It was getting on to seven o'clock. Still, this was very worrisome and I had to call Tom. Unfortunately, I'd left my cell phone in the van. I asked Cinda for her phone; she hoisted one to the counter. Quickly, I pressed the button for a Denver line and dialed first our home number, then our business line. Tom must have left early: Both calls netted answering machines. I pressed buttons for his sheriff's department line and left a voice-mail asking Tom to call Cinda Caldwell about a threat to a policeman. Hanging up, I rummaged through my backpack full of culinary tools, pulled out my dog-eared wallet, and extracted one of Tom's cards. "Call this number in thirty minutes, Cinda. Tell Tom everything you told me. Thirty minutes. Promise?"

She looked at me uncertainly. She took the card and fingered it cautiously, and I could imagine her telling Tom, Goldy told me to call you, it's probably nothing, but she figured it might be kinda important-

I put my mittens back on. "Need to hop. They're doing our show live today. It's a fund-raiser dedicated to Nate Bullock, remember him?"

Still staring at the card, she nodded her rainbow-pink head. "Sure. The TV tracker dude."

"I'm doing Mexican egg rolls. Crab cakes. Gingersnaps."

Now she looked at me, perplexed. "I'll try to catch it. But you know my customers would rather see an extreme ski video than a cooking show." She shrugged.

I finished the roll-flaky, buttery, and spicy-sweet - polished off the coffee in two greedy swallows, and thanked her again.

When I ducked out of the warm shop, another fiercely cold wind struck me broadside. I struggled past the brilliantly lit facade of the Killdeer Art Gallery. In the Christmas-plaid-draped front window, black-and-white photos of backlit snowboarders making daring leaps off cliffs vied with garish, romantic oils of Native Americans beside tipis. A third of the window was devoted to watercolors of mountain villas. Just visible behind these were collages made up of images of ski equipment. When Coloradans enthused over Western Art, they weren't talking about Michelangelo. The last shop on the row was Furs for the Famous. Ah, fame. Fame was much desired by the hoi polloi, much despised by celebrities, much avoided by the infamous. As I clomped back down the steps toward the gondola, fueled by Cinda's rich coffee, I reflected that I had no use for fame. Doing a gourmet cooking show had spawned neither gourmet cooks nor ardent fans. But complainers – who wrote and called and stopped me in the grocery store to ask if they could substitute margarine for butter, powdery dried muck for fresh imported Parmesan, and blocks of generic je-ne-sais-quoi; for expen- sive dark chocolate-these I had in abundance. Tom had given me an early Christmas present: a T-shirt silk-screened with: DON'T ASK. DON'T SUBSTITUTE.

And speaking of Tom, being married to a police investigator had also brought me recognition, as Cinda's question demonstrated. Sometimes I felt like the pastor's wife who is told of incest in a church family. Nobody wants to bother the pastor with it, right? Somebody's sending a poisoned letter to a cop? Don't bother the cop! Let Goldy handle it.