“Once in a while we do,” Quill said. Fred Sims’ face flashed into her mind. “Well, I’ll be!”
“What?” Meg demanded.
“Nothing. That is, nothing I want to say anything about right now.” She made a note to herself in her sketchpad: Check out Sims!
“And the last rule of innkeeping is keep your lips zipped,” Dina said sunnily. “That’s the first thing I learned when I got hired.”
“So we got a jealous wife?” Marge said. “And maybe a jealous mistress?”
Quill looked thoughtful. “I don’t know, to tell you the truth. I mean—it seemed as if they were a devoted couple. But who really knows? And it didn’t seem to me that LaToya was all that fond of Zeke. But you never know, do you? And of course, as his wife, Lydia probably inherits a large chunk of those billions.”
“Billions would be a strong motive for a lot of women,” Meg agreed. “I think you should tackle that one, Quill. If Lydia’s going to talk to anyone, she’s going to talk to you.”
Quill nodded agreement. “So I’ll talk to her and to LaToya. In an offhand sort of way, of course. We certainly need to know where the two of them were the night of the murder.”
“That’s easy enough,” Meg said. “Ajit was shooting the dancing elves. LaToya was there all the time. As for Lydia— she was in Syracuse with Zeke.”
“So LaToya’s a good suspect?” Dina said eagerly.
Meg looked doubtful. “Well—she was never out of my sight long enough to zip down the side of the gorge to the ski trail, bash Quill on the head, roll the log into place, and zip back up again. That had to take at least twenty-five minutes.”
“Are you sure the log was moved last night?” Marge asked. “Couldn’t it have been moved early this morning?”
Quill shook her head. “It was buried under the snow when I saw it. Mike finished grooming the trail about quarter to six last night, and he swears the trail was free of debris. I believe him. And it stopped snowing around ten thirty. So the log had to have been moved into place between those times.”
“The incident Quill had in the woods narrows the time still further,” Meg added. “And I think the murderer came back down in the early morning and set up the wire just to make sure the plan worked.”
“Mike snowmobiled over any tracks the murderer may have made,” Quill said. “And of course, the police and the ambulance people stamped around the crime scene, too.”
“LaToya and Will are the only suspects so far?” Marge complained. “This case seems pretty skimpy to me.”
“Oh, there’re more suspects,” Quill said. “Marge, do you think you could find out where Charley Comstock was last night?”
“Charley?” Marge seemed taken aback. “Well, now. Come to think of it, he was pretty dam’ antsy when I started pushing him on the banking arrangements Kingsfield had with the First National.” She grinned. “Oh, yeah. I can check out old Charley.”
“And then,” Quill said, “there’s Mr. Albert McWhirter.”
“Old Scrooge?” Marge looked even more startled. “You suspect him?”
“I don’t know that I really suspect anyone at this point,” Quill said with perfect truth. “But I do have some questions. For example, why did McWhirter ask for this particular assignment?”
Marge shrugged. “Meg’s food is famous? He’s an art lover and wanted to meet you?”
“He hasn’t said a word about art to me. And he won’t eat Meg’s food, so why would he care that it’s famous? He says he has stomach trouble and he’s had to avoid rich food for years. He’s not behaving like any consultant I’ve ever heard of before. Why do I keep stumbling over him in unlikely places? At the Chamber meetings. At choir practice. What’s at either of those places that would interest a restaurant consultant? And there’s another mystery I’d like solved. Who is this Fred Sims, and who is he to the other guests here at the Inn?”
“Fred Sims?” Doreen said. “That nosy guy in two-fourteen? You just gimme a hour, I’ll get into that cruddy old briefcase he carries and I’ll find out for sure.”
“We don’t want to do anything illegal,” Quill said.
“Not too illegal,” Meg said. “I think you should check him out the first chance you get, Doreen.”
“Let’s get back to McWhirter.” Quill leaned forward and tapped her forefinger on the table. “I was there when McWhirter and Zeke ran into each other. It was pretty clear that they knew each other. And even clearer that they didn’t like each other.” Quill turned to Marge. “How much do you know about his background?”
“I can find out more. Make a few calls.”
Quill closed her sketchpad and looked at them gravely. “So. There it is. It’s a start. How much time should we give ourselves before we meet and see how the case is coming along?”
“I say we get right on it.” Meg thumped the table energetically with her fist. “Lydia’s lawyers are going to show up any minute and put a lien on my brand-new Garland stove, if we let them. What if we meet in Quill’s room tomorrow right about this time?” She looked at her watch. “That’s three thirty tomorrow. Gives us twenty-four hours to come up with some results.”
“I’m off to look at the crime scene.” Dina leaped to her feet. “One for all and all for one!”
Quill sighed. “Or something like that.”
“I’m off to nail Charley Comstock,” Marge said with relish. “If there’s any fast-breaking news, Quill, I’ll give you a call.” She turned and marched out of the Lounge without wasting any more words.
“And I’m goin’ to talk to the housekeeping staff. Tell ’em to keep their eyes peeled.” Doreen, too, left the room abruptly.
Dina pushed her glasses up her nose and sat down again, with a thump. “I’ll get my parka on and go out to get pictures of that tree before it gets dark. But before you start your detecting, Quill, Elizabeth wants to see you in the kitchen.”
“She wants to see me in the kitchen,” Meg corrected her.
“Nope, she said Quill, specifically.”
Ajit, Bernie, and Benny came into the Lounge and waved at them. Quill decided it was as good an opportunity as any to discover Lydia’s plans for the future. “Tell Elizabeth I’ll be along directly, would you, Dina?” She made her way amid the sparsely populated tables and greeted the Good Taste crew with a warm smile and a conventional expression of sympathy. “You three must be exhausted. I’m so sorry about your loss.”
Ajit shrugged, charmingly. “Thank you. It was certainly unexpected.”
“Actually,” Benny said, “we’re better off without him.” He jumped. “That’s my ankle you just kicked Bernie, thank you very much. And why should I pretend that we’re crying in our beer? We’re not. Zeke was nothing more or less than a panderer to popular taste, Quill. He was putting a lot of pressure on Lydia to subvert the show.”
“He was?” They had selected a table for four. She settled into the unoccupied chair, as Nate came up to them. “Can I ask Nate to bring you all something?”
“Ajit’s a club soda man,” Benny said. “But Bernie and I will have a Cosmopolitan. Or maybe a margarita, Bernie. What do you think?”
“I think it’s far too early in the day for a sweet drink. I’ll have a white vermouth.”
“You’re right, ducky. The same for me, Nate.”
Nate, who never needed to write orders down, said, “You got it,” and lumbered back to the bar.
“I haven’t had a chance to talk to Lydia today,” Quill said. “I did see her at the . . . out near the gorge, of course.”
“And she was ranting about suing you, I expect,” Bernie said. “That’s just her way, sweetie. I wouldn’t take it to heart.”
“You mean she’s decided not to sue us?” Quill said hopefully.
“Goodness no. I think the chief wolf in her pack of lawyers is already headed this way. What I meant is that it’s nothing personal.”
Quill, reflecting that it felt very personal, said merely, “I suppose you’ll be hea
ding on back to New York?”
“Oh, no. Not until we’ve taped all of the establishing shots.” Ajit accepted his club soda with a brilliant smile. Quill found herself wondering what it would be like to paint him. It’d be difficult. That kind of beauty always tempted an artist into sentimentality. “Zeke’s accident will make little or no difference to the plans for Good Taste. The budget for the show comes from the magazine. And although Zeke’s name is on the letterhead, so to speak, he actually doesn’t own any of the company.”
“He doesn’t?” Quill was startled. “But I thought he personally bought L’Aperitif.”
Ajit’s smile held an acidic edge. “Sure. If you believe what you read about Zeke. But what you read about Zeke is a lot different from the reality. Magna Publications spun off L’Aperitif to Kingsfield Publishing. I think Zeke actually may own some stock in Magna. And he may even own stock in Kingsfield Publishing. But not necessarily. Both are publicly held companies. Both are traded over the stock exchange. For all I know, your investment banker’s put some of your savings into KP. The point is, he could just be a figurehead and not wield any real voting power at all.”
Quill thought about this. “But, isn’t Zeke a millionaire?”
Benny burst into laughter. “Sorry! Oh, shit. The vermouth’s up my nose.” He sneezed heartily. “That’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, isn’t it? If I had to make a wild-ass guess, I’d say he’s worth about the same amount of money that his daddy left him. Twenty or thirty million. At best.”
“Which is nothing to sneeze at,” Bernie said. “Unless, like Benny, you’ve got vermouth up your nose.”
“You said that Zeke wanted to subvert Good Taste, Ajit? What was that all about?”
Ajit’s slender fingers were restless. He rolled his cocktail napkin into a neat tube and smoothed it out again. “What Zeke is, is a deal maker. One of the best. He was putting together a plan to distribute the show on a global basis.”
“Very profitable,” Benny said. “Potentially.”
Ajit held up an admonitory finger. “But the cable company he was talking to has a strong preference for reality shows.”
“Extreme wrestling,” Bernie said. “Gross-out reality shows. Horrible stuff.”
“Worse, they’ve got amazingly cheap production values.” Ajit sighed. “And, of course, if they bought the show, and agreed to produce however many segments, there was a good chance that it would look like . . .”
“Dog doo-doo!” Bernie drained his vermouth and put the glass on the table with an emphatic thump. “Do you really think the dancing elves were Lydia’s idea?” Quill nodded. “You did? Oh, she’d squirm if she heard that. She has a huge respect for your talent, Quill. Huge. No, that was Zeke’s little baby.”
“She does? Respect my talent?”
“Not that she’d ever admit it,” Ajit said with a faint smile. “It’s not in our Lydia’s character to give credit where credit’s due.”
“Let me see if I understand this correctly,” Quill said. “The only control that Zeke actually has—had—over Good Taste was the force of his personality?”
“It’s more complex than that,” Ajit said. “That personality. His public persona, if you will, was having a large effect on the quality of the show.”
“Huge,” Benny said.
“Huge,” Bernie echoed.
“Quill?”
Quill turned around with a start. She’d been concentrating so hard on the conversation with Ajit that she’d lost track of time. “Elizabeth! I’m so sorry! Dina said that you wanted to talk to me.” She stopped herself in midsentence. “You’re holding a baby?”
Elizabeth looked down at the blue-blanketed bundle she held in her arms. “It’s Caleb.” She smiled and stroked the baby’s cheek tenderly. “Melissa’s little boy.”
“Melissa brought Caleb to work with her?” Quill said. “I thought she’d made arrangements with her neighbor at the trailer. Has something happened?”
Elizabeth held the baby out to her. Without thinking about it, Quill accepted the warm little body. “Melissa hasn’t shown up for work. Well, she must have shown up at some point, because Caleb was wrapped up next to the fireplace in the kitchen, but she’s not here now. And she left a note.
“She’s giving the baby to you.”
CHAPTER 10
“Pampers?” Meg’s voice over the cell phone was slightly panicked. “I don’t see Pampers. I see Huggies. I see some Kmart brand stuff. But I don’t see Pampers.”
Quill walked up and down the length of her living room. Caleb lay peacefully asleep over her left shoulder. She cradled his bottom with her right arm and had her left hand cupped over the back of his head. Her cell phone was crushed between her left shoulder and her left ear. She thought her neck might be permanently frozen in that position. “I don’t suppose it matters whether the diapers are Pampers, Huggies, or made by the Jolly Green Giant. Just buy whatever looks the nicest.”
She heard the faint rattle of a shopping cart as Meg went down the aisle.
“Quill?”
“Still here.”
“They come in sizes.”
“Sizes?!” Quill jiggled Caleb gently up and down. “That twenty-four-pound turkey you made for Thanksgiving? He’s about that size.”
“The sizes are not listed according to turkey weight,” Meg said patiently. “It’s umm . . . newborn, three months, six months.”
“Six months. Caleb is six months old.”
The baby stirred on her shoulder. The note from Melissa had read:
Dear Quill:
This is Caleb. He is six months old. He loves Gerber baby food, and maybe some solid foods, like applesauce. He likes Carnation formula. I know you will take good care of him until I return.
Melissa
“Okay. How many diapers should I get?”
“Well. I don’t know. I would think he’d use one or two a day at least.”
“The packages are huge.”
“Well, one package then.”
“Okay. I’ve a couple of cases of baby food: spinach, squash, applesauce, carrots, strained chicken, etcetera, etcetera. It’s quite a balanced diet.” Meg’s voice faltered, and she said nervously, “I think. It would be for a person, anyway.”
“And the baby formula?”
“Check.”
“And the wipes and the talcum powder?”
“Check. And the baby shampoo and some cream.”
“I wonder if we should get some baby aspirin?”
“Oh, no. Oh, no.” Meg’s voice threatened to spiral into panic. “If he’s running any kind of temperature or anything, we call Andy right away.”
Meg’s former fiancé, Andy Bishop, was Hemlock Falls’ best (and only) pediatrician.
“But I’ll get a baby thermometer. Now, don’t move. I’ll be home in twenty minutes.”
Caleb made a small, sleepy sound. Quill dropped the cell phone and laid him gently on the couch. Max nudged her aside and sniffed the blanket with intense interest. Quill sat down and picked the baby up again. There was a tap at the door and a muffled query.
“Come in, Doreen!”
Quill thought she’d never been so glad to see anyone in her entire life. Doreen gave the two of them a sharp glance, then took off her navy wool winter coat and draped it over the kitchen counter. She put her winter boots neatly by the door and asked, “You’re doin’ all right?” She walked up to the couch. “You want me to take him?”
Quill clutched him a little closer. “No. No. Of course not. I just want to be sure that he’s okay. I gave him the bottle that Melissa left and then I put him over my shoulder and patted him until he burped. That’s right, isn’t it?”
“Exactly right,” Doreen said with a gentleness totally foreign to her prickly nature. “D’ja change him?”
“There were a couple of diapers in the basket. Meg and I did it,” Quill said proudly. “And then Meg figured we’d need more supplies, so she took off for Kmart.”
“She’s plannin’ on coming back, isn’t she?” Doreen said sharply. “Melissa, that is?”
Quill picked up the note. Doreen read it and said, “T’cha.”
“Couldn’t have said it better myself.”
“So what are you going to do now?”
“I’ve been sitting here thinking about it.”
Caleb woke up abruptly, with a wail that rivaled the Hemlock Falls Volunteer Ambulance Corps siren. Quill took him out of the blanket and held him upright on her knee, her hands under his shoulders. “There, there, baby.” His wails increased in frequency and volume.
“Put him back over your shoulder,” Doreen advised. “He’s expecting to see his mamma’s face, not yours. And did she leave him any toys?”
“Just a stuffed lamb. It’s in the basket by the reading lamp.” Quill put him over her shoulder again and jogged him up and down.
Doreen retrieved the lamb and tucked it under the baby’s fists. The crying ebbed, and then stopped.
“How could she?” Quill said fiercely. “Just walk off and leave this little guy?”
“Beats me. But the little I talked to her, she din’t seem like the kind of mother, like some I read about.”
“I didn’t talk with her much, either. But she did love him. I know she did. This just doesn’t make any sense.”
There was a sharp rap at the door. “That’ll be Meg, Doreen, and she’s probably got her hands full. Would you let her in?” Caleb grabbed her hair in one tiny fist and gurgled. His lamb dropped in her lap. Carefully, she settled him in her lap and looked at him. His eyes were blue. They met her own, and for a moment, his downy brows contracted and she thought he’d wail again. She smiled at him. He smiled tentatively back. Then he hit her in the nose and said, “Gaaah.”
“Gaah,” Quill said. “Did you hear that, Meg? He said ‘gah’!”
“It wasn’t Meg at the door,” Doreen said. “It’s these two.”
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