Killer Pancake (12 page)

Arch made one of his sudden appearances, probably lured by the sound of raised voices.

"Hey, guys! What's going on? Blow-Up was too weird and complicated, I didn't like it. Is that pancakes on my plate out there? Neat. I put them in the microwave."

I nodded and held up one finger: I'd be there in a minute.

"She was afraid," Julian said tonelessly, as if he were speaking from a distant asteroid.

"Who - " Arch began.

I gave him a warning look and shook my head: Say nothing. Arch crossed his arms and waited for an explanation, which he didn't get.

"Afraid of what?" Tom asked Julian gently.

"Just yesterday she told me she thought she was being followed," Julian replied wearily. "But she said she wasn't sure.

Oh, God, why didn't I tell you? I just thought it was some stupid thing, like the unexplained stuff at the counter."

"Wait," I said. "Wait." I thought back through the muddle of the day. Claire, her Peugeot, the helicopter. When I'd swerved the van into the right lane, I'd barely missed a pickup truck. Then when I'd looked again... the pickup had fallen back several car lengths. "Someone might have been following us on I-70 this morning. In a pickup," I said miserably.

"Make?" asked Torn mildly. "Color? Did you see the driver?"

"No," I said helplessly. "No... I don't remember any of that. Maybe I'm just being paranoid."

Julian was holding his head in his hands. "Big J.," said Torn, "why don't we go inside - "

Julian's head jerked up. "There's a part of you that's always alone," he blurted out. "People always have secrets, and you know they have secrets, but maybe they don't want to tell you because they're afraid of your reaction, or maybe they don't want to tell you because they don't want to burden you. She didn't want to be a burden to me. And I didn't want to trouble you with it."

Torn and I exchanged a look. Inside the house, the microwave buzzer went off. My instinct told me Arch and I should leave Tom and Julian alone. Perhaps without an audience Julian would feel more inclined to talk to Tom.

"Let's go," I said to Arch. "Why can't I eat out here?" Arch asked, perplexed. But he obeyed.

"Morn?" he asked when we were back in the kitchen. He held up his plate precariously. "Should I eat now or not?"

"Sure, hon, they just need to be alone for a while."

He took a mouthful of cr�pe and said, "So what's going on with Julian? Who was afraid and what's the big secret?"

I told him Julian's friend Claire had been killed in a hit-and-run accident. His eyes opened wide behind his glasses. "Do they know who hit her?"

I told him they did not but that Tom was working on it. "Arch, something else. Hon, Marla had a mild heart attack jogging around Aspen Meadow Lake today. She's at Southwest Hospital but should be out in - "

Before I could finish, Arch whacked his chair back and bolted from the table.

"Arch, wait! She's going to be okay!" I bounded up the stairs after him. By the time I got to his and Julian's room, Arch was lying facedown on the upper level of the bunk. I put my hand on the back of the awful tie-dyed T-shirt, but he shook me off.

"Just go away, Mom!"

"They can treat a mild heart attack - "

"I'm not upset about Marla. I mean, I am upset about Marla. Of course I am. It's only that... Look, just leave, okay?"

I didn't move. "Claire, then? You didn't really know her, although I know you worry about Julian - "

He shot upright suddenly, his brown hair askew, his face pale with rage. "Why are you so nosy? Why do you have to know about everything?"

"Sorry, hon," I said, and meant it. When he dropped back down on the mattress without saying more, I asked, "Want the curtains closed?" He didn't answer and I backtracked toward the door.

"Wait." His voice was muffled by the pillow. Slowly he sat up. He looked at the wall with his fifth-grade drawings of wildflowers, made during an intensely lonely period, the painful time before Tom came into our lives and well before Julian became Arch's personal hero. "Could you close the door, Mom?"

I did as directed. Arch gave me a fierce, guilty look. "I wanted Claire to leave," he said harshly. "I hated her."

"Why? You met her only once - "

"So? Julian was always with her or thinking about her or on the telephone with her, or something. We never had any fun anymore. I wanted her to go back to Australia." He faced the drawings again. "Now I'm being punished for wanting her gone."

I hate feeling so helpless. "I may not know much, Arch, but that doesn't sound like the way punishment works." He shook his head and refused to look at me. I went on. "Claire's death wasn't just a terrible accident. Somebody ran her down on purpose."

He was silent, his eyes on his drawings, his face expressionless. Then he muttered, "I still feel bad."

"Then help Julian over the next few days, especially when I go down to work the food fair. He'll need your company now more than ever."

He hesitated, then said in a resigned voice, "Yeah, okay." After a moment he asked, "Do you think Julian will ever find another girlfriend? I mean, sort of the way you found Tom after things. didn't work out with Dad?"

It was so tempting to give him an easy answer. I said softly, "Arch, I don't know."

He shook his head mournfully. "Okay, Mom," my son said finally, "it's not helping to talk to you. Would you please just leave?"

7

Storms ripped through the mountains that night. Thunder boomed overhead, echoed down Cottonwood Creek, and seemed to shake the walls of our home. I woke and saw lightning flicker across our bedroom. The flashes were so constant that it was difficult to tell when one ended and another began. Rain pelted the roof and washed noisily down the gutters. I slipped out of bed to close our bedroom curtains, and found myself mesmerized by the storm. Torrents of muddy water gushed around the vehicles parked on our street, including a pickup truck blocking the end of our driveway.

As a lightning flash faded, I hesitated. Did a light turn on and then quickly off in the pickup? I narrowed my eyes. The storm slapped rain against the window. It was an unfamiliar truck; I didn't recognize it as belonging to one of our neighbors. But people had summer guests all the time, especially in Colorado, where we were usually spared the heat that afflicts the rest of the country. In the midst of the storm's violence, the truck was dark and still. I stared through the slashes of raindrops and decided the light was something I'd imagined.

A wave of water spewed up over the curb and surged toward Aspen Meadow's Main Street. This summer gullywasher would dump tons of mud and gravel on Aspen Meadow's paved roads. It would leave in its wake deltas of stone and a river of caked dirt. Driving after one of these torrents is invariably slow and treacherous. I sighed and wondered if Alicia, my supplier, would be able to get her truck up the street, to park anywhere close to the house in the morning. Especially if the pickup was still blocking the driveway.

When the tempest seemed to be abating, I glanced at the digital clock. But the clock face was dark. The storm had probably taken the electricity out. I fell into bed next to Tom's warm and inviting body. Incredibly, he had slumbered sonorously through it all. But when I inadvertently woke him by touching his foot, we had a deliciously stormy half-hour to ourselves.

With the power out, the usual artificial reminders of morning - ringing alarms, the aroma of fresh-brewed coffee - were absent. Luckily, Tom seems to possess an internal clock. I dimly registered his departure when watery morning sunshine slanted through the bedroom windows. During a homicide investigation, he always leaves at sunup for the investigative team's strategy meetings, and returns home late. He phoned after a few hours, when I was moving slowly through the end of my yoga routine. He wanted to make sure I was okay, and that I knew the electricity was off. Yes, he'd been able to back out of the driveway, he said when I asked about the pickup, but I should be careful to avoid the mud on Main Street. I caught sight of my own short-statured, disheveled-haired, stupid-happy reflection in the mirror when I hung up. Living with someone who tried to take care of me still brought unexpected pleasure.

Thursday, July 2, my kitchen calendar informed me, was a preparation day for the events ahead - the food fair and the

Chamber of Commerce brunch on Friday, the Braithwaites' party on Saturday. Thinking of the Braithwaites, I groaned. Babs had been as snooty at the Mignon banquet as she'd been after she'd rear-ended Julian in her Mercedes and claimed it was his fault.

But her personality wasn't about to stop me from making a splendid profit on the seated dinner she and her husband were giving for July Fourth. The two of them threw this celebrated annual party on their manicured five acres atop Aspen Knoll, the high point of the Aspen Meadow country club area. Supposedly the knoll had the best view of the fireworks over Aspen Meadow Lake.

Perhaps if the guests plowed through their curry early enough, I'd even see part of the display. On second thought, with Julian's participation now uncertain, I might have to clean up until dawn.. I checked my watch: eight-forty. Alicia should arrive with seafood, meats, and produce around nine. The power came back while I was wondering about the best time to visit Marla. With her angiogram scheduled for first thing, perhaps I could visit in the early afternoon... then stop at Prince & Grogan to get the second half of my check, final payment for the banquet... that is, if Tom didn't object to my presence there....

The phone rang. It was Tom again. "Look, Goldy, I'm sorry about last night - "

"What about it? It got kind of fun around four A.M. Of course, I couldn't see the time..."

"Well, I've just been thinking about it." He paused. "Look, Goldy," he said seriously, "you know I want you to... think about this case. It always helps to have your input."

"Think about the case," I repeated. "You know I respect your intellect."

"Uh-huh. My intellect. My charming personality. And my cooking, don't forget that."

"Be serious. Fabulous cooking, charming personality, and a great intellect."

"Gee, Tom. I wish you'd been one of my professors. Great intellect. La-de-da."

"All kidding aside - I just don't want you to interfere, I get yourself in a compromising position. Believe it or not, Miss G., there is a difference. For example, you should ignore a demonstrator. Not dump vegetables on him."

I glanced into the walk-in for ingredients that would make a show-stopping bread for the food fair. "Okay, no more vegetable-dumping. Promise. How'd your meeting go? Speaking of the Spare the Hares people, have you found out anything? Did

Shaman Krill complain about me?"

"The strategy meeting took two hours. And how can I find out about demonstrators when I'm making conciliatory phone calls to my wife?"

"Just answer the question, cop."

"The guy didn't make a formal complaint. And nobody from that mall is being overly helpful. Sometimes your prime suspect is always around, bending over backward to give you advice and guidance. That's when you have to expect to be deceived." He made a grumbling noise. I could imagine him considering his cup of bitter sheriff's department coffee. "So are you and I okay?"

"Of course."

He grunted. "Julian up yet?"

"I was about to check on him. Aren't you always telling me how the first forty-eight hours of a homicide investigation are the most profitable? I'm making bread. We're fine. Tom, please, I can't bear not to know why someone would do that to Claire

Satterfield. Go investigate."

As I tiptoed up the stairs to the boys' room, his words echoed in my ear. I've just been thinking about it... I'm sorry... don't want your interference. The many, many wrinkles of two single lives, of separate ways of communicating, were taking a while to smooth out. Every aspect of our entwined experiences was under scrutiny. Even the way we referred to possessions was a challenge, I thought as I caught my reflection in one of the old-but-not-antique mirrors that Tom had collected over the years.

He'd hung them just last week on the wall above the stairway. Tom's pictures, my stairway. His stove, my refrigerator, his deck furniture, my bed, his car, my house. Now I was learning to say our, our, our. I sidestepped Scout the cat, curled into a furry ball on one of the steps, and gazed into a mirror. A short, slightly plump, thirty-two-year-old woman with curly blond hair and brown eyes looked back. Our mirrors. Our life. Goodness, even our cat.

I eased the boys' bedroom door open. Arch's slow, regular breathing from the top bunk indicated he was still asleep.

There was no noise from Julian's bed. In the morning, his muscular limbs usually sprawled from under the covers on the lower bunk. But at the moment the navy-blue bedspread covered his inert form from head to foot. I hoped he was asleep. Somehow, though, I doubted it.

I tiptoed back to the kitchen and contemplated the egg yolks I'd been accumulating in the refrigerator. They were left over from my preparation of lowfat recipes that invariably required egg whites. I'd have even more yolks to deal with when I got going on the vanilla-frosted fudge cookies. The yolks, though, what could I do with the yolks? I mentally tasted a cake or rolls enriched with yolks, then hit on the idea that the yolks could be the mainstay of a light, sweet, Sally Lunn-type bread for the fair. I hummed to myself as I made a yeast starter, chopped fresh pecans, and measured sun-dried cranberries. When a large chunk of butter was dissolving into golden globules in a pan of milk, I peeled thin curls of flavorful zest from juicy oranges, then spooned out flour from a copper canister Tom had brought from his cabin.

WHAT-TO-DO-WITH-ALL-THE-EGG-YOLKS BREAD

2 � teaspoons (1 �-ounce envelope) active dry yeast

� cup sugar

� cup warm water

_ cup skim milk

� cup butter, melted

� cup canola oil

1 tablespoon chopped orange zest

1 teaspoon salt

4 egg yolks, lightly beaten

3 � to 4 cups all-purpose flour

_ cup sun-dried cranberries