Chopping Spree

by Diane Mott Davidson

  “Nothing!”

  Surprise, surprise. “Let’s go. We can—”

  “Oh, wait.” She picked up the gun and pointed it at the toilet. I peered at the battered metal door. A manila envelope had been taped to it. Manila envelopes, Barry’s old trademark. Ellie quick-stepped toward it. Reluctantly, I followed.

  “This says, ‘Evidence is inside’!” she cried in dismay, as she noisily ripped the packet off the door. “Dammit!” Wrenching the door open with her free hand, she stuck her head inside. A second later, she stepped closer to get a better look.

  Then she shouted and disappeared.

  “Ellie!” I cried, scrambling toward the toilet. “Ellie!”

  “Goldy!” Was she struggling with somebody? My whole body was braced, hoping against hope not to hear a gunshot. “Goldy!” Her voice sounded as if she was at the bottom of a chasm. “There’s no floor in here! Don’t step inside! It’s just all… blech!”

  “Ellie!” I was at the toilet door, which I swung open recklessly, concerned only about Ellie. I looked inside. The smell was unbelievable. I could not see her. “Ellie?” I wailed. “Where are you?”

  “I’m waving at you.”

  I saw only blackness. I blinked and squinted. It didn’t help.

  Ellie’s voice said, “I’d guess I’m about eight feet down. It’s an extra large tank that the school bought to save money.”

  I didn’t say, But what happened to the damn toilet? What happened to the floor? Instead, I told Ellie: “Wait. I’m going to go bang on the headmaster’s door. He’ll be able to call for help.”

  Before she could reply, I skidded back in the direction of the walkway. Five, ten minutes at the most, I would have her out of there.

  Then I heard a car… but saw no headlights. The car sounded as if it was slowly winding up the school driveway, approaching the lot. Was it possible that it was Tom? Could he have received my message? I doubted it.

  And where were the car’s lights? Why would you drive around in the dark without lights?

  “Somebody’s coming!” I croaked.

  “Oh, no! They said to come alone! They don’t know you’re here!” Her voice was getting hysterical. “Goldy!”

  I watched carefully. I finally made out a vehicle that had almost reached the parking lot. One of the lights along the driveway briefly revealed it as a small four-wheel-drive vehicle. It was not Tom.

  Ellie had been lured here, and she’d stepped into a trap. My instinct told me whoever this was approaching in that dark car wasn’t here to help. I skittered back to the portable toilet and pulled the door completely open.

  “OK, pay attention,” I called into the darkness. “Do you have your cell phone?”

  “Yeah.” Her voice was hoarse. “And the pistol.”

  “Press a button on your cell phone so I can at least see a little light. I need to know where you are.”

  A tiny square of green glowed a foot out of reach. In the sickly light, I could just make out Ellie’s face.

  “Hand me the gun!” I commanded. Not that that would do much good. The two times I’d been with Tom at target practice, I’d completely missed the paper man with the concentric circles around his heart. But I knew how to ease off a safety. And I knew how to make a lot of noise.

  I lowered myself to my knees, then lay flat. Ignoring the stench, I inched forward until my shoulders were over the pit. There were sloshing sounds as Ellie moved below. The car roared into the lot.

  The stench was horrific, the air frigid. I took shallow breaths while reaching for the pistol, which Ellie pressed into my hand. Once I had it, I eased upright.

  “Whoever got me to come here isn’t expecting you,” she warned desperately.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said as I scrambled to my feet. I hid most of my body around the far corner of the portable toilet, and only stuck my head out far enough to see the parking lot. The small four-wheel-drive was slowly circling Ellie’s car. “I need you to yell for help!” I commanded Ellie.

  “Help!” Ellie shrieked obediently. “Help!”

  Far down in the lot, the vehicle stopped. It idled by Ellie’s car. Were any of its windows open? I couldn’t tell.

  “Again!” I whispered.

  Ellie screamed, “Help! Come and get me! Help!”

  Moments later, the driver-side door of the new SUV swung open. A figure in a long, hooded coat emerged. Tall? Short? Fat? Thin? Impossible to tell from way up on the field. Whoever it was cast a glance up at the portable toilet and headed across the lot toward the path.

  “Do a man’s voice,” I urged, “like you’re coming to help!”

  “OK, Ellie,” she bellowed in a surprisingly convincing bass, “I’ll be right there!”

  “Me, too!” I hollered. Then I held the gun out and fired. One, two, three shots exploded.

  The figure froze and glanced up.

  “I think I got him, Ellie!” Ellie’s bass voice boomed out from the toilet tank like a whale’s. “He’s not going to bother you!”

  I let out a high cackle and fired another shot. The figure trotted back to its car, hopped in, and gunned the motor to get away.

  I put the safety back on the pistol and stood stock-still, shivering uncontrollably. It wasn’t from the cold.

  After a moment, I called down to Ellie, “Our visitor’s gone.” Ellie began to cry. “OK,” I said, with a matter-of-factness I wasn’t sure I was feeling. “Let’s rescue you! How are you doing?”

  “I don’t know whether it’s worse to freeze your butt off or be asphyxiated!” she sobbed. “Please, please, get me out of here!”

  I peered into the darkness, and tried to come up with some idea of how to rescue Ellie. The wind had picked up again, and my eyes began to tear.

  “OK!” I called. “I’m going to go get the headmaster!”

  “No!” she yelled. “That’ll take forever! You know that lacrosse bag? It had a pocket knife in it—”

  I squinted at the upended athletic bag. OK, got it. I set the gun down, then moved quickly over the ice and snow. I rummaged through the bag’s detritus, and finally closed my freezing fingers around a Swiss Army knife. I gasped out steam and moved to one of the lacrosse goals, where I sliced, chopped, and hacked to free the net from its moorings. Once I had an armful of netting, I closed the knife and hustled back to the portable toilet. There I twisted the white nylon into a makeshift rope and tossed one end down to Ellie.

  Gripping the jerry-rigged line, she climbed up as I tugged with every iota of strength I possessed. I groaned and strained, but kept pulling until Ellie heaved herself up from the pit. Once out, she gasped for mouthfuls of clean air.

  We hobbled back down to Ellie’s car. Ellie’s coat, clothes, and boots smelled terrible. She stripped down to her underwear in the bitter wind and jumped into one of her daughter’s spare sweatsuits. Shivering and crying, she revved the engine to drive me home.

  CHAPTER 13

  On the way back to my house, Ellie calmed down, and we talked in earnest. Yes, someone had deliberately lured her to that field and that hole. Yes, she was in danger. When she left me off at home, she promised to take Cameron out of school and stay someplace safe, “until this whole thing blows over.” She would call both Marla and me when she was settled, and give us her number. And yes, she had to let the cops know where she was, too.

  “Thank you so much for coming tonight,” she said. Her voice quavered, and her face was still pale with worry. “Oh, Goldy, I’m so sorry—”

  “It’s OK. Take care of yourself, Ellie. And don’t forget to let me know where you and Cameron are.”

  Tom was putting on his boots when I stomped through the front door. “Miss G., I just got your message. What happened?”

  I gave him an abbreviated version of the night’s events, then begged to take a shower. He said he would call the sheriff’s department to examine the toilet and lacrosse field. It might or might not be attempted murder, he added somberly, but we were definitely looking at cr
iminal mischief. Technically, the lacrosse field was a crime scene. Great, I thought, as I stumbled up to steaming hot water and lots and lots of soap. Now Arch was really going to love me and be more polite.

  Some time later, I snuggled up next to Tom’s warm body. His smooth, pine-scented skin felt heavenly.

  “The dogs are in with Arch,” he whispered.

  “I know. I told him it was OK. You know how he loves dogs. And at least Late isn’t howling. He must feel protected by Arch and Jake.” Tom was silent. “Why am I talking about a basset hound?” I said. “I just rescued a friend from a frozen toilet tank, for crying out loud!”

  Tom’s laugh shook the bed. He enclosed me in a bear hug, then planted a passionate kiss on my neck. And that was just the beginning.

  Lovemaking, like food, can be wonderfully healing.

  Wednesday morning, an even stronger icy wind battered the house and shrieked through the trees. Brilliant pink clouds shone along the eastern horizon. I’d lived in Colorado too long not to know this was a winter storm front announcing itself. I made French toast for Tom and Arch. While Tom was rinsing the dishes, Arch offhandedly lifted his shirt to show me his tattoo.

  “All the lacrosse guys have ‘em,” he explained. “And sometimes they come in handy in identifying corpses, Tom told me.”

  “Arch, please. A mom would like to start the day knowing her son is focusing on school, not corpses.”

  “Oh!” he said, brightening. “That reminds me. Todd is going to pierce my ear so I can wear one gold earring.”

  My stomach turned over. “Please, Arch. Please don’t pierce your ear.” I was suddenly desperate for another espresso. “Isn’t it time for you guys to take off?” I asked, trying not to sound exasperated.

  “Yup!” Tom said with cheer, as he put on his jacket and Arch hoisted his backpack.

  “Don’t you want your lacrosse equipment, buddy?” I asked. Then I remembered that they’d be missing a goal, the one I’d hacked to pieces. Plus, the snow-covered field was about to be turned into a crime scene.

  Arch sighed. “There’s no lacrosse today. You’re one of the moms taking us on the field trip to dissect a cadaver at Lutheran Hospital. Don’t you remember?” I rubbed my forehead, baffled. “You were going to pick up Todd and me and a couple of other guys in the parking lot at four. Are you still going to be able to do it, or should Todd call his mom to take over?” His tone said that he suspected I would once again let him down.

  “I will be there,” I promised through clenched teeth.

  As Tom hustled Arch out the door, I pulled myself a triple shot of espresso and took a long sip. Heavenly. Before starting to cook, though, I turned my attention to the animals. I brought Jake’s and Scout’s bowls in from the deck, filled them with food and water, and put the dishes back outside. On the deck, I stared down in confusion at two of my Minton bone china bowls, now crusted with dog food and ice. Arch had either ignored or forgotten the bag from Darlene, and had poured some of Jake’s food into my expensive china bowls to feed the puppy. Shaking my head, I filled the china bowls with soapy water, then reached into the grocery bag from Darlene that held Late’s dishes.

  I pulled out one, then the other. When I felt tape on the dish bottoms, I casually turned each over, then gaped at them in disbelief. When I recovered, I put them down carefully and filled some old bowls of ours with more of Jake’s food for Barry’s puppy. When all the dishes were outside, I called the animals. Scout was, as usual, no place to be seen, but Jake and Late came bounding over and began gobbling.

  Back inside, I put in a call to Darlene Petrucchio. I kept staring at the two dishes she’d given me. They both looked as if she’d hastily applied masking tape to them, then penned in the name.

  “Darlene!” I said when she picked up. “It’s Goldy Schulz—”

  “It ain’t even eight in the morning! I don’t wanna hear what you gotta say! I ain’t takin’ that hound back!”

  “Darlene, please. This is very important. Did Barry Dean tell you to write the puppy’s name on the bottom of these two dishes?”

  “What? Lemme get some coffee.”

  I waited, then asked her my question again.

  “Yeah, yeah, he told me to write the name just the way he spelt it. He said tape it on the dishes before I gave you the puppy. I said, ‘Why don’t you do it yourself?’ He just laughed. He said he couldn’t spell. And I said, ‘No kidding.’ He also said you’d get a kick out of it.”

  “Hold on a sec. So has this always been the puppy’s name?”

  “No, no, no,” Darlene corrected me. “Barry was going to call him Honey Boy or Honey Hound, something like that. But those sounded too girly, you know? Or maybe it reminded him of his old dogs, I don’t know. So we just called the puppy Puppy. Until Monday afternoon when he called. He said jes’ to put that name on. He said he knew the spelling was wrong. But I should just write it the way he spelt it, and tape it onto those bowls. So I did.”

  I thanked her and hung up, troubled. The dogs had finished eating, and were eager to come in from the cold. I settled them in their pet condo and washed and dried their dishes. Then I studied Darlene’s block letters, penned in blue ballpoint on masking tape.

  I thought Barry had named the hound Late. But staring up at me from both dishes was the word LATTE. Latte, the coffee drink.

  So. Was this a joke? Or was this Barry’s little good-bye puzzle to me?

  What had Barry and I had in common? Psych class. A love of dogs. Coffee.

  Barry hadn’t been a very good boyfriend to either Ellie or Pam—at least, not in my opinion. But he’d been a regular old good friend to me once, and we’d drunk a lot of coffee together. So was Barry saying, Take care of my dog, and you’ll love him since he’s named after a coffee drink? I supposed so.

  It wasn’t much, and it was sappy to boot. But it made me cry anyway.

  At eight, the phone rang. To my surprise, it was Rob Eakin, now acting manager of Westside Mall.

  “Sorry to be calling so early,” he apologized. He sounded hurried. “I’m in early, trying to get a million things straightened out.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  I heard him take a deep breath. “We’re postponing the Prospective Tenants’ Lunch,” he said timidly. “Ah, indefinitely. When there’s a crime in a mall, potential lessees get cold feet,” he rushed on. “Half of the prospective tenants who were coming to the lunch have already canceled. We’re expecting the rest to be no-shows. And with the drainage problem still delaying completion of the addition, we don’t have much to show folks who might want to locate here. Frankly, we can’t take the chance of turning them off permanently.”

  My heart plummeted. I tried to take a yoga cleansing breath and ended up gasping. The twenty pounds of aged prime rib in my side-by-side would last two, three days at the most. I could freeze it, of course. However, the chances of finding another client with the same menu were slim.

  There was something that worried me more, however. With mall traffic down because of Barry’s unsolved death, and with construction on the much-touted addition delayed, would Rob Eakin expect a refund for the Tenants’ Lunch? By contract, of course, the money was mine, and we were talking over a thousand dollars. Despite my new prosperity, this was not a sum I could afford to see disappear, especially since I’d already spent most of it on Arch’s trashed guitar.

  “You’re going to, I mean, do you have another date—”

  Rob Eakin sniffed. “We’re sorry to be canceling within twenty-four hours of the event. But you’ll have all that food left over that you can use elsewhere, not to mention a whole day off, courtesy of the labor cost we’ve already paid for.” He cleared his throat, and a voice in the back of my head snarled, Hang up on this dolt right now. But I didn’t, and Rob Eakin raised his voice. “We’d like to rely on your honor and have you refund us seventy-five percent of our payment.”

  “Mr. Eakin. I have also paid for that food. In the labor department, my staff
will expect to be paid, whether they show up or not.” I inhaled to steady myself. “Goldilocks’ Catering pays its bills for food and labor. We don’t want to get a reputation for reneging on our commitments. In fact, we have an excellent reputation for servicing the best-heeled clients in both Furman County and Denver. Perhaps you’ve seen some of the articles about us in the newspapers.” When all else fails, threaten media exposure. Especially in the Mountain Journal.

  Rob Eakin hesitated. “Barry did tell me you’d been in the news. We… don’t want you to speak negatively of us.” Bingo.

  “Oh, no,” I replied hastily. “Never.”

  “We’re… actually thinking of doing a big Fourth of July event. When the mall addition is finally open.”

  “Fourth of July?” Nobody wants prime rib on the Fourth; they want barbecue. Besides, a three-month stay in my freezer would burn that beef to toast. And did Westside’s management really think the addition wouldn’t be done until summer?

  “Look, Mrs. Schulz.” Eakin’s voice indicated he was backtracking, hopefully the length of his entire frigging mall. “I… I promise you’ll be the caterer for our next event.”

  That sounded fair to me, I said. I thanked Eakin and hung up.

  I frowned at the marble counter, trying to think. Yes, the full payment from Westside had been deposited, and yes, I had all this food left over, but I didn’t like having a big event canceled, even if the cancellation wasn’t my fault. I wondered if it was possible that Westside had canceled for a reason other than the one Rob Eakin had given. Maybe the new mall management didn’t want to have anything more to do with Goldilocks’ Catering, what with my assistant jailed on suspicion of murdering their manager.

  The phone rang again.

  “It’s Ellie,” my friend announced.

  “Are you OK?”

  She sighed. “Cameron and I are at the Westside Suites. You know it?”

  “Yes.” The Westside Suites, not far from Westside Mall, were the closest thing to a luxury hotel that Furman County offered. “You called the police, I take it?”