Goldy Schulz 01 Catering to Nobody (28 page)

Every little success helped. "Have some pizza," I said to Arch. "It's either next to you or you're sitting on it."

Patty Sue found the pizza box. She and Arch began to tug out hot triangular slices stringy with mozzarella. The smell was inviting, but I wasn't hungry. The last two hours had been too draining. Arch opened the soft drinks and offered me one. When I refused, I noticed that my hands were shaking.

I said, "Let's go home." After getting Arch to bed and carefully placing the food supplies onto the pantry and refrigerator shelves, I still felt unsettled. It was bad enough to have to live in the same town and hear of John Richard's many exploits. Bad enough to have to endure his arrogance and new wealth. But to have to endure him at the grocery store was almost too much.

The next few days were going to be hectic. There was cleaning the club, cooking for the meeting Friday and the party Saturday, plus trying to follow up with Schulz on the scalpel and Arch and his eccentricities. If that was all they were.

The key to the athletic club beckoned. Work. That was the ticket. It had helped when I was preparing for Laura's wake. With decorating supplies and heavy-duty cleaners I could do something useful and work off industrial-strength stress at the same time. Friday night, I could make a recheck for a spot cleaning before the party. Even athletes couldn't completely mess up a place in a couple of days, could they?

My key turned in the latch and echoed loudly in the darkness. I flipped on the lights. The empty Nautilus machines sprang into view like a chamber of horrors. They flashed silver in the mirrors. Without jocks pumping iron and exercycling and running in place, the air between the club's cream-colored walls and gray and burgundy carpet expanded, thinned out.

I shook myself. The place had a new life when one was in it alone. The walls, shelves, machines seemed to undergo a metamorphosis at night, like toys in nursery stories. I gritted my teeth to haul the vacuum and bags of supplies across to the front desk.

Standing in the middle of the open area, I puzzled over where to put the table with pumpkins, punch bowl, and party munchies for Halloween. I could put the long tables by the walls overlooking the racquetball courts, then cover them and the columns in the dance area with orange and black crepe paper.

The closet next to the bank of mirrors flanking the Nautilus equipment, when I had found its one light, yielded four long tables that would work for the snacks. I placed all the chemicals on the closet floor and started setting up.

During a break I peered down the stairs and saw that all traces of the exercise-room mirror, the one Trixie had shattered, were gone. Oh, how replacing the old mirror with fun house-style trick ones to make all the skinny people look fat would have been hilarious. But I was not in the practical joke business.

I dusted, vacuumed, decorated. It was after midnight when I mixed the solutions for disinfectant and tub-and-tile cleaner and trotted downstairs to start on the locker rooms.

There were some jogging suits and open lockers on the men's side, and despite the staff's once-over on the sinks and showers, the vague odor of sweat still hung in the air. I sprayed the diluted disinfectant into one sink and heard music go on in the aerobics room.

"Just give me money. . ." It was a jazzed-up version of a Beatles hit. I knew I was the only one who was supposed to be here. Was this a burglar with a sense of humor? One who needed rock and roll to steal hand weights and towels?

I pushed back fear by reasoning that the music camouflaged any noise I could make. I crept out of the locker room. Looking around the corner I could just see the movement of someone. . . exercising?

It was Trixie. She was kicking her legs out and shrieking along with the singers.

"Muh-huh-honey. . . that's what I want!"

I waved my spray bottle to indicate my presence. "Hey, Trix!"

She gave the startled cry of a person discovered naked. Which, of course, she was not.

"Goldy! I thought you were coming tomorrow."

"What are you doing?"

She began to cry and crumpled onto the rug. I hurried over.

"I just wanted to be alone," she said finally. "I just wanted everybody to quit bugging me. You... don't understand."

"Try me." She took deep breaths to try to calm herself, then hiccuped.

"You can't, because you have a child."

"I am sorry about your loss. You know that."

Her voice was bitter. "That man took mine away from me."

"Fritz?"

"He knew I had high blood pressure. That the placenta could break down. It did. I lost the baby while I waited for him. What was he doing? Why didn't he hurry? Now everybody just feels sorry for me. And he goes on with his practice."

She began to cry again. I hugged her and eventually her sobs subsided. The tape ended; we were enveloped in quiet.

"Are you still coming to our group the day after – or I guess" - I took a look at my watch - "it's technically tomorrow?"

She gave that harsh laugh. "You really think that'll help?"

"What would help?"

Trixie gulped and said, "If Laura were still alive. She had some information on Korman she was going to show me. I told her my whole story one day after class. She said it wasn't the first time he had messed up. She was planning on doing something - "

We were interrupted by a noise upstairs, someone walking across the open room I had just cleaned and decorated. I put my finger to my lips.

I whispered to her, "Are there any weights down here? She nodded.

"Could you throw one at a burglar, if that's - ?"

She nodded again. "I have a very strong arm."

"Let's go."

We crept upstairs. Trixie had picked up some weights and was warming up her triceps with two-pounders in each hand. To my chagrin the intruder had turned the lights off. Only the outdoor parking lot lights cast a pale neon glow on the room.

"Where is - " Trixie began.

"The closet," I whispered back.

The closet door was partly open. A wedge of light shone out its door, casting a huge triangle of gold-gray on the carpet, The wrapped pillars looked ghastly.

"Can you hit the closet door?"

"I think so," she hissed. "Hold this one." She let go of one of the weights and damned if I didn't drop it.

"Eeyah!" I shrieked when it hit my toe.

The closet light went out.

"Uh!" shouted Trixie as she heaved the other weight through the darkness.

CRASH! went the Nautilus room mirror.

"Oh no!" screamed Trixie.

Someone rushed past us in the blackness.

I tried to run but fell over on my pain-wrenched toe.

"Turn the lights on!" I commanded Trixie. "Hurry! Run outside! See if you can tell who it is, or see their car!"

Trixie cursed and careened through the dimness. She hit the light switch and then stumbled out the front door. Across the way the Nautilus room mirror looked like an avant-garde glass sculpture. I would have to remind Hal of this when he sued me. What the hell. He hadn't exactly provided a high-security place to work in, had he?

"I saw the car," Trixie gasped when she came trotting back.

"And?"

"Kinda weird," she said. "It looked just like Laura's old blue Volvo."

-24- Hopping down my well of sleep came frog-faced doctors holding scalpel blades. Hot on their trail were gargoyle-faced liches in unhemmed robes, and behind them roared a phalanx of honking blue Volvos. The Volvos crashed against the well walls; the liches and frogs in robes scampered down toward me to escape the wailing horns. I had the frantic thought: Have I disinfected those walls yet?

Br-r-ring! Br-r-ring! went the Volvo horns. Br-r-ring!

The phone. I sat up. My right toe was throbbing. What Laura would have said: Call a toe truck.

The clock read ten-twenty. I'd gotten home at two-thirty, I remembered, after finally driving an exhausted Trixie home. Except for this ringing, my house was quiet - a sure sign that everyone had decided to let me sleep after my wee - hour janitorial stint. Everyone, that is, except this nut calling me.

I said into the receiver, "This had better be good."

"Ho-hol" came Tom Schulz's too cheerful voice. "In your usual good mood, too. What'd you do, tie one on last night?"

"Please."

He said, "I thought you might be interested in helping us investigate that scalpel. Because that's what it was, you know."

"A scalpel. I told you it was a frigging scalpel. I passed Med Wives 101, you know. Did you have a blood match?"

"Easy now. They're working on the blood match. It's coming. Right now I need more to go on than what you've given me. Including why your son would have that scalpel stashed."

"I told you. He found it in the Kormans' car, and my theory is that someone put it there after using it on Laura."

"Theory?" Tom Schulz yelled. "That's what I'm supposed to go to the D.A. with? A caterer's theory?"

"Seems to me, Tom," I said, "that you need to find out who would have access to Just One Bite."

"That's easy. Anybody can get it to kill rats."

"Lots of folks think Fritz is just that. A rat." I told him about the creekside activity with Patty Sue.

"Incredible," said Tom Schulz. "He's irresistible even to a woman with a broken arm."

"You don't understand," I said in Patty Sue's defense. : "My house mate respects authority with a capital R. That's how people like Fritz get their power."

Schulz asked again, "Are you going to tell me what your kid was doing with that scalpel?"

"I don't know what he was doing with it," I replied truthfully. "I'm going to try to find out. But there's more. I got into a mess with Trixie last night." I told him about the intruder, the mirror, and the Volvo.

"Trouble just follows you around, you know? Be careful. Because whoever our guy, or gal, is, they're going to try again to do in Fritz. You don't want your kid to get in the middle. And chances are our culprit won't mess with a few pellets of rat poison this time."

"Why not?"

"Bright little Goldy can't figure that one out?"

"Excuse me. Let me go get a cup of coffee and my brain will get into gear."

"Our murderer will probably use something else, and there will be a next time," Schulz said, "because the first time, he or she flunked Poisoning 101. Just watch it."

"I plan to," I said, and hung up.

I spent the next day hustling around the house to get ready for the Amour Anonymous meeting. Looking at the treats from the pastry shop made me wonder if we might need more. I could always use any surplus from today on the Halloween party. I slathered fudge frosting on brownies for Patty Sue. I stuffed crepes with sugared ricotta cheese and smothered them with apricot sauce for Marla ("I spent the last two days in Vegas," she'd called that morning to tell me. "I thought it would be a good break. Ended up spending the whole time with a glass of Jack Daniel's and bag of peanuts in one hand and a roll of quarters in the other. Pretty soon the coins sounded like peanuts and the peanuts smelled like coins and I thought, now I'm really crazy. Guess I need the group, Goldy, don't you think? I'll bring the dessert sherry, you just make lots to eat.")

The phone rang again. Alicia couldn't come: she'd had a blowout on I-70. Her load of pumpkins had exploded like grenades when they hit the concrete. Two dozen cars had spun out in orange slime. . . no one was hurt. . . the road was closed so it could be cleaned. . . traf fic had backed up for six miles. With significant understatement, she added, "You can't imagine the mess."

A couple of other women called with excuses, none so spectacular. When I finally got back to cooking I melted sugar into a dark syrup for Vonette's favorite, Burnt-Sugar Cake. Pondering what Trixie would fancy, I decided she could manage with cookies. Marla would finish them if Trixie was holding out for health food.

And speaking of which, I could use Pomeroy's honey to make my marvelous Honey-I'm-Home Ginger Snaps. This was my very own tasty invention. They were popular with the station-wagon set. Plus, they kept well.

HONEY-I'M-HOME GINGERSNAPS

2 cups all-purpose flour (high altitude: add 1 tablespoon) 2 teaspoons baking soda 1/4teaspoon salt 1 ½ teaspoons ground ginger 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon ½ teaspoon ground cloves ¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg ¼ cup solid vegetable shortening ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter 1 cup sugar 1 large egg ¼ cup honey ¼ teaspoon finely minced lemon zest

Preheat the oven to 375°: Butter two cookie sheets.

Sift together the flour, soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg. Set aside.

In a large mixer bowl, cream the shortening, butter, and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg and the honey until well combined. Stir in the flour mixture and the zest, stirring until well combined, with no traces of flour visible.

Using a 1-tablespoon scoop, measure the cookies onto the cookie sheets, keeping them two inches apart. Do not attempt to make more than one dozen per sheet. Bake the batches one at a time, until the cookies have puffed and flattened and have a crinkly surface, 10 to 12 minutes per batch.

Cool the cookies completely on racks.

Makes 32 cookies

The spicy scent of baking cookies filled the kitchen. When I was done I surveyed the spread. If we were going to be involved in telling all our sad stories we could do with a few sweets.

Marla arrived first. She swept in wearing a bespangled tent-type dress and a long scarf that said Club Mediterranée.

"God," she fumed, "I'm exhausted. It's a good thing I don't take drugs. Someone could have sold me some speed and I would have spent another six hundred bucks on those slot machines and put Planter's out of business. Tell me you've made something fabulous to eat."

"In there." I gestured toward the dining room.

"Where is everybody?"

"Coming. They're eating dinner."

"I ate dinner," she said as she picked up a dessert plate and attacked the brownies. "I just saved room for dessert."

"Did I hear someone mention dessert?" asked a yawning Patty Sue as she descended from upstairs, where she had been napping.