The Grilling Season (23 page)

Amy considered the green gingham curtains at the front of the store for a long time without replying. Then she said softly, “I believe in the forces of the universe, Goldy. He who has sinned will sin
again. The truth will all come out. You need to trust.”

“I do trust, Amy. But to everyone’s astonishment, John Richard Korman is out on bail. He may come looking for you, want to ask questions, and then lose his temper. It’s the control freak in him. Very predictable. Anyway, I’d feel better if you weren’t alone. Can you get somebody to work in the store with you? At the very least, keep the phone handy in case you have to dial 911.” I reached out for her hand. “John Richard called me from jail. He wanted
me
to come over and investigate you.”

Amy pulled her hand away from mine. Her voice grew chill. “Is that why you’re here?”

“Amy, please. I know this man. I’m here to warn you. He was involved with ACHMO, you were involved with ACHMO, and most certainly you didn’t get along with Suz.” I paused. “John Richard thinks you might have killed her, and that you’ve set him up to take the fall for you. Believe me, he’s not a person you want to have gunning for you.”

She shook her head as she ran her fingers through her shiny red hair. “These people,” she muttered sadly. “I swear.”

J
ake’s earsplitting howls greeted Macguire and me before the van turned into our driveway. The cause for this canine distress was the arrival of Donny Saunders. The investigator for the Furman County district attorney sat on the top step of our front porch. Well, well, it was about time.

Donny boasted slicked brown hair, a prominent nose and forehead, and an arrogant, horse-toothed smile he displayed whenever he stole the credit for a major bust. The closest Donny Saunders usually came to an arrest was sending seized material to a lab. Most recently, a uniformed officer had discovered twenty-five kilos of cocaine during a speeding stop. Donny Saunders had filed the report and then brayed endlessly afterward about making the biggest drug seizure in the history of the county.

At the sight of him, I took a deep breath. A good investigator would have been at my door no later than Saturday afternoon, right after I’d discovered the body of Suz Craig and been questioned by Sergeant Beiner and her assistant. Two days had now gone by. The fact that Donny was finally paying me
a call was not a good sign that the crime was being efficiently investigated.

“Hey, Goldy, how you doing!” he greeted me. “Got anything to eat? I’m starving! And you better do something ‘bout that dog!”

I struggled to appear friendly even as I gagged at Donny’s Vegas-style suit of shiny blue fabric that shimmered and glinted as he swaggered toward us. I introduced Macguire, identifying him only as a houseguest.

“I’ll need to talk to you alone,” said Donny with his usual smug self-importance as I opened the front door. What a hospitable statement.

“Gosh,” murmured Macguire in a hurt tone, “that’s the third time today people haven’t wanted me around when Goldy Schulz talks to them. Do I have b.o. or something? Guess I’ll just go sit by myself. Wait till it’s time to take ten more herb capsules.” Before I could soothe his feelings, however, he plodded to the backyard to reassure Jake. After a moment the howls ceased. Unfortunately,
my
torment was just beginning.

“I’ve got a lot of cooking to do,” I warned Donny. “I’m doing a big event tomorrow.”

The enormous shoulder pads inside Donny’s sapphire suit rose ominously when he shrugged. “Not to worry! How would I bother you? Cook away, little lady! A woman’s place is in the kitchen! Ha! Ha!” His good-ole-boy tone made me grit my teeth. “But say,” he bulldozed on, “you got anything good to eat that’s, you know, ready?”

I closed my eyes, tried to count to ten but only got to four. I remembered my promises to Arch on the one hand and to Tom on the other. Maybe I
could actually learn something from Donny. But I doubted it.

I suggested a cheese sandwich and Donny eagerly accepted. He quickly added that bread kind of stuck in his craw and he’d need three or four beers to wash the crumbs down. My hopes for our conversation sank to a subterranean level unavailable to geologists. But since the brioche had completed its first rising, I removed it from the refrigerator along with a six-pack of Dos Equis. I punched down the cold, silky mass of dough, set it aside for its second rising, and proceeded to make Donny a sandwich of thickly sliced homemade bread, pesto, fresh tomato, and chèvre. He asked for his second beer when I placed the sandwich in front of him. I handed him the cold bottle with the hope that it might loosen his tongue to share information I hadn’t heard yet. I dreaded to think, though, what my husband would say about my plying an investigator with brewskis in the middle of the day.

“Say, this is pretty good!” Donny mumbled, mouth full. He took another enormous bite and munched thoughtfully. “Whaddaya call this white cheesy stuff?”

“Chèvre.”

His horsey teeth pulled into a wide grin. “Nah, Goldy, that’s a
truck.”

I forced a smile. “What do you want to talk about, Donny?”

“Okay,” he said seriously, wiping his mouth and then using his napkin to blow his nose. “Few things.” He swigged the beer. “Suz Craig. You found her.”

“Yep.” I decided I’d better cook. Otherwise
the temptation to lose my temper might be too great. “I sure did find her.” I took out a cutting board and a zester and ran the tool down the side of a lemon. Zest strands curled outward, sending a fine, pungent mist of lemon oil onto the board. “I saw her in a ditch as I was driving down the road just before seven last Saturday.”

“And she was your ex-husband’s girlfriend.”

“She was, indeed.” I minced the zest, then retrieved a coffee grinder that I used exclusively for pulverizing fruit zest and nuts. “Haven’t you read my statement?”

He gestured with the now-empty beer bottle and unsuccessfully repressed a belch. “I took a look at it. Now, what we need to establish here is John Richard Korman’s prior patterns. You know, his similar activity. How he used to beat you up. How he almost killed you. That’s the way I’ll build my case.” He eyed the Dos Equis carton longingly, but I ignored him. “Goldy,” he continued, gushing with sincerity, “I’ve seen
lots
of criminals like this before. Once they do it, they get a taste for it. They keep doing it. Until they kill somebody.”

“Wait, Donny. What about the autopsy results?”

“Coroner’s office should have ‘em at the sheriff’s department by the time I get back to the office. But don’t you worry your pretty little head about that. So, when was the last time John Richard Korman clobbered you?”

I took a shaky breath, remembering. “Seven years ago. He broke this thumb”—I gestured—“in three places not too long before we divorced.”

“Okay, I’ll have to check what the pathologist
says about Suz Craig’s hand, if there’re any contusions there. If we’re lucky, maybe he broke her finger, too. How would Korman attack you? You don’t mind me asking?”

“He’d grab my arms, shake me very hard. He liked to punch me in the face, even though most high-income abusers are devious enough to avoid the face. I usually ended up with a black eye.”

“Which eye?” He was not writing.

“The right. Which was the black eye on her, too, I noticed.”

“You’re correct there, little woman. Okay, now when he clobbered you, would he knock you out right away? Or would the fight go on for hours?”

I gripped the knife. Recalling these events never became less painful. “It depended on how angry he was,” I said softly. “But, Donny,” I couldn’t help interjecting, “what about the facts of
this
case? Since I never pressed charges, a judge may not allow all this. Have you talked to anyone down at Suz Craig’s office? At ACHMO?”

“Oh, yeah. I was down in Denver talkin’ to some execs at the HMO this morning—”

“Which execs?” The only ACHMO executives in town had been busy raiding John Richard’s office in Aspen Meadow. Had the rest of the department heads returned from the San Diego conference?

“Well … talking to Suz Craig’s secretary, actually, ‘cuz most of the rest of the guys are off on some trip. But you can learn more that way. Those gals really know what’s cooking, if you know what I mean.” He winked.

“Ah.” I put down the knife and zapped the lemon zest in the grinder. Then I pulverized the
blanched slivered almonds and piled them into a pale mound. “So. What did Suz’s secretary have to say?”

“Well …” He reached for another beer, pried off the top, and took a long swig. “I really shouldn’t say.”

“Why not? Maybe I could help you. Fill in the blanks.”

He harumphed, popped the last of the sandwich into a corner of his mouth, chewed, and licked his fingers. Sometimes I wondered if the only decent food Donny ever got was when Goldilocks’ Catering got mired in one of his investigations. “I’m telling you, Goldy, nobody likes Korman. But nobody liked that Craig woman, either. I mean,
nobody.
You know, you’d think people wouldn’t speak ill of the dead. But get right down to it, I’m surprised nobody did her right there in the office. Course, they didn’t have the pattern, like our Doc Korman.”

I beat unsalted butter with sugar, egg yolks, vanilla, and lemon zest; measured out flour and the other dry ingredients, and then mixed them with the creamed mixture to make a nutty, buttery, heavenly-smelling dough. “Have you been looking at any other facts of the
case
, Donny?”

“Tha-a-a-at’s why I’m here, right?”

I wondered briefly if I could nip out for one of the tranquilizers Marla had given me. Maybe Amy’s herb capsules had sedative powers. But no—there was a chance Donny’s boastfulness would win out and he’d tell me what Suz’s secretary had had to say. If I didn’t appear too eager, that is. So I concentrated on the question of how to provide a high ratio of tart raspberry jam to cookie dough. Scooping the dough
into cupcake pans and then topping them with spoonfuls of jam would work. I ignored Donny and set about buttering a pan.

He continued eagerly. “You listening? You wouldn’t have believed how much that secretary, name of Luella Downing, hated Ms. Craig. Luella was in some kind of state this morning.”

I
tsked
, but continued assiduously spraying a pan.

“See,” he persisted, “this Luella resented Ms. Craig ‘cuz Ms. Craig had made it her business to know some money details of Luella’s divorce.” I looked up from the pan and raised my eyebrows. Donny smirked triumphantly. “I told Luella I wouldn’t prosecute or nothing.” I hid my exasperation and nodded knowingly. He went on. “Come to find out that Ms.
Craig
knew
Luella
had liquidated her IRA and put the money into her
parents’
account so’s Luella’s
ex
wouldn’t find it. Our Ms. Craig used that info to get Luella to shut up about the taping.”

I dropped the pan on the counter. “Taping of what?”

He held up a hand. “I’m getting there. And don’t worry, I checked to see where Ms. Luella was over the weekend, just in case she’d gotten it into her head to off her boss over the IRA stuff. Luella was organizing a rummage sale for her parents’ church in Aurora. The story checks out—Beiner went to the church and interviewed the parents.”

A minute amount of admiration for Donny wormed its way into my brain. “So … what was Luella taping?”

“Luella wasn’t taping. Suz Craig was. Any meeting in her office.” He lowered his voice. “Like the frigging White House, you asked me. See, nobody but Ms. Craig and Luella knew. Luella says if she’d dropped the dime on her boss, she would have lost her job and possibly her IRA bucks.”

“Does Luella know what was on the tapes? Did she transcribe them?”

“No, oh, no. Luella just happened to discover Ms. Craig loading a fresh tape into the machine built into her desk. See, one time Luella walked in on Ms. Craig without knocking, checking on some correspondence or something, and saw her fiddling with this machine. Luella says, ‘What in the world are you doing?’ That’s when Ms. Craig says, ‘You tell anybody about this and I’ll fire you and tell your ex where your IRA dough is.’ The one thing Ms. Craig told Luella was never to touch the machine. The boss lady told Luella she taped the meetings to cover herself. She also labeled the tapes and put them in a locked cabinet.”

“Good Lord. So what happened? How were they discovered?”

“When Ms. Craig turned up blue in a ditch, somebody called Luella. Turns out Luella was already home from the rummage sale. Soon as Luella heard her boss was dead, she called corporate HQ. Somebody was there even though it was Saturday. Luella hollered, ‘You guys need to know about these tapes and go get ‘em before the press gets hold of ‘em. Old Suz Craig was such a bitch, there’s no telling what’s on those tapes.’ Corporate HQ has a cow and sends two guys to Denver Saturday night. They’re scrambling like mad to break open her locked cabinets when somebody tips off the sheriff’s department. They show up with a search warrant
and seize the tapes they’ve found, plus use Ms. Craig’s keys from her house to search all the office cabinets for more.”

“You learned all this from Sergeant Beiner? Or from Luella Downing?” I asked suspiciously.

“Little of both. My job, you gotta put everything together.”

“And why do you suppose Luella is spilling her guts to you?”

His eyebrows lifted. “Hey, Goldy! Ace caterer amateur detective! Wake up! Luella shouldn’t have called Minneapolis first, she should have told the
cops
about the tapes first. This morning Luella’s suddenly got a big case of remorse, ooh, ooh, she meant to tell us, but she didn’t want to lose her job, see, is what she’s saying. Meanwhile, our department takes an inventory. Looks like
one
day’s tapes are missing, and the people at ACHMO swear they don’t have a clue where they are. So, bit later in the morning, the sheriff sends a team back up to Suz’s house. They turn up nothing.”