The Cereal Murders

by Diane Mott Davidson

  “Uh-huh. Sounds normal to me. Glad you like the flowers.”

  “Love them. You are too generous. But listen, I need to tell you some stuff Marla’s found out.” I told him about Egon Schlichtmaier’s allegedly shabby history and current alleged affair, along with the possibility that these items were going to get some journalistic exposure at the hands of the ambitious Keith Andrews.

  “Okay, look,” he said when I’d finished, “I may be a bit late for lunch. I’m going down to check on a murder in Lakewood. Ordinarily, it wouldn’t involve me. But the victim’s name was Andrews.”

  I was instantly sober. “Any relation to the late valedictorian?”

  “Not that we can figure out. The victim’s name was Kathy. They found her body in a field two weeks ago. Her head had been bashed in. Suspect is her ex-boyfriend, who owed her a couple thousand, but the investigators down there can’t find him. Anyway, one of the things they’re looking at is that Kathy Andrews’ mail was stolen. And get this—she had an account at Neiman Marcus. ‘K. Andrews’ on her card, they said.”

  “I don’t get it. Was it a robbery/murder?”

  “That’s the strange thing. Kathy Andrews was single, had a lot of money that she liked to spend. Looks like a lot of her mail might have been stolen, from the way she was complaining to the local post office. Maybe somebody was in the act of stealing letters and she caught them. That’s what the Lakewood guys are trying to reconstruct.”

  “Why would someone steal her mail?”

  “Same reason they take your purse, Miss G. For cash or checks, is what we usually see. Or vandalism. They’re going through all Kathy Andrews’ stuff, trying to check back with what she might have been expecting. But when something that was mailed—in this case a credit card—doesn’t show up, you wonder. According to their records, Neiman Marcus mailed it sometime in the last month.”

  I touched the phone wire, then quickly let go of it. I tried to wipe out the mental image of a woman I did not know. Kathy Andrews. “Did you talk to the Marenskys about their raccoon coat?”

  “They claim it was stolen at some party.”

  “Well, I’m confused.”

  “You’re not alone, Miss G. See you around noon.”

  • • •

  Something red and white. Not a barber pole, not a candy cane, not an embarrassed zebra. Something worthy of a visit from the school that had produced Nobel Prize winners, Pulitzer Prize winners, Jim Plunkett, and John Elway.

  Since I thought a football-shaped cookie would be a bit too difficult to manage on such short notice, I decided on a rich white cookie with a red center. I beat butter with cream cheese and let my mind wander back to Julian. His abrupt departure that morning left me troubled. Julian, in his fourth year at Elk Park Prep, was bright and extremely competent. He had stunned me with the creativity of his project on DNA research. But his classmates were smart and productive too, and they had money to aid them in all their academic pursuits. I creamed in sugar and then swirled in dark, exotic-smelling Mexican vanilla, which I sniffed heartily. Julian cared about his school, not with a rah-rah cheerleader spirit, but with such a fierce loyalty that he was willing to risk a fight with Keith Andrews to keep a scandal out of the newspapers. I sifted flour in to make a stiff batter. Julian was passionate about people and cooking. The latter trait, I had long ago decided, was another way of being passionate about people. For all those therapy bills, I’d figured out a few things.

  As my spatula scraped the golden batter off the sides of the bowl, I recalled the shy and happy look that had begun to creep over Julian’s usually hostile face during the past summer, whenever Schulz or Arch or I had begged him to make his tortellini della panna, spinach pie in filo, or fudge with sun-dried cherries. Julian cared about me and about Schulz, and he was wild about Arch. The events of the past week had caused him great strain. Poor overwrought eighteen-year-old, I thought, what can I do to help you care less about us and more about your future?

  Red ‘n’ Whites

  1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

  1 3-ounce package cream cheese, softened

  ½ cup sugar

  1 teaspoon vanilla extract

  2 cups all-purpose flour

  36 small ripe strawberries, hulled and halved

  Preheat the oven to 350°. In a mixin bowl, beat the butter with the cream cheese until well blended. Beat in the sugar and vanilla, then stir in the flour until well mixed. Using a ½-table-spoon measure, shape the mixture into small balls and place 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Make a small indentation in the top of each cookie with your thumb. Carefully place a strawberry half, cut side down, in each indentation. Bake for 12 to 18 minutes or until very lightly browned. Cool on racks. Makes 5 dozen.

  I stared at the creamy concoction. My supplier had recently delivered several quarts of fresh strawberries. I decided to cut them up and use them to top each cookie, for the red and white effect. The things a caterer is called upon to do. I rolled dainty half-tablespoonfuls of dough into spheres, thumb-printed the lot, and then put a half of a strawberry, seed-side up, in the little indentations. I slapped the cookie sheets into the oven, set the timer, then fixed another espresso.

  Fifteen minutes later I was munching on the luscious results. They were like tiny cheesecakes, something you would have at an English tea. I decided to dub them something catchy. Red ‘n’ Whites, maybe. And speaking of something catchy, I decided then and there to beg Julian to let me help him with the SAT drill-questions, if he was still interested. How hard could it be? I already knew the opposite of tranquil: today’s lunch.

  Two hours later, toting three doily-covered trays and a wrapped package of six dozen Red ‘n’ Whites, I pulled into the parking lot of the Aspen Meadow Cafe. The Dawsons had tried hard to make their restaurant appear as continental as possible. There was no question that the café’s sleek, glassed exterior was a far cry from the more casual health food and Western barbecue spots that peppered Aspen Meadow, places where tourists or construction workers or psychic massage practitioners could grab a noontime bite. No, the folks who frequented this café were, for the most part, not the kind who had to go out and work for a living, at least not full-time. Or they belonged to a growing group of professionals who could put on cowboy hats and wander out for a two-hour lunch. I eased the van between a Mercedes (license plate: LOIR; I guess ATURNIE was already taken) and Buick Riviera (URSIK; now, how was that to inspire confidence in an M.D.?). The café was sandwiched in the dark-paneled, turquoise-trimmed shopping center known as Aspen Meadow North. There was Aspen Meadow Florist, whose blossoms Schulz had recently decimated, and Aspen Meadow Interior Design, with its perennially southwest window display, Tasteful Halloween decorations adorned the windows of upscale boutiques. Next to the café was the undecorated window of Aspen Meadow Weight Control Center. Ah, irony!

  I entered the café and passed the baskets of braided breads and puffed brioches, passed the cheese case with its Stiltons, Camemberts, and buffalo mozzarellas, and came up to the glass case of desserts. Luscious-looking apricot cream tortes, multilayered chocolate mousse cakes, and all manner of truffles called out for attention. I closed my eyes, trying to imagine the exclamations of delight that would greet my Happy Endings Plum Cake when it held a prominent place in front of the displayed concoctions.

  Audrey had already arrived with Heather, whose pouty expression and slumped posture next to the Stiltons did not indicate happy-camper status. Audrey, utterly oblivious to her daughter’s funk, sidled up to me and warned, “I made the mistake of asking the Dawsons if Greer had anything to impress the Stanford rep with. They went into a fit of preparation. Greer hightailed it into the bathroom and changed into a red and white outfit. Now they’re all awaiting your presence in the kitchen for the big taste test. Oh.” She lifted one eyebrow in her wide, humorless face. “The jam’s putrid. Better say you’ll make the Linzertorte they want at home.”

  Too much. I said, “Any sign of the Ma
renskys? Or Miss Ferrell?”

  She pressed her lips together. “Ferrell’s in the kitchen. I don’t know about the Marenskys.”

  I said wishfully, “Is the jam just tart? Would it be better with some sugar mixed in?”

  The smile she gave me oozed smugness. “Believe me, Goldy, you could take the sugar made by every beet farmer in eastern Colorado and put it in that jam, and it would still taste like solidified vinegar.”

  “Thanks, Audrey,” I said dryly. “I trust you didn’t let your opinion show.”

  “I had to spit it out. Either that or throw up.”

  “Great,” I said as the Dawsons approached. They were like a human phalanx.

  “Hey, Hank! Great game Sunday.”

  His face turned even more grim at my greeting. “They were lucky, you know that, Goldy. Washington’s going to be tough. About as tough as this Stanford guy. We’ve just been talking about how to play him.”

  “I don’t know why the Marenskys are even bothering to bring Brad,” said Caroline primly. “Everyone knows Stanford is as demanding as the Ivy League schools. They never take anyone below the top ten percent.”

  I murmured, “But in a school as small as Elk Park Prep—”

  “Never!” she interrupted me, her small dark eyes glowing. “Didn’t you hear me?”

  I was saved assuring her that my hearing was fine by the cheerful jingle of the bell hung over the café door. Stan Marensky came through, wearing a fur jacket, then Rhoda strutted regally past the bread baskets in a full-length fur coat, not the raccoon thing. She was followed by a diminutive fellow, presumably the Stanford rep. He wore blue jeans, a bow tie, and no coat. Bringing up the rear was Brad Marensky, a broad-shouldered boy who wore shorts and an Elk Park Prep varsity tennis T-shirt, despite the fact that it was about thirty-eight degrees outside.

  The diminutive fellow glanced around the café. He did not look so very powerful to me. Yet beside me, Audrey Coopersmith was visibly trembling.

  “Audrey,” I said in as comforting a tone as I could muster, “please relax. This is simply not as important as you make it out to be.”

  Her look was chill. “You just don’t get it, Goldy.”

  The Marenskys were chatting in loud, possessive tones to the Stanford rep. They seemed extraordinarily pleased with themselves, and acted as if some very important business had been resolved in the ten-minute car ride from the I-70 exit. It occurred to me that while the Marenskys, who were both as thin as models, ignored me, the short, rotund Dawsons were always curious about my every word or thought.

  Hank Dawson leaned in close. “They sure seem smug. I wonder what they could have told him about Brad? That kid’s only number five in the class, he’ll never make it. I need to get that guy away from them. Punt or go for it?”

  “Go for it,” I said without hesitation.

  “Welcome to our little restaurant.” Caroline Dawson’s lilting voice pronounced restaurant with a French accent. I cringed. The Marenskys turned into two skinny ice sculptures as they watched Caroline Dawson waddle forward in one of her trademark crimson suits.

  “We’d like to take you into the kitchen,” Caroline Dawson declared. She grasped the young man’s arm firmly. Once she had him in tow, she indicated with a move of her head that she wanted me to follow her into the kitchen. “Our daughter, Greer, who is third in her class, is by the Hobart,” she said with great sweetness. “I’m so glad you came out on an early ski trip,” she added as if she and the unfortunate rep were old chums.

  “Should I kneel and kiss his ring?” I asked Audrey Coopersmith, who had timidly followed me in while tugging Heather’s sleeve to bring her along. The Marenskys, trying to appear cool and unruffled, marched out into the kitchen to see what the Dawsons were up to with the rep.

  While we were all assembling in the kitchen, Caroline engaged the Stanford rep in lively, empty conversation. Miss Ferrell, drinking coffee and leaning against a sink, had a pained look on her face. Well, that ought to teach the college counselor not to host unexpected reps. She click-clacked her way over to me on her tiny heels.

  “I have a teachers’ meeting in Denver the next couple of days, Ms. Bear,” she said under her breath. “But I would like to talk to you about Julian as soon as I get back. Can you free up some time? He came to see me this morning, and of course he’s very upset about what happened to Arch … but he also has a number of questions about Keith. Oh, this all has become so dark—” She jerked back abruptly, suddenly aware that Audrey, Hank Dawson, and the Marenskys were all keen to hear what she had to say.

  “What questions about Keith?” I asked.

  “He was having some problems—” she began in a low voice. She looked around. The Marenskys began to whisper to each other. Hank reached for a cabinet door while Audrey pretended to be intensely perusing a menu she had found on the counter. “Some problems with this college thing,” Miss Ferrell whispered.

  “How about chatting Saturday morning before the tests?” I whispered back. I sneaked a sidelong glance at Audrey, but to read the menu she had put on her usual blank expression. It was hard to tell whether she was listening. “I’ll be setting up that breakfast out at the school.”

  Miss Ferrell nodded and turned on her heels and click-clacked back to the Stanford rep. Greer Dawson had made her appearance from the back end of the kitchen. As Audrey had predicted, the teenager was wearing a red and white striped shirt. The skirt matched. Her golden hair curled angelically around her diminutive heart-shaped face. I was reminded of the Breck girl. Daintily, Greer reached for a utensil and spooned a mouthful of the raspberry jam into the rep’s reluctantly open mouth. Apparently, Greer didn’t want me to preempt the rep in the tasting. With startling suddenness the rep’s face took on the look of a two-week-old kiwi fruit.

  He said in a high, uncertain voice over the expectant hush in the room, “What? No sweetener?”

  Everyone immediately began bustling around, trying to make up for this faux pas. Everyone, that is, except Audrey, who leaned in to my ear and jeered, “Nanny-nanny-nana.”

  “Ah, well.” Hank Dawson hustled forward. “This jam is still in development, I mean, this is a new batch, and Greer’s just a rookie chef, after all, you can hardly judge—”

  “We’ll let Goldy decide,” Caroline Dawson announced imperiously. “After all, she’s the one Greer’s been studying with.”

  Oh, blame it on the caterer! Well, excuse me, but the only thing Greer had studied while she was with me was whether you served pie with a spoon or a fork. Up until now, the girl had never shown even the slightest inkling of interest in food preparation. Of course, I knew what this setup was all about. If I pretended to love the jam, I’d get a Linzertorte job in addition to the plum cake assignment, and I’d show up Miss Ferrell and poor Audrey. Not to mention the Stanford guy. If I screwed up my face in disgust, I could forget about a Stanford tailgate picnic, and I could go elsewhere to peddle my plum cake. I also had the discomforting premonition that Schulz might walk in at any moment on this ridiculous scenario. The things a caterer has to do for business. I stalled. “Fresh spoon?”

  “In there.” Audrey motioned to a wooden drawer.

  I pulled the drawer open. It held one of those plastic four-part silverware trays. Each section bulged with utensils. I reached toward the spoon section, desperately attempting to imagine sweet jam.

  “I’ll get a big one,” I said loudly.

  But I wasn’t going to taste jam that day. I should have looked more closely at the small object in the spoon section, the shiny black round form, the red hourglass on the bottom of its dark belly. But by the time I had the sense to draw back my hand, I had already been bitten by the black widow.

  10

  “Omigod!” I screeched.

  The Dawsons, the Marenskys, Miss Ferrell, Audrey, all pressed forward with urgent queries: What happened? Are you all right? A spider? Are you sure? Where?

  I backed up, my left hand clutching my right wrist. The stinging
crept up my finger and into my palm. Furiously, I thought, Why did it have to be my right hand? I backed hard into Stan Marensky. When I whirled around, he appeared stunned. Involuntary tears filled my eyes.

  Hank Dawson ran to the phone, Caroline Dawson began comforting a screaming Greer, the Marenskys demanded of one another and of a gaping Brad what the hell was going on, Miss Ferrell splashed cold water over a paper towel. Audrey was on her knees, looking for the spider, which she was convinced I had shaken out onto the floor. The poor Stanford guy was standing stock-still, his mouth gaping. You could see his mind working: This place is weird.

  “Uh-uh,” I said to the familiar person lumbering fast into the kitchen: Tom Schulz.

  “What’s going on?” he demanded. He reached out for my forearm and examined the spot I was pointing to on my right index finger. It was swelling up and reddening. And it burned. I mean, my hand was on fire.

  From the floor, Audrey hollered up at him: “Do something, take her to the hospital, she’s been bitten by a poisonous spider, do something …”

  Tom Schulz gripped my shoulders. “Goldy,” he said, demanding my gaze. “Was it small and brown?”

  I said, “Uh … uh …”

  “Would you know a brown recluse?”

  “It wasn’t … that wasn’t …”

  He seemed relieved, then raised his eyebrows. He said, “Black widow?” and I nodded. To each of his questions—“Are you allergic? Do you know?”—I shook my head and gave a helpless gesture. I hadn’t the slightest idea if I was allergic. How often does one get bitten by a poisonous arachnid?