A Puree of Poison

by Claudia Bishop

  Quill opened her mouth and closed it. The wine suddenly seemed an encumbrance.

  Meg ran both hands through her hair. “So. Hedrick’s a real suspect, Georgia. What do you think we should do next?”

  “With a little bit of luck, I think we can nail him the day after tomorrow. At the opening-day ceremonies for the mini-mall.”

  “How?” Meg’s breath was soft and whiny. Quill pushed her gently back into her seat.

  “Ssst! Sit back and look innocent.” Georgia rearranged her draperies around her ample shoulders and waved to someone behind Quill. “Whooee! Here we are!”

  “Innocent? I’m not guilty,” muttered Meg. “Who said I was guilty?”

  Quill turned in her seat. “Myles!” She flushed, painfully, the warmth rising from her neck to her hairline. Andy Bishop, Hemlock Falls’s best (and only) internist, was right behind him. Myles crossed the soft carpet noiselessly, his eyes casual; Quill knew that twenty-four hours from now, he would be able to give a complete description of what he saw, down to the number of wine bottles and the color of Georgia’s hair bow.

  “We’ve got some information on what killed Carlyle Conway,” he said. “May I join you?”

  CHAPTER 12

  “Did I do it?” asked Meg.

  Andy pulled a chair next to her and sat down. He was just above medium height, with a sinewy jogger’s body. He’d recently taken to wearing glasses; the light from the chandelier reflected off the lenses, and Quill was unable to read his expression. He put his arm around Meg’s shoulder. “I told you from the beginning you didn’t do it.”

  Myles’s glance flickered over the wineglass. “No. You didn’t. It wasn’t the sushi.”

  “Neurobenzine,” said Quill. “I knew it!” She exchanged significant looks with Georgia.

  “Neurobenzine?” Andy turned in surprise. “Where’d the heck did you get that idea?”

  “Just a thought,” said Quill airily. “I was reading up on neurotoxins the other day”—she ignored Georgia’s stifled snort of laughter—”and thought perhaps that could have been it. You know—it’s used in printing. Like newspapers.”

  “Forty years ago it may have been,” said Andy. He pushed his glasses into place with a forefinger. “But Carlyle Conway didn’t die of it, that’s for sure. It’s highly corrosive. If she’d gotten that on her breasts, I would have seen it right away. That would have been an even more unpleasant death than the one she suffered.”

  “Not neurobenzine?” Two thoughts flashed through Quill’s mind: the first, disappointment that a perfectly good number-one suspect seemed to have been moved down the list to number two or three; the second, that she didn’t feel quite as guilty about not turning the goods book over to Myles right away. “What was it then?”

  Myles didn’t say anything for a moment.

  “You don’t mind?” asked Andy, with raised brows. “It was the neurotoxin derived from fugu, Meg, but—”

  “Shit!” Meg turned pale.

  Andy covered her hands with his. “But it wasn’t in the sushi, Meg. It was between her breasts.”

  “Between her breasts?!”

  Andy nodded. “It’d been wiped on.”

  “Wiped on! Are you serious?”

  “That’s what it looks like.”

  “But how?” The taut, unhappy look had vanished from Meg’s face.

  “Someone wearing surgical gloves is my guess. I’m not sure. It’s ingenious, I have to admit.”

  “Good grief,” said Quill. “It must have been Hedrick!”

  “Oh?” Myles drew a chair up beside Quill and sank easily into it.

  “He’s the only one who knew her. He told me she had this party trick, he called it. She’d flip an hors d’ouevre in the air and let it fall between her breasts, then take it out and flip it into her mouth.” She looked at Myles. “Is that a sexy sort of thing to do?”

  “Under the right circumstances.” A grin flickered behind his eyes. “But the killer didn’t necessarily have to count on the party trick. Andy’s checking with a lexicologist in San Francisco to determine the interval for the absorption rate. We don’t have a good idea of when the first symptoms appeared. We were hoping you could help. I take it you were in the kitchen, Meg. So Quill—do you remember precisely when you saw her arrive?”

  “Yes. I do. It was just before seven o’clock. I was standing with you, Georgia, and the Kiplings. She came in with Hedrick.”

  “Did you notice any unsteadiness in her gait?” asked Andy. “Did she seem unstable?”

  Georgia and Quill looked at each other at precisely the same moment. Georgia went ahum! to conceal a laugh.

  “Look, sweetie,” she said to Myles. “The woman was wearing stiletto heels and swinging that pair of hooters like the ladies my youngest nephew used to call street sweepers. Of course she had an unsteady gait.”

  “You went over to greet her, then?”

  “I went to the little girl’s room. By the time I’d gotten out of there, the trouble’d started. I have to say, it was one of the worst sights I’ve ever had in front of me. And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to help the poor woman.” Quill squeezed her hand sympathetically. “But you, Quill, went over to the bar to say hi, right?”

  “Yes. But she seemed perfectly fine to me. Normal. I’d only met her once before.”

  “Do you recall anything unusual at all?” asked Andy.

  “What was unusual was that either Hedrick or his sister was there at all,” said Meg. “I mean, good grief, their mother had been brutally murdered the day before, and the two of them invite themselves to our party and show up ready to have a whee of a good time. That’s what I think is unusual. Did you talk to the Horrible Hedrick? What did he say, Myles?”

  “I didn’t ask him why he had the gracelessness to attend a party within a day of their mother’s death. They’re living in the apartment over the newspaper offices, and they left there at about six-fifty. It took them a few minutes to come up the drive. Hedrick let Carlyle off at the entrance while he parked the car around back. She didn’t go through the foyer, apparently, but walked around the side of the Inn and entered the patio through the gardens. Which is odd. It’s a longer route. We’re checking to see if she met anyone on her way in. And when she got to the bar, she said the champagne was flat.”

  “It wasn’t,” said Quill indignantly.

  “Which may have been the first indication that she was in trouble.”

  “The symptoms of fugu poisoning are a diminution in the sense of taste, numb lips, convulsions, paralysis, followed by death,” said Andy. “Eyewitness accounts, including yours, Quill, and Myles himself, indicate that she may have been wiped with the poison on her way into the Inn. It’s possible that she was exposed to it earlier, but Hedrick claims the two of them spent an hour getting ready for the party—and I know that the interval between exposure and symptoms would have been less than that, even with the poison absorbed through the skin of the breast initially.”

  “Who could have access to such a thing?” asked Georgia. “I mean, the obvious choice is the Sakuras. It’s a Japanese poison that comes from Japan.”

  Myles grunted.

  “But then the question is why? They hadn’t met her before, had they?”

  “I don’t know that geography is as important as knowledge of the drug itself,” said Myles. “Although it’s certainly relevant. The fish is available in certain stores in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and, of course, overseas.”

  “So you’re looking for a sophisticated world traveler,” said Georgia. “All of the Kiplings are well-traveled. Including me.”

  “Marco DeMarco had just come back from San Francisco,” said Quill. “He told me so himself.”

  “And poor old Axminster Stoker toured the country a lot before he settled down with us,” said Meg. “I know ‘Frisco and L.A. were on his itinerary.”

  “So we’re no closer to a solution,” said Quill, frustrated. “I still vote for Hedrick. Georgia, did
your lawyers find out what happened to all that money Louisa was supposed to have? I mean, he’s the likeliest suspect here.”

  “Your lawyers?” asked Myles politely. “I take it you all have been pursuing inquiries on your own?”

  “Sort of,” said Meg.

  “In a way,” said Georgia.

  “Nothing major,” said Quill.

  Myles looked stern.

  “Jeez.” Meg ran her hands through her hair and left it sticking up in spikes over her ears. “Let me get you guys some fugu-free coffee.”

  “Decaf for you, kiddo,” Andy ordered. Meg nodded meekly.

  Quill met Georgia’s large brown eyes. “Yes, sir, doctor sir!” Georgia muttered.

  “What?” said Meg.

  “Nothing,” said Quill. “We’re just amazed to see you in love...”

  “... in thrall,” Georgia contributed.

  “... to the doc, that’s all.”

  “Shut up,” said Meg amiably, bringing down two fresh cups from the sideboard, and hesitating over the dessert plates. “You guys want tarts? There’s more than enough for everyone. I’m going to have another.”

  Andy raised his eyebrows and patted his flat stomach. Meg looked dubiously at her own slim middle, then left the dessert plates on the shelf.

  “Oof! Hah!” trumpeted Georgia, suddenly, striking the wineglass with a fork. “Oog Hah! (clink)”

  “What the heck, Gee?” Meg, caught between a scowl and a laugh, sat next to Andy and grabbed his hand.

  “Thaaat’s the sound of the meeen, working on the ch-a-a-ain, gay-ang-ang!” sang Georgia, in a surprisingly lovely (and loud) alto. “That’s the so-oo-u-nd of the me-en working on the chain. Gang.”

  “Jeez! Is that supposed to be some sort of political comment?”

  “Not some sort. A direct sort, honey. You want to eat, eat.”

  Meg grabbed a fork and speared a tart from the plate. “There. Solidarity forever.”

  “Yes!” Georgia shot her fist in the air.

  “About those lawyers, Mrs. Hardwicke,” said Myles, a hint of impatience in his voice.

  “My Gawd, look at the time! It’s bed for me.” Georgia winked at Quill. “Coward that I am, I don’t want to stick around and be interrogated by your sheriff. You tell him. That’s the way Nero Wolfe works, isn’t it? He had Archie cooperate with Lieutenant Cramer. She’ll cooperate.” She pinched Myles’s cheek and trundled out of the dining room, swaying like a two-wheeled cart with a heavy load.

  “Me, too,” said Meg. Andy got up and held her chair. She looked up at him with a smile that sent a pang through Quill. “See you at breakfast, sis.”

  After they left, the silence in the dining room was profound.

  “Andy and Meg seem to be getting along.”

  “Yes.” Quill folded her napkin into a neat triangle. “What do you think of Georgia?”

  He smiled.

  “Myles, I want to apologize for last night.”

  “I owe you an apology for losing my temper.”

  “You had reason, I suppose.” Quill’s throat was full. Cautiously, as if she were very careful about it, he wouldn’t see, she unfolded the napkin and pressed it under each eye in turn.

  “I’ve been thinking. What would you say if we gave us another year or so. Let things go on the way they were before I became”—he stopped, searching for the right word—”insistent.”

  “Do you mean it?”

  “I mean it.”

  “The, um, business of children? That’s important to you.”

  “You’re important to me.”

  Quill bit her lips hard and concentrated on the pile of crumbs Georgia had left beside her plate, pushing them into a pyramid with her finger. “Okay,” she said finally. “Okay.”

  Neither of them spoke for a moment.

  “I had to go to Ithaca today to pick up the results on the autopsy. I stopped at the art store. Here. I brought you this.” He reached into the breast pocket of his sports coat and brought out a camel’s hair artist brush with an ebony handle. It was an elegant one that Quill had longed for, and never had the heart to purchase. “You told me it’d be a waste, not to use a brush like that.”

  “Oh, yes. It would.” She took it. The curve in the center fit between her thumb and forefinger with a feeling of much-loved music.

  “I talked to Ken Sakura today.” Quill stared at him. Myles, who’d never, in all the time she’d known him, failed to meet her look directly, lowered his eyes. “He teaches at Cornell. He agreed to see if he could bypass some paperwork and let me audit a couple of classes.”

  “Art appreciation?” she said, astounded. “But, Myles, you need to take all kinds of courses before you get to art appreciation.”

  “Art history, first. I told him I wanted to understand how you fit in the mainstream of current painters. He started to tell me...”

  “He did? What’d he say?”

  “... and I stopped him. I wanted to discover that myself. And I want to understand. So that the next time you use this”—he touched the ebony-handled brush gently—” I could say, ‘yes’ or ‘no’ instead of—what was the jargon term I used before? You know, that specialized, in-the-know artists and critics-only language that you artists use?”

  “Nice?”

  “Nice. That was it. Nice. I swear to you, Quill, I will never again tell you that a piece of work you’ve done is nice.”

  “Oh, Myles.” Quill shook her head. “That’s so nice of you, Myles. It’s so nice!”

  “Idiot,” said Myles. “Let’s go to bed.”

  Quill woke to the sunlight crossing her muslin sheets, and the sound of Myles whistling in the shower. She stretched. The bedside clock said eight-thirty. The paintbrush lay on the nightstand, sunlight catching the swell of the ebony handle. She sat up and took it in her hand. She swung out of bed and walked barefoot to the French doors overlooking the herb garden.

  Could she do all three? Art? The Inn? Myles and a family?

  She closed her eyes, and the Inn rose before her mind’s eye in all its sprawling, untidy, hodgepodge glory. Quill had a set of photographs taken in the days when the Inn had been a way station on the Underground Railroad. Even in faded brown and white, the copper roof, dark shingles, and fieldstone patios were impressive among the rich gardens. They would be that way for another three hundred years. And the guests would continue to come, like Georgia Hardwicke, who’d cheerfully abandoned the Kiplings, for weeks at a time, and even, Quill thought, like Axminster Stoker, who like English gentlemen of the past century, had taken rooms and lived in hotels for the rest of their lives.

  The Inn had healed Meg, at a time when Quill thought her sister would never recover from the grief. And Quill had found a refuge, too, at a time when her art, quick to bloom, had become repetitive and stale.

  She felt, rather than heard, Myles come across the carpet.

  “Are you contemplating the greatness of your work?” His voice was teasing.

  “More like Ozymandias,” said Quill ruefully. “It’s all changing, Myles, isn’t it? Meg’s recovered from Colin’s death, and in love again. That’s part of what you’re willing to wait for, isn’t it? She’ll marry Andy, and things will change for me.”

  “I’m sure there’s an appropriate quote about how the more things change the more they remain the same, but I can’t think of it.”

  “You’ve never thought about giving up police work and maybe becoming an Innkeeper?” Even as she said it, she knew it was wrong. She turned to face him. “Wash that from your mind. Erase it. We’re equal.”

  “But separate.” He stood several feet away and made no move to touch her. “Would you want me to paint?”

  “Of course I would!”

  “Think about it, Quill. Would you want me to paint? Can any relationship stand the world judging the two of us on exactly the same ground?”

  “It’s not a competition, Myles.”

  “Competition is the wrong word. It’s a matter of the part
of your gut that’s you. Not me. Not someone else. You.”

  A breeze stirred the muslin drapes at the window. She heard the familiar slide-stump that meant Doreen was hauling the paper cans out to the burn shed. A scent of crushed thyme came to her.

  “I faithfully promise to shoot you, if you ever decide to paint. Now, Myles, about this investigation. Oh, my lord.”

  She clapped her hand over her mouth. “That’s why! All these years! You haven’t wanted me to help! I never realized.”

  “Jesus Christ, Quill. The reason I don’t want you involved is because it’s usually dangerous, and I don’t want my attention diverted from solving a problem. The other reason I don’t want you involved is because you might inadvertently withhold evidence...”

  Quill, with a guilty start, recalled the copy of the goods book in the office safe.

  “... or worse yet, destroy it. No, dear heart, I am not worried about you supplanting me as sheriff.”

  He meant it. “Why?” asked Quill. “Is it because I’m a lousy detective?”

  “Nope. Actually, between the two of you, you and your sister aren’t bad. Dave’s a good deputy, but he doesn’t have anywhere near your intuition about people, or your intelligence, for that matter. All good investigation relies on teamwork. I don’t want you involved, Quill, because you don’t have any training, and I don’t want you hurt.”

  “I can take care of myself. And I could learn. Will you teach me, then?”

  “Within the limits allowed by law, I might. And if you promise to stay away from the rough stuff, absolutely.”

  “Myles, you’re a fogey. You’re forty-six years old and the sexiest man I’ve ever met, but you’re a fogey.”

  “Right. Now.” He sat down on the bed and began to pull on his socks. His chest was tanned, and the muscles rippled under the dark skin. “First rule is turn it over.”

  “Turn what over?”

  “Whatever it is that you’ve got. Georgia found out something, didn’t she? I want to hear it. And if there’s anything else, I want that, too.”

  Quill went to her bureau drawer and pulled out the goods book.

  “We found it yesterday morning.”