I smiled in spite of myself. “Vaguely eggy, huh?”
“Only very tangentially eggy, but very cheesy. Why don’t you come down to the kitchen? ’Cuz I have no idea how long this thing should cook.”
I shook my head, but heaved myself up off the bed anyway. A moment later, I was gazing at Marla’s concoction in the oven, asking her how many eggs, exactly, she’d put into her creation, and how much cheese, and so on. She said she couldn’t remember. Well, at least a dozen eggs, she said as an afterthought.
“Marvelous,” I said, and set the timer for forty-five minutes. Since I didn’t want to be as rude to Marla as I was afraid I’d already been to Father Pete, I immediately apologized. I added, “I’m sure it’ll be great.”
“I’m not even sure it’ll be edible.” Marla paused, then sniffed. “Tom called while you were in the shower. He’s on his way.” She regarded me closely. “Tell me how you’re feeling.”
“I’m feeling like crap is how I’m feeling. I just think I should have been able to prevent this.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Goldy. Your godfather had already had two heart attacks, and he was a heavy smoker and drinker. At the wedding, he was violently mugged and lost consciousness, or at least that’s what Julian told me.” When I didn’t contradict her, she said, “Then one of our church pals from Med Wives 101 called me late last night. She was down at Southwest because her son tore his ACL playing soccer, and they were there until all hours. Anyway, while they were waiting to be seen, she’d been wandering the halls, and stopped in when she saw Jack’s name on a door. She said how awful Jack looked, because he’d stopped breathing and had to have a trake in the ambulance.” Marla took a sip of her own Irish coffee. “That’s a whole lot of stress for an older man to deal with, and you’re wondering how all that could have precipitated another heart attack? Come on.” Marla’s eyebrows rose, inverted commas surprised by my naivete. “Jeez, Goldy, better to ask why wouldn’t he have had a heart attack?” She rose to make us each another coffee—this time with no whiskey, but with added whipping cream.
“I should have stayed with him,” I said stubbornly. “If his heart attack was inevitable, then I should have called his cardiologist and told him he had to come down to Southwest Hospital.”
“You’re going to tell a doctor what to do? Last time I looked, that didn’t work out for either one of us, even when we were married to the doctor in question.”
“I should have done something for Jack. There must have been something I could have done.”
“There was nothing you could have done. Sunday was yesterday, so would you please quit with the messiah routine? It’s aggravating.”
Marla was the only one in the world who could talk to me like this and get away with it, and actually, I treasured her for it. Father Pete had done the right thing to call her, and for that, too, I was thankful.
“Hey!” I noticed for the first time that the whole kitchen floor was immaculate. “Thanks for cleaning the floor. I’m surprised you could find the mop—”
“Every now and then,” Marla rejoined as she got up to set the table, “even a blind chipmunk runs into an acorn. Or a mop, as the case may be.”
“You should let me set the table,” I began, but shut up when Marla gave me a withering glance. I sighed, and suddenly felt tears sting my eyes again. When a sob left my lips, Marla turned suddenly.
“Okay, okay! You can set the table!”
I half-laughed, half-sobbed as Marla pulled me to my feet and hugged me. I allowed myself to cry. Into this scenario walked Tom. I hadn’t even heard him drive up.
“Miss G.,” he said as Marla passed me off to my husband. “I’m so sorry about Jack. I really, really am.”
“I know. Thanks for coming up.”
“I’m going to have to go back down in a bit.” He gave me a hooded look that said,
“Why don’t you just use your cell to call Goldy from the living room?” Marla queried. She turned to the oven and brought out her puffy, golden pan of whatever-it-was. “Then you could tell her what it is that’s such a big secret.”
“I’ve gotten used to you, Marla,” Tom said jovially.
“Oh, hell,” said Marla, as she plunged a spoon into the pan and pulled up a serving of her concoction, only to have a puddle of uncooked egg pool out like batter from the center of the dish. “What did I do wrong?”
“Not let it cook long enough?” asked Tom. “Want me to fix us some ham and eggs?”
And so, twenty minutes later, we had Marla’s egg dish in front of us, as well as an enormous ham-and-egg omelet, courtesy of Tom. Unfortunately, I took one bite of Marla’s concoction, and simply could not swallow it. Not that it wasn’t good; it was. I not only wasn’t hungry, I suddenly thought I was going to puke. When I put my fork down, Marla gave me a worried look.
“That bad, huh?”
“No, Marla, I’m just not that hungry. Thanks anyway.”
A worried glance passed between Tom and Marla. I never lost my appetite.
Marla’s cell buzzed. It was Father Pete, wanting to know how I was doing. Marla said I was okay, considering. Then Marla said, “Well, I’m sure she didn’t mean to hide them. I mean, I’m sure they’re not hidden, they’re just…not where you can find them. There’s a difference.” I could hear Father Pete’s despairing voice on the other end of the line. Then Marla said, “All right, all right, let me come help you.”
When she disconnected, she said, “Are you going to be all right, Goldy, now that Tom’s here? Because Father Pete says there are letters from the diocesan office he can’t find in the church files, and was wondering if I could go help him try to figure out how the new secretary’s mind works. Since I recommended that he hire this woman, it’s all my fault, apparently, that the diocesan letters were placed in some random file drawer instead of on Father Pete’s desk. I even warned him she had ADD, but he just said he didn’t think that would mean needing CIA assistance to find some random letters from the diocesan office.”
“It’s fine, go,” I said. “Thanks for coming.”
“Oh,” she continued, “and Father Pete told me to tell you you should take a few days off from catering, maybe get Julian to fill in, so you can grieve.”
“Wonderful,” I said, unable to conceal my sarcasm. “That just sounds super, grieving all day. And anyway, I don’t need to take off from work, because I don’t have any catered events until next weekend. And I’ve got plenty of money from all the work I’ve been doing lately, so I don’t have to go out and drum up business.”
“Do you want some work?” asked Marla as she gathered up her purse. “If we don’t find those diocesan letters, I’ll bet the position of St. Luke’s church secretary will be opening up mighty quick.”
I said, “Gee thanks!” We hugged again and she rushed away.
Tom said, “I know how much Jack meant to you, Miss G.” He regarded me with his wonderful sea green eyes, then pulled me in for a hug. “Tell me what I can do to help,” he murmured in my ear.
I exhaled. “I don’t know. Truly, Tom, I don’t. One thing I do know, though, I don’t want to sit around and
“People grieve in different ways, Miss G. Some people need to sit around and cry. Other people need to be doing something, something they find meaningful, that will help them deal with a death. I fall in that second category. As do most homicide investigators, I might add.”
I canted my head at him. “What did you just call me?”
Tom, genuinely surprised, tucked in his chin. “Miss G. The way I always do. Why?”
“Because Jack always called me Gertie Girl. He never called me anything but.”
“And this is significant because…?”
Where was that piece of paper Jack had scribbled on in the hospital? “Hold on a sec.”
I raced upstairs and found Jack’s note, and his keys, as well as—oops—his Rolex, which I’d meant to give Tom first thing, except the news of Jack’s death had intervened. I wanted to give Tom the watch and show him the note, but I certainly didn’t want to hand over Jack’s keys until I knew exactly why he had wanted me to have them in the first place.
With only a small pang of guilt, I stuffed Jack’s keys into my pajama drawer, then brought the note, plus the watch, still wrapped inside my apron, down to the kitchen.
“‘Gold. Keys. Fin,’” Tom read, after he’d shaken his head, given me a dubious look, and put the Rolex into a brown paper evidence bag. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, I don’t know, but he sure was eager to be writing something for my eyes only,” I said. “Lucas called and told me about the trake Jack had had in the ambo, and how he seemed to be wanting to talk to me, because
