Sweet Revenge

by Diane Mott Davidson

  Patricia sniffled. “Yes, I’ll be here. Goldy’s cooking and I’m helping.”

  Tom retreated from the kitchen and, without missing a beat, went back to talking on his cell. I wanted to tell Patricia that she wasn’t helping; she was impeding my progress. But I couldn’t deny I wanted to hear what she knew about Drew Wellington and his many enemies. I also was getting very worried about Patricia’s emotional state. She’d had a huge shock and seemed on the edge of breaking down. Better to keep her here and let her talk it out, maybe with Tom if she ever became willing to speak to him, or at least with Brewster. But after asking for my help, she had become quiet, sitting at my kitchen table and sipping her cup of water. Her cell phone rang, and I felt both frustrated and relieved when she answered it.

  I turned my focus to my gingerbread recipe, which made enough batter to fill three castle molds. This wasn’t the kind of gingerbread that you made into slabs and glued together with royal icing. That glue-into-houses was cookie dough, and it was much more troublesome, especially at high altitude. No, this was the soft, cakelike variety of gingerbread, the kind you topped with lemon sauce or vanilla ice cream or, if you were feeling teddibly teddibly chichi, crème fraîche.

  On cardboard rounds, wrapped with crackling cellophane and festooned with metallic ribbon, they would be great prizes for the cookie exchange. Just reading the ingredients—unsalted butter, dark molasses, sour cream, dried ginger, grated gingerroot, and freshly ground black pepper—made me dizzy again. Or was I becoming dizzy because I’d once again thought of Drew Wellington’s corpse?

  Do not think about anything. Stop worrying about Patricia. Just cook, my mind commanded. I retrieved a pound of unsalted butter and a plastic container of sour cream from the walk-in, put them on the counter, and then ducked back inside for eggs and orange juice. When I came out, Patricia was staring at the butter and sour cream. I put the butter into a pan to melt and hid the sour cream behind bags of unbleached flour and, uh, sugar.

  “Just a minute,” she said into her cell phone. Then she stared at my counter. “You’re putting all that into one recipe?”

  “Yes.” I wanted to say, Patricia, you stick with your diets, and I’ll take care of the cooking. But I didn’t. Instead, I rummaged around in my utensils drawer.

  When Patricia signed off from her call, I decided to try to get her to open up again. “You know I’m really, really sorry about Drew, Patricia. I’ll help if I can, though I doubt there’s much I can do.” I spooned flour into a measuring cup. I said, “You said that Drew was worried?”

  “Yes.” She snuffled again. “His business partner, you know, that toad of a man named Neil Tharp? Drew thought Neil was trying to force him out.”

  When she did not elaborate, I said, “Force him out why?”

  She stared at her teacup. “I don’t think they exactly trusted each other.”

  I wanted to ask why again but thought the echo would sound too much like Arch when he was three. We can’t buy that bunch of helium balloons. Why? Because we don’t have enough money. Why? Because Daddy says no. Why? Because Daddy is a skinflint. Only I hadn’t said that last part.

  “And there were other folks who had it in for him?” I said.

  “Oh, he sold a map to a man who turned around and tried to sell it for the same price he bought it for. Then I heard there was some problem with a library, I don’t know what it was, because Drew didn’t tell me. Anyway, the guy who tried to sell the map was named MacArthur, you heard of him? I know his wife, Hermie. The husband is named…prosciutto? No, wait. Smithfield. Apparently no one told Smithfield MacArthur you buy something for retail, but if you want to sell it, you have to offer it at wholesale price. Sometimes I wonder how rich people earn their money, they’re so damn stupid.”

  “How long ago was this?” I asked cautiously.

  “Oh God, I’d have to think.”

  “Anybody else out there who had it in for Drew Wellington?”

  She held her teacup in both hands again, although I was sure any warming strength it had once had was gone. “Well, as I said, he was having problems with his business.”

  “The map business? Did he have an attorney business, too?”

  “He was an attorney. The map dealing began as his hobby, then developed into a business. Some people were jealous of him, I know that. I…even thought someone was following him around.” She arched an eyebrow at me.

  “Somebody following him around?” I echoed. “Someone who was jealous?”

  “I really shouldn’t say anything,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “I just…don’t feel comfortable with it. In terms of people I know were jealous of him, there was Elizabeth. She was furious that he was making so much money.”

  I wanted to say, She was, was she? Was she the one following him around? But our conversation was interrupted by a gentle knock on our front door. For some reason, the knock worried me. It was too serious, too knowing. Was Arch all right?

  “Do you suppose that’s Brewster?” Patricia asked, her voice hopeful. She got to her feet and turned a bright face to the kitchen door, which was a mere ten yards from our front door.

  But it was not Brewster Motley, criminal-defense attorney. The step was too heavy, the door was opening too quickly…and revealing Tom, followed by two deputies from the Furman County Sheriff’s Department. The deputies marched across the wood floor, and right there in my kitchen, they whipped out a pair of handcuffs.

  “Patricia Ingersoll,” said one, “you are under arrest for the murder of Drew Wellington. You have the right to remain silent—”

  She dropped the teacup and it shattered. “Goldy!” she cried, her voice full of despair. “Help me! What do I say?”

  “Nothing!” I shrieked after her as the deputies led her down our front hall. Patricia was protesting loudly, so I wasn’t sure whether she’d heard me. “Wait for Brewster!” I hollered.

  Tom yelled, “Goldy! What are you doing?”

  Defiantly I raised my voice a notch. “Patricia, did you hear me?”

  But she was gone.

  6

  Tom lifted his chin, set my face in his gaze, and stepped into the kitchen. When he closed the door behind him, I thought, Uh-oh.

  “Goldy, what do you think you were doing?”

  “You mean, what was I doing? Trying to help Patricia.”

  “Sit down.”

  Hell. The buzzer went off, so I put the mashed potatoes into the oven next to the chicken, then tried to arrange a small plate of crackers for us to have while we chatted. But Tom, who was right behind me, said, “Don’t.”

  So I didn’t. I sat and studiously avoided his eyes. I knew what he was thinking: that the wife of the county’s lead investigator should not be yelling at a suspect—make that a suspect in custody—that she should duck all the questions law enforcement would throw at her. The department people would say, What side does that Goldy Schulz think she’s on, anyway? And Tom would look bad, and his lieutenant would call him in, and then the captain would get involved, and Tom would be reprimanded…

  “Now, what I’m going to tell you,” Tom said, “is just for your ears. Understand? No Marla. No Julian. And God knows, no Patricia Ingersoll. Got it? Will you look at me, please?”

  “Okay, okay.” I gazed into his green eyes that were the shade of the deep ocean. “I’m sorry, but…” I started over. “Look, I have information for you, from Patricia. Drew Wellington had all kinds of enemies—”

  He held up his hand, and I shut my mouth. “We know. We also know that our guys got a tip to go see Patricia. Somebody saw a silver BMW X-5 racing away from the library. The kind of car Patricia drives.”

  “Did they get a plate?”

  “Goldy, it was and is snowing. Which means poor visibility.”

  “She told me she was at the library earlier today—”

  Tom shook his head. “She was his girlfriend. A vehicle resembling her car was seen racing away from the library. She
was already a person of interest, so they got a judge to give them a quickie search warrant. Maybe they knew other things I’m not even aware of yet. Now listen. There was an X-Acto knife right there in the middle of some big scrapbooking mess she had on her dining-room table. And it had blood on it.”

  Gooseflesh pimpled my arms. “Tom, I wasn’t sure I saw blood—”

  “There was blood at the library. Not a whole lot. But it was there.”

  I frowned. A silver BMW X-5 had been racing away from the library? Somebody—who?—thought it was Patricia’s, even with thick snow coming down? Half the people in Aspen Meadow had X-5s. Was someone framing Patricia? If so, why? I felt confused. After the sherry, I needed some caffeine to ignite my thinking power, no matter what it would do to that night’s sleep. “Tom, may I please make myself an espresso? My brain needs to be sufficiently kindled before I explain to you why I believe that Patricia is not so surpassingly, irretrievably stupid that she would leave a murder weapon out in plain sight.”

  Tom’s sigh behind me made me wince. “If drinking coffee will somehow open your ears and your mind, then go ahead.”

  As I fired up the espresso machine, I felt an onslaught of second doubts. Had I been wrong to tell Patricia not to speak to the police officers? I didn’t know. She’d been distraught, and at the same time eager to talk to me. Yet verbalizing her feelings in front of law enforcement officials was the last thing she should do before having a criminal-defense attorney at her side. Then the cops would have her story, and once her narrative of events was recorded, they would compare every single word she said afterward to that initial account she’d been so eager to spill.

  I poured the sherry down the drain and watched dark, caffeinated liquid spurt into my espresso cup. I stared at it and asked myself why Brewster had told Patricia to come here. Why hadn’t Brewster told her to sit tight at her own house? Unfortunately, he wouldn’t be able to enlighten me about this, I supposed, because of that doggone attorney-client privilege. Maybe Patricia would tell me…when I visited her. I shuddered.

  I slugged the espresso, then put the cup back under the doser and pushed the button for another double shot. I wasn’t ready to resume my argument with Tom, so I stared out the kitchen window. It was just after seven, and Tom would have to be leaving soon—and without dinner, unless I got my act together. Outside, the night was as black as ink. Oh my, how I preferred the Colorado summer to its winter. But here we were, in the middle of my busy holiday season, with parties chockablock into next week. I should have been drained from all the work I’d already done, or exhausted from the prospect of all the work I still had to do. But I wasn’t. I quaffed the second espresso, and within two minutes of standing there, I was wired.

  I sat down next to Tom. “Okay, first. Patricia is a former client. And sort of a friend.”

  “Excuse me, but Patricia is not your friend. You told me she drove you nuts when you did her wedding reception four years ago. Then this fall, at that luncheon you did for the Episcopal Church Women, you wanted to stuff a gag down her throat for telling folks they were all fat. She even told them to eat that fake margarine. And all of a sudden tonight she’s become your friend, because she seeks you out for help?”

  “Give me a chance here, will you? There’s no such thing as fake margarine, there’s only fake butter, and that’s called margarine, which, in my opinion, no one should ever use.” Tom rolled his eyes. “Second, of course she would think to come here, to talk to me, you know, because of my reputation of, sort of, helping you—”

  “Of sometimes involving yourself, insinuating yourself, into official investigations, you mean? Is that why she drove over, to get you to exonerate her?”

  “Tom, she said Brewster Motley said she should come here.”

  “Oh, yeah? And where is Mr. Motley now, I’d like to know?”

  I groaned. “Just ’cause he isn’t here doesn’t mean he’s not on his way.”

  “But why would she call Brewster unless she thought she needed him?”

  “So that makes her look guilty, the fact that she called an attorney before the cops even arrived here?”

  “Usually, Miss G. Remember when I had you lawyer up when you were suspected of killing your ex? It didn’t look good to the guys who arrested you, but the last thing I wanted was for you to start yakking away.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Tom,” I rushed on before he could take charge of the conversation, “how reliable is this source of yours who told you about the BMW?”

  Tom tilted his head. “We don’t know, do we? That’s why they’re called anonymous.”

  I bit my bottom lip until I thought it was going to bleed. “She’s being framed, don’t you see? Someone wants to get rid of the former D.A. He or she knows Patricia is vulnerable, maybe because Patricia loved him but wasn’t married to him. So this person plants a weapon at Patricia’s house. Then they call in a tip. Easy, as we say in the food biz, as apple pie, or peach cobbler, or—”

  Tom held up his hand. “Tell you what. Why don’t we agree to disagree? I’ve told you more than I should have, probably, and you have to keep it to yourself—”

  “I will, Tom. But if you get autopsy results or other leads or evidence that tend to exonerate Patricia, will you tell me? I don’t believe she would have sought me out unless she was afraid of being set up, don’t you see? You’re going to have to tell Brewster and his team everything, anyway.”

  Tom tsked. But before he could reply, the doorbell rang once more. Through the sidelight I could see Brewster Motley, criminal-defense attorney extraordinaire. First Marla, then Patricia, now Brewster. Instead of making coffee, I should be filling up a punch bowl.

  “Hey, Goldy,” Brewster said once he’d come inside. Relaxed as always, his tan-from-skiing boyish face broke into a scampish grin. That smile of his, always mischievous, invariably hinted at his just escaping a fourth-grade teacher’s punishment. He ran his hand through his tad-too-long hair. Then he shrugged his dark gray cashmere coat off his wide shoulders: a surfer shedding a towel. Underneath, he wore a black V-neck sweater and jeans. “I came out in a hurry.” His tone was apologetic, then puzzled. “I don’t know what’s going on here. Um…a woman named Patricia Ingersoll called me. She was going to meet me at your place.”

  I stared at him. “She said you told her to come here and wait for you, but she didn’t say why.”

  “So is she here?”

  Tom, standing beside our couch, did not move a muscle. Nor did he offer any explanation to Brewster. My skin began to itch as the silence between the three of us lengthened. Brewster shifted his coat over to the hand holding the briefcase. He raised his eyebrows at me. “Is somebody going to tell me what’s going on?”

  I swallowed. “Look, Brewster…” I faltered. “Patricia Ingersoll has been arrested for the murder of Drew Wellington, the former district attorney. Police officers just took her down to the sheriff’s department.”

  Brewster’s wide, handsome face wrinkled. To me, this situation was beginning to resemble one of those Russian dolls that you keep opening, only to find another one inside. “She’s been arrested. Anything else?”

  “She was really upset,” I rushed in to say. “In fact, she was a mess. She was grief-stricken over losing her…well, I guess he was her fiancé. And then she was stunned when the police turned up at her house with a warrant—”

  “A warrant?” Brewster asked. “What kind of warrant?”

  “The search kind.” Tom’s tone was matter-of-fact.

  “I think somebody’s trying to set her up,” I interjected.

  Brewster narrowed his eyes at this assessment and smoothed any expression from his face. Apparently we were no longer in a comic dilemma. He lowered his briefcase to the floor and quickly put his coat back on. “Guess I’m on my way to the jail.” He turned to the door. “Goldy? Tom? Good night.”

  “But wait,” I protested as Brews
ter slid out our front door. “How will we know what’s going on? Will somebody give us a ring?”

  “You’ll have to ask Patricia that,” Brewster called over his shoulder as he scooted nimbly down our icy walk.

  Tom put on his coat and announced curtly that he had to go down to the department for his meeting.

  “But our dinner’s almost ready,” I protested.

  “Save it.” And with that, he strode out the back door.

  So. All of a sudden I went from worrying about rising bread dough and feeling as if I was holding an unannounced open house, to eating alone and feeling like a failure. I had failed Tom by trying to help Patricia. I had failed Patricia by trying to keep her from getting into more trouble than I presumed she was already in. And maybe I had failed Drew Wellington by not racing out as soon as I saw Sandee, or the woman I thought was Sandee, and screaming for help, before she could kill another man.

  I set the chicken and potatoes aside to cool; we could have them another night. After a while my gingerbread houses came out of the oven. Those spicy, cooling mansions filled the kitchen with the scents of ginger and cinnamon. I cleaned up all the bowls, pots, and pans, then fixed myself some leftovers and cleaned up from that.

  Time was marching slowly, so I called Marla. She was “working the gossip lines,” she promised, but so far she had nothing to report. Maybe by the time I arrived at her house the next morning, she would have something, she said. I wasn’t really calling to find out anything substantive, and I had promised Tom not to talk about the X-Acto knife, which meant I shouldn’t talk about the arrest either, because then Marla would want to know all the details. But I wasn’t calling about any of that. I felt suddenly cold inside and out, and I just wanted to visit with my best friend. But before I could get those words out of my mouth, her call waiting clicked, and she was gone.

  Next I tried Arch, who said, “I’m fine, thanks, Mom. Is Tom working on the Drew Wellington case?”