Footprints in the Butter Read online

  “Okay. But why wasn’t your sign lettered Ben, Patty and Wylie?”

  “I told you. Wylie hated football. He’d never watch the game.”

  Even to my own ears, it sounded like a lame excuse.

  Hitchcock rolled over on his back and waved his paws like shaggy black pom-poms while Miller continued asking questions.

  Unofficially, of course.

  * * *

  Before he left, I questioned Miller. How did Wylie die? Where? Were there witnesses? Fingerprints? Clues?

  Miller wouldn’t give me any detailed information, but the ten o’clock news did. Wylie Jamestone, world-renowned artist, had been murdered inside a friend’s studio. The weapon was a small bronzed statue of Rodin’s The Thinker, rendered to Wylie’s bald pate. And the only witness was a calico cat.

  Wylie’s draped cadaver had already been conveyed to the morgue, so the TV cameras honed in on the bewildered puss. She had a name—Sinead O’Connor. And an owner—Kimberly O’Connor. Teenage Kim lived next door and had discovered Wylie’s body while searching for her cat. The cat was finally located in Wylie’s studio, standing next to a bowl of spilled milk. No, Kim didn’t faint or scream or puke or anything. Jeeze, her parents had cable. No, she didn’t see anybody “freaky-looking” enter or leave the house.

  I knew something the TV reporters didn’t. Wylie’s note had been thumbtacked to the wooden stretcher of his latest canvas. But I didn’t know who dominated the canvas. An evasive Miller had successfully avoided my queries.

  A sickly child, prone to earaches and high fevers, Wylie Jamestone had begun school late, so he was older than the rest of us, born in the Year of the Dog. Which meant that he was generous, stubborn, often selfish. He wasn’t a lazy dog and he hadn’t gone to the dogs, but he did possess this perpetual I’d-like-to-lick-my-balls expression. If there’s an afterlife, Wylie was probably licking his balls right now.

  Because he’d had the last laugh. Give this painting to Ingrid. Let the treasure hunt begin. Why me? It had been thirty years since my high school graduation, thirty years since my senior prom, thirty years since I had sung with the Clovers.

  Searching through coffee table paraphernalia, I found Patty’s phone number. She was staying at a borrowed house, in the exclusive Broadmoor area.

  “The owners migrate to Arizona for the winter,” Patty had explained, after I met her at the Colorado Springs Airport.

  I recalled our post-hug conversation.

  “I’m just a hop, skip, and jump away from the Broadmoor Hotel,” Patty had said. “Does it still have that lovely lounge where you sing along with the piano player?”

  “The Golden Bee? Yes. But I don’t sing any more, Patty.”

  “I suppose,” she said, “you prefer to write the songs that make the whole world sing.”

  “No. I prefer to write the songs that make the whole world cringe. At least I did.”

  Patty had insisted on taking a cab. “You’re busy, Ing,” she had said, “a workaholic, just like Wylie. That’s why he arrived a few days early, so he could set up his studio.”

  “Okay, Patty-Cakes, thanks. See you later, alligator.”

  “After a while, crocodile.”

  “Never smile at a crocodile.”

  Bringing my attention back to the present, I found myself heaving a deep sigh. Alligators and crocodiles, our standard high school goodbye, I thought somewhat nostalgically. Without further hesitation, I reached for the phone. I glanced at the torn-out deposit slip from my checkbook, memorized Patty’s address and telephone number, then touch-toned seven digits. Busy. I had a feeling her receiver was off the hook. An exclusive Broadmoor residence would have call-waiting, right?

  So I touched-toned Alice Shaw Cooper.

  “Patty’s sedated,” Alice said, her voice sounding like an emery board against a fingernail. “Dwight and Ben are both with her. I saw you on TV, Ingrid. Everybody did. We were at the Dew Drop Inn. Oh, Lord! Gotta’ go. Sick.”

  As I hung up, I pictured Alice’s neatly coiffed head bent forward over the commode, not a pretty picture. But I understood her reaction. Once upon a time, before she married Dwight Eisenhower Cooper, Alice had been engaged to Wylie.

  Next, I called my friend Cee-Cee Sinclair.

  Elderly but ageless, Cee-Cee looks like Barbara Stanwyck during her Big Valley days. Having inherited a rather large sum from her deceased husband, she works with a local agency called Canine Companions, where she helps train dogs to service the handicapped. Her own dog, an Australian Shepherd named Sydney, could never qualify as a Canine Companion. She—Sydney, not Cee-Cee—is a real bitch; independent, possessive and growly.

  Cee-Cee had found Hitchcock for me at the Animal Shelter. A tiny, six-week-old Heinz 57, he gazed up at me adoringly and wagged his windshield-wiper tail.

  Who could resist that tail?

  Cee-Cee loves mutts, me included, and she devours mystery novels, so I told her about Wylie’s message. “I need your help, Ceese. I don’t have a clue. You’re good with clues.”

  We agreed to meet for breakfast.

  I thought about calling Patty again. Phone’s off the hook, I reminded myself. I thought about driving to her house. She’s sedated, I reminded myself. Indecisive, I tossed my lucky orange sweatshirt into the wicker hamper and donned a Grateful Dead T-shirt. Wylie had been a Dead fan.

  I shuddered at the irony of my last thought and tried to watch the football game. Soon I fell asleep, delinquent tears pasting my lashes to the very tops of my non-prominent cheekbones.

  When I awoke the next morning, I was sprawled across my mattress. I don’t suffer from somnambulism, so Ben had carried me to bed. Hitchcock adores Ben, so my diligent watchdog had swallowed his warning bark.

  My significant lover’s sandalwood scent permeated the pillow next to mine, but he was gone. Rats! I wanted to ask Ben about Patty, for instance why he had paid her a visit last night. Alice had said he was there. He had obviously arrived after Miller left the premises since Miller hadn’t recognized Ben’s name, but why? Stupid, Beaumont! Ben had heard about Wylie’s murder and driven over to comfort Patty.

  Following Lieutenant Miller’s unofficial investigation, I should have done the same, except I can’t handle death.

  No, not death. Grief. I sweep anguish under the carpet, along with other deep emotions. Ever since Stewie’s macabre wake, I’ve developed that so-called character glitch.

  Where was Ben now? Had he killed Wylie and skipped town? Nope. Ben’s suitcase still decorated the floor boards, and his thick wallet lay on top of my antique bureau. A murderer might flee without luggage but he definitely wouldn’t leave his wallet behind.

  I raced toward the window and peered through its pane. Ben’s rental car squatted alongside my curb. Then I remembered. Ben jogged every morning, rain or shine. Today’s autumn sun shimmered brilliantly, which didn’t surprise me, because Ben was sunshine.

  Just for grins, I checked his wallet. Credit cards. Cash. Oklahoma driver’s license. Three snapshots of his ex-wife and daughter. One senior prom picture of Our Gang—Wylie, me, Ben, Patty, Dwight, Stewie, Alice—all looking as if we’d just shouted “Cheeeese.” Nestled between the photos was a plastic-laminated four leaf clover.

  I remembered how Wylie had originated our singing group, The Four Leaf Clovers. Now Wylie was dead, murdered, and practically everybody had a motive, including me.

  Especially me.

  Staring out the window again, I thought about the reunion dance. What a frickin’ fiasco!

  Chapter Three

  Dracula would have loved my reunion dance.

  Spreading his modified forearms, he’d have swooped down from the gym’s rafters. And then he’d have metamorphosed into one of the waiters who balanced trays filled with glasses of Sauvignon Blanc, White Zinfandel, Beaujolais and Spumante Ballatore.

  Furthermore, except for the occasional face lift, fleshy necks presented perfect dart boards.

  “What happens when an elephant step
s on a grape?” asked a familiar voice.

  The voice belonged to the man who had altered my life. Maybe alter is a tad resolute, but he had certainly compassed it. Right now, the magnetic needle wavered on north. No, south. No, east. No, west. Obviously, I wavered too.

  “What happens when an elephant steps on a grape?” he repeated.

  “The grape gives a little whine,” I replied, making an about-face. Ordinarily, I hide my trepidation with sarcasm. But I had been caught off guard, visualizing vampires, so I hadn’t heard Wylie Jamestone sneak up behind me.

  Fortunately, I had already encountered him last night during Alice Shaw Cooper’s cocktail shindig. That lavish event had been held at the Colorado Springs Cheyenne Mountain Resort, which has a truly spectacular view, comfortable party rooms and a lovely ladies’ lounge. I had spent a great deal of time in that lovely lounge, chanting a mantra to the lovely toilet bowl and lovely sink-mirror: “You can handle this, Beaumont. No big deal.”

  So now, tonight, I didn’t stiffen my fingers into talons or retreat toward the nearest girls’ bathroom, which, if I recalled correctly, always smelled of lipstick, cigarette smoke, pot, and something akin to kitty litter.

  Wylie’s gaze took in my ankle-length ivory skirt, a pure silk column of pleats, and my ivory sweater, bedecked with multicolored beads. “An ensemble,” he said, “to celebrate glorious Colorado nights. You look like a gay football player.”

  “Gay as in gay?” Self-consciously, I adjusted my sweater’s uplifted shoulder pads while noting that even a Woody Allen clone like Wylie could look like Arnold Schwarzenegger when he wore a superbly tailored tux. “Or do you mean my gay, garish beads?”

  “The beads. Hail Ingrid, full of grace.” Wylie looked around, as if searching for the wad of bubble gum he had once stuck beneath the bleacher seats. “Where’s Ben?”

  “Playing veterinarian. A neighbor’s prize Collie went into labor and she panicked.”

  “The Collie panicked?”

  “No. My neighbor. Ben should be here soon.”

  “Can I fetch you some wine, Beaumont?”

  “No.” I wanted to draw back, perhaps even soar toward Drac’s rafters. “Your wife looks beautiful,” I said, thinking: If we discuss trivialities, I’ll maintain my composure.

  What composure? Most of the time I assume an assertive attitude, cocky even, but tonight I felt as fragile as dry Shredded Wheat.

  “Patty always looks beautiful,” Wylie said in a wry voice. “It’s her trademark.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He finished his champagne and, for a moment, seemed to contemplate tossing the crystal goblet toward some imaginary fireplace. “Only Alice Shaw Cooper would serve cheap bubbly in expensive goblets,” he said. “I’d rather sip Dom Pérignon from a plastic cup.”

  “What exactly did you mean by trademark?”

  “Cher’s famous for her tattoos, right?”

  “Among other things.”

  “Well, Patty’s tattoo is perfection.”

  “Jeeze, Wylie, you’re such a smartass. Or maybe you’d prefer metaphysical philosopher.”

  “There’s nothing abstract about perfection, Beaumont.”

  “I beg to differ. Perfection is conceptual.”

  He laughed but it sounded slightly off-key, almost nasty. “If perfection equals conception, Alice has certainly fecundated the quintessential reunion dance.”

  “Fecundated?”

  “You’re the crossword puzzle addict. Fecund means—”

  “Intellectually productive or inventive.”

  “Right.” He summoned a waiter with an arrogant finger snap. “Study the decor, my darling,” he said, exchanging his empty goblet for a full one, a sneer curling his lips. “Contemplate the cracks, then tell me what rhymes with fecund.”

  I raised one eyebrow and glanced around our old high school gymnasium. It hadn’t changed much in thirty years, except for the people who stood clustered together, exchanging handshakes, kissing the air, or tsking their tongues against the roofs of their mouths.

  Everyone was dressed to kill. Everyone had dabbed perfume behind multi-studded earlobes, above breasts and/or pectoral mounds, under armpits, between thighs. Yet the hint of athletic sweat lingered, and that impregnable odor, Eau de Lockers, drifted like a chlorinated shadow.

  Alice had opted for live music rather than a DJ, but some idiot must have remembered our senior prom DJ’s thing for Clint Eastwood and cued the band, because they were playing that motivational tune from Rawhide.

  An over-the-hill cheerleader yelled, “Whip me, Rowdy, spur me on, Clint, oh yeah!”

  An over-the-hill jock yelled, “Hey, girl, pull down your britches an’ show us your heinie. Raw hide, get it?”

  My gaze continued roving. Alice had decked the halls with boughs of tissue roses. Red, white and blue crepe paper hung from basketball hoops, the scoreboard and bleacher seats, looking very patriotic, very Republican convention. Why Republican? Because there were elephant cut-outs dangling from the crepe paper like charms dangling from the end of a bracelet. Funny. I hadn’t noticed the elephants until now. I hadn’t noticed the banner over the gym’s double doors, either. Probably because, after entering, I hadn’t looked back. The banner’s large red block letters proclaimed Alice’s damnfool theme: AN ELEPHANT NEVER FORGETS!

  “Well,” said Wylie, “What rhymes with fecund?”

  “Nothing. Wait.” Mentally, I traveled through the alphabet. “Second?”

  “Good guess.”

  “It’s not a guess. There’s nothing else, except beckoned or reckoned, which are both a tad farfetched.”

  “It’s fun to watch your creative juices flow, Beaumont. However, we are straying from the subject.”

  “Which is what? Second? As in guess? Sight?”

  “Nope. Chance.”

  “What do you mean? Oh, I see. Except for the elephants, Alice has copied our senior prom’s motif.”

  “I think she wants her youth back.”

  “Who doesn’t?”

  “If you had a second chance,” he said, toeing the gym’s floor with one spiffy cowboy boot, “what would you change?”

  “Dwight’s accident and Stewie’s death. I’d marry Ben, have a kid, and last but not least, I’d change New York.”

  He winced. “Please forget New York.”

  My first finger gestured toward Alice’s banner. “I’ll never forget.”

  “Okay. But can you forgive me?”

  “No!”

  “What did the elephant say to the rose?”

  “Go to hell, Wylie!”

  “Not even close. The elephant said, ‘Forgiveness is the perfume the trampled rose casts upon the foot that crushed it.’”

  “You just made that up!”

  “Of course. Do you forgive me?”

  “I’m not exactly a trampled rose.”

  “Please?”

  “Maybe.”

  “A definite maybe?”

  “Yes, Wylie, a definite maybe.”

  “Ingrid,” he said, an enigmatic smile creasing the corners of his lips. “When you talked about second chances, you didn’t mention the Clovers.”

  “Are you kidding? I was the white equivalent of Diana Ross, minus her talent. Do you honestly believe the Clovers could have sung ‘baby, baby, where did our love go’ and topped the charts?”

  “Yes!”

  “No way! We were a conglomeration. We wanted to be The Supremes and The Marvelettes and The Pips, even, to a certain extent, Tom and Jerry.”

  “Who the hell were Tom and Jerry?”

  “Simon and Garfunkel. First they were Tom and Jerry. Then they were Art and Paul, folk singers. Tom and Jerry sang like the Everly Brothers,” I added, scratching my memory.

  Wylie gave me a lopsided grin. “Patty used to call the Everly Brothers the Everlasting Brothers.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she thought little Susie would be everlasting, that she’d wake up through et
ernity. I’d like to wake up through eternity.”

  “But if you did, you’d be a vampire. Or a Stephen King corpse.”

  “Right.”

  I stared into his eyes, trying to gauge his sincerity. Damn! He looked totally sincere. Nonplused, I stammered, “Tom and Jerry fizz-fizzled but Simon and Garfunkel developed their wistful melancholy and distinctive style. What would you change, Wylie? I mean, if you had a second chance?”

  “I’d give your voice a wistful melancholy and a distinctive style.”

  “Jeeze, you’re fixated on the Clovers. Could it be that you want your youth back, too?”

  “I’m hungry. I wonder what time Alice plans to serve her elephant sandwiches.”

  “Elephant sandwiches?”

  “Yup. She said she food-colored ten loaves of homemade white bread gray, filled them with cream cheese and tuna salad, used black olives for the eyes, then cut the bread with a Dumbo-shaped cookie cutter. How can you tell if an elephant’s been inside your refrigerator, Beaumont?”

  “By the footprints in the butter.”

  “Jell-O.”

  “Butter.”

  “Jell-O.”

  “Butter.”

  Wylie usually won our riddle wars by sheer perseverance, but before he could Jell-O me again, we both heard Ben’s footsteps whap-whapping across the gym’s wooden floor boards. Clothed in a conservative navy-blue suit, Ben had negated the effect with his usual sock-less Nikes. Smiling, waving at fellow reunionites, he headed straight toward Wylie and me, then straightened the HELLO MY NAME IS INGRID tag, pinned above my left breast.

  My breast responded while my gaze took in Ben’s craggy features. Until recently, I had always mistrusted the adjective craggy because it brought to mind abandoned coal shafts and Jack Palance, the quintessential villain. Now craggy conjured up Ben’s masculine features, dominated by a rather prominent, some might even say stubborn, jaw. Ben’s father was Irish, his mother Cherokee, so he had genetically inherited red-brown hair and brown eyes so dark they looked like the coal hidden beneath Colorado’s rough, rugged, craggy landscape.

  “How’s the new mom?” I asked.

  “Fine.” Ben chuckled. “But your neighbor is pissed off. Apparently she paid high stud fees, but neglected to bolt her backyard gate shortly thereafter, so Lassie strayed and the end result was one collie and three collie-dachshund combos.”