The Whole Enchilada (8 page)

“I know why. She couldn't take driving Drew back and forth to Elk Park Prep all winter. She slid her Mercedes into one too many snow-filled ditches. She bought a four-wheel-drive Audi. Elk Park Prep
is
in Aspen Meadow.”

Tom spoke as if I hadn't said anything. “She bought a big house in the country club, got a second mortgage and spent that money on God knows what, then subsequently lost the place to foreclosure. After that, the two of them moved into a house where the rent was kept low, because she'd agreed to put her nice furniture into it. She kept it neat in case someone decided to buy it. We don't have all her financials yet, but we have to assume she didn't have much money, or that she wasn't giving
Drew
much money. And then they reportedly had a big argument.” His green eyes finally met mine, and they were resigned. “We
have
to keep an eye on Drew. Teenagers can, and have, come up with all kinds of reasons to kill their parents.”

“I don't believe it. Drew adored Holly.”

“Maybe so. It's just a possibility we have to consider.”

“You're thinking she was poisoned? You said her symptoms were classic for heart attack. Did anybody else from the party get sick?”

“Not that we've heard.”

I sighed. “What have you been able to find out about Holly?”

“I ordered a full tox screen, but the medical examiner won't be able to get to the autopsy before late Monday, possibly Tuesday. I wanted to know what kind of medication she was on, just in case what we're looking at here is an adverse reaction that precipitated a heart attack. Aspen Meadow Drug cooperated, said they didn't need to wait for a subpoena. Holly wasn't on any meds. Her GP is in Hawaii, out of cell range, unfortunately. But we'll get hold of him. Still, Drew insisted over and over that Holly hardly ever went to the doctor. He said she didn't believe in them.” He paused. “Was there anything else? That you noticed, I mean?”

Tom trusted my powers of observation, and now that I knew I wasn't going to be bawled out for splashing into the lake, I tried to focus on what I'd seen at Holly's. Tom, I knew, would not want me to get overinvolved in this case.
That only happens from time to time,
I would have insisted.
It happens all the time,
Tom would have said. But Holly had been my dear friend. So I was going to get involved. But I would have to be careful.

“There was a box,” I said. “On the front porch. Drew thought it was one of his mother's collages, back from the framer.”

“We have it,” said Tom. “The collage is of Patsie Boatfield. She's wearing a blue-striped dress in a photograph in one of the squares, and some of the cloth is in another.”

“Oh, I know that dress,” I said. “She used to wear it to the fencing meets, because she had this idea it was good luck for the team. Then she spilled bleach on it somehow, and she told me she couldn't wear it anymore. What other materials were in the collage?”

“Bits of jewelry, seashells, photographs of Colorado ghost towns, and some pressed flowers. Patsie said she had the collage made for her new husband, Warren Broome. Said we could keep it as long as we needed it.”

“Was there anything else in the box?” I cocked my head at the wall in front of me. Did hospitals really think pale green was restful? The color was that of mold ruining a good piece of cheese.

“Yup,” Tom said. “There was a note in the bottom, with a number on it. Typewritten, so it's no help. It said, ‘Twenty-five K.' ”

“Twenty-five thousand? Dollars? For
framing
a collage?”

“The collage wasn't framed. It was in a Plexiglas container. Our guys are trying to track down who sent the carton it was in . . . What are you doing?”

“I want to get out of here,” I said impatiently. I swung my legs over the side of the bed. Pain flooded into the left thigh. I pulled the IV out of my arm.

“Goldy, don't. You've had all the tests, but they want to keep you for observation.”

“I'm fine. And if there's one thing I learned in Med Wives 101, it's that as long as you pay your bill, you can check yourself out of the hospital whenever you want.”

8

A
las, if only it had been that easy. Within forty-five minutes, I was ready to scream.

Granted, I had physical aches. But waves of psychic pain—the memories of Holly; the regrets; the new information from Tom:
We're treating this as a homicide, we have to consider the possibility that Drew poisoned or otherwise harmed his own mother
—threatened to engulf me. These were heavier, more tangible somehow, than my sore leg and throbbing head. They made me feel vulnerable. Any little thing—Tom's absence while he dealt with the cashier, Julian's disappearance to pick up my prescriptions, Arch locating Tom's car and bringing it to the exit, then rushing off to get his Passat—threatened to put me over the edge. Sitting in the insisted-upon wheelchair by the exit, I stewed and considered hollering about the injustice of it all.

One thing Tom had given me was my cell, which the nurse's aide said I could use. I checked my voice-mail messages: three, all from Marla.

“How are you?” said her disembodied voice. “I feel like hell. I need you to tell me it was all a bad dream.”

The second: “Goldy? Where are you? Pick up your phone!”

The third: “Okay, now I'm both worried and pissed, and I'm going to stay up until you call! And it doesn't matter if it's in the wee hours. Patsie Boatfield stayed and helped bring stuff in from outside. She never really knew Holly—”

The message cut off. I checked the time on my cell: just after 1
A.M.
My watch had magically disappeared. Even while reluctantly conceding that removing a patient's watch might be hospital policy, or that my discount-store timepiece might not be working so well anymore, now that it had spent some time—
Don't start screaming,
I told myself—underwater, I punched in Marla's number.

“Where in
the hell
have you been?” she demanded before the phone had even rung one full time.

I gave her an abbreviated version of falling into the lake. Since Tom was ultrascrupulous about people listening, precisely because folks
did
gossip, and since the nurse's aide was still at my side, I omitted any mention of being at Holly's rental, or the note that had sent me into the water. I just said I fell off
a
deck . . . into Aspen Meadow Lake. I tried to put warning in my voice, and she caught it.

“You're somewhere you can't talk.”

“Yup.”

“Call me when you're alone. I'm making slow progress with these dishes.” She moaned. “The fencing parents all wanted to pitch in, but I said, ‘No, no, just wrap up any leftovers you want, and take your kids home. My cleaning lady will be here in the morning,' and of course I forgot that the cleaning lady took off the entire month of June. Patsie was great, though—”

“Wait,” I said. Tom was approaching from the end of the hallway. I bade Marla a hasty farewell with the promise, cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die, that I would call her as soon as I was free of the hospital.

Which, unfortunately, I forgot to do, because Tom signaled for me to go with him. Arch and Julian were following in the Passat. I wanted to hear what Tom had in mind, although if it contained the news that they were indicting Drew for the murder of his mother, maybe I didn't.

“Tell me what you're thinking about Drew,” I demanded as soon as we pulled away from the curb.

Tom's tone turned wary. “I sent another deputy over to question him in foster care.”

I made an exasperated sigh.

Tom flicked me a glance that I could just make out from the streetlights. “This deputy's been an investigator for a while. He said Drew was very upset. He also said we shouldn't rule him out yet.”

It felt as if my throat was closing. I croaked, “Did he give a reason?”

“Said it was just a gut feeling. He couldn't ask Drew specifics about poisons, or anything like that, because we don't know what we're dealing with.”

“Do you have
any
idea what killed Holly? Do you have a theory about the note that sent me into the lake? Or the text message to Holly?”

“No. But I need to know a couple of things from you. And maybe Marla.”

“Go ahead.”

“But Marla can
not
talk to anyone else about this. I can trust you. I'm not at all sure about her.”

“Tell me, will you?” I ripped into the bag of prescriptions Julian had solemnly handed me, to see if Dr. Smith had ordered a painkiller in addition to the antibiotic cream. He had not. My leg was burning with pain, so I clawed through the glove compartment of Tom's car, landed on a bottle of ibuprofen, and took two without water.

Tom said, “Gosh, Miss G., don't you think we should turn around and go back to the hospital?”

“No.” My voice was still cracking. “Bring me up to speed.”

“Our guys are out canvassing the party guests and Marla's neighbors. So far, almost everyone was willing to give up cell phones. We're hoping someone snapped a picture of that stranger who showed up unannounced. I'm angry that I didn't get his name. Would Marla have it?”

“Nope, he wasn't invited. But that didn't stop him poking around in Marla's kitchen.”

“I remember. Do
you
have any idea who he was?”

I paused. “Well, actually, he
did
look kind of familiar. But from a long time ago.”

“Your banged-up leg messing with your memory?”

“No,” I said crossly. “If a parent took a picture of him, and I see it, maybe it'll jog something. But Holly was afraid of him. She said he was a son of a bitch, and she wanted you to get out your service revolver.”

“And you didn't think to tell me this?”

“I just—” I had to clear my throat. “I just thought she was being her usual dramatic self.”

Tom exhaled. “Marla didn't know him. But you think you do.”

I closed my eyes and saw the balding stranger, but could not come up with a name. “Maybe something will jog loose. What about Marla's surveillance system?”

“She says she turned it off before the party.”

“You said almost everyone gave you their cell phones. Is that your way of saying someone refused to?”

“One. Warren Broome. Alexander Boatfield's stepfather? The guy who was caught with his pants down? The woman who exposed him—”

“Tom.”

“The woman who went public with his misdeeds said she was sure there were others like her. Okay, so Broome recently got back his license to be a practicing psychiatrist. I don't know how many patients he has, but he said he had confidential messages from them on his phone. If he gave us the cell, he'd be violating privacy laws. Which I understand. We'd have to get a court order to find out his patient list, and we don't have enough evidence to satisfy a judge that we would need that.”

I said, “Womanizing Warren is full of it. If he just started working with patients again, he shouldn't have that many confidential messages.”

Tom lifted one of his large hands, a gesture of exasperation. “We don't have enough for a warrant, Miss G.”

“And Holly's money problems?”

“We're still trying to dig into her financials.” Tom bit the inside of his cheek. “Did Holly and George have a tiff about child support?”

“I don't know. You saw how they fought. Maybe he cut her off for some reason, and she was retaliating by not inviting him to the party. But unless I'm a complete incompetent at judging character—”

“Which you most definitely are not.”

“George is
devoted
to Drew. He's been a faithful father, coming to parent-teacher conferences, attending the fencing meets.” I paused. “The rest of what I know is old. I remember from Amour Anonymous that George was ordered to pay Holly a big settlement, plus support, for a long time. Until Drew was through college, I think. That's what I don't get—”

“Big? How big?”

“I'd have to check the Amour Anonymous notes on that.”

“You still have those?”

“I was the secretary,” I said proudly. “They're all in a file in the basement.” I added, “Handwritten, though.”

“Oh, great. They'll be unreadable, and tucked between your college French notes, your notes from teaching Sunday School when Arch was seven, and your art history textbooks. Honestly, Goldy, do you ever throw anything out?”

“Art!” I squealed, and moved my bum leg too fast. Pain shot up my spine. “That's it.”

“Art,” Tom prompted.

“The stranger is an artist.”

“Name?”

I searched my memory bank, but came up empty. “Let me try to remember.” Even to my own ears, my voice sounded feeble. “Now, what about George and Lena at the birthday party? What was the big fight about?”

“They hadn't been invited. Country-club friends asked them what they were taking to Drew's party,” Tom said simply. “If I'd known Holly was going to drop dead an hour after George and Lena left, I would have gotten more details. But as it was, I was trying to get rid of the man you now say is an artist, plus two frustrated people, one of whom was the father of one of the birthday boys. Their tempers were frayed, and I just asked them to leave. A pair of deputies was due to talk to George and Lena tonight, but I haven't heard anything yet. Okay, let's get back to Holly's money. She lost the house, transferred Drew, sold their cars, all while supposedly getting big money from George and having lots of collage clients. Anything else?”

“There wasn't much food in her house. She never liked to cook. Julian used to help her out, providing weekly meals, back when she was married to George. But that was a
long
time ago.”

“So how were they eating?”

“No clue. Presumably, Holly was making money on the collages, so even if she and George were fighting over finances, they'd have enough to eat out. Cheaply.”

Tom took this in. “What did Holly have to eat and drink at the party? Did you notice?”

I shook my head and exhaled. “She drank some wine, but I don't think she ate very much. She did try some of one of Julian's chile relleno tortas. He made torta especially for her, because it was her favorite dish from the ones he used to cook for her family. It's vegetarian, so back in the day, George would eat it. She turned down the birthday cake and ice cream.”

“All right. Maybe there will be some leftovers we can test.” He thought for a moment. “Do you know of other enemies Holly might have had? Besides her ex-husband and his difficult new wife?”

“Edith Ingleby has always hated her.”

“I'm not ruling anyone out at this point, but Edith wasn't at the party. How about the people who were there?”

“It might have been my imagination, but she seemed to be avoiding Warren Broome.”

“Got it,” said Tom. “Anybody else?”

I scrolled back through what I knew of Holly's history. She'd lived in Denver, then married George and moved to Aspen Meadow, which we were now entering. Fog blurred the streetlights. The digital thermometer on the bank said it was forty-eight degrees.
Think
about Holly,
I ordered myself, and shivered.

After Holly moved out of Edith's mansion, she bought a house in Denver. At the time, she'd said she didn't relish the idea of commuting to Elk Park Prep for Drew, but she figured he needed to stay with his friends, the teachers he knew, that kind of thing. Once settled in Denver, she'd added, she wanted to go back to art school.

Still, Aspen Meadow was spread out over thousands of acres of mostly forested, mostly hilly terrain. Holly could have taken her art classes during the day, and still been up to EPP in time to pick up Drew. She could have had his friends over to visit. She could have stayed at St. Luke's. So why move to Denver? Had she really so desperately wanted to get away from George and his dragon-lady mother, that she'd felt the need to be forty miles away? If so, then why, after a relatively short period of time, move back to Aspen Meadow? Could it really have to do with what she said, spinning out in the snow? Selling a house in Denver, and moving back up here, seemed like a lot of upheaval . . . just to make your drive easier. In retrospect, Holly's explanation sounded pretty feeble. I shared all this with Tom.

“Okay, good information, thanks. Anything in your mind about former boyfriends, things like that?”

“I don't know. After she divorced George, she always seemed to have boyfriends. But none of them panned out.”

“Do you know any names of former boyfriends? Do you think that artist might have been one of them?”

“I don't know any names. I didn't put that kind of information in the Amour notes. Mostly we checked in on each other, made sure we were taking care of ourselves, that kind of thing. And we had discussions.”

“What kind of discussions?”

I thought for a minute. “We alternated between blaming our ex-husbands for all our problems and blaming ourselves for things falling apart. The main thing was, we wanted to support each other while we became better people. So we looked at issues having to do with . . . well, character. Why? Do you want me to turn over my notebooks to the department?”

Tom said, “Not yet. But once you know the child support data, and if you find out medical information on Holly, I do want to hear.”

We pulled into our driveway right behind Julian and Arch. The single-car garage was given over to my van, which I was thankful someone had driven home. I was suddenly so exhausted I just couldn't call Marla back.

My business line rang at 6
A.M.
I threw off the covers and started to stumble out of bed. My plan for getting to my insistently ringing phone failed though, as pain seared my left leg and I fell on the floor.

“You need to let me get that,” Tom scolded. He had just come out of the bathroom. He was dressed, looking as sharp as any investigator had ever looked, in a white shirt, navy tie, khaki pants, and charcoal jacket that I'd picked out myself. “We're starting early on the investigation into Holly's death and the sabotage of her deck. So I need to go in. You, on the other hand, need to stay in bed.” He helped me up at the same time that he answered the phone. “This is Goldy's Catering, who is this and what do you want so early in the morning?” He was silent for a while, then looked at me with lifted brows. “Really? You and your husband both? Are you all right?” More silence. Then, “Do you remember what you ate and drank at the dinner?” He dug into his pocket, pulled out his notebook, and wrote in it. “Okay, thanks for calling.”