Killer Pancake

Startled, he dropped the shell bits he was holding. I apologized and helped him wipe them off the floor. By the time he straightened up, he had assumed his normal end-of-the-day relaxed look. Still, I was taken aback. In the two months that we’d been married, I’d never seen him look agonized. Until now. Despite his disclaimers to the contrary, the job did take its toll, after all.

He forced a wide grin. “Hey there, Miss G.”

“What’s wrong?”

“No more than usual.” He rinsed his hands and dried them on a dish towel “Julian’s okay, he just needs to rest. I think he’s asleep. Did you get in to see Marla?”

I hugged him briefly and murmured that I had. Which reminded me. I phoned the St. Luke’s answering machine and left a brief message about Marla’s condition, then left another message for a woman in the parish who had once hired a private nurse. Did she have any recommendations? I asked her tape. Then I washed my hands and glanced at the recipe before retrieving some fresh garlic. Alas, the Jerk had carried off my knives somewhere.

“Marla was very angry. Claimed she hadn’t had a heart attack,” I commented over my shoulder as I looked around the dining room for my knifeblock. This seldom-used space was a monument to my former life as a doctor’s wife. It looked like a furniture store. I’d bought the solid cherry buffet, hutch, and dining room suite right after my first wedding. Then I’d feverishly crocheted an enormous tablecloth and undertaken the tiresome needlepointing of floral covers for the chair seats. I should have been taking a karate class. Better yet, shooting lessons. I hefted up the knifeblock from the table and brought it back to the kitchen.

“I’m guessing Marla will be home at the beginning of next week,” I told Tom as I sniffed a clove of garlic. The garlic was fresh and juicy; its pungent smell filled the air. I told Tom what the cardiologist had told me about Marla’s condition and her upcoming angiogram and potential atherectomy. “I’m going to go in and see her every day,” I added defiantly as I minced. But of course Tom wouldn’t be jealous if I made a daily visit to a friend. I shook my head and reached for another clove of garlic. Old reactions died harder than I thought.

Tom turned back to his recipe card and abruptly changed the subject. “How did Korman get through the security system?”

“Look, it was a fluke … I was in the middle of undoing the dead bolt, and the phone rang, and he hollered that there was some bad news … and before I knew it, he was right beside me … I just wasn’t careful.”

“Are you all right?” He glanced up from the recipe card, his mouth in a thin line.

When I said I was, he frowned disbelievingly.

“Sorry,” I amended, “it won’t happen again.” And there went my summer breeze through the unsecured upstairs windows, I thought. “What did the hospital say about Julian? Is there any special treatment?”

He dropped ingredients into the melted butter. The delectable scent of crabmeat and garlic rose from the pan. “He just needs to rest. We probably shouldn’t talk about the accident around him. Not just yet, anyway, although we’ll have to eventually.” He reached for a wooden spoon and stirred in flour to make a roux.

“Why not talk to him about it? And why will you have to eventually?”

Tom exhaled deeply. “Goldy, he looked god-awful coming home from the hospital. I just don’t want to upset him anymore. He cried off and on all the way up the interstate. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that kid in tears.”

“Maybe if he talks about it he’ll feel better.”

Tom stopped stirring and gave me a half-grin. “Well, Miss Psych Major, I know that’s true. But we’ve got a lot of unknowns right now, and I’m not sure Julian should hear about them just yet.”

“Unknowns?”

He whisked broth into the sauce, set it to simmer, and then trundled over to the walk-in refrigerator. A moment later he emerged with two bottles of carbonated apple cider, one of Arch’s favorites. He opened a bottle and poured us each a glass full of spritzy gold bubbles. The icy drink was heavenly after the heat of the day.

Tom said, “This mess with Claire Satterfield looks real bad. I’m going to be tied up with it for the foreseeable future.”

“But I thought the state patrol handled traffic accidents—”

“It wasn’t an accident,” he said curtly. He drained his glass. His deep green eyes regarded me grimly. “The patrolman and I saw acceleration marks on the garage floor. They’re very different from deceleration marks. That’s what you get when somebody’s trying to stop.”

“You mean you can—wait! Acceleration? Somebody saw her? Somebody saw her and … sped up? Oh, my Lord—”