Prime Cut

by Diane Mott Davidson

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And guess who was on that last stagecoach? New York financier Bernard Baruch. The robber got him for fifty dollars.”

  “Right. How much did this last stagecoach robbery net, in toto?”

  “Five hundred dollars, they say.”

  I took a deep breath. “And that’s it?”

  “Not quite. The way the story goes, a sixteen-year-old named Eugenia Braintree was on that stagecoach. She was running away from her parents. The Braintrees, very wealthy banking people from Pittsburgh, were feuding with their daughter. Eugenia wanted to work for women’s suffrage. Her parents thought this was a very bad idea. She was headstrong and took off, but not before she’d stolen a ruby necklace, a diamond brooch, and sapphire earrings from her mother. The jewelry was supposed to finance Eugenia’s escape to San Francisco, but it ended up in the robber’s sack with Bernard Baruch’s cash.” He chuckled. “Whoever took that five hundred dollars hit the jackpot with Eugenia’s jewelry. It was worth a fortune. Plus, whoever it was got away and was never caught. Supposedly, the guy named Charlie disappeared from Yellowstone the next day.”

  “You seem to know the story pretty well.”

  The glee that had suffused Cameron’s face as he told the old legend abruptly left. His voice filled with sadness. “Yeah, I do. But only because Vic had researched it after his father died. The Braintree part he only got from one source, in Pittsburgh. The Braintree parents never reported the robbery, according to this source, for fear that a story of their daughter stealing all that jewelry would somehow cause a run on their big bank in Pittsburgh. Vic didn’t care. All he wanted was the story. He went to great lengths to obtain the front page from the New York Times that ran the article about the robbery, and he framed it. Leah even gave that to the museum. Anyway, in all our hours at the fire station, old Vic told that story well, and often, to the recruits.” Cameron sighed deeply. “It was like Vic didn’t have a father, really. But he had this story.”

  “Sounds as if Vic Smythe was like a father to the recruits.”

  “He was.”

  My thirty minutes were over. “I’d better be going—”

  “Listen,” Cameron said hesitantly, “I’m glad you came. You’ve been so nice since Barbara got sick, bringing food, checking on me. I’m sorry I didn’t call you back, but my lawyer …”He exhaled softly, too defeated to finish his thought.

  “It’s fine, Cam. If I can figure out this mess, maybe it will help you.”

  “You have no idea how much your visit has cheered me up. I didn’t think it would, but it has.”

  I tapped the glass. “You’re a good man. And a good friend.”

  Cameron Burr looked over his shoulder to see if he was being watched. He lowered his voice and covered the phone with his hand as he said, “Your ex-husband is in here.”

  “So you’ve met The Jerk. Poor you.”

  “You can’t tell anybody I told you this, ‘cause he’s a guy who gets in fights and I can’t risk that. Plus, he didn’t actually tell me this. It’s what I heard from somebody else, who heard it through the gossip mill, which operates at a pretty hefty clip in here. It relates to what you asked me about when you first came in.”

  A familiar queasiness threatened. I tried to sound normal. “Why? What’s going on?”

  Cameron Burr’s gritty whisper spiraled through the phone. “He’s trying to get revenge on you and Marla, his other ex-wife.”

  “Revenge?”

  “Before he got caught for beating up his girlfriend, he was having money troubles. Marla was giving him a hard time, you know how she can be. So he turned her into the IRS. Since he got in here, he’s started bankrolling Craig Litchfield to undercut you. Your ex used your son to get your client list, assignments, schedules, menus, and prices off your computer, to give to your competitor.”

  The air conditioner fan whirred overhead. I said, “Thanks, Cameron,” and stood up.

  His bloodshot eyes watered. “I hope I can see you again soon.”

  “You will,” I promised.

  A cool breeze whistled through my half-open windows as I reflected on stagecoach robberies, a rifle in the wall, escape from prosecution, unsolved crimes, and the manipulation of my son, my dear sweet son, to do one of his father’s vicious errands. If I had the rifle from the wall, Charlie Smythe’s escape route between Yellow-stone and Blue Spruce, and John Richard Korman standing in front of me, would I shoot The Jerk and be done with it? Goodness, but it would be tempting. The nerve of that man, to try to wreak revenge on his two ex-wives. Leopards don’t change their spots. Especially those big cats who use power to hurt people.

  At a red light, I again called Lutheran Hospital to check on Leah Smythe. A new nurse told me Leah couldn’t talk. But the patient was doing fine. Punching in Marla’s home number on the cell, I swerved out of my lane. I swung back to safety and listened as her phone rang over to her tape.

  “It’s me,” I said to the machine. “Yes, I can meet you at the St. Stephen’s parking lot at three-thirty. I’d say more, but I’m afraid the IRS is bugging your phone.” I punched off and called home.

  “This is Goldilocks’ Catering,” a male voice answered happily, “but Goldy’s out with the bears right now. Can I help you?”

  “Tom, please. How likely is it that potential clients would book me after that greeting?”

  “Aha, Miss Happy-go-lucky. You must have had a super time at the jail.”

  “How’s my kitchen coming?”

  “Great. I know you want to see it, but Arch needs his swimsuit. Julian took him over to Lettie’s, but the suit’s in your van, left there after some lock-in at the rec center two weeks ago, he says. Anyway, you’ll have to wait to see your kitchen until you get the suit to Arch.”

  Patience. “Tell me how to get to Rustine and Lettie’s place.”

  “Sure. Don’t you want to know what I found out from Sheila?”

  “Hold on.” I pulled onto the shoulder under the bridge that overlooked the Continental Divide. Forty miles west of the gloom overhead, the peaks shimmered under a cloak of new snow—another chilly harbinger of the winter to come. I pulled my notepad from my purse. “Go ahead with the directions.”

  “The girls live in Aspen Hills, at the western end of Troutman Trail. That’s the third hairpin turn after Brook Drive turns into a dirt road. You taking notes? Pass a For Sale sign, pass a gray house with red trim. Their house is the first place on the right after the last set of mailboxes on Troutman. Brown house, green trim. You get to a dead end, you’ve gone too far.”

  “Got it.” If that wasn’t an Aspen Meadow set of directions, I didn’t know what was.

  “I called Sheila—”

  “Go ahead.” I put my notebook away.

  “Remember what you asked about how André took too much medication?”

  “Yes.”

  “There was a very slight amount of bruising around his mouth, but it is inconclusive. So it is not impossible that he was forced to keep the pills in his mouth, although Sheila still doesn’t think so.”

  I checked my rearview mirror and pressed the accelerator to get back on the road. “Thanks, Tom. You’re the best.”

  Rain splatted gently across my dusty windshield by the time I reached the western end of Troutman Trail. When I drove up to the very plain-looking brown house with peeling green trim, Lettie and Arch were jumping on the trampoline in the front yard. Julian was nowhere in sight.

  I parked under a lodgepole pine and considered my wet-haired, happily leaping son. He was dressed in a clean but faded polo-style white shirt as well as too-large navy shorts—both hand-me-downs from Julian, both now quite wet. He was bouncing on an unstable, steel-framed trampoline, in the rain, when lightning could strike any moment. And all this with a girl, no less. Should I tell him to stop? Or confront him about sharing my confidential client information with The Jerk? Neither. The first could be finessed, the second would wait until we were alone.

  “Ar
ch! I don’t know where your suit is! You’ll have to find it.” I pulled open the van door. “Lettie? Are Julian and your sister inside?”

  When Lettie nodded, I knocked on the front door. Julian, his finger marking his place in the new edition of The Joy of Cooking, admitted me.

  “Catching up on your reading?” I asked.

  He blushed. “I brought it with me, along with poached veggies for the girls. Arch ate at home, which is probably a good thing. Have to warn you, this place is a mess. I didn’t feel right about cleaning it up, but I don’t know if Rustine would want you to come in. They had a housekeeper, but she quit a month ago. Anyway, Rustine’s doing some beauty treatment. I hollered to her that you were here.”

  “No matter what, I want you to keep an eye on Arch,” I said quietly.

  “That’s why I’m sticking around.”

  Rustine, sporting newly painted toenails and toes separated by wads of cotton, appeared behind Julian. She was wearing a white shortly robe. Underneath a shower cap, her hair was covered with green goo. Her face was plastered with mud.

  I said, “Are you going like that to the rec center?”

  She tsked. “It’s almost time to rinse this stuff off. Have you been able to find out who wanted to kill Gerald?”

  “May I come in?”

  She moved in front of Julian, opened the door, and ushered me into a space so cluttered with furniture and boxes that it was hard to make out where to go. It was a contemporary-design house, with the dining room, living room, and kitchen all open to each other. The dining room table was covered with papers: resumes, letters, files, want ad sections of old newspapers. Every chair in the dusty living room was heaped with boxes of papers.

  “Want something to drink?” Rustine eyed the sinkful of dirty dishes, which probably included every glass in the house. “Check the refrig.”

  Opening the refrigerator door, I was dazzled by gleaming rows of bottled water, flavored with everything from passion fruit to mango. I looked longingly at the kitchen faucet and ended up choosing water flavored with kiwi. In the living room, Rustine perched on the arm of a once-white, now charcoal gray, wing chair filled with a pile of papers. I sat on a stool close enough to the black wall-to-wall carpeting to see it was embedded with hair and dust. Julian hunkered down on the undusted hearth of a moss-rock fireplace. So much for models living in surroundings as gorgeous as the ones in which they’re photographed.

  “Where did you say your dad was?” I ventured.

  “I told you, in Alaska, looking for a job. Then he’s going to Orange County, then he’ll be back after Labor Day. If he gets a job, he’s going to hire a new housekeeper.”

  Julian closed the cookbook. “You want me to clean up that kitchen for you?”

  “No, thanks,” she said dismissively.

  “Aw, I’m used to doing dishes.” He grinned and made for the kitchen. “That way you can ask Goldy about your former boyfriend and not be embarrassed.”

  “I’m not embarrassed.” She watched Julian filling the sink with hot sudsy water, though, then stood up and beckoned for me to follow. A few minutes later I was perched on the edge of a tub in a large, messy bathroom tiled in avocado and lemon, While Rustine rinsed the mud off her face. As she was patting her cheeks with a dingy towel, she said, “I just need another few minutes for my conditioner, then Julian and I will take the kids swimming. That’s okay, isn’t it?” I nodded. She went on: “So, what have you been able to find out about Gerald?”

  Two things I had learned from Tom: always take charge of an interrogation. Even when you’re sitting on a tub. And when you think a criminal might have done something, first pose a question he can truthfully deny, then ask him what you really want to know. If he hesitates, you’ve got him.

  I studied Rustine’s reflection in the mirror. “Are you the one who’s been sabotaging my food up at the cabin?”

  “No! What sabotage?”

  I kept my eyes on her. “Foreign matter has appeared in the food. Whoever’s putting it there might have sabotaged André, too. I suspect Craig Litchfield’s behind it.”

  “Well, I’m not the one doing it. And it sounds disgusting. I’m going to stop eating your food!”

  “Rustine, you told Tom and me that Gerald Eliot found a weapon. Then you immediately asked us if we’d found out some secret about Charlie Smythe. But it was a rifle Eliot found, and something told you it was Smythe’s, right? You were Gerald’s girlfriend. I think you know a lot more about what he found.”

  Rustine reddened; she checked her eyelids for specks of mud before responding. “I didn’t say … I don’t remember saying—”

  “Cut the crap.”

  “I—” She sighed. “Okay. Gerry found Charlie Smythe’s old rifle. You’ve seen it on the wall of the cabin’s great room, haven’t you? Leah put it there.”

  “What else? Tell me. Otherwise I’ll call the department. You’ll be arrested for withholding evidence in a murder case faster than you can say anorexia nervosa”

  She tapped the side of the sink, thought for a moment, then shrugged. “All right. I used to be at the cabin with Gerry, kind of keeping him company, you know, when he was working. It was fun to watch, all that destruction. He’d take off his shirt, Mr. Rippling Muscles, you know—” She giggled, then said, “He pulled everything away from the wall, and used his sledgehammer to rip the plaster off the kitchen wall. When he got to the laths underneath—”

  “I don’t need a course in construction, thanks.”

  She pulled the shower cap off and checked her hair. “Right. Tucked between the laths, he found this … package, wrapped in oilcloth. He was really excited, and kind of afraid, too. Like he’d discovered a ghost or something. Inside the oilcloth was this old rifle. But Rufus barged in right after Gerry unwrapped the rifle. So Gerry had to give it to Rufus, who left to give it to Leah and Ian. Gerry felt … gypped.”

  “So you knew all about the rifle, but you only told us it was a weapon. What exactly were you looking for up at Cameron Burr’s place?”

  “I need to rinse my hair—”

  “You want me to call the sheriffs department? Then you can rinse it in the jail shower.”

  She turned red. “I was looking for Winnie Smythe’s cookbook, okay?” I waited. “After he’d found the rifle, Gerry came across something else in the wall. It was also a package, and it was wrapped in oilcloth, too. It was … a note from a man to his wife. From Charlie to Winnie.”

  “Do you have it?”

  She ran her fingers through her slick hair. “No.”

  She was lying. “So help me, Rustine—”

  “Oh, all right, I have a photocopy that Gerry made. He thought the letter was going to make us rich, and all it did was get him killed. I figured if you could find out who really killed him, or where the cookbook was, then I could … If I help you, will you split what you find with me?”

  “Rustine! Show me the note and tell me why you need the damn cookbook!”

  “Just listen for a sec. Gerry was so excited about finding this stuff, he was asking all around about the history of the cabin. Everybody knew he was on to something!”

  “Would you please give me that note?”

  Her excited eyes met mine. Again I recalled her first appearance in the cabin kitchen. You’re the caterer who figures things out.

  Rustine’s medicine cabinet door squeaked when she opened it. She pulled out a folded, zippered plastic bag and handed it to me.

  Chapter 21

  “Mom!” called Arch from the door. “I found my suit. Can Rustine take us swimming now? We’re ready.”

  “Can you just … hold off for a few minutes, hon? We’re talking.”

  “Let me show you my ham radio,” Lettie added. “Does yours still work?”

  “No,” I heard Arch reply. “How do you keep your antenna on your roof?” Their footsteps pattered down the hallway.

  I pulled a folded sheet of paper out of the zippered makeup bag. The handwriting, wit
h its bold pen marks, was identical to the handwriting on the letter from Leavenworth:

  My Dear Wife,

  You are my Treasure and I am yours. If there ever comes a time when I am in Heaven and you want me, you know you have only to use my Rifle and your Cookery book, and make the Rolls as I showed you.

  Thus will you have our Treasure.

  Your Loving Husband

  “Well, now, that makes a lot of sense,” I said after I’d read the note twice. “Use the rifle. Make the rolls according to a certain recipe. Then you’ll be rich. Do you stir the batter with the rifle butt? And would that be Parker House or cloverleaf rolls?”

  Rustine shrugged. “I just wish I knew who else Gerry showed the note to. Or who has that cookbook. We have to have the cookbook!”

  I stood up. No need to mention the photocopies to Rustine. I said, “I need to take this to my husband.”

  I missed Arch on the way out, which was probably just as well. In the kitchen, Julian was up to his elbows in sudsy water, singing an a cappella riff on “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” Just like André, I thought with a smile, although Julian probably didn’t even realize it. He’d somehow cleared off a spot on the cluttered counter, laid down a dish towel, and heaped up a pile of washed and rinsed pans to drip-dry.

  “Please have Arch home by three,” I asked him. “The service for André is at four.”

  He nodded, and I took off for home. To my astonishment, Tom had finished the plumbing and put in the rest of the bottom cabinets. This is what it must be like to have a contractor who works full-time, I mused. Without a counter, our kitchen still looked like a dusty warehouse, but at least it was beginning to take on the look of a culinary warehouse.

  While I looked for lunch fixings, Tom washed his hands, poured a glass of water, and stared at the note I’d given him. “Why in the world didn’t Rustine tell us about this? It affects a murder case, for crying out loud.”