A Touch of the Grape: A Hemlock Falls Mystery (Hemlock Falls Mystery series) (13 page)

Quill began to feel like a rat. "I'm sorry. Truly. It's just that when something like this happens, your imagination begins to run riot."

"Small towns," Fran said darkly. "It goes to show."

"Maybe we need a lawyer." Mary nervously fingered
the pearls at her neck. They were genuine, at least eight millimeter. Quill was glad to see her surmise about the profitability of the craft business had been correct. "Don't you think we need a lawyer?"

"A lawyer?" Quill said, startled. "Whatever for?"

"Shipping the body," Mary said simply. "All that sort of thing." The tears brimming in her eyes spilled over. Quill felt awful. "A man is so useful at times, don't you think? I mean, it's not very nice to say so these days, but there's a time when a girl just needs some protection. At our age, I guess you just have to buy it."

"I see," Quill said, who did, in a way. "There's a very good one in town. Howie Murchison. Would you like me to give him a call for you?"

The four women exchanged glances. "We'll see how
it goes," Fran said. She seemed to have been elected
spokesperson since Ellen's death. "We haven't had too much experience with lawyers."

"I want to go home," Freddie Patch said. "This has
been too awful to even think about. I want to see my
grandchildren. There's nothing that'll cheer a person up more than grandchildren."

Robin Robinson, who'd replaced her sequined sweat
shirt for a more seemly hand-crocheted sweater, patted
Freddie's hand comfortingly. "We can't leave yet, anyway." She turned to Quill, her eyes gray and watery behind her spectacles. "Our president's been delayed
again. We got a fax this morning. It'd be foolish to leave
until we get our little business plans settled."

"What about Ellen's funeral?" Freddie wailed. "We can't miss Ellen's funeral."

"The sheriff won't release her—ah—the remains for a few more days yet. Not until the investigation's complete." Fran sat back in her chair with a "that's that" sigh, and picked up the menu. "Now. Who's for breakfast?"

Freddie, who couldn't have been more than four feet eleven standing, and seemed even smaller in the dining room chair, beckoned Quill to come closer. She bent down, and Freddie whispered, "We did want you to know that we don't believe for a moment you or your sister set that fire."

"Of course we didn't!" Quill said.

"And that insurance money? There wouldn't have been enough to cover your losses at the Inn—so that's not a motive."

Quill straightened up and looked at her, astonished. "Who told you that?"

"That nice Marge Schmidt," Robin said. "We ran into her after that informal meeting the Chamber had
here yesterday. She came into the Tavern Bar where we
were all having our little—you know—drinkies before dinner, and she was asking us all kinds of questions."

"Questions like what?" Quill asked grimly.

"You know, were the rooms comfortable? Did we like the highfalutin food, or did we prefer plain old American cooking? That kind of thing."

"We told her we liked the food," Mary volunteered. "That World's Biggest Cream Puff was just delicious. Except there was some liquor in it."

"Brandy," Quill said.

"Right. Brandy! In a dessert! Anywise, I liked it a lot." This was said with a small air of defiance, as though there were those at the table who clearly had not "Not every day, of course. I mean, gourmet (she pronounced it goremate) is so
rich,
don't you think?"

"I like a nice Jell-0 ring for dessert myself," Fran said. "I've got a recipe with Cool Whip, cottage cheese, and pistachios if you'd like to pass it along to the cook."

"What else did Mrs. Schmidt want to know?"

Mary thought for a moment. "How comfy the beds
were. Whether we missed not having a TV in the rooms.
Whether maybe it'd be better to have, like, video games
and an arcade out on the flagstone terrace for the kiddies.
I told her it would be nice to bring my grandchildren to
someplace like this, but I didn't much like arcade games.
You get too many young people that way. You know, the kinds with tattoos and rings on their bodies."

"My grandson Jeffrey has a ring in his ear and it's perfectly acceptable!" Fran said with a huffy glare.

Mary twinkled. "Of course, dear. But Quill knows
what I mean. Some of those nice brightly colored plastic
swing sets for the kiddies. That'd be the thing. Out by the gazebo."

"We'll think about it," Quill said, forcing a big smile.
"Have you decided what to have for breakfast?"

"Marge Schmidt was talking about her Breakfast Bake. Do you have a Breakfast Bake?" Freddie asked. "Ever since she gave me the recipe, I've been dying to try it."

"I'm not sure. Maybe Meg would like to try to make it. What's in it?"

"Condensed milk. Three cups shredded wheat. Eggs.
That Kraft cheese, you know …"

"Velveteen?" Quill said.

"
Velveeta. And you mix it all up and bake it for thirty
minutes in a 350 oven."

"It sounds …" Gruesome. Repellant. Disgusting.
Quill pinched her knee hard and said smoothly, "
…
as
though it would take too long to bake today. But we'll see. In the interim, is there anything on the menu you would like?"

"The Omelet Suzette," Fran said. "With none of the sauce on it, please. Just plain. And a side of bacon. And
toast. And some hash browns."

"That sounds good, Fran." Mary smiled at Quill. "I'll have that, too."

"I'll have the omelet, except I don't want the eggs beaten up and I want them over easy. And the rest of the sides Fran ordered," Freddie said. "Do you have wheat toast?"

Robin, on discovering that the Crepes a la Quilliam
were flamed in cognac, shuddered, and asked for plain
crepes, with syrup: Mrs. Butterworth's, if that was okay.

"I don't even know how to price this stuff," Meg complained when Quill handed the breakfast orders over.

"Call up Marge," Quill said. "I told you, didn't I? Can you believe it? She went to the Tavern yesterday after all that support she offered us and tried to snatch our customers right under our noses! They were happy
enough with our menu yesterday. They were perfectly willing to try new stuff. Now look at this: It's diner food.
We can't charge gourmet prices for diner food!"

"Well, charge diner food prices."

"Great, then we'll be broker than we already are. Where are you going?"

Meg took off her apron, removed her chef's toque, and beckoned to Bjarne, the Finnish sows-chef. "Two on a shingle, a stack of cakes, a side of the hog, and
three hashed." She raised her eyebrows at Quill and said
loftily, "I don't mind having this cooked in my kitchen. I don't mind my
sous-chef
cooking this in my kitchen. The one thing I am not going to do is
cook it myself!"

"This is delicious!" Freddie Patch said. "I've never had hash browns like this before. There's just a little bit of—urn—what is there just a little bit of?"

"Garlic, parsley, a pinch of onion, paprika," Quill said. "The secret's in the potato. You need a firm white
potato, shredded fine and chilled in ice water. Not a bak
ing potato, not a red, and for goodness' sake, not a Yukon Gold."

The Crafty Ladies blinked at her. Now, Quill thought,
that they are relatively settled and eating good food, is the time to do a little investigation. There had to be a really good reason why Ellen Dunbarton was crawling into the Inn two nights ago. And despite what Meg said, she knew Ellen had been crawling into the Inn two nights ago. "Would you mind if I sat with you a little bit? As you can see, we don't have anyone else in the dining room at the moment."

"Make yourself at home," Mary said. She frowned to conceal her pleasure. "We've been wanting to have a little talk with you ever since we arrived."

"You have just a beautiful place," Freddie said.

Robin nodded vigorous agreement. "Ideal. Just ideal.
The flowers. The waterfall. The decorations! You know
that Mrs. Stoker?"

"Doreen, yes. Our head housekeeper."

"She said you're more famous than we thought. As a painter."

"I suppose so," Quill said cautiously.

"So you're the perfect person to talk to," Freddie said. "Just perfect. As an artist yourself, you'd be the first to sympathize."

"It's our crafts," Robin said. "That Mrs. Schmidt.

"Um," said Quill darkly.

"She said that there's going to be big changes around here. Really big."

"What did she mean, big?" Quill asked, alarmed.

Robin blinked at her. "Why, the winegrowers' association. And the plans for a huge summerlong festival."

"Oh, yes. That."

Robin beamed. "It sounds wonderful, doesn't it?"

"It sounds like an opportunity," Fran broke in bluntly, "and we thought we'd see about getting a piece of the action ourselves."

"Fran," Freddie said gently, "don't be quite so aggressive, dear. It's hardly feminine."

"It's hard to be feminine these days and make a buck," Fran said. "It's hard to be feminine anytime and make a buck."

There was a soft murmur of agreement from the other
ladies.

"Anyways, Marge told us about this Esther West and how she's thinking about importing some nice things for
tourists."

"What? Oh. Yes. Esther runs a retail store in Hem
lock Falls. West's Best Dress it's called. She's the logical choice to order tourist items; she's had a lot of experience with clothing and I shouldn't think it'd be
too much of a stretch to order wine goblets and what
ever."

"We're the logical choice to do it," Fran said with
belligerent firmness. "Talk about experience. Ellen here worked at Tracey's in Housewares for thirty years. I saw
all kinds of stuff as a customs agent in New York City.
I remember where to get it, too. Those cute little telephone dolls, for instance, come right from Korea, eight
cents a piece, F.O.B."

"Freight on Board," Mary explained kindly.

"All kinds of stuff." Fran took a breath. "Robin was
in the law."

"Really?" Quill asked.

"Just a paralegal, but I learned a lot about contracts,"
Robin said modestly. "It was a real estate lawyer's of
fice, actually."

"And there you are. She can look at the contracts and
read them if anyone tries to cheat us. We've got talent
coming out of our ears, haven't we, girls?"

Modest giggles greeted this sally.

"What was Ellen Dunbarton's husband like? What
did he do?"

"Ellen? She was married to a travel agent. Darn good
one, too. He got us some great deals on trips, let me tell you. We've seen some terrific places." Mary was ani
mated in her excitement. "Hong Kong, Mexico."

"That's enough, Mary. Quill here doesn't want to hear all about our trips. Next thing, you'll be hauling out those danged slides and we'll all need a nap
before
lunch." Chuckles, this time, from the group. Fran turned
earnestly and said, "Quill, if you've got some time today, we'd like to show you what we can do. And you'll want to see the whole magilla, all the products we got. What we can't get, we can make."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Quill held up her hands. "I'm sure that all this is true. But I'm not the person to talk
to. Hugh and Selena Summerhill are the chief organizers
behind the wine festival, and Selena mentioned yesterday that the State is sending an advisor in to talk with us about the restrictions that come with this grant money."

"Money," said Fran. "That's it. Show me the money."

A louder burst of laughter greeted this daring foray into current movie slang.

"Did you talk with Ellen about this—um—before she … well …"

"Passed on?" Freddie suggested. "How could we?
We didn't know about it ourselves until yesterday after
noon."

"Oh. That's right, isn't it?" Quill bit her lip. Now
what? "I meant to ask, before, when you mentioned you
talked to her family this morning. Are they coming to get her? Her husband or someone else?"

"Richard's in the hospital," Mary said. "Bad arteries, they say. Hasn't been good for a long time."

"No, he hasn't been good," Freddie agreed sadly.

"Her daughter, maybe. But she's a no-good."

"Mary!" said Robin. "It's not right to speak ill of the dead."

"That daughter's not dead. She's just a waste of time. Big fancy lawyer in Detroit." Mary sniffed. "Hasn't spoken to her ma in five years," she explained. "Ellen worked herself to the bone all those years to support Richard's travel agency, and Richard being so sick all the while, and what does she get for it? Kid that won't even send her a Mother's Day card."