Prime Cut

by Diane Mott Davidson

  For Friday, I penciled in Cater at H. museum on my calendar. Might give me a chance to snoop a little bit, see if Gerald Eliot had indeed met his untimely end there. “When should I show up?”

  “Coffee break, nine o’clock? This kitchen is approved for commercial use, thank the good Lord. Yogurt, fruit, and we will make a sweet.”

  I hung up and out of habit called Marla. I checked the cobbler—strictly taboo for her, as she’d barely survived a heart attack the previous summer—and listened to her husky-voiced message: “I’m out being persecuted by the federal government. Leave a message, unless you think they’ll trace this call and make your life a living hell, too.”

  Ah, yes. Starting this week, Marla was being audited by the IRS for last year’s taxes. She had promised to stop by to fill me in on all the odious details.

  My business line rang. I sent a quick appeal to the Almighty for a new client.

  “Goldy, it’s Sheila O’Connor.” My heart froze: the coroner. Where were Tom and Arch? “Don’t worry,” she said, immediately sensing my concern. “I have a job for you, if you’re interested. Lunch this Monday.”

  “What?”

  Sheila’s laugh was earthy and much-practiced. Working with Sheila, Tom had always told me, you developed a sense of humor or you died. Coroner joke. “I’m serious,” she went on. “Monday is always the worst day at the morgue. You’ve got work from the weekend, unidentified bodies piling up, it’s a mess.”

  “Ah,” I said, sympathetic. “I see.” Not that I really wanted to.

  “I’ve been wanting to treat the staff.” Was she trying a bit too hard to sound cheerful? Her words came out in a rush. “So I was wondering if you’d like to cater a lunch for us? Monday? Here at the morgue?”

  Tom had always had enormous respect for Sheila O’Connor. Now I did, too, as she wanted to give me work. She must know about Tom’s suspension without pay. “Sure,” I said, “I’d love to.”

  “About fifteen dollars a person sound good? We have a soft drink machine, so it could be sandwiches, burritos, whatever you want. Plus dessert. The six of us usually eat around noon.”

  “Sounds perfect. Listen, Sheila, what’s going on with Andy Fuller?”

  “Fuller’s a problem,” she replied tersely. “He doesn’t know how to build a real case. Yesterday was a perfect example.”

  “But … will he get Cameron Burr convicted?”

  She snorted. “Unlikely.” She hesitated. Then she added, “I’m sorry about Tom,” and hung up.

  So was I. I amended my calendar for Monday, August twenty-fifth. Lunch for Six, Furman County Morgue. A catered coffee break at the site of a murder and a lunch at the morgue. Things were looking up.

  Chapter 6

  The doorbell rang. Through the peephole Marla Korman’s lovely, wide face grimaced grotesquely at me. I swung open the heavy door, then stared.

  For the start of the IRS audit, Marla had apparently decided on a poverty-stricken look. Ordinarily, twinkling barrettes would have held her brown curls in place. Now her hair resembled an ostrich-feather duster. Not a dab of makeup covered her creamy complexion. Instead of the usual rhinestone-studded designer sweatsuit and sprinkling of precious-gem jewelry, she wore a drab gray housedress. The huge dress featured gleaming white buttons, an uneven midcalf hem, and a tear along the shoulder seam. She’d shunned her handmade Italian shoes and stuck her wide feet with their perfectly manicured toenails into hot-pink plastic thongs. Her bright eyes regarded me merrily.

  “Marla—” I began.

  She gestured for me to stop with empty-of-sapphires fingers. A telltale white line striped her tanned right forearm: no Rolex. I sniffed appraisingly and realized she wasn’t wearing any deodorant.

  She said, “So you didn’t like the prosecutor.”

  “Don’t.”

  “I’m starving and I want to hear all about it. I’m telling you, Goldy, I dated Andy Fuller. I didn’t even jump on him.”

  “I appreciate your sharing that, Marla. So, how are the IRS guys?”

  “Sons of bitches, they went to a Denver steakhouse. Made a point of telling me about an expensive five-star restaurant on the way, where they could drop me off. I thought the IRS only audited poor people.” She swept down our hallway, headed for the kitchen. “They never did mention what a good person I was, doing fund-raising in my spare time.”

  “I don’t think they care about charity work,” I said as I followed her. “Especially since you didn’t join the committees until you got the audit notice.”

  She snorted self-righteously. “Well, guess what? From the moment I left their office my cellular has been ringing. Seems the whole town knows about your mauling Fuller.”

  I refused to be drawn in. “Did you drive the Mercedes over here?”

  She flopped into a chair. “Yes, but the IRS henchmen didn’t see it.” She gave me a rueful look. “Word is that Tom’s not going to be paid for a while. With Litchfield on the prowl, I tried to hustle up more assignments for you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t thank me yet,” she said matter-of-factly. “How’s your cash situation?”

  “Not great.”

  She stood up and pulled me in for a smelly hug. “The bastards have frozen my accounts. I had my aunt overnight me some cash, and I keep it in a shoe box under my bed. That’s how I’ll pay Julian’s first tuition bills. I’ll get a money order, I guess. Goldy, if things get bad, you need to swallow your pride and take some money from me.”

  Not in this lifetime. But I murmured another thanks and poured her a glass of sparkling water. She flipped on the oven light and ooh-oohed over the baking cobbler.

  I said, “It’ll be ready in twenty minutes. But it’s not for coronary patients.”

  She fluffed out the gray housedress and sat back down. “Speaking of coronary patients, how’s André doing?”

  “Not very well. Lots of thin, temperamental people to cater to,” I observed as I scanned the Ours section of my walk-in refrigerator for low-fat lunch ingredients.

  “Don’t say the word thin to me,” she wailed. “These days, I can’t do what I love most. Eat out. Spend money. It’s a prison sentence.” She eyed the demolished window. “Ah, speaking of jail? Heard from John Richard?”

  I emerged from the refrigerator balancing a crystal pitcher and two plastic containers. “He calls Arch. Tom or I take him down to visit.”

  She downed the sparkling water and nodded at the pitcher of iced tea. “I heard the case against Cameron Burr is weak. I want to personally kiss him for ridding the town of Gerald Eliot.”

  “Marla!”

  “Oh, don’t. Eliot was a fraud. Did you get a look at the Merciful Migrations cabin kitchen? Eliot was supposed to put in a row of windows. But he fell for a model instead. They didn’t just roll in the hay. They frolicked between four-by-fours, screwed in sawdust, porked on plywood—”

  “Marla!” I gasped in mock surprise. Then I asked, “Do you know the model’s name? Or who caught them—er, frolicking?”

  “All I know is that it got Eliot canned.”

  I shook my head. “How’d he keep getting jobs? How come you didn’t tell me he was so bad?”

  She sighed noisily. “I didn’t know you were going to hire him until after he’d made this mess.” She gestured at my gutted wall. “Plus, other people hate to admit their failures with contractors. When Cameron wanted to hire Eliot as a night guard at the Homestead, I was in charge of doing the background check, but I was only supposed to find out if he stole stuff, not if he was a good contractor—Cameron already knew his shortcomings in that department. I called his last three jobs. The only thing that disappeared from people’s homes was Gerald Eliot himself.”

  “Nobody told me.”

  She shrugged. “He was a terrible guard at the museum. He swore he’d broken up with that model, but he was pouring tequila for somebody into the society’s antique shot glasses. Monday morning, we’d come in for a meeting? The place would
smell like a bar.”

  I shook a dollop of nonfat cottage cheese into a crystal cup and surrounded it artfully with sliced strawberries. When I put it in front of her, she smiled her thanks and reached for a spoon.

  “Okay, enough chatter,” she said after a few bites. I groaned, but she pressed on: “What’s going to happen to you? Will you still be able to pick up half of Julian’s college expenses?”

  My shoulders slumped. I’d forgotten about our responsibility for Julian’s expenses. Before we were married, Tom had promised to pay half of our young friend’s tuition, room, and board. Marla paid the other half. Also, I realized with a start, I had no idea if John Richard had made any provision to pay for Arch’s fall tuition at Elk Park Prep. Before he’d gotten himself into jail, he had been ordered by the court to pay Arch’s tuition bills. How could he fulfill his financial obligations if he was behind bars?

  “Have you heard from Julian?” I asked Marla. “He called here yesterday but didn’t leave a number.”

  She downed a strawberry and raised her eyebrows. “Talked to him last night.”

  “You did? Where was he? Is he coming to visit?”

  She shrugged noncommittally. “Don’t know where he was exactly. He sounded better than he did a few weeks ago, when I told him about the audit and my plans to act poor and virtuous. He even recommended the secondhand store between Mountain Rental and Darlene’s Antiques and Collectibles. That’s where I found this creation.” She smoothed the gray dress and struck a pose. “But it’s my turn to ask you questions.”

  “What about Julian? What did he say?”

  “Not much, I keep telling you!” She finished her fruit plate and nudged it aside. “So much for the money situation. Does Arch have a girlfriend yet?”

  “No. And please don’t ask him, he’s extremely sensitive.”

  “Well, then, if we can’t discuss cash or young love, is that cobbler done yet?”

  “I thought you were going to be virtuous.”

  “I am being virtuous. It’s exhausting me.” She stood and brought her bowl to the sink, where she ostentatiously rinsed it, to underscore just how virtuous she was endeavoring to be. “Don’t worry, I’m not having any of your yummy, artery-clogging cobbler. I need to take you somewhere. So finish your cooking.”

  “Take me where? To book an event with the IRS? Audit-Time Appetizers? Penalty-Plus-Interest Pizza?”

  Her eyes twinkled. She did look much younger without makeup. “Can’t tell you. It’s a surprise.”

  Groaning, I slid the puffed, golden cobbler out of the oven and set it aside to cool. Marla, who stubbornly refused to explain further, led me out my front door and motioned down the street. The warm, sweet summer air swished through the aspens and evergreens as we trekked the short block and a half to Main Street, then turned left and climbed the sloped steps to the Grizzly Saloon. There, Marla pointed to one of the old wooden benches lining the porch. She scrutinized the street in both directions. After a moment, she sat down, frowning. Evidently, whatever it was she intended to surprise me with hadn’t yet arrived.

  The pungent smell of spilled beer and old wood wafted out the saloon doors. Tourists clutching shopping bags came and went from Darlene’s and the secondhand store. A runner trotted very slowly down our street, then turned left by the Grizzly. An emerald-green halter top and pants clung to her tall body and set off her gleaming chestnut hair, drawn up in a ponytail. It was Rustine, the model. I was not aware that she lived in Aspen Meadow, much less made slow jogs along Main Street. She glanced up briefly and I smiled. She immediately looked away, as if she didn’t recognize me. Maybe this time she didn’t need any coffee.

  “Why are we here?” I asked Marla after another five minutes. “Are we waiting for somebody?”

  “Secret,” she said knowingly. “Ah, here we go.”

  An ancient Toyota with New York license plates sputtered to the curb. A moment passed while the driver and passenger conversed. Then the passenger-side door creaked open. A handsome young man with longish dark hair and a square jaw climbed out of the car, squinted at the bright sunlight, and scanned the front of the saloon. He held his hand up to his forehead to shield his eyes, and frowned. Then he spotted Marla and me and waved.

  It was Julian.

  He’d let his hair grow out from its bleached Dutch-boy cut. The short, tough, muscled body that I’d usually seen plowing down the lap lanes of our community pool now seemed thinner beneath a faded blue T-shirt and tattered jeans. When he let the hand shielding his dark eyes drop, I could see they were smudged with fatigue.

  “Goldy!”

  By the time I stood beside the sputtering car, Julian had already unloaded three boxes and a tattered duffel bag from its trunk. Marla trundled up beside me, beaming. The Toyota growled, belched a cloud of exhaust, and chugged away. I hugged Julian tightly. Marla embraced both of us.

  “We thought your summer job wasn’t over, or that you weren’t coming—” I stammered.

  Julian pulled away from me. He seemed awkward and disoriented, as if he’d just disembarked from a long flight. His cheeks turned pink. Was he embarrassed? Happy to be home? Impossible to tell.

  He said, “Good to see you all, too.”

  “Marla didn’t tell me,” I went on, “and I had no idea …”

  “Marla.” Julian grinned. “Great outfit,” he told her.

  “Thanks,” she purred.

  The three of us were suddenly silent. Julian swallowed and shifted from foot to foot. Something is wrong, I thought.

  Marla chirped, “I’m going to let you two visit. I’ll go get my car.” She took off before I could protest. Get her car for what?

  Julian’s voice cracked when he asked, “Is Arch … at your place?”

  “He’s just doing some errands with Tom,” I replied. What was going on? His face fell. “What is it?” I demanded. He said nothing. “Listen, let’s go home, okay? How long can you stay? We were just talking about you and—”

  He lifted his jaw and I saw a trace of the Julian I’d first known. Rebellion, hostility, and insecurity raged below a forced external calm. “I’m warning you,” he said stiffly. “You’re going to be very disappointed in me—”

  “Never.” But I felt increasingly uncertain. So much had been going wrong lately. “What is it?” I asked lamely.

  “I quit my summer job at the hotel restaurant. The owner was weird, wanted me to take over the kitchen while she took off. Even the other employees told me I should pack it in. I was wondering if you, if you would be willing …” He cleared his throat. “Could you take me back for a while? Just until I get my act together.”

  I wondered vaguely about the opening of school, but jumped in with, “Of course! Why would you even think we wouldn’t—”

  He held up his hand. “Wait.” His voice crackled with defiance. “Before you say yes, there’s something you should know. It’s not for a short time. I … didn’t just quit my job. I dropped out of Cornell.” His eyes were wet. “I was miserable.”

  I said, “Welcome home, Julian,” and hugged him.

  This time, he didn’t pull away.

  Chapter 7

  Marla’s Mercedes purred to the curb. We loaded Julian’s boxes and bag into the trunk and took off.

  Jake barked ecstatically when he spotted Julian, even though the dog had only met our former boarder briefly at Christmas. But no matter. When we came through the back gate, the hound jumped up, howled, sniffed Julian’s neck and licked his face. Arch was always telling us that bloodhounds belong to the canine equivalent of Mensa. Now Jake seemed to remember that Julian was the great friend and protector of his beloved Arch. In any event, Julian seemed pleased to be so effusively welcomed.

  Inside, he eagerly accepted the offer of warm cherry cobbler piled with scoops of vanilla ice cream. Marla and I drank iced coffee and gingerly worked our way toward asking what had gone wrong.

  He began by saying he’d wanted to go away to college. He’d been eager to tr
y a new place, far away from the West. But he’d quickly become disillusioned, and missed Colorado. His assigned roommate smoked, watched television till midnight, then snored until noon. So Julian couldn’t study, breathe, or sleep. Worst of all, he’d become intensely lonely.

  “I didn’t have anybody to eat with.” His spoon traced a circle on his empty plate. “It’s something you don’t think about, you know? How much of eating is just being with other people. I always thought the important thing was the food, how it tastes. But it isn’t.”

  Contemplating these problems while Jay Leno squawked each night on the roommate’s TV, Julian had resigned himself to self-doubt. He’d felt his confidence ebb away. His misery had exacerbated the embarrassment he already felt over Marla and Tom paying so much for him to be in college. With the illogic of the desperate, he’d stopped going to class. He’d begun waiting tables at a coffee shop in Ithaca. Working in a kitchen and being around other food workers had helped his frame of mind. Unfortunately, all those skipped classes and missed assignments had wreaked havoc on his freshman transcript.

  At the urging of the coffee shop owner, Julian had taken a high-paying summer job in an upstate New York hotel. But his new boss had required eighteen-hour workdays. Julian had thought about quitting, but he hadn’t wanted to return to his hometown of Bluff, Utah. Although he’d learned to make candy and Navajo tacos there, the town possessed few prospects for a food service career. He’d finally phoned a Cornell administrator and talked to various deans. All the university folks had been very understanding; they’d told him to stay in touch. Officially, his departure was classified as a leave of absence. To Julian, it was escape from a black hole.