Toast Mortem Read online

  “And don’t you dare try and tell me it’s the economy!” Meg stamped to a halt and raised her fists over her head. “If God and the twelve apostles drove up to the Inn in a bus and wanted a room, what would we have to tell him?”

  We’re full.

  “We’re full up!” Meg flung herself into the wicker rocker next to the little refrigerated bar and pushed herself back and forth with a furious foot. “Oh, no,” she said bitterly. “People are coming in droves to the Inn. You and Dina have to beat them off with a stick. But they’re not coming for my food. They hate my food. They hate my recipes. They hate me! But the food made by that little jumped up pompous French son of a bi . . .”

  Mrs. Fredericks shrieked. It wasn’t her breakfast shriek. (“Oh, ew! This is cream? Do you know what kind of fat content is in cream? Don’t you people have any soy? Ew!”) Or her allergy shriek. (“Oh, ew! Do you know what roses do to my sinuses? Ew!”)

  This was a shriek of terror.

  Quill crossed the short distance to the head of the beach staircase in two leaps and was halfway down its length before she pulled herself up and assessed the situation.

  Mrs. Fredericks teetered precariously on her Adirondack chair. She waved her hat frantically at a fine, healthy clump of hydrangea. Anson Fredericks had backed into the water. He faced the clump of hydrangea, too. Quill was on the other side of the hydrangea, and from this vantage point, she could see a long, furry orange tail, a plump set of furry orange hindquarters, and two furry ears. The ears were pinned flat against a round hairy head. An ominous, continuous growl had replaced the cheery sound of birdsong.

  It was a cat. A very large cat, and it had a bright red bandanna tied around its neck.

  Quill started down the steps again.

  The hindquarters bunched and the muscles under the glossy coat rippled. Mrs. Fredericks shrieked, “Anson! It’s going to jump me!”

  After ten years as an innkeeper, Quill was an expert soother. “It’s just a cat, Mrs. Fredericks. You can’t see him, her, whatever, from here. But I can, and it’s just somebody’s pet.”

  “Cat, my ass!” Muriel Fredericks screamed. “It’s a god-dam panther.”

  “Bring a gun!” Anson shouted. “We need some kind of gun!”

  “A gun?” Quill said, startled.

  “Don’t move, Muriel! It’s probably rabid!” Anson splashed a few feet farther into the river.

  Muriel teetered on the edge of the chair and regarded her husband with undisguised contempt. “A fat lot you care, you, you coward.”

  “It’s not going to jump,” Quill soothed.

  The animal crouched, and its already flattened ears flattened some more. It wriggled its belly into the mulch and flexed its long, sharp claws.

  “And if it’s going to jump, it’s because you’re waving your hat around. It thinks you’re inviting him to play.”

  Quill reached the bottom of the steps and regarded the cat a little dubiously. It looked very much like a well-fed domestic tabby except it was much, much, larger. Quill had a good visual sense, and the thing had to weigh forty pounds, at least. “Here, kitty,” she said. “Here, kitty, kitty.”

  “That there’s a Maine coon cat.” Doreen’s voice came from just behind Quill’s left ear. She turned around to see that the cavalry had arrived in the form of her sister and her housekeeper. “A what?”

  “A Maine coon cat,” Doreen explained patiently. “It’s one of them big ones.”

  “It sure is,” Meg said, somewhat awed.

  The cat turned and regarded the three of them with the sort of confident imperiousness Quill tried to cultivate with her more obnoxious guests. (It never worked.) It growled, drew its lips back over very sharp teeth, and spat. Then it sat up and began to wash its tail with the kind of complete indifference Quill tried to cultivate with cranky food inspectors. (That never worked, either.)

  “Well!” Quill said brightly. “You see? It’s quite relaxed now that you’ve stopped waving the hat. I think everything’s going to be just fine, Mrs. Fredericks. We’ve got this under control. Why don’t you and your husband go back up to the Inn and relax for a bit in the Tavern Lounge.” She looked at her watch. “It’s five-ish. You’ll be just in time for a nice high tea. Tell Nate the bartender that there’ll be no charge.”

  “More like time for a double martini,” Anson Fredericks said as he edged past them.

  “Yeah,” Muriel said, as she followed him. “And we’re due at Bonne Goutè for the Wine Fest at seven. I don’t want to spoil it. I think you owe us a few drinks, if you ask me. All that cream and scones stuff is fattening. Not to mention bad for your arteries.”

  Quill was pretty sure the growling sound wasn’t coming from the cat but from her sister, although it was hard to tell. She took a firm grip on Meg’s arm and pulled her off the steps and onto the sand. “Martinis, then. Whatever you like.”

  She didn’t watch the Frederickses go but tried to keep a wary eye on both her sister and the cat at the same time, which was difficult, since the cat had retreated farther under the hydrangea. Meg was at the water’s edge, throwing fist-sized rocks into the water in a petulant way.

  Doreen pushed past Quill, crouched a few feet away from the hydrangea bush and extended her hand. “C’mere, you.”

  The cat, its front paws folded under its substantial chest, stared at them with the arrogance of a homeboy defending his turf from punks the next street over.

  “C’mere, cat.” Doreen opened her right hand, which held a revolting-looking gray brown mush. The cat sniffed, sat up, and started to purr like a lawnmower. Then it daintily picked its way through the mulch surrounding the hydrangea and swiped at Doreen’s hand. Doreen hollered, dropped the mush, and backed away. The cat smirked and considered the mush. Then it ate it.

  “What is that stuff?” Quill demanded.

  “Liver bits.”

  “Liver bits?” Quill took a minute to process this. “You carry liver around in your pockets?”

  “Jack likes it.”

  “You feed Jack liver?!”

  “Sure.”

  “Doreen! Liver’s an organ meat. It’s filled with cholesterol. It’s stuffed with fat. It’s horrible stuff.”

  “A-yuh.” Doreen scowled at the cat and looked at the scratch on her hand, which oozed a small bit of blood.

  “I don’t want you to feed Jack liver bits ever again. Do you hear me?”

  Doreen ignored this, as she ignored most of Quill’s frequent caveats about the care of her son. “What are we going to do with this here cat?”

  “If it were Thanksgiving instead of weeks after the Fourth of July, I could stuff it like a turkey,” Meg said. She tossed a final handful of rocks into the river and dusted her hands on her shorts. “It’s big enough to feed sixteen.”

  The cat narrowed its eyes chillingly.

  “Just kidding,” Meg said. She crouched next to Doreen. “What are we going to do with it? It’s too big to tote up the stairs, that’s for sure.”

  “We could call animal control,” Quill suggested nervously.

  Everybody ignored this, including the cat. Quill was sorry she’d brought it up. The recently appointed animal control officer was Carol Ann Spinoza, who had lost her cushy job as the village of Hemlock Falls’ meanest tax assessor and was now the village’s meanest dog catcher.

  “We’ll put up a notice in the post office,” Quill said. “And maybe your friend Arthur can publish its picture in the Gazette, Doreen, if that’s okay with you. It’s obviously somebody’s pet.”

  They all looked at the red bandanna, which was neatly ironed and carefully tied.

  “And I’m sure that its owner is searching frantically for it,” Quill added.

  Meg looked dubious. Quill wasn’t too sure of it, herself. But Doreen nodded and scooped another handful of liver bits from her pocket. The cat looked up at her with calculating interest and came out into the sunshine.

  “And we’ll bring food down for it, that’s what we�
�ll do.” Quill pulled her cell phone from her pocket. Myles had given her a new one at Christmas and she’d painfully learned all the applications, so she could take pictures of Jack to send to his father. Myles had been on assignment in the Middle East for four months, and if she stopped to think about it, she couldn’t bear it. So she took picture after picture and texted them off, and it helped, a little, but not really enough. She peered through the little viewfinder and said, “Can you guys move him away from the flowers?”

  “Not me,” Meg said flatly. “He’s still mad about the turkey comment.”

  Doreen laughed scornfully and sucked the scratch mark on the palm of her hand.

  “Never mind, then.” Quill backed up a few feet. “I’m just trying to compose a better shot. The thing is, that red bandanna looks positively dire with that orange coloring, and the whole thing clashes with the blue hydrangea.” The silence was marked. Quill looked up from the viewfinder. “What?!”

  “Just take the shot,” Meg said. “Yes, you are an artist. And yes, you’ve got an oil hanging at MoMA. And yes, countless critics have applauded your—what was the phrase in Art Today? Your preternatural sense of color. But.”

  “But?”

  “That cat’s a menace,” Doreen said. “We gotta get the word out, or next thing you know it’s going to be eating the guests. If you don’t take the picture, I will. Besides, that there bandanna might help with identification.” She snorted. “And who’s going to give a rat’s behind about the color of them hydrangeas?”

  “I don’t know if the bandanna’s going to make all that much difference. That’s a one-of-a-kind cat, that is,” Meg observed.

  “Will you guys stand next to it, then? I need a reference point so people can see how big it is.”

  Meg flatly refused, on the grounds that the cat would just as soon bite her as look at her. Doreen didn’t bother to reply to this suggestion at all, although she scattered some of the liver bits under the bush to tempt the animal farther into the sunshine.

  Meg clicked her tongue impatiently. “Come on, Quill. Hurry up. I’ve got to get to the kitchen and prep for all three of the stupendous meals I’m making tonight. And you’ve got that executive session for the Chamber of Commerce at five o’clock, don’t you?”

  Guiltily, Quill looked at her watch again. She’d be late for the executive session. She sighed, moved the cell phone up and down and crosswise, and shot five really bad photos of the cat. Then she took the rake they always left by their little beach and neatened the sand up and they all trooped back up the stairs.

  Bismarck ate the rest of the liver bits. He stretched, yawned widely, and retired under the hydrangea bush to plot revenge against the Frenchman.

  2

  ~Asperes Vinaigrette~

  For four personnes

  16 stalks young asparagus

  Vinaigrette LeVasque*

  Poach the asparagus lightly in salted water. Drain. Arrange beautifully on plates. Dribble the Vinaigrette LeVasque over the stalks in an attractive way. Eat with the fingers, non?

  *Vinaigrette LeVasque is available at my website for a small fee only.

  —From Brilliance in the Kitchen, B. LeVasque

  Marge Schmidt-Peterson squinted at the tiny picture of the cat on Quill’s cell phone and shook her head. “Don’t think I’ve seen it around. It’s a big sucker, though.” Marge, a local businesswoman, and the richest person in Tompkins County, was the Chamber treasurer. She passed the camera on to Elmer Henry.

  Elmer, mayor of Hemlock Falls and current president of the Hemlock Falls Chamber of Commerce, took a long, earnest look and said, “I do believe I have seen that animal somewhere.”

  “Really?” Quill said hopefully. She was the Chamber secretary and, due to a certain amount of absentmindedness when it came to taking notes, not a very good one. She was reelected each year under protest. Hers.

  “Can’t bring it to mind, though.” He passed the camera on to Harland Peterson, a local dairy farmer who’d been elected vice president because Marge Schmidt-Peterson had married him last year, and she wanted it that way. Harland was chewing a toothpick. He shifted the toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other and said, “We got a calf about the size of that thing, Margie. But none of ’em are missing, as far as I know.”

  “Cat or no cat, we got to get down to business,” Elmer said briskly.

  “Right,” Marge said, with a heavy emphasis that didn’t bode well for a fast-moving meeting. “It’s about those damn parking meters in front of my restaurants.”

  Elmer sighed. “We’ve been over this before, Marge. The board of supervisors voted ’em in, and they’re going to stay right where they are.”

  “You know how many of my customers are bellyaching about those meters?”

  “I know,” he said huffily, “because you keep calling my office and bellyaching about them yourself. All I have to say to you is that they’re bringing much-needed income to this town, and anyone who complains about helping those kids out at the high school . . .”

  “Who’s complaining about helping the kids at the high school?”

  “You are! Those parking meter funds can be used for extra textbooks, extra computers, what have you.”

  “Could be? Or actually are?”

  Elmer hunched his shoulders. “Soon. Anyways, you’re just a plain bad citizen, Marge, to take textbooks away from the hands of those high schoolers. Besides,” he added, “it isn’t all that much, when you come right down to it. You got a bunch of cheapskates there at your diner, Marge. Not my fault if they aren’t willing to part with a few quarters to eat at your place.”

  “Textbooks,” Marge repeated.

  “They can be used for that, yes, sir.” Elmer’s sigh would have done credit to Saint Sebastian facing the arrows. After a short—and on Marge’s part, disconcerted, silence—he waved the official gavel, and finding nowhere convenient to whack it, shifted grumpily in his chair. “How come we’re squashed in here like this, Quill?”

  Quill’s office was located just past the front door to the Inn, behind the reception desk. When it was occupied by three comfortably sized citizens of Hemlock Falls, it seemed to have too much furniture. Marge and Harland sat together on the three-cushioned couch, which was patterned in heavy chintz printed with bronze chrysanthemums. Quill sat behind her desk, which was made of cherry and in the Queen Anne style. Elmer sat at the small Queen Anne table, which was totally covered by the coffee service and a plate of Meg’s sour cream scones.

  “I’m sorry it’s a little crowded,” Quill said. “The group we have here booked the conference room every day this week.”

  “They got a meeting at five o’clock in the afternoon?” Elmer said. “I saw most of ’em in the Tavern Lounge knocking back booze when I came in. If they’re not meeting in there right this minute why are we stuck in this place?”

  “They don’t want anyone in there,” Quill said. “Not even the cleaning staff. They lock it when they aren’t inside.”

  Marge pursed her lips. “What kind of group would that be?”

  Quill hesitated. Marge generally put people in mind of one of those short, aggressive tanks that had been so successful in Iraq (although marriage to Harland had mellowed her a bit), which made ducking her interrogations somewhat hazardous. “It’s called WARP.”

  “WARP?”

  “Like Star Trek,” Quill said, somewhat obscurely.

  “It’s some kind of rehab program,” Elmer said. “One of those twelve-step jobbers.”

  Quill blinked. She thought about asking Elmer why in the world he thought that, but didn’t. Everybody had what they thought was an informed opinion in a town the size of Hemlock Falls.

  “Drunks,” Elmer said comprehensively. “And you let ’em in the Tavern bar?”

  “They aren’t drunks,” Marge said. “They don’t look like drunks or act like drunks. And even if they were drunks, it’s none of your business, Elmer.”

  Quill, who thought that drin
kers came in all shapes and sizes and couldn’t be pigeonholed, had to agree that it wasn’t anyone’s business whether the WARP people drank all the gin in Tompkins County. Although if WARP’s bar bill was anything to go by, it had to be the most unsuccessful twelve-step program ever.

  Marge pinned Quill with a steely gaze. “Looks like they got quite a bit of money to throw around. Why don’t you bring them on down to the Croh Bar for Happy Hour sometime this week?”

  “Insurance business is a bit slow,” Harland said, by way of explanation. “Margie’s not one to pass up a good prospect.”

  “Oh. Well.” Quill cleared her throat. Marge was perfectly capable of marching down the hallway to the Tavern Lounge and shaking Big Buck Vanderhausen by the scruff of the neck until he coughed up a premium on his dually. “When the organizers booked the rooms, they stressed the confidential nature of their group,” she said apologetically. “And they especially asked about how private we were here at the Inn.” Then, because she wasn’t certain what she had to apologize for, she added firmly, “I’m not sure that it’s a recovery program. They seem to be interested in small business. They asked me to give them a talk on how to run a bed-and-breakfast, for example.”

  “This isn’t a bed-and-breakfast,” Marge said with a dangerous look in her eye. “And if they want to know anything about running a small business, why didn’t you tell them about me?”

  “You don’t want to talk about business with a bunch of drunks,” Elmer said patiently.

  “They aren’t drunks,” Quill said.

  “Kayla Morrison found the Serenity Prayer in a wastebasket in that room two-twenty-five of yours,” Elmer said. “Told me so herself.”

  Kayla was a new hire in housekeeping and clearly needed a reminder about the innkeeper’s number one rule: no gossiping. Although, come to think of it, not gossiping wasn’t as important as not belting the guests, so it’d have to be the number two rule.

  “Serenity Prayer. Rehab. Stands to reason,” Harland said thoughtfully. “Drunks, huh?”