His jowls trembled when he shook his head. He said, “A lot of car accidents look strange, lady.”
Investigator Tom Schulz was talking with a short, big-bellied red-haired man when I walked up.
He gave me a sympathetic look and said, “You okay?”
I nodded. He made an introductory wave with one large hand.
“This is one of the coroner’s deputies.” “I just got here,” the man mumbled to Schulz. “This guy a crispy critter or what?”
I stared at the red-haired man and then lunged for him. Somebody started shrieking, “You bastard, you—”
“Whoa, Goldy, whoa,” said Schulz as he deftly grabbed me around the middle. “He didn’t mean anything.” But the red-haired man looked at Schulz, who must have given him a Get Lost look.
He mumbled, “Catch you later, Schulz,” and slunk off.
Tom Schulz gently turned me around and held me against his big body. He arranged the blanket over my head, then held me out to make sure I was all right. Tom Schulz could use his size to threaten those whom he did not trust. He could transform the broad expanses of his handsome face into a scowl, a smirk, or impassive flatness. But now his green eyes were full of worry, now his jaunty sand-colored eyebrows were drawn into an anxious line. He pulled me in for a hug. I closed my eyes and let his warmth envelop me. He said, “I thought you said you were all right.”
“Not if I have to listen to some idiot.”
“Sorry about that. You work for the coroner, you gotta keep the distance.”
We got into his car, a nondescript Chrysler you would expect a cop to drive. I looked down at my shoes. They were soaked, splotched with melting snow and mud. I turned to him and heard my voice waver. “A friend of mine just died.”
Schulz turned and looked at me. He offered his hand, which I took and held. It was warm and fleshy and completely enclosed mine.
After a moment, he pulled his hand away and leaned over to fasten my seat belt. “Okay, Miss G., let’s get you back to your new place. You’ll have to give me directions, seeing as how I’ve never been there.”
I told him to drive to the club area. I did not look at the crumpled BMW as we inched past. We traveled in silence. The snow stopped almost as suddenly as it had begun: June in the high country. The clouds, which were low, began to lift from the ground and part in wisps over the hills of Elk Park and Aspen Meadow. Sunlight made occasional passes across the meadow, turning it to glitter.
“Daylight,” said Schulz. “One P.M., ’bout time.”
I struggled under the seat belt to untangle my purse, which I had miraculously remembered, then rummaged around for sunglasses. Halfway through my search I forgot what I was looking for. I took a deep breath and threw the purse on the floor.
Tom Schulz said, “You want to talk about this accident?”
I gave him the briefest possible account of what had happened.
“You said Philip Miller was a friend of yours?”
“We’d gone to school together. C.U.”
We drove without speaking. Into the silence I said, “I was going out with Philip Miller.”
More silence. Then Schulz said, “What’s your ex-husband up to these days?”
I sniffed, looked out the window. “Last month he was bugging me, driving by a lot. Making hang-up calls, inventing legal problems. I was afraid he might get drunk, come over, and give me some trouble. That’s why I took this job. The Farquhars’ house has a lot of alarms.”
“Does he still see Arch?”
I nodded and looked at my nails. They looked very strange. I did not want to talk about this subject and said so.
“Just tell me this,” Schulz said as he looked over at me. “Did Korman know where you were going this morning?”
I couldn’t think. I said, “I don’t know. He wasn’t at the brunch, although I thought he might put in an appearance.”
Silence again filled the car. We passed the stone walls with the wood-carved sign, ASPEN MEADOW COUNTRY CLUB. The phone wires would heat up quickly in the club area, because Philip Miller was, or had been, a resident.
The post-accident daze clung to me like a blanket. Scenes from the last hour intruded on my consciousness: the curves of the road, the feel of the accelerator beneath my foot.
Philip.
“I’m up here because some weird guy phoned,” Schulz was saying. With great effort I turned to listen. He mused silently for a moment before he said, “Call comes in and the guy gets out two sentences before he hangs up. He says, You gotta come help me, I live up by Aspen Meadow Country Club. You gotta come help me, my life’s in danger. Click.”
5.
I sighed. I said, “That’s just great. Did you get a number, anything?”
“Anytime you call 911, we’ve automatically got it. Problem is, the guy called from the clubhouse. It could be any number of extensions. They sent a car over, and nothing suspicious was going on. Anyway. I’m going there to check after I leave you off. Someone at home at this house where we’re going, by the way?”
“I don’t know. Probably.”
“You got a house key?”
I was so out of it I couldn’t remember. And then I remembered they were in the Thunderbird. I said, “No keys.”
“Guess it’s good I turned up, huh?”
I didn’t answer. In the distance the golf course was a pastiche of soaked green and ice white. The snow was melting quickly, and golf carts were starting their buglike crawl up the paved path.
For some reason, this struck me as insanity. How could people play golf today? How could they just go on?
I moaned. Schulz reached over, lifted my left hand from my lap, and held it. He said, “Need me to pull over?”
I nodded and he did. I opened the door and was sick.
When I had wiped my mouth with tissues he discreetly handed over, I said, “I’m sorry. I’m so embarrassed.”
“Don’t worry about it. Let’s just get you to this place.”
I closed my eyes and mumbled the directions to Sam Snead Lane, a dead end. When I felt a little better I looked out again at the greens, but then changed my mind. Better just to focus on the inside of the car for a while.
“I wonder if they asked these guys if they could use their names,” said Schulz. I ventured a glance out. Schulz wrinkled his nose as he started down Arnold Palmer Avenue. I told him in a voice that still did not sound like mine that it had been the developer’s idea to make up for the loss of a second eighteen holes by naming the streets after famous golfers. Schulz shook his head. “No second golf course, but a dry sailing club. Houses here look like boats. Great big yachts tied up on the grass.”
I looked out at the pale gray and tan mini-mansions sailing past. While the other houses in Aspen Meadow were generally stained dark tones of rustic green and rustic brown, here the palette was light. The magnificent dwellings were indeed like ships made of pale wood and glass; they perched on waves of mountain grass rolling down from the tops of the surrounding hills.
Schulz squinted, rocked the car left onto Sam Snead Lane, then veered right into the Farquhars’ cul-de-sac. The tall and expansive pearl-gray Victorian stood on the highest wave of grass. The house’s brilliant white trim shimmered in the sudden sunlight.
“Code, Miss G.?” asked Schulz as we arrived at the security gate guarding the fence to the Farquhars’ two acres.
I stared at the closed-circuit camera and the panel of buttons. After a moment I remembered the code and told him what buttons to press.
On the porch Schulz pushed the lit doorbell. Inside, the chimes echoed plaintively. General Farquhar’s voice boomed Yes? over the intercom.
“General,” I said, “there’s been an accident. I’m here with a policeman. I don’t have my keys.”