Tom shrugged as he took the frittata out of the oven. “You need two points to make a line, Miss G. Remember that.”
As I was groaning, Tom’s cell rang. He listened for a moment, then said, “You’re sure?” When he heard that whoever had called was indeed certain, he signed off.
He picked up his fork to dig into the frittata, then put it down. Finally he said, “The traces in the vial in Finn’s trash? Valium.”
“Good Lord. But not enough to make a line to Gold Gulch.”
“Not yet.”
I insisted Tom go to work. He took the paper I’d found in the golf club locker, and promised he would have his handwriting people on it ASAP. I gave him the main number of the switchboard out at Gold Gulch Spa, if he couldn’t reach me on my cell. He promised to call if he had anything, he said, that was “earth shattering.”
Speaking of calling, I still hadn’t heard back from Hans Bogen, Aspen Meadow’s premier jeweler and clock repairer. By the time I’d finished the dishes, it was nine o’clock, so I dialed the Bogen household.
Hanna answered on the first ring. She said, “I know he’s working on your clock, Goldy, and that he has the machinery spread out all over his workstation at the store. But so far, he hasn’t found anything.”
I gave her, too, the numbers of both my cell and the main switchboard out at Gold Gulch. I told her the clock situation was one of some urgency.
“Why don’t you just buy a new travel clock?” she asked.
“It’s not a gift for someone. It just…is of great importance to me.”
“Let me tell you,” said Hanna. “Clock repair is like marriage. There will always be vexations.”
Omigod, more Jane Austen. I gritted my teeth, but thanked Hanna and told her I hoped to hear from Hans soon.
Next on the list was O’Neal. If this was the O’Neal I knew, then finding the answer to the dehydration question should be fairly easy. But Dodie had left a message on her voice mail saying she and her granddaughter would be out of the country for the next week. Great. Norman O’Neal was not in the office, a receptionist crisply told me, but she would certainly put my name on his desk for when he came back.
“Sorry,” I said, “this is a very pressing matter. It’s quite urgent.” Actually, the only urgency was mine, in that I didn’t want to face a lot more emotional emptiness, the kind bred from grief. Better to keep moving, I told myself, and to get others to move along with me, if possible.
“All matters that Mr. O’Neal deals with are of some urgency,” she said, as if I were speaking about the need to go to the bathroom.
“Oh, yeah?” I replied. Ordinarily I am not rude, but the combination of lack of sleep and this woman’s hostility was breaking down my hold on civility. “This is Goldy Schulz, and Norman himself called me from the hospital a few nights ago. He was desperate for me to help him be reconciled with his daughter. I am able to do that now,” I lied. “So, why don’t we skip the baloney here, and you just tell me where he is right now, okay?”
“One moment, please,” was her chilly response. Within twenty seconds she was back on the line. “He’s at the Grizzly,” she said, a faint, very faint, whiff of apology in her tone. “He’s having an early breakfast. Do you know where the Grizzly is?”
“Yes, thanks.” I hung up, and reflected that the only kind of breakfast they served at the Grizzly was the liquid variety. And I didn’t mean smoothies.
Inside the Grizzly Saloon, it was fairly easy to pick out Norman O’Neal. He was the only one at the bar not wearing a cowboy hat. In front of him were a shot and a beer chaser. So much for deciding to go to rehab.
“Gee, Norman,” I said cheerfully, “thought I’d never find you.”
“Who’re you?” He narrowed his watery eyes at me.
“I’m Goldy? The caterer from Ceci’s wedding? The wedding you ruined by getting plastered and then coming in and knocking out the priest?”
His facial muscles quirked. “I did that? I don’t remember.”
“You called me from the hospital and asked if I could help you become reconciled with Ceci.”
Norman’s unshaven jaw dropped slightly. “Yeah. I want that.”
I lifted my chin in the direction of the booze. “Why don’t you leave that, and come up to our house for some coffee? We only live half a block away.”
“I’m coming,” he said, before downing the shot and taking a long pull on the beer. Great.
When I had Norman O’Neal in my kitchen, I brewed a pot of coffee. I also toasted him a couple of pieces of Yolanda’s Cuban Bread, which I liberally slathered with butter.
“You got any peanuts?” Norman asked.
We did, of course, but I said, “No.” I didn’t want to give Norman anything that would make him thirsty. With his haggard, gray cheeks and skin hanging loosely on his bones, he looked as if he’d been existing on peanuts for the last six months.
“So,” said Norman, “how are you going to help me with Ceci? I thought she was on her honeymoon.”
This negotiation was going to be delicate, and it would have helped if Norman O’Neal were not already a couple of sheets to the wind…not long after nine o’clock in the morning.
“Ceci is on her honeymoon,” I said, “and Dodie has taken your granddaughter out of the country.”
“She can’t do that!” Norman protested, weaving a bit on his kitchen chair. “That’s my granddaughter, too!”
“You told me you’d never seen her. Your adopted granddaughter, that is. You also told me she almost died.”
Norman’s rheumy eyes regarded me warily. “What does this have to do with my…being reconciled with Ceci?”
“It has everything to do with it, Norman,” I said coolly, “because I need to know what your granddaughter almost died of. I need to know all the details you can remember. And after I hear them, I promise I’m going to call Ceci, and leave a message on her voice mail telling her I must talk to her about her father. And when I do talk to her in person, I’m going to tell her how much you want to see her and be a part of her life. I’m also going to tell her what a great idea being reconciled to you is, especially if you decide to go into rehab, which is where you belong.”
Norman O’Neal sucked in one side of his mouth. “That sounds like an awful lot of conditions.”
“You want this deal, or not?”
There was a long silence in the kitchen.
Norman said warily, “Why do you want to know what was wrong with my granddaughter?”
“What difference does it make why I want to know?”
Norman reared back. “Because there are privacy laws concerning health information these days, missy.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, when you called me from the hospital after ruining Ceci’s wedding, you didn’t care about privacy laws. You were too busy crying about being reconciled with your daughter and being a grandfather to her adopted daughter. That was before you puked your guts out, though.”
Norman winced, then slammed down some coffee. “The baby almost died of dehydration.”
“Dehydration?”
“Yeah.” He took a long pull of coffee, then went on, “Ceci wanted to adopt a baby so badly. So she went through some Eastern European adoption agency.” He smirked at me. “Dodie isn’t the only one with spies, you know.” When I said nothing, he said, “The baby got over here, and supposedly she’d been checked out by doctors at the orphanage she came from, but for what ever reason, Ceci couldn’t get her to take a bottle of formula. So Ceci took her to Spruce Medical, and some physician’s assistant there told her she might be allergic to formula, try her on soy. So she tried her on soy, no luck.”
“Wait. A physician’s assistant? Who? Lucas Carmichael?”
“I don’t know who they are there.” Norman weaved a bit more, as if he were trying to figure out where in the story he was.
“On soy, no luck,” I prompted.
“Okay,” Norman said, with effort. “So then Ceci went back to Spruce Medical, and said she wasn’t leaving until somebody helped her. A doctor saw her, and told her to give the baby a bottle of water. But the baby wouldn’t take a bottle of water.”
“What doctor?”
