Diane Davidson - Sticks & Scones

I stared at the blinking cursor. Was Sara Beth O’Malley telling the truth? Where was she staying? If she wasn’t in Aspen Meadow, where was she?

Suddenly I remembered what Captain Lambert had quoted from the owner of The Stamp Fox: If you have contacts in the Far East… you can fence anything.

Maybe this was too far-fetched. Could Sara Beth O’Malley possibly be hooked up with Ray Wolff and his thieving gang? And, most importantly for my psyche and I marriage: In the last month, has Tom seen her?

I sighed, rode a wave of caffeine-craving, and opened the first of the e-mails from “The Gambler,” Andy Balachek himself. Whoever had shot Tom must have known about Andy’s body right there in the creek. If I was going to figure out who the shooter was, it might help to know what had been going on with Andy before he died.

Hey, Officer Schultz, he wrote on January 20, I really appreciate you letting me write to you. Look, all I want is to get enough money to pay my dad back for his truck. I don’t want him to die with my stealing hanging over my head. And I don’t want to go to prison. I didn’t want anybody to die. I didn’t kill the FedEx driver. So you can tell the D.A. that, too. Ray whacked him.

Where’s Ray Wolff? Where are the stamps? You don’t want much, do you? Day after tomorrow, Ray will be casing places to store the stamps. When you think Storage in Furman County, what do you think of?

His next communication was equally defensive, written in the same flip, bravado tone. Tom, man, are you trying to get me into more trouble? You got Ray Wolff, you got THE GUY who whacked the drivel; why can’t I come in now and collect the reward? My dads not going to live much longer. Now you’re telling me I can’t get out of the theft and complicity charges without rolling over on my partner and telling you where the loot is? Come on, Tom, give me a break.

The third and final letter was his farewell. Tom, I’ve got a stake, and a chance to make big money to pay my dad back. Why do you keep asking me the same questions? No, I can’t turn in our other partner. No, I can’t tell you where the stuff is, or how we’re going to sell it. It’s getting hard writing you, I’m being watched all the time. I think my partner suspects I turned Ray in. But I had my reasons. I’ll call you from Atlantic City. If I can.

Well, there was one question answered, at least for me: our other partner. One person. Probably our shooter.

And as to Andy’s movements? He had called me from Central City, not Atlantic City. Then he’d disappeared, and turned up dead in Aspen Meadow. Unless Pete Balachek was incoherent from his illness, the police would have questioned him about his son and his associates. I didn’t have a clue as to who the “partner” was. Nor did I have the slightest idea where the stolen stamps were. So what was my next move?

One thing was sure: I wanted to visit with Sara Beth O’Malley. She might or might not be expecting Tom to meet her at the dentist’s the day after tomorrow. But I had a very easy way of finding out if she was telling the truth on that score. I knew where the endodontist’s office was. Oh, the glories of living in a small town.

-16-

While my disk coughed up recipes and menus for Tudor feasts, my mind traveled back to the fight between Michaela and Eliot. The figures on the screen swam. At a Saint John’s Day feast five years before the death of Henry VIII, the offerings included venison pies… .

Was I overreacting, or had that courtyard conflict struck a bit too close for comfort? If Eliot was physically explosive with his female staff, did I even want to consider a long-term job for him? I frowned and tried to think. My screen dimmed. I wanted to report their skirmish to the cops. But Tom had told me to stay out of it, and that’s what I would do. For now.

I tapped a button; the screen brightened. In addition to consuming venison pies, the folks at Hampton Court had enjoyed a Saint John’s Day first course of beef in vinegar sauce, carp baked with wine and prunes, bread, butter, and eggs. For the second course, the courtiers had dug into boiled mutton, swan, peacocks, roast boar with pudding, wafers, and marzipan. Ah yes: The high-protein, high-fat, high-sugar diet. No wonder their teeth had fallen out.

I browsed forward to 1588, when an Elizabethan feast had included joints of venison roasted in rye, sides of beef, boars’ heads,. bacon, calves’ feet, game pies with cinnamon,. peacock, herons, blackbirds, larks,. salmon, eels, turbot, whiting, sprats, oysters,. sweetmeats, syrups, jellies, candied roses and violets, grapes, oranges, almonds, hazelnuts,. cakes and syrup-soaked confections.

Well. Eliot and I had already agreed that calves’ feet and spicy elk pie wouldn’t go over big with the youthful fencing team. Not to mention that any plan to serve herons and larks would ensure wrathful demonstrations from every environmental group in Aspen Meadow.

So we’d come up with compromises. “Sides of beef” had metamorphosed into veal roasts; already ordered from my supplier. Current seafood prices precluded offering oysters, salmon, or turbot, and I’d told Eliot the kids wouldn’t touch eels. I’d been delighted to tell him, though, that a recipe from Roman Britain had included prawns. There was the Roman Empire, and then there was the British Empire, which had included India. So we had decided on a shrimp curry. That had left only dessert. In the end, we’d agreed the fencers would enjoy a real Elizabethan plum tart. And then Eliot had decided on tucking in the zirconia. Sara Beth might not be the only client for the dentist.

All this had left one uncharted territory: Side Dishes. Americans would not eat a meal composed only of meat and sugar. I clicked on a file marked Potatoes, Corn, and Tomatoes, all exotic European imports in Elizabeth’s time. Sir Walter Raleigh, according to one source, had brought back potatoes from Virginia, and raised them on his estate in Ireland. Eliot had told me to be creative, so I would test-drive a potato concoction that night. If everyone liked it, I would serve it to the fencers and their families.

I closed down the computer, dressed, and knocked softly on Julian’s door. After squinting at the carved wood, I extracted a note wedged between the frame and the brass doorknob. Am doing 50 laps of crawl in the indoor pool. Meet you in the kitchen at 8.

My shoulders hurt just thinking about fifty laps of anything.

It was quarter to eight. I snagged an extra cardigan in case someone had left the kitchen window open again, quietly closed our door, and reminded myself to act grateful toward our hosts, regardless of the argument I’d witnessed. I would find out what was going on between Eliot and Michaela one way or another. Meanwhile, we had a meal to fix. My banged-up body ached with each step down to the kitchen. So I focused resolutely on the” breakfast Julian and I could whip up. Ricotta-stuffed pancakes. Poached eggs smothered in steamed baby vegetables. One of the joys of the first meal of the day is that it can melt away most pain.

When I banged into the kitchen, I saw Sukie first. Bent over the double sink, she was wearing rubber gloves and viciously scrubbing a suds-filled coffeepot. Behind her, the errant window was closed. Michaela and Eliot sat at the kitchen table, sullenly eyeing a plate of frosty prepackaged strudel. Beside the pastry lay a dozen boxes overflowing with fabric swatches and paint chips.

Uh-oh, I thought, too late. Standing by the hearth with her arms crossed, Chardé Lauderdale gasped when she spotted me. She wore a dark green pantsuit with a fur collar that set off her pretty features. Two red spots flamed on her cheeks. Clearly, she wasn’t expecting to see me. Or was she? I held my chin high and gave her an even look.