Diane Davidson - The Grilling Season

“Did she want to have control over John Richard?” I persisted.

He frowned, then shook his head. “Who knew? He didn’t share much with us, you know, the administrators. Suz’s control of information was what concerned her, and she was good at it.” His forehead wrinkled. “I did hear that Korman’s billing was problematic, and that he didn’t automatically qualify for a bonus he was expecting.”

“Who told you those tidbits?” When he shrugged, I went on. “Where do the ACHMO honchos come in? Why were they here last month? One of them told me they were fighting fires.”

“Thank you so very much,” I told Mickey. “You can’t imagine how much I appreciate this.”

He poured me more hot coffee. “Of course I do. Food-service people are the last ones to sit down and actually enjoy eating anything. Besides, I love the company, as Brandon can tell you. I’m about to make some sour-cream cakes now… . You two need anything else?”

“Thanks, Dad. No,” said Brandon warmly as he squeezed his father’s hand. For the first time I noticed the bags under Brandon’s eyes. His schedule must be brutal, I thought. He’d told the cops he went to bed at eight P.M. every night so that he could be here by two A.M. It wasn’t a regimen I would want to follow on any long-term basis, especially since I’d tried it for the last few nights and now felt like a walking zombie.

“I’m going to leave in a few minutes,” I told Brandon. “I think I understand better now why everyone, especially my ex, had trouble with this woman. It’s hard to believe that Suz would threaten you with changing your medical records, though. Couldn’t anybody call her on trying to intimidate people? It sounds so much like blackmail.”

Brandon chewed the last of his bear claw. “Great idea, Goldy. Now we know those meetings she had with us in her office were taped. When I called headquarters the week after HR left, they said to me, ‘You get proof she’s threatening you and we’ll fire her.’ Not that I would trust them. But I checked the labels on the tapes Luella Downing found. None were from the Monday after the HR people left, when Suz went on her threatening rampage.”

“That’s it?” I said, astonished. “Monday – what would it have been, July 14? The tapes from that day are missing?”

“Why? You know where they are?”

“No,” I said with a sudden yawn I couldn’t suppress. “I don’t have a clue.”

When I crawled back into bed at four, Tom rolled over and said, “I’m beginning to think there’s someone else.”

I started to laugh and couldn’t stop. They were the kind of giggles you get when you’re very young, at camp or a slumber parry, and can’t contain, no matter how valiantly you try.

“Uh-huh,” he said. “You got another statement to make? Some wrongdoing you encountered out on your prowls?”

“I can’t…” I said between giggles, “help it … if I can’t… sleep.”

“Soothe me, then. Tell me where you went.” “To the pastry shop. Had a bear claw. Sorry, I didn’t bring you any.”

He put his arms around me and growled. “Promise me the next time you go on one of these excursions, you take me with you. I feel like a kid who always gets left behind.”

I snuggled into his arms. “Okay. Whither I go, thou goest. Or words to that effect.”

“So did you find out anything about Korman at the pastry shop?”

“Sort of. The missing day’s tapes are for July 14, when Suz Craig called in all the employees who’d complained about her to HQ and threatened to fire them. She must have met with other people that day, too, like Ralph Shelton. So … if you had tapes of yourself blackmailing people, where would you hide them?”

“I’d destroy them.”

“Oh, cop, you’re a lot of help.”

24

My yoga regimen that morning was made more difficult by the phone ringing insistently at six o’clock. I pulled myself out of a contorted asana with the hope that this was the sheriff’s department calling to tell us they’d captured the Jerk. No such luck: over the wire came the commanding voice of the much-dreaded dollmeister, Gail Rodine.

“The board doesn’t want you to use the grill tonight for our final dinner,” she announced without a hint of apology for calling so early. “I mean, after what happened to ReeAnn Collins, we just… feel it’s too dangerous.”

Thinking of the mountains of hamburgers I had made and frozen, and the bags of chicken breasts I had been planning to marinate, my heart plummeted. I could never get them all grilled at home and reheated at the LakeCenter, without ruining them. “What would you like, then?” I asked carefully. “It’ll be impossible to order in more food supplies before tonight.”

“Well… what do you already have on hand?

Anything that you could grill, say, at home and then heat up?”

“Some I could do,” I said confidently. “The last thing I want is for a client to be worried about preparation. But what I have on hand…” I mentally weighed the chicken. “If I grill the chicken I have, it will only feed half your folks. I’ll have to make…” I mentally scanned my refrigerator. “I’ll prepare a Camembert pie to fill things out. It’ll contain shrimp and vegetables, too.” From under the rumpled covers Tom’s sleep-worn face appeared. I held my hand over the receiver and mouthed, “Client needs whole new dish for tonight.”

“Macguire said he wanted to help you,” Tom replied as he rolled back under the sheet. “Give him some chopping to do. He’s worried about how depressed you are about Arch. He really wants to go back to being your assistant.”

“Goldy?” Gail Rodine. “Goldy, are you listening to me? How much extra is this going to cost?”

“I do want you, the board, and the guests to be comfortable, Gail – “

“Don’t worry,” she said, clearing her throat, “I’ve already called a Denver caterer, and he said no one could meet our needs for a fancy dinner by five o’clock tonight without an exorbitant surcharge.”

“Gail, please – “

“That’s ridiculous!” she shrieked into my ear. “I told them, ‘You don’t want us to get blown up by a propane grill, do you?’ “

“The Camembert pie retails for approximately forty dollars. You’re already getting grilled Chicken a l’Orange and rice. I can add a tossed salad of field greens and perhaps a molded fruit salad, if I have time. Plus vanilla frozen yogurt with those chocolate cookies you had in your box lunches. There’s only a five percent surcharge for changing the menu at this late date.” I

“Fine, fine, put it on our bill.” She rang off. “I’m afraid to ask what that was about.” Tom’s voice rumbled as he headed for the bathroom.

“Woman doesn’t want to stage her last barbecue tonight,” I said as I groaned before starting a final stretch. “Doesn’t want to end up like Ree-Ann.”

“Figures. Hey, let me see that.” He walked over to me, a manly vision in T-shirt and cotton undershorts. He touched my arm. “My God, Goldy! Look at that bruise! I swear I’m going to kill Korman myself, one of these days.”

I twisted and frowned at the black-and-blue mark that had formed on my lower arm from being banged around by John Richard. I hadn’t noticed it until now. “Uh, well. Say, do you want to go back to bed?”

He smiled at me but touched the bruise gently. “Does it hurt?”

I gave a doctor-style shrug. “I’ll live, if we have a roll in the hay first.”

He obliged, and we had a wonderful, warm, intimate time. Sometimes the best thing you can do in the morning is go right back to bed.

After a while Tom said, “I’m going to help you with this breakfast, and go in late. By the way, I bought you another spiral-cut honey-cured ham. It’s in the walk-in.”