“The former has been hard to find, and the latter is too young for you. Is Arch okay?”
“Just bedridden.”
She groaned. “Lucky him. I’m so glad I’m the one you call when the kids are incapacitated and you don’t have-anything better to do. But if you’re making something special… .”
“Doughnuts,” I promised. Marla was wild for them. She made a cooing noise and hung up.
Within moments I realized I didn’t have enough oil to fill even a quarter of a deep fryer. Well, necessity was the mother of all new recipes. Not only that, but I needed to develop something sweet but nutritious for the SAT breakfast that would follow Headmaster Perkins’ directive of including grains in everything possible. Why not oat bran in a doughnut? I’m sure kids would prefer that to an oat bran muffin any day, especially when those kind of muffins usually tasted, as if they’d come right out of a cement mixer.
I moved the college financial aid books that Julian had left askew on the counter, then sanctimoniously sifted soy flour with the all-purpose stuff and, ever virtuous, poured judicious measures of oat bran and wheat germ on top. After the yeast starter was warm and bubbly, I swirled in sugar, eggs, vanilla, and the flour mixture. I massaged it into a rich, soft pillow of dough that snuggled easily into a buttered bowl. After I’d put the whole thing into my proofing oven to rise, I put in a call to Schulz’s voice mail. I said I wanted to talk to him about Egon Schlichtmaier, who taught out at the school. And how was he doing on the pickup-truck situation, and Audrey’s background? As I hung up, Julian shambled in. He wore a T-shirt with the faded logo of some ancient rock concert, frayed jeans, and loafers with the backs crumpled down.
“Sorry I was so tired,” he mumbled. He looked around the kitchen hopefully. “What’re you putting together? You going to make some coffee?”
“Doughnuts in about an hour and a half,” I countered as I measured out Medaglia d’Oro and filled a pitcher with half-and- half. “Cappuccino in a couple of moments.”
Galaxy Douqhnuts
5 teaspoons (2 ź ounce envelopes) active dry yeast
1/3 cup warm water
2 ź cups plus 1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/3 cup solid vegetable shortening, melted
1 ˝ cups milk, scalded and cooled to lukewarm
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 large eggs
ź cup wheat germ
ź cup soy flour
ź cup oat bran
4 ˝ cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted In a large mixing bowl, sprinkle the yeast over the warm water. Allow the, yeast to soften for 5 minutes, then stir the yeast into the water along with the ˝ teaspoon sugar, Set the mixture aside to proof for 10 minutes; it should be foamy. Mix the melted shortening into the warm milk, then add the liquid to the yeast mixture along with ź cup of the remaining sugar, the salt, vanilla, eggs, wheat germ, soy flour, oat bran, and 1 ˝ cups of the flour. Beat vigorously until very well blended. Stir in the remaining flour and beat until smooth. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and put it in a warm, draft-free place until the dough is doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.
Punch the dough down, turn it out on a well-floured board, and pat it out so that the dough is about ˝ inch thick. Using a star cookie cutter, cut out the dough and place the doughnuts 2 inches apart on buttered cookie sheets. Allow the doughnuts to rise uncovered for another 20 to 30 minutes or until they are doubled. Preheat the oven to 400 . Mix the remaining 2 cups sugar with the cinnamon. Bake the doughnuts for about 10 to 15 minutes or just until they are golden brown. Dip them quickly into the melted butter and roll them in the cinnamon sugar. Makes about 3 dozen.
He stood in front of my calendar of upcoming events and read what was coming: “Clergy lunch… Tattered Cover dessert… SAT breakfast… Bronco brunch.
How do you figure out what to charge for these meals?” Even when he was out of sorts, Julian had great enthusiasm for catering. He wanted to know everything. It provided a context for our relationship, for his goal was to work as a hotel chef or have his own catering or restaurant business. Vegetarian, of course. While steaming the hot half-and-half for his cappuccino, I told him that the basic rule in catering was that you tripled the cost of your raw ingredients to include cooking, serving, and overhead. If clients wanted wine or any liquor, that was computed into the cost per person of the meal. I had sheets I gave to clients with the details of menus that were six to fifty dollars per person.
“What if clients giving a party disagree on what they should get and how much things should cost?”
I laughed. “Don’t get me started on weddings this early in the morning.”
“So tell me what you’re planning,” he asked as he sipped the cappuccino. We reviewed the menus and costs for the four upcoming events. He nodded and asked a question here and there. Then I asked how he was feeling about the college-application process.
“Okay.” He stood to fix himself another, weaker cup of cappuccino. “I guess.” He obviously did not want to chat about the applications, though, so I let it drop. He reached for the sugar bowl, then plopped back down at the kitchen table. I managed not to wince when he ladled four teaspoons of sugar into the second cup. Ah, well, perhaps I should be glad that it wasn’t drugs. Speaking of which.
“Tell me about the headmaster’s son,” I began conversationally.
“What’s there to tell?” he asked between tiny slurps; “Is he taking steroids?”
Julian choked on the coffee. Sputtering and coughing, he wiped his chin with a napkin I handed him and gave me a dark look. “Gee, Goldy, let’s not mince any words.”
“Well?”
Julian chewed the inside of his cheek. “You can’t ten anybody,” he began quietly.
“As if it weren’t obvious.”
Julian turned. “Macguire is under a lot of pressure.
“From whom?
“Gosh, Goldy, from whom do you think? Do I have to spell it out for you, like, like, uh” he cast his eyes heavenward in imitation of the headmaster “
“But Perkins, the son, I mean, isn’t an academic type. He can hardly be expected to follow in his father’s footsteps.”
Julian got up and carefully covered his cappuccino with waxed paper before placing it in the microwave. When the timer beeped, he took it out, Then he shook his head. “You’re not getting it.”
“Okay, okay. Macguire excels in athletics. But that doesn’t mean he needs to do a dangerous drug, does it? What happens if he gets caught?”
“He isn’t going to get caught. Besides, he’s not selling anything, so what’s the penalty? Everybody feels sorry for him.” He carefully sipped the heated cappuccino. Then he added darkly, Almost everybody.
Wait a minute. “Was this what Keith Andrews was going to expose in the Mountain Journal?”
Julian, exasperated, snapped, “When are you going to believe that none of us knew what Keith was writing for the newspaper?’” He ran the fingers of one hand through the blond mohawk. “That was the whole problem. I tried to get Keith to tell me what he was working on, and he said it would all come out. He made such a big deal about his secrecy, tapping away in the computer lab when no one was there. The CIA, man.”
The front doorbell rang. I told Julian it was probably Marla, then cursed the fact that I’d forgotten to sand the front steps.
He said, “Oh, that reminds me, I forgot, you got a call “
“Hold that thought.” Marla had safely navigated the steps and now stood in our doorway in her usual seasonal colors. This morning, three days before Halloween, the outfit consisted of an extra-large orange and black suede patchwork skirt and mat thing jacket. She held a brown grocery sack. “You didn’t have to bring anything,” I said. “Don’t presume,” she announced haughtily as her plump body breezed past me. “It’s a hot melt glue gun, Styrofoam cone, and bag of baby Three Musketee
rs for Arch. Even sick people can do a craft project with candy. Especially sick people. And by the way, your front porch steps are covered with ice. Absolutely treacherous. Better put some salt on them.” So saying, she dropped the bag at the bottom of the stairs, then yodeled a greeting to Julian, whom she passed on her way into the kitchen.
“You see, about this call-” Julian attempted. “Just a sec.” I turned back to slam the front door against the cold. Before I could close it, though, a small foreign car arrived on the street directly in front of my house. A young woman whom I vaguely recognized as being from the Mountain Journal delicately stepped out and peered up at me.
Julian came up beside me. “This is it, I’m sorry I forgot to tell you. This woman called from the newspaper around 6:45. She asked if it would be okay to come by and interview you this morning. I thought you’d want it for free publicity. For the business. It wasn’t until I was about to hang up that she said it was about that night out at the headmaster’s house.” He added lamely, “I’m really sorry.”
“Just take care of Marla, will you?” I said under my breath. “And check the doughnut dough.” Then I shouted gaily to the intruder, “Come on in!” as if I were accustomed to having open house at nine o’clock every morning. “Just avoid the ice on the steps.” After lifting weights, the last thing I needed was to lug a bag of road salt up from the basement to make my steps safe for the world of journalism.
The reporter tiptoed gingerly up the far side of my front steps. Frances Markasian was in her early twenties, wore no makeup, and had straggly black hair that fell limply to the shoulders of her denim jacket. An ominously large black bag dangled from her right arm and banged against the knees of her tight jeans.
“You don’t have a camera in there, do you?” I asked once she was safely inside. I couldn’t bear the thought of photographs.
“I won’t use it if you don’t want me to.” Her voice was pure Chicago.
“Well, I’d really rather you wouldn’t,” I said sweetly, leading her out to the kitchen. Marla was already sipping cappuccino that Julian had made for her. Frances Markasian was introduced all around, and I asked her if it was okay if my friends stayed while she talked to me. She shrugged, which I took as consent. I offered her some coffee.
“No thanks.” She dipped into her bag, brought out a diet Pepsi, popped the top, and then dropped two Vivarin through the opening.
Marla watched her, open-mouthed. When Frances Markasian took a long swig from the can, Marla said, “Mission control, we have ignition. Stand by.”
Frances ignored her and pulled a pen and pad out of the voluminous bag. “I understand you were the caterer the night of the Andrews murder?”
“Well, er, yes.” I had a sinking feeling she was not going to be asking about the menu.
Julian must have felt the reporter’s eyes on him, because he got up, punched down the risen dough, and began to roll it out to cut doughnuts with a star cookie cutter.
“You want to tell me what happened?” she said.
“Well…” I began, then gave her the briefest possible account of the evening’s events. Her pen made scritching noises as she took notes.
“They’ve been having some other problems out at that school,” she said when I had finished and was checking on the doughnuts, which had almost finished their brief rising.
“Really?” I inquired innocently. “Like what?” I wasn’t going to give her anything. My previous experience with the Mountain Journal had been negative. They’d hired a food critic, who had viciously trashed me. The critic had been conducting a private vendetta in print. By the time I got the mess exposed, the unapologetic Mountain Journal had moved on to reports of elk herds moving through mountain neighborhoods.
“Problems like snakes in lockers,” Frances said. I waved my hand dismissively. “Seventh grade.”
“Problems like a headmaster who might be having trouble raising money if bad news got out about the school,” Frances continued matter-of-factly. “Take this dropping-SAT-score thing
“Oh, Ms. Markasian, sweetheart,” Marla interrupted, “that news is so old, it has mold on it. Besides, if you were worried about your academic reputation, you wouldn’t kill your top student, now, would you?” Marla rolled her eyes at me. “Those goodies ready?”
I turned to Julian, who wordlessly slid the risen doughnuts into the heated oven. “Fifteen minutes,” he announced.
“Know anything about that headmaster?” Frances persisted. She tapped her pen on the pad.
“I know as much as you do,” I told her. “Why don’t you tell us about the story Keith Andrews was working on for your paper?”
“We didn’t know what it was,” she protested, “although he had been working on it for some time, and he’d promised something big.” She tilted her Pepsi can back to drain the last few drops. “We were going to read it when he was done and then decide whether to run it or not. If it was a timely story. You know, truthful.”
“You have such a good reputation for fact-checking,” I said with a lying smile.
Without a shred of self-consciousness she tossed her can across the room into one of the two trash bags resting against my back door. Arch was supposed to take them out, but he was incapacitated.
“Three points,” I said. “Except we recycle.” I retrieved the can and dropped it into the aluminum bin in the pantry. I hoped she would take the hint and decide it was time to wrap things up. But no.
“How about the headmaster’s son? Macguire Perkins? He drove his father’s car through a guard rail on Highway 203 over the summer. Blood alcohol level 2.0.
I shrugged. “You know as much as I do.” Frances Markasian looked around my kitchen, her shallow black eyes impassive. The smell of the baking doughnuts was excruciating. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was. “I understand some of the Elk Park Prep students and parents are pretty competitive. Would do anything to get into the right college.”
I crossed my arms. “Yeah? Like what?”
She tapped her mouth with her pen but gave no answer. “Keith Andrews was the valedictorian. Who was next in line?”
Before I could answer, Arch came limping into the kitchen. I was thankful for the distraction. Julian asked Arch to join him out in the living room to make a sculpture out of the Three Musketeers.
“Wow,” said Arch. “At nine-fifteen in the morning?”
“We’re going to build a fire too. Is that all right? It is kind of cold.” When I gave him the go-ahead, he said, “Can you handle getting the doughnuts out of the oven?”
“She’s an old pro at removing cookie sheets,” said Marla. “Besides, I think Ms. Markasian is almost done, isn’t she?”
Frances Markasian closed her eyes and said, “Huh.” She rounded her back and stretched her arms out in front of her. Journalistic meditation. The buzzer went off and I took the doughnuts out. Julian had prepared a pan of melted butter and a mountain of cinnamon sugar, so I quickly dipped and rolled, dipped and rolled. I brought the first plate of plump, warm doughnuts over to the table and placed them in the sunlight, so that cinnamon sugar sparkled on the veil of melted butter. Marla delicately lifted one onto a plate and then took a huge bite.
“Please have one,” I said to the reporter.
She shook her head. Frances Markasian seemed to be unable to decide whether to share something with me. After a moment she put her pen and pad away in her enormous purse. “I’ll tell you like what parents will do. Last week we got a call at the paper saying we should run a story on how Stan and Rhoda Marensky had sent a full-length mink coat to the director of admissions at WilIiams.”
I couldn’t help it. My mouth fell open.
“Listen,” said Marla in her one-upsmanship voice. She reached for her second doughnut. “I wouldn’t spend a winter in Massachusetts if I had a mink house.”
At that moment, yells erupted from the living room. Julian banged through the kitchen door. A cloud of smoke billowed in behind him.
�
��Something’s wrong!” he shouted. “The flue’s open but the smoke won’t go up! I’ll help Arch out the front. You all need to get out!” His face was white with fear.
“Out the front, hurry!” I yelled at Marla and Frances. We bolted.
Julian and Arch were already halfway down the front walk by the time we three adults came hustling through the front door. Julian had Arch’s arm draped around his shoulder and the two were half skipping toward the street. Frances Markasian reached the sidewalk first. With frighteningly effortless ease she spun around and scooped her camera out of her big black bag. Then she hoisted it and took a picture of Marla, midair, grasping a freshly baked oat bran doughnut, as she slipped on the iced steps and broke her leg.
14
With sirens blaring and lights flashing, the fluorescent chartreuse AMFD trucks arrived in a matter of moments, proving the local adage that the fastest thing about our town was the fire department. One of my neighbors had seen the smoke billowing out of the window Julian had hastily opened, and she’d put in the call. Over the incessant buzz of the smoke alarm, I screamed to Julian to stay out in the street with Arch. A wad of fur hit my calves and was gone Scout the cat making a streaking escape. Flames were consuming my home. But I refused to leave Marla’s side at the bottom of the front steps. Firemen clumped by up into the house. Marla clenched my hand and sobbed copiously. My schooling in Med Wives 101 adjudged it to be a broken right tibia. I shrieked for somebody to call an ambulance.
The firefighters rapidly assessed the situation and put a ladder up to the roof. Minutes later, clad in schoolbus-yellow protective gear, the first fellow descended the ladder, holding a blackened piece of plywood and shaking his head. With a screaming siren, the ambulance arrived and carted Marla off to a Denver hospital. I hugged her carefully and promised to visit just as soon as the smoke cleared. She begged me to call her other friends so that everyone could know what had happened. Marla’s idea of hell is enduring pain alone.
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