Toast Mortem

by Claudia Bishop

  “You don’t have to whisper. Just turn your cell phone . . .”

  “I did. Can you show me the computers? Preferably the one Mrs. Owens used when she was last in.”

  Miriam led the way through the stacks of books to the rear of the small building that held the village library. Adela chaired the library board. Just as John Deere bulldozers were good at moving dirt, Adela was good at fund-raising. So the library was a pleasant, well-ordered place with good lighting, lots of books, and up-to-date computer equipment. It was early, just after nine; the place was almost deserted, except for old Mrs. Nickerson who came in every day to read the Democrat & Chronicle.

  “Right there.” Miriam pointed to the middle of three desktop computers lined up against the wall. “But if you’re hoping to find out where she browsed, you’re out of luck.”

  “I am? On my laptop, when you go online, there’s a little directory to show what sites you’ve visited in the past. Mine keeps that until it gets to five hundred, and then it starts deleting the older ones.”

  “You aren’t used to a publicly accessed system. Do you have one available for the guests?”

  “It’s in a corner in the lobby. Dina handles it.”

  Miriam had been a schoolteacher before she went to library school, and her voice became quite teacher-ly. “When you log on to a public system, it deletes all the information from that session.”

  “All of it?”

  “All of it.”

  Quill pulled out one of the hard plastic chairs for users and sat down. “Phooey.”

  “Phooey, indeed.”

  “There are very few leads in this case, you know. Useful to me and Meg, I mean. I’m sure there’s tons of scene-of-the-crime evidence, not to mention all the state and federal records that give the police and licensed private detectives background material not available to us. What we do is outside that system.”

  “That makes some sense,” Miriam said, leaving Quill with the impression that she still thought Sarah Quilliam, snoop, was a bit of girlish foolishness. “Why would Mrs. Owens’s website searches have anything to do with Le-Vasque’s death?”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of having something to do with her death.”

  Miriam stiffened in shock. “What? There’s another body?”

  “Oh, dear. Yes. She was killed last night, I guess.”

  “Where? How?”

  “At the base of the statue in Peterson Park.”

  “That thing.” (The statue of General C. C. Hemlock, on horseback, was quite dramatically awful.) “Are the killings linked? Was it the same MO as LeVasque’s murder?”

  Quill didn’t point out that Miriam seemed to have abandoned her genial contempt for amateur detection. She did answer the question. “Doreen was a little foggy on that. She was hit with something, first, I think. Then she was stabbed. Sheriff Kiddermeister took Mr. Vanderhausen off for questioning this morning. Apparently his bowie knife was found lying near the body.”

  “So he didn’t do it,” Miriam said with satisfaction. “The most obvious suspect is always innocent. She sat down at one of the computers and began inputting. “What’s Mrs. Owens’s first name?”

  “Nobody knows.” Quill leaned over her and stared at the screen. “What are you doing?”

  Miriam looked around, rather furtively. The only person Quill could see was Mrs. Nickerson, who was doing the newspaper crossword puzzle. “If you say a word about this to anyone, I’ll put you at the bottom of the list for the next Louise Penny book.”

  “Okay. My lips are sealed.”

  Miriam clicked away for a few moments, then got up from the chair and pushed Quill into it. “Look.”

  Quill gasped. Miriam rapped her on the head with her knuckles. “Quiet!”

  “Miriam, this is the preliminary sheriff’s report!” Quill looked up at her. “You hacked into the sheriff’s files? How did you do that?”

  “It helps if you sleep with the local judge, and that he’s a very sound sleeper and keeps passwords in his wallet.”

  Miriam looked smug. Quill was appalled. But not too appalled to read the report on Mrs. Owens’s death.

  “Her first name is Verena,” Quill said. “And she was robbed. Her purse was emptied, her cell phone smashed. And, oh, dear. She was hit on the head. The EMT at the scene thinks it didn’t kill her, but that having her throat cut did. Ugh!” Quill pulled away from the screen.

  “Sissy.” Miriam shoved her aside. “Now let’s look at the arrest report.” Her fingers tapped at the keys. “I thought you said his name was Vanderhausen.”

  “That’s how he’s registered. And that’s what his Centurion card said.”

  “He had an American Express Centurion card?”

  “Yep. All of them did, as a matter of fact.”

  “A guy with a Centurion card mugs a middle-aged cook in the park for what? A hundred bucks? Tops? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “You said his name wasn’t really Vanderhausen. Maybe the real Mr. Vanderhausen is loaded.”

  “He’d have to be, to have a Centurion card. The credit card companies only give those out to the top one per cent of our richest citizens, bastards that they are.”

  Since Quill wasn’t sure whether Miriam referred to the credit card companies or the rich, she let it go. “What is Vanderhausen’s real name?”

  Miriam sat back and looked at her fingers in admiration. Then she bent over the keyboard and started clicking away again. “Bobby Ray Steinmetz. And he’s a known felon. There were clear fingerprints on the knife, and forensics got a match just like that.”

  “Armed robbery,” Quill said. “I do know about that.”

  “Holy crow!” Miriam sat back, her eyebrows raised. “Look at this!”

  Quill bent forward to read the screen. A story headline from USA Today shouted: “Convicted Felon Wins Lottery!”

  Bobby Ray Steinmetz had won fifty million dollars.

  Miriam stared at her. “In case you’re wondering, the look you see on my face is one of wild surmise.”

  Quill thought hard for a minute. “Why would someone who’d just won all that money want to mug Mrs. Owens? You’re right. It doesn’t make sense. Shove aside a minute, Miriam. I want to try something.”

  “No.”

  “No, I can’t try something?”

  “No, let me do it.” She smiled. She had dimples, and she looked quite raffish. “This is a lot more fun than cataloguing books.”

  “Okay. Try the acronym WARP.”

  “You still don’t know what that group is all about?”

  “They wouldn’t even tell the sheriff. But I’ve just had a chilling thought.”

  Miriam tsk-tsked. “Cliché, cliché.” Then, chattily, as she bent once again to the keyboard, “Have you noticed that everyone’s calling Davy ‘sheriff’ now? He’s really grown into the job. Howie always said he would.”

  “Myles, too.”

  “Boo-hiss,” Miriam said as the screen filled up with the black and blue listings. “All I’m getting is Star Trek stuff. Your WARPs are a no-go.”

  Quill concentrated. “Try Arnold Henry Vanderhausen.”

  Miriam typed in the name. The search took longer than usual, and when the name finally came up, Quill felt a thud of excitement.

  “He’s a lottery winner, too,” Miriam said. “A dead lottery winner. He won three hundred million dollars in the Florida lottery in 1996 and died six months later in a spa whirlpool with two Brazilian models.”

  “Try this pair of names: Muriel and Anson Fredericks.”

  This search took as long as the first.

  Quill and Miriam stared at the screen and then at each other.

  “Now, William Knight Collier.”

  “And Mrs. Valerie Barbarossa.”

  The search was faster this time, and the two of them read the results in silence. “All of them,” Quill said finally. “All of them named after dead lottery winners. Miriam. They all registered under false names. All tho
se people at my Inn are crooks!”

  “Oh, my God.” Miriam breathed. “It’s a bloody gang!”

  16

  Behind every great chef is a superior staff. Do not make the mistake of settling for second best. But they must always remember who is in charge.

  —The Master at Work, starring Bernard LeVasque,

  Episode 3

  Quill’s first panicked thought was Jack. Her precious baby lodged in the same place as a bunch of felons. It didn’t bear thinking of. She had to get them out. And she had to get them out now. She gunned her Honda up the hill, hoping that every single traffic patrolperson in Hemlock Falls was too busy investigating Bobby Ray Steinmetz to pay attention to speeders. She parked in the traffic circle and raced in the front door.

  “You’re back,” Dina said in welcome. She stood up behind the desk at the sight of Quill’s face. “Is anything wrong? Are you okay?”

  Quill battled to remain calm. One thing was certain; she couldn’t let anybody see her this upset. “Everything’s fine,” she said carelessly. “But I had a thought. Maybe we should move all the WARP people to the Marriott. Could you book them rooms, please? And then have Mike take them over in the van? And could you have them all out by noon?” Doreen had taken Jack to the Y for a morning playdate. They would be back by noon.

  “Noon is when Jack and Doreen come back,” Dina said with uncanny prescience.

  “Is it?” Quill said lightly. Then, urgently, “Can you take care of this please? Right now?”

  “Sure! I’ll just tell Mrs. Barbarossa that we weren’t able to rearrange the bookings after all. I’ll tell the Frederickses that the annual room fumigation is scheduled for this afternoon and she’ll scream ‘eww’ and bolt out of here like a rabbit. No sweat.”

  “Thank you.” Quill sat down on the couch in front of the little stone fireplace and took several deep breaths. Then she hit the speed dial on her cell and called Doreen.

  “What?” Doreen demanded when she answered.

  “Just called to see how things are going.” In the background, Quill heard the shrieking of little kids. “Is that Jack I hear?”

  Doreen snorted. “I bring ’em up better than that. He knows better than to hit another kid with a toy truck. What you’re hearing is Francie Neidermier’s grandson. Kid’s a brat. Jack’s just about to go down the kiddie slide. He’s waitin’ his turn, like a good boy.”

  A piercing howl seemed to indicate some kind of resolution to the battle of the toy truck.

  “What’s up?” Doreen demanded.

  “Not a thing,” Quill said hastily. “When you bring Jack back for his nap, you’ll be sure to stay with him, won’t you?”

  “I always do.” Doreen was as patient with Quill as she was with Jack, which was a very good thing. “That all you called for?”

  “That’s all.”

  Doreen clicked off. She wasn’t one to stand on ceremony.

  Dina spoke up. “Whatever’s upsetting you is going to upset those WARP people if they run into you. Maybe you could take a walk while I get this settled.”

  “No. I’ll be at the academy. There’s something I have to find out on Mrs. Owens’s own computer. Plus, I need to talk to Meg. And, Dina? Call me when those people are out of here.”

  “No problem.” Dina picked up the phone. “I’m on it.” She stopped, her finger poised over the speed dial. “Anything else? Would you like me to call somebody? Can I get you a cup of tea?”

  “Not a thing.” Quill forced herself to get up and move. She sped back through town, keeping a wary eye out for traffic patrol, and made the trip to the academy in five minutes flat.

  A black-and-white patrol car was parked at the academy annex. A dark blue Crown Victoria sat next to it. Chances were high that the police were going through Verena Owens’s apartment. And chances were slim to none that they were going to let a civilian like Quill rummage through Verena’s computer.

  Quill debated with herself, then parked the Honda in the main lot. She had to let Davy know right away about the unmasking of the WARP group. Miriam was sworn to secrecy, but Quill was willing to bet her vow would last until the second glass of Chardonnay at the Croh Bar.

  As expected, she was barred from going any farther than the annex foyer. She told the patrolman at the door there was an urgent message for the sheriff. She waited impatiently for several minutes. Davy finally emerged from the hallway that led to Mrs. Owens’s apartment.

  “You look tired,” she said, with sudden concern.

  He rubbed his hand over his unshaven chin. “I’m beat. I don’t mean to put you off, Quill, but can’t this wait?”

  “I think it might be important.”

  “Okay. Spill it.”

  “None of the people in the WARP group are who they say they are.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Quill bit her lip. Damn it all. This was going to be tricky. She couldn’t reveal how Miriam hacked into the police computers. And—unworthy as it was—she was banking on whom she was married to to keep her out of trouble. “I think that Valerie Barbarossa, William Knight Collier, and Anson and Muriel Fredericks are all assumed names.”

  “Is that a fact?” Davy unwrapped a piece of gum, stuck it in his mouth, and chewed it. He appeared to be thinking something over. Quill was pretty sure she knew what it was: somehow, Myles McHale’s wife had gotten hold of information known only to the police—the real name of the chief suspect in a nasty case of murder. He wanted to know how. If he knew how, he might have to arrest her. It was okay to arrest Sarah Quilliam. As a matter of fact, right about now he’d enjoy it. It was very not okay to arrest Myles McHale’s wife.

  The solidarity that characterizes police forces the world over won out. Davy said, “How do you figure that?”

  “It’s because they won’t tell us what WARP stands for. I mean, here you’ve arrested this guy with a record—and he’s an accepted member of a group that includes a banker, a stockbroker, and a little old lady with grandchildren in the dairy business. It didn’t make sense. So I Googled WARP . . .”

  “Star Trek stuff,” Davy said.

  “Exactly. So I Googled their names.”

  Davy’s expression relaxed a little. “Yeah? That was pretty smart. You get something out of that?”

  “Everybody’s dead. I mean, the names are all of people who’re dead. Lottery winners, as a matter of fact, but my guess is that was just a handy way to find useful aliases. I mean Vanderhausen, or rather Bobby Ray Steinmetz actually won one. I think that’s where they got the idea. More than that, I think it’s a gang. I thought you ought to know.”

  “What kind of gang?”

  “I don’t know! Maybe they make a habit of robbing live lottery winners. Maybe they plan to rip off the Hemlock Falls First National Bank. What I do know is that they’re unbelievably secretive. Whatever they’re planning, I’ll bet they’ve done it before.”

  Davy nodded agreement. “Dina says they spend money like drunken Indians.”

  “Dina would never say that. I mean, yes, they spend a lot and in kind of careless ways. But not like . . .”

  A smile lightened his eyes. “Nope, and she’d clock me a good one if she knew I’d said it that way, too. So don’t blow me in, okay?”

  “Okay. Anyhow, as soon as I found out, I came to tell you. I thought you ought to know.”

  “Thanks. I’ll see about it.”

  “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me when you find out?”

  “Don’t push it, Quill.”

  “I wouldn’t,” she said apologetically. “It’s just that with Jack there . . . oh! And there’s one more thing. I moved them all to the Marriott.”

  “Good. We’ll know where to find them.”

  “What are you going to do now?”

  “Now, look, Quill . . .”

  “The reason I asked, is because there might be some clues to Mrs. Owens’s activities before she died on her computer.”

  “She doesn’t have a computer.
” He chewed his gum twice and then added, “We didn’t find one. You know anything about her computer?”

  “Not really,” she said cautiously. “But I heard.”

  “Heard what? From who? And how?”

  She raised her hands in defeat. “Sorry. You’re right. I’ll be up at the kitchens if you need me.”

  Davy smiled at her. “If I tell you don’t hold your breath, will you get mad?”

  There was a back entrance to the restaurant kitchen. Quill was pretty sure she’d find Meg there, so she took the path that circumnavigated the building. Pietro Giancava stood in the little landscaped area just outside the kitchen itself, smoking a cigarette. He pinched it out as Quill came up and tossed it into a holly bush. “She is inside, your sister, rearranging all. I am not happy.”

  “The menu, you mean?”

  “Of course, the menu. What else?”

  Quill smiled at him. Cranky chefs were a familiar problem. “You, yourself, Pietro, would want to present your own work at a dinner like the one tomorrow night and not someone else’s.”

  He smoothed his thick black hair with both hands. “I am, of course, a better chef than it may appear from my current station in life. Maitre Quilliam has seen that I have a . . . how would you put it . . . a genius with sauces. So yes. Unlike that rascal LeVasque, she has stated openly that I am to create my sauce Milanese for the chevon. However!” He paused, opened the door for her, and followed her inside. “We have not yet reached an agreement on the wines. She is insisting on using les vins du pays. There is not one acceptable red in the whole of this area. You must speak to her. The Rieslings?” He threw his hands in the air. “I have given up. I will use the Rieslings.”

  Meg stood in the center of the gorgeous kitchen, frowning over a clipboard. She looked up as Quill and Pietro came in. “Hey, sis,” she said absently. “And I heard that about the reds, Pietro.” She looked around. “Anybody have a paper bag?”