why buy a house that needed to be gutted and redone? Why not just buy a new place in Flicker Ridge, plus a house in, I don’t know, Belize or someplace, for the snowy months?
Finally I said, “Sounds to me as if my godfather just wanted to stop Lucas from asking for money. I think he was also pulling his son’s leg.”
“I voiced those very sentiments to Paula. She shrugged. She’d told Lucas the same thing, but he was disconsolate. First, he was pissed that Jack would even have twenty mil that he hadn’t shared with his own young whippersnapper—”
“He sent him to physician’s assistant school,” I inserted.
“And second, that he would even think about leaving it to, as Lucas put it, some stupid med school.”
“Oh, dear. Sounds as if Lucas is still bitter that he didn’t go to med school.”
“But wait,” Marla said after slurping some coffee. “It seems young Lucas’s main beef was not with his father, but with Doc Finn. According to Paula, after she and Lucas had their roll in the hay a couple of weeks ago, it was all Lucas talked about—how much he hated Doc Finn.”
No. I just wouldn’t admit to the sickening possibility that was turning my gut.
“So I was thinking I should tell you,” Marla concluded.
I sighed and looked out the window over the sink.
There had been the nighttime call from Southwest Hospital that had summoned Doc Finn. But before he’d gotten there, his car had landed in a ravine. Perhaps he’d been hit from behind?
Then somebody had traipsed down into that ravine, and killed the old doctor.
I said, “I’d better call Tom.”
11
Tom still wasn’t answering his cell phone, but a helpful person at the sheriff’s department informed me he’d just left to run some errands. After that, he’d said, he was going to come home for a few hours.
I looked at the clock. It was just after two. If Tom was only coming home for a little bit, that meant he and his team were going to be working late, very late, and he wanted to give me the bad news in person. Or maybe it was something else; I didn’t know. Still. Usually when there was a fresh homicide, Tom worked the case almost continually for at least forty-eight hours.
“You haven’t heard the rest of my news,” Marla said, pouting.
“Ah yes, this is something juicy about the wedding I’m doing tomorrow?”
“Juice is my middle name, girl. Given the food connotation, maybe it should be yours, I don’t know. But it’s mine. Your middle name can be Coffee.”
I gave her an exasperated look and began to chop the celery for the sauce gribiche. Then I drained the capers. A pungent, fresh scent filled the kitchen.
“All right, getting to this wedding you’re catering tomorrow. Ever heard of an old-fashioned dowry?”
“Of course I have, silly.” I paused. “Don’t tell me Billie Attenborough has a big old dowry.”
Marla waved a dismissive hand. “Not exactly, honey bunch. But you’re close. Anyway, they don’t call it a dowry these days. They call it making a marriage contract that involves a lot of money.”
“What in the world are you talking about?” I had to be careful that I didn’t slice my hand open with the knife. But Marla’s revelations were messing with my head. The information she had gleaned sounded distinctly fishy, and made me think the sheriff’s department should attend more church fund-raisers. I put the knife down and faced her. “Is there a prenuptial agreement between Billie Attenborough and Craig Miller that involves lots of dough?”
“Ah, my dear, not between Craig and Billie. Between Craig and
“What are you talking about?” I demanded. “And who was your source of information this time?”
“Same drunken one as before. I told you Paula Carmichael, Lucas’s ex, did those kinds of contracts, right? After the whole story about the alimony that isn’t going to end because Jack won’t give Lucas money, Paula said I couldn’t imagine how boring her work was. I murmured sympathies and poured her some more vodka. This time, she waved away the vermouth and olives and asked if I had a bigger glass. So I gave her a big tumbler, with a few ice cubes thrown in.”
Thank God for the car service, I thought. I would hate to think what could have happened if Paula Carmichael had downed that much liquor and then gotten behind the wheel. Reflecting on Arch driving while drunk drivers were wreaking havoc on the roadways was almost more than I could bear.
“Are you telling me that Paula Carmichael got so smashed she just happened to spill the details of a prenuptial agreement?” I picked up my knife and moved on to the smooth, pale cloves of garlic, which I began to crush.
“It wasn’t that easy,” Marla huffed. “I had to dig for it, darling. Lucky for me, it was after Charlotte Attenborough had left.”
“Lucky for you?”
“Wait for it. What happened was that I said to Paula, ‘Always boring? What about prenuptial agreements between really, really rich people? Can’t they be pretty exciting?’ She said, ‘No, they’re depressing, because they always remind me of what I should have done before marrying Lucas.’ Then she got all pensive, as if she was thinking hard about whether to tell me something, but she was so comprehensively inebriated, I could have gotten anything out of her, I think. She was slumping precariously on my sofa, and I had to prop her up with one hand. Finally she said, ‘I did do a contract, not prenuptial. It wasn’t like anything I’d done before. But it did involve a marriage, or it will when the wedding takes place.’”
“She made sense like that?”
“Not really, I’m interpreting. But after a while, Paula said, ‘Okay, picture this: a woman has a loudmouthed brat for a daughter, and that daughter has just turned thirty-six, with no marital prospects in sight. I mean, who would want to marry a monster?’”
“Try catering for her.”
“Then Paula says, ‘So this mother goes to her doctor for bunions. The doctor is a cute young thing, age twenty-eight. And he complains to Charlotte about his medical school loans, and how he’s never going to get out from under the debt load, never be able to afford a house, never be able to raise a family, et cetera, et cetera.’”
“You know,” I said, folding the ingredients into the sauce base, “it just breaks my heart how doctors can’t make ends meet in this country.”
“Cry me a river,” Marla agreed. “Lawyers can’t make any money either, according to Paula, but that’s only when they’re stupid enough to have to pay spousal support ad infinitum.”
“So,” I said, trying to hurry Marla along, “Charlotte’s left your party, so Paula can spill this dirt, although she doesn’t say the person she’s talking about is Charlotte. But anyway, there’s Charlotte with her doctor—did Paula ever tell you it was Charlotte when she told you this story?”
Marla raised her eyebrow. “Give me a little credit, Goldy. I figured that part out. See, hanging out with you and Tom has really sharpened my deductive skills—”
I gave her an absolutely sour look, and pulled out my long knife, plus the cutting board.
“You don’t need to threaten me with sharp instruments,” Marla said in mock horror. “Anyway, back to this doctor. Charlotte, hereinafter known as the client—”
“Marla!”
“Okay, okay. Charlotte described the doctor to Paula as very attractive, just without money. And there Charlotte is, with lots of money and an unattractive, unwed daughter. This daughter has no job, a fluffy education at a second-rate school, where she got Cs, and no skills apart from spending money. Up until that moment, Charlotte must have been thinking she was never going to be able to catapult Billie out of the family homestead. So after Craig moaned and groaned about his financial situation, Charlotte said, ‘I have a lovely daughter I’d like you to meet. I mean, you’ve been such a great doctor to me, taking you out to dinner would make this old lady so happy.’”
I stopped slicing. “Charlotte called herself an old lady?”
Marla nodded, grinning broadly. “I guess she wanted Craig to feel sorry for her. You know, with her bunions and all.”
