Crunch Time (27 page)

“Excuse me,” said Marla knowingly, “you’re wrong, the Breckenridges are not loaded.
Rorry
is wealthy, remember? I heard they live on her money. That’s why Sean doesn’t have to work, although he calls himself a professional photographer, which is bull. Do you know anyone who’s ever hired him?”

“Nope.” I pulled into the parking lot of Aspen Meadow Liquors, where tire tracks crisscrossed in the slush. “Listen, girlfriend, I have to hop.” I parked and threw on the brake. “Say, do you know Hermie Mikulski, from church? She used to be in charge of the Altar Guild, but I don’t think she is anymore.”

Marla sighed. “Oh, yes, now she’s into making sure people take care of their animals. There was a woman in my neighborhood who was renting a house that was for sale. According to Hermie, this woman was keeping too many cats. Hermie got her evicted, and the cats were put up for adoption. I still don’t think they’ve sold that house. They couldn’t get rid of the, you know, scent.”

“Thanks, Marla. See you tonight.”

“In my abundance outfit. And much as I’d like to, don’t worry, I won’t say a word about Sean.”

I ducked into Aspen Meadow Liquors. When I was starting out in catering, I’d bought wines and liquors from Harold, the beefy proprietor. But then Alicia, my supplier, had been able to get me better prices on everything, so I’d switched. I didn’t know if Harold would care or even remember me. He’d been known to dip quite extensively into his own stock.

“Well, speak of the devil!” Harold, white haired, red nosed, and stooped, cried when I came through the door. My heart plummeted when I saw he was talking to Humberto Captain. Humberto was still wearing his duck suit, but the sartorial effect was ruined by the mud on his trouser hems. And then I noticed that Humberto, who was probably in his early fifties, was accompanied by a young woman, a svelte, top-heavy platinum blonde who couldn’t have been more than twenty-two. She didn’t look like his daughter. And anyway, she was wearing a skintight silver unitard that didn’t exactly say
I’m out with Daddy doing errands
.

“Humberto’s buying Dom Pérignon to serve at your dinner tonight!” Harold called to me. His speech was slurred, and his head waved slightly on his neck, as if a breeze were blowing in the store. “Aren’t you lucky?” Harold asked, his voice petulant now. “Don’t you feel fortunate?”

I smiled at Humberto and hoped it did not look fake. “I’m thrilled. I feel like, well, like ten million bucks!”

Humberto did not bat an eyelash. Nor did he introduce me to the woman, who turned away from me. Her face in profile, though, seemed familiar. Who was she? I didn’t know any young women in Aspen Meadow who would purposely dress in a silver unitard while doing anything except trick-or-treating. And anyhow, I had the feeling that what this young woman did was, actually, turn tricks.

I moved up to them and offered my hand to the young woman. “Don’t I know you? You seem familiar. Do you live here in town?”

“This is Odette,” Humberto interjected. He put a protective arm around the young woman’s waist. “Is she not beautiful?”

“That she is,” I replied. And smart, too, I remembered distantly. Very smart, but without much money. How did I know her? “Do you have a voice, Odette?”

“Zat I do,” she said, winking at me. When she did so, I noticed long fake black eyelashes. Her eyelids were dusted with silver.

All right, enough was enough. I reached into my pocket, felt for my cell phone, and squinted at it. Somehow, I managed quickly to maneuver over to Take Photo. “Smile!” I commanded, holding up the phone.

Humberto pulled Odette even closer, and grinned widely. Odette again turned away, so all I could snap was her profile. What was with this mystery woman? She whispered something in Humberto’s ear. He blushed and shifted his weight. Dang! Too bad my cell phone couldn’t pick up sexual tidbits on distance audio.

“We need to go get ready,” Humberto said, his cheeks still red. “We’ll see you tonight,” he added.

Good,
I thought. Maybe I’d be able to get a cell phone photo of Odette’s face.

Harold heaved up the case of Dom and waddled out to Humberto’s black Mercedes, which he’d parked illegally at the curb.

“Say, Harold,” I said when he returned. “For this party tonight? I’ve had a last-minute request.”

Harold’s rheumy eyes regarded me unhappily. “I hope it isn’t something weird, because I didn’t get a delivery today. The truck driver was afraid of the snow. My wife’s coming to get me early, too.”

I certainly was glad his wife drove him to and fro, as I didn’t want more drunk drivers on the Aspen Meadow roads. But I kept mum about that. Instead, I repeated the words I remembered from the bottle of white wine.

Harold relaxed and nodded. “No problem.”

“You have any chilled?”

“Yeah, sure.” He headed toward the wall of refrigerators. “Who’s giving this party? The Breckenridges?”

“One and the same,” I said. “Is it Sean or Rorry who likes this wine?”

Harold faced one of the cold doors. “How many bottles?”

“Three ought to do it. So, is it Sean or Rorry who buys this from you?”

“Uh, he buys it.” Harold hugged the bottles to his wide chest as he trundled ahead of me to the cash register. “But maybe she sends him to the liquor store to get it for her.”

“Did he say he got it for her?”

“He never says much, Goldy.”

“Ah.”

I paid and had him staple the bag shut, then placed my load into a cart and maneuvered through the slush to the grocery store next door. In the deli section, I noticed someone else I knew, a longtime deli worker named Lena. She was heavy and wore lots of makeup, including formidable black eyeliner. It didn’t look quite as good on her as it had on “Odette,” but never mind. Lena had dyed her hair black at the roots and blond on the ends, which gave her kind of a “Jersey summer” look. Maybe when my hair turned gray, I’d have to think about doing something similar.

“Goldy!” Lena cried. “Long time no see. We’ve got some smoked turkey on special.” She changed plastic gloves.

“Thanks, but no thanks. Actually, I have to ask you about one or more of your customers.”

“Well, could you at least buy something, so my manager doesn’t get suspicious?”

“Absolutely. I need two more cheeses for a dinner I’m doing tonight. One’s a Gouda, ’s-Gravenhage. The other’s a Camembert, Le Roi et la Reine. Do you have either one?”

Lena rocked her head back and laughed. “I have both of them, you sly dog. And I know what
you’re
up to.” She moved to the cheese section of the case and pulled out the Gouda first, then the Camembert. “How much of this would your clients like?”

“A pound of each, thanks. Could you please slice the Gouda? All right, I confess. I’m being a busybody and I need to know who usually buys this.”

Lena’s fifty-year-old face wrinkled as she placed the cheese on the scale. “Don’t you know?”

“Not exactly.”

Lena grinned. “Sean Breckenridge comes in and buys them. About two or three times a week, and never with his wife. He doesn’t buy a pound each, though.”

I feigned confusion. “So how much does he usually buy?”

Lena moved the Gouda out of the way, tucked it into a plastic bag, and slapped on the price tag. Once she had the Camembert up on the scale, she said, “He usually buys a quarter to a third of a pound each time. I told him he should buy more, so he’d have it in his home fridge when he wanted it.” She measured out the Camembert and handed me the second plastic bag.

“And what did he say?” I asked.

“That’s the weird thing,” Lena said. “I’ve asked him a couple of times, and it’s like I told him his fly is down.”

Well, it is.
I said, “Maybe his wife has him on a cheese-free diet, and he’s sneaking it.”

“Goldy, please. A cheese-free diet? Sean’s skinny. And if he’s lactose intolerant, he shouldn’t be eating cheese at all.”

“Is he ever with somebody when he buys the cheese?” I asked. “Somebody who isn’t his wife?”

Lena wagged an index finger at me. “You think he’s fooling around, and I think you’re right. And that’s, if you’ll pardon the expression, cheesy.”

“Lena, come on. Has he ever come with someone or not?”

Lena exhaled as someone called to her that they wanted to taste Braunschweiger. “I’ve never noticed anyone with him. Just the acting-ashamed routine.”

“Keep this under your hat, okay?”

“Keep what under my hat?”

“Don’t kid a kidder, Lena.”

“Rorry is worth millions, Goldy.”

“Well, then, once we know what’s going on, you can sell your story to the tabloids.”

Lena rested her large body against the glass on her side of the case. “But I don’t know anything,” she whispered.

“Neither do I,” I protested, as I gathered up the bags of cheese. “But I’m hoping to be able to find out.”

“Will you tell me, when you know?” she asked breathlessly.

“No,” I said.

Lena harrumphed and quick-marched over to the person wanting liverwurst.

I raced back to the house. It was just after three, and I was consumed with guilt for being so behind our schedule. But when I came inside, it was Boyd who was placing foodstuffs into boxes. Yolanda was spooning the ground beef with seasonings into a container, and the house was filled with the heady scent of a Mexican restaurant. Zippered bags of chopped tomatoes, shredded lettuce, chopped scallions, and grated cheese stood in rows on the kitchen table.

“Sorry I’m late,” I said. “How’s Ferdinanda?”

Yolanda gave me an exasperated expression. “When the doctor told her it would still be Thanksgiving before she was done with her cast, she pulled out her baton and was on the verge of popping it open when Boyd yanked it away from her. The doctor told us not to come back! He insisted he was done with us and that we needed to get another orthopedist. Ferdinanda said she wouldn’t come back if he paid her to. Then she made loud quacking noises all the way out through the waiting room. She didn’t stop until we got to my van.”

“Where is she now?” I whispered.

“Sleeping. She said that quack tired her out.” She hesitated. “I might need a recommendation to another orthopedic surgeon.”

“No problem. Are we ready to start loading the van?”

She nodded, so I went back outside, where the weather was beginning to turn chilly. I was in the process of reversing the van up the driveway, so that it would be as near as possible to the deck next to the kitchen door, when my eye caught on something. Cursing under my breath, I threw the van into Park and walked quickly to the curb.

Snowmelt had caused a rapidly rushing stream on either side of our road. Without my willing it, I looked up. There were brown curtains hanging in the front room of my godfather Jack’s house. The cold, moist afternoon air closed in on my heart. I tried to take a deep breath, but couldn’t. Even though I hadn’t seen a moving van, someone was either living in Jack’s place or fixing it up before occupying it. That would mean he really was gone.

I chewed the inside of my cheeks to get feeling back into them. Soon, someone else would be living in Ernest McLeod’s place, or at least on his property, whether or not the will held up. First we’d lost Jack, then Ernest had been shot and killed. I blinked, tried again to inhale, and felt a moment of dizziness. I turned and walked slowly back to my van. I pulled the sack of lovers’ detritus out of the back, opened the garage door using the code, and tossed the bag of trash inside. Then I closed the garage door and walked back up to the house.

In the kitchen, I helped Yolanda finish the packing. Rorry was providing her table linens, china, crystal, and silver, all of which she had told us her live-in maid would wash the next morning, and that we were not going to have to bother with it that night. She’d also told me the Abundance of Fall flower arrangements would be delivered that afternoon.

When I’d talked to Rorry, she’d said Etta, her live-in maid and factotum, had a set of paring knives, but she had only one roasting pan. I stuffed my knives and several pans into one of our last boxes. The big problem, equipment-wise, was a deep fryer. Once everyone in the country had decided not to eat fried chicken anymore (unless it was from takeout), I’d donated my electric frying pan to the church rummage sale. But Yolanda had told me it would be helpful if she could use one, to make the Navajo fry bread. I’d put in a call to Rorry that morning, and she had said she would ask Etta if they had one. If not, we would make do with some kind of pot, of which Rorry assured me they had plenty.

Once everything on our list was checked, I was in the mood for an espresso, as was Yolanda. Boyd announced he had to find an outfit suitable for catering, so I pulled Yolanda and myself double shots. She doused hers with sugar, I did the same to mine with cream, and we sipped amiably until Boyd returned to the kitchen.

I had to suppress a smile at his impeccable black pants and freshly ironed white shirt. When had he gotten hold of them? Had he gone back to his house? When I asked, he confessed that he had taken to keeping clean catering clothes in the trunk of his car, just in case Tom wanted him to come help me with an event—one where I might need protection.

I said, “Oh, for crying out loud.”

Poor Boyd. He hated catering. But he clearly was head over heels for Yolanda. Bless his heart, I was sure he’d do whatever it took to make sure no harm came to her.

I wondered if that desire would be enough to keep Yolanda safe. Then I shook that thought away, too.

T
he Breckenridges’ long, meandering driveway rose from Flicker Ridge’s main road to a palatial estate that was perched on an east-facing granite outcropping. This made for a breathtaking view of Denver. But the drop-offs were so steep, I couldn’t even look down as we got close to the house. I wondered how Sean and Rorry had been able to train their son to keep away from the edge of the cliff.

The answer was plain enough when we pulled into the driveway. Surrounding the large, flat, sodded yard was a ten-foot-high fence made from sections of thick plastic. If I was not mistaken, this was the same kind of plastic used to fabricate doors in newer upscale houses. The plastic for the doors is stained and painted to look like wood, and it is free of the upkeep wood requires. But here it was clear, like the edge of an infinity pool. Hmm. I wondered if the fence acted to deter strong-minded elk from jumping into the yard to eat the Breckenridges’ flowers, shrubs, and grass.