“I forgot my cell. Plus, I think it might look suspicious if I took yours and went up the path for just a quick call. Look.” I pointed at the path to the log cabin office. “The door to a regular telephone is just twenty yards away. You can watch me all the way there and back.”
“Nope,” said Boyd resolutely. “I’m going with you.”
I sighed hugely, but it made no difference.
Isabelle was on the phone ordering supplies for the following week. When she saw me, she quickly finished her business, then handed the phone over to me.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Don’t mention it,” she replied. “Just…if Victor fires me at some point, would you think about hiring me?”
“Of course. Thing is, I don’t really have regular staff. But if he does let you go, I’ll see if I can find someone who needs a staff person with your particular gifts.”
“You mean, like breaking and entering?”
“Well,” I said, “we didn’t do any breaking. We just entered.”
Isabelle giggled and took off. I sat down and dialed Aspen Meadow Jewelers. To my surprise, Hans Bogen answered the phone himself. He said Hanna was on her way out to the spa, to give me what he had found inside the clock.
“Inside the workings?”
“No, Goldy. I didn’t need to take it apart, after all. When there was nothing wrong with the mechanism, I began to take apart the clock case. I think I’ve found what you might have been looking for underneath the fabric of the case. It is a thin piece of paper, along with a small key.”
My shoulders slumped. More keys. Terrific. I thanked Hans, and said I would pay him for his efforts.
The first bell for dinner rang, so Boyd and I hustled back to the spa kitchen, where Julian had filled all the hot tables with boiling water. Despite the fact that we’d departed from the spa’s recipes a bit—well, a lot—we had to pile each client’s plate to identical measurements. As every caterer worth her hand-harvested sea salt knew, a buffet was an invitation to disastrous overeating. The two extra kitchen helpers were in charge of keeping a cold buffet filled with nonfattening salad ingredients, so they bustled around doing that. I sliced the filled, sauteed, and roasted pork. Boyd, bless his heart, was bending seriously over the bubbling pots that he was using as a base for steaming the broccoli.
Victor Lane came into the kitchen while we were hustling back and forth with trays of loaded plates. He said nothing, but cast a judgmental eye around everywhere. I didn’t know whether he suspected the big cardboard box on the kitchen island was filled with chocolate cookies and vanilla frosting, and I determinedly ignored both the box and Victor. On one of my return trips to the kitchen, he had left, but Hanna Bogen was waiting at the back door.
“Here you are, Goldy.” She handed me a small key, much smaller than the ones that had been on Jack’s key ring. “I must get back. There was a small, thin piece of paper in there, too.” She put the paper in my hand. “It looks like a note.” She paused as I stared at the two items in the palm of my hand. “Are you all right?”
“No, but please thank Hans for me.”
I opened the note first. It was in Jack’s handwriting.
Gertie Girl,
If you’re reading this, then I’m gone. Finn left me this key, he said, as an insurance policy, in case something happened to him. But I don’t know what it goes to, and I couldn’t figure it out. Maybe you can. I’ve had a good run, and you were a big part of it. Wherever God sends me, I want you to know that I’ll be thinking of you.
Love,
Jack
Hanna was still standing at the back door. “Goldy?”
At first I couldn’t speak. Finally, I said, “I don’t know what this is a key to.”
Hanna shook her head. “It didn’t have anything to do with the clock, Hans said.”
No kidding. I thanked Hanna, and she left. I slipped Jack’s note and the key into my pocket.
Somehow, we got through dinner and the many complaints that canned plums were not enough for dessert. While the servers were clearing the tables, a small line of women appeared at the back door.
“We heard you were bringing sweets,” the first one, a brunette, said.
“Where’s Victor?” I asked.
“On the phone in his office,” the second one, who had long, auburn hair and a protruding jaw, replied. “Hurry! How much are you charging?”
“I’m not,” I said. I asked Julian to help me form an assembly line. First he slathered the flat side of one cookie with the creamy vanilla frosting, then I topped the frosting with another cookie. I placed the cookie sandwiches on paper towels and began handing them, one per client, to the women. “Just enjoy them quickly, don’t tell Victor where you got them, and don’t blame me if you don’t lose weight.”
When all the sandwiches were gone, I began to wonder how well Yolanda was able to supplement the meager salary she got from Victor. At five dollars a pop, I could have made over a hundred bucks to night. Not bad.
But how many of those women were addicted to Valium, and who knew what other drugs, that Victor was giving them? Really, it was a miracle that “all” they had shown was signs of withdrawal…someone could have died. If Valium was in the smoothies, what else was Victor using? No wonder this place cost so much. But people always returned, because the addiction monster was eating them alive. What a sorry state of affairs.
While we washed and dried dishes, I thought fiercely that when the time came, I certainly hoped that the sheriff’s department closed this place down…and sent arrogant, scheming Victor Lane away for a very long time.
When we were done, I felt bone tired, and sat down on one of the two chairs in the kitchen. I missed Tom. I missed Arch. And, like a deep ache, I missed Jack.
“You want to go home?” Boyd asked. “It looks as if we’re done here for the night.”
“Not yet,” I replied. I was thinking that Jack had probably tried that little key in every locked drawer of the Smoothie Cabin…to no avail. But he’d seemed to have been convinced that the key went to something out here. And I’d be damned if I was going to leave this place until I’d figured out what lock the little key opened.
“Goldy,” said Boyd. “What’s the matter?”
I cleared my throat. “Just miss Jack, that’s all.”
He nodded. Like Tom, Boyd had spent enough time with the relatives of victims of crime that he knew their despair could be unfathomable. Wordlessly, he moved to the big walk-in and retrieved a…jar?
“This is from Tom,” Boyd said. “It’s your Summertime Special, kept chilled in my cooler. He figured you’d need caffeine after we finished to night, and that you’d be tired enough that you would sleep anyway, when you got home.”
“Thanks.” I unscrewed the jar and took a small sip. Wonderful. While Boyd fixed himself a large ice water, then sat patiently on the other side of the kitchen, I slipped my free hand into my apron pocket. I felt the note from Jack and Finn’s small key that Jack had hidden inside the clock.
Oh, Jack, I thought, what did you get yourself into?
He’d been on to something, he and Doc Finn. It involved the spa, and it involved a number of people with medical conditions, none of whom I could reach. Jack had given me a bunch of keys that had helped me get into his house, where I’d seen a bag of golf clubs he never used, and an inoperative travel clock hiding a key and a note.
I took another swallow of the coffee and thought back to when Jack had first arrived here from New Jersey, how he’d been so happy to reveal he’d bought the dilapidated place across the street from us. I’d been equally delighted to have him there, and our time together had been joyful.
When Jack had brought us some trout one night, he’d regaled us with the faux pas he’d made concerning the cultural and governmental differences between New Jersey and Colorado. He’d made us laugh over his every mistake.
A waiter had given Jack a blank look when he’d ordered a salad with “Roquefort” dressing. He’d learned to
