Double Shot (27 page)

Tom stopped short, and I almost crashed into him.
“Tom.” I rebalanced my load and moved to his side. “Tell me what’s going on.”
He lifted his chin. “Over there.” His voice was matter-of-fact. “It’s a possible crime scene. That’s why they’re taking their time.” Of course, as much as I wanted to know what was going on over there, I wanted to know even more what was going on over here, with him. Oblivious, Tom mused: “Problem is, between fishermen and the joggers, any evidence of what happened is probably either contaminated or gone.”
I shifted my grip on the pans. “Tom — “
His voice was deadpan, faraway. “Once they get the car down to the department, they’ll extract the corpse before sending it to the M.E. The rest will go to the crime lab.”
”Please — “
Tom shrugged, hoisted up his load, and resumed shuffling toward the kitchen. Without looking back, Tom said, “That’s their job.”
“Stop for a sec,” I said, my voice low.
He turned and gave me a look of annoyance. “Didn’t you tell me we had all kinds of work to do?”
Hearing our voices, Julian and Liz tumbled out of the kitchen. Julian, clad in a chic gray catering suit, wore a gray apron around his slim waist. A red neckerchief gave him the look of a real chef. Liz’s spill of silver jewelry sparkled in the sunlight as she hurried toward me, a look of motherly concern on her slender face. The cops had come over to tell them they closing down the lake’s paddle- and sailboat rental, and cordoning off the lake path. Any curious picnickers from our event were to stay put. The cops had refused to tell Julian and Liz exactly what they were doing with their truck and personnel. Undaunted, Liz had called a friend of hers who lived by the lake and heard the whole story.
“Oh my God, Goldy,” she began, “that poor woman. First her husband kills himself, and now this.” She awkwardly tired to hug me around the pans I was carrying. The sharp smell of her cologne made me dizzy. Maybe I wasn’t doing as well as I thought I was.
“It’s gruesome,” I agreed, and gently pulled away from her.
“Let Liz and me do the picnic,” Julian offered. He scanned my face. “Go home, boss. You look exhausted. When Boyd gave me the keys, he told me the breakfast this morning was like a comedy made in hell. Tom,” he began, looking for support. But one glance at the vacant look in Tom’s eyes made him realize that my husband wasn’t bucking up as I’d hoped.
“We’re fine,” I told them. “Stop fretting, will you? Now help us get this food going, okay?”
And so our team forged ahead. Julian and Liz tucked chilled foods into the walk-in and searched the cabinets for serving dishes. Tom preheated the ovens and clattered pans onto the stovetop. I pulled out my printed sheets and scanned the prep schedule. The first order of business was checking on the setup inside the tent.
There, all was activity. Volunteers worked feverishly, festooning the bulletin boards that they’d finally managed to set up beside the podium. Foil letters screaming “Happy Retirement!” and “We’ll Miss You!” fluttered in the breeze. When I arrived beside the crookedly placed buffet tables, the auxiliary was pinning up the photos and cards to commemorate Nan’s twenty-five years at Southwest Hospital.
I requisitioned a volunteer to help me straighten the tables, and was unfurling a tablecloth when Holly Kerr arrived — early, as promised after the horrid PosteriTREE meeting, she must have gone home, showered — to wash off the residue of the women’s hostility — and changed her clothes. Now she was wearing a beige linen pantsuit accented with pearls, probably an outfit she’d worn often when Albert was a pastor and she was the dutiful pastor’s wife. Oh well, you can take the girl out of the church, but you can’t take the church out of the girl. Holly seemed as disappointed by all the women wearing jeans as she was sorry that I was too busy to visit with her just then. But the countdown to when we’d promised food service was fast approaching. I enthusiastically thanked her, slipped the envelope of photos from Tuesday’s lunch into my apron pocket, and promised to chat with her about them later.
When I’d finished overseeing the setup in the tent, Marla’s big Mercedes roared into the Roundhouse lot. I checked my watch, then slipped back inside and helped Liz unpack the strawberry pies. Within moments, Marla, who had changed into a spangled pantsuit, burst into the kitchen.
“Ooh, pie!” she cried. “Let’s do that eat-dessert-first thing. Where are the plates and forks?” She began clattering through the cupboards until she found a plate and a fork. “Where’s that damn pie server?” She looked at me expectantly, then lowered her voice. “I want to have a piece of pie while I tell you about the rumor I hear that Talitha Vikarios had an affair with Albert Kerr. I wish I had some idea of who this girl is — “
I said, “Some idea of . . . wait a minute.” While Liz sliced a piece of pie for Marla, I ran out to my van and nabbed Holly’s old album. When I returned, Marla was in the Roundhouse’s empty dining room merrily digging into her jumbo slice of pie. I sat down beside her and opened the album.
“Remember this young woman?” I demanded, pointing to the photo of Talitha Vikarios in her candy-striper uniform.
She put down her plate and fork and stared at the picture. “Oh, right. Her: Sweet girl, Talitha. I did hear she slept with Albert Kerr. Apparently Holly was desperate to break up the affair, and that’s why they left for England. I mean, we have seminaries here in the United States, don’t we? Why go to England?”
“Albert Kerr, huh?” I examined the picture again: The buoyant young candy striper, baby Arch, John Richard, tall, Abraham Lincolnesque Ted Vikarios, and bald, grinning Albert Kerr. “I can’t believe it.”
Marla finished her pie and put down her fork. “I told you it was a rumor.”
“From your vast knowledge of John Richard’s sexual conquests, do you know if Talitha might have been one of them?” I asked.
Marla said, “She’s not in the data bank.”
I snorted. “You and your data bank. Okay, now check these out with me.” I put away Holly’s album, pulled out the new batch she’d just given me, and laid them out on the adjoining table. “These are from Tuesday’s funeral lunch. Anything jump out at you? My theory is that somewhere in here is the person who attacked me and killed our ex.”
“So you don’t like my Courtney MacEwan – Roger Mannis theory?”
“I like it. Just look at the pictures, will you?”
Marla sighed. But she was full of pie, so she didn’t complain.
We pored over the glossy shots of Tuesday’s event. There were Ted and Ginger Vikarios, Ted looking tipsy, Ginger forcing a smile. Holly Kerr appeared serene beside her church friends. Courtney, her figure shown off to advantage by her hands on her hips, stared in the direction of John Richard and Sandee. Her facial expression could have had the caption “Woman Chewing a Lemon.” Lana Della Robbia and her sidekick Dannyboy laughed at somebody’s joke.
“Hold on,” I said, grabbing the photo with the laughing Lana and Dannyboy. Behind them, a man huddled beside the window.
“Who’s he?” Marla asked.
“I think it’s our Elvis impersonator! Bobby Calhoun, Sandee’s boyfriend.” Marla stared at the picture with me. “So, “I went on, “he was there. I can’t believe it! Maybe he’s the one who trashed my food and chucked me into the ground.”
“But why would he do that?”
I looked at her. “All right, think. If you’re dying of jealously, and you’re going to kill the new boyfriend or your girlfriend, how do you set it up? Maybe you want to make it look as if it’s the ex-wife of your girlfriend’s new boyfriend.”
“Hold on, I’m having a sugar rush.” Marla closed her eyes, then opened them. “So you’re saying Bobby trashed your place and chopped you in the neck so you’d have a motive to be pissed off with the Jerk?”
“Exactly.”
“And why did he come to the lunch?”
I said, “My guess is that he followed Sandee everywhere. You remember how nervous she was at the strip club. And also, if Bobby’s at the lunch, then he looks for an opportunity to go through my van, so he can steal something to drop at the scene. Imagine his delight when he found my gun.”
“Uh-huh. And the reason he stole your kitchen shears?”
I tilted my head and blew air in the direction of the log ceiling. “Maybe he always wanted to be a barber.”
“When all else fails, there’s always wild speculation!” Marla said brightly. “Think we’ll have this figured out by the time the picnic begins?”
“All right, I guess I should go work,” I said, picking up the photos and the album. Marla snagged her dish and wiggled her hips as she sashayed out the dining room ahead of me. The white spangles on her pantsuit glittered in the sunlight. Then she stopped abruptly, and glanced back. “Goldy? Are you sure you’re all right? You look bad.”
“I’m fine,” I lied, and followed her into the kitchen.
Marla left to see if she could find some old friends. I resolved to put the Jerk, Cecelia, and everything else associated with this frightful week out of my head. For the next half hour, Liz and I worked side by side, drizzling balsamic vinaigrette over the chops. The brining gave the pork its butterlike texture; the vinaigrette gave each bite a zingy taste of herbs. When we finished with the meat, I moved on to arranging the salad in lettuce-lined bowls while Liz whisked the dressing. After putting the last touches on the salad bowls, I washed my hands one last time. The thought of the medical examiner washing her hands before doing the autopsy on Cecelia Brisbane made me suddenly dizzy. What if Cecelia had been killed by John Richard’s murderer, because of what she knew about the Jerk? I told myself to stop thinking like this, and picked up a carton of wine bottles. Then I turned to go back to the kitchen and ran right into Liz and her gallon of salad dressing. The resulting spew of oil, vinegar, herbs, and cuss words would have gotten me forever expelled from the Sunday School Teachers Association. Luckily, the vinaigrette missed my uniform. This was a good thing because I didn’t have any more clean ones.
I helped Liz clean up and make a second gallon of dressing while Julian and Tom cooked the chops. Finally, it was time to haul the food out to the buffet. Taking care to give each other a wide berth, Liz, Julian, Tom, and I conveyed the chops, salads, and rolls to their long tables. I greeted old friends, answered questions about “dear Arch,” and ducked queries regarding the sheriff’s-department investigation into John Richard‘s death. Julian and Liz — sporting a clean pair of dressing-free pants from her car — guided the revelers down four lines for the buffet. The partygoers seemed both hungry and interested in the police work across the lake. But once they’d filled their plates with food and the speeches started, they focused on the matters at hand. Thank God.
Julian, Liz, and I were mercifully not expected to listen to the tributes. We moved between tables smoothly serving drinks and clearing plates, and eventually, serving thick wedges of strawberry pie topped with vanilla ice cream. To the unlucky few who were allergic to strawberries, we offered large bowls of ice cream.
When the last speech was done and the partygoers were heading toward their cars. Nan Watkins came over to thank me. Holly Kerr, patting her wiry gray hair, accompanied her. They were both beaming.
“That was splendid,” Holly enthused. She’d clearly recovered from the committee breakfast, which relieved me. “How could you do three magnificent events in one week? You are a marvel.”
“Really superb,” Nan echoed. The dark eyes in her round chipmunk face had become brightened by several glasses of wine. “I’m going to be walking off this food for the rest of the summer. It was great.”
“I’m glad you had fun,” I replied.
Nan’s voice cracked. “To see so many people, to have such lovely food, to have your staff serve so smoothly . . . it’s just, well . . . how can I thank you?”
Lucky for me, I didn’t believe in rhetorical questions. I said, “Well, would you look at something for me?”
Nan, taken aback, said that of course she would. I was not prepared, however, for Holly to follow her into the Roundhouse dining room. I made the split-second decision to open up the photo album anyway. It was Holly’s album, in any event. The three of us walked to the wooden table holding the book of photos.
“See this picture of Talitha Vikarios?” I asked innocently. “From the old days?” With my free hand, I pointed to the candy striper holding Arch. “Did she have any dealings with John Richard?” I asked. “Did she have a negative encounter with my ex-husband?” If so, I was thinking, could that explain the fight that the Jerk and Ted had outside the Roundhouse Tuesday afternoon?
“Don’t!” exclaimed Holly Kerr. To my surprise, she whirled and walked away so quickly, I didn’t have a chance to say anything. What was going on here? She was the one who’d given me these photos. Then again, maybe the rumor Marla had heard, about Talitha being involved with Albert Kerr, was true.
“What was that about?” I asked Nan as I watched Holly rush to her car. I turned back to Nan, whose face was studiously blank. “Nan? What is it?”
“I really shouldn’t — “
Okay, now I was getting upset. “Can’t you please help me figure out who killed John Richard? So I can get out of being a suspect?”
“Talitha Vikarios is dead.” Nan’s voice was matter-of-fact. “She was killed in a car accident in Utah last month.” Nan clamped her chipmunk mouth shut; her eyes darted in all directions. She either wanted someone to rescue her, or she wanted to make sure no one was listening to us. She said, “The Vikarioses have suffered so much. Ginger still can’t stop crying.”
“I know. I saw her weeping in her car,” I replied. “But I’m suffering, too. Did my ex-husband hurt this young woman? Did he have an affair with her and dump her?”
Nan’s expression turned sad. “Oh, Goldy. I don’t want to revisit the Talitha mess. I don’t want Ginger and Ted to suffer.”
“Nan,” I said. “Could you please tell me Talitha’s history?”
Nan’s small eyes got a faraway look. “Tal, that’s what we called her. Rhymes with Al. She . . . left the hospital and virtually disappeared. Her parents said she was doing missionary work as a field nurse, but really, they had o idea where she’d gone. I used to correspond with her, in secret.” Nan’s small red tongue darted out to lick her lips. “Tal . . . was pregnant with Albert Kerr’s child. The Kerrs had already left for England, and Tal had resolved to make trouble for them.” Nan sighed. “But when the Denver newspapers discovered Talitha and her son, she did tell her parents about Albert Kerr. Ginger and Ted contacted Albert and Holly, of course. A of people said they had a long-distance falling-out, but I don’t know how true that is. And then Albert got cancer, so . . . “