Diane Davidson - The Grilling Season

He didn’t answer right away. I snuggled in close and just enjoyed his warmth.

“Here’s what we found out today,” Tom said at length as he massaged my back. “Suz Craig’s security system was turned off. Also, Suz Craig didn’t die from falling into the ditch. She died of a subdural hematoma. No blood, because she was hit with her cat’s scratching post. It’s a solid metal cylinder covered with carpeting. You know what a subdural – “

“Yes. A blow causes bleeding into the brain. The bleeding brings on death.”

“Right. It takes eight hours for lividity to fix, and she’d only been in the ditch two, maybe three hours before you found her. It’s very unlikely she could have gotten the fatal blow there. So somebody put her outside. Why, we don’t know. We’re still waiting for the drug screen to come back; that’ll take a few days.”

“Yes, I remember.”

Tom continued thoughtfully. “Here’s the odd thing. She definitely has the same pattern of bruises that you used to have when John Richard attacked you. If he’d beaten her up and killed her immediately, the bruises wouldn’t have shown up on the corpse. Bruises take about three or four hours, minimum, to develop, unless the victim’s one of those rare people who show a bruise within an hour. So what happened between the time Suz Craig got beaten up and the time she died of a blow from the cat’s scratching post? And how did she get into that ditch?”

“The vandals say John Richard left that night and then came back. Or somebody in a Jeep just like one of his, no lights, came there.”

“Yeah.” Tom sighed wearily. “I know what they said. We’re checking to see if any white Jeeps were rented anywhere in the Denver area. And we’ve got the drug screen to wait for. Plus the skin under her nails has been sent to a crime lab. So we’ll know more by the end of the week. If it’s Korman’s skin, at least we’ll have him for assault.”

But not necessarily for murder. Would he walk? I didn’t want to think about it.

As Tom had predicted, I did not sleep well. At one point I crept down to the kitchen and typed into the computer my own notes on what ReeAnn Collins, Amy Bartholomew, Donny Saunders, and Tom had told me. I didn’t nave a photographic memory. But then, after what I’d been through when I lived’ with the Jerk, I’d prayed never to have a photographic memory.

20

Despite the fact that Tuesday morning dawned with a bright sun and jewel-bright hummingbirds whirring past my downstairs windows, I did not feel the least bit cheered. Tom had left early. I went through my yoga routine trying to empty my mind – not easy. Today, among all the other crises, I was set to begin catering to the doll people. I’d read recently about the necessity of going into a zone of enjoyment when doing your work, especially if you expected to derive pleasure from your career over the course of a lifetime. I tried to see the zone and imagine Gail Rodine not in it.

I sliced the cooled brioche loaves and then began making the box lunches. Each lunch would contain four sandwich triangles: cucumber, smoked salmon, Swiss cheese, and the pesto-tomato-chčvre combination that Donny Saunders had gobbled up so ravenously. I shuddered and fixed myself an iced latte. Something Donny had said kept swimming up just below my consciousness as I smoothed cool mayonnaise over the bread slices and laid out the sandwich fillings.

When I finished wrapping the sandwiches, I tucked a miniature bottle of white wine, wrapped cheese straws, a cup of plum, orange, and banana fruit salad, and a plastic bag with a Babsie’s Tart and a chocolate cookie in each box. As I closed the last cardboard box, my eye fell on the computer. Computer, disks, tapes. Tapes. If Luella had told anyone about the taping, she would have lost her job. How significant were these meetings that Suz had taped? I didn’t know, and I’d promised Tom I wouldn’t go nosing around at ACHMO. I put in a call to Brandon Yuille’s office. I would apologize for snapping at him at John Richard’s office, then pump him for info. When his assistant asked suspiciously who was calling and I told her, I had to wait two minutes for her cold response that Mr. Yuille was unavailable. I asked if I could call back at a more convenient time. She responded icily that there just was no convenient time. Fine. I hung up and called Chris Corey’s office.

His secretary put me right through. “Goldy!” His deep, rumbly voice sounded surprised. “What’s going on? Korman hasn’t come over to bother you, has he?”

“He wouldn’t dare. Listen, Chris, something one of the investigators said has been bothering me.” I hesitated, remembering I’d promised not to mention that Luella was the one who had spilled the beans to Donny. “It relates to what we were talking to Frances about Sunday at the cafe. You said ACHMO was going into John Richard’s office looking for notes about the McCrackens’ suit.”

“Well … yes.”

“It’s just that I heard there were some missing tapes, too.”

Chris grunted. “Don’t remind me.”

I persisted innocently, “What’s going on? Why would Suz keep tapes of meetings in her office?”

He lowered his voice. “Look, Goldy, it’s a huge crisis. Everybody’s upset about it. Nobody seems to know why she was taping in her office. Secretly taping. Makes it much worse.”

“You say that as if there were other taping systems.”

“Yeah, sure. The microphones in our main meeting room are sound-activated, and everybody knows that everything there gets taped, then transcribed so we have accurate minutes for each meeting. It could have been Suz was afraid of industrial spying, and that’s why she did some kind of backup taping in her office. Maybe she kept the tapes locked up there and took them from her office to her home or wherever because some threat had appeared.”

“Did she know about your work with Frances?”

“Not unless Frances told her, and that’s unlikely.”

“Who could be doing spying that would make Suz worried?”

“Look. Our meetings are confidential, Goldy, and if another HMO like MeritMed is trying to find out the details of our expansion plans, there could be hell to pay. And with legal action outstanding against us, the thought of having tapes of other in-house meetings floating around where anybody might get their hands on them is causing mass paranoia in corporate headquarters, believe me.”

“Are you sure Suz had them?”

“No! What sends shivers up the bowels of HQ is that somebody Suz fired might have them. If anyone besides Luella knew Suz was taping, there could have been motivation to get in and steal them, especially if they might prove something against ACHMO. Plus,” he added darkly, “they’re panicked that Patricia McCracken might have them somehow. That woman’s gone a little bonkers. It wouldn’t surprise anybody here if she’d managed to steal the key to that cabinet, break into the office, and swipe the tapes from one of the days when Suz met with our lawyers about the McCracken case.”

“So you don’t even know what day’s meetings are missing?”

He groaned with frustration. “We’re trying to reconstruct, but it’s a huge mess. We should know today. We’re supposed to have security, but you know how that goes. Anyway, Goldy, speaking of meetings, I’ve got to go to one now. Damage control. Good luck with whatever it is you’re working on.”

“I’m not really working on anything, Chris. It’s just that my son is very upset. I promised him I’d try to help his dad, much as I dislike the man.”

I hung up and packed the lunches between freezer bags guaranteed to keep food cold. When I was almost done, Macguire came down to breakfast His transformation was remarkable. His cheeks were genuinely pink. There was a spring to his only slightly wobbly step, and he had a broad smile on his face that made me laugh.