Dread on Arrival

by Claudia Bishop

  “My poor Quill.”

  “Don’t laugh at me, Myles. It isn’t funny. I have to be there because Meg and Clare have called a temporary truce, and Meg’s agreed to be a judge. Phooey! And every single one of these awful people is going to be there.”

  “It’s clear you’ve got an unpleasant set of guests, but that’s happened before and it’s going to happen again.”

  His voice was warm. There was an ache in her heart from missing him.

  “Give Davy a nudge. As for the rest of it? Wait it through, my love. It’s not as though there’s been a murder.”

  11

  ∼Belter Barcini’s∼

  Brunswick Stew

  3 red, gray, or black squirrels, skinned and quartered

  ¼ cup lard (leaf lard from hogs, preferred)

  4 pig hocks

  2 quarts water

  ¼ cup salt

  3 bay leaves

  4 stalks celery, chopped

  4 large yellow onions, chopped

  4 large carrots, chopped

  4 large potatoes, peeled and quartered

  2 turnips or rutabagas, peeled and cut into 3-inch pieces

  4 cups peas

  ¼ cup cider vinegar, or more, to taste

  Fry squirrel parts in a frying pan with the lard. Put squirrel parts, pig hocks, salt, bay leaves, celery, and onions in a large pot with water and simmer for four hours on low heat. Add carrots, potatoes, and rutabagas/turnips and simmer thirty minutes. Add peas and simmer another thirty minutes. Add vinegar to taste.

  Serves six to eight. Serve with molasses corn bread, fresh corn on the cob, watermelon, and fried peach pie.

  “Squirrel?” Clare said. “Where the heck am I supposed to get squirrel by tomorrow night? Is it even legal to eat squirrel? What’s with this guy Barcini, anyway? I’ve never even tasted Brunswick stew. I’m supposed to supervise a dish for a hundred people I’ve never even tasted?”

  “I’m sure you’ll do it brilliantly,” Harvey said eagerly. His face was pink with excitement. He smelled faintly of cologne. He’d spiffed up even more than usual. Quill was sure his cashmere sports coat was new. “Mrs. Barcini says it’s been in the family for years. It’s a huge favorite at holiday time.”

  “Easy for you to say—you don’t have to cook it.” Clare began to pace around the kitchen.

  The kitchens at Bonne Goutè were huge, which gave Clare a lot of room to pace. Clare was looking thin. The last couple of days had been hard on her. Or maybe it was the fact the kitchens were so big. Quill wondered if there was some kind of ratio between chef size and kitchen size. The bigger the kitchen, the skinnier the chef?

  It was nine thirty on Wednesday morning. Meg and Quill were there. Clare and the academy staff were there. Harvey was there.

  Everybody else was late.

  “Where are Tree and Barcini?” Clare demanded. “Where are their people? We have to get started.”

  “I’ll make some calls.” Harvey pulled out his cell phone and wandered off to the corner.

  “Use beef instead of squirrel,” Meg said briefly. “It’s either that or send out the volunteer firemen to shoot a passel of the poor animals.”

  “Let me see that recipe again,” Raleigh Brewster said. Raleigh was in her mid-forties. She had what used to be called a matronly figure and a sprinkling of cinnamon-colored freckles across her nose. She was Bonne Goutè’s expert in soups and stews.

  “Harvey brought copies.” Quill picked up a handful of the recipes from the counter and began distributing them. Pietro Giancava, the slender, devastatingly handsome man who was both sommelier and Clare’s expert in sauces, folded it in half and tossed it over his shoulder contemptuously. Jim Chen (fish and seafood) read it carefully and started to laugh. Jinny Franklin, who had replaced the late (and unlamented) Mrs. Owens in jellies, fruits, and vegetables, jotted notes in pencil in the margins. She was a cheerful woman in her twenties and had come to Clare from Cornell. She paused and nibbled the end of the eraser. “Fresh corn is going to be a bit of a problem. The season’s way over. Peas, too. But it’s prime time for the root vegetables. You want me to start placing orders?”

  “Please,” Clare said. “Go frozen if you can’t get fresh. This sucker stews so long it’s not going to make any difference.”

  “You’ll want to substitute bison or even deer meat for the squirrel,” Raleigh said. “Beef is going to add too much fat.”

  “As if anyone could tell, with this mess,” Clare said crossly. “Yeah, fine, see what you can get shipped in. What time is this stupid Slap Down, anyway?”

  “Seven in the evening!” Harvey bustled back to the group assembled at the counter. “I wanted to give everyone time to prepare.” He looked happily around him. “Belter is on his way. And Marco said Mr. Tree is just leaving to pick up Rose Ellen. Everybody overslept. There was,” he explained to Raleigh, “quite an exclusive party at the Inn last night. We partied hearty.”

  Clare glared at him. “Right. Okay, people. So that means we have to start the Slap Down thing by ten o’clock tomorrow morning at the latest. I hope you’re prepared for hefty delivery fees.”

  Harvey waved airily. “No problem. I’ve already received a retainer against expenses.”

  “It’d better be a big one. Have you found out what Edmund Tree is going to make? Has it got exotic ingredients, too? Zebra, maybe? South African elephant?”

  “You can get that in cans,” Raleigh said. Then, in response to the appalled looks, “Not that I would order it or anything.”

  “Mr. Tree will prepare zabaglione,” Harvey said. “There was a voice message on my phone this morning.”

  Clare put her hands to her cheeks and groaned.

  “It’s a very simple recipe,” Harvey protested. “I thought you’d be pleased.”

  Pietro Giancava broke his long silence. “The ingredients are not a problem, Signore Bozzel. A quarter cup of sugar for every four egg yolks, plus a third of a cup of Marsala. It’s the preparing that is the difficulty. The entire recipe depends on the technique. So while Mr. Edmund Tree is in front of the camera whisking away, those of us in the background will have to prepare the cream for one hundred people? Meg and Clare cannot aid us—they are judges. That leaves Raleigh, Jim, and I myself.” He shook his head and folded his arms across his chest. “It cannot be done.”

  Harvey waved his hands excitedly. “You could put the eggs in a blender.”

  This time the appalled looks were directed at Harvey.

  Meg finally broke the silence. “You’ll have to, you know. There’s no way you guys can whisk two hundred egg yolks in the time it’ll take Tree to prepare his version for the camera.”

  Clare nodded. “Spoken like a true executive chef. Blenders it is. We’d better practice, then. I’ve got six on hand. It’d be better if we had ten. Could I borrow some from you, Meg?”

  Quill saw her chance to get out of the meeting and on with the rest of her day. “We’ve got two. I’m sure I can scout out a couple more. Why don’t I pick them up right now?”

  “So you’re going over the wall,” Meg muttered. “If you don’t come back, I’ll send the posse after you.”

  She let herself out and walked around the building to the parking lot. Meg was right. She felt exactly like an escapee. But after her talk with Myles last night, she needed to do more than nudge Davy Kiddermeister about the burglaries. She needed to get actively involved in the case. She and Meg had solved several murder cases in the past, and however some professional law enforcement types might feel, she was pretty good at detective work. Burglary would be a snap after murder.

  The municipal buildings were two blocks away from Nickerson’s Hardware, off Maple and not visible from Main Street. They had been built in the late fifties, a time when the village had enjoyed another surge in prosperity, by the same architect who had designed the high school.

  All the buildings were brick. The courthouse was three stories high. It sat between two smaller one-story wings. The
south side contained the county clerk, the tax assessor’s office, and the Department of Motor Vehicles. The north side contained the sheriff’s department and a two-cell holding pen for criminals on their way to somewhere else. Davy’s black-and-white cruiser—with a bumper sticker that read: shrf #1—was parked in its designated spot. Quill parked one spot over and went inside.

  The front office held two desks: one for the sheriff and one for the dispatcher. The back half of the building contained the two cells and a small meeting/interrogation room where the deputies gathered for meetings. Davy was clicking intently away at his computer. He looked up as Quill walked in. His hair was as light as his sister Kathleen’s was dark. But like all of the Kiddermeister clan, he had very fair skin and pale blue eyes. He blushed more easily than anyone she’d ever met.

  “’Lo, Quill.”

  “Hi, Davy.” She sat down in the metal chair that faced his desk. “How are things going?”

  “Pretty good. And you?”

  “I’d like to see the back of Edmund Tree as soon as possible,” she said a little helplessly, “but I don’t seem to be able to get rid of him. Other than that, I’m pretty well, too. I don’t suppose you’ve had any results from forensics on that lightbulb?”

  Davy ran his hands over his crew cut and leaned back in his chair with a sigh. “Budget.”

  “Budget?”

  “It’s a county expense to ID any evidence on that bulb. Couldn’t find a way to justify it.”

  “Even though we discovered a loss after I heard those feet going down the stairs?”

  “How am I supposed to link that up with the lightbulb? And it’s not like I can find anyone to back your statement up. No offense meant.”

  “None taken.” Quill thought for a moment, trying to think of a tactful way to bring up Myles’s suggestions.

  “Dina says you talk to the sheriff every night; is that right?”

  “You mean Myles.” She decided not to remind Davy yet again that he was sheriff and Myles wasn’t anymore. “Yes. I do. And I did mention the burglary to him.”

  “So what’d he have to say?”

  “That repeat offenders follow a pattern. So maybe our first task is to take a look at all the burglary reports and see if we can find any similarities.”

  Davy sighed, smacked open his lower desk drawer, and withdrew a thick green folder. “These are the incident reports. We have a computer record, too, of course.”

  “How many incidents have there been?”

  “Of B and E and petty theft? Since when? It’s the most common crime we have. The most routine stuff you read about in the Gazette. Stuff taken out of cars, stuff swiped out of gas stations, computers and TVs stolen out of offices and living rooms. But the A and B started a month ago, just after you and the sheriff left for the Adirondacks.”

  “A and B?”

  “Attics and basements. There’s one significant fact that sticks out a mile.”

  “They started right after Ancestor’s Attic announced they were coming into town to do the show?”

  “Right.”

  “What kinds of things were stolen?”

  “Nothing you could really put your finger on,” Davy admitted. “This is all forgotten stuff. Think about it. Can you give me a definitive list of what’s in your basement or your attic?”

  “A definitive list?” She shook her head.

  “So we have evidence of somebody breaking in—a busted lock here, a broken window there—and of somebody rummaging around. Boxes have been emptied, a lot of green garbage bags with the stuff inside pawed through—but nobody’s sure for certain what’s gone.” Davy tapped at the computer keys. “Mrs. Nickerson reported the theft of a couple of antique vases belonging to her grandmother. Turns out they were a couple of ceramic pots her grandma made in a ceramics class and they turned up in the garage when the Nickersons were looking for stuff for the Attic audition. Rory Kelleher’s missing a painting but the description of it’s so vague I couldn’t write down much more than ‘big painting of ocean or maybe pond.’”

  “All the thefts are like that?”

  “Most of ’em.”

  “So if a stolen item was brought to the Ancestor’s Attic assessors, the genuine owner might not be able to prove ownership?”

  “That thought did occur to me.”

  “Well, it didn’t occur to me until just now,” Quill said frankly. “This is very interesting.”

  “As far as the pattern is concerned, I don’t think I can rule out the Tree burglary. Seems to me once a criminal gets a taste for it, it’s pretty easy to graduate from petty stuff to the big time. Lot of them get a thrill just from the secretiveness of it, and they get so they need bigger and bigger thrills.”

  “This all makes a huge amount of sense to me. It’s exactly what I told Myles.” Quill looked at Davy with renewed respect. “Tell me, do you have a gut feeling about who it could be?”

  “The law doesn’t go with gut feelings now, does it?”

  “No. Nor should it.” Quill tugged thoughtfully at her hair. “You’ve got all the data on the computer, right? Can you run a search for any commonalities between the victims?”

  “Why not? Any idea what you’d expect to find?” He grinned suddenly. “Don’t say it. I can tell already. You have a gut feeling, right?”

  “I haven’t a clue. But it might help us see things in a different light.” She sighed. It was nice and quiet here in the sheriff’s office. If Jack were here, she could jump into a nice cozy cell and come out after the Slap Down was over. “I’d better be off. You wouldn’t happen to have a spare blender around would you? You know, a food processor?”

  Davy didn’t blink. “Not at the office. You might try Marge. The diner and the Croh Bar couldn’t function without blenders.”

  “She’s next on my list.” Quill got up to leave. “Thank you, Davy. Will I see you at the Slap Down tomorrow night?”

  “You kidding me? Everybody in town wants to be invited and I heard they’re only letting the bigwigs in. No way in heck I’m getting an invitation.”

  “You just did. I’m allowed a guest or two and that’d be you and Dina.”

  She found herself repeating the invitation to Marge some twenty minutes later at her realty office.

  The offices were pleasant, if rather utilitarian. Hunter green indoor-outdoor carpeting covered the floor. Two artificial ficus stood in one corner. A brass coat tree stood in another. Marge’s desk was a good quality maple and an impressive row of metal filing cabinets lined one wall. Marge was in the middle of one of her periodic cleanups. Her desk was piled high with manila envelopes and her shredder was whirring away in the corner. Quill found it all oddly soothing.

  Marge raised one ginger-colored eyebrow. “You sure about the invitation? I heard the invites are scarcer than hen’s teeth.”

  “Of course. They need a hundred people in the audience. Clare’s arranged for a loan of folding chairs from the Church of the Word of God. I just hope enough people turn out to fill them up.”

  “I don’t think you have to worry about that. Everybody and his brother wants to watch Belter and Tree duke it out.”

  “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to blows. Anyhow. Bring Harland, too, if he can stand to sit through it.”

  “He’d like it, but he’s getting a third cut of hay in. Doubt that he can get away.”

  “Then just come yourself. I just dropped by to see if I could borrow a couple of food processors. I’ve got to get them back up to the academy.”

  “I don’t see why not. Walk with me over to the diner and we’ll see what Betts can spare.” She looked at the wall clock. “Maybe get some lunch, too.”

  “I’d like that.” Although she was perfectly aware that she and Marge were alone in the office, she couldn’t help glancing around to make sure no one was listening. “Before we go, I’d like a favor.”

  “Ay-uh.”

  This was a classic Hemlock Falls response. It meant: I’m listening, but I’m n
ot committed.

  “This wouldn’t be about this restaurant association, by any chance?”

  “No. But I still think it would be a good idea.”

  “… Because if it is, it’s all about Carol Ann Spinoza and her maybe getting that food inspection license.”

  “Well, yes, it …”

  “You really think there’s anything going on in this town that I don’t know about? Restaurant association, my foot. You want me to scare Spinoza off. All I can tell you, missy, is that you don’t have to worry.”

  “I don’t?”

  “Nope. I’m going to fix her little red wagon but good.”

  Quill considered this statement for a moment. “Do I want to know?”

  Marge grinned in a sharklike way. “I dunno if you want to know, but I’ll tell you if you keep it to yourself.”

  Quill debated with herself. Marge wasn’t above a bit of blackmail when the circumstances warranted it. “If it’s anything illegal …”

  “Pooh. Of course it isn’t.” Marge leaned back in her chair and laced her fingers across her belly. “You know when this town was incorporated? Of course you don’t: 1825. You know what I found when I looked up those articles of incorporation? That you have to have a residence within the village of Hemlock Falls to run for an elected office. You know who doesn’t?”

  “Carol Ann?”

  “Got it in one. She lives two hundred feet over the village boundary. I checked.”

  “But she’s still within the township.”

  “Doesn’t matter. So I’ll be giving her a choice; she can still run for mayor but she’s got to keep her squeaky clean little paws out of village restaurants. If she does get her license, and that’s by no means a cakewalk, she’s going to write a letter to the state authority that due to the potential conflict of interest of poking her nose around restaurants where she has dear friends and neighbors, she will not be taking any assignments in her hometown.”