Killer Pancake Part 19

He invited me to sit down. When the three of us were settled in the spa.r.s.ely decorated room, he smiled wryly. "Mrs. Schulz, did your husband serve in Vietnam?"

Taken off guard, I said, "Well, yes, as a matter of fact. That was before I knew him, though."

"And he came back and became a policeman," Mr. Routt said.

"He ... finished his degree first, I think. Then he went into law enforcement."

Frances grunted, but John Routt held up an age-spotted hand. "When I got back from Korea in 'fifty-four, I was twenty-one. I tried to get into the police academy in-"

"Don't, John," Frances interrupted sharply. "Don't tell her where. No specifics. She doesn't need to know, for crying out loud! Goldy, I'm still trying to salvage a story here. If you don't mind, I'd like to keep you and your investigator husband out of this until it's published. Please at least let me do that."

John Routt shook his head. He continued, "... tried to get into the police academy ... in the small town I was from. But there weren't any openings. No openings. There or anywhere else." He paused for a long time, his eyes closed. When he opened them he clucked his tongue. "Did you ever feel utterly worthless, Mrs. Schulz? As if everything that went wrong in your life Was your fault?"

"Yes," I said evenly, "I have felt that way. For seven years, as a matter of fact."

"And what did you do to change things?" he asked. His watery eyes blinked as he waited for my answer.

"I got a divorce and started a catering business."

Again John Routt clucked. "I should have done that! My goodness. Actually, I didn't want a divorce, I just wanted a job. But there weren't any jobs." He sighed. "So I robbed a bank. More accurately, I drove the getaway car for a couple of buddies of mine."

The bank job. Tom had mentioned a famous bank robbery involving a man named Routt. His memory had been correct. Our neighbor was the same Routt. No wonder Sally Routt had told Dusty she was afraid of what the church helping to build their house might find out. "So if you were driving a getaway car, you ... must have been able to-" I began. Frances groaned.

"Yes," John Routt said softly. "I had my vision then. But I got caught and convicted for armed robbery. Eventually I ended up at the state penitentiary in-"

"John!" Frances interjected.

"I went to a state penitentiary," John Routt continued. "I was young," he said. "I was married. And so, Mrs. Schulz, when I was promised points in the time-off-for-good-behavior program, I took it." For the first time, his voice wavered. His head drooped forward. Frances and I sat very still as John Routt collected himself. "Catch was," he went on, "to get my time off, I had to volunteer for cosmetics testing from a company called Foucault-Reiser." He let out a self-deprecating cackle. "And here I am! The chemical the company used on me caused an infection in one eye. It spread to the other eye as quick as you could imagine. They don't use that chemical in cosmetics, thank the Lord. Because of me! I'm the reason your eyes don't burn when you smear your mascara."

"G.o.d help us," I said softly, appalled. I remembered Frances's cryptic answer to my demand to know what she was up to: Did you ever hear of Ray Charles?

Frances stood up. "John, you don't have to tell her all this. We'll get Mignon, one way or another. It is going to happen."

"Let me finish telling Mrs. Schulz what I'm going to tell her, will you, Frances? Please?"

She flopped back in her chair and rooted around for a cigarette.

John Routt shook his head and gestured with his large, trembling hands. Overhead, the rain beat down harder. "The warden was being paid by Foucault-Reiser, and he said if I told what had happened when their chemical ruined my eyes, I'd never get out of that place. Foucault-Reiser gave me some money, and I was released early. And before you ask, no, I didn't sue." When he shook his head, some strands of white hair came loose again. He patted them back into place. "n.o.body but rich folks sued back then. I learned to play the saxophone. My wife, Jaylene, supported us by being a nurse. But when Jaylene died last year, I came to live with my daughter. Sally's had a hard life ... connected up with two men who wouldn't marry her ... well. Anyway, Sally's the one, Dusty's mother, that is, who read me the article Frances did on the high cost of cosmetics. That's why Frances is here. I called her. I told her I might have a big story for her newspaper." He chuckled. "She was doing it all for me, trying to get justice, trying to get a big story." His voice turned serious. "I didn't want my granddaughter to know. G.o.d only knows why she took a job with that same company. She knew what happened to me, but ... I guess it's like the children of race car drivers, wanting to get involved in the same thing...." He cackled sarcastically. "They must pay well. They've always paid well. But no matter what, I didn't want to get Dusty involved."

I could hear Dusty's voice as she applied eyeshadow to my lids: Don't open your eyes! You don't know what could happen! G.o.d only knew why she'd taken the job, indeed. I wondered where Dusty was.

Frances said, "John-"

"Frances, don't keep on. Mrs. Schulz?"

"Please call me Goldy."

"I just want to finish telling you, since you wanted to know why Frances was here. Last month, just after Frances and I started working together, Dusty told us they were targeting her for employee theft." He shook his head. "I thought, oh my Lord! They must know-Mignon, the parent company, Foucault-Reiser-someone must know I'm trying to get back at them! So they're targeting my granddaughter! They're trying to frame her with employee theft!"

Frances could no longer contain herself. "And then Claire Satterfield was run down," she interrupted. "For a while I even thought they were trying to get me."

I felt more bewildered than ever. "Who is they? And why spy on me?"

Frances Markasian shook her head at my profound ignorance. "First of all, Goldy," she said tartly, "no one is spying on you." She blew out smoke. "John has superdeveloped hearing. We knew you had the food fair this morning, and I didn't want to risk going into that store again so soon. So we had this idea that you could buy some stuff for us, and see if any of the other sales a.s.sociates were neglecting to give receipts. That's probably all that happened to Dusty ... she just forgot to give somebody a receipt! Anyway ... John heard your van come back, that's how we knew you were home. That's it. They is Mignon Cosmetics, Goldy." She announced it the way a math teacher explains the end of a formula to a slow student. "It's all a conspiracy, don't you see?"

"No, I don't see."

Frances's voice became frustrated. "Mignon wanted to undermine John's story, so they cast suspicion on his granddaughter. When that didn't work, they killed Claire Satterfield, one of their top sales producers. And now they've killed the security guy. If John comes forward with his story, they'll be able to say, 'Ah-ha! This is the guy who's been causing all our problems, a convict undermining our company using hired killers!' Don't you get it?"

I'm not long on conspiracy theories. The JFK a.s.sa.s.sination still has me stumped. Watergate had seemed beyond belief, and it had actually been true. But Frances, I could tell, was not going to be dissuaded. And I wasn't going to argue with her. My kitchen was calling. I had cooking to do if the Braithwaites' guests were going to eat. Tom and the cops could separate the myth from the reality. I had just one last question.

"Frances, why were you so insistent about having the receipt?"

"Because Dusty's been in so much trouble-" John began.

"Because Dusty was convinced she was being framed," Frances rasped. "Claire said Gentileschi had been watching Dusty since the last inventory."

"Forgive me for being thick," I interrupted. "Why since the inventory?"

John waved Frances's objections away. He said, "It goes like this: A customer, say it's you"-he gestured with an open hand-"makes a large cash purchase. Say you buy ... a scarf. The employee makes a big show of putting your receipt in the bag, but instead he palms it." He closed his hand. "Then the employee uses your receipt to do a cash refund to himself. If you discover you don't have the receipt at the end of the day, you-the shopper-you say, oops, I musta lost it in all my shopping. And n.o.body's the wiser until inventory time six months later, when they find out a scarf's been shoplifted. Or at least, that's what they think."

"Oh, my," I said. "And had Prince & Grogan suffered a lot of loss?"

"Prince & Grogan just did their big inventory in June," Frances replied impatiently. "The store sharks were out to find out what had happened to thousands of dollars' worth of shoes, costume jewelry, lipstick, and perfume. That's probably why the security guy was so quick to come after you yesterday." Her eyes narrowed to knowing slits.

"But why would Harriet not give me-" I began.

Frances said, "I think Mignon has told Harriet Wells that Dusty is a potential problem to the company. Mignon could have told Harriet that when a big cash sale is made, put in Dusty's a.s.sociate number. In other words, ring it up as if Dusty had made the sale. Then keep the receipt, and ring the return in as a cash refund, also to her a.s.sociate number, so she looks guilty all the way around. And it's all computerized, so it looks official. I'm telling you, they're trying to frame her."

"That's quite a conspiracy, if you asked me."

"Exactly. If you'll pardon my saying so, it's the cosmetics company, stupid."

"Okey-doke," I said, rising. This time I didn't hold my hand out to John Routt, I just touched his forearm. "Thank you for telling me your whole story, Mr. Routt. Do you mind if I share it with my husband? He might want to come over and chat with you."

John Routt's voice caught in his throat. He seemed to sense I thought Frances's theory was baloney. Perhaps he even suspected that I'd lost the receipt, which was what I suspected myself. After a moment he said, "Do you think we still have a chance? Will people care what happened in the past? Now that all these other crimes are happening? I don't want Dusty to be hurt. She knows nothing of my dealings with Frances."

"But it was through Dusty that you found out Claire had had other boyfriends? And Frances suspected one of them was a good-looking animal-rights activist?" I asked him.

He hung his head. No wonder Frances had seemed to have so much information so early. Right from the beginning, she'd developed speculations-bizarre guesses, as it turned out-to go with Claire's being killed.

"Mrs. Schulz," said John Routt, "do you think people will want to hear my story?"

"I hope so," I said delicately. "Frances won't give up," I added truthfully. "You can count on her. Good luck."

I excused myself and ran through the raindrops toward my house and my kitchen. Once I was safely ensconced in chopping a pile of mint leaves, I heard Frances's Fiat roar away.

"Where've you been?" Julian asked as he toasted the kernels for the raisin rice.

"At the Routts' place."

"You were gone a long time."

"I'm sorry. I'm working, I'm working."

In my absence, Julian had finished the slaw. I swirled yogurt and the freshly chopped mint into the soup, and we continued to work together in silence. We had a quiet teamwork in the kitchen that I would sorely miss when he went off to school. I reached for the ingredients for fudge cookies and wondered how much round-trip plane tickets cost from Denver to Ithaca.

"Are you okay?" Julian asked as he poured stock over the golden brown rice and it let out a delicious, steamy hiss.

"Oh, yes." What could have happened to that d.a.m.n receipt? Had I ever had it? Had Harriet put it in the bag or handed it back to me with my change? But the change was in the bag. I'd never opened my wallet. "I just ... Julian, why was Dusty expelled from Elk Park Prep?"

"I really have no idea. You know, they were about to move into the Habitat House, and I guess her mom begged the school authorities to hush it up. I mean, since the Habitat House was sponsored by the church and all. They didn't want to look like the kind of people you wouldn't want to have in your law-abiding middle-cla.s.s neighborhood, I guess."

Well, well. This undoubtedly was why I hadn't heard through the, town grapevine that an ex-convict was living across the street. The Routts had managed to keep that quiet too. I asked, "Could Dusty have been expelled for stealing?"

He laughed. "Man, I doubt it. Right after she left, I had four CDs stolen from my locker. So if they threw Dusty out because they thought she was a thief, they didn't get the right person. Why do you care?"

"Oh, I don't know. She just seems so ... needy or something. By the way, Arch called asking about you." Julian raised his eyebrows. "So what should I have told him? How are you, Julian?"

He sighed. "Functioning. Listen, We've still got two hours before we're due up at the Braithwaites' place. If you think you can finish the rice, I'd like to take some food over to Marla's house. Lowfat, of course."

"Hey, I was born making fudge cookies and curry at the same time. But I should warn you-Marla's storm-trooper nurse may not let you see her."

He turned on our Jenn-Air grill and brought out some chicken b.r.e.a.s.t.s he'd marinated separately. "I don't really need to see her. I just want her to ... start eating again. What is it you're always telling me?"

"When All Else Fails, Send in Food."

"Exactly." He laid the chicken pieces on the grill; they sputtered invitingly. I couldn't remember the last time I'd had a regular meal. A caterer's life. I stirred more of the cream alternative into the curry, took a final taste, and started in on the fudge cookies.

Julian started to tremble. When I looked over at him, he ran out of the kitchen and I finished the grilling. When he returned, his face splotchy, his eyes red, he said he didn't want to talk. If that was okay. I said it was fine, and helped him wrap up a dinner care package for Marla.

After he left, that angry inner voice nagged at me as I carefully sifted flour and cocoa powder. Claire Satterfield's death remained a bizarre, inescapable event. I whipped egg whites and added the dry ingredients, then stirred the whole concoction together. Tom wanted me out of the case. Sorry, Tom. Not when I must help Julian.

Before the store inventory, someone had been stealing from Mignon Cosmetics. One shoplifting theory was that employees palmed the merchandise receipts instead of giving them to customers, and then used the receipts later to get cash refunds. Who were the people there most often? Harriet, Claire, Dusty: All three knew the workings of the camera. But would they have dared to steal right in front of it? And of course there was Shaman Krill, who might have been involved in the thievery as part of his nasty campaign to destroy the cosmetics company. How could he get the receipts, if that indeed was how the shoplifting was done? If he shoplifted directly, then he might have been seen-or photographed-by Gentileschi or Stan White. Of course, if Nick Gentileschi had been unsavory enough to take surrept.i.tious photos of Babs Braithwaite, there was no telling what other activities he could have been involved in. And then there was John Routt. He couldn't see to shoplift, so he was out, and Frances was up in the stratosphere with her conspiracy theories.

That left Reggie Hotchkiss. The man with the wig. He had spied on Mignon, and he'd shamelessly copied their promo campaign for fall products. Would he also have tried to sabotage them?

I dropped perfect rounds of s.h.i.+ny fudge batter onto a cookie sheet, set the cookie sheet into the oven, and stirred the curry. Maybe Reggie Hotchkiss would be at the Braithwaites' house tonight. Babs wanted to impress people, and the Hotchkiss Heir Apparent would be a perfect name for her guest list. I wondered who was doing her makeup.

I set aside the curry and rice to cool before Julian packed them into the van. Within half an hour he returned with the good news that although Marla was still asleep, the nurse had gratefully taken the dinner he'd brought and said his aunt had told her he was a brilliant cook. And yes, the nurse had said, Julian could come over tomorrow when I visited, as long as we didn't upset Marla.

"Who, us?" I said with a laugh as I started frosting the cooled fudge cookies.

Without being asked, Julian packed up the curry and rice, opened the door to the walk-in, and began hoisting boxes to go into the van. He said, "I'm the calmest person I know. Also the most depressed."

"Oh, Julian, what can I-"

"Nothing. And don't ask me again if I want to stay home, because the answer is no."

Resigned, I again decorated the Vanilla-iced fudge cookies by lightly dusting them with cocoa powder. While I took a quick shower, Julian finished packing the van. As we drove in silence to the Aspen Meadow Country Club area, I sneaked a glance at Julian's pale, exhausted face. I thought of all my friends who'd tried to fix me up with their single male neighbors, cousins, colleagues, coaches, and postal workers when I was divorced. Now, finally, I understood their impulse, because more than anything I wanted someone for Julian to find comfort from, as I had with Tom. But no friend can force that loving other person on you, I'd learned. If I hadn't stumbled into Tom in the course of my catering business, I'd probably still be the woman with a chip on her shoulder who refused to be comforted by anyone.

The stone entryway to the country club area had been draped with swathes of red, white, and blue fabric. I swung the van past an exuberant group of kids with sparklers and up toward Aspen Knoll.

"What was it exactly that Babs's parents did to earn their fortune?" Julian asked as we pa.s.sed hillocks of elegant, showy landscaping that featured lush sprays of pampas gra.s.s, miniature aspens, iris of every conceivable hue, and ma.s.ses and ma.s.ses of pink and yellow perennials.

"b.u.t.ter," I said.

"And here I thought all the money in this part of the country was tied up with oil."

I was still laughing when we pulled around to the back entrance of the colossal contemporary-style house. Neither Charles nor Babs was in sight. We didn't have any luck at the garage door, so we tried the front. A maid directed us to deck stairs that led to the side door to the kitchen. After we'd trekked up and down those stairs eleven times to unload our supplies, I began to wonder how much the Braithwaites had to pay someone to bring in the groceries. I also wondered about my boxes: They all said "Fourth of July party at the Braithwaites." I hadn't labeled the cartons, nor had I noticed that Julian had labeled them earlier. Well, he had to have taken them out of the refrigerator, so I knew they had to be right.

We were running slightly behind schedule, so the first order of business was to scope the place. The living room, where Julian and I would serve the soup and skewers as hors d'oeuvre, had a bar at the ready. It was an enormous room decorated in an Oriental style, which meant lots of heavy mahogany tables, silk screens, and low-slung silk-covered couches and chairs. Bowls of white and red peonies graced the mantelpiece and bar. The maid had already set the dining room table for twelve. A lovely floral arrangement of red roses, white lilies, and blue gladiolas carried out the July Fourth theme for the evening. Each place also boasted a miniature American flag with the name of the guest engraved on its flagpole. We circled the table under the maid's watchful eye. I saw what I was hoping for. Mr. Reginald Hotchkiss was indeed one of the invited guests.

I sighed and tried to think of a strategy for asking him a few questions. Or for doing any sleuthing around this immense estate. When I was back in the kitchen, I looked out the window at Charles Braithwaite's greenhouse. With little actual cooking ahead, I'd surely have time to sneak down there while it was still light outside and look for a blue rose or two. The curry was done, all it needed was reheating. Ditto the rice. I knelt and opened the first carton, then stared at the contents. My eyes aren't working, I thought. Something's wrong. I leaned back on my heels, suddenly dizzy. What were the symptoms of heart attack? Indigestion, cold sweat, feeling light-headed. This isn't happening, I thought. Maybe I'm going into cardiac arrest.

I looked back inside the box. There was no curry. There was no raisin rice. There was no vegetable slaw. There were neatly packed boxes of arborio rice, lowfat chicken broth, even several large bags of slightly thawed shrimp. And a note to me, in Tom Schulz's unmistakable scrawl. I opened it with trembling hands.

Dear Miss Goldy, Sorry about this, but I really don't want you snooping at the Braithwaites' place tonight, and knowing you, that's precisely what you have in mind. You didn't tell me someone hit you with bleach water and wrote you a threatening note, Julian told me. You are in danger, dear wife. The only way to prevent you from getting into more trouble is to switch food on you so that you have to spend all your time cooking instead of sneaking around getting you-and me-into trouble. So: attached is my recipe for Shrimp Risotto. I had a Denver chef prepare all the ingredients for your menu. It perfectly meets Babs Braithwaite's requirement of being lowfat. And you can tell her it's even low-cost, since the shrimp is being donated by your local homicide investigator. She should be pleased as punch to be getting large shrimp for the price of ground turkey. And we'll all be pleased to eat turkey curry every day next week.

Don't be mad at Julian. I asked him to pick up the boxes and told him it was a nice surprise for you. I know you won't be pleased, because risotto is time-consuming and demands that the cook be there every second to attend to it. But that's what I want, Goldy. You doing your job and me doing mine. Don't be too mad at me. I'm just trying to think of both of us.

-Tom "Brauuugh!" I hollered. Don't be too angry with him? I was going to kill him with my bare hands. "Julian!" I roared. "How the h.e.l.l could you do this to me? How could you let him do this to me?"

"Let him do what?" Julian bounded over and picked up the note. As he was reading it, the maid appeared in the kitchen.

"The mistress would like to see the two of you when you have a minute," she announced.

Well, that was just great. I looked at all the food-the new food-that had to be prepared.

The maid cleared her throat. "The mistress-"

"Right now?" I demanded. "Does she have to see me this very minute?" I didn't have a speech ready yet.

"Yes," replied the maid. "First bedroom at the top of the stairs."

My stomach made an unexpected growl, no doubt caused by hunger, apprehension at seeing "the mistress," and worry about preparing the accursed risotto. Julian, reading my mind, told me to go ahead. He'd read the recipe and start setting us up. No wonder he'd given me that guilty look at the house, and packed all the boxes so efficiently into the van while I was taking a shower.

"You and I are going to have a talk," I told him. "I won't be long." I marched out of the kitchen. I had my teeth clenched so lightly and was moving so fast, I failed to see that the next surface after the tiled kitchen floor was a slick green marble foyer. I avoided breaking my derriere by springing for the winding staircase. I landed facedown on the fourth stair up, and saw from very close range that the stairs were carpeted with a thick white wool weave, the kind you see either in ads or in houses without children. I stood up and walked more cautiously past two large silk screens showing carp floating in an ocean of gold. Again I felt my jaw clench with anger, and I averted my eyes. Carp made me think of bodies of water, and thinking of bodies of water made me think of shrimp, and thinking of shrimp in general and shrimp risotto in particular renewed a fury that was rapidly becoming volcanic. When I came to the top of the stairs, I took a deep breath and sat down facing the upstairs hallway. Relax, I told myself. Think about something else. How much you love preparing labor-intensive Italian food, for example.

When that didn't work, I took a few deep yoga breaths. I should go see Babs, I thought. Maybe I can get her to tell me something I don't know about Claire. Or about Claire and her husband.

But I wasn't ready. I let air out of my lungs and stared at two portraits hanging on the opposite wall. The one on the left was of Babs, flatteringly painted with a somewhat slimmer face than the actuality. But the artist had been right on target with wide pink brushstrokes that had frozen Babs's girlish-insecure smile permanently into place. The other painting showed a bespectacled Charles looking somber and resigned, even a trifle defeated. Here, too, however, the painter had found the single feature, that which spoke volumes about the personality he sought to capture. In the painting, Charles's long, unruly pale hair said, I want to be wild, so that the effect he conveyed was a cross between a college professor and Harpo Marx.

From behind a door just down the hall I heard laughing and light rock music. I felt a surge of impatience. I had work to do. Oh, man, did I ever have work to do. But I had to go in and tell "the mistress" what was going on. My knuckles rapped on the cold white wood.

There was a giggled "Come on in!" and I pushed the door open with dread. Sometimes-especially in the summer, for reasons I did not understand-clients started the party early by beginning to indulge in alcoholic beverages long before their guests arrived. The results ranged from enthusiastically kissing someone else's spouse to falling into their own swimming pools.

I walked tentatively into the s.p.a.cious boudoir. Suddenly I felt like Alice, miniaturized in Wonderland, except that I had landed not in water but in the middle of a giant wedding bouquet. Roses, roses, and more roses were everywhere; they filled every available s.p.a.ce. White roses, red roses, pink roses, and yellow roses were bunched in vases, arranged in baskets, gathered into bowls that bedecked every shelf, bureau, and windowsill. Lush scent filled the air. It was unnerving.