A Steak in Murder (21 page)

"She's got a point."

"Sure she does. But dammit, Quill. My food . . ." Meg's voice rose in a familiar siren-like shriek. "My food is ART! Marge's food is CRAFT! And Marge doesn't even COOK IT HERSELF! Betty Hall does."

"Is Betty going to be on TV?"

"Betty Hall is so shy no one's heard her say more than three words in the forty-two years she's lived in Hemlock Falls.
Sure
she's going to go on TV. She'd sooner die. Those are the three words she's uttered, by the way, and she uttered them to Adela Henry, of all people."

"Adela Henry? When did you talk to Adela Henry? You've been in New York for three days."

"Well, somehow Marge got my number, and Betty Hall got someone to give Adela my number."

"Doreen!" they chorused at the same time.

"Where is she?" Meg demanded.

"Five o'clock?" Quill said, checking her watch. "The kitchen, poking her broom into Bjarne's business."

They clattered downstairs together. Doreen was at the
sink, scrubbing potatoes. "So where you two been?" she greeted them.

Meg glowered. "Where have we been? Why did you give my phone number to Marge Schmidt so she could get Lally Preston to put her on the TV show instead of the Palate? So, where have
you
been, Doreen? Looking for your mind?!"

"Meg!" Quill said sharply.

"Marge is the competition!"

"Settle down." Doreen, her hands full of potatoes, indicated the two stools at the prep table with her chin.

"Siddown there. And keep out of Bjarne's way. He's in the middle of salmon filets."

"Tak," Bjarne said absently. He flipped one filet onto a chilled platter, and turned the gutted fish over with an expert turn of his wrist.

"You're welcome," Doreen grunted. "You two, on the other hand, are not. What d'ya mean coming in here shrieking like a pair of banshees? I gave Marge the number so that Betty Hall would quit."

"Oh," Meg said.

"Durn right, 'oh.' Most of the success of that place is Betty's cookin'. Betty don't cook, Marge don't have half the business she has now. And she knows it, too."

"And?" Quill said. "Has Marge called, agreeing to sell the Inn?"

"Nope. But she and Harland Peterson are goin' to the International Night together. And that's the second good sign. Harland thinks Marge is goin' to be on TV, he's gonna pop the question a whole lot faster than he might of."

"You think so?" Meg was skeptical.

"I durn well know so. Where d'ya think I was this lunchtime, Miss Meg?"

"I don't know, where?"

"Down to the Croh Bar with that there CarolAnn Spinoza."

"Ugh. Why?!" Quill, revolted, reached over for a
handful of capers and onions. She ignored Bjarne's glare.

"Because," Doreen explained, with the patience one uses toward a toddler who has to be told one more time why you can't play nude in the rain, "CarolAnn wants to be in the middle of everything. Glory hound. Mean as a pig, but a glory hound. If she thinks that Marge is gonna be on TV, she's gonna be nice to Marge. If Marge is gonna marry Harland, she's gotta be nice to Harland, too, and," Doreen took a deep breath, "CarolAnn's gotta get her nose out of Harland's business and let him have that permit for a feedlot, or he's gonna be too hacked off to marry Marge. So that," Doreen dumped the peeled potatoes into the colander with a thump, "is how come I gave Marge and Adela your phone number in New York."

"It makes a weird kind of sense," Meg admitted. "But that doesn't change the fact that Marge is going to take my place on Lally Preston's
Rusticated Lady
show."

"Maybe once, she'll be on it. But you ast me, once is goin' to be enough for Marge. Now you two think about it. You got Lally. You got Marge. How are they gonna get along?"

Quill thought of Lally's laser-resurfaced complexion, her expensive New York City haircut, and her twice-a-week manicured nails. Of her habit of air-kissing every
one she met. Of Marge and her manure-covered overalls.
She grinned. "Okay," she said. "I'll put a quarter on good old Marge socking Lally right in the kisser."

"I'll put fifty cents on good old Marge bootin' her in the butt. Now." Doreen turned off the tap water and turned to face her two employers, arms folded, jaw at a decisive angle. "What are you two gonna do about buying back the Inn?"

"I thought we agreed we'd buy back the Inn," Quill said.

"You
talked about it," Meg said. "We listened. But
we haven't even begun to figure out how it can be done."

"We are going back up the hill?" Bjarne said.

"I hope so." Quill ran her fingers through her hair. "I've done some planning. That is, I've asked John to figure out a way we can finance it."

"And?" Meg's eyebrows rose. "I thought Marge said she wouldn't sell."

"She'll sell," John said. He came through the back
door. His hair was wet with rain. Quill threw him a towel,
and he rubbed his head vigorously. "The problem is the price."

"I thought the price of the mortgage," Quill said. "Three hundred thousand dollars."

"That business plan I gave you was predicated on two
things. The three hundred thousand cash—which is fair, Quill, since that is the amount of debt that you left, plus a two hundred thousand one-time payment for the name of the business itself and to reimburse Marge for the
work she's put in. The other was the success of the long
horn beef retail business. That end of it appears to be fine. You could work out a deal with Harland to buy the beef from the herd he's bought from Rossiter. I've al
ready phoned Laura Crest and asked her to do some back fat sampling on the herd, so you can use specific statistics
from Cornell to advertise it."

"We're not goin' to eat that Impressive, are we?" Doreen asked.

"He's a herd sire. So no, he'll have a long and productive life, Doreen," Quill said. John's eyebrows rose, and she smiled at him. "I've been doing a little research myself," she said modestly.

"The beef hasn't been aggressively marketed in the U.S. You should be able to charge a premium for it, and that's where, frankly, quite a bit of the projected profit will come from. But." He paused and tapped his thumbs
together. For John, this was a sign of significant agitation.
"The price has been upped."

"Upped?" Quill asked hollowly. "Upped by whom? And by how much?"

"By the gentleman that came to the menu testing two nights ago. Phil Barkin."

"He didn't say a word all night," Meg said indig
nantly. "He was here to buy the Inn? What is he, another
rich Texan?"

"No, he's from the Marriott."

"The Marriott!" Quill's heart lurched. "But they have money. A lot of money."

"So they do. He's taken a look at the healthy beef angle, at the way Marge handles the cash flow and pricing—which is brilliant, I'm chagrined to say—and he's talking a million, a million and a half."

"A million dollars?" Meg said faintly.

"He's crazy," Doreen said belligerently. "He's outta his mind."

"Crazy like a fox," John said ruefully. "I'm sorry, Quill."

"I'm not giving up," Quill said. "I don't want any of us to give up."

Doreen went "t'uh!" and then said, "A million
bucks!"

"I should," Meg said thoughtfully, "have put ipecac in his fruit salad."

"We didn't serve fruit salad," Quill reminded her. "So, what now, John?"

"You mean you're interested in carrying that kind of debt load?"

"I'm not crazy about it. Do you think we can do it?"

"It depends. If we can match the Marriott's offer—
and based on the beef plan, I believe it's finance-worthy,
yeah. It's doable. But there's a hitch, and it's a major one. The Marriott's pockets are a lot deeper than ours. It's a well-run business, but if they really want this deal, we've got to be prepared to say no. All we're going to be doing if we get into a bidding war is make Marge Schmidt rich. Which," he added, "she already is."

"Maybe she doesn't need to be richer?" Meg said hopefully.

Doreen went "t'uh!" again.

"So what do you say?" John folded his hands.

"What D'Artagnan said to the Three Musketeers." Meg clasped her hands and shook them over her head. "One for all and all for one."

"It's not a game, Meg," John spoke softly, but his eyes were on Quill.

"We know it's not," Quill said. "Let's talk to Marge, to the bank, to Harland and the colonel. It doesn't cost anything to move ahead at this point, does it, John?"

"Just my consulting fee."

"Hi! Anyone at home?" Andy Bishop tapped lightly
on the screen door to the back porch and stepped inside.
Meg jumped up and flung her arms around him. He gave
her a kiss. "See your train got in on time. I'm sorry I
wasn't there to meet you and Lally. Is she here?"

Meg scowled. "She's up at Marge's place."

"So that's still simmering, huh?" He gave her a quick hug and released her. "Well, don't worry about it, Meg. I'll back you against the Tiny Tank for audience appeal anytime." He dragged a stool up to the prep table, which was, Quill thought, getting crowded. "Anything to eat?"

"Two seconds." Meg went to the cooler and began to pull a variety of items from the shelves.

"I came by because I've got the results of the autopsies on Detwiler and Rossiter," Andy said. "You still interested?"

"Yes. But let's get you settled first." Quill got up, put a napkin, cutlery, and wineglass in front of him. John disappeared to the closet that held their wine cellar, and reappeared with a bottle of California Chardonnay. Meg placed a plate of cold salmon, homemade mayonnaise,
and pickled asparagus down for him, settled into the stool
next to his and said, "Shoot."

"Rossiter first. He wasn't in terrific shape for a man his age. Muscle tone was a little flabby, liver somewhat enlarged, so he had a bit of an alcohol habit. But his ticker was fine. At least, fine for a man in generally poor shape at sixty-two. There was more than an average degree of arteriosclerosis. Which is to say, an aggressive event could have triggered a fatal heart attack. And I think it did."

"You don't mean my food was an aggressive event," Meg said.

"Of course not. But he'd been drinking fairly steadily all day, it was hot for July, and he'd had a heavy lunch. My guess is he was feeling off-kilter most of the afternoon. Perhaps he complained to someone. In any case . . ." He paused to take a healthy bite of salmon, and then a swallow of wine.

"In any case, what?" Meg demanded.

"He was dosed with DMSO."

"With what?"

"Dimexyethodie. It's a stimulant and a vasoconstrictor. It triggered a cardiac spasm that in turn triggered a full-scale heart attack."

"Where did the DMSO come from?" Quill asked.

Andy shrugged. "It's illegal for human use, precisely
because of what happened. It's a veterinary drug, though,
used to relieve muscle aches in horses, I'm told."

"He did mention that Impressive had strained a shoulder muscle," Quill said thoughtfully.

"Well, when you apply it to animals, you're supposed to wear rubber gloves, since any contact with the skin means instant absorption. I didn't find any on his hands, so if he did use it to massage the bull, he was careful."

Meg fiddled proudly with the collar of Andy's shirt. "Where did you find it?"

"Down the right side of his forearm. Which means he may have brushed up against the bull accidentally, I just don't know. Problem is, the timing's a little screwy."

"A little screwy?" Quill asked. "Why?"

"Because most of the value of DMSO is in how fast it is absorbed. It's almost instant. I looked it up in the Desk Reference which said that it takes less than three seconds to flare through the system. Now, there had to have been at least an hour's time lapse between wherever he was and the time he died, because he was here at the restaurant for a while. It's possible that he was feeling ill, ignored the symptoms, and just keeled over. Was he that kind of guy? Not one to complain?"

"He was trying to impress Marge Schmidt, that I know," Quill said. "So if he'd been feeling awful, he might not have said a word."

"Do you remember what he had to eat or drink that night?"

"Vodka," Quill said positively. "The Russians made everyone drink a toast. He tossed it back, then died."

"Could have been the proximate cause." Andy still looked doubtful. "Anyway, that's what we found. It's up to the coroner to establish whether or not it's been a suspicious death, so I expect Trooper Harris will be around to interview you, Quill, and you, Meg."

"Andy?" Quill asked slowly. "Who has access to DMSO? On a regular basis?"

"It has to be prescribed by a vet. Most vets have it, as a matter of fact. And Laura Crest confirmed that she gave a supply to Rossiter for use with his bull. So the whereabouts of the drug have been established."