A Most Unpleasant Picture

by Judith Alguire

  “With Rudley laid up, we could use a little extra help,” Margaret said, moving from behind the desk to take Cerise’s arm. “Come with me. I’ll have Gregoire make you a snack.”

  Creighton leaned over the desk. “Thanks, Rudley. I appreciate you taking her on. She’s driving me nuts.”

  “You know how Margaret is about stray cats,” he said.

  “I was sorry to hear about your leg.”

  “So it’s spread all the way to regional headquarters.”

  “Vance filled us in.”

  “Vance,” Rudley scowled. “The man had trouble keeping a straight face when he arrived to find me on the ground in pain.” A smile twitched along his lips. “So that young woman is driving you nuts?”

  “She is.”

  Rudley’s smile broadened. “That’s the best thing I’ve heard in days.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Gregoire had been in the kitchen since four-thirty, as was his custom. He liked having the Pleasant to himself for an hour or so in the morning. No Tim cracking wise and snatching ingredients, no Lloyd traipsing in dirt, no Rudley bellowing, no Aunt Pearl looking to top up her vodka with a drop of orange juice. He washed the ingredients for his omelets and fruit cups thoroughly, set them aside in bowls, and nodded with satisfaction. There was nothing more beautiful, in his opinion, than the robust palette of his cuisine. He inhaled with satisfaction and began to hum a strain from Carmen. He was conducting opera and whipping up eggs for his popovers when he became aware of someone watching him. He turned to see Cerise leaning against the doorjamb.

  “It’s nice to see someone so happy in the morning,” she said.

  He returned to his popovers. “It is the best time of the day.”

  “Before the old man gets up,” she said.

  “It is usually more peaceful before Mr. Rudley is up,” he conceded. “But then, of course, everyone else is up soon after so it seems like he is responsible for all of the kerfuffle.”

  She came up beside him and peered into the bowl. “Aren’t you going to put any cinnamon in?”

  He gritted his teeth at this sacrilege. “One does not put cinnamon into popovers. Their charm depends on the simplicity of a few fine ingredients prepared just so.”

  “I put cinnamon in everything,” she said. She opened a cupboard door. “Where do you keep your spices?”

  Under lock and key from this time on, he thought. “They are in the middle cupboard,” he said, “but” — he raised his spatula — “in this kitchen no one touches anything without my consent and under my direction.”

  She made a face. “You’re quite the tyrant, aren’t you?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “In this place, yes.” He drew himself up to his full height. “I am the head chef.”

  “I could be the sous-chef.”

  “I do not have a sous-chef. Except perhaps Mrs. Rudley. But that is because she is sensitive to my requirements and does everything exactly as I wish.”

  “I could do everything exactly as you wish.”

  “I somehow do not believe that.”

  She shrugged. “So you got me.”

  “Besides, you cannot help me here because you are not cleared to handle food. You should not be touching anything in here.”

  She put her hands behind her back. “There! I’m very good at taking directions when I want to.”

  He shook his head.

  “I’m bored,” she said. “All these silly rules.”

  “They are to keep everyone from dying around us. Although,” he added, pouring the popover batter into the muffin tins, “they are not always successful.”

  “So I can’t do anything for you, like whip up a batch of sunflower-seed muffins.”

  “Not in my kitchen. You can do anything you want in the oven in the bunkhouse.”

  She slumped down onto a stool. “Tell me about Chester.”

  “Detective Creighton?” He turned to her, surprised by the sudden change in topic.

  She nodded.

  “Detective Creighton is a very nice man,” he said, sliding the muffin tins into the oven.

  “Now that’s boring.”

  “Detective Creighton is a ladies’ man,” he said.

  She snorted. “You’ve got to be kidding. What ladies are you talking about? The blue-hair set?”

  “He is not that old.”

  “But the way he dresses.”

  “He turns out very well for work.”

  “He’s a cop. A uniform is a uniform.”

  “He is a detective. He wears just normal clothes.”

  “And he’s a personal friend of everybody around here.”

  Gregoire cracked the eggs for a second batch of popovers. “He is here a lot.”

  “To investigate things?”

  “Mostly to investigate murders.”

  “Oh.”

  “That means he is here a lot,” Gregoire added.

  “And he’s a bachelor?”

  “He is that.”

  “He is fairly good-looking,” she mused. “Although not as much as he thinks.” She watched as Gregoire whipped his batter. “Does he bring a lot of girls around here?”

  He hesitated. “No,” he replied, putting the batter aside and wiping his brow. “According to Officer Owens, mostly he just picks them up in bars.”

  She bristled. “Then why would he think he could go out with me? I’m not the kind of woman men meet in bars.”

  He threw up his hands in surrender. “I do not know anything about the kind of women men meet in bars. I would just say the ladies like Detective Creighton and he likes them.”

  “There’s that word again,” she grumbled. “Detective. Boring.”

  “Believe me, once you have spent any time around here, you will know there is nothing boring about it.”

  “Is he any good?” she asked.

  “I would not know that,” he said primly.

  “I mean as a detective, you goof.”

  Gregoire had never been called a goof before and was momentarily taken aback. “That is hard to say. Most of the crimes around here are solved by Miss Miller.”

  “That little woman with the thick glasses,” she chortled. “She looks like a librarian.”

  “She is a librarian, but I would not underestimate her.”

  “So Detective Creighton is a mediocre cop and a womanizer.”

  “I did not exactly say that.” He glanced at her. “If you want something useful to do, go down to the garden and get some shallots.”

  “Where will I find them?”

  “Find Lloyd and tell him he is to help you find the shallots. Except say fancy onions or he will not know what you mean.”

  “Lloyd,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “Does he always smell?”

  “Yes.” Gregoire waved her away.

  He was glad when she was gone. “She does not,” he muttered to himself, “beat around the bushes.”

  Lloyd was working at the side of the house when Cerise found him.

  “Gregoire wants you to show me where you keep the fancy onions,” she said.

  Lloyd grinned. “In the refrigerator.”

  “He said they were in the garden.”

  “OK.” Lloyd put the rake aside and headed toward the garden with Cerise in tow.

  “That’s a big garden,” she said.

  “Big as we need.” Lloyd took her down a row. “There’s the onions and there’s the fancy onions. ” He selected a dozen shallots. “This should do him for now.”

  “They’re kind of muddy.”

  “You got to rinse all the dirt off under the tap there by the house. Then they can go into the kitchen. Gregoire doesn’t like dirt in the kitchen.”

  “Go figure.”

  “On account it’s against the law
.”

  “What does he think’s going to happen? Is Detective Creighton going to arrest him?”

  “Did once. On account he thought Gregoire killed somebody. But he was wrong.”

  “So Detective Creighton isn’t too bright, I guess.”

  Lloyd grinned. “Mr. Rudley says he’s a boob and a flatfoot.”

  “Really.”

  “But Mrs. Rudley said it wasn’t nice to say that.”

  “It’s not.”

  “And Tiffany thinks he’s like a detective in the movies on account he wears a felt hat and a raincoat and likes to look good. And Mr. Rudley says it’s too bad he just looks good.”

  “What do you think?”

  “He looks good, I guess. Can’t tell if he’s smart.”

  “Why not?”

  “Just because he’s smart doesn’t mean he acts smart. Mr. Rudley says he wouldn’t know a clue if one bit him on the behind.”

  “That bad.”

  “Mostly he goes around after Detective Brisbois and helps him, except Mr. Rudley says Detective Brisbois couldn’t find a clue if one fell into his coffee.”

  “So Mr. Rudley doesn’t like him.”

  “Mr. Rudley don’t like the police around, seeing as how they disturb his peace.” Lloyd walked Cerise to the water tap and turned it on. “There you go.”

  “So all of these crimes around here go unsolved.”

  Lloyd grinned. “Miss Miller solves most of them. And Mr. Rudley says she doesn’t disturb things as much.”

  Cerise held the shallots under the water. “I got to tell you, this is a very strange place.”

  “That’s what Detective Brisbois always says.” Lloyd turned the tap off. “That’s good enough. Shouldn’t waste the water. It comes from the well.”

  Cerise didn’t understand about the water shortage with a lake out front, nor did she particularly care. What was clear was that nobody around here was very bright. Except perhaps Miss Miller. She would have to be careful around Miss Miller. Manipulating women was not her forte. Once she had some resources — acquired one way or another — she would proceed with her previous plan.

  Lloyd picked up his rake and finished smoothing over the flowerbed at the side of the house. He figured Gregoire had sent Cerise to get the shallots because he wanted to get rid of her. Gregoire didn’t like too many people around him early in the morning. He said he got enough of them once the guests came in for breakfast. Plus he had to put up with Tim, who came before seven, so Lloyd guessed Tim was as hard to put up with as all of the guests. And Cerise was really hard to put up with because she asked a lot of questions, most of them nosy ones. He figured she was sweet on Detective Creighton and that was why she was asking all of the questions. Lloyd figured a lot of girls were sweet on Detective Creighton, and Tiffany was always comparing him to actors in the movies. Lloyd didn’t know if Detective Creighton looked good or not to most people. He thought people he liked looked good, although Rudley was going bald, and Norman had teeth like a beaver, and the Benson sisters had a lot of wrinkles, and Mrs. Millotte had a skinny behind.

  He liked them all and was always glad to see them so he guessed that meant they were good-looking. He figured he looked good to most people because someone was always saying that it was good to see him, sometimes because they needed to move furniture or have something fixed, but sometimes just because they were glad he was around. Rudley was always shooing him away, but that was because Rudley thought he looked best when he was doing something somewhere else. Gregoire was always making him take off his boots and wash his hands, but he let him sit in the kitchen and eat. And Tim, although he liked to tease him, always made sure he got some of whatever was being cooked in the kitchen. And Tiffany was always kind to him. So he knew they thought he looked good to see. And he knew for sure Mrs. Rudley thought he was good-looking because she called him sweet and liked having him around.

  So, he decided, if people liked him, they liked the way he looked. He thought most people looked good, but the only things he thought really beautiful were the animals and plants he met around the inn. Albert was nice-looking and had a big smile and Blanche the cat was beautiful. The deer were the most beautiful. He was thinking of all of their attributes when he saw something he thought anyone would think was good to look at.

  He watched it with fascination as it hopped along the edge of the house toward him. He held out his arm and the big bird happily scrambled toward him and perched on it.

  “Feed Betty, feed Betty,” it rasped.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Rudley was at the front desk when Lloyd entered. Lloyd was grinning.

  “What are you smirking about?” Rudley demanded.

  “Saw that bird you was looking for,” said Lloyd. “You was right. He was this big” — he held out his hands to show Rudley — “and with a big hooked beak and bright feathers. And he talked to me just the way you said.”

  Rudley’s eyes widened. “What did it say?”

  “Asked me to feed him” — Lloyd paused — “except maybe he’s a girl. Said his name was Betty.”

  “Betty,” Rudley growled. “It seems a rather sedate name for such a vicious bird.”

  “Wasn’t vicious. Came to sit on my arm and took the food I gave her just so. Then she picked around my head, but she didn’t bite.”

  “Probably looking for lice,” Rudley muttered.

  “Don’t have lice. Mrs. Rudley said so.”

  Rudley shrugged. “Margaret does know her nits.” He grabbed his crutches and stood up. “She bit me.”

  “That’s ’cause you probably scared her by yelling.”

  “I didn’t yell until she yanked my hair out.” Rudley started for the door. “Where did you put her?”

  “Didn’t put her anywhere. After I gave her the food she went back up into a tree.”

  Rudley turned back. “Damn. You should have got her and locked her up.”

  “Don’t know if she wanted to get locked up.”

  “She can’t stay out there. She’ll be eaten by a hawk.” Besides, he thought to himself, I’d love to prove to these naysayers that I know a parrot when I see one. “She belongs to somebody,” Rudley continued out loud. “They’ll want her back for some damn reason and she would probably be happier at home.”

  “Couldn’t be too happy if she left,” said Lloyd.

  “She probably got out by mistake, got turned around and couldn’t find her way home. Like Margaret when she gets onto a strange back road.”

  Lloyd knew that Mrs. Rudley sometimes said she was late because she decided to take a strange back road and got lost. He thought Mrs. Rudley had a good sense of direction and that sometimes she stayed away because she didn’t want to come home, at least until she got over being mad at Mr. Rudley. He didn’t say so because Mr. Rudley always got mad and yelled when he made that suggestion. “I think she’ll just stay in that tree until she gets hungry again. Then she’ll call me.”

  Rudley crossed his eyes. “It must be wonderful to have such good relationships with birds.”

  “Yes’m.”

  “I want you to show me where she is.”

  “You got to promise not to yell.”

  “I won’t yell.”

  “And don’t move too quick toward her.”

  Rudley glared. “How in hell am I going to move quickly on these damn things?”

  “OK.” Lloyd set out down the front steps, Rudley thumping behind him.

  “Luther indicated we’re short of greens,” Leonard told Tibor.

  “Frankes said the refrigerator is full of them.”

  “Luther says they’re getting a bit gunky.” Leonard smiled.

  Tibor shook his head. How in hell could Luther say anything? The man was mute. Leonard had always said Luther had been traumatized as a child, and, as a result, wouldn’t speak. There was
, apparently, no anatomical reason. Sometimes Luther made noises that sounded like laughs or chuckles. Sometimes, they were inappropriate. Tibor thought he merely mimicked things he heard — much like Betty. He seemed to be able to perform a severely limited set of tasks. He could cook. He could clean up properly. He could dress himself and attend to his personal hygiene. Tibor couldn’t see that Luther had learned a single new thing since he’d first met him.

  Tibor gave in. “I’ll send Frankes into town,” he said.

  He found Frankes on the veranda, leafing through a magazine. It galled him that Frankes could be so contented doing nothing.

  “We need some stuff in town,” he said tersely. “The lettuce is going bad.”

  Frankes got up cheerfully and held his hand out. Tibor reached into his pocket and handed him some money and a list. “Don’t get too much fresh stuff at once,” he muttered. “It doesn’t keep more than a few days.”

  “Gotcha.”

  “Just do your business, and don’t draw attention to yourself.”

  “Gotcha.”

  Frankes headed down the steps. Tibor watched him go, a sour expression on his face. Frankes had recently begun to use the word gotcha excessively. He found this rather irritating, even a bit insouciant. Since the appraiser had delivered his opinion, he found Frankes generally less respectful.

  What a mess, he thought. Frankes was being semi-mutinous while Leonard was being erratic. He resolved they would return to St. Napoli in not more than two weeks. Sooner, if he could get Leonard inclined in that direction.

  Rudley was quite miffed when the parrot proved not to be where Lloyd suggested it had been. He was at the desk now with Lloyd, explaining to the Phipps-Walkers that Lloyd had indeed seen the parrot. Cerise had arrived during the conversation and was leaning against the desk looking bored.

  “She was a big bird,” said Lloyd. “Said her name was Betty.”

  “That’s a nice name for a bird,” said Geraldine. “Although it’s probably not her real name.”

  “You mean she’s using an alias?” said Rudley.