Sticks & Scones

by Diane Mott Davidson

  I turned left on Homestead Drive, wound past the Homestead Museum, then gunned the van through an old neighborhood dotted with rustic log cabins. The road changed from dirt to pavement, and I ascended through an upscale subdivision filled with gray and beige mansionettes sporting tile roofs and landscaped lawns that looked desolate under their dustings of snow. I hooked the van right onto a dirt road that quickly deteriorated to a rutted trail. The van had a compass display, which indicated I was heading east, paralleling Cottonwood Creek. I tried to picture what I’d seen from the police chopper, then decided I was heading toward the right spot.

  Finally, I entered Cottonwood Park, a county-maintained facility where folks could hike, picnic, even camp overnight. I turned right onto another dirt road that looked as if it snaked down to the creek. I bumped past empty, snow-crusted picnic tables, forlorn-looking freestanding grills, and carved wooden signs indicating trail-heads. At length I came to a stand of pines cordoned off with bright yellow police ribbons.

  I parked behind a pair of sheriff’s department vehicles and made my way down one edge of the yellow tape, where two uniformed officers yelled that I should stop. I identified myself and asked to come in to talk. They considered this for a minute, then signaled me to enter.

  I scooted under the plastic ribbon. My boots slipped on the thick carpeting of snow-slick pine needles. The two cops asked for ID, which I showed them.

  “I want to see where the guy was standing when my husband was shot. Please,” I added politely.

  “That area’s been thoroughly checked for evidence,” one officer informed me, his tone simultaneously defensive and weary. When I said nothing, he softened a bit. “All right, the crime-scene guys are done. You can look, but just for a minute.” He told me to follow him.

  We made our way through the snow and rocks to a picnic table about fifteen feet from a promontory overlooking the creek. It seemed an odd place for a table, since the ground fell away steeply to the narrow state highway. If you or your kids tumbled down the rocks and onto the pavement, could you sue the county park system?

  “We figure the shooter was about here,” my guide told me as we stepped gingerly to the edge of the promontory. “Hidden from the road by the rocks, so no one would notice him.”

  The view revealed only the top of one of Hyde Castle’s towers. Below the castle’s driveway and dense evergreens, the trickle through Cottonwood Creek was alternately black and still or white with suds, in sharp contrast to the steep creek banks covered with ice and rocks. Hyde Chapel’s lofty spires and dark stone made it look as if it had been transported from an Arthurian-legend board game. In the parking lot, where Tom and I had been moving toward each other when he was shot, a police car and the crime-lab van were the only vehicles. I could see the line of boulders where we’d sought cover. Andy Balachek’s body, of course, was gone.

  The chapel, the bridge, the parking lot, Andy’s corpse: I stared down and tried to make sense of what I was looking at. Maybe the shooter was aiming for whatever cop found the body. But if a law-enforcement person discovered Andy, wouldn’t the shooter be putting himself in the line of fire? Then again, Tom was a cop, and he’d been helpless against a concealed sharpshooter.

  Maybe someone wasn’t just looking for whoever found Andy. Perhaps he was aiming specifically for Tom. Or maybe he’d been aiming for me, and hadn’t obtained a good enough angle the first time I’d hopped out of the van to look at the creek. Or possibly there was some other motive that I did not know. Maybe someone had followed Tom, wanting to shoot him. Maybe someone had followed me and shot Tom instead. The answer to why remained elusive.

  Discouraged, head throbbing, thoughts roiling, I drove back to the castle. It was almost one o’clock. On the way up the winding driveway, I pulled to the side so that two painting-company vans could roar past. After parking, I lugged the suitcase and bag of photo albums to the entry and tapped in the gatehouse security code. Walking through the elegant stables-turned-living-room, I noticed a blotch of beige paint over the cream of the walls. Next to it was taped another Wet Paint sign. What was this, more rethinking of the paint scheme by Chardé the decorator? Just how close to the Hydes was she? Close enough for her husband, herself, and her painters to have the gatehouse keypad code?

  In the huge kitchen, Marla and Sukie were downing sizzling, Julian-made cheese croquettes, along with the creamy Dijon and tart cranberry sauces I’d brought. Oh, well. I was going to have to make a new hors d’oeuvre for Thursday’s labyrinth lunch anyway, and I didn’t begrudge anyone any goodies. Sukie and Eliot were hosting our family and enduring the disruption a crime brings. And Marla was my best friend.

  Eliot was off somewhere, Sukie informed me, studying Elizabethan games the kids could play Friday night. “He does not think bear-baiting would be enjoyed by the parents,” she added with a soft giggle as she ran her hand through her flyaway blond hair. “He does want to talk to you,” she added as she ladled more ruby-hued cranberry sauce onto a croquette.

  “I want to apologize again for all the confusion yesterday,” I told her. “We’re very thankful you’ve taken us in.”

  She waved this away. “You must not worry! This is a good way for us to test having people stay here! It is practice for our future conferences.”

  I felt a sudden chill and looked around the kitchen. One of the old windows had come loose and swung open. As I hastened across to close it, I asked if anyone had checked on Tom recently.

  Julian had been up to our room just ten minutes before. “He’s asleep, Goldy,” he said, without sounding reassuring. Julian’s face was drawn. He seemed preoccupied, despite the coos of admiration from Marla and Sukie over his lovely lunch. Worried about Tom? Arch? Me?

  Marla studied my face as I walked back to the table. “You look awful, Goldy, almost as bad as Julian. Are you okay? Where have you been? What took so long?”

  I gestured to the suitcase and bag of albums and mumbled that I’d been getting them from the house. I handed the photo of John Richard to Sukie. “Here’s the guy we need to bar from entry. I don’t want to keep him from Arch, but he’s very volatile, and an ex-con to boot. So when he does see Arch, it’s going to have to be in a place with a lot of people.” I omitted the part about the attack from the computer thief, because I didn’t want to upset Sukie.

  But Sukie’s blue eyes were full of worry as she handed me back the photo. “You did miss a call, Goldy, from the assistant district attorney. Her name is Pat Gerber? She wants you to call her.” She showed me the phone, tucked between the refrigerator and the glass-fronted kitchen cupboard of Eliot’s meticulously labeled Elizabethan conserves. I peered in at rows of chokecherry and redcurrant jellies, strawberry conserve with champagne, and plum jam. “This is just half of his insomniac production from this summer,” she said airily. “I was beginning to think we should not have destroyed the stillroom.”

  As I dialed the district attorney’s office, I wondered how toasted brioche would taste with the plum jam, or whether I could make a good Cumberland sauce with the currant jelly. I was put on hold and amused myself with the image of a latter-day Jay Gatsby fretting over a bubbling vat of conserve. When I was finally connected with Pat, she said that since I hadn’t specified parental visitation for John Richard in the restraining order, he was squawking to anyone who would listen. If I could work it out with the lawyers, the best thing to do—since everything had become so acrimonious, Pat added—would be to take Arch to a neutral site for the hand-off. I suggested an Aspen Meadow counseling center that included such a service. Good idea, Pat agreed. I told her I’d call my lawyer about letting John Richard have Arch overnight.

  “Sounds workable,” she said. I should be prepared for a battle royal in two weeks, she went on, when the temporary order expired and we had to go before a judge and argue about permanent visitation orders. “John Richard’s got a prison record, which should make some difference, but it may not, since he’s got money and position in the community. And by
the way, if he does make any threats against you, write them down,” Pat advised sternly. “If you can, have witnesses.”

  What do you know, I thought, that’s already happened. After we hung up, I scribbled down what had transpired at our house, put in a call to my lawyer, and outlined the overnight suggestion. He said he’d deal with the Jerk’s lawyer, who had already left three messages for him. Unless I heard to the contrary, I should drop Arch off at the counseling center today after fencing practice, around five-fifteen, with his overnight bag. Then I should pick up my son after school tomorrow. My heart sank as I hung up. Was this what I was looking forward to—a constant shuffling of poor Arch to and from his ex-con father?

  Julian slid me a plate arranged with two hot croquettes and two small bowls of dipping sauces. The croquettes were crisp and crunchy on the outside, tasty with a home-made roux-binder and hot melted cheese on the inside. I made mm-mm noises and dunked the second one into both the spicy Dijon mustard and tart cranberry sauces. I virtuously declined more, saying I had to go check on Tom.

  I wanted to see Tom, that was true. It was so much better than brooding about the Jerk. But in reality, I mused guiltily as I trod up the carpeted stairs to our suite, I wanted to boot up my laptop—assuming Tom was still asleep—and read all the contents of that disk with its revealing electronic mail.

  But he was not asleep. He was talking on the portable telephone, which he carefully put on his end table when I entered the suite. I wondered with whom he’d been talking, wondered if I had the guts to confront him about his communication with Sara Beth O’Malley. Had his state of blood loss, pain, and shock meant he’d forgotten what he’d said to me by the creek?

  Was I going to live the rest of my married life like this?

  “Sheriff’s department,” he said matter-of-factly, gesturing at the phone. Then he eyed me suspiciously. “What happened to you? You’re so late!”

  “Oh, I got knocked out. Boyd will tell you all about it. Somebody stole our computers. How are you feeling?”

  “What? Who knocked you out? Where? Miss G., I want you to tell me about it.”

  “I was at the house.” I told him about being hit, the theft, the threatening visit of John Richard and Viv, and my trip to the shooter’s perch. “So we won’t be going home anytime soon.” I omitted any mention of the mysterious appearance of Sara Beth O’Malley, because I just couldn’t face talking about that. Yet.

  Tom stared at me in stunned disbelief. “You put your life in danger for some pictures and a disk on food? Why didn’t you just get a police shot of Korman and go to the library for cookbooks?”

  “Because I typed up very specific stuff for Eliot Hyde.”

  “This is all my fault,” Tom said angrily. He shifted in the bed, obviously in pain, obviously peevish. “Damn this case.”

  “Forget the case and just get better.”

  He groaned and thumped his pillow, unable to get comfortable on the big bed. “I’ll get better if I can just figure out how Andy Balachek got himself killed, and who’s beating up on my wife.” He paused, then looked back at me. “The whole thing’s strange….”

  “I … saw Andy’s blackened hands. Tom, was he electrocuted?”

  “If I tell you, will you promise me not to go back into our house?” When I nodded, Tom said, “He was, but he didn’t die of the shock. That’s what’s so weird. You get a huge electric shock, you figure you can’t go far. Right?”

  “Did Andy go any where?”

  Tom’s eyes were grim. “It looks as if he was electrocuted, then shot. Then the killer put him in the creek, and either hightailed it out of there, or sat and waited for me to show up.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Marla slipped into the room without knocking. “Goldy!” she whispered. Her eyes glowed. “I have news!” Then she was instantly apologetic. “Sorry, Tom! I didn’t knock because I thought you’d be asleep.” She tossed her head of brown curls and lifted an eyebrow at me. “Come out into the hall if you want gossip about you-know-who and his you-know-what.”

  “Ah,” I said, understanding Marla-speak for the Jerk and his sex life, the Jerk and his money, or both.

  “I don’t know about you girls,” Tom teased. His mischievous smile vanished, however, when he moved his shoulder.

  “Need a painkiller?” I asked, immediately concerned.

  “No.” Typical male response. “I just want some quiet. Go visit with Marla.”

  To Marla, I said, “Let’s hear it.”

  She giggled and scurried out the door. I kissed Tom’s forehead and told him I’d be back soon to check on him.

  Animosity manifests itself in a number of ways, I thought as I avoided another Wet Paint sign in the hall. I possessed a passive defensiveness toward the Jerk. I never knew when he might attack, but I had learned not to let down my guard. Active animosity, on the other hand, was Marla’s specialty. She fed her obsessive hatred for the Jerk with information. She paid her lawyer a separate monthly fee to employ investigators to keep tabs on our mutual ex-husband’s shenanigans, sexual adventures, and—her favorite—his financial woes. From the triumphant tone in her voice, I suspected her latest news fell in the last category.

  “You’re not going to believe what he’s up to now,” she began eagerly, once we were standing beside one of the tall windows that overlooked the courtyard.

  “Try me.”

  “Well,” she reported, her face set in mock disapproval, “it’s a shady financial deal.”

  “Begin at the beginning.”

  “My lawyer just called.” She ran a bejeweled hand through her hair. “Okay, you remember when he had to sell the Keystone condo?” I nodded. To offset monetary setbacks the previous year, John Richard had been forced to auction off his ski resort condominium. According to Marla, the condo had been the setting of much debauchery. “Okay, then he had to go through the inconvenience of being incarcerated, so he had to sell his practice. He realized about six hundred thou from that, after taxes and whatnot. His legal fees have reduced that by about half. So he’s back in his country-club house after … what? Serving less than five months of his sentence. Payments on the house are six thou a month and have never stopped. Add to that, paying you child support. On the plus side, his new salary at ACHMO is, don’t puke, eight hundred thou a year.”

  “Eight hundred thousand dollars a year?”

  “Uh, yeah. His lawyer landed him a job with the same HMO where his last girlfriend—the one he assaulted, let us not forget—once worked. Now John Richard is tightening up ACHMO’s formularies for prescription drugs. So when you ask, Who at my HMO sets up the rules to deny me prescriptions? here’s your answer: The Jerk.”

  “He’s ratcheted up his stinginess to a grand scale.”

  “No kidding.” Marla went on: “Okay, you’ve got an idea of his income, assets, and liabilities. Plus he’s got a prison record now, and getting a new mortgage is a tad difficult. So: How do you figure he’s buying a three-million-dollar town house in Beaver Creek?”

  “Three million?” I gasped. “You have got to be—Wait, maybe he got a signing bonus with ACHMO.”

  She shook her head. “Nope. Lawyer’s investigator says ACHMO took a hammering when they gave their new CEO a monster signing bonus. The news made it into the Post; the stockholders went ballistic at the annual meeting. ACHMO doesn’t give signing bonuses anymore. But you haven’t heard it all.”

  I thought I detected the sound of distant yelling, coming from across the courtyard. “What was that?”

  Marla glanced carelessly through one of the windows, then back at me. “Who knows? Now listen, the down payment on this place in Beaver Creek was three hundred thousand. My sources have their ways with the mortgage company, and report that he got a loan for a hundred fifty thou, equity from his place in the country club. His partner in the sale put up the other hundred fifty. Down payment done. Payments are interest only for the first six months, then a big balloon payment. And guess whose names are on the de
ed?”

  “I can’t.”

  “John Richard Korman and his new sidekick, Viv Martini.”

  “But … he never goes for joint ownership. It was one of my problems when we were doing the divorce settlement.”

  She waggled a finger at me. “Don’t you think I know that? The sources inside the mortgage company—oh, don’t give me that look, anyone can be bought. Anyway, my investigator says John Richard was making noises that he would be making the interest payments for six months. Viv has a modest income from gun sales. But when it came to that five-hundred-thousand-dollar balloon payment? Viv was the one asking about when the half-mil would be due, exactly, and if the mortgage company would take a check from John Richard’s account. My theory is that the balloon payment is her responsibility. Otherwise he wouldn’t do the deal, don’t you think? I’m also thinking they’re planning on selling the place for a huge profit, after they make the balloon payment. And they both go away happy. Or at least filthy rich.”

  Filthy, indeed. “But if Viv Martini had a hundred fifty thou to blow, why latch onto the Jerk? Why would you do that kind of deal with someone you’d just started going out with?”

  When Marla shrugged, her diamond dangle earrings sparkled. “He’s cute. He’s a doctor. What the hell, Goldy, why did we hook up with him?”

  Because I loved him, I answered silently. Because he’d promised he loved me, too. Duh.

  “Wait a minute.” I tried to think. “Arch told me John Richard was going to give Viv something when he got out of prison. A Mercedes, he said. Or a trip to Rio. Or maybe a Mercedes and a town house, huh?” I shook my head. “But even if you set aside the hundred fifty thou, where does the half-mil for the balloon come from?”

  Marla’s smile broadened. “I figure it’s a drug deal. Prescription meds, sold on the black market at a huge profit.”

  While Marla chattered about how she was going to have this or that friend of hers in Beaver Creek keep a lookout on everything John Richard and Viv did up there, I resolved to talk to Sergeant Boyd on the subject of Viv Martini. Boyd would be willing to tell me what the department knew, wouldn’t he? Well … he might if I threatened to follow Viv until I found out what she was doing. That wouldn’t only be time-consuming, it would be dangerous. On the other hand, I didn’t reckon it would be as perilous as going into a financial partnership with the Jerk. Viv was either one tough babe, or she was dangerously smitten with Dr. John Richard Korman.