Dark Tort Part 22

"No, no, no." I patted her back.

Sally had raised her fatigued eyes to me. "Should I have told him about the paintings you took out of my father's room?"

"Absolutely not. No way. Not now, not ever. Don't talk about them with anybody except the cops."

"Have you made any more progress in your investigation?" When I shook my head, she said, "Was he accusing Dusty of stealing? Is that why she was killed?"

"I don't know," I said truthfully.

"The police called and said they've arrested the woman who manages the H&J office."

"I know they have."

"Do you think this woman strangled my Dusty?"

"Actually, I'm not sure. But listen, Sally, I want to warn you about Richard, or anybody else, who comes over to your house. Would you consider staying with us for a while?"

"No! I'm not being forced out of my home, not after everything else we've been through."

"Would you please, please keep your doors and windows locked, then? And if anything strange or suspicious occurs, you need to call the sheriff's department right away."

But Sally didn't want to talk anymore. She let out another sob and covered her mouth. Then she turned and dashed back across the street, overcome with tears.

"Dammit to h.e.l.l, anyway," I said in a low voice.

"d.a.m.n what to h.e.l.l?" a woman's voice demanded, startling me. I turned to the sidewalk, where a tall, tan, slender woman, her short white hair fluffing out all around her head, her white eyebrows raised expectantly, approached me.

"You could hear me out there?" I asked, stunned.

Her arms pumped enthusiastically as she made short shrift of her sidewalk. "I work with the deaf," she explained. "I read lips."

"You could see my lips from out there?"

"Just call me Superwoman." She took off a glove and grasped my hand. "Grace Mannheim. You must be Goldy." Her cheeks were pink, her eyes a very dark blue. She wore a no-nonsense gray sweats.h.i.+rt and the athletic type of walking shoes I'm always telling myself to get. "How about some spiced tea?" When I said yes, thanks, the smile in her elfin face brightened even more.

"How 'bout you put some of that super-lipreading powder in my tea," I said, as she held the white painted door open for me. I walked down an immaculately clean wood-floored hallway almost bare of furniture. Was Grace Mannheim poor, or did she just like the spare look? Once I was in her sunny yellow kitchen, with its high ceilings and yellow painted cabinets, I decided on the latter. She was still laughing at my superpowder comment.

"My neighbors claim I work for the CIA, my lipreading is that good." She dropped tea bags into a pair of mugs, picked up an electric kettle, and filled them with steaming water. "That's just Boulder paranoia. The garbage people moved to smaller trucks, and everyone insisted the trucks were really police vans with advanced listening devices. No matter how many times the waste folks said it was because everyone was recycling, and there wasn't as much trash as before, it did no good. But don't try to tell left-wingers the government isn't keeping track of them, or it'll destroy their reason for living." She placed the mugs on a tray that already held a plate of what looked like homemade chocolate-chip cookies.

"You shouldn't have gone to so much trouble," I said, feeling apologetic.

"Let's go back to the porch," she said, lifting the tray and indicating the front of the house with her chin.

Once we were settled on wicker rocking chairs on the porch, I thanked her again for the tea and cookies, and got to the matter at hand. "As I told you on the phone, I'm wondering if you could tell me more about your cousin Althea."

Grace Mannheim's face turned solemn. "You're not really wondering about her, are you? I mean, since you're from Aspen Meadow, I'm a.s.suming you want to know about the accident."

I frowned. "Yes. I could read the police report, of course, but I pretty much know what that's going to say, since the accident was covered in our local paper. Hit-and-run, right?"

"Yes."

"And they never found the driver."

Grace Mannheim fiddled with her teaspoon. "No." Her voice had turned soft. "No, they didn't."

"Did she tell you why she came to visit Aspen Meadow?"

"She was going to an art show. Which I thought was odd, since my cousin did not collect art."

"Do you know why she was going to the art show?"

Grace sighed. "All she would tell me was that she wanted, and I'm quoting here, 'to make sure right was done.'"

I said, "She didn't give you any hint as to what that meant?"

Grace shook her head. "Althea was not the gossiping type."

"I'm not meaning to gossip," I replied, then reminded myself to keep the heat out of my voice. "A young friend of mine was killed. A neighbor. A member of the church," I added, in the event that would help my case. I could hear Tom's voice inside my head: You have no shame. As delicately as possible, I said, "It's possible that the person who mowed down your cousin killed my young friend."

Grace's voice turned mildly sarcastic. "Then surely the police should be coming to visit me."

Don't call me s.h.i.+rley, my brain mocked, but I said only, "It's more a hunch of mine. The cops in Furman County are very shorthanded-well, not really-"

"So they've asked a young married caterer to help them with their case? What does your son say?"

"My son?" I asked, bewildered. Maybe this woman didn't work for the CIA, but who was she, Daughter of Sherlock Holmes? "You know I'm a caterer? Married? With a kid? How?"

Grace Mannheim laughed. "I'm a walker, as I told you. You called and asked if you could see me, and I said yes. But I'd already finished my P.M. const.i.tutional, and I just kept walking until you arrived. I came up behind your van. I know every vehicle on this street, and 'Goldilocks' Catering, Where Everything Is Just Right' is not one of them. You wear a wedding ring, and your van has two b.u.mper stickers: 'My Son Is an Honor Student at CBHS.' That's the proud mama's sticker. The other one? 'Give Blood, Play Lacrosse!' I would venture that one is your son's. How am I doing so far?"

"You should be investigating the death of Dusty Routt, not me."

"Ah, so your neighbor was Dusty Routt, a member of your church? And you're an Episcopalian, too?"

"You're going to have to show me where you keep that crystal ball of yours," I said, with true admiration.

She smiled, pleased. "I play Colorado Women's Senior Softball with Meg Blatchford. I also give to Habitat for Humanity, and Meg has told me about the family, the Routts, that St. Luke's helped support through that program. I don't know them, though. I am sorry your young friend is the victim in this case."

"Sounds as if the Furman County Sheriff's Department could use your help, though."

"The Boulder Police Department could use my help," she said, her voice taking on that withering sarcasm again.

Let's not go there, I thought, and then was thankful that my cell phone started ringing. Grace waved that I should go ahead. It was Julian.

"Are you coming to get me, boss? Or should I take the bus to Aspen Meadow? I might get there sooner."

"Sorry, sorry, I'll be there."

"So did the lady help?"

"Yeah, she's great. We're almost done."

"I'm getting old here."

"Ten minutes."

Julian groaned.

"Well, someone wants you," Grace said. "I'm afraid I haven't been very helpful."

"Actually, your cousin might have known that young man who just called. His name is Julian, and he's an Episcopalian from Utah, too. Sorry, maybe not. I know it's a big state. A very big state. But not with too many Episcopalians, right? Anyway, Julian was involved in the church there, in Bluff."

Grace brightened again. "Is he Navajo?"

"No, but he spent a lot of time with them when he was growing up. Much to our son's amazement, Julian can speak Navajo, too, the way the code talkers did in the Pacific during World War Two."

"Goodness me."

Neither one of us moved. Grace seemed to share my disappointment at not being able to give me more substantial information.

Finally I said, "There isn't anyone up here, or in Utah, who would know more about what your cousin was doing in Boulder, so far away from home?"

Grace's head made a quick shake. "Believe me, I wanted to know. She hadn't told me, which was frustrating, and when she was killed, I went down to southern Utah, where she lived. Of course, I had to sell her house and dispose of her effects, but I also wanted to see if there was anyone who could shed light on the purpose of her trip. There was only one woman at St. Stephen's who seemed to know something, but when I pressed her on it, she said, 'I'm not allowed to talk about it.'"

"Talk about what?"

"That's what's so frustrating; I don't know. There was no journal, no diary, there were no notes, nothing that Althea had left that would indicate why she would think she had to go to an art show to make sure right was done."

I pulled a pad from my purse. "Could you give me that woman's name? It's a long shot, but my husband is a homicide investigator with Furman County, and he might be able to get the cops down there to ask her a few questions."

"Frederica Tuller." It was the first time I'd heard any bitterness in Grace's voice.

I exhaled heavily. "You went through all your cousin's stuff." It was more a statement than a question, but I was just making sure.

Grace canted her head to one side. "She'd specified that all of her clothing be donated. I went through every pocket. She gave me her small amount of furniture. I checked every drawer. There was nothing."

Dammit to h.e.l.l, indeed.

"When I got back home, her suitcase was still here. That's the one thing I didn't donate. I gave the clothes away and threw out most of the odds and ends-you know, tissues, candy."

Still feeling dispirited, I did manage to say "Most?"

Grace's smile was wan. "My cousin loved magazines. There were five of them in her suitcase, can you imagine? I told her she'd rupture a disk in her back carrying such a heavy load, and she told me she liked having reading material on trips, even if I disapproved. I told her I didn't disapprove, but I pointed out that she hardly ever traveled, and these days, you can get Woman's Day and Family Circle almost everywhere. That's when she said I should mind my own business. But she said it in a nice way. That was the way she was. She said I could throw her reading material away as soon as she was done with it; she'd just buy more at the airport. She knows-she knew-I'm not a pack rat. Far from it, I like clear s.p.a.ces." Grace sighed. "Really, though, I haven't had the heart to throw those magazines away."

My cell rang again: the caller ID said it was Julian. I threw the phone back in my purse.

Grace frowned. "Your young man is impatient. Shall I get you the magazines? You can take them home if you want. In fact, you can toss them-"

"I wouldn't dream of it," I interrupted, although I couldn't imagine how women's magazines would help the investigation. "Thank you. I'll mail them back to you, I promise."

She disappeared, and I considered calling Julian and bawling him out. But a moment later, Grace pushed through her screen door holding an old grocery bag. "Thank you for being willing to send them back. I don't think of myself as sentimental, but I guess I am."

I stood up and took the bag. Then I hugged her. It was the second time that day that I'd embraced someone who'd lost a beloved relative, and I didn't particularly like the way it made me feel.

Once I was back in my van, my cell phone began ringing again. What was with Julian, anyway? We had no catering events that night, we weren't going into H&J in the morning, and we would have plenty of time to prep the food for the next night's dinner when we got home. I resolved to give him a good ribbing as soon as I picked him up.

Feeling perverse, I reached into Grace Mannheim's grocery sack and pulled out her cousin's magazines. Family Circle. Oprah. People. Woman's Day. And The Living Church, the national magazine of the Episcopal Church. I held each one up and shook it, but no paper with Althea's reason for attending Charlie Baker's last show fluttered out. Feeling desperate, I looked for dog-eared pages, too, and in the first four, there were none.

The Living Church did have a dog-eared article, however, and I flipped to it and began to read.

My cell phone began its incessant ringing again. But I didn't answer it. I couldn't. I thought my heart had stopped.

CHAPTER 18.

The article, from February of this year, was ent.i.tled "The Gift That Gives Forever." There was a picture of a wan and clearly weakened Charlie Baker, his brave smile a tiny line within his moon face. The article talked about the unusual aspects of Charlie Baker's will. Since Mr. Baker, as the magazine deferentially referred to him, had been an orphan raised by the Christian Brothers, he was bequeathing half of his total estate to the Christian Brothers High School. The other half of Mr. Baker's considerable fortune would be used to build and operate a retreat house for clergy, tentatively named the Mountain Pastoral Center. Buried at the end of the article was the following sentence, which Althea Mannheim had underlined: "Charlie Baker has named retired bishop Uriah Sutherland, formerly of the Diocese of Southern Utah, to be director of the center in perpetuity, with a salary to match his responsibilities."

I had known that Uriah was helping set up the pastoral center and had continued the work after Charlie's death, and I had speculated that Charlie might have left his good friend something in his will. But I'd had no clue that Charlie was granting the bishop a sinecure post as part of his estate. Besides Charlie's lawyers, only Uriah and officials at the Diocese of Colorado would have been informed of the bequest. Since Charlie's will was still going through probate, Uriah could not yet officially take up his duties as director of the center, but it wasn't unusual for the diocese to issue a press release to record a gift that was coming. It makes the donor-the testamentary, if you want to get technical-happy to be celebrated for his munificence during his lifetime.

I didn't read The Living Church-I didn't have time-and apparently no one in Marla's gossip network did either, as we'd picked up no word of Uriah's windfall. Certainly, his position-to-be had not been publicized in Aspen Meadow. But in Utah, Althea Mannheim had seen the article about it, and had promptly traveled to Colorado and met with Charlie Baker. Which meant that she had indeed been talking about the bishop when she was dying in the Emergency Room. Suddenly the vague possibility of connections had become a live circuit.

So the question became, What specifically had Althea known about Uriah and imparted to Charlie? If Uriah had stolen something, as Althea seemed to claim, what was she accusing him of stealing? K.D. had thought Althea had muttered "a pattern." Hmm.

As Grace had pointed out, I was an Episcopalian, too, and a long-time one, at that. Plus, I was married to a cop. So I had all kinds of knowledge about the church and its liturgies, and unfortunately, I knew all too well about the valuable ecclesiastical stuff that could be filched. One time, Tom had prosecuted thieves who'd stolen a gold cross from St. Luke's. After that, Father Biesbrouck had been forced to lock up the church building at night. Another time, a shady husband of a member of the Altar Guild had purloined a jewel-encrusted chalice, and tried to p.a.w.n it.

But there was another item of potential value that someone could steal. I doubted that Bishop Uriah, aka b.i.t.c.h Yoreye, had pocketed a pattern. I conjectured-and maybe it was a leap, but not that much of one-that he'd pilfered a paten, the dish that holds the Communion wafers at the Eucharist.

If the bishop had stolen a paten, and if this had successfully been kept secret, could the bishop have stolen paintings, too?

Although I was trying to wean myself off of cell-phone usage while I was driving, I did put in a call to Tom. If it was possible that Bishop Uriah stole something, and delivering the news had had deadly consequences for Althea Mannheim, then it was time to get law enforcement to bring in Frederica Tuller, ASAP. Perhaps she could be scared into breaking whatever confidentiality she'd felt bound to keep, by hearing about what it meant to be a material witness after the fact.

When I'd given Tom an abbreviated version of my visit with Grace Mannheim and the article in The Living Church, he said he would get right on the phone with law enforcement in Utah. Meanwhile, he said, he was fixing Mexican food for us for dinner. And oh yes, the events planner with the Diocese of Colorado had called, and could we please prepare a separate vegetarian entree for tomorrow night? Two of the attorneys did not eat meat.

"Not at meals, anyway," I muttered, but Tom only laughed. I said we should be home in an hour.

"Finally!" Julian cried when he hopped in the car. "I've been wanting to tell you something. Whole Foods is having a special on organically raised chicken, and I thought you might want to pick some up for tomorrow night."

"We could do that, but you'll be delighted to know you were right. We do indeed need to come up with a vegetarian main dish for a couple of lawyers. And pick up some high-quality whipping cream, would you? We need a multilayered, show-stopping dessert. A dark torte."

Like Tom, Julian laughed. But at Whole Foods, I gave him free rein to choose ingredients to make whatever main dish he thought would suit the dinner. Then he got serious. And he appeared flattered.

A little over an hour later, we were all back in our kitchen, bustling around with our various projects. Arch and Gus were spending the night over at the Vikarioses' house. All weekend homework had been done, they'd a.s.sured Tom, and Gus's grandparents would take them to school the next morning. I certainly hoped the two boys would not get tired of each other, but Tom a.s.sured me that they had quite a few years to catch up on being brothers, and they were going to be just fine.

Julian announced he was going to come up with an Artichoke and Brie Pie for the next night. Once he'd decided on that, he concentrated on slicing Brie and lightly steaming artichokes. He filled a deep pie dish with the egg-laced melange, placed it in the oven, then hunted around our cupboards for some dried fruits. Once he'd found some glace apricots, he began melting dark bittersweet chocolate and unsalted b.u.t.ter over the stove and said he would have some Chocolate Lovers' Dipped Fruits ready to go with, as he disdainfully put it, "your showstopper."