Catering to Nobody (Goldy Schulz Series)

by Diane Mott Davidson

  Schulz stared at Arch. “When you went back out, who asked you for lemonade?”

  “Vonette, I think. We still didn’t have any, so she said, Well, never mind, she’d have coffee.”

  “What was the next thing that happened?” asked Schulz.

  “I went to the bathroom.” Again he looked at me apologetically.

  “Did you see Trixie again?”

  “No, she was gone before I decided to go to the uh, you know. She never even got the Postum.”

  “Know what happened to the hot water?”

  “What hot water?” Arch wrinkled his nose. “Oh, Trixie’s. No.”

  “Then what?”

  “Well, I heard Fritz sort of like moaning. So I came back out to the living room.”

  “Uh-huh. Now this is important, Arch. Was there anyone else around the drinks table when you came out to the kitchen to look for the tea?”

  Arch closed his eyes. “There were lots of people.”

  “Anybody’s face come to mind?”

  Arch thought. He said, “No.”

  “Okay,” said Schulz, “now just a few more questions. Besides Trixie, do you remember your grandfather talking to anyone else?”

  “Vonette, I think. And my dad.”

  “Was Fritz arguing with anyone, anything like that?”

  Arch sighed. “No. Everybody was just talking about Ms. Smiley, saying how nice she was. That it was really weird that she had killed herself because she was such a, you know, funny person. Nobody was arguing.” Arch looked at me from behind his glasses. He lowered his voice. “Except my mom and dad. They were arguing.”

  I groaned and walked over to the cabinet where I’d put the cigarettes, took another one, and lit it.

  “I know about that,” said Investigator Schulz. “Do you know what your mom and dad were arguing about, Arch?”

  Arch looked back at Schulz. “No. My dad had his new girlfriend here. I think that upset my mom. My mom and dad are divorced, you know.”

  “I know.”

  I inhaled deeply on the cigarette and looked through the window at the aspens shaking in the breeze. I imagined dirty laundry hanging out there to air.

  Arch said, “May I go now?”

  “Just one more question, Arch. Do you know if anyone was mad at Fritz? Mad enough to try to make him sick, say?”

  Arch hesitated. “Well, the only person I know who sort of didn’t like Fritz … well, this sounds kind of dumb. I’m really not sure …” He furrowed his forehead and looked at me.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Just tell Mr. Schulz whatever it is.”

  “Well,” Arch said again, “I don’t think Ms. Smiley liked him very much. I don’t think she liked Vonette either.”

  I coughed on the cigarette smoke. This was news to me. I said, “Ms. Smiley? Didn’t like Fritz Korman? Or Vonette? How’d she even know them?”

  Schulz said, “Mrs. Korman. Miss Bear. Goldy. Please.”

  “That’s what I mean,” continued Arch. “I told you it sounded dumb.”

  “Do you know what she was mad about?” asked Schulz.

  “No.”

  “When did she tell you she didn’t like the Kormans?”

  Again Arch closed his eyes. “I can’t remember. I’m not even sure she was the one who told me.”

  Investigator Schulz stood up. “Arch, thanks a lot. You’ve been helpful. I’ll give you a card with my number. You keep it in your pocket. If you think of something else, call me.”

  “My turn?” I asked.

  Investigator Schulz looked at me with those penetrating green eyes. An unexpected and unwanted wave of sexual something rolled over me.

  Schulz said, “You bet. Just begin by telling me if you saw anything suspicious with the food.”

  Before I could begin the long explanation about John Richard’s tomato allergy, one of the uniformed policemen interrupted us.

  “Schulz, you’d better come take a look at this.”

  Tom Schulz stood up and walked out of the kitchen. This reminded me of the many calls John Richard had received at home, always from females in one sort of pain or another, and only rarely, I found out from the hospital, actual patients.

  I shook this off and went out to the living room. The guests had left and two fellows, presumably from the Health Department, were labeling everything and packing the containers into boxes. Schulz was in consultation with his man, their voices lowered.

  Outside I could hear Patty Sue laughing, so I went to investigate. She was seated on a wooden bench next to the cluster of aspens in Laura’s front yard. Next to her was Pomeroy Locraft.

  He was grinning. Seeing him with Patty Sue did not make me feel great. Last spring I had dropped several hints that Pom and Arch and I all go out for pizza or a movie after their worktime. Perhaps I was too subtle. Perhaps Pom was dense, uninterested, or both, which was the way he had acted today. Now he was engaged in a lively conversation with Patty Sue. I had the uncomforting thought that she was at least ten years too young for him.

  I walked in their direction through the long dry grass, which the summer heat had burned to gold. Here and there bushes reduced by the fall sun to thorned sticks snared my stockings. Above, fluffs of cloud sailed across a deep blue sky. The air was thick with the sweet mixed smell of decaying aspen leaves and smoke from a wood fire, probably built during the early morning chill. But the day had turned out warm and beautiful, and the calm was disorienting after the turmoil in the house.

  “Hi, Mom!” yelled Arch from somewhere I couldn’t see.

  “Where are you?” I called back.

  “Here!” he hollered triumphantly from the middle part of a lodgepole pine near the bench. I absolutely hated seeing Arch climb those feeble-branched evergreens. As if in answer to my worries, he let out a shout.

  “Help!” he cried. “I’m falling!”

  I could see his body toppling, hear branches snapping. I was too far away but my feet darted forward anyway.

  With startling swiftness Pomeroy ran to the bottom of the tree, where he caught Arch by the arm and broke his fall. By the time I got to the pine, the two of them were laughing. I was not amused, as this was the second time in one day that I’d come close to coronary arrest worrying about my child’s welfare.

  I said, “Thanks, Pom.” He had handed Arch his glasses and was brushing bits of bark off Arch’s formerly white shirt.

  “It’s okay,” he said, as much to Arch as to me. “Can’t blame a kid for wanting to climb a tree, right?”

  “No,” Arch said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Oh, Arch and I are buddies,” said Pomeroy with that half smile. “Right, bud?”

  Arch nodded and started toward the chokecherry bushes that lined Laura Smiley’s driveway.

  “Thanks for being nice to him,” I said. “Thanks for being a good catcher.”

  “I like kids.”

  “So I see.”

  Pomeroy gave me another embarrassed look—not the pink-red of shyness, but a black-red that glowed from underneath his skin. I could not imagine what was bothering him, so I let it go.

  Pomeroy sat back on the bench, then turned to me and smiled. He had recovered his composure, and the impish smile and splatter of freckles over his pale cheeks gave him the look of a child. But the dark good looks and brown mustache were unmistakably adult, as was the lanky body that spilled over the bench’s slats. His brown eyes held mine, and I could not think of what to say next.

  He said, “Before we were interrupted, Patty Sue here was telling me she can’t drive.”

  “She’s made a few attempts with her father’s pickup, I believe,” I said.

  Patty Sue groaned.

  “I was thinking,” said Pomeroy. “Maybe she could come to one of my driver-ed classes. At the high school.” He gave a slight grin. “There’s not much money from the county for this type of thing, and some of my cars are pretty old, but she could still learn.”

  “Sounds marvelous,�
� I said with false cheer. My ex-husband might have been able to mine the high school faculty for dates. But with Pomeroy stuck on my housemate, it looked as if my chance to find social life from the same place was collapsing with the rapidity of a souffle. Schulz appeared at the end of the driveway and motioned me back down to the house with that thumb.

  I said, “I have to go.”

  “I’ll check on the liability and what not,” Pom called after me. “Are you all free Friday afternoons?”

  I turned around and put my hand on my hip. “What do you need me for?”

  He grinned again, wide and sheepish, and I felt some of the frost in my heart melt. Maybe there was hope. He was still good-looking and single. Perhaps his ability to get along with children, witness the relationship with Arch, was merely extended to Patty Sue.

  He leaned toward me and said, “Somebody’s got to get her a learner’s permit and bring her to the high school.”

  I nodded and traipsed back toward Schulz, who had gone inside.

  “Look familiar?” he said as he pointed to one of my Styrofoam cups. “Don’t touch,” he admonished. “Just peek inside.”

  I did as ordered and saw an almost empty coffee cup with what looked like about twenty little green pellets on the bottom.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  Schulz grinned at me, a wide face-breaker.

  “Miss Goldy,” he began. “Excuse me, Miz. Your business is closed down until further notice. You served this coffee, you’re responsible until I find out otherwise. I wonder if I could come over and ask you some questions tomorrow? I’m a little tied up right now.” He motioned to one of his underlings to come retrieve the cup.

  “For God’s sake,” I protested, “what’s in the cup?”

  He had begun to walk away, but at my question turned back. “Oh,” he said, “you just flunked Detection 101. Dr. Korman drank that coffee, but he didn’t know what was on the bottom. Looks to me like whoever tried to do him in was using rat poison.”

  Saturday ended with a whimper after the day’s bang. When Pomeroy left, I outlined our suddenly disastrous finances to both Patty Sue and Arch. Patty Sue’s rent was her ability to work for the catering business, and without the business both of us would have to do whatever work we could find just to buy groceries and make the November house payment. Arch accepted the suspension of his allowance with a grim silence.

  Even our dinner that night was-a problem. I reminded Patty Sue and Arch of this as we pulled into our driveway. After a job, we usually feasted on leftovers and odds and ends. Now the leftovers were being analyzed down at the Department of Health.

  Arch offered to heat chili in the microwave. I didn’t think things could get a whole lot worse until he pointed to an enormous bouquet of dried flowers on our deck. Damn. One of the arrangements for the funeral or reception had been delivered here by mistake.

  But no. The envelope was addressed to me. Inside was an unsigned message.

  “Don’t worry about Fritz, sweetie pie. He deserves it.”

  CHAPTER 5

  How’d you do it?” my ex-husband demanded over the phone the next morning, Sunday. “Get your dumbass roommate to drop the stuff in? You tell her they were sweetening capsules?”

  “Oh stop,” I said. “Just tell me how Fritz is.”

  “Not until you answer my question.”

  “My roommate is a patient of your father’s,” I reminded him, “and she is living here at your mother’s request. She’s a lovely girl who respects your father, and does not deserve to be maligned by you.”

  He started to yell, and I held the phone away from my ear. It was only seven o’clock, but John Richard and I were both early risers. The first year of our marriage this had meant lovemaking and fresh sweet rolls as strokes of sunlight swept the walls of the house. Later the fights merely started earlier; accusations came at sunrise followed by the recriminations and my learning to dodge the frying pan full of hot bacon and grease.

  In fact, I thought as I looked around the kitchen while still holding the screeching voice at arm’s length, the first thing I had redecorated after he moved out was this room where I now made my living. I slid my foot against the slick black and white tile that had replaced the brick-colored vinyl flooring. The walls and curtains now glowed with a muted red and white checked print. Think of something else, I told myself as John Richard continued to shriek. Breakfast.

  “You there?” the Jerk was saying.

  “If you’re not going to tell me how Fritz is, then I need to fix breakfast,” I said dryly. “Tell me something else, though. Why don’t you ever blow up like this in public? Then people would know why we got divorced. Look. You called me. What do you want, anyway?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “Not a damn thing.” He hung up.

  I rubbed my temples, removed rolls, bacon, and coffee beans from the freezer, and put my mind on the day ahead. Probably the best thing was that the Broncos were due to play Green Bay, which promised to be an easy win. It was good to have the regular season underway. I disliked the preseason, with its mandatory shrinkage of team size. Getting cut was probably a lot like getting divorced.

  During the time before kickoff, I needed to make calls canceling parties and food supplies on order. Talking to the Jerk was like waking up and not being able to shake a nightmare. Even worse, I realized as a sharp pain grabbed my chest, was that the more recent nightmare had come true: my business and I were separated.

  I needed to think. Get things in perspective. For openers, there was figuring out what it was the flower sender thought Fritz deserved. Was the flower sender the rat poisoner? The impending questioning from Schulz was another dark cloud on the day’s emotional horizon. If the Broncos didn’t win, the day would be a complete loss.

  First things first. Patty Sue and Arch were still asleep. I steeled myself to make the first call. It would largely determine the tone of the day.

  “Vonette,” I said brightly to her foggy greeting, “Goldy. Tell me how Fritz is doing.”

  “Just fine, honey. My God, what time is it?” She groped and muttered. “Yeah, Fritz. Can’t imagine what happened to him.”

  I was sorry to awaken her, but it was the only way I could be sure to catch her sober. I said, “How was the hospital? Did they give him anything?”

  “Oh yeah, something. He put up a fuss, good heavens. Don’t know what it was he drank after that funeral. Like D-Kon, they said. Does the same thing, or whatever.”

  “Does what same thing?”

  She yawned. “Causes internal bleeding or such like that. But don’t worry, he’s not bleeding anymore. That stuff hit his ulcer and made him hurt, but he’s fine now. You’re bigger than any old rodent, I told him. It won’t kill you. Goldy, let me call you right back. I need to go make some coffee.”

  I hung up, ground espresso beans, and filled the cappuccino maker. Vonette’s tone was strange. Maybe she was just tired. The machine steamed and gasped. When I was sipping the result, she called back.

  I said, “Is he still sick? Is he upset?”

  “Aw,” she said with a yawn, “he’ll stay home today, watch the game, you know, maybe rest for a couple more days. They wanted him to take it easy for a week and I laughed. Lord, I laughed. You know how important that practice is to him, I told those guys down at Lutheran. No way he’s going to stay in bed for a week. Doctors can be stubborn, I said.”

  “Arch was saying something about how you all had known Laura.”

  “Little Arch,” she said. I could feel her smile come over the phone. “I told Fritz to be sure and speak to him but I don’t think he did. And then all hell broke loose.”

  “Did you and Fritz know Laura Smiley for a long time?”

  A pause. She said, “A long time ago, we knew her.”

  “How?”

  “Oh,” she said, “she kind of worked for us one time. She was a … teacher and then a … a … what do they call it these days? Like a nanny one time. When we went on a vacation
.”

  “When was that?”

  There was a longer silence. “You know, Goldy,” Vonette said, suddenly perplexed, “I don’t want to talk any more right now. I do feel one powerful headache coming on.”

  This was bad news. The effects of chronic headaches on Vonette had led her past aspirin through Darvon, Valium, Librium, and whatever was the latest miracle cure. She occasionally had such pain, she had told me, that Fritz gave her shots of Demerol. This was in addition to the substantial amounts of alcohol she put away on a daily basis. Why she had not died from these combinations long ago was beyond me; I figured she possessed an incredible tolerance for drugs. I heard her gulp something down, and I knew our conversation about Laura was finished, at least for the moment.

  “Let me help out,” I offered. “Let me bring your meals over. I mean,” I added hastily, “if you want.”

  “I would, honey,” she said in a lower tone, “but you know John Richard is just in such a state about that food from yesterday. Lord! What does Goldy have against Fritz, I asked him. Exactly nothing, that’s what.” Another yawn. “I said to John Richard, Well, you know, son, there’s lots of women thought your daddy was a rat.” She giggled. The painkiller was taking effect.

  “Vonette,” I said before the conversation degenerated further, “I’m coming over on Tuesday, and I’m going to bring Fritz some things to eat I know he likes. Okay?”

  She giggled again.

  “You can even test them,” I said, “and I want to visit with you, anyway. Make sure there are no hard feelings with old Fritz.”

  Vonette inhaled. She said, “Goldy, honey. Thanks. That would be sweet. I’ll taste them if you want. Hell, nobody cares if I die. Just kidding, of course. Laura Smiley had that kind of attitude and it did her in, didn’t it? Well, who knows. And you know what else? John Richard will be taking over the whole practice for Fritz for a couple of days anyway, so he won’t be around to bother you. You know.”

  Did I ever. Maybe I should have adopted Marla’s attitude and actively avoided John Richard. My life might have been a lot easier. It would be good to have the son out of the way when I chatted with the mother. Though I hated to use Vonette, I needed information she might have. I didn’t know what in the world was going on. I had to start somewhere.