I loaded a tray with ice and liquor bottles. Perhaps I could ask a few questions that would help Marla find out what was going on with that mine. Then again, maybe I was just being nosy.
As soon as the hors d’oeuvres and drinks were well in hand, I advised Arch to take a break. He had just poured himself a soft drink when Marla popped into the kitchen.
Sugar-Snap Pea and Strawberry Salad
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons raspberry vinegar
¼ teaspoon Dijon mustard
¼ pound (1 cup) sugar-snap peas, including pods, strings removed
1 pound (4 cups) ripe strawberries, thickly sliced
Combine the oil, vinegar, and mustard in a small bowl; whisk thoroughly and set aside. Steam the sugar-snap peapods for 30 seconds or until bright green but still crunchy. Remove them from the heat, drain, then quickly run cold water over them to stop the cooking, and drain again. Combine the sugar-snaps with the sliced strawberries. Whisk the dressing again and drizzle over the peapods and strawberries. Serve immediately or chill for no more than one hour.
Serves 4.
“Hey, guys!” Her cheeriness seemed forced, and her complexion was splotched. She was wearing a shiny royal blue Princess Di sort of dress, only she looked more like a young Queen Mother. “These abstract paintings destroy my appetite,” she grumped. “Why can’t the Trotfields at least buy a few Warhol soup cans?”
“Oh, stop it,” I said. “Go have fun with the guests.”
She made a face. “Oh, sure. The cops have been around questioning all the Prospect clients, and nearly everyone here tonight has invested with Prospect, as you probably know. Did we know this about Albert Lipscomb, do we know that? Tonight we’ll hear everyone’s theories on what really happened to Albert. Sort of a replay of last month, when I had to endure everybody’s theories on what happened to Victoria. Was she depressed, was she a bad driver, was she forced off the road, did she have car problems?” She lowered her voice. “Tony says the clients don’t know about the missing three and a half mil yet, so mum’s the word, Goldy. The clients suspect Albert took a wad of dough, though. And not a word tonight about the mine. Tony’s in his act-normal mode. It’s boring as hell.” I muttered a silent curse. So much for sneakily questioning the guests. Marla winked at Arch and said, “Hey, guy, got any chocolate? I’m desperate.”
Arch laughed. “You haven’t even had dinner yet.”
I poured tiny amounts of glistening olive oil into two wide frying pans. “What’s the act-normal mode?”
Marla scowled. “Oh, don’t get me started on Tony and how he’s repressing his hysteria. I used to think he needed me. Now I think he needs an IV full of Demerol, a straitjacket, and a padded cell. Thorazine. I’m so tired of the man I could spit.”
Plantation Pilaf
3 tablespoons olive oil
8 ounces (1¼ cups) onion, halved and very thinly sliced
3 garlic cloves, pressed
1¼ cups rice
2 cups homemade low-fat chicken stock (recipe is in KILLER PANCAKE,) or use 2 cups canned chickerr broth
¾ cup tomato juice
¼ cup dry sherry
¾ teaspoon paprika
½ teaspoon salt
1 quart water
1 tablespoon Old Bay seasoning
24 medium or large raw “Easy-Peel” shrimp (8 to 10 ounces of frozen raw shrimp)
1 cup canned pineapple chunks, thoroughly drained and patted dry on paper towels
1 cup frozen baby peas
In a nonstick skillet, heat 1 tablespoon olive oil over medium heat. Add onions and cook until they are translucent. Add garlic, stir, and lower heat. Cook very briefly, only until garlic is also translucent. Do not brown the onions or the garlic.
In another wide skillet, heat the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium heat. Add rice and sauté until golden brown. Add cooked onions and garlic, stock, tomato juice, sherry, paprika, and salt. Cover the pan and cook 20 to 30 minutes, or until juices are absorbed.
While the rice is cooking, bring the quart of water to a boil. Add the Old Bay seasoning and the shrimp. Cook just until the shrimp has turned pink. Drain immediately and discard seasoned water. Do not overcook the shrimp. Peel, devein, and set the shrimp aside until the rice is cooked. Remove the cover from the rice and add the shrimp, pineapple, and peas. Raise the heat to medium and cook, stirring, until the peas are just cooked and the mixture is heated through. Serve immediately.
Serves 4.
“Well, don’t do that,” I said as I shook the pan of sautéing onions. They sizzled invitingly. “Listen, Marla. There’s something I need to ask you …” But what was it the general had said? I inhaled the rich scent of caramelizing onions and tried to remember.
“When am I getting rid of Tony? The sooner the better.”
“Marla, please.” I showered grains of rice into the remaining pans. On the other side of the kitchen. Arch was banging cupboard doors open and shut. “Oh, yes. General Farquhar was wondering if you knew the fellow who did the geology for the Eurydice. He also said to ask you about environmental statements. You know, like inspections of the mine.”
Marla’s face wrinkled in puzzlement. “Why does he want to know? He’s a right-winger, he doesn’t give a damn about the environment.” When I shrugged, she exhaled impatiently. “Tell him they don’t do an environmental impact statement when they’re reopening a mine. And ask him why he cares, anyway, okay?”
“Chocolate-covered jelly beans,” Arch announced triumphantly. He held up a glass candy jar that he’d somehow uncovered in one of the Trotfields’ cabinets. “Want some? Wait, let me check the ingredients.”
“You’ve trained your son well,” Marla remarked with a wink.
“Marla,” I said, “don’t eat candy. Please. What in the world am I fixing a lowfat pilaf for if you’re going to snack before dinner?”
Arch frowned as he read from the jar’s label of contents. “Uh-oh. Artificial food coloring. Just a second, there it is. Yellow No. 5.”
Marla raised her eyebrows. “Maybe Tony would be more willing to break up with me if I broke out in hives.”
I sighed. Tony called Marla from the other room, and she disappeared. The rice sputtered with the garlic and onions as I drizzled dry sherry, tomato juice, and homemade chicken stock over it. I gently swirled the ingredients and put on the cover. Cocktail refill time. For the guests, that is.
While I poured drinks in the living room, Edna Hardcastle declared to the other guests that Albert Lipscomb must be in Argentina. That’s where all criminals ended up, she maintained. Whit Hardcastle overruled his wife. She must be thinking of Colombia. Tony Royce somberly told them that the police thought Albert was in California. This prompted Sandy Trotfield, a slender, strawberry-blond fellow who wore a collar-less cotton shirt and designer pedal pushers, to observe loudly that he thought California was where all criminals ended up. He guffawed while the guests laughed uneasily, Marla rolled her eyes at me.
I joined Arch in the kitchen. Friendship notwithstanding, Sandy Trotfield had called Albert’s office not once but twice this past Monday morning, presumably over possible problems with the mine assays. Now that Albert had absconded, though, Sandy appeared oddly blustery. Why would you be in a panic one day, and be making forced jokes about your money manager’s disappearance four days later? It didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Then again, maybe Sandy Trotfield was just a jerk.
The Trotfields’ calendar was posted on the side of the refrigerator, and I surreptitiously looked it over while drinking a glass of bubbly water. Sandy had flown to Johannesburg a month ago, stayed five days, and come back. Three weeks ago he’d flown to Puerto Vallarta and stayed for another five days before returning. He was off for Rio tomorrow and would be back next week. Apparently pilots with rich wives managed to worry about their money, recover, laugh about it over spinach hors d’oeuvre, and then take off for extensive globe-trotting without a blink.
> The doorbell pealed softly. Mrs. Trotfield had greeted her guests herself, so I felt no compunction to answer it. Arch didn’t even hear the bell. He was listening to the Walkman he’d borrowed from Macguire while rocking unrhythmically but enthusiastically in front of the cookbook shelves. Suddenly he tore the earphones off his head.
“Receipts?” he cried as he reached for one of the books. “What’s a book of receipts doing in with Julia Child and all that?”
I said, “Let me have a look,” as the doorbell rang again. Why, indeed, would the Trotfields have a money book inserted between the food volumes? My heart sank, though, when Arch handed me a green publication entitled Charleston Receipts. “Oh, honey,” I said as I flipped through the famous Junior League cookbook, “this kind of receipt means recipe—” I stopped talking as the book fell open to the title page. A handwritten inscription read: “For my new friends Sandy and Amanda Trotfield, from an adopted Charlestonian! Best regards, Albert Lipscomb.”
Hmm. The Citadel, I remembered, was in Charleston, South Carolina. More significant, though, was the fact that the Trotfields and Albert were not just friends, but new friends. How new; and what would they do for a new friend?
The doorbell rang again. I flipped the cookbook closed and peered out the window over the sink. It had started to rain again. All I could see through the curtain of wetness was a line of fancy cars and four other Arnold Palmer Avenue houses. When the bell chimed the third time, I had come out to refill the platters on the buffet. The glistening, ruby-colored pilaf steamed invitingly and the guests ooh-ed. Ding-dong, a fourth impatient ring through the loud riffs of Dave Brubeck’s Take Five. The rat-a-tat-tat of precipitation on the fashionable blue tin roof was so loud, Mrs. Trotfield had turned up her stereo.
I retrieved the smooth, pink raspberry mousse pies from the refirigerator. When I started to whip the cream, I tapped my electric mixer against the side of the steel bowl in time with Gene Krupa’s Maori-inspired drumbeat, which filtered through speakers the Trotfields had installed above the custom-made maple cabinets. Unfortunately, the doorbell rang again as I was starting to spoon heaping mounds of cream on each pie. Whoever was at the door was not going away. Amanda Trotfield, a slender, fortyish woman with translucent skin and black hair spiked outward in a fashionable punk, appeared in the kitchen. She announced that everyone was here who was supposed to be here, that the ice was just getting broken, metaphorically speaking, and would I please get rid of whoever was at the door? She wanted her guests to enjoy their expensive food.
“It’s probably FedEx,” she hissed in my ear, “with some more stuff from Jeppesen for my husband.” When I looked confused, she explained, “Maps. But he’s also ordered a load of information on diamond mining in South Africa. If the guy rings again, would you get it? The security’s off.” So when the chime tolled for the umpteenth time, I marched out to answer it.
It wasn’t FedEx. It was the police. One cop was a towering, muscled redhead. The other was slimmer, with an acne-scarred face and jet-black hair above a receding hairline. They wore plain clothes, but their sheriff’s department vehicle, invisible from the kitchen window, was pulled conspicuously perpendicular to the Trotfields’ crowded driveway. No one from this party was getting on Arnold Palmer Avenue without these cops’ say-so. “Mrs. Schulz?”
A familiar, chilly trickle of fear shot through me. “Tom. It’s Tom, isn’t it? Something’s wrong. What’s happened?” I cursed myself for not answering the insistent ringing earlier.
The short fellow, whose wiry black hair had been severely pomaded down to conform to his missile-shaped head, frowned. “No, nothing’s wrong, we’re just here to talk. Ask a few questions about—”
“About what?”
“Mrs. Schulz, please,” said the big redhead, looking uncomfortable. I laughed as relief swept over me. Of course! This had something to do with the Trotfields. Maybe one of the neighbors had complained about all the cars.
“Yes,” I said to the two policemen. “I’m sorry. Let me go get Mrs. Trotfield.” Then I hesitated. After all, I was the caterer: I had a professional obligation to protect this party. “Her guests are almost through their entrée … any chance you could come back later?”
“We’re here to see you,” rasped the redhead. His eyes bulged. “Just to ask a few questions, Mrs. Schulz. Would it be possible for us to see you someplace private? For maybe ten minutes? Someplace where it isn’t raining?” The downpour had soaked through his dark windbreaker.
My concern about Tom turned to disbelief. The last thing I needed at this moment was another disrupted party and a disgruntled client.
“Are you serious? Can’t this wait?” I hissed indignantly. “Please? Do you know who my husband is? I can come down to the department tomorrow. I’ll answer all the questions you want then.”
“We know who you are and it can’t wait,” replied the black-haired man grimly. “It’s about Albert Lipscomb.”
Tom’s words: Shockley’s put himself personally in charge of the investigation, I took a steadying breath. “Let’s get into the kitchen, then.” I opened the door. “Please come quickly before any of the guests see you.”
They followed me into the foyer, where to my annoyance, they stopped to take in their surroundings. I felt a prickle of impatience. Before I met Tom, I’d heartily disliked the police. Perhaps my misgivings about the sheriff’s department had developed from the fact that when I was deeply bruised and even more deeply depressed, the cops had been unwilling or unable to lock up the Jerk and toss the key to his cell over the Continental Divide. After the divorce, I’d realized that law enforcement folks, unfortunately, don’t have a whole lot of power in domestic disputes unless someone is killed. Marrying Tom and going through the harrowing experience of having him kidnapped by a would-be killer, I’d also come to realize how dangerous his work with the department could be, and how steadfastly most cops carried out their responsibilities. So my attitude had done a complete turnaround. Nevertheless, in the presence of these two men who now stood brushing raindrops off their clothes in the Trotfields’ art-filled foyer, I couldn’t shake my old feeling of discomfort.
“Excuse me, but before we go any further, could I see some ID? Quickly?” I asked. I glanced into the living room. No one looked my way.
The portly redhead with the bulging eyes, I learned, was Investigator Hersey. The black-haired fellow with the missile-shaped head was named De Groot. Neither gave any indication that they knew Tom, which for some reason I didn’t take as a good sign. I handed them back their identification cards, then motioned toward the kitchen.
Hersey puffed himself up as if to follow, but De Groot kept his muddy boots planted on the Trotfields’ Oriental runner. He patted his greasy black hair and stared intently at the deep blue canvas that had so puzzled Arch. After a few moments he leaned over and brought his face up close to the painted cigarette image.
“It’s by Robert Motherwell,” I said, still impatient. “It’s—”
“One of his Gauloise paintings,” De Groot said without looking away from the painting. Then he straightened and gave me a deadpan look. “The series he started after The Elegies to the Spanish republic.”
“Do you mind, sir?” I whispered. “Could we please go out to the kitchen? I’m trying to do a job here.” De Groot raised his shaggy black eyebrows. When he didn’t move, I rushed on with: “The Trotfields are very wealthy art collectors. I’ll tell you all about it if you’ll come out to the kitchen and ask your ten minutes worth of questions there.”
De Groot stared straight into my eyes as he said, “Very wealthy like your friend Marla Korman?”
I could feel the color rise in my cheeks. What was going on here? Hersey walked past me into the kitchen. De Groot lifted his pointy chin and swaggered after him. I peeked into the living room. Sandy Trotfield wrinkled his forehead at me and scowled. Doggone it. Caterer caught with cops. I smiled and gave him a thumbs-up, but he looked past me into the foyer, puzzled. If this
inopportune visit from the sheriff’s department ruined this party the way Marla’s fight had wrecked the mine party, I would have Captain Shockley’s head on a platter.
Arch had removed his headphones and was saying, “… Well, she’s my mother,” when I banged through the kitchen door. My son gave me a bewildered look. I asked him to tend to the buffet platters and told him I would be talking to these men for ten minutes or less.
“You know you can’t question a minor without a parent present. What’s the matter with you two?” I demanded angrily once Arch had made a wordless exit. “And what’s so important it can’t wait for me to get home?” Next to the counter where the raspberry pies sat partially decorated and unsliced, De Groot stood at attention. I guessed he wasn’t going to have a go at the Rothko above the kitchen table. Hersey leaned his muscled body against a convection oven. There was a small notebook in one of his meaty hands. For guys who had been in some kind of hurry, they now seemed to have reverted to a designed-to-be-infuriating interrogation technique. Or maybe they were waiting for me to offer them food. It’s not going to happen, guys.
Finally Hersey hauled himself up. “Nothing to worry about, Mrs. Schulz. We just need to ask about an event you catered this past Saturday at the Eurydice Mine. Did you know that was one of the last times anyone saw Albert Lipscomb before his disappearance?”
“No, I guess I didn’t know that,” I replied. I glared at the cops. Maybe I could get information from them. “What do you mean, one of the last times?”
They ignored this. De Groot said, “And your function at the party was what?”
“Tm sure you’re aware I was just the caterer, not a guest. I’d never met most of those people before.” I paused, because I knew they’d want me to clarify that. “Excuse me. The people I knew at the party were Marla Korman, Tony Royce, ah … Eileen Tobey from the bank and … let’s see, the Hardcastles I’ve known for a while and … the Trotfields. Oh yes, and I know Sam Perdue.”
The Main Corpse Page 11