Fatally Flaky (8 page)

While he was washing dishes, I said, “Listen, Tom, you’ve probably already heard this from six different people—”

Tom turned off the water, wiped his hands, and gave me his full attention. “Go ahead.”

“Well, just some of those questions you were asking Jack…” Tom waited. Finally, I said, “Enemies Doc Finn had? Billie Attenborough didn’t like Doc Finn.”

“Stop while I get my notebook.”

“You know,” I went on, “she always blamed him for losing her first two fiancés. She blamed him loudly.”

“Billie does everything loudly. And,” he added thoughtfully, “you know how nothing is ever her fault? She doesn’t take responsibility for a thing. Everything is always
your
fault.” When I looked stricken, he said, “No, not you, Miss G. At least, not all the time.” When I frowned, he went on, laughing, “Don’t go getting paranoid on me. Guys down at the department are always saying women are just too sensitive.” This time I narrowed my eyes. “Okay,” Tom concluded, his tone apologetic, “for Billie, everything is always somebody else’s fault.” He closed his notebook. “We’ll check this out, thanks. Now, let me finish these dishes.”

I thanked him and put my feet up on a chair. When the phone rang, it startled me. Quarter after ten? Jack calling to try to get information out of Tom? Billie Attenborough phoning with a new demand?

It was neither. The caller ID said merely, southwest hospital.

“Looks like somebody might be trying to set up one of us,” I commented, and told Tom about the call’s provenance.

“I’ll deal with it.” With wet hands, Tom took the phone. After a moment, he said, “Actually, you want my wife.”

I shot him a murderous glance, but only sang into the phone,
“Goldilocks’ Catering, Where Everything Is Just Right!
Whoever this is, I usually don’t do business this late in the evening!”

“Is this Goldy?” a tentative male voice asked.

“It is.” I wracked my brain to figure out who I knew in Southwest Hospital at the moment. Someone from church? Someone I was supposed to do a party for?

“This is, uh, Norman O’Neal.”

I shook my head. Cecelia O’Neal’s didn’t-want-to-be-irresponsible-anymore ex-dad. “Norman. Last time I saw you, you didn’t look too good.”

“Okay, yeah, sorry. It’s just that I can’t remember today very well. I’m down here in the hospital, and I can’t figure out what I did to get here. I’m not sick, or at least, I don’t think I am. One of the nurses told me I busted up my daughter’s wedding, and I’m really hoping that isn’t true.”

“Well—”

“Oh, God, I did bust up Cecelia’s wedding, didn’t I?”

“Not really. You just busted up the cake. I am curious, though. Why are you calling me? Why not call Cecelia if you want to apologize?”

“She’s on her honeymoon, I guess, and her mother isn’t answering. I, I’m desperate. I looked in the yellow pages for caterers and churches in Aspen Meadow, and your name sort of sounded familiar, so I called you.”

“But why—”

“Oh, right, right. Well, to make a long story short, I want to get back into my daughter Cecelia’s life.”

I’d majored in psychology, and I knew Carl Rogers would have wanted me to spit that right back at him. And anyway, I didn’t know what else to do. “You want to get back into your daughter’s life,” I said slowly.

Tom raised his eyebrow and gave me a quizzical look. I shook my head:
You don’t want to know.

Norman O’Neal’s voice rose hopefully. “Do you think I have a chance? Of getting back into Ceci’s life?”

I licked my lips and tried to think of what to say. “Let’s put it this way, Norman,” I said, finally. “I’d say you’re going about it in the wrong way. You could start by apologizing to Cecelia and Dodie, and sending them a big check.”

“Please, Goldy, help me.” Norman O’Neal took an unsteady breath. “Have you ever had a close brush with death, Mrs. Schulz? You’re married, aren’t you? Should I call you Mrs. Schulz?”

“Mrs. Schulz is fine. And yes, I’ve had a close brush with death.”

“Doesn’t it make you reorder your priorities?”

“Mr. O’Neal. Norman. Tell me what’s going on.”

“Look, I have a granddaughter I’ve never seen. I know she’s just adopted, I mean, not Cecelia’s by blood, oh, that didn’t come out right. But still, I want to be part of Cecelia’s life, sort of start over, you know? I want to get to know this granddaughter, even if she is just adopted, you know.”

“Just adopted?” I thought of Julian, who was “just adopted,” and had turned out just fine, thank you very so much. “You might want to rethink your diction when it comes to referring to your granddaughter, Norm. And where does the brush with death part come in?”

“I heard my granddaughter almost died! So I wanted to reorder my priorities. Please, won’t you help me? Wait, wait a second—”

“Almost died? What do you mean?”

There was no reply, just some gargling from the other end.

“Norm,” I said, “really, I’d love to help you—,” but was interrupted by the sound of Norman O’Neal once again puking his guts out, this time on the hospital floor.

I
hung up rather than listen to those horrible noises. I then told Tom about the remorseful, confused, and oh-so-sick Norman O’Neal.

“Sounds like your typical alcoholic after a blackout,” Tom said. “He wants like hell to make amends, at least he likes the idea of making amends. Only thing is, he wants somebody else to make them for him.”

“Maybe I should go see him in the hospital,” I replied. “He did sound pretty awful. Plus, he said Cecelia’s daughter almost died! Have you heard anything about that?”

“No, I haven’t. And you’re kidding about visiting Norman O’Neal in the hospital, right? As if you don’t have enough on your plate already.”

“Never tell a caterer she has too much on her plate.”

“Miss G., please. You want to go see Norman O’Neal, I’ll go with you. But at least wait until you’ve done Billie Attenborough’s wedding,” Tom advised. “By then the dust and/or mush may have settled in Norman O’Neal’s brain, and the three of us might be able to have a civilized conversation. Although I doubt it.”

“By then he’ll have gone home from the hospital.”

“I’m sure Dodie O’Neal will tell you where he lives.”

“Or maybe he’ll be in rehab,” I said. “Then I’d never be able to reach him, or at least, not for thirty days, or what ever it is. Now I’m all worried about Cecelia’s daughter. I’m going to call her.”

“It’s almost eleven.”

But I dialed Dodie O’Neal anyway.

“Hey, Goldy,” she said. “Saw your name on the caller ID. I gave you the right amount of money, didn’t I?”

“Of course, Dodie. But Norman just called me from the hospital.”

“Oh, is that what the calls have been about from Southwest? Please tell me he’s dying.”

I cleared my throat. “He said Cecelia’s daughter had a brush with death. I just wanted to make sure she was okay.”

“She’s in bed, fast asleep. Was Norman still drunk?”

“He was pretty sick. But he sounded as if he wants to make amends, or to have a relationship, or something.”

Dodie snorted. “He calls you again, tell him to contact my lawyer.”

“I felt sorry for him,” I said lamely.

“Goldy, don’t fall for his act. He’s a son of a bitch. He manipulates women into bed with him, he gets women to do his work for him, he gets women who are going through divorces to pay him more money than is sane. He would manipulate the boulders in my front yard, if he could.”

“I just wanted to let you know about his call.” I told her again what a lovely wedding Cecelia had had—even though I’d missed most of it, of course—and signed off.

Tom was emptying his pockets, carefully placing his keys, badge, notebook, and wallet on the counter. He stopped for a moment to give his words their full effect. “I don’t get you, Goldy. A drunk—a lawyer, no less—comes and almost screws up the wedding of one of your favorite clients. He makes said client—the bride, no less—cry. He makes his granddaughter cry. The lawyer takes a swing at our priest. Our priest pops him one, and the offending father-of-the-bride, who, let us not forget, was entirely in absentia as his daughter was growing up, passes out. The drunk lawyer gets hauled off to the hospital, where, when he wakes up, he probably begins preparing his papers to sue Father Pete. But he takes a break from preparing those papers, and calls you to blubber. And you feel sorry for this asshole?”

“Oh, Tom, he just wants to have a relationship with Cecelia and her daughter. And you make it sound so—”

“You want to do something for a few drunks? Make cookies for the AA meetings we have down at the jail. Trust me, drunks who are drying out love sweets. But do nothing for that SOB Norman O’Neal. You do anything? Visit him, send him flowers? He’ll say in court, ‘See, even the caterer felt remorse over what happened, she brought me roses.’”

I shook my head. “I married a cynic.”

“No, you married a realist.” He leaned over and gave me a kiss. “Not meaning to bring up the past. I mean, with the Jerk and all. But you’ve already felt sorry enough for one asshole to last an entire lifetime.”

“That’s hitting below the belt, Tom.”

“My dear sweet wife,” Tom said as he gathered me into his arms, “first of all, I would never hit you. Second, there are any number of fun things I would love to do with you that involve activities below the belt.”

And so we went to bed, although we didn’t actually go to sleep for a while. Tom had a number of those activities in mind, and I was more than willing to try them out.

As I was drifting off to dreamland, I realized that unlike many of the people I worked for, I hadn’t thought getting married was any big deal. It was being married—to Tom, that is—that, along with having Arch, had been the very biggest deal of my life.

S
ATURDAY MORNING DAWNED
with weak sunshine and birdsong. I lay in bed thinking how much better the night before, with Tom, had been than the day I was about to have was probably going to be. The prospect of spending my Saturday with Charlotte Attenborough and the dreaded Victor Lane at Gold Gulch Spa did not fill me with joy. Even the leavening presence of my godfather wouldn’t help. I wished fervently for rain, lots of it, and a cancellation of all plans.

“Come on, Miss G.” Tom leaned over and kissed my cheek. I luxuriated in his scent of aftershave and soap. He placed an iced espresso with cream on the night table. “I have to go meet with the medical examiner.”

“The medical examiner? Do you really think he’ll get to Doc Finn so soon?”

“Yup. Our guy was an old friend of Finn’s.”

“And he wants to perform that procedure on his old friend?” I shivered as I stood up and eased into black pants and a white shirt. “That’s awful.”

“He called me early on my cell. Said he doesn’t want anybody else to do it, and that he was coming in early and wanted me there. Finn was going to the top of his list.”

We were interrupted by the sound of Jack’s horn, a custom contraption he’d had installed in the old sedan.
Tweep-tweep-twoop-tweep
declared his presence out front. I glanced at the clock: not quite 6:30? If the neighbors didn’t love me because of my godfather habitually rolling in noisily after a night of carousing with Doc Finn, they sure as heck didn’t love me now, with him beeping to indicate he was ready to go.

“Guy lives across the street,” Tom commented, “and he can’t phone or come over when he’s ready to go? He has to honk the horn on that dad-blasted car of his?”

“He’s from New Jersey. They honk there. And you know how he loves that horn.”

“It may be after eight o’clock on the East Coast, but it isn’t here. Six months ought to be long enough for someone to get used to changing over from Eastern Standard to Mountain Daylight Time, don’t you think?”

“Tom.”

“That secretive slob of a godfather of yours isn’t always as loving as you think he is, that’s all I’m saying. All right. Let me go and talk to him.”

“Please be nice.”

“I’m always nice.”

While Tom went out front, I slipped down to the kitchen and looked around frantically. What did I need for the trip out to Gold Gulch Spa? What ever it was, I needed to gather it up quickly, because Jack was not a patient man. I booted up my kitchen computer, brought up Billie Attenborough’s revised menu, numbers, and table settings, inserted a new flash drive, and backed up the files for Yolanda. Bless Yolanda’s heart, I knew she would be out there this early, as the overnight guests had to have breakfast.

I also quickly opened a morning e-mail from Charlotte. She said she was bringing extra place cards, linens, candles, centerpieces, china, and flatware to the spa. Maybe she should be leaving all this up to Billie, since Her Flakiness, Bridezilla, was the one screwing up this whole thing.

Except for the crab cakes, at least dear Julian was making all the extra food. Bless his heart.

I pressed the button on my espresso maker to make myself another Summertime Special. When I’d poured the espresso and cream into a thermal mug with a lid and showered it with ice, I grabbed my purse, the flash drive, and a raincoat, and raced out the door.

Tom and Jack were engaged in amicable conversation as they leaned against Jack’s shiny red Mercedes. How someone could keep his house such a mess and be so careful to keep his classic car so meticulously clean was one of the mysteries of the universe, at least to my way of thinking.

Jack, looking dapper in a white Brooks Brothers shirt, navy blazer, and navy trousers, held the passenger door open for me. “Gertie Girl! Tom says you weren’t quite ready to go. Sorry if I bothered you.”

I shook my head at Tom, who was grinning widely. “I’m ready, Jack. I just don’t understand why we have to leave so early. The spa’s only twenty, twenty-five minutes away, and I don’t think they serve breakfast to the overnight guests until seven or so.”

“We have to get Charlotte. She called me at six and asked if we would pick her up. I felt bad for…not doing better with her last night.”

“But your best friend had died!”

He gave me a sidelong glance. “My little Gertie Girl. Always making excuses for me. Well, let me warn you. Trying to pry Charlotte out of that house of hers is like trying to chip cement off a brick. Plus, you probably want to talk to Billie, don’t you?”

“Not particularly,” I replied.

Jack folded himself into the driver’s seat and gave me a devilish grin. “If you don’t want to talk to Billie, then that’s why we have to get there early. That lazy, unemployed thirty-six-year-old wouldn’t get out of bed before nine o’clock if her life depended on it.”

Jack fishtailed away from the curb.

“Jack!”

“Oops, sorry. Buckle up, would ya? Tom’s watching.”

I wrenched on my seat belt and checked the rearview mirror. Tom was indeed eyeing our departure…but he was grinning and shaking his head.

I glanced around the interior of the Mercedes. It was black leather accented with wood grain, not the easiest color combination to keep clean in the mountains, where the summer weather was often dry, dusty, and windy…unless you’d had a ton of rain, which we had. But then you’d expect mud on the outside and inside of a vehicle. I was always struggling with either dust or mud in the van. But Jack’s car was impeccable, as usual.

“Jack, I don’t understand why your house is…the way it is, and your car is, uh, the way it is.”

“I’m a study in contrasts.” He checked his Rolex. “What do you bet Charlotte will be completely dressed this early?”

“She’s already sent me an e-mail. I thought you said it would be harder to pry her out of her place than chipping cement off…what did you say?”

Jack chuckled. “Drink your coffee so you can wake up.” Jack pulled the Mercedes onto Main Street. “I didn’t say Charlotte wouldn’t be dressed, I said she wouldn’t be ready to leave.”

“Maybe she’s used to you showing up early.”

Jack shrugged. “That woman doesn’t like to be surprised. She is utterly predictable.”

“Not a study in contrasts, then.”

Jack laughed all the way to the Attenboroughs’ big place in Flicker Ridge.

“A
H,
J
ACK
,”
SAID
Charlotte. “Thank you for coming.” She’d opened the door before we’d even mounted the steps. She wore a loosely draped pantsuit of an undoubtedly expensive silvery material, and matching silver-gray heels. She looked Jack over approvingly, and smiled at me.

Jack, though, pulled his face into a pained expression. I couldn’t read whether it was genuine or not. “Charlotte, dear. It’s my plea sure.”

Charlotte arched an eyebrow, as if she didn’t believe him. “Well, thank you. Would either of you like a cup of coffee? I still have a few things to pull together here.”

“No thanks,” said Jack.

“Thank you,” I said. “I’d love some.”

Charlotte turned her attention back to Jack. “I have some pictures to show you of how you could decorate your living room. I think they’re wonderful, and would really tie the whole Victorian scheme together for you.”

“Thanks,” said Jack, “I like things untied.”

Charlotte drew her perfectly colored brown-pink lips together in a frown. “It will just take a minute.”

Jack ground his teeth, then said that of course he’d look at some pictures. He stepped across the threshold into the cavernous house and gestured for me to follow him, which I did.

Charlotte had done a spectacular job on her own place, I would give her that. It was one of those mountain homes that have been filled with lots of expensive furniture made out of elaborate handmade configurations of…twigs. I knew the sofas, tables, and chairs-from-twigs were extremely pricey, because I’d catered the opening of the twig-furniture shop. Oversize crimson and green cushions, table lamps made from iron-in-the-shape-of-twigs, and patterned green-and-red rugs and quilts completed the effect.

“Here you go,” said Charlotte, handing my godfather a folder marked jack. It was neatly stuffed with photographs cut from magazines. Jack gave me a knowing wink while Charlotte disappeared around a corner.

“She’s gone to check her makeup,” Jack said. “Now watch this.”

I followed him into the kitchen, a vision in periwinkle-blue-glazed tiles and pale hickory cabinets, complete with matching blue-glazed drawer and cabinet pulls. Jack pulled out a drawer beneath the counter, and pointed inside. It was not a drawer but a new-fangled, miniature trash compactor. In went the file marked jack. My godfather flipped a switch, and a terrifying grinding noise filled the kitchen.

“Jack!” I whispered. “She’ll hear you.”

“No, she won’t. It’s a big house, completely soundproofed, so neither Charlotte nor Billie can hear the elk bugling in mating season. It drives them nuts.”

Soundproofing or no soundproofing, I tiptoed back to the living room anyway. I hadn’t felt this guilty since I’d substituted homemade fudge sauce for some horrid low-calorie stuff a hostess had insisted I use at her daughter’s engagement party.

“God, I need a cigarette,” Jack said. “I think I’m going to step outside and have one. If she comes back, tell her I went to put the decorating file in my trunk, God forbid.”