“Yes. It’s a long story.”
Arch grunted. “That’s what you always say.” When I didn’t go on, he took a deep breath, and I realized for the first time that I hadn’t managed to cushion Arch from grief.
“Sweetheart?” I said. “Are you all right? I mean, I haven’t even asked you how you’re doing since Jack died.”
“Mom, c’mon. I’m fine. Tom called me. I didn’t know Jack as well as you did. And since I’m over with Gus, it’s not like I’m looking at Jack’s house every day, you know. I’m okay,” he reassured me. “So.” He yawned. “What was your question about Todd?”
“Tell me about the rotator cuff.”
“Yeah, right. Todd was doing something in swimming that he wasn’t supposed to. The guy at the doctor’s told him to do exercises, but that just made his shoulder worse. A lot worse. His shoulder froze, at least, that’s what the physical therapist told Todd when he couldn’t make his arm move. So then Todd’s mom took him to a specialist, and there was a long wait for an MRI, I think, but when they finally got one, it showed his rotator cuff was torn. So he had to have surgery.” Arch stopped talking, exhausted and out of explanations.
“Is that it? Did somebody hurt Todd, or threaten him?”
“Threaten him?”
I rolled my eyes ceilingward and wished it were later, as in afternoon, which was when Arch got up in the summertime. “Arch,” I pleaded, “please try to remember.”
“Nobody tried to hurt or threaten him,” my son said definitively. “Can I go back to bed now?”
“Just wait.” I scanned the list. Every one of the conditions listed beside the names pertained to medical issues. “Didn’t Todd start off at Spruce Medical? I mean, when he was first hurt?”
“I guess so. Why?”
“What doctor did he see there?”
“I don’t know. Actually, I know he saw two people. Probably both doctors, I guess.”
“Do you know who either doctor was, in case the police want to know?”
“No. Mom, please let me go back to sleep.”
“Okay, sweetheart, thank you. Bye.”
There was a pause on the line. “Did I help you?”
“Yes, Arch, thanks. You’re great.”
He groaned and signed off, and I went back to staring at the list. I don’t know how long I’d been trying to make sense of it when Tom shuffled into the kitchen. He wore a blue terry cloth robe and white terry slippers, and his cider-colored hair was rumpled.
“Miss G.” His arms encircled my waist. “You’re starting to worry me.”
“I’m okay.”
“Yeah, right.” Tom opened the walk-in, peered in, and removed eggs and vegetables.
“What are you doing?”
“Making breakfast?” he said. “It is morning, right?” He ran water over the vegetables. “So, I assume you’ve thrown in the towel on cooking at the spa?”
“No, Julian’s doing breakfast. I’m going out there later. Don’t worry, I called Boyd and told him about the change.”
“Chop this onion for me, then, will you?” He handed me a red onion, cutting board, and sharp knife. “You’re squinting at that piece of paper as if it could tell you all you need to know.”
Was it the onion that was making my eyes water, or was it Tom’s comment? “I just feel as if the person who attacked Jack attacked me, too.”
“They did,” Tom said simply. “That’s the way it works, unfortunately.” He eyed me. “You want me to get Victim Assistance over here for you?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“Right.” Tom began to slice broccoli. “You break into Jack’s house—”
“I didn’t break in! I had keys! That he had given me!”
“—then you decide to start working at a spa you dislike, forcing me to take one of my guys off of a security detail. After that, you sneak out of the house in the middle of the night—”
“I didn’t sneak out! I was trying not to wake you up!”
“And then you focus on a list you found in a locker that could just as easily have been left there by the last duffer to use that space.”
“No, Tom, that won’t work. The locker key was on Jack’s key ring, the key ring he had me take from him. That list refers to patients…maybe Doc Finn’s patients? Maybe the handwriting is Doc Finn’s?”
“We’ll check on that, trust me.”
“I already called Arch,” I confessed, handing Tom the board with the onion, “to ask him why Todd’s name is on the list.”
Tom peered down at the list. “What did he say?”
“He clarified what Todd told us about it last week. Todd had a messed-up shoulder from swimming. The first person to see him at Spruce Medical told him to do some weight-lifting exercises, which only made it worse. Todd saw somebody else next. But then a physical therapist told Todd his shoulder was frozen and his mother took him to a specialist. He had an MRI and then surgery.”
Tom slid a baking sheet with the vegetables into the oven. Then he handed me a hunk of Havarti and asked me to grate a cup. Next, he broke eggs into a mixing bowl. He said, “You know that to make a straight line, you need two points? Investigation is like that. To make a straight line, you need two points, to get a context. Knowing about Todd gives you one point. You need one more.”
I watched as he poured a cup of whipping cream into the beaten eggs. I suspected Tom was using Julian’s recipe for Summertime Frittata. Oh, well.
“You see this, where he writes, ‘All were told they were stressed out, should go back for a week or more’?” I asked. “And apparently three people had symptoms of addiction withdrawal?”
Tom gave me an inscrutable look. “Mmm.”
“Well, that sounds as if Finn was maybe talking about clients of the spa. If you found a drug in a container in Doc Finn’s trash, and a note that said he needed to get it analyzed, and you found a towel in his car from Gold Gulch, and you knew he’d been out there recently, couldn’t you maybe make a leap that he suspected Victor Lane was feeding those Gold Gulch clients addictive drugs? I mean, without their knowledge? That would lead to symptoms of withdrawal.”
“That’s a big leap,” Tom said. He plopped a chunk of butter into our saute pan and turned the heat to low. “Listen, you can’t mention this list to anyone.”
I groaned, and told him I’d already told Julian about it.
Tom said, “Julian knows better than to talk about it. Listen, Miss G., we know something is going on out there because Jack was attacked at Billie’s wedding. But we’re not completely sure what the issues, crimes, what ever, are. That’s why I wanted Boyd to stick to you like epoxy while you were working in the kitchen, which I still think is a half-assed idea.”
“I know you disapprove. I promise to keep being careful,” I said, watching Tom pour the egg mixture into the pan. For my part, I pulled a loaf of Cuban Bread out of the freezer. Yolanda had taught me how to make it a dozen years earlier, and it had been one of our family’s favorites ever since.
Tom shoveled the vegetables into the pan, sprinkled the Havarti on top, and slid his concoction into the oven. He watched me trying to cut the bread. “Here,” he said, “let me slice that for you.”
“Thanks.” I watched him saw expertly at the frozen loaf. When he popped two pieces into the toaster, I asked, “Any word yet on Lucas’s inheritance?”
“Sorry, I forgot to tell you what we found out about Jack’s will.
Lucas stands to inherit four million dollars from Jack. And, Lucas is the sole beneficiary of Jack’s will, I’m sorry to say…or sorry, anyway, if
I hugged Tom. “The memories Jack left me are more valuable than that. But listen. Wouldn’t four million smackers be motive to kill someone? Especially if you were having money problems?”
“You bet it would be.” He took out two plates, then slathered the toast with butter.
I shook my head. “That worthless Lucas—”
