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“You can have mine.” Quill shoved her glass across the table. “I haven’t touched it.”

  “Thanks, Sis.” Meg straightened up. “You know what, Clare? If the state is nuts enough to certify that woman, we’re going to have to stick together, you and me. One for all and all for one.”

  “It can’t be that bad, surely? There have to be laws against abusing that position,” Clare said dourly.

  Neither woman seemed to realize Clare’s comment all but admitted the tension between the two.

  The class in conflict resolution had been pretty adamant about getting things out into the open. Quill took the plunge. “Perhaps now would be a good time to have a really honest discussion about how unspoken resentment can destroy a friendship.”

  Meg shook her head, ignoring Quill completely. “She’s that bad. She’s worse than bad. Worse than you can even imagine. I’ll have to move to the Hundred Acre Wood and live under the name of Saunders.” She got up and began to rummage under the sink. “We need a second bottle.”

  Clare and Meg had finished up the second bottle of wine and settled into a profound—thankfully silent—funk before Quill thought it time to say something. “You’re right about one thing.”

  “I’m right about all of it,” Meg said.

  “It’s important for you and Clare to stick together.”

  Clare’s information had come from a friend in the inspection department. It was Quill’s opinion that the threat to close Clare’s kitchen down was mere saber-rattling on Carol Ann’s part, but there was no denying that the woman knew the two most important things about any restaurant: the chefs were lunatics and given the thousands of regulations in the New York State restaurant code, somebody was always in violation of one obscure code or another. “Not just you two … all the restaurants in town should unite.”

  “All what restaurants?” Meg said in an argumentative way. “There’s only four. There’s me. There’s Clare’s Bonne Goutè. There’s the resort, but they’re owned by this huge conglomerate and they can survive any number of audits so they don’t count. There’s Marge Schmidt and Betty Hall with their two restaurants and that’s it. Four. Against that obsessive-compulsive, neat-freak, squeaky-clean little bi …”

  “Meg,” Quill said.

  “… Nazi,” Meg finished. “You know what, Clare? We need a third bottle.”

  “I agree,” Clare said, enunciating her words very carefully. “I totally, totally agree. Totally, totally, totally. But if you want my candid opinion …”

  “We do,” Meg said earnestly.

  “We’re screwed.”

  “Screwed,” Meg echoed.

  “You’re forgetting something,” Quill said. “There’s Marge. And I’d back Marge Schmidt against Carol Ann for mayor any day of the week.” She stood up. “I’ve got a plan. And I’m going to bed.”

  Meg peered up at her blearily. “Marge? What kind of solution is that? Marge. Marge. That’s all you have to say?”

  “Just one more thing: I’d think twice about opening that third bottle of wine.”

  5

  ∼Meg Quilliam’s∼

  Hangover Remedy

  8 ounces freshly squeezed tomato juice

  1 raw egg, lightly beaten

  2 tablespoons each chopped onion, chopped parsley

  1 tablespoon kosher salt

  1 chopped jalapeño pepper

  Whisk together. Drink.

  Quill woke to sunshine streaming in the window and the warm breath of her son in her hair. He smelled of peanut butter. The sunlight struck red gold highlights from his curly hair.

  “Are you up, Mommy?”

  She pulled him close to her, the familiar sense of poignant joy at the miracle of his presence in her life putting every other concern out of her head. “I’m up. Are you up?”

  “I’ve been up forever.”

  “Is that peanut butter I smell?”

  “Max is up, too. He wanted peanut butter. I told him: No, Max, no. Mommy said peanut butter is not for boys to make all by themselves. But Max didn’t listen. He still wanted peanut butter. So he had it.”

  “How did Max get the jar open?”

  Jack tucked his hand into hers, confidingly. “I tested it, in case it was not good for dogs.”

  “And was it?”

  “It was pretty good for dogs. But I tested it a lot before Max ate some.”

  Quill wiped a smear of peanut butter off his cheek. “I can see that you did.”

  She let nothing short of a cataclysm interfere with her morning rituals with Jack, which sometimes gave her a late start on the day. He’d been pretty good about the peanut butter; mainly because Max had licked clean both the jar and the bulk of sticky mess on the floor of the kitchen. She was just finishing up Jack’s bath when Doreen’s familiar rat-a-tat-tat announced her arrival. She stumped in and without any preliminaries said, “Your sister’s down in the kitchen looking sick as a dog.”

  “Gramma Doreen!” Jack shouted. He held both arms up. Doreen swung him onto her hip and gave him a hearty kiss.

  “I’m not surprised. Clare Sparrow came over last night and they got into the wine.”

  “Oh?” Doreen’s beady black eyes narrowed. “They fightin’ over who’s the better cook again?”

  “On the contrary. They have united against a common foe. They had their arms around each other and they were singing the chorus to ‘Titanic’ for the fourth time when I went to bed. There seems to be a temporary truce in place. You want to know how come?”

  “You’re going to tell me anyways.”

  Quill did.

  Doreen sucked her lower lip and shook her head. “Somebody ought to send that Carol Ann a one-way ticket to the South Pole in nothing but her birthday suit.”

  “One good thing’s come out of it already. Clare and Meg agreed that the restaurants all have to stick together.”

  Doreen snorted. “Huh! Maybe them two swore off the wine for the rest of their natural lives, too, but I doubt it. Meg was slugging down that tomato juice thing she makes like there was no tomorrow.” Doreen jiggled Jack up and down. “How’s my big boy this morning?”

  “Hungry,” Jack said. “Max opened the jar and ate the peanut butter. And there is no peanut butter left for me.”

  “We’ll fix that, young Jack-a-rootie.”

  Quill looked at the sunlight playing off Jack’s curly hair and had a passionate longing to play hooky. “Actually, I don’t think I’ll need you today, Doreen. I want to take Jack over to Peterson Park and play on the swings and paddle in the river if it’s warm enough. Then maybe we’ll drive into Syracuse and stop at Gymboree. He could use some new clothes.”

  Doreen slung Jack over her shoulder. “You just got home from a whole month of R and R with Jack and the sheriff.”

  “Myles isn’t the sheriff anymore, Doreen. Myles hasn’t been sheriff since he promoted Davy and left to work for the government.”

  “Whatever. Thing is, you got too much to do to go haring off with the boy. You got the Chamber in a hoorah over this mayor’s race,” she continued relentlessly. “You got Meg and Clare drunk as skunks. And now you got Carol Ann sneaking around our kitchens.”

  “She isn’t a food inspector yet.”

  “She will be,” Doreen said ominously. “Plus, you got that prissy little jerk in two-twelve messing with the elevators and that snooty fiancée of his stinking up the place. I’m surprised she don’t trip over her own feet, her nose is stuck so high in the air. You got half the town swiping stuff from the other half of the town so they can snoot it over the next one on that durn TV show …”

  “You’ve heard about the burglaries in town, then?”

  “You bet I heard about ’em. All our old families have been getting ripped off. You ask me, it’s those TV people trying to get aholt of the good stuff before everyone else. You just hear about that? You missed a lot on the monthlong vacation of yours.”

  “The TV people just got into town,” Quill said. “They can’t be beh
ind the thefts.”

  Doreen looked lofty. “It’s got nothing to do with me.”

  “Do you have any idea who it is? Because last night I heard someone sneaking down the stairs.”

  “No kidding? You call Davy?”

  “I don’t know if anything’s missing yet.” Quill frowned. Doreen didn’t supervise the housekeeping staff anymore now that she was taking care of Jack, but she bullied the woman she’d promoted to the job unmercifully. “Ask around the housekeeping staff, would you? See if any of the guests have made a complaint.”

  “Will do.”

  “Have you heard any gossip in the village about who it might be?”

  “Maybe I know, and maybe I can guess and maybe I ain’t going to do either. You know me. I’m not one to gossip.”

  Quill snorted.

  “Anyways. With all this goin’ on, you’re sailing off with Jack? That’s not good at all. You got to do something about all of this.”

  “There’s not much I can do,” Quill said feebly.

  “Investigate!”

  “I promised Myles I wouldn’t anymore.”

  “If you’re not going to investigate, what are you going to do about everything?”

  “I’m going to the park with Jack.”

  Doreen fixed her with a beady eye. “Missy. You got a mission, here. And as long as I’ve known you, you haven’t flunked it yet.”

  “Fine,” Quill said loftily. “Okay. I’ll fix it all. I am going to do what I do best.”

  “What in heck would that be?” She brightened. “We got a murder yet? Are we going to be detecting?”

  “No murder,” Quill said firmly. “I certainly hope there won’t be.”

  “I can think of a few folks I’d like to knock off myself, starting with that Carol Ann.”

  “I’m going to delegate.”

  “Delegate? What’s that when it’s at home? You mean you’re planning to tell a lot of other people to do stuff? Long as I’ve been here you haven’t been able to boss anybody yet.”

  “You just watch me. Keep your cell phone on. I’ll be back to pick up the kid by early afternoon, at the latest.”

  “I’m not holding my breath.”

  She turned Jack over to Doreen, stuck the tissue-covered lightbulb into a Baggie and back into her pocket, and went downstairs.

  It was still just short of eight o’clock. She marched purposefully toward her office. She’d put everyone else to work, and spend time with Jack. And if they resisted? Ha! Like Caesar charming the senate, she’d refuse the job of dictator and decline to rule Rome. Of course, it hadn’t worked out all that well for Julius, but that may have been because Julius hadn’t stuck to his guns. Or dagger, as the case might be.

  Delegation. That was the key.

  Quill paused at the foot of the stairs in the foyer. Dina wasn’t in yet. She took a quick look into the dining room. Edmund Tree was at breakfast, disdainfully cutting off the top of an egg. Three of the other tables were occupied, but basically, the dining room was quiet. No one paid any attention to her at all.

  First? Somehow, she had to contain Carol Ann. Marge Schmidt would run right over that obsessively tidy, revenge-minded bundle of cleanliness quirks. Marge was a fearsome opponent, and she wasn’t going to be any happier than Meg and Clarissa at the thought of Carol Ann’s latex-gloved little paws poking around their kitchens.

  Quill took out her sketch pad and wrote: Mrg to take down CAS.

  Burglars? She’d turn over the suspicious lightbulb to Davy Kiddermeister and let the burglars fall where they may.

  She added Dvy lghtblb to the burgeoning list.

  The mayor’s race? She would stay totally out of it.

  Edmund Tree and the impossible Barcinis? She glanced into the dining room again. Edmund had finished decapitating his egg and was spreading marmalade on a piece of toast. If Rose Ellen Whitman and her crummy fiancé gave her a minute’s more aggravation, she’d move the entire wedding party to Peterson Park. She’d leave the Barcinis to the tender mercies of the Marriott on Route 15.

  She’d have all the time in the world to paddle with Jack in the river.

  She walked into her office to find Bismarck sitting on her desk, his large furry rump obscuring her to-do list. He regarded her with a baleful eye.

  “You still here?”

  Bismarck squeezed his yellow eyes shut and opened them again.

  “That does not bode well for the dynamic wine-drinking duo. Is Clare sacked out on Meg’s couch?”

  Bismarck yawned and began to groom his tail in a relaxed and purposeful way.

  Bismarck wasn’t worried about the creepy corruption of Hemlock Falls by greedy outsiders. He could give a cat’s whisker about Rose Ellen’s impossible arrogance. He didn’t give a rat’s behind for Edmund Tree and the equally awful Barcinis and he remained indifferent to any burglars that might be skulking about the place. There was a lot to be said for a cat’s attitude toward life. Meg and Clare seemed united in their opposition to Carol Ann Spinoza, which meant they weren’t going to be sparring with each other anytime soon. Whether Marge or Elmer ended up being mayor, Hemlock Falls would still be Hemlock Falls.

  The cat lived happily in the moment, and so, by God, would she.

  She sat down behind her desk, hoisted him onto her lap, and brushed tufts of yellow fur off her hands.

  Her to-do list was nice and short.

  She had promised to drop by the high school at ten o’clock. Edmund Tree and his minions were beginning the process of deciding who would actually star on the televised show. She didn’t have any objects to offer—antique or otherwise—and her presence was more a matter of support than anything else. So she’d have to do that.

  She’d scheduled a meeting with waitstaff and housekeeping at one, to go over the changes to Rose Ellen’s plans for the wedding. Kathleen could take care of that.

  There were five or six suppliers to call to confirm delivery of stuff for the wedding. Dina was good at that.

  Five wedding guests were due to check in today—the group of assessors who staffed the Ancestor’s Attic show. Rose Ellen—who was proving to be as obsessive as Carol Ann about detail—had attached short bios of each of them when she’d arranged the reservations.

  Quill sighed. There was one important job at the Inn she couldn’t delegate, and that was knowing enough about the guests to make them feel welcome and comfortable. She rummaged through her in-box to find the notes Rose Ellen had given her on the rest of the wedding party.

  The first names on the list were Phillip and Andrea Bryant. Phillip—Skipper, said the note in Rose Ellen’s careful handwriting—was an expert in sixteenth-century trompe l’oeil. Quill very much doubted that Hemlockians had any such oils in their attics, but you never knew. He apparently had a working knowledge of European and North American paintings from the sixteenth century on and a sideline in document authentication.

  Bryant’s wife Andrea was an expert in North American pottery, with a specialty in Dutch, Amish, and Mennonite crafts. That was more promising. There were several thriving Amish parishes within driving distance of the village.

  Jukka Angstrom was a Finn from Sotheby’s. He had an “interest,” Rose Ellen wrote, in fine china, but his true area of expertise was Victorian and turn-of-the-century jewelry.

  Melanie Myers was listed as Edmund Tree’s producer-assistant. Rose Ellen had written:

  Edmund’s little dog—seems to think she knows something about early-twentieth-century Americana. She doesn’t. Has a new degree from RSI in costume design. Tiresome creature! Edmund’s a friend of her family—only way she could get the job.

  Quill would try to be around to greet them as they checked in, but she’d long ago learned this wasn’t essential as long as she spent time with them later on. Edmund and Rose Ellen had booked the Tavern Lounge for their engagement party that evening. She could drop in to meet them then. They’d probably be at the auditions at the high school, too.

  She wondered,
not for the first time, if the Attic crew was going to turn up anything of interest. What happened to the show when all they came up with was garage sale stuff? Would they pack up their tents and go home?

  The last item to take care of was the de-bulbed carriage lamps on the fire escape stairs. She wrote Mike! on the list, and sat back in her chair.

  Dina could handle the guests and Mike. She herself would handle the staff meetings. The other two matters—Carol Ann and the suspicious lightbulb—she would hand off to Marge and Davy Kiddermeister first thing this morning. She folded the list and stuck it into her skirt pocket with a feeling of a job well done.

  There was a tap at the door and Dina walked in. “You look happy this morning. Hey, Biz, how are you doing?”

  Biz jerked to attention and stared past Dina at the open door. He jumped off Quill’s lap and marched out. Quill saw Clare stumble past, her hair awry. She raised a hand feebly and headed to the front door.

  “Looks like she had a tough night,” Dina said. “So what’s on the agenda for this morning?”

  “I’ve decided to roll with the punches and let the chips fall where they may,” Quill said proudly. “I am taking a catlike attitude toward life. There are no crises. There is only perspective.”

  “Okay. So that means what?”

  “It means I’ll be out most of the morning on business, and then I’m taking Jack to the Park.”

  “You’re taking Jack to the Park? With all this going on?”

  “I’m delegating. Which means, don’t call me unless somebody’s on fire or bleeding. It’s too gorgeous outside to waste the time with Jack. And there’s no major crises anyway.”

  “No crises? You haven’t heard about the mayor’s race? That’s going to tear this town apart. And the burglaries? You missed a lot on that monthlong vacation you took, Quill.”

  “Phooey,” Quill said. “If you ask me, it’ll all blow over. All Marge needs is another project to divert her attention, and I’ve got an idea how to do that. As far as the mayor’s race—who the heck is going to vote for Carol Ann? Marge has too many irons in the fire to waste time being mayor. Nope. Marge is going to drop out of the race and Elmer will get reelected and things are going to be just fine. Change,” she added, as she slung her tote over her arm, “can be a very healthy thing. Especially if you ignore it. Oh. I left a couple of things for you to do. The list is right here. But otherwise, we are going to keep ourselves to ourselves, as the Irish say.”