Vonette, on the other hand, professed no worry about either Oriental cuisine or the hangover to come. I followed her out to the cavernous kitchen. She waved her free hand gaily as she beeped microwave buttons to heat water for coffee. After a long swig of greenish liquid she started to talk.
“I just don’t know what to do with him being home. He’s fussing and yapping all day about Lord knows what. That John Richard can’t see all his patients. That they need him over there. The practice, the practice. Yappety yap. That some doctor on TV is an idiot. Lord! I wished they’d have given him an injection to make him shut up!”
“I know he’s dedicated to his work,” I said, thinking of Patty Sue and her mandatory twice-weekly appointments. “How soon before he’s back in shape?”
“Tomorrow. Thanks be to God.” She paused and looked at my basket for the first time. “Now look what you’ve brought. Aren’t you just so sweet.”
I explained the basket’s contents and opened the refrigerator to put in the cake with cream cheese. The food of a noncook littered the shelves. Fancy sliced deli ham and smoked salmon, herring in sour cream, and little nibbled packages of Brie and Samsoe and Port Salut vied for space with beer and wine and every imaginable kind of mixer. It again occurred to me, as it had so many times, that John Richard had married a woman who could cook because he had been raised by one who could not.
“May I see Fritz?” I asked.
She nodded. “Just wait here a sec,” she said. “Let me go see if he minds. He probably won’t, but you know how ornery he can be. He was talking about taking a shower, so it might just be a little bit.”
“I’ll wait in the study,” I announced, and slipped into the paneled room off the kitchen.
When Vonette had padded off, I slowly opened the drawers of the study desk. Take your shower, Fritz. My heart was knocking loudly and I felt cold. Vonette was not returning immediately. The business has to reopen, I said to myself. Schulz doesn’t need to know about this. Start investigating.
Apparently Vonette liked to organize as little as she liked to cook. Letters and papers and photographs were crammed into each of the small drawers like dressing in a too-small turkey. I could feel blood pounding in my throat and ears. I did not know what I was looking for or how I would know when I found it.
There wouldn’t be time to read any letters or study any bills, but perhaps I could get some names, something like that. Threats, I told myself, people who don’t like him. That’s what you’re looking for. But would something be here? Would a doctor even keep that kind of thing at home? What about his office?
I came to a box of what looked like old photographs. There was my unmistakable ex-husband, charming in a sailor suit at about age six. And there he was again in front of a birthday cake, about to blow out four candles. Behind him in the picture was an adolescent girl—a babysitter? Then there was another picture of the same girl, by herself this time in one of those old-fashioned stiff photo portraits done in high schools. She wore a bouffant hairdo with the ends of her hair nipped up. In large looping feminine handwriting were the words “Dear Mom, No matter what, I’m still your baby.” And unsigned. As I stared at the photo I thought there was something familiar about it, something I couldn’t quite place. The girl was not someone I knew or had ever known. It was not Laura Smiley. But I had seen a picture of this face before somewhere, maybe from when I was married to John Richard. Fat chance I’d have of him telling me who it was.
I crept quickly into the kitchen and slid the picture into my purse. I was heating up a fresh cup of water for instant coffee when Vonette wobbled back and leaned on the counter before pouring herself another margarita.
“He’s just on the phone right now with John Richard,” she said. “Let’s give him a couple more minutes. You know how he hates being interrupted.”
I nodded and looked at Vonette, whose coppery too-poufed hair shone in the afternoon light. I really knew little about her. When we got together with the senior Kormans at holidays and other times, John Richard had silently ignored his mother as she began to drink and make outrageous statements. Fritz never seemed to be paying much attention to her either. I felt like a one-woman listening team, saying “uh-huh” and “I know what you mean,” and wishing I could get her into a residential treatment program for alcoholics. But she had never told me much about anything personal. Her diatribes were against people in the church she didn’t like, or what was wrong with the school system, the highway department, or the Republican party.
“Vonette,” I said, “do you know who put that stuff into Fritz’s coffee?”
She turned away and opened the freezer door of the refrigerator. “Nope,” she said without looking at me. “Just like I told that cop.” She brought out a can of frozen limeade and started to peel off the plastic tab.
“But you must know who his enemies are,” I persisted. “You must know who at the funeral didn’t like him.”
She dug hard into the frozen concentrate with a metal spoon and said, “Enemies? C’mon, honey. What do you think this is, a war?”
“What about his patients? Please, Vonette,” I begged, “help me with this. I can’t make enough money to support Arch and myself without the catering business, and the police have shut me down hard. You must know something.”
Finally she turned to face me. “Goldy,” she said, “I don’t. Well, leastwise not that much. And after all that’s happened—”
She shrugged and began to run water to dilute the lime concentrate. She said, “I don’t really want to know.”
“After all what has happened, Vonette? You mean Fritz and the rat poison?”
She threw the can of water against the side of the sink. “Goddamn but I’ve got a headache. If you want to see Fritz, Goldy honey, just go on back. You need money, call me later. But I gotta go lie down now.” And she tottered out of the kitchen before I had a chance to say anything.
Great. Something had happened. Thinking about it gave Vonette a headache. And now I had to face Fritz alone. I picked up my basket.
“Well hello, Goldy,” said Fritz after I had knocked and been admitted to their enormous bedroom suite done in pink, green, and white. “Or should I say Little Red Riding Hood?”
I didn’t know where Vonette had gone to lie down. Fritz was propped up with at least half a dozen pillows behind him. His almost-bald head shone like a baby’s bum in the gray light from the television, which had a picture but no volume. The newspaper, a tray with dishes and cups, and the remote control for the television were spread out around his lap. He was wearing pale blue pajamas covered with tiny dark blue fleurs de lis. A French king in repose, sans wig.
I stared at him. He was a good-looking man. There are people who age badly and people like Fritz, who age beautifully. The silver chest hair peeking out from the V of his pajama top matched the silver hair above his ears. His face was radiant with the fine-boned handsomeness that had been inherited by the man I had loved for eight years.
“Just pull up a chair,” he said, “and look, you’ve brought me something. Now John Richard would say I shouldn’t eat anything you bring me.” He winked after I had settled stiffly on the side of a chaise longue. “You know what I said to him? I said, Son, don’t you worry about it. Goldy and I get along just great. Don’t we?”
I nodded, described the various things in the basket, and told him about the cake in the refrigerator. He thanked me and then there was a pause while soap opera characters ranted silently on the flickering screen.
“Well,” I lied, “Patty Sue says hello.”
“Does she?” His eyes sparkled. “Great gal. Marvelous patient. She must be such a help for you.”
I didn’t want to appear difficult and disagree. “Well,” I said finally. “Well, well.” I had to get out of here. I was beginning to have a headache myself, and I was meeting Schulz shortly. I smiled at Fritz and said, “So John Richard still thinks I did this to you?”
Fritz sat up straight in bed and screw
ed up his face into a menacing grimace. He shook his head. His eyebrows formed a bushy line just above his nose, and his mouth was set downward over the clean-cut jaw.
“Don’t you worry about this, Goldy, you hear?”
“Okay,” I said, moving my knees back and forth. The wool was making them itch. “I really am sorry this happened to you. I still do think of us as being sort of related.” There was an uncomfortable silence. “Maybe I’d better go.” I stood up to leave. “Hope you feel better,” I said as I opened the bedroom door.
“Don’t fret about John Richard,” Fritz said with a smile, full of charm. I nodded, speechless again. Fritz’s face relaxed suddenly, and he gave a slight laugh. “After all, son,’ I told him, ‘you’re the only one standing to gain if I go.’ ” He laughed again, somewhat wildly.
“Well, bye now,” I said as I started down the hall.
“I said, ‘Son, look here!’ ” he yelled after me. “ ‘Get Goldy out of your mind, will you? If I die, she doesn’t inherit the practice. You do!’ ”
CHAPTER 8
Despite its name, the Dragon’s Breath Chinese Restaurant was not strictly Szechuan. In a small town a food place could not afford to alienate those with milder tastes, so the proprietor offered Cantonese dishes in addition to those made with vinegar and mustard and red pepper. This was good, since my own feeling was that spicy cooking was better left to the Mexicans. Whether Tom Schulz had mild tastes I did not know. Asking me out to dinner indicated something to the contrary.
The restaurant’s entrance was carved in the shape of a dragon’s head. Coming through the mouth-door with its solid inverted-pyramid teeth, I always had a feeling of sympathy for Jonah. During the restaurant’s remodeling, so the story went, a local sculptor had created this monstrosity in exchange for a year’s free Chinese food. Poor man, I always thought, he must have been terribly hungry.
Inside, sparkling polygonal lights flashed and winked off ornately framed mirrors, pots of glass flowers, and shiny red plastic booths. From the kitchen came the beckoning sizzle of stir-fried meat. The Dragon’s Breath, I remembered while threading through the tables, also served wonderful shrimp-stuffed egg rolls and homemade almond cookies. Two years ago I had begged for the almond cookie recipe and received it once the smiling cook understood my question. Then I had pressed candied cherries in the centers instead of almonds and served them to clients at Christmas.
Christmas parties, perish the thought. Much work, more income. And it was in the power of Investigator Tom Schulz to say whether I would be able to start planning for them.
“You’re frowning,” he said when I slid into the booth opposite him. He smiled with irrepressible pleasure, and did a respectful half stand. Seated again, he sighed.
“Mad already,” he said. “That’s a bad sign. What’s making Miss Goldy irritable now?”
I couldn’t help noticing how his gray houndstooth jacket hugged his shoulders, how deftly he moved his bulk around. There was something comforting about his large presence. He unfurled an enormous white napkin to cover a nubby burgundy sweater. It was, I reflected, an unexpectedly attractive outfit for a cop.
“Thinking about the Christmas parties I may not be giving,” I said while he poured tea. “Unless you, we, get this poisoning incident cleared up. Maybe you can pinpoint my ex-husband.” I told him about the inheritance configuration.
“Don’t you think if a doctor really wanted to poison somebody, he’d do it right? And not in front of a bunch of people?” He went on, still grinning. “Tell me about your Christmas parties, so I can work up an appetite. Maybe talking about food will cheer you up.”
I described the almond-turned-cherry cookies as well as the fragrant gingerbread houses I modeled after the hostess’s own home. I told him I made a lot of money on these affairs, money that I needed.
He said, “I have never seen a woman so worried about her livelihood.” Ordinarily I would have taken offense at such a statement, but his green eyes were soft and kind, the tilt of his head sympathetic.
“I have to support Arch and me,” I said. “My ex-husband’s willingness to pay child support on time is tenuous at best. I need to give parties to survive.” I fingered the thick jade-colored glass leaves of the table’s centerpiece. “There’s something else, though.”
“Something else.”
“Well.” I felt suddenly uncomfortable, as if I were offering an explanation when none was needed. “I love my job. It fills a hole. It’s hard to have it taken away. It’s like the hole’s ripped open.”
“It won’t be for long,” he said in a low voice. “I just have that feeling. Go on about the parties.”
“One time,” I said, “I actually did do a Christmas party for free. For the church. I was still teaching Sunday school, trying to carry on this normal life. Then John Richard started seeing a soprano in the choir. He even nuzzled up to Miss Vocal Cords during the coffee hour. It was sickening.” I stopped talking, sipped tea. “I remember the Sunday school party, though. Making miniature baby Jesuses out of meringue kept me up half the night. The kids loved them.”
“So you’re a churchgoer?” he asked, surprised.
“Not anymore,” I replied, picking up my menu. “Let’s get on with this, okay?”
“My goodness, you make it sound like being with me is torture.” He smoothed out his sweater and perused the menu. “Why don’t I order and surprise you? Give you a break from being in charge of the food.”
The sleepless nights, the worry, the cooking for and visiting with the Kormans—all these had made me too tired to argue. About the meal, anyway. The waitress arrived and I asked for sherry. Tom Schulz ordered scotch. Then our food waiter appeared and Schulz ordered egg rolls, a pu pu platter, hot and sour soup, steamed trout, pork with broccoli and bamboo shoots, moo-shu shrimp, and red-cooked chicken.
I said, “How many more people are coming to dinner?”
Schulz looked at me silently for a minute, then stuck his chin out.
“Just relax. Okay, Goldy?” The perpetual grin. “We’re going to have a nice meal. We’re going to talk. I like you, but you sure don’t make it easy. Try to remember we’re trying to help each other.”
“Is that so? Well guess what, I wouldn’t give you a nickel for the entire Furman County Sheriff’s Department.”
The drinks arrived and Schulz sipped his scotch.
“Well,” he said, “now we’re all clear where we stand.”
“It’s Tuesday,” I replied, “and this thing happened Saturday and what have you found out? I need my business reopened and all you have to offer is strange links and barbecued pu pu.”
“Take it easy,” he said. “Remember our chat with your son saying the Kormans and Laura Smiley didn’t get along? I made that call out to Illinois. Turns out Korman senior was not exactly your universally loved medical man. Before he left twenty years ago, that is. Guy I talked to said there’s more, but I need to talk to the fellow who was involved in the investigation, and he’s gone to a department in another town. Happens to cops in small towns, you know. You arrest a city councilman’s son for drunk driving. The next day you start looking for a new job.”
I grunted as the banquet of appetizers arrived.
“What was the investigation about?” I asked.
Schulz offered me the plate of egg rolls and I took one. He dipped one in brown sinus-clearing Chinese mustard and crunched his way through it before starting in on the skewered beef.
“Don’t know that yet,” he said as he pulled his eyebrows into a line. “Files twenty years old are put on microfilm, then into storage. Have to have clearance and a microfilm operator to look them up. They’re working on it, don’t worry. They’re going to call me back. Our friend Laura Smiley was involved somehow, though. That’s all this guy could remember.”
“Is that it?”
“Listen. When you do this kind of research, you’ve got to talk to the detective who worked the case. Even if they read me that file over the
phone, it won’t tell as much as the cop involved in it could. And I’m going to find him.” He ladled out the soup, then said, “There’s something else that may be related. Your little friend Trixie has a record for assault. A recent one.”
“What?”
He shrugged and swallowed some soup, then gestured with the porcelain spoon. “She was fighting with a neighbor over a dog or something. He, the dog, was barking and driving her nuts. That’s what she claimed. So she hauled off and threw one rock after another at the animal until it ran under its owner’s deck. Then the fellow who owned the dog came flying out shrieking at Trixie and she beaned him with a hunk of quartz the size of a football.” He chuckled. “That woman must be damned strong. Poor bastard had to have eighteen stitches.”
I had stopped eating. “What in the world happened?”
“Eat your soup before it gets cold. She pleaded guilty and got a suspended sentence. No priors, and she said because she was pregnant she was on edge or some such.”
“Pregnant?”
“Her baby was stillborn a month later,” he said. “You said you hadn’t seen her around for a while and that’s why. I talked to her husband. She had high blood pressure, in spite of all that exercising. High blood pressure, excitable temperament, high-risk pregnancy.”
So that was what Marla had meant by You’re back. And Trixie’s mood. I wished I’d known. Poor Trixie.
“That’s as far as I’ve gotten,” he said. “But I am working on it, just wanted to let you know. Oh look, here comes our waiter,”
I sighed. At this rate, we might have the answers to what happened last Saturday by Valentine’s Day.
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