The Grilling Season (32 page)

In the van I fumbled with the buttons on the Aspen Meadow Nursery shirt, then tied the apron around my waist and stuffed what I could of my curly hair under the cap. It was too bad the van said
GOLDILOCKS’ CATERING
on the side, but I hadn’t thought the Aspen Meadow Nursery cashier would want to loan me one of the nursery trucks.

I assumed a confident, businesslike expression, then hopped out of the van, carrying my shovel and spade. Walking quickly across the lawn, I rounded the house, which still had yellow police ribbons taped across each door. Lucky for me, I knew where the picket fence was. And just as Duke had indicated, next to the roses and musk mallow, gleaming white marble stepping-stones were set around three sides of the fence.

I dug under the first stone and upended it, then dug into the loosely packed soil underneath. Nothing. I set to work on the second and again encountered only dark, loamy dirt underneath the heavy stone. The third and fourth stones were the same.

Exhausted, I leaned back on my heels and wiped my brow. A cool mountain breeze ruffled the tree branches. Without warning, I saw a furtive movement by the next-door neighbor’s garage. I held stock-still and waited, but nothing appeared.

I gazed back at the mess I’d made of the path around Suz’s small picket fence enclosing her water tank. Two more stones to go. The fifth stone yielded nothing. Under the sixth and final stone I hit the real pay dirt. Under a loose inch of soil was a heavy-duty zippered bag. Inside were four audiocassettes.

U
sing my teeth, I wrenched off the work gloves. I shakily unzipped the bag and removed the tapes from their plastic boxes. To my surprise, they were labeled: Corey, Yuille, McCracken, Shelton. And every one was dated Monday, July 14. I shoved the tapes back into the plastic bag, folded the bag under my right arm, picked up the shovel and the spade, and scampered back to the van. I threw the bag of tapes onto the passenger seat, dumped the tools into the back, and jumped into the front seat.

As I was ripping off the nursery apron and shirt, I wondered how I was going to listen to the tapes. I wanted to hear them immediately, but I
had
to cook if I was going to get my job done. Sitting in my van attending to my tape player wouldn’t get the Babsie-doll people’s final meal prepared. Then I remembered what I’d first grabbed when I was looking for my tablecloth the night I encountered the vandals. I pawed wildly behind the driver’s seat and pulled out Macguire’s Walkman.

I shivered as I faced forward. I glanced in my
rearview mirror. Why had I sensed another movement close by? Had someone sprinted across the street behind my vehicle? I set the earphones on my head, put in the McCracken tape, revved up the van, and accelerated down the street.

Voices crackled at a slight distance from the recording device. The first audible words were from Suz Craig. It was startling to hear her voice.
“Minneapolis says we’re going to have to settle, but I wasn’t ready to give in…. Chris? Didn’t she have an abortion a few years back? Anything we could do with that?”

Chris Corey’s rumbly voice was unmistakable:
“Not an abortion. Her primary-care physician gave her a referral to a psychiatrist. Anxiety. Don’t know if we can use it. Or how.”

Suz snapped,
“Put in a call to that Markasian woman, see if she can run something. God knows, I live in that town now, I have to read that local rag. Markasian’s gone on and on about McCracken’s damn suits. Now she can run an anonymous-source article about McCracken having emotional problems. That’ll balance things out. Make her do it, or we’ll pull our tasteful little ACHMO ad from that damn paper.”

The meeting was interrupted by a woman buzzing Suz to say that Ralph Shelton had arrived. The tape ended. A car behind me honked impatiently. I’d have to wait until I arrived at the LakeCenter before putting in another tape.

At the waterfall between the lake and Cottonwood Creek, the cormorants perched and preened and regally surveyed their domain. I would miss them when summer was over. Similarly, I would miss the red-winged blackbirds, noisy heralds of my arrival at precisely four o’clock at the side door of the
LakeCenter. The guard, sitting in desultory fashion on a trash can, waved me over. I was willing to bet there was nothing about his guarding sojourn in Aspen Meadow that
he
would miss.

I pressed the rewind button on the Walkman, took the headphones off, put on my catering apron, and made my first trip through the side door. A cleaning crew of four—two men and two women—were buffing the highly polished wood floor and gently dusting the tables and displays. At my van, I slipped the Walkman and bag of tapes into my apron pockets. Then I hauled in my second box of supplies. When one of the cleaning women happened to glance up at me, I quickly turned away. I would listen as I worked. After schlepping my boxes into the empty kitchen, I laid out all the ingredients. I slipped in the next tape, marked “Shelton,” and began to layer vegetables over the shrimp.

Ralph and Suz exchanged a cold greeting before getting down to business.
“You can’t hurt me like this, Suz.”
Ralph Shelton’s frightened voice shook.

“Excuse me, Ralph, but I can. Know what a group of people from a California church congregation did? Drove two hundred miles to tell another congregation not to hire the priest they were firing. These folks didn’t trust the bishop to tell the church considering their old priest that this was a cleric with a credit-card problem. Thirty thousand in debt, to be exact.”

There was a pause, then Ralph spoke.
“If you … if you … go to MeritMed with these complaints about me, which are totally frivolous, I’ll tell everybody about your unauthorized use of patient files. Confidential files, mind you.”
He tried to sound more confident.
“And that’s
not
a frivolous complaint.”

“You helped me get some of those files. You wouldn’t dare go public. If I go under for using files, you’re coming.”

“I don’t care.”
His voice was on the brink of tears.
“You have no reason to be so cruel.”

This was followed by the sound of a door slamming.

Wow. I put in the tape marked “Corey.”

Suz’s voice began. “…
you know I’ve told you how being so fat is unprofessional. And being ungrateful to me isn’t going to get you anywhere, either.”

Chris Corey’s voice rumbled,
“I’m a physician. I don’t appreciate being humiliated in meetings. I’m tired of it.”

“Really?”
said Suz.
“You think complaining behind my back is going to do any good?”

“That wasn’t my idea,”
intoned Chris.

“Don’t bring Brandon into this. What do you think, that if this job doesn’t work out, you ‘11 go back to being an orthopedic surgeon? You can’t just waltz back into being a doc, Chris, you’re as rusty as an old knife. Face it, you’re finished as an M.D.”

“I am so unbelievably tired of listening to you—”

“Something else. You don’t think I know all about your sister? Multiple-personality disorder, goes into trances when she’s stressed? Tell me, is she Tina when she’s taking care of stray animals and dressed up like a doll? Or is that Mary Louise, so prim and proper, who goes to church and doesn’t know a thing about dolls? You know I have access to her files. I know everything. Think the school where she works wouldn’t like to know about her long history of emotional instability? Think about leaving this job, or criticizing me again to Minneapolis, and your sister’s secret is all over the place.”

Chris’s voice quickly pleaded,
“Don’t do that. Tina has only shown two personalities. She’s not violent. She’s no danger to anyone. She’s suffered so much … and now her personality’s fragmented … I take care of her. Please don’t hurt her.”

“I just want a fair shake,”
Suz said firmly.
“You’ve got a problem, come to me, got it? Those are the rules.”

End of tape. Multiple-personality disorder, good Lord. Actually, I should have suspected something at church. There, I’d asked Tina about a doll outfit and the cat. She’d acted as if she hadn’t known what in the world I was talking about. I’d put it down to stress over planning Suz’s funeral. But I hadn’t been talking to Tina; I’d been talking to Mary Louise. I shuddered to imagine the humiliation that Tina Corey would undergo if the administration at Aspen Meadow Preschool, much less the rest of people in town, found out about a history of psychological problems. For starters, she’d lose her job. Then she would be shunned. Whatever Tina’s problems were, if she was functional and her brother was taking care of her, they were certainly none of Suz Craig’s business. I placed the Camembert slices over the vegetables, slipped in the fourth tape, and began on the last layers of the pie.

“You called them.”
Suz Craig.
“You set up the appointments. You got people to betray me. How do you think I’m supposed to feel?”

Brandon Yuille’s voice was the clearest yet.
“Suz, I had to, I had people coming to me day and night complaining about working with you. I couldn’t just ignore them.”

“Brandon, you could have talked to me—”

“I tried to talk to you. Before and after—” “Before and after we broke up?”
Suz’s laugh was sour.
“Maybe I didn’t notice, what with all that passion.”
Brandon said nothing.
“Look, I know you’re hurt that I started going out with Korman, but he and I are right for each other. You’re too young.”
Suz made
young
sound like a dirty word.

No wonder Brandon had blushed when he’d told me how caring Suz could be. I suddenly realized why Brandon wasn’t talking on the tape. He was crying.

“Brandon! Why did you call Minneapolis in? To punish me? Because it worked.”

I heard a sob.
“I was trying to do my job.
”

“Well, don’t do your job so well, okay?”

“I am going to do my job”
he said defiantly.
“I’m in charge of Human Resources. Don’t tell me not to do my job.
”

“Your job? Your job? You drag your sorry ass into this office late, day after day, looking more tired than a nomad lost six weeks in the desert. You’re not doing your job! And you don’t find me complaining about you, do you?”

“You’re the only one … who seems to mind that I don’t look good.”
I heard him blow his nose. He cleared his throat.
“And I thought you didn’t care about how I looked anymore.”

Her voice was cruel.
“Listen. If you call the Minneapolis people again, you’ll be very sorry. I’ll fire your ass and have your records altered so they say you have cancer. You’ll never get another HR job in Denver. You won’t be able to stay near your father. Something else. You don’t think I know your father supported a blond nurse down in Denver while your mother was sick? You think
people in Aspen Meadow would want to know their beloved pastry-shop owner two-timed his wife who was terminal with cancer?”

Even on the tape I could tell Brandon was startled. I could imagine his sparkling dark brown eyes and enthusiastic smile dimmed with pain.
“My mother … “
—his anguished voice was just above a whisper—
“was barely conscious for the last three months of her life. That other woman was her nurse.”

“An ACHMO nurse. Your father slept with her.”

“You’re insane.”

“He’s lonely, Brandon. During the day I’ll bet he’s lonely all the time.”

And that was the end of
that
tape. Sheesh! Again I was stunned that Suz Craig had had the audacity to make these tapes. And to threaten people like that? Incredible. I could certainly see why she’d felt she had to hide the tapes from July 14. These cassettes were much more incriminating of
her
than they were of the people she was attempting to blackmail. Although someone hadn’t thought so. Were there any tapes of the Jerk visiting her office?

I nudged the brioche dough over the pies and slid them into the ovens. They were the kind of concoction you could serve at room temperature or reheated. The final job was to prepare the promised salad. Macguire had filled several large zippered bags with freshly washed bunches of arugula and other delicate field greens. Before leaving home I’d snagged a jar of homemade sherry vinaigrette and packed up a batch of crusty, meringue-coated pecans.

By the time I had the salad assembled, the pie crusts were golden and puffed. The melted Camembert
filling, with its garlic-and-herb seasoning, smelled heavenly. I carefully removed the pies and placed them on the counters to cool. I’d reheat them, along with the chicken, just before the closing supper.

I stared at the four tapes on the counter. I needed to do something with them. If Suz Craig had felt they were so incriminating that they should be buried, then I certainly didn’t want to keep them. ReeAnn had gotten herself blown up, I was willing to bet, by someone who thought she had these very tapes. I didn’t want to have them in the LakeCenter kitchen, in my van, or even in my home. I wanted them to be in a safe place until Tom could get them. But where?

As I scanned the ballroom, I couldn’t get the nasty, threatening voice of Suz Craig out of my head. What would she have been able to find out about me? I wondered. If she’d married John Richard, she could have gotten hold of Arch’s records from when he was in therapy after the divorce. Maybe she would have used them to gain a reduction in child support, or for some other, more sinister intent. I shuddered. I needed to call Tom. In my haste, I’d forgotten the cellular in the van.