A Carol for a Corpse

by Claudia Bishop

  As they left Main Street and turned onto Route 15, Zeke slumped back in his seat and stretched his legs next to hers. Quill edged a little further down the leather and said, “Not exactly.”

  “Not exactly?” His eyes sharpened. “What does that mean?”

  “Your name wasn’t mentioned. And certainly nothing specific’s been said. But both my banker and our mayor have been dropping hints about some . . .” Quill paused and picked her words carefully. “. . . benefit to the village in the near future.”

  “Benefit.” Zeke seemed to savor the word. He smirked in pleasure. “I guess you could call it that. And I’ll tell you something, girlie, I guess you could call it the biggest thing to hit your little village since . . . well . . . ever in its history, I guess.”

  Reminding herself that Hemlock Falls had survived worse things than the Hammer—the Spanish flu in 1918, two Civil War battles, and the Depression—Quill said, “Oh?”

  Zeke drew his legs under him, put his arms on his knees, and hunched over, an expression of deep sincerity on his face. “People tend to overlook upstate New York.”

  “They do?”

  “State’s got a bad rep. High taxes. Big-city crime. Declining population. Thing is—all those problems are going to be hitting your other big states quicker than you want to think. Florida. South Carolina. California. And look what you’ve got here.” He swept his arm in a wide arc. Quill looked out the window. “Snow?” she ventured.

  “Psh. Your weather’s nothing like the northern half of the U.S. of A. Look at North Dakota. Minnesota. Hell, even Michigan. Now that’s bad winter weather. Nope, what you’ve got here is ninety-two percent of the fresh water in the whole damn globe, some of the richest farmland, low population density . . .”

  Quill watched the woods and the fields roll by. They were making an arc around the village. They had passed the newly minted grandeur of the Resort and had turned on the road that ran along Hemlock Gorge. “And some of the most beautiful country in the world,” she said.

  “Real estate,” the Hammer said with a fat chuckle. “And it’s goddam cheap.” He leaned forward and pressed the intercom button next to the rosewood bar. “Turn here, Frank. I want her to see the site.”

  The big car lumbered left and bumped down a dirt-covered road. Suddenly, Quill knew where they were headed. “Are you going to buy the Gorgeous Gorges trailer park?”

  “Who told you that?” he asked sharply. “Nobody knows that but me and my private banker.”

  Quill raised her eyebrows at his unpleasant tone. “It’s not hard to guess, is it? The trailer park sits on the lip of the gorge. It overlooks that wonderful lichen-covered shale and the river that winds through it. The trailer park is on one of the loveliest sites in this part of the state.”

  The limo came to a stop in front of a single-wide trailer with a hand-lettered sign to the left of the front door that read OFFICE. Zeke eased himself out of the limo with a grin, and stood, bareheaded, with his chamois wool coat flung carelessly around his shoulders.

  The park was laid out on a grid, like a giant tic-tac-toe board. Each of the nine squares held five trailers. The dirt paths that separated the squares were mounded with dirty snow. Green street signs with white lettering stood at each intersection: Waterfall Drive, Stone Steps Lane, Granite Street. The house numbers began at 35, for some reason.

  Most of the trailers in the grids were double-wides, and most of those had small front yards, each with a mailbox on a white post, a row of empty window boxes under the living room windows, and a Christmas lawn ornament. Inflatable Santas bobbed gently in the light breeze. Six-foot-high inflatable Christmas trees glowed brightly even in the sunlight. One giant bubble had snow—or something very like it— falling inside the sphere, around the shoulders of kid-sized inflatable skaters.

  “What time is it?” Zeke demanded.

  Quill looked at her watch. “A few minutes before ten.”

  “You better get out of the car. You aren’t going to want to miss this.”

  The sound of wheels on gravel drew Quill’s attention to Gorges Lane. A media truck from the NBC feeder station in Syracuse parked in the middle of the drive. Local anchor Sandra Hotchner got out, along with her cameraman. A second van pulled up behind the first. Quill recognized the reporter from the news on CNN. He wrote for the Wall Street Journal. Behind that van, a tow truck made a distant third.

  Zeke walked up and down the short path to the office, hand on hip, head up, sharp brown eyes scanning the trailers. After a long moment, the door to the office opened, and a guy in a John Deere cap, a bright orange hunter’s vest, and laced-top boots emerged. He stood on the small square that was his front porch and stared at the limo. Then he stared at the reporters. Zeke waved cheerfully at him, and continued his march up and down.

  The door to number 43 opened, and a short, broad woman with long, heavily bleached blond hair stood there, arms akimbo, a cigarette dangling from her lower lip. She wore pink bunny slippers. Then an elderly lady with a cane and a down coat came out from 63. A spry old man bent almost double scooted out of 46. Two Mexican men, a Haitian, a young Spanish mother with two toddlers hiding behind her snowsuit—the park was filled with people.

  And a tired-looking young girl with a baby on her hip emerged from number 37. Melissa Smith and her little boy.

  Quill opened the door to the limo and got out. She wasn’t sure what was going to happen. Whatever it was would probably be too noisy for a six-month-old baby.

  Zeke stopped, put his hand on his hip, and looked at the assembly. “It’s good to see you all here today,” he said in a loud, genial voice. “You must have gotten the letters I sent out that said I’d be dropping by for a visit. That if you were home at the time and wanted to talk, you’d hear something to your advantage.”

  The man in the John Deere hat came closer. Quill recognized him. It was Will Frazier, from Peterson’s gas station. He nodded at Quill. Then he turned to Zeke. “Yeah,” he said nervously. He dug into the pocket of his hunting vest. “We all got this.”

  “Could I see that, Will?” Quill asked. She took it. It was a standard 8½-by-11 sheet. Goldenrod, Quill thought. That was the standard name for the color. The sheet had been run off a cheap printer.

  WANT MONEY?

  IF YOU OWN A TRAILER AT GORGEOUS GORGES

  YOU’LL GET SOME

  10:00 AM DECEMBER 12

  Zeke grinned at her. “Short and sweet. Pulls ’em in every time.”

  Will frowned at him. “So what’s this all about, mister? I’m thinking maybe I should have called the cops to be in on this? I mean, if they ain’t headed here already.” His uneasy glance raked the reporters, who had begun to crowd around Zeke, microphones at the ready.

  Zeke shook his head and delivered his sly, sideways grin. “It’s Will Frazier, isn’t it? You sure you haven’t seen me before?” He raised his hand, turned his thumb and forefinger into a pistol and delivered the signature line from The Assistant , “Get a grip!”

  There was a shocked silence.

  “You the Hammer?” Will said incredulously. He looked at Quill, who nodded matter-of-factly. “You’re kidding me. You’re kidding me! Hey, folks! It’s Zeke Kingsfield! This is . . . this is pretty amazing, Mr. Kingsfield. This is amazing.”

  “But not as amazing as what I am about to tell you.” He raised his voice. It was a big voice and when he shouted, it was impossible to ignore. “I am here,” he said, “to make a millionaire out of each and every one of you!”

  For the first time in her life, Marge Schmidt was astounded into speechlessness.

  “I was there,” Quill said flatly. “It’s a fact.” She, Marge, and Doreen were seated in the dining room at the Inn. It was late afternoon.

  “A million bucks,” Doreen said, awed. “Holy cripes.” She picked up her teacup, looked at the contents as if she’d never seen them before, and set it back down again.

  Quill had spent most of the morning watching Zeke Kingsfield write
out ten-thousand-dollar checks as a deposit to those residents of Gorgeous Gorges who agreed to sell their trailers—and their shares in Gorgeous Gorges, Ltd.— to Kingsfield Enterprises. By the time the last check had been written, and the last contract signed, Route 15 was choked with media vans, reporters, cameramen, and satellite feeds. A WYKY news helicopter circled endlessly overhead. Quill hid in the limo and drank club soda. The whole show concluded with the tow truck dragging one of the single-wides off to the dump. Zeke had given the residents a week to move out, but the large woman with the bunny slippers and the cigarette had been so excited that she’d volunteered her trailer for destruction right away.

  When Marge did manage to speak, it was in a husky whisper. “He offered the forty-five people in Gorgeous Gorges a million dollars each for their trailers?”

  “Forty-four,” Quill said. “Old Mrs. Sanderson died two months ago and she had no heirs.” She clasped Marge’s hand briefly. “He didn’t tell anyone what he was actually going to do, you know. Just dropped heavy hints at the bank. Charley knew something was up because the checks Zeke signed this afternoon were all drawn on an account at the First National here in town. CNN did a direct feed, and it was on the news live. Everyone from the village was down there in about five seconds, after that.”

  Marge shook her head in disgust. “And this was the day I picked to go to Syracuse. But why a million bucks each? I mean, I can see why he’d make an offer for that property. It’s prime.”

  “It’s larger than I thought,” Quill said. “There’s almost five hundred acres deeded to the trailer park, Marge, and it’s all riverfront.”

  “Five hundred and two point six,” Marge said. “If you want to be exact about it. Don’t look so surprised, Quill. There isn’t a developer this side of Syracuse who hasn’t looked at the piece. Like I said, it’s prime. But it’s also a limited partnership with forty-five . . .”

  “Forty-four.”

  “. . . owners. It’s a legal nightmare trying to get everyone to agree to a buyout. You’d be dead and in your grave before the first contract was signed.” She shook her head. “But who’s going to turn down a million smackeroos? How in Hades does he think he’s going to recover the cost of that sucker?”

  “I can think of a couple of ways,” Quill said dryly. “You remember Briny Breezes?”

  “Every real estate pro in the universe remembers Briny Breezes,” Marge said. “Two hundred and thirty-three owners selling a whole dam’ town for a million dollars each. And I see where you’re headed.” She rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “If I wasn’t so gob-smacked over this thing, I would have figured it out for myself. Look at the publicity Briny Breezes got. It made the world news, for Pete’s sake. Look at the publicity the Hammer’s gotten already. By the time he decides to parcel out those five hundred acres into town houses, condos, whatever, there will be a line of dam’ fools down Route 15 just begging him to get in on the deal.”

  “A million bucks,” Doreen said. “Each. Dang. Stoke and I talked about buying one of them double-wides as kind of a summer place. They got a little beach right on the river, you know. Dang.” She took a large gulp of tea.

  “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t be too sure of that million myself,” Marge said cynically. “There’s all kinds of ways to wiggle out of forking over that amount of cash, and you can bet Mr. Big Britches Kingsfield knows each and every one of ’em.” She pushed herself away from the table with a grunt. “I’ll tell you what fries my behind, though. How did a deal this big go down without me hearing about it? I’m telling you, Quill, I must be losing my touch.”

  “He dropped heavy hints to Charley at the bank, and to Elmer, but they had no idea this was going to happen. If it helps at all, of all the people in Hemlock Falls Zeke was worried about, it was you, Marge.”

  “Me?”

  “He said it was important to keep the whole thing under wraps in case speculators, like, started buying up the trailers before he made the announcement. But that’s a lie. You wouldn’t cheat those people out of their money. I think he knows you would have raised a lot of sensible questions right up front. The first one, of course, you’ve already asked. Are all these people actually going to see their million dollars? But it’s too late now. The chauffeur driving that limo was a notary, if you can believe it, and each one of those contracts was signed, witnessed, and notarized. There’s no drawing back at this point.”

  “That’s going to be some Chamber meeting tomorrow,” Marge said glumly. “I guess he’s going to give us the benefit of his inside take on the real estate business. What a load of hooey. And I’ll be darned if I’m going to sit there with that fathead crowing like a rooster on a pile of chicken manure.”

  “Speakin’ of which, you comin’ to practice tonight, Quill?” Doreen asked.

  “Practice?”

  “It’s the first rehearsal of the Angel-ettes,” Doreen said. “And seeing as how our debut performance is tomorrow afternoon at the Chamber meeting, you’d better not miss it.”

  Quill thought of a hip-hop version of the “Hallelujah Chorus.” “Gosh, guys. I’d love to. But I’ve got a whole list of things I have to talk to Mr. McWhirter about.”

  “Well, you can talk to him when we get an intermission,” Doreen said. “So that’s no excuse.”

  “What?”

  “We signed him up. As a matter of fact, Dookie signed everybody in the Chamber up to sing. You know how hard it is to say no to that Dookie.”

  This was true. Their gentle, otherworldly pastor had hair like a blown dandelion and a will of iron when it came to churchly matters.

  “Besides,” Doreen said, “he talked Harvey out of calling us the Angel-ettes, on account of the men in the chorus.”

  “Thank goodness.”

  “But he was kind of taken with the idea of the Big Guy,” Doreen added.

  “Oh, dear.”

  “Besides,” Marge said, “you need to be there. Practically everybody in town’s going to be there, including me.” She smiled grimly. “That is, after I do a little poking around about this Gorgeous Gorges business.”

  “I don’t have to come,” Quill said a little crossly. “I’ve just had the weirdest week of my life, practically, and what I have to have is a nap.”

  “If you don’t come,” Doreen said with inexorable logic, “people will think you’re stuck up on account of you got a million dollars from Zeke Kingsfield, too.”

  “I didn’t get anywhere near a million dollars,” Quill said even more crossly. “What money we did get goes straight to New York State Electric and Gas. And the bank.”

  “If you can convince the town gossips of that, good luck to you,” Doreen said. “Anyways, see you at seven at the church, then.”

  “I’ll see you there, too. Right, now, I got a couple of calls to make and maybe a big ego to puncture.” Marge stood up with a glimmer of her old self-esteem.

  “I don’t know what to do next,” Quill confessed. “This has been a totally confusing day. I’ve got to talk to Melissa Smith about where she’s going to take the baby. The TV people loved the shot of the tow truck dragging away that trailer. Zeke told them he’s going to have the whole park cleared in a week. Of course, with a million dollars, she’s probably going to quit her job and it won’t be my problem anymore.” She rubbed her face with both hands. “But she’s young enough to think that a million dollars is enough to last her a lifetime.”

  Marge tapped her on the shoulder. “Melissa and your financial advice can wait. Right now, judging from the sounds coming from Meg’s kitchen, you’d better get in there and see what’s what.”

  A hideous clamor was, in fact, coming from the kitchen.

  “Ugh,” Quill said.

  “I’m off,” Doreen said briskly. “I got to make sure Stoke’s got everything he needs for the story on the new millionaires.”

  Doreen’s third husband—perhaps it was her fourth, Quill wasn’t sure—was the publisher of the weekly paper, the Hemlock Falls Gazette.
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  “It’s been a heck of a news week,” Doreen said with satisfaction. “What with Mr. Kingsfield bringing all this excitement to town.”

  “I’m off, too.” Marge stumped out of the dining room, leaving Quill to face whatever awaited her in the kitchen. She dawdled at the table for a bit, finishing up the raspberry scones and drinking the rest of the tea.

  The thumps and shouts continued.

  She wasn’t sure she wanted to intervene; she was even less sure when Max butted his way out of the swinging doors, gave her a guilty look, and trotted determinedly off to the reception desk, where Dina would undoubtedly give him the remains of her lunch.

  “And where have you been all day!” Meg demanded as soon as she entered. The kitchen was empty of people other than her sister. It was also transformed.

  Quill saw at a glance that Meg was hot, cross, and seriously annoyed with her universe. She stood in the middle of a pile of pots and pans, her face red and her hair a mess. Quill also spied the remains of a loin of lamb on the floor near the back door. “This,” she said, “is obviously Max’s work.” She picked the meat up, looked around for the meat recycling can, and discovered that a dishwasher had taken its place. She gestured around the room with the lamb. “And this is obviously the work of Lydia’s elves. Where is everybody, by the way?”

  Meg held her weapon of choice, an eight-inch sauté pan. She reached up to hang it in its accustomed place on the beam and encountered a clump of mistletoe. She tossed it to the floor, where it landed with a very unsatisfying bump on a soft rubber mat. “They were helping me put the rest of this stuff away. I don’t need any help. I suggested that they all take a nice long hike while I got reacquainted with my kitchen. So they did.”

  A brand-new twelve-burner Garland occupied the center of the kitchen. The stove formed the middle of a U; on either side, black granite counter tops stretched nine feet toward the back wall. A prep sink sat in the middle of both of the ells. Behind the stove, a brick bread oven took the space between the mullioned windows that had formerly been occupied by the stainless-steel sinks. The pot sinks and the refrigeration units—unlovely appliances at the best of times—had been moved to the east wall. On either side of the cobblestone fireplace, piles of pans, racks, pots, oven mitts, and kitchen towels lay jumbled against the cupboards that held provisions. What was most remarkable was the stripped-down-for-action, elegant utility of the space. What had been a warm, sloppy, excitable country kitchen was now a high-tech performance vehicle.