Prime Cut by Diane Mott Davidson Page B

fudge.
     
     
On Wednesday and Thursday we waited for Tom's fellow officers to update us on the Eliot case. No information - not even the results of the autopsy - was forthcoming. Since Eliot's murder was a capital case, Cameron Burr was formally denied bail. One call from the police captain's secretary yielded the information that Tom's suspension was being written up for formal review. The Mountain Journal speculated endlessly about the homicide. The headline Local Cop Suspended Pending Probe made me flinch.
     
     
For my part, I spent the two days drinking coffee, agonizing with Julian over the Soir‚e, testing menus, and making phone calls. At the Furman County Jail, Cameron either didn't get my messages or ignored them. Lutheran Hospital still insisted Barbara couldn't talk. I also tried - in vain - to hatch more jobs.
     
     
When Julian was off at the grocery store on one of our experimentation days - I felt slightly guilty to have such a willing helper - I decided to follow his suggestion and try an autumn-type dish for the Soir‚e. While I was peeling a Granny Smith apple, Kathleen Druckman - Todd's mother - called to ask about the prospect of Arch and Todd joining a cotillion. While I was chopping the apple, Arch came into the kitchen; I ran the idea by him and he said to forget it. Defeated, I wondered what the mother of a fourteen-year-old was supposed to do. Then again, I remembered as I melted butter and mixed the chopped apples with moist, crumbly brown sugar, I'd sworn off involvement in Arch's social life.
     
     
I sifted flour with cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice - and recalled the beginning of the previous February, when, for the second year in a row, Arch had been approached by a female classmate and asked if he wanted to be her boyfriend. Since it was not the same girl as the preceding year, I'd kept my mouth shut as Arch had again ecstatically said, Sure! He'd love to be her boyfriend! Last year, he'd begged Julian to make a heart-shaped chocolate cake with the girl's name and his written in frosting, which he'd given to the girl. This year, he'd enthusiastically spent his money earned from chores on a Valentine's Day basket for the new love. On February fourteenth, he'd floated off to school, bearing his load of chocolates and stuffed animals, and made his offering. By February twentieth - both years - he'd been told that he was boring and the relationship was over.
     
     
I stirred the dry ingredients and an egg into the mixture, then slid the whole thing in the oven. When the fragrant scent of autumn spices rolled through the kitchen thirty minutes later, I took the pan out and set it aside to cool. Then I reluctantly called Kathleen Druckman back and said, no cotillion. Thanks anyway. I didn't know whether Arch was unusual in receiving the cruelty of prepubescent females, or whether all the boys suffered from the same gullibility. Whatever had been the reason for the Valentine's Day fiascoes, Arch needed to build up his armor in the gender wars.
     
     
Each day, Tom disappeared to the hardware store. He always returned home with bulging paper bags and a secretive, satisfied look. I didn't know what he was up to as he banged away in the basement, and I didn't dare ask. As I felt the reverberations through the kitchen floor, I decided the hammering must be Tom's therapy, like the pro football player I'd seen on TV. With great glee, the attlete had said the NFL was the only place you could beat the daylights out of somebody and not go to jail. And he didn't use the word daylights.
     
     
Arch followed Julian around like a shadow. As for Julian, he still heaped four teaspoons of sugar into his morning espresso and bounced culinary ideas around until he came up with something he wanted to try. And he cooked. We had ground shrimp poached with herbs and encased in brioche, the savory cheesecake I'd made for Andr‚, crisp-fried crab cakes paired with tangy cole-slaw, and grilled fish tacos on homemade