The Whole Enchilada

by Diane Mott Davidson

  The maid, who had not given her name, stifled a yawn. Then she stared at the firearm in Boyd’s holster. “Some other deputies from the sheriff’s department were here until late last night. They said journalists might start poking around because George—Dr. Ingleby,” she immediately corrected herself, “used to be married to Holly. You still haven’t told me who you are.”

  We introduced ourselves as Goldy Schulz and Marla Korman, friends from the church who’d brought blueberry muffins. Sergeant Boyd was accompanying us to be helpful, I added, although it was clear that bringing muffins did not require a law enforcement escort. We wanted to speak to George, Marla said. We did not mention we were friends of Holly. The maid said her name was Sally, and if we wanted coffee, she would make us some in the kitchen. Oh, I got it: Mustang Sally.

  I said we would love some coffee. Tall, thin Mustang Sally led the way to the kitchen. My enthusiasm prompted her to say the only coffee Edith would allow her to buy was a discount brand called Frank’s. I tried not to groan.

  The kitchen was not large. Maybe Holly’s energy and vivacity had so filled the place when I’d visited before that I hadn’t noticed how dated the house was. I did know one thing: this particular residence had not changed in seventeen years, and maybe it had been this way for the past three, four, or five decades. Laminate wooden cabinets were peeling. Some pulls on those cabinets were missing; the ones that remained featured ceramic roosters and other barnyard animals. I averted my gaze when Marla rolled her eyes at me.

  I sat in a chair with red vinyl splitting up the seat. It was one of six at a wood-laminate table beside the kitchen wall. Boyd pulled out the chair opposite mine for Marla, scraping the metal legs across the puckered, pale lime linoleum floor. Then he walked purposefully to the far, shadowy end of the kitchen, where he stood stock-still.

  “I’ve never been here,” Marla said under her breath. “Do you think it’s changed since 1958? No wonder Holly wanted to be an artist. She could start by fixing this place up.”

  Mustang Sally began purposefully preparing coffee in an ancient drip machine that sat, tilted, on a buckled laminate counter. “Dr. Ingleby,” she called into the chipped plastic intercom. When George didn’t respond, Sally waited for the coffee to finish, then poured the dark, viscous fluid into two ceramic mugs emblazoned with the words Frank’s Discount Coffee, probably free when you bought fifty pounds’ worth. When George Ingleby did not answer the intercom a second time, Sally glugged nondairy creamer into a little glass pitcher and put it out with a bowl of sugar.

  “I don’t think he heard you,” Marla said brightly. She sipped her coffee. Her lips formed a moue of despair, and she kicked me under the table. Well, I’d already had my caffeine for the day anyway.

  “Dr. Ingleby,” Sally said loudly into the ancient box on the wall. “You’ve got visitors from the church.” She turned to us, her face registering surprise for the first time. Clearly, she hadn’t had any of Frank’s finest caffeine-delivery system yet. “Why do you want to see him? It’s his mother who—”

  But it was too late. Edith Ingleby slammed open the door to the kitchen. “What are you two doing here at this hour?” she cried. Edith Ingleby, whose short curly hair had been frosted, had a frosty disposition to match. Even at this early hour, she wore a floral suit that looked as if it, too, had come from 1958. I recalled Marla had said Edith was eighty-four. But even wearing low heels, she moved quickly across the floor, as if she were used to its wrinkles and dips. “Already out collecting for St. Luke’s? The dinner’s not until tomorrow night. And in any event, I am in charge of fund-raising for the columbarium.”

  “Mrs. Ingleby, they’ve brought you blueberry muffins,” Sally said meekly. The hapless maid seemed to be trying to avoid a storm. “Your favorite.”

  “Your husband,” Edith Ingleby said as she shook a gnarled, beringed finger in my face and advanced toward me with reptilian speed. I leaned back.

  “My husband what?” I said.

  “He sent my baby away before we could say good-bye.” Edith Ingleby fished a muffin out of the basket and put it on the plate that Sally quickly slid underneath. “I don’t know why I put up with this. Gone. Gone.” She sighed dramatically, then sat down and turned her attention to the muffin. “My daily miracle.”

  “Your daily miracle?” asked Marla, genuinely puzzled. “Goldy’s muffin?”

  Edith had sunk her large yellow teeth into the muffin and merely nodded. Marla turned to me. “That’s an endorsement for baked goods with blueberries.”

  “Mother?” exclaimed a startled George Ingleby from the doorway. His black hair stood on end. Bedhead, Arch would say. George wore wrinkled khakis and an equally wrinkled yellow golf shirt. He blinked and took us in. Well, it wasn’t quite eight o’clock on a Saturday morning. “Why are you here? Something to do with the church?” His voice was calm, but his eyes accused, much as his mother’s had.

  I introduced Sergeant Boyd, and said we were here to bring muffins to Edith.

  George’s voice went very quiet as he said, “That’s not what it looks like. It looks like you’re trying to confuse my mother.”

  “We have no intention of confusing her,” Marla said smoothly. “We were just sitting here, drinking coffee that Sally made for us, and your mother came in and—”

  “Oh, it’s you all,” Lena Ingleby said from the doorway. Her tiny mouth pulled itself into a pout. “Plus a police escort? Why are you here, so early in the morning?”

  “Gosh,” said Marla, shaking her head at me. “Can’t anyone in this house make us feel welcome?”

  “Here’s the deal,” I said, aiming my words at George. “We were friends of Holly’s—”

  Pain crossed George’s face, but he only said, “I know.”

  Lena sighed and held her fingers out at her side. “You haven’t answered my question. Are you here to say you really meant to invite us to Drew’s birthday party last night? And you forgot?”

  “Lena dear,” George began, but again could not find words.

  “But you wanted to go, sweetheart,” said Lena, her voice trembling. “And they didn’t invite us. You were so hurt.”

  “It’s all right,” said George.

  Lena dropped her hands and shook her head. “Goldy? Marla? You two should be ashamed. Then there’s your friend Holly. That slut. And you call yourselves Christians.”

  Boyd, I noted, moved out from the shadows beside the cabinet. Alert and suddenly more present, he took in the scene now unfolding.

  Even if we were there too early, even if our appearance was unexpected, even if Holly had spitefully left George and Lena off the guest list, what Lena had said made my mouth hang open. Our friend Holly was dead. Yet here was Lena, whom I only knew as a receptionist who had once worked for George, criticizing her.

  Lena’s verbal blow was too low for Marla. She stood up, put her mug into the dented, stainless-steel sink, and turned to go.

  “You’re washing that cup!” Edith said, raising one hand, as if she’d just scored a goal. Mustang Sally raced out of the kitchen. It was as if she believed her duties had been discharged, and nobody could make her stay. Or else she couldn’t take any more conflict for one day. Meanwhile, like Marla, I wondered about the common courtesy that seemed to be absent here. What was I missing?

  “Let’s go,” Boyd commanded. But for whatever reason, I couldn’t move. “Now,” he added. Marla stood expectantly, waiting for me. I reluctantly scraped my chair back.

  “Darling,” George said to his wife, attempting to pacify in that quiet way of his. “Please don’t worry about me.”

  “But I do worry about you,” Lena said, her voice low. She turned to us. “Failure to invite father, stepmother, and grandmother to birthday party.” She used her fingers to tick off points. “Arriving uninvited, early in morning, at my house, to collect money for the church.”

  When Edith stood, her chair fell over. “This is my house!” she howled. “Not yours!”

  “Of c
ourse it’s your house, Mother,” said Lena, squatting quickly to right the chair.

  “I am not your mother!”

  “Let’s go outside,” George said calmly, pointing to Marla, Boyd, and me.

  “Gosh, that was interesting!” Marla said, once the four of us were out in the fresh air. In an attempt to clear my head, I inhaled deeply, once, twice, three times. I was wondering if I should say, Remind me why things didn’t work out between you and Holly, George? But of course no such words issued from my mouth, because we were there to obtain information, not offend people. Which we’d managed to do anyway, apparently.

  “I am not going back into that kitchen to wash a mug, George,” Marla warned. She looked at me. “If I did, that would be a miracle. Like Goldy’s muffins, right? What was your mother talking about?”

  “Nothing,” said George, rubbing his forehead. “She gets addled,” he said in that low voice of his. I wondered if he used it on cardiac patients. “First the cops came last night. Then the three of you, arriving this morning, just . . . made it worse. And Lena really is very nice. She’s just always been protective of me.”

  “Look, George,” I said, trying to match his soothing tone, “we’re only here because we were friends of Holly’s, and we’re trying to understand how she could have—”

  “Oh, please don’t,” George interrupted. His voice shook, and his brown eyes filled with tears. “I loved her. I did.” He pressed his hands over his eyes and sobbed. “I love Drew. I bleed for my boy. I don’t know how this could have happened to his mother.”

  “Nor do we,” I said gently. “We’re only trying to find out about Holly’s . . . situation.” I paused. Could I bluff? I wondered. “I kept the notes from a support group we were all in, and I know the details of your, er—”

  George looked up abruptly. No, I could not bluff. We should not have come.

  “The details of what?” he prompted, rubbing his mustache. When I didn’t reply, he said, “Why did your husband send my son off to Alaska so quickly?”

  “That’s not what happened,” Boyd interjected. “Drew had permission from you to go to Alaska.” He did not want to tell them about the department’s investigation, of course, or that Drew himself had not wanted to stay with George and Lena. He certainly didn’t mention that Tom was considering Drew as a person of interest in the case. “Our department has a policy about minors traveling after the death of a parent, and we adhered to it—”

  “But I’m his parent, too!” George cried.

  Boyd held up his hand. “The victim’s sister flew into Denver this morning. They departed together. We just wanted to keep Drew safe until he had packed and taken off. That’s all.”

  At this point, Lena pushed through the front door. Apparently, she didn’t want to be left out of anything. She put a protective arm around George.

  “We have a policy, and we adhered to it,” Boyd repeated.

  George said, “I tried to call him, but only got voice mail. The police were here”—he pointed at the big house—“so I didn’t have a chance to call him more than once.”

  I said, “I’m sorry this has happened. I’m sorry you couldn’t reach Drew when the police were here.”

  Lena said, “You didn’t know the police were here when George was trying to reach Drew? Goldy, I thought you were privy to all the investigations of the sheriff’s department. Isn’t that the rumor around town?”

  “Ex-cuse me?” said Boyd.

  “Ah-ah-ah,” Marla warned Lena, singsong fashion, wagging a finger in Lena’s face. “Don’t you go listening to rumors.”

  “Says the town’s most notorious gossip,” Lena replied acidly.

  “Well,” said Marla, “I think I’ve had enough insults for one day. How ’bout you, Goldy? Sergeant Boyd?”

  I said, “We shouldn’t have come. Let’s go.”

  Boyd said something under his breath that sounded a lot like “Thank God.”

  I waved to Lena as we climbed into Marla’s Mercedes. “You all can keep the basket.”

  “Holly screwed Warren Broome!” Lena hollered after us. “I’ll give you that gossip for free, Marla!”

  11

  Interesting,” said Marla. She was zooming toward the open gates, whose doors began juddering closed before Boyd was even through. Someone had been watching to make sure we actually left—and didn’t come back. “Did you know that about Holly and Warren Broome?” Marla asked.

  I thought back to Warren Broome’s forlornness at the birthday party. He had seemed to be feeling uncomfortable, as if everyone there knew his sordid history. But more important, he had stared, unblinking, at Holly.

  “Yes, okay, maybe he appeared lovesick. I wasn’t aware of any affair between Holly and Warren. You know I depend on you to keep me up on these things. Warren was gaping at Holly at the party last night.”

  “Was she gaping back?”

  “Not really,” I said. “She seemed to be avoiding him.”

  “Patsie Boatfield’s son goes to Christian Brothers High School,” Marla protested. “How come you don’t know about this?”

  “I’m a full-time caterer—”

  “When you’re not nosing into investigations.”

  “Thanks. That, too. But there’s no way I could or even would be aware of what goes on between the thousand-plus sets of CBHS parents.”

  “Well, what do you know?”

  “Not much. Patsie is one of those parent-type friends whom you see at your children’s activities but don’t really see outside of them. I’m figuring she and Warren married quietly, probably because they didn’t want to alert the press. Warren and Patsie can’t have been married that long. And anyway, how come you haven’t heard about this supposed affair between Holly and Warren? Patsie’s house is in Flicker Ridge. What do we know about Warren Broome, anyway?”

  “Not a whole lot,” said Marla, “apart from the fact that he was only temporarily disbarred or whatever it’s called when a shrink can’t shrink people for a while. But when we get back to your place, I’ll make some calls. What were you going to ask George?” Marla asked. “Details about the child support?”

  “Yes. But apparently even I have qualms when it comes to digging for information.”

  “But if I know you,” Marla said, “you have the details of Holly’s settlement and child support situation somewhere, because you took the Amour Anonymous notes, and have kept them all these years.”

  “I did indeed.” I thought of George’s face as it crumpled in grief. “Poor George,” I said.

  “Oh, dammit. Damn this,” said Marla. A cry escaped from her lips, and she signaled to pull over. When her tires crunched on the dirt, she turned to me. “Holly’s dead, isn’t she? She’s never coming back—”

  I held my friend as she cried. Boyd hustled up.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked through the open window.

  “We’re just mourning our friend,” I said, and then Marla and I cried together.

  Once we reached home, Boyd said he would stay in his car. We were to call him if we wanted to go out again.

  In the kitchen, Julian was grating a block of cheddar so orange it had to be for Arch. My son didn’t like the sharp, white variety. An omelet pan, butter, and beaten eggs stood at the ready. Arch was sitting upright at the kitchen table, his face drawn. It had been a hard twelve hours for him, too. A pristinely laid place—Julian’s doing, no doubt—was in front of him. Arch wore a rumpled navy sweatsuit that I suspected he’d grabbed from the hamper.

  “Clothes are clean, Mom,” he said, to my unasked question. He sighed deeply. “How’s your leg?”

  “Hurts,” I said as I propped my left foot on a chair. “How about you? Are you all right?” I asked.

  “No, Mom. I am not all right.”

  “Well,” I began, “what can I—” I stopped myself. It might be okay to question other people on their states of mind; it was definitely not okay to interrogate Arch, much less to see if he wanted a hug, or anything
else.

  “Should I add another couple of eggs to this omelet?” Julian asked us. He plopped a chunk of butter into the pan. It hissed as it slid sideways.

  “Oh, yes, please,” said Marla brightly.

  Arch groaned. “I’m starving here.”

  “All right, never mind, I’ll make a separate one for you and Goldy,” Julian said to me, winking at Marla. “Need to feed Mr. Starving here. How about Sergeant Boyd? Should I ask him in to have food?”

  “He said he wants to stay in his prowler.”

  Arch gave me a puzzled look. “Where have you been?”

  “Just . . . over to see George.”

  “Drew’s dad? Why?”

  I shook my head as my throat closed up. I rubbed my forehead. “Trying to figure out what happened to Holly. He . . . couldn’t help.” Remembering Lena’s parting shot, I weighed whether to ask Arch if he knew anything about Warren Broome, the stepfather of Alexander Boatfield, his teammate. My son might not want to talk about his own emotional state, but would he know anything about the Boatfields? Probably not. Arch was generally clueless on these matters, and even if he were not clueless, he would say he was.

  While Arch ate—forking up huge mouthfuls, so he must have truly been hungry—I checked our voice mail, which showed I had two messages. The first was an anxious one from Father Pete: Had I thought about working with Kathie Beliar on the church dinner? Did I really think she could bring a dozen more people to the dinner . . . and the church? Miss Beliar had called him again, he said. St. Luke’s so needed new parishioners, he added apologetically, and we could use the extra money for the columbarium. Did I, Father Pete tentatively asked, possess the advertising resources that Kathie Beliar claimed to have? She’d said I did not have advertising resources.

  I shook my head. Poor, naive Father Pete.

  When Marla announced she would put the kibosh on the co-catering bit, I hit pause on my machine. Marla called Father Pete as I washed my hands and set two more places. Once Marla was connected to the church’s voice mail, she said that no, Kathie Beliar could not co-cater the church dinner the next night, because she, Marla, was paying for the meal, and if Father Pete was going to hire another caterer besides her friend Goldy, then the church could pay for it.