A Pinch of Poison

by Claudia Bishop

  “We thought that perhaps you might consider the position of judge,” said Adela, a hint of warmth creeping into the frostiness of her demeanor. “You are, I understand from that extremely attractive young Japanese man at the Inn, an Artist of the First Rank.”

  Quill who’d always been fascinated by Adela’s ability to speak in capitals, murmured something deprecating. The thought of judging the contest struck her bones to, well, she thought, Jell-O.

  “We have Artistic Standards,” said Adela, correctly interpreting Quill’s muttered demurral. “I had them printed up. By that excessively rude young man who took over Our Newspaper from Pete Rosen.”

  “He took some pictures,” volunteered a young, timid matron whom Quill didn’t know, but thought perhaps was a Peterson. “We’ll be in the paper.”

  “We shall see,” said Adela. “Monica. Perhaps you would provide Ms. Quilliam with the Rules and Regulations.”

  Quill accepted the sheet with the meekness that Adela seemed to engender in anyone who swept into her orbit.

  “I see you’ve established one-hundred-point ratings, Adela. Twenty points for creativity in color. Twenty points for edibility. Twenty points for suitability. And the remainder for Aesthetic Appropriateness.” Quill coughed. It didn’t help. She coughed again.

  “The judging will take place tomorrow, at the conclusion of the opening day ceremonies. The mayor”—Adela hadn’t used Elmer’s given name since the day he was elected— “will announce the winner after the speeches and the talent show. The other foods”—she indicated the jars of jellies, the baked goods exhibits, and the flower arrangements lined up on various tables around the tent—”will be announced first. Are you all right, my dear?”

  “Just. Something. Caught. In my throat. ‘Scuse me. Friend’s bringing me some tea.” Quill ducked out of the tent and into Georgia, who spilled the tea she was carrying onto her bare ankles.

  “What!?” Georgia demanded.

  Quill, who was laughing so hard she couldn’t stand up straight, grabbed her arm. “Georgia. Georgia, as you love me. Judge that contest!”

  “Who, me? I don’t know a thing about Jell-O!”

  “Who does? Take a look in there! Don’t let them see you!”

  Georgia peered cautiously around the opening.

  “What do you see?”

  “A bunch of nice middle-class ladies around a table full of Jell-O. What do you expect me to see?”

  “My Fate!” said Quill dramatically. “Every woman in town who has anything to say about anything has entered that darn contest.”

  “So? Shut your eyes and give one of ‘em a blue ribbon, one a red—”

  “You don’t understand! Do I give the blue ribbon to Esther? Who should at least get it for having the balls to eat concrete so that she can win ...”

  “Concrete!”

  “... and have Mrs. Mayor mad at me for the rest of my life? Do I give it to Miriam Doncaster, who’s a dear dear friend and appears to have attempted a train wreck—unless it’s L.A. after the quake. I’ll be damned if I know which— and have Esther cut me dead in the street for the next three years? Help!”

  “Oh, Gawd. I see what you mean. Here, drink what’s left of your tea. You know what we should do?”

  “No. What?” Quill drained the tea, which was warm.

  “Run like hell.”

  “We can’t run like hell.”

  “Sure we can.”

  “I have to check with John, to see how the boutique’s coming.”

  “Then we’ll run like hell in there.”

  “You know what?” said Quill. “I think that’s the best idea I’ve heard all day.”

  John, with his usual air of unruffled calm, was installing the faucet in the kitchen sink when Quill and Georgia arrived breathless at the restaurant.

  “Wow!” said Quill. “When I was in here yesterday the kitchen was bare walls and pipes.”

  “Took a couple of hours,” said John. “No more than that. Everything dropped into place. DeMarco had the plumber here and ready to go, and the whole thing—wait a second...” He pulled the faucet handle up. There was a burp, a stutter in the pipes, and a gush of water. “Everything works.”

  “How come you had to install the faucet?”

  “The crew was scheduled to quit at twelve noon, and twelve noon it was. The only worker left here is DeMarco himself, and he’s setting the top of the septic system on right now. It was the penalties for overtime that did it. But they finished on time.”

  “Good old sympathetic you.” Quill sighed happily. The kitchen was a stainless-steel, self-contained model that fitted tightly together like an elegant little puzzle. Meg would love it. “It’s just beautiful. Is her cookware coming in soon?”

  “Mike’s going to bring it back in the van when he takes the Kiplings and Mr. Sakura home.”

  “Have you seen him? Have you thought more about the offer? Shall we take it?”

  John’s glance at Georgia was casual. He paused but said readily enough, “Yes. I do think so. It’s a fair offer. It means that everyone will get his or her money back, with a very slight premium attached.”

  “How much?” asked Georgia. “Sorry, I don’t mean to butt in, but I might be interested in doing something about all this myself, you know.”

  “In that case, let me show the numbers to you.” John drew them to the table where his PC sat glowing. “Mr. Sakura has a lot of information about the costs involved. It makes me a little curious as to where he got the information, but that’s neither here nor there for the moment. Besides, I can make a good guess.”

  “I’ve been wondering who gave Hedrick all that dirt for the goods book,” said Quill. “Do you think it’s the same person?”

  John shook his head. “I don’t know. Myles’s guess is that the source for the gossip and the source for the information about the investment package are two different people, but he wouldn’t tell me why. Now that I think I know who, I’m not certain Myles is right. Anyway, here’s a list of the amounts listed by the name of each of the principals in Mall, Inc.” He tapped the keyboard and a list of names and figures appeared on the screen. “Quill, Meg, and I put in three hundred thousand from savings, Georgia; we added fifty thousand as a pledge from employees, for which the Inn took out a banknote. Bottom line to get in was a quarter million.

  “I input Mr. Sakura’s offer this morning while the kitchen was getting set. It breaks down like this.” He tapped. A second column of figures appeared to the right of the names. “And when you match the investor’s original contribution against the Sakura offer, the payout’s like this.” His finger moved rapidly, the screen split, and the list of investors and their cash pledges was matched by a payout figure. “You notice anything?”

  Georgia cast a practiced eye at the screen. “Howie Mur-chison’s payout is twenty percent over his investment. Everybody else averages about the same. One percent.”

  “Right.”

  “Howie! Howie’s been going behind everyone’s back to talk to Mr. Sakura! I don’t believe it!” Quill remembered, suddenly, Miriam’s nervous shredding of the tissue at the chamber meeting three days ago. “Howie!” she said again, the disbelief replaced by anger.

  “Don’t jump the gun here, Quill. That could be in lieu of a broker’s fee—it’s a tax issue I won’t bore you with. And if, as I suspect, Howie knew about the competing mall a few months after we’d all committed to this, you have to hand it to him. I’ll bet he looked for an investor to save not only himself, but the rest of the town.”

  “That answers another question,” said Quill. “I wondered why Mr. Sakura knew about this before he showed up here.” She sighed. “So you think we’d better take the offer.”

  “I do. If Mr. Sakura understands the situation here, he could’ve taken advantage by waiting a year until the other mall was completed, and then offering us all twenty cents on the dollar. He didn’t. Bad business practice, I have to say.”

  “Bad business to
give us our money back!”

  “Oh, he’s a good man. That’s different.” John grinned slightly. “The short form of the offer which Howie passed out yesterday provides for a sell-out of the equipment each of us put into the stores, and a one-year lease, which can be terminated after twelve months, with fifteen days’ notice. That’s a little rough.”

  “Maybe he won’t want us to move,” said Quill. “Maybe the mall will work despite the discount place down the road.”

  “Maybe. And maybe Mr. Sakura is thinking of building a golf course.”

  “A golf course? A golf course?!”

  “Or a resort. Japanese investment in American real estate isn’t just for big cities, Quill. This is an ideal spot for a resort. And to the Japanese, who are used to land prices ten to twenty times what we pay here, this looks like a pretty good deal. Mr. Sakura’s grandchildren are here. His son’s here. What better place for a former director of Sakura Industries to retire part-time?”

  “Well. None, I suppose. But a golf course?”

  “Could be a very good thing for the town. And for the Inn.”

  “Did I hear a new project?” Marco DeMarco appeared at the open door and walked in. He nodded to Georgia. “How do you do?”

  Quill smiled at him. “This is Georgia Hardwicke, Mr. DeMarco.”

  “We met at the party the other night. You were wearing quite a dress.”

  Georgia laughed. Quill, remembering Georgia’s geezer speech, had a sudden, happy inspiration. They were roughly the same age, and they even looked a little bit alike. Although Georgia’s hair color owed more to a bottle than to nature, their coloring was close.

  She darted a swift glance at DeMarco’s ring finger. Bare. “Mr. DeMarco, everything looks just wonderful. And you finished on time!”

  “In the nick of,” he agreed. “Just stopped in to tell you I’ll be locking up, and to take a last look around. I just buried the septic tank, and I want to flush a few toilets, see if they work. Otherwise, I’m finished for the day. I’ll be back for the ceremonies, of course.”

  “When you’ve finished here”—Quill glanced at Georgia with a mischievous look—”why don’t you stop by the Inn for dinner? We can celebrate the opening of the mall. And the fact that we seem to be going to sell it.”

  “Heard about that. Kind of sorry. It’s a great little project. If I could take a raincheck on the dinner, I’d appreciate it. I’d like to get back to Syracuse tonight. I’ve got a bid to get in.”

  “Anything we should know about?” asked John.

  DeMarco winked. “Big mall going up down the road, I hear. Ms. Quilliam? Mrs. Hardwicke? Be seeing you.”

  The sun was setting over the treetops when Quill and Georgia walked to the Olds to go home. The site was quiet, the awning tent empty. The grounds held an air of expectancy. The parking lot was empty except for Quill’s Olds and Hedrick’s Cadillac. Quill frowned at it. “Maybe we should tell Mr. DeMarco that Hedrick is still around. Skulking in the bushes with his little goods book, I should think.”

  “I’m sure DeMarco will flush him out. You look happy,” Georgia commented abruptly.

  “Tomorrow should be fun,” Quill said. “And yes, I’m happy. Now, tell me the truth, Georgia, about DeMarco. Kinda cute, huh?”

  “Not bad for a geezer.”

  “And he’ll be around for a while if he gets the bid on the discount mall project. Are you still thinking of sticking around Hemlock Falls after the Kiplings wend on their way?”

  “I wouldn’t,” said Georgia, “think of settling anywhere else.”

  CHAPTER 14

  The morning of Hemlock Falls Mall at the Falls Opening Day Ceremonies dawned to all the auguries necessary for success. The sun shone. The sky was blue. The Inn was host to Harvey Bozzel’s dignitaries: two State Assembly persons, and the second secretarial assistant to the Congressman from New York. (Helena Houndswood, star of stage, screen, and television, had sent an uncharitably worded note of regret.) Meg threw two major snits before breakfast and a spectacular temper tantrum at nine o’clock, which meant she would cook superbly.

  Quill came from the kitchen to join Myles, Andy, and John in the dining room with a huge smile and an exquisite sense of well-being.

  “The menu for the opening of the boutique,” she said as she settled into the chair next to Myles, “is going to be terrific.”

  “Gazpacho?’ asked John, with hope.

  “And vichyssoise. A hot ratatouille, and stuffed mushrooms. Dilled cucumber dressing for the salads. Crème brûlée, mousse, and caramel flan.” Quill reached for a small brioche and buttered it. “It’s all transportable, so actual cooking should be at a minimum.” A shriek and a crash from behind the swinging doors to the kitchen broadened her smile. “It’s the crab clouds, I think. They delivered the crab here, instead of the mall, and there’s not enough ice. And she doesn’t think she has enough cornmeal.”

  “Crab clouds?” Myles asked.

  “You missed out on those, didn’t you?” said Andy. “Meg created them last month while you two were still on the outs. My guess is they’ll help get her that fourth star. They’re fantastic. And she’s got some ideas for the Christmas season that really sound incredible. You’re not going to have to wait long for that final rating, Quill. Next year at the latest.”

  “So she’s not...” Quill stopped.

  “Thinking of leaving the Inn when we get married? Not on your life. The woman’s a genius in the kitchen.”

  “Married? You’re talking marriage?” Quill’s feelings were mixed. Glad for Meg. Unhappy that she hadn’t told her.

  “Not directly, no. But now that you and Myles...” Myles’s foot moved sharply under the table. Andy winced and changed the subject with no subtlety at all. “Is there anything I can do for you today, Quill? I’m covered at the hospital, so I’m completely at your disposal.”

  “Do you mean, Andy, that Meg put off discussions of your future because of me?”

  Andy looked at John, then Myles, with a hint of what Quill had always characterized as male panic in the face of the Female Unknown. “Not exactly. But you two have been a team for so long ... like this detective business, for example. How’s the investigation coming?”

  Quill, struggling with a sudden understanding that should have come to her long before, rather absently took a crepe from Myles’s plate and began to eat it.

  “Hey,” said Myles. “That’s mine.”

  “I’ll accept your diversionary tactic, Andy,” Quill said sternly, “for the moment. But at some point in the very near future, my sister and I are going to have a talk. And to answer your question, our investigation, my investigation at least, is going nowhere.”

  “I wouldn’t say that.” Myles, in lieu of his second crepe, picked up a muffin. “You and John cleared up a lot of ancillary issues yesterday.”

  “You mean you know who did it?”

  “I’ve got a better sense of how the murders were committed. And a strong hunch as to who carried them out. I have no motive. And I have no proof.” He rubbed the back of his neck with a weary gesture. “And time’s running out,”

  “It’s Hedrick,” said Quill. “It has to be. Did you get any information about his stepfather’s death? Does he have a record?”

  “Hedrick was never indicted. I talked to Jerry Matthews last night, who’s with the force in Palm Beach; there was a lot of suspicion when Hedrick’s stepfather died, and a lot of gossip. The autopsy reports indicate botulism as the cause of death, from a gift set of jellies given to him by a friend at Christmas. The woman—unrelated to Louisa or Carlyle-—was cleared of any culpability. It went down as an accidental death through the carelessness of an amateur cook. Jerry’s take on it was that Conway was a rich man, and every time a rich man dies without an easily discernible cause, suspicions flourish, as he put it, like kudzu in a vacant lot.”

  “Hedrick told me he never eats anything canned,” Quill recalled suddenly. “I thought it was just another part of his char
m.”

  “Jerry did tell me something interesting, though. I asked for a list of people who were at the party where Conway finally keeled over. Botulism takes what, Andy, twenty-four to thirty-six hours to kill?”

  Andy nodded. “Lot depends on the usual: age, weight, gender, prior physical condition.”

  “Conway died late Sunday evening. There’d been a house party at his mansion on the beach which began Thursday night. Conway ate the jellies sometime that evening and developed flulike symptoms the next morning. He drank quite a bit—Jerry said that the entire crowd was notable for the amount of alcohol consumed at these parties— and drank heavily the next day. By Sunday he was semiconscious. Louisa, for whom Jerry has little or no affection, kept insisting he was drunk and to leave him alone. By Sunday evening Conway’d passed into a coma. He died early Monday morning.”

  “Which of the Conways were at the party?” asked Quill.

  “Hedrick, Louisa, and Carlyle, who was there with the heir to a Mexican cattle fortune, and who was suspected of dealing drugs.” Myles took a swallow of coffee, then set the cup down deliberately. “And Lyle and Lila Fairbanks.”

  “The Fairbanks!” Quill took a deep breath. “They never mentioned it! Hedrick never mentioned it!”

  “No. They didn’t, did they? Hedrick never went near them at the party where Carlyle was killed. And when I interrogated him afterward, he didn’t say a word about having known them before.”

  “Who,” asked John, “made the jelly?”

  “Lila.”

  The mall parking lot was jammed with vehicles. The Monster Truck Rally (see! the mightiest machines! in combat!) had attracted six entrants, and the huge vehicles occupied, Quill thought with irritation, far more parking space than they should have. Mr. Motoyama stood lost in admiration before them, his hands clasped behind his back, looking smaller than ever against the eight-foot tires.

  Hedrick had had the foresight to reserve the same spot he’d had yesterday. Quill toyed with the idea of parking her Olds behind him, so that when he came looking for her, she’d have an opportunity to engage in a little artless questioning. “Did you switch Lila Fairbanks’s jelly jar for one of your own in Palm Beach six years ago?” might be a good conversation opener.