nervous wreck. But in the end, as I knew she would, Marla promised to call Victor Lane to see if she could book into Gold Gulch for the upcoming week.
Back in the house, I splashed cold water on my face and looked hard at myself in the mirror. If I wanted to find out what had happened to Finn and Jack, then Marla wasn’t the only one who needed a spa visit. I really would have to go out to Gold Gulch. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust the police, and Tom especially. I did trust them. But what if Victor hid evidence, clammed up, or hired a lawyer? If Marla talked to the guests, and I talked to the staff— especially Isabelle—then I’d have a better chance of finding out the truth.
I paced around the kitchen. Victor Lane didn’t like me, blast him. So how was I going to get out there?
I came back again to the idea of Yolanda. When we’d both worked at a restaurant down in Denver, we’d become good friends. She’d help me out with this, of that I was sure. I put in a call to her house and left a message on her voice mail.
Suddenly, before Yolanda had even agreed to let me help her, I had the same worry that Marla did about good food becoming scarce. Tom loved my Chilled Curried Chicken Salad. So I preheated the oven, washed my hands, and sprinkled olive oil, salt, and pepper on chicken breasts. If I was going to be going out to Gold Gulch, I reasoned, then Tom would need to have food ready for him, right?
Tom. What would he say to my plan, besides that it was cockamamie? Figuring a good offense was the best defense, I called Tom and left a message: I was going out to Gold Gulch Spa to repay Yolanda for all the help she’d given me at the wedding. Could Tom spare Sergeant Boyd to come with me?
I speared the chicken breasts with a meat thermometer, put them in the oven, and began hunting for the other ingredients. When the phone rang, I was just finishing draining juice from the mandarin oranges and pineapple tidbits. I figured the ringing phone was Yolanda calling me back, and I picked it up quickly and delivered my singsongy business greeting.
“Goldy, are you out of your mind?” Tom spluttered.
“Oops. Guess I shouldn’t have answered the phone.”
“Oops? You don’t need to help Yolanda. What? You want to go out and mess up another crime scene—”
“Wait a minute,” I protested, as I measured out mayonnaise. “What was the first crime scene I messed up?”
“You know I’m talking about breaking into Jack’s house,” Tom said, with an attempt at patience. “And now we’ve had—”
“Hold on,” I interrupted as I nabbed chutney from the walk-in. “I didn’t break into Jack’s house, and it isn’t a crime scene—”
“Wait, now, Miss G. Within hours of Jack dying, you used a dubious legal basis to employ Jack’s own keys to enter his house, without knocking or ringing, according to Lucas.”
“Lucas needs to make fewer accusations, and hit fewer people on the side of the head,” I replied, indignant. “Listen, Tom,” I said, as I worked on my own patience, “I’m sorry if I upset you, as well as Lucas, but I was just trying to figure out why Jack—”
“Where’s Marla?” Tom demanded.
“I sent her home to nap.”
“Nap? Why does she need to nap?”
“She had too much to drink over here, what with the Irish coffee this morning, and scotch and soda this afternoon. Plus, she’s going to try to come out to the spa this week, too. For that, she needed to rest up.”
Tom said, “Jesus.” Then he paused, thinking. “If Boyd can’t go out there with you, you’re not going.”
“All right.” The call-waiting beeped, and I glanced at the phone’s readout, which is what I should have done before picking up to hear Tom being angry. “Yolanda’s ready to talk to me. I’ve gotta go.”
After Tom warned me again not to go into potentially dangerous situations, he signed off. Sighing, I clicked over to Yolanda.
“Are you out of your mind, Goldy?” Yolanda asked me.
“Don’t start. Tom’s already bawled me out.”
“How long has it been since you worked in a restaurant?”
“Come on, Yolanda. Let me help. Oh, and Tom says I have to have Boyd with me if I’m going to be working out there.”
“There’s not enough room in that kitchen for you, me, my two assistants, and a cop,” Yolanda said flatly, “even if the cop is kind of cute. There’s hardly enough room as it is. Plus, Victor’s such a jerk, he’d never let you work in there for no good reason.”
“You can tell him I’m repaying you for helping with the wedding.”
“He’ll never buy it.”
I pondered the salad dressing I was making, as well as the situation with Yolanda. She was right about the Victor piece of this.
“How about this,” I proposed. “You call Victor and tell him you have appendicitis. Or something. And it’s an ailment so sudden and dreadful that you have to go into the hospital. You tell him you’ve asked me to take over, since we used to work together in a restaurant, and I know what I’m doing. Then I take your place for two or three days, and Boyd helps me. We manage in the small space, you come back after those days off, and I pay you your entire salary for a week.”
“Why do you want to get in there so badly?” Yolanda demanded. “I hate Victor, but I really need this job. If you make trouble for him, he might fire me.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” I said, although in the far reaches of my brain, the ones that oversaw vengeance for not hiring me, I saw making trouble for Victor as a plus. Still, though, Victor was Yolanda’s boss, and I really didn’t want to create problems for my old friend.
“Uh, Goldy? You didn’t answer my question. What do you think you’re going to find out at the spa?”
I set the blender on High and walked into the other room. Should I explain to Yolanda about the note from Jack? Well, if I was trusting her to lie for me, then perhaps I should. So I told her about Jack dying after being attacked at the spa. “Did you see anyone skulking around outside? Did anyone come through the kitchen to use your exit?”
“I’ve already talked to the cops about this. We were working hard, you know that. Did you notice anyone going in or out?”
“No. I wish I had.”
“And if anyone came in or out, I certainly don’t know when they were around. The one thing I remember? Jack crept through, made some kind of joke, and said he was going out for a smoke. Then he slipped through the door we use for putting out our dirty aprons and towels. He, uh, you know, didn’t come back in.”
I took a deep breath and told Yolanda about the note Jack had written for me in the hospital.
“Huh? He wrote ‘Gold’ on a piece of paper,” said Yolanda, incredulous, “and you think he was referring to the spa, and not you?”
“He didn’t call me Goldy. He called me Gertie Girl.”
Yolanda paused. “Did he write anything else on the paper?”
“Yes. He wrote ‘Keys’ and ‘Fin,’ which was the name of his best friend. Although he didn’t spell Finn’s name correctly. Look, Yolanda, does Victor ever have you make up smoothies in the Smoothie Cabin?”
“No, Victor does all that. He makes up batches of them, and then has some of the staff pour them for the guests, usually. It’s not as if it’s a secret recipe, he tells me, but he still won’t let me do it. It’s less work for me, anyway.”
“Do you think he would let me do it?”
“I’m sure he would
“I doubt it, but she might, even though Victor told her he was going to fire her if she let anybody else in there.”
“Okay, I’ll talk to her when I get out there.”
“She can’t fake appendicitis, too.”
“Don’t worry, Yolanda. And thanks.”
