Dark Tort

minutes. Vic’s frustration and fear radiated like a negatively charged aura.

In the time since I’d raced across the street, the darkness had deepened and the cold intensified. On the far side of the street, the parking lot still held Dusty’s forlorn Civic. Vic began to cough in a vain attempt to disguise the fact that he was crying. When I told him again to stay put, he moved away from me.

Across the street, a long black car moved into the parking lot. Then another dark vehicle, this one coming from the I-70 side, pulled into the lot. Not even a moment later, a third car followed them. Oh, Lord, I thought as I recognized all three cars. Maybe the woman with the cell, or perhaps someone else outside the grocery store, had seen me bolting from the building occupied by Hanrahan & Jule. I had to have looked suspicious, frantic and coatless, as I leaped across the street, ran up the shopping-center sidewalk, and banged on the copy-place door. When I’d broken the glass and shouted for a phone, then called for an ambulance and the sheriff’s department, anyone within fifty yards would have heard me.

I stopped at the bottom of the hill and glanced back at the crowd of folks outside the grocery store. They were moving en masse, making their way down to where Vic and I were standing. Welcome to living in a small town. Someone had thought, What’s up at this time of night, with the caterer running away from the office building occupied by H&J? That same someone had put two and two together and made a call. And now, across the street in the H&J lot, we were faced with the result.

The lawyers are coming! The lawyers are coming!

Great.

CHAPTER 2

As I slipped down the embankment on my way to the road, I tried to think. I could not, could not allow anyone to go into the firm without telling them what they’d find. Shivering, I rushed across the street.

“Wait!” I called to the figures emerging from the pair of precisely parked black BMWs. Heeding me, two tall people stood outside their respective car doors, their arms crossed. As they gazed in my direction, they neither talked nor acknowledged each other’s presence. My breath wheezed in the cold, thick fog. Still, I recognized the commanding presence of lean, silver-haired Richard Chenault, the well-built, late-fifties partner who was Dusty’s uncle—the attorney we had dubbed King Richard. This week, King Richard was the only one of the three partners not doing continuing education on Maui.

Standing nearby was his soon-to-be-divorced doctor wife, the statuesque K. D. Chenault, formerly K. D. van Ruisdael. K.D., whom I liked and admired immensely, was an emergency-room doc who had known the Jerk—and hated him. During my divorce, she’d been one of my few supporters. K.D.’s black coat hung open; underneath it, she was wearing a surgical suit. Her long, light chestnut hair, held back in an ineffective ponytail, was slightly disheveled. I wondered if she had just arrived at the big Flicker Ridge house she and Richard still shared—while they fought over property—when the call from who knows whom had summoned Richard. As tired as I was sure K.D. was bound to be, if she was indeed coming after a shift, I could still imagine her insisting on driving out this late. Yes, the weather was inhospitably cold. But she would have wanted to see if she was needed.

“K.D.,” I gasped as I rummaged in my pants pockets for my set of office keys. “Dusty’s upstairs. It looks as if…as if her heart’s stopped. Maybe you could try to help her?”

In one swift movement, K.D. nodded, nabbed the keys, and turned to race up the steps to the firm.

“Dusty?” Richard Chenault asked me, his voice incredulous. “Our Dusty? What happened? Was there a break-in?”

“I don’t know.” I faltered.

A pair of H&J attorneys approached us from the other car. Donald Ellis, an associate at the firm who was in his midthirties, was short and very thin, with a pale face that bore the ghost of teen freckles. His shock of rust-colored hair glowed in the shrouded streetlight. Donald was a quiet fellow who holed up for hours in his office, which was more messy than Arch’s room had ever been at any stage of his childhood. While five of the seven associates had opted to join the partners in Hawaii, Donald had said he desperately needed to catch up on his paperwork. Which begged the question: How was he going to find his paperwork?

The other lawyer was the final associate who’d stayed home from Maui: Alonzo Claggett, or “Claggs,” as the other attorneys called him. I’d learned that fifteen years ago, he and his wife had moved from Baltimore to Vail, where they’d decided to slum it for a couple of years until their wedding-gift money ran out. When it had, Alonzo had continued to be a ski bum while his athletic wife, Elizabeth, whom everyone had always called by her nickname, Ookie, taught squash during the day and worked as a waitress at night. When Ookie’s parents had heard their country-club-raised daughter was spending her evenings waiting on tables, they had flown out to Colorado and created a family storm that rivaled any hurricane ever to hit the Chesapeake Bay. So much for slumming.

Claggs, humbled, had finally figured the only way to feed his skiing habit was to do a law degree at the University of Colorado and live and work within an hour’s driving time from the resorts. Ookie had gleefully begun work as a squash instructor only, and the two of them had embarked on their happily- ever-after life. Or so it always seemed to me.

Alonzo had dark curly hair and blue eyes, the startling product of mixing an Italian mother with a WASP father. He was slightly taller than yours truly, and as slim and fit as a short basketball player or tall gymnast. He frequently came into the law firm with Dusty, since he worked out at the new Aspen Meadow rec center, called the Butterfield, where Dusty rode the exercise bike. I’d always thought it made Dusty feel appreciated, one of the gang, to come into the office at Alonzo’s side, although Louise Upton, the ultrasevere office manager, clearly disapproved. One didn’t mix the lower and higher totems on the pole, after all.

And of course, I realized belatedly, with only three lawyers working in the firm this week, I probably shouldn’t have expected a bevy of joke-playing attorneys to come jumping out of nowhere to yell, “Surprise!” when I tripped over Dusty.

The final car that had pulled into the lot made me shudder, but not from the cold. It was Louise Upton, in the dark green Lexus she’d bought used at a great price, as she always told anyone who would listen. She banged out of her car and began to stride toward Richard. She was wearing a long gray coat that emphasized her broad shoulders and broad backside. Her step was military stiff, but as she marched, her steel-wool pad of hair did not budge.

I recalled the time I’d pointed out two errors of grammar in my contract, a contract that had been drawn up by one of the partners, to Louise, or Miss Upton, as I’d been told I should call her. She was a sixtyish, formidable guard dog of a woman, and she had told me if I wanted to be the firm’s caterer, I needed to learn my place. She’d actually said that: I needed to learn my place.

When I’d quietly asked her what my place was, she’d told me she didn’t think I was cute. Not one bit. And if I wanted to act cute, and make grammatical corrections to my contract, I could tear up said contract, and they would simply find somebody else to cater their meetings.

While I’d frowned and pretended to contemplate a saddle nailed to the wall in the cowboy-themed conference room, I’d tried to think of a cute joke, or at least how I could make a cute-acting exit. But we’d been spared a confrontation by the sudden appearance of Donald Ellis. When Donald had summoned Louise and told her she was needed in a partner’s office, I’d quickly penned in the needed corrections, initialed them, and signed on the dotted line. Acting distracted, Donald had taken over the negotiation and said how much they appreciated the fact that such a well-known local caterer would be working for them. In fact, he was going to recommend that his wife, Nora, hire me for their next party. Then he’d told me to go make him some coffee, and bring it to him. When Louise Upton had reappeared, Donald, the contract, and yours truly had all disappeared. The office manager was not a happy camper.

So. Ever since then, I had not been Louise Upton’s favorite person. I’d figured I could do without her friendship, but the upcoming confrontation was bound to be particularly terrible. Lucky for me, the chilly nighttime fog prevented me from reading her facial expression, which was sure to be negative.

“Goldy!” Louise exclaimed. “I would like to know—”

“Louise!” Richard Chenault barked. “Please be quiet!” He turned to me. “Goldy, I’m worried about you.” His suddenly caring tone penetrated the soup of frigid mist. “Are you all right? Do you have any idea what happened to Dusty?” Richard’s silver hair was swept up and back in a way most folks, present company included, found intimidating. But his tanned, handsome-featured face was quite young-looking. It was a disconcerting combination,