I said, "Was there a gun in the car?"
Armstrong shook his head. "No gun." I turned to my husband. "Tom, you know Marla. You know this can't be true. Please tell me you'll be able to help her. You can't imagine how rough those cops were with her."
He said earnestly, "Shockley won't let me touch this case. Goldy, look. Tell me this. Do you really believe Marla's story?" His eyes challenged me. "Why wouldn't she ask that family to bring her to our place, where we could have taken care of her? She always wants you to get involved in her crises. What could possibly be her explanation for not coming to us that morning, if what she says is true?"
I stared at the grimy linoleum floor. Tom was right. Marla involved me in every aspect of her life. This had been true since her divorce from the Jerk, when we became best pals. But on Sunday, maybe she'd wanted privacy. She took great care with her appearance, and perhaps she'd been too humiliated by the way she looked. On the other hand, I'd visited her numerous times after the heart attack. She'd never looked great in the hospital, but she hadn't once shunned my company. I shook my head. There didn't seem to be an answer to Tom's questions.
"I hope she has a very good lawyer," Tom said quietly. He took my hand. "Because I will not be able to help her, and neither will you."
I looked at him for a long time, long enough for Armstrong to pad out of the room. Long enough for a quartet of loud detectives to come in and buy vending machine cinnamon rolls, which they heated in the microwave while they chatted about a ring of thieves stealing credit cards.
"I need to go," I announced stiffly. I pulled my hand from his.
"Goldy, I'm telling you," Tom warned in a low voice, "Shockley will put me on suspension if I muck up his investigation. If Lipscomb, or one of the investors, or some enemy of Royce's, framed Marla, we'll find him. Please be patient. Forensics is out at the site right now. Maybe they'll find something to clear her. I doubt any jury in this county would convict her on what we have at this point. There's just not enough evidence." He hesitated. "Can you talk to me about a motive she might have for fighting with Royce? Were they getting along?"
I chewed the inside of my cheek. "To be perfectly honest, I don't think they were. He told me he was going to ask her to marry him, but it certainly doesn't sound as if he proposed."
His face was unreadable. Finally he said, "I've seen a thousand nutty cases fall apart. Please. If you really care for Marla, if you really want to help her, don't land yourself in jail for obstruction of justice. Don't get in that kitchen and start cooking and think, Oo, oo, I'm gonna hatch something up. Please?"
I said evenly, "You have no idea how badly De Groot and Hersey treated her. She cried out to me to help her and I couldn't. Shockley is up to something, I'm telling you. This stolen-watch theory, for example. How lame can you get? He's out for her blood, and he's going to get it."
"She'll hire a good lawyer to get her out of this," he assured me.
Beg to differ. I stood. Something Tom had said about the Mercedes had sparked a glimmer of an idea: a matter of life or death. That's why the cops had broken into the trunk. And something Sam Perdue had related to me connected with it: They have to do that when it's a matter of life and death. What I was thinking was bizarre beyond words, but at least it represented a glimmer of hope. And I had to get Marla out of Shockley's clutches. "Would you do one thing for me? Actually, for Marla? Please?"
He looked dubious. "I can't imagine what this is going to be."
"You know how I worry about... what she eats. Her diet. Would you just bring up the jail menu for me on your computer? For lunch and dinner today? I'd feel better... knowing that she had some healthful options."
He raised one eyebrow, but nodded. I followed him to his desk, where he punched a keyboard and finally came up with the day's menu at the Furman County Jail.
For lunch at noon, the inmates were having tuna salad sandwiches, corn chips, and cookies. No help there.
For dinner at six, they were having chipped beef on noodles, green beans, rolls, and lime Jell-O for dessert.
Bingo.
14
I told Tom I needed to visit Macguire, do a few errands, check on Arch, and try to call Marla. He said he might be home late. He was still working the soccer arrests. I squeezed his hand and left quickly. I tried to 1 will away a pang of remorse. I wasn't deceiving him yet, I told myself I just needed to help Marla. I drove away from the sheriffs department in a thick mist. When I saw the orange and green lights of a convenience store, I parked. The day Marla had had her heart attack, I'd been away catering. I'd always felt guilty for my absence, as if her lonely physical ordeal, the Flight-For-Life helicopter ride, the surgery, were events where I should have been beside her. Now, almost a year later, she'd been savagely beaten, accused of murder, and jailed. No amount of lowfat cooking and: cheery company were going to help her now.
I rummaged through my wallet, found the number I was searching for, then used the pay phone.
A crisp voice answered and I identified myself. I said, "I need to speak to General Bo Farquhar. ASAP."
The voice responded flatly: "The general's out in the field finishing trials on some equipment. You'll have to call back later. Say," - I envisioned a bored glance at a blinking, state-of-the-art digital watch - "fourteen hundred hours?"
"Listen up," I retorted ominously, "don't give me that baloney. Bo won't want to know you were the one who prevented him from learning about a life-and-death situation affecting a family member. Because that's what I have to report to him right now--"
There was so much immediate static that I thought I'd gotten the Marconi version of Go to hell. then the line crackled.
"Farquhar here."
"It's Goldy," I began. The enormity of what I was about to tell him almost made me light-headed. I plunged ahead. "I have some bad news about Marla. She, I, we... need your help. We need to get her out of danger and clear her name." Then I quickly outlined, through the crackling static, what had happened. Or what I thought had happened. How Marla had gone on a fishing trip with her boyfriend. How she'd been attacked at night and had to hitch a ride home. How it looked as if the assailant had also attacked Marla's boyfriend, Tony Royce. Now Tony was missing, the police had found some bizarre evidence both in Marla's car and strewn around the campsite, and Marla had been charged with murdering Tony Royce. I told him about the high water at Grizzly Creek, about the signs of a scuffle, the knife and the bloody shirt in Marla's car. "Formal charges," I concluded, "are going to be filed within two days."
General Bo swiftly digested all this. "My dear," he said promptly, "what can we possibly do?"
"My idea is illegal," I said bluntly. "But I'm going to need you, a four-wheel-drive vehicle, camping equipment, and food for" - I counted mentally - "five people for two or three days, I think. And, uh, a good map of the back roads and the trails along Grizzly Creek."
"Can do," Bo Farquhar said.
I looked at my watch: eleven o'clock. "Can you be at my house with all that by five tonight?"
"You know," he observed wistfully, "I've always wanted to help my sister-in-law. I'm very fond of Marla."
"So you're willing to help?"
"We've just finished our equipment trials here. My ankle's healed up. I'll be at your house at seventeen hundred hours," he said crisply. His voice bristled with the authority that had become familiar when I was working for him. "I'll bring the supplies."
I hung up. My stomach growled fiercely. The mundane - in this case, no food all day - invariably intrudes when you least want to take care of it. I'd call Arch and then get over to the hospital. A place that made marvelous spring rolls was on the way. I'd take some to Macguire, too. Every time I'd been in the hospital, I'd spent a lot of time fantasizing about food.
I plunked in another coin to call home and heard Jake howling even before Arch could say, "Goldilocks' Catering... Jake! Be quiet! Where everything - "
"It's me. Listen, hon, there's something I need you to do."
"Jake, hush! Where are you, Mom?"
"Oh, honey, it's a long story, but Marla's having some problems." A mild understatement.
"She's not back in the hospital?"
"No." I took a deep breath. "She's in jail."
"In jail? For what?"
"She's charged with a murder she didn't do. But listen, I have to go over to Wheat Ridge to visit Macguire - "
"I like Macguire! May I visit him, too? What's he doing in Wheat Ridge?"
"Honey, he's in the hospital. He... got beaten up by the same person who got Marla into trouble."
"Can't I come with you? What's going on?"
"I promise I'll tell you when I get home, if you'll just do this one favor for me. Please call the main number for the sheriffs department and get connected with the women's side of the jail. Ask that Marla call you at home as soon as possible."
"Call the jail? Get Marla to call me from jail? What am I going to talk to her about? I'm going to feel really dumb."
"You just have to tell her one thing. It's very important, Arch. Tell her the message is from me, and that she has to eat as much Jell-O as possible at dinner tonight. Have you got that?"
He paused. "That is the stupidest message I ever heard. Besides, if you haven't checked - "
"Jell-O, Arch," I interrupted him, "you got it?"
His voice was resigned. "Oh-kay! Whatever! Can I be in on this, what you're planning?"
"Arch!" Then I relented. "Please just call the jail."
I hung up to Jake's melancholy howl.
I zipped the van down Interstate 70 to Saigon Carry-Out, ordered a batch of spring rolls, then crossed to Thirty-eighth Avenue and headed for Lutheran Hospital. Help me, Goldy, help me! That had been the pained cry from the best friend I'd ever had, as she was led away by two storm troopers. I tried not to think about her, tried not to imagine each situation she was going through down at the jail. Still, worries wormed into my mind. Oh, Marla, what are they saying I to you? Are they dressing your bruises and cuts? Are you taking your medications? Do you believe I'm trying to help you?
Once I was on the right floor of the hospital, it didn't take long to find Macguire. A television advertisement for chain saws seemed to be emanating from a room with its door half open. But it was not the TV; Macguire's roommate was snoring. When I tiptoed into the room, Macguire raised his head from the pillow and squinted at me. His face lit up with such delight that I refused to gasp at the thick bandage around his head and the gash running across one of his acne-scarred cheeks.
I whispered, "Oh, Macguire! Look at you!" I glanced at his dozing roommate. "How can you sleep with that racket?"
Macguire wrinkled his nose. "I'm used to it now. Afraid I won't be able to sleep once I get back to Elk Park, it'll be so quiet. Listen, did you find Marla? How's she doing? How about Tony?" He sniffed. "Is that food? I'm starved. It feels as if all I eat here is oatmeal. Even if it's beef stew, it tastes like oatmeal."
I wheeled his bed tray over and opened up the bags of spring rolls. My appetite had mysteriously left me, but Macguire's was certainly healthy. When I scraped a metal chair over to his bedside, the snorer rumbled, stirred, and flopped over. "Things are pretty bad," I began, as Macguire dug into his second roll. I told him what had happened to Marla.
"Murder? Are you kidding?" Macguire exclaimed when I'd finished. He fell back on his pillow, then screeched, "Ouch!" He gaped at the ceiling. "That is just too far out. But Marla was beaten up? So... you think the same person hit me? But the cops think it was Marla? Marla wouldn't hurt me, I mean, she likes me! Man, I guess I'm lucky to be alive."
"Maybe so. Please, Macguire, you're going to have to try to remember if you saw anything else that night. Marla needs you."
Macguire pushed the food away and looked at the window, where fog nuzzled the glass like gray fur. His face crinkled in thought. "Okay," he said, "there are a few things I've been thinking about, stuff I didn't have time to tell you over the phone. It's all kind of disconnected, but maybe you or Tom can make some sense out of it. Could you hand me my backpack, from that closet?"
I hauled out the ragged maroon knapsack while he reached for a pad of paper on his nightstand. Then I glanced at my watch: just past noon. Time was going by too quickly. I wondered if Marla had reached her lawyer yet.
"Do you remember Albert Lipscomb from the party?" I asked Macguire. "Is there any way you could have seen him at the campsite?"
"Yeah, I remember him from the party. Bald guy," Macguire replied as he leafed through his wallet. "Naw, I didn't see him. All I saw were Marla and Royce. But I did take pictures before it got dark up there. I probably shouldn't have, it was sort of invading Marla's privacy, I guess. I mean, nobody's actually hired me to do surveillance. But I thought it would be such a great idea - "