Diane Davidson - Tough Cookie

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want Arthur Wakefield to make any unexpected moves on a caterer who’s broken into his wine cellar and riffled his papers. You better pray he didn’t discover what you did,” Tom commented as he moved off to clean himself up.

“Arthur will never know if you don’t tell him,” I shot back.

Discouraged, I scraped the moist, tender raisin rice onto a heated platter and covered it. Then I stirred the shrimp into the curry and called Todd, Arch, and Tom, who emerged showered, dressed, and smelling as sweet as ever. He seemed to have forgiven me for my morning’s escapade at Arthur’s. Or if he hadn’t, he was letting it go for now.

Everyone busied themselves with the condiments. I sprinkled peanuts onto my chutney-topped bowl of curry and took a bite. The crunch of nuts combined with the succulent shrimp robed in its spicy-hot, luscious sauce was out of this world. Tom winked at me in thanks. Somewhat dramatically, Arch announced that he and Todd would like to recite their Spenser to us tonight. They were, he informed us, splitting a stanza. I looked at Tom and he grinned. They would begin right after dinner, Arch concluded. They’d have their backs to us, though, as they couldn’t yet handle an audience’s faces.

When we’d finished, Tom scraped the dishes and insisted on washing them in the bathroom. Pretending to be flipping through a cookbook, I took surreptitious delight in watching Todd and Arch huddle over Spenser’s Complete Works .

Todd had stuck by Arch during the worst of my trials with The Jerk; in return, Arch had invited Todd to sleep over numerous nights after Eileen kicked her husband out. Todd, shorter than Arch but heavier, still had endearingly cherubic cheeks that were now deeply flushed at the prospect of performing. His unevenly shorn black hair had nothing to do with style and everything to do with his unconscious habit—developed after his father’s troubles were exposed—of tugging out his shiny curls. But he’d stopped pulling his hair out, Arch had assured me. I stared down at the cookbook, then peeked back up. Even though the two boys had gone from bikes to fantasy-role-playing games to snowboarding, they were still best friends, and I was glad of it. Friendship was a great blessing; we all needed to remember that. With a pang, I thought of Rorry.

Tom returned. The dishes were soaking in the tub. Arch announced that they were ready to begin.

“Book Five, Canto Two, Stanza Thirty-nine,” Todd began stiffly as he faced the convection oven. He cleared his throat twice, then woodenly recited: “Of things unseen how canst thou deem aright , Then answered the righteous Artegall , Since thou misdeem’st so much of things in sight?What though the sea with waves continualDo eat the earth, it is no more at all.…”

He turned and nodded uncomfortably at Arch. I held my breath and glanced at Tom. Should we be encouraging and clap at this point? Tom gave a tiny warning shake of the head. Arch stood facing the stove and began: “Nor is the earth the less, or loseth ought , For whatsoever from one place doth fall , Is with the tide unto another brought:For there is nothing lost, that may be found, if sought.”

“Excellent, Arch! Todd, wow! Fantastic! ” Tom and I gushed, clapping wildly.

Todd reached up to scratch his fuzzy scalp, then remembered not to. Instead, he nabbed the Rockies baseball cap he usually wore, but had politely removed for dinner. “Thanks, Mrs. Schulz. My mom liked it, too. She said I didn’t need to work with Arch tonight, but I told her I did.” I suddenly remembered Arch’s remark—made when Jack had fixed us dinner at Eileen’s condo—that Todd spent tons of time at our house because he didn’t like Jack Gilkey. How would Todd fare if Eileen married Jack? If they did tie the knot, I only hoped poor little Todd would do better than Arthur Wakefield had.

The boys clattered off, promising to practice in front of each other. Tom disappeared, then reappeared carrying clean dishes, which he dried and clanked back onto shelves. Then he pulled out invoices to check that he’d received all the plumbing supplies he’d ordered. I stared at our shiny silver-and-white marble counters, darkly glowing cherry cabinets, and butter-golden oak floors. I had no more professional cooking to do until this week’s final PBS show.

I sighed. When I had a big event to prepare for, I always complained. Without work, I ached for it.

I quickly fixed myself a cup of cocoa. Unfortunately, the hot, creamy chocolate drink did not stave off the sudden pangs of emptiness. No work felt like no life . Whenever I was up to my elbows in coulibiac and flourless chocolate cake, I fantasized about the crocheting I would one day do, the beaches Tom and I would one day stroll. But here I was, as free as I had ever wanted to be, and my big worry was whether eight-thirty was too early to go to bed.

Outside, snow had begun to fall. I gathered my ski equipment, packed it into the Rover, and said goodnight to Tom. The boys—who had traded Elizabethan poetry for rock music—thanked me for dinner, swore they had their verses nailed , and promised to go to bed soon. I took a long, hot shower and fell into bed.

But slumber eluded me. Hours crept by as I stared at the snowflakes swirling around our street lamp. The pounding music stopped. Tom slid into bed. I did fall asleep at some point, because when the telephone jangled through my consciousness, it sounded very far away.

I blinked at the clock: The business line was ringing? At six-fifteen on a Tuesday morning? Somebody must want a catered holiday dinner wicked bad.

Tom groaned. “Want me to get it? It’s probably the department—”

“They never call on this line.” I fumbled for the receiver and mumbled my business greeting.

“Goldy Schulz of Goldilocks’ Catering? This is Reggie Dawson of the Furman County Register.” The voice was high and brittle, almost a falsetto. Reggie Dawson ? I was not a regular reader of the Register , so the name rang no bells. The paper paid poorly, and staff turnover was high, I knew. Every now and then, I did an extremely low-budget going-away party for one of the reporters who’d been let go.

“You have regular business hours, Mr. Dawson?” I hissed. “Could you call me back? I’m not catering any business coffees or lunches at the moment—”

“The way I heard it, Mrs. Schulz, you might be out of the catering business entirely.”

Now he had my attention. I wished desperately we had caller ID on our phones. “What are you saying?”

“Four days ago, Douglas Portman died while skiing at Killdeer. You discovered his body, and you had prior ties to Portman.”

“So?”

“We’ve received information that you were renewing a romantic relationship with Portman. Can you confirm or deny this?”

Well! I’d watched a press conference or two in my day. “Deny,” I said fiercely.

“Were you rendezvousing with Portman because you wanted him to do something for you?”

“Like what?” My mind was reeling, and I was shivering in the early morning cold. Could there be an easy way to end this conversation? Was it better to talk to an obnoxious journalist, or cut him off? The wife of homicide investigator Thomas Schulz, local caterer Goldy Schulz , I imagined reading, whose abusive ex-husband, Dr. John Richard Korman, is serving time for assault, refused to answer questions regarding her secret relationship with parole-board chief Douglas Portman… .

Reggie Dawson persisted: “Did you bribe Portman to ensure that your ex-husband would stay incarcerated?”