Fatally Flaky

by Diane Mott Davidson

  “Yes, that’s true.” Was I so transparent, or was Craig Miller just really good at reading people? Well, that was his job, I supposed. Philip Miller had been able to read people, too, and it had gotten him killed.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” Craig asked, again all earnestness.

  “No, thanks.” I tried hard to think of how to change the subject. “Um,” I said finally, “where did you get your medical training?”

  “The Caribbean,” Craig said. “And after living there year-round for four years, I swore up and down I was going to live in a place with a really cold winter and lots of snow.”

  I burst out laughing. “D’you think you ended up in the right place?”

  His smile filled the car. “Oh, don’t I know it!” I was afraid he might go back to talking about the wedding, but he didn’t. Come to think of it, it’s women who love talking about weddings, not guys. Craig eyed me with the sly expression Arch used to employ when he wanted something from the cookie jar. “That was quite a stunt your uncle pulled at the spa.”

  “He’s my godfather, not my uncle. And trust me, he pulls stunts all the time. Which one were you talking about?”

  Craig raised an eyebrow. “Making out with a twenty-year-old in the Smoothie Cabin? Has he no shame?”

  I gave Jack’s it-wasn’t-my-fault version of the kiss in question. I even managed not to smile when I said that Isabelle was the aggressor.

  “You expect me to believe that?” Craig asked. “That a spa employee tricked an older man into a glorified closet? So she could kiss him? Why not just ask him out on a date?”

  I shrugged. At that moment, Arch’s battered Passat drove into view. I explained that I needed to get going, as I still had so much to do before the you-know-what the next day. Craig said that he understood, and hopped out of the car. He offered to take the keys up to Jack, but I said I’d promised to deliver them myself. I locked the Mercedes and followed Craig up the steps to the house.

  When Jack came to the door, I said, “Jack.” Once Craig disappeared through the living room, I hesitated. Should I bawl out my godfather for a) honking his horn this morning, b) disappearing during the spa visit, and c) pulling the stunt with the Smoothie Cabin?

  “I’ve upset you,” Jack said. “I screwed things up out at Gold Gulch, didn’t I?”

  “Sort of.” I felt uncomfortable.

  “You know how much I love you, don’t you, Gertie Girl?” When I nodded, he pulled me in for a hug. “I’m sorry. There was a reason for my stuff at the spa. I … I’m just not ready to tell you yet. Will you forgive me?”

  With my head in his shoulder, I said, “Of course.”

  He thanked me, hugged me again, and took his keys. He said he’d see me the next day.

  “You want to drive, Mom?” Arch asked. From the backseat, Todd and Gus gave me sleepy greetings.

  “Not particularly,” I began, “I just drove all the way—”

  But then I had a good look at Arch. He appeared to have slept in his rumpled, none-too-clean shorts and T-shirt. He had dark bags under his eyes, which he could only manage to keep half open. So maybe he hadn’t actually slept at all. While he was waiting for me to answer, he yawned.

  I said, “Yeah, sure, give me the keys, hon.”

  Arch, Todd, and Gus all fell asleep on the way back to our house, which was less than twenty minutes away. I shook my head. When Arch was an infant, he’d had numerous sleepless nights. Sometimes I’d found that the only solution was to take him out for a ride in the car. As soon as we’d gone half a block, he’d always be in dreamland. Looks as if things hadn’t changed that much.

  Marla called on my cell when we were halfway home. The buzzing of the phone did not seem to bother the boys, and I resolved to call Marla back later. But she would not be deterred. She called again, and again, and again, until I finally answered.

  “I need to see you,” she said breathlessly. “Where are you now?”

  “Almost to our house. Want to come over? I have extra crab cakes.”

  “Ah, the promise of food. Yes, please. And I have such a juicy and delicious piece of gossip for you, you won’t believe it.”

  The boys groaned when the car stopped and didn’t move again. Finally, they piled out, extending their arms, cracking their joints, and complaining more than Rip Van Winkle with a backache. Arch yawned and asked if he could make his pals pancakes, if he promised not to get in my way. They were so hungry, he added. And he wouldn’t make any mess.

  Right, I thought. But I only said, “Yes, Arch, I think that’s a great idea.” I glanced at the clock: 1:00 in the afternoon already? “And could you make enough for me, too, please? I’m ravenous.”

  Arch was pleased. Although I’d often offered to teach Arch to cook, he’d always resisted. But making flapjacks was a skill he’d learned in Cub Scouts, and he still loved whipping up big batches. He’d even perfected the art of dropping dollops of batter into a hot pan when it was just the right temperature. Plus, he always insisted on melting real butter for the batter and then pouring more on top of the flapjacks themselves. He’d even learned to make clarified butter, which he made and froze in small batches, to use in the pan so the fat wouldn’t burn before he ladled in the batter. I guess he was his mother’s son, after all.

  Even better than all that, Arch was always particularly pleased with his creations when my dear Tom would tuck into a stack of eight or more of the creations, and invariably pronounce them the absolute best pancakes he’d ever tasted in his entire life.

  While Arch gave directions to Todd and Gus on setting the table, I checked the messages. Julian had called to say he had located plenty of new potatoes to make our salad for the additional fifty people. Was I doing okay? I left a voice mail message on Julian’s cell saying I was fine, no problem.

  Was I fine? Did I have enough food for the Attenborough wedding? Suddenly, I wasn’t so sure.

  So while Arch sizzled clarified butter in our flapjack pan, I began measuring out the ingredients for extra crab cakes.

  “Gosh,” Gus asked, “who is all the crab for?”

  “A wedding tomorrow.”

  “Who’s getting married?” Todd wanted to know as he frowned over the cutlery drawer.

  “Billie Attenborough and Dr. Craig Miller. He’s a doctor at Spruce Medical Group.”

  “Oh, man,” Todd commented, “my mom hates Spruce Medical Group. She took me there when I had that torn rotator cuff, you know, the one I had the operation for at the beginning of the summer? My mom wanted an MRI, but whoever was in charge there said I only had a sprained arm. Anyway, the guy told me to start lifting weights. He even showed me how to lift the weights, especially with my left arm, which was the one that was hurting so much, especially at night.”

  “Which guy did you see?” I asked.

  “Aw, I don’t remember his name,” Todd said.

  “You’re such a wuss,” Gus interjected, which brought some spectacular left jabs from Todd. “Okay, okay, you’re not a wuss!” Gus hollered in defeat.

  “So did lifting the weights help?” I asked.

  “Not even, Steven,” Todd replied. “I did those stupid weights every day for a couple of weeks, and by then the upper part of my left arm felt as if it was falling off.”

  “Hello?” said Arch, as he measured out buttermilk. “Your upper arm can’t fall off. Only your whole arm can fall off.”

  “And it’s called resistance training, Todd,” Gus said, laughing.

  “Thanks for the updates, guys,” Todd replied. “Okay, it felt as if my whole arm was coming off when I did resistance training, how’s that? Anyway, my mom took me someplace else, and whoever was in charge there said I needed an MRI, which showed, duh, that I had a torn rotator cuff. And so I had surgery. I told her we should sue Spruce Medical, but she said people make mistakes all the time, and I should just cool it.”

  Gus sighed dramatically. “Don’t we live in a litigious society? That’s what my grandparents say. I ha
d no idea what that meant, so I looked up ‘litigious.’ It means we all sue each other too much.”

  Arch said, “Will you guys quit yakking and get out the butter and the maple syrup? They’re both in the walk-in refrigerator.”

  When Marla arrived, Arch, Todd, and Gus had polished off seconds in the pancake department, and I was just starting on my own. They were delicious: Arch whizzed cottage cheese in the blender to add to the batter, and this gave them a nubbly texture, a modicum of protein, and a tangy taste that people invariably asked about. By the time I started on my second stack, my mood had improved considerably.

  “Ooh, flapjacks!” Marla cooed as she admired the table. “Are these from Arch’s extra-special recipe?”

  Arch blushed but said they were, and he’d made lots of batter, and would Marla like some?

  “You bet.” Marla put her hands on her hips, which were swathed in an ample burnt orange and lime green Marimekko shift. When she wiggled, I noticed she was wearing large dangly lime green earrings. She looked like a big orange tulip. “I’ve already had lunch, so this will count as my dessert, I guess. Maybe I’ll have to break down and visit Gold Gulch Spa one of these days, eh?”

  While Arch was frying Marla’s “dessert,” Todd and Gus did their dishes, then told Arch they were going out to the Passat to get their stuff. Meanwhile, I gave Marla an abbreviated version of that morning’s trip up to Gold Gulch.

  “Smooching with Smoothie?” Marla asked. “Sounds like a horror novel.”

  “It wasn’t Smooching with Smoothie—”

  “Oh, don’t get technical.” She shoveled in the last bite of pancake. “That was great. You know that T-shirt, Life Is Short, Eat Dessert First? What else have you got around here?”

  “Marla, I have to make sure I really do have enough crab cakes, even if Billie adds another fifty people to her hundred and fifty guests—”

  “So, make your sauce gribiche, then keep going on the crab cakes, give me the first one to taste, and I’ll tell you whether it has too much salt, that kind of thing.”

  “I try to put in somewhat less salt than a dish might need, then—”

  “There you go getting technical again. You want to hear my news or not? You’re going to like it. The first part has to do with Doc Finn and your godfather. The second is incredibly juicy, and has to do with this wedding you’re doing tomorrow.”

  I hauled out industrial-size jars of mayonnaise, bulbs of fresh garlic, and other things I would chop to go into the sauce.

  “Uh,” I said to Marla, with her dubious cardiac history, “maybe you shouldn’t be having this.”

  Marla tsked. “Okay, remember I was having that fund-raiser for the church at my place last night?”

  “How could I forget? It was just dessert, right?”

  “Oh, hell no. Well, actually, I thought it was just dessert, but then somebody called and said did I remember it was snacks and dessert? Think, light dinner, heavy dessert. I don’t know. And I cursed and said I didn’t have any snacks, and she said to just put out what I had. Well, I didn’t have enough wine to serve thirty people, and I did have cheese for an appetizer, but I didn’t have more than twenty crackers, that’ll teach me. But! I did have a case of hundred and ten proof vodka, which I could serve either neat or as martinis. Plus, I had lots of olives. Nut-stuffed olives, pimento-stuffed olives, kalamata olives, you name it. And when people haven’t had dinner but only have olives and vodka? You get great gossip.”

  “I hope nobody was driving.”

  “No, Goldy, they all walked to my house and then stumbled home. For crying out loud! One of the perks of this little event is that I had the car service again, in case people needed to be ferried to and fro. I’d forgotten the wine and appetizers, but I’d remembered the cars. You can’t have everything.”

  “Marla—”

  She heaved a voluminous sigh. “Are you going to let me tell my story or not?” When I said nothing, she went on, “You know Lucas Carmichael?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  Marla’s ears perked up. “Why unfortunately?”

  I tried to make myself sound nonchalant. “He just doesn’t like me.”

  Marla cocked a knowing eyebrow. “He’s jealous of how much love, attention, and money Jack’s lavished on you.”

  I sighed. “’Fraid so.”

  “Well. You know Lucas’s ex-wife Paula is an attorney?”

  “Yeah. Down in Denver?”

  “Yup.”

  “Then why was she at—?”

  Marla held up her hand. “Paula has kept her membership at St. Luke’s, which was the reason she was at the fund-raising shindig. She even told me it’s her way of keeping tabs on wealthy potential clients. After three martinis and only a couple of olives, what Paula also told me is that she’s still unbelievably pissed at having to pay spousal support to mousey little Lucas. But if she has to dish out dough, she can also dish dirt, eh? And check this out: now she does prenuptial agreements exclusively. She didn’t do one for herself, but now, oh, man! The irony!”

  I couldn’t imagine where this was going, but I’d already been bawled out enough by Marla for interrupting that I just printed out my recipe for the crab cakes, and began spooning mayonnaise into glass measuring cups.

  “Yesterday, Paula had a hard day in the trenches trying to keep money away from grasping potential spouses,” Marla went on. “Or at least so she said. I’m telling you, she kept slinging back dirty vodka martinis so fast, she was like the Before poster for Alcoholics Anonymous. I even told her to take it easy, and you know I never do that. She laughed and said she wanted to get her money’s worth, five hundred dollars a person for new cabinets for the church kitchen? And no dinner for the donors? Well, she was pissed, in every sense of the word.”

  “Marla—”

  “I’m getting there, Goldy, hold on to your gearshift. Okay, you know how we ex-wives occasionally are weak enough to sleep with our ex-husbands?”

  “Not among my finest moments after kicking out the Jerk,” I admitted.

  “Nor mine,” Marla agreed. “But anyway, Lucas and Paula got all intimate a couple of weeks ago, and Lucas confided that he’d been hoping Paula would not be having to pay alimony to him much longer.”

  “He’d been hoping?”

  “Yup.” Marla raised an eyebrow. “He’d asked Jack if he could have his inheritance, or part of it, early. But Jack said no. It seems Lucas was quite bitter, in spite of just having scored free sex.”

  “Nice talk. Good thing Arch is out of earshot.”

  Marla waved this away. “Anyway, according to Paula, your dear godfather Jack had not only told Lucas he couldn’t have any money now, Jack was also thinking of changing his will completely. Changing it, that is, so that Lucas was cut out, I should add. And the proponent of the change, according to Lucas? Dr. Harold Finn.”

  “Doc Finn?”

  “One and the same. Doc Finn went to Duke University Medical School, and apparently he’d convinced Jack to stop in Durham after one of their drinking-and-fishing trips back East.”

  “I knew this,” I said. “Jack told me about the trip, that he almost got eaten alive by mosquitoes.”

  “Did he tell you the med school wined and dined him? Did he tell you the powers that be promised him that if he donated twenty million to the school, they’d name a building after him?”

  “No. But I’m not sure I believe all this, or even any of it. There’s no way Jack has twenty million dollars. Jack and Lucas don’t always get along, and this sounds like some joke Jack is playing on his son.”

  “You think?” Marla looked around the kitchen. “Any chance of some espresso? If I’m going to think, I need some. I might have had one or two too many martinis myself. Plus, I’ve got such a damn headache, my cranium feels as if it’s been splitting rocks all night.”

  Shaking my head, I dutifully fixed my friend a double espresso. I knew Jack had enough money to live comfortably. But I simply could not believe he h
ad twenty million smackers squirreled away somewhere. Otherwise, why buy a house that needed to be gutted and redone? Why not just buy a new place in Flicker Ridge, plus a house in, I don’t know, Belize or someplace, for the snowy months?

  Finally I said, “Sounds to me as if my godfather just wanted to stop Lucas from asking for money. I think he was also pulling his son’s leg.”

  “I voiced those very sentiments to Paula. She shrugged. She’d told Lucas the same thing, but he was disconsolate. First, he was pissed that Jack would even have twenty mil that he hadn’t shared with his own young whippersnapper—”

  “He sent him to physician’s assistant school,” I inserted.

  “And second, that he would even think about leaving it to, as Lucas put it, some stupid med school.”

  “Oh, dear. Sounds as if Lucas is still bitter that he didn’t go to med school.”

  “But wait,” Marla said after slurping some coffee. “It seems young Lucas’s main beef was not with his father, but with Doc Finn. According to Paula, after she and Lucas had their roll in the hay a couple of weeks ago, it was all Lucas talked about—how much he hated Doc Finn.”

  No. I just wouldn’t admit to the sickening possibility that was turning my gut.

  “So I was thinking I should tell you,” Marla concluded.

  I sighed and looked out the window over the sink.

  There had been the nighttime call from Southwest Hospital that had summoned Doc Finn. But before he’d gotten there, his car had landed in a ravine. Perhaps he’d been hit from behind?

  Then somebody had traipsed down into that ravine, and killed the old doctor.

  I said, “I’d better call Tom.”

  11

  Tom still wasn’t answering his cell phone, but a helpful person at the sheriff’s department informed me he’d just left to run some errands. After that, he’d said, he was going to come home for a few hours.

  I looked at the clock. It was just after two. If Tom was only coming home for a little bit, that meant he and his team were going to be working late, very late, and he wanted to give me the bad news in person. Or maybe it was something else; I didn’t know. Still. Usually when there was a fresh homicide, Tom worked the case almost continually for at least forty-eight hours.