Dark Tort

things would go well. I had a long list of references, which I handed to her. She’d been very jovial, waving her hand and saying she was easy to please. I’d smiled. But now I was more wary, as I wanted to keep Julian’s experience in the back of my mind.

I didn’t have time to ponder this issue, but I did need to make the Journey Cake. If the party did not go forward, I could serve it at Gus’s christening the following day. I drained my espresso cup and put it into the sink. Unfortunately, the first time I’d done a dry run of Nora’s, or rather, Charlie Baker’s Journey Cake recipe, it had flopped. It had fallen, sunk, collapsed. If you wanted a historic angle, you’d have to think of San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake.

Once again, I edged over to the espresso maker. Too much caffeine, you drink too much caffeine, I heard my doctor saying. Tough tacks, I’d replied. And anyway, the machine felt like my anchor. “Or warm teddy bear,” Tom had joked.

Well, I needed a hug from my teddy bear, not only because of worry over how Arch and Julian were dealing with Dusty’s death, but also because I had something infinitely more banal to ponder: the plumbers and their work, or lack thereof, at the Roundhouse. I remembered an old joke we used to tell back in New Jersey. I’d always thought it came from The Tonight Show, but I wasn’t sure:

A doctor calls a plumber in the middle of the night because his toilet is running and keeping him awake. The plumber drives out and fixes the problem in about fifteen minutes. A week later, the doctor receives a bill for four hundred dollars. Enraged, he calls the plumber to complain. “I’m a doctor and I don’t even charge sixteen hundred bucks an hour!” And the plumber calmly replies, “I didn’t either when I was a doctor.”

I fixed myself a one-shot espresso, drank it down, and put in a call to Front Range Plumbing. As usual, I got their machine. I told them who I was and reminded them this Monday evening, that is, in three days, I had an event to cater at the Roundhouse. I needed the plumbing fixed. Please, I added, before hanging up.

Well, I consoled myself as I again rinsed a cup, if the guys laying the pipe were not done, we would have to hold the post-ribbon-cutting event for the new Mountain Pastoral Center in a small room at the Aspen Meadow Country Club. Luckily, a very foresighted Marla had booked it “just in case.”

“Hello, Goldy, are you in there?” Marla’s voice seemed to be coming from far away. “I’m dropping my Mercedes off for some work in a few minutes, and a repairman is driving me out to Creekside Spa. I’m supposed to be at the spa in half an hour. Do you want me to stay with you for a while longer, or not?”

“Yes, please stay.”

“Let me make us all some more coffee.” Tom was suddenly at my side. “Sit down, Goldy.”

“I don’t want any more caffeine, thanks.”

Tom lowered his voice. “Are you all right?”

I shrugged and didn’t mention the Journey Cake, the food for the christening and the ribbon-cutting receptions, the plumbing problems, or Dusty. Instead, I sat down at our kitchen table next to Julian, who looked disconsolate. Was he remembering a time he’d been with Dusty, to the movies, for a hike? Was he recalling what it was like to kiss her? I didn’t want to think about it.

Tom, all assurance, placed a pair of cups under the nozzles and pressed buttons. Rich ropes of espresso hissed out. Marla placed plump, bejeweled hands on Julian’s and my arms.

“You two should take some time off,” she advised.

I snorted; Julian looked out the window. Tom placed the cups in front of Marla and Julian, then raised an eyebrow in my direction.

“Miss G., Julian, Marla’s right.” He unhooked his cell phone from his belt. “Let me call Victim Assistance.”

I squealed, “Forget it!” with such ferocity that Tom put down his phone and patted my shoulder.

“Okay, Miss G.,” he murmured. “Whatever you want.”

“Goldy. Julian.” Marla’s voice was full of alarm. “Don’t cook today, please. Don’t even stay at home. Come with me to the spa. We can leave now and I’ll call them on the cell, book the two of you with the same package I’m getting. They take guys, Julian, no worries. You could each get a ninety-minute massage, oil and water treatment, full-body wrap—”

I cleared my throat. Did neither Tom nor Marla understand that they just weren’t helping? Julian gave me a knowing glance. Finally he stood up and clicked buttons on my kitchen computer. I squinted. He’d brought up my catering schedule and was pushing more buttons. My printer spat out recipes.

Oh yes, Julian, also in the food business, knew that cooking healed. The two of us could try the Journey Cake again. Creaming butter and sugar, sifting flour, and mixing, mixing, mixing: all these would help. Listening to Tom and Marla, on the other hand, was driving me nuts.

“All right, all right, I give up. My body will be done at half past two,” Marla said, her voice suddenly plaintive. “But my car won’t be done until five. I hate to bring this up, Goldy, but you promised to pick me up at the spa. Want me to get the repairman to come get me?”

“No, no, I’ll do it. It’ll help me get my mind off the fact that I promised Sally Routt I’d look into her daughter’s death.”

I was escorting her to the front door, but she stopped in the hallway so she could point a crimson-painted nail at my face. “You’re nuts. You also look like hell. Don’t go anywhere without me. I mean, after you pick me up.”

I smiled. “So does that mean you’re willing to come down to Christian Brothers High School with me to pick up Arch?”

An unexpected cloud passed over Marla’s features. She mumbled, “You’re not taking him for another driving lesson, are you?”

“C’mon, girlfriend. I am, after all, a very good teacher.”

“That’s what I’m worried about,” she said. “That and the fact that Arch asked if he could try out my Mercedes.”

“Oh yes? Let’s see, your new car’s at least five months old. I mean, it already needs work. If you let Arch drive it sometime, well, who knows—”

The bejeweled fingers flashed in front of my eyes. “I know you’re kidding, so don’t even finish that thought.” With a mumbled farewell, she flounced out.

When I came back into the kitchen, Tom was arranging slices of goat cheese and cooked beets on salads of mixed field greens. Julian was concentrating on measuring out ingredients for a vinaigrette.

“C’mere, Miss G.” Tom motioned me forward, and I walked into his arms. “I’m in this crime-fighting business. I know you never get used to…what you saw last night.”

“Yeah. You’re right.” My voice next to his shoulder was muffled. I shuddered, and he pulled me in tighter. “She was just so…so—”

“I know. Young. Unfinished. Hopeful.”

“Right.” I pulled away from Tom. “I need to make a call.”

“Goldy,” Tom said, “take it easy for a while, will you?”

“Just one call,” I replied, thinking of Sally’s plea that I help her find out what had happened to her daughter. I snagged the phone and my purse and slipped into the living room. There, I took out my little handheld and looked up the home number of Wink Calhoun, receptionist at H&J. I tapped in the numbers, without knowing what I was going to say. Wink was, had been, Dusty’s closest friend at the firm. But Wink and I were also chums of a kind, since she had adopted Latte, a basset hound we had inherited from a friend.

Wink answered on the first ring. I could hear Latte howling in the background. “Hello?” As usual, Wink’s Southern drawl was more pronounced when she was upset. “Goldy? I have caller ID,” she explained, her voice cracking. “What happened to Dusty? The police have been here, and Richard is on his way over…Latte! Stop howling, please!”

The dog ignored her.

“Oh, Wink,” I said, “I’m so sorry. I know how close you and Dusty were—”

“I’m in hail.” Hell. Yeah; me, too. Her voice turned pleading. “Why would someone do this?”

“I don’t know. Do you want to come over to our place? I have to go out for a while, but my husband, Tom,