“Vonette,” I said before the conversation degenerated further, “I’m coming over on Tuesday, and I’m going to bring Fritz some things to eat I know he likes. Okay?”
She giggled again.
“You can even test them,” I said, “and I want to visit with you, anyway. Make sure there are no hard feelings with old Fritz.”
Vonette inhaled. She said, “Goldy, honey. Thanks. That would be sweet. I’ll taste them if you want. Hell, nobody cares if I die. Just kidding, of course. Laura Smiley had that kind of attitude and it did her in, didn’t it? Well, who knows. And you know what else? John Richard will be taking over the whole practice for Fritz for a couple of days anyway, so he won’t be around to bother you. You know.”
Did I ever. Maybe I should have adopted Marla’s attitude and actively avoided John Richard. My life might have been a lot easier. It would be good to have the son out of the way when I chatted with the mother. Though I hated to use Vonette, I needed information she might have. I didn’t know what in the world was going on. I had to start somewhere.
“Guess what?” I said. “Those cops are going to close down my operation until this is all cleared up. Maybe you can help me out a little.”
“Oh, honey,” she said, “I’ll give you all the cash you need. It’ll just be our little secret.”
“No no no. I mean, thanks, really, but I don’t mean money. All I want to do is talk to you, about some of the possibilities. Of who could have done this to Fritz.”
“Goldy honey, I keep telling you. Fritz is fine, Just let the police handle it.” She was quiet for a minute. Then she said, “Do you know what? Maybe nobody did it to him. Maybe somebody did it so’s your catering business would be busted. Ever think of that?”
As a matter of fact, I had not. Besides John Richard, who hated me? The flowers from yesterday seemed to indicate I was not the target. No need to confuse Vonette with that, however.
I promised to see her in two days, rang off, and phoned Marla.
“You’ll never guess what happened to Fritz Korman,” I began.
“Pfft!” she answered. “Old news, sweetie pie. The way I hear it, you’re the one tried to do it.”
Wait a minute.
“Well, sweetie pie,” I said, “as a matter of fact, I was wondering if you had anything to do with it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Marla. “I wasn’t even there, for God’s sake.” She began to chew something. “Trixie said the guy from the sheriff’s department was good-looking in an oversized mountain-man sort of way. That skinny bitch. She thinks anyone who doesn’t look as if they just came out of a refugee camp is overweight.” More chewing. “So tell me about this guy.”
“What guy?”
“The cop.”
“Marla,” I said in a voice full of vinegar, “tell me why you called me sweetie pie.”
“I don’t know. Does it bother you? Think I’m sweet on you? I just asked you about a policeman. Schulz, she said his name was.”
I gave her a brief description of the investigating officer and then told her about the flowers and their message, with its “sweetie pie.”
“Weird,” she said.
“Is that all you can think of to say? My whole life’s falling apart, for God’s sake!”
“Well, I didn’t send them,” she protested. “Did John Richard ever send you flowers?”
“Only when he felt guilty about some fling he was having,” I said. “You?”
“No, not after I served him edible nasturtiums.”
I said, “Could the Jerk possibly have sent them? I mean, is this guy cracking up or what?” I told her about the tomato allergy, about my innocent substitution of the mushrooms. “When Fritz got sick John Richard had a fit and blamed me. Because of the mushrooms, if you can believe it.”
Marla said, “Okay, okay. You are still my good buddy and I am still yours. Everything is going to be all right. Let’s think.” She stopped to drink something. “The Jerk is pissed off with you. So what else is new? But look at it this way. Maybe he did it. He blames you, makes it look like you, raises a stink. So nobody says, Well now, who spends the most time hanging around Daddy? Catch my drift?”
Another new angle. Everyone had a theory. I couldn’t wait to try them out on Schulz. On second thought, I could wait.
“Get him sent to jail, will you?” Marla begged. “I’m getting tired of avoiding him.”
After hanging up I considered. Would Schulz have thought of these possibilities? Perhaps not yet.
I spent the remainder of the morning calling the clients whose parties I was supposed to cater in the next month. Canceling felt like pouring money down the drain. Worse, and to my surprise, my clients were all eager to try Denver caterers. Bad news traveled fast. Then I balanced the checkbook. Three hundred ninety dollars. More bad news, even if the November child support payment came on time, which was unlikely. I calculated what it would take to make the next house payment and pay the bills.
I should have majored in math, I’d decided within a week of being single again. The degree in psychology had not only provided the depressing evidence that I had married a violent egotistical narcissist, it had also failed to help in making money.
My fallback during dry periods with the catering business was housecleaning, which paid a reliable eight bucks an hour. If I could book the jobs, Patty Sue and I each were going to have to do three houses a week just to make the November house payment and buy groceries. Luckily, finding needy clients whose houses were a mess was never difficult.
The only questionable debt was monthly dues for the athletic club. Missing this payment meant starting over with the four-hundred-dollar initiation fee, and I certainly didn’t want to do that. But the club was a place I needed to get away from the kitchen. Arch enjoyed the pool in summer. I called and got, of all people, Trixie Jackson.
“Oh Trix,” I said casually, “I need to speak to Hal.”
Hal owned the club; I knew he was the only one in a position to let me barter for the dues.
“He’s gone down to the game,” she replied. And then, “I can’t get over that mess yesterday. Fritz writhing on the floor like a woman in labor. Makes him know what it’s like,”
To the best of my knowledge, Trixie had no children. How did she know what it was like? “Just tell me when Hal will be back,” I said.
“Oh, not until tomorrow. Why? You have a problem with something?”
“Look, Trix,” I said, “tell him I want to do something for him to take care of my dues this month. Clean or whatever. Just see what he says.”
She agreed. We decided to talk more the next day at the morning aerobics class, which she had taken over from another instructor. After that I called Alicia and canceled all my food for the upcoming month. Arch and Patty Sue began to wander into the kitchen and litter it with cinnamon roll crumbs, cereal boxes, and grease-soaked paper towels from draining the bacon. At one o’clock the doorbell rang.
Investigator Tom Schulz.
He sauntered in. Sensing his first question, I took him silently into the kitchen to look around. He smiled politely at Patty Sue and Arch, nodded at the pots and pans, walls and floors, cabinets and counters, said “Mm-hmm” and “It sure smells good in here,” and scanned everything with those green eyes. Next I led him out to the living room, which I had redecorated postdivorce in a riot of yellows and oranges. The eucalyptus in the mysterious dried flower arrangement perfumed the room.
“Nice arrangement,” he said.
“A bizarre arrangement,” I said, and told him of its sudden appearance and anonymous message. He asked to see the card. I gave it to him and he pocketed it. Then he made a silent visual check of the entire room before settling himself on the lemon-colored couch.
“Miss Goldy,” he began, “why don’t you start by telling me about your husband? About this allegation of his?”
“My ex-husband,” I said, suddenly angry, “is a—” I stopped and looked at my hands. “John R
ichard Korman,” I began again, “is an abusive man. He frightens me. I was trying to give him mushrooms instead of tomatoes, to which he is allergic.” I looked at Schulz. “Believe me,” I said, “I don’t have that much interest in Fritz Korman. He’s just an old charmer whose wife is an ale—” I paused. I said, “Not under my jurisdiction, as you cops would say.”
Schulz pulled his mouth into a small o. He leaned toward me and raised the tentlike eyebrows.
He said, “Just calm down.” He leaned back again. “Let’s start over. You can begin by offering me a nice cup of espresso and some of those rolls they’re eating out in the kitchen. I don’t ordinarily take refreshment at a suspect’s house, but I’m going to make a large exception, since it smells so good in here.”
I complied. Somehow the fact that he was hungry for something I had fixed, and that he trusted something I would fix, was encouraging.
He smiled at me between sips and bites.
“This is really nice, this place,” he said. “I like this old neighborhood. Has a lot of charm. So do some of the residents.” He gave what appeared to be either a judicious wink or a left-eye tic.
What in the world was going on? After a moment I said, “Are you going to ask me some questions or not?”
“Okeydoke.” He laboriously wiped each of his fingers on the napkin I had given him. “Just take it easy, okay?”
I nodded.
He said, “Did you put a foreign substance into Fritz Korman’s food to make him sick or kill him?”
I looked Investigator Schulz square in his X-ray vision eyes.
“No,” I said. “I did not.”
“Did you put a foreign substance into John Richard Korman’s food to make him sick or kill him?”
I said, “I did not. It would harm my business, which is my sole source of income—”
Schulz chuckled. “It has already harmed your business. It may be the end of your business. Please assure me they weren’t funny mushrooms.”
“They were the regular kind.”
“Good. Health Department report’ll be in tomorrow or the day after. That spread sure looked good, too, hated to waste it. Poached salmon. Strawberry shortcake.” He took a deep breath and leaned back to hike up his belt. “I’ve never been to a party you’ve catered.”
“So?”
“Now Miss Goldy, I’m just saying you seem to be a good cook. You’ve got a reputation to protect.”
I said, “The way you say it, it sounds like soliciting.”
“There you go again.” He closed his eyes, then opened them to look around the room. He stopped to gaze at a bright orange All Saints’ Day drawing Arch had done at the beginning of Sunday school class, the one I’d taught. Since Arch did not at that point know about any actual saints, his picture was a cluster of Mom, Dad, Vonette, Fritz, and Mother Teresa. I explained all this to Schulz when he asked about it.
“Interesting,” he said. “Now look. You don’t need to get uptight. About your business. I’m just saying a good cook is hard to find. You make great cinnamon rolls.”
He stopped and worked his jaw for a few moments.
“Now tell me why a good unmarried cook with a reputation to protect would get so upset talking to a cop who’s trying to help her out?”
I shook my head. I said, “Sorry. Talking about my ex-husband gets me upset.” I took a deep breath. “That’s what our argument was about, anyway. The Jerk and no tomatoes. That son of a bitch. Nothing even happened to him.”
“Something happened, though.”
I looked at Schulz. “I didn’t do anything to John Richard. I thought it was inappropriate for him to bring a new girlfriend, his fiancée, mind you, to a reception after the funeral of one of his son’s teachers. Plus he walked over and insulted me. Then we fought over the dish with the mushrooms. But that’s it.”
Schulz swung his body around to the side and crossed his legs. He was wearing tan corduroy slacks and a gray sweater and tie: preppy clothes over his mountain-man body. He lifted his eyebrows and shoulders, opened his hands in question.
I said, “The guys down at the Health Department aren’t going to find anything in that trash bag.”
“Let’s hope not.”
I was suddenly exhausted. Worse, I did not like the way Investigator Tom Schulz was making me feel. He made me want to trust him, which did not come easily.
I said, “So am I going to jail or what?”
He shook his head and smiled. “No. But the other incident is something else. We have a policy about attempted poisoning. Sorry, your business will have to stay closed down. For a while. Until we find out about the rodent poison, who did it and why. That’s it.”
“Please don’t do that to me,” I begged. My eyes sought his. “My busy season is coming up. Arch and I depend on the November and December income to make it through the next year. The longer I’m closed down, the worse things will get for us financially. I can’t make it on housecleaning alone.”
He shrugged. “Have to, sorry. At least until this mess with Fritz Korman is cleared up.”
“How long will that take?”
“That depends.”
I leaned forward. “I can help you. Really. I’m already going over there day after tomorrow to talk to Vonette.”
Schulz lifted an eyebrow, tilted his head.
He said, “To talk to Vonette. Listen. When I want help on this case, I’ll ask for it.”
It was my turn to shrug.
He said, “Okay, Goldy. Do you know who didn’t get along with Doctor Korman? Sounds as if you know a lot of people.”
“Oh, well,” I began. I felt a wave of sympathy for Vonette. How could I be disloyal to her? What could I say? I shook my head.
“Look,” I said, “everyone in this town knows Fritz. Most of the people under twenty were delivered by him, for God’s sake.”
“Know anybody who thought he wasn’t a good doctor? Anybody at the party?”
“No.”
“Were any of his patients there yesterday?”
I thought. “I think Trixie Jackson is one of his patients. The aerobics instructor.”
“Yeah,” said Schulz. “I used to see her over at the athletic club. She married?”
“Yes,” I said, “she is, I think. I remember seeing her in the Kormans’ office. But that was a long while ago, when I was still married.” I frowned. A guilty knot tied itself in my stomach. It wasn’t up to me to give Trixie’s ob-gyn history to Schulz. After the divorce I’d changed doctors; I now went to a female gynecologist in Denver. I didn’t keep up with the Kormans’ practice.
Schulz said, “Who else?”
“Why don’t you just subpoena his records or whatever it’s called?” I could hear the exasperation in my voice. A minute ago I had offered to help him. Now I just wanted him to leave.
“Okay,” I went on wearily, “Patty Sue Williams. My roommate. He’s treating her for amenorrhea. It’s in the dictionary. Anyway, her doctor from eastern Colorado sent her out here to be treated by Fritz.” I switched to a lower tone. “Believe me,” I said, “Fritz might as well be the governor, the way Patty Sue looks up to him. She’d have an anxiety attack before she’d put poison in his coffee.”
He tapped his fingers on the mahogany coffee table. “What about the wife?” He looked at the ceiling as if he-were turning things over in his mind. “Vonette.”
“Look,” I said, “you can check all this in your files somewhere. Vonette’s an alcoholic. Fritz got her tossed into detox a few nights ago. It happens now and then. But that doesn’t mean she tried to do anything to him.” I paused. “She doesn’t operate that way. When she’s upset with Fritz she takes it out on herself. She drinks.”
“I’ll do the interpreting around here, if you don’t mind.” He smiled. “What about this Laura person? What’s this your son said about her not liking Korman?”
“I’m going to see what Vonette knows about that,” I replied. “All I know about Laura is from our teacher-
parent conferences last year and two years before, when she was Arch’s teacher.”
“How did your son feel about Ms. Smiley?”
“They were very close. They used to tell each other jokes, write letters.” I paused. “He’s very upset about her killing herself. At least, he seems that way.”
Schulz cleared his throat. “I’ve read about those fantasy games,” he said. “Some kids can get awfully involved in them. Think they’re real.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“Your son was in charge of the coffee and whatnot. He was friends with Ms. Smiley and for some reason thought Fritz Korman was her enemy. He’s having trouble dealing with her death, but puts great stock in fantasy games where they use potions and the like. Any chance that could spell trouble for his grandfather?”
I stared at Schulz with my mouth open.
I said, “My son is not a liar.”
“He didn’t tell me he didn’t do it.”
“You didn’t ask.” I felt my ears burning. “Arch!” I called toward the kitchen door. “Arch, the policeman wants to ask you another question!”
Arch stuck his head into the living room.
“What?” he said.
Schulz said nothing. He only looked benevolently at Arch.
“Hon,” I said gently, “did you put anything into Fritz’s coffee?”
“Huh?”
“Did you”—I began again and opened my eyes wide at him—“put something into Fritz’s coffee to make him sick?”
Arch reddened. “No,” he replied. “Why? Do you think I did?”
“No,” I said in relief, and glanced back at Schulz, who was studying Arch’s face. “You can go. Unless Mr. Schulz here has any more questions.”
He shook his head. Arch left, and I stood up.
Tom Schulz gave me a long look. This time I felt that the X-ray vision was not directed to seeing what was in my mind. I felt he was looking for something else, but I couldn’t quite figure out what.
He said, “Let’s keep in touch.”
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