Diane Davidson - Chopping Spree

Four years ago, the sale of the ten-thousand-acre Burdock Ranch abutting the Preserve had provoked the usual hysterical conflict between Colorado’s pro-and anti-growth folks. After two years of vicious wrangling, Aspen Ranch, a luxurious subdivision featuring five-to ten-thousand-square-foot homes on ten-acre lots, had been approved. The builders swore they were preserving the character of the Wildlife Preserve. We could put up ticky-tacky condos , they’d threatened the planning commission, who eventually denied their application. But the county commissioners—all of whom had received huge campaign donations from the builders, it was later reported, and not just in the Mountain Journal —unanimously reversed the decision of their own planners and approved the project.

Wending my way through the wide, snow-blanketed streets of Aspen Ranch, I quickly lost my way. Lots of snow-covered trees and meadows looked like lots of other snow-covered trees and meadows. Plus, for all their money, the builders had messed up pretty dramatically on the street signs. They were long, slender, wood-carved affairs now completely frosted with ice and snow. Unfortunately, the numbers for the houses were also carved in this same style, and despite their placement at the end of each driveway, were illegible. I wasn’t having fun trying to find Thirty-two Aspen Ranch Lane, even though I’d been there before.

I finally got a clue from the mailboxes, grand wood-and-metal boxes painted with birds, pine branches, stagecoaches, and—thank you, Lord— Dr. and Mrs. Turner Macalester, 18 Aspen Ranch Lane lettered on the side. I slowly rumbled past Dr. and Mrs. William Knapp, Dr. and Mrs. Bachman Wilson, Dr. and Mrs. Paul Cardero…and wondered why the developers hadn’t built a hospital at the entrance to the Wildlife Preserve. It would surely shorten up everybody’s commute.

I slowed as we climbed Aspen Ranch Lane. I knew we were only about a mile from the Preserve, but the white expanse of trees did not look familiar. I’d visited the Stockham place when the ground had been clear and the wooden street signs legible.

Finally, I drew up to a long, gently ascending driveway that looked vaguely familiar, not because of the trees and rocks or snow-covered sign, but because a familiar vehicle was blocking the driveway.

Marla had told me at the jewelry party about Pam Disharoon’s white Audi, with its license plate GOGIRL. I groaned.

I hadn’t anticipated having to ask a very early guest to move her car, especially not a guest who reportedly had an unstable relationship with her sister, the volatile Page Stockham, my client. Still, would this give me a chance to question the elusive Pam on her relationship with the hapless Barry Dean?

Another question formed in my brain as Liz and I sat in our vans, plumes of exhaust spiraling upward through the cold, moist air. Was Pam here to attend her brother-in-law’s cash-raising lunch?

Or was she here to disrupt it?

CHAPTER 14

Are the keys in it?” Liz demanded, banging on my windshield. When I shrugged, she raked her hair with her gloved hands, traipsed through what must have been ten inches of snow—it always snowed more west of town, here by the Preserve—and peered into the Audi.

“Think you should call them on the cell phone?” she cried.

I shook my head and jumped out of my van. “By the time I reach them, and they argue and debate until somebody decides to get dressed and come down here, I could have made it up there and put pressure on Shane to drive me back down.” I arrived at her side. Despite the fact that I wore a wool jacket, I shivered in the biting cold.

“OK. While you go up, I’ll stay and guard our stuff.”

I began the long tramp up the driveway. There was only one set of footprints in the snow, undoubtedly Pam’s. The uphill walk itself was actually very pretty, like being transported into a set for The Nutcracker. Trees high and low were hung with glittering ribbons of snow. The ground was thickly frosted, and was still a pristine, crystalline white. Sunbeams slanting through the pine and aspen branches winked off errant flakes. I would have had more inclination to appreciate all this if I hadn’t been worrying about how we were going to do the lunch without being able to drive up to the house. We really needed someone to move Pam’s damn car.

After what must have been a mile of trudging, the large log house came into view, a pretty-but-oversized two-story affair that Shane had smugly informed me was in the style of Swedish Country. By the time I arrived at the carved front door and rang the bell, I felt as if I’d traipsed across Sweden by way of the North Pole.

“Where have you been?” Shane demanded even before I began shaking off snow in his foyer. “I was expecting you twenty-two minutes ago.” His face was flushed, his tone accusing. I told myself to count to ten. While silently ticking off numbers, I took in his outfit: cream-colored silk shirt, suede Western riding jacket, leather cowboy pants and boots, Stetson hat. Shane was apparently going to make his pitch costumed as a high-flying cowboy. Well, I’d seen weirder.

“There’s an Audi blocking your driveway,” I pointed out. “We can’t get in. And I need payment before we start.”

Shane heaved a sigh of exasperation. He mumbled, “The ring’s coming, I promise.” Then he hooked his thumb in the direction of female voices bubbling from the interior of the house. I tugged off my boots and shuffled past the dining room, which was beautifully done up with a lavish floral centerpiece, gleaming crystal, Imari-pattern china, and linens in rich red, navy, beige, and gold.

“Dining room looks good,” I mumbled, and forced a smile at Shane. I really didn’t want to carry my bad mood into a confrontation with Pam Disharoon.

“Oh, I got the flowers and styling done in exchange for a Palm pilot,” Shane replied. “And the china was one of Page’s many, uh, extravagances.”

The living room offered more Swedish Country stuff. This seemed to mean lots of tall white furniture, wood sculptures of forest nymphs, chunky tables, and etched portraits of Nobel prizewinners. A fire blazed and crackled in the moss-rock hearth. Still shivering from my trek up the driveway, I longed to warm myself in front of it. But I sensed that wouldn’t go over very well.

Pam and Page, both lounging in tall, white corduroy wing-back chairs, registered my arrival. Why was I bothering them , their dismayed looks said.

“There’s an Audi in our way,” I announced to the two women. “We can’t get the vans up the driveway.”

“Oh, it’s mine,” Pam said offhandedly, reaching into a large Louis Vuitton purse. Was that purse the uniform tote of the yuppie set? And how had she avoided having it snatched by Teddy Fury? “I just had to take that nice long walk up the driveway. It was so…so sensual ! Out here in the boondocks, the snow is seductively pretty! Couldn’t you just imagine rolling in it with someone you love?” She treated Shane and Page to a dazzling smile. Then she turned and tossed me an LV key ring, which only my best imitation of Arch snagging the lacrosse ball enabled me to catch. “Here. You can move it.” So much for my hopes of Pam shrieking with embarrassment for causing so much trouble with her car, and then scrambling from the room to move it.

In my business, pots can boil over. The caterer can’t. Not for the first time, I was having a hard time staying cool. I avoided a glance into the gilt-edged mirror over the mantel. If I did, I was sure to see steam whistling out my ears.

“I’ll drive you back down,” Shane interposed hastily. “Need me to preheat the oven or anything?”