Tough Cookie (25 page)

"Rorry, you're an old friend." I asked gently, "Why did you decide to have Nate's baby, now? After all these years?"

She pressed her lips together, struggling to keep the emotion in. Then she answered, "I lost one baby when he died. And . . . I miss Nate terribly, even with all the. . . unanswered questions. The baby is for me - for us. I decided to have the baby now for what Nate and I could have been." Before I could reply, she pulled back her sleeve to check her watch. "I need to go. Can you still take me to work at the warehouse? I'm doing a double shift today. A coworker can bring me home later." Before I could ask whether doing a double shift was a good idea, she excused herself to freshen up.

I sighed quietly, picked up our mugs, and fit them I into the trailer's small, packed dishwasher. When Rorry returned wearing snow boots, a jacket, and a hat, we took off for the Killdeer warehouse.

The enormous supply area was only a quarter-mile beyond the turnoff for the path to Elk Ridge and Elk Valley. I didn't want Rorry to see the signs to the place where her husband died. To distract her, I asked her to tell me about her work.

"It's not very exciting," she said with a laugh. "I just track the inventory for the supplies going up the mountain." We pulled into the parking area of several mammoth, brown-painted warehouses. Two heavily clad workmen were unloading boxes from a truck bearing the logo of a Denver wholesale food supplier. Numerous signs warned not to park, not to enter, not to do anything but go away. "That's the central storage area for produce, meats, canned goods," Rorry said as she pointed beyond a row of snowcats. "The tracks for the canisters start up there and go straight to the bistro. It's pretty efficient, really. Well, gotta go." She hesitated before opening the car door. "Goldy. . ." I'm sorry to burden you with all my troubles."

"Rorry," I tried one final time, "it's possible that even if Nate did go up the ridge with a snowboarder, it was completely innocent. He could have been filming something else, and then things went wrong - "

"Then where's his camera? Sony VX-One Thousand, digital-video, industry-standard for filming out-of-doors? You gotta have a camera if you're going to film tracks or skiers or just do clips of trees. Suppose the kid didn't steal it when he took our television. If Nate was carrying that camera, the avalanche team or groomers or somebody should have found it, shouldn't they? They found Nate's hat, fifty feet from his body. They even found the note still inside his jacket." She raised her eyebrows and held out her hands. "Don't know? Me, either. And if his little hike was so innocent, why wouldn't his girlfriend come forward afterward? 'We weren't making love, we were just hiking and chatting about public television! Then he went down the hill, and I went up!' "

"Rorry - "

She unsnapped her seatbelt. "Look, thanks for your concern. The casseroles will be great. I'll call you when the baby comes." She struggled to find her next words. "Please, Goldy. If I could turn Nate's death into a Sunday school lesson in redemption, believe me, I would. But I can't."

"If you could just find this person - " Her golden eyes blazed and her cheeks flushed with anger. "I don't want to know who it is anymore. Or to see her. I'm pregnant again. I have to stay calm. My husband was unfaithful to me, I barely have enough money to live on, and my car's been wrecked. But I am not going to lose this baby. I'm not stupid, Goldy. Nate's girlfriend never came forward because she didn't want to admit she was screwing a man with a pregnant wife. "

With that, Rorry climbed out of the car and slammed the door. She walked away clumsily, her shoulders slumped, her head bent. Somehow I knew there were tears in her eyes. You have not thought of every angle, I wanted to call after her.

The girlfriend - or whoever the snowboarder was with Nate that day - had triggered an out-of-bounds avalanche. But Rorry was wrong. The snowboarder hadn't stayed silent because of an affair with a man with a pregnant wife. The snowboarder hadn't come forward because she - or he - had started an avalanche that had killed a man with a pregnant wife.

-16- I drove out of Killdeer feeling as low as I had since the health inspector closed my kitchen. Poor Rorry. I was personally acquainted with the bitterness that welled up after betrayal. Yes, indeedy, I reflected as I moved into an unplowed lane on the interstate, a husband's cheating could poison your whole outlook. Not only that, but I also had firsthand experience in the no-income, no-vehicle department. But I was lucky: Now I had a husband with an income, and a friend who'd loaned me a car. Rorry was vastly, vastly unlucky. Had someone stolen her car and deliberately wrecked it? Why would someone do that? Had it been her Subaru that had hit the van behind mine? Or would that be too much of a coincidence? In any event, I kept a kestrel-eye on the Rover's rearview mirror. One catapult off a cliff per week was all I could handle.

When the Rover crunched over the snowpack in our driveway, Arch and Todd were outside throwing snowballs at each other with the intensity of a full-scale military battle. I powered down the window and asked for a truce, just until I could get into the house. Arch galumphed to the car to ask if I remembered Todd was spending the night. Of course, I replied. They had to finish their stanza memorization of "The Faerie Queene," Arch explained. Todd and Arch disliked memory work, so they were coaching each other. And, Arch added, Tom wanted to talk to me.

I jumped from the Rover. "He's home?"

"Yeah. The kitchen drains were delivered and he's putting them in." My son turned and took huge footsteps through the deep snow to get back to packing snow-missiles.

"How'd the work with Lettie go?" I called after him.

"Fine!" he yelled before throwing a new white grenade. So much for sociable chitchat. Tom was sprawled on his back on our kitchen floor. Strewn by his legs were two dozen plumbing tools and pieces of dismantled cherry cabinet. The top half of his torso disappeared beneath the sink.

I leaned down. "How's it going, 0 multitalented mate?"

With a grunt, he slid out and heaved himself upright His face and work clothes were filthy. Undaunted, he smiled hugely, white teeth in a portrait of grime.

"Your pipes and drains arrived." He got to his feet "I'm not assigned to any cases now, so I convinced the lieutenant to let me take two vacation days and put 'em in."

I hugged him, hard. "Thank you!" In my enthusiasm I backed over a wrench and almost crashed onto Arch's second spatter-pattern experiment, the dried frosting on a cookie sheet. "But, why can't we hire a plumber? There's no reason you should have to - "

Tom winked, set me upright, then lowered himself again to the floor. "Don't trust me, eh?" He slid back under the sink. His muffled voice said: "I'm doing it because I want to know exactly what kind of plumbing we have. I'll be done in a few hours."

"Tell me what your heart desires for dinner. Anything."

"Ah, Miss G., I am very much in the mood for a curry. I bought some fat raw shrimp, peeled and deveined, in the hope that you would make just such an offer. But you're going to have to do the sink work in the bathroom. Want me to come out and help?"

"Of course not. Shrimp curry it is. But listen, I've got something to tell you - "

"I want to hear it, but there's something I forgot," his hollow voice boomed. "You need to call your buddy the wine guy before six."

Uh-oh. Had Arthur discovered the raid on his cellar? And what would my husband the cop think of my subterranean foray?

"Actually, Tom, Arthur Wakefield is who I need to talk to you about - "

"Call him first, okay? I promised you would."

It was five-thirty. A long chat with Arthur would make preparing a curry dinner impossible. I washed my hands in the ground floor bathroom, then rinsed the shrimp and half a pound of fresh, plump mushrooms. After drying, trimming, and chopping the mushrooms, I minced shallots, onions, and garlic, swirled oil in a wide sauté pan, and tossed in all the vegetables. They sizzled and filled the room with a yummy scent. Once they were tender, I measured in curry powder and flour, stirred the pungent mixture for a couple of minutes, then removed it from the heat, crushed dried thyme over it, and poured in homemade chicken stock, cream, and dry white French vermouth. I suppressed a smile. Only a true wine geek would insist on pouring fifty-dollar-a-bottle Grand Cru chablis into curried shellfish. Still, by the time I added the shrimp, this thick, flavorful dish would be a suitable reward for Tom's hard work.

He again reminded me to call Arthur; I promised him I would as soon as I started the raisin rice. In another skillet, I sprinkled rice into sputtering melted butter, stirred until the kernels were toasted golden brown, and dropped in a handful of moist raisins. Then I poured in more homemade chicken stock, lowered the heat, and gently placed a lid on top.

"Sure smells fantastic up there," was Tom's sub-sink comment.

"Thanks." I punched in Arthur's number, tucked the phone under my ear, and gathered my dishes to rinse in the bathroom. He answered on the first ring.

"My guests are due in ten minutes," he said hurriedly. "I have my wines ready. Your wonderful food is heating. Thank you for everything," he gushed.

"No problem, Arthur." Compared to his attitude that afternoon, he sounded suspiciously mellow.

"I feel awful for not paying you. We're still on for lunch Wednesday?"

I felt a frisson of unease. "You bet - "

"Wednesday will be three years since Mother's funeral," he interrupted dolefully. "I . . . I want to show you the spot," he said quickly, then hung up.

Show me what spot on the anniversary of his mother's funeral? The spot where she was buried? The place where she died? Now there was a cheerful incentive to join the man for lunch.

"Tom," I called downward, "may I talk to you about this Killdeer mess?"

"Yes," came his echoing-inside-the-pipe voice. I started filling bowls with sour cream, chopped peanuts, chutney, coconut, pineapple chunks, chopped hard-cooked egg, and more raisins. "Doug Portman was about to leave for Puerto Escondido before he died. It's a small town on the Pacific coast of Mexico. I, uh, I found his plane ticket hidden in Arthur Wakefield's wine cellar. So I'm a tad concerned about having lunch with Arthur on Wednesday."

"What?" Banging on metal was followed by a groan as Tom worked to extract himself again. By the time I'd finished setting the table, he was leaning on the marble counter and giving me a skeptical look. "What did you do, exactly?"

I checked the refrigerator for beer - our preferred drink with curry - and soft drinks for the boys. "Look, I know I wasn't supposed to snoop around Arthur's place, but the man is obsessed with the Portman case."

"I know, I know, everybody in the Department of Corrections is sick of Arthur Wakefield and his letters about Portman. But you're the one who decided to go through his stuff."

"I didn't steal anything." Tom grunted and I went on: "Look, he's got nineteen million dollars at stake. My best guess is, when you're trying to get a will set aside because you think someone exerted undue influence over your rich mother, you try to make that influential someone look bad. Very bad. In this case, that person is Jack Gilkey, who was granted parole by Doug Portman. So you also want to find out everything negative you can about Doug Portman. If Arthur can prove Portman took a bribe to grant Gilkey parole, he'd be in better shape to have his mother's second will overturned. Of course he'd steal Portman's mail, if he thought it might help him find out exactly what Doug was up to. If you want to get a warrant," I added hastily, "the ticket-issuers were Copper Mountain Worldwide Travel."

"Oh, Miss G., why do you do this to me? Tickets don't prove anything by themselves. You want to lose your bonding? Did you think about that?" But he was reaching for the phone.

"I didn't take the ticket," I repeated stubbornly. Tom did not reply. He was using his answering-machine voice to ask Marla if she could meet me at eleven o'clock on Wednesday at Killdeer, to ski for a couple of hours and have lunch. He'd phone again later to confirm.

"What are you doing?" I demanded of him. "Marla hates skiing."

Tom hung up and regarded me intensely. "Yeah, but she's a good skier, I've seen her. I want her there."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want Arthur Wakefield to make any unexpected moves on a caterer who's broken into his wine cellar and riffled his papers. You better pray he didn't discover what you did," Tom commented as he moved off to clean himself up.

"Arthur will never know if you don't tell him," I shot back.

Discouraged, I scraped the moist, tender raisin rice onto a heated platter and covered it. Then I stirred the shrimp into the curry and called Todd, Arch, and Tom, who emerged showered, dressed, and smelling as sweet as ever. He seemed to have forgiven me for my morning's escapade at Arthur's. Or if he hadn't, he was letting it go for now.

Everyone busied themselves with the condiments. I sprinkled peanuts onto my chutney-topped bowl of curry and took a bite. The crunch of nuts combined with the succulent shrimp robed in its spicy-hot, luscious sauce was out of this world. Tom winked at me in thanks. Somewhat dramatically, Arch announced that he and Todd would like to recite their Spenser to us tonight. They were, he informed us, splitting a stanza. I looked at Tom and he grinned. They would begin right after dinner, Arch concluded. They'd have their backs to us, though, as they couldn't yet handle an audience's faces.

When we'd finished, Tom scraped the dishes and insisted on washing them in the bathroom. Pretending to be flipping through a cookbook, I took surreptitious delight in watching Todd and Arch huddle over Spenser's Complete Works.

Todd had stuck by Arch during the worst of my trials I with The Jerk; in. return, Arch .had invited Todd to sleep lover numerous nights after Eileen kicked her husband out. Todd, shorter than Arch but heavier, still had endearingly cherubic cheeks that were now deeply flushed at the prospect of performing. His unevenly shorn black hair had nothing to do with style and everything to do with his unconscious habit - developed after his father's troubles were exposed - of tugging out his shiny curls. But he'd stopped pulling his hair out, Arch had assured me. I stared down at the cookbook, then peeked back up. Even though the two boys had gone from bikes to fantasy-role-playing games to snowboarding, they were still best friends, and I was glad of it. Friendship was a great blessing; we all needed to remember that. With a pang, I thought of Rorry.