“Oh, come on, sure they will, Julian. You’re just making yourself miserable. Lighten up!”
There was a silence. “Goldy,” Julian said evenly, “I know you mean well. Really, I do. But honestly, you don’t know a thing.”
“Oh,” I mumbled, staring at my swollen finger. Maybe he was right. My life did seem to be a mess at the moment. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Aah, forget about it. To make things worse, I flunked a French quiz this morning. And I flunked a history quiz too. Not my day, I guess.”
“Flunked … ?”
“Oh, I was tired, and then Ferrell asked five questions about the subjunctive. Schlichtmaier asked about Lafayette, and I guess I missed that part when he talked about him.” He mocked, “Vell, ve don’t know for shoor …”
“Don’t,” I said.
“Yeah, yeah, I know, don’t be prejudiced. Forgot to mention, half the class flunked too. Nobody’s learning a thing in there.” There was a silence. “And hey, I’mnot the one making fun of Schlichtmaier. I stick up for him every chance I get.”
“I’m sure you do.”
But Julian’s tone had again grown savage. “You want to know the truth, the guy who used to make fun of him is dead.”
11
“Now, that’s a happy note.” I hung up the phone, somehow managing not to bang my injured finger. “Julian says I am totally ignorant. And worse, he’s afraid Miss Ferrell isn’t going to write him a good recommendation for Cornell.”
“He’s sunk,” proclaimed Audrey. “He won’t get in now if he invents a solar-powered car.”
“Oh, give me a break.”
“Come on,” Schulz interjected. “That’s just the kind of car we need down at the Sheriff’s Department.”
Audrey smiled shyly. On my index finger the bite area throbbed. I peeked under the bandage and saw that the redness had resolved itself into an enormous, ugly blister. I pondered it glumly. Schulz poured more tea. He wasn’t going anywhere, and I didn’t know whether this sudden lack of purpose stemmed from concern for me or curiosity about Audrey. I suspected the latter.
Audrey got to her feet. She left the bouquet of carnations on the table beside her empty teacup. “Well, I suppose I ought to be moving on. Think you’re going to be okay to cook Friday? It’s just a few days away.”
I held out my hands helplessly, as in, Do I have a choice? I told her she could come by at six. “And thanks for the flowers. They’re a great addition to the shop here.”
“I’ll walk you out,” Schulz volunteered with unnecessary enthusiasm. I looked puzzled. He ignored me.
Outside, he stood talking with Audrey for a few minutes, then walked her to her pickup. After a few moments he came back, slowly sat in one of my kitchen chairs, then gently lifted my right hand and examined it. “I have to ask you the obvious, you know. Do you think that spider was intended for you? Or for somebody else?”
“I do not believe it was intended for me, or anyone else for that matter,” I replied firmly. “There was a lot of confusion in the kitchen, a big crowd, a lot of chitchat about tasting jam.” I saw my hand, as if in slow motion, go into the silverware drawer. “It just happened.”
He mused about this for a while. For the first time I noticed the care he had used to dress for our lunch: pinstripe shirt, rep tie, knitted vest, corduroy pants. While I was looking him over, he winked and said, “Audrey didn’t mention going to college herself.”
“She went, all right, at least for a while. But it rained so much, she said her bike ran over fish on her way to classes. And I guess the classes themselves were awful. Dates were nonexistent. And everyone at her high school had told her it was going to be this wonderful experience. She got some therapy there at the school clinic. She hated that too. She finally concluded that what was making her unhappy was the school itself. So she left and got married. And now the marriage is breaking up.”
Schulz gave me his impassive face. “How long’s she had that pickup truck, do you know?”
The question was so unexpected that I laughed. “Gosh, Officer, I don’t know. For as long as I’ve known her. Maybe it’s part of her financial settlement. My theory is that she drives it because it’s part of her image.”
Schulz squinted at me. “Think she’s capable of killing somebody?”
My skin went cold. I said, choosing my words carefully, “I don’t know. What do you suspect?”
“Remember K. Andrews down in Lakewood?” When I nodded, he continued. “I went down, questioned all the neighbors, even though the Lakewood guys had already done it. Hardly anyone’s around during the day, and nobody saw anything unusually suspicious. A blue Mercedes, a silver limousine, an old white pickup, maybe a new ice cream truck. No identifying features. One young mother glanced out her window and saw somebody stopped at Kathy Andrews’ mailbox one day. She’d already reported it. ‘Something unusual,’ she says, ‘something out of place. That’s all I can remember.’”
“Something out of place?” I said, puzzled. “A moving van? A flying saucer? Is that all you could get out of her?”
“Hey! Don’t think I didn’t try. I say, ‘Not a car from the neighborhood? Not Fed Ex or UPS?’ She shakes her head. I go, ‘Not the usual mail person?’ ‘No, no, no,’ she says, ‘it was something it was too late for, just one instant, there and then gone.’ That’s all that registered with her. I say, ‘Too late for what? The mail?’ And she says, ‘I just don’t know.’”
“So you checked with all the delivery people, limousine people, and nobody was late for anything.”
“Correct. Nada. Same as the Lakewood guys found.” He sipped his cold tea. “Then I see Ms. Audrey Coopersmith’s pickup truck parked out front of your house, and I think, ‘an old white pickup,’ the way one of the other neighbors said. Kathy Andrews’ old boyfriend drove a pickup, I found out. Would you say Audrey Coopersmith’s truck looks old?”
“Old? I guess it’s not new and shiny … but why would Audrey steal some woman’s credit card in Lakewood and then beat her to death?”
“Don’t know. The most frequent kind of credit card fraud we have is a woman—excuse me, Miss G.—anyway, getting her friends’ cards and signing their names to her purchases. Audrey works in Denver at the bookstore, and maybe she goes across the street to Neiman Marcus on her break, sees some gal make a purchase, and the saleslady says, ‘Thank you, Miss Andrews,’ and Miss Andrews says, ‘You can call me Kathy.’ So maybe Audrey, who is having all these money problems, thinks of Keith Andrews, a convenient place to dump the card if things got hot. Then again, maybe all this investigating he was doing for the paper got him on her path.”
“Pretty farfetched, I’d say. I mean, you can see for yourself that we’re not exactly talking a designer wardrobe.”
He smiled grimly. “But she was at that college advisory dinner, she has some unresolved feelings about her own past and present, and maybe all that got taken out on Kathy, and then Keith, Andrews.” Again the raised eyebrows. “And she was at the café today when you were there with the Dawsons and Miss Ferrell. Maybe she put the spider in the drawer and it was intended for someone else, like the college counselor. Was she at the school the day Arch found the rattler in his locker?”
With a sickening feeling I remembered Audrey standing in the hall, telling me the headmaster wanted to see me. My finger ached dully. “Yes,” I said, “she was.”
Schulz asked to use my phone. When he had finished telling someone to check on Audrey Coopersmith’s Vehicle and background, he turned back toward me.
“Actually, I do know a cure for black widow spider bites.”
“Now you tell me.”
“You gotta stand up first.”
“Tom—”
“You want to get better or not?”
I stood, and as soon as I had, he reached down and scooped me up in his arms.
“What are you doing?” I exclaimed when he was halfway down my front hall.
He started up the staircase. �
��Guess. I got the afternoon off, in case you haven’t noticed.”
In my bedroom he set me down on the bed, then kissed my finger all the way around the bite.
“Better yet?” His smile was mischievous.
“Why, I do believe I’m feeling some improvement, Officer.”
He kissed my wrist, my forearm, my elbow. A tickle of desire began at the back of my throat. It was all I could do to keep from laughing as we undressed each other, especially when my bandaged right hand made me fumble. I reached for the fleshy expanse of Schulz’s back. Only the night before, I had begun to discover hidden curves and niches there. Schulz’s warm body snuggled in next to mine. His hands lingered on my skin. Tom Schulz was the opposite of John Richard’s knobby edges and angry, thrusting force. And when it was over, I wanted him to stay in my bed and never leave.
“This is so great,” I murmured into his shoulder.
“So you are feeling better.”
“It’s a miracle. No more spider bite pain. You see, Officer, I planted the black widow—”
We went off into a fit of giggles. Then we fell silent. Schulz tucked the sheets and blanket around my neck and shoulders until not a square centimeter of cold, foreign air could penetrate the warm pouch within. Knowing that the boys were due home late, I allowed myself to drift off to sleep. My mother was probably right to be suspicious. It was nice, in fact it was delicious to be so successfully up to something with this man in my house in the middle of the day.
The sun had already begun its blazing retreat behind the mountains when I woke to see Schulz standing beside my bed. My alarm clock said 5:30.
I said quietly, “The boys here yet?”
“No. You stay put. I’m fixing dinner.”
I got up anyway and took the doctor-ordered bath. As I was putting on clean clothes, trying in vain not to use my right hand, my phone rang. I dove for it, in case it was my mother. The last thing she needed was to hear Schulz’s voice again.
“Goldy, you degenerate.”
“Now what?”
“Oh, tell me that policeman’s car has been outside your house for three hours so he can teach you about security.”
“Give me a break, Marla. I got bitten by a black widow.”
“Old news. And I’m sorry. That’s why I drove by, four times. I was worried about you. Of course, I didn’t want to interrupt anything exciting….”
“Okay, okay. Give me a little sympathy here. You wouldn’t believe this bite I’ve got.”
“Giving you sympathy is what I hope Tom Schulz has been doing, and a whole lot more, sweetie pie. I am going to give you help tomorrow with whatever kind of catering things you’ve got going.”
“But you don’t even cook!”
Marla snorted. “After tomorrow, you’ll know why.”
In the kitchen Schulz was playing country music on the radio and using a wok to steam vegetables. He had made a pasta dough that was resting, wrapped, on one of my counters, and he had grated two kinds of cheese and measured out cream and white wine.
“Fettuccine Schulz,” he informed me as he jiggled the wok’s steamer tray. “How hard is it to make pasta in this machine? That dough’s ready.”
I put a pasta plate on my large mixer and Schulz rolled the dough into walnut-sized pieces. Just as the machine began producing golden ribbons of fettuccine, we heard the boys trudging up the porch steps.
I felt a pang of sudden nervousness. “What’s our story?”
“Story for what?” He laid out handfuls of pasta to dry. “You got bitten and I’m helping out. They’re not going to say, Well, did you guys make love all afternoon? If they do, I’ll say”—he put his big hands around my waist and swung me around—“yes, yes, yes, I’m trying to force this woman to marry me by making mad passionate love to her at least once a day.”
The door opened and I squealed at him in panic. He put me down lightly, looking unrepentant. I glanced around hastily for something to do. Julian and Arch rushed into the room, then stopped, gazing in silent awe at the masses of flowers.
“Gosh,” murmured Julian, “bad news sure travels fast in this town. All this for a spider bite?”
I didn’t answer. Arch was giving me half a hug with one arm while keeping his other hand free to hold up my bandaged area and examine it. He pulled back and regarded me from behind his tortoiseshell-framed glasses. “Are you okay?”
“Of course.”
He closed one eye in appraisal. “But something’s going on. Sure it wasn’t anything worse than a spider bite, Mom? I mean, all these flowers. Are you sick?”
“Arch! For heaven’s sake, I’m fine. Go wash your hands and get ready for dinner.”
Saved by the chore. To my surprise, they both sprinted out, calling back and forth about the work they were going to do together that night. Julian had volunteered to help Arch construct a model of the Dawn Treader. Then they were going to go over Arch’s social studies homework. After the moon set, they were going to look for the Milky Way. Amazing.
When they came downstairs we all delved into the pasta. The velvety fettuccine was bathed in a rich cheese sauce studded with carrots, onions, broccoli, and luscious sun-dried tomatoes. It was not until we were eating the dessert, the final batch of leftover Red ‘n’ Whites, that Arch dropped his bombshell.
“Oh,” he said without preliminaries. “I finally thought of something that someone warned me not to tattle about.” We all stopped talking, and held cookies in mid-bite. Arch looked at each of us with a rueful smile. He was a great one for dramatic effect.
“Well, you know Mr. Schlichtmaier is kind of short and stocky? He works out. I mean with weights. I’ve seen him over at the rec center.”
“Yes,” I said, impatient. “So?”
“Well, one day I asked him if he used steroids to pump himself up.”
“Arch!” I was shocked. “Why in the world would you do something like that?”
Schulz and Julian couldn’t help it; they dropped their cookies and started laughing.
“Well, I was thinking about starting to work out myself!” Arch protested. “And you know they’re always having those shows on TV about guys dying because they use those hormones. And now you have to be checked before races and games—”
“Arch,” I said. It was not the first time I longed to throw a brick through the television. “What were you saying about tattling?”
“So Schlichtmaier goes, ‘Steroids? Ach! Swear you won’t tell?’” Arch’s mouth twisted. “He laughed, though. I thought, weird, man. Anyway, that was a couple of days ago. Then the next day he says, ‘You won’t tattle on me?’ I say, ‘No problem, Mr. Schlichtmaier, you want to die of cancer, that’s up to you.’ He says, ‘You promise?’ Boring, man. I say, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’ And then the snake thing happened and I forgot all about it.”
Great. I looked at Schulz, who shrugged. Better to let go of it for now, especially after all we’d been through that day. Arch got up to clear the table. Julian offered to do the dishwashing. I walked out in the cool October night with Schulz.
“Sounds like a joke, Miss G.,” he said, once again reading my mind. “Way to get a twelve-year-old kid to relax, have a relationship. Make a joke about artificial hormones.”
“But you’re willing to suspect Audrey Coopersmith of murder based on the age of her truck.”
He said, “You know we’re already checking on Schlichtmaier because of what you told us about the other gossip. If anything turns up, I’ll let you know.”
When we arrived at the doors of his squad car, we did not kiss or hug. We did not act as if we were anything other than police officer and solid citizen. You never knew who might be looking. I felt happiness and sadness; I felt the tug of a growing intimacy drawing me as ineluctably as the receding tide takes the unwary swimmer out to unexpected depths. I looked into his eyes and thanked him aloud for his help. He saluted me, then pulled slowly away from the curb.
I ran back inside and picked up the phone with
the thumb and little finger of my right hand, then dialed with my left. In the dining room I could hear the cheerful voices of the boys as they constructed their ship.
“Aspen Meadow Recreation Center,” came the answer on the other end after six rings.
“What time does the weight room open in the morning?” I whispered.
“Six. Why, you haven’t been here before?”
“I’ve been there, just not to the weight room.”
“Y’have to have an instructor the first time,” said the voice, suddenly bored.
“Okay, okay, put me down for an instructor,” I said quickly, then gave my name. A flash of inspiration struck. “Does, uh, Egon Schlichtmaier teach over there, by any chance? I know he’s a language teacher somewhere—”
“The German guy? Nah, Egon doesn’t teach. Sometimes he’s here in the morning, brings a teenager. I asked if he knew Arnold Schwarzenegger, and he goes, ‘He’s from Austria,’ like I was so dumb.” There was a pause. I could hear papers rustling. “I’ll put you down for Chuck Blaster. Twelve bucks. Wear sweats.” A dial tone.
Oh, God. What had I done? Chuck Blaster? That couldn’t possibly be his professional name, could it? But I replaced the receiver and crept up to bed.
He who wants to be a tattler …
I was not convinced it was a joke.
12
The throbbing in my finger woke me up Wednesday morning just as the sunrise began to brighten the horizon. I was lying there, feeling exceedingly sorry for myself when the radio alarm blasted me six inches off the mattress. Blasted, yes. Not unlike Blaster, now part of my ruse for a confrontation with Egon Schlichtmaier. But an early morning session lifting weights with one hand virtually out of commission was not my idea of fun. It seemed the mattress was begging for my return. I ignored its siren call and slipped carefully into a gray sweatsuit, stretched through the yoga salute to the sun and five more asanas, and tried not to think about lifting anything.
The Cereal Murders Page 15