Dread on Arrival
Praise for Claudia Bishop’s
Hemlock Falls Mysteries
“Always a great reading experience … Claudia Bishop writes an enthralling amateur-sleuth mystery.”
—The Best Reviews
“An entertaining, quirky, and offbeat mystery … A special treat for amateur-sleuth lovers.”
—Midwest Book Reviews
“The reader can settle in Hemlock Falls comfortably.”
—The Armchair Detective
Praise for the Beaufort & Company Mysteries
by Claudia Bishop writing as Mary Stanton
“I was hooked from page one … This book should give Mary Stanton the same kind of cult following usually reserved for Charlaine Harris.”
—Rhys Bowen, author of Naughty in Nice
“Engaging and charismatic … Will be a breath of fresh air for fans of paranormal cozy mysteries.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Spooky Southern charm and a wonderfully inventive approach to the afterlife.”
—Madelyn Alt, national bestselling author of Home for a Spell
“An elegant enchantment with a delightful heroine and a historic setting.”
—Carolyn Hart, author of Dead by Midnight
Berkley Prime Crime titles by Mary Stanton
DEFENDING ANGELS
ANGEL’S ADVOCATE
AVENGING ANGELS
ANGEL’S VERDICT
ANGEL CONDEMNED
Titles by Mary Stanton writing as Claudia Bishop
Hemlock Falls Mysteries
A TASTE FOR MURDER
A DASH OF DEATH
A PINCH OF POISON
MURDER WELL-DONE
DEATH DINES OUT
A TOUCH OF THE GRAPE
A STEAK IN MURDER
MARINADE FOR MURDER
JUST DESSERTS
FRIED BY JURY
A PUREE OF POISON
BURIED BY BREAKFAST
A DINNER TO DIE FOR
GROUND TO A HALT
A CAROL FOR A CORPSE
TOAST MORTEM
DREAD ON ARRIVAL
The Casebooks of Dr. McKenzie Mysteries
THE CASE OF THE ROASTED ONION
THE CASE OF THE TOUGH-TALKING TURKEY
THE CASE OF THE ILL-GOTTEN GOAT
Anthologies
A PLATEFUL OF MURDER
DEATH IN TWO COURSES
Dread
on Arrival
Claudia Bishop
BERKLEY PRIME CRIME, NEW YORK
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada
(a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL,
England • Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin
Books Ltd.) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
(a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) • Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community
Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive,
Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) • Penguin Books
(South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes contained in this book.
DREAD ON ARRIVAL
A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / April 2012
Copyright © 2012 by Mary Stanton.
Excerpt of A Taste for Murder by Claudia Bishop copyright © 1994 by Mary Stanton.
Cover illustration by Karen Strelecki.
Cover design by Diana Kolsky.
Interior text design by Laura K. Corless.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
ISBN: 978-1-101-56140-9
BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME
Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME logo are trademarks of
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
ALWAYS LEARNING
PEARSON
For Nate
Cast of Characters
The Inn at Hemlock Falls
Sarah “Quill” Quilliam-McHale owner, manager
Margaret “Meg” Quilliam master chef, owner, Quill’s sister
Jackson McHale Quill’s three-year-old son
Doreen Muxworthy housekeeper, Jack’s nanny
Dina Muir grad student, receptionist
Kathleen Kiddermeister head waitress
Bjarne Bjarnsen head chef
Elizabeth Chou sous chef
Mike groundskeeper
Phillip “Skipper” Bryant guest, antiques collector
Andrea Bryant guest, Skipper’s wife
Jukka Angstrom guest, antiques collector
Edmund Tree a guest, producer and host of Your Ancestor’s Attic
Melanie Myers guest, Edmund’s assistant producer and director
Marco bodyguard
Bruce bodyguard
Joseph “Belter” Barcini guest, producer and host of Pawn-o-Rama
Josepha “Mamma” Barcini guest, producer, Belter’s mother
Josephine Barcini guest, producer, Belter’s sister
Max a dog
And others
Citizens of Hemlock Falls
Rose Ellen Whitman owner of Elegant Antiques
Marge Peterson-Schmidt businesswoman, the wealthiest citizen in Tompkins County
Harland Peterson dairy farmer, Marge’s husband
Elmer Henry mayor of Hemlock Falls
Adela Henry Elmer’s wife
Davy Kiddermeister sheriff of Hemlock Falls
Howie Murchison town justice, practicing lawyer
Miriam Doncaster town librarian
And others
STAFF OF LA BONNE GOUTÈ CULINARY ACADEMY
Madame LeVasque owner, CFO
Clarissa Sparrow newly named director, expert in pastry
Raleigh Brewster chef, soups and stews
Jim Chen chef, fish and seafood
Pietro Giancava chef, sauces and sommelier
Bernard LeVasque (deceased, but very much a presence)
Bismarck a cat
Table of Contents
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
Epilogue
Prologue
Edmund Tree stood in front of the painting displayed on the shoulder-high easel and smiled toothily at Ida Mae Clarkson. He was tall and thin. His scanty blond hair fringed his pink scalp like a hairy doily. He was dressed in an elegant three-piece suit; navy blue, with pale pinstripes. Ida Mae Clarkson thought he looked a lot smaller in person than he appeared on TV.
“And what have you got for us here at Your Ancestor’s Attic today, Mrs. Clarkson?”
The grip on the number three camera panned from Edmund to the painting. Ida Mae knew the guy was called a grip. She’d gotten familiar with the TV talk right off the bat. It didn’t do to let these highfalutin types think they could push a person around.
The painting was in oil, about twenty inches across and at least seventy-two inches high. It was very old and a bit flaky around the edges. At least as old as Ida Mae’s great-aunt Cecilia, who had bequeathed the thing to the Clarksons, instead of any of her money, which had annoyed Ida Mae to no end and still did. A three-tiered marble fountain sat in the middle of the canvas. Three sparrows perched on the grass at the fountain’s base. A platter of lemons, oranges, and grapes sat to the left of the fountain. Ida Mae, who had dressed with care for this, her first TV appearance, nervously re-buttoned the jacket of her best black pantsuit. She hoped like heck her stomach wasn’t sticking out. That British accent of Mr. Tree’s was a lot easier to understand when she and the coffee club sat and watched the show at home in Delray Beach. Here under the bright lights he seemed to talk too darn fast. She was confused and a little uncertain and not generally used to being either.
“Those grapes look so realistic that one could almost find one’s self plucking the fruit and eating it, doesn’t one, Mrs. Clarkson?”
Well, that was pretty stupid. That painting had been in her guest room for twenty-two years and nobody had tried to eat it yet. “Be a darn fool if you did,” Ida Mae said brusquely. “All’s you get would be a mouthful of paint.” She smiled nervously and wondered if her deodorant was working the way it should. “And call me Ida Mae, Mr. Tree. Most folks do.”
Ida Mae was short and round. In addition to her best black pantsuit, she wore a new pair of black strappy sandals with silk roses pinned to the ankle straps and a bright pink cotton blouse. She wiggled her fingers at the camera, so that the family at home in Delray Beach would know she was thinking of them despite the glamour of her being on the TV show like she was.
“That perfect illusion is precisely the point,” Edmund said with a show of well-bred, if snooty, excitement. “This painting is of an extremely special type that goes back all the way to the ancient Greeks.”
That sounded pretty good. Better yet, it sounded pretty valuable. Ida Mae sent a brief, silent prayer skyward and said hopefully, “It came down to us from my great-aunt Cecilia. On my husband’s side, she was. Auntie had the best taste of all the Clarksons, which isn’t saying much, now that I think on it, especially if you—”
“The style is called trompe l’oeil,” Edmund Tree interrupted smoothly. “There are many valuable trompe l’oeil works in the great cathedrals of the world. I refer of course to Antonio da Correggio’s Assumption of the Virgin in the Duomo of Parma, to Pietro da Cortona’s Allegory of Divine Providence in the Palazzo Barberini, and of course to the works of that great, whimsical Carpaccio himself.”
Ida Mae shifted her black faux-leather purse from her left arm to her right. The word “Carpaccio” was the only halfway familiar word in this flood of foreign nonsense. She and the coffee club girls ate out at least twice a week. “Tuna?” she said. “You’ve lost me there, sonny. What’s tuna got to do with this trump loy stuff?”
“Trompe l’oeil,” Edmund said, with an air of disdain Ida Mae was quick to spot. “A rough translation would be ‘fool the eye.’”
“Didn’t fool me any,” Ida Mae said. “Those aren’t real grapes. You’re saying it fooled you? And you on TV and all? Who’s going to pay me a bunch of money to get fooled?”
“Oh, many, many patrons of the arts are ardent supporters of trompe l’oeil. The phrase refers to a special way of painting images. The artist renders them as real as possible. This creates an optical illusion. The illusion that the subject matter is in three dimensions. You feel as if you can pick the object up, but you can’t, of course. Hence the meaning: fool the eye.”
“So what’s it worth?” TV audience or no TV audience, Ida Mae had always favored the blunt approach. It saved time and blather.
“This painting is interesting because it also presents an architectural illusion. The viewer feels as if the space beyond the fountain has opened up. It is in the quadratura style. A work in the quadratura style, such as your great-aunt’s painting here, would be worth many, many thousands of dollars.”
Ida Mae heaved a sigh of content. That fifty-inch HD Frank wanted for the den was getting closer by the minute. “How many thousands of dollars?”
Edward kept on talking. “A painting such as this would be placed in the giardino—the garden—with the expectation that guests would be amused at the verismo …”
“Ver-what?” Ida Mae scowled.
“The truth. The reality. Or I should say, the seeming reality of a painting of grapes so realistic that the hand stretches out to grasp the succulent globe without conscious thought.”
Ida Mae blinked at him. “What I want to know is how much the darn thing is worth.”
Edward laughed tolerantly. “Of course you do. That’s what our enormously popular show is all about. Humble folk like you, Mrs. Clarkson, digging into the treasures in their ancestor’s attic, and bringing their cherished antiques in for professional evaluation.”
Her lower lip jutted out at a bewildered angle. With a certain degree of sensitivity to her feelings, the grip refocused camera three on the grapes, then, in response to an impatient gesture from the host, back on Tree himself.
Edmund purred, “Now, a painting like this, Mrs. Clarkson, dating from the 1650s, painted by a major artist, would fetch anywhere from one hundred to two hundred thousand dollars at auction.”
Ida Mae’s eyes bulged. Her cheeks turned pink. “Glory!” she breathed. “Glory, glory, glory.”
“But!” Edmund thrust his right forefinger into the air. “I am afraid you are doomed to disappointment, Mrs. Clarkson.”
“Two hundred thousand dollars!” Ida Mae shrieked. “Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness.” She fanned herself with both hands.
“This painting fooled everyone’s eye but mine, I’m afraid.” Edmund’s smile was smug. “This painting is a poor imitation of its noble progenitors.”
“It’s a what?”
“It’s a fake, Mrs. Clarkson, with an approximate value, I should say …” Edmund stroked his chin and swept his gaze over the piece from top to bottom. “… of perhaps forty dollars.”
Ida Mae’s jaw dropped. “Forty dollars?”
“I’m afraid so, madam.”
“Forty dollars?”
“Perhaps less,” Edmund admitted. “Trompe l’oeil is coming back in fashion, so if you wait a year so it might be worth as much as … eighty dollar
s.” He snickered. “Your great-aunt Cecilia certainly didn’t know how to pick them.”
Ida Mae set her jaw. “They don’t treat folks like this on the Antiques Roadshow, I can tell you that.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Mrs. Clarkson,” Edmund said with an intolerably smug quirk of his eyebrow at the number three camera. “Let’s move on. And now, viewers, as our show here in South Florida draws to a close, I would like to remind you all that Your Ancestor’s Attic will soon visit the bucolic paradise of Hemlock Falls in upstate New York.” The camera zoomed in on Edmund’s face. “I am, as you all may know, about to be married to the love of my life, and I have chosen the beauties of this singular Eden as the perfect venue. We will also be offering the good citizens of that picturesque village an opportunity to discover just what treasures lie … in their ancestor’s attic!”
The tech at the TV monitor gestured for the theme music to come up.
“What the hell do you mean, insulting my great-aunt?” Ida Mae demanded off camera.