"Would you please give me that note?" Her excited eyes met mine. Again I recalled her first appearance in the cabin kitchen. You're the caterer who figures things out.
Rustine's medicine cabinet door squeaked when she opened it. She pulled out a folded, zippered plastic bag and handed it to me.
21
"Mom!" called Arch from the door. "I found my suit. Can Rustine take us swimming now? We're ready."
"Can you just... hold off for a few minutes, hon? We're talking."
"Let me show you my ham radio," Lettie added. "Does yours still work?"
"No," I heard Arch reply. "How do you keep your antenna on your roof?" Their footsteps pattered down the hallway.
I pulled a folded sheet of paper out of the zippered makeup bag. The handwriting, with its bold pen marks, was identical to the handwriting on the letter from Leavenworth:
My Dear Wife,
You are my Treasure and I am yours. If there ever comes a time when I am in Heaven and you want me, you know you have only to use my Rifle and your Cookery book, and make the Rolls as I showed you. Thus will you have our treasure.
Your Loving Husband
"Well, now, that makes a lot of sense," I said after I'd read the note twice. "Use the rifle. Make the rolls according to a certain recipe. Then you'll be rich. Do you stir the batter with the rifle butt? And would that be Parker House or cloverleaf rolls?"
Rustine shrugged. "I just wish I knew who else Gerry showed the note to. Or who has that cookbook. We have to have the cookbook!"
I stood up. No need to mention the photocopies to Rustine. I said, "I need to take this to my husband."
I missed Arch on the way out, which was probably just as well. In the kitchen, Julian was up to his elbows in sudsy water, singing an a cappella riff on "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing." Just like Andr‚, I thought with a smile, although Julian probably didn't even realize it. He'd somehow cleared off a spot on the cluttered counter, laid down a dish towel, and heaped up a pile of washed and rinsed pans to drip-dry.
"Please have Arch home by three," I asked him. "The service for Andr‚ is at four."
He nodded, and I took off for home. To my astonishment, Tom had finished the plumbing and put in the rest of the bottom cabinets. This is what it must be like to have a contractor who works full-time, I mused. Without a counter, our kitchen still looked like a dusty warehouse, but at least it was beginning to take on the look of a culinary warehouse.
While I looked for lunch fixings, Tom washed his hands, poured a glass of water, and stared at the note I'd given him. "Why in the world didn't Rustine tell us about this? It affects a murder case, for crying out loud."
"She was hoping to cash in, once we found out what was-going on." I handed him a wobbly paper plate containing one of two peanut-butter-and-cherry-preserves brioche-toast sandwiches I'd just made fresh in our cramped dining room space. It didn't look very fancy, but when I hungrily bit into mine, the crunch of homemade toast mingling with slightly melted peanut butter and sweet cherry preserves was out of this world. Now all I needed was an iced latte to go with it.
"This is delicious." He wolfed his down and reached for the phone to call the sheriff's department. "You know they're going to come get this," he informed me. "And they're going to want to question Rustine."
I shrugged. It was time to get ready for Andr‚'s service. I made a slick fax-copy of the note for my own file. It wasn't ideal, but with needing to shower and change, I didn't have time to go to the library and photocopy more copies of stolen historical documents.
In a black Chanel suit and spectator pumps, her freshly coiffed curls tucked behind rhinestone-and-onyx earrings, Marla had morphed back to her old self when I found her in the parking lot of St. Stephen's Roman Catholic Church. The rain had stopped, but my irascible friend lofted her Louis Vuitton umbrella over her head in triumph.
"I'm done, I'm finished!" she sang. Her peaches-and-cream complexion was flushed with joy. She bustled up to my van. "The IRS guys left today, saying I'd hear from them soon. I said, 'How 'bout never?' They weren't amused. But here's the deal: they think I'm going to get a refund!"
I hugged her tighdy and felt unexpected tears burn. "Oh, Marla. I've missed you so much. And there's something I have to tell you, but you weren't feeling well, and I wanted to wait until your audit was over, because - "
"Calm down, will you? I can't listen to whatever it is until I've had some food. Let's see if the guys from Andr‚'s old restaurant have any goodies set up yet. Where's Arch?"
"Tom's bringing him. And the food is for afterwards!"
"You want my stomach to growl through the service?" she threatened as she linked her arm through mine and led me up the steps. "Have to tell you, Goldy, one of those IRS agents was kind of cute." Her voice turned wistful. "I suppose it's unethical for him to date an accused tax-chiseler.... And if he did ask me out, I'd have to wonder. I mean, now he knows I'm rich."
We entered the parish hall, a long, vaulted-ceiling addition to the ultramodern church. The enticing scents of roasted ham, chicken, pork, and beef wafted toward us. My heart tugged as I waved at two of the servers I knew from the old restaurant days with Andr‚. After Marla had deftly nabbed a couple of what looked like Andr‚'s Grand Marnier Buttercream Cookies, I steered her into the stone vestibule. There, lanky, balding Monsignor Fields talked in a hushed tone with Pru Hibbard and Wanda Cooney.
"What I want to tell you is this," I whispered to Marla as she munched on her cookies. "John Richard has been, and is, trying to get revenge on us. He turned you in to the IRS before he went to jail, and he's been bankrolling Craig Litchfield from jail."
Her beautiful brown eyes widened with shock. She swallowed the last mouthful of cookie. "Revenge on us? For what? That son of a bitch!" she hissed. "I'll kill him!"
"Don't start!" I warned as I sent the startled monsignor a conciliatory nod. I tugged Marla into the airy, modern church. Because Saint Stephen had been martyred by stoning, the only decoration on the high, pale blue walls was a mass of irregular stone-shaped windows filled with pale blue stained glass. Light abruptly flooded the windows as the sun emerged from behind a cloud. The wall suddenly resembled a jeweler's cloth strewn with aquamarines. "Look, Marla," I said softly, "I just wanted you to know he's being vengeful. In case anything else unexpected happens. Are you vulnerable in any other way?"
"The hell with vulnerable." She slid into a pew and smoothed the Chanel suit. "That creep has so much money to throw around, I'll sue him myself. And don't tell me you can't sue somebody in jail, because I will find a way. Oh, I can't wait." She patted my knee. "Now, I have good news for you. Litchfield's dinner for Weezie was dreadful. I know because I sneaked out on the IRS and went-as an invited guest, but of course as a spy, too, once I'd found out she'd canceled you. Anyway, he tried to cheat her - naughty, naughty. Weezie had ordered poached salmon from him. He made coulibiac, which everybody knows is a carbo-load made from bits of salmon sandwiched between crepes and covered with brioche. I heard that Weezie now suspects he had the salmon left over from another job. And get this: She wants Andy Fuller to investigate!"
So. Maybe instead of bothering my husband, Andy' Fuller would be investigating Craig Litchfield's fraudulent use of salmon? Now that was what I called having bigger fish to fry, I thought, as an usher handed us each a service leaflet for the memorial service.
"There's more," Marla whispered conspiratorially as the pews around us began to fill. "Weezie wanted a buffet. Craig insisted on a sit-down affair so he could limit portions. Worse, he inflated every dish with either frozen chopped spinach or - you're going to die - bread stuffing. Even the pasta had bread crumbs in it." She unsuccessfully suppressed a giggle. The woman on the other side of me looked up and glared. But Marla went on happily, "Edna Hardcastle is in for a huge surprise on Saturday. Maybe she'll call and rehire you at the last minute."
"Maybe her daughter will cancel her wedding again." Marla laughed out loud at the prospect of a wedding that might be postponed a third time; the woman glowered; I shrugged apologetically. Life in Aspen Meadow is never dull.
Tom, Arch, and Julian slid in next to us. Pru had been accompanied by Wanda Cooney to the front. The widow had apparently made the decision not to have her husband's coffin present. Arch gave my shoulder a quick squeeze when the organ began to play.
An altar boy had opened the side door overlooking the mountains. A breeze scented with pine wafted over us. The huge church was about half filled with mourners, which I found gratifying. Andr‚ had touched a number of people, despite his eccentric ways and long-winded tales of his own history, real or imagined. While the lessons from Isaiah and Paul's second letter to the Corinthians were read, I prayed for my teacher. I gave thanks that he had given me the gift of cooking as a way to care for people. I gave thanks that he'd come into my life when I'd needed him.
The monsignor gave a brief homily on not fearing death. He took his seat, and the congregation waited. According to the service leaflet, a remembrance was to be offered by Rabbi Sol Horowitz. This was something I'd never heard of in a Roman Catholic church, and I mentally gave them points for open-mindedness. After a few moments, a stooped, white-haired man shook off offers of assistance and climbed to the pulpit.
"The organist has agreed to help me," the rabbi began in a heavy accent. We waited, but no music was forthcoming. The rabbi pursed his lips, looked out over the congregation, then opened a folded sheet.
"This is my remembrance, from the time of the war."
Holding the sheet with one hand, he removed a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed his forehead. "In my brother's town of Clermont-Ferrand, Andre Hibbard was a fearless Resistance fighter, despite the fact that he was but eleven years old. Although Andr‚ was a child, he hated the Nazis, and he helped my brother and his wife avoid deportation to the camps." The rabbi faltered, then went on.
"Andr‚ Hibbard concealed my brother and his wife, an Italian Jew, in a barn. My brother was a violinist. Every day, Andr‚ brought them cheese and milk." The rabbi cleared his throat. "The Resistance was organized, and they taught codes to all their trainees. But Andr‚ had no radio, of course. So when the trains to take the Jews away arrived, Andr‚ Hibbard used music to alert my brother's family. If there was danger, Andr‚ would whistle 'Fur Elise' to my brother." Rabbi Horowitz waited while the rippling notes of Beethoven's tune rolled through the blue-lit church.
When the organ music faded, the congregation was still. Rabbi Horowitz went on: "One night, a man waited to take my brother and his family out, to try to get them to Switzerland, to safety. Andr‚'s job was to watch for the Nazis and whistle again to my brother's family, to indicate it was safe to move. The tune he chose was from Felix Mendelssohn."
The entire congregation listened intently as the organ pealed forth with "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing." Marla's face brightened. Arch smiled broadly. The rabbi folded his paper and pocketed it with the handkerchief. He grinned and nodded down at us.
"With the help of Andr‚ Hibbard, my brother and his wife escaped to Zurich. After playing many years with the Boston Symphony, my brother retired. Last year, he died. But he always made a good joke, about how the French boy fooled the Nazis, by using a Christian hymn to save a family of Jews."
The congregation broke into spontaneous applause as Rabbi Horowitz found his seat. Visibly moved, the monsignor led us through the Lord's Prayer, the intercessions, additional prayers, and the final commendation and blessing. One of the cooks from Andr‚'s old restaurant led Pru down the nave. The congregation followed. As we all filed out, the organist broke into an enthusiastic, multiversed rendition of "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing."
After the service, I dimly registered Monsignor Fields walking toward me across the church's large patio. Marla was eating, but I couldn't. I was sitting on the patio's stone wall-in a state of shock, I think - -realizing that the stories Andr‚ had told, the stories that I'd doubted, that I'd only been half listening to - had been true. The monsignor interrupted my thoughts.
"Pru is extremely tired. She does not want to stay for the reception, but she would like to visit with you at her condominium, if you feel up to driving out there." He seemed almost apologetic.
"I'd love to." When I told Tom where I was going, he chuckled. "I told the boys this buffet food was it for dinner, so we'll be here for a while."
On the way to Blue Spruce, dark-bellied clouds again gathered and spit raindrops on my van as I followed Wanda and Pru in Wanda's Suburban. Andr‚ had indeed been a Resistance fighter, I thought with newfound admiration. He was a genuine hero. I felt like a better person, just from knowing him. I turned on the wipers as the road snaked beside a creek edged with cottonwoods and wild daisies bowed by the rain. A golden eagle soared gracefully downward, then skimmed the tops of the lodgepole pines before disappearing from view. I braked as Wanda slowed to enter the Blue Spruce Retirement Village.
