A Taste for Murder

by Claudia Bishop

  Mavis scowled. “Pretty near. We went down to Marge’s for dinner. It was a business meeting, you know, whatever that Nadine-person thought. Gil wanted to talk with Amelia about investing in his business.”

  “She doesn’t act like she has that kind of money.”

  “Who? Amelia?” Mavis snorted, leaving a significant portion of the pork rillette on her chin. “You’ve got to be kidding. She’s loaded.”

  Quill, hoping for more information, raised a skeptical eyebrow.

  “Well, she is. She held practically all of the stock in Doggone Good Dogs. Made out like a bandit when the company was sold.”

  “She did?” said Quill.

  “Well, sure. Her husband must have left her a packet, although she sure acts like she’s broke. Penny-pinching ol’ thing.” Mavis giggled uncertainly. Her eyes were glazed. Baumer solicitously helped her to the rest of her mint julep.

  “So that’s how you met her? You worked for her husband?”

  “Who says so?” demanded Mavis suddenly. “Who says I worked for him? It’s a damn lie!” She swayed a little in her chair, the teddy bear on her T-shirt blinking furiously.

  Quill was going to have to sober her up before asking about John. And she sure didn’t want to ask any more questions in front of the rude and inquisitive Baumer. “Are you sure you don’t want to lie down, Mavis?” said Quill. “You know, Dr. Bishop thought you should take it easy for a few days.”

  Mavis got to her feet. She swayed a little, her face pale. “I declare, I do feel jus’ a little bit woozy.”

  “Why don’t you come and lie down in my room,” said Baumer. “I can give you a back rub or something, help you sleep.”

  “I’ll give her a hand, Mr. Baumer,” said Quill coldly. “Come on,. Mavis. Alley-oop.”

  “Alley-oop!”

  Quill propelled Mavis firmly through the bar and up the short flight of stairs to two-sixteen. She knocked briefly on the door; when no answer came from Mrs. Hallenbeck, she used her master key and pulled Mavis inside. The rooms were dark, the drapes drawn.

  “Who’s there?” called a timid voice.

  “It’s me, Mrs. Hallenbeck. I’ve brought Mavis up for a nap.” Quill eased Mavis, by now half-asleep, onto the bed. The connecting door opened, and Mrs. Hallenbeck peered fearfully into the room.

  “She is not drunk again, is she?”

  Quill pulled the bedspread over the blinking T-shirt. Mavis looked up blearily. “Amelia? I’m sorry, sugar. Guess I had a li’l too much to drink. We’ll go for your walk in a bit. I jus’ need a snooze.” She closed her eyes, then popped them open again. “Amelia? You’re not an ol’ bat.” She sighed, “I’m the ol’ bat,” and began to snore.

  Even die-hard aging Southern belles look vulnerable in sleep.

  Quill decided John couldn’t possibly be involved with this woman, or what had happened last night. She knew, abruptly, that what she most wanted was the Inn back the way it was before Mavis’ catastrophic transformation into Southern sex kitten of the year. And the key to that was Mrs. Hallenbeck.

  “Mrs. Hallenbeck? Could I talk to you a minute?”

  “Of course, dear. Please come in.”

  Quill followed her into 214, closing the door behind her. “Would you like me to open the drapes? It’s a beautiful day outside.” She pulled the drape cord, and sunshine flooded into the room.

  Mrs. Hallenbeck was dressed for walking in a beige trouser suit. She sat down at the little tea table. Her face was stem. “So many terrible things have been happening, Sarah. I was just sitting here in the dark, thinking about them. What’s going to happen next? That dreadful accident last night. That Gil person. And Mavis behaving so oddly.” Her lips trembled. “Sometimes I think I want to go home. But then I think, what would I do without you, my dear, and your lovely paintings, and your wonderful care of me, and I know we’re doing the right thing by staying here.”

  “As a practical matter, I’m afraid Mavis doesn’t have much choice. She’ll have to testify at the inquest. But right afterwards, you and Mavis can go on with your vacation.”

  “Oh, no,” said Mrs. Hallenbeck firmly. “Mavis has behaved in a wholly unacceptable manner. I would like you to come with me, dear. That would be wonderful. We could have a very good time together.”

  “I have the Inn to run, and my sister to take care of,” said Quill gently. “But surely you don’t want to abandon Mavis after all you’ve been through together?”

  “Mavis? I’m through with Mavis.” Mrs. Hallenbeck shuddered. “Her friends make me suspicious. Sometimes I think she’s going mad.”

  “Hardly that,” said Quill. “But I do think she’s not quite herself.” Quill experienced a flash of doubt. What if Mavis was a con artist, out to bilk an old lady?

  “Have you had these kinds of problems before in your travels? I mean, Mavis introducing you to” - Quill searched for the right, unalarming words - “potential investors?”

  Mrs. Hallenbeck sent her a sudden, shrewd look. “You do not get to my age and stage, Sarah, by handing over large checks to boobs like that car salesman. That is not the problem, although Mavis would certainly like me to buy her friends for her. No. The problem is finding someone sympathetic to be with when you’re old. Do you know…” Her lips worked, and the large blue eyes filled with tears. “I loathe it. How did I get to be eighty-three? Why, I look in the mirror, and I expect to see the girl I was at seventeen. Instead … this.” She swept her hand in front of her face.

  “You have a beautiful face,” said Quill. “There is a great dignity in your age. We’re all going to get there, Amelia. I just hope that when I do, I look like you.”

  Mrs. Hallenbeck looked at her. “Mavis used to say such things to me. When we agreed to be companions in our adventures, I thought that she cared for me. And now, everything has changed.”

  “She’s been through quite a bit in the last few days. I think,” said Quill carefully, “that she’s one of those people who just reacts to the situation at hand. Do you know I what I mean? Impulsive. That she’ll be fine once the inquest is over and the two of you can leave. Things will be the same as they were before.” The Cornell University evening course in Interactive Skills training had emphasized something called Identification as a “tool for change.” Tools for change, Quill realized, were not tire irons, but nice, tactful lies that made people want to behave better. “Identification” was a lie that made people behave by telling them you did something you didn’t, so they’d feel better about changing their ways.

  Quill decided to try Identification. “You know, my sister Meg and I - we fight quite a bit. We say things we don’t I mean.” Quill hesitated, searching for the most appropriate lie. “I’m the older sister. Sort of like you’re the older sister to Mavis. And I know sometimes I get very bossy. You know, telling Meg what to wear, how to behave. I even yank on her salary once in a while, if she’s not cooking exactly the things I think the guests want. But then I remember that Meg has her own needs and her own life, and that I have to let her be herself. And we get along just fine.”

  “You think I’m too hard on Mavis?”

  Mrs. Hallenbeck, Quill realized, was very good at what the professor had called “cutting the crap.” Quill patted her hand. “I should have known you’d be shrewd enough to handle poor Mavis. I should think,” Quill said expansively, “that what Mavis is really looking for is guidance. She needs you, Mrs. Hallenbeck. One advantage of being your age is that you’ve had so much experience with people.”

  “Possibly you’re right. I mean, about comparing this to you and your sister.” She sat taller in her chair. “I shall take care of things. You know, Mavis and I have been together for many years. I shall reflect on ways and means.”

  Quill left Mrs. Hallenbeck and marched triumphantly to the kitchen. Meg was scowling hideously at the Specials blackboard, chalk smeared on her face.

  “I am so good!” Quill said. She threw herself into the chair by the fireplace and rocked content
edly.

  “What d’ya think goes best with the French onion soup?”

  Quill stopped rocking. “Um. You mean the onion soup you weren’t going to make because of the raw egg ban?”

  “The soufflé’s a bust. It’s too humid for it. I know!” She scribbled furiously for a moment. “Potted rabbit.”

  “In this heat? Don’t you think something lighter is better for July?”

  “Lancashire’s booked a party of two for dinner. And I’ve got fresh rabbit.”

  Quill rose majestically to her feet. Perhaps the improvised management tactics she’d presented to Mrs. Hallenbeck had been an inspiration; she’d never tried a firm hand with her sister before. “Meg, if you do not stop using raw egg in the food, I will dock your salary.”

  “You will, huh?” said Meg, unimpressed. Meg put the chalk down and looked consideringly at her sister. “I just might remind Doreen that you spend every Saturday night - all night - with a certain good-looking sheriff. She’ll want to put worms up your nose, I expect.”

  “You wouldn’t!”

  “It’d be nothing less than my duty,” said Meg with an air of conscious virtue. She gave her sister an affectionate grin. “So what are you good at? Not this detective stuff?”

  Quill sighed. “No. Not this detective stuff.”

  “You agree that John’s probably gone off on a toot? Poor guy, after being sober all these years, and what’re you looking at me like that for? You think it’s a secret? Everyone knows John goes to A.A. on Thursdays. You know that Gil’s accident was just that. And you can bet that creep Baumer was probably the one who made those phone calls, out of sheer despair at your rejection of his uncouth advances.”

  “Ye-e-es,” said Quill reluctantly.

  “I thought you were going to make a courtesy call on Nadine Gilmeister,” Meg said briskly. “One of us has to. And you’re very good at that.”

  “I suppose you’re right.”

  “So take a couple of brioches as a tribute to the funeral; get out of my kitchen and do it. Oh, Quill?”

  Quill looked back.

  “Stop by Tom Peterson’s, will you? I stuck some of yesterday’s delivery in your car. The meat’s tainted.”

  “The meat?”

  “Yes! The meat. It stinks. I can’t serve it. Something must be wrong with those refrigeration units. Tell him I want fresh good stuff in the cooler now. Make him eat that stuff if he won’t.”

  “Okay,” said Quill meekly.

  Gil’s ostentatious white Colonial was in the town’s only suburb, about four miles from the Inn. The street where the now-widowed Nadine lived was lined with cars, and Quill parked her battered Olds half a block away. Hemlock Falls citizens were conscientious about funerals and calling hours. Friends of the deceased rallied around the family, dropping by with a continuous stream of food.

  The front door was partly open and she slipped in quietly. She set the brioches in the kitchen between a huge home-cooked ham from the Hogg’s Heaven Farms, and a chocolate banana cream pie - Betty Hall’s specialty dessert for Saturdays.

  She was unsurprised to see Nadine dressed completely in black, something that was Not Done in Hemlock Falls, because it was considered a waste of hard-earned cash. (“So whattya gonna do with a black outfit anyways?” Marge Schmidt had been heard to opine. “Only place to wear it is up to Ms. Barf-your-guts-out-Quilliam’s, and after a meal there, you don’t have enough left to pay for the dress.”)

  Marge was, of course, conspicuously absent, but most of the Chamber was there, in force. Quill said hello to Mayor Henry, who nodded gravely, and waved at Howie Murchison, who was in close discussion with Andy Bishop.

  A large poster featuring a close-up of Gil’s grinning face usually stood by the showroom door at his dealership. Some thoughtful soul had brought it to the house, and it now stood in state by the fireplace, a black-ribboned wreath surmounting the legend “Drowned, But Not Forgotten.”

  “Not real creative,” said Harvey Bozzel, a thick piece of brioche in one hand. “But God! What’d you expect on such short notice? And I’ve decided not to send a bill. Although the printer double charged for the overtime.” Mementos of Gil lay scattered on a table underneath the poster. “Nice touch, don’t you think?” said Harvey. “His wallet, his Chamber membership, stuff like that. I think Nadine’s going to bury it with him. Except for the credit cards.”

  “Is all this from… ?”

  “The body? Some of it,” said Harvey. “Quill, now that we have a chance to talk, what about that ad campaign? I’ve come up with some really exciting ideas.”

  “Harvey, this just isn’t the right time to discuss it.”

  “Monday, then? I could drop by around ten o’clock.”

  “Sure.” said Quill.

  “I’ll bring some roughs for you. It’s gonna be great.”

  “Excuse me,” said Quill. She edged over to Esther West, who was standing by an impromptu bar set up on the credenza.

  “So where do you think she got that?” said Esther bitterly, with a gesture toward the widow.

  “The dress?” Quill peered at it. “Looks like DKNY.”

  “You’d think she’d have the manners to shop at home at a time like this,” said Esther. “I have the nicest little black and white suit that’s been in the window for ages that would have been perfect. Purchased in the hope of just such an occasion.” Esther belted back a slug of what smelled like gin. “Now, where’s she going to wear that thing after this funeral?”

  Quill said she didn’t know.

  “Mayor asked me to write a short piece in Gil’s memory,” said Esther. “You know, after the opening ceremonies tomorrow.” She adjusted her earring, It was mother-of-pearl, at least two inches wide. “Taste. That’s what the mayor’s after, I kind of like what Harvey wrote, you know? ‘Drowned, but not forgotten.’ But we can’t just say that. I thought maybe something from Hamlet might go over well.”

  “Hamlet?” said Quill, “You mean Hamlet?”

  “That play by William Shakespeare, There’s a scene from J it on my director’s video. This Queen Gertrude is very upset over a drowning. She runs into the palace and has some very nice lines about a drowning. Very nice.”

  “The ones about Ophelia?” Howie Murchison, occupied with refilling his Scotch, winked at Quill. “‘Too much of water has thou, poor Ophelia; and therefore, I forbid my tears’?”

  “You know that play, Howie? I think it’s nice, And of course, that’s what happened to Gil, Too much water. What do you think, Harvey?” Esther inquired of the ad man, who’d I also come to the credenza for a refill.

  “Well, Gil was bashed on the head first,” said Harvey. “I don’t know how creatively appropriate that drowning speech would be. I mean he drowned, yes, Too much water, yes. But he was hit on the head first.”

  “The rest of this play Hamlet seems to be people dead of sword wounds,” said Esther critically, “and I don’t suppose that would do.”

  “There’s always ‘Cudgel thy brains no more about it,’ offered Howie.

  “Oh, no,” said Quill involuntarily. She was afraid to look at Howie; she bit her lower lip so hard it hurt, “I’ll just say something to Nadine. Excuse me again, Harvey.”

  A space around Nadine had cleared, and Quill went over to see her. “I’m awfully sorry, Nadine,” she said soberly, “Is there anything I can do for you? Do you need someone to stay with you?”

  “Thank you, no,” she said. “I called Gil Junior, of course, and he’s driving up from Alfred. He’ll be here sometime this afternoon.” The two women were silent for a moment. Abruptly, Nadine said, “He was a bad husband, Quill. He ran around on me, and never came home, and caroused too much, and I spent like a drunken sailor to spite him. And now everyone in the town thinks I’m awful. And I was, Quill, I was.” Suddenly, she began to sob. The low murmuring in the room stopped. Quill put her arm around Nadine. Elmer Henry proffered a handkerchief. “I’ll take her,” said Betty Hall with rough kindness, a
nd she led Nadine away.

  Quill sighed, turned, and knocked over the table that held Gil’s final effects. With an exclamation of chagrin, she bent to sort through the items that had fallen to the floor. Gil’s wallet, still damp from the duck pond, had opened and its contents lay scattered. Quill picked up his driver’s license (credit cards were conspicuously absent) and a few family pictures. She tucked several of Gil Junior back into the wallet, and flipped over a picture that had been folded in half. She smoothed it out.

  A pretty Indian girl stared back at her. The girl in the picture on the night stand in John Raintree’s room at the Inn.

  -7-

  Quill smoothed the photograph flat. The girl was dressed in a pink waitress’s uniform, leaning across a diner counter. She smiled into the camera, black hair long and shining, dark eyes bright. Was this a girl John had loved? What would a picture of John’s girlfriend be doing at the scene of Gil’s drowning? Quill took a deep breath. There had to be another explanation. John couldn’t be involved with this. Could she have been a waitress at Marge Schmidt’s diner? Could John or Gil have met her there? If that were true, this picture might belong to Marge, and not to Gil at all. No. Marge was Hemlock Falls’ most notorious employer, running through waitresses and busboys with the speed of a rural Mario Andretti. And anyone who’d tuck her aged mother into a nursing home on Christmas Eve, as Marge had done, was not someone you could accuse of sentimentality. Marge wouldn’t carry a keepsake of a favorite waitress. If she carried photographs at all, they’d be of cream pies she had known and loved.

  Mavis and Keith Baumer were from out of town and had never met John before. Could the picture have belonged to either of them? Was there any connection between John and Mavis? What possible connection could John have with the companion to an elderly and wealthy widow?

  That left Gil himself. Gil and John were business acquaintances, hardly friends. But John, a loner, had few friends.