The Main Corpse gbcm-6

by Diane Mott Davidson

  “Oh, great.” I gratefully sipped the dark, crema-laden espresso he handed me. “I’ll be the referee between Marla and Albert Lipscomb. Sounds like loads of fun, huh?”

  “You know, I’ve been thinking. I know I’ve heard of Albert Lipscomb,” Tom said pensively as he removed the golden brown, cherry-studded cake from the oven. The fruity, buttery-rich scent was indescribable. “I mean, you told me he’s Royce’s partner, but there was some other context. It’s been a while, though.”

  “What other context?”

  He frowned. “Did he invest in goats? Or goat cheese?”

  I laughed. “Not to my knowledge.”

  He sniffed the cake. “Listen, I just realized Arch and I won’t be able to help you pack up for your event this afternoon. I know it’s a big deal for you – “

  “My dear, it’s the only deal for me until I take muffins to the bank on Friday.”

  “No, no, you had two other calls besides the one from Marla.”

  I sighed once more. “Arch already told me about General Farquhar.”

  He slapped the cake onto a cooling rack and rummaged in his back pocket for his trusty spiral notebook. “People named Trotfield, they’re Prospect Financial investors who say they loved your food at the mine yesterday. They’re friends of Tony’s or Albert’s, I think. They need you for a dinner party this week. The husband is flying to Rio for five days, and they want to give him a big sendoff. They need you because their chef, an illegal alien from Sri Lanka, skipped.” He gave me a wide grin. “I didn’t tell Mrs. Trotfield I was from the sheriff’s department. Didn’t want to jeopardize your booking. Here’s their number.”

  I took the sheet from him. “Yeah, I know them. He used to be a pilot for Braniff, wife has the money, now he flies charters. Thanks loads. What else?”

  “Aspen Meadow Women’s Club. Dinner meeting on home improvement, tomorrow. The club president, Janelle Watkins, called. She wanted your cheapest chicken dinner, keep it under twenty bucks a head. I said I thought you had a standard menu and Ms. Watkins begged me to fax it to her with a contract. Seize the day and all that. Didn’t want her calling some caterer in Denver.” He handed me two slick pages from the fax machine, one with my chicken dinner menu, the set prices, and contract stipulations – all signed by Janelle Watkins – the other a photocopy of Janelle Watkins’s Visa.

  I said admiringly, “Very good, Tom. But why the short notice?”

  “Well, the club vice president was going to make the food, but seems she had a tiff with President Janelle yesterday. Veep huffs off saying the only way her home could be improved was if Janelle resigned from their club. I should have offered her a job working for Captain Shockley. Anyway, Madame President Janelle is paying for the dinner herself, says it’s worth the price to be rid of that bossy veep who drove everybody nuts anyway.”

  I grinned. “Fix me another espresso, lawman. I think my luck is changing.”

  He laughed and ground more Italian roast beans. “Okay, look. We’re doing a trail with Jake this morning. Arch is out getting a piece of scented clothing from the trail-setter right now.”

  “You’re what?” I said, incredulous. “Doing a trail? With a bloodhound who was fired because he couldn’t smell his own dinner if his life depended on it? And in this rain?” I wailed.

  “Best time. Scent’s stronger when it’s damp. Arch’s friend Todd has already hiked up to a spot we agreed on, behind a big rock in the Aspen Meadow Wildlife Preserve. He’s waiting for us. We’ll start at the beginning of that four-wheel vehicle path. It’s not more than three miles.”

  “You and my son are going to hike a trail with Jake the retired hound dog for three miles, in the pouring rain? Do you know how much more chance you have of being caught in a rock slide with all the moisture we’ve been having?”

  The second espresso hissed into the flowered Limoges cup. Tom clicked the tiny cup down in front of me and stooped to kiss my cheek. “Come on, don’t ruin our fun, Miss G. Arch is dying to do this.”

  “Just listen, okay? Think of a cake with frosting. The frosting is the soil and loose rock we have in the mountains. Underneath is fractured rock-the cake. All this rain has added extra weight to the soil-frosting and could make it slide right off the underlying rock-cake. Got it? The land is especially unstable where streams have undercut banks. That’s how you get major rock slides. And then – ” I caught sight of his bemused expression and said, “Would you at least promise to be very careful?”

  “Yes, Miss G. And would that be butter cream or meringue frosting?”

  “With this weather, Arch is going to come home sick.”

  Tom grinned. “Oh, so first he wasn’t going to come home at all because of the frosted-cake rock slide, and now he’s going to come home with a cold. We’re doing better. Anything else?”

  Well, great. Tom had never had children and was not burdened with the worry that accompanied every foray into mountainous terrain. Nor did he know that taking a child out in wet, cold weather led to countless hours spent poring over old magazines in a pediatrician’s office. These hours would be followed by countless pink teaspoons of Amoxicillin. Strep throat, ear infections, bronchitis, sinusitis… the man had a lot to learn. On the other hand, he did have a kid’s own enthusiasm for going on adventures, and Arch treasured the time they spent together. I could just hear Arch if I vetoed their expedition. C’mon, Mom, I’m not going to get pneumonia! Sure. I sighed for the fourth time, sipped the espresso, then took a bite of Tom’s coffee cake to keep from saying more. The delectable taste of lemon and the richness of cherry preserves infused the moist sour-cream cake. I narrowed my eyes at Tom, but he laughed.

  “Delicious, huh? Be nice to your favorite cop and you can have the recipe.”

  There was a pounding at the back door and Arch traipsed through. “Here I am!” he announced as he joined us. His poncho and face were slick with rain. I suppressed a groan. “I’ve got Todd’s T-shirt!” He held up a plastic bag containing a crumpled piece of grayish-white cloth.

  Tom appraised the bag. “Not in the laundry? Not contaminated with other scents? Nobody else in the family touched it?”

  Arch shook his head vigorously; the wet baseball cap slipped down over his forehead. He straightened it. “Can we leave? Please? I’m getting worried about Todd. You know, out in the rain. He has a poncho to keep him dry, but he is my friend.”

  “We’re ready.” Tom picked up a thermos backpack bulging with what I guessed to be sandwiches, trail mix, and (of course) homemade dog biscuits. He pointed to a tangled piece of leather on the counter. “Hey, buddy, can you hold on to your plastic bag and bring the working harness out to the car? You’re going to be amazed at Jake, Arch. Bloodhounds are renowned for their intelligence.” Tom held up one hand in farewell, winked at me, and opened the back door. The rain beat down. Jake’s howling increased in volume. “You know the word we don’t use prematurely? Remember, Arch? Don’t even use it in conversation?”

  “F-i-n-d,” my son spelled knowingly, then dashed out after him.

  “Don’t get near the creek edge!” I yelled after them, but I doubted they heard me.

  Moments later, Jake fell abruptly silent. The blessed I absence of barking was followed the dull roar of Tom s Chrysler. I looked out the rolling room window and saw the dark blue car move slowly past. In the backseat, Arch and Jake pressed their noses against the rain-smeared window. Both looked gleeful.

  5

  When I returned from the first service at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church and a quick visit to the grocery store to pick up supplies for the Aspen Meadow Women’s Club dinner, I found Macguire Perkins sitting on my doorstep. Rain still washed across my waterlogged front yard and ran in rivulets down the sidewalk. Yet Macguire wore no rain gear, and his hair was as sopping as his sweatshirt and torn blue jeans.

  “Macguire,” I said impatiently, “why don’t you put on …” Oh, forget it, I thought. It was hard enough trying to be mom to one kid who did his best to ig
nore me. I unlocked the door and disarmed the security system – needed protection against the Jerk’s periodic rampages – and shooed him into the house.

  Macguire snuffled, tilted his head backward, and shook his hair. Raindrops sprinkled across the room. Taking lessons from Jake, apparently. “I’m okay.” He snuffled again. “The rain’s not too bad, you don’t really need a coat.” His long strides propelled him, camel-like, toward the kitchen. “Besides, I brought my uniform stuff in the car. It’s not wet. In the car, I mean. I’ll be all right.”

  Well, fine. We had work to do. I put vats of thick, tomato-rich Bolognese sauce on for a last simmering. Macguire washed his hands, grated hillocks of gold-threaded Parmesan and creamy fresh mozzarella cheeses, then looked around for more work. The pizza dough I’d taken out to rise before church had come to room temperature. He carefully punched it down. As the Bolognese sauce began to bubble, the phone rang. Mrs. Kirby-Jones, no doubt. Clients invariably feel duty-bound to call on Sunday morning. They want to make sure you’re not sleeping in. They expect you to be slaving away in the kitchen for their evening shindig. In fact, they expect you to have been working there since dawn.

  “Goldilocks’ Catering,” I said with agonizing sprightliness as I reached for a package of the frozen green lasagne noodles I’d made the week before. “Where everything is just right!”

  “It’s me,” Marla said morosely. “I’m in hell. I feel so damned guilty. Tony just phoned, and he’s on his way over. I am about the farthest thing from just right that you could possibly imagine. Matter of fact, I’m sitting here thinking about what I’m going to say when I get a call from Albert Lipscomb’s lawyer.”

  I cradled the phone against my ear and tried to un-wrap the noodles. Whenever Marla plunged into precipitate action, she ended up in exaggerated remorse. “For heaven’s sake,” I soothed, “why do you feel so bad? Didn’t Tony talk to Albert?”

  “Oh, I doubt it. Tony went straight to the Aspen Branch Bar after the party and got plastered. Now he’s nursing a hangover. He has a conference tomorrow morning, so he can’t be in on our meeting.” I heard her bite into something. I hoped it was one of the lowfat lemon muffins I’d given her. I also prayed her use of the term our meeting didn’t mean she was counting on me for tomorrow’s confrontation with Lipscomb. She went on: “Okay, I’ll tell you what I’m worried about with Albert. He throws around those terms like year-over-year and same-store sales and technical support. Now he’s all ticked off, so he’ll probably treat me like a dummy.”

  “But how can year-over-year data or same-store sales have anything to do with a mine being reopened?”

  “Ooh, Goldy,” she whined, “I don’t know. I guess I should have just hashed it out with Tony, or called my lawyer or the state consumer fraud people, or somebody, instead of going after Albert like that yesterday. It’s just Episcopal guilt. You know, you worry about how you’re handling your money.”

  “Wait, wait,” I said with a glance at the clock. By the time we got through a litany of her worries, hours could pass, and I only had ninety minutes to finish the preparations for the Kirby-Joneses. Much as I loved Marla, I didn’t have time for a party postmortem now. “Can we talk about this later?”

  “Please, please tell me that it’s going to be later, as in tomorrow morning later,” she pleaded between bites. “As in, when you come down to the Prospect office with me?” I tried to block out the vision of Marla and Albert squabbling viciously in one of Prospect Financial Partners’ plush Cherry Creek offices. “Please, Goldy? Don’t say no.”

  I opened a plastic container of fresh basil leaves and inhaled their flowery scent. “Oh, Marla, I’ve got this new booking for a dinner to do tomorrow night – “

  “Come on, you can help me stay calm. It’s bad for my health to get upset. We won’t be there for an hour, even. We’ll go have brunch afterwards – my treat.”

  “But why do you want me there?” I measured out olive oil, Parmesan, and pine nuts and prayed that I could do my pesto recipe from memory. “The only thing I know about business is that I don’t have much at the moment.”

  “I’ve invested a hundred thousand dollars just in the mine venture, Goldy. With that money, I could have put my dear nephew Julian through Cornell. Twice.” Her husky voice cracked.

  “You’re already putting him through,” I reminded her gently, and started the food processor whirling.

  “Yes, but still, a hundred K!” she fumed. “I could have… well, let’s see, I could have… put in a few new windows at the cardiac rehab center. Then I’d have a nice view of the hospital grounds while I’m on that damn treadmill.”

  And wouldn’t Lyle Gordon, M.D., have loved that, I thought. The pesto ingredients had turned into a brilliant green, fragrant paste. “Marla, please. I need to cook. Are you feeling okay?”

  Ignoring my question, she demanded, “Remember what I did to John Richard’s shoulder? Think Albert knew about that? Maybe I intimidated him.”

  I groaned. My assertiveness was a behavior I’d learned only after my disastrous marriage to Dr. John Richard Korman ended. But Marla had stood up to him, and consequently had managed to be married a lot fewer years, and with much less grief, than I.

  I said truthfully, “You didn’t actually hit Albert yesterday. You just yelled at him and called him names. There’s a difference,” I added, sneaking another look at the clock. Macguire was almost done punching all the air pockets from the dough.

  “Okay, look,” she said reluctantly, “I know you’re busy. In addition to crying on your shoulder and begging you to come with me tomorrow, I just wanted to tell you that Tony and I are leaving for our fishing trip on Friday night, and we were hoping you could do that other favor for us before we go.”

  I began to slice fat vine-ripened tomatoes thinly, removing the seed pockets as I went along. “What other favor?”

  “Oh, didn’t he tell you? Tony was really hoping you’d do a taste-test for Prospect. Could you manage it? I think he’d pay for your time …”

  I barely avoided slicing my index finger. “You’re not serious, are you? I don’t want to be paid to taste someone else’s food. Besides, I thought you got out of analyzing restaurants. How does Tony think I can possibly help?”

  “Don’t ask me, I’m the dumb broad who can’t even read an assay report,” Marla said blithely. “And as for tasting – well, Tony just doesn’t trust his own taste buds. What he’ll do is watch the traffic in and out of Sam’s Soups there by the lake. He’ll talk to people, maybe conduct exit interviews, like that. Albert will crunch the numbers. All you have to do is sample Sam’s menu and tell Tony if there’s any way that soup will be the next food craze. You know he’ll appreciate it, he’ll have you cater Prospect’s next big do. Please?”

  “Friday lunch,” I agreed reluctantly. Whether Tony would have me cater Prospect’s next big affair was something I doubted very much, given yesterday’s fiasco at the mine. But Marla was my closest friend, and I couldn’t bear to disappoint her. Besides, it was the only way to get her off the phone. “I’ve made a couple of unexpected bookings, and Friday’s the first time I can manage. Now please, I have to – “

  “What, go feed the dog? How come I can’t hear the mighty canine? Usually he’s in the background singing away.”

  “He’s out with Tom and Arch.”

  “In this weather?”

  “Don’t remind me.” I removed the wrappings from several packages of milky-white chevre and started to cut it into small cubes. “No, I’ll let you go if you’ll just promise you’ll come to Cherry Creek with me tomorrow morning. Be the buffer at the Prospect office.”

  I inhaled deeply, turned away from the chevre, and stirred the dark Bolognese sauce. “If I come with you, promise you won’t lose your temper again with Albert Lipscomb.”

  “I’ll be like Mr. Rogers. On Librium,” she added, and signed off. As the former wives of a doctor, Marla and I always laced our similes with drugs.

  “Okay, loo
k,” I said to Macguire, but stopped. “Macguire, what are you doing?” I cringed as a large chunk of dough just missed the ceiling. “Macguire!”

  Macguire held his hands out for the dough, but it landed on the counter. “Oops.” He gave me a sheepish look. “You know how you see those pizza guys…” He scooped up the dough and began to press it into a jelly roll pan. “Never mind. How’s Marla? Has she recovered from that big argument? Did that guy explain what he was up to?”

  Provencal Pizza

  1 ź ounce envelope active dry yeast

  1 cup warm water

  ˝ teaspoon sugar

  ˝ teaspoon salt

  2 teaspoons olive oil

  2 ˝ to 3 cups all-purpose flour

  ˝ cup prepared pesto

  12 ounces ripe tomatoes, thinly sliced and seed pockets removed

  3 ˝ ounces chevre

  4 ounces best-quality fresh mozzarella, grated

  In a large mixing bowl, sprinkle the yeast over the warm water. Add the sugar, stir, and set aside 10 minutes, until the mixture is bubbly. Stir in the salt and olive oil. Beat in 2 ˝ cups of the flour, then add as much extra flour as needed to make a dough that is not too sticky to knead. Knead on a floured surface until the dough is smooth and satiny. (Or place the dough in the bowl of an electric mixer and knead with a dough hook until the dough cleans the sides of the bowl, (approximately 5 minutes.) Place the dough in an oiled bowl, turn to oil the top, cover with a kitchen towel, and let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.

  Preheat the oven to 425°. Brush a little olive oil over the bottom and sides of a 10-by 15-inch pan. Punch the dough down and press it into the bottom of the pan. Spread the pesto over the dough. Lay the tomato slices in even rows over the pesto. Dot the surface evenly with the chčvre, an sprinkle the mozzarella over the entire surface. Bake for 15 to 25 minutes, or until mozzarella is bubbly and dough has cooked through.