Boyd signaled me with his lights when he was a hundred feet from the turnoff. When we rolled into Gold Gulch Spa, my watch said it was almost eleven. The clients must still be in classes, because I didn’t see anyone around except staff people. They were rolling their laundry carts from door to door, depositing soiled towels in one side of the cart and pulling fresh towels out of the other.
Julian greeted us at the kitchen door. In answer to my question, he said nothing unusual or weird or crazy had happened that morning, except the women had loved the vegetable frittata. Victor had shown up as usual with his vat of fruit cocktail, and he’d even had a bite of the frittata.
Julian’s face broke into a wide grin. “He didn’t ask how many calories were in it, or even what I’d used. He just offered me a job, ‘to replace Yolanda,’ he said. I told Victor if he wanted to hire me, he was going to have to hire you, too. He just walked away with the empty vat of fruit cocktail.”
I shook my head and thanked him. “What are we fixing for lunch?”
“Chicken salad with fat-free mayo. I doctored it up with fresh sliced scallions and really crisp celery. I also alternated thick slices of farmers’ market tomatoes with slices of buffalo mozzarella and leaves of fresh basil. Then I poured a bit of pesto over that.”
I rolled my eyes. “Victor’s going to kill us.”
“Nah,” said Julian. “Hey, Boyd, you want to taste this Tomato Napoleon? It’s great, and it’s vegetarian.”
“Yeah,” said Boyd, as he followed Julian into the kitchen, “but I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts that Napoleon never ate it.”
We got through lunch, which the clients raved about. Lucas nodded to me, but didn’t speak. Maybe he was softening toward me, I didn’t know. Charlotte and Billie came in together, deep in conversation. Either they didn’t see me or they ignored me, but in any event, we didn’t speak, and I didn’t have a chance to ask if either of them had bailed out Spruce Medical to the tune of three hundred thou. Marla winked at me and murmured that she could tell Julian and I had been working on the food, because it was suddenly scrumptious.
“Give Julian the credit,” I said.
Marla smiled at Julian. “I’m always willing to do that.”
Soon all the other clients shuffled off for their smoothies. Today’s flavor was mango-strawberry. I hoped that was all that was in them. Once we’d cleaned the dining room and kitchen, I was ready for a break. Boyd and I went outside and sat on the deserted lawn furniture. Scraps of yellow police ribbon still fluttered in the light breeze, and the sulfuric smell of the hot spring floated down to the spa’s main grounds. I wondered if anyone had ever cleaned up the hot pool.
As usual at this point in the day, the spa looked as quiet as a Mexican town square at siesta time. Boyd and I sat in silence, while I tried to think. I scolded myself for not finding out which of the dormitories Marla was housed in, because I surely would have liked her company.
As it turned out, she had sneaked back into the kitchen with Julian. She was asking if there was going to be anything decent to eat for dinner.
“Pork tenderloin, cauliflower mash, and steamed broccoli,” Julian replied. “I’m going to lightly saute the broccoli with garlic, and I’m making a stuffing for the pork that features figs. The cauliflower mash will have whipping cream—”
Marla burst out laughing. “So is this spa where you come to lose weight, or gain it?”
“For dessert, let’s see,” Julian continued, unfazed. He eyed the computer screen. “Canned plums with diet nondairy topping. I can’t make something else, because I don’t have the butter and eggs I’d need.”
“Canned plums for dessert?” Marla cried. “That’s it?”
I turned to Boyd and asked if he’d bring in the cooler that was in the back of my van. A moment later, when Boyd hauled the cooler into the kitchen, Julian cried out.
“I’ve got a feeling Goldy’s got something better for dessert in that cooler!”
Ten minutes later, the four of us, plus Yolanda’s two helpers and the two servers who’d just finished setting the tables for dinner, were enjoying the chocolate cookies filled with frosting.
“This is the flakiest, most buttery chocolate cookie I’ve ever had in my life,” Marla said to me. “You’re a genius.”
“Thanks. I wish I’d been enough of a genius to keep my godfather alive.”
Julian, Marla, and Boyd made sympathetic murmurs in my direction. Yolanda’s helpers and the servers, all of whom had finished their cookies, looked awkward, and quickly excused themselves. They said if Victor caught them eating, they’d lose their jobs.
“That guy Victor is a maniac,” said Marla, her voice lowered. “We all cringe when he goes by.”
I exhaled. I’d been cringing in Victor’s presence for many a year.
Boyd asked Marla, “Where is everybody? You’d think you’d see the guests walking around or something. The place looks as deserted as a beach after a hurricane.”
Marla looked furtively around, then drew a plastic shampoo bottle out of her pocket. It didn’t look as if it was full of shampoo, though, as the liquid had separated.
“I had to improvise,” she said. “Yesterday we had strawberry, but today it’s mango-strawberry. I thought you might want to test it, too. I dumped out my shampoo, and saved my smoothie. Have to say, Victor watches us pretty carefully to make sure we’re finishing them. But when I saw him sucking up to Charlotte Attenborough, I put my smoothie cup in my pocket and held on to it all the way back to my room. Listen,” Marla said confidently, as she reached for a second cookie, “I know my drugs, or, what I should say,” she amended, batting her eyes at Boyd, “is, I know the effects of drugs. I know I shouldn’t have tasted the smoothie, but I did. This is not just fruit and what ever else they say is in it. Something else is in this drink.” She handed it across to Boyd. “Yesterday, even a little taste zoned me out. And I’m not talking chamomile either. My best guess is that it’s a prescription tranquilizer.”
Once again, I couldn’t affirm her report, but I knew in my heart that it was true. I just prayed that the samples we’d taken yesterday would show what we suspected. Everyone else at Gold Gulch took a nap in the afternoon, but Marla had been wary, and with good reason.
“Can you arrest Victor Lane?” I asked Boyd.
“Not yet,” he said. “We took samples of the fruit cocktail and smoothies, which are being analyzed. But the analysis has to come back before we can get a warrant for the Smoothie Cabin, Victor’s office and house, and anyplace else. Then our guys can look for the drugs themselves.”
I closed my eyes and tilted my head back, thinking of the list that Doc Finn had compiled, and that Jack had put in a locker at Aspen Meadow Country Club. “What if you had a bunch of people who had withdrawal symptoms when they got home from here? And the only way for them to feel better would be to come back to the spa?”
“You’re asking me?” said Boyd. “I’m telling you, we can’t arrest somebody unless we have evidence that will make the arrest stick. Sorry,” he added.
“Maybe we should get going on dinner,” said Julian. “I’ve already ladled the plums into little bowls, but we need to make the fig filling for the pork, and pound the tenderloins so we can put them together with the filling in the middle.”
Marla said, “I’d better get back to my bed and pretend to be asleep.” But before she left, she came over and gave me a warm hug. “You look like hell,” she whispered in my ear. “Why don’t you get Yolanda back here? What can you do that the police can’t?”
I thought of Tom, and his insistence on having dots that connected. I thought of his request that I look at relationships. And I thought impatiently of the tests that Boyd said he would have rushed through the lab.
“I don’t know,” I said truthfully. Marla hugged me and took off.
Maybe I didn’t know what I could do that the cops couldn’t, but I did know, had known, my godfather. If I hadn’t, then I never would have discovered the last puzzles he’d left for me: the key ring that had opened the way to the golf clubs, the country club locker, and the nonfunctioning travel clock.
But what difference did it all make? I wondered as I seared the stuffed pork tenderloins while Julian steamed and mashed the cauliflower and Boyd trimmed the broccoli. Jack was still dead, murdered. Doc Finn was dead, murdered. There were lots of suspects, but no clear lines.
“I think I’m going to go over to the office and make a phone call,” I announced to Boyd. “I’ll be fine.”
“If you don’t want Victor popping up and overhearing you,” Boyd replied, “you can use your cell over in the trees up by the pathways. I could come with you. When Jack was hit, we found we could get more reliable reception over there.”
