Killer Pancake Part 23

I could hear her heels rap-tap-tapping up the escalator. I tottered recklessly through the bathing suit department. Harriet would be up here any moment with her little gun. I didn't have time to get to the exit. She'd see me and catch up. d.a.m.n, d.a.m.n, d.a.m.n. Then I noticed the dressing room. Hope bloomed. Could I still have the stolen key in my pocket? I certainly hoped so.

Moving seemed a little easier at this point, and I had the absurd thought that perhaps hemlock was like heroin. If you kept propelling yourself around during an overdose, things might not end up so badly. I groped in my pocket, found the key, and fumbled to unlock the door to the storage room. I turned the handle and prayed. It opened. I careened into the darkness.

"Goldy!" came Harriet's voice again over the blare of the fire alarm. "Come out now!"

I wasn't in the mood to provide her with a better target. With renewed determination I wobbled in the direction that I hoped would lead to that other door, the one on the left that I now realized led to Nick Gentileschi's office. The s.p.a.ce was not pitch-black. Light seeped downward from a distant skylight. I banged into the wall painfully, fell to my knees, and began to grope. I came to the moulding and then the door handle. I heard Harriet come into the darkness behind me. I turned the handle.

The door was locked.

"Goldy! Quit running! You just don't understand-I had to do what I did."

I felt the wall, wondering if Harriet had reloaded. My hand touched metal. Metal steps. I was confused. A metal staircase to what?

"I'm going to find a light!" Harriet warned, close, too close. "I'm going to turn it on!"

I scrambled up the steps. There had to be some exit up there at the top. And then I remembered Frances Markasian sitting on something-a raised box or platform that was just there, on top of the roof. Had it been the Prince & Grogan roof? Oh, please let that be it, I thought desperately. Some exit that they used for repairs. Please, anything. Up, up I climbed.

Thin fluorescent lights blinked once, then came on just as I reached the top step. Oh, Lord. The raised box was fastened with a schoolhouse lock. I glanced down. Harriet had the pistol pointed up at me.

She shouted, "Goldy, come down now!" Then she fired again.

The bullet ricocheted deafeningly off metal. I twisted the lock and pushed vertically with all my strength. The heavy door groaned. I was on the roof, I was out. The fair organizers were in the throes of breaking down the tents. Nearly everyone was gone. But I thanked the powers that be that Pete's Espres...o...b..r was the last tent standing. The King of Advertising wasn't going to be the first to leave, especially when volunteer crew members might want to buy coffee.

I ran awkwardly across the concrete and fell at Pete's ankles.

"Espresso-straight-at least six shots-quick," I panted.

Pete switched on the machine and looked down. Today's T-s.h.i.+rt said I'M LEAN, MEAN, AND FULL OF CAFFEINE. "I swear, Goldy," he said. "I wish every customer was like you."

And then we heard a pistol shot.

It was over.

When Tom showed up with an investigative team at the department store, I was being discharged from the hospital across the street. I'd been given charcoal tablets, which I dutifully swallowed. The year before, I'd had an unpleasant encounter with the highly toxic-not aphrodisiac-substance known as Spanish fly, and I knew you had to get your system filtered, and quick. I wasn't going to have to stay in the hospital, the ER doc told me, but he repeatedly remarked how lucky it was I knew the antidote for hemlock and was able to get it so quickly. I couldn't agree more.

Tom scooped me up in his arms and hugged me long and hard. Julian had returned home and found Arch had already returned from Keystone. They'd called Tom on his cell phone and said they were on their way to see Marla.

"Sounds good to me," I said as I got into Tom's car.

He told me they'd found Harriet's body behind the security room door. Self-inflicted wound, but I knew that already. I didn't want to hear the details.

"She couldn't stand the compet.i.tion," Tom observed. "I guess Claire was just too successful for her to deal with. After all, Harriet had been Mignon's number-one salesperson for years, and now Claire was about to surpa.s.s her effortlessly. Surpa.s.s Harriet, that is, unless Harriet could relentlessly charge returns to her compet.i.tor's number. And I'll bet Harriet's cash-receipt scam is what Claire was helping Gentileschi with."

"You bet, huh?" I said. "Why don't you bet with something I really want?"

"Oh, woman," he said laughingly as we pulled into Marla's driveway, "you are going to regret those words."

Marla was walking very tentatively down the rock steps by the entryway to her house. Her skin was still sallow. She wore a brightly colored muumuu and her normally frizzy hair was pulled back into pigtails held with sparkling barrettes. The clothes and hair were courtesy of the nurse, no doubt. As she moved haltingly forward, Julian held one of her arms and Arch the other.

Four days ago, while I was preparing food, I'd reflected that beauty was in the eye of the beholder. It was something I'd always said, sort of offhand, the way the mind runs over a cliche without ever really examining its meaning. And yet if what was visually appealing did depend on what the beholder valued, who set the standards? How were the values determined?

In the past five days I'd seen and felt more pain than I cared to contemplate. John Routt had spent the best decades of his life blind. Nick Gentileschi's twisted desire to capture voluptuousness had gotten him killed. The Braithwaites' unhappiness with each other had led both to pursue goals of beauty that were unattainable, or easily destroyed. Reggie Hotchkiss had stolen and plotted and intimidated, trying to sell women expensive products that promised everything and did next to nothing. And Claire had been so gorgeous, so enthusiastic in her selling of overpriced, worthless goods, that it had gotten her killed.

Marla arrived at the bottom of the stone staircase. She let go of Arch and Julian and sank to rest on one of the steps. I rushed over.

"You're here!" she squawked. "I can't believe it." She held out her arms, and I scooted up and sat on a cold stone to embrace her. She murmured, "I feel like h.e.l.l. And I look worse, I know."

"You look absolutely wonderful," I said, and meant it. "You look like heaven."

INDEX TO THE RECIPES.

RECIPE.

Hoisin Turkey with Roasted Pine Nuts in Lettuce Cups Grand Marnier Cranberry m.u.f.fins Vanilla-Frosted Fudge Cookies What-to-Do-with-All-the-Egg-Yolks Bread Lowfat Fettuccine Alfredo with Asparagus Fudge Souffle Killer Pancakes Turkey Curry with Raisin Rice Lowfat Chicken Stock Shrimp Risotto with Portobello Mushrooms AUTHOR'S NOTE: All the recipes contain less than 30 percent fat "What-to-Do-with-AU-the-Egg-Yolks Bread," while technically "lowfat," is not low in cholesterol.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.

DIANE MOTT DAVIDSON lives in Evergreen, Colorado, with her family. She is the author of ten bestselling culinary mysteries and is at work on her eleventh, Chopping Spree.

If you enjoyed Diane Mott Davidson's Killer Pancake, you won't want to miss any of the tantalizing mysteries in her nationally bestselling culinary mystery series!

Look for CHOPPING SPREE, the newest mystery, at your favorite bookseller's.

CHOPPING.

SPREE.

by

Diane

Mott

Davidson

Turn the page for an exciting preview....

Success can kill you.

So my best friend had been telling me, anyway. Too much success is like a.r.s.enic in chocolate cake. Eat a slice a day, Marla announced with a sweep of her plump, bejeweled fingers, and you'll get cancer. Gobble the whole cake? You'll keel over and die on the spot.

These observations, made over the course of a snowy March, had not cheered me. Besides, I'd have thought that Marla, with her inherited wealth and pa.s.sion for shopping, would applaud the upward leap of my catering business. But she said she was worried about me.

Frankly, I was worried about me, too.

In mid-March I'd invited Marla over to taste cookies. Despite a sudden but typical Colorado blizzard, she'd roared over to our small house off Aspen Meadow's Main Street in her s.h.i.+ny new BMW four-wheel drive. Sitting in our commercial kitchen, she'd munched on ginger snaps and spice cookies, and harped on the feet that the newly frantic pace of my work had coincided with my fourteen-year-old son Arch's increasingly rotten behavior. I knew Marla doted on Arch.

But in this, too, she was right.

Arch's foray into athletics, begun that winter with s...o...b..arding and a stint on his school's fencing team, had ended with a trophy, a sprained ankle, and an unprecedented burst of physical self-confidence. He'd been eager to plunge into spring sports. When he'd decided on lacrosse, I'd been happy for him. That changed when I attended the first game. Watching my son forcefully shove an opponent aside and steal the ball, I'd felt queasy. With Arch's father-a rich doctor who'd had many violent episodes himself-now serving time for parole violation, all that slas.h.i.+ng and hitting was more than I could take.

But even more worrisome than the sport itself, Marla and I agreed, were Arch's new teammates: an unrepentant gang of spoiled, acquisitive brats. Unfortunately, Arch thought the lacrosse guys were beyond cool. He spent hours with them, claiming that he "forgot" to tell us where he was going after practice. We could have sent him an e-mail telling him to call, Arch protested, if he only had what all his pals had, to wit, Internet-access watches. Your own watch could have told you what time it was, I'd told him, when I picked him up from the country-club estate where the senior who was supposed to drive him home had left him off.

Arch ignored me. These new friends, he'd announced glumly, also had Global Positioning System calculators, Model Bezillion Palm pilots, and electric-acoustic guitars that cost eight hundred dollars-and up. These litanies were always accompanied with not-so-tactful reminders that his fifteenth birthday was right around the corner. He wanted everything on his list, he announced as he tucked a scroll of paper into my purse. After all, with all the parties I'd booked, I could finally afford to get him some really good stuff.

And no telling what'll happen if I don't get what I want, he'd added darkly. (Marla informed me that he'd already given her a list.) I'd shrugged as Arch clopped into the house ahead of me. I'd started stuffing sauteed chicken b.r.e.a.s.t.s with wild rice and spinach. The next day, Tom had picked up Arch at another friend's house. When my son waltzed into the kitchen, I almost didn't recognize him.

His head was shaved.

"They Bic'd me," he declared, tossing a lime into the air and catching it in the net of his lacrosse stick.

"They bicked you?" I exclaimed incredulously.

"Bic, Mom. Like the razor." He rubbed his bare scalp, then flipped the lime again. "And I would have been home on time, if you'd bought me the Palm, to remind me to tell the guy shaving my head that I had to go."

I snagged the lime in midair. "Go start on your homework, buster. You got a C on the last anatomy test. And from now on, either Tom or I will pick you up right from practice."

On his way out of the kitchen, he whacked his lacrosse stick on the floor. I called after him please not to do that. I got no reply. The next day, much to Arch's sulking chagrin, Tom had picked him up directly from practice. If being athletic is what success at that school looks like, Tom told me, then maybe Arch should take up painting. I kept mum. The next day, I was ashamed to admit, I'd pulled out Arch's birthday list and bought him the Palm pilot.

Call it working mom's guilt, I'd thought, as I stuffed tiny cream puffs with shrimp salad. Still, I was not sorry I was making more money than ever before. I did not regret that Goldilocks' Catering, Where Everything Is Just Right! had gone from booked to overbooked. Finally, I was giving those caterers in Denver, forty miles to the east, a run for their shrimp rolls. This was what I'd always wanted, right?

Take my best upcoming week, I'd explained to Marla as she moved on to test my cheesecake bars and raspberry brownies. The second week of April, I would make close to ten thousand dollars-a record. I'd booked an upscale c.o.c.ktail party at Westside Mall, a wedding reception, and two big luncheons. Once I survived all that, Friday, April the fifteenth, was Arch's birthday. By then, I'd finally have the cash to buy him something, as Arch himself had said, really good.

"Goldy, don't do all that," Marla warned as she downed one of my new Spice-of-Life Cookies. The b.u.t.tery cookies featured large amounts of ginger, cinnamon, and freshly grated nutmeg, and were as comforting as anything from Grandma's kitchen. "You'll be too exhausted even to make a birthday cake. Listen to me, now. You need to decrease your bookings, hire some help, be stricter with Arch, and take care of yourself for a change. If you don't, you're going to die."

Marla was always one for the insightful observation.

I didn't listen. At least, not soon enough.

The time leading up to that lucrative week in April became even busier and more frenetic. Arch occasionally slipped away from practice before Tom, coming up from his investigative work at the sheriff's department, could snag him. I was unable to remember the last time I'd had a decent night's sleep. So I suppose it was inevitable that, at ten-twenty on the morning of April eleventh, I had what's known in the shrink business as a crisis. At least, that's what they'd called it years ago, during my pursuit of a singularly unhelpful degree in psychology.

I was inside our walk-in refrigerator when I blacked out. Just before hitting the walk-in's cold floor, I grabbed a metal shelf. Plastic bags of tomatoes, scallions, celery, shallots, and gingerroot spewed in every direction, and my bottom thumped the floor. I thought, I don't have time for this.

I struggled to get up, and belatedly realized this meltdown wasn't that hard to figure out. I'd been up since five A.M. With one of the luncheon preps done, I was focusing on the mall c.o.c.ktail party that evening. Or at least I had been focusing on it, before my eyes, legs, and back gave out.

I groaned and quickly gathered the plastic bags. My back ached. My mind threw out the realization that I still did not know where Arch had been for three hours the previous afternoon, when lacrosse practice had been canceled. Neither Tom nor I had been aware of the calendar change. Tom had finally collected Arch from a seedy section of Denver's Colfax Avenue. So what had this about-to-turn-fifteen-year-old been up to this time? Arch had refused to say.

"Just do the catering," I announced to the empty refrigerator. I replaced the plastic bags and asked the Almighty for perspective. Arch would get the third degree when he came down for breakfast. Meanwhile, I had work to do.

Before falling on my behind, I'd been working on a concoction I'd dubbed Shoppers' Chocolate Truffles. These rich goodies featured a dense, smooth chocolate interior coated with more satiny chocolate. So what had I been looking for in the refrigerator? I had no idea. I stomped out and slammed the door.

I sagged against the counter and told myself the problem was fatigue. Or maybe my age-thirty-four-was kicking in. What would Marla say? She'd waggle a fork in my face and preach about the wages of success.

I brushed myself off and quick-stepped to the sink. As water gushed over my hands, I remembered I'd been searching for the scoops of ganache, that sinfully rich melange of melted bittersweet chocolate, heavy cream, and liqueur that made up the heart of the truffles.

I dried my hands and resolved to concentrate on dark chocolate, not the darker side of success. After all, I had followed one of Marla's suggestions: I had hired help. But I had not cut back on parties. I'd forgotten what taking care of myself even felt like. And I seemed incapable of being stricter with Arch.

I hustled over to my new kitchen computer and booted it up, intent on checking that evening's a.s.signment Soon my new printer was spitting out lists of needed foodstuffs, floor plans, and scheduled setup. I may have lost my mind, but I'd picked it right up again.

"This is what happens when you give up caffeine!" I snarled at the ganache b.a.l.l.s. Oops-that was twice I'd talked to myself in the last five minutes. Marla would not approve.

I tugged the plastic wrap off the globes of ganache and spooned up a sample to check the consistency. The smooth, intense dark chocolate sent a zing of pleasure up my back. I moved to the stovetop, stirred the luxurious pool of melting chocolate, and took a whiff of the intoxicatingly rich scent. I told myself-silently-that everything was going to be all right. The party-goers were going to love me.

The client for that night's c.o.c.ktail party was Barry Dean, an old friend who was now manager of Westside Mall, an upscale shopping center ab.u.t.ting the foothills west of Denver, I'd previously put on successful catered parties at Westside. Each time, the store-owners had raved. But Barry Dean, who'd only been managing the mall for six months, had seemed worried about the party's dessert offering. I'd promised him his high-end spenders, for whom the party was geared, would flip over the truffles.

Maybe I'd even get a big tip, I thought as I sc.r.a.ped down the sides of the double boiler. I could spend it on a new mattress. On it, I might eventually get some sleep.

I stopped and took three deep breaths. My system craved coffee. Of course, I hadn't given up espresso entirely, I was just trying to cut back from nine shots a day to two. Too much caffeine was causing my sleeplessness, Marla had declared. Of course, since we'd both been married to the same doctor-consecutively, not concurrently-she and I were self-proclaimed experts on all physical ailments. (Med Wives 101, we called it.) So I'd actually heeded her advice. My plan had been to have one shot at eight in the morning (a distant memory), another at four in the afternoon (too far in the future). Now my resolve was melting faster than the dark chocolate.

I fired up the espresso machine and wondered how I'd gotten into such a mental and physical mess.

Innocently enough, my mind replied. Without warning, right after Valentine's Day, my catering business had taken off. An influx of ultrawealthy folks to Denver and the mountain area west of the Mile High City had translated into ma.s.sive construction of trophy homes, purchases of multiple upscale cars, and doubling of prices for just about everything. Most important from my viewpoint, the demand for big-ticket catered events had skyrocketed. From mid-February to the beginning of April, a normally slow season, my a.s.signments had exploded. I'd thought I'd entered a zone, as they say in Boulder, of bliss.

I pulled a double shot of espresso, then took a sip and felt infinitely better.

I rolled the first silky scoop of ganache into a ball, and set it aside. What had I been thinking about? Ah, yes. Success.

I downed more coffee and set aside the porcelain bought-on-clearance cup, a remnant of my financial dark days. Those days had lasted a long time, a fact that Arch had seemed to block out.