A Puree of Poison

by Claudia Bishop

  “Anybody else want out?”‘

  Doreen, scowling ferociously, waved her sign (to the imminent danger of two waiters nearby) and hollered, “I’m keepin’ mine in it. I toll you bozos not to listen to this sorry sack of horse poop!”

  “Well?” Meg demanded of the crowd.

  Most of the employees shook their heads.

  “Anytime anybody wants out, see Quill. Or John. Anybody else want to say anything?”

  There was a general murmur which indicted a negative.

  “Good.” Meg turned to Axminster. “Solution presented. Meeting’s over. That’s it, guys, back to work.” She gave Axminster a shove which was not quite a blow. “You can go give Doreen a hand with the rooms, since you’ve thrown the cleaning schedule totally out of whack with this stuff. Doreen? You have an extra vacuum cleaner?”

  “I got scrub brushes and filthy terlits.”

  “My goodness,” said Axminster in great distress. “Of course, I am ready to put my hand to any task in the pursuit of productivity, but.... Sakura-san, I appeal to you. Please. Tell her what she has done.”

  Mr, Sakura rose solemnly from his bench, put his hands together, and bowed to Meg. “Vely good work. Vely. Quick!” He snapped his fingers. He turned to Axminster. “You watch. She is good. Vely good. Arigatoo gozai-mashita, Stoker-san. It has been vely interesting. Vely. Mis Quiriam is vely good to suggest crean obenjo, net! You help that one.” He chuckled genially, but the way he jerked his head toward Doreen was not genial at all. “Team-werrrk! Hai!”

  Axminster clicked his heels together and stood at parade rest. Quill resisted the impulse to pat him sympathetically.

  Mr. Sakura clapped Meg on the back. “Many. Times. I. Have. Pert the same.” He bowed. Meg bowed back. “As you Amerr-icans say, Sayonara for now. Motoyama!” He snapped his fingers, and the two followed the dispersing crowd of employees into the Inn.

  Doreen poked Axminster in the back with the sign. “Take this, you, and follow me.”

  Axminster turned just before he and Doreen disappeared around the corner on their way to the utility shed. “May we discuss this further on?”

  “Of course,” Quill called. “Any time.”

  “More meetings?” said Meg.

  Georgia’s laugh rolled across the lawn.

  “Actually, it should work out well. I have a little job from Myles, which I swore I wouldn’t tell either of you about, or I would, and more meetings will give me a great excuse to talk to each of the employees individually.”

  “To find out if anyone saw who gave Carlyle the poisoned finger?”

  “Well, yes. But please don’t tell anyone else, Meg, or you either, Gee. I’m sort of on assignment.”

  “I’ve got an assignment. I’d take it on myself if I weren’t going to be so busy with the new restaurant.” Meg looked at Quill, her brow furrowed. “Why was Axminster so quick to do what Mr. Sakura told him to do?”

  “I don’t know. Does it matter? He worships the ground the man walks on obviously, because of his Key Operating thingy, I suppose.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. Would you go clean toilets if Picasso told you to?”

  “Never mind that he’s dead, why in the world would Picasso ask me to clean toilets?”

  “That’s it exactly, isn’t it? Come on, Georgia, I’ll get you some breakfast.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Quill had several hours before she-was due to visit the construction site with Georgia and sit in on the Society for the Advancement of Jell-O Architecture committee meeting. She used them to interview employees one at a time in her office. She kept scrupulous notes (guiltily aware that she really ought to pay as much attention to her note-taking responsibilities for the Chamber) and, a short time before Georgia was to pick her up, leaned back and looked at the result of her efforts in bewilderment.

  Every suspect had passed that corner of the Inn at or around seven o’clock.

  The sous chefs had been in the kitchen and hadn’t noticed a thing, although several of them volunteered— strictly in the spirit of empowerment and team efforts to improve productivity—that if Meg could be persuaded to let them take coffee breaks outside at suitable intervals, they would be able to watch the corner of the Inn with a great deal of attention. Quill, doubtful that Meg’s Simon Legree style in the kitchen could be modified enough to accommodate these modest demands, said that she’d see what she could do. Meg was prone to utter a maxim about art and sweat which—although she stoutly maintained it was a favorite saying of the French composer Claude Marie de Courcy’s—Quill knew very well she’d made up.

  The waiters and waitresses, whose schedules fell under John’s purview, were much more helpful. Peter Hairston, strolling in the front garden for a ten-minute break just after six-thirty, had seen Mr. Sakura and the faithful Motoyama come from around the back of the Inn to the front, presumably to reenter the Inn through the front door, although he wasn’t sure. Marco DeMarco, in desultory conversation with Axminster Stoker, had been smoking a cigarette in the drive. Kathleen, whose break followed on the heels of Peter’s, had seen the Kiplings in full Victorian dress, sweeping through the rose garden in the direction of the corner of the Inn where Carlyle and Hedrick were to follow some moments later. It was, Kathleen thought, about five minutes to seven, and all of the Kiplings were together: Mr. and Mrs. Fairbanks, Jerzey Paulovich, Miss Kent, and Mrs. Hardwicke.

  The times were wrong. Quill stuck her pencil in her hair. The Kiplings were at the party by seven; she’d confirmed that by her own watch. But Hedrick and Carlyle had arrived some five minutes later, again confirmed by her own watch. She looked at her watch and checked the accuracy against the clock on her office wall. They were within a minute of each other. Mr. Sakura and Motoyama had come through the lounge and out into the patio at about the same time Carlyle and Hedrick arrived on the the lawn side. And Ax-minster and DeMarco had come in separately, DeMarco from the lounge, Axminster from the other side of the gazebo, which meant he must have walked through the perennial gardens and past the kitchen, the long way round.

  Why would he take the long way round?

  Where had Hedrick and Carlyle been for that extra five minutes? None of the staff could account for the missing time. No one had actually seen Carlyle encounter any one of the other guests, except in the patio itself.

  “You ready?”

  Quill jerked upright with a start. “Georgia! Is it time already?”

  “Just about. It’s about ten minutes to the site, isn’t it? It was roughly that in the van, at least, when we went down on the day Mrs. Con way was thrown in the river, poor soul.”

  Quill gathered her car keys, purse, hairbrush, and notepad. She ducked and peered into the small mirror hanging on the wall near her office door. “Do I look okay? My hair frizzes up like thistles in this heat.”

  “That’s not a perm? Gawd! What I wouldn’t do to have naturally curly hair. So, other than employee revolutions, how’s the morning going? I saw Myles leave rather early this morning.”

  Quill smiled.

  “Oh, Quill,” said Georgia.

  “What?”

  “Just. That look. I’m glad for you, sweetie.”

  “Well, hang on to the feeling. You’re about to meet Adela Henry, first lady of Hemlock Falls.” On their way out to the parking lot, Quill gave an animated description of Mrs. Henry’s social career, which bore a close resemblance to Sherman’s.

  “As in General Sherman, the fella that marched from Atlanta to the sea?” Georgia’s round face was red with laughter. “I can’t wait.”

  “At least the Jell-O mania isn’t as tacky as the Little Miss Hemlock Falls Beauty Contest, Gee. Remind me to tell you about that some time.”

  They walked to Quill’s Olds in a companionable silence, Quill accommodating her steps to Georgia’s slower ones. She waited until Georgia had eased herself into the passenger side of the car, then, as she pulled out onto the road that led to Route 15, asked her if she’d run into Carly
le and Hedrick the night of the murder.

  “We all did. Not literally, of course, but we saw them come in. Lila Fairbanks likes us all to arrive at the same time whenever we give a performance. Makes a more impressive effect, although she’d never in this world admit it. So, wherever we go, we’re accustomed to being ready a little before we actually need too. We wait until the crowd’s panting with anticipation and come in together.”

  “You did have a splendid entrance at the party,” said Quill. “I’m so sorry we didn’t get to hear the performance.”

  “You just might yet, if you don’t manage to avoid Lyle for the next couple of days. He didn’t think it was suitable to request a second chance until a day or two had passed, but I met them this morning at breakfast, and some wistful little hints were dropped.”

  “Gosh,” said Quill vaguely. “Anytime. Although we’re going to be pretty busy with the opening-day ceremonies tomorrow, and the Society’s just due to stay until the end of the week. Maybe next time?”

  Georgia, who was wearing flamboyant rhinestone sunglasses, dropped them lower on her nose and rolled her eyes sternly over the tops. “Confess. You don’t want to hear the Master’s poetry condensed into an hour-long performance?”

  “Georgia, I... well. No. No, I don’t. Anyone who can write something as smarmy and sententious as If.”

  “ ‘If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs,’ “ Georgia intoned.

  “Then you haven’t seen the fire, and everybody else has already found the exit,” Quill said somewhat tartly. “Has everyone been together a long time? The Kipling Society, I mean?”

  Georgia shot her a shrewd glance. “Still detecting? You can apply the rubber hose yourself, if you want to. They’re visiting the site today, with Mr. Sakura, who, it appears, is eager to join our little band. If I do decide to move to Hemlock Falls, he’ll take my place in the group. Anyway, they talked Meg into making them a picnic lunch to take to the site today. They love that little woods next to the mall. It’s a rehearsal, technically, and I should be there, but,” she added complacently, “I have this Ladies meeting instead. Which suits me just fine. At least it’ll be out of the sun.”

  “Is there a limit to the number of members?”

  “Oh, no. But a certain degree of consanguinity is required to make a happy little team. The common denominator is probably money. To get to your question—you are a tenacious woman, in your own way, Quill—I’ve known Lyle and Lila for years. Lyle was a great friend of Doug’s and mine. And Kipling’s been a favorite of Lyle’s forever. So, after Doug died....” She fell silent. The round, cheerful face flushed. Her voice was sad. “It was so hard. I still miss him. Every day. Every day. Anyway, Lyle’d retired and pulled this crazy bunch of people together and I just decided to join them, for the travel and die companionship, mostly. It’s been fun.”

  “So Lyle’s the founding member. What about Miss Kent?”

  “Aurora? Golly, let’s see. She’s Worthington Mill money, you know, out of Vermont. I think she met Lyle and Lila on a cruise to St. Thomas three or four years ago. That must have been around the time that Jerzey joined, or maybe it was a little later. He’s a heck of a bridge player, by the way.”

  “Jerzey has money, too?”

  “I expect so. I told you we were all loaded.”

  “Where’d the Fairbanks money come from?”

  Georgia burst out laughing. “With that accent? You have to ask? Oil, honey, oil.”

  “Was Doug in oil, too? Is that how the four of you were friends?”

  Quill got the look over the sunglasses again. “I’ve been meaning to ask you. That dishy sheriff?”

  “Myles?”

  “You come to an understanding, as they say?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Well, I’m glad. But you tell him from me that Doug and Lyle met over a yearling filly at Saratoga Race Week some years back, bid against each other on the horse. I don’t remember who actually ended up buying her—it might have been us—but one of ‘em lost I don’t know how many thousands on the damn thing, and they went out together on a three-day toot and were fast friends ever since. Men.” Georgia shook her head. “Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without them.”

  “When did the trip to Tokyo happen?” Quill, chafing under Myles’s stricture not to tell anyone that she was investigating, was finding it difficult to keep up the appearance of aimless chatter. Georgia’s eyes were too shrewd.

  “Japan was actually a business trip for Lyle. I hadn’t joined them yet. Isn’t that your turn here? Quill, that’s a darn pretty mall, if I do say so myself.”

  “Well, why wouldn’t you?” asked Quill affectionately.

  “It is nice, isn’t it? Although, if we accept Mr. Sakura’s offer to buy it, I won’t feel quite the same about it as I do now.”

  “If the parking lot’s empty for months on end because of that new mall down the road, you’re not going to feel the same about it, either.”

  “The parking lot’s not empty enough, now. Look. There’s the Horrible Hedrick’s Cadillac. And the Inn van, too. The Kiplings must be here already. It looks like the work crew’s gone, though.”

  “Oh, my, look at the tent! I love this!”

  They got out of the car. A huge gaily striped awning tent had been set up in the meadow south of the mall itself. The sod had been delivered that morning, and the scent of freshly turned dirt filled the air. The backhoe was parked near the septic tank, and the bulldozers were gone.

  The tent was red and white. A large banner draped across the front entrance shouted hemlock falls very own! The Mall at the Falls!

  “Why didn’t the Ladies Society just use the atrium in the building for the exhibits?” asked Georgia.

  “That was a battle,” said Quill. “This is a small town, remember, and all our investors are from around here. The wives didn’t want anyone messing up the stores with the food exhibits.”

  “Did you say food?”

  “Oh, yes. We don’t have a county fair in the Falls, although Esther West has been talking about starting one up, so the opening is being treated as sort of a dry run. We’ve got a baking competition, and jams and jellies, and, of course, the Jell-O Architecture Contest.”

  “Is there any food to eat?” asked Georgia. “I’m feeling a bit peckish, as a true Kiplingite might say.”

  “The restaurants will be serving tomorrow. Ours and of course the McDonald’s. And I think the Agway will have a beer booth and hot dogs.”

  “But I’m hungry now!”

  Quill chuckled. “I think there’s a diner wagon for the work crew. Maybe it’s still here. Shall we walk over and see if they’re still open?”

  “Are you hungry?”

  “Well, no,” Quill admitted.

  “Then I’ll go. You go in and tell the ladies I’ll be with them shortly. You want anything?”

  “Some iced tea, if they have it. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

  Quill walked to the tent, and into the meeting. The Falls’s cognoscenti (Marge Schmidt and Betty Hall, mainly) were of the opinion that the Ladies Society for the Advancement of Jell-O Architecture was the saving of Mayor Henry’s marriage, not to mention the Hemlock Falls political structure. Up until the creation of that body, Adela Henry, the mayor’s wife of some thirty years and a masterful woman, had been known to meddle with varying, degrees of success in village affairs. While no one would deny that Adela’s Vigilante Group (an organization dedicated to sweeping the lockers of the local high school for illicit substances, which had resulted in the confiscation of several dozen packets of No-Doz at exam time) or the Hemlock Anti-Alcohol League (which had circulated an unsuccessful temperance petition for the whole of Tompkins County) had roots in worthy enough values, everyone took mild exception to the high-handedness with which Adela enforced her views. She was a tall woman, with prematurely white hair tinted blue at the Hemlock Hall of Beauty once a month, and a piercing voice. Meg thought she would hav
e made a great prime minister of some unsuspecting republic.

  Quill waved to Adela as she entered the tent. Adela, dressed in a cotton print dress and a large straw hat, motioned her to the long table set in the center.

  “What do you think?” she demanded without preamble. “You have an Eye, Quill. No one”—she swept the assembled members of the Society with a commanding glance— “no one would deny your Eye.”

  A long table was set squarely in the middle of the tent. Each of the displays was tastefully arranged on felt-covered pieces of cardboard.

  “They’re just the most interesting buildings I’ve ever seen.” Quill walked around the table with her hands clasped behind her back. The buildings quivered as she walked. She stopped in front of a particularly teetery one. “Is this Eiffel Tower yours, Esther?”

  “Mais wi,” said Esther anxiously. “I had a bit of trouble with the top, as you see.”

  The edifice, made of either strawberry or cherry Jell-O, Quill wasn’t sure which, had a peculiarly thick look to it.

  “How did you get it to ... to ... tower?”

  Esther darted a hesitant look at Adela. “Concrete,” she said defiantly.

  “You are supposed to be able to eat it,” said Adela coldly. “We agreed.”

  ‘Tm going to,” said Esther. “Concrete won’t hurt you. I asked Dr. Bishop. Not quite what it should be for the digestion, but no harm will come to me, he said.”

  The sun, coming into the tent through plastic skylights in the tent top, struck blueberry, grape, orange, and lemon highlights from the tiny buildings.

  “Now this is ... is ... most interesting,” said Quill “It’s obviously, um...”

  “Mount Fujiyama,” said Adela. “The coconut is the snow, of course.”

  “And the, um, fixative?”

  “If you mean by that, what did I use to achieve the height, in a food that is essentially, well, essentially Jell-O, the answer is Rice Krispies. Which are highly edible.”

  Esther, with a great show of unconcern, took a teaspoon from the coffee tray and nibbled at the Eiffel Tower.