Fete Worse Than Death (9781101595138)

by Bishop, Claudia

  “Sounds like a plan,” Sophie said cheerfully. “When the sheriff comes to interview me, I’ll swear whatever I need to swear and peckerwood can hire a defense lawyer.” She looked brightly from Marge to Quill. “So where shall we put it?”

  “My diner,” Marge said. “I’ll let Betts find it and make the call. In the meantime, young lady, keep your curtains closed.”

  “I’ve got a better idea.” Sophie’s slim fingers grasped the laptop. “Leave it with me. I’ll put it in the tasting room, and then ‘find’ it in front of a couple of the other chefs. I’ll suggest we call the cops and there you are. Keep you guys out of it altogether. Now, I’m really sorry, but I’ve got to get back to work. And I still have to dry my hair! If Clare didn’t fire me over the pasta thing, she’ll sure as heck fire me if I miss my shift.”

  Something about the way Sophie hung on to the laptop bothered Quill. That, and her comment about not knowing Linda Connelly personally.

  Ever since Jack’s second birthday, (in self defense) Quill had gotten really good at being stern. She often thought her life as an innkeeper would have been easier if she’d learned it a lot earlier. “Sophie,” she said. “What’s going on? What do you know about Linda Connelly?”

  “I don’t know a thing about Linda Connelly.” She scowled. “What’s it to you, anyway?”

  “We’re looking into her death,” Marge said breezily. “We do that.”

  “You do what?”

  “Quill here’s by way of being one of the best detectives in Hemlock Falls.”

  “I didn’t know there were any detectives in Hemlock Falls.”

  “There aren’t,” Quill said. “I mean, over the years we’ve had the occasional…”

  “Corpse!” Marge said cheerfully.

  “…At the Inn and once or twice I’ve stumbled over the solution to the murder…”

  “And we’re going to solve this one, too.” Marge settled comfortably back against the couch. “Soon as we get this yahoo Brady Beale and his snoopy camera off the streets.”

  Sophie carefully unwound the towel from around her head, shook out her wet hair, then folded the towel neatly and set it on the coffee table. “Wow.” Then, “You were trained in police work, is that it?” She glanced at Marge. “Or maybe you were in the military? I’ll bet you would have been a great Marine.”

  “No formal training, no,” Quill said.

  “Just nosy,” Marge added. “And I was never a Marine, thank you very much.”

  Sophie got up and walked up and down the living room, as if sitting still were a penance. Quill was struck again by her sheer vitality. Maybe a sketch would work, after all. She felt in her skirt pocket for her charcoal sticks, to reassure herself they were there. “From what we’ve discovered so far, we’re pretty sure Linda Connelly isn’t her real name.”

  “That’s for sure,” Sophie muttered.

  “And I don’t think…” She looked at Marge. “Well, we don’t think that she’s even a legitimate events co-coordinator.”

  “You’d be right about that, too.”

  “So after we settle Brady’s hash, we’re going to check out her so-called company in Syracuse,” Marge said.

  “We are?” Quill said. “But the police have already done that.”

  “Harker,” Marge said in derision.

  “You’ve got a point.”

  “Only logical to follow up and see if the Linda Connelly her clients knew is the same one that’s dead as a doornail in the Tompkins County Morgue. Right after we finish up here. Figured we’d tell people we’re doing background checks for an insurance claim.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” Quill sighed. She wished she didn’t have so many sidekicks. First Althea, who was going to get them all in hot water over the purloined laptop, and now Marge, who was a little too enthusiastic about impersonating people. She looked at her watch again. Jack was in his bath now, looking adorable, and she was missing all of it.

  “Look, you guys. You can’t do this.” Sophie stopped striding and put her hands behind her back, reminding Quill of a lecturer at a podium.

  “Linda Connelly isn’t her real name. You’re right. And she’s not an events co-coordinator—at least, not the kind of events you want here in your beautiful little village.

  “She’s Russian. And what she does for a living is kill people.”

  17

  Quill gaped at Sophie. “Linda Connelly’s an assassin?”

  “Was,” Marge said. She looked delighted. “She’s gone toes, remember.”

  “Yes,” Sophie said tightly. She pointed at the laptop. “If the woman we just saw on the streets of Singapore is the woman who ended up in the trunk of a rented Lexus at Peterson Automotive, then that’s Natalia Petroskova. A hired assassin. A good one. Although not good enough, since she seems to be dead.”

  Marge pounded the couch in excitement. “Oh, my Lord. What do you suppose we ought to do now, Quill?”

  Sophie’s face turned bright pink. “What do you do now? Are you crazy? You go straight home and forget that I said one word about this. That’s what you do now!”

  “Absolutely,” Quill said. She scrambled to her feet. “As a matter of fact, this is us, leaving. Come on, Marge.”

  “Now wait a second. Just hang on.” Marge was no slouch in the stern-looks department. Her gun-turret glare had reduced more than one investment banker to jelly. She turned it on Sophie. “How the heck do you know all this, missy?”

  “That doesn’t matter.”

  “Of course it matters. How do we know you aren’t making all this up?”

  “You don’t.”

  “Then I don’t see one good reason why Quill and I here shouldn’t go on looking for Linda Connelly’s murderer.”

  “Oh, I do,” Quill said fervently. “For heaven’s sake, Marge. I’m a mother, now.”

  “Look.” Sophie folded her arms across her chest, as if defending herself. “You want to ask yourself—why does Brady Beale have pictures of both me and this Linda Connelly on his computer? I don’t have a clue as to why he was mixed up with a Russian assassin, but my guess is he was keeping tabs on me.”

  “Why would he be keeping tabs on you?” Marge demanded.

  Sophie hunched her shoulders. “The kind of career I had, going all over the world in these yachts, well, it’s perfect for undercover work. You can see that. And I was the chef. Nobody on a yacht pays attention to the chef. Well, they do, but it’s either to yell at them that the food sucks, or fall all over them because the food’s fabulous. Who’s going to think your chef’s a spy? So I got talked into doing a couple of jobs for the government, much against my personal preference.” She looked very cross. “Much!”

  “Were you coerced?” Quill asked gently.

  “Huh? Coerced? Yes, I darn well was. But not in the way you mean, I think. I led a perfectly blameless life up until I got mixed up with this stuff.” She blinked away a tear.

  “I’m so sorry,” Quill said.

  “Yeah, well. You’ll be a lot sorrier if you insist on getting mixed up in this thing. Honestly. This isn’t a little local murder. You’ve got nasty Russians involved in God knows what. Stay out of it.”

  “You seem to know more about this kind of international crime stuff than we do,” Marge said in a coaxing way. “Maybe you’d want to give us a hand here.”

  “No, no, and no.” She took a shaky breath. “I am going up to the academy kitchen now and I’m going to do such a fabulous job that Clare Sparrow will get down on her knees and thank the food gods that she hired me. And you guys?” She slapped the laptop closed and handed it over to Quill. “You guys go straight home and lock your doors.”

  ~

  “Do you believe a word of what that youngster had to say?” Marge demanded once they were in Quill’s Honda and headed back into town.

  “She’s not that much younger than I am,” Quill said, nettled.

  “A bit of a drama queen, though.”

  “Maybe.”
>
  “Thing is, is she stark staring bonkers?”

  “No, I don’t think she’s crazy. And we aren’t, either. As far as this case in concerned, I’m done. It’s over. There’s no way either one of us is getting mixed up with assassins.”

  “You know who could check on this for us.”

  “Of course I know,” Quill said testily. “Unfortunately, I won’t be talking to Myles tonight. He’s out of touch for a few days.”

  “You must have some way of getting a message to him if there’s an emergency.”

  “I do.”

  “Well, if a dead assassin in Hemlock Falls isn’t enough of an emergency, I don’t know what is.”

  “True enough.”

  It was close to seven o’clock and the sun was gone, leaving a peacock’s tail of burnished pink and gold against the pale blue sky.

  “Your truck’s at your office, Marge? I’ll drop you off there.”

  “Yeah. But Jack’s headed off to bed by now, isn’t he?”

  “Yes,” Quill said reluctantly.

  “And Harland’s over to an Agway meeting tonight. Won’t be back till after nine.”

  “So?”

  “So I think we should catch some dinner at the Croh Bar and talk about this.”

  “I had lunch at the Croh Bar today already.”

  “What, you don’t like the food? Come on, Quill. We’re here already. There’s the entrance into the back parking lot. Pull in.”

  Quill pulled in, parked, and followed Marge into the Croh Bar.

  The bar itself was to the immediate left of the entrance, crowded with the regulars. Quill waved to Howie and Miriam. Justin Alvarez, Howie’s junior partner, and Meg’s latest dumpee, sat next to them, looking down in the mouth.

  There were a few faces she didn’t know; some of the vendors at the fete came into town early to make sure of their booths’ location during the setup period. At the farthest end of the bar, slumped benignly over a beer, was Linda Connelly’s driver, George McIntyre. Quill clutched at Marge’s arm. “Marge!”

  “What?!”

  “Meg! She went out on a date with Mickey Greer this afternoon. Oh, my God. I’ve got to get back up to the Inn.”

  Marge pulled her firmly into an empty booth. “Call her.”

  “Call her! My sister’s on a date with an assassin’s assistant and you want me to call her?”

  “She’s in the kitchen, you doofus. If she was missing or dead, you would have heard about it by now. Go on. Call her.”

  “She doesn’t answer her cell when she’s cooking.”

  “Then call Dina. Get a grip.”

  Quill speed dialed her sister. She didn’t pick up. Then she speed dialed Dina, who did. “It’s me, Dina. Where’s Meg?”

  “In the kitchen.”

  “Where’s that guy, Mickey Greer? He’s not in the kitchen, too, is he?” If her sister were feeding him, she was going to race right back up to the Inn, grab her son, her sister, and Doreen, and move back to the house she shared with Myles.

  “Haven’t seen him. Meg came back here around five. She was all alone. And in a bit of a snit.”

  Quill took a deep breath. “Thank God. Listen, I absolutely have to talk to Meg. Would you go tell her to call me? Right this minute.”

  “Is anything wrong?”

  “Yes, but it’s under control. Or it will be when I hear from Meg.” Quill closed her cell phone and tapped the table impatiently.

  “I ordered us a half carafe of wine,” Marge said, “and I got you corn cakes. Betty’s started to use egg whites in the batter. I’m seriously thinking of franchising them.” She reached over and closed her hand over Quill’s restless fingers. “Not like you to lose your head.”

  Marge was one of her oldest friends, but she didn’t have any children. She’d married Harland at fifty-six. She didn’t think she could explain to her how having a child changed the entire way you looked at the universe.

  Quill’s cell phone chimed. “Meg?”

  “Of course it’s me. What do you want? I’m in the middle of dinner, here.”

  “How busy are you?”

  “Busy enough. Not too bad.”

  “Is Bjarne on?”

  “Yes, but I was thinking of sending him home. After this seating, it’s going to get light.”

  “Could you turn the kitchen over to him, please, and come down to the Croh Bar? I have to talk to you.”

  “You sound a little frantic, Sis. Everything okay?”

  “Everything’s not okay.”

  Marge wrested the phone out her hand. “It’s me, Marge. Your sister’s got her knickers in a twist, but things are hopping. You eat yet? No? You want to try Betty’s cornmeal cakes? Good. See you in five.” She handed the phone back to Quill. “Wine’s headed this way. Have a glass. Have two.”

  Meg was at the booth in seven minutes, not five, and by that time, Quill had called Doreen, reassured herself that Jack was safely asleep, and started on her second glass of a very good Finger Lakes Riesling.

  Meg slid into the booth just as Betty placed the cornmeal cakes on the table. She was flushed with sunburn. “So what’s up?”

  Quill hesitated. She wasn’t sure how to plunge into this. “How was your hike?”

  Meg paused, a corn cake halfway to her mouth. “How was my hike? That’s what you hauled me down here for?” She bit the corn cake in half and chewed it. “If you order me another plate of these, I won’t be mad at you. My hike was fine, thank you very much.”

  “We got some news about the murder,” Marge said, “and it’s going to knock your socks off.”

  “Let’s start with the photos of Sophie,” Quill said. She pulled the computer out of her tote and booted it up.

  Between them, she and Marge managed to give Meg a reasonably coherent account of the events of the past hour.

  “You’d better check the battery on that laptop,” Meg said after a long moment of silence.

  Quill took a restorative sip of wine. “That’s all you’ve got to say?”

  “Of course that’s not all I have to say. Give me a minute. This is a lot to take in all at once.” She ran her hands through her hair, making it stand up in spikes all over her head. “First off, you believe what Sophie told you?”

  Marge nodded. “That’s what I said. Half of me thinks the kid is smoking funny cigarettes.”

  Meg kept her eyes on her sister. “Quill’s very good at reading people, partly because of her artist’s eyes, and partly because she’s got all this intuitive intelligence as opposed to the regular kind.”

  Quill rolled her eyes.

  “So what do you think, Sis?”

  “She’s telling the truth.”

  Meg expelled her breath in a long sigh. “Dang. And you’re wondering if I learned anything about Mickey this afternoon that’s going to help the case.”

  “There’s no case,” Quill said flatly. “I mean, there is, but we’re staying out of it. Out, out, out.”

  Marge signaled one of the young waitresses for a second carafe of wine. “So did you find anything out about the guy when you went hiking this afternoon?” Then, in response to Quill’s exasperated look, she said, “Just asking. No harm in asking. So what kind of a guy is he?”

  Meg’s cheeks were redder than could be accounted for by sunburn. “A jerk.”

  “You came back early,” Quill said. “And alone, according to Dina. Shall I take a wild guess that he didn’t have hiking at Buttermilk Falls in mind?”

  “Oh, we got to Buttermilk Falls. It’s not all that long a hike, not if you’re in reasonable shape, so after we mogged around there for a bit, Mickey said he wanted to show me the navy yard at Dresden. He’s a former SEAL, he says, although I’ll bet you a second bottle of this Riesling that they drummed him out of the navy.”

  “Dresden?” Quill peered into her empty wineglass. Two glasses of wine on a weeknight might be one too many. “As in Dresden, Germany? He wanted to go overseas with you?”

  “She
means the Naval Research Station in Dresden, New York,” Marge said. “Right? Down on Seneca Lake. They did a lot of underwater weapons testing there in World War Two. There’s still a naval depot there, right smack on the lake. But it’s all buttoned up.” She squinted with the effort of memory, and then said slowly, “You know what? Brady Beale’s grandpa worked at the depot. I’m sure of it. I’m damn sure of it.”

  “Whatever,” Meg said irritably. “Anyhow, turns out it wasn’t the navy yard that attracted Bozo so much as the barge that was tied up at the dock. Nice and private, Bozo said.” Meg rubbed her upper arms and winced. She wore a fitted T-shirt with elbow-length sleeves.

  “Meg!” Quill reached over and gently shoved her sister’s sleeves up. “Bruises!” she said. There was an ugly scratch on her wrist, too.

  “Lordy!” Marge said. She touched Meg’s arm, clearly shocked. “I hope you bruised the son of a B right back.”

  “Did better than that,” Meg said with a smile. “I pushed the son of a B into the lake and took off in the car we came in on.” She slapped her hand flat on the table. “Haven’t seen him since. And I hope I never see him again.”

  “Might be a while.” Marge chuckled. “That’s some long way to thumb. Although looking like he does, some dumb female’s already picked him up.”

  “Well, this dumb female is feeling pretty stupid.” Meg shook her head and sighed. “I never ever say this, Quill, unless it’s absolutely screamingly necessary, but you were right. I’m way too prone to fall for a pretty face.”

  “Hey.” An unfamiliar voice made all three of them look up. George, the wandering Californian. “Hey there.”

  George looked as if he’d spent most of the afternoon sipping beer at the bar. His graying ponytail dripped over his shoulder. He had a pleasant, if vacuous grin. He pointed an unsteady finger at Meg. “Hey,” he said, for the third time. “I thought you and Mick were out gettin’ it on.”

  “Beat it,” Marge said.

  George raised both hands in a placatory gesture. He scratched his head vigorously. Then he put a gentle hand on Quill’s shoulder and eased himself next to her in the booth. “Just wanted to find out where Mick is,” he said apologetically. “We got to decide what to do now that Linda’s passed on.”