Tough Cookie

Arthur sprawled backward, but managed to tuck his silver wine flask under his arm. My first paranoid thought was that he must have been watching me through the door’s glass square. He just hadn’t retreated quickly enough when I’d pushed through the entrance. He righted himself with dignity, then begged us to come over to his table for a minute. More bad luck: Arthur was having lunch with Boots Faraday. Boots smiled at me and nodded awkwardly at Rorry, who’d stiffened instantly at the sight of her.

“So, what are you two doing up here? Scoping out the last show? Having lunch?” Arthur, seemingly oblivious to the female hostility, asked his questions as he wiggled up next to us, unscrewed the flask, and poured white wine into two glasses. I looked longingly at their plates of baby-vegetable strudel napped with a creamy sauce, probably béarnaise. Arthur leaned in close to my shoulder, sniffed, and cried triumphantly. “I smell peanut butter!” He looked at both of us expectantly. “How about some ten-year-old Grand Cru chablis, then?”

Rorry moaned in disgust. “I go out, nine months pregnant, and all everybody offers me is booze.”

Boots’s expression said: Didn’t I tell you this woman was difficult? She said abruptly, “Did you get my

message, Goldy?”

“I didn’t get your message, I just talked to you a few hours ago—” But I stopped when Boots shot me a stern look. Aha: She was trying to ask me if I’d told Rorry her story about Nate making an extreme sports film the day he died.

“That’s okay.” Two spots of color flamed on Rorry’s cheeks; she was glaring at Boots. “You don’t have to try to send Goldy some kind of secret message, the way you used to do with Nate and your early morning calls. I know your code. One ring means, Call me back. Two rings mean, Meet me for lunch

. He finally told me, you know.” Rorry’s tone was angrily triumphant. Boots looked flabbergasted. “He swore it was all innocent. That you were just afraid of my jealousy. If it was all innocent, how come I had the phone company trace your calls to a pay phone outside the Killdeer Art Gallery? Why didn’t you call from your house? Too afraid I had caller ID?” She whirled on Arthur. Startled, he cradled the wine to his shoulder. “Are you married, Arthur? That’s the kind of guy Boots goes for.”

Arthur’s voice squeaked, “Rorry, please! Boots Faraday is a customer!” Boots clamped her mouth into a forbidding line. Arthur gulped, set the wine flask down, and frowned. He repeated his question: “What exactly are you and Rorry doing up here, Goldy?”

Luckily, Rorry remembered my warning about not divulging the purpose of our trip. I told him I just wanted to make sure Jack and his staff were prepping the last show. Arthur nodded, and Rorry announced that we had to go. During the gondola trip down, I endured Rorry’s litany of complaints about Boots Faraday, who, Rorry insisted, had tried desperately to break up her marriage.

“Boots does have a really nice body, for an older woman,” Rorry conceded as the car door opened at the base. “I even thought Nate might have been doing a porno film of her, and she’d use photo clips from it in one of her stupid collages.”

“Well, we’ll find out, won’t we,” I commented as we headed for the building marked Base Security—Patrol Office and pushed through to the Lost and Found. Rorry, again distinctly uncomfortable, insisted she had to sit down.

“Are you all right?” I asked desperately.

“Yes, it’s just that damn woman,” Rorry replied as she lowered herself into a padded chair. “She gives me indigestion.”

“Item?” inquired the patrolman behind the desk. It was Hoskins! These people must run on a six-day rotation, I thought. My helper from the day of Doug Portman’s accident asked if I was doing all right, and if my son was okay. I told him we were both fine, but that my friend and I desperately needed help finding something. Hoskins said seriously, “And the item is …”

“A camera case.” Rorry reached up to slap her ID onto the counter. “Initials N.B. It’s in the safe, we called.”

Hoskins tapped keys on his computer, disappeared, then returned with a dirty, crumpled case made of heavy-duty gray fabric, frayed in places. When Rorry saw it, she cried out in surprise and alarm, and began to weep. Damn, had I done the wrong thing? She held out her hands and I gave the case to her. She hugged it to her huge belly, rocking back and forth and sobbing as if her heart were broken.

“Rorry,” I said softly as I knelt down beside her chair. “I’m sorry. What can I—”

“You want me to get a paramedic in here?” Hoskins asked me. “She doesn’t seem well.”

“She’s not going into labor. Could you please just get her a glass of water?”

“Take the camera,” Rorry moaned when Hoskins had left. “See if the cassette’s in there, watch it somewhere, and then let’s get out of here. I can’t take any more in one day. Please, Goldy.”