Dying for Chocolate

DYING FOR CHOCOLATE DIANE MOTT DAVIDSON

Elk Park Preparatory School Elk Park, Colorado June Alumni-Alumnae Brunch CHAMPAGNE FRUIT SALAD OF CANTALOUPE, STRAWBERRIES, KIWI ENGLISH CHEDDAR STRATA RASHERS OF BACON SALLY LUNN BREAD, SAUSAGE CAKE MACADAMIA-NUT COFFEE CAKE, BLUEBERRY MUFFINS PRESERVES AND HONEY COFFEE, TEA

1 Brunch is a killer. I hate it, and among food people I'm in good company. James Beard found the idea of a heavy meal between meals idiotic. He said, "You don't have something called lunny-dinny, do you?" Actually, the reason professional caterers dislike brunch is that it means getting up at an ungodly hour. As I lay in bed at 4:45 the morning of June 3, I realized that in a little over four hours I had sixty people to feed. There were mountains of fruit to slice. Muffins and breads to bake fresh. Thick-sliced bacon to bring to sizzling. Egg strata to cook slowly until layers of hot cheddar melted over warm custard. And finally, there was coffee to grind and brew. In this case, lots and lots of coffee that I would have preferred to have been drowning in. With eyes closed, I imagined floating in a warm lake of cappuccino. The cocoon of pima cotton sheets and down comforter begged me to stay, to ignore the upcoming meal. But no. The lake of predawn consciousness yielded a few troublesome bubbles. The Elk Park Prep brunch was a popular annual gathering to which my ex-husband, Dr. John Richard Korman, might wangle a ticket. This would not be fun for anyone. Without thinking I touched my right thumb, the one he had broken in three places with a hammer a month before we finally divorced, four years ago. Anyone else would have said, Four years without abuse? You must feel safe now. But I never felt safe. Especially now. Here's why. In the last month John Richard had started acting strange. Or rather, stranger than usual. In the evenings he had taken to driving slowly past my house off Main Street in Aspen Meadow. He called repeatedly, then hung up. One afternoon his lawyer phoned and threatened a reduction in child support for our eleven-year-old son Arch. That night, John Richard drove more slowly than ever past the house. Given John Richard's violent temperament, I'd decided that Arch and I should vacate the house for a while. I'd accepted a summer job: General Bo and Adele Farquhar had just moved from the suburbs of Washington, D.C., to the Aspen Meadow Country Club area. They'd built a Victorian-style mansion on land Adele had owned for years. This was where I was now, between sheets I'd only seen in ads, under a comforter I'd only dreamed about. Arch and I occupied two bedrooms on the top level of the enormous (three floors plus basement) gingerbread-trimmed residence. I didn't know why the Farquhars, wealthy, childless, and in their early fifties, needed such a huge place. But that was not my concern. What was my concern was that they both hated to cook. Adele had said they needed someone to take charge of the mammoth kitchen with its state-of-the-art gadgets and appliances. Lucky for me, their kitchen had passed the eagle eye of the county health inspector. So I had jumped at the chance to become a temporary live-in cook in exchange for a haven. During the summer, this was also the center for my business, Goldilocks' Catering, Where Everything Is Just Right! Also lucky for me, the income from the job and the business was enough to send Arch to the summer session at Elk Park Prep, where I was catering this morning. Best of all, the Farquhars' house had more alarms than the Denver Mint. I opened my eyes and studied the sloped ceiling of my new bedroom. The gray light of five A.M. seeped through Belgian lace curtains and licked the edges of the room. There was no movement on the floor below; Adele and the general were still asleep. Outside, a fierce June wind pummeled the house. Branches slapped against the gutters of the other guest room on the third floor, but there was no noise from Arch. When he was little, he would awaken if the doorbell rang. Now he could snore through wind, through hail, through the unfamiliar creaks of this museumlike house. Arch had not wanted to move. I had promised it was just for two months, while new doors, windows, and a security system were installed in our old house. Insofar as possible, I had tried to put Dr. John Richard Korman – whose initials and behavior had led his other ex-wife and me to dub him The Jerk – out of my mind as well as out of my presence. Unfortunately, I did not know if he would be making an appearance at Elk Park Prep's annual brunch. My second problem with this highly publicized meal: A man I was seeing was going to be there. The renewal of my relationship with Philip Miller, a local shrink, resembled those silver mines they're always reopening in Colorado. The vein may still be strong and the price of silver has just gone up. Philip's large blue eyes and so-happy-to-see-me smile had heated up my social life, no question about it. That's why they called it old flame, right? Anyway, I wanted to see Philip, but not at the expense of a confrontation with The Jerk. The wind slammed against the house, causing it to crack and moan. A stray branch scuttled across the roof. In late spring the Rocky Mountains frequently spin off a chilly whip of air to announce a cold front. Wind screamed through the window jambs. Then it died and the undaunted mating call of a robin pierced the air. I did a few stretching exercises before checking the thermometer on the windowsill: thirty-four degrees, with ominous clouds to boot. Nice June weather. I slid out onto the floor and eased my body through the yoga positions of Cobra, Morning Star, Locust. My spiritual life is an amalgam of yoga, transcendental meditation, and Episcopalianism. The only ones who would be bothered by this, I thought, were the Episcopalians. And then I began to think about Philip Miller. One thing I had learned as a thirty-one-year-old single mother: no matter how your body aged, your feelings did not. At any time of life you could be subject to a high-school-vintage infatuation. Another late-teen aspect to Love in the Thirties: you could feel as if you loved two people at the same time. For seven months I had been seeing Tom Schulz. He was a policeman who had helped me through a rough time when my fledgling business was threatened with two attempted poisonings. He had the build and appetite of a mountain man. Tom Schulz doted on Arch and me, and he made me feel safe. But in the last few weeks, perhaps because I was trying to block out the specter of the omnipresent Jerk, Philip Miller had once again stolen into my psyche and my daydreams. Eons ago Philip and I had dated at the University of Colorado. Dated? Listen to me. In any event, Philip was good-looking, well-off, and intelligent. He looked and dressed like a golf pro. When I talked, he listened with great intentness. Since early May we had been doing crazy things like toting backpacks bulging with exotic foods on long Saturday hikes. One I Monday morning Philip sent me ten bunches of gold Mylar balloons. No reason. Before the move, I had taken my morning cup of espresso out on the wooden deck where the balloons floated, tied to the railing, for two weeks. I would sit and watch them move languidly in the cool morning breeze. I would listen to the silky brushing sound their crinkled surfaces made when they touched. I thought, Somebody loves me. I had pushed John Richard out of my head. Schulz was on emotional hold. I made up elaborate excuses while off on excursions with Philip. And I felt guilty. But not too much. Now I reluctantly hauled myself up to do battle with cantaloupe, strawberries, and kiwi. What a mess. The social life, that is; I was used to the fruit. But sometime the Philip Miller –Tom Schulz problem felt like a nice mess. So much better than worrying about The Jerk. ] was taking care of that crisis; I had moved. But the two man mess. . . that was the mess of a glutton. After dieting for years, the glutton gorges herself on Chocolate Marble Cheesecake and Hot Fudge Sundae. Simultaneously. I showered, dressed in my caterer's uniform, and re minded myself that gluttony was one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Not to mention lust. I combed out corkscrew-curly blond hair and put makeup over freckles on slightly chubby cheeks. With tap shoes and a big smile, I could have done Shirley Temple. Yes, slightly chubby, yes, occasionally gluttonous. But in the lust department I was pristine in the four years since divorce. Listening to friends' stories had convinced me that casual sex was anything but. Unfortunately, no one was interviewing me on the subject of promiscuity. Interesting topic, though. I made my way down the back staircase, crept along the second-floor hall past the framed photographs, General Farquhar with Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and Margaret Thatcher, and tiptoed down the main steps. One of my jobs in this house was to disarm the first-floor security system every morning. I pressed the buttons to deactivate the motion detectors on the first floor and house perimeter. Then I banged open the door to the basketball court-size kitchen. Well, maybe not that big. But it was gorgeous, the kind you drool over in household magazine centerfolds with captions like Kitchens That Are Really Built! Clusters of geraniums brightened deep interior windowsills. Next to the Montague Grizzly stove with its six burners, flat grill, and two ovens, counters patterned in brilliant yellow and green Italian tile glistened in the light of a glass-and-brass chandelier. Burnished copper pans hung from the ceiling, and rows of custom-made oak cabinets glowed pristinely, without a single grubby fingerprint. It was picture-perfect, typical of a home without children. In the center of this vast culinary sea was an island the size of Antarctica. It was a good bet no kitchen designer ever had to do housework for a living. But the task of washing the expansive tile floor was left to the other staff person, a teenager who had moved into the Farquhars' basement level. For me there were muffins and breads to make, not to mention the stacked fruit on top of Antarctica. I took the smooth lumps of Sally Lunn dough out of the refrigerator for their final rising and then picked up my knife. "Take that!" I whispered as I whacked my way through juicy green kiwi, fat, ultra-red strawberries, and pineapple so sweet you wondered why they'd let it leave Hawaii. One of the secrets of catering is that you have access to high-quality ingredients unavailable in the grocery store. If you have a good supplier, you can even get delicacies on short notice. The cantaloupes were luscious, their juicy dark orange centers dense with a caviar of seeds. By half past six I had carved ten of them into centerpiece baskets and used a garnishing tool to give each a scalloped edge. I took the Sally Lunns out of the oven and put them on racks, where they filled the kitchen with the rich scent of baked bread. The last step was to scoop sour cream batter thick with inky blueberries into muffin tins and put them in to bake. The rest of the food was at the school. Once I'd poured the champagne and managed the buffet, the alums could eat while the headmaster made his money pitch. The kitchen telephone rang. Unfortunately, this was no ordinary ringing but a sustained beeping from a complicated radio contraption boasting three lines, an intercom, and various other functions unknown to me. Two lines in my own house I could handle. But this gadget of General Farquhar's – he had brought it with him from the Pentagon, I was convinced – had been a headache from the time of its installation two days ago. The phone was like the security system. It needed to be disarmed. I stared at the flashing light and tried to remember how the buttons worked. Between General Farquhar's associates and Adele's various committee people, the phone rang constantly. Who could be calling at this hour? Someone from the East Coast, no doubt. This inconsiderate person would be thinking, Oh, the time change. Well, they're probably already up. I lifted the receiver and stabbed at what I hoped was the right button. "Farquhars?" I said hesitantly, and prayed that I was not speaking into the intercom. "Goldy," said Philip Miller. I was immediately flooded with relief, desire, and other teenage-type feelings. Why he was calling so early I did not know. I said, "Are you okay?" "I have a doctor's appointment before the brunch,” he said. "I'll be late." "We are indeed meeting at your high school, Philip. But I can't give you a tardy excuse." I could hear his grin when he said, "Not to worry. Listen. May I see you afterwards? There's something about food I need to discuss." "Sure," I said warily, perusing my appointments calendar on the kitchen bulletin board. For June 3, a hastily penciled Brunch was followed by Prep Harrington Aphrodisiac Dinner. As good as my supplier was, she had been unable to bring some items for the dinner before she went on vacation. I was going to have to shop for substitutions later in the morning. This afternoon would be given over to cooking for the Harrington affair, which was set for Saturday night. "No problem," I said, as if to convince myself. Philip did not sound good. There was caution in his voice. I said, "Should we get together before your first appointment? I need to be near your office to shop, anyway. We could have coffee at Aspen Meadow Cafe." I hesitated as the wind whipped aspen branches against the kitchen windows. "Are you sure you don't want to talk now?" He said, "Not over the phone." "Don't get paranoid on me, shrink-man." "Don't play fast and loose with psychological terms, food-woman." I said, "Fast and loose?" But before he could reply, one of the other lines into the Farquhars' house lit up. Through the insistent beeping I told Philip to hold. Then I took a breath and hit a few buttons. "Farquhars?" "Miss Goldy," said Tom Schulz. I looked at my watch: six-forty. What was going on here? I said, "It's a little early, Tom." "You're hard to reach," he said. I said nothing but felt guilty for the latest creative rash of excuses. He went on, "Besides. As I recall, sometimes you're an early riser." I could imagine him shifting his big body from side to side on one of the too-small chairs of the Furman County Sheriff's Department. I could see him cocking his head, looking into his coffee as if that dark liquid could give him answers to all his questions. He said, "You cooking or something?" "Excuse me, Tom, but yes," I said, irritation masking my conscience as the light for Philip's line continued to blink. "I won't keep you. It's just that I have today's issue of the Mountain Journal in front of me. They deliver it to the Sheriff's Department first, I think." "So?" "Well, now, I was thinking this was one issue you might want to skip." "Is that why you're calling so early?" "Now, Miss G. Don't get huffy. I just wanted to tell you not to pick up today's paper. Avoid a nasty surprise that way." "What are you talking about?" He cleared his throat, then said, "Don't read the paper, Goldy. The guy's crazy." Another pause. "You know I think you're a great cook. The best." "Cut to the chase, Tom. I've got fruit to slice." He took a deep breath. "Seems our local rag has up and gotten itself a food critic. Name of Pierre; must be French." He took a sip of what I imagined to be coffee. Then he said, "Pierre doesn't like you, Goldy." Philip's line was still blinking. Sweat sprouted on my forehead. I said, "Read it to me." "Not a good idea, Miss G. That was what I was trying to avoid." "Read it to me or I will never fix you my famous Strawberry Super Pie. That would be a shame, it being strawberry season and all." He groaned, then read, "'The queen of Aspen I Meadow catering cuisine, the unfortunately named Goldy Bear, lays false claim to her throne, we fear.' " He stopped. "You sure you want me to go on?" I clenched my teeth. "Yes." "Okey-doke." More throat-clearing. "'At a recent fete for the Colorado Symphony, we began with heavily sauced eggs for hors d'oeuvres, then plowed onward through avocado cream soup, beef Stroganoff, fettuccine Alfredo, salad with mayonnaise, and finished in a daze with chocolate fondue. Where did this woman learn to cook, the National Cholesterol Institute?'" Schulz stopped. He said, "I've never heard. . . I mean, is there such a thing?" "Oh, for crying out loud, of course not." I stopped shouting and took a deep breath. I felt as if I'd been punched. My voice was shaking when I said, "And it wasn't Stroganoff, it was London broil. With egg noodles. Is there any more?" " 'Fraid so, but not much." He read, " 'How many of us came home and threw up? I know I did.' And then it's signed, 'Pierre.' What an idiot." I pondered the gleaming knife I'd set down near the cantaloupe. I said, "Any more good news?" "I miss you." "Really." "Course. Evenings have been pretty warm lately. Big spring sunsets. I was wondering if you'd like to bring Arch over. You know, we could cook out or something." "Let me think about it. We could have hamburgers. Direct from the National Cholesterol whatever." "While you're thinking about it, I got a question – " The third line into the Farquhars' house lit up and began its insistent beep. "Tom, could you hold – " I said in a panic, and pushed more buttons for what must surely be some dork on the East Coast. "Farquhars!" I yelled into the phone. "Need to cut back on the caffeine, Goldy?" The husky voice belonged to my best friend, Marla Korman. Although Marla and I both had been married to John Richard – at different times, this being Colorado and not Utah – we had become allies after the final divorce. It was through Marla that I had landed my present job. Adele Farquhar was her older sister. I said, "Oh, jeez, Marla, what are you doing calling so early?" "No time to talk?" "Not if it's about the newspaper." "What newspaper? I left two messages for you." Another pang of guilt; I'd meant to call her back. But I was not a secretary, and I could not juggle three phone lines before seven o'clock in the morning. "I can't talk," I said breathlessly. "I've got Tom Schulz on line two and Philip Miller on line one – " "You slut." "Just tell me what you want." Marla groaned. She said, "You asked, my dear, if I would take Arch to his Orientation at that snob school. The one where you're catering this morning. I was merely calling to find out what time you wanted me to come by." I had forgotten. Not about the summer school, but about the orientation. Arch was probably still asleep, couldn't care less. He was supposed to be at the school – I racked my brain, it wasn't on the calendar – around nine? "I'm sorry," I said. "Eight-thirty all right?" Marla agreed, and I tried to get back to Tom Schulz and Philip Miller. Both lines were dead.

2 I creaked my way back up to the third floor and gently shook Arch's shoulder. No response. I tried again. A blue sweatshirted arm and balled fist reached out in protest. I sighed. The arm withdrew, pulled back to warm sheets like a turtle head to a shell. The sweat suit was part of a stage. Arch wore them all day and all night. The parenting trick with this all-purpose wardrobe was occasionally to insist that there be a change – for example, from a gamey green set to a clean gray one. After his swim the previous night in the Farquhars' heated pool, I had convinced him to put on the blue. This was to avoid an argument over clothes the first morning of summer school. Now I just had to get used to the idea of my child spending the day in his pajamas. I said, "Time to get up, kiddo." "Oh, why, why, why?" said Arch as he stretched and moaned and burrowed beneath pillows and sheets. "Why do I have to get up?" I said, "Summer school." He burrowed deeper. "I'm not going" was the muffled reply. "Arch." "No, no, no, I'm never going. I hate that school. This is supposed to be my vacation. Go away." "You don't even know anything about that school." He growled. One problem with living in someone else's house was that you couldn't raise your voice when you needed to. Especially when the other residents were asleep. I leaned in close to where I thought his ear was. "Arch," I said softly, "you said you wanted to go." A few moments of silence passed. I knew him well enough to recognize when he was reviewing his strategy. Then his voice was behind me. "Please, Mom," my son said. "Please don't make me." I whirled around. His actions had been completely noiseless. Now he giggled at my surprise. I said, "I wish you wouldn't do that disappearing act when I'm talking to you." He squinted at me. His face was all white skin and freckles since he'd had his hair cut in a flattop. This new military-short haircut I put down to General Farquhar's influence. But Arch was so thin and pale he looked like a young prisoner of war. I handed him his glasses. "You are mean," he said. He pushed his glasses into place and regarded me with magnified brown eyes. "None of those rich kids will like me. They all play tennis and have fancy parties and they never invite kids like me." "What kind of kid are you?" He groaned, a deep guttural sound warning against further probing. He looked at the wall and said in a low voice, "Not cool. That's what kind." He turned away from the wall but avoided my eyes. He said, "I had bad dreams again." Before I could reply, he stumbled past me into the bathroom. I stared at the wall. The lush pink roses on the Farquhars' cheery wallpaper stared back. A few mementos from our house – Arch's new paraphernalia for magic tricks, his sixth-grade class picture, and a glass container of dice for his role-playing games-were propped up on shelves around the room, but they offered scant comfort. Bad dreams. I remembered the night three years ago, a year after the divorce was final, when John Richard had slashed my van tires, trashed my mailbox, and kicked in my front door. He was drunk. Arch was asleep and I had rushed into his room, blocked the door with a dresser and a desk, and screamed so loudly that John Richard left. John Richard had never harmed his son. Yet Arch still had faceless nightmares in which I died. Oh yes, the flimsiness of our house, compared with a week at the Farquhars' palace, had shown Arch and me what it was to be not rich and not cool. But we were going to be all right. Safe, once Aspen Meadow Security finished with our old home. And soon the bad dreams would end. "Listen, Arch – " I began softly when he came out of the bathroom. But words failed. "Look, I have to go over to Elk Park for that brunch. I'm going to meet Philip afterwards – " I stopped to check his face. He was rolling his eyes, a modest indication of his opinion of Philip Miller. I went on, "There are fresh blueberry muffins in the kitchen for you. Marla will be by. In forty minutes." He glanced at me ever so briefly, then pulled the rumples out of the blue sweat suit. He gave me the full benefit of his large brown eyes, so vulnerable behind the thick glasses. He said, "I'll be okay. Don't worry about me."

Sprinkles of rain blew across the windshield of Adele's Thunderbird just before the turnoff to Elk Park. Her car was the day's transport vehicle because my VW van was undergoing a clutch transplant and would not be out of the shop until Monday. It would take twenty minutes to drive up Colorado Highway 203, which rises to eighty-five hundred feet above sea level, five hundred feet above Aspen Meadow. Blasted out of hillsides, 203's few straight stretches are bordered by sheer drop-offs. I piloted the T-bird carefully around the mountains' curves, then dipped with a little more speed into the high meadowlands. The meadows burgeoned with the gold-green of lush mountain grasses and goldenrod, like green on- ions melting in a pool of butter. . . . I clenched my teeth. Melted butter. As is served at the National Cholesterol Institute. How could someone say such a thing? Pierre hadn't even gotten the menu right. For the Symphony dinner I had made deviled eggs. A long way from heavily sauced. The soup had been gazpacho garnished with avocado. The London broil was sliced thin with a variety of accompaniments, one of which was sour cream with horseradish. And he hadn't even mentioned the steamed green beans. What a simpleton! I braked to slow down around one of the road's lethal curves. I was going to find this Pierre, whoever he was, if I had to picket the office of the Mountain Journal for a week. Think about the scenery, I told myself. Calm down. Look at the mountains. People move here to get away from stress, remember? The mountains, the meadows, Aspen Meadow, Elk Park-these had been cool summer havens for wealthy Denverites before the advent of interstate highways. This was one of the places I had hiked with Philip only last week. We had made it as far as Elk Park Prep, the stucco and tile-roofed villa that had begun as an elegant hotel early in the century. How idyllic the school had looked when a brief snow shower ceased that Saturday afternoon. The electrified gate meant to keep out flower-and-shrub-eating deer had been left open. Philip and I trudged silently up the muddy winding driveway. We breathed air that was like milk. Steam from the snow melting on the red tile roof gave the school an ethereal look that reminded me of the southern boarding school I'd attended for five years. Up to last year, Elk Park Prep also offered boarding. Philip asked why I didn't send Arch to Elk Park Prep as a day student, get him out of those large public school classrooms. Great idea, I said, I'd wanted to for years. If only John Richard would foot the bill. But my ex maintained I wanted Arch to go because I was an eastern snob at heart. Private school, I told Philip ruefully, was like money. You only appreciated it when you didn't have it anymore. But how do you feel about that? he asked, ever the shrink. I said, How do you think I feel? Now, as I swung the T-bird through the open gate and past the high stone wall with its massive carved sign, Elk Park Preparatory School, a shudder went down my back. It was as if an invisible camera were filming my entrance: Get that woman out of here! She's plummeted from the moneyed class to the servant class! It was not until I had wound halfway up the long driveway that I realized I had not yet come to the turnoff marked "Deliveries." The switchboard operator and admissions officer, my ad hoc helpers, were bustling about the school kitchen. With the elimination of the boarding department, the large kitchen crew of previous years was only a memory. In fact, the other staff person at the Farquhars, an eighteen-year-old named Julian Teller, was a casualty of this recent final closing. He had been one of the last boarding students and was now one of Adele's charity projects. Since Arch and I had taken up residence, General Farquhar had kept Julian busy putting together state-of-the-art gardening equipment and doing other odd jobs. Julian had only eaten with us once, although Arch dutifully reported that Julian said my leftovers were the best he had ever tasted. Unfortunately, I had not had the chance to get to know the teenager. But Arch had. He adored Julian. What Julian did, Arch wanted to do, what Julian wore, Arch thought was cool beyond words. Of course I longed to point out to Arch that Julian was cool but not rich, which was why the teenager had to take a live-in job for his senior year in high school. But I didn't want to appear too preachy. And Julian was giving Arch diving lessons in the Farquhars' pool. In the absence of Arch's old neighborhood pals, Julian could at least be a friend. I slipped on my apron and returned my concentration to cooking. A local restaurant had canceled out of doing the annual brunch only the day before. The headmaster had called me in a panic. Of course, I never said no to business. I had pulled sausage coffee cakes out of the freezer, then hastily prepared cheese strata and brought the cakes and the strata to the school. I had called Elizabeth Miller, who was not only Philip's sister but also an excellent baker, and asked her to make half a dozen of her heavenly macadamia-nut coffee cakes. My two ad hoc helpers had remembered to place the strata in the oven. The smooth egg-and-cream layers were beginning to bubble around lakes of melted English cheddar. We laid out thick slabs of bacon, made the coffee, and put the breads and sausage cakes in to heat. I was about to head out with the fruit when the switchboard operator announced that someone was waiting for me in the dining room. I put the first batch of cantaloupe baskets on a large tray and swung through the doors to the vast space of the formal dining room. The darkness from outside loomed large through tall wavy-glassed windows. Three rows of crystal chandeliers shone brightly on polished cherry tables and cream-colored walls. How unlike Arch's public school cafeteria it was. There, whenever there was going to be a meeting that included a fund-raising pitch, classroom banners with messages like We Can Do It! shrieked from every available inch of wall space. Here, all was elegance, with only a hint of what was to come from a slide projector and screen. Elizabeth Miller's head poked out from behind the screen. She gestured at her array of cakes. "Thanks for coming early," I said to her head of golden hair that was so frizzy it always put me in mind of cartoons dealing with electrical sockets. Elizabeth greeted me with a sideways smile and a toss of the head of frizz that revealed five-inch-long dangling silver earrings. She walked toward me in the toe-first stride favored by women whose only shoes are ballet slippers. Her casual outfit- black leotard, tights, midcalf-length Danskin skirt-clashed with the formal surroundings. But this was typical. Elizabeth Miller's persona was more along the lines of Tinkerbell hits thirty. "You can't tell a soul I made these." Her smile revealed slightly crooked teeth. I said, "Your secret's safe with me." Elizabeth owned Aspen Meadow's one remaining health-food store. She didn't even sell white flour. "Will we have a chance to visit before this thing begins? Once the headmaster starts his money pitch I just want to escape." I said, "I'll bet." The health-food store was not doing very well. The last time I'd been in for dried papaya, Elizabeth had tried to convince me I needed a fifty-pound bag of millet. When I told her she should switch to carrying gourmet items, she looked at me as if I'd suggested sex with an extraterrestrial. Now she said, "Honestly. I have to pay for this meal, half of which I won't be able to eat. Sorry, Goldy, nothing personal. It's just that I'm into high-performance vegetarianism, and you know champagne kills brain cells." She pointed one of her toes in front of her. "I just come to this thing to see friends. But, God! I hate to listen to six new ways we're supposed to raise money for something the school just has to have. I end up leaving on a guilt trip. Have to unstress with coleus-leaf cocktail and chamomile tea for the next two days." "You could always give them a bad check," I offered as I placed the last cantaloupe down with a flourish. She said, "Not a bad idea," and then regarded me with big blue eyes that reminded me of her brother's. "Have you heard from Philip?" I told her that I had and he would be late. I said, "Anything I can help with?" She said, "No," without conviction. "Everything okay?" She nodded. "Just fine." Now Elizabeth was pretending to center a cantaloupe. She said, "Did you have to cook a lot for this meal?" "I made a multitude of goodies. Have the strata. It features high-performance cheddar." Silence. I had a lot of work to do and could not visit when the guests' arrival was imminent. Whatever it was Elizabeth wanted, I wished she'd get to it. "Goldy –" she began. She tilted her pixie face, then pressed her lips together. Something told me she was not here to talk about the school, or the food, or even to complain about the headmaster. I said, "Why don't we sit down?" "Oh, no," she said as she bent down close to inspect one of the cantaloupe baskets. From the kitchen came the inviting smells of bacon and coffee. I knew I had to get in there and so did she. She said, "It's just – " "Just. . ." "Oh," she said with a grin, "I'm worried about Philip. I think he's getting in over his head with some of his clients. I mean, are you all close enough to talk about this stuff? You know." People always say, You know, when you don't have a clue. You know. . . fill in the blank. You know. . . make this easier for me by not having to say it. The space of the dining room was intimidating. I leaned toward her in a confidential manner. "You mean," I said, "does he tell me about his clients? Or are we sleeping together? Because the answer is no to both." She shrugged and said, "Oh no, that's not what I was asking. You know." I still didn't. I said, "You mean, like are we close enough to be thinking of getting married?" She was relieved. She closed her eyes and gave a little shrug, as in, You brought it up. I said, "We aren't. Satisfied?" "Well, you see. . ." she said with more hesitation, then stopped. I thought, Spit it out, Elizabeth. She went on, "I just need to talk to you, to him I mean . . . and I didn't know what his plans were." I said, "I don't know what Philip's plans are beyond coming here for brunch. If you want to talk about health food with him, he'll be here. If you want to talk about health food with me, I'll be in your store later to shop for this dinner I'm doing tomorrow night. Now be a good vegetarian and come into the kitchen with me to see if the bacon's done." She wrinkled her nose. "Bacon! I can't even stand the smell – " But she was interrupted by the first gaggle of aging preppies laughing with forced hilarity as they pushed through the carved doors of the dining room. It was the kind of laugh that said, We're not too old to have fun. Suddenly it was too late to check the bacon or anything else. I lifted the first bottle of champagne from the ice chest and began to open it. I whispered to Elizabeth, "Do me a favor. Pop into the kitchen and get one of the staff; I'm going to need help here. Then sashay over to your buddies and act sociable so they don't start on the fruit. I'll be around with the champagne." "Oh, sure," she said, distracted again. She shook her head; the earrings swung like Christmas ornaments. "Just. . . please let me talk to Philip myself." "Elizabeth," I said, "he's your brother. Whatever's bothering you, I think you should talk to him about it yourself. You know?"

3 "And when we have brought the water line in here," the headmaster was saying with a practiced flick of his pointer at the illuminated screen, "then we will enter into Implementation Stage Two. . . ." At the headmaster's table, Adele Farquhar touched the undercurl of her severe, dark pageboy. Busy as I had been, I had not seen the general deliver her in his Range Rover. It was almost eleven o'clock. The alums stirred in their seats, checked their Rolexes. Any dummy knew that Implementation Stage Two 'meant More Money. The alums were exchanging looks – How much longer could he go on about this? A perplexed buzz rose from the tables. Forever. My legs ached from standing. The buffet table looked defaced. The food was almost gone, except for what I had saved for Philip. But he had not arrived. If he didn't come soon, he'd be out of luck. And then he strolled in, acting like he owned the place. His black blazer, white pants, and shock of blond hair gave him the look of a male model. He scanned the room from behind Ray Bans. A hum of admiration rose from the women. I took a deep breath, let it out. The only time I heard a female gurgle of approval was for congealed salad. "How's my favorite cook?" Philip said in a low voice once he arrived at the serving table. When he leaned his slender body over the table he was so close I could read the engraved words on his gold lapel pin – PROTECT OUR MOUNTAINS! The politically correct shrink gave me an inviting openmouthed smile. I shook my head and stared at the sunglasses, then spoke to Philip's aristocratic nose. "Fine. How's my favorite psychologist? Hungry?" "Ravenous." He took a manila envelope out of his briefcase. "Fund-raising, I swear," he said under his breath. "They ran out of decals and I had to bring in more." He signaled to the headmaster with the envelope, then asked, "Is this thing almost over? Can we still get together afterwards?" I nodded to both questions. Philip strode up to the head table and handed the envelope to the headmaster, who betrayed great relief. Elizabeth caught my eye and waved as if she had a wand in her hand. As Philip wound back through the tables, his sister kept her eyes on him. The headmaster started to talk about money by trying to make it sound as if he wasn't. He had abandoned the pointer and was droning on about the Phase I Drive for Investments. This year's desperately needed improvement, it appeared, was an Olympic-size heated outdoor pool. For the past month, alumni, parents of students, and friends of the school had been hitting on (okay, he said, "going around to") local businesses, giving them the Pool for the Preps pitch. If they gave, the business got a GET INTO THE SWIM! decal. Parents then patronized the SWIM!-decaled businesses. The headmaster reached into the envelope and proffered one of the decals. This sounded vaguely illegal, I reflected as Philip turned to me and grinned conspiratorially. I handed him his plate, then quietly emptied pitchers and scraped platters. Philip moved toward the wall to get a better view of the headmaster. I watched as he lifted his plate and then held it close under his chin as he ate. I put down the platter I had been holding. In that moment, I saw nothing but Philip. I saw him as he had been more than a dozen years before, when we had ditched a sophomore mixer. I had just transferred to the university from an eastern women's college and knew no one. This blond, handsome fellow had come up to me and said, Do you want to get out of here? And I had said, Sure. We had walked through cool evening air redolent with the smell of smoke from wood-burning fires. Philip pointed to birds flitting between the trees: Oregon juncos, he said, returning to their winter nests. He bought us gyro sandwiches. We dripped sandwich juice and minted yogurt on paper napkins as we strolled by Boulder Creek. I remembered Philip holding his napkin carefully under his chin, looking less like a cool sophomore than a well-trained four-year-old. He had kissed me briefly, a taste of mint. But our dating was haphazard and short-lived. I didn't even re- member telling Philip I was leaving school to get married. I just let him go, like a balloon. Timing, I kept telling myself. That was the wrong time. Here was Philip, holding the plate beneath his chin, wanting to be together again. But I had feelings for Schulz, not to mention ambivalence about relationships in general. I wasn't sure this was the right time either. Elizabeth was squeezing through occupied chairs to get to the back of the room. When she arrived at the serving table, she whispered, "The food's great and most of my friends are here." She smiled to dismiss her earlier complaint. I felt like telling her to phone the Mountain Journal with a review, but I did not want to interrupt the world's most boring headmaster. I noticed Philip eyeing his sister. I said, "Your brother's here." She said, "And?" I smiled. "No news to report yet," I said. "Can't rush these things. You know," I added. "I'm depending on you to keep an eye on him," she said in a low voice. Philip sauntered back. He said, "Want to get out of here?" I said, "Absolutely." Elizabeth offered him a bite of sausage cake. "It's not good for you," she said with a sly smile, "but Goldy made it, so it'll taste super. You have time to visit now?" He chewed, winked at me, then shook his head to her question. He said, "Call you?" When she nodded, he grinned and gave me a time-to-go look. "If we don't leave, we're going to get caught in the crush." I glanced at my watch: 11:30. Rain still streaked across the tall windows of the dining room. With some effort, we could load the platters and boxes into the Thunderbird in one trip. The school staff had promised to do the dishes. The headmaster was winding down: he had gone from the fund-raising pitch to a discussion of Elk Park's policies on drugs (they were against them), parties with alcoholic beverages (ditto), and casual sex (ditto ditto). The alums' interest seemed to pick up with this last topic. Philip and I placed the last of the pitchers in a crate and together we carried my supplies through the mud and rain to the Thunderbird's trunk. Philip gave a short wave before he started his car, a BMW 325 I-X the color of vanilla pudding. For at least the hundredth time, I thought I should have become a shrink instead of a caterer. Cold spring rain pelted and washed and blew over our cars as we bumped over muddy ruts on our way out of the staff parking lot. We passed the buses and cars that had brought the students for orientation, then came up on the pool construction site. A six-foot-high chain-link fence surrounded the excavated area. The headmaster had just informed us that the plumbing was in and that the concrete would be shot in under pressure in the next few days. The school's board of trustees was forging ahead to build the pool before they actually had the money. Not a luxury, they'd said, but a necessity. Ah, rich folks. When we drove past the construction-site fence, I waved and flashed my lights at Philip. He did not respond, but signaled to turn onto Highway 203. As we started down the narrow two-lane, the rain- drops turned to white flakes. I sighed; I'd known it was coming. Snow in Colorado on the third of June is not the dry type that powders the ski slopes in winter. Instead, fat wet spring flakes plopped on the car like bits of mashed potatoes. The T-bird's windshield wipers strained against the weight. At our altitude this was – my New Jersey relatives were always appalled to hear – seasonal weather. As we headed downhill I wondered if the Thunderbird had on snow tires. The BMW belched a cloud of black smoke. I accelerated gently; the five-hundred-foot curved descent to Aspen Meadow would be much more treacherous if the snow began to stick. Behind us the school's red tile roof was already frosted with white. The T-bird's windshield. wipers hummed as they swept off thin blankets of snow. I .I turned on the defroster and for a moment lost sight of Philip whizzing around a curve. "Machismo," I said with a groan, and pushed Adele's car up to thirty. Beside the road a red fox, usually a nocturnal animal, darted out from a stand of bushes. I was startled and swung wide. No need: at the sight of the car, the animal scurried back to his lair. Even wildlife knew better than to be out in this mess. Once around the curve I caught sight of the BMW a I quarter mile ahead. My right foot pushed the accelerator. We had been driving a few minutes when Philip abruptly careened to the right. His tires spewed a wave of mud from the shoulder. The paved part of the road was beginning to ice. I wondered if he had slid or had seen an animal, too. The snow fell steadily. I accelerated very gently. Philip slowed for a moment and then swerved over the center line to the left. Then he straightened out to straddle the dotted line. I honked. Was something wrong with his car? Was the snow bothering him? Maybe his windshield wipers weren't working. I honked again, but there was no answer. Surely Philip knew the hazards of this drive. If he was having a steering problem, now was the time to pull over. Instead, he sped up. We passed a rock wall on the road's left side, then a steep drop-off where a rollover had taken away most of the guardrail. Yellow police ribbons still marked the scene of a fatal accident. Again the BMW swerved to the left. A wave of fear left my hands damp. At the next curve I had to pay close attention. For a moment all that was visible in front of the car was air. My stomach dropped. After negotiating the turn, I sped up the boatlike Ford to get behind the BMW's square taillights, which shone in the enveloping grayness. My hand groped for the headlights and I flashed them. No response. We headed east on the roller-coaster approach to Highway 24, the north-south biway that runs between Interstate 70 and Aspen Meadow. After we rounded another bend, my eyes picked out a trickle of cars heading north out of Aspen Meadow toward I-70. Cottony clumps of snowflakes clung to the wind- a shield. I strained my eyes and thought I could see Philip shaking his head. My heart beat in time with the windshield wipers. I pressed the accelerator and decided to overtake him. Force him to pullover. But when I pulled up on his left, he sped up. On the right a thin shoulder of ground and a barbed-wire fence were the only things beteeen our lane and a forty-foot drop to whitened meadow. I pressed a button to bring my window down slightly. From Highway 24 the occasional honk and swish of hydroplaning tires punctuated the sifting sound of snow. Twenty minutes ago Philip had been fine. Now either he was having a heart attack or he was going to give me one. The last part of eastbound 203 went straight down. Philip again drove between the two lanes. Ahead I could see a tractor- trailer and a grocery-supply truck beginning to chug north on Highway 24, headed back to the interstate. Near the end of 203, Philip honked wildly. His brake lights flashed as the pale yellow car skidded right. I tried to gauge whether I could pass him again, but he was going too fast. Through the snowfall, a digital clock's amber squares glowed twelve-oh-oh in the mist. We were only moments from Philip's office, which was near the interstate. Soon this agony would be over. I flicked on the left turn signal as we approached the stop sign at the intersection of the two roads. "No!" I yelled as the BMW zoomed through the stop sign and screeched to turn right on 24 instead of left toward Philip's office. I stopped, glanced left, floored the accelerator, and wrenched the steering wheel to the right. The snow was coming down like oatmeal. Philip barreled down the left lane straight into the path of the oncoming trucks. At the last moment he careened out of the lane when the tractor-trailer blasted him with his horn. The big trucks lumbered past. Philip put on his auxiliary lights and appeared to slow down. I gunned the T-bird forward and pulled up on the BMW's right, on the dirt shoulder of Highway 24. I honked. Through his tinted window glass it was impossible to make out his face. He acted as if he neither saw nor heard me. Again he sped up, as if to get away. The Thunderbird stalled in the snowy mud. I leaned on the horn and lowered my window all the way. Cold feathers of snow pricked my face. "Philip!" I screamed. "Come back!" Speeding up again, the BMW bumped and rocked southbound down 24. In the right lane I could see a black Porsche passing a silver bus. I took a deep breath and turned the key in the ignition. If I could hit Philip from behind, maybe he would stop. A Ford is not a BMW. The Thunderbird started with a jolt. I gunned it forward and hit a utility pole with the right front headlight. With all the snow, I hadn't even seen it. A dull pain shot up my spine. When I looked back at the road, Philip was speeding down the left lane on a collision course with the bus. Leaving bells and whistles whining, I unstrapped my seat belt and jumped from the car. "Stop!" I yelled through the curtains of snow. "Stop!" But he did not. The Porsche and the bus honked. The Porsche driver careened onto the shoulder. A wall of snow sprayed upward. The Porsche's brakes screamed. Still the BMW raced forward. The bus driver leaned on the horn. Philip heard the honk and braked, then hit the gravel on the left shoulder. The BMW went into a wild skid. The bus slammed into the BMW on the driver's side. Glass shattered. Tires shrieked. I could hear the bus passengers screaming. The Porsche driver scrambled out. There's no way, I thought as I ran, there's just no way. My feet slid through the snow. Ahead the bus and Philip's car stood motionless, smoking. My body whacked the BMW hood. The left front of the car was irreparably smashed. I looked through the broken glass, desperately hoping to see some movement. The top half of Philip's body was at a skewed angle; he had been thrown back by the impact. His face and chest were splattered with blood and glass. The sunglasses were gone and his eyes were wide, red, empty. The bottom half of his body had disappeared below the BMW's crumpled metal. "Call an ambulance!" I shrieked at the bus driver. But I knew. I just couldn't accept it. I couldn't look back at him. I couldn't think of anything, couldn't see or hear anything, only knew one thing. Philip was dead.

4 Slow motion, fast motion. Time splintered. Fast: People moved back and forth. Back and forth. They asked questions and called to me, as if I were at the bottom of a very deep well. A man pulled me back when I tried to tug open the BMW door. I ripped away from him and started to run. A gentle set of hands guided me away and draped a blanket over my hair and shoulders, protection from the snow. A man and a woman put out flares. Directed traffic. Motioned the police car over. In slow motion: The snow fell. The BMW smoked. Behind the car's dark glass the body did not move. In the midst of life we are in death. . . A policeman spoke my name. His voice was far away. I looked at him through eyes that seemed not mine. I cupped my hands and blew into them. He said, "Just a few questions, if you can manage it." Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts. . . I nodded and followed him, slowly, slowly. The BMW was behind me now. I was leaving Philip to strangers, foreign men in suits who would make their decree. It was unbearable. My name again. Yes. I got into the patrol car. I tried to focus on the policeman, but Philip's face invaded my mind. Could you describe what happened? Yes. Even then something inside said: I can describe it. What I can't do is explain it. Outside the car, snow fell like soft feathers, sticking in some places, melting in others. When I tried to think of what I was going to do with Adele's T-bird, I would see the back of Philip's car, see the black smoke belching, see his forehead and cheeks sprayed with blood. The ambulance came. Paramedics splashed through the mud. Someone brought me a paper cup of coffee, told the cop the EMS guys had hooked the victim up to a machine to send telemetry down to a Denver hospital. A doctor had confirmed that Philip Miller was dead. Somebody from the coroner's office was on the way. Now a new policeman, a state patrolman, asked my name, the location of my vehicle, and if I was the one who had witnessed the accident from the other direction. When I made my answers he handed me a notebook and said to write down all I had seen. I wrote and passed it to him. While he was reading, someone rapped on the window of the patrol car. The patrolman, whose name tag said only Lowry, stepped out of the car. When he got back in he was grumbling. My head throbbed. "May I go now?" I asked. I was seized with a surge of panic, as I had been when one of Arch's classmates was killed in a school-bus accident two years before. I needed to see Arch, to be with him, to make sure he was okay. I said, "I need to get home. To my son." Where exactly was he, Lowry wanted to know, where was home? I dived into the muddle of my brain. Where was Arch now? At the school. He needed to get to the Farquhars. Yes, Lowry said, the police would phone and have Arch call home. Home. The word brought tears, finally, as if by mentioning one loss there could be grief for all others. Elizabeth, Elizabeth Miller, my voice was saying, someone needs to find Elizabeth, someone needs to tell her. And through my blubbering Lowry again extracted information and promised follow-up. I took a deep breath. Lowry said, "A friend of yours was up in this area and answered the call about the accident. He's from the Sheriff's Department, an investigator by the name of Tom Schulz. . .. He wanted to know if you were all right." "He answered the call?" "Didn't know you were in it till he got here. You want to see him or not?" "Yes," I said as tears stung my eyes again. "Please, I'd like to see Schulz." "Soon. About this accident. . ." said Lowry. I looked out the window, but could not see Tom Schulz through the crowd. The snow was coming down now in a slanted rush to the mountain meadow, like millions of tiny arrows shooting to earth. "Exactly how fast was the victim going," Lowry wanted to know. "It's on there," I said, and motioned to the pad. "About forty." The speed limit was thirty on that road, but you could do forty on most of the straight stretches if you were careful. Which was not, of course, what Philip Miller had been. "You see," I said, "it was more the way he was driving." "And the way he was driving was. . ." "Zigzag. As if he didn't have control of the car." Lowry narrowed his eyes at me. "So what did you think?" I shook my head and mumbled something about not knowing. "Maybe car trouble," I said. "Why didn't he pullover?" "I don't know. That's what I can't figure out." Then we had to go back to the beginning, how I had been catering the brunch where Philip had been a guest who had arrived late. Officer Lowry said, "Why was he late, do you know?" "He'd just had an appointment. Medical, I think." "Something wrong with him?" I shrugged. "Did he mention his car?" "No." "Did he smell like anything?" I squinted at Lowry. "Like alcohol, for instance," he said. "No." "Did he act at all strange?" "Well, he. . ." I reflected and moved uncomfortably in the vinyl seat. Had he acted strange? I said, "He hadn't had breakfast. . . he was hungry. And he wanted to see me, that's why I was following him. We were going to have coffee over by his office." "At this brunch, what did he eat?" I told him. "Do you know if they reached his sister – " Lowry said, "The chief deputy coroner's already on the way to the school to find the sister. This won't take too much longer." I was aware of the policeman's after-shave, of the camphor-scented blanket around my shoulders, of the squeaking noise the front seat made when Lowry turned around to face me. All these made my stomach turn over. I wanted to be where the things and people were familiar. To check on Arch. Ahead of us, the county coroner's van carrying Philip Miller pulled out slowly onto Highway 24. There were no blinking lights. There was no siren. "You were telling me what he ate," prodded Lowry. "I need to know what he drank, too." “I've told you all saw him eat. He may have had some juice or coffee, I don't know." "Did he complain of stomach or headache, fever, dizziness, chest pain, anything like that?" "No." "Okay," said Lowry. He asked about how to reach me and said someone might call later. I gave him the Farquhars' address on Sam Snead Lane in the Meadowview area of Aspen Meadow Country Club. I started to get out of the car, then said, "I just don't think I've conveyed to you how weird this accident was. An hour ago he was fine. He drove like a maniac into town and now he's dead. Doesn't that seem odd to you?" Lowry looked at me. He said, "Sometimes when something's wrong, or when somebody's drunk, say, they just speed up. They think, I won't stop, I'll just get where I'm going and then everything will be okay." "But it was so . . . strange." His jowls trembled when he shook his head. He said, "A lot of car accidents look strange, lady."

Investigator Tom Schulz was talking with a short, big-bellied red-haired man when I walked up. He gave me a sympathetic look and said, "You okay?” I nodded. He made an introductory wave with one large hand. "This is one of the coroner's deputies." "I just got here," the man mumbled to Schulz. "This guy a crispy critter or what?" I stared at the red-haired man and then lunged for him. Somebody started shrieking, "You bastard, you – '” "Whoa, Goldy, whoa," said Schulz as he deftly grabbed me around the middle. "He didn't mean any thing." But the red- haired man looked at Schulz, who must have given him a Get Lost look. He mumbled, "Catch you later, Schulz," and slunk off. Tom Schulz gently turned me around and held me against his big body. He arranged the blanket over my head, then held me out to make sure I was all right. Tom Schulz could use his size to threaten those whom he did not trust. He could transform the broad expanses of his handsome face into a scowl, a smirk, or impassive flatness. But now his green eyes were full of worry, now his jaunty sand-colored eyebrows were drawn into an anxious line. He pulled me in for a hug. I closed my eyes and let his warmth envelop me. He said, "I thought you said you were all right." "Not if I have to listen to some idiot." "Sorry about that. You work for the coroner, you gotta keep the distance." We got into his car, a nondescript Chrysler you would expect a cop to drive. I looked down at my shoes. They were soaked, splotched with melting snow and mud. I turned to him and heard my voice waver. "A friend of mine just died." Schulz turned and looked at me. He offered his hand, which I took and held. It was warm and fleshy and completely enclosed mine. After a moment, he pulled his hand away and leaned over to fasten my seat belt. "Okay, Miss G., let's get you back to your new place. You'll have to give me directions, seeing as how I've never been there." I told him to drive to the club area. I did not look at the crumpled BMW as we inched past. We traveled in silence. The snow stopped almost as suddenly as it had begun: June in the high country. The clouds, which were low, began to lift from the ground and part in wisps over the hills of Elk Park and Aspen Meadow. Sunlight made occasional passes across the meadow, turning it to glitter. "Daylight," said Schulz. "One P.M., 'bout time." I struggled under the seat belt to untangle my purse, which I had miraculously remembered, then rummaged around for sunglasses. Halfway through my search I forgot what I was looking for. I took a deep breath and threw the purse on the floor. Tom Schulz said, "You want to talk about this accident?" I gave him the briefest possible account of what had happened. "You said Philip Miller was a friend of yours?" "We'd gone to school together. C.U." We drove without speaking. Into the silence I said, “I was going out with Philip Miller." More silence. Then Schulz said, "What's your ex husband up to these days?" I sniffed, looked out the window. "Last month he was bugging me, driving by a lot. Making hang-up calls, inventing legal problems. I was afraid he might get drunk, come over, and give me some trouble. That's why I took this job. The Farquhars' house has a lot of alarms." "Does he still see Arch?" I nodded and looked at my nails. They looked very strange. I did not want to talk about this subject and said so. “Just tell me this," Schulz said as he looked over at me. "Did Korman know where you were going this morning?" I couldn't think. I said, "I don't know. He wasn't at the brunch, although I thought he might put in an appearance." Silence again filled the car. We passed the stone walls with the wood-carved sign, ASPEN MEADOW COUNTRY CLUB. The phone wires would heat up quickly in the club area, because Philip Miller was, or had been, a resident. The post-accident daze clung to me like a blanket. Scenes from the last hour intruded on my consciousness: the curves of the road, the feel of the accelerator beneath my foot. Philip. "I'm up here because some weird guy phoned," Schulz was saying. With great effort I turned to listen. He mused silently for a moment before he said, "Call comes in and the guy gets out two sentences before he hangs up. He says, You gotta come help me, I live up by Aspen Meadow Country Club. You gotta come help me, my life's in danger. Click."

5 I sighed. I said, "That's just great. Did you get a number, anything?" "Anytime you call 911, we've automatically got it. Problem is, the guy called from the clubhouse. It could be any number of extensions. They sent a car over, and nothing suspicious was going on. Anyway. I'm going there to check after I leave you off. Someone at home at this house where we're going, by the way?" "I don't know. Probably." "You got a house key?" I was so out of it I couldn't remember. And then I remembered they were in the Thunderbird. I said, "No, keys" "Guess it's good I turned up, huh?" I didn't answer. In the distance the golf course was a pastiche of soaked green and ice white. The snow was melting quickly, and golf carts were starting their buglike crawl up the paved path. For some reason, this struck me as insanity. How could people play golf today? How could they just go on? I moaned. Schulz reached over, lifted my left hand from my lap, and held it. He said, "Need me to pull over?" I nodded and he did. I opened the door and was sick. When I had wiped my mouth with tissues he discreetly handed over, I said, "I'm sorry. I'm so embarrassed." "Don't worry about it. Let's just get you to this place." I closed my eyes and mumbled the directions to Sam Snead Lane, a dead end. When I felt a little better I looked out again at the greens, but then changed my mind. Better just to focus on the inside of the car for a while. "I wonder if they asked these guys if they could use their names," said Schulz. I ventured a glance out. Schulz wrinkled his nose as he started down Arnold Palmer Avenue. I told him in a voice that still did not sound like mine that it had been the developer's idea to make up for the loss of a second eighteen holes by naming the streets after famous golfers. Schulz shook his head. "No second golf course, but a dry sailing club. Houses here look like boats. Great big yachts tied up on the grass." I looked out at the pale gray and tan mini-mansions sailing past. While the other houses in Aspen Meadow were generally stained dark tones of rustic green and rustic brown, here the palette was light. The magnificent dwellings were indeed like ships made of pale wood and glass; they perched on waves of mountain grass rolling down from the tops of the surrounding hills. Schulz squinted, rocked the car left onto Sam Snead Lane, then veered right into the Farquhars' cul-de-sac. The tall and expansive pearl-gray Victorian stood on the highest wave of grass. The house's brilliant white trim shimmered in the sudden sunlight. "Code, Miss G.?" asked Schulz as we arrived at the security gate guarding the fence to the Farquhars' two acres. I stared at the closed-circuit camera and the panel of buttons. After a moment I remembered the code and told him what buttons to press. On the porch Schulz pushed the lit doorbell. Inside, the chimes echoed plaintively. General Farquhar's voice boomed Yes? over the intercom. "General," I said, "there's been an accident. I'm here with a policeman. I don't have my keys." "Just a moment," cracked the voice. "Nice security system," said Schulz. "You living in a separate part of the house?" I said, "Sort of. We have two rooms on the third floor, with our own back staircase to the kitchen and pool." "A pool in this climate? Amazing." "Heated. Adele has a herniated disc at her fourth lumbar vertebra, as well as degenerative arthritis. She has to swim every day." “Or ice-skate, said Schulz. There was a clicking behind the door: General Bo Farquhar was preparing to meet the world. "Yes?" His sharp features were pinched In puzzlement at the presence of Schulz. "Please," he said again when he recognized me, "please come in," and he pulled the door open. "I remember this guy from the news," Schulz whispered to me. I shook my head at him and warned with my eyes, Not now. "Are you all right, Goldy?" the general barked. I took a deep breath and nodded into the demanding gaze of the general's pale blue eyes. General Bo Farquhar's eyes weren't just light blue, they were almost colorless, like his white skin and cropped-close white-blond hair. He towered over me, holding himself as erect as he had in the West Point class of 1960. General Bo Farquhar was not handsome. His lips were too thin, his chin too prominent, his nose too long. But he had the kind of effortless charisma that people pay thousands of dollars to get from image-development corporations. And don't think he didn't know it. "Quite a system you've got here," said Schulz after introductions. "All you need is one ambush," said the general, with a grim smile. "What happened?" he asked. I motioned toward the living room. The general started to lead us in that direction, then turned and said, "You all go in and sit down. I'll get some coffee. Brandy, too," he said as an afterthought. Then he pivoted and disappeared across the dining room's Oriental rug, a lilac-and- salmon-colored Kirman. We settled into the pink and green ocean of a living room adjoining the foyer. I sat on one of the two rose-colored couches; Schulz lowered himself uncomfortably into one of the pale green damask wing chairs. Another Kirman, this one in hues of pink and green, floated beneath us, while on the walls green and pink fans and dried floral wreaths vied with neo-Renoir oils. Schulz said, "Guy seems awful young for a general. Refresh my memory." "He was the army's ranking man in studying terrorists. Methods and materials," I said in a low voice. "But nobody told him to share his know-how with the Afghanis. He just did it. He had to retire, sort of a compromise. He still researches and writes about terrorists. My bet is he's trying to regain the respect of the Pentagon crowd. He is a little odd," I added. "Uh-huh," said Schulz as he gazed at the shelves on either side of the fireplace. "Look at that." He pointed to the Farquhars' stereo. "Motion detector." I looked, but saw only a small red light on the side of one of the speakers. I knew how to turn off each of the four loops of the security system; that was the extent of my knowledge. Schulz halted his visual inspection long enough to finger a piece of fudge on the coffee table. "Okay if I have one of these?" "Sure." The last thing I wanted to think about was food. As an afterthought, I said, "I didn't make them." And then I remembered with sudden pain the golden balloons from Philip, which he'd brought with a box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates. Schulz eyed the fudge skeptically. "Does that mean they're not very good?" "It just means I didn't make them. Julian Teller did. Resident teenager whose father owns a candy shop. Julian's one of Mrs. Farquhar's people projects, sort of like Arch and me." Schulz chewed and said, "Not bad." Then he winked at me. "Not as good as yours, though." I nodded, uncaring. Fatigue was creeping up my legs like cold water. There was a knot in my stomach. The sight of Philip was coming back. "I feel light-headed," I whispered to Schulz. He nodded sympathetically. "Here we go," said General Bo as he strode in with a silver tray. "Brandy and coffee." "General Farquhar," I said after clearing my throat, "I tried to help the person who was killed. His name was . . . Philip Miller. I'm sorry, I . . . ran the T-bird into a utility pole." "Philip Miller." The general looked at me with disbelief. "Julian's shrink?" "Yes," I said, although I had not known this. "And my friend." The general frowned. "Jesus." He handed me a brandy snifter. "Unbelievable. How did it happen?" During my retelling of the accident story, the general shook his head just perceptibly with each detail, as if I were a subordinate commanding officer who had let a battle get out of hand. When I came to the part about the Thunderbird, he asked for its location so he could call to have it towed. And where were the keys? He would pick them up later, as they contained a house key. "Has Arch called?" I asked. The general lifted one eyebrow above his pale blue gaze. "Yes. He was only told he needed a ride home, he didn't know about any of this. . ." He tilted his head, and I felt myself drawn into the deep furrows of his forehead. "Goldy. Don't worry about anything. I have some work to do here, but I'll pick up those keys and check on the car when I go over to the school later. Adele's volunteered me to work at the pool site." His look turned paternal. "Go upstairs and rest now. One of us will bring your son home." And then he rose, as if to dismiss us. I drained my brandy, even though I didn't want it. I wanted to sleep. When no one moved, General Bo said regretfully, "Putting in the garden today," as if he had to leave momentarily for a meeting with the Joint Chiefs. He rocked forward on the balls of his new high-top sneakers and opened his eyes wide at me. Oh, God! I jumped up. Putting in the garden! "You have to go, you have to go," I insisted to Schulz. Schulz did not move. Perched on the absurdly fragile pale green chair, he eyed me and then the general. "Nothing so busy as retirement," he said solicitously. I grabbed Schulz's hand and tugged. "You don't understand, this is really big, he's doing some – " "Actually," the general said with great seriousness and a glance at his watch, "what I'm working on is killing two birds with one stone." "Investigator Schulz," I said in my most pleading voice, "it is imperative that we both leave immediately. Like now." Schulz looked at me as if I were crazy. He said nothing and did not move. "You see," the general was saying blandly, "my field is terrorist technique." Schulz mm-hmmed as the general glanced at his watch. "How much time, how much time?" I demanded. The general frowned. He said, "T minus two, I'm afraid." Then abruptly, to Schulz, he said, "I'm going to have to ask you to leave." This was not the time for something about the general to attract Schulz's attention. I knew the homicide investigator well enough to see a slight straightening of the spine, a narrowing of the eyes. Some other time, I begged mentally to Schulz, some other time! My eyes darted around the pink and green living room. White pillows dotted the floral landscape like marshmallows that suddenly swam as I struggled to concentrate. T minus two. . . where should we go? "Get up," I said sharply to Schulz as I pulled now on both of his big hands. "Get up, you have to go, we have to get out of here." Finally, Schulz heaved himself out of his chair. I glanced at the general. He was looking anxiously out the window, his forehead again wrinkled, this time in alarm. An explosion shook the house. "Damn!" yelled the general as he dashed out. I lost my balance and fell to my knees. Schulz grabbed his chair. Dust and smoke rose before the living-room windows. A Waterford vase on the mantel teetered and fell. The boom reverberated in my ears. "What the hell was that?" Schulz shouted. I straightened up and gazed at him. I said, "I tried to warn you. You wouldn't listen. That was Putting in the Garden. Terrorist technique."

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