come up anyway. It seemed that when he’d been married to me, Dr. John Richard Korman’s endless list of sexual conquests had included Talitha Vikarios, daughter of Ted and Ginger Vikarios, who now lived in Aspen Meadow. Talitha had become pregnant by the Jerk, and, in a supreme act of putting others before self, had left home rather than risk destroying our family. When Talitha died in a freak car accident in Utah, her son Gus came to Aspen Meadow to live with his grandparents. With him, he brought a letter to me from his dead mother, telling the truth of Gus’s paternity and begging me to forgive her and to be compassionate toward her son. Which, of course, I’d been happy—more than happy—to be.
Arch, taken aback at first with the prospect of having a living, breathing half brother, had slowly come to welcome Gus. The two boys looked so similar, they could have been twins. Following the advice of a counselor, the Vikarioses had sent Gus to the Christian Brothers High School, where Arch was a sophomore. We had Gus to dinner at least once a week, and to sleep over as much as he wanted. At fourteen and a half, Gus, confident and outgoing in a way that Arch was not, had adjusted quickly to his new environment. He laughed and joked with Arch’s friends and worked hard at his school assignments. Despite the hippie atmosphere of the Moab commune where he’d grown up, Gus was fiercely competitive for grades. Gus also excelled at soccer, where he had quickly become a much-valued member of the CBHS junior varsity.
As far as my predator-bird mom eyes could tell, Arch was not jealous of ninth-grader Gus’s popularity at CBHS. Instead, my son was in awe. It even seemed that Gus truly cherished Arch. He regaled us with tales of life on the commune, and was always eager to invite Arch to his grandparents’ house to play games or watch movies. An unexpected by-product of all this affection was that Gus was being baptized at our parish, St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, this Sunday. “Because it’s important to Arch,” Gus had solemnly told me. But how could it be important to Arch, who had stopped going to church? Another question for the ages.
The only problem with all this as far as I could see was that the christening was being done by Bishop Sutherland. Yes, Father Pete was still recovering from his coronary, and yes, we’d all agreed that the bishop should do the honors. But hearing Julian’s stories had suddenly made me wary.
The biblical adage “Speak of the devil, and he doth appear” stunned me out of reverie. Tall, slender, white- haired Bishop Uriah Sutherland himself, wearing (yes!) a purple polo shirt that said “Bish! Bish! Bish!” along with stylish white shorts and expensive running shoes, was standing next to my van, panting. His coarse-featured face was flushed and matched the purple shirt. Had he been jogging? Hadn’t he moved here from Utah because he had heart trouble? Was running up Cottonwood Creek Road, which rose from eight thousand to nine thousand feet above sea level, really a good idea? I didn’t have time to contemplate these issues, because Bishop Sutherland was using his big bishop’s ring to rap on my window.
I pressed the button to lower the window and gave him what I hoped was a cheerful, inquisitive expression.
“Hi there!” he said, placing an icy hand on my forearm.
“Hi!”
“Could you move your van, please?” he said. “I can’t back out.” He continued to grip my arm. Did he need help? Was he having a heart attack?
“Uh, sure, I’ll move it. No problem. Sure. Sorry!” But I couldn’t drive the car if he didn’t let go of my left arm. I cleared my throat. “Uh, do you remember me? I’m…a relative of Gus Vikarios, whom you’re baptizing on Sunday.”
“Yes, yes, of course.” He let go of my arm to wipe his brow. Then he walked around to the driver side of the black BMW. As I put the van in reverse and eased out of the space and up into the lot, I wondered if he had on one of those medical-alert bracelets, and if he had a cell phone in his car, or what was probably actually his daughter’s car.
“Was he running?” Marla demanded as she slid into the van’s passenger seat. “Don’t you think that’s dangerous if you have a weak heart? And do you think St. Luke’s is paying him enough to buy all his fancy duds, or did Donald and Nora foot his bills?”
“Yes, running is not a good idea if you’ve had cardiovascular problems, and I don’t know who finances his lifestyle. Let’s just go get the boys.” I drove out of the lot and onto Upper Cottonwood Creek Drive. I had barely noticed the trees on the way up to the spa. But a breeze had picked up, and a sudden shower of golden leaves dappled the windshield. Marla and I squealed with delight as my windshield wipers smacked off the aspens’ detritus. We commented on how thick the clusters of lemon-slice leaves were this year, how they quivered and quaked above the trees’ thin white trunks. Why does the beauty of nature hurt after the loss of someone you care about? Dusty would never see these forests, would never feel the sweet-scented breeze of fall in Colorado again.
“Have you heard anything about Dusty?” Marla wanted to know.
“Not a word. Tom’s down at the department now, so he should find out something. But it looks as if Nora Ellis might go ahead with the party for Donald. She’s going to call me back after she talks to him.”
Marla shook her head. “I made some inquiries at the spa, after my facial and before my massage. Everyone wanted to know what had happened, so I told them. I also said you were looking into it, because Sally Routt was so broken up, she asked for your help.”
We rounded a curve where stands of blue spruce hugged the road. I tried to think of how to tell Marla that I really
“More than time to time, girlfriend. Anyway, some of the gals did give me wary looks, like they wanted to tell me something, or at least they wanted to know dark things about Dusty or the law firm. So I wrote my phone number on little pieces of paper, and handed them all around, and said if anyone had some hot gossip, I was the one who could relay it to you. Hope that’s okay.”
I exhaled. Was it okay? Sure it was, I reasoned. If a bit of useful information did come in from one of the society ladies, I could just pass it along to Tom, who would forward it to the department. The grateful investigators would be happy to follow up on any leads I provided, wouldn’t they?
Don’t answer that question.
We passed the Roundhouse, where workers were continuing to hop over the trenches they’d made for the pipe. I tried not to think how much they were charging by the hour.
When we were almost to the interstate, we slowed to enter the parking lot that abutted the garage for Aspen Meadow Imports. The Mercedes was ready. Marla paid and said she wanted us to go down to Denver in it, as it was more comfortable for her than my van. I assented, and left the van at the edge of the lot, which happened to face the office building housing Hanrahan & Jule. Inside the barrier of yellow ribbons, a team of investigators had broken up into small groups to talk among themselves or peer solemnly at the pavement of the parking lot. I shuddered.
“What do you suppose happened to Dusty?” Marla asked, her husky voice lowered a notch.
“She either surprised somebody or somebody was waiting for her. Anyway, she was attacked and fought back enough to break a picture frame.” I hesitated. “It looked to me as if she’d been strangled.”
“Good God.”
“I feel so sorry for Sally. Oh, and by the way, remember how she said she didn’t trust the police? Do you want to know why?” I mentioned the stories of Edgar dying in custody, of the drama teacher and Dusty supposedly having an affair, which the drama teacher had vociferously denied. “Do you remember this story about Ogden, the drama teacher?”
“Where were you, Mars?” Marla said.
“When the Jerk used to bother me, or when I get busy with catering, I don’t even glance at the papers.”
“Well. That was back when ‘blame the woman’ was the first thing everyone did.” Marla’s tone turned bitter. “He claimed Dusty was a slut, and that he’d had a vasectomy anyway, and people believed him. That man has a lot to answer for, but I doubt he ever will. Poor Dusty.”
Marla piloted the Mercedes down the mountain toward Denver. We didn’t talk, which was unusual for us. I tried just to focus on what I had to do next, which was to check out Charlie Baker’s artworks, to pick up Arch and Gus, and to bring them home. And then, hopefully, to visit with Wink Calhoun over dinner.
