Outside the windows, Leonid, Vasily, and Alexi milled about the head of the line uncertainly. Then, reacting to the turned backs and stern frowns of the villagers, the Russians meekly walked down the block to the end of the line. And if one or more of them was behind the murders, then the colonel's life was definitely in danger. Nah. There was a kinder, gentler Russia now that the country was splintered into separate states, if only because they couldn't get it together enough to make war on each other. But the Russians' dogged mission to take the cattle back with them one way or the other was sinister, if not fanatic in its intensity.
Quill scribbled for a few minutes on her sketch pad and announced, "There are three bodies, but only two murders confirmed. There are five suspects, but none for whom we've satisfactorily identified means, motive, and opportunity."
"And it's eight o'clock, with a lot of impatient people to feed," John said. "Why don't we talk about it later tonight?"
"In the morning," Quill said, adding hastily, "We're all going to be whipped after this is over."
John unlocked the door, and the crowd poured in. Peter sorted everyone into the proper seat with his customary aplomb. The colonel was seated safely between Howie on his right, and the mayor on his left. Lally Preston signed autographs. Doreen was in black toreador pants and a red velvet top. Her husband Axminster Stoker darted among the crowd like a gaily dressed goldfish, taking pictures for the Hemlock Falls Gazette. Lally's TV crew shot footage of the milling crowd, the crowd seated and ready for the appetizer, and Quill herself, shaking hands with the Russians. In the confusion, Quill didn't notice that one of the two cameramen had taken his steady cam into the kitchen until she was seated with Miriam Doncaster and Esther West. Peter tapped her gently on the shoulder.
Quill smiled at him. "Everything seems to be going well here." Her smiled faded. "What? I don't like that look on your face. What?"
"They're trying to interview Meg while she's cooking.
Miriam stifled a giggle.
Quill sighed. "Oh, dear. I told Lally that wouldn't work. Tell John where I am, will you? And keep your eye on this lot."
"For what?"
Another body, Quill thought. That's what. She eyed the colonel nervously. He'd taken his hat off, thank goodness, and was talking nineteen to the dozen to a visibly bored Howie. About cows, no question. Quill, lingering a moment, briefly considered the colonel as a suspect. He was going to benefit enormously from Royal's plans to market the beef, so it didn't make sense for him to murder his partner. By all accounts, he keenly missed his cattle manager, Candy, and if he had wanted to kill him, why now, and not before this? And for heaven's sake, why kill the vet whose unique knowledge of the longhorn was so important to him?
No, she could definitely see why the colonel with his high-pitched voice, his annoying mannerisms, his endless slides, and his ghastly politics would be a candidate for murder. Maybe she should have called the Horrible Trooper Harris for more protection.
"Quill?" Peter's voice was urgent.
"Um? Oh. Meg. Cameramen. Kitchen. Right." She excused herself and hurried into the kitchen. Bjarne, his back eloquent with disapproval, was standing at the vegetable sink, mixing the vinaigrette with testy clanks of the egg whip against the stainless steel bowl. The cameraman was rolling tape. Meg, at the stove, was yelling at Lally Preston.
Lally made ineffectual soothing motions, hands waving in the air like semaphores. "But we want to see you in the heat of the moment, Meggie."
"DON'T you call me Meggie!" She stamped a frustrated jig on the floor. Since she was wearing her ratty Nikes, this didn't make any noise, which made her madder. She picked up a wooden spatula and whacked the stove. "GET (whack) THAT PERSON (whack) OUT (whack) OF (whack) HERE!" (whack-whack-whack) She brandished the spatula over her head and advanced on the cameraman, who, tape still running, backed into the steel shelving, knocked a twenty-gallon stockpot off the top shelf, and narrowly missed a concussion when it fell with a CLANG! to the floor.
"What brought it on?" Quill asked Lally.
"The beef." Lally shrugged. "The weather. The fact this is America. Who the hell knows?" She reached out and grabbed the cameraman by the scruff of the neck. "And where do you think you're going?"
"You wanna add fifteen percent hazard pay to my fee, Miss Preston?" He eyed Meg, who'd turned back to the stove and was muttering over the beef. Suddenly, she whirled and threw what looked like tenderloin across the room and into the wash-up sink. "Make that twenty. Union rules." He shook his head. "We can't use this footage anyhow, unless we sell it to Jerry Springer."
"You wouldn't dare," Quill said. "Lally . . ."
"All right. Mark, take the damn steady cam out there and get a few establishing shots of the front of the restaurant. And don't bother with that twerp Harvey or that dolt the mayor."
"Lally," Quill said. "You can use them as background for the voice-over, can't you? Please?"
"You are too softhearted to be in business, Quill."
"And you put Meg into a genuine fit. She hasn't been this mad since the Board of Health shut us . . . never mind," Quill amended. "Just go out and do your thing in the dining room, Lally. I'll join in as soon as I've settled things here."
As soon as the kitchen was empty of all but the paid Palate staff, Quill got her sister's attention. "Anything I can do?"
"No."
"What's the problem?"
"What's the problem?" Meg held a dripping piece of beef up for her attention. It was charred on the outside. "See this?!"
"I do," Quill said mildly.
"Is it cold in the middle?"
Quill touched it. "Yes."
"Everything I learned from that jackass colonel about how fast this meat cooks compared to Angus?"
"Yes?"
"Bogus!" She threw the steak back on the grill. "And the timing for the dinner is ALL OFF!"
"That's okay, Meg. John and I will take care of it."
"The colonel's filled with baLONEY!" she roared the last syllables and flipped the steak with the wooden spatula. "I want to see him THIS MINUTE!!"
"Okay," Quill said.
"Right now!"
"Gotcha." Quill walked back to the dining room with a determinedly casual pace. She whispered briefly in the colonel's ear. He excused himself and followed Quill back to the kitchen.
"Can I be of assistance?"
Meg showed him the beef. "Cold," she said. "Not medium rare. You said it cooks faster. It's not cooking faster."
The colonel examined the beef with a grave air.
"I knew I should have gotten those articles from Laura," Meg said fretfully. "Damn it all."
"Perhaps," the colonel said carefully, after a long look at her extremely ill-tempered expression, "you might think about cooking it longer than you have, but not as long as you might."
Meg scowled. Turned up the flame on the broiler. Seared the steak, counting under her breath. She whipped it off the grill, cut a small piece, tasted it, then said cheerfully, "Now that works."
"Good," Quill said.
"I'm glad to hear it," the colonel said. "If you'll pardon me? I have decided to give my speech now." He gave Quill a long look, pregnant with meaning.
"She gets," Quill said, "um . . . excitable when she has to cook."
"I can see that."
"But things will be fine now."
"But the meal will be twenty minutes off schedule," Meg said, the thunderclouds returning.
"I have several extra slides I could present, if you require an additional twenty minutes. The time will fly by. I assure you."
"Do it," Meg said, indifferent to the additional boredom about to be inflicted on her guests.
"I shall be delighted."
"And it's not my fault."
"Absolutely not. Do you mind if I get back to the dining room now?"
"Go right ahead," Meg said generously.
He bowed, replaced his hat on his head, and left.
"I should get back, too, Meg."
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"I know you're worried about somebody bonking the colonel over the head in the middle of the meal. Since I'm not going to do it, at least not right now, you go back and hover over him like the mother hen that you are."
"Thank you so much," Quill said sweetly.
She returned to the party. Maybe the colonel had so bored those in his vicinity that they'd all fallen asleep and hadn't noticed that he'd been murdered. He was alive and well and in full spate, despite the fact that poor Harvey was bravely struggling with his introduction speech. Quill reseated herself, replied reassuringly to Miriam'.s half amused question about Meg's equanimity, and drank a full third of her Vouvray without stopping.
"Well, I think it's wonderful," Miriam said with a trace of defensiveness.
Quill dragged her attention back to her dinner companions. The mayor wound down his speech to scattered applause, and the colonel rose from his seat and put on his hat.
"What's wonderful?"
"Marge and Harland." Esther adjusted the spit curl over her left ear. "Would you look at them? Behaving like a couple of teenagers."
"Really?" Quill smiled. "It is wonderful. Harland's been so lonely since June died. Where are they?"
"Over by CarolAnn," Esther said. "Would you look at that, and in public, too."
The extent of Harland's rowdy behavior was that his right arm was draped casually over the back of Marge's chair. Miriam rolled her eyes. "I wouldn't call that anything but sweet, would you, Quill?" She tapped her on the knee. "Quill?"
The colonel began his speech. Quill scarcely heard him. CarolAnn Spinoza was staring at him, eyes narrowed, fingers turning her steak knife over and over again. John turned down the lights so that the slide show could begin. Quill could see nothing in the darkness but the flash of the silvery blade, turning over and over again in CarolAnn's restless hands.
"CarolAnn?" Meg said some hours later. "You're kidding, aren't you?" Her hair was sticking up in tufts all over her head. Her face was pink. The dinner had been an enormous success; at the conclusion, the crowd had refused to leave until Meg appeared. She had received a standing ovation.
Lally Preston, speaking importantly into the camera over the background of cheers and whistles, had said, "You're witnessing the important launch of what's sure to be an incredible successful, healthful product. Texas longhorn beef!"
"You should have seen her, Meg." They were in Quill's bedroom. Quill took off the white dress and pulled on a pair of jeans and a dark pullover. "As soon as the colonel started to speak about the cattle, she looked . . . well, vicious is the only word."
"CarolAnn looks vicious in church."
"Then when the entree came out—do you know the colonel is still asking about that marinade recipe, Meg— and everyone went bananas over it."
"They did?" Meg's face got even pinker. "I was so worried about the timing."
"They did. They loved it, Meg. You heard them at the end. It was a triumph," Quill said. "But I'm sure CarolAnn's the murderer. She turned purple with rage and stamped out."
"Out? She left."
"Huff doesn't even begin to describe it. The beef's a success. There's no way even she can stop the permit going through, even with all the underhanded tricks she knows. She's stymied, thwarted. Boxed in. I know all she's thinking about is that feedlot and the smell. And she's crazy with rage."
"Boy, it seems like a thin motive for murdering three people."
Quill held up one finger. "Means. She's a tough, strong woman. And boning knives are a dime a dozen . . ."
"Not good ones," Meg said seriously.
". . . and she's been everywhere the Q.U.A.C.K. group has, every time, so she had opportunity."
"And motive?"
"Meg, this case has fanatic written all over it for motive."
"But how do we prove it?"
Quill sat down on the bed and began to pull on her tennis shoes. Meg, who'd worn jeans and a T-shirt under her toque, hadn't needed to change. "Proof," Quill said vaguely.
"Yeah, proof. You know, that little thing you can't get convicted without?"
"There isn't any proof, is there?"
Meg began to bounce on the bed. "We need a boning knife, with her prints and Candy's blood on it. We need the blunt instrument that scattered poor Laura's blood all over the clinic floor. We need the shoe that kicked poor Tye . . ." She stopped the manic rant. "Hey. That might do it. CarolAnn's shoes. With Tye's fur on the toe. CarolAnn would never think of that."
"I don't know that proof she kicked the dog would convict her of murder, Meg. Everyone knows she hates animals already. Are you ready to go?"
"You still want to go to the clinic? Why?"
"You bet I do. I told Brady we'd meet in an hour outside the Croh Bar. Think about it, Meg. What possible reasons could CarolAnn have for trashing the clinic?"
"I have no idea. To conceal something? To look for something?"
"Think it through, Meg. What did those cattle need so that Harland could put them on his feedlot? Health certificates. Proving that the cattle were free from bovine encephalitis. That's what she was looking for. That's why she trashed the office. Laura must have come in, caught her at it, and CarolAnn killed her so that Laura wouldn't turn her in."
"Well," Meg said dubiously, "it's a scenario which fits the facts. So, we go to the clinic to look for the health certificates, and if they aren't there . . ."
"We know that someone took them. Because Laura had the results, she told me so."
"And if they are there . . ."
"Maybe CarolAnn didn't find them. That," Quill said impatiently, "is not the point. The point is the proof, Meg."
Meg squeezed her eyes shut and muttered under her breath.
"Open up, Meggie. If CarolAnn caught us at the clinic tonight, what do you think she'd do?"
"If she's the murderer, bash our heads in with a tire iron."
"Brady will be with us. Concealed in another room. We get a confession out of her . . ."
"Wait, wait, wait. You're planning on letting her know we're going to the clinic? How? I mean, I'm all for dragging confessions out of the killer, which is the done thing in my favorite mystery stories, but I'm not about to walk into the proverbial basement. Gothic romances are NOT my thing."
"I told you. Brady will be there." Quill thumbed through the thin Nynex phone book for Hemlock Falls, found CarolAnn's number, and picked up the phone.
"Wait a minute, Quill. What if Brady did it?"
"Then we have CarolAnn to protect us," Quill said flippantly. "I'd match her against a crazed killer any day."
"You have a point," Meg said. "Okay, go ahead."
Quill tapped in the number. After three rings, CarolAnn's distinctively sweet tones said, "Hel-lo?"
Quill dropped her voice to a whisper. "I saw what you did. I know what you want. I'm going back there to get it. You didn't get them all."
"Hello? HELLO?!"
Quill hung up. Meg fell backwards in a fit of nervous giggles.
"What's going on?" John walked through the open door. He, too, had changed out of his evening kit and into his standard chinos and polo shirt. "Quite a night, Meg. Congratulations."
"Thank you," she said demurely.
"Andy called. Sent his love. Said he was sorry he couldn't make it. Asked you to call him at the hospital as soon as you could."
"Got it. I'll be back in a bit, Quill."
She banged in to her room. After a moment, they heard her murmuring lovingly into the phone. John eased himself into the rocking chair. Quill, suddenly conscious that she was sitting on her bed in a half-dressed condition, tucked in her T-shirt and tied her sneakers.
"Quite a night." John put his hands behind his head. "I'd like to do a business proposal, Quill. Set up shares in a partnership to market this beef. I think there's a set of customers out there that are going to buy it at a premium price."
"A partnership?"
"Among you, Marge, Harland, and a few other wealthy investors. It should g
ive us the capital to get started, set up a web site, contact distributors to get the beef where people can find it."
"But we don't have any money," Quill said.
"You have the Palate. As of tonight, this is the only retail establishment where it's available. That's worth money in the bank, Quill."
"That's great. Does this mean we can sell it and buy the Inn back?"
He smiled. "We'd be selling the recipes, Meg's marinade, the fact that right now this is the only place to get a Texas longhorn beef meal prepared by a gourmet. I doubt that the new owners would allow the Inn to serve the same meals. You'd be barred from serving longhorn beef for a period of time. A noncompetition clause increases the value of the Palate to a buyer. Do you understand?"
"Of course. And I don't mind not selling the beef. I don't like to think of eating those cows." She tucked her feet under her. "John, you've been a godsend."
He waved his hand dismissively. "All in the day's work of a consultant."
"Is it? Will you invest in this, too?"
"I'll be auditing the books. I can't." He grinned. "But I would if I could."
"So, you'll be going back to Long Island?"
His glance took in her tennis shoes, the dark T-shirt, the jeans. His smile broadened. "You don't need me to solve this case. Not with Brady at hand. So, yes, I'll probably be traveling back to Long Island."
Quill bit her lip. "It's a great job. And I'll bet that nurse misses you."
"I'm rethinking the job. And the nurse and I are good friends."
"You're going to quit?"
"I'm a businessman, Quill. I've always wanted to be in business for myself. I've made enough contacts in the bank job to establish a private list of clients."
"You mean you're going into the consulting business?"
"I'm giving it serious consideration." He got up, drew aside the drape, and looked out onto Main Street. "As a consultant, I can live just about anywhere. There's a bit of traveling involved, of course, but with a fax machine, e-mail, and a phone, I can set up anywhere."
A Steak in Murder Page 19