Diane Davidson - Prime Cut

“What are you making?” I asked Julian.

Snappily dressed in black with a white apron, his hair still damp from his shower, Julian gave me a quick grin, then went back to stirring. “Forget the soup. I’m heating the hors d’oeuvre from the wedding reception we’re not doing. And a crab dip.” His dark eyebrows knit as he cocked his head and studied my face. “What’s wrong? Andre’s memorial service got you down?”

“Yeah, a bit. Plus, the last day of a job, you always feel kind of sad.” Especially when you don’t know who’s dumping garbage in your food, how your teacher met his death, or why one of your clients was almost squashed by a falling flat.

Julian, less obsessed with crime and criminals, turned his attention back to the hot dip. “Just think of the check you’re going to get at the end. That’s what I always do. Our boxes are packed, by the way. As soon as the first batch of appetizers is done, I’ll cool it down and we can go.” I slugged down the espresso, picked up the first box, and felt my shoulders and back strain from the weight. What had Julian said? Think of the check . Sure. If I was not mistaken, thinking about the money had produced a great deal too much illicit activity in the last month.

Sergeant Boyd was waiting for us at the library, steel thermos in hand. He had circles under his eyes. His feet hurt, he said. The sergeant’s mood was not as jovial as it had been two days before. Most people think catering is just cooking, but it’s not. The stresses of organizing, preparing, serving, dealing with people, and cleaning up either energizes or utterly exhausts you. Julian and I relished it; Boyd, the volunteer, was in culinary hell. When I asked if the crime lab folks had been able to find anything in the platters of food, he only muttered that they had not gotten to them yet.

“Which brings me to my current plan of action,” I announced. I told Julian and Boyd that whoever was putting stuff into the food had always done it as soon as my back was turned. So, what if I wasn’t the server of, say, the cottage cheese? One of them could bring out the platter and put it on the counter by the window. I’d be stationed on the deck, almost out of sight. The server would then go back to the kitchen, our saboteur would make his move, and I’d see the whole thing. “And you’ll be there to arrest ‘em,” I told Boyd triumphantly. “How convenient.”

“You gonna have a camera or something, catch this perp in a way that’ll make it possible to prosecute?” he asked skeptically.

“Maybe Ian will loan me his Polaroid.” I pulled the van through the open gate to the cabin. The damp, gold-tinged aspens clicked in the chilly breeze. Soon this road would be closed to traffic and open only to elk. I gunned the van through. Of course, that wouldn’t be true once the paint-pellet people took over the property: They shoot at each other in all kinds of weather, elk be damned. We expertly unloaded our boxes in the parking area. As we headed down the trail to the cabin, the sun emerged from behind the clouds and shone brightly on the rock I’d noticed the very first morning I’d come here to work with André: the one that looked like an elephant. Tom was probably on the phone with the department, proposing a time to bring in a crew to dig. I wondered how that was going down with Andy Fuller. I forced myself to take my mind off the treasure by contemplating pitching a catering job to the paint-pellet guys. Pellet pipéradé ? Probably not.

Even though it was not quite seven, the final day’s photo session was already in full swing. Out on the cabin deck with the assembled crew, Ian Hood seemed to be in a particularly good mood, calling good-natured orders— Come on, baby. That’s it. That’s the way —to a nightgown-and-slipper-clad Rustine. She was smiling coyly and moving this way and that on a bed made up of robin’s-egg blue linens.

Even without Leah, the workers seemed to know exactly what to do as they hovered nearby. A new hairdresser and stylist I didn’t recognize moved in and out swiftly between shots, expertly fluffing Rustine’s hair with a tiny comb, checking the gold anklet that shimmered just above the heel she’d daintily exposed on the bed’s coverlet. I recognized the makeup man from earlier in the week: from time to time he darted forward to dust Rustine’s nose. On the occasional gruff order from Ian, Rufus adjusted the scrim. Hanna, black-clad as usual, like a fashionable cat burglar, scowled at everyone and tapped her foot. Behind Ian, Bobby Whitaker crossed his arms over his slight paunch and pretended to look bored. He had mentioned modeling today, but he certainly didn’t look any thinner than the last time I’d seen him.

“Damn, that model looked cold out there,” Boyd muttered as he opened the kitchen door for us. “Wouldn’t catch me out on a deck in my pj’s first thing in the morning. ’Cept if an elk was across the creek and I could get a clean shot.”

“Shh!” Julian and I warned in unison. Even though the elk-lovers were all outside working the shoot, you couldn’t be too carefull. And we had work to do. The last thing I’d done after our code-breaking session was to put thick slices of French bread into the refrigerator, to soak overnight in a decadent combination of eggs beaten with cream and Cointreau. Now these sputtered on the hot, oiled griddle. When the fragrant, drenched slices formed a deep golden crust on one side, I flipped them. I checked my watch: The coffee break was scheduled to start in twenty-five minutes. We heated the oven, ran water for coffee and tea, and poured sugar and cream into a china bowl and pitcher. I slid a platter of the French toast into the oven While Julian began unmolding the cottage cheese rings and Sergeant Boyd brought out the coffee cake, fruit skewers, and silver platters.

“Ten minutes,” I told them, and zipped out the kitchen door.

Someone had built a fire in the cabin’s old fireplace, probably for the afternoon shots. I didn’t know if this meant they wouldn’t be dropping in the flames by computer, but I’d leave that to them. The great room seemed unusually cheery, good for the break. I nipped out to the deck, where a damp breeze sent a chill down my arms. Rustine eased off the blue sheets and raised her eyebrows questioningly at me. I ignored her.

“Ian.” I caught up with him as he was conferring with Rufus about the next shot. “How’s Leah? Have you visited her?”

He thoughtfully brushed his salt-and-pepper moustache with his finger. “I went down to the hospital last night. She broke a couple ribs when she fell. She’s having some trouble breathing.”

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Bobby Whitaker impatiently crossing and recrossing his arms. I said, “I’m glad she’s okay.”

“Ian?” pressed Bobby. Ian gave me an indulgent, anything else? look.

I cleared my throat. “I won’t keep you. But could I borrow your Polaroid for a few minutes? Just during the coffee break.”

He tilted his head in suspicion. “Why?”

“Oh, well …” Ian couldn’t be the one sabotaging my food, could he? From all accounts, he ran a faltering photography studio, but he was the ambitious leader of a successful charity. He’d been unsympathetic to my pleas of unfair competition regarding the Soirée. Was there any way he could be in cahoots with Craig Litchfield? I gave Ian a soothing look, but his black eyes yielded nothing. Basically, I don’t trust anyone , Tom was fond of saying. “I want to take a picture of my food through the window, that’s all.” I shrugged, as if I were just a kooky caterer looking for an angle. Which, of course, I was.

“Sure. Get it from Rufus.” Ian’s words trailed over his shoulder like smoke.