Diane Davidson - Prime Cut

“No kidding. It’s almost over, right? Three more hours, and we’ll be done with this place for good.” He slid a tray of miniature quiches—formerly for the Hardcastle reception—into the oven. “And, maybe it’ll rain in the next three hours, too.” He closed the oven door and waved his hands, as if conjuring up a vision. “Picture all the wedding-reception guests at the Hardcastles’ place getting soaking wet as they chomp into soggy cheese puffs. I’ll bet you a thousand bucks Craig Litchfield’s hors d’oeuvre can’t touch ours.”

I grinned, poured the fragrant coffee into a large silver pitcher, clamped the top down, and put it along with nonfat creamer, artificial sweetener, and cups on a tray. But Hanna barred me from entering the door to the hair and makeup room. Inside, Rustine and the hair fellow were shrieking at one another about how Rustine’s French twist should be held in place.

“Not yet with the coffee,” Hanna snarled. “Go get us the barrette stand, would you? Do you know what it looks like, and where it is, in the storage room?” When I nodded, she said, “Then go get it so we can deal with this crisis.”

Crisis? I hoisted the coffee tray, walked to the storage room, and kicked the door open with my foot. Was there anything having to do with a hairdo that could truly constitute a crisis! Sheesh!

I glanced around the room for barrettes. Along the back wall, by an old pole-mounted strobe and Gerald’s broken compressor, a tilted card table was piled with racks of bracelets, necklaces, and earrings. I crossed to it, banged down the coffee tray, and was so intent on pawing through the racks looking for barrettes that I barely heard the storage room door quietly click shut.

“How close were you to old André?” Ian Hood asked as he started across the room. “Did he tell you something about this cabin that you felt you had to tell the police? Is that why you brought them here?”

“I—”

But he was already too close. He grabbed for my shoulder; instinctively, I jerked backward. His dark, dark eyes bored into mine. His fingers clamped my arm. He knows , I thought. He’s the one .

“Who else knows?” he demanded.

I scarcely heard him. He had me pushed against a rack of dresses lining the wall and his fingers had closed around my neck. Black spots formed in front of my eyes.

The burns are deep, instantaneous , Andre’s voice came from some distant part of my brain. They are like molten lava… .

I kicked at Ian frantically. Too late , I thought as I tried to scream. Julian was busy with the food. Boyd was gone. Everyone else was staking a claim to hair, makeup, or ego. It will be over by the time anyone misses me . Ian’s hands tightened. Visions of Arch, of Tom, flashed and vanished. I stretched my arms behind me, groping for anything. I couldn’t get my breath. We struggled and fell away from the dresses; he lost his hold on my neck. My hands clawed futilely at the wall: I couldn’t breathe. Where was the cord to the strobe light? Could I blind Ian if I plugged it in? My fingers closed around the cord. Ian lunged for me, hands outstretched. He tripped over something as I groped along the wall for the outlet. A piece of metal skittered across the floor. Ian righted himself and lurched toward me. I pushed in the plug as I wrenched away from him.

Nothing happened. No strobe, no light. Dammit! I’d plugged in Gerald’s fool compressor, now minus its loose housing that Ian had sent sailing. I charged toward the door. Ian lunged to block my way. I charged the other way and knocked into the card table.

Swiftly, Ian grabbed the strobe pole. An idea seemed to form in his mind. “This has been a most unfortunate shoot,” he said. “First André, then Leah, and now you. This very heavy light is going to fall on you, and a terrible accident will befall our second caterer.”

He advanced toward me. The light stand scraped as he yanked it along. There was nothing between us except the compressor, its engine guts exposed. Coffee , I thought wildly. All I need is coffee… .

I yanked the pot from the tray and heaved the contents at Ian.

He jumped sideways so that the steaming, dark liquid missed him and sloshed onto the compressor and the floor. Ian cursed and lunged at me. I’m dead , I thought. Poor Arch won’t have a mother. Tom was right—I should never poke my nose into murder .

And then it happened. As Ian careened toward me, intent on ending my life, he stepped into the lake of coffee and the exposed, live current of Gerald Eliot’s broken air compressor. The surge of voltage caused his body to jerk up and away from me. Before he fell to the floor, he was dead.

Chapter 24

“Leah told us Ian wanted the road to the cabin kept closed,” Tom proclaimed matter-of-factly as he drove me to the museum from Lutheran Hospital on Monday, the first of September. “If he had the place to himself all winter, she said, Ian was sure he could figure out the code and find Smythe’s stolen treasure.”

It was Labor Day, except we weren’t working, even though Tom had finally been taken off suspension by his captain. With a search warrant in hand, the investigative team had toiled through the weekend at the Merciful Migrations cabin. Underneath the spare tire in the locked trunk of Ian Hood’s Mercedes, they had found The Practical Cook Book and the original note Gerald Eliot had discovered tucked in oilcloth inside the kitchen wall.

“Leah says, early last Monday morning, Ian told her he’d remembered some equipment he needed. Of course, he knew André wanted to get into the place early. He just didn’t know why. Ian must’ve surprised André prying up the wall, and told him much more food was needed. But he knew André had figured out Smythe’s code at that point. He just didn’t know what or how—only that the secret the wall had held was exposed. When André was involved with extra cooking, Ian burned him with the salamander. Maybe Ian meant to startle him, make it look as if André had an accident.” Tom turned on Homestead Drive. “But from the heart-problem incident at the museum, Ian knew André kept the nitroglycerin with him, and that he was acutely sensitive to it. So when the hot salamander had done its damage, he must have overdosed him. André died and Ian nailed the plywood back over the wall.”

“But why did Ian feel he had to kill both André and Gerald?”

“He was greedy.” Tom glanced at me. “He wanted the treasure for himself, wanted to start up someplace else saving the elk. Leah had told him he could have Charlie Smythe’s cache if Bobby could keep the proceeds from the sale of the cabin. Ian took her at her word. What Leah didn’t bank on was that her boyfriend Ian would try to eliminate anyone else who knew about the code and his secret. He didn’t want to share. Couldn’t stand competition.”

Oh, brother , I thought as guilt and insecurity reared their unattractive heads. Now who does that remind me of? Craig Litchfield hadn’t played fair, and had been in cahoots with The Jerk. And yet I had to admit I didn’t have catering in Aspen Meadow to myself anymore. So, the same insecurity that had plagued me the last month had eaten up Ian Hood, and driven him over the line to murder.

Our cellular rang as we pulled into the Homestead lot: it was Cameron Burr. He had been released and would join us at the cabin for an early dinner, thank you very much, to work with Sylvia and a crew of volunteers. And he had great news: Barbara was finally off the ventilator. The doctors were certain she was well on her road to recovery. Tom and I promised to visit her soon. And, Cameron asked, did we know Leah Smythe had vanished? We knew, we said, and hung up.