Killer Pancake (38 page)

Allowing thirty minutes per batch of ice cream, I figured he'd been at this for quite some time. The kitchen was a mess of cream containers, beaters, and bowls.

"It's not exactly the colors of the flag," he said ruefully when I peered into the bowl and raised my eyebrows. "But it's gonna be great. I can't wait for you to try it. Where've you been anyway? I guess my little ruse didn't work."

"Little ruse? Little ruse? Is that what you call it?" I glared at him. He grinned widely. After a few seconds of trying to keep up my withering stare, I couldn't help myself. I burst out laughing. "And when did you have time to do all that menu planning, Mr.

Investigator? I am never, never going to forgive you."

He grabbed me by the waist and swung me perilously close to the clutter of ice creams. "Oh, sure you're going to forgive me," he reassured me as I giggled wildly. "And I didn't have time to do the cooking. I faxed your recipes down to a chef from a restaurant near the sheriff's department, and paid him to get the ingredients together and make the cookies and the soup and the bread dough. It took me less than five minutes. Anyway, knowing you, the risotto didn't stop you, it just slowed you down. The fireworks were over a couple of hours ago. Was the party okay?"

He sat me down on a chair and I told him all about it. I assured him that Julian had been a champ and that Dr. Charles

Braithwaite would survive, especially if he could get some intensive psychiatric help. I confessed to having a fight with Reggie

Hotchkiss. and that Julian had been involved. Tom seemed worried - did I think Hotchkiss had thrown the bleach water and left the note? I said I had no idea. He asked if Reggie could know where Julian was tonight, and I told him Reggie had left long before

Julian had decided to go his friend's house.

"Think you'll ever cater for the Braithwaites again?" he asked.

"No. And I don't care either. I am kind of disappointed that they may be innocent in all this. I still don't trust either of them."

When I finished talking, Tom wordlessly cut me a wide wedge of the triple-layered torte. The chocolate ice cream was still soft over the more solid layers of strawberry and vanilla. Biting into the three delicious flavors and through the crunchy chocolate- cookie crust, I was reminded of childhood birthday parties in New Jersey, where Neapolitan ice cream and chocolate cake were the order of the day.

I told Tom, "This is the most delicious thing I have ever tasted in my entire life. But you know we shouldn't have it. We don't want to get into the kind of situation... like Marla."

Tom put his arms around me. "Everything in moderation, Miss G. Besides, you're too young to have a heart attack."

"Excuse me," I blubbered, "but I am not." Too young. It seemed that phrase was cropping up a lot lately. I even remembered using it with Arch, when I'd told him he was too young to be using sixties language....

I sat up straight. Wait a cotton-picking minute. "Ah-ha!" said Tom. "She's changing her mind. She's going to have some

Neapolitan ice cream after all - "

"Tom," I said urgently, "who did Shaman Krill say he worked for?"

"He didn't. I've been laboring on that guy day and night. He won't tell us jack."

"But he wasn't with the animal rights people, you know that. And he's an actor. How old would you say he was?"

"About as old as this Neapolitan ice cream is going to be by the time you eat it."

"Tom!"

"I forget. Twenty-seven, maybe."

"So he wasn't old enough to know any of that sixties lingo he was using with us like 'fascist pig' and 'capitalist imperialist' and all that."

"There are movies," Tom said dubiously. "Documentaries."

"And scripts," I said. To humor him, I had a bit of ice cream. He'd put fresh strawberries into the pink layer. It was like chilled, succulent essence of fruit. "You know who uses that kind of language? For whom it's second nature, don't you?"

He cocked his head and lifted his eyebrows. "Nope. But I just know you're going to tell me."

"Reggie Hotchkiss. He knows the lingo. He paid for the demonstration, I'll bet, to disrupt Mignon. Shaman Krill is a Reggie

Hotchkiss plant. Maybe Reggie ran Claire down himself. Oh, Lord, and I had a fight with him tonight...."

Tom said, "The security for this house is airtight. And I have a forty-five, don't forget."

"You don't believe me. I'll bet you a thousand dollars Reggie has something to do with the murders at that department store."

Tom reached over and began to unbutton the top of my blouse. "Guess what? I get to sleep in tomorrow. No strategy meeting first thing. And why don't you bet something I really want?"

I shook my head. "You know what being newly married to you is like? It's like walking a marathon instead of running it. I hardly ever get to see you, so we're always in... what's it called? The heady throes of romance. At the rate we're going, we'll be newlyweds for the next ten years."

"So living with me is like stopping smoking and walking a marathon. What's a heady throe of romance?"

"Plus I can see you're just bowled over with my marvelous powers of deduction."

He kept unbuttoning. "As always."

"And I see catching a killer is the highest priority for you right now."

He let go of my blouse and reached for the phone. "I'll bet you a thousand dollars that I can put in a call to have Shaman

Krill picked up faster than you can get those clothes off and meet me upstairs."

I didn't collect on his bet. I could have. When Tom reached the sheriff's department, they - true to form - put him on hold.

I even had time for a shower.

Later, much later, I murmured, "I love you, love you, love you," into his ear and buried my nose in his short, sweet- smelling hair. For a night that had taken so many bizarre turns, this one was ending up pretty well. He pulled me in close. Pale moonlight filled our bedroom. I felt sleep fall as gently as the pink bursts of fireworks had scattered their lights over the lake.

When Sunday morning came, Tom was still sleeping soundly. I slipped out of bed with the idea that a hefty dose of caffeine was in order. But Scout the cat boldly rolled onto his back in front of the espresso machine and demanded attention. I rubbed his stomach as he writhed from side to side, demanding more! more! Eventually he decided he'd had enough affection and hopped off the counter, and I was able to load the machine with fresh beans and water. Soon dark strands of espresso hissed into the twin shot glasses and I poured them over milk and ice and stepped out onto the front porch.

The brilliant morning sky promised a return to hot weather. Geraniums and johnny-jump-ups in the porch pots moved in the breeze. A dog barked in the distance. Across the street, the Routts' house was silent: no Colin crying, no jazz saxophone. The morning of the fifth of July always felt odd. It was as if time had slipped around midnight during the fight for independence, and left the whole country to suffer a summer hangover.

I sipped my icy latte and wondered how Charles Braithwaite was doing. Julian had just gone through shock. He'd managed to recover fairly quickly. But Charles was older. Age usually dictated a longer recuperation from trauma. And speaking of recovering from trauma, Marla was due to greet the world again this afternoon. I checked my watch: seven-twenty.

When I finished the coffee I felt heavy-hearted and tired. I toyed with the idea of going back to bed. But before I could do so, the phone rang. I bolted for it so the ringing wouldn't wake up Tom. It was Officer Boyd from the sheriff's department.

"He's asleep," I whispered. "Can it wait?"

"Just tell him we got Krill," said Boyd. "Tom said it was your idea anyway, that the guy was a phony. Looks as if you were right, Goldy. Krill buckled when we asked him if his employer was Hotchkiss. He told us Hotchkiss hired him to be disruptive, even gave him a script. The lingo, the chants, the dead bunny-you name it."

"But did Krill drive the truck that killed Claire? Did he... have some connection to Gentileschi?"

"Not that he'll admit to. But don't worry," Boyd said in his laconic, confident manner. "He'll crack. Give it time. Tell Schulz when he wakes up that we'll have a confession in no time."

I hung up. I remembered my promise to give an update on Marla to the St. Luke's parishioners at the early service. Rather than wake Tom, I left him a note on the kitchen table that said Boyd was working on Krill and that he should call the department.

As I quietly slid into a skirt and blouse, the key to Prince & Grogan storage caught my eye from where I'd left it on the bureau after removing it from my bra on Friday. I was, after all, going to church, I reflected guiltily, and there was that bit about thou shalt not steal. I slid the key into my pocket. I would return the key. Eventually.

The sparse congregation at St. Luke's all looked droopy-eyed. The interim pastor, who was serving while a parish committee searched for a new rector after the loss of our last one, forgot to turn on the altar lights, but no one minded. We moved slowly through the prayers. Thankfully, there weren't any hymns. The choir, the organist, and our voices, were on vacation. When asked by the priest, I gave a very brief update on Marla's condition. During the intercessions, when we made special requests for intervention and healing, I tried to allow my mind to become blank. The excitement of the past few days would eventually fade.

The spirit would return to its old rhythms. Into the blankness I summoned Marla's face. Then Charles Braithwaite's, then old Mr.

Routt's. I prayed for Julian, for the repose of the souls of Claire and Nick.

Without warning, the parade of faces became muddled in my mind. The more I struggled to focus, the more curiosity insinuated itself, like Scout plopping between me and the espresso machine. You're tired, I told myself. You've been through a lot.

I leaned back in the pew.

All around me parishioners continued to offer their supplications. I opened my eyes, then shut them. It didn't help. My mind was preoccupied with images, questions, memories that didn't connect. I remembered Arch repeating his science teacher's assertion that the memory was like a Rolodex. When you can't remember something, it's not that you don't have the information.

You just can't access it. In my mind's eye I saw a vehicle following mine down to the mall the morning of the Mignon banquet. Saw again someone watching outside our house at night. Heard Shaman Krill shout sixties-style derision, saw him swing a dead rabbit at me. Viewed the pain on Mr. Routt's unseeing face. Felt the spray of glass as Nick Gentileschi's body hit the Mignon counter.

My muscles trembled with fatigue. The gentle susurration of prayer rose from the pews all around, and scraps of remembered conversation surfaced in my mind. About Claire: That woman could sell cosmetics..... From Nick: We're reviewing the films. From Frances Markasian: They've got a security problem. From Babs Braithwaite: There's somebody back there.

But the police had their man: Shaman Krill. Krill, or somebody else that Reggie Hotchkiss had hired, or maybe even

Reggie himself, could have done it all. Claire was a fabulous saleswoman, so Reggie certainly had motivation to get rid of one of the competitor's best producers. Reggie further undermined Mignon's sales with his bogus Spare the Hares campaign. Covering all the bases, he also copied their products in his own catalogue.

Had Reggie covered all the bases with Nick Gentileschi, though? That was what didn't fit. Why would someone have to kill the security chief? Because of potentially embarrassing photographs? Because of something that had turned up on the films?

What about the cash refund problem? Frances had said, It's all computerized, so it looks official. But what was official? I had seen stacks of computer printouts in the department store office. Would they detail transactions, or would those be in the ledger?

Someone touched my shoulder; I opened my eyes. "We're passing the peace," a woman told me. She had gray hair pulled back in a neat bun, crinkles around her eyes, and a worried smile. "Are you all right?"

"Fine, thank you." I stood quickly and shook her, hand. "The peace of the Lord."

She smiled and squeezed my hand. "Peace." Which was what Arch had said. And Reggie Hotchkiss, the plagiarizing pacifist.

With enormous effort I turned my attention back to the service and went through the communion portion of the liturgy.

Afterward, the tired crowd engaged in half-hearted chat, and I nabbed a cup of church coffee. The stuff tasted like something you would lick off the inside of a twenty-year-old aluminum pot.

It was nine-fifteen. As I climbed into the van, the curious voices rocketing around in my brain began shooting off again.

What could that camera above the Mignon counter record? What did the printouts and the ledger show? If Shaman Krill was under arrest, what harm could it do if I went down to the store and just looked around a little bit? If I could be there when Prince &

Grogan opened, maybe I could snoop uninterrupted. If somebody like Stan White bothered me, I could use as my excuse the fact that I was looking for the receipt that Frances was so furious I'd lost.

I revved the van and took off for the mall. When I arrived, I realized that people were as reluctant to shop on the morning of July the fifth as they were to go to church. I felt foolish going into Prince & Grogan when the doors were finally unlocked. The place was virtually empty.

When I arrived at the department store offices, I announced to the woman behind the credit window: "I need to see Lisa in accounts payable. Is she in yet?"

"I don't know. You can check." Lisa was not in. I rifled through the stacks of printouts on her office floor until I came to the one marked Cosmetics. I scanned each of the folded pages, but they yielded only columns of numbers, and then rows of numbers across from the columns under headings like YTD. Doggone it.

Determined, I picked up the accordion-folded sheaf, slipped the printout under my blouse, and headed out of Lisa's office.

If I compared the printout to the ledger, maybe it would all make sense. Hugging the printout to my body, I rode down the escalator.