Crunch Time

“Oh, would you?” SallyAnn’s stressed-out tone went from agony to relief. “Does she have a whole team? ’Cause that’s what we’re going to need.”

“We’ll work it out. How many people have said they’re coming?”

“So far, about twenty, although I haven’t been keeping a list. I suppose that I should, now that I’ve found the paper, although I’m having to use an old tube of lipstick to write down what you’re telling me. But listen, we’ll probably have double that number, at least. I don’t want to run out of food, and if everyone decides to bring salads, then we’ll really be in a mess. . . .”

A new worry. Could SallyAnn’s doctor prescribe her a tranquilizer?

“Find a pen and keep it, with the paper, by the phone,” I said sternly. “When people call, write down their names. Ask them to bring potato salad or dessert. Everybody loves those dishes with hamburgers, and if you want, I can bring a large tossed green salad with the soup.”

“Omigod, Goldy, you’re saving my life, thank you so much.” Her breath caught. “I suppose I shouldn’t be going on about my own hostess problems when Ernest . . .” She couldn’t finish the thought.

After a pause, I reassured her. “The sheriff’s department will figure out who did this, don’t worry.”

“But he’s gone,” she wailed.

“I’m sorry, SallyAnn, I didn’t realize you were close.”

“We weren’t—I mean, we used to be, but after he had to leave the department, we sort of drifted apart, even though his house is up the hill. . . . Now I feel awful.”

“Well, let me ask you this. Did Ernest seem sick to you?”

“Sick, you mean, like the cancer? We didn’t even know he had cancer until he was dead. You see, after he became a private investigator, we didn’t get together with him too often. But come to think of it, last time we saw him, he looked a little thin. He said it was getting sober, you know. But don’t most people eat more when they’re recovering from alcoholism? Well anyway, I guess he didn’t, because the last time we saw him, he said he was hiring someone to fix dinners for him a few days a week. I offered to bring food over, but he knows my cooking, so he, you know, declined. Nicely, but still. Anyway, the last time we saw him was a couple of weeks ago. He really seemed to like that gal—oh, you’re not supposed to call anyone a gal anymore, but anyway, he was excited about having her cook for him. He liked her, and that seemed to brighten up his mood, you know?”

“He liked her?”

“Well not like he was falling in love with her, but then again, maybe he was, and he just didn’t tell us, the way he didn’t tell us about the cancer. Wait. Is this the woman who was living in the house when it burned down? The one whose aunt or whoever she is whacked John with her baton?”

“Yes, but—”

“Are they coming to the party?”

“Not if you don’t want them to, but the women have been through hell. Boyd has been staying with us, to . . . provide extra protection for them, since someone torched Ernest’s house. Tom and Boyd don’t think they’re safe anywhere else. So, if you want Boyd at the party, the women will have to come. Yolanda caters with me, and her great-aunt really is a lovable old bird, once you get to know her. Tough, but not without charm.”

“Well, I do want Boyd at the party,” SallyAnn said, sounding uncertain again. “Ernest really liked Boyd. Everyone likes Boyd. So I suppose we have to have the women, too.”

“Great.” I slowed before a hairpin curve. “I’ll send the cleaning lady over. We’ll be there with soup and salad. Say about six?”

“Thanks, Goldy, thanks. Sorry to be so disorganized about all this, it’s just that Ernie’s death threw us for a loop.”

“Ernie?”

“Well, Ernest. In the department? John was the only one Ernest allowed to call him Ernie. Ernest called John ‘Bert,’ so they could be Bert and Ernie. It was their little joke. You know how cops need their humor.”

“Indeed I do.”

We signed off, and I carefully negotiated the turn. Once again my wheels skidded sideways. I wanted to call Penny Woolworth, the spying cleaning lady, to talk about this new gig. But I didn’t want to be distracted.

I turned right onto the long dirt road that led to the Aspen Meadow Wildlife Preserve. The byway had been plowed once, but now snow, mud, and ice had combined into a frozen sludge that my tires chewed through sometimes and skidded through other times. I sighed. It was already just past one. I absolutely had to be home by three at the latest, so Yolanda and I could pack up for the Breckenridges’ dinner.

I was startled when a car raced up behind me and then overtook the van. It was a silver BMW that must have had four-wheel drive and snow tires worthy of a Sherman tank. Snow spewed over my windshield, and I was forced to slow.

I turned on the wipers and shouted, “Thank you very much,” but of course the driver couldn’t hear me.

As the wipers swept snow from the glass, I saw something. Or thought I saw something. It was a bumper sticker, a familiar one. Had it been Secretaries Do It Behind the Desk? I hurried up and sent the van into a one-eighty skid that left me cursing. I hadn’t been able to see who was driving the BMW, but it had taken every bit of growing-up-in-Jersey driving to keep from landing in the snow-covered pasture that lay to my right.

I turned back around with the idea that maybe I could catch up with Charlene’s vehicle, if that was what it had been. But the driver was zipping along at a clip my van would have had trouble managing going downhill, on dry pavement. And anyway, now the road was headed uphill. Where could the BMW have been going? That was the question, and not an easily answered one.

Before Furman County bought the enormous ranch that made up the preserve, people had built everything from gigantic houses to log cabins on the property surrounding the ranch. Either the rich had wanted the mountain view or folks wanted to farm or ranch. Taking into account Charlene’s fur, car, grandson in parochial school, and altogether new lifestyle, I would have guessed her boyfriend was in that big-house-with-a-view category.

When I crested the hill, the BMW had disappeared. I motored along past five dirt roads going right, left, and sideways, with no clue as to where the silver car had turned. Unlike Sabine, I was no expert at tracking, and numerous vehicles had left their tire prints in the snow. I cursed silently and encouraged the van along to the turnoff for Sabine’s.

She met me at the bottom of her driveway. Tall, with a commanding presence, she wore a cap that I was sure she had knitted herself, from wool she’d spun from her own sheep and dyed using vegetables she and Greg had grown. She wore thick, unfashionable specs with shades she flipped down when she needed sunglasses, like now. Her frizzy hair radiated like a gray halo from a ponytail at the nape of her neck, and her ankle-length olive- green overcoat looked as if she’d bought it from an army veteran who’d survived the Nazi assault on the Ardennes forest. She’d apparently taken seriously my quip about using sharply pointed garden equipment as weapons. At arm’s length, she held two long-handled garden spades. Sabine Rushmore, pacifist, prepared for battle.

“There you are!” she said brightly when I hopped out of the van. She eyed me up and down. The skin at the sides of her eyes crinkled with worry. “You need boots and gloves? I’ve got some up in the house.”

Knowing her home lay half a mile up the murderous incline behind her, I demurred. “But thank you for setting out on this expedition with me. Do you want me to get the address, or do you know exactly where this place is?”

“I know it.”

I set off behind her. She insisted on carrying both “weapons,” as she called them. Even though I was wearing sneakers and lighter clothing, was bearing no arms, and was more than thirty years younger than my compatriot, she left my butt in the dust. Or in this case, in the snow. I huffed along and finally called to her to stop.

“Is it much farther?” I panted, bending over to deal with the stitch in my side.

“Just around the next bend. Are you all right?”

“I’m not sure.”

“It’s all that high-fat-content food you make, Goldy. It’s slowing you down.”

Since the last thing I needed at this point was a nutrition lecture, I said merely, “Lead on.” She smiled before trotting away.

After a few more minutes of muscle-squealing agony, I followed her up a driveway that had not been plowed but that had a set of tire prints in it—going in and coming out. I wondered if the lab at the sheriff’s department