Crunch Time

convalescent facilities in Denver. I can tell you about this, without giving any names, since you ask. Anyway, Kris said he knew an elderly woman who belonged in a nursing home. He was willing to foot the entire bill. But this woman’s great-niece, who was a dear friend of his, could not see the problem. So Kris said he needed me to step in. I asked him if the elderly woman was of sound mind. Kris said she was not. I asked if a doctor would sign off on the elderly woman’s mental incompetence, and Kris said, ‘Oh, well, she’s very clever, she could fool anyone.’ I told him I probably couldn’t aid him, then, and he was saddened by that, because he clearly wanted to help his friend, the great-niece.”

I said, “Clearly.” Yeah, right. I wanted to tell him about the venereal disease, about the broomstick attack, about the possibility that Kris had been stalking Yolanda. But I knew that both Yolanda and Father Pete would not want me to. “Father Pete, I wonder if you could keep this whole incident in the grocery store between us? You, me, Yolanda, the pickles, and the olives?”

Father Pete’s look of puzzlement was replaced by what I thought of as his smooth, pastoral expression. If I wanted him to keep something quiet, that was exactly what he would do. “Do you and Tom still want me to take in some rescue puppies?”

I rocked back on my heels. I’d forgotten that Father Pete was our last adoptive parent for Ernest’s dogs. “Yes, please, oh, yes.” I looked outside at the snow, now a raging blizzard. We’d be lucky to get home without incident. “Will tomorrow be all right?”

“Of course,” said Father Pete, brightening. “I have a four-wheel-drive vehicle, if this snow becomes too much.” He held his hand up to Yolanda, as if to bid her a fond farewell. Then he leaned into me, while he continued to smile at Yolanda. In his low voice again, he said, “I think your friend needs professional help.”

10

I tried to keep my teeth from chattering as we dashed to the van. Neither of us had worn a jacket that was thick enough. It was my fault; I should have packed us each a down parka and a pair of waterproof boots. I guess I really hadn’t believed that a storm of this magnitude could happen in the middle of September. Clearly, I’d been in denial.

There was no denying this, though: Heaven was blowing snow down on us with unmitigated ferocity. I piloted the van to Eighth Avenue and headed west. Traffic was heavy. It was just past five, so we were in the full grip of rush hour. All around, taillights glowed like rubies in the mist.

Every now and then, the snow would sift downward in a straight, fast-falling curtain. Most of the time the wind buffeted the tiny flakes crazily, first from one side, then from the other. The drivers around us braked carefully, even allowed people in when they turned. In general, Coloradans try to help one another during storms, for which I was thankful.

I asked Yolanda if she was all right, and she said she was fine. She was shivering, though, so I insisted she snuggle under an old blanket kept stashed in the van’s back. She nabbed it and wrapped it around herself.

The radio announced that a genuine winter storm was upon us. Gee, d’ya think? Denver was due to get high winds and up to a foot of snow by midnight. Up to eighteen inches was predicted for the mountains, including Aspen Meadow. People with four-wheel-drive vehicles were asked to bring doctors to local hospitals, in case they were needed. Some ski resorts, the announcer breathlessly concluded, were hoping to open in October. At least some people were happy.

The van inched westward. I gripped the steering wheel while trying to make out the shapes of the cars around us. I hoped, but did not really believe, that Gus’s grandparents would cancel the dinner they’d planned for the boys. I tried Arch’s cell but was connected to voice mail. I left him a message asking that he call when he was on his way home.

“Would it be all right if we phoned Ferdinanda?” Yolanda asked.

“Of course.” I handed her the cell.

A moment later, Yolanda was talking to Ferdinanda, once again in Spanish. I understood “?Cuando?” and “?Marla?” and “Tres,” and that was about it. Eventually, she promised we’d be home in about an hour, if we were lucky, two if we weren’t. Or at least, that’s what my limited command of the language made out.

“Ferdinanda’s fine,” Yolanda informed me. “So are the puppies. When it got cold this afternoon, she brought them inside and cuddled them in her lap. Oh, and three people came to your house.”

“Three people? All together? Or one after another?”

“I got the impression they were all together. Judging from the way they were dressed, she thought they might be from a real estate agency. But she wasn’t sure. Anyway, she didn’t answer the doorbell, because she was afraid that if they were bad people—her words—they could overpower a person in a wheelchair and come inside and rob the place.” I glanced over. Yolanda was rubbing her forehead. “I know, I know. She’s paranoid.”

I thought, She’s not the only one, O smasher of pickle jars, but said only, “Somehow, I think Ferdinanda could handle three people. Was there something in there about Marla?”

“Yes, she called, and Ferdinanda answered that one. You’re supposed to return the call ASAP. Ferdinanda says there might be other messages on your machine, but she’s afraid to mess with voice mail. She’s not exactly a technological whiz,” Yolanda said apologetically.

“Don’t worry about it.” I asked her to hit the speed dial for Marla, and a moment later, I felt relieved to be connected with my best friend. But if I expected succor after my long day of running around, catering, and surviving an ethnic grocery donnybrook, I was mistaken.

She began with, “Where the hell have you been all day?”

“Down in Denver at Arch’s school, then at an ethnic grocery store, why?”

“An ethnic grocery store? Buying what?”

“Guava marmalade and sour pickles, Marla. Now, what’s going on? If you have an emergency, why didn’t you call my cell?”

“It’s not really an emergency. Or group of emergencies, rather. I just kept thinking you’d be home. Well, first. I wanted to tell you I’d given Yolanda’s location to Humberto Captain. I’m so sorry. He woke me up early this morning, and the phone discombobulated me. He insisted he had some things for Ferdinanda and Yolanda, and that he just couldn’t wait. Was that okay?”

“The ship on that one has sailed, Marla. He did come over this morning. Early. But Tom was still there. And what he had was a care package.” I eyed Yolanda, but she was looking out the window at the falling snow. “Please, please don’t tell anyone else she’s staying with us.”

“All right, all right. Sorry,” Marla mumbled.

“While we’re on the subject of this person, ah, that you just mentioned—”

“Oops! You’ve got Yolanda right there next to you?”

“Yes. I need you to find out what he does for a living. Where he gets his money, to be more exact.”

Marla said, “I thought he owned a little export-import business.”

“Besides that, if anything.”

“Ooh, juicy. I’ll work on it. I thought he didn’t do anything, really, besides just, you know, acting rich. Well, never mind, I’ll dig into it.”

“Thanks.”

She went on. “Couple more things I need to talk to you about. Rorry Breckenridge called me. She only has your home phone number. I figured you’d be mad at me for telling Humberto where Yolanda was, so I didn’t give Rorry your cell.” Marla waited to be congratulated for this odd bit of illogic. When I said nothing, she rushed on. “Rorry’s frantic. She’s had to add four people to the dinner tomorrow night, you know, the one that raises money for the church? She wanted to make sure that was okay.”

“Does this include the two extra people that Sean already told me about?”

“Don’t know. She said it would be eighteen people total.”

“Omigod.” This did include the two Sean had added. So now we were up to eighteen people for the church’s fund-raising dinner, and it was snowing like gangbusters, which would mean no way to get extra supplies. I groaned.

“You don’t sound happy,” Marla said.