Free Fatally Flaky by Diane Mott Davidson

on her dress again. Now she turned away from the sink and gave me a forlorn look, as if the dog, and Jack’s unhelpfulness, had hurt her deeply, and I was supposed to do something about it.
    But I didn’t know what to do. “So, Charlotte, what do you think of the figures?” I tried again.
    “They’re fine.” But she’d spent only a moment looking at them. She pulled out her checkbook and wrote me a check. “Goldy?” she asked. “Can you be out at Gold Gulch Spa at eight o’clock tomorrow morning, so we can do the walk-through, and you can figure out how to use their kitchen?”
    “Sure,” I replied, although I didn’t feel too sure of it, frankly.
    “Yes,” said Jack, “I’ll bring her.”
    “That’s not necessary, Jack,” I said.
    “Jack,” said Charlotte, attempting to be mollifying, “you don’t need to be there. I want to spend time with you, but not there, not tomorrow. If you need to grieve for your friend, then you should do that. Out at the spa, you’ll just get in the way, sweetheart.”
    Sweetheart?
    When nobody said anything, Charlotte said, “Will you call me tonight, Jack, if you need me?” He looked up at her hopefully and nodded. “Well then,” she went on, “I guess I need to go home and change before the fund-raiser.”
    When the door had closed, I turned to my godfather. “Jack, you don’t have to take me out to Gold Gulch tomorrow. I can manage.”
    Jack made his face blank, a practice I’d seen him do before. “No, but I want to go. To protect you from this Victor Lane character.”
    “I don’t need protecting, thanks.”
    “Uh-huh. Last time I looked, your first husband disproved that particular theorem.”
    “Oh, Jack, don’t—”
    “Now,” he interrupted, “tell me why Tom is investigating the death of my best friend.”
    “I have no idea that that’s what he’s doing.”
    “Bull. When I had too much to drink and hit a tree with the seventy-one Mercedes I had before I got the seventy-three, the whole thing was handled by state patrol. That’s how they do accidents in this state. I know, ’cuz I asked.”
    “Jack, I don’t know—”
    “Yeah, yeah, you said that already.” He stood up. “All right, I’m walking across the street to my own house.”
    “Jack? You’re not angry, are you?” I asked anxiously as I walked him to the door. “I really don’t know what Tom is doing now. But I want to help with…with you feeling better about Doc Finn.”
    “Uh-huh.” He heaved on his jacket and opened the front door. “Let me tell you something I learned in the years before I became a recovering lawyer.”
    “Jack—,” I began, but he held up his hand.
    “I always know when a witness is lying.”
     

    D OGGONE IT, I thought, as I cleaned up Marla’s dishes. I wasn’t lying. Okay, I did suspect that Tom’s disappearance from the O’Neal wedding was related to the discovery of Doc Finn’s body. But I knew no more about the situation than Jack did.
    When Tom finally came home, it was almost nine o’clock. I’d kept the ragout going on a low simmer, just in case.
    “Miss G. You should have gone to bed. I’m sorry I’m so late.”
    “Did you eat?”
    “No. I’ll fix myself a plate.”
    “Sit,” I commanded. Tom washed his hands and slumped at the table. He shut his eyes tight, either from exhaustion or to block out what he’d seen that evening. When I put a dish of cooked penne, steamed broccoli, and ragout in front of him, you’d have thought it was steak on the QE2.
    “Oh my,” he said. “This looks wonderful.”
    While he ate, I gave him an animated account of the rest of the day after he’d left, the reception, packing up with Julian, the visits from Marla, Jack, and Charlotte Attenborough. He shook his head and smiled briefly. But then the smile vanished.
    “Can you tell me what kept you down at the department?” I asked.
    “I can, but you can’t mention a word of it to anyone, especially that nosy lawyer godfather of