Dark Tort

Which was what I did. No sooner had he backed carefully out of our driveway than Julian pulled into it. The Rover engine growled as Julian made short work of the snow. On the way in, he put down his bags to pat Scout and Jake. Then he picked up his loads and stamped across the deck to the back door.

“Dammit to hell and back that folks from Florida feel they have to make a trek to the farthest grocery store available to get milk when it snows!” were his first words once he’d come into the kitchen.

“And good morning to you, too, Goldy,” I said.

“Yeah, yeah.” He placed the bags on the counter and gave me his patented furious look, although I knew him well enough by now to tell it was bogus. “From now on,” he announced, his dark hair quivering, “I’m going to start filling a really big thermos with espresso and sugar before I go anywhere. Either that, or have a battery-operated coffee machine put in that car, I swear.”

“Great idea. Have some caffeine, then let’s finish up the food for this lunch.”

Julian fixed himself a quadruple espresso, which he doused with his usual numerous heaping teaspoons of sugar. I tried not to look, like on those nature channels where you really don’t want to see the alligator eat the flamingo. But it was too late.

“As long as you were running ahead of schedule and I wasn’t going to be here on time, I stopped at Aspen Meadow Cafe to pick up some pastries and run them over to Meg Blatchford,” he said. When Julian smiled, his entire face lit. “The oldest Episcopalian in Aspen Meadow was out in the snow, no less, practicing pitching her softball into that bucket in her yard. But there was something else.”

“Something else?”

Julian chugged his espresso and set his cup in the sink. “There wasn’t anything physically wrong with her. You know her, she’s so healthy she should be the cover girl for the AARP magazine. What I mean is that she was agitated. She said she’d like to talk to you. Said it couldn’t wait until tomorrow’s christening.”

I looked ruefully at the stack of pages I’d printed out from Dusty’s computer. A snowstorm, Julian delayed, and now the ordinarily docile Meg Blatchford needing to see me ASAP. When was I going to get to read what Dusty had put in her computer? What if Sally called demanding to know what progress I’d made?

Julian, sensing my distress, washed his hands, then began retrieving the vegetables he’d brought and running them under cold water. Over the gush from the faucet, he said, “We could make it to Meg’s, you know. If we left here at nine instead of nine-thirty. I can finish the prep while you pack the van. No, wait. I had a look at your tires the other day, and you don’t want to take the van in this snow. Let’s take the Rover.”

“Your Rover’s not approved as a food-service vehicle.”

“Yeah? There isn’t going to be any food service if we get stuck in a ditch.”

“Look…Julian?”

“Oh, boy. Here it comes.”

“I have some stuff I’m desperate to start reading before we go. Any chance you could do all the prep and pack us up?”

“Absolutely.” He grinned widely. “I’ll go really fast.”

I fixed myself another espresso with cream and carried it into the dining room. One of these days, I told myself, I’ve got to start drinking decaf.

I figured I’d begin with the journal. Dusty didn’t say at the beginning, “In the event of my death, please destroy,” but I still felt as if I was invading someone’s privacy. I told myself I was doing this for Sally. I also prayed that I’d find something helpful to the sheriff’s department investigation.

At least she had dated the entries, which I began to skim. She’d been working for the law firm since just before the beginning of the year, which was when she’d started the second semester of her second year of paralegal night classes. Almost right away, Richard had given her all kinds of work to do, including helping the artist Charlie Baker, who’d just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, get his papers in order. But Dusty had enjoyed the work. She hated trying to find anything in Donald Ellis’s office, loved working out with Alonzo Claggett, but never thought she’d be as fit as his wife, Ookie. She also dodged Louise Upton at every opportunity.

The next few pages were devoted to talking about how she never had enough money to buy the things she wanted. She listed the things she wanted: To learn about the law, everything about it. And after that, she’d like a Porsche SUV, a place of her own, a trip to Mexico…On the sixth page, a despondent note crept in.

March 22: Charlie Baker died last night. Fell down his stairs, somebody said. It’s weird, especially after what I was called in to do the night before that. Oh, I’m so sad I can hardly write in here. How long had I been working with him, getting his stuff in order? Three months. At least he thanked me by giving me the you-know-what. Now when I look at it, I’ll always think of him. The cops asked me if Charlie was sad. You know, depressed. If you had pancreatic cancer, I asked them, wouldn’t YOU be depressed? They looked at me like I was nuts. I WISH I WAS ALLOWED TO TALK ABOUT THE OTHER THING.

The “you-know-what”? At least he thanked me by giving me…what? A bracelet? A painting? And what was the “other thing”? Was that what she’d been called in to do? Dusty was sure of what she was talking about. But it seemed to me she’d been worried someone else might be reading this. Because if someone did read it, which was, in fact, what I was doing, he or she would have to guess as to the nature of the “you-know-what” and “the other thing.”

I skimmed about ten pages, in which she talked at length about how much she disliked Miss Upton, whom she did indeed call “Miss Uptight.”

On March 27, she wrote, “Now that I know Miss Uptight is strapped for cash, I don’t have to be so scared of her anymore. It takes her power away. I wonder if she’ll know I know. Maybe I should act as if she still frightens me.”

She talked about the oil-and-gas work with Donald Ellis, which had to be “the most boring thing on earth. And here I thought studying the law and learning about it would be fun. Those great big long drawers stuffed with his maps are the most confusing things in that entire wreck of an office. Where is the map of the southern Wyoming gas deposits, he wants to know? Who has ANY IDEA? Not me.” She said she couldn’t find the missing papers and maps in Donald’s office unless she had a year and a staff of six, all professional organizers. Which she didn’t.

Richard she referred to as “King Richard,” “the Chief,” and “my screaming uncle.” She resented taking time from the “oil and gas mess” to tend to Charlie’s estate, which “just makes me feel sad.”

April 1: So now it’s my job to go over to Charlie’s and clean out the refrigerator, take the fish out of his aquarium, and dispose of his plants. It’s snowing outside! I can’t put two dozen houseplants that Charlie sprayed and watered and doted on into a trash bag and leave them to freeze out on the curb! Sometimes I think the Chief has no feelings. Correction: I know he has no feelings.

April 30: I go over there and I pick up the mail every day. I get the bank statements, the bills. Not the most entertaining work in the world. But at least I stop in to see Meg, and that’s fun.

In June, she began to mention wanting to learn to cook.

June 15: I am so bummed! I wanted to take cooking lessons at Aspen Meadow Cafe, but they say their kitchen is too small. I’m in love. But I’m afraid this is another Mr. O. Still, how am I going to make great meals for my new Mr.O. if I don’t know how to cook? Oh God, I’m so in love with him. I’ve never been in love like this before. One day I was normal, you know, just me. Then I was a new person. I’m just going to call him New O.

New Mr. O.? New O.? Who was that?

I quickly read the rest of the pages. There was talk of work, talk of seeing “New O.,” talk of being in love. Her last entry read: “Now I can compare them.”

Compare what?

“Julian,” I called. “Do you know all the guys Dusty was involved with?”

“I think so,” his voice echoed from the kitchen. “There was Dick—Dick Shenley, from Elk Park Prep, although I never thought they were that serious, even though they went together until Dusty got involved with Mr. Ogden. Then there was Mr. Ogden, of course, that drama teacher I told you about. You know, I think she loved Mr. Ogden. The mistake she made was that she thought Mr. Ogden would leave his wife, but he didn’t. And of course she made a huge mistake to let him get her pregnant.”

I stared at the sheet in front of me. “Anyone else with a last name beginning with O? Or a first name beginning with O, like, say…Otto?”

Julian stopped packing up our boxes for the party and came into the dining room. “Nope. There was only one