The Whole Enchilada (16 page)

When I greeted Armstrong, I noted his wispy reddish hair had thinned. Boyd and Armstrong seemed to have accepted the assignment of guarding their superior's wife with aplomb. I thanked Armstrong for coming, then carefully offered them both
regular coffee
. I knew I had my old drip machine in the basement.

Once I'd located the machine, I traipsed back upstairs, where the two cops were sitting, looking uncomfortable, while Julian set the table. I noted that he'd finished simmering the leeks, onions, and potatoes for the soup. He'd cooked and drained the haricots verts, which were cooling. So was the fudge sauce. Never one to claim credit, Julian proudly announced that Boyd had finished
all
the molded salads.

Armstrong smirked at Boyd. Boyd quickly said, “Okay, smart guy. Next time you do it.”

Sensing he'd said something amiss, Julian asked Boyd and Armstrong if they would like cheese omelets with salsa. The two cops were so pathetically grateful that I wished I'd thought of offering them eggs myself. Instead, I assembled the drip coffee machine, dropped in fresh grounds, and pressed the buttons. As there was still no sound from Arch and Gus, I wondered once more if what would help me out of my funk was trying to figure out what had happened to Holly. So I again descended to the basement.

It was time to renew my struggle with the Amour Anonymous notes. Marla and I had barely had time to go through the first few notebooks. I wanted to take a detailed look at what I had. I didn't know if it would do any good, but just sitting around with my banged-up leg elevated while Julian cooked for Boyd and Armstrong wasn't going to do a thing for my mood.

I got out a fresh pad of paper. I wanted to make a time line of Holly's relationship to the rest of us, plus take any notes that seemed significant.

Our sons had been born on the same day, in Lutheran Hospital. I wrote that down. Who had her doctor been? I did not know. Marla said there were all kinds of mentions of doctor visits in the Amour notes. But that was because we were a support group, emphasis on the
support
. Divorced women were not only at risk from their former partners, they had a heightened susceptibility to disease, accidents, and all manner of untoward events. So we made it a habit to check in with each other on our current stress levels. We held each other accountable for going to the doctor when we were ill, making sure we were current with physicals, and generally checking in on each other's health.

Tom had said it looked as if Holly had had a fatal heart attack. She and apparently all the other guests had ingested Loquin, which had only given the other guests at the party nightmares. Why? Was the Loquin related or unrelated? I clicked on Tom's basement computer and searched the Internet for side effects of Loquin. Of course, there were the usual warnings, which I doubted anyone read:
May cause nausea, vomiting, dizziness, hallucinations, vivid dreams, and, in rare cases, cardiac arrest leading to death.

In rare cases, cardiac arrest leading to death?

Okay, what were the
rare cases
? I clicked through to see what those infrequent interactions might be, but could find nothing. Probably some advanced piece of medical software, not available to members of Med Wives 101, would have it. I resolved to tell Tom about what I'd found anyway. Law enforcement wasn't sure Holly had died from a heart attack. But they suspected it. For the investigators, it would be better to ferret out the interactions from an actual medical doctor, preferably one who knew Holly. For the fortieth time, I wished I knew more about Holly's medical situation at the time of her death.

But still . . . even if a killer had that information, how could he be sure he was giving enough Loquin to someone so that he or she would definitely die?

Maybe you couldn't be sure. In that case, you'd have to booby-trap her deck.

I went back to my time line. Holly and I had both attended a doctors-and-spouses conference in Boulder. She was a former Roman Catholic who embraced astrology and joined St. Luke's. I wrote down all the basics that I could recall about Montessori, about Drew at Elk Park Prep, about their move to Denver and Holly returning to art school.

She and Drew moved back to Aspen Meadow, where she joined Amour Anonymous, and kept us all laughing. Somewhere along the way—according to Lena Ingleby and some of Marla's pals—Warren Broome had been her lover.

She worked out religiously, was a member of the country club, and engaged in other sports, with unnamed guys usually accompanying her.

In the last year, something, I knew not what yet, had caused her finances to go south. She lost her house, withdrew Drew from Elk Park Prep and put him into the Christian Brothers High School. She quit the club, sold their cars, and was suing George for back child support.

She'd wanted to talk to me at the joint birthday party for Drew and Arch about a “relationship mess.”

She'd died, despite being the picture of health, of what had appeared to be cardiac arrest, from what may or may not have been a big dose of Loquin.

I shook my head. After a few minutes, I went back to the set of notes I'd been reading. I wasn't expecting to have my heart squeeze when I read about how I'd told the group a story from when I was married to the Jerk: I'd made a tomato aspic to go with a
poulet bonne femme
. He'd taken the aspic, glazed ceramic mold and all, and violently tossed it into the trash, where it had shattered. He'd slapped me hard across the face. He asked if next time, could I remember that he was allergic to tomatoes? I'd cried, but then believed him when he apologized.

Silly me.

Holly countered that on one of her few forays into cooking, she'd used a newly purchased vegetarian cookbook to try to make an aspic for George and Edith. It had taken her all day to make the vegetarian consommé from scratch. While it simmered, she'd hard-cooked eggs, then chopped them before chopping celery, boiled potatoes, poached carrots, artichoke hearts—at this point, Marla had been doubled over with laughter, I'd noted, because Holly hated to cook.

“Then,” Holly had dramatically told us, “I folded the five tons of chopped ingredients into the broth and gelatin. I refrigerated the thing for six hours.” But when she'd served it,
Edith
had picked up the mold, dumped the salad into the sink, and ground every last bit of it in the disposal. That was when Holly decided George could take his vegetarianism and stick it where the sun didn't shine.

Julian called down, “The guys are awake. I'm putting the French toast in the oven. You coming up?”

“Be right there!”

My cell phone buzzed with a text from Tom.
Neighbor says Drew & Holly not fighting.

Puzzled, I tapped back,
With attack on Fr Pete, Drew still a suspect?

No. Just following up.

What about anonymous message?

Tom wrote,
I called Drew.
He said H had been arguing with someone on phone. Not him.

I pecked out,
Are you sure?

No. But I believe Drew. He says Holly shouted, “You bastard! I've got you! People know! There's a record!”

I stared at this and typed,
Don't understand.

Tom wrote,
According to D, H yelled, “It's in the notes!” H got off the phone, but wouldn't explain herself.

I thought about this for a moment, then typed,
Loquin can cause deadly interaction, including heart attack. Possible Holly had condition or was on meds we don't know about? Your medical people checking this?

Don't know; will ask. Don't know what we're dealing with yet.

I stared at that last message for a long time.

I thought about deadly interactions.

I reflected on Kathie Beliar, who'd gotten in the way. And of course there was Father Pete, who'd had a counseling file, which had been stolen. The file, presumably, had had notes in it. Had something incriminating been in them?

Drew had said that Holly was taking out an insurance policy. Yet she had not taken one out, or at least, not one that the cops had been able to find. She had unpacked some boxes. Was
that
where the incriminating notes were?

Once again, I cast my mind back over what I knew about Holly, but from more recently.

She and George were fighting over child support. Probably in retaliation, Holly had not invited George and Lena to the birthday party. This had upset George and Lena, and not a little bit, either. I wondered if the financial motive was enough to make you want to kill someone by sabotaging their deck. But if George had wanted Holly to have an accident, why label that envelope on the deck for Drew, who might have been caught in the trap instead? Could George have other secrets which had caused the dispute over child support, secrets that Father Pete had also known about? Holly was asking someone for money, which she received. But then she wanted more, and had received an angry
no more
in a text message. Had the message come from George? Why would George use an untraceable cell phone, though, to talk to the mother of his child?

Holly's art materials had not surfaced, and she was avoiding Yurbin, an odd artist who had shown up at Marla's place the night of the party. Holly had no studio that anyone knew about. This didn't mean it didn't exist, it only meant no one knew where it was, and she'd lied to Drew by telling him it was in Cherry Creek.

Holly had said she was “in a relationship mess.” With whom?

She slept at least once with Warren Broome, maybe more than once. He'd been staring at her at Marla's, even though he was now married to Patsie. Why?

Tom had just found out that Holly had been arguing, loudly, with someone on the phone. She'd said,
You bastard! I've got you! There's a record! It's in the notes!
And then her house had been broken into, and a file cabinet destroyed.

I took a deep breath. Was it possible that kind, generous Holly wasn't just asking someone for money . . . but demanding it? Could she have been blackmailing someone? If so, about what?

Was it possible there was a connection between Father Pete and Holly that I had not known—specifically, that he had been counseling Holly?

Had she told him she had been blackmailing someone?

I wondered.

15

T
here were no more texts from Tom. I was startled when Julian called me again, so I stumbled up the stairs too quickly, then squawked as I tripped and my injured leg hit a step. When I finally arrived in the kitchen, Julian looked at me with concern. He apologized for summoning me and asked if I was okay.

“I'm fine. Just clumsy.”

“The boys are showering,” he said.

“Again?”

“Teenagers,” he said, as if this explained everything. “Maybe they're figuring there will be girls at church. Anyway, I didn't think you would want to miss seeing them.”

“I don't. Thanks for hollering.”

Boyd and Armstrong were at the sink washing their dishes. They lauded Julian's omelets and said they didn't know you could make your own picante sauce.

Julian, embarrassed by the praise, interrupted them. “Boss? Why do you keep going to the basement? What's down there? Or, I mean,” he quickly amended, “can you say?”

“Sure. I'm just checking to see if Holly told the group that she had medical problems.”

“You look awful,” Julian said. “Really tired. Please. Sit down.”

A sudden, unwanted memory of Kathie Beliar and Father Pete's bodies gushing blood onto the church floor made me dizzy. I followed Julian's direction.

The perp had broken into Audrey's office and stolen the counseling file. If your main target was the priest and the counseling file, why go after Kathie Beliar, and kill her?

Because she'd seen his face.

Boyd and Armstrong had finished washing and drying. While Julian stowed the dishes and pans, the two cops sat at our kitchen table. Their eyes hooded, they watched me.

“Something wrong, Goldy?” Boyd finally ventured.

“I'm just . . . thinking.” Father Pete had been stabbed in the heat of the moment.

“About what?” Armstrong asked.

Kathie Beliar had to have been knifed less than a minute later. More heat-of-the-moment stuff. I said, “Nothing, really.” I certainly didn't want to share what I was pondering. But I wanted desperately to know what in the world Holly had meant when she'd said,
You bastard!
Which bastard would that be?
I've got you!
People know.
Who knew?
There's a record.
A record where?
It's in the notes.
What
notes?

Okay, I needed to clear my head and think. Usually what worked best for that was cooking. Unfortunately, at the moment I didn't have time to prepare anything challenging. As it was, Julian and I would have plenty of culinary work to do this afternoon. I groaned inwardly at the prospect of prepping all the lettuce, or worse, the shrimp. Better now just to content myself with laying out strips of bacon and zapping them in the microwave for Gus and Arch. No insights about bastards, people who knew, a record, or notes, presented themselves, with one possible exception: in general, people didn't call women bastards. Unless I'd missed the memo, they called
men
bastards. If they didn't like a woman, they called her a bitch. Holly hadn't said,
You bitch! I've got you!
She'd said,
You bastard!

Plus, the person who'd sabotaged the deck had looked like a man, according to people who saw that person from far away.

If Holly had been blackmailing a man, what had it been about?

Gus and Arch pounded downstairs. Gus's freshly shampooed hair was wet and tousled. Arch's scalp gleamed. Their clothes were wrinkled but clean. I longed to gather them both in for a hug. But if I did that, Arch would blow worse than Vesuvius.

“You guys look great,” said Julian, flashing them his cool smile.

I didn't say anything flattering, because when dealing with teenage boys, whatever words flitted toward my mouth were invariably the wrong ones. I only invited the guys to the table, then put out the butter and maple syrup. When the French toast emerged, puffed and golden, Julian invited Boyd and Armstrong to have some. The two cops exchanged a glance and allowed as how maybe they did have a bit of room in their stomachs for a second breakfast.

I found myself smiling, for the first time in a while.

T
he June beauty of the church meadow startled me. My throat clogged up when I thought of how much Father Pete would have loved to have been there. Shimmering-white wild daisies speckled the banks of Cottonwood Creek. Volunteers, obviously called by the senior warden, were setting out folding chairs on a flat area of just-mown grass. The supply priest, a thin, bald fellow I did not know, was already in his long robes. He moved jerkily around the makeshift altar. He seemed disoriented. Welcome to the club.

The priest glanced uneasily among the parishioners arriving in the parking lot, and the teams of investigators and crime-scene techs still traipsing in and out of the church building. At one point, the priest stood still, immobilized. I even thought I could see his Adam's apple bobbing up and down.

I whispered to Boyd that it might be a good idea to let the priest know he should perhaps acknowledge law enforcement in the prayers, then ignore them. Boyd said Sergeant Jones would be there, too, since she was helping with the investigation.

“All the more reason to let the priest know what's going on,” I said.

Boyd gave me a knowing look and moved off. The priest flinched when Boyd began talking. But Boyd must have reassured him, because after a brief chat, the cleric seemed to ease into his tasks. He talked in low tones to members of the altar guild, gave directions to the ushers, and marked the places in the Bible for the readings.

Although June, July, and August were prime months for people to take a holiday from church, the rows of chairs quickly filled to overflowing. Numerous parishioners seated themselves on the grass as someone rang a small bell. When everyone was quiet, the senior warden announced that Father Pete was still in a coma. He was sure our rector would appreciate our prayers. We also needed to pray for law enforcement to do its job.

Many in the crowd of about a hundred quietly wept. Even Brewster Motley, a criminal attorney who'd moved to Aspen Meadow a couple of years ago, had come. Brewster didn't often make it to church, because the Furman County Jail had longer visiting hours on Sunday. Yet this morning he'd come to St. Luke's, and now pressed a handkerchief to his eyes.

Marla scooted in next to me and quickly squeezed my hand. At the Intercessions, the whole congregation fervently prayed for Father Pete. Some people began sobbing. This was so unlike Episcopalians that I just blinked. Next to me, Marla shook, and I hugged her. The supply priest also prayed for the souls of Kathie Beliar and Holly.

I scanned the crowd. I noted with surprise that Patsie Boatfield and Warren Broome were not in attendance. But then I remembered that Patsie and Warren had both told me they would see me that night, not in the morning.

Then I saw Audrey Millard. Fortyish and pretty, the church secretary had thick gray-blond hair and a petite, slender figure. I motioned to her questioningly:
May I talk to you?
She held up her hand to indicate five minutes, or at least I thought that was what she was saying. Like math, sign language was not one of my long suits.

Boyd, Armstrong, and Sergeant Jones remained behind when the service ended. Why? I wondered. Did they think Kathie's killer, the person who had attacked Father Pete, might be there? I had no idea. I only knew the three sergeants were taking in every move made by those still in the meadow. I wondered how many years in the sheriff's department it would take to become so unobtrusively watchful.

“Think I should stay?” Marla asked. “You probably want to speak to Audrey alone. I might frighten her off.” Marla was aware of how intimidating her presence could be.

I said, “Better hop, then. If she says anything of interest, I'll let you know.”

People filed away to their cars. Audrey Millard was still visiting with people, hugging them, reassuring them. The altar guild was helping the priest pack up.

To my surprise, Ophelia Unger approached me. She was not a member of our church. Also to my surprise, she was alone. There was no Bob Rushwood brushing his dreads out of his face, telling her how to lift weights. There was no overbearing father. My heart raced. Had Ophelia heard about her surprise party, as her father had feared? All the food had already been delivered to our house. I pressed my fingers into my temples.

“Goldy?” Ophelia asked. “May we talk for a minute? Just the two of us.” Her voice was so low I could barely make it out. Or maybe I did need that hearing test Tom had urged me to have.

I said, “Sure.”

We moved in the direction of the creek bank. Boyd gave me a questioning look. I nodded:
Everything's okay.

“First of all,” Ophelia began, “I want to say how sorry I am that your friend died. I'm afraid I was rude at the club. Bob was driving me crazy, but that's no excuse. I apologize.”

“Thanks.”

She shook her head. “He'd been ranting and raving the night before, how the cops were bothering him with their questions. Bob can be
such
a pill.”

That was exactly the description I would have used to describe
Ophelia's
behavior, but never mind. She was set to marry Bob the Pill. Yet she'd never seemed really to like him. I suppressed the desire to scream,
Get out while you can!
Instead, I followed her to the stack of folded chairs.

“I'm looking for a lawyer,” Ophelia said, once we were sitting between the chairs and the tall daisies in the unmowed area of field grass. Well, maybe
Get out while you can
was what she had in mind. Still, one didn't need a lawyer to break an engagement. The breeze made a swishing sound as it moved around us and bent the grass. I watched Ophelia carefully. Why did I have the feeling she wanted the chairs, the flowers, and the grass for cover?

“A lawyer,” I repeated. Again my mind returned to the Unger wealth. If you had money, why ask your friendly neighborhood caterer for a legal referral? But I continued, without missing a beat: “You want
me
to find
you
a lawyer.”

Ophelia's deep blue eyes held me. “Look, I know about my so-called surprise party tomorrow night. You don't need to worry about that.”

“I'm not. But you need legal help because . . . ?” I prompted.

Ophelia lowered her voice still more. “I think my mother left me some money before she died of cancer. She tried to tell me about my own special piggy bank. But I was so upset by her illness, I screamed at her that she could never die. I was eight when she got sick and nine when she passed away. I was devastated. It took me years to recover.” Ophelia's expression was suddenly dejected. Speech eluded her, and I wondered if she really had dealt with her loss.

“I'm sorry.”

“It's all right.” She resolutely shook off the memory. “Unfortunately, my mother's lawyer had a stroke, and his practice dissolved a while ago. He has mild dementia, and now is in a residential facility. My father remarried. A few years after my mother passed away, I thought to ask about my special piggy bank. My father said that my mother had been hallucinating toward the end of her illness, and there was no special fund.” She pressed her lips together. “My mother was
not
hallucinating, Goldy. But every time I ask about the money, my father and my endlessly critical stepmother say I'm wrong. Still, one thing happened. Three years ago.” Her sapphire eyes turned fierce. “It was my eighteenth birthday. We were at the country club. The step-monster had too much to drink, and said, ‘I don't know why your mother ever thought you could go to a university, and—' My father interrupted her, and quickly shut her up. He later told me I wasn't college material. So he wasn't going to pay for me to go.” Ophelia again appeared to be struggling for emotional control. “Over the past three years, since that terrible birthday, all my father has given me is an allowance for clothes shopping.”

I took a deep breath, but did not say,
And we see how well that's worked out, don't we?

“My father said he wasn't even going to discuss my education. He said he'd paid for me to go to an expensive prep school, and I was
finished
. I think he sent me to that place because he thought I'd find a nice husband, preferably one who belonged to the country club. I swear, the man's mind is stuck in the Eisenhower era. But you know what? I started taking advanced courses when I was in ninth grade. And I had twelve hours of AP credit! But Dad said I was
done,
and needed to get married, as my own mother had.”

I shook my head in sympathy.

Ophelia's face, framed by the ragged dark hair, turned solemn. She said, “I've been studying trusts online. Not only do I think the money my mother left me exists, I think I might actually be able to get it when I turn twenty-one. But I don't know where some of the important papers are. After the birthday-party fiasco, I went to see my mother's old lawyer. He was coherent enough to point me toward some files in his old house, where his wife still lives.” She hesitated. “I
do not
want my father, or Bob, or anyone else, to know about this, okay?”

“But,” I said, still confused, “doesn't your father already know about this money?”

Ophelia sighed and glanced down at the rushing water. “Of course he knows. He just doesn't think
I
have suspicions. And remember, my father doesn't think I'm very smart. I've done all I can on my own. I have some documents, just not
all
of them. So I'm at the point where I need a lawyer to help me. I'll use
any
kind of lawyer who isn't associated with my father. And don't worry, I won't tell my father or the step-monster that you gave me a name, if you do give me one. I just thought, with your reputation and contacts . . .”