Sweet Revenge

by Diane Mott Davidson

  But I was wrong. Tom took out his trusty notebook to jot down all the details of what the girls had said about Drew Wellington. He said he didn’t remember a sheriff’s call to that address, but he would check. Had I asked the girls when Wellington had given them alcohol, and how many times? I shook my head and sipped my coffee, which Tom had doused with whipping cream. As I was telling him about the tussle between Craddock and Tharp, about how Tharp claimed Craddock had stolen his property, and how vehemently Craddock had denied it, I felt a surge of energy, what a caterer friend of mine had dubbed the dreaded second wind. At the same time that the newfound vigor was coursing through Ye Olde Veins, I remembered that Neil Tharp frequently attended the earlier, eight o’clock service at St. Luke’s, as well as the later service with his boss. That way he and Drew managed to chat up as many congregants as possible. Or maybe he was just hoping to get some clients of his own. Neil had been as dedicated as Drew in the practice of drumming up business. Somehow I doubted that Neil had been as successful as Drew. That, I reflected, was just what Neil probably hoped to change.

  “I have to cook,” I announced, and stood up.

  Tom looked ruefully at our espresso cups. “Caffeine at midnight. I’ve created a monster.”

  “How does cherry pie sound?”

  “Messy.” But he picked up his notebook and our empty cups and followed me into the kitchen.

  I stared into the dark depths of the freezer side of our walk-in and tried to think. Where had I been in the story of that night’s events? Oh yes, the missing item. Mislaid? Misplaced? Or just plain gone? “Craddock insisted that somebody else had to know about the missing thing, whatever it was. Wellington’s girlfriend—which one, we don’t know—or ‘the girl,’ whoever that was. I have to say, I thought he meant Chantal, the MacArthurs’ daughter. Craddock kept saying, ‘Go ask the girl.’” I pulled out a pie crust I had made and frozen before baking, in case of a rainy day. Or a snowy night, for that matter.

  Tom preheated the oven for me, then sat at our kitchen table. “So, did Neil Tharp come back up to start questioning Chantal about his missing property?”

  “No, that’s when all hell broke loose with the snowball. The noise it made was huge, and both Craddock and Tharp hightailed it out of there.” I stared at the crust: July had been the last time Colorado had had any fresh sour cherries—the best kind for pies—but the canned variety would be just dandy. I banged around in our pantry looking for some while Tom washed our espresso cups. When I came back out clutching a pair of cans, I found Tom scrounging in the freezer side of our walk-in.

  “Tom? You’re going to cook, too?”

  “Nope. I’m just getting out a couple of coffee cakes I made during one of your catering events.” He emerged holding two zipped freezer bags, each of which held one of his sour-cream Bundt cakes. “You’re going to the early service tomorrow, aren’t you? I suppose you’re going to try to have a chat with Neil Tharp?”

  “You suppose correctly.” I was annoyed that Tom was able to interpret my intentions so easily. But Larry had told Neil he should talk to the cook, and Neil had wanted to chat with me Friday night outside the library, so I might as well facilitate things. I put cooking parchment inside the crust, then placed a load of ceramic pie weights on top, to help the pastry keep its shape.

  “Be careful, Miss G. Tharp has already shown a willingness to get physical, and we could do without any more flying snowballs. I’m going to go check on the boys,” Tom announced. “I want to make sure everyone has a piece of floor to sleep on.”

  While Tom was gone I popped the crust into the oven, then stirred the cherry juice, cornstarch, and sugar mixture together in a large saucepan. How had I gotten mixed up in this whole mess with Drew Wellington in the first place? I mean, the guy was appearing more and more like a slimeball. It had only begun yesterday afternoon, when Larry Craddock had blown up at my son and then at me…then Drew had been killed in the library, while I was working there…and of course, I’d seen Sandee, or thought I’d seen Sandee, the woman who had killed my ex-husband. She had appeared to have been stalking Drew. Hadn’t she? I felt less and less sure of everything I’d seen, but maybe it was because I was tired.

  And then Drew’s girlfriend, Patricia Ingersoll, a former client and sort-of friend—even if she was obsessed with tasteless diet foods—had asked me to help her. She said she and Drew had planned to get married at Christmas. She’d also said she had seen the woman who might be stalking Drew, and that she recognized this woman from the newspapers as Sandee Brisbane. Meanwhile, Drew had continued to take an interest in nubile teenage girls—girls to whom he gave alcohol.

  Make that an incredibly disgusting slimeball.

  By the time Tom returned to the kitchen, the luscious-looking cherry mixture was bubbling merrily. While I took the crust out of the oven, Tom looked into the saucepan, sniffed, then cocked an eyebrow at me. “I don’t suppose the family is going to get any of this, right?”

  “You can get some if you come to the eight o’clock service with me.” I poured the cherries into the pan, stirred them through the thickened juice, then tipped the whole thing into the waiting crust. I’m not much for lattices—they’re way, way too time-consuming for the garden-variety caterer to mess with—so I just carefully placed the top crust over the mountain of cherries, sealed it, slit it, and brushed on a bit of beaten egg white. I placed two sugar cubes inside a plastic bag, crushed them with a cooking mallet, and spilled the resulting crystals onto the top. I positioned the pie on a baking sheet and slid the whole thing into the waiting oven. Then I fixed myself another espresso—I figured, what the hell—and sat down next to Tom.

  “So, are you going to come with me and talk to Neil Tharp?”

  Tom cocked that eyebrow at me. “We already have interviewed Mr. Tharp. That’s how we heard his explanation of the Rohypnol. Want to hear what else he had to say?”

  “You know I do.”

  “First of all, even though I do value your input on these investigations?” I rolled my eyes and thought, Here it comes. “Miss G., please. Neil Tharp has already gotten into one fistfight with Larry Craddock, who hasn’t been reluctant to come after you either. Remember, Tharp remains a suspect, and whoever murdered Wellington has a number of ways to attack people. Got it?” When I nodded, Tom held up a finger and disappeared. When he returned, he was holding one of his antique silver trays, on top of which were poised a bottle and two small crystal glasses. I couldn’t help it; I burst out laughing.

  “What, I can’t hear about Tharp as a suspect without a wee nip of something?”

  “Please don’t knock this expensive port I bought just for us.”

  “Thanks.” I watched him go through the ceremony of opening the bottle, and adored him all over again for remembering that I love port, but only the good stuff. Once I kicked out the Jerk, I was too poor to do anything but have a tiny sip of the good stuff, which I did when I was working with André, my mentor. André had insisted that I taste the port before he used it to sauce pork loin. “Ne-vair, ne-vair use cheap vine,” he would say with a frown and bunched gray eyebrows, as if he knew I used it all the time, which of course I did. Following his dictum, I had never used inexpensive varieties when cooking for clients—but I’d kept them on a high shelf in case the Jerk, who had still driven me nuts after we were divorced, was up to his old antics and I was tempted to have a glass. When I’d wanted to sip a quality vintage, I’d had to either a) wait for Marla to invite me over, or b) wait for Marla to bring a bottle when she came to visit. This she did once she had tasted some of my screw-on-cap vermouth and immediately had run to the bathroom making gagging noises. After I married Tom, he enjoyed indulging me, or us, as he put it, by purchasing choice wines and foodstuffs whenever his own wallet was fat. But I didn’t remember news of a bonus or raise, so now I was suddenly wary. “Are you buttering me up before lowering the boom about something I did?”

  Tom tsked and poured. “Always so suspicious. No, after
the espresso, I want us to sleep tonight.” He glanced at the clock. “Or what’s left of tonight.” He handed me a glass, then sat back down. We clinked and sipped. The wine was smooth, fiery, and lingered on the tongue. When I smiled my thanks, Tom gave me a satisfied, loving look. “Back to my story. According to Neil Tharp, and Craddock confirms it, on Friday, Drew Wellington wanted to offer Larry Craddock two different maps at great prices, or at least at what Tharp considered great prices. Drew Wellington was presenting his old rival with the peace pipe, as they say in these parts. Are you following me so far?”

  I nodded and inhaled deeply. The heady scent of baking cherry pie mingled with the rich aroma of the port. “Craddock sure didn’t seem as if he was in any mood to do business, much less make peace, when Arch and I had our run-in with him.”

  “I’m getting to that.”

  “Plus, I thought you did find a valuable map on Wellington.”

  “That was a map from, let’s see”—here, Tom flipped back a few pages in his notebook—“1869, showing the surveyed part of Nebraska. The transcontinental railroad is on there, as are three Indian reservations—Omaha, Otoe, and Pawnee. It’s worth about three or four thousand bucks, give or take.”

  “That was the low price?”

  “That’s retail, Tharp says. Wellington was offering it to Craddock for fifteen hundred.”

  “But Craddock didn’t bite, or Wellington wouldn’t have still had it when somebody killed him.”

  “Right. Our man Tharp also claims Wellington had gotten his hands on a map of”—Tom perused his notes again—“Texas, from 1844.”

  “I thought Texas didn’t come into the Union until later—”

  “It didn’t. That’s why map dealers and collectors were so interested in this one.” Tom sipped his port and checked his notes. “Wait a minute, I want to get this exactly right…this second map had been commissioned by the Senate to look at the issue of whether Texas should become a state. What was then called the Bureau of Topographical Engineers went out and did the survey, under the purview of the State Department. According to Tharp, it was a fantastic map, and shouldn’t have been sold for a penny under ten thousand.”

  “Uh-huh.” I looked in at the pie. It was not yet oozing juices, which would be the sign it was about done. “Where had Wellington himself obtained these maps?”

  “Tharp was fuzzy on that, and for good reason. He didn’t know, he claimed, where Drew got, as he called it, ‘most of his stock.’”

  “And they were business partners?”

  Tom shrugged. “Tharp said Wellington was going to offer the Texas map to Craddock for four thousand.”

  “So if Craddock sold it to a client, he’d make a good profit. Six thousand or so, right?”

  “Yeah, but the worst is ahead.” The worst is ahead? I took another swig of port, although my head was already reeling. Texas? Nebraska? If Drew Wellington had had one of Kansas, he could have been the expert on all the states that eventually sent skiers to Colorado.

  “According to Tharp, there might have been a third map. It was of what they call the New World. North America, from 1682. Worth a couple hundred K, but possibly to be offered to another client for a mere one hundred K.”

  “What? Are you joking? What other client?”

  “I am not joking. I don’t know the other client, and Tharp didn’t know the particulars, because, he says, Drew didn’t tell him.” Tom pulled out his notebook and read me the details Neil Tharp had given him of the New World map that Drew might or might not have had on him. Unfortunately, I felt my head get woozy, as if the sudden effect of the night’s work, the blowup at the MacArthurs’ house, my sudden urge to bake, and the wine were hitting all at one time. “Miss G., are you interested in this?”

  “I just need to sleep. Can you give me the executive summary, before I pretend to Neil Tharp that I’m interested in buying some of his collection?”

  “He says we have one lost or stolen map, that of Texas. We also have a missing map of North America, from the late seventeenth century. Tharp claims Craddock must have made some kind of deal for the Texas map with his boss. Either that, or he stole both of them, Tharp says, the Texas map and the North America map, because we didn’t find either one on Wellington’s body, in his suit, or in his effects. Also, there was no money on Mr. Wellington either, no check, no promissory note, nada.”

  “What did Larry Craddock tell you? He was certainly anxious to get his hands on what he just called ‘missing maps’ when he came to the Roundhouse.”

  “Craddock claims that he did want the two maps Wellington showed him, but he told Wellington he didn’t immediately have the money available, even with Wellington’s reasonable prices. He explained to Drew that he’d have to make some calls and rearrange his finances, and get back to him. But that’s not what he did.”

  “At the conference center, he told us he went to check the maps’ provenance.”

  Tom cocked an eyebrow. “Yup. Craddock says he went into the reading room to use the wi-fi connection and get online to see if the maps had been reported stolen. He didn’t have any luck, because the Web site that map dealers and libraries wanted to set up to report thefts isn’t running yet. He claims he then made a call to an attorney who’s a mad map collector. You ask me, they’re all mad.” Tom paused. “Anyhoo, the lawyer was too busy to talk to him, no surprise there. Larry left a message for the lawyer to return the call, then went back to the corner where he’d first met with Drew. But guess what? No Drew.”

  “Right.”

  “Timingwise,” Tom went on, “this coincides with what we have on the surveillance video, that Drew was stumbling around up at the checkout desk, only he didn’t check anything out. After twenty minutes of waiting, Larry thought Drew was double-crossing him, selling the maps to someone else. So he looked in Drew’s briefcase. And there was the map of Texas.”

  “Drew must have been pretty drunk to leave it like that. What about the maps of Nebraska and North America?”

  Tom shook his head. “The Nebraska map is the one we found on Drew, but we have to assume the Texas and North America maps are either missing or stolen. Maybe stolen by Larry, although he insists he would never do such a thing. And if you believe that, I’ve got a nice mountain to sell you on the Colorado plains.”

  My thoughts went straight to Sandee, as they had ever since I’d seen her the previous month. What was she up to here in Colorado? And then there was Roberta, who’d found Drew’s body, and any number of library clients who might have thought it would be cool to rifle through the papers of a guy who looked as if he were asleep. And there were the paramedics, and—

  “Don’t worry, we’re interviewing everybody we can find who even might have come in contact with Drew. Everyone swears there were no maps.”

  “And so what’s your theory?”

  “Neil Tharp thinks Larry Craddock stole the Texas and North America maps after he dumped the drug into Wellington’s coffee. Oh, that’s another thing. Wellington always brought a thermos of coffee into the library with him, to keep himself awake while he did business. He also brought a flask of sour-mash whiskey, to keep himself mellow.”

  “Both of which were drugged.”

  “Yup again. But the important thing, from Mr. Tharp’s viewpoint, is that we did not find any money, nor did we find those two more valuable maps.”

  The timer buzzed for the pie. I took it out and placed it carefully on a rack. The golden crust sparkled under its crown of sugar crystals; thick, dark cherry juices bubbled out of the cracks.

  “Gorgeous,” Tom said.

  “It’s not bad,” I said with a smile.

  “I meant you, dear wife.” And with that, he put his arm around my waist and helped me up the stairs—to bed, finally.

  When the strains of Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik drifted out of our alarm, I didn’t get up right away, because I was dreaming that I was in Vienna, and I was sleeping on a soft feather bed. When Tom rolled over and said, �
�That’s you, Miss G., if you’re still going to the early service.”

  With my eyes closed, I murmured, “That’s wrong. I’m listening to a little night music.”

  “Not anymore,” Tom said as he whacked the radio button.

  I couldn’t face reality, not with snow drifting onto my eyelids, the memory of music still playing softly in my ears, and the promise of coffee and Sacher torte nearby—no, wait, not Sacher torte, cherry pie…

  “I took the liberty,” Tom announced from above me. I took a deep breath and was about to protest again when I realized Tom had brought me a steaming latte.

  “You spoil me, husband.” When I sat up, all my muscles, bones, and tendons creaked at once. It had been a long night. Did any caterers still do parties after they turned forty? I doubted it, and I was still in my early thirties. “How’s the weather?”

  Tom had shifted off the bed and was looking outside. “Hard to tell, it’s still so dark.” He ducked and squinted to look through the pines at the one streetlight that illuminated a patch of our sidewalk. “Looks as if we got a total of about ten inches of new snow.” He squinted again. “And the plow came through during the night. Did you hear it?”

  I sipped the luscious, hot drink. “I don’t think I would have heard an air-raid warning during the night. I don’t even remember going to bed.”

  Tom shook his head and chuckled. “Yeah, I had to undress you. Believe me, that was no fun at all.”

  “Very funny.” I took a last slug of the coffee and checked the clock: half past six. That meant I had an hour to shower, dress, pack up the pie and Tom’s coffee cakes, and get my van over to the church. Which reminded me. “Well, since you had so much fun stripping me, would you be willing to strip my van of snow? It’s down on Main Street.”

  Tom took a deep breath. “What are husbands for in the morning, except to bring their wives coffee and get their vehicles ready to do battle with the world?”

  I thanked him and walked toward the bathroom. “Wait. Stripping. Strippers. Did you all find out anything new about Sandee Brisbane?”