Goldy Schulz 01 Catering to Nobody (11 page)

And what about Schulz? He wanted to trust me, wanted me to help him with the case. After John Richard, I'd grown suspicious of men and their motives. In Amour Anonymous, we sometimes joked about being addicted to hate. We worried that hostility-for-guys was what drew us together. I wanted to be social again, didn't I? I wanted someone to care about me.

Didn't I? I was just sprinkling on the

crumb-and-almond mixture when the buzzer sounded the completion of the crumb cake. After placing it on a cooling rack I saw myself briefly in the reflection of the black refrigerator door. I was actually going out tonight. I would have to do something with my hair and find some garment besides a corduroy skirt. I was going to have to be sociable, and it wasn't even for a client. I was going out with a man I knew liked me. All of a sudden, I felt sick.

Four hours later the van was grinding its way up the steep entrance to the residential area surrounding Aspen Meadow Country Club. To call this club with its half-hearted golf and tennis offerings a country club was an overstatement. The AM.C.C. never would measure up to any of its eastern counterparts, and migrants from Rumson and Chevy Chase and Lake Forest were quick to point this out. But then again, this was the West. Even the idea of a country club had been imported. Eastern snobbery gave Coloradans no end of psychic pain, and the natives produced a multitude of bumper stickers to express their attendant disgust. The most impudent declared, LOVE NEW YORK? TAKE HIWAY 40 EAST!

I looked down at the basket on the seat next to me. The cakes and container of soup glistened in cellophane wrap tied with bows of yellow and orange and brown. A small arrangement of flowers dried from my own garden last year echoed the fall colors. And speaking of bouquets, maybe I'd be able to find out this afternoon what it was Fritz deserved.

"Well now, Goldy honey," Vonette greeted me after the doorbell on the massive front door to their contemporary wood home had bing-bonged a la Big Ben. "Don't you look cute! You got a date or something?"

I winced. Was the fact that I was showered and coifed and sporting a seldom-worn black wool dress so very unusual? So very new?

Vonette's brilliant red hair was more disheveled than usual, but it just might have been the way it clashed with the purple Ultrasuede hostess gown.

She said in a confidential tone, "I got a batch of margaritas going. Want one before you see Fritz?"

I was tempted. I was about to see a doctor whom half the town thought I had tried to kill, and yet who merited something, according to an anonymous flower sender. Moreover, in a few hours I was going out on my first date in five years with the cop investigating the case. If I succumbed to the buzz from the first hit of salt, lime, and tequila, then it would be numerous margaritas later before the thirst left and the headache began. By that time I'd be knee-deep in egg rolls and moo-shu pork with my head swimming like the shreds of yolk in egg drop soup. This dismal prognosis made me ask for coffee.

Vonette, on the other hand, professed no worry about either Oriental cuisine or the hangover to come. I followed her out to the cavernous kitchen. She waved her free hand gaily as she beeped microwave buttons to heat water for coffee. After a long swig of greenish liquid she started to talk.

"I just don't know what to do with him being home. He's fussing and yapping all day about Lord knows what. That John Richard can't see all his patients. That they need him over there. The practice, the practice. Yappety yap. That some doctor on TV is an idiot. Lord! I wished they'd have given him an injection to make him shut up!"

"I know he's dedicated to his work," I said, thinking of Patty Sue and her mandatory twice-weekly appointments. "How soon before he's back in shape?"

"Tomorrow. Thanks be to God." She paused and looked at my basket for the first time. "Now look what you've brought. Aren't you just so sweet."

I explained the basket's contents and opened the refrigerator to put in the cake with cream cheese. The food of a noncook littered the shelves. Fancy sliced deli ham and smoked salmon, herring in sour cream, and little nibbled packages of Brie and Samsoe and Port Salut vied for space with beer and wine and every imaginable kind of mixer. It again occurred to me, as it had so many times, that John Richard had married a woman who could cook because he had been raised by one who could not.

"May I see Fritz?" I asked.

She nodded. "Just wait here a sec," she said. "Let me go see if he minds. He probably won't, but you know how ornery he can be. He was talking about taking a shower, so it might just be a little bit."

"I'll wait in the study," I announced, and slipped into the paneled room off the kitchen.

When Vonette had padded off, I slowly opened the drawers of the study desk. Take your shower, Fritz. My heart was knocking loudly and I felt cold. Vonette was not returning immediately. The business has to reopen, I said to myself. Schulz doesn't need to know about this. Start investigating.

Apparently Vonette liked to organize as little as she liked to cook. Letters and papers and photographs were crammed into each of the small drawers like dressing in a too-small turkey. I could feel blood pounding in my throat and ears. I did not know what I was looking for or how I would know when I found it.

There wouldn't be time to read any letters or study any bills, but perhaps I could get some names, something like that. Threats, I told myself, people who don't like him. That's what you're looking for. But would something be here? Would a doctor even keep that kind of thing at home? What about his office?

I came to a box of what looked like old photographs.

There was my unmistakable ex- husband, charming in a sailor suit at about age six. And there he was again in front of a birthday cake, about to blowout four candles. Behind him in the picture was an adolescent girl - a babysitter? Then there was another picture of the same girl, by herself this time in one of those old- fashioned stiff photo portraits done in high schools. She wore a bouffant hairdo with the ends of her hair flipped up. In large looping feminine handwriting were the words "Dear Mom, No matter what, I'm still your baby." And unsigned. As I stared at the photo I thought there was something familiar about it, something I couldn't quite place. The girl was not someone I knew or had ever known. It was not Laura Smiley. But I had seen a picture of this face before somewhere, maybe from when I was married to John Richard. Fat chance I'd have of him telling me who it was.

I crept quickly into the kitchen and slid the picture into my purse. I was heating up a fresh cup of water for instant coffee when Vonette wobbled back and leaned on the counter before pouring herself another margarita.

"He's just on the phone right now with John Richard," she said. "Let's give him a couple more minutes. You know how he hates being interrupted."

I nodded and looked at Vonette, whose coppery too-poufed hair shone in the afternoon light. I really knew little about her. When we got together with the senior Kormans at holidays and other times, John Richard had silently ignored his mother as she began to drink and make outrageous statements. Fritz never seemed to be paying much attention to her either. I felt like a one-woman listening team, saying "uh-huh" and "I know what you mean," and wishing I could get her into a residential treatment program for alcoholics. But she had never told me much about anything personal. Her diatribes were against people in the church she didn't like, or what was wrong with the school system, the highway department, or the Republican party.

"Vonette," I said, "do you know who put that stuff into Fritz's coffee?"

She turned away and opened the freezer door of the refrigerator. "Nope," she said without looking at me. "Just like I told that cop." She brought out a can of frozen limeade and started to peel off the plastic tab.

"But you must know who his enemies are," I persisted. "You must know who at the funeral didn't like him."

She dug hard into the frozen concentrate with a metal spoon and said, "Enemies? C'mon, honey. What do you think this is, a war?"

"What about his patients? Please, Vonette," I begged, "help me with this. I can't make enough money to support Arch and myself without the catering business, and the police have shut me down hard. You must know something."

Finally she turned to face me. "Goldy," she said, "I don't. Well, leastwise not that much. And after all that's happened - "

She shrugged and began to run water to dilute the lime concentrate. She said, "I don't really want to know."

"After all what has happened, Vonette? You mean Fritz and the rat poison?"

She threw the can of water against the side of the sink. "Goddamn but I've got a headache. If you want to see Fritz, Goldy honey, just go on back. You need money, call me later. But I gotta go lie down now." And she tottered out of the kitchen before I had a chance to say anything.

Great. Something had happened. Thinking about it gave Vonette a headache. And now I had to face Fritz alone. I picked up my basket.

"Well hello, Goldy," said Fritz after I had knocked and been admitted to their enormous bedroom suite done in pink, green, and white. "Or should I say Little Red Riding Hood?"

I didn't know where Vonette had gone to lie down. Fritz was propped up with at least half a dozen pillows behind him. His almost-bald head shone like a baby's bum in the gray light from the television, which had a picture but no volume. The newspaper, a tray with dishes and cups, and the remote control for the television were spread out around his lap. He was wearing pale blue pajamas covered with tiny dark blue fleurs de lis. A French king in repose, sans wig.

I stared at him. He was a good-looking man. There are people who age badly and people like Fritz, who age beautifully. The silver chest hair peeking out from the V of his pajama top matched the silver hair above his ears. His face was radiant with the fine-boned handsomeness that had been inherited by the man I had loved for eight years.

"Just pull up a chair," he said, "and look, you've brought me something. Now John Richard would say I shouldn't eat anything you bring me." He winked after I had settled stiffly on the side of a chaise longue. "You know what I said to him? I said, Son, don't you worry about it. Goldy and I get along just great. Don't we?"

I nodded, described the various things in the basket, and told him about the cake in the refrigerator. He thanked me and then there was a pause while soap opera characters ranted silently on the flickering screen.

"Well," I lied, "Patty Sue says hello."

"Does she?" His eyes sparkled. "Great gal. Marvelous patient. She must be such a help for you."

I didn't want to appear difficult and disagree. "Well," I said finally. "Well, well." I had to get out of here. I was beginning to have a headache myself, and I was meeting Schulz shortly. I smiled at Fritz and said, "So John Richard still thinks I did this to you?"

Fritz sat up straight in bed and screwed up his face into a menacing grimace. He shook his head. His eyebrows formed a bushy line just above his nose, and his mouth was set downward over the clean- cut jaw.

"Don't you worry about this, Goldy, you hear?" "Okay," I said, moving my knees back and forth. The wool was making them itch. "I really am sorry this happened to you. I still do think of us as being sort of related." There was an uncomfortable silence. "Maybe I'd better go." I stood up to leave. "Hope you feel better," I said as I opened the bedroom door.

"Don't fret about John Richard," Fritz said with a smile, full of charm. I nodded, speechless again. Fritz's face relaxed suddenly, and he gave a slight laugh. " ‘After all, son,’ I told him, 'you're the only one standing to gain if I go.' " He laughed again, somewhat wildly.

"Well, bye now," I said as I started down the hall.

"I said, 'Son, look here!' " he yelled after me. " 'Get Goldy out of your mind, will you? If I die, she doesn't inherit the practice. You do!' "

-8- Despite its name, the Dragon's Breath Chinese Restaurant was not strictly Szechuan. In a small town a food place could not afford to alienate those with milder tastes, so the proprietor offered Cantonese dishes in addition to those made with vinegar and mustard and red pepper. This was good, since my own feeling was that spicy cooking was better left to the Mexicans. Whether Tom Schulz had mild tastes I did not know. Asking me out to dinner indicated something to the contrary.

The restaurant's entrance was carved in the shape of a dragon's head. Coming through the mouth-door with its solid inverted-pyramid teeth, I always had a feeling of sympathy for Jonah. During the restaurant's remodeling, so the story went, a local sculptor had created this monstrosity in exchange for a year's free Chinese food. Poor man, I always thought, he must have been terribly hungry.

Inside, sparkling polygonal lights flashed and winked off ornately framed mirrors, pots of glass flowers, and shiny red plastic booths. From the kitchen came the beckoning sizzle of stir-fried meat. The Dragon's Breath, I remembered while threading through the tables, also served wonderful shrimp-stuffed egg rolls and homemade almond cookies. Two years ago I had begged for the almond cookie recipe and received it once the smiling cook understood my question. Then I had pressed candied cherries in the centers instead of almonds and served them to clients at Christmas.

Christmas parties, perish the thought. Much work, more income. And it was in the power of Investigator Tom Schulz to say whether I would be able to start planning for them.

"You're frowning," he said when I slid into the booth opposite him. He smiled with irrepressible pleasure, and did a respectful half stand. Seated again, he sighed.

"Mad already," he said. "That's a bad sign. What's making Miss Goldy irritable now?"

I couldn't help noticing how his gray hounds tooth jacket hugged his shoulders, how deftly he moved his bulk around. There was something comforting about his large presence. He unfurled an enormous white napkin to cover a nubby burgundy sweater. It was, I reflected, an unexpectedly attractive outfit for a cop.