Crunch Time

look that he nodded. Time for him to go to bed, too.

In our bathroom, I pulled out Lolly’s photocopy. With Tom’s mood turning foul after hearing about Lolly’s dealings and seeing a Santeria mask in our front yard, he probably wasn’t ready yet to hear about Lolly doing an illegal search of Humberto’s wallet.

Humberto Captain had kept several receipts, only one of which interested me: Aspen Meadow Printers, High Country Dry Cleaners, Frank’s Fix-It, and Excalibur Safes.

Excalibur was delivering its premier model, the Deerslayer, on Friday. Room for numerous guns and pistols, the receipt said, with anchor holes for bolting to the floor, an electronic/mechanical lock, and two-hour resistance to fire. The Deerslayer was touted as their best model for storing papers and valuables.

Yeah, I thought. I just bet.

Say Humberto had figured out that Ernest had stolen the necklace, and either killed him or had him killed. He had put the .38, the gold, and the gems somewhere, until the safe could be installed. But Ernest had insisted that Humberto did not have a safety deposit box, and Lolly had searched the house. If Humberto had put the weapon and valuables into one of Donna’s houses, I would be sunk. Yet Lolly had not said Humberto kept keys with him all the time. He kept his wallet with him. And the wallet had yielded these receipts.

Without a warrant, there was no way Tom or I or anyone could get access to a fancy safe after Friday. But I could visit the three local places the next day. Perhaps one of the receipts would lead to something.

I stuffed the paper back in my pocket and took a quick shower. Once in bed, I felt guilty about Lolly, about the photocopy, about things in general. I loved my husband. When he slid between the sheets beside me, his warm presence made me feel, more than ever, that I wanted him to be happy.

Well, I knew what that meant, didn’t I?

I felt a quirk of emotional discomfort. Was I ready for this? Were we?

Was anyone ever ready to bring another being into the world? Probably not. But I realized suddenly Yes, I want this, too.

I said, “Why don’t I forget the protection tonight?”

He pulled me in for a warm hug. “Are you sure? You think it would be okay if our family got bigger? Should we talk to Arch?”

“If we do, it’ll get his hopes up. He’s always wanted a sibling. Better just to keep it to ourselves, I think, until we know something.”

“Miss G., are you sure?”

Unexpected tears slid down my face. “Yes.”

When the alarm went off at seven, I woke up, startled. Had I been dreaming, or had something occurred to me? Something had been wrong about Humberto’s house. What was it? But the dream, or memory, was as elusive as sunlight flashing across the surface of Aspen Meadow Lake. I hopped out of bed and almost fell down. Exhaustive lovemaking had led to extremely sore muscles.

“Good God,” said Tom, as he rolled over to bop the ringer on the clock. “I can’t move.”

“Me either. But we have to.”

“How about a shower together?”

Well, I knew what that meant, and after twenty minutes of having sex in a hot shower, my muscles were screaming at me. But I felt great, and I moved through a slow yoga routine that eased the physical pain a bit.

In the kitchen, Ferdinanda said, “I already fed Arch. He left because he is meeting someone to review for a math test.” She appraised me with a lifted eyebrow. “You made some racket last night.”

“We didn’t,” I protested. In fact, we’d made a special attempt to be quiet.

“Yeah,” she said as she rolled over to the espresso machine, “you didn’t. But I could tell by that stupid happy look on your face that you made some kind of something.”

My cheeks grew hot. Instead of responding, I bustled about feeding Jake the bloodhound and Scout the cat. Both animals were acting neglected. Jake had his own way of showing this: He came up close and gave me a long, mournful gaze. I patted him, whereupon he threw himself onto the kitchen floor to have his tummy rubbed. Scout, on the other hand, trotted away after eating, without so much as a backward glance. This feline behavior meant that only after he had gotten over his sulk would he twine around my legs and purr.

I let Jake outside. Ferdinanda chuckled and offered me espresso mixed with cream and ice. My face heated up again. Why should I feel embarrassed for making love to my own husband in our own house?

Boyd came into the kitchen. Maybe I was being paranoid, but it seemed as if he, too, was evaluating my expression. He smiled furtively but said nothing. There would be hell to pay from his boss if he so much as said a word about our personal life.

“Yolanda’s going to help you with the soup today,” Ferdinanda told me briskly. “I’m going to chop the mushrooms. You got chicken stock in your freezer?”

“Yup,” I said, and moved with relief to the walk-in. Yolanda called to Boyd, asking for help making up the cots. He disappeared.

“I made you toasted pork sandwiches for breakfast,” said Ferdinanda when Tom appeared in the kitchen, dressed for work. “Sit down and eat. You’re going to need strength after that night you had with Goldy!”

Tom’s questioning expression made me shake my head. Ferdinanda removed a cookie sheet from the oven and slapped it onto the table. English muffin sandwiches lay in neat rows, with sliced grilled pork steaming around the edges and melting cheese oozing onto the pan. Ferdinanda pulled a spatula out from beside her thighs in the wheelchair—one of these days, I expected her to retrieve a full-grown alligator from the wheelchair’s depths—and began levering sandwiches onto our plates.

Boyd came back out and said Yolanda needed Ferdinanda to help her change her bandages.

“I’m going,” said Ferdinanda, wheeling away. “You three eat, or I’m going to be angry.”

Tom’s cell rang as he was eating his sandwich. He said, “Schulz,” then listened. When he hung up, he told Boyd and me, “Stonewall Osgoode was an army ranger who got a dishonorable discharge for dealing drugs. Then he went to veterinary school at Colorado State but was kicked out of there for dealing drugs. This is what we call self-destructive behavior.”

“Colorado State?” I asked. “In Fort Collins, where the murder of the gas station attendant happened?”

Tom nodded. “That gas station attendant was a grad student in chemistry. Stonewall Osgoode probably had nothing to do with that, since he was definitely in his room when the kid was killed at the gas station. They found Osgoode’s roommate, who’s now a full-fledged vet, Dr. Hopengarten. Dr. H. had had the flu and remembers pulling an all-nighter that night, December twenty-third, because he had to turn in a paper on Christmas Eve, the twenty- fourth, or risk flunking a class. The two of them only had enough money for a studio apartment. Stonewall was there, asleep in the same room, so Dr. H. knows Osgoode never left.” Tom ate his last bite of sandwich, then said, “Oh, and get this. Dr. H. suspected that Osgoode was dealing drugs to support himself in school. Dr. H. is also pretty sure Osgoode had a partner. Whenever the phone rang and it was for Osgoode, it was always the same guy on the line.”

Boyd put down his sandwich. “Did Dr. H. see this partner?”

“Nope,” said Tom, discouraged. “And he has no idea who it was. But when Dr. H came back from turning in his paper, it was all over the news that shortly after midnight, this kid had been shot and killed at a local gas station. What Dr. H. particularly remembers, though, is that Osgoode went somewhere late that morning and came back in a foul mood. He said he was going to have to find a job to support himself, because he’d just lost the one he had. Dr. H. said, ‘What job was that?’ but Osgoode said, ‘Some people have no guts at all,’ then clammed up. The next week, the Fort Collins police pounded on their door and arrested Osgoode for dealing drugs.”

“Somebody turned him in?” Boyd asked.

Tom said, “Yeah. Our guys got good information from the Fort Collins authorities. An anonymous informant called them and gave the names of people Osgoode had sold drugs to. The cops pulled in the users, and they all immediately confessed that Osgoode was their supplier.”

I said, “Please tell me Osgoode gave up the name of his partner.”

“Nope. But Osgoode wasn’t as broke as he made out to Dr. Hopengarten, because somebody paid all his legal bills and court costs.”