it. He came around to do confirmations in Bluff one year, when the bishop of Navajoland was sick. Bishop Sutherland’s not a very good preacher.”

“Then let’s hope for a brief sermon on Sunday. Why don’t you see what you can find in the walk-in? Pick out ingredients that look good to you. We’ll pull together something nice for the Routts.”

Julian’s sneakers squeaked as he moved across our wooden floor to the walk-in. After what seemed like an age, he emerged loaded down with unsalted butter, several bags of vegetables, fruit, fresh herbs, and huge wrapped packages of Brie, Fontina, Gruyere, and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. Once Julian had arranged his load on the counter, I pressed the button on the espresso machine and watched the dark, syrupy liquid twine into our cups. Overhead, I could hear Tom walking around in that authoritative way he had. I felt strangely comforted. Julian sat down, ladled sugar into his cup, took a sip, then stared at the calendar on the computer screen. “You’re doing a party for Nora Ellis? I’ve encountered her, too. She wasn’t the easiest person I’ve ever had to work for. Typical very wealthy lady, wants the best-quality stuff, but only at a steep discount.”

I smiled at him. “So you don’t like Bishop Sutherland, and you don’t like his daughter, Nora Ellis. One is a bad preacher and one isn’t easy to work for, is that it?” I sipped my coffee. “Have to tell you, big J., Nora’s been perfectly nice to me.”

Julian set his coffee aside and slowly unwrapped the cheeses. “Okay, let me think. I did a dinner party over in Boulder, a charity thing? It was when I was working for Doc’s Bistro, and Doc really believed in this organization that Nora was involved with to help underprivileged kids. It was called Up and Coming. Anyway, Doc couldn’t do the dinner, so I filled in. Nora Ellis kept sending people into the kitchen to see how I was doing. I had the feeling she was having them check that I was using real cream, real butter, and Parmesan that didn’t come out of a tube with holes in the top.”

I finished my coffee, rinsed my cup, and began grating my own real Parmesan, unsure even what we were going to do with it. But still, I was focusing on Julian’s story, because it was getting my mind off the vision of Dusty lying on the H&J floor. I said, “It would drive me nuts if a client kept bugging me like that. What was her problem?”

“Oh, everything,” Julian said as he disappeared into the walk-in, then reappeared with a jar of homemade pesto. “You know how clients can be.”

Golden strands of cheese fell in front of the grater as I worked. “She was probably just freaking out over the event going well.”

“Charity events are the worst,” Julian said bitterly.

I suddenly felt queasy about working with Nora Ellis. Then again, maybe I was just feeling queasy, period. As I was rewrapping the cheese, Tom walked into the kitchen.

“Arch is getting ready,” he announced. “I told him about Dusty, so he wouldn’t be upset by the police cars. But I just said she was in an accident.” He moved toward the phone. “Anyway, I’m calling Marla. Asking her to come over, too.”

“You’ll wake her up,” I warned him.

“She’ll live.”

Julian slowly moved his cutting board piled with perfect slices of Brie to the far end of the marble counter. “You’re calling Marla?” he said, his voice quavering. “Could you ask her to bring a dozen more eggs?” Julian looked at me as if he was going to say something, then shook his head. I fixed us both second cups of espresso while Tom dialed Marla.