regard, he reminded me of my four-hundred-pound friend and mentor, the mystery writer Ozzie Boone, who lived a few hundred miles from this place, in my hometown, Pico Mundo.
Otherwise, the rotund chef had little in common with Ozzie. The singular Mr. Boone was loquacious, informed on most subjects, and interested in everything. To writing fiction, to eating, and to every conversation, Ozzie brought as much energy as David Beckham brought to soccer, although he didn’t sweat as much as Beckham.
Chef Shilshom, on the other hand, seemed to have a passion only for baking and cooking. When at work, he maintained his side of our dialogue in a state of such distraction—real or feigned—that often his replies didn’t seem related to my comments and questions.
I came to the kitchen with the hope that he would spit out a pearl of information, a valuable clue to the truth of Roseland, without even realizing that I had pried open his shell.
First, I ate half of the delicious croissant, but only half. By this restraint, I proved to myself that in spite of the pressures and the turmoils to which I am uniquely subjected, I remain reliably disciplined. Then I ate the other half.
With an uncommonly sharp knife, the chef was chopping dried apricots into morsels when at last I finished licking my lips and said, “The windows here aren’t barred like they are at the guest tower.”
“The main house has been remodeled.”
“So there once were bars here, too?”
“Maybe. Before my time.”
“When was the house remodeled?”
“Back when.”
“When back when?”
“Mmmmm.”
“How long have you worked here?”
“Oh, ages.”
“You have quite a memory.”
“Mmmmm.”
That was as much as I was going to learn about the history of barred windows at Roseland. The chef concentrated on chopping the apricots as if he were disarming a bomb.
I said, “Mr. Wolflaw doesn’t keep horses, does he?”
Apricot obsessed, the chef said, “No horses.”
“The riding ring and the exercise yard are full of weeds.”
“Weeds,” the chef agreed.
“But, sir, the stables are immaculate.”
“Immaculate.”
“They’re almost as clean as a surgery.”
“Clean, very clean.”
“Yes, but who cleans the stables?”
“Someone.”
“Everything seems freshly painted and polished.”
“Polished.”
“But why—if there are no horses?”
“Why indeed?” the chef said.
“Maybe he intends to get some horses.”
“There you go.”
“Does he intend to get some horses?”
“Mmmmm.”
He scooped up the chopped apricots, put them in a mixing bowl.
From a bag, he poured pecan halves onto the cutting board.
I asked, “How long since there were last horses at Roseland?”
“Long, very long.”
“I guess perhaps the horse I sometimes see roaming the grounds must belong to a neighbor.”
“Perhaps,” he said as he began to halve the pecan halves.
I asked, “Sir, have you seen the horse?”
“Long, very long.”
“It’s a great black stallion over sixteen hands high.”
“Mmmmm.”
“There are a lot of books about horses in the library here.”
“Yes, the library.”
“I looked up this horse. I think it’s a Friesian.”
“There you go.”
His knife was so sharp that the pecan halves didn’t crumble at all when he split them.
I said, “Sir, did you notice a strange light outside a short while ago?”
“Notice?”
“Up at the mausoleum.”
“Mmmmm.”
“A golden light.”
“Mmmmm.”
I said, “Mmmmm?”
He said, “Mmmmm.”
To be fair, the light that I had seen might be visible only to someone with my sixth sense. My suspicion, however, was that Chef Shilshom was a lying pile of suet.
The chef hunched over the cutting board, peering so intently and closely at the pecans that he might have been Mr. Magoo trying to read the fine print on a pill bottle.
To test him, I said, “Is that a mouse by the refrigerator?”
“There you go.”
“No. Sorry. It’s a big old rat.”
“Mmmmm.”
If he wasn’t totally immersed in his work, he was a good actor.
Getting off the stool, I said, “Well, I don’t know why, but I think I’ll go set my hair on fire.”
“Why indeed?”
With my back to the chef, moving toward the door to the terrace, I said, “Maybe it grows back thicker if you burn it off once in a while.”
“Mmmmm.”
The crisp sound of the knife splitting pecans had fallen silent.
In one of the four glass panes in the upper half of the kitchen door, I could see Chef Shilshom’s reflection. He was watching me, his moon face as pale as his white uniform.
Opening the door, I said, “Not dawn yet. Might still be some mountain lion out there,
