Diane Davidson - Prime Cut

Your Loving Husband

“Well, now, that makes a lot of sense,” I said after I’d read the note twice. “Use the rifle. Make the rolls according to a certain recipe. Then you’ll be rich. Do you stir the batter with the rifle butt? And would that be Parker House or cloverleaf rolls?”

Rustine shrugged. “I just wish I knew who else Gerry showed the note to. Or who has that cookbook. We have to have the cookbook!”

I stood up. No need to mention the photocopies to Rustine. I said, “I need to take this to my husband.”

I missed Arch on the way out, which was probably just as well. In the kitchen, Julian was up to his elbows in sudsy water, singing an a cappella riff on “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” Just like André, I thought with a smile, although Julian probably didn’t even realize it. He’d somehow cleared off a spot on the cluttered counter, laid down a dish towel, and heaped up a pile of washed and rinsed pans to drip-dry.

“Please have Arch home by three,” I asked him. “The service for André is at four.”

He nodded, and I took off for home. To my astonishment, Tom had finished the plumbing and put in the rest of the bottom cabinets. This is what it must be like to have a contractor who works full-time , I mused. Without a counter, our kitchen still looked like a dusty warehouse, but at least it was beginning to take on the look of a culinary warehouse.

While I looked for lunch fixings, Tom washed his hands, poured a glass of water, and stared at the note I’d given him. “Why in the world didn’t Rustine tell us about this? It affects a murder case, for crying out loud.”

“She was hoping to cash in, once we found out what was going on.” I handed him a wobbly paper plate containing one of two peanut-butter-and-cherry-preserves brioche-toast sandwiches I’d just made fresh in our cramped dining room space. It didn’t look very fancy, but when I hungrily bit into mine, the crunch of homemade toast mingling with slightly melted peanut butter and sweet cherry preserves was out of this world. Now all I needed was an iced latte to go with it.

“This is delicious.” He wolfed his down and reached for the phone to call the sheriff’s department. “You know they’re going to come get this,” he informed me. “And they’re going to want to question Rustine.”

I shrugged. It was time to get ready for Andre’s service. I made a slick fax-copy of the note for my own file. It wasn’t ideal, but with needing to shower and change, I didn’t have time to go to the library and photocopy more copies of stolen historical documents.

In a black Chanel suit and spectator pumps, her freshly coiffed curls tucked behind rhinestone-and-onyx earrings, Marla had morphed back to her old self when I found her in the parking lot of St. Stephen’s Roman Catholic Church. The rain had stopped, but my irascible friend lofted her Louis Vuitton umbrella over her head in triumph.

“I’m done, I’m finished!” she sang. Her peaches-and-cream complexion was flushed with joy. She bustled up to my van. “The IRS guys left today, saying I’d hear from them soon. I said, ‘How ’bout never?’ They weren’t amused. But here’s the deal: they think I’m going to get a refund!”

I hugged her tightly and felt unexpected tears burn. “Oh, Marla. I’ve missed you so much. And there’s something I have to tell you, but you weren’t feeling well, and I wanted to wait until your audit was over, because—”

“Calm down, will you? I can’t listen to whatever it is until I’ve had some food. Let’s see if the guys from Andre’s old restaurant have any goodies set up yet. Where’s Arch?”

“Tom’s bringing him. And the food is for afterwards!”

“You want my stomach to growl through the service?” she threatened as she linked her arm through mine and led me up the steps. “Have to tell you, Goldy, one of those IRS agents was kind of cute.” Her voice turned wistful;. “I suppose it’s unethical for him to date an accused tax-chiseler…. And if he did ask me out, I’d have to wonder. I mean, now he knows I’m rich.”

We entered the parish hall, a long, vaulted-ceiling addition to the ultramodern church. The enticing scents of roasted ham, chicken, pork, and beef wafted toward us. My heart tugged as I waved at two of the servers I knew from the old restaurant days with André. After Marla had deftly nabbed a couple of what looked like André’s Grand Marnier Buttercream Cookies, I steered her into the stone vestibule. There, lanky, balding Monsignor Fields talked in a hushed tone with Pru Hibbard and Wanda Cooney.

“What I want to tell you is this,” I whispered to Marla as she munched on her cookies. “John Richard has been, and is, trying to get revenge on us. He turned you in to the IRS before he went to jail, and he’s been bankrolling Craig Litchfield from jail.”

Her beautiful brown eyes widened with shock. She swallowed the last mouthful of cookie. “Revenge on us? For what? That son of a bitch!” she hissed. “I’ll kill him!”

“Don’t start!” I warned as I sent the startled monsignor a conciliatory nod. I tugged Marla into the airy, modern church. Because Saint Stephen had been martyred by stoning, the only decoration on the high, pale blue walls was a mass of irregular stone-shaped windows filled with pale blue stained glass. Light abruptly flooded the windows as the sun emerged from behind a cloud. The wall suddenly resembled a jeweler’s cloth strewn with aquamarines. “Look, Marla,” I said softly, “I just wanted you to know he’s being vengeful. In case anything else unexpected happens. Are you vulnerable in any other way?”

“The hell with vulnerable.” She slid into a pew and smoothed the Chanel suit. “That creep has so much money to throw around, I’ll sue him myself. And don’t tell me you can’t sue somebody in jail, because I will find a way . Oh, I can’t wait.” She patted my knee. “Now, I have good news for you . Litchfield’s dinner for Weezie was dreadful . I know because I sneaked out on the IRS and went—as an invited guest, but of course as a spy, too, once I’d found out she’d canceled you. Anyway, he tried to cheat her—naughty, naughty. Weezie had ordered poached salmon from him. He made coulibiac , which everybody knows is a carbo-load made from bits of salmon sandwiched between crepes and covered with brioche. I heard that Weezie now suspects he had the salmon left over from another job. And get this: She wants Andy Fuller to investigate!”

So. Maybe instead of bothering my husband, Andy Fuller would be investigating Craig Litchfield’s fraudulent use of salmon? Now that was what I called having bigger fish to fry, I thought, as an usher handed us each a service leaflet for the memorial service.

“There’s more,” Marla whispered conspiratorially as the pews around us began to fill. “Weezie wanted a buffet. Craig insisted on a sit-down affair so he could limit portions. Worse, he inflated every dish with either frozen chopped spinach or—you’re going to die —bread stuffing. Even the pasta had bread crumbs in it.” She unsuccessfully suppressed a giggle. The woman on the other side of me looked up and glared. But Marla went on happily, “Edna Hardcastle is in for a huge surprise on Saturday. Maybe she’ll call and rehire you at the last minute.”

“Maybe her daughter will cancel her wedding again.”

Marla laughed out loud at the prospect of a wedding that might be postponed a third time; the woman glowered; I shrugged apologetically. Life in Aspen Meadow is never dull.