Crunch Time

van and blasted my windshield with dust. Another storm was coming. I wondered if Arch had taken a jacket to school and if he kept a spare pair of boots in his trunk. The answer to both questions was Probably not. And what about his tires? Snow wasn’t in the forecast, but I still worried about him in any bad weather.

Well, I hoped the math test had gone well.

My cell startled me. Penny Woolworth’s scratchy voice said, “Goldy? Where are you? Are you coming over here or not?”

“I’m coming,” I announced as I wound up the paved roads in Flicker Ridge. “What are you worried about?”

“I usually finish here around one. There’s no check here, so he’ll probably come over to pay me. I mean, that’s what he ordinarily does.”

“Is there a place for me to park where he won’t see my van?”

“Try the dead end right below us. Just leave your car on the side of the road. Come straight up through Kris’s property. I’ll be at the door of his study. It opens to the outdoors.”

“I’ll be there in less than five minutes.”

In the encroaching darkness, the huge gray houses in Flicker Ridge took on a silvery glow. Expanses of window glass shimmied in the wind. I looked down at my sweatshirt and jeans. I hadn’t even remembered a jacket. But once I removed the remaining coffee cake, I had an empty canvas catering bag. If I found something useful—like a receipt for work on an electric skillet—I would snag it. I would just have to be fast.

I grabbed the cloth sack, parked and locked the van, and took off on foot. Tom’s and my energetic lovemaking that morning and the previous night had done nothing good for my leg muscles. But I trotted painfully up the hill anyway to where Penny stood, hugging herself in the sudden chill.

“Where have you been?” she asked crossly. “I could so lose my job over this. And it’s not—”

“It’s not what?” I asked as I slid inside the door.

Penny’s shoulders slumped. “Nothing.”

“It’s not what, Penny?” I said with a sudden flash of anger.

She looked down at the wooden floor. “It’s not the first time I’ve let somebody in here. Ernest McLeod was an old friend, from when I was a bartender. He said the same thing you did, that Kris was, you know, maybe going to hurt Yolanda. I thought Kris loved Yolanda. I mean, he kept saying he loved her. But Ernest, well, he was my friend.”

“For God’s sake, Penny. I wish you had told me this sooner.” Yolanda had not been sure whether Ernest had started investigating Kris when he was killed. He had only promised that he would, eventually. I asked Penny, “Did you tell the cops?”

“With Zeke about to get out of prison? No way.”

I shook my head as I moved into the huge study, which boasted scarlet red wallpaper and an oak floor.

A mahogany desk, bookshelves, and filing cabinets lined one wall. On the side opposite, where I stood, were a framed diploma—from Carleton, I noted—and various masks. They looked African, perhaps, or South American. Made of straw or wood and painted garish colors, they made me uncomfortable.

“He collects these?” I asked.

“Yeah, it’s like his hobby.”

“So tell me about what Ernest wanted,” I said as I moved to the desk.

“Same as you,” Penny said nervously. “To look at files, mail, stuff like that. There’s a safe in Kris’s closet, and of course I don’t know the combination or what’s in there. I kept asking Ernest, ‘What are you searching for?’ Ernest said he thought that since Kris was obsessing over Yolanda, which is what he called it, Kris might have drawn up a plan of what he was doing, or what he was going to do, or maybe he was keeping a journal. Something like that. He brought a handheld scanner.” Penny exhaled and cocked her ear to the door.

“Did Ernest find anything to scan?” I asked as I pulled on file-drawer handles. A single lock at the top kept them all tightly closed.

“I don’t know, Goldy. My job is to clean, get it? I just left him alone in here. Later, I felt really bad about letting Ernest in. So then when Kris told me how much he loved Yolanda, and that he just wanted to know how she was doing and where she was, I told him. I mean, Kris paid me. Ernest didn’t, but as I said, he was an old friend.”

I turned and faced her. “So I can’t get into the safe. Does he keep the key to these files on a ring or fob of some kind? Or is it separate?”

“Actually,” she said reluctantly, “I think it’s separate, ’cause one time he came barging out of his study, where he’d been working on taxes all morning. He was hollering that he needed to go somewhere, and did I know where his car keys were?”

I rustled through the desk drawer. There was nothing except blank paper, index cards, and writing utensils. No key. “Please, Penny,” I begged, “you need to help me find the key to this file cabinet. And I will pay you for your help here, plus at the Bertrams’ this afternoon.”

“Oh, hell, Goldy, I don’t know how to find one little key.”

“There’s a recession on, Penny. And I pay in cash.”

She grumbled something unintelligible, then yanked open another desk drawer, which revealed more pencils, pens, and another neat pile of paper pads. I asked her to run her hands over and behind the books on Kris’s shelves. She sighed heavily but climbed up on the long desk and starting poking behind the volumes.

I did a visual survey of the room. The door I’d come through was in the wall with all the masks. There were about forty of them.

“So, Penny, did he say these masks were valuable?”

“Huh?” She was prodding the area behind the highest books. “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

Right, I thought. Because if they were really valuable, Kris Got-Bucks would have had cases built for them, right? A quick glance at my watch said it was half past twelve.

“Couple more questions, Penny. Do you know where any of these masks come from? I mean, does he tell you?”

“Uh, yeah. One is from Kenya.” She wavered on the desktop and pointed uncertainly. “One is from Brazil. Can’t remember which one that is. Oh, and the new one?” She pointed to a red painted mask. “That’s like, voodoo. He told me the word. Something like San Rita.” She pulled out her hand and inspected it with disgust. “I swear to God, I don’t know why I’ve never dusted back here. There are dead bugs and all kinds of crap. And before you ask me, no, I haven’t found a key.”

“Was the word Santeria?”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s it.”

“Could you point to it again?” She did, and I walked quickly to the new mask. I felt its sides. Nothing. Gently, I lifted it off its hook and placed it upside down on the wood floor. A key was taped to the back.

I peeled the key off the dry clay and said, “Okay, Penny, you can go finish your other cleaning. Call me if he comes.”

“Oh my God,” she said as she jumped down and slapped her palms together to dislodge dirt. “It’s a good thing I haven’t cleaned in here yet.”

I said, “Thanks again.” As Penny raced out the study door, I crossed to the file cabinet, inserted the key, and turned it. The drawers unlocked.

Quickly, go quickly, I thought. I needed to protect Penny, Yolanda . . . and myself. The files were alphabetical. Amenities. Boats. Board Notes. The first two contained pamphlets of things he apparently wanted or was interested in; the third was notes from an alumni board that he belonged to. Media. Miscellaneous. Mother. The final drawer contained everything from Northwest—a list of restaurants he wanted to visit or had visited in Portland and Seattle—to Taxes, Subscriptions, and Warranties.

There was no file on Yolanda. I didn’t know if I was happy or disappointed.

It was quarter to one. I leafed through Media and found another batch of