“Goldy!” came Sergeant Boyd’s curt voice from far away. “What’s going on over there? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine!” I called. No question, I was having trouble with phones these days. I picked up the receiver, clutched it to my ear, and made my tone as normal as possible. “Thanks for calling back. Did you find out anything?”
“You never heard any of this from me.”
“Sergeant Who?”
“All right. Looks like your ex was in the money-laundering business.”
“What?”
Boyd blew out air. “We don’t know for whom, and we don’t know how much cash we’re talking about, because we only caught that one Smurf.”
“That one—?” Balancing the portable phone against my ear, I moved the dough into a buttered bowl, placed a cloth on top, and transported the whole thing out to the dining room.
“That’s what we call them. Smurfs, like the toys. You met one at Dr. Korman’s house right before you found the body. The Smurfs deposit chunks of cash their captain gives them. Korman was captain of we don’t know how many Smurfs, and we don’t know who he was working for. That’s the whole point of hiring these Smurfs to work for you. You keep them out of the loop.”
I looked out the window over the sink, the only one that had no shade or curtain. Had I detected a movement in the lilac bushes outside? I’d cracked the window before starting to knead the bread. This was summer, after all, and the kitchen was hot. The hail had evaporated, and our dry, dusty, fire-feeding weather had returned.
“Wait a sec,” I warned Boyd. I tiptoed into the first-floor bathroom, where the window was shut and covered by a curtain. “Okay, now I can talk. You mean, my ex-husband was running a money-laundering business out of his country-club home? Did he set up this business while he was incarcerated? Was it drug money? Proceeds from illegal gambling? Could a Smurf have shot and killed John Richard?”
“Hold on, hold on. We don’t know anything. That Smurf you met doesn’t know anything, either. He was supposed to pick up his usual forty-five hundred dollars, and that didn’t happen. The investigators are looking at all of Dr. Korman’s known associates, the guys he hung out with in jail, that kind of thing. Someone had a lot of cash that they didn’t want to pay taxes on, that’s for sure.”
Hold on. I gripped the towel bar. Duh. I’d seen lots and lots of cash, you bet I had, all over the place, because businessmen didn’t want their wives seeing these bills on their credit cards. And yes, John Richard had had some known associates in that business, the business where women didn’t wear clothes. Was this grasping at straws, too? Or could it be true?
“Listen,” I said, “this is a stretch. A big stretch. But John Richard’s girlfriend, Sandee, works for the Rainbow Men’s Club. It’s a Denver strip joint run by a woman named Lana Della Robbia, a former patient of John Richard. Her sidekick is a mean-looking, muscle-bound guy named Dannyboy. Anyway, Lana worshiped the ground John Richard walked on. And the Rainbow was swimming in cash when I visited today.”
There was a pause. “This is when I’m supposed to ask you what you were doing at the Rainbow strip club where Dr. Korman’s girlfriend works. What you were doing there today.”
“Watching the show,” I said innocently. “Look, I’ve got a lot of cooking to do.”
“You’ve always got a lot of cooking to do when I start asking you questions.”
“Could you get back to me when they have the autopsy and ballistics results?”
“Oh! She wants autopsy and ballistics results! Why, yes, ma’am.” But there was affection in his voice. When he signed off, I knew his only challenge would be figuring out a way to say that someone had tipped him off to the remote possibility that the Rainbow Men’s Club was laundering cash through Dr. John Richard Korman, deceased.
Even I thought it sounded a bit ridiculous. Still, Lana Della Robbia had been rolling, drowning, really, in currency. Also, Marla should have called in her anonymous tip by now, so Furman County investigators might even be on their way to the Rainbow at this very minute, to search for an Elvis impersonator. Did possible money laundering plus a possibly jealous boyfriend add up to homicide? I had no idea.
I put in another call, this one to the Rainbow. After asking my name and putting me on hold for five minutes, the woman who answered said Lana Della Robbia was unavailable. When I told this gal I didn’t believe her, she hung up. Not to be outdone, I slammed my phone down, too. What had clammed Lana up? Was she getting nervous about the case? Had the cops been asking her too many probing questions? And more important, how could I find out if the Jerk had been killed for his part in a money-laundering scheme? Would Sandee be willing to tell me anything? Sandee Blue was most emphatically not the brightest bulb in the box, but maybe she’d know enough to share information. I left a message for Marla—did anyone answer their phone these days?—asking her to find Sandee and offer to take her to John Richard’s funeral service, whenever that was. I’d be coming, too, I added, then pressed End.
Time to concentrate on food.
I tiptoed out of the bathroom—just in case the reporters had their ears pressed to the walls to see where I was—replaced the phone, and started on the pies for Nan Watkins’s retirement picnic. I’d been experimenting with crusts this summer, and for this event I’d concocted a crunchy mixture of butter, toasted filberts, confectioners’ sugar, and flour. I’d already made these crusts and frozen them. I set them aside to thaw while I whipped cream into soft, velvety clouds. Then I beat cream cheese with vanilla and a bit more powdered sugar into a thick, smooth mélange, folded the cream into the cream-cheese mixture, and carefully spooned this luscious-looking concoction into the crusts. Wrapping the pies to chill overnight, I checked that I had plenty of irresistibly fat, fresh strawberries that would be cooked into a topping for the pies. I did. In fact, I washed one strawberry and popped it into my mouth. My excuse? Caterers need to test everything.
Without warning, John Richard’s face loomed in my mind. All my aches and pains began hurting at the same time, while rage and anxiety again reared their noxious heads. What was going to happen to me? To Arch? Gooseflesh ran up my arms. I pulled the phone off its cradle and tried to reach Tom on his cell. Hearing his voice would help. But as with everyone else, there was no answer. I slammed the phone down without leaving a message. The municipal golf course was in cell phone range. Where was he?
Once again, I saw movement and heard rustling in the lilac bushes outside our kitchen window. I cranked the window open even wider.
“Hey!” I yelled. “Beat it! I’m married to a cop! He eats reporters for lunch!”
The lilac bushes were still.
I crossed my arms and stared out the window. Should I call 911? No; whoever it was would make a fast retreat as soon as the police showed up. Unfortunately, those detectives still had my thirty-eight…and I really wasn’t sure I wanted to go find one of Tom’s guns so I could shoot into the bushes. What if the movement was from a fox or a family of birds? Then I’d feel terrible. How would I feel if I shot a reporter?
Hmm.
In any event, I kept a sharp eye out the window. I was not going to be intimidated anymore, doggone it.
I returned to picnic prep. The pork chops were brining. The dough was rising. Whoever-it-was-in-the-
bushes had been yelled at. I made the cooked strawberry topping for the pies and set it aside to cool. Was I done? Alas, no. I remembered that I had one more dish to think up for the committee breakfast.
I washed my hands and reflected on the inherent problem in serving food to any group of women: One has to deal with dieters and non-dieters. The dieter demands low-cal food; the non-dieter feels deprived if she isn’t served a three-course meal complete with guacamole, béarnaise sauce, and crème anglaise. Complicating matters was the current popularity of high-protein diets. Any caterer worth her sea salt had to provide a protein source that could be lifted or scraped from its carbohydrate base. I had promised the head of the
committee, Priscilla Throckbottom, that I could provide three such dishes. The entrées would appeal to dieter and non-dieter alike. I had two kinds of quiche. Now I just had to come up with one more recipe.
At first I had thought I would fry bacon and alternate it with strips of cheese on top of the split mini-croissants I had ordered. But the funeral lunch debacle had left me with numerous packages of untouched Gruyère and Parmesan cheese. Another rule of catering: Waste not.
I preheated the oven and split a croissant. After some thought, I sliced some juicy, fresh scallions Liz had brought from the farmers’ market. Checking the walk-in, I realized I had many cans of luscious pasteurized crabmeat and, oh joy, jars of marinated artichoke hearts. I chopped the artichokes, flaked the crab, and grated the cheeses. Then I bound those ingredients with mayonnaise and spread it on the croissants. For a finishing touch, I crushed a garlic clove and gently sautéed it in butter along with fresh bread crumbs, then added judicious amounts of chopped parsley and dried herbs. I sprinkled this crumb topping over the crab-slathered croissant, and slid the pastry into the oven. I kept checking on my creation until the cheese was melted and bubbling, and the croissant looked crisp and brown around the edges. Even the scent was enticing. How long had it been since my lunch at Holly’s? I couldn’t remember.
Someone started banging on the front door. Now what? I groaned, slipped the croissant onto a cooling rack, and trotted down the hall. One check of my peephole revealed a gaggle of six stubborn reporters still hanging out on our front porch. Frances Markasian was back, and was acting as spokesperson.
“What is it?” I yelled.
“Look, Goldy,” Frances pleaded, “we’re starving. We’ve been here for hours, and we can smell something wonderful in there. Our editors won’t let us leave until you at least say, ‘No comment.’ Can we make a deal here? Little snack, ‘No comment,’ and we leave? Please?”
I suppressed a giggle. “All right, I suppose. Just give me a minute to do a taste test!”
I raced back to the kitchen and sank my teeth into the pastry. It was heavenly: The rich crab, creamy mayonnaise, and tang of cheese melded perfectly with the crispy croissant and crunchy herbed crumb topping. I swooned, composed myself, and began carefully splitting croissants and slathering them with the crab mixture. Funny how the little crescents, when you put them next to each other, resembled a tool from law enforcement. Oh, dear. Maybe I wasn’t repressing things as well as I’d hoped.
The croissants looked just like handcuffs. Well, I had a name for my recipe, anyway: Handcuff Croissants. It had a ring to it, somehow. A metallic one.
Once I had the croissants baking, I took out one of the cream pies. I’d made plenty of them, and I knew a sweet treat should follow a savory one. These people were reporters, after all, and even if they printed, “No comment,” they might preface it with “After Mrs. Schulz generously served the press some delicious snacks courtesy of Goldilocks’ Catering…” Yes!
I spooned the strawberry topping onto the pie, then pulled out the croissants. They emerged puffed, flaky, and golden. I placed them next to the pie on a large wooden tray, along with piles of plastic forks, paper plates, and napkins, and headed for the porch.
“Oh my God!” Frances cried when I swung through the front door.
“Will you look at this!” another one yelped.
“I could eat all of these myself!”
And so on. I placed the tray on the porch table and glowed. Twenty-four mini-croissants disappeared faster than the hail had melted. I worried that the journalists might get sick. But I didn’t say anything; I just beamed.
“Mrs. Schulz,” said one, his mouth full, “do you think the killer might be a former patient of your ex-husband? Say there was someone with a medical gripe who couldn’t sue because of his HMO or something? Maybe she’d be waiting for him to get out of jail so she could kill him?”
My mouth fell open in surprise. Why hadn’t I thought of that? All the reporters stopped chewing, waiting for me to reveal—
“Now, just a minute! Just a minute!” Someone was screaming, pushing through the lilac bushes at the side of our house, then crashing into the front yard. “Stop! Stop eating this second!” He was covered with leaves and tiny branches, which he was trying to brush off with his clipboard. Clipboard?
Oh holy God. Please, let it not be. But it was. Roger Mannis, the district health inspector, was making a surprise visit! To do a surprise inspection! Surprise!
He straightened his back and marched up the steps to the porch.
“I insist that you allow me to inspect that food that you are serving to the public!” he announced. His dark hair, usually slicked back, was mussed from his time in the lilacs. He wore shiny, silvery-gray polyester pants that were an inch too short, black socks and shoes, and a short-sleeved white shirt complete with plastic pocket-protector, all of which still had bits of twig, leaf, and lilac clinging to them. His bladelike chin trembled, a meat-slicer about to fall.
But I was not going to take this. Not here, not now. It couldn’t be legal for this man to hide in the bushes beside our house and then just pop out when he wanted to. It was nuts. Maybe Roger Mannis wasn’t just anal. Maybe he was insane.
“No,” I said, keeping my tone quiet but firm. “You may not perform an inspection now. These people are my personal guests, and this is not a convenient time for me. I am not serving the public. I am serving friends.”
The reporters gaped. I noticed a couple of them surreptitiously reaching for tape recorders and notepads.
Roger Mannis stepped toward me. He towered over me, his face twisted into an expression somewhere between disbelief and hatred. “What did you say to me? I can do an inspection wherever, whenever I want.”
I held my ground and swallowed. “You can’t do one here. Not now. It’s not convenient.”
Before I could think, Roger Mannis was right in front of me and grabbing my left arm. Hard. “Listen, girlie, don’t you dare tell me what to do. Because I—”
Hit groin. Hit eyes. My self-defense course, which had deserted me at the Roundhouse, rushed back. But I couldn’t manage to knee him between the legs. Nor could I free my left arm from his viselike grip. Without thinking, I reached sideways with my right hand. Then I picked up the strawberry-cream pie and smashed it full in his face—just in time to be caught by the photographers from three newspapers.
I don’t remember much after that. Mannis scuttled away in the direction of his white Furman County van. Muttering curses and threats, he stopped on the sidewalk and bent over as he tried to wipe glop from his face. The reporters avoided my eyes as they picked up their recorders, camera equipment, notepads, pop cans, foam cups, and assorted detritus. I realized I never had said “No comment.”
As I eyed the broken pie plate, bits of crust and filling, and berry topping now flung in all directions on the porch, I did hear another reporter chastise Frances Markasian.
“Dammit, Frances! Why couldn’t you have grabbed that pie before she got it? I really was looking forward to that!”
“He called her ‘girlie,’ Jack.”
“That’s worth a slice, maybe,” Jack replied stubbornly. “Not a whole pie, for Chrissakes.”
13
It didn’t take me long to clean up. It never does when an idea has sprouted in my head. Marla, Brewster, and even the cops had been thinking about the Jerk being plagued by ex-girlfriends and a need for money. But he’d been a doctor, after all. Could an old patient with a grudge still be out there? I wondered if this, too, was grasping at straws. In any event, there was something I really didn’t want to wonder about, and that was the story and photograph of me pie-slapping the district health inspector.
I checked my watch: 4:10. Shouldn’t Arch and Tom be back by now? Perhaps they’d gone out for a snack. Even so, I still had dinner to make. And before I got to that point, a few odds and ends for the next day’s catering remained. Still, I had promised to call Brewster if I heard anything.
/> My criminal lawyer was in a conference, so I left a message on his voice mail that I’d heard “from a cop friend”—no sense getting Boyd in trouble—that John Richard had been involved in a money-laundering operation. Remember the older man who’d asked if I had his money? He’d been waiting for forty-five hundred in cash from John Richard. So, I concluded, it was possible that whoever John Richard was laundering cash for had killed him. At least, I hoped the investigation was turning in that direction. And if it wasn’t turning that way, maybe Brewster could prod it. Also, I added, Sandee Blue, late of John Richard’s harem, had a jealous boyfriend named Bobby Calhoun. And Bobby was prone to violence, I concluded. Just ask Marla.
I punched down the bread dough, divided it, and formed it into rolls for the second rising. That done, I set a fine-mesh strainer over a bowl and carefully spooned a gallon of vanilla yogurt on top, to drain overnight. I would fold the resulting ultrathick, delicious mass into whipped cream to layer with fresh fruit for breakfast parfaits. The rest of the committeewomen’s muffins and breads I had frozen, so with minimal preparation in the country-club kitchen the next morning, I was in good shape. Trudy, my next-door neighbor, brought over the arrangement, a beautiful bouquet of spring flowers sent by a group of moms from Arch’s new Catholic high school. Trudy apologized for there being no casseroles, but she said everyone was afraid to cook for a professional caterer.
Let’s see. For dinner, I could make a shellfish salad like the one I’d enjoyed at Holly’s. I opened the walk-in and saw something that Tom had made a few days ago, during one of his blue periods. The label read “Happy Days Mayonnaise.” For some reason, this piqued my anger all over again.
I calmly walked over to a cabinet filled with jars to be recycled. I picked out two big ones and threw them onto the floor, where they broke with a satisfying crash. My sneakers crunched over the broken shards as I reached up onto the shelf and nabbed two more jars. These I hurled at the back door.
“Happy? Yeah, I’m happy!” I yelled as I chucked another pair of jars onto the floor. They splintered into a million pieces. “I’m happy now!”
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