Double Shot (20 page)

I spooned the strawberry topping onto the pie, then pulled out the croissants. They emerged puffed, flaky, and golden. I placed them next to the pie on a large wooden tray, along with piles of plastic forks, paper plates, and napkins, and headed for the porch.
“Oh my God!” Frances cried when I swung through the front door.
“Will you look at this!” another one yelped.
“I could eat all of these myself!”
And so on. I placed the tray on the porch table and glowed. Twenty-four mini-croissants disappeared faster than the hail had melted. I worried that the journalists might get sick. But I didn’t’ say anything; I just beamed.
“Mrs. Schulz,” said one, his mouth full, “do you think the killer might be a former patient of your ex-husband? Say there was someone with a medical gripe who couldn’t sue because of his HMO or something? Maybe she’d be waiting for him to get out of jail so she could kill him?”
My mouth fell open in surprise. Why hadn’t I thought of that? All the reporters stopped chewing, waiting for me to reveal —
“Now, just a minute! Just a minute!” Someone was screaming, pushing through the lilac bushes at the side of our house, then crashing into the front yard. “Stop! Stop eating this second!” He was covered with leaves and tiny branches, which he was trying to brush off with his clipboard. Clipboard?
Oh hold God. Please, let it not be. But it was. Roger Mannis, the district health inspector, was making a surprise visit! To do a surprise inspection! Surprise!
He straightened his back and marched up the steps to the porch.
“I insist that you allow me to inspect that food that you are serving to the public!” he announced. His dark hair, usually slicked back, was mussed from his time in the lilacs. He wore shiny, silvery-gray polyester pants that were an inch too short, black socks and shoes, and a short-sleeved white shirt complete with plastic pocket-protector, all of which still had bits of twig, leaf, and lilac clinging to them. His bladelike chin trembled, a meat-slicer about to fall.
But I was not going to take this. Not here, not now. It couldn’t be legal for this man to hide in the bushes beside our house and then just pop out when he wanted to. It was nuts. Maybe Roger Mannis wasn’t just anal. Maybe he was insane.
“No,” I said, keeping my tone quiet but firm. “You may not perform an inspection now. These people are my personal guests, and this is not a convenient time for me. I am not serving the public. I am serving friends.”
The reporters gaped. I noticed a couple of them surreptitiously reaching for tape recorders and notepads.
Roger Mannis stepped toward me. He towered over me, his face twisted into an expression somewhere between disbelief and hatred. “What did you say to me? I can do an inspection wherever, whenever I want.”
I held my ground and swallowed. “You can’t do one here. Not now. It’s not convenient.”
Before I could think, Roger Mannis was right in front of me and grabbing my left arm. Hard. “Listen, girlie, don’t you dare tell me what to do. Because I — “
Hit groin. Hit eyes. My self-defense course, which had deserted me at the Roundhouse, rushed back. But I couldn’t manage to knee him between the legs. Nor could I free my left arm from his viselike grip. Without thinking, I reached sideways with my right hand. Then I picked up the strawberry-cream pie and smashed it full in his face — just in time to be caught by the photographers from three newspapers.
I don’t remember much after that. Mannis scuttled away in the direction of his white Furman County van. Muttering curses and threats, he stopped on the sidewalk and bent over as he tried to wipe glop from his face. The reporters avoided my eyes as they picked up their recorders, camera equipment, notepads, pop cans, foam cups, and assorted detritus. I realized I never had said “No comment.”
As I eyed the broken pie plate, bits of crust and filling, and berry topping now flung in all directions on the porch, I did hear another reporter chastise Frances Markasian.
“Dammit, Frances! Why couldn’t you have grabbed that pie before she got it? I really was looking forward to that!”
“He called her ‘girlie,’ Jack.”
“That’s worth a slice, maybe,” Jack replied stubbornly. “Not a whole pie, for Chrissakes.”
<13>
It didn’t take me long to clean up. It never does when an idea has sprouted in my head. Marla, Brewster, and even the cops had been thinking about the Jerk being plagued by ex-girlfriends and a need for money. But he’d been a doctor, after all. Could n old patient with a grudge still be out there? I wondered if this, too, was grasping at straws. In any event, there was something I really didn’t want to wonder about, and that was the story and photograph of me pie-slapping the district health inspector.
I checked my watch: 4:10. Shouldn’t Arch and Tom be back by now? Perhaps they’d gone out for a snack. Even so, I still had dinner to make. And before I got to that point, a few odds and ends for the next day’s catering remained. Still, I had promised to call Brewster if I heard anything.
My criminal lawyer was in a conference, so I left a message on his voice mail that I’d heard “from a cop friend” — no sense getting Boyd in trouble — that John Richard had been involved in a money-laundering operation. Remember the older man who’d asked if I had his money? He’d been waiting for forty-five hundred in cash from John Richard. So, I concluded, it was possible that whoever John Richard was laundering cash for had killed him. At least, I hoped the investigation was turning in that direction. And if it wasn’t turning that way, maybe Brewster could prod it. Also, I added, Sandee Blue, late of John Richard’s harem, had a jealous boyfriend named Bobby Calhoun. And Bobby was prone to violence, I concluded. Just ask Marla.
I punched down the bread dough, divided it, and formed it into rolls for the second rising. That done, I set a fine-mesh strainer over a bowl and carefully spooned a gallon of vanilla yogurt on top, to drain overnight. I would fold the resulting ultrathick, delicious mass into whipped cream to layer with fresh fruit for breakfast parfaits. The rest of the committeewomen’s muffins and breads I had frozen, so with minimal preparation in the country-club kitchen the next morning, I was in good shape. Trudy, my next-door neighbor, brought over the arrangement, a beautiful bouquet of spring flowers sent by a group of moms from Arch’s new Catholic high school. Trudy apologized for there being no casseroles, but she said everyone was afraid to cook for a professional caterer.
Let’s see. For dinner, I could make a shellfish salad like the one I’d enjoyed at Holly’s. I opened the walk-in and saw something that Tom had made a few days ago, during one of his blue periods. The label read “Happy Days Mayonnaise.” For some reason, this piqued my anger all over again.
I calmly walked over to a cabinet filled with jars to be recycled. I picked out two big ones and threw them onto the floor, where they broke with a satisfying crash. My sneakers crunched over the broken shards as I reached up onto the shelf and nabbed two more jars. There I hurled at the back door.
“Happy? Yeah, I’m happy!” I yelled as I chucked another pair of jars onto the floor. They splintered into a million pieces. “I’m happy now!”
Jake the bloodhound was howling. Immediately remorseful that I’d scared him, I let both animals out through their enclosure door. No way I was letting them into the trashed kitchen. Jake slobbered all over me again, worried that the woman-who-brings-dog-food was losing her marbles.
I went back into the kitchen and sank into a chair, exhausted. “Happy Days Mayonnaise,” indeed. Happy, what a word. I remembered how ecstatic I’d been when Arch had been born, how it had seemed that every day was as fizzy with delight as a flute of sparkling champagne. After I’d brought him home, I’d proudly shown him off a church, at the library, even at the grocery store. People would look at me and say, “You look so happy!” And I had been. I had thought, This is happiness, the rest of my life will be just like this, this is the beginning of if all!
Uh-huh. I surveyed the layer of broken glass that now covered the kitchen floor. Jake had put his paws up on the exterior windowsill and was staring in at me and the mess I’d made. I didn’t care; I wanted to break some more glass. And then I wanted to drive down to the morgue and shake John Richard’s dead body until it told me who had killed him.
Yeah, well. Then the reporters really would have a field day. And I still had to figure out the evening meal for our family. My tantrum had drained me of all cooking energy. All right, I reasoned as my sneakers again cracked over the shards, I could resort to that great salvation of the American housewife: the frozen casserole.
I pulled out a frosty glass pan covered with foil, labeled “Whole Enchilada Pie.” In a remarkable bit of foresight, I’d doubled the recipe of this favorite of Arch’s and frozen the extra one. The recipe itself had come about one night when Arch had wanted enchiladas and I hadn’t had any tortillas. So I’d thrown together a ton of Mexican ingredients, improvised layers with corn chips, and told him the dish had everything, “The Whole Enchilada”! He’d loved it.
I put the pan into the microwave, set it to defrost, and grabbed my broom. Of course, I’d managed to make one unholy mess. I swept up shards and dumped them, swept and dumped, swept and dumped. Then I sprayed a disinfectant solution onto the floor and mopped up the tiniest bits of glass with paper towels. With every sweep of the floor, I muttered, “You Jerk. You damn Jerk,” or some variation on that theme.
When I’d finished washing the floor, I leaned back on my aching knees and surveyed the glowing wood. My heart was still pounding. Echoes of the curses I’d been muttering rocketed around in my head. I knew I needed to move from rage to a more productive emotional state, one that would bring rational thought and action. Problem was, I couldn’t because I didn’t want to. Whatever happened to anger, denial, bargaining, grief, acceptance? Maybe Elisabeth Kübler-Ross hadn’t analyzed the emotional aftermath of the death of a jerk. I sprayed additional disinfectant on the floor and began scrubbing even more energetically than before.
Eventually, clouds moving in from the west obscured the sun. A welcome breeze cooled the kitchen and brought in the scent of lilacs. With every muscle aching, I surveyed the spotless floor. It was almost six o’clock, and I was exhausted. I stood up slowly, washed my hands, and slid the defrosted casserole into the oven.
There was a knock at the back door. Again wary of reporters, I peeked through the shade, only to see one of Trudy’s freckled kids holding a covered casserole dish and a plastic bag.
“My mom made this for you, Mrs. Schulz,” the kid — ten-year-old Eddie — said. “She said it’s called Mediterranean Chicken.”
“Thanks for bringing it over, Eddie.”
“Well, my mom said I had to. Oh yeah, she put your mail in this bag.”
“Want to come in for some pie, Eddie?”
“No thanks. My mom says if I want to go fishing tomorrow, I’ve gotta clean up my room. All these jobs, it’s worse than school! Sometimes I hate summer.”
I thanked him again, but he was already trudging back toward his house. I stowed the chicken in the refrigerator. Then I turned my attention to the mail.
It was the usual assortment of bills and ads. A manila envelope from the Mountain Journal, with my name and address hand-lettered, took me aback. It had been postmarked the previous day. But the contents provided a much greater surprise.
I pulled out two pieces of paper. One was a note with the printed superscription: “From the Desk of Cecelia Brisbane.” The scribbled words were in the same handwriting as was on the envelope:
Here’s what I was talking about at the bake sale. Do you know if the authorities ever followed up on this? I got it a couple of years ago, but your ex was already incarcerated. With him getting out unexpectedly, I thought maybe it would bear looking into. Would you please call me? C.B.
Clipped to this was a piece of faded paper, frayed at the edges. A short, typed message, with no greeting, read as follows:
Dr. John Richard Korman raped a teenage girl when she was a patient at Southwest Hospital. It was a long time ago. Are you afraid to research this? Are you afraid to write about it? You could start by asking his ex-wife Goldy if he did it to her, too. Once you get the facts, it’s your JOB to expose him . . .
Whoa. I read the typed note two more times, then reread Cecelia’s short message. She’d had this typed note for two years and hadn’t done anything about it? That was not like Cecelia. On the other hand, this was an explosive allegation.
Cecelia certainly hadn’t done what the writer recommended: Start by asking his ex-wife Goldy . . .
I reread the note. This was an allegation of something so awful that it was hard to process. John Richard Korman raped a teenage girl when she was a patient at Southwest Hospital . . . a long time ago. I closed my eyes.
Did I believe it was possible that John Richard had done such a thing? I did. He had forced himself on me more than once. But I’d never heard of him being interested in teenage girls.
And yet now this note, which alleged he had raped a very young woman a long time ago, was surfacing. Why would this story emerge right after John Richard had been murdered? Why had Cecelia sent the note to me instead of to the cops?
I was skeptical about the whole thing. Someone was, or had been, trying to frame me. And now suddenly Cecelia Brisbane was throwing suspicion elsewhere.
In any event, this note cast no light on anything I knew about John Richard being killed. Yes, I was going to phone Cecelia.
But my first call went in to Detective Blackridge at the Furman County Sheriff’s Department. He said he’d drive right up to get the note. And doggone it, he told me not to try to contact Cecelia Brisbane.
But he didn’t order me not to call Marla. Using my new cell, I punched the buttons for her home phone. As usual, I got the machine, to which I posed the first questions I’d written down: Did she know the timing and rationale for John Richard’s breakup with Courtney? What was the cause or even the correlation between the dumping of Courtney and the subsequent involvement with Sandee? And then I dropped the bombshell: Did her list of the Jerk’s sexual conquests include a teenager whom he’d raped? She’d been a Southwest Hospital patient when it had supposedly happened.
If there was anyone who could dig up dirt on the Jerk, it was Marla.
I closed the phone, filled my deepest sink with hot suds, and carefully washed the bowls and beaters from the pie making. Would anyone else know about this allegation against John Richard? Other physicians, possibly, but they were notoriously closemouthed when it came to criticizing their own, even when a crime was involved. I read the typed note again.