The Cereal Murders gbcm-3

by Diane Mott Davidson

  “Hi there.” I climbed carefully out of the Rover with the loaf of Irish bread. The image of the fallen deer still haunted me: I didn’t trust myself to say anything else.

  He turned and stood. Clods of wet soil clung to his jeans and jacket. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m sorry, please finish what you’re doing. I just – ” My voice wobbled. Damn. The words were tumbling out; I was shaking my head, appalled at how shaken I was. “I just saw a dead animal by the side of the road and it reminded me … no, no, please,” I said as he started to move toward me. “Please finish what you were doing.”

  He regarded me with one eye crinkled in appraisal. After a moment he crouched down again. “It never will leave you,” he said without looking at me. “Seeing a real dead body is nothing like the movies.” His large, capable fingers reached for a handful of bulbs and carefully pressed them at intervals into the newly spaded trough. Gently he refilled the area with potting soil from a bag. The gesture reminded me of putting a blanket around a sleeping child.

  I breathed lungfuls of the sharp air. I hugged the fragrant bread. Although I wore a down coat, it felt as if my blood had stopped circulating.

  “Cold?” Schulz asked. “Need to go in?” I shook my head. “I’m sorry you were the one who had to find him,” he said gruffly. He finished patting down the soil, rose easily, and put an arm around my shoulders. “Come on, I made you some nachos. Then I need you to look at something.”

  We came through his sculpted-wood door and entered the large open space that was his living room. I stopped to admire the moss-rock fireplace that reached up two stones between rough-hewn mortared logs. A carefully set pile of aspen and pine logs lay in the grate. On I one Shaker-style table was a pot Arch had made at the end of sixth grade. On a wall was an Arch-made woodcut print of a .45, the kind Schulz carried. A pickled-oak I hutch held a display of Staffordshire plates and Bavarian I glass. The sparse grouping of an antique sink and a cupboard between the sofa and chairs upholstered in nubby brown wool gave the place a homey feel. When I had complimented Schulz on his good taste during my last visit, he had replied without missing a beat: “Of course. Why d’you think I’m courting you?”

  Nachos Schulz

  1 15-ounce can chili beans in chili gravy

  9 tablespoons picante sauce

  1 15-ounce bag corn tortilla chips

  4 cups grated cheddar cheese

  1 avocado

  1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

  1 ˝ cups sour cream

  1 tablespoon grated onion

  4 scallions, both white and green parts, chopped

  1 cup pitted black olives, chopped

  1 tomato, chopped

  Preheat the oven to 400 . Mash the beans with ˝ cup of the picante sauce until well mixed. Grease 2 9-by 13-inch pans. Place half the chips in each pan, then spoon the bean mixture over them. Sprinkle the grated cheese on top. Bake for about 10 minutes or until the cheese is melted and the beans are bubbling. Meanwhile, peel, pit, and mash the avocado, then mix it with the lemon juice, ˝ cup of the sour cream, the grated onion, and 1 tablespoon picante sauce. Garnish the nachos with the guacamole, the remaining 1 cup sour cream, scallions, tomato, and olives. Makes 6 to 8 servings.

  I moved away from that thought and arrived in the kitchen just as he was pulling an au gratin casserole out of the oven. The platter was heaped with sizzling corn chips, refried beans, and melted cheddar. A complicated smell of Mexican spices filled the air.

  “Agony,” I said when he had placed the platter in front of me and relieved me of the Irish bread. But I smiled.

  “Wait, wait.” He rummaged around in the refrigerator, then brought out tiny bowls and sprinkled chopped scallions, tomatoes, and black olives on top of the melted cheese. With a directorial flourish, he brandished – yes! – an ice cream scoop that he used to ladle perfect mounds of sour cream and guacamole on top of the platter of chips.

  “Nachos Schulz,” he announced with a proud grin. “For this, we use the special china.” He brought out a beautiful pair of translucent Limoges plates painted with tiny, stylized roses.

  “These must have set you back a bit,” I said with admiration. “You don’t expect to find a china collector in the Sheriff’s Department.”

  “What do I have to spend money on? Besides, the Sheriff’s Department is an equal-opportunity employer. You can have any hobby that helps get your mind off your job.”

  “Beans, cheese, tomatoes, and avocado are all aphrodisiac foods.”

  “Is that right? Well, Goldy, we both know you’re impervious to all that.” We laughed. It was good to be with him; I felt my anxiety recede. Digging into the Mexican mountain, Schulz retrieved a loaded chip stringy with hot cheese. “Open up, ma’am.”

  I held a plate under my chin and let him pop the nacho into my mouth. Heaven. I closed my eyes and made appropriate moans of pleasure.

  “Speaking of aphrodisiacs,” he said when we were halfway through the platter, “I need to ask you something about a book. Belonged to Keith Andrews.”

  “Oh, that reminds me …” I handed him the rock that had broken our upstairs window, then the Neiman-Marcus credit card. I had put the rock in a plastic bag; Schulz eyed it, turned it over in his big hands, then laid it carefully aside. Between bites he studied the credit card, ran his fingers over the letters and numbers, then pocketed it without indicating what he was thinking. He put a last chip into his mouth and slid off his barstool all in one motion. When I hesitated, he gestured for me to follow.

  Like many of the more rustic homes in the mountains, Schulz’s did not have a garage. I put on my coat and followed him outside to his car, where he opened the trunk and carefully emptied out a plastic bag onto some more plastic.

  “Look but don’t touch,” he warned. Not knowing what this was about or why I was doing it, I peered in and saw a jumble of papers, pens, and half-eaten pencils; Stanford, Columbia, and Princeton catalogues and pamphlets; a few books – a German-English dictionary, Faust, as well as the Cliff’s Notes for same; Professor Romeo and Aceing the ACT; several old copies of the Mountain Journal, and some frayed articles held together with staples.

  “What’s all this?”

  “Stuff from the trunk of Keith Andrews’ car. You probably didn’t notice his old Scirocco over in the corner of the parking lot at the school. I’ve got custody of this stuff until tomorrow. His locker had more textbooks and some papers, but given that he was a supposed computer whiz, it’s odd we can’t find any disks. The department’s checking the locker contents out. No credit cards or bills, though, we know that.”

  “Why show me?”

  He leaned against the trunk lid and looked up at the dark clouds. After a moment he shook his head. “I don’t understand that school. I talk and talk to people and nothing comes up. The kid was smart, but not well liked. He worked hard on extracurricular activities, but nobody admired him for it. He brought back postcards from Paris for the whole French Club, and according to Arch, nobody thanked him. His windshield got broken, but by whom? Somebody hated him enough to kill him by bashing in his head. It doesn’t sound like the supportive school community the headmaster is trying to convince me it is.”

  “His windshield got broken? When? What do you mean, according to Arch ?”

  “I talked to Arch this morning. He called me about some snake in his locker.”

  I shook my head. Unbelievable. Why not just label myself obsolete?

  “Anyway,” Schulz was saying, “Arch told me what I’d already heard from a parent, that Dawson fellow, that Julian and Keith Andrews had had some kind of argument a few weeks ago. I guess things got kind of out of hand. Keith’s windshield ended up getting shattered, but not at the time of the argument.”

  “When, then?” Why didn’t Julian ever tell me things like this?

  “Before one of the bigwig college reps showed up at the school, is what I was told.” He paused. “Do you think Julian’s ashamed of being raised without money,
his parents down in Utah, him having to work for and live with you his senior year, anything like that? Something Keith Andrews could have made fun of?”

  “Not that I know of,” I said firmly. Julian’s financial situation caused him pain, but he had never mentioned students’ ridiculing him for it. “I do think they had a girlfriend dispute,” I said lamely. “Remember, Julian told us about it.”

  “This argument was different. This took place last week in front of the Mountain Journal offices. Arch was in the Rover, didn’t hear the whole thing, said that it had something to do with schools. Seems Julian was worried that Keith was going to write something negative about Elk Park Prep, when everyone was uptight enough already about the college application process. All they can say over at the paper was that Keith was doing some kind of expose. They were going to read it before they decided whether or not to print it.”

  “Expose about what?”

  “About Elk Park Prep, I think.” He gestured at the stuff in the trunk. “About test scores. About using Cliff’s Notes. About a professor who thinks he’s a Romeo. About taxes, for God’s sake.” Before I could ask him what he meant by that, he picked up a typed letter that had been done on perforated computer-printer paper. The letter looked like a draft. Words had been crossed out and new words hand-printed above. Mr. Marensky, it read, I’d be more than happy to pay you your two hundred dollars if you’d call the director of admissions at Columbia for me. Or maybe you’d prefer I call the IRS? IRS had a line through it, and Internal Revenue Service had been neatly written above it.

  “I don’t get it.” Schulz shrugged. “Stan Marensky had Keith do some yardwork for him. Marensky gave Keith a check for six hundred dollars for a four-hundred-dollar job with the agreement that Keith would refund him two hundred in cash. That way, Marensky could claim a six-hundred-dollar expense on his taxes. Petty thievery, not all that uncommon, and Marensky owned up to it pretty quick.”

  “So much for Saint Andrews. This is a pretty dark side. Maybe it explains why he wasn’t universally liked. I mean, an expose? Blackmailing a powerful parent?”

  Schulz’s hand grasped the trunk lid, making it creak. “Well, Marensky thought the blackmail was a joke, since he’d gone to Columbia so many years ago, and didn’t have any influence there. He says. Claims he never got his two hundred dollars back. I asked the headmaster about Marensky, and he said he was like a, a, now, let’s see, what did he say…”

  I punched Schulz lightly on the shoulder. “Don’t.” Looking down at the jumble of papers in the trunk, I shivered. “I can’t look at this stuff anymore. Let’s go have some of your shrimp enchiladas.”

  “You peeked.”

  “Hey! This is a caterer you’re talking to! Every meal someone else slaves over is a spy mission.”

  “Just tell me if you know whether Julian and Keith had any real animosity. Before I question Julian again myself. You think he’d break some body’s windshield?”

  “He’s got some hostility, but I doubt he’d do that.”

  “Do you know whether any of the teaching staff were Romeos?”

  I felt my voice rising. “No! I don’t! Gosh, what is the matter with that school? I wish I could find out what’s going on.”

  “Well, you’re doing those dinners for them. You hear stuff. I want to know about anything that sounds strange, out of place.”

  “Look, this murder happened at a dinner I was catering! It’s my window that was broken and my son’s locker that was vandalized! For crying out loud, Tom, the Andrews boy even looked like Arch. You think I want my kid in a school with a murderer on the loose? I have a stake in finding out what’s going on out there. Believe me, I’ll keep you informed.”

  He tilted his head and regarded me beneath the tentlike brows. “Just don’t go off half cocked, Miss G.”

  “Oh, jeez, give me a break, will you? What do you think I am, some kind of petty criminal?”

  Schulz took large steps ahead of me back to the house. “Who, you? The light of my life? The fearless breaker-and- enterer? You? Never!”

  “You are so awful.” I traipsed after him, unsure how I felt to be called the light of anyone’s life.

  Schulz settled me at his cherrywood dining room table, and then began to ferry out dishes. He had outdone himself. Plump, succulent shrimp nestled inside blue corn tortillas smothered with a green chile and cream cheese sauce. Next to these he served bacon-sprinkled refried black beans, a perfectly puffed Mexican corn pudding, and my fragrant Irish bread. A basket of raw vegetables and pot of picante made with fresh papaya graced the table between the candles. I savored it all. When was the last time I’d enjoyed an entire dinner that I had not exhausted myself preparing? I couldn’t remember.

  “Save room for chocolate,” Schulz warned when the room had grown dark except for the candlelight flickering across his face.

  “Not to worry.” Twenty minutes later, I was curled up on his couch. Schulz lit the enormous pile of logs. Soon the snap and roar of burning wood filled the air. Schulz retreated to the kitchen and returned with cups of espresso and a miniature chocolate cake.

  I groaned. “It’s a good thing I’m not prone to jealousy. I’d say you were a better cook than I am.”

  “Not much chance of that.” He had turned on his outside light and was peering into the night. “Darn. It’s stopped snowing.”

  So we had had the same thought. Once again I veered away from this emotional territory, the way you leap onto a makeshift sidewalk when the sign says HARD HATS ONLY!

  Schulz wordlessly cut the cake and handed me a generous slice of what was actually two thin layers of fudge cake separated by a fat wedge of raspberry sherbet. Unlike my ex-husband, who had always had a vague notion that I liked licorice (I detest it), Schulz invariably served chocolate – my weakness.

  Of course, the cake was exquisite. When it was reduced to crumbs, I licked my fingers, sighed, and asked, “Does Keith Andrews’ family have money?”

  He shrugged and leaned over to turn off the light. “Yes and no.” He picked up my hand and ran his fingers over it lightly. The same gesture he had used with the credit card, I remembered. “Thought any more about my name-change offer?”

  “Yes and no.”

  He let out an exasperated chuckle. “Wrong answer.” The firelight flickered over his sturdy body, over his hopeful, inviting face, and into eyes dark with a caring I wasn’t quite willing to face.

  “Goldy,” he said. He smiled. “I care. Believe it?”

  “Yeah. Sure. But… aren’t you… don’t you … think about all that’s happened? You know, your nurse?”

  “Excuse me, Miss G., but it’s you who lives in the past.” He took both of my hands in his, lifted them, and kissed them.

  “I do not live in the past.” My protest sounded weak. “And I have the psychotherapy bills to prove it.”

  He leaned in to kiss me. He caught about half of my mouth, which made us both laugh. The only sounds in the room were fire crackle and slow breaths. For a change, I was at a loss for words.

  Without unlocking his eyes from mine, Schulz slipped one hand to the small of my back and inscribed gentle circles there. How I wanted to be loved again.

  I said, “Oh, I don’t know…”

  “You do care about me, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  And I did, too. I loved having this beautiful meal, this hissing fire, this lovely man whose touch now made me shiver after all the years of self-righteous celibacy. The wax from the lit red candles on the dining table melted, dripped, and spiraled. I took Schulz’s hands. They were rough, big hands, hands that every day, in ways I could only imagine, probed questions about life and death and feeling morally grounded in your actions. I smiled, lifted my hands to his face, and corrected the angle of his head so that when I brought his lips to mine, this time they would fit exactly.

  We made love on his couch, our clothes mostly on, in a great shuddering hurry. Then, tenderly, he put his hands around my waist
and said we should go upstairs. On the staircase, with my loosened clothes more or less falling around me, one of his hands caught me by the hip and pressed me into the wall. And this time he did not miss when his warm mouth found mine.

  His log-paneled bedroom with its high-pitched ceiling had the inviting scent of aftershave and pinewood. Schulz handed me a thick, soft terry-cloth robe. He lit a kerosene lamp next to his hewn four-poster. The flame lit us and the bed, leaving the far reaches of the room deep in shadow. Beneath my bare feet the wood floor felt creamy-cold. i slipped between cool cotton sheets, keeping the robe on.

  He bent toward me. “You all right?”

  “I am very all right.”

  Schulz’s body depressed the mattress next to me when he slid between the sheets and I involuntarily slid toward him. The sensation was odd after five years of sleeping alone. He pulled the down comforter around my shoulders and whispered, “I love you now and forever and ever.”

  I couldn’t help it. Tears slid out of my eyes. My breath raked across the back of my throat. He hugged me tightly and I mumbled into his warm shoulder, “Thank you. Thank you,” as his fingers tenderly worked their way under the robe.

  This time the caresses were slow and lingering, so that the great heaving release took us by surprise. Just as I was drifting off to sleep, I saw Schulz, somewhere in my mind’s eye, take my ripped carcass of a heart and gently, gently begin sewing.

  I woke up with a start sometime in the middle of the night. I thought: I have to get home, God, this is incredible. Schulz and I had rolled apart. I turned to look at his face and the shape of his body in the moonlight streaming through the uncurtained window. His cheeks were slack, like a child’s; his mouth was slightly open. I kissed his eyelids. They were like the velvety skin of new peaches. His eyes opened. He propped himself up on an elbow. “You okay? Need to go? Need some help?”

  “Yes, I need to go, but no thanks, I don’t need help.” And I was fine. For a change.