Crunch Time

Sabine Rushmore’s place. She lives near the wildlife preserve.”

“Goldy, what in hell were you doing out there?”

“Tom, look. I was just trying to figure out who broke into—”

“Miss G., we’ve been having reports of shots fired out there for weeks. It’s what I was working on when Ernest was killed. And in case you didn’t know, it’s not hunting season—”

“I know, I know! Sabine and I heard gunshots—”

“Oh, Christ.” Tom groaned. “You weren’t out in that area where we had the big wildfire a couple of years ago, were you?”

“But . . . that’s less than a mile from where we were. Why?”

“Please listen.” Tom’s tone turned guarded, as if someone were hovering nearby. “I don’t want you out there anymore.”

“Listen, Tom! Sabine saw a bald guy who might be running a puppy mill. I didn’t see him, though, and Sabine didn’t know where he might be—”

“Goldy! Will you please not go out to the preserve?”

“Oh, Tom. Sabine and her husband live right—”

“Please? We have a big problem in that area that I’m not at liberty to discuss. In fact, I don’t want you going to any remote locations at or near the preserve.”

Okay, somebody really was standing right next to Tom. I asked, “Will you tell me later?”

He said, “Maybe,” and then announced that he had to go.

“But I need to talk to you! Did you reach Hermie Mikulski? Did you talk to Charlene Newgate? Because I thought I saw—”

“You’re breaking up,” said Tom through static. Then his voice was gone.

Damn it. I hadn’t been able to tell Tom about how Hermie had lost her fingers. Nor had I shared the details of Hermie’s suspicions of a guy running a puppy mill on his property, with a legit breeding operation as cover, a guy Sabine might have encountered, who was bald. And then there was that car that I thought had been Charlene Newgate’s BMW, also on its way out to the preserve.

Speaking of which, what was going on out in the preserve that Tom had been so secretive about? And how was I going to discover more about these privacy-loving adulterers—presumably the very married Sean Breckenridge and his girlfriend—if I couldn’t trek to remote cabins in the woods?

I called information and got the Mikulskis’ home number. Like Tom, I was connected to voice mail. I identified myself and said I didn’t know any more about the investigation into Ernest’s death. I said I really would like her to call me on my cell, as soon as possible, about a puppy mill situation. I left my number and closed by saying I hoped Brad was recovering from hurting his nose.

It had been a long afternoon, with lots of frustrations. The formerly poor Charlene Newgate had struck some kind of gold with her new boyfriend. I was almost positive that one of them had been driving that silver BMW out by the preserve. Where had he or she been going? And if the boyfriend had a big fancy house and I didn’t know his name, how was I going to find out?

Donna Lamar was also suddenly rich. How had that happened? She was having trouble with a lustful couple that was breaking into her unsecured rentals. How could anyone catch such wily sinners?

As I was coming up on Aspen Meadow Lake, my mind said: Wait. There was more than one way to catch people with their pants down. I didn’t have the DNA of Sean’s lover. But I had their garbage. And I knew Sean would be attending the party that night. Maybe his girlfriend would be, too. If there were wrappers in their trash, I could figure out what food they liked. It might be like one of those algebra problems where you know the values of two variables, and an equation puts them together. With food, I was definitely in the putting-together business.

I checked my rearview mirror. No one was following the van, for which I was thankful. My mind was soaking up Tom’s and Yolanda’s paranoia. Plus, Tom’s words had unnerved me. Someone was shooting guns out in the preserve? Why? People hiked out there. What if a stray bullet hit one of them? Was that what had happened to the bleeding beagle puppy brought in by a hiker to a local veterinarian?

I set this troubling thought aside. The rubbish, their rubbish, was what I needed to concentrate on.

There was no shoulder on this part of the road, only a high stone wall on the far side. Next to my lane, stretching as far as the eye could see, was a deep, snow-filled indentation. I pulled the van over to the edge of this ditch. The van still stuck out a bit into the road, but drivers in Aspen Meadow were used to swinging around horses, cyclists, and runners. With luck, they could steer past a caterer’s vehicle. I eased the van up to a trash can, just in case I needed to explain myself to a roving sheriff’s department deputy or worse, a state patrol officer. The sheriff’s department tended to indulge me, but the state patrol was something else altogether. I mean, I’d gotten in their way in one or two traffic accidents. They had not been amused.

As I dug into the smelly plastic bag of trash that Donna Lamar had collected, I tried to look like any tourist wearing catering clothes who decides to dump camping detritus while standing ankle-deep in snow. I turned a pair of sleeping bags inside out. They were somewhat mangy, but a woman’s pair of underpants dropped out of one. I picked it up. Donna, I thought, you really do need a detective. The panties were from Victoria’s Secret, black and lacy, size four. She was either small and slender or medium height and skinny. Well, I couldn’t exactly ask to see women’s underclothes when they came through the door at the Breckenridges’ place. But it was a start.

There was nothing in the other sleeping bag, so I set them both by the side of the road. I picked up first one, then a second plastic glass and held them to the sunlight. One had a semicircular tinge of mauve lipstick, but not enough to be able to tell what the exact color had been. The other just had the vague, vinegary scent of old wine.

Donna had put the cheese wrappers into a separate paper bag, and the stench when I opened that sack practically sent me into the ditch. I dumped the litter onto the snow and examined it carefully.

There were shreds of scarlet and gold foil from a package of an expensive Camembert I knew: Le Roi et la Reine. My king and queen of romance had fancy tastes. A red wax globe held a bit of moldy Gouda with the brand name ’s-Gravenhage. I knew that Dutch word meant “the Hague,” but I wasn’t familiar with the brand of Gouda, although I probably should have been . . . unless Sean and his girlfriend got them from mail order? Maybe. The box of water crackers was Carr’s, found in most supermarkets.

There was only one thing left in Donna’s bag: an empty wine bottle. I didn’t recognize the brand, but it was a Riesling Auslese Kabinett, with the further indication that it was a Qualitatswein mit Pradikat, the highest grade given to German wines. A partially missing price tag indicated the bottle had come from—hallelujah—Aspen Meadow Liquors. Would Harold at the liquor store be as privacy-conscious as the library, the schools, the church, or doctors’ offices? I certainly hoped not.

I stuffed the sleeping bags, undies, wine bottle, and all the wrappers back into Donna’s big plastic bag. I’d store it in the garage for Tom, just in case he needed it for evidence, although there was no chain of custody, and my fingerprints were all over everything. But having something tangible sometimes helped in interrogations, if things got that far. I cleaned my hands with disinfecting wipes from the glove box, wheeled the van away from the shoulder, and gingerly pressed on the accelerator. In catering terms, it was getting late, and I really, really didn’t want Yolanda stuck with all the packing.

As I drove back toward town, I tried to unwind from the cabin incident by concentrating on that night’s dinner. The cooking was largely done, except that I had to arrange the composed salads on whatever china plates Rorry wanted us to use. The lamb chops could easily roast over at Rorry’s. Yolanda had volunteered to make the Navajo tacos, which would involve deep-frying pieces of dough—what the Navajos call “fry bread”—then quickly splitting these flat rolls and stuffing them with prepped ingredients. I was dreading serving something at a catered party that I had never actually prepared before. But Yolanda had said she knew how to make them, and I trusted her. Plus, if the tacos didn’t work out, they didn’t work out, period. As Julia Child had been fond of saying, “Never apologize.”

My cell phone beeped with a message, probably sent while I was outside the van checking through the lovers’ garbage. It was not from Tom, as I hoped, but from Rorry Breckenridge. She’d announced to my voice mail that the Hanrahans and the Bells were snowed in and had canceled, but that Father Pete had added two guests. Some