A Steak in Murder Read online

  A STEAK

  IN

  MURDER

  Claudia Bishop

  www.claudiabishop.com

  www.marystanton.com

  www.spectrumliteraryagency.com/stanton.htm

  Copyright © 1999 by Mary Stanton

  Books by Mary Stanton

  Heavenly Horse novels

  THE HEAVENLY HORSE FROM THE OUTERMOST WEST

  PIPER AT THE GATES

  Beaufort & Company - Paranormal Mystery Series:

  DEFENDING ANGELS

  ANGEL’S ADVOCATE

  AVENGING ANGELS

  ANGEL’S VERDICT

  ANGEL CONDEMNED

  Unicorns of Balinor Series

  THE ROAD TO BALINOR

  SUNCHASER’S QUEST

  VALLEY OF FEAR

  BY FIRE, BY MOONLIGHT

  SEARCH FOR THE STAR

  THE SECRETS OF THE SCEPTER

  NIGHT OF THE SHIFTER’S MOON

  SHADOWS OVER BALINOR

  YA Magical Mysteries

  MY AUNT, THE MONSTER

  WHITE MAGIC

  NEXT DOOR WITCH

  Books by Mary Stanton writing as Claudia Bishop

  Hemlock Falls Mystery Series

  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

  A FETE WORSE THAN DEATH

  A PLATEFUL OF MURDER (combo volume of A TASTE FOR MURDER and A DASH OF DEATH)

  DEATH IN TWO COURSES (combo volume of A PINCH OF POISON and MURDER WELL-DONE)

  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

  DEATH DINES AT 8:30 (with Nick DiChario)

  A MERRY BAND OF MURDERERS (with Don Bruns)

  DEATH DINES IN (with Dean James)

  For Les Stanton

  from his loving daughter

  Acknowledgments

  No Hemlock Falls novel ever gets completed

  without the patience of my editor Natalee

  Rosenstein, the calm of my agent Merrillee

  Heifetz, and the support of the people I love:

  Helen, Les, David, Sarah, Julie, Jason, John,

  Lyn, Harry, Jenn, and as always, Nick.

  And special thanks to Jason Schwartz

  for the Naming of the Wines

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  THE PALATE GOURMET RESTAURANT

  Sarah "Quill" Quilliam . . . owner, manager

  Margaret "Meg" Quilliam . . . owner, chef de maison

  Doreen Muxworthy-Stoker . . . owner, facilities manager

  Bjarne Bjornson . . . master chef

  Various waiters and waitresses, including Kathleen Kiddermeister, Dina Muir, and Peter

  THE INN AT HEMLOCK FALLS

  Marge Schmidt . . . owner

  Betty Hall . . . the cook

  Royal Rossiter . . . a guest, owner Royal Land and Cattle Company

  Colonel Calhoun . . . a guest, owner Calhoun Cattle Company

  Jack Brady . . . cattle manager

  Leonid Menshivik . . . a Russian emigré, member of R.I.C.E.

  Vasily Simkhovitch . . . a Russian emigré, member of R.I.C.E.

  Alexi Kowlakowski . . . a Russian emigré,

  member of R.I.C.E.

  CITIZENS OF HEMLOCK FALLS

  Myles McHale . . . a private investigator

  Andrew Bishop . . . the town internist

  Harland Peterson . . . president, Agway Farmers Co-op

  Elmer Henry . . . the mayor

  Adela Henry . . . his wife

  Dookie Shuttleworth . . . minister, Hemlock Falls Church of the Word of God

  Howie Murchison . . . town attorney

  Davy Kiddermeister . . . town sheriff

  Harvey Bozzel . . . president, Bozel Advertising

  CarolAnn Spinoza … tax assessor

  Miriam Doncaster . . . librarian

  Esther West . . . owner, West's Best Dress Shoppe

  MEMBERS OF Q.U.A.C.K.

  Sky . . . a vegetarian

  Normal Norman Smith . . . another vegetarian

  A STEAK

  IN

  MURDER

  Claudia Bishop

  PROLOGUE

  It was early summer in Hemlock Falls. The fresh, green gold light of a rising spring sun washed slowly over Hemlock Gorge. The silver spray of the waterfall hung mist in the air like a gauzy blanket. Sunshine crept across the rocks, touched the newly mown lawn in front of the Inn, struck light off the metal pen surrounding the rose garden.

  The dog sniffed at the three-bar gate. He was an ugly dog. His coat was a muddy mixture of grays, browns, and tan. His ears were floppy, and his head was too big for his clumsy body. But the disgracefully colored fur was clean and shiny. His eyes were a deep, alert brown. The expression on his doggy face was a happy one. He sported a leather collar with a large tag that clanked when he trotted briskly through the village on his morning constitutional. The tag read: My name is Max. When you find me, please call Sarah Quilliam at the Palate Restaurant and listed a phone number. Underneath in very small type was the message: Please don't call the dogcatcher.

  Max was a gypsy and an escape artist. Where he'd come from before he'd wriggled into Sarah Quilliam's life, the god of dogs only knew. And where he went on his early morning rambles was the despair of his owner. Nothing seemed to keep Max inside when Max wanted to be outside. And he wanted to be outside on this astonishingly lovely morning.

  He sniffed thoroughly around the metal pen. None of his mark was on it. His mark was all over the little stone pond with the statue of Niobe, the brambly thicket of the Queen Elizabeth roses, the tidy length of brick pathway. If Max had been able to deduce, he'd have known that the pen was new. But he was just a dog, so he sprayed two of the metal posts, lifting his leg with an intent, faraway expression. That finished, he trotted briskly down the path to Peterson Park. Breakfast was in order, and soon.

  There was a lot to distract him in the park. The trail leading to a woodchuck den. The statue of General C. C. Hemlock. A Hershey's chocolate bar wrapper, with no chocolate in it. A man lying folded in a shallow grave behind a stand of huge oak trees. Max, a friendly soul, spent some time sniffing the man. The clothes smelled of laundry soap and fabric softener. And cows. Max was fond of cows. The blood pooling on the man's chest was drying but not dry. The man himself was breathing in a way Max thought of as not there in the same way that other human beings in Max's uncomplicated life were not there when they breathed at night on the beds where Max was not allowed to jump, or even bark, since humans wanted to be not there until the sun came up.

  The breathing slowed. Stopped. The murmur of the beating heart jumped and bounced. Max barked twice.

  The man's heart went thumpty-thumpty. He began to breathe, slowly, deeply.

  Not there, then.

  Well. A lot of important jobs awaited him at home in the village. They were planting tomatoes today (Max knew this because the flats had been set out the night before), so there was a lot of digging to do. And he was hungry. He sniffed at the body one more time. Wagged his tail. The man sighed in his different sleep.

  So Max went home to breakfast.


  Chapter One

  It was Saturday afternoon, and hot for July.

  "Cows." Doreen Muxworthy-Stoker leaned over the picket fence and regarded her employer and the scruffy dog at her heels with disapprobation. "That Marge Schmidt's settin' up a corral fulla cows right where the old rose garden used to be."

  Sarah Quilliam slammed the spade into the tomato bed. Max the dog snapped lazily at the clump of dirt that flew past his nose, then curled up and went to sleep. "Why are you yelling at me, Doreen? I didn't book the cow people at the Inn. And who cares, anyway?"

  "Whole town's gone cow crazy. You oughta see what Nicholson's Hardware Store has on the sidewalk. Fake cow. Big as life and twice as natural. You oughta care about cows. There's a big deal going on about cows."

  Quill gave up. "Why cows?"

  "Texas longhorns," Doreen said. "Them are cows with horns. Big ones."

  "And?"

  "And some association's having their annual meeting right here in Hemlock Falls in two days, and you don't even care."

  "I don't have to care, do I?" Quill said mildly. "I mean, after all, it doesn't matter who eats at the Palate, does it? Although," she added doubtfully, "I suppose I could talk Meg into scheduling some sort of beef thing on the menu."

  "Marge'll have beef on the menu up to our Inn. You can bet on that."

  This got to Quill, as Doreen knew it would. "If I have to remind you one more time that we don't own the Inn anymore and Marge's business is none of our business, I am going to scream." Quill punctuated the verb with a vigorous jerk of her arms and brought up a shovel full of earthworms. One of them was cut right in half. Max woke up, looked at the worm, and rolled his eyes at Quill. Conscience-stricken, she let the dirt slide back in the hole. Maybe it was true that you could split an earthworm in half and it would go on its way. Maybe she'd just cloned something.

  "It's gonna look like bloody Jehoshaphat," Doreen said. "Buncha cows running all over that backyard. And the mess. I'm here to tell you cow manure's the sloppiest manure this side of a chicken with the runs. Not to mention the stink. We get a north wind off'n the Gorge and that stink's gonna blow right through the dining room after it stinks up the kitchen, of course, and after stinkin' up the dining room it's gonna stink up the foyer and after it stinks up the fo—"

  "Stop," Quill said.

  "I know about cows," Doreen said. Her frizzy gray hair haloed her face in the June heat, making her look like an obstinate cockatoo. Quill glanced at her with exasperated affection, then wiped her forehead. The garden at the back of their new restaurant was hotter than it should be, despite the breeze. At home—at Marge's Inn, she corrected herself—the breeze from Hemlock Gorge was cooled by the waterfall. Their new restaurant was in the village, at the foot of the hill where the Inn at Hemlock Falls had sat for over three hundred years, and the breezes from the Gorge blew right over Main Street and the old stone house that contained the Palate Restaurant. (Sarah Quilliam, manager. Maître Margaret Quilliam, chef de maison.) Quill wiped the sweat from her neck. She, Meg, and Doreen had exchanged the Inn, with its load of debt, for Marge's Diner two months ago. There'd been enough cash on hand to make some necessary renovations to the kitchen and the small dining area, but there hadn't been a reason to keep on Mike the grounds-keeper. There weren't any grounds to speak of at the Palate. The backyard was sixty feet wide and eighty feet long. Not nearly enough room for an outdoor patio and a vegetable/herb garden, too. And they needed a garden. There were some essentials Meg couldn't do without. Fresh dill. Chives. Oregano. Tomatoes. Quill looked at the flat of unplanted tomatoes and sighed. It was late to plant.

  "You want I should put a coupla those in for you?" Doreen shoved open the gate with one sneakered foot and stamped into the yard. "Not near enough room for all of those, you know. Not and the Swiss chard and the broccoli."

  Quill's feet were hot in her Wellingtons. She squelched over to the little wooden bench tucked against the fence, sat down, and pulled her boots and socks off. She wiggled her toes in the rich dirt. Max, who had followed her to the bench, gnawed thoughtfully at one sock. She ran muddy fingers through her hair. "There's not enough room for anything," she said glumly. Doreen sat down beside her. She smelled of starch and lavender. "There's not enough room for people to eat, the kitchen's too small . . ." she bent her head back and squinted up at the second story, ". . . and my bedroom's stuffy."

  "We made a mistake," Doreen said. "We shouldn't have sold out."

  "Meg doesn't think so. Meg's having a wonderful time."

  "Meg ain't here half the time."

  This was true. Word that the Quilliam sisters had sold the Inn at Hemlock Falls had swept through the small world of professional gourmets. In less time than it took to evacuate a beach from an imminent hurricane, Meg had received three offers to cook at prestigious restaurants in New York City. She'd decided to work at Levade, a restaurant so historic signed photos of Diamond Jim Brady were still hanging by the bar, and so prestigious that New York's fringe society had to book tables a year in advance. Meg usually cooked midweek, leaving Hemlock Falls for New York by train Tuesday morning, and returning Friday afternoons. She left Bjarne, promoted from sous-chef to head chef, in charge of the kitchen. In New York, her career took off like a space shuttle. Within weeks, rumblings that L'Aperitif was going to award Meg an unprecedented fourth star rocked the kitchen at Levade. Lally Preston, the current arbiter of middle-class taste, sent a columnist from her magazine to interview Meg for a cover story, and ended up giving her a column. HGTV was talking a cable show for Meg.

  Selling the Inn was the best thing that had ever happened to Meg's career. She'd said that just last night, in Quill's bedroom, just before she went off to her own room. "And yours, too. Look at the money we're raking in."

  This was true. Even with the expenses of refitting the Palate's kitchen, they were turning a profit. Quill wished she could shake the notion that in the current economic upswing, a gourmet restaurant run by Muammar Khadafy would make money. She shook her head, then ran her fingers through her hair. "You aren't serious about the cows, Doreen. In the rose garden?"

  "Yes, ma'am." Doreen's use of the term "ma'am" was for emphasis only. If the Pope himself came to Hemlock Falls, Doreen's notion of her own place in the universe versus everyone else might permit an honorific such as "Hey, Pope." If her arthritis weren't bothering her. "You know them little metal fences?"

  Quill didn't.

  "They're portable. Harland Peterson got 'em for Marge down to the Agway. For free on account of the publicity about the cows. They're temporary, like. Got his hired man settin' em up. Fact. Saw it myself. Ast him, too. Les, the hired man, that is. 'Them is for cows, Mz. Stoker.' That's what he said."

  The back door banged. Max raised his head and barked happily. Meg came out onto the porch. When the old house had been Marge's Hemlock Home Diner (Fine Food! And Fast!) Quill had thought it was full of charm. Built of limestone blocks, with a slate roof and a covered porch that wrapped three sides of the building, the place dated back to the 1830's, when Hemlock Falls had been the center of a thriving farm economy. The back porch was freshly painted (white) and miniature climbing roses twisted gracefully up the trellised sides. Quill regarded the contrast between Meg's dark hair, the white fence, and the tangerine roses. It made an attractive, if somewhat sentimental composition. As pretty as it was, the back porch was squashed between the house and the dinky little garden. Any place that made Meg look big was too damn small. Like this place.

  "Don't get up too fast, or you'll trip over your lower lip." Meg bounced down the three short steps to the garden. She was wearing denim cutoffs, sneakers with no socks, and a baggy T-shirt with a cow on it. "Are you all right?"

  Quill smiled at her. "Just a little hot, that's all."

  "Don't you guys want some lunch?"

  Quill nodded. "In a minute."

  "I'm trying a cold cantaloupe soup. And a sort of a

  fig and cheese croissant. Figs are big right now in New<
br />
  York. And croissants are back." ,

  Doreen said, "T'uh!"

  Meg pushed her lower lip out. "What's the matter, guys? You both cranky? Shall I finish putting in the tomatoes?"

  "Where'd that come from?" Quill pointed the trowel at the T-shirt. It wasn't really a cow, she saw now, but a cut of tenderloin steak with two longhorns on either side of it. TEXAS BEEF! it read. LONG ON TASTE! SHORT ON FAT!

  Meg tugged vaguely at the neck. "Picked it up at Esther's shop. She was running a special, three for ten dollars, and I can't find the box with my summer clothes in it, Quill. I thought we unpacked everything, but a lot of my Tshirts are missing."

  Doreen eased herself to her feet with a grunt. "Coupla boxes still in the basement at home. You want I should go take a look?"

  Meg frowned a little. "This is home, Doreen."

  Quill drew her sock from between Max's paws, exchanged her Wellingtons for sandals, and got up. "I'll come with you. We should have picked up the last of that stuff weeks ago. We'll take the Olds."

  "Nobody around here likes change," Meg said suddenly. "That's it, isn't it? I mean, we've been here for months . . ."

  "Two months and three days, exactly," Quill said.

  ". . . and things couldn't be going any better, and you're still calling the Inn home, Doreen. Which is kind of not logical, because you've got a home anyhow with Stoke . . ."

  "Anything else you're missing?" Quill asked. "I've got a master list of all the boxes and furniture somewhere, and I think I crossed off everything but about six packing cases."

  "Don't you like it here?" Meg asked. "Quill? Doreen?"

  "It's fantastic," Quill said. "No debt for the first time in nine years, no grouchy guests. No corpses! It's wonderful. Isn't it, Doreen?"

  There was a long silence.