Crunch Time

“Don’t worry about too much food,” said Tom as he pulled a chair up close to mine. “If I know Arch, he’ll have smelled something in the air, and he’ll be banging in here in a couple of minutes, wanting a second dinner.”

“So what’s your ulterior motive?” I asked.

“Have some salad first,” he said.

I obliged. “Great dressing. What’s in it?”

Tom’s smile was so akin to the Cheshire cat’s that I became nervous. “Oh, mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, balsamic vinegar, garlic, olive oil, fresh basil. It’s what I’m calling it that reveals my ulterior motive.” He opened his eyes wide. “That’s Tom’s Love Potion.”

“Tom,” I said as I took my first bite of the pork. It was velvety and scrumptious. I would have to ask Ferdinanda for the recipe. “This is out of this world. And in the love potion department? I’m a sure bet. You needn’t have gone to all this trouble—”

“I want us to have a baby,” Tom blurted out.

I swallowed hard to avoid choking. “What?”

At that moment, my current baby, sixteen-year-old Arch, whacked the kitchen door open. “Aha!” he exclaimed. “Food! And does it smell great!” He looked from Tom to me. “What’s the matter? Mom, you look as if you saw a ghost or something.”

“I, uh, yeah, well,” I said. “Let me get you a plate and silverware.” I pushed my chair back, but Tom held up a hand.

“I’ll do it,” he said in that commanding way he had.

“Mom?” asked Arch. “Are you okay?”

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “I’m just peachy.”

18

Twenty minutes later, I stood under a very hot shower. Tom was downstairs cleaning up. I thought, Maybe I should make this shower cold. And while I’m at it, I could pull Tom into it.

A baby? Tom wanted to have a baby? Why?

What would Arch think of the idea? What did I think of it? Was it selfish for me to wonder what would happen to my catering business if I went back to changing diapers? Besides, wasn’t I too old to have a baby?

Thirty-seven was not that old, I reminded myself as I dried off. I loved Tom. But this thought, the very idea of having another child, was not something I had expected from him. And I felt exhausted just thinking about the prospect of doing the whole infant thing all over again.

There was a tapping on the door and I jumped.

“Miss G.? You coming out?”

“In a sec.” I wondered if I should put on my cotton pajamas, if that would be seen as a signal that I did not want to—

Tom opened the door to the bathroom. “Come on, let’s talk about this like normal married folks. In bed. Make that sitting on the bed, since I have to wait for Boyd and Yolanda. In fact, maybe that’s where I should have broached this subject in the first place.”

“I’ll be right there.” I pulled on my PJ’s and walked quickly across to the bed, where I sat down.

Tom followed and pulled me in for a warm hug. “I’m sensing you don’t like my idea.”

Putting my arms around the man I had come to love so much, I thought, I have to give him what he wants. Then I thought, No, I don’t. Through all the years with the Jerk and then post-Jerk, I’d come to see that my own opinion about what was right was the most important one. “What made you think of this all of a sudden? I mean, why do you want a baby?”

“I don’t know,” Tom replied. “It’s been sort of building in my mind. I love you, and I love Arch. At work, I see death and pain and cruelty, all day, every day. And I just like the idea of making our family bigger, and spreading more joy into the world.”

“Can I at least turn it over in my mind for a while?” I whispered.

“You can turn it over in your mind as long as you want,” said Tom. Did I detect a note of disappointment in his voice, or was my imagination making me paranoid? He kissed me . . . and then his cell went off. He blinked at the screen. “Oh, Christ, it’s Boyd already. ” Tom talked briefly into his phone. “They’ll be here in a few minutes. I’m going out to the driveway, and then we’re going to help Yolanda inside.”

“Wear your service revolver,” I said.

“Don’t worry.”

I shimmied off the bed, slid into a bathrobe, and for reasons I couldn’t quite name, turned off the lights in our bedroom. I pulled open our curtains covering one of the windows facing the street.

Soon Boyd’s car drove into view and crunched over ice in the driveway. Tom waited for Boyd to come around the front of the vehicle, then opened the passenger door. The two of them flanked Yolanda and helped her, slowly, into the house.

Again my skin broke out in gooseflesh, and my glance darted across the street. On the second floor of Jack’s old house, new bedroom curtains there, too, were parted. Was my imagination making me paranoid again? Was somebody, or were somebodies, looking out the window at Yolanda coming home?

Was it Kris? Harriet? Were they watching us? Watching for Yolanda?

I raced downstairs, opened the front door, and waited for Boyd and Tom to bring Yolanda over the threshold.

“Oh, Yolanda!” I cried, seeing the thick white bandages that covered her thighs. “What can I do for you?”

Yolanda’s russet hair was pulled back in a rough ponytail, and her skin looked as if it had been blanched. The wheels of Ferdinanda’s chair squeaked as the elderly woman rolled into the hall. Seeing all of us there, Yolanda said, “I’m fine now. I’ve got my family, my friends, and my painkillers. What else do I need?”

After assuring us that the only thing she wanted was the ladies’ room, Yolanda allowed Boyd to carry her in there. Ferdinanda followed, yelling to her niece in Spanish that she was coming to help. A moment later, the bathroom door closed, water ran, and Boyd reappeared, shaking his head.

“Poor girl,” he said. “I know she’s in a lot of pain.” He pressed his lips together and looked at Tom. “Learned anything yet?”

“The pan that fell apart didn’t belong to the Breckenridges.”

“Interesting,” said Boyd. “Although I have to say, I figured as much. I called one of our teams. They came to Southwest Hospital and took the evidence I had, the broken pot rack, the parts of the frying pan. I uploaded the pictures I took of both ‘accidents,’ so our guys could look closely at them.”

“Good work,” said Tom.

“I also gave the team the names of every single dinner guest. Our guys are out interviewing them now. The one thing I’ve heard so far? Nobody confesses to owning the electric frying pan. It just appeared. I called Rorry on her cell, to find out who could have had time to loosen the pot rack with the cloth dish towels. She said folks were in and out of the kitchen all day. When I asked her who had requested the Navajo tacos? She said she was pretty sure the request had come through her husband. So I called him. The son of a bitch said he couldn’t remember.” Boyd ran his thick fingers over his black crew cut. “He’s lying.”

“Good job.” Tom shook Boyd’s hand.

The door to the bathroom off the dining room opened, and Boyd nodded at both of us, said good night, and moved off to help Yolanda into bed.

When Tom and I were back in our bedroom, I stared at our alarm clock. I didn’t need to set it, because as I had reminded Tom, I did not have a party to cater the next day. Feeling oddly helpless, I walked over to close our curtains. “Tom? I could have sworn Kris, or someone, was looking out the upstairs window over at Jack’s place. Whoever it was was watching for Yolanda to arrive back home, all bandaged up.”

“Miss G.” Tom took his clothes off and slid into bed. “The only way to solve this crime and all the other crimes Ferdinanda mentioned is to work the case. We find out who killed Ernest? Everything else will fall into