“Goldy,” she replied, “you should have your head examined.”
“Will you call Victor and pave the way for me?”
“Yes, and you don’t have to pay me all that money.”
“Yes, I do. Jack was my godfather.” My voice cracked, and I silently cursed it. “I loved him, and I want to find out what he was looking for in the Smoothie Cabin. I want to find out what happened to him.”
“The cops have been out at the spa all day!” She sounded exasperated. “What do you think you’ll find that they missed?”
“I don’t know,” I said truthfully. “But I know I’m not going to rest until I at least make an effort on behalf of Jack.”
Yolanda exhaled again. “That’s why you don’t have to pay me.” She paused. “I didn’t need my appendix anyway.”
20
I woke in a sweat before the alarm went off. Our room wasn’t hot, and I was not menopausal (yet). Hmm. I glanced at our clock: not quite five. I slid out of bed and tiptoed over to flip the switch, to keep the clock from awakening Tom. Perhaps worry about the upcoming day had jolted me out of sleep. Those worries included: Would Victor Lane, who long ago had insisted to me that women in general and I in particular couldn’t cook, be nice to me? (Fat chance.) Would the spa clients like the food I prepared? (Not if they were anything like Billie.) Would I feel any better if I found out anything on the subject of why Jack had been attacked? (Too early to tell.)
Then again, maybe anxieties about the upcoming day had not awakened me. Our bedroom was filled with unusually bright light. I pulled back the curtain and couldn’t believe that after all our weeks of rain, sunshine streaking through the pines and aspens now dappled our street.
I veered away from looking at Jack’s house and instead spread out my yoga mat. I lay down and tried to summon an attitude of optimism to match the weather. But that would entail forgetting that my dear godfather was dead. It would also mean consigning to the River of Forgetfulness the colossal argument I’d had with Tom the night before.
As I stretched and breathed and tried unsuccessfully to clear my mind, I recalled how the first thing that had happened after dinner was that Yolanda had called me back. She’d phoned Victor with the bad news of her sudden attack of appendicitis and having to be down at Southwest Hospital. Instead of being compassionate, Victor had started yelling, no surprise. Yolanda had grunted and groaned her way through a fake pain attack and managed to say she’d hired a replacement, who was yours truly. Victor had been pissed, she said, laughing, but he’d agreed to let her off until Thursday dinner, when she’d “better be back, or be fired.”
“Oh, for crying out loud,” I said. “Who’s he going to get if he lets you go?”
“Hey, Goldy, good question! But I groaned big, and he told me to stop. So I managed to thank him. I also told him I’d call my assistants so they could be there to help you with breakfast. You don’t have to show up until quarter to six. Can you manage that?”
“Absolutely,” I promised. “Do you think he suspects you were faking?”
“That’s the only thing that worries me. I keep telling him he needs to see a shrink, get on some antiparanoia medicine.”
“Jeez.” I remembered Victor blowing his top about Jack’s search of the Smoothie Cabin, and how he’d questioned me as to what my godfather had been up to. Had I put on a good enough act? I wondered.
“Totally. But listen,” she warned, “in addition to Boyd, you might need Julian to help you with dinner. It’s not the extra cooking that makes the last meal of the day difficult. It’s the serving. The clients just get really, really hungry by the end of the day.”
“If Julian can’t help, then I’ll find someone else.”
Yolanda had promised to e-mail me the menu for Tuesday so I would know what to expect. She also told me the recipes were stored in the spa’s kitchen computer, and gave me the password: weight. She made me swear to call her if I needed her back. And she still didn’t want me to pay her. I told her I’d had lots of catering assignments this summer, was up to my chef’s hat in money, and had a free week, to boot. She laughed and said she was capable of making a rapid recovery. I thanked her again and signed off.
Then I called Julian, who said, “Oh no, I don’t think I can do low-fat food.” When I told him the emphasis was on health, not weight loss, he said, “Okay, I’m down for it.” Which was Julian-speak for yes, he would help.
Tom, unfortunately, had been even angrier than Victor Lane when he heard I’d had Yolanda lie so I could do a fill-in job at Gold Gulch. I’d broken the news to him when we were chopping the last ingredients for the Chilled Curried Chicken Salad. Tom had stopped slicing, put down his knife, and shaken his head.
“I told you on the phone, Goldy, you’re not going out there again unless Boyd goes with you.”
“And I said that was fine! He just has to be there at a quarter to six.”
Tom called Boyd with the specifics, and nodded curtly when he got off the phone. So Boyd must have been down for it, too.
I handed Tom a spoon with a dollop of the curry dressing. “It’ll be better when it’s chilled.”
He tasted and nodded. “Know what, Miss G.? You’d be better if you chilled.”
“Very funny.”
“Not meaning to be. Look, investigating the Finn case is proving more difficult than we’d anticipated, because of all the mud and trash down in that ravine next to the highway. If I have to worry about you and what you’re up to every minute, then my own work becomes more challenging than my cardiologist wants.”
“What cardiologist?” I asked. I spooned the pineapple, mandarin oranges, raisins, shreds of roast chicken, and chopped red onion into a crystal bowl and tossed them together. Then I ladled on creamy dollops of the curry- and-chutney-laced dressing, and stirred again. “When did you start going to a cardiologist? And does this mean I should have used low-fat mayonnaise?”
Tom began washing the cutting boards. “Now who’s being the funny one? Anyway, all that is beside the point.”
“Look, Tom, I’m insisting on going out to the spa because Jack wanted me to. I feel it in my bones.”
“So much for empirical analysis,” Tom said dryly. “Tell me: do you feel it in your bones that Jack wanted you to get hurt? Hurt the way he was, I mean?”
I gave him a look full of vinegar. “He wrote ‘Gold’ on a piece of paper—”
“Ah, the infamous meaningless note.”
“And remember, Boyd will be with me—”
“Yeah, I had to take him off a security detail for the governor, so if the gov gets whacked in the next three days, it’s on you.”
I ignored this, because I knew Boyd wouldn’t have been taken off an important security detail unless they’d found someone to replace him. “So,” I went on, “Boyd will be helping me. The bistro where Julian works is closed for the month of August, and he’s going to come over and lend a hand, too. And there will only be sixty-one guests at the spa. Piece of cake.”
Tom rolled his eyes at the ceiling instead of making a joke about the cake.
“Tom! I will be fine.”
He bristled. “Fine? Fine?”
“I’ll take my cell phone.”
“Service out there is spotty. That’s what we discovered when we were looking into the attack on Jack.” His shoulders slumped. “All right, if you’re determined to do this, Boyd sticks to you like epoxy, and you go through the spa switchboard if you need me.”
I agreed. I called Arch. Gus had already invited him to stay at his house for “their last free week before school starts.” So much for Gus’s grandparents’ school-supply shopping plans.
“It’s not like you’re going to prison next week,” I said to Arch.
Arch said, “Mom, you haven’t been in an American high school lately.”
I didn’t want to argue, so I told him I’d be back Thursday. Still, I sensed Tom was worried about this little expedition, Yolanda was anxious that her fake illness would be found out, Marla was bitching about going to numerous exercise classes every day, and Julian was okay with healthful recipes, but was dead set against cooking
