Diane Davidson - Prime Cut

“Tastes pretty good to me!” he said after the third chew. “Who didn’t like it?”

I sat in an ancient rocking chair that was missing an arm. “Nobody, really. Listen, Rufus, do you know much about Leah and this cabin?”

He snorted. “Well, I should. I’ve had to listen to Leah talk about this place these last five years. Why?”

I shrugged. “Just interested, I guess. I used to work at the museum as a docent, but I really never knew much about the Smythes apart from Weezie and Leah having land.” This cabin , I thought. This cabin links the deaths of Gerald and André . “What do you know about this place?”

Rufus took another thoughtful bite of cake. “Nobody ever asks me anything. You know, I’m just the stupid equipment guy.”

“ I’m asking you.”

“Well, you know Charlie Smythe died in that big flu epidemic at the end of World War One?” I nodded. “Charlie wasn’t in the war, though, he was in prison. His wife, Winnie, died in the same epidemic. As to this cabin, well, Charlie and Winnie Smythe left it to their son, name of Victor.” He took a bite of cake and looked at the ceiling. “Let’s see, now. Vic Smythe married a woman named Carrie, and she was the mother of Leah and Weezie. When Vic died of emphysema about twenty-five years ago, it turned out he’d left Weezie a parcel of land that was a thousand acres. Now it’s called Flicker Ridge. Fancy pants.”

I nodded. This I did know, but I didn’t want to interrupt Rufus. Weezie Smythe Harrington, a few years after receiving her land inheritance, had given her gently sloping acreage to her much-beloved, unfaithful, and ultimately fatally unlucky husband, real estate developer Brian Harrington. When Brian died, Weezie had inherited back what was left of Flicker Ridge and promptly donated it to the ecological group, Protect Our Mountains . Ecological concerns ran in the family, apparently, even if long-lived, happy marriages didn’t.

I asked, “What about Vic’s wife Carrie? What exactly did he leave to her and his other daughter, Leah? Do you know about them?”

Rufus stood up and wrapped the thick cord around the compressor. “Yeah, yeah. Vic Smythe left two thousand of the Blue Spruce acres to his wife, Carrie. The remaining seven hundred acres and the cabin went to Leah. After Vic died, Carrie remarried and sold her land to Furman County Open Space. That’s why they named Blue Spruce’s biggest mountain ‘Smythe Peak.’ Anyway, Carrie and her new husband, Mike Whitaker, had Bobby, Leah and Weezie’s half-brother. Helping with Merciful Migrations and taking care of Bobby are Leah’s two big concerns. She’s always worrying about him. ‘What is the matter with Bobby?’ she’s asking all the time. Weezie doesn’t care if her too-tubby-to-model, failure-as-a-Realtor half-brother Bobby lives or dies.” Rufus chuckled. “But when Leah passes to the Great Migration Area in the Sky, Bobby gets three hundred acres; Merciful Migrations gets the cabin and four hundred acres surrounding it. Only none of that inheriting of land may actually ever take place.” He finished wrapping the cord and frowned knowingly. “Leah’s negotiating to sell the whole seven hundred acres, including the cabin, to the paint pellet people. Know ’em? Guys who wear camo gear and spend the day hunting for their friends so they can shoot pellets of red paint at ’em?” “Good Lord,” I said.

“She wants to split the proceeds of the sale with Bobby. It was Bobby who thought they’d get more for the cabin if they put a row of windows in the kitchen, so’s the cabin could appear to be modern. Ian will have to move, and he’s not too happy about that. So they fight about the sale. All the time. And I get to listen.”

“Uh-huh.” I hesitated. “Did you get along with Gerald Eliot? I mean, was he nice to you even though you hadn’t worked together for five years?”

He shrugged. “He was okay. But you know I wasn’t tight with him anymore. When I got back from Phoenix, he and Leah and Ian were always yakking. I thought they were talking about the windows, except I could never find any plans, you know? I figured maybe Bobby had ’em.” He paused and stroked his uneven beard. “Y’know, I think even old Hanna got jealous or suspicious of their yakkety-yak. So she got this private sort of joke going with Gerald. I don’t think he thought it was too funny, after the first few times.”

“Joke? Hanna?” I suddenly recalled her saying that she had tried to joke with Gerald.

“Yeah, something about cooking the way they used to in the Old West, you know?” From the great room, Ian hollered for Rufus. He gave me a pained look. “I gotta go-”

“Please, wait. What about cooking in the Old. West? Please tell me, it’s really important.”

He sighed. “I don’t know how it got started. Gerald asked Hanna about her work at the museum, and if she knew how to make rolls using an old-fashioned cookbook.”

“What cookbook?” I asked breathlessly. Make the rolls the way I taught you , in Charlie Smythe’s handwriting, loomed in my mind’s eye.

“I dunno,” Rufus replied. “Hanna asked why did Gerald want to know, was he going to start doing some baking? Bring us rolls along with his glue gun in the morning? And then Gerald told her just to forget about it. But Hanna kept after him, kept saying, ‘Where’re our rolls, Gerald?’ and he’d say, ‘Just shut up, Hanna!’ until finally Ian yelled at the two of them to quit it. And then Gerald started up with Rustine, and Leah axed him.” Loud footsteps shook the walls. “Look, I really gotta go”

“If Gerald and Ian and Leah were such great friends, why would Leah fire Gerald for having an affair with one of the models?”

He opened the door. “Look, Goldy, I’m looking for another job right now. If I knew why these people around here act the way they do, I wouldn’t be fixing to leave, would I? Now, you gonna let me go, or you gonna wait till Ian comes stomping in here, having a fit?”

Confused, I hurried out after him. Tapping her foot at the kitchen door, Leah asked if lunch was ready. She resembled a hothouse poppy in her orange T-shirt, green pants, and orange-and-green sandals. Her streaked pixie looked wild and uncombed. She clutched a thick manila file from which bits of paper poked out.

“Nice outfit,” I observed.

“The Mimaya has failed again,” she announced petulantly. I decided that the Mimaya must be a camera, not a piece of lingerie. “Rufus will take it down to Denver for repair, but we’re done shooting for today. In all likelihood, there won’t be shooting tomorrow, either. So, can you serve lunch now?”

“It’s ready.” I kept my voice cheery.

“You still want to talk to Ian?”

“Sure. If that’s okay.”

“He doesn’t have much time.”

With failed equipment about to be hustled to Denver by a kind man everyone treated like a drone, and work canceled for the next day, what was pressing in on Ian’s time? I couldn’t imagine, but I smiled anyway. “This won’t take long.”

“Here are Andre’s bills and menus, since you said you needed them to plan the food.” She thrust the overstuffed file at me.

“He gave it to you like this?”

She sniffed. “I don’t remember.” She turned on her sandaled heel and departed.

I waited for everyone to go through the food line. Hanna methodically consumed a small plate of chicken and strawberry salad. Rustine, Yvonne, Rufus, Ian, Leah, the per diem contractors … Since Leah had told me fifteen people, and we’d brought enough for twenty, that should be plenty of food, right?

Wrong. At first I thought something was wrong with Rustine’s and Yvonne’s food, the two models kept going back to the platters so many times. Tried this, and didn’t like it? Tried that, and still weren’t pleased? But no: they were bingeing. After four trips to the buffet, Yvonne could have beat any bear foraging for hibernation.