Diane Davidson - Sticks & Scones

Maybe so. But that gal hadn’t looked like a gawker. I couldn’t concentrate to wonder further about the mysterious woman in the wagon, though, because Jake chose that moment to put his paws on my chest and slobber on my face.

I pulled out of the way to avoid being drowned. “Take Jake back to your place for a bit, would you?” I begged Trudy. “I need something from the house, and I don’t want him stepping on glass and cutting his paws.” Jake howled mournfully as he was led away. I wanted to comfort him, but was distracted by a pickup now chugging up our street. Large rectangles wrapped in brown paper sat propped in the truck’s rear. Were the rectangles large enough to be picture-window panes? Or would that be too good to be true?

The grizzled man driving the truck introduced himself as Morris Hart from Furman County Glass. Morris was amazingly bowlegged, with a voice like sand and a wide, deeply wrinkled face. I thought I smelled booze on him, but couldn’t be sure. He asked if I was Goldy Schulz, and could I give him the okay to get started. The job should take an hour or two, he added optimistically. Despite the slight stench of whiskey - it could be on his clothes, I thought hopefully - I replied that he should begin as soon as possible, that I could stay until he was done, if he wanted. Then I zipped up to the door and let myself in.

The front room was dark because of the plywood. I turned on a light. The sudden sparkle of glass shards gave the place a desolate, abandoned air.

In the kitchen I retrieved my recipes-and-research disk. Outside, Morris Hart’s ladder creaked open. I touched the blinking button on the message machine. Maybe Boyd had called to say he was on his way. Once our window and security system were fixed, would he think it was safe for us to move back in? Or would he want us to wait until the department figured out who had fired the gun at our house?

The first message on my tape dropped

my spirits back to the nether zone.

“Goldy Schulz?” Chardé Lauderdale began, her Marilyn Monroe voice high and breathless. “How dare you tell the police that we shot at your house! After all you’ve put my husband and me through, don’t you think it’s time for you to stop your hate campaign against us? You discuss our conflict with anyone, and you can just add a little defamation suit from us to your list of woes. And by the way, we understand you will be doing some cooking for a group of donors to which we belong. This makes us very unhappy. We are demanding that the hosts find someone else to do that job immediately.”

What was Chardé reading from? A text supplied by her lawyer? Or her child-abusing husband? Hard to believe that the former Miss Teen Lubbock could be so articulately bitchy. When I called the cops after her husband had shaken their tiny daughter to unconsciousness, all she’d managed to screech was, “Who the hell do you think you are?”

On our tape, Chardé went on stiffly: “If you persist in trying to harm us, we will retaliate. And not just in court,” she concluded breathily, in what sounded like an afterthought.

Hmm. How ‘bout I save this message, I thought, to play for the cops? Ever hear that making a threat of bodily harm is a crime, babe?

I put in another call to Boyd and was again connected to his voice mail. It was half past nine, I said, and I could wait for him at our house, meet with Armstrong

and him in town, or see them later at the castle. His choice. The window repairman was here, I added, and I was grateful to the department for getting the repairs started so soon. Any chance the cleaning

team could come in this week?

Hanging up, I suddenly felt that I had to get back to the castle. Tom might be in pain. But something was holding me back, and it wasn’t just the window repair, which Trudy could supervise, if necessary. That kid was the king of communication. Loved e-mail, Tom had said. Andy Balachek had ended up dead in Cottonwood Creek … and somebody had taken a shot at Tom.

I don’t love her. Don’t love whom?

My eyes traveled to the kitchen’s south wall. After dinner most nights during January, Tom had walked dutifully through that door to the basement. In the cellar, he had his own computer to type up reports, write notes on cases, send e-mails… .

How much investigating of the Andy Balachek case would Tom be able to do from the castle? Probably not much. Unless, of course, I helped him by downloading his files.

This is not because I’m nosy, I thought as I headed down the basement steps. I mean, Tom was the one who kept saying he needed to work, that he wanted to get back to the case, right? And there might be files on this computer that he would need. Maybe he even kept an e-mail address book with Andy Balachek’s screen names. This was all data he would need, data I could bring him. To be helpful.

Uh-huh. Tom’s computer sat on a massive, scuffed, department-discard desk that was piled neatly with files and papers. Morris Hart, the window guy, banged and clattered above as I booted Tom’s computer. While the machine hummed, I scanned Tom’s desk for other files he might need. Or, perhaps, that I might want to have a look at.

What am I doing?

Before this trickle of self-doubt could become a deluge, I stared at the demand for a password, then blithely typed in chocolate, the password Tom and I had laughed at when former clients had used it for their security gate. To my astonishment, the hard drive opened instantly. I slipped in my food-research disk and began to copy Tom’s files. I wouldn’t look at them - not without his permission. Not yet, anyway, I added to myself. I did, however, read the titles of the subfiles: Balachek e-correspondence. Criminalistics course. Current cases. History.

“Mrs. Schulz?” Morris Hart cried from above.

Startled, I composed myself and called that I was in the basement and would be up in a few minutes. But Hart schlepped across the kitchen floor, following my voice, then traipsed down the basement stairs. I clicked madly to finish my copying.

When he was two steps from the basement floor, I made my face impatient to hide my guilt. “I’m just going to be a minute or two longer.”

“Sorry to bother you, but I have a high-powered vacuum to get up those glass shards. It has a tendency to blow fuses in older houses. Just wanted to warn you.”

“Okay, okay,” I said, resigned. “Just go ahead and start it.” I worried briefly about our walk-in refrigerator. But with its surge protector and backup power source, it should be okay.

He grunted and tramped back up. Copy, copy, copy, the computer repeated as my disk filled up. I won’t read this material, I kept telling myself. I’m just being helpful here.

I couldn’t help it: I glanced back at the names of Tom’s files. What did the file named History cover? Tom really wouldn’t mind if I took a quick peek, surely?

I clicked on the file, which contained subfiles with dates. “S.B., January 1.” And “S.B., January 3.” “Follow-up, January 4.” Then, “Conv. W/State Dept., January S.” The State Department? U.S. or Colorado? And who was S.B.? I opened the file from the first of January, when I’d been dealing with the aftermath of the Lauderdales’ party. The file contained an e-mail with the following text:

Do you remember me.? You said you’d love me forever. Your S.B.

My throat was suddenly dry. I should not be doing this, I thought. Curiosity can kill a cat … or a marriage. Still, I had to know. Without reading more, I copied all the rest of the e-mails onto the disk. My mission complete, my heart aching, I quit the program, ejected the disk, and slipped it into my jeans pocket.

I was shutting down the computer when there was an explosion behind me. Or was it on me? A cold, dark pain filled my head. I realized that someone had hit me, was hitting me, again and again and again. My skullbones reverberated in agony.