Toast Mortem Read online

  “I wouldn’t call the existence of the Serenity Prayer any kind of evidence at all, Elmer. Lots of people find the Serenity Prayer very soothing.”

  Elmer looked smug. “Drunks, for example.”

  “Look at the Irish,” Quill said. “You’ll find a copy of that prayer in every pub in Ireland.”

  “Like I said. Dru . . .”

  “Shut up, Elmer,” Marge said. “We’ve got enough troubles without you insulting the Irish. You planning on getting this meeting going anytime soon?”

  “I have enough trouble with you insulting me,” Elmer said, with a certain amount of dignity.

  The meeting descended into a squabble, a regular Chamber practice, and Quill drifted into a brief reverie.

  The precise nature of the WARP group puzzled her a little, if only because none of the members were at all alike. A recovery program was a reasonable explanation for the wildly disparate personalities, so Elmer might be half right. The very urban Fredericks huddled in earnest conversation with Mrs. Barbarossa (seventy-two and a cross-stitching grandmother), who in turn spent most mornings with Big Buck Vanderhausen from Lubbock, Texas (forty-six and an expert in long-haul trucking). And then there was the odiously unctuous mortgage banker William Knight Collier, who had an America for Americans! sticker on his car. What all these people had in common she couldn’t imagine.

  “Anyway!” Elmer whacked the gavel on the table leg. “I call this executive session of the Hemlock Falls Chamber of Commerce meeting to order. And if you can keep your opinions to yourself for a change, Marge Schmidt, I’d appreciate it.”

  “Peterson,” Marge barked.

  “Huh?”

  Marge tapped the very large diamond on her ring finger with an admonitory air.

  “Yeah, well. Whatever. Quill? You got the minutes from the last meeting?”

  Quill gave a guilty start and patted the side pockets of her skirt. She pulled out her sketch pad (which was filled with charcoal drawings of Jack), a couple of tissues, the flash card for her cell phone, and a small tube of sunscreen. No minutes. She tugged at her hair and thought a minute. Since Myles’s assignment overseas was to last six months or more, she had moved out of their small cobblestone house and back into her old suite on the third floor of the Inn. She was pretty sure the minutes were on top of Jack’s clean diapers upstairs. Or maybe not.

  “We don’t need the minutes,” Marge said, after a swift appraisal of Quill’s thoughtful face. “This is an executive session, and we’re here to approve the budget for the Welcome Dinner. We only need the minutes if we’ve got a full chamber meeting, and this isn’t it.”

  “Lucky for us,” Elmer grumbled. “We’d be squashed like sardines if the full Chamber was to meet in here.”

  Quill flipped to a clean page in her sketch pad. “Ready!” she said brightly.

  “Finally!” Elmer said. “Okay, Margie. What we have is this amazing chance to offer a great big welcome to the best thing that’s hit this town since I don’t know what.”

  “Since the Colonel Cluck’s Fried Chicken hut, maybe?” Marge asked sarcastically. “Or maybe MacAvoy’s famous nudie bar? Or the Church of the Rolling Moses?”

  These references to past civic disasters failed to ruffle Elmer’s spirits. “I mean the Bon Gooty culinary place,” he said patiently. “You missed the last Chamber meeting, on account of Harland’s cows calving all at once, but we decided to give M’ser LeVasque a hearty how-do at Chamber expense.” (Under stress, Elmer’s Kentucky origins were obvious in his speech.)

  Marge rolled a startled eye in Quill’s direction. “We did?”

  “We did,” Quill said. “Since the culinary academy opened up, tourist revenues have gone up by . . . by . . .” She flipped through the sketch pad, in fruitless search for her notes on the exact percentage. “By a lot,” she finished.

  “The man’s a genius.” Elmer’s expression of solemn respect nettled Marge, who grunted in a derisive way. But she said, reluctantly, “You might be right about that. He’s got out-of-towners flocking to that place. And when we get tourists, everyone benefits. I hear the resort’s booked through the summer. The Marriott down on Route 15 is doing well, too.” She swiveled her head and eyed Quill. “Even you guys are full up these days. And it’s all students and people wanting to slurp down wine and stuff their faces with this so-called gourmet food at Bernie’s academy.” She sucked reflectively on her lower lip. “Both my restaurants are doing okay, too, despite those damn parking meters. People’s guts need a rest from the fancy stuff.” Marge’s partner, Betty Hall, was in charge of both the All-American Diner (Fine Food! And Fast!) and the popular Croh Bar. Meg claimed that Betty was the best short-order cook in the eastern United States.

  “Exactly,” Elmer said. “Everybody’s doing right well by this fellow.”

  Marge’s steely gaze narrowed a touch. “Except Meg. Way I hear it, you got people stayin’ here at the Inn, but they ain’t eating here at the Inn.”

  Nobody looked at Quill.

  “Yeah,” Elmer said. “Well, that’s true. The way I see it, there’s a limit to how much gourmet food a body can take. You’ve got to take the bitter with the sweet, I always say. Anyhow!” He thumped the gavel against the chair leg, but since everyone in the room was paying attention to him already, it seemed quite superfluous to Quill, who was smarting a little at the cavalier dismissal of her sister’s concerns. “So here’s the thing. We’re giving M’ser LeVasque a thank-you from the town this Friday.”

  “How much of a thank-you?” Marge asked.

  Elmer addressed the air over his head. “Hello? Excuse me? Is this why we’re having an executive session here?” He lowered his gaze and looked just past Marge, concentrating on the oil painting hanging over the couch. Quill had painted it twelve years ago, just after she and Meg had purchased the Inn. The two sisters sat on the banks of the gorge, with the waterfall behind them. “I just got the numbers from M’ser LeVasque, and all we have to do is vote approval of the budget . . .”

  Marge leaned forward and clapped a meaty hand on Elmer’s thigh. “Hang on a second. You got numbers from who? And for what?”

  “A select dinner of the town’s most important officials.” Elmer slipped an envelope out of his shirt pocket. “LeVasque says he won’t cook for more than thirty people, though. So we have to keep the invite list pretty quiet. I got the menu and the budget right here.” He waved the envelope in the air. Marge grabbed it, removed the contents, smoothed it out on her knee. She looked up at Elmer and glowered.

  There was a short silence.

  “This would be you and Adela, attending this here dinner,” Marge said. Something in the tone of her voice reminded Quill of the very aggressive cat under the hydrangea bush outside.

  Elmer nodded. “And you and Harland, of course, and Howie and Miriam.”

  “The town justice and the village librarian,” Marge said. Since everyone in the room knew perfectly well who Howie Murchison and Miriam Doncaster were, Quill knew Marge was making a point. But where Marge was headed was anybody’s guess.

  “Who else?” Marge demanded. “Dookie and them?”

  Quill fiddled with her pencil. Then she started a quick sketch of a scowling Marge holding a panicked Elmer upside down by his heels. When Marge’s grammar started to deteriorate, you knew she was annoyed.

  “Of course, the Reverend and Mrs. Shuttleworth will be invited,” Elmer said. “Most of the Chamber members. Thing is, he won’t cook for more than thirty people, being a particular person, so we won’t be able to have all of the Chamber members there.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  “We’ve got twenty-four members, and that doesn’t count the spouses. How are you picking and choosing?”

  Elmer ran a finger under his shirt collar. “We have to decide that at this meeting. I was thinking that maybe you . . .”

  Marge’s laugh was exactly like a pistol shot. “I’m supposed to pick out nine Chamber me
mbers and tell them we’re spending a ton of town money for a dinner by the best chef in the United States of America and they ain’t invited?”

  “Well,” Elmer said feebly.

  “And where is this banquet supposed to go on?”

  “At Bonne Goutè, of course.”

  Marge hunched forward, forearms on her knees, her teeth inches from Elmer’s face. “I’m looking at a bill that’s a hundred dollars a plate for thirty people. And that don’t include the drinks. Who’s paying for this, Elmer?”

  “The town, of course,” Elmer said. “You know how much money we’re making from those parking meters?”

  3

  ~Confiture de Tomates Rouge~

  6 pounds medium-sized red tomatoes

  4½ pounds finely ground sugar

  Zest of lemon rind plus juice

  Slice tomatoes, remove seeds, slice thinly, and arrange in large glass bowl. Sprinkle sugar attractively over all. Let sit for twenty-four hours. Cook over low heat for two hours after adding lemon seasoning. Cool. Spoon into sterilized jars and label.*

  *Your personalized home-cooking jar labels may be purchased from my website.

  —From Brilliance in the Kitchen, B. LeVasque

  “What was the ruckus out front half an hour ago?” Meg stood at the birch prep table in her big kitchen, a cleaver in one hand and a clump of cilantro in the other. “Somebody get attacked by bees?”

  “Marge got mad at the mayor.” Quill settled into the rocking chair by the cobblestone fireplace and propped her feet up on the cast-iron fender. “And then the mayor got mad at Marge. And then Harland Peterson settled it by yelling the loudest. And then everyone went home.” “That was all the car doors slamming.” Meg began whacking the cilantro into little pieces. “Now, in better times”—whack!—“I couldn’t have heard a thing”—whack!—“because my kitchen would be full of the happy sound of two sous-chefs prepping for dinner, the pot person scrubbing pots, and the bus person scrubbing the sinks.” Whack! Whack! Whack! “But, as you can see, I’m here in glory all by my silent lonesome.” She scooped up the bits and dropped them into a stainless-steel bowl. Then she folded her arms and glared at her sister.

  Quill set the rocker going with a shove of her foot. “At least we didn’t have to lay anyone off. We’re always full for breakfast. And lunches aren’t too bad. And the dishwasher and the prep person will be in pretty soon.”

  “How long do you think Bjarne and Elizabeth are going to hang around making scrambled eggs and rye toast?”

  Both sous-chefs had been with Meg for years, and were fiercely jealous of the Inn’s reputation. They were even fiercer about their own reputations in the notoriously competitive world of gourmet cooking.

  Meg correctly interpreted Quill’s look of dismay. “They’re professionals, for cripes’s sake. They need a challenge. And don’t even hint that breakfast can be as difficult as dinner.”

  “Lunch . . .” Quill ventured.

  “Hah. Lunch is day-trippers and campers wanting macaroni and cheese.”

  This was true. Quill cast a wistful look around the kitchen. The twelve-burner Viking stove was polished to its usual brilliant sheen. A twelve-gallon pot of water simmered on one of the back burners, with a comfortably familiar sound. The herbs and spices hanging from the oak beams overhead scented the air with sage, thyme, and garlic. From her seat by the fireplace, she could see the vegetable garden out back, overflowing with early August bounty: tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, onions, yellow squash, and manically over-productive zucchini. Meg had added edible flowers to her herb garden a few years back, and there was a glimpse of the bright orange reds of nasturtiums beyond the wire fence Mike had put up to keep out the rabbits. It was homey and beautiful. But it wasn’t as slick as the kitchens and gardens at Bonne Goutè. It wasn’t even close.

  Meg grabbed a colander of ripe tomatoes, marched to the stove, and dumped the fruit into the pot.

  “Gazpacho?” Quill guessed, hopefully.

  “Maybe,” Meg said crossly. “Maybe I’m getting them nice and soft so I can pitch them at Bernard LeVasque the next time he sets foot in my kitchen.” She grabbed the pot, marched to the sink, and drained the tomatoes back into the colander. Then she began to peel them with her bare fingers. Meg’s hands looked like most professional chefs’—calloused and scarred with knife cuts—but Quill still couldn’t figure out why she never seemed to feel the heat of things like parboiled tomatoes. Then what Meg had just said registered and she said, “What? LeVasque’s been in your kitchen?”

  “Yep.”

  “When!”

  “Just after lunch.”

  “Just after lunch?” At least that explained Meg’s ill humor out in the gazebo. “And he’s gone now?”

  “Unless Mike ran him over in the kitchen parking lot.”

  Quill got up, went to the back door, which was open on this pleasant summer afternoon, and peered outside. All she saw was her dog, Max, stretched peacefully under the balcony that ran across the back of the building. The only cars in the lot were her battered Honda, Meg’s old pickup truck, and a rusty Ford Escort that probably belonged to a friend of Mike the groundskeeper. She came back inside and tugged at her hair. Quill’s hair was red and wildly springy and it suffered a lot from her emotional states. She perched on one of the stools at the prep station. “So tell me what happened.”

  “Offered me a job,” Meg said briefly. “Figured I had some time on my hands and could use the extra work.”

  “Oh, my.” Quill shot a glance at the wall where the sauté pans were neatly arrayed by size. The eight-incher was still in place and didn’t seem to be dented. Meg usually chose the eight-incher when she was in the mood to make her point in a forceful way.

  Meg followed her gaze and said, “Nope . . . I didn’t chase him out of here with that.”

  “Then what?” Quill asked, rather hollowly.

  Meg nodded at the knife rack. The largest butcher’s cleaver hung slightly askew.

  “Yikes,” Quill said.

  “That fathead,” Meg said without heat. “Thought he’d come here to crow, but I fixed his little red wagon.”

  “You didn’t actually hit him or anything,” Quill said.

  Meg rolled her eyes. “Have I ever, in all my life, actually inflicted physical harm on another person?”

  “Bobby DeRitter, in fourth grade,” Quill said promptly. “You pulled a fistful of hair right out of his tiny little head.”

  “Okay. Excepting Bobby DeRitter. Who deserved it, by the way.”

  “No,” Quill admitted. “You throw stuff around. You holler. But I’d have to say, it’s basically stress relief. So you just waved the butcher’s cleaver at LeVasque.”

  “I may have given LeVasque a different impression,” Meg admitted. “I may have intimated that the garden out back is the repository for a number of people who’ve incurred my disapproval, and I may have suggested that I was ready to add to their number.”

  “A-hum,” Quill said.

  “So we may be getting a visitor.”

  “A visitor?”

  The screen door at the back slapped open and closed.

  First in was Max, Quill’s dog. If Tompkins County ever ran an ugly dog contest, Max would win hands down. His coat was mostly to blame for his raffish appearance. It was a strange mixture of gray, ochre, tan, scruffy white, and flecks of black. One ear flopped over his left eye. The other stood straight up. At some point in his bohemian past, he’d broken his plumelike tail, and it drooped in a desultory way over his hindquarters.

  Behind Max was Davy Kiddermeister, the village sheriff. Quill was pretty sure that the clench in her stomach wasn’t due to her need for some food, but to the official-looking document Davy held in his hand and the blush that turned his normally pink cheeks bright red. Davy was Kathleen Kiddermeister’s younger brother. Kathleen was the Inn’s most loyal waitress, and every time the Quilliam sisters ran afoul of the sheriff’s department (a frequent occurrence, due mo
stly to Meg’s and Quill’s misguided efforts at amateur detection) Kathleen gave Davy what for. It looked like Davy was dreading his sister’s wrath once again.

  “Oh, dear,” Quill said. “Just tell me nobody’s dead.”

  “Nobody’s dead. Somebody’s pissed off, though. Sorry. But I’ve got to lay this on Meg, here.” He waved the document in the air. When neither Quill nor Meg moved forward to take it, he straightened up, walked over to Meg, and said sternly, “Margaret Quilliam?”

  “Phuut!” Meg said.

  “I hereby serve you this summons and complaint.” He grabbed her hand and folded her tomato-stained fingers over it. “Sorry about that. Sometimes it’s rough, having to perform official duties. I know you won’t hold it against me.”

  Meg shrugged. “Whatever.”

  He added hopefully, “Got anything to eat?”

  “Give me that.” Quill leaned over and grabbed the summons.

  Meg relinquished the paper without comment. “Liver pâté with stone-ground mustard. And some pretty good goat salami.” She moved to the meat refrigerator and took out a couple of plastic containers. “Some blueberries, maybe?”

  “Thanks,” Davy said gratefully. He eased himself onto a prep stool. “Been on traffic patrol all day and I missed lunch.”

  “This says you threatened to kill Bernard LeVasque,” Quill said. “At least, I think that’s what it says. Threat of grievous bodily harm, assault . . . battery is actually whacking somebody, right? Assault’s the threat. So there’s no allegation of actual injury. Thank goodness for that.” She folded the paper into neat thirds. “Argh. Argh. I suppose I’d better call Howie Murchison.”

  “Got a warrant, too,” Davy said through a mouthful of pâté. “Sorry.”

  “A warrant? For Meg’s arrest?!”

  “Yep. Sor—”

  “Stop,” Quill said. Then, patiently, she continued, “Did anyone actually see this alleged assault? I mean, if it’s just Meg’s word against LeVasque’s, there’s no independent proof.”