Sticks & Scones

by Diane Mott Davidson

  Once the salad molds and shrimp were chilling in the refrigerator, and the curry sauce was cooling, I powered up with a double espresso, two reheated scones, two thick pats of unsalted butter, and generous dollops of blueberry preserves. Yum. Why Arch preferred chalky, store-bought doughnuts to homemade baked goods was one of the mysteries of the ages.

  At quarter to nine, I was seated in my van, sipping another double espresso, and eyeing the front of Aspen Meadow’s endodontist office. What I was actually going to say to Sara Beth O’Malley I had not worked out yet. Of course then again, last time, outside my home, she hadn’t allowed me to say much.

  Well, what was I going to say? Hey, Sara Beth! Why didn’t you tell anybody you were alive? Why’d you come back to taunt your old fiancé and his family? Oh, and anonymously donated supplies notwithstanding, why didn’t you go to a dentist closer to home? Was it because your “supplies” were from a big stamp deal going down here? So you decided to kill two birds with one stone? Or rather, two thieves with one gun?

  She came walking up the steps by the dentist’s office as stealthily as a cat, and just as quietly. Had she acquired get-around-in-the-jungle skills? Her eyes scanned the upper lot for Tom. Her distinguished, Jackie Kennedy face and dark hair streaked with gray once again gave me a frisson.

  I believed Tom when he said he hadn’t met with Sara Beth—or done worse—in the last month. She was a woman from his past who’d just appeared out of nowhere. What I wasn’t sure of was whether he still loved her. She was certainly one of the most striking women I’d ever seen, especially since in twenty-degree weather she was dressed only in a clingy gray turtleneck and long gray pants. I look fat in gray, and never wear it. Sara Beth didn’t look fat in anything. I sighed, and wondered. The ability to survive cold, the ability to move stealthily. Despite my first impression that she was a nonshooting type, had she also learned the jungle skill of killing a target?

  Before I could chicken out, I assumed a friendly demeanor and walked up to her.

  “Please don’t run away,” were the first words out of my mouth. “I’m Tom’s wife. Won’t you just talk to me? I’m not going to turn you in. For anything.”

  She lifted her chin. She wore no makeup, and looked younger and better for it. Stop it, I scolded myself. In her quiet, rusty-from-disuse English, Sara Beth said, “I am sorry I ever tried to contact Tom.”

  “You’ve got a few minutes, right? Please. Just come sit in my van and talk. I need to talk to you about Tom being shot,” I added, studying her face.

  She turned so pale I thought she might faint. Startled, she almost lost her balance. When she faltered, I tucked my arm in hers and led her to the van.

  Once I’d coaxed her inside, I turned the heat on full blast. She rubbed her hands and shivered.

  “I’m Goldy Schulz,” I said.

  She gave me a slight smile. “That’s what you said last time. What happened to Tom?”

  “Some bad guy shot him Monday morning. He was hit in the shoulder, but he’s mobile and recovering.”

  “Was this before or after the window?”

  “After. Do you know anything about either shooting?”

  Her face darkened and she stared at the windshield. “No. I just came here to get supplies and have my teeth fixed.”

  “Here?” I asked calmly. I tried to make my voice soothing, the better to coax out information. “You’ve been away twenty-some years. Why’d you stay in Southeast Asia all that time? Why didn’t you come home to your fiancé?”

  “Look, I attempted to let him know I’d survived. Not right away, of course. It was too dangerous. I was afraid of trying to get back.”

  “So you became a village doctor?”

  “I did it for survival,” she replied. Her face was chiseled into seriousness, and I suddenly imagined interviewing her for some postwar documentary. Sheesh! “Stories came back about Saigon as a madhouse,” she was saying. “People were trying to get out before all hell broke loose. Many of them failed. I’d broken my back when the copter crashed. By the time I recovered, the Americans were long gone. The Vietcong weren’t going to say, ‘You forgot somebody! Come on back and pick her up!’ The village people told me I’d never get out alive. So I stayed, and worked hard, so the villagers would want me there. So they would keep my secret. They adopted me,” she added, “and I grew to love them. The American government did a terrible thing to that country.”

  “Uh, thanks. We figured that out, but only after thousands of our own soldiers died.”

  “I tried to communicate with Tom. I just never had any luck. For example, fifteen years ago—”

  “Fifteen years ago?”

  She ran her fingers through her streaked hair. Her voice had turned calm. She was finally reciting a story she’d prepared for a long time. “Fifteen years ago I gave a letter to Tom to a French agricultural worker who showed up in the village. But the Frenchman died when he stepped on a mine beside the railroad track. After that, I didn’t try to communicate anymore, because I figured it would be too disruptive to Tom’s life. And then I had to pick up some supplies and deal with this tooth problem. Another visitor to the village told us about e-mail, so I … changed my mind and tried that once I got to the States, through a friend’s account.” The face she turned to me seemed profoundly sad. “You always think, or hope, maybe, that people haven’t changed. That somehow you can touch base with your old life. I’m sorry I did.” She hesitated. “I’d still like to see Tom, if he isn’t too badly hurt.”

  Not so fast, I thought. I still have a couple of questions. Again, I reminded myself to be sweet and polite. “Do you happen to know anything about stamps? As in, the valuable kind that are so easy to fence overseas? Especially in the Far East?”

  “What are you talking about? I told you, I used e-mail.” She gave me a wide-eyed Tom-married-a-nut look, then reached for the door handle. “I have to go. If Tom can manage, I’d like him to drive me to the airport at four o’clock this afternoon. The dental pain meds will be wearing off by then, and talking will be a challenge. But I’d like to see him before I go. I’m staying in the Idaho Springs Inn, under the name Sara Brand. If he’s not there, I’ll take the shuttle bus.” She opened the door and swiveled one of her slender legs out of the van.

  “Wait,” I said. “Just … tell me, do you still love him? Are you here because you’re trying to steal him back? I have to know.”

  She lowered her chin and gave me the full benefit of her intense brown eyes. “We had a good relationship, but it’s been over for a long time. Enjoy what you have, Goldy. He’s a good man.”

  Without saying good-bye, she trotted toward the dentist’s office.

  Great. Either she was telling the truth, or she was an incredibly good actress. Did I care? I wasn’t sure.

  The maxim When you feel really low, focus on the food had always proved useful. This time would be no exception. I torqued the van out of the lot and drove to the grocery store, where I bought not one but two quarts of nondairy lime sorbet for lactose-intolerant Howie Lauderdale. I knew he probably wouldn’t eat all sixty-four ounces, even if he was a teenager. But a Caterer’s Basic Rule of Dessert is that you must have plenty of backup food, even for a single special-request treat. Then if eight more folks communicate a sudden desire for lime sorbet, they won’t feel cheated when you say you don’t have any.

  I hit the brakes hard halfway through the store parking lot. Behind me, a VW Bug beeped. What had I just said to myself? If eight more folks communicate a desire …

  I pulled into a vacant parking space. What had Sara Beth said about my husband? I tried to communicate with Tom. I just never had any luck.

  Who else ran out of luck communicating? How about Andy Balachek? First by a letter to Tom at the department, then by e-mail, and finally by telephone, that young man had been obsessed with staying in touch. The last time we’d heard from Andy had been via cell phone from Central City. Or had it?

  You have to think the way the thi
ef does.

  Trudy Quincy had been taking in our mail all week. Was it possible Andy had somehow tried to communicate, and we just hadn’t had any luck receiving it?

  Heart in mouth, I threw the gearshift into drive, stepped on the gas, and thankfully only skidded once while racing over the snow-packed streets back to our house. I avoided looking at our plywood-covered window, leapt from the van, and hopped through the new snow to the Quincys’ house. Please let my neighbor be home, I prayed. Please let her not think I’ve gone bananas.

  When Trudy opened her door, she was cuddling our cat on her left shoulder. Scout gave me that slit-eyed feline greeting: Who the hell are you? Then he snuggled in closer to Trudy.

  “Goldy!” Trudy cried. “C’mon in! This kitty thinks he’s my baby. I fried him up some trout Bill caught and froze last summer, and now I don’t think he’s ever going back to your place.”

  “Oh, well—” I began, but got no further before Jake bounded around a corner, leaped up on me, and started slathering my face. No way I’m staying at the Quincys’! Leave that stupid cat here and let’s go home! I told him to get down, then patted him feverishly so Trudy and I could talk without further interruption.

  “Do you have our mail?” I said casually. “I’m looking for something in particular. Something important.”

  “Sure.” She frowned and glanced down at Scout. “It’s in a big pile on the dining-room table. We can walk in there, but not too fast. Kitty doesn’t like to be hurried.”

  I sidled into the Quincys’ dining room. Scout and Jake eyed each other, but I ignored them. I asked Trudy—who was no Sukie Hyde in the organizational department—if there happened to be any order to the mountain of letters. She said the new stuff was on top of the old stuff. I turned the heap over and started going through it.

  From Monday there were two bills, seven ads, three catalogs, the sheriff’s department newsletter, and a postcard for Arch.

  From Tuesday, there were nine ads, six catalogs, a bill, notice of a cooking equipment sale, and a bulk-mail fundraising letter from Elk Park Prep.

  And then.

  His handwriting was uneven and loopy, the b’s and l’s tall and unevenly slanted, the i’s dotted with tiny circles. The letter was addressed to Tom, with “Gambler” scrawled in the upper left-hand corner. Postmarked Monday. No return address. I snatched it, thanked Trudy, and sprinted out. Behind me, Jake wailed.

  Over my shoulder I called, “I’ll be back tomorrow, Jake!”

  He raised his howl several decibels, unconvinced. Scout, a.k.a. Kitty, took no notice.

  CHAPTER 24

  Racing back to the castle, I could have sworn that letter was burning a hole in my purse. But I could not open it; I’d already committed all the invasion-of-privacy sins I cared to in this lifetime. Still: If Tom was asleep, this was one time I was going to shake him awake.

  He was awake, sitting in one of the wing-back chairs, talking on the telephone. From the bits of conversation I snatched before urgently waving the letter in his face, he was discussing the ongoing investigation into the whereabouts of Troy McIntire. Paying no heed to my antics, Tom turned his head toward the fireplace and continued talking. Troy McIntire, philatelic agent, seemed to have mailed himself somewhere without a known address. Clutching Andy’s letter, I scooted in front of the fireplace and did a few jumping jacks. Since Tom knows how much I hate to do jumping jacks, he cocked an eyebrow and signed off. I slapped the letter onto the coffee table.

  “What’s this, Miss G., another stamp from Mauritius?” he asked, without looking at the missive. “You keep finding them, they’re going to think you stole ’em. I just learned that stamp you found in the chapel was part of the heist. No discernible fingerprints besides yours.”

  I slipped into the chair across from him. “Tom, this letter’s from Andy Balachek. Mailed to you. Postmarked Monday. Which probably means he mailed it sometime Sunday. A day before he died. Or rather, a day before someone murdered him.”

  Tom, who is seldom surprised, leaned over the envelope and frowned.

  “Is it Andy’s handwriting?” I demanded, increasingly impatient. In addition to Tom’s other skills, his ability to analyze handwriting means he is often called to testify in forgery cases. I held my breath.

  “Maybe. All I’ve ever seen is his signature. It’s a long, skinny ‘A’ that’s a scripted ‘A,’ not a printed one. His ‘A’ looks like the back of a bald guy’s head, tilted to one side.” He picked up the envelope and examined it on both sides. “Trudy picked this up with the rest of our mail? What day?”

  “My best guess is it came Tuesday.”

  Tom whistled. “Could you get my tweezers out of my suitcase? Then you could use them to open the letter without getting your fingerprints on it, and put it down here for us both to read.”

  “You trust me to open your mail?”

  “No. But do it anyway.”

  And so I did. The struggle with the damned tweezers took an agonizing eight minutes.

  Tom, the letter read. I’m getting scared now because I need to pay my dad back for his truck. If I don’t, he’s going to die in the hospital. So I’m going to get the stamps tonight. If I don’t make it, if you get this and I’m dead, then my gamble didn’t work.

  You tried to help me, so I owe you. I’ll tell you what my partner told me. Maybe it’s a lie and that’s what I’ll find out. Anyway, the stamps are in the Hydes’ chapel. If you get this and my dad has a new truck and I’ve gone to Monte Carlo, then you’ll know I made it. If not—well, then it’s up to you. A.

  “Oh, crap!” I cried. “He told us where the stamps were, but didn’t tell us who his partner was! We’re not any closer than we were before!”

  But Tom was thinking. “We know Andy believed the stamps were in the chapel, and they were, weren’t they? Or at least one was. Still, how would Andy know the lock-box combination? Would his partner have been so naïve as to tell him that? When that chapel’s locked, you can’t tell me it’s easy to get into, or it’d be the local site for every teenage beer bash.”

  “Let me assure you,” I retorted, “our town doesn’t possess a single building that’s easier to get into than that chapel. Yesterday, Julian and I locked the door to keep out early lunch arrivals. But remember, I told you first Buddy and Chardé showed up, then the Jerk and Viv Martini. I’ll accept that Buddy and Chardé might have a key, and might not have completely shut the door before the Jerk barged in. But I don’t think so. I think Eliot told his dear close friend Chardé the decorator, and his ex-girlfriend Viv, how to get into the chapel. Or gave them keys. Or else they’re both splendid at picking locks.”

  Tom pondered this for a minute. “Maybe Andy’s partner intercepted him, shot him, left his body in the creek by the chapel, put up a ladder and grabbed the stamps, but somehow missed one. And didn’t realize it until he’d made off with the loot.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I’ve been thinking. Except there’s no blood at the crime scene. No sign of a struggle. No obvious way Andy was electrocuted.”

  “Right.” He stared at the cold fireplace. “Let me call down to the department, have somebody come get this letter.”

  “Wait a minute!” We had to be close. I’d found a clue, and now Tom was just going to pass it off? “Let’s speculate.” I thought back to my visit to the shooter’s site, on the north side of the state highway, up on a cliff in a county park. “Say Andy’s partner uncovers Andy’s double-cross, electrocutes Andy, shoots him, removes all but one of the hidden stamps from the chapel, then plants Andy’s body in the creek. Okay, then he waits for you to show up.”

  “How does the partner know I’m coming back Monday?”

  I shrugged. “Let’s say he doesn’t know what cop will show up when the body’s discovered. He just suspects Andy’s been communicating with the sheriff’s department, because he caught Andy in the double-cross. Or thought he caught Andy in a double-cross.”

  “It’s weak.”

  I clos
ed my eyes, thinking back to that morning, running it through my mind in slow motion. Tom gets out of his car, motions for me to move away from the edge of the creek. Then he walks—not toward Andy’s body, but straight west, toward me, which is also the direction of the chapel….

  But if the thief-sniper thought he’d removed all the stolen stamps, why try to keep Tom, or any cop, away from the chapel? Because he was terrified Andy had confided in his good buddy, Tom Schulz? Confided not only regarding the whereabouts of the stamps, but also regarding the third partner’s identity? If that was the case, why did he shoot at our window—with a different gun—before Andy’s body was even discovered? It made no sense … unless the shooter was someone else altogether, not one of the three who heisted the stamps, someone with some agenda we hadn’t yet figured out.

  I leaned back in the chair. Fatigue and frustration rolled over me. And it wasn’t even eleven in the morning.

  When I glanced up, Tom gave me one of his soulful looks. I felt an overpowering desire to drag him into the four-poster bed for some Late Morning Delight—forget the gunshot wound, the bandage, and the sling. Forget the old fiancée, too. He smiled. “Don’t you have cooking to do for the fencing banquet?”

  My heart sank. Maybe Tom couldn’t read my let’s-make-love signals anymore. Was that because I wasn’t sending out good signals? Or was his mind somewhere else … somewhere I didn’t want to go?

  “Yes, I do have kitchen work waiting. But there’s one more thing I have to tell you.” I took a steadying breath. “Tom, I confronted Sara Beth this morning. She denies having any … ill intent. She still wants to see you. Says she needs a ride to the airport at four o’clock this afternoon. She claims to be staying at the Idaho Springs Inn under the name of Sara Brand.” I paused. “In case you are feeling up to it.”

  He took a deep breath. “Look, I should go. I’m not feeling too bad now. If I take her and we can talk about what’s happened, then we’d all have closure—you, me, her, everybody.”