Crunch Time

way. I threw the van into Park and prepared to abandon ship.

“But your leftovers!” Yolanda protested.

“Not enough to amount to anything. Take the blanket, put it over your head.”

We jumped out of my vehicle and moved up the hill to where I judged the sidewalk to be. Since the snow was so deep, our progress was reduced to a shuffle. A drapery of white was still streaming down, and the streetlights were enclosed in gossamer. The neighborhood was hushed. Flakes stung my cheeks, eyes, and unprotected neck. My feet, which were still in caterer’s walking shoes, became numb as I pushed through the drifts the wind had sculpted between the street and people’s front fences.

When we finally arrived at our driveway, I noticed our garage door was open. I wondered idly if Tom was home, if he’d gotten out the snowblower and for some reason it hadn’t worked, so he was working on it inside. Arch’s Passat, with a veil of snow blown over the trunk, stood in the garage next to the lawn mower, hedge clippers, and gardening tools, none of which we would need for at least six months. I prayed the Vikarioses had excellent tires and chains and would get Arch home safely.

“There you are!” Ferdinanda cried when we came through the door. The wonderful aroma of a home-cooked meal filled the house. I hadn’t realized I was hungry until that moment, and I almost fell to my knees in thanks. “I got some dinner going.” She looked us over. “You two need hot showers right now, else you gonna catch your death of colds.”

Yolanda gave me a worried look. “Is there enough hot water for the two of us?”

I said, “Sure. You go first.”

Ferdinanda eyed me up and down. She wore a sheriff’s department sweatshirt and pants. Whether they were gifts from Tom or Boyd, I knew not. “Goldy, you need to go put on dry clothes at least. Don’t want you gettin’ sick so you can’t work.”

“Yes, I do have to be able to work, doggone it. What’s the delicious scent?”

“Sense?”

“What’s the wonderful smell?” I asked, a bit louder. I’d forgotten Ferdinanda complaining to us about having trouble hearing.

Ferdinanda put on one of her sly looks. “Nothing around here but ham, bread, eggs, and cheese, plus a can of chiles and a jar of picante. So I threw them together and put it in your refrigerator. Yolanda said you’d be home between one and two hours, so I waited an hour, then put it in the oven. It took you an hour and a half to get back,” she said, concluding triumphantly, “so it should be about done.”

I moved to embrace her, but she drew away. “Oh, you Americans with your hugs! Just go, put on some warm clothes. And hurry up about it.” But she was grinning.

“Is Tom here?” I asked. “Working with the snowblower?”

“What is it Americans say? Nobody here but us chicken?”

“But . . . do you know why the garage door is open?”

“Nope.”

“All right, let me go close it.” I zipped myself into a hooded jacket and traipsed outside, where the snow was still coming down fast. At the side of the detached garage, I pressed four-one-five into the panel. The door obediently closed. I realized with a pang that I had forgotten to buy more batteries for the accursed remote.

Back inside, I asked Ferdinanda, “Have you heard from Arch?” The niggle of worry about my son was spreading.

“No. But I haven’t been answering the phone since Marla. I was afraid Kris might call, and I didn’t want to give us away.”

I wasn’t up to telling her that thanks to Penny Woolworth, that ship had sailed, too. Instead I took the puppies outside. They didn’t want to stay long, and they seemed to have figured out that if they did their business, they could come in and be cleaned up and fed. I did both, then went to look for dry clothes.

While rummaging around, I remembered that I hadn’t ratted on Penny to Marla, although I’d meant to. I thought I’d save that threat for when I really needed it. Still, I had to do something about Penny’s treachery.

I nabbed my cell phone and called her house. She sounded tired when she answered. When I identified myself, she said, “Uh-oh.”

I said, “When are you cleaning Kris’s house this Thursday?”

“Early afternoon,” she said meekly. “But he won’t be there, so you can’t—”

“I don’t want to see him. I just want to look around.”

She cursed, but agreed.

“Another payment for your betrayal of Yolanda,” I said blithely, “will be your tidying whatever house we use for a get-together to commemorate Ernest’s life. Don’t worry, I’ll pay you.”

She cursed again, but said she’d do it. When I thanked her, she hung up on me.

I disrobed, scrubbed myself with a wet washcloth, and shrugged into a turtleneck and sweatpants. Then I hopped back down the stairs.

Ferdinanda was rolling herself around the kitchen, snagging bananas, apples, and Italian plums to slice for a fruit salad. Without a cooking duty, I pressed the phone’s playback.

The first two messages were from Rorry Breckenridge, who was very apologetic to be calling just after eight in the morning, but she desperately needed to talk to me about the dinner the next night. In the second message, she said she would try Marla. The third was from Trudy, our next-door neighbor, who’d also called this morning. Trudy said she’d just had a “strange” visit from a real estate agent and an older couple, who said they were buying Jack’s house. They’d heard the famous caterer lived across the street, and they wanted to meet me. Now here, according to Trudy, was the strange part: She’d asked for their card so good old Goldy the caterer could call them, and they’d said no, they would just come back later. I shook my head.

Also on the voice mail was an afternoon call from Tom, saying he would be late, and that he’d given a sweat suit to Ferdinanda, and for me not to worry, as he had plenty. He also told me not to be anxious because of the snow. He could be home as late as ten, and that someone with four-wheel-drive would bring him.

There was nothing from Arch. I put in another call to his cell, which went unanswered.

“Ferdinanda?” I asked. “About the garage door. During the day, did you see anyone fooling around out there, trying to get in?”

“I told you. No.” She was slicing bananas with one of my ultrasharp Japanese stainless steel knives, and did not lift her eyes from her task. “Why?”

“Somebody got in there and left the big door facing the street open. Tom doesn’t usually do that.” I did not mention that actually, Tom never did that. That was why we’d had the flap about the remote with no batteries, and the code for the panel. There was a false wall at the far end of the garage, beside his power tools. In the wall, Tom’s gun was in a compartment that acted like a medicine cabinet: The hinges were hidden, and you had to know just where to press on the uninsulated part of the wall to get it open.

There was also a side door that faced our backyard. We kept a key to that door under a nearby rock, in case we just wanted a rake or hoe in summer, or the snow shovel or blower in winter, and didn’t have the remote, batteries, or memory of the numbers on the side panel for the big door.

“Probably Boyd left it open,” Ferdinanda said, moving on to the plums. “He was in a hurry to get out of here.”

This was equally unlikely, but the last person I wanted to argue with about anything was Ferdinanda. Instead I put another call in to Arch.

“Yeah, Mom, what is it?” he said with a note of impatience, as if we’d just been speaking ten minutes earlier and I’d called to remind him of something.

“Hon, I’m so worried about you! Where are you?”

“I’m at the Vikarioses’, I told you.” He lowered his voice. “Peter came, too. We’re having pizza.”

“Are you still coming home tonight?”

He groaned. “Yes. School hasn’t been canceled yet, and I’m out of clean clothes. Gus’s grandmother offered to wash what I have on, but I feel bad asking her to do that. And anyway, Peter lives on the other side of Cottonwood Creek, and he has to get his medication tonight. So I don’t want him to feel as if he’s the only one who has to go home.” Someone called to Arch, and he about broke my eardrum when he yelled, “Yeah, I’ll be right there!”