Diane Davidson - Chopping Spree

“Did Barry get along with him?”

“Well,” Heather said with a sniff, “would you, if you were mall manager? Victor makes fourteen tons of paperwork for us, gives us a bad name in the Hispanic community, and won’t tell us when the damn stores are going to be done.”

“Were he and Barry enemies, then?”

Heather snorted a laugh, the first time she’d looked amused all morning. “You are bad , girl. Is this how you get crimes solved?” She giggled some more, then slid her eyes over to the contentious meeting. “The cops asked me about each and every person who worked closely with Barry. I looked up everyone’s schedule, even the security guys’. For Victor, I called Westside Community College. He teaches a class there on building your own house addition. Every Monday. Last night, Victor was giving a test.” She giggled again, unable to control herself. I began to worry about the hysterical tone creeping into her voice. “I tried to take that class and gave up. Victor said, ‘While the little woman’s making you an apple pie, you can be the big man building her a brand-new kitchen.’ So I said, ‘I am so out of here.’”

My eyes strayed to the glassed-in office, where all of the participants in the altercation were talking into cell phones.

“Did, uh, Victor try to order the previous construction manager around?”

“Lucas Holden? Noto? He was the last construction manager.”

“Was that his name?” I asked. “Lucas? Who’s Noto?”

“That’s just what we called old Lucas. No-toe. On account of a girder that fell on his big toe once, so he lost it. I’m like, Call a toe truck, yo! But nobody thought that was funny.”

I sighed. Heather definitely needed some time off.

“So what happened to this Lucas Holden?” I asked resolutely.

“He quit. Another asshole,” she declared vehemently.

“And where did Lucas go?”

“Oh, the letter he wrote us said he was going to Arizona someplace. Nobody ever called him Lucas, though. Strictly No-toe.”

“Do you have an address for… Holden?”

Heather swiveled in her chair toward her files. “I’ll look, if you’d like. But you don’t want to get mixed up with No-toe, trust me. He’s the reason we’re in the mess we’re in, with the new stores not ready, construction loans to pay, a drainage mess to clean up, a shortage of workers, blah, blah, blah. Don’t get me started on No-toe.”

I didn’t, even though I was increasingly eager to find out if Lucas Holden, aka No-toe Holden, had gotten along with Barry and everyone else at the mall.

Heather frowned over one file, then stuffed it back in the drawer when she read the concern in my face. “Look,” she said. “I’ll try to get No-toe’s phone number for you. If I can’t find it, I’ll ask Victor if he has it somewhere.” She grabbed for her tissue box and muttered, “Victor. What an asshole.”

Since we’d already traveled that particular loop, I nodded a good-bye. From the inner office, the voices rose again.

“If you can’t hire more security, then maybe we need a new acting manager!” the first man howled at Rob Eakin.

“Great idea!” screamed Eakin.

“Find out who killed Barry, would you?” Heather implored, as she crumpled her latest tissue and dabbed her eyes.

“I’m trying,” I said gently, over the noise of the office fight. “Take care of yourself, Heather.”

Then I backed out the door.

CHAPTER 9

As I gunned the van toward Aspen Meadow, Julian’s face stayed in my thoughts. He was emotionally and physically strong; anyone who knew him knew that. Surely he’d be able to handle whatever the jail experience offered, from bad cellmates to horrid food. When Julian did get out of jail, he’d probably start a campaign to bring fresh vegetables to inmates.

I tried to smile, but couldn’t. The memory of Julian’s haggard face and downcast spirits was too strong.

Barry , I reminded myself, as I raced onto the interstate. Barry is the key. My thinking was getting clearer in this department. My assumptions began with the theory that Barry had gotten himself into some kind of trouble. Ellie McNeely and I had been friends for a long time. When Barry was looking for a caterer, Ellie had told her boyfriend-who-hadn’t-given-her-a-ring-yet about me. But Barry hadn’t decided on a caterer until he’d read the article about the debacle at Hyde Castle. Somehow, that article had clinched it. Barry’d figured if he hired his old pal, amateur crime-solver Goldy Schulz, she could straighten things out. But his attempt to fill me in on his dilemma—or even tell me what the dilemma was—had gone terribly awry.

The snow-capped peaks and plum-purple shadows of the Continental Divide came into view. I pressed on the accelerator.

Barry’s dying and Julian’s arrest were not my fault. Still, I felt responsible. If only I had tried harder to make Barry talk to me… If only I had been less obsessed with my catering event….

Barry had tried to reach out to me. But he had been too proud, too scared, too something to just blurt out what was bothering him. And now he was gone.

Ringing from my cell phone made my heart jump. It was Alicia, my supplier. Was I ready to receive this week’s food order? Yep, I replied, you bet. Alicia promised to be at our house in thirty minutes. So much for stopping by the Bank of Aspen Meadow to see if Ellie could visit. I called the bank to try to set up an appointment with her, but was told she was being questioned again by someone from the sheriff’s department. A detective had taken Ellie to the bank’s conference room, and had asked not to be disturbed. Yes, I was told, a message would be left for Mrs. McNeely, asking her to return my call.

Barry might have thought I was an ace amateur sleuth, but it looked now as if my reputation was becoming a drawback. Maybe I was paranoid, but Pam Disharoon wouldn’t or couldn’t see me; ditto Rob Eakin, Ellie McNeely, and Capetown-bound John Rufus. Well. No matter what, I was going to find a way to get Julian out of jail.

And then— surprise! —my cell phone rang again.

“Goldy, it’s Page Stockham.”

“Uh, well. Yeah.” I couldn’t even stammer out a proper greeting. “What’s up?” I asked feebly. “How are you and Shane, uh, doing?”

“I really, really want to apologize to you.” Her breathy voice cracked. “So does Shane. He’s going to call you later. Look, it’s all my fault. I started the fight at the party. I’m sorry. Oh, God. Please, please say you’ll cater for us Wednesday. We need this lunch wicked bad.”

“I don’t know what to say. Maybe we should think it over,” I murmured. Excuse me, but it was Shane who’d started to attack his wife. Page had prodded and ridiculed him, yes. But instead of charging her, Shane could have walked away. In fact, they both could have. But Page hadn’t rung me up for marital advice.

“Don’t abandon us,” she pleaded. “Marla told me you’d probably cancel, and I needed to call you and eat dirt. Please, please don’t cancel on us. We’re under terrible stress financially, and we’re going to a counselor, because money is, the lack of money is, well, killing us.”

I turned off on the Aspen Meadow exit and tried to think of what to say.

“Let me think about it,” I said to Page.

“Please, Goldy. I’m really, really sorry. We both are.”

“We’ll talk later,” I promised. We signed off.

The first thing I did when I slammed into the kitchen at home was check the fax machine. Empty. The voice mail, though, announced that five folks had called.

The first message was from Tom. He was swamped, so could I pick up Arch today after all? Please call him if I could not, and he’d shuffle things around. I smiled. Of course I would get Arch. By the way, Tom added, Marla called and demanded that he look into Shane Stockham, to see if Stockham had any reports of, or arrests for, domestic or any other kind of violence. No, Tom said. Shane was clean.