The Grilling Season (6 page)

“Marla, I know this. And that ACHMO bought his practice for one point one mil, and he bought the fancy new house in the club over by Suz. So what?”

Marla said patiently, “So I got a hundred ten thousand when he sold the practice, but in the two years since then I’ve only received thirty thousand dollars the first year, twenty this year. Don’t you get it? His annual income has dropped by more than half. Enough to get him mightily ticked off, wouldn’t you say? First I called that new secretary of his, the sweet young thing? You know who I mean.”

“ReeAnn Collins,” I said. ReeAnn was a lovely
twenty-three-year-old who’d been working for John Richard for the last ten months or so. I’d suspected ReeAnn was half in love with him, of course. I’d thought of warning her off, as I always thought I should. But I never did. I hadn’t warned Suz Craig, either. A stone seemed to form in my throat.

“ReeAnn didn’t know anything about why my reimbursement was dropping off,” Marla went on smoothly, “so I called AstuteCare. I demanded to know how much money John Richard was due to get and when.”

“Sheesh, Marla.”

“Oh, it was fun. I talked to Suz Craig’s secretary and then I talked to some guy named Chris Corey, who handles Provider Relations. Corey used to be a doctor, but now he’s making it big in administration,” she added with a coarse laugh. “He was so-o-o polite, trying to tell me that how much John Richard made was none of my frigging business.”

“Yes, I know him—” In my mind’s eye, I saw a heavy man tumbling down a flight of steps. “Chris Corey sprained his ankle over at Suz’s.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen him limping around. He lives with his sister, Tina, up here. She’s one of the women in charge of the Babsie show at the LakeCenter.”

I tried to focus. I didn’t care about the Coreys. “Are you telling me,” I said, “that John Richard has gone from earning up to eight hundred thousand dollars a year down to making three hundred thousand dollars a year?”

“Sad, ain’t it?”

“And he supplemented
that
income by endorsing Biocess and working in the hospital. You’re saying
you didn’t like the way your share dropped and you tried to find out if he was stiffing you.” What on earth did any of this have to do with the death of Suz?

“Right!” Marla said firmly. “So
finally
I called my
lawyer
about the drop in income and told him about all the people I’d talked to. My lawyer made some more calls and then let me know that the Biocess endorsement was in some kind of limbo. Plus John Richard hasn’t yet received the latest bonus he was supposed to get from ACHMO. A bonus in the big fat neighborhood of two hundred thousand dollars. When the bonus does come through, I should see some more cash. I would love to have my cut of that, Goldy. But mainly I did all this just to annoy John Richard, because I knew it would get back to him that I was nosing around. The guy is up to his ears in debt from the good old days, what with payments to
you
, and payments to
me
, and payments on his
condos
, and payments on his new
house
, and payments on his
cars
, and dealing with the
McCrackens.
So. I wanted the Jerk to know I was on his case. I wanted him to squirm.”

“And the connection to Suz Craig is …”

Marla raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t I tell you? Suz was the one who decided whether or not he got the bonus.”

M
arla and I were prevented from further discussion of John Richard’s plummeting finances and mounting problems by the sudden reappearance of my son. Arch bounded awkwardly off the Rodines’ porch and frowned as he lugged his overnight bag toward us. I had the sinking feeling that the overnight had not gone well. Marla asked if I wanted her to stay and I said no. After giving Arch a quick, wordless hug and me a bright, reassuring smile, she va-voomed off in her Mercedes.

“Why was Marla here?” Arch asked as he clicked his seat belt in place. He had the thickened voice and strong boy smell that always seems to accompany the morning-after of slumber parties.

“Just visiting,” I said lightly.

“Do you think Dad’s up yet? I haven’t had any breakfast.”

“You don’t seem very happy,” I observed, more as a probe to see if anyone had called the Rodines to report the situation on Jacobean Drive.

“Oh, well.” His tone was disgusted. “I mean, we were going to have breakfast, we were supposed
to, but then something happened.” He shook the hair out of his eyes. “You know Clay Horning?”

“Yes.” Clay Horning was the resident hooligan of the Elk Park Prep eighth grade. I kept my opinion to myself, however.

“Clay took half a dozen of Mrs. Rodine’s Babsie dolls off a chair. He couldn’t understand why Mrs. Rodine had them there. I mean, she never plays with them, but they’re on the chairs, on the tables, on the sofas, on the beds, on the bureaus, everywhere! You ask me, Mrs. Rodine is a doll junkie! Anyway, Clay wanted to see how the heads from some of the dolls would look on the bodies of others. He pulled off all the heads and was switching them around—I mean, they pop right on—when Mrs. Rodine had a hissy fit. She swung her frying pan at him. Clay jumped out of the way, but all the uncooked bacon slid out on those headless Babsies. Do you believe that something so
stupid
could ruin a slumber party?” He shook his head. “Some people.”

I didn’t reply. After a few seconds Arch pushed his glasses up his nose and squinched his mouth to one side. “Mom? I don’t mean to complain.” He waited for me to speak. “Are you upset about Mrs. Rodine and the frying pan? Or are you mad that she didn’t give me anything to eat? I’m really not that hungry.”

“Mrs. Rodine is not an easy person to deal with,” I said softly. “But I don’t want to talk about her, Arch. Let’s just sit here a minute. I need to think.”

He shrugged. “Ohh-kay. What-ever.”

I watched my son and felt my heart ache with love, with my inability to communicate, and with
foreboding. In the last year Arch had finally adjusted to a new family life. He adored Tom, while maintaining a ferocious devotion to his father. But John Richard did little more than tolerate Arch and use him in arguments with me. When Marla’s nephew, our much-loved boarder Julian Teller, left for Cornell, the resulting hole in Arch’s life had been filled by an adopted bloodhound, Jake. Lately, Arch and Macguire Perkins had become friendly. The two boys liked to listen to music and—as they put it—
hang out
at John Richard’s office. All of which now seemed charmingly innocent and faraway. It was unlikely that they would still hang out at the office of a doctor who’d been accused of murder.

Before I could phrase what needed to be said, a forlorn feline howl erupted from the back of the van. Another quickly followed. Arch whirled.

“Mom? Is that Scout? What’s going on?”

“No.” I sighed. Tippy wanted out. “I’ll be right back.” When I hopped from the van, Gail Rodine, a top-heavy, matronly brunette, stood glaring on her spacious porch. Holding a clipboard to her chest, she scowled at me, as if my presence at her curb was intrusive. At Gail’s side was a tall, similarly heavyset woman with long blond braids. The blonde appeared to be wearing a doctor-type jacket. I yanked open the van’s rear door and caught sight of the little calico cat lurking behind my spare tire. “Come on, Tippy,” I urged. “Out you come.”

Suz’s cat did not need to be coaxed. She leaped from the van, crouched on the Rodine lawn, then dashed to one of the blooming pink rosebushes encircling the porch. The cat tried frantically to claw her way up a rosebush. Gail Rodine squawked. The
woman with the blond braids swiftly descended the porch steps, arms outstretched. Between Gail’s angry yelps, the soothing words the blond woman offered the panicked cat were barely audible. The cat, sensing a friend, leaped from the destroyed rosebush into the open arms of the woman. Then she clawed her way up to her shoulder.

“Mom?” said Arch. “What is going on? Whose cat is that? It looks like Ms. Craig’s.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said, approaching the blond woman, whose hand reached up to stroke the cat on her shoulder. “It’s not mine, it’s … somebody else’s.” Her wide blue jacket had “Dr. Babsie” embroidered in dark blue script over her heart. “I know you, don’t I? Do you practice in our town? I’m Goldy Schulz.”

The woman let out a strange, eager laugh. She gave me an intense blue-eyed look. “You’re the caterer, right? You’re doing several meals for us next week. I’m Tina Corey. Head of the Aspen Meadow Babsie Doll Club. How do you know me?”

“From church?” I guessed, without adding that her face was only vaguely familiar. But St. Luke’s had three services each weekend and it was possible to go for years without knowing another parishioner’s name.

“Mom?” Arch called from the van. “We need to go or Dad’s going to be
really
upset.”

I signaled to him to wait. “I … I’ve met your brother, Tina. Chris. At ACHMO. Are you a doctor, too? I mean, it says … on your jacket …”

She chuckled again. “No-o, this is just the adult-size Babsie-as-Veterinarian costume. Do you like it?”

“I … uh … sure. I need to go. Want to give me the cat? She’s not mine.” But when I reached out to Tippy, the cat hissed at me.

“Animals always love me,” Tina assured me. “Want me to return her to her rightful owner?”

“Actually,” I said, desperate, “if you’d just be willing to take care of her for a while until we can get her turned over to the Mountain Animal Protective League—”

Tina opened her eyes wide. “Never! I’ll keep her! I have a bunch of cats already. What’s her name?”

“I think the owner called her Tippy.”

Murmuring, Tina reached up and gently removed the cat from her shoulder. Gail Rodine glared. “Sweet baby!” crooned Tina, “I’ll have you fixed up in no time.”

“Thanks, Tina,” I said, not waiting for the cat’s reply. “See you next week. At the doll show.” I trotted back to the van, not daring to glance at Gail Rodine. I hopped back into the driver’s seat and cleared my throat. There was no easy way to do this, despite what Marla had said. “Listen, Arch,” I said. “Dad’s in trouble.”

He moved impatiently in the seat next to me. “What?” Behind the thick lenses his eyes grew wary. “Is he okay?”

“Not really. I mean physically he’s okay, but—”

“What do you mean, then? Dad’s in trouble?” Anxiety cracked his voice. I was desperate to comfort him even as my own voice trembled with each revelation.
Dad’s down at the department with Tom
and
Looks like he and his girlfriend had an argument
and
Actually, nobody knows exactly what happened, but Suz Craig is dead.
Arch’s reaction—dumbfounded denial—was followed by panic.

“She’s dead? Suz is dead? Are you sure?”

“Yes. I saw her body lying in a ditch when I drove by her house this morning. And your dad’s under arrest.” I took a deep breath. “He’s been accused of killing her.”

Arch looked out the window. Gail and Tina were seated, conversing, on the porch. The cat was in Tina’s arms. “But … that doesn’t make sense.”

“Hon, I know.”

He was silent, then said: “When will I get to see him?”

“I’m not sure.”

“But, why were you driving by Ms. Craig’s house in the first place?”

“Arch, please. I just wanted to avoid taking you to an empty house.”

He faced me again. His voice rose with confusion. “Whose empty house? Why? What are you talking about?”

“Dad’s! I mean, I thought he might have spent the night at Suz’s place and not be home yet! I … was just trying to see where he was so I could spare you some pain,” I gabbled helplessly. “I didn’t know what I was going to stumble on to.”

“Well, you didn’t spare me any pain,” my son said harshly, and turned away from me to stare out the window again.

As I drove the van back into Aspen Meadow, I did my best to act loving and patient. It didn’t work. Arch had retreated into silence.

Why
did John Richard Korman continue to
mess up our lives? That was the question to which there was no answer. My knuckles whitened as I gripped the steering wheel.

At home Arch slammed out of the van ahead of me. Macguire had let Jake into our fenced backyard. The hound howled with delight at our arrival. Anticipating my worry about the neighbors’ complaints, Arch became intent on getting Jake back into the house. I sat in the van contemplating Arch’s short legs and flapping T-shirt and the crisis that confronted us.

My son would talk to me about how he was feeling, I felt sure. Only he would do it in his own time. We always worked things out, I told myself. But I felt a twinge of uncertainty. I slid out of the van and trod carefully across the wooden deck I’d added to the back of the house some years before. Suddenly I stopped and stared at the diagonal slats.
The deck, the doggone deck.
Dizzily, I sank down on a cushioned redwood chair.

The deck had been my idea. My present to John Richard on our fifth anniversary. Oh, Lord, why was I thinking about this now? Because everything was erupting: my life, my family, my mind. The world felt like a pinball machine flashing TILT with no way to turn it off.

I gazed down at the deck. I had saved the money out of what John Richard called my “grocery allowance,” what I later referred to, once I learned how much money he was really earning, as my “pittance.” Naively, I had thought the deck would be a wonderful place for us to gather as a family. I’d even believed that John Richard and I would enjoy watching the progress of its construction. Ha.

I ran my fingers over the smooth redwood railing that always smelled so wonderful after a rainstorm. When the builders started, John Richard had second-guessed and criticized every aspect of the construction.
Why redwood? It’s too expensive. Why do you have to have it so big?
The next day:
Why is it so small? Why don’t you add a barbecue?
and despite the fact that he wasn’t contributing, he’d yell
This is costing a mint! Do you think I’m made of money?
In the end, he’d declared he was never going to sit out on our lovely redwood deck. So the deck stood empty. To his friends, he’d laughed about my project. He’d called it Goldy’s Golden Goof.

After the divorce papers were signed and I had deposited my settlement check, my very first act had been to drive to Howard Lorton Galleries, the most exclusive furniture store in Denver. There I’d impulsively ordered a thousand dollars’ worth of deck furniture.

Why rehash old history now? Once again my brain supplied a warning.
Because he’s barged into your life again, and it’s not just to declare bankruptcy.

Watch your back, Goldy.