A Touch of the Grape: A Hemlock Falls Mystery (Hemlock Falls Mystery series)

by Bishop, Claudia

  "They're such sweeties, Meg. And they've worked so hard for so little all these years! Ellen Dunbarton, the one with the bottled red hair? She was a clerk at Tracey's Department Store for thirty years, Meg. Raised three children. Salt, as Dad would say, of the earth. The others have all had similar kinds of jobs—pink-collar. Freddie Patch got to assistant bank manager, at least. And Fran Grimsby, the woman who talks through her nose, had a pretty decent career as a customs agent at LaGuardia. Mary Lennox 'had a career in real estate,' she said. They've been friends forever. They even had a little craft business together for a while. Remember Tupperware parties and Mary Kay cosmetics? Stuff like that. But by and large, these are women who've put husbands, home, and kids first. They've all had to work to supplement the family income. Robin lived on a farm, before she became a paralegal, and I'll bet she worked herself to a frazzle. She's tough, Meg. Oldest one of the whole group, but I'd put my money on her in a marathon. She'll outlast us all."

  "Then how the heck can any of them afford this place? Our regulars don't seem to be able to afford this place anymore."

  Quill picked moodily at a piece of leftover bruschetta. "I don't know. I didn't care to ask. If I were to engage in wild surmise"—she looked up at Meg with a smile— "I would say that craft business of theirs is doing pretty well. Do you know what they're really here for?"

  "Not murder, I hope." Meg shuddered slightly, recalling several past cases.

  "I don't think so. No, they're designing their new spring line of craft kits. For not this year, not next year, but, get this, the year 2000. They've got some sort of mail-order consortium going. It's great business, I guess. They sell craft kits. The plastic forks to make fans kits, kits to use safety pins and plastic beads to make dolls that sit on your telephone. That sort of thing."

  "Oh," Meg said thoughtfully.

  "Can you imagine? After years and years of these low paying jobs, clerking at Tracey's, going through other people's luggage, their own business takes off and ka-boom. Success."

  "Speaking of success," Meg said. "John needs to talk with you. As soon as you're free, he said. Anytime today, he said. No rush."

  Quill had known John for almost the entire time the Inn had been open. He was their business manager, a minority stockholder, a wizard with the books. No rush, from John, meant more bad news. And lately, the news had been very bad, indeed. "Would you like to sit in?"

  Meg shook her head. "No way. Just let me know how bad it is."

  "Maybe I should get Doreen. She owns a few shares."

  "She drove to Syracuse to see if we can get the grocery credit extended another ninety days. She won't be back until after dinner."

  Quill looked hopeful. "Are there a lot of reservations this evening?"

  "Two tables, if the ladies don't end up at Marge's diner for their supper. Otherwise? Just the insurance guys. And there's only six of them. I don't know why they call it a banquet. A banquet is twenty people. Forty people. Smoked salmon appetizers. Lamb en croute. Strawberry coulis. I would," Meg said a little wistfully, "have been happy to make all that just for six. But they didn't want it."

  "Not any of it?"

  "I talked them into the liver pâté. But they want chicken for the main course."

  "You make a terrific chicken terrine, Meggie."

  "Barbecued chicken."

  "I see." Quill sighed and got to her feet. "John's in the office?"

  "He was there all morning, looking grim. Kathleen took his lunch in there, so I expect he hasn't left." She reached up and rubbed Quill's cheek. "It'll be okay."

  "Not this time. I wish I hadn't taken Ellen and her friends on the tour. Normally I'm too busy to think about how the place looks, its impact. If we lose it, Meg, I just want to leave everything, walk out the front door, and not look back. It's too hard seeing everything we've accomplished through other people's eyes."

  "Hey. We'll just both get married—you to Myles, finally. Me to Andy, finally, and …"

  "And what?"

  "Don't ask me what. I'm a chef. A good chef. Don't ask me what's next because. Quill, I really, really don't want to know."

  Quill paused on her way out the door to the dining room. "Did you ever find that poor dog?"

  "Nope. Selena took her catcher's mitt—"

  "Catch pole."

  "Whatever, Selena went on home, dogless. She was in a good mood, though. I told her it'd be fine with us if she called Ellen Dunbarton to arrange a winery tour."

  "Ellen said Kathleen gave her a fax this morning. The prez has been delayed a few days. So they'll have time."

  Meg brightened. "Maybe the whole group will stay on, then. Through next week."

  "Maybe." She shoved the door open. "I sure wish you'd found that poor dog."

  Quill was a little fuzzy about the particulars, but she knew there was a psychologist's term for her worry about the lost and wounded dog. Deployment? Deferment? Displacement, that was it. She was displacing her anxieties about the future—not to mention the bill-filled present—onto a stray dog. She bit her lip. The poor dog looked like he'd had nothing but a handful of Doritos for weeks.

  She crossed the dining room, waving to the Crafty Ladies They were scooping up creme brulée and Meg's chocolate walnut mousse with a happy disregard for calories.

  She was depressed. She'd just taken five very nice middle-aged ladies through her Inn, and shown them what she and Meg had built so laboriously and with such enthusiasm over the years. The Provençal suite, with the blue and yellow print material they'd found in Provence. The Shaker suite, with its pale wood floors, beautifully polished wood trim, and quietly elegant furniture. The Tavern Bar, with its teal walls, and her own acrylic paintings on the walls.

  She stopped as she crossed into reception. The old oak door was open to the soft air, and spring blew gently over the cream wool Oriental rug. Even the foyer and the cobblestone fireplace dating from the earliest period of the Inn's history were painful to look at. She'd seen all these things, shown off all these things, she—perhaps—was about to lose them, and she'd spent the best part of the morning trying to save the dog instead of her sister and her friends.

  "Woof," said the dog, coming out from behind the mahogany reception desk. He limped heavily. He'd been down the Gorge to the waterfall; his paws were slimed with moss and his coat knotted with teasel left over from the winter. He put his head almost to the floor and wriggled, a painful wriggle, the classic posture of submission.

  "Will you stop," Quill said.

  The dog waved his tail frantically.

  "See that?" Quill pointed to a discreet sign, tucked under the rim of the front desk in as unobtrusive a way as possible. It was teak, with small brass letters that said, "We will be happy to make accommodations elsewhere for your pet."

  "That's because of the Iditirod winners last year," Quill informed the dog. "They made reservations for sixteen. What they didn't say was that the sixteen were the winner, her husband, and a team of fourteen huskies." She sat down on the floor, on the softest part of the rug, and patted the wool invitingly. "We had to make other arrangements. It was," she added, "the start of this decline in business, come to think of it. The first indication that we were going to the dogs. What do you think of that?"

  The dog pawed at the floor. His nails, long, un-trimmed, left scratches in the polished wood. "No," Quill said without heat. "No clawing or pawing. If Doreen sees you do that, she'll have your guts for garters."

  The dog crept nearer, sideways, shyly, quivering with a kind of terror Quill couldn't imagine. "Hey," she said softly. "Hey."

  "If you give him a name, it's all over," said a quiet voice behind her. The dog looked up, cringed, then made a rush for the front door.

  "John," Quill said. "Darn it!"

  The dog turned at the sound of her voice, gave one more "woof," and limped out the door and across the lawn at a run. Quill got to her feet, brushing at her skirt, and started out after him.

  "Want some help?" John closed the o
ffice door behind him, and stepped into the little area behind the reception desk where Dina used to sit before they had to lay her off. "I'll be happy to track him. Use some of the knowledge passed down to me by my ancestors."

  "Oh, ha." John's coppery skin and coal-black hair would have identified him as Amerind anywhere, even if he weren't fond of bringing it into the conversation. "No. Let him go. I called the Humane Society this morning to see if they could catch him. He needs some help, John. Selena Summerhill's taken the Animal Control officer job and she says he may have kidney damage." To her absolute amazement, she felt tears prickling behind her eyes. She coughed heavily into her hand.

  "From a kick?"

  Quill nodded, unable to speak.

  "Then let him alone. He'll either get better on his own or he won't."

  "That's cruel!"

  "Quill." John's tone was patient. "If you did get hold of him and did get him to a vet, what do you think the vet would do? A kidney transplant?"

  "Don't be silly."

  "The treatment for this kind of thing is to leave the animal alone. Let it rest, and let nature take its course."

  "But he needs food and water."

  "Then I guess he'll just have to get it near the garden shed, where you've been putting out food for the last three nights. Truly, Quill, my guess is that he'll be fine. We, on the other hand, are not."

  "Do you want to go into the office?"

  "Let's walk, instead. Maybe we'll find the dog."

  They walked out the front door onto the lawn. The rain had cleared, and a brilliant sun spread light over the daffodils, the early tulips, the crocus. In silent agreement, they headed toward the Gorge, the sound and the rush of the water drawing Quill, as it did at least once a day, to the brink of the precipice.

  She was conscious of John beside her, in a way she hadn't been before. Quill was tall for a woman, close to five eight, but John towered over her. His physical presence was strong, but quiet. Unlike Myles, who was just as tall, and as broadly built, she never felt challenged with John, but relaxed, almost content, as if there were no need to tap into the kind of energy that suffused all her closest relationships. There was no relaxed feeling now. Just tension.

  They stood looking at the water for a long moment. "So how bad is it?" she finally asked.

  "We need to make more cuts."

  "But we've already made deep ones. We've laid off practically everyone, and cut the remaining staff's hours to zero. Meg's about to collapse from handling that kitchen all on her own. We've closed the boutique at the mini-mall. Meg's been specializing in charcuterie, just like we did when we opened eight years ago, because it's cheaper cuts of meat. We've tried that Advanced Menu Reservations thing, where people order their food before they come, so we don't have to keep inventory as high. We've switched almost entirely to New York State wines, and cut the cellar budget for the imported wines down to almost nothing. I don't know what other cuts we can make, John. If we cut breakfasts and lunches, we'll lose our double star rating from the Caravan Association. If we cut the menu, Meg's going to lose that third star for sure. What more can we do?"

  "I've done the numbers …"

  "You always have the numbers." Quill rubbed her forehead. Her hand still smelled faintly of the raw beef she'd tried to feed the dog earlier that morning. She shoved her hand rather guiltily into the pocket of her denim skirt. "So, what's the next round of cuts? Gruel for the staff? It'll be hard on the sous-chef. He hates gruel."

  "The next cut is me. You have to fire me. Quill."

  She stared at him, openmouthed.

  "I'm serious. If I could take a pay cut. Quill, I would. You know that." He looked away from her.

  Across the Gorge, a doe and her fawn picked their way carefully down the sheer stone to the water. Quill knew why John couldn't live on any less. His sister. Quill knew better than to ask about her. The Institution where she stayed was one of the most expensive in the state. And John wouldn't give her up. Quill would never ask him to give her up.

  "I'll take more of a pay cut," Quill said steadily. "Meg and Doreen will take pay cuts."

  "That's already in the emergency budget. And I'm afraid it won't wash, Quill. Just to keep the Inn open, the lights on, the water flowing, the taxes paid, the dishwasher and refrigerator running costs you more than fifteen thousand dollars a month. The mortgage is—"

  "I don't want to hear any more numbers," Quill said. "There's got to be a way. What is it, John? Why isn't anyone coming to the Inn anymore? It can't just be the recession. We never drew our paying customers from around here, anyway. They're all from downstate. And a lot of them are from out of state."

  "If you want to hear a why, all I can give you are guesses. The number of rooms you have is too—"

  "We," Quill interrupted crossly, "the number of rooms we have."

  "Sorry. We have twenty-seven rooms. Even if we ran at one hundred percent occupancy every single day of the year and charged two hundred dollars a night, we wouldn't make it. It was the last tax reassessment that did it. Two hundred a night is stiff, Quill, even for an internationally known inn, and you still couldn't make the budget. Do you see? You can't charge any more than you do. And there aren't enough rooms to carry the expenses of living in this state."

  "Let's get a bank loan and build an addition, then."

  "Quill, you can't manufacture pens for a dollar and sell them at ninety-nine cents, and then make it up in volume."

  "So what do we do?"

  "Well, we've always known that the rooms carry expenses and the restaurant makes the profit, right?"

  "Right."

  "And now we've come to a point where the rooms aren't going to carry expenses."

  "We figured we'd run a seventy percent occupancy eleven months of the year," Quill protested. "You said that would work."

  He was losing patience, something he'd never done before. "That was last year. We have been reassessed this year. The reassessment is fair. My protest didn't work. We cannot afford to run the Inn anymore. I will not borrow to put us into debt when the chance of repayment is slim to nonexistent." He took her by both shoulders and stared hard at her. "I told you this last month. You didn't want to hear it. I am telling you again."

  "And I told you," Quill said with spirit, "the New York State Winegrowers' Association is planning a lot of large events for this region. I think you should hook up with Hugh Summerhill. He's the P.R. for the local W.G.A. this year, and there's a lot of business potential there."

  He let her go.

  Quill looked at him, her eyes steady. "You've already made up your mind we're going to fail." His eyes flickered, and Quill drew a deep breath. "You made up your mind. And, dammit, John, you've found another job!"

  2

  John looked tired. "I've found another job, yes." He sat down on the verge of grass overlooking the Gorge. "We've been over the financials for months now. Quill."

  "It's the insurance thing, isn't it?" Quill said, stricken. "That check that bounced, and then the policy getting canceled. I'm sorry about not writing down the amount of those checks I write, John. You know my style. Slapdash. Once in a while I stop to think about how hard it must be on you, and I feel so guilty." She sat down next to him. He moved slightly away from her, taking his warmth with him.

  "I've made some calls about the new policy. And Prudential will cover any property casualty losses until tomorrow. When they cancel a policy for nonpayment of premium, they don't cancel it boom, like that. You have thirty to sixty days to find a new insurer. And I've found one; there's a guy coming in with the broker's banquet tonight who'll have a binder policy for you. I want you to sign it."

  "Why won't you sign it? You're not leaving now, are you?"

  "No. I've got a meeting in Syracuse tonight. I'll be back late. But insurance is one thing you don't want to screw around with, Quill."

  "What am I going to do? What are all of us going to do?"

  "We've been over this before, as well. We've cut bac
k on everyone's hours. You and Meg are going to have to go without paychecks for a while, and it'd be best if you two do as much as you can yourselves. I've talked to Myles …"

  "He's in Germany on that E.C.U. thing. When did you talk to him?"

  "He hasn't dropped out of sight. I called him last night. Grounds maintenance is going to be a problem. He can help with the larger items, but he's gone so much and there's so much to do, it's a stopgap measure. He's willing to keep paying Mike's salary for a while, but that's only a temporary solution—"

  "You asked Myles for money?"

  "I asked Myles to help out a bit."

  "Why don't we ask the bank for money?"

  "The line of credit's gone, Quill. They won't give us any more. I told you that. I also told you I'm not going to be responsible for borrowing more. You owe enough already. Now, I've left a list of the customers we want to book this summer. You keep up the phone calls to them—just once a week, and don't let them talk you into any more discounts, okay? And there's enough in the account to keep things going through the summer. You have any questions, call on either Howie or Myles—"

  "For God's sake, John. I told you not to involve anyone else. It's our business. It's my responsibility. Our responsibility. I can't believe you've gone behind my back."

  "I've never once gone behind your back. But when you won't pay attention to the financial, Quill, this is the sort of thing that happens." He touched her arm, then withdrew his hand with an abrupt, almost angry gesture.

  Quill blinked back tears. "I'm sorry. I'm really sorry."

  "Me, too. About my shares in the business …"

  "I'll pay you out," she said tightly.

  "There isn't anything to pay out, Quill. What we have is debt. I'll take care of my portion of the debt."

  "You will not."

  "You should have a C.P.A. handling the paperwork from here on in. There's a small business on Main called PayFor. Do you know it?"