Diane Davidson - The Grilling Season

Still, when I sneaked a glance at Arch’s freckled face, I was shocked. My son’s cheeks, previously flushed with color from his walk with Macguire and Jake, were now translucently pale. A scowl set his face in an expression of worry so deep that I hared John Richard more than ever. How could the man drag our son into this? Arch held out the phone.

He said eagerly, “Mom, Dad wants to talk to you.”

Well, great. I shook my head vigorously at the proffered phone. Arch’s eyes flared wide behind the tortoiseshell glasses.

“Yes, yes, you have to!” he whispered fiercely. . I reached for a kitchen towel and grabbed the receiver. “What is it?” I asked in a clipped tone. “I’m not supposed to be talking to you. You must know that. I’m a witness, remember?”

“Witness to what?” His voice grated through the wire. I was sorely tempted to hang up. No matter how hard I tried to put this man out of my life, he always insisted on reappearing, full of menace. At that moment I didn’t care what kind of trouble he was in. I didn’t want to hear about it. I didn’t want to be a part of it.

Arch leaned toward me and whispered earnestly, “You need to help Dad, Mom. Please!” Behind Arch, Macguire opened his eyes wide. He had perked up considerably since the phone call began. Macguire was thinking about getting involved with criminals again, I’d have the kid thrown into jail myself.

“I’m listening,” I said brusquely into the receiver. “But you’re jeopardizing your case by talking me.”

“I’ll take that chance.”

“I have a lot of work to do.”

“Well, excuse me for interrupting your cooking schedule,” John Richard snarled. “I just need to discuss this mess that you got me into. Understand? I’m a life-threatening situation here. I’m sitting in the jaiI, I don’t know what’s going on, and I need you to something for me. If you hadn’t been cruising by Suz’s house at that hour – “

“I told you,” I said through clenched teeth. Just like the man to make Suz Craig’s murder my fauIt, just because I’d had the bad luck to discover her body. “I didn’t want Arch to get to your place with nobody home – “

“Shut up and listen for once, Goldy, will you? There’s a whole line of thugs waiting to use this one. I just… I can’t… nobody will tell me anything. It’s driving me nuts. I need to know what the police have found out about when Suz died.”

More than ever, his supreme arrogance astonished me. “Even if I knew that” – which of course I did – “I couldn’t tell you. Look, I don’t think we shouuld be – “

“When she died is important – “

“Why do you think I – “

“Well, I’ll find out soon enough,” he fumed. “If you want our son to suffer from this escapade, because that’s all it is, then just be difficult.”

I said nothing. I’d learned this lesson the hard way. You talk, you give him something to criticize. You say nothing, you may eventually get out of the conversation. Without getting hurt.

“Goldy? Are you listening to me? Goldy? Or are you holding the phone away from your ear?”

I smiled at Arch and Macguire, who were both staring at me in consternation. “I’m listening,” I replied evenly.

John Richard resumed his fake-earnest tone. “Look. It’s just that if I could know the time of death right now, instead of having to wait for the damn lawyers to jaw about it, a lot of things could get cleared up. My attorney is hiring his own investigator, and he thinks if we get the right judge there’s a chance I’ll be able to get out of here on Monday – “

Dream on, I thought. Actually, as I’d told Arch, one in a million chance. I’d heard of it exactly once. So in our state that would make it one in four million point… What was our state’s population?

“Did you hear what I said?” my ex-husband yelled.

“Monday,” I repeated. I glanced at the tuna fillets and the menu with lists of dishes I still had to prepare for this evening. Actually, I was running a bit ahead of schedule. No way I was telling him that, though.

“Okay, now listen up,” the Jerk continued, undaunted, “I want you to use that morbid curiosity of yours to check on a few things. First, there’s this nurse named Amy Bartholomew. Suz fired her. Now she’s doing something with the new health-food store, I think. Also, Suz had an unpleasant visit in July from Ralph Shelton. Do you remember him? She fired him, too. Plus, Suz had some kind of delicate material – “

“Hey! Stop!” I interrupted him. Goosebumps ran over my skin. “I can’t do any of that. Even you must recognize how inappropriate it would be for me to go poking around – “

“No, I don’t recognize that – “

“It is hard for me to believe that your self-centeredness extends this far,” I snapped. “You cannot possibly think that the wife of a police officer, who happens to be your badly treated ex-wife, should go snooping around – “

“Mom!” Arch’s eyes blazed. “Stop it!” he hissed. “You have to help him!”

“My self-centeredness!” John Richard was shrieking. “My self-centeredness!”

This time I did hold the phone away from my ear. Arch pressed his fingers against his eyes and shook his head. The tormented expression on his face made my heart ache. With a ragged breath I said: “John Richard, I need to get off the phone.”

His icy tone chilled my blood. “I did not kill Suz Craig. I loved her.” He paused, then continued very deliberately, “It’s time for you to set aside your own self-centeredness. For. the sake of our son and his mental health, you need to help me prove that I’m being set up for this damn murder. Do you understand?”

I covered the phone with my hand. “Arch?” I asked with as much calmness as I could muster. My son gave me a defiant look, scowled, and crossed his arms. He was silent. “Would you please go upstairs for a few minutes and let me finish this phone call?” After a fractional hesitation he turned and hurtled out of the kitchen. Macguire made no move to go anywhere except to shuffle toward the walk-in, muttering about needing a Pepsi. “Macguire,” I pleaded, “just give me a minute here, okay?”

“I’m not going to bother you,” Macguire said innocently. “I just need a pop. Maybe I’ll see something in there that will make me hungry. You never know.”

“Goldy,” John Richard raged, “could you let go of domestic life for a minute and listen to me? I did not commit this crime. I left Suz’s house at one A.M. When I left, she was fine.”

“If you left her house at one and she was fine,” I repeated calmly, “then tell that to your investigator. If you have done nothing wrong, then you have nothing to worry about.” Then I hung up.

“What’s going on?” asked Macguire solicitously. He held a soft-drink can in one hand and the parfait glass of chocolate pudding in the other-the same one he’d turned up his nose at earlier.

I cleared my throat. “Apart from the fact that my ex-husband has been arrested for homicide and my son believes I should try to get him off?” I sighed. My head ached. I sat down, rubbing my temples. “Let’s see, the only other things going on are that I’ve got a big party to cater tonight. Oh, yes, and my son is absolutely furious with me. Apart from that, not much.”

“Bummer,” said Macguire. He set the pudding aside, untouched, poured the soft drink into a glass, then slurped fizz from the top. “Know what? I don’t need a nap, I think. I’ll see if Arch wants to talk or listen to music. We’ll be quiet, though. We won’t bother you, I promise.”

I murmured a grateful thanks and stared at the ingredients for a second batch of biscuits. As usual when dealing with John Richard, a sense of unreality closed in. Was I crazy, or was he? He was crazy. No question. A crazy liar, always had been. But then – and this had always puzzled me – how could he be so successful in the rest of his life, the part of his life that did not involve me? He had a fantastic job, lots of money, and a steady stream of girlfriends. People liked him. Was it his looks? Well, that was part of it. And he was intelligent. No genius, but he could sound good and fake his way through the situations he knew nothing about. Add to that his great ability to talk and charm his way into people’s hearts. And so far he’d been able to lie and cheat his way out of the many, many messes he’d made. And he’d been able to keep the messes quiet.