Killer Pancake

Babs turned around again in her white leather chair. Her eyes didn’t have any makeup on them yet, but they still bored into me. “Was Julian going steady with Claire Satterfield?” she asked icily.

“Going steady?” I asked. Now, there was a term I hadn’t heard in a long time. “You mean, were they seeing each other to the exclusion of all others?”

“Whatever.” Babs’s voice was scathing. Her eyes never left my face.

“Yes, Babs, I think they were going steady. Now, if you’ll pardon me, I do need to get back down to the kitchen if you want to have your party tonight.”

Without another word Babs turned back to the mirror. Harriet gave me a quick sympathetic glance. Actually, I felt sorrier for her than she did for me. If it was up to me to make Babs Braithwaite beautiful on a regular basis, I’d find some new line of work.

Within twenty minutes, Harriet Wells had finished her makeup miracle and departed. While Julian busied himself shelling the shrimp—he dared not look at me—I stared at the menu Tom had written up and some Denver chef had assembled the ingredients for:Fourth of July Ethnic Celebration

Cucumber Gazpacho

Grilled Focaccia with Garlic

Shrimp Risotto with Portobello Mushrooms

Caesar Salad

Vanilla-Frosted Fudge Cookies

Well, now, wasn’t that nice. I noted that Tom had had the chef make a batch of the fudge cookies from my recipe. Maybe his hired cook used the kitchen down at the sheriff’s department. I could imagine Tom insisting he had done the right thing. The bowl of dark red gazpacho, thick with chunks of cucumber, was snuggled next to nuggets of focaccia dough. Once I’d patted the dough out into satiny rounds, brushed them with olive oil, and inserted slivers of garlic at judicious intervals, Julian showed me where in the Braithwaites’ three refrigerators he’d found spots to chill the other courses. The first kitchen cooler was devoted to food, the second to liquor, the third to flowers. While I was working on the focaccia, he’d sandwiched the gazpacho between bottles of Vouvray and wedged the salad underneath a bowl of roses. On the deck off the kitchen he had also lit off the gas grill without incident. Soon the focaccia loaves were sizzling merrily and sending up clouds of succulent smoke.

I looked out at Aspen Meadow Lake and wondered if Tom was feeling even remotely remorseful for sneaking around getting food switched on me. Despite my anger over what he’d done, I felt a pang from missing him on the holiday. Although I’d never thought the Fourth of July was very romantic, a little candlelit dinner around one A.M. would have been nice … once we’d had our argument about the food and the investigation and done some delicious making-up. Then I thought about Marla. I hoped she was resting comfortably, and not worrying about Tony Royce. And then there was Julian, who’d had great plans to take a nighttime picnic to the lake tonight after he’d helped me set up for the Braithwaites. He and Claire had planned to watch the fireworks together. I searched his face for a sign of what he was thinking, but he was inscrutable.

Now that we both knew the layout of the house and kitchen, we quickly discussed how we would orchestrate cooking and serving. When the guests began pulling up in their Porsches and Miatas, we were trying to remove the last focaccia loaf without burning our fingers. Suddenly, I saw Charles Braithwaite, his white-blond hair shimmering in the late afternoon sun as he trudged up from his greenhouse. His face was downcast. With no obvious enthusiasm he removed his gloves and headed for the living-room side of the house.

“Guess he’s not really a party kind of guy,” Julian observed.

I tsked. “With us catering his Fourth? Crazy. Look out, I need you to grab the other side of the platter so that the loaves don’t go skittering off the deck.” He did so and I added, “Gotta say, Big J., I think Charlie-baby is more than a little crazy, anyway.”

“No, no, he’s not,” said Julian defensively as the tray of fragrant grilled loaves teetered between us, “he’s a good guy. I told you the time he had our senior bio class over to look at how he does genetic engineering. It was cool. Like a spy mission.” Julian smiled wryly through the plumes of garlic-scented barbecue smoke.

“Great.” I looked back, but Charles had disappeared through a side door. The last thing I was going to do was mention to Julian that not only had Charlie been obsessed with secrecy; he’d gone mad over Claire Satterfield. “Better arrange the soup, we should be serving it in half an hour.”

“O captain, my captain, wherefore art thou, my captain?” Julian said as he did as directed. I lifted the platters of bread and tried not to smile. He bowed in my direction and doffed a pretend hat Maybe he would recover. Maybe he was just acting.