Crunch Time

Tom spoke quietly to his team. Then we left.

The snow clouds had unraveled. Pinpricks of starlight filled the night sky. If Arch had been with us, he would have pointed to the Milky Way, now a river of brightness overhead. Away from Colorado’s metropolitan areas, the glorious fields of stars on clear, moonless nights was breathtaking. I did not want to have my breath taken away, however, and once out of that godforsaken house, I greedily inhaled lungfuls of fresh, cold air that tasted like ice cream.

I followed Tom home. Knowing that once we arrived, Ferdinanda would fill the house with her rage over Yolanda’s accident, I called Tom on my cell. There were things I needed to tell him.

“I need to bring you up to date on what I’ve been doing,” I said.

“There’s more?”

“I wanted to let you know why I was out by the Aspen Meadow Wildlife Preserve. I tried to tell you about it, but you cut me off.”

“My captain was standing right next to me. I still don’t want you going out to the preserve. Especially not alone.”

“Why don’t you want me going out to the preserve?”

Tom heaved a sigh. “Miss G., can’t I just ask you not to do something, and you don’t do it?”

No, I thought, but said reluctantly, “All right, whatever. But remember, Ernest was taking care of Yolanda when he was killed. She has been a dear friend for ten years. I want to help her. I want to find out who murdered Ernest. And now you know about Rorry hiring him.”

“Right. Okay, go back. Where were you, exactly?” I told him about Donna, the evidence she’d collected, and the cabin in the woods. Tom said, “Whose house was this? I’m supposing you dispensed with the usual formalities, like search warrants?”

I decided not to tell him about Sabine breaking a window next to the one that was already broken. “The owners are long gone.” Tom muttered something under his breath, and I plunged on. “I found Sean’s credit card under the woodpile out there. Donna had given me a bag with evidence from one time when they’d broken into one of her rentals, and inside it were cheese wrappers and a wine bottle. So I bought the same kind of everything and observed Sean and Brie indulging in the—” Well, how to put it, exactly?

“The food trap. Anything else?” I told him about possibly seeing Charlene, or her BMW, anyway, on the way to Sabine’s. And after Sabine and I ran away from the abandoned love-nest, she told me about seeing a suspicious bald man at the feed store. She’d thought perhaps he was Hermie’s beagle breeder, whom Hermie thinks is running a puppy mill hidden behind a legitimate operation, I concluded.

“Back up,” said Tom. “It was while you were trolling through the cabin, presumably, that you heard the gunshots?”

“Well, yes.”

“Christ, Goldy.”

A silence fell between us. I felt terrible, unable to speak. Unfortunately, any disagreement between Tom and me reminded me of the many arguments the Jerk and I had had, conflicts that had ended with him beating me up.

We were passing Aspen Meadow Lake. The sparsely placed streetlights reflected in the icy water’s surface. I was suddenly aware of how exhausted I was. The fatigue from catering, the shock of Rorry’s china breaking, the pot holder crashing down, the boiling oil burning Yolanda, and now Tom’s extended silence—all these threatened to pull me under.

“Miss G.,” Tom said at last, “I just worry about you.” When I said nothing, Tom asked, “Did Rorry tell you whether she had a prenup? I mean, we can find out, but she could just divorce him. She doesn’t have to prove he can’t keep it zipped.”

“She has a prenuptial agreement, Tom. Her father made her get one drawn up. He didn’t trust Sean, smart fellow. Rorry did. Plus, she’s religious. She loves the church and she thought she loved Sean. So before she divorced him, she wanted proof of the affair. Sean knew he’d have to keep his dalliance secret. Don’t you think the DA might be interested in the fact that Rorry hired Ernest McLeod to get the proof for her?”

In front of me, Tom braked at the Main Street red light. He said, “The DA might find that interesting. But the grand jury might want to have more than an empty wine bottle, some cheese wrappers, and Sean’s credit card with your fingerprints on it.”

I sighed.

We hung up so as to negotiate our icy street. The van’s tires crunched noisily between the plowed and frozen snowbanks. Tom parked by the curb and pointed for me to take the driveway. I moved slowly along the slippery drive and managed not to slide into Arch’s Passat, which was outside the garage.

“Oh my God, how glad am I to see you!” Ferdinanda cried when we came through the front door. She’d been parked out in the hall, apparently, waiting for our arrival. Behind her, Arch gave me a helpless look. Clearly, he’d tried to soothe Ferdinanda, to no effect.

“I’m so sorry about what happened to Yolanda—” I started to say, but Ferdinanda interrupted me.

“This didn’t happen to her.” She wagged a wicked-looking finger in my direction. “Kris did this to her. Tom!” she said reprovingly as he helped me off with my coat. “You gotta do something about this man. He’s going to kill my niece unless you kill him first.”

“Let’s go into the kitchen,” Tom replied softly.

Ferdinanda didn’t budge. “I want to go down to that hospital.”

“Sergeant Boyd is bringing Yolanda back here,” Tom said evenly. “He just phoned me and they’re leaving now. If we take off, we’ll miss them.”

Ferdinanda crossed her arms. “And Boyd and Yolanda are just going to walk right up the sidewalk to the house? With Kris living across the street?” My mouth must have fallen open, because Ferdinanda looked bitterly triumphant. “Yeah, he came today in that loud car of his. Then a truck with furniture arrived. Kris drove out again and returned with a girl who had two suitcases.”

“A girl?” I said, confused.

“A young woman,” Ferdinanda replied, dismissing this person with a wave. “You know. A whore.”

I said, “What? Arch, would you please go upstairs?”

Arch groaned but clopped upstairs anyway. Ferdinanda wheeled herself around in a tight circle, then pushed herself toward the kitchen. “Tom!” she cried over her shoulder. “Come out here, please, without Goldy, so I can talk to you without her asking stupid questions.”

Tom patted me on the shoulder and whispered, “She’s just upset. Why don’t you look at those pictures you took again? Maybe you’ll remember how you know Humberto’s girlfriend. I’ll go calm Ferdinanda down.”

I sat on the living room couch and scrolled through the photos I’d taken. I had seen this young woman in some other context, not one associated with catering. I was having a hard time making a withdrawal from my mind’s memory bank, though, because Ferdinanda’s shrill voice still emanated from the kitchen. Tom’s calm replies were like a low rumble. I placed the cell phone on the coffee table, plugged my ears with my fingers, and stared at one of the images.

School, I thought. I know her from some academic context. And just as surely, I realized that she had some connection with Arch—not as a hooker, thank God. She had helped him. But doing what?

I took the stairs two at a time and knocked on Arch’s door. When he let me in, his face was racked with worry.

“What is it?” I asked. “Is something wrong?”

He went back to his bed, where he sat down and crossed his arms. “Not really. What do you need?”

“Arch, is something—” No, I’d already asked him that. I inhaled sharply to steady myself. Whatever was bothering him, he’d tell me in his good time. Or not. “It’s just that I’m trying to place a guest from tonight’s dinner party. I took a picture with my phone.” I cued up the best image and handed him my cell.

Arch turned his attention to my phone. His brow furrowed as he paged through the pictures. Then he smiled and shook his head. “She sure looks different from when she was helping me with my math homework.”

“Who is it?”

“Gosh, Mom. I can’t believe you don’t recognize Lolly Vanderpool.” He handed the phone back to me, a glint