Dark Tort

by Diane Mott Davidson

  “We’ll have your husband bring it to you.”

  “Thanks. Sorry about the mess I left in the reception area.”

  “Not your fault. A cleaning team will come in when we’re done with the crime-scene analysis.”

  “Good.” I rubbed my eyes. If there had been a bed there in that toasty-warm interrogation room, I think I would have lain down on it.

  “Okay, Mrs. Schulz. Where will you be for the next couple of days? In case we need to talk to you some more.”

  I gave him our address, the Ellises’ address, where I was supposed to be doing Donald Ellis’s birthday party the next day, and the location of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Aspen Meadow, where I was catering Gus’s christening on Sunday. Almost as an afterthought, I said, “I sure don’t feel like going back to work after a friend of mine has died. I don’t want to think about having to act happy when I see people.”

  “Oh, Mrs. Schulz,” said Britt. “Tell me about it.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Tom was waiting for me in the department snack room. I blinked in the bright light of the pop and candy machines that lined the walls. In one, glassed-in shelves offered limp, plastic-wrapped sandwiches that looked like one of Arch’s lab experiments. Several patrol officers, appearing even more exhausted than the sandwiches, sat talking at one of the small tables. Upon our entrance, they put down their foam coffee cups and surveyed us with hooded, curious eyes. Tom nodded to me and tilted his head, indicating the door. The less said in the department, he seemed to be saying, the better.

  Fine by me.

  “I was just bringing in the bread ingredients,” I explained to him ten minutes later, once we were headed up the interstate, back toward Aspen Meadow. A blanket of clouds now obscured the moon, and the night was once again impenetrably dark. A chilly wind slapped the dark sedan and swirled up flakes of ice from the roadway. I went on: “When I went in, I tripped over her. It took me a few minutes to realize Dusty was just lying there…and that she wasn’t moving.”

  Tom drew his mouth into a frown and concentrated on keeping the car from swerving out of the lane. “First tell me how you’re doing. Then we’ll get to Dusty.” He flicked me a quick glance, which seemed to tell him I wasn’t doing very well, as a matter of fact. He turned his eyes back to the road and held out his right arm. “Come here.”

  I leaned in to his embrace. My seat belt cinched my torso and I unbuckled it. What was he going to do, arrest me? I was numb, cold, unable to feel anything. The reassuring way Tom tugged me into his warmth, the way his strong hand held on to my right shoulder…these were what I needed, and he knew it.

  “Did you get somebody to go over there, to be with Sally?”

  “I called Father Pete. I know he’s recovering from that coronary, but I also knew he’d probably have another one if I didn’t call him about this.”

  “Will I be able to see Sally when we get home?”

  “Nope. You’re a witness, and they’re going to try to keep you apart.”

  “But she’s my friend,” I pleaded. “A neighbor, Tom. Please. I just feel responsible, dammit. I keep thinking, if I’d only arrived on time—”

  “Stop. Look, let me see what I can do. Father Pete should be there, and our team is probably finishing up at the Routts’ house. Then the victim-assistance people will go in, try to be helpful, that kind of thing.”

  I shuddered. I didn’t want to picture the victim-assistance team, with their quilts and their counseling. Your daughter’s just been killed, Mrs. Routt, you need anything from the grocery store? But I knew they would do better than that.

  “I want to be there for Sally. Her family has been through too much.”

  Tom’s hand tightened on my shoulder. “I’ll talk to my people. Don’t worry. Knowing you, you’ll be there, Miss G.”

  I snuggled into Tom’s side, closed my eyes, and thought about the Routts. I liked them. And I felt empathy for Sally, since I’d spent quite a few years as a single mom myself. But life had been much more challenging for her than it had been for me. When Colin’s father had skipped, Sally had told me she’d been forced to patch together funds for food, clothing, and shelter from a variety of government agencies. Our parish, Saint Luke’s Episcopal, had coordinated with Habitat for Humanity to chip in with materials, muscle, and weeks’ worth of meals, coordinated by yours truly, to help build Sally, her father, Dusty, and little Colin a modest, two-story house across the street from us.

  But there had been other disasters, like Dusty’s pregnancy and loss of her scholarship. Dusty had told me she wanted the baby. She’d been excited. And then she’d miscarried. On and on it seemed to go for the Routts. Now gossip in town would center on how “the welfare people” were clearly unwilling or unable to break out of the pattern of screwing up their lives. Unfortunately, Dusty’s murder would appear to be confirmation of this cruel judgment.

  I opened my eyes. Had I slept? I thought so. What time was it? The dashboard clock said it was half past three. The road was now cloaked in a frigid fog that promised snow. Despite the icy slick that was glazing the roads, I wanted Tom to drive faster. I wanted to get home, take a shower, and get into bed. I wanted my dear warm husband to lie down beside me, wrap his arms around me, and tell me everything was going to be all right. Which, of course, it wasn’t.

  The sedan crested the hill and I pulled away from Tom. The dark cloud surrounding us obscured the mountains of the Continental Divide. There, the peaks had been iced with snow since the beginning of September, and I suspected they were now getting a fresh dumping.

  “So,” I asked Tom, “what are the cops doing at the Routts’ house now? I mean, right this minute?”

  Tom exhaled. “The usual. If the mother’s not a suspect—”

  I snorted and checked the rearview mirror. Pinpricks of snow were tapping on the windshield. “Of course she’s not a suspect.”

  “They’ll ask if anyone else has rights to the house.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Miss G. Let me finish. Our guys don’t want anyone to be able to go into the Routts’ house and plant things.”

  “Plant things?”

  Tom’s voice turned weary. “Put things in there that would tend to implicate someone else. Or indicate suicide.”

  “Tom, for God’s sake. There was redness around her neck and on one of her cheeks. Her face had been bashed into a glass-covered picture.”

  “Okay then, look at it from another angle. The department doesn’t want anyone entering and removing incriminating evidence. Once our guys have those two things established—that is, nobody strange can come in, and nothing can be taken out—they’ll talk to the mother, see if she knew anything suspicious going on with her daughter. Threatening phone calls, that kind of thing. Then they’ll ask permission to go through Dusty’s stuff. Drawers, pockets, correspondence, you name it. They’ll be seeing if they can come up with some clues as to what happened to her, and why.”

  We headed past the closed shops on Main Street, where the fog softened the smiles from the merchants’ electrified jack-o’-lanterns. When Tom pulled into our driveway, I glanced at the two police cars parked outside the Routts’ house. When we finally stepped carefully across our ice-crusted deck, I began to shiver.

  Coming into the chilly house did not help. With fall temperatures fluctuating from thirties in the mornings to the eighties in the afternoons, we kept the heat off in most of the rooms. And despite the absence of the Jerk, all the windows remained closed and security wired, unless we were home. The reason for this was simple.

  Roger Mannis, our arrogant, creepy county health inspector, was the prime suspect in a head bashing I’d received before a June catered event at the Roundhouse, a catering-events center by Aspen Meadow Lake that I’d opened last spring. The center, too, was finally fully wired for security. Now, unfortunately, the Roundhouse was having a whole set of pipes replaced, and the trenches dug around the former restaurant made it look like a giant p
rairie-dog village.

  I’d expected that Roger was still plotting against Goldilocks’ Catering, Where Everything Is Just Right! until Tom explained to me that he and Roger had had a talk. Tom could intimidate anybody, all the while keeping his voice easygoing and his hand resting gently on his gun. Roger’s manner had been stiff, but comprehending, Tom said. But when we weren’t at home, Tom added, the windows were to remain closed and armed.

  So here we were, unfortunately, with the October chill permeating the shut-up house. Arch, who had his own thermostat, had kept his room positively balmy when he was younger. But now that he was involved in sports, he liked his own cold. If he became chilled, which was rare, he tucked himself inside a sleeping bag on his floor.

  The clock indicated it was four o’clock. Arch would be getting up in three hours. With Tom always involved trying to solve murders, how would I tell Arch that our lovely friend from across the street had met such a fate? I did not know. I couldn’t even remember whose turn it was to drive carpool.

  Tom turned off the security system, then announced he was bringing in firewood from the pile he’d stacked next to our deck. I moved, zombielike, through the house to the living-room windows. Several neighbors had leashed their dogs and were trailing behind them up the sidewalk, ever curious about what new crisis was overtaking “the welfare people.” Anger prickled my skin, but there was nothing I could do. Maybe I was wrong, anyway; maybe they wanted to help. The police cars were still parked outside the Routts’ house, and Father Pete’s car was behind them. There was no movement from within.

  “Goldy, go get in bed.” Tom’s voice was tender. Down on one knee, he was carefully laying pine logs on top of kindling he’d meticulously stacked. The sound of the match igniting startled me.

  “Miss G. Please.”

  “All right, all right.” I moved up the stairs, dropped my clothes spattered with bread sponge into the hamper, and eventually found my way into the shower. I let steaming water run over my aching face and body and tried not to think. Moments later, I was in bed. Oddly, I slept a profound, dreamless sleep until twenty after six. I dressed quickly, came downstairs, and found Tom lying, eyes half open, on the living-room couch.

  “Is Arch up?” I asked as I sat down next to him.

  “Not yet. Friend of mine brought back your van with your supplies. I unloaded everything.”

  “You’re the best.” I stared at the fire.

  “Did you get any sleep?”

  “Couple of hours. Enough.”

  I hesitated. “I should be doing something. For the Routts, I mean.”

  Tom sat up and ran his large hands through his wavy brown hair. The doorbell startled both of us. Tom sighed, then got up to answer it.

  “Who could that be?” I wondered aloud. “If it’s a reporter, get out your gun and use it.”

  But it was not a reporter, and the commingled voices in our hallway indicated the new arrival was Julian, my assistant. Of course, Julian would have wanted to be here. So despite the wee hour, Tom had undoubtedly called Julian’s apartment in Boulder and asked him to make the drive to Aspen Meadow to be with us. As they exchanged murmured greetings, I wondered if it would be good for Julian to come with me when I finally did go over to check on Sally. Julian had been close to Dusty for a time. Oh God, I thought as I laid my head on the couch cushion. This was all too much.

  Julian’s voice asked: “Goldy? Where are you?”

  I heaved myself up on my elbow and turned around. Julian, compact and muscled, stood not quite six feet. His dark hair was tousled; his jeans, wrinkled oxford-cloth shirt, and secondhand leather jacket clearly had been donned in haste. His handsome face was splotched from crying. He shifted from one foot to the other, waiting for me to answer him. With his awkward stance and clenched fists, he looked more shook up than I’d seen him in a long time.

  I mumbled, “Thanks for coming.”

  “Dusty?” His voice was incredulous. “Who would want to hurt Dusty?” He moved into the living room and sat heavily on one of our chairs. He uttered an expletive and stared at the floor. The three of us were quiet for what seemed like a very long time.

  At length, Julian asked, “Are you going over there?”

  “Tom says we can’t while the cops are still inside the house. Then he’s going to call the department to see if we’re allowed to go over.”

  “You found her?” When I nodded, he said, “Was it bad?”

  “I tried to revive her.” I shook my head. “Yeah, it was bad.”

  “Do they have any idea who…” But he let the question dangle.

  “Not yet,” Tom said. “But we will.”

  Silence filled the living room again. Julian stared at the fire. “When we go over, will we be able to take them some food?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “I guess…I guess we’d both feel better if we hit the kitchen.”

  He was right. I needed to clear my brain, and the way I did that was by cooking. At the moment, that was also the only thing I could do for Sally Routt.

  “Okay,” Tom said, “I’m going to go check on Arch and wake him up in twenty. I’ll make sure he’s got his backpack and, uh, learner’s permit.”

  “Tom,” I said, “don’t even think about—”

  “Just kidding!”

  “Have you got anything going today?” Julian asked as he walked slowly down the hallway toward the kitchen. Once there, he flipped on the espresso machine and began hunting through our cupboards for the sugar. Julian never took fewer than four teaspoons of the sweet stuff in his caffeine jolts. The memory of accidentally sipping a titanically sweet, Julian-fixed demitasse popped me out of my stupor. I didn’t want that to happen again. Opening my eyes wide, I clattered two cups under the machine’s spout.

  “In the catering department, I haven’t got anything until tomorrow,” I told him. “That’s when I cater Donald Ellis’s thirty-fifth birthday party. I can’t imagine Nora will go forward with it, after what happened to Dusty.” I sighed. “Then on Sunday, Nora’s father is baptizing Gus. Nora’s father is a bishop named Sutherland.”

  Julian sat in one of our kitchen chairs, his expression confused. “Sutherland? That name’s familiar.”

  “You remember Father Pete had a mild coronary in July?” When Julian nodded, I went on: “Sutherland’s been taking over his liturgical and administrative duties, even some pastoral ones, since then. He was the bishop of the diocese of southern Utah until the end of last year, when he developed heart problems. He took early retirement and moved in with Nora and Donald. Your hometown’s in southern Utah, even though it’s in a different diocese. Think that might be why you recognize the name?”

  “Yeah,” he said after a moment. “That’s it. He came around to do confirmations in Bluff one year, when the bishop of Navajoland was sick. Bishop Sutherland’s not a very good preacher.”

  “Then let’s hope for a brief sermon on Sunday. Why don’t you see what you can find in the walk-in? Pick out ingredients that look good to you. We’ll pull together something nice for the Routts.”

  Julian’s sneakers squeaked as he moved across our wooden floor to the walk-in. After what seemed like an age, he emerged loaded down with unsalted butter, several bags of vegetables, fruit, fresh herbs, and huge wrapped packages of Brie, Fontina, Gruyère, and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. Once Julian had arranged his load on the counter, I pressed the button on the espresso machine and watched the dark, syrupy liquid twine into our cups. Overhead, I could hear Tom walking around in that authoritative way he had. I felt strangely comforted. Julian sat down, ladled sugar into his cup, took a sip, then stared at the calendar on the computer screen. “You’re doing a party for Nora Ellis? I’ve encountered her, too. She wasn’t the easiest person I’ve ever had to work for. Typical very wealthy lady, wants the best-quality stuff, but only at a steep discount.”

  I smiled at him. “So you don’t like Bishop Sutherland, and you don’t like his daughter, Nora Ellis. One is a bad p
reacher and one isn’t easy to work for, is that it?” I sipped my coffee. “Have to tell you, big J., Nora’s been perfectly nice to me.”

  Julian set his coffee aside and slowly unwrapped the cheeses. “Okay, let me think. I did a dinner party over in Boulder, a charity thing? It was when I was working for Doc’s Bistro, and Doc really believed in this organization that Nora was involved with to help underprivileged kids. It was called Up and Coming. Anyway, Doc couldn’t do the dinner, so I filled in. Nora Ellis kept sending people into the kitchen to see how I was doing. I had the feeling she was having them check that I was using real cream, real butter, and Parmesan that didn’t come out of a tube with holes in the top.”

  I finished my coffee, rinsed my cup, and began grating my own real Parmesan, unsure even what we were going to do with it. But still, I was focusing on Julian’s story, because it was getting my mind off the vision of Dusty lying on the H&J floor. I said, “It would drive me nuts if a client kept bugging me like that. What was her problem?”

  “Oh, everything,” Julian said as he disappeared into the walk-in, then reappeared with a jar of homemade pesto. “You know how clients can be.”

  Golden strands of cheese fell in front of the grater as I worked. “She was probably just freaking out over the event going well.”

  “Charity events are the worst,” Julian said bitterly.

  I suddenly felt queasy about working with Nora Ellis. Then again, maybe I was just feeling queasy, period. As I was rewrapping the cheese, Tom walked into the kitchen.

  “Arch is getting ready,” he announced. “I told him about Dusty, so he wouldn’t be upset by the police cars. But I just said she was in an accident.” He moved toward the phone. “Anyway, I’m calling Marla. Asking her to come over, too.”

  “You’ll wake her up,” I warned him.

  “She’ll live.”

  Julian slowly moved his cutting board piled with perfect slices of Brie to the far end of the marble counter. “You’re calling Marla?” he said, his voice quavering. “Could you ask her to bring a dozen more eggs?” Julian looked at me as if he was going to say something, then shook his head. I fixed us both second cups of espresso while Tom dialed Marla.