Sticks & Scones

by Diane Mott Davidson

  The letter denying the earl custody of his nephew had been signed by Henry VIII. It bore the king’s initials, H. R., and his royal seal.

  The letter sold for twelve million pounds at Spink’s, a leading London auction gallery. Eliot had immediately married Sukie, christening her his twenty-million-dollar woman. After their honeymoon, he announced to the media, Sukie would be embarking on a cleaning expedition of the other thirty-two garderobe shafts in the castle.

  She hadn’t found anything else.

  Eliot hadn’t minded.

  The day after Sukie’s call, I’d gone to Hyde Castle. Once seated in the imposing living room, I drank tea and ate stale, mail-ordered scones, made tolerable only by heaping tablespoons of homemade strawberry jam, Eliot’s one and only specialty. With great fanfare, tall, handsome Eliot Hyde brewed our tea. Eliot dressed like an F. Scott Fitzgerald character; for tea, he wore herringbone knickerbockers and a silk scarf. When he brewed the tea, there was no dumping of hot water over a teabag. No: Eliot tossed his silk scarf over his shoulder, removed the lid from a bone china teapot in the shape of a prissy-faced English butler, cleared his throat, and meticulously, s-l-o-w-l-y poured boiling water over Golden Tips leaves. Then he covered the pot with a cozy. Finally, he asked Sukie honeykins, as he called her, to time the steeping.

  Good tea, bad food, I’d reflected, as I sipped the dark brew moments later. I’m going to love this place.

  I’d told them yes, February was almost completely open for me. My son was in school every day. And I could hire Julian Teller, our former boarder, to help with the catering, as he was taking only a half-load this semester at the University of Colorado. Plus, I added, Julian had toured the castle during his time at Elk Park Prep, and knew his way around.

  I’d listened to their food proposals, nodded, and written up a contract. Eliot’s ideas sounded awfully work-intensive, but focusing on paying work, instead of on the Lauderdales, their bloodthirsty lawyer, and their Jaguar-driving cronies, was a welcome relief. In the end, Eliot and Sukie had booked Goldilocks’ Catering for two events. First would be an Anglophile lunch in appreciation of the big donors who’d paid for the new marble labyrinth set into the floor of Hyde Chapel. The second was an Elizabethan feast that would double as the end-of-season banquet for the Elk Park Prep fencing team. Eliot had been quick to clarify that the Tudor upper crust had only seen a feast as a grand meal. A banquet, on the other hand, had been an elaborate dessert course served later, often in a charming banquet-house not unlike our modern gazebo. These days, the terms feast and banquet had become synonymous, alas. In any event, Michaela Kirovsky wanted to hold her team’s banquet at the castle. For the opportunity to test feast-giving in their Great Hall, Eliot and Sukie were picking up half the tab.

  Eliot, meanwhile, would continue working, planning, and publicizing, to ready the castle for opening as a conference center.

  “That’s my dream,” he’d informed me, although his dark brown eyes looked unexpectedly sad. Above the creamy silk shirt and scarf, he had a beautifully featured, smooth-shaven face, framed by long, wavy, light brown hair. If my catered events went well, he added, we’d work out further bookings featuring historic English food.

  I’d set aside any hesitation. My only other February commitment was making cookies and punch for the Elk Park Prep Valentine’s Day Dance. The chapel lunch had been scheduled for today, Monday; the Elizabethan feast, for this Friday. I’d asked Michaela Kirovsky if the fencing team wanted swordfish. Her white hair had jounced around her pale face as she laughed at my suggestion. No swordfish, Eliot had protested. The recipes he wanted me to test on the students and their parents were more of the English court variety. So I’d ordered veal roasts, to be served with a potato dish, a shrimp dish for those Catholics who’d rejected Vatican II, a rice dish, a plum tart … and Eliot and I would come up with the rest of the details this week.

  Okay. Back to the present, to five minutes to six, to be exact. The sun would be rising soon on a day which found Arch and me temporarily homeless. Time to get moving.

  To get to the castle, the van would have to pass through antique gates that were over half a mile from the castle itself. Those gates, bearing the Hyde coat of arms and several other painted shields Sukie had unearthed in a Denver antique shop, had been open when I’d visited three weeks ago. Were they electronically armed before sunup? I had no idea.

  I stared again at the bank’s digital clock. The van was becoming warm. If I waited too long, the cooked chicken would begin to spoil. After the first question of catering: How does the food look? there is always the second consideration: How does it hold up? Because you were never going to get to the third question: How does it taste? if it had all turned moldy green.

  With sudden decisiveness, I made a U-turn on Main Street and followed ice-carved Cottonwood Creek as it flowed eastward. Every now and then, spotlights from a cabin lit up the creek. On the patches of ice, fallen snow lay strewn like spills of popcorn. Steam rose from the trickle of the creek that had not frozen.

  Just beyond a Texaco station, I slowed. A lighted sign on the left side of the road indicated the entry to county-owned Cottonwood Park. This meant I was getting close to the castle. On my left, the heavily forested hills of the park rose steeply from the road. On the right, the creek was now invisible. I pressed the accelerator resolutely and the van chugged forward.

  A moment later, headlights glared in my rearview mirror. I skidded onto the shoulder. We were just over half a mile from the castle. When someone shoots your window out, everything is suspect. Arch, who’d awakened, checked the side view. The vehicle passed us at a noisy clip and roared on eastward, down the canyon.

  “We’re on our way to Hyde Castle,” I said to Arch.

  His face within his jacket hood became wary. “Poltergeist Palace? That’s where the people want you to fix the historic food?”

  “Exactly. Let’s hope they’re awake.” I frowned. First the cop, now my son. Did everyone except me believe in ghosts? “Why exactly is it called Poltergeist Palace?”

  “Jeez, Mom, don’t you know? The ghost of the earl’s nephew, that the famous letter was about? After his uncle told him he couldn’t stay with the uncle’s family, the kid got sick. He died of pneumonia. Anyway, he’s supposed to run around the place at night, carrying a sword.”

  “Does he hang out in the kitchen?”

  “I don’t know. Michaela’s been telling us about the Great Hall, where the banquet will be on Friday night,” Arch went on. “We’re going to do a fencing demonstration before we eat.”

  I powered up the cellular and pressed in the Hydes’ number. Sukie, sounding only slightly groggy, answered on the second ring. I tried to make our plight sound humorous. Not fooled, she asked in a hoarse, concerned voice where we were. Heading east, I told her, along the creek. She consulted with Eliot, then came back. When she was less than fully awake, her accent was more noticeable. Ze gates arh oh-pen, she announced. I should take care on the driveway, she cautioned, as it was long, winding, and not well lit. She gave me the security-pad code for the castle gatehouse—the imposing, twin-towered entrance to the castle itself—and said please to come immediately. I was profusely thankful.

  As Arch and I passed through the quiet canyon, a light snow began to fall. To our right, Hyde Chapel appeared, its two spires silhouetted by a street lamp. The chapel had its own bridge across the creek, which looked romantically inviting in the darkness. Maybe that was where the earl’s ghostly nephew was now hanging out.

  A few moments later, I turned at the paved castle driveway and drove over another old bridge spanning Cottonwood Creek. More grim coats of arms had been wired to the high iron fence that circled the castle property. With my new concern for security, I would have to ask the Hydes about how they kept undesirables out of their castle. Hearing the details of my shot-out-window story, perhaps Eliot and Sukie would reconsider their kind invitation.

  The driveway wound past spotlit boulders, tall,
creaking lodgepole pines, stands of white-skinned aspens, thickets of chokecherry bushes, and blue spruces in perfect Christmas-tree shapes. When the van suddenly thudded over a large rock, I reminded myself to drive more carefully, or risk becoming part of a not-so-scenic overlook.

  We followed the twisting drive upward until my headlights illuminated snow-crusted boulders marking the first parking area. At the edge of the lot, a one-lane wooden causeway beckoned. Beyond the bridge rose the castle itself.

  I gulped. My previous visit had taken place during the day. In the predawn darkness, the stone fortress, built in medieval military style and rooted into a forested hillside, looked far less inviting. Spotlights carved out the façade’s four crenellated towers, the high, arched gatehouse, and the widely spaced, narrow windows from which, centuries ago, archers had rained arrows down on their enemies. Snow spiraled onto the steaming moat. Above the water, creamy patches of fog drifted across the tower tops and into the trees.

  Arch said, “Suppose they’d let me have my birthday party here?”

  I grunted a negative as our tires thumped across the planks of the causeway. To keep the moat water from freezing, Sukie had ordered the installation of aerating pumps. That way, fish and wildfowl would make it through the winter. I smiled. Wealthy folks were always telling me how much they cared about the environment.

  My cell phone bleated. Rather than risk driving off the causeway, I braked and put the van in parking gear. Arch peered down at the ducks huddled around one of the aerators.

  “Good God, Goldy, where the hell are you?” Marla Korman’s voice sounded even more husky than usual. “I called your house and got some cop.”

  “I’m at the Hydes’ castle. Or just about there,” I corrected. “It’s a long story.” Long or no, Marla would want to hear it. “A couple of hours ago, somebody shot out the picture window in our living room. There’s glass everywhere, and the cops wanted us out.”

  Marla, usually a late sleeper, was silent. No matter the time of day, though, once she started talking, my friend rarely stopped. Below us, the causeway swayed slightly. Steam from the moat clouded our windows.

  “Where’s Tom?” she demanded, her voice urgent.

  “About to leave New Jersey. I’m going to try to reach him as soon as I get settled. We’re here because Arch and I needed a place to park until we get sorted out. I didn’t want to bother you this early.”

  She groaned. “We should be together.”

  So all of us could be in danger? “Look, Marla,” I said, “thanks. But you don’t need to worry. Tom will be back late this morning. Everything is going to be fine.”

  “Listen.” She lowered her voice to a murmur. “Is Arch with you?”

  Suddenly I felt my son’s eyes on me. “Of course.”

  Marla said, “The parole board met Friday, Goldy. The Jerk’s out.”

  CHAPTER 4

  I stared at the twin clouds of mist coiling upward from the moat’s aerators. It can’t be true.

  “You there, Goldy?”

  “I was supposed to get a letter….”

  “You’re on the victim notification list?” She took a swig of something, probably orange juice. Marla never faced crises without food and drink. “I’m not on the list, but I told my lawyer to stay on top of John Richard’s petition for early release. Your notification is probably in the mail.”

  “Lot of good that does me now.”

  Marla said, “If you can’t come down here, I’ll drive up to the castle after I get dressed. I can be there in ninety minutes. Wait at the gate for me.”

  There was a whirring in my ears that didn’t come from the cell phone. “No, Marla, please. Thanks, but don’t come this early—” I faltered. I thought again of the noise that had awakened me. I’d heard a footstep on ice, but had it been a familiar one? Crack, gunshot, splintering glass. “Marla, did you tell the cops at our house? About him?” I glanced at Arch, who was pretending not to listen. He had fixed his eyes on one of the spotlit corner towers, tall granite drums where lookouts had once been posted. “Marla, did you tell them?” I tried not to hear the anxiety in my voice.

  “Of course not. I didn’t know why the cops were there, and they sure weren’t about to tell me. All they’d say was that you were alive. So I had to talk to you.”

  “I’d better call them back,” I said.

  Marla started to say something, but the line cracked and blurred. Doggone it. The Department of Corrections had notified us when John Richard had first petitioned for early release. I’d appeared before the parole board in January, giving all the reasons why an early release was a very bad idea. Dr. John Richard Korman should serve at least the minimum—eight months—of his two-year sentence for assault. The Jerk believed he should serve no more than four months, and had cited his behavior as a model prisoner, which included using the Heimlich maneuver on another inmate who’d been choking on a hot dog.

  Just in case the board did give him early parole, I’d obtained a temporary restraining order, to go into effect the moment his release took place. Then, if John Richard wanted to keep me in the dark about his plans, we could go before a judge and decide on parameters for visitations with Arch. But for the Jerk to be presented with a temporary order to keep away from me—just as he was about to taste freedom—probably wouldn’t sit very well. Had it sat so badly he’d felt it necessary to aim a gun at our house?

  “Goldy—” Marla’s voice crackled, then vanished.

  I stared at the moat. Bizarrely striped ducks—offspring of discarded Easter ducklings breeding with the wild variety—huddled by the aerator. They looked as miserable as I felt.

  “Mom!” Arch protested. “I’m cold!”

  “Can you hear me?” Marla demanded so loudly that I winced. “Where exactly are you two?”

  “I told you, we’re sitting outside Hyde Castle. I have a job here today.”

  “Get inside. I’ll call the cops about the Jerk. Then I’ll phone my lawyer and anyone else I can find. After that, I’ll come up. Isn’t the church having a luncheon at Hyde Chapel today? I think I got an invitation.”

  “Yes. It’s a thank-you lunch for the people who paid for the labyrinth stones installed in Hyde Chapel. I’m doing the cooking.”

  “I gave that fund five thousand bucks. Save me some cake.”

  She signed off. I stared glumly at the three coats of arms hanging over the gatehouse entranceway. Each represented a baron and his soldiers, Sukie had told me, medieval protectors of one section of the fortress. That’s what I need, I thought, as I pressed gently on the gas. A militia for each part of my life. The van resumed its slow rumble across the wooden bridge.

  “Mom? Is Dad out?”

  “Yeah.” I kept my tone light. “Did you know he was being released?”

  “I wasn’t sure. He hasn’t called me yet.” Arch spoke guardedly. “Viv said he might be out soon.”

  “Viv knew he was getting out,” I repeated, for clarification.

  Viv Martini, a slender, striking, twenty-nine-year-old sexpot, was John Richard’s current girlfriend. He’d met her in jail, where she’d been the girlfriend of another prisoner, until John Richard had exerted his charms on her. Or so Arch had reported. I’d seen Viv a few times. She wore her platinum hair David-Bowie-style, had breasts the size of cantaloupes, and sported a reputation of having slept with every rich, shady guy in the county. When Viv and the Jerk had become an item, I figured they deserved each other.

  “Listen, Mom.” Arch’s voice became earnest. “Dad wouldn’t have shot at us. He’s no good with guns. He tried to learn early last summer, but every time he shot at a target, he missed by a zillion yards. Viv offered to teach him again, when he got out, but he said no. You know how Dad is when he can’t do something. He quits and says it’s dumb.”

  The tires made a rhythmic whump whump whump over the causeway’s planks. I wondered, of course, why John Richard would even think he needed to learn to use a firearm.

  The castle g
atehouse loomed before us. Unlike the later gatehouses of manor houses, Eliot had solemnly informed me, the fortified entry of medieval times is the built-in entrance to the castle itself. The Hyde Castle gatehouse featured two portcullises, those massive wooden grilles raised to let in friends, and lowered to keep out foes. One stood at the front entry, the other could be lowered over the gatehouse’s rear entry facing the courtyard. This was in the event that enemies breached the rear, or postern, castle gate. When that happened, Eliot had concluded with pride, the castle inhabitants holed up in the gatehouse itself.

  A hundred feet in front of the gatehouse, two single-story stone garages mirrored the contours of the twin towers of the gatehouse. To anyone looking straight at the immense stone façade from the bridge, the garages were indistinguishable from the castle itself. Inside the garages, six parking spaces had been marked out for vehicles. I accelerated over the last part of the bridge, pulled into a garage slot next to Eliot and Sukie’s matching silver Jaguars—hmm—and cut the van’s engine.

  The thought of lugging my boxes all the way to the kitchen on less than three hours’ sleep was more than I could bear. Perhaps there was a hidden pulley system that delivered orders. At least I hadn’t been forced into the humiliation of using the servants’ entrance, as I had at the Lauderdales’ modern monstrosity in Flicker Ridge. The castle did not have a separate entry for servants, Eliot had loftily informed me, because the castle’s status as military outpost meant all the needs of the grand medieval household had to be met within the walls. Think self-sufficiency, he’d concluded, as he’d knotted the silk scarf with a flourish.

  Arch and I jumped from the van. Dwarfed by the spotlit portcullis, we walked gingerly over the frost-slickened gravel. One of the Hydes must have registered our presence, for the portcullis rose smoothly even before we arrived. Behind the portcullis stood two formidable wooden doors.