Diane Davidson - Prime Cut

Tom cleared his throat. “Two of the glass-fronted display cases were smashed. Sylvia told us one cookbook was missing. Today, she’s screaming about four cookbooks being stolen. They were part of an exhibit. She didn’t realize they were missing at first, she was in such a state.” Tom chuckled. “Only one book was in her initial report, so now Fuller’s accusing her of insurance scam. She chewed him out, said the Homestead’s not insured ‘cuz the county’s too cheap to pay the premiums.”

I thought of the book in the evidence bag found at Cameron Burr’s home. “So have they found all four cookbooks?”

“They found one in Cam’s trash and a second one underneath drywall in the sun room. Sylvia’s up in arms about their historic value, but as far as we can determine, each is only worth a couple hundred dollars.” He peered into the oven. “They’ll keep looking, don’t worry.”

Thinking of poor Cameron in the backseat of the police vehicle, I rinsed out our cups and the doser, then ground more espresso beans. I asked, “What’s Fuller’s big push to nab Burr?”

Tom flipped off the oven light and straightened with a sigh. “He’s caught a lot of heat for the plea bargains, and he sees this one as easy. Plus the rumors about him trying for state attorney general have been getting stronger lately. This could be a high-profile case. He’d get a lot of press for being a crime fighter, that kind of thing.”

I measured the coffee into the doser, pressed the button, and waited for the espresso to spurt out. “Would they have to find all four cookbooks up at Cameron’s house for him actually to be prosecuted?”

Tom shrugged. “Fuller’s got a half-dozen investigators sniffing around the museum and Burr’s place. Our guys usually find everything. If they don’t, and Burr’s defense claims shoddy investigation, Fuller can argue that anything not found is excess evidence and unnecessary in prosecuting Burr.”

It was my turn to sigh. “So what exactly were these cookbooks?”

He peered at his notes. “The first one we found is American Cookery by Amelia Simmons. Famous for its johnnycake recipe, according to Sylvia. This one wasn’t the original 1796 edition—apparently the museum’s was a nineteenth-century copy—but someone donated it to the historical society, and they put it on display.”

Of course the Homestead would put a cookbook on display that contained the seminal recipe for Western Cooking 101. Johnnycake or Johnnie cake, also known as journey cake, had been slapped together and cooked over fires by thousands of folks coming out in covered wagons to Colorado and points west. When I’d served as a docent at the museum, I’d ushered many a class of Furman County fourth graders into the Homestead kitchen to make a cider version of the moist coffee cake.

“The other cookbook they found is a 1903 edition of The White House Cookbook . So we need to find a 1910 volume called The Practical Cook Book by one Elizabeth Hiller, valued in the range of sixty bucks. The fourth book is something called the Watkins Cookbook , from 1936. Worth fifty dollars.” He handed me a plate of muffins. “Watkins Cookbook? That’s not something Sherlock Holmes’s sidekick put together in his spare time, is it?”

“No,” I replied, “it’s not an English cookbook. And the sidekick was Watson, remember? Thanks for the treat.” I bit into the hot, sweet muffin and remembered the humble red spiral-bound volume with its battered cover and spattered pages. “The Watkins man came out to Western ranches once a year in his horse and buggy. After the invention of cars, he drove a Model T truck. He brought peppermint, vanilla, liniment, whatever ranch folks needed, including simple recipe-books put out by the Watkins company, based in Minnesota, but with a reach all across the West. Everybody loved to see the Watkins man come,” I said with a smile. “And every rural household had a Watkins Cookbook.”

“Aha! I’m so glad you worked in that museum, Miss G. I never know when I’m going to learn something.” He paused. “Anyway, I’m off the Eliot case. I told them my wife’s friend was arrested, so if they’ve got anything, to let me know. How’s that?”

“Thank you. For everything. And especially for not staying mad at me.”

“You need to stop worrying, Miss G.” He pondered the gap above our kitchen sink. Just as he’d done at the cabin, Gerald Eliot had glued plywood over the plaster crevice. He’d certainly never be back to repair the damage. “Think Arch would like to join me for a trip to the hardware store? Better yet, would you like to join me?”

I took another bite of muffin. Was I in the mood to look at galvanized nails after I’d just seen a corpse defiled by them? No. I urged Tom to go and take Arch with him. They could do some male bonding. Tom grinned.

Arch, wearing a faded yellow T-shirt and a pair of too-large red Cornell sweatpants—gifts from Julian—warned that they might be out for a while. He needed to be dropped at the Druckmans’ house so he and Todd could finish their conversation on the subject of sending encrypted messages.

“Can you tell me what these messages are?” I asked mildly. “Or would that destroy the reason for the encryption?”

Arch opened a new bag of kibble for his bloodhound. “It’s no big deal,” he replied in a bored tone. “But if you want to come outside while I feed Jake, I’ll tell you.” I poured Arch a glass of o.j. and followed him through the back door to the deck area designated for his dog. I tried not to glance up at our roof, where the remains of Arch’s ham radio—his attempt to communicate long-distance with Julian in the Navajo language—lay like the spokes of an abandoned umbrella. Arch had been fascinated with learning the language because Navajo radiomen had foiled Axis cryptanalysts in World War II. But Julian had only succeeded in teaching Arch Ya’atey —hello—when a fierce windstorm had split the radio antenna in two.

Now Arch scooped nuggets into Jake’s bowl and began explaining the latest reasons for his interest in encryption. Jake kept his eyes on his food bowl. “School starts in a couple of weeks. Todd and I are wondering which eighth-grade girls will be available to be girl friends , and which ones will just make fun of us.”

“The girls have high-tech equipment on their phones?”

“Nothing would surprise me, Mom.”

From the deck railing, Scout—a cream-and-chocolate stray cat we’d adopted several years ago—kept a watchful eye on Jake and the speed with which he was emptying his bowl. Arch ignored the animals, drank the juice I’d brought him, and checked his appearance in the reflection in the window overlooking our backyard.

The comforting noise of Tom’s revving Chrysler floated out of the garage toward us. Jake raised mournful eyes to Arch: leaving so soon? “I’ll be back,” Arch consoled him. “Look, Mom, double-check the gate, okay? Yesterday, Jake got out somehow. He was barking at elk and got out of control.”

“Okay, hon,” I promised. Arch hopped down the deck steps. The Chrysler roared away, carrying my family. As if on cue, a sudden cracking noise indicated a dozen elk were shattering branches underfoot as they plodded through our neighbor’s yard. Jake, of course, instantly began to howl.

“Stop, Jake. Come on, boy, come in.”

But the hound would not budge. Nor would he be quiet. I went inside, closed the door against the canine uproar, and shook my head. In late summer, the huge dun-and-brown elk herds flood through Aspen Meadow, fleeing the first wave of hunters. No respecters of property lines, the elk leap fences, use their powerful necks and big tongues to tear out strawberry plants, strip fruit trees, devour flowers, and gobble bushes. Then they defecate happily and plod on. Our neighbor occasionally bags one with his rifle, hunting season or no.