Tough Cookie (8 page)

When I shook my head again, Bancock took up the questioning. "All right. Now, please describe once again everything that happened once you left the bistro. We need to know every detail you can remember."

This I did, including seeing Doug disappear into the snowfall, my own slower skiing as I followed, getting caught up with the crowd trying to catch money. Suddenly remembering the wad in my pocket, I pulled out the bloody bills and placed them in a paper bag offered by Hoskins. Then I recounted how I'd looked for the source of the cash and seen Doug on the run below. . . . Total time elapsed from the bistro to the death scene: about twenty-five minutes, I concluded.

"Please describe the exact appearance of the victim," Bancock said, in a chillingly matter-of-fact tone.

This I did: ski suit, hat, skis off and broken, one pole down the slope. Doug, covered with snow, sprawled motionless, looking as if he'd taken a spectacular fall and landed like a grotesque rag doll. The blood. I shuddered.

"And what did you think when you first saw him, Mrs. Schulz?"

"That he'd hit his head."

"The money," said Bancock thoughtfully, tapping his notebook. "Did you request he pay you in cash, instead of by check?"

"He said he was paying cash, and I didn't ask why. Eight thousand dollars." I thought again of the blizzard of falling currency on the mountainside, and swallowed.

Tom rolled his eyes and Bancock snorted.

The latter went on, "Did anyone else but you know he had the money for the skis on him?"

"I don't have a clue." How much of that scattered eight thousand would the authorities ever recover? I shot another apologetic look at Tom. My husband's face was blank. I said, "What's going on here?" An awful suspicion dawned on me. I turned to Tom. "Did you know Doug Portman in some official capacity? What did he do exactly?"

Tom exhaled before replying. "He was in corrections. And yes, I knew him in an official capacity." He checked Hoskins' face, which revealed nothing, then Bancock's. The sergeant nodded.

"Doug Portman was the chairman of the state parole board," Tom told me. "You didn't know?"

"No." Why would I? Belatedly, I remembered Cinda Caldwell, and her customer who'd mouthed threats about poisoning a cop. Did a parole board chief qualify as a cop? "Wait, there's something else - " I told them of this morning's interchange with Cinda. "Tom, didn't you get the message I left?" He shook his head and said he hadn't yet retrieved his messages. Bancock wrote down the name of Cinda's cafe. He asked Patrolman Hoskins if he had any further questions; Hoskins replied in the negative. The young deputy reviewed his notes, then asked for our phone numbers. While Tom recited them, I walked to the outer office to check on the snow. It was still coming down hard.

Does your husband know I'm meeting you?

I've got something for Tom in my car. . . .

Doggone. I dashed back to the office. "Sergeant Bancock. There is something else I forgot to tell you. This morning, just before we left the bistro? Doug told me he had something for Tom."

Bancock gave me a curious look, then transferred the curiosity to Tom. "Had something for your husband?" he asked me. "What?"

"I have no idea. He mentioned it was in his car."

"Know what kind of vehicle he was driving?" Bancock asked.

I did not. Hoskins and Bancock went out to phone Portman's office, in search of a description. Tom asked, "Have you received any mail from the Department of Corrections lately?"

"No. Why?"

"The DOC sends out notices to a convict's victims and relatives of victims, before the convict comes up for parole. The board holds a hearing before parole is granted, so the victims can give their opinion on the guy getting out. Or not getting out." He shook his head. "If the DOC sent you a notice about John Richard, it might mean trouble for you. You see that, don't you?"

"Why? What trouble? What does this have to do with The Jerk? Look, Tom, all I did was go out with Doug Portman, eight years ago. Today I was just going to sell him some skis. Which one of those is a crime? What could that have to do with my ex-husband?"

Tom gnawed the inside of his cheek. "John Richard has been in the Furman County Jail for how long, four months?"

Blood rose to my cheeks. No. Not parole for The Jerk. Not yet. Please. I counted back. In September, John Richard had finally been convicted of assault - not of me, but of another woman. With the state penitentiary operating at double capacity, he was currently serving his two-year sentence in the Furman County Jail. "Almost four months." I searched Tom's face. "That's got to be too early for parole."

"Sorry, Miss G. I haven't memorized all the statutes."

"He couldn't be. Anyway, Tom, no matter what's going on with John Richard, Doug Portman died while skiing. This can't have anything to do with John Richard. End of story."

But I knew all too well that wasn't quite the end of the story. Why would Doug insist on buying Tom's skis with cash instead of a check? Wasn't that foolhardy? And speaking of foolhardy, if the run was closed, why was Doug Portman on it? People who died skiing usually suffered heart attacks. Or they collided with an obstacle and died of internal injuries. If Doug suffered an internal injury, there was an awful lot of his blood on the slope.

I knew, too, that a suspicious death raises questions first about the person who discovers the body. Say a woman finds the body of a parole board member. Say she has an abusive ex-husband, now in jail. The ex-husband is no threat, until lie comes up for parole. If he's granted parole, what happens if the formerly abused wife takes exception to the decision of the parole board?

My body felt numb. This time, however, it wasn't from the cold.

Hoskins and Bancock reappeared to say they had a description of Portman's BMW and were going to search for it. When the door closed behind them, Tom scraped a chair over, clasped my elbow, and spoke in a gentle voice.

“Look. I shouldn't have said anything."

"They were your skis. I should have told you - "

"Goldy, please. There's a lot going on here that's out of whack."

"No kidding." I finally took a sip of my coffee. It was cold.

"For one thing," Tom went on calmly, "why would Portman give you something for me?"

"I don't know. Maybe it's an article discussing the rising values of collectible skis. Wouldn't he have called the sheriff's department directly if he'd had something to give you from work?"

He waved a hand. "We'll know pretty soon. If this is work-related, if it has to do with a case, you shouldn't be acting as courier."

"What could he have had for you, relating to one of your cases, that couldn't wait until Monday morning?"

Tom raised his eyebrows. "Portman was kind of an eager beaver, very self-impressed. Of course, maybe on your dates, he didn't give that impression - " He chuckled.

"That's not funny," I said as he smiled.

"If some guy I put behind bars and he let loose out on parole has become a troublemaker, then we have problems." Tom moved his hand up to my shoulder. "I know you don't want it, but it might be a good idea for somebody to be with you."

"I don't need pampering, Tom. I'm fine."

"Where's Julian?" he asked pleasantly, as if he I hadn't heard me.

"Julian is - " Actually, where was Julian? This fall, our twenty-year-old family friend and boarder had transferred from Cornell to the University of Colorado. Julian Teller's lifetime ambition, temporarily derailed owing to this change in colleges, was to become a vegetarian chef. Meanwhile, he was determined to pursue his B.A. no more than an hour away from us, his adopted family. "Julian is . . . let's see. . . it's Friday." Julian apprenticed in a Boulder restaurant on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, and his classes were. . . "Friday afternoons, he has film class. Then at night the class watches old movies. Afterward, he spends the weekend at a friend's apartment."

"Which means he won't be home."

"Look, Tom," I replied impatiently. "Please. I'll be fine. I'll probably still be up cooking when you get back tonight." I had lots of work to do at home, none of which required a commercial kitchen: preparing for an intake meeting with Arthur and baking cookies for a library party. The library wanted to throw a come-one, come-all holiday party for patrons. I'd offered to bring the Christmas cookies. I was doing this volunteer food service so people would know I was still out there. So people would not think I had quit the food biz altogether. And what a price to pay for the Sunday reception: missing the Broncos play the Kansas City Chiefs! But I was determined to be a caterer full of the holiday spirit. And, with any luck, I'd have everyone fed and the place cleaned up in time to catch the second half.

Tom snapped open his cellular and called Marla. My best friend was not home. Tom checked his watch and announced to Marla's machine that she should cancel her plans for the rest of the day, drive to our house, and, wait. "Goldy needs you," he concluded.

In spite of all that had happened that day, I smiled at the thought of hopelessly busy-with-life, immensely wealthy Marla Korman careening her Mercedes to our curb to await my arrival from Killdeer. Maybe she'd do it; Tom's message ensured she'd be eager for bad news. Meanwhile, I had Arch to speak to, a weekend crammed with nonpaying jobs, and looming questions about my former relationship with a parole board member, now mysteriously deceased.

Next Tom called Eileen Druckman's condo and asked for Arch. He handed me the phone.

"Mom?" My son's tentative, worried voice crackled across the connection. "Now can you tell me what happened?"

I told him a guy skiing Hot-Rodder was in an accident and I just had to talk to the patrol for a while. Was he sure he didn't want me to come get him?

"I'll be okay here, I guess." He sounded uncertain. An adolescent boy wants to be with you and yet despises mothering; he wants to make sure you're okay but doesn't want to appear to care. "What happened to the guy? Where was all that money coming from? Did somebody try to rob him?"

"Honey, I don't know. He died - "

"He's dead? Did he run into a rock or something?"

"Nobody has a clue. And yes, he was carrying a lot of cash; he was our buyer for Tom's World War Two skis. Listen, hon, I'll be coming back to Killdeer in the morning to meet with a client. We could ski together in the afternoon, if you want."

"Uh, no thanks." Ski with someone as uncool as your mother? No way. "Look, Mrs. Druckman wants to talk to you. I told her you witnessed an accident."

I groaned as Sergeant Bancock appeared at the door and summoned Tom to the outer office. Tom's lips brushed my cheek before he left.

"Goldy, what's going on?" Eileen's husky voice demanded. "Arch has been awfully worried about you, and so have I. There was an accident on the slopes? Someone died? Was it near the bistro, or further down?"

"No, it was closer to the base," I replied. "And I'm fine, thanks, there's no need to worry. I think a skier was going too fast on a closed run. He had a terrible fall."

"Arch said there was money allover the slope?"

"The man was carrying a lot of cash. It was disgusting. People were crazed, trying to grab it up."

Eileen muttered something about drunk skiers, then said she and Todd were looking forward to having Arch for another night. After the lunch rush, Jack was coming home to make them homemade spinach ravioli stuffed with pine nuts, napped with a Dijon mustard cream sauce.

With my stomach growling, I hung up. Parole for The Jerk. How was I going to research that? Not at the Killdeer Ski Resort, that much was clear. Tom still had not returned. A new hubbub emanated from the front office. Now what.? I ventured out in search of more info.

Surrounded by ski patrol members and uniformed sheriff's deputies, my husband stood by a scarred oak desk. All the law enforcement folks seemed to be talking at once.

"Hello?" I called politely. "Would it be okay for me to take off?

Tom murmured to a deputy and the deputy nodded. Then my husband turned and beckoned for me to come forward. When I joined them, Tom said, "Look, but don't touch. Please."

Perplexed, I stared down at the desktop. It was strewn with pamphlets, maps, memos, correspondence. Nothing on it looked especially unusual.

"Look at what?" I asked Tom.

With his fingertip, Tom carefully pushed back piles of paper, exposing an open greeting card. All the deputies and ski patrol folks craned down to make their own closer inspection. As a result, I couldn't read the thing.

"Wait." Tom's ocean-green eyes regarded me solemnly; he spoke deliberately. "Don't look at it yet, Miss G. I need to know precisely what Doug Portman said he had for me. Word for word."

"Well," I began. I shifted uncomfortably. "It wasn't that memorable. He said, 'I've got something for Tom in my car.' That's it. Why?"

Tom waved me forward. The crowd pulled back. As I leaned toward the opened card, Tom warned, "Don't even breathe close to it."

"What does the outside say?"

"It's a congratulations card. The outside message reads: 'Good Job!' "

Inside the card, an explosion of bright yellow stars was accompanied by the card's own greeting: You're a Star! Beside the yellow stars, where your thumbs grasp a card to open it, was something much more menacing.

Glued on both inside card edges were two perfectly round, filled pieces of plastic material. I frowned. From Med Wives 101, I recognized the plastic rounds as transdermal patches. Each was filled with a blue gelatinous substance. Patches of this type were usually used to administer pain or nausea medication through the skin, when the patient was unable to take a pill or give himself a shot. I looked more closely and saw a small, handprinted message.

Thanks for nothing, Asshole! You're dead!!! There was no signature.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I demanded, mystified. "Was this card in an envelope? Was it addressed to someone?"

"It was in an envelope, an opened one, but there was no one's name on it," Tom said grimly. "This may be related to your coffee lady Cinda's story. Maybe this is the threat the guy was bragging about making. Threaten a cop? Threaten a parole board member? Anyway, I have to stay here and talk to these people. Then I'm going to take this card down to the crime lab." He shook his head. "If that blue jelly contains, say, anthrax, we could be dealing with something nasty. I've already called over to the coroner about getting the crime lab to run a couple of different drug screens on Doug Portman."