"Quill?" Meg tapped at her door and stuck her head inside. Max poked his nose through the crack in the door and shoved inside. "The colonel's here."
"Is it that late already?" Dismayed, Quill looked at her watch. "Damn, I wanted to change."
"You'd better change pretty fast. He's brought the Russians with him, and Bjarne's mad as fire."
Quill could hear loud, quarrelsome voices floating up the stairs from down below. "Meg, go talk to them."
"What in heck am I going to say to a bunch of Russians and a teed-off Finn?" She narrowed her eyes. "Hey." She stepped into the room and sat beside Quill on the bed. She put her arm around her. "What's the matter? Are you okay?"
"I just need a minute, okay?"
"Sure." She brushed Quill's hair back from her forehead. "You tell me about it later."
"In a while."
"Okay. I'm always around, you know?" She kissed her ear and jumped up. "C'mon, Max, let's go amuse the Russians."
"Just don't sing!" Quill called after her. She got up, grabbed her bathrobe from the back of the door, and went down the short hall to the bathroom. She didn't think it would bother her to have to share a bath with Meg and whomever happened to be staying with them that week, but it did. She always felt as if she should hurry, although she had a good reason to hurry now. She stared at herself in the mirror, wondering if she could see what Meg had seen in her face. Her red hair was a mess, as usual. Her eyes were still hazel. Maybe there were lines at the corners of her eyes and on her upper lip. She hadn't noticed that before. She showered and changed into a long gauzy dress with a deep V neck. She brushed her hair as fast as she could, wondering for the thousandth time if it would be more convenient to cut it short and have to wrestle with a curling iron. She swept it up onto the top of her head in a knot and raced downstairs.
The colonel hadn't just brought the Russians, he'd brought the Widow Rossiter, too, who looked none the worse for wear after her boozy morning. They were seated at the center table. The other diners, more soberly dressed, cast sidelong glances at the colonel's hat, Shirley's matching jeans and button-down shirt in gold lame, and the Russians sweating in their dark three-piece suits. It wasn't particularly warm for July, but Quill wondered if she should turn on the air-conditioning. If she did, the other diners in their summer wear would freeze.
Leonid jumped to his feet as she came into the room and grabbed both her hands in his. "How I love you when you arrive like this!" he shouted. "You are a wonderful part of this country."
"Thank you," Quill said. She gently withdrew her hands and smiled at everyone in turn. "I'm sorry I wasn't here to greet you when you came in. If you'll excuse me, I'll just let the chef know you're all here."
"The Finn?" Leonid's thick eyebrows came together in a scowl. "It is not such a good thing, that a Finn cook for Russians. He has already come out to see us."
"And what happened?" Quill asked, in spite of herself.
"He goes, 'Phuut!' " Leonid made an "o" with his mouth.
"Here, now," the colonel said in alarm.
Leonid shrugged. "I am thinking. It is not against the law in this country to have Finns in the kitchen. Is it?"
"No."
"And if he goes, 'Phuut' in our soup? The thing is, I was not even born when we in Russia were maybe a little rude to the Finns. So why should this Finn be mad at me? Or at Vasily? Or Alexi? Me, I am trying to explain to this Finn that we are young, we are not of the same prejudices as our fathers, but you know," he leaned forward and whispered, "Finns are funny that way. Most of them . . ." He twirled his finger around his ear. "Crazy. Very crazy. It is well known in . . ."
"Stop," Quill said. "I'll go check on the meal. In the meantime"—she beckoned to Peter the waiter—"please order yourself drinks." She stalked back to the kitchen. "Bjarne!"
He didn't answer. He was at the stove, stirring something. It may have been black bean soup with sour cream, which was on the specials menu.
"Bjarne?"
"Yes!"
"Don't spit in the Russians' soup. You look guilty." She advanced on him. "Did you already spit in the Russians' soup?" Her gaze fell on three filled bowls that had been set to one side. "Throw them out," she said.
"They are . . ." and there was that bad Finnish word again. Or maybe it was Swedish.
"Probably," she agreed. "But we'll have the Board of Health after us in two seconds flat if you spit in the soup." She looked around the kitchen. "Where are Meg and John and Doreen?"
"Doreen went home," Bjarne said sulkily. "The others are out back."
Quill stepped outside onto the back porch. Meg and John were sitting on the steps leading to the small little excuse for a vegetable garden, heads tightly together in deep discussion. Max was asleep in his pen. "Meg?" Quill said.
Her sister jumped as if she'd been stung by a bee. "What!"
"I thought you were going to pour balm on troubled waters in there."
"I did. I made Bjarne go back to the kitchen."
"But then you left, too."
"So!?"
"So it would have been better if you'd sat down and chatted them up a bit."
"That's your job. It's my job to make sure we have enough food on hand when a reservation for two turns into a reservation for five."
"I don't know why that happened."
"And," Meg continued remorselessly, "it's all on the house, right?"
"Um. Well, I did invite the colonel to be my guest. So I suppose it is."
John groaned. "You know, Quill . . ."
"I know. I know. Free food costs us. I'm sorry. But," she brightened, "we may get some inside information on this deal the Russians and the cowmen are cooking up. Not to mention the murder of poor Candy Detwiler."
"And what possible use could this be to us?" Meg asked, her eyebrows raised.
"I won't know until I sit down with them, will I?"
But dinner proved to be less than satisfactory for either detective work or business plans. Quill sat down next to Calhoun. "I like the hat," she said. "Is it a Stetson?"
"No, Miss Quilliam, it isn't. This is a quintuple-nine Texas beaver. With an Oklahoma crease."
"My goodness," Quill said. Peter set soup in front of the party. Quill squinted at the bowls in front of the Russians. They looked spit-free, but you never knew.
"An Oklahoma crease?" She picked up her spoon, then set it down again. What if Peter had gotten the bowls mixed up?
"Something wrong with the soup, Miss Quilliam?"
"No, no." She swallowed some. It was excellent, even if it did have Finnish spit in it.
"You can tell where a man is from by the crease in his hat," the colonel said. "When I'm running a cattle auction, I can look across the room and tell where every single soul is from, by the crease in his hat."
"What sort of crease did Candy Detwiler have?"
"Candy? West Texas. Fold on the right brim, half dent at the crown."
"His death was a terrible thing," Quill said soberly.
Shirley was having a high old time with the Russians. She was drinking vodka. She tucked one forefinger behind Leonid's lapel and shrieked, "Darlin', where'd you get this ole suit?"
"K-Mart," Leonid said. "Part of the reason why I love this country."
"It was." The colonel nodded slowly.
"Did he leave any family?"
The colonel shook his head. "I was his family. My sons and my wife and I. Although I do believe there was a daughter somewhere."
"Do you have any idea who would want to hurt him?"
"It wasn't Candy they wanted to hurt. It was the breed."
"The cows?"
"Cattle, ma'am. Cows are female cattle."
"I don't understand."
He turned to her, his eyes bright. There was a bit of black bean soup on his upper lip. "The purebred Texas longhorn is the greatest breed of cattle on earth. Have you heard my lecture on genetics?"
"Yes," Quill said shortly. "But I fail to see why anyone would want to m
urder Mr. Detwiler because Texas longhorns are the greatest breed on earth."
"He was a heck of a cattle handler, Miss Quilliam. The best. Why, he was the one that broke my bull Impressive to saddle. Rounding up a herd of steers to go to the slaughterhouse, there was no one like Candy. He could get those cattle in the trailer just as sweet as you please. He was killed because whoever did it knew that it was one of the worst possible blows I could take. The only thing worse would be losing my bull."
Quill took a moment to collect her thoughts, and more important, control her tongue. The guy was squirrelly. "About that bull. I thought Royal Rossiter owned the herd."
"It's my bull," the colonel repeated.
"But did Royal pay you for it?"
"Of course Roy paid him for it," Shirley interrupted suddenly. "Crazy old coot. That's a Rossiter herd. It's my herd now."
"This I must ask you, then," Leonid said. "Your poor husband . . ."
"Roy!" Shirley wailed. "My Royal!"
Leonid poured her a glass of vodka. "In Russia, this is what we do when we are sad. We drink vodka. Also when we are happy."
Shirley gulped the drink. Peter set the wild greens salad in front of her. She poked at it. "Looks like hay before it dries."
"I must ask you this," Leonid said, as if there had been no interruption. "We are very interested in sending these cows to Russia. I have spoken with your—with Mr. Rossiter, who says, he will think about it. He is not so sure that he wants his cows to leave this country. But these cows, these cows can survive on our land like no other cows can. They are tough, these cows, I think maybe these cows are from Russia to begin with, and perhaps they got over here by mistake." He smiled. "And, of course, now Mr. Rossiter is dead."
"Excuse me, sir." The colonel stood up, attracting the attention of everyone else in the restaurant. "Royal never would have sold American cattle to a bunch of Russkies."
"That's for damn sure," Shirley said. Then, "You all are Russians?"
"So he may have said. At first," Leonid said. "But he—ah! Died. Right here in this restaurant not two nights ago before he could change his mind."
The well-dressed couple at the table adjacent to Leonid's chair exchanged alarmed glances. Quill made a face at Peter, who nodded and quickly left the room. The colonel leaned across the table, his face red in the candlelight. "Royal Rossiter may have been a lot of things. He may not have been the cowman he thought he was. But I'll tell you this, you Commie, he never would have agreed to sell those Longhorns!"
"He would," Leonid said.
"He would not, sir!"
"He would. He would, he would, he would."
"Gentlemen?" John put a firm hand on the colonel's shoulder. Peter, who was standing behind him, gave Quill an interrogative grin: Was I right? Quill nodded a fervent yes! The colonel sank back into his chair. Peter, carrying a bottle of cabernet of exceptional quality, moved lightly over to Vasily and began to pour. "This is a French cabernet from the north of that country," John explained smoothly. He went on to describe the year, the vintage, the fact that a few thousand of the bottles from that pressing had landed on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean after a shipwreck the year before. Quill knew him well enough to sense the wince when Shirley upended her glass and drank it all at once. But the wine served as an effective diversion, and the topic of the longhorn sale was dropped.
Quill ate the rest of the meal with half a mind on the desultory conversation, the other half occupied in speculation.
Who had killed Candy Detwiler? The colonel's claims that the murder was directed at him were ridiculous, but then, who knew?
Except, of course, that Candy had been knifed several days before he'd died. A powerful arm, with a lot of muscle behind it, Andy had said. Rossiter was sixty-two, thin, and hadn't seemed particularly fit to Quill, as indeed, the autopsy results had borne out. He'd even had trouble dumping the manure bucket over the side of the pen when Marge was helping him clean out the corral.
Should she throw out the assumption that Detwiler had been killed by another cattleman, jealous of the colonel's success with the breed? Quill wished she had her sketch pad to make a note. There was a very significant clue that bothered her: the DMSO. Brady had access to it, of course, since he took care of the cattle. And Laura Crest was the supplier. Quill would take an oath that the two of them had known each other well before they had met in Hemlock Falls.
But why would Brady kill his employer? Why would Laura kill for Brady? Quill eyed Shirley Rossiter. One hundred million was a lot of money. Suppose Brady was having an affair with Mrs. Rossiter, Royal discovered it and filed for divorce, and Laura Crest and Brady, who were also having an affair . . . Quill tugged at a strand of her hair in frustration.
"Spray it," Shirley Rossiter advised loudly.
"Beg pardon?"
"Your hair. I noticed you were lookin' at my do, and I'm tellin' you unless you have a hairdresser right on your little ole tail all the time, it's hell to keep up. I mean, just look at yours, all over your face like that. I got some spray right here in my purse, it'll fix you right up." She narrowed her eyes. " 'Course, you'll have to comb it first. Y'all got a ladies' room here?"
"Dessert, I think, Peter," Quill said firmly. "And coffee."
It was another forty-five minutes before Quill could (tactfully, she hoped) edge the Calhoun party out the door and back up the hill to the Inn. She came back from the farewells and thanks to a table littered with empty vodka bottles, crumbs, spilled food, and a wine stained tablecloth.
"Just throw it out," Peter advised, as he began to clear. "You can't bleach that color primrose, or so my mom tells me."
"Um. Is everybody in the kitchen?"
"If you mean Meg and John, yeah. And the cleanup crew."
John and Meg were not in the kitchen but outside on the same back steps. Quill joined them, locking her arms round her knees and gazing up at the sky. The moon was high and white. The air had cooled from the heat of the day, and mist trailed pennants under the trees.
"What a meal," Meg grumbled. "And all for . . ."
"Don't say it," Quill warned.
John chuckled. He rarely laughed, and the sound was pleasing.
"So did we learn anything of note, oh, great detective?"
"Just shut up, Meg," Quill said amiably. "As a matter of fact, we did."
"Yeah, from Andy. And I don't mind feeding him for free."
"Not from Andy." She pursed her lips. "Did you hear how agitated the colonel got over the Russians buying the cattle? And did you hear how insistent Leonid was that they get them?"
"So do you think it was the Russians or the colonel with the candlestick . . ."
". . . in the library," Quill finished for her. "I don't know what to think. I'm going up to bed so that I can think." She peered into the gloomy backyard. "Where's Max?"
"Escaped again," Meg said. "And he's your dog, so you go look for him."
"He comes when you call him, you look for him."
"I'll look for him." John got to his feet. "I could use a walk after tonight."
"I could, too, actually," Quill said casually. "You going on to Andy's, Meg?"
Meg yawned. "Yeah. I'll see you in the morning. There's another flippin' Chamber meeting, right? At one? I'm supposed to be there?"
"Yes. I've got the proofs of the program for International Night. But it should be a short one, Meg. I don't think it will go on and on."
"Ha! They always do." She gave Quill a sleepy hug. "You have time to talk tomorrow?"
"Sure. We'll have lunch after the meeting. Just the two of us."
"We'd better get out of Hemlock Falls, then. Every time you sit down to eat or talk to me, some bozo comes bursting into the kitchen or the dining room or wherever."
"Hey," John protested.
"You're not a bozo," Meg said affectionately. "Have a nice walk."
Quill and John gave the yard a brief search to confirm that Max wasn't there, then set out in the cool and the dark. "He usually
heads for the Park, and then the Gorge," Quill said. "Actually, he usually comes on home by himself, but I suppose it'd be irresponsible to leave him out."
He took her hand, lightly, as a friend does. Quill curled her fingers around his palm, squeezed it, and let it go. "Max!" she called. "Max!"
A bark in response.
"What do you know," John said, "his master's voice."
"Max! Here, boy! I've got some liver for you, boy."
"You do?"
"No, but by the time he gets here, he'll have forgotten all about it. He doesn't have much on his little doggy mind, John."
The barks escalated in volume.
"He's never sounded like that before," Quill said. "You don't suppose he's hurt?"
"You don't suppose he's found another body?"
"You know, John, that really bothers me. Max has been in the Park every day since poor Detwiler was put there, and he never came home and . . ." She trailed off. John took her elbow and guided her to the sound of the barking. "I know he's not Lassie, but . . ."
"He's a dog," John said briefly. "Max!"
Max dashed out of the darkness and danced urgently around Quill. His ears were up. His eyes were anxious. He dashed back into the brush and crouched there, tail wagging frantically.
Quill's heart contracted. John knelt down and shoved his way into the brush. "John?" She cleared her throat and said more loudly, "John! It's not another . . . it's not a body, is it?"
"No. Not a human one. It's Tye. Laura Crest's dog."
Chapter Ten
"The dog's hurt," Quill said. She knelt beside John in the bushes.
"Don't touch her. She may bite."
Quill shuddered.
He put his hand on her shoulder. "Are you all right?"
"Just remembering that German shepherd when we went to investigate the Thermo King truck way back when we had our first corpse."
"This is a good dog. I don't think we'll run into that kind of problem here. Here, steady, girl." He probed along her ribs, her jaw, then each of her legs in turn. Tye lay on her side, her brown eyes rolled trustfully up at him. There was blood on her hindquarters. Quill bent next to John. She could feel his skull, the silkiness of his hair.
A Steak in Murder Page 16