A Steak in Murder (23 page)

"I don't know why that happened."

"And," Meg continued remorselessly, "it's all on the house, right?"

"Um. Well, I did invite the colonel to be my guest. So I suppose it is."

John groaned. "You know, Quill . . ."

"I know. I know. Free food costs us. I'm sorry. But," she brightened, "we may get some inside information on this deal the Russians and the cowmen are cooking up. Not to mention the murder of poor Candy Detwiler."

"And what possible use could this be to us?" Meg asked, her eyebrows raised.

"I won't know until I sit down with them, will I?"

But dinner proved to be less than satisfactory for either
detective work or business plans. Quill sat down next to Calhoun. "I like the hat," she said. "Is it a Stetson?"

"No, Miss Quilliam, it isn't. This is a quintuple-nine Texas beaver. With an Oklahoma crease."

"My goodness," Quill said. Peter set soup in front of the party. Quill squinted at the bowls in front of the Russians. They looked spit-free, but you never knew.

"An Oklahoma crease?" She picked up her spoon,
then set it down again. What if Peter had gotten the bowls
mixed up?

"Something wrong with the soup, Miss Quilliam?"

"No, no." She swallowed some. It was excellent, even if it did have Finnish spit in it.

"You can tell where a man is from by the crease in his hat," the colonel said. "When I'm running a cattle auction, I can look across the room and tell where every single soul is from, by the crease in his hat."

"What sort of crease did Candy Detwiler have?"

"Candy? West Texas. Fold on the right brim, half dent at the crown."

"His death was a terrible thing," Quill said soberly.

Shirley was having a high old time with the Russians. She was drinking vodka. She tucked one forefinger behind Leonid's lapel and shrieked, "Darlin',
where'd
you get this ole suit?"

"K-Mart," Leonid said. "Part of the reason why I love this country."

"It was." The colonel nodded slowly.

"Did he leave any family?"

The colonel shook his head. "I was his family. My sons and my wife and I. Although I do believe there was a daughter somewhere."

"Do you have any idea who would want to hurt him?"

"It wasn't Candy they wanted to hurt. It was the breed."

"The cows?"

"Cattle, ma'am. Cows are female cattle."

"I don't understand."

He turned to her, his eyes bright. There was a bit of black bean soup on his upper lip. "The purebred Texas longhorn is the greatest breed of cattle on earth. Have you heard my lecture on genetics?"

"Yes," Quill said shortly. "But I fail to see why anyone would want to murder Mr. Detwiler because Texas longhorns are the greatest breed on earth."

"He was a heck of a cattle handler, Miss Quilliam. The best. Why, he was the one that broke my bull Impressive to saddle. Rounding up a herd of steers to go to the slaughterhouse, there was no one like Candy. He could get those cattle in the trailer just as sweet as you please. He was killed because whoever did it knew that it was one of the worst possible blows I could take. The only thing worse would be losing my bull."

Quill took a moment to collect her thoughts, and more important, control her tongue. The guy was squirrelly. "About that bull. I thought Royal Rossiter owned the herd."

"It's my bull," the colonel repeated.

"But did Royal pay you for it?"

"Of course Roy paid him for it," Shirley interrupted suddenly. "Crazy old coot. That's a Rossiter herd. It's
my
herd now."

"This I must ask you, then," Leonid said. "Your poor husband . . ."

"Roy!
"
Shirley wailed. "My Royal!
"

Leonid poured her a glass of vodka. "In Russia, this is what we do when we are sad. We drink vodka. Also when we are happy."

Shirley gulped the drink. Peter set the wild greens salad in front of her. She poked at it. "Looks like hay before it dries."

"I must ask you this," Leonid said, as if there had been no interruption. "We are very interested in sending
these cows to Russia. I have spoken with your—with Mr.
Rossiter, who says, he will think about it. He is not so sure that he wants his cows to leave this country. But these cows, these cows can survive on our land like no other cows can. They are tough, these cows, I think maybe these cows are from Russia to begin with, and perhaps they got over here by mistake." He smiled. "And, of course, now Mr. Rossiter is dead."

"Excuse me, sir." The colonel stood up, attracting the attention of everyone else in the restaurant. "Royal never
would have sold American cattle to a bunch of Rus
skies."

"That's for damn sure," Shirley said. Then, "You all are Russians?"

"So he may have said. At first," Leonid said. "But
he—ah! Died. Right here in this restaurant not two nights
ago before he could change his mind."

The well-dressed couple at the table adjacent to Leo
nid's chair exchanged alarmed glances. Quill made a face
at Peter, who nodded and quickly left the room. The colonel leaned across the table, his face red in the candlelight. "Royal Rossiter may have been a lot of things. He may not have been the cowman he thought he was. But I'll tell you this, you Commie, he never would have agreed to sell those Longhorns!"

"He would," Leonid said.

"He would
not,
sir!"

"He would. He would, he would, he would."

"Gentlemen?" John put a firm hand on the colonel's
shoulder. Peter, who was standing behind him, gave Quill an interrogative grin: Was I right? Quill nodded a fervent
yes! The colonel sank back into his chair. Peter, carrying a bottle of cabernet of exceptional quality, moved lightly over to Vasily and began to pour. "This is a French cabernet from the north of that country," John explained smoothly. He went on to describe the year, the vintage,
the fact that a few thousand of the bottles from that press
ing had landed on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean after
a shipwreck the year before. Quill knew him well enough
to sense the wince when Shirley upended her glass and drank it all at once. But the wine served as an effective diversion, and the topic of the longhorn sale was dropped.

Quill ate the rest of the meal with half a mind on the desultory conversation, the other half occupied in speculation.

Who had killed Candy Detwiler? The colonel's claims that the murder was directed at him were ridiculous, but then, who knew?

Except, of course, that Candy had been knifed several days before he'd died. A powerful arm, with a lot of
muscle behind it, Andy had said. Rossiter was sixty-two,
thin, and hadn't seemed particularly fit to Quill, as indeed, the autopsy results had borne out. He'd even had trouble dumping the manure bucket over the side of the pen when Marge was helping him clean out the corral.

Should she throw out the assumption that Detwiler had been killed by another cattleman, jealous of the colonel's
success with the breed? Quill wished she had her sketch pad to make a note. There was a very significant clue that bothered her: the DMSO. Brady had access to it, of course, since he took care of the cattle. And Laura Crest was the supplier. Quill would take an oath that the two of them had known each other well before they had met in Hemlock Falls.

But why would Brady kill his employer? Why would Laura kill for Brady? Quill eyed Shirley Rossiter. One
hundred million was a lot of money. Suppose Brady was
having an affair with Mrs. Rossiter, Royal discovered it and filed for divorce, and Laura Crest and Brady, who were also having an affair . . . Quill tugged at a strand of her hair in frustration.

"Spray it," Shirley Rossiter advised loudly.

"Beg pardon?"

"Your hair. I noticed you were lookin' at my do, and I'm tellin' you unless you have a hairdresser right on
your little ole tail all the time, it's hell to keep up. I mean,
just look at yours, all over your face like that. I got some spray right here in my purse, it'll fix you right up." She narrowed her eyes. " 'Course, you'll have to comb it first. Y'all got a ladies' room here?"

"Dessert, I think, Peter," Quill said firmly. "And coffee."

It was another forty-five minutes before Quill could
(tactfully, she hoped) edge the Calhoun party out the door
and back up the hill to the Inn. She came back from the
farewells and thanks to a table littered with empty vodka
bottles, crumbs, spilled food, and a wine stained tablecloth.

"Just throw it out," Peter advised, as he began to clear. "You can't bleach that color primrose, or so my mom tells me."

"Um. Is everybody in the kitchen?"

"If you mean Meg and John, yeah. And the cleanup crew."

John and Meg were not in the kitchen but outside on the same back steps. Quill joined them, locking her arms round her knees and gazing up at the sky. The moon was high and white. The air had cooled from the heat of the day, and mist trailed pennants under the trees.

"What a meal," Meg grumbled. "And all for . . ."

"Don't say it," Quill warned.

John chuckled. He rarely laughed, and the sound was pleasing.

"So did we learn anything of note, oh, great detective?"

"Just shut up, Meg," Quill said amiably. "As a matter of fact, we did."

"Yeah, from Andy. And I don't mind feeding him for free."

"Not from Andy." She pursed her lips. "Did you hear how agitated the colonel got over the Russians buying the cattle? And did you hear how insistent Leonid was that they get them?"

"So do you think it was the Russians or the colonel with the candlestick . . ."

". . . in the library," Quill finished for her. "I don't know what to think. I'm going up to bed so that I can think." She peered into the gloomy backyard. "Where's Max?"

"Escaped again," Meg said. "And he's your dog, so you go look for him."

"He comes when you call him, you look for him."

"I'll look for him." John got to his feet. "I could use a walk after tonight."

"I could, too, actually," Quill said casually. "You going on to Andy's, Meg?"

Meg yawned. "Yeah. I'll see you in the morning.
There's another flippin' Chamber meeting, right? At one?
I'm supposed to be there?"

"Yes. I've got the proofs of the program for International Night. But it should be a short one, Meg. I don't think it will go on and on."

"Ha! They always do." She gave Quill a sleepy hug. "You have time to talk tomorrow?"

"Sure. We'll have lunch after the meeting. Just the two
of us."

"We'd better get out of Hemlock Falls, then. Every time you sit down to eat or talk to me, some bozo comes bursting into the kitchen or the dining room or wherever."

"Hey," John protested.

"You're not a bozo," Meg said affectionately. "Have a nice walk."

Quill and John gave the yard a brief search to confirm
that Max wasn't there, then set out in the cool and the dark. "He usually heads for the Park, and then the Gorge," Quill said. "Actually, he usually comes on home by himself, but I suppose it'd be irresponsible to leave him out."

He took her hand, lightly, as a friend does. Quill curled
her fingers around his palm, squeezed it, and let it go. "Max!" she called. "Max!"

A bark in response.

"What do you know," John said, "his master's voice."

"Max! Here, boy! I've got some liver for you, boy."

"You do?"

"No, but by the time he gets here, he'll have forgotten all about it. He doesn't have much on his little doggy mind, John."

The barks escalated in volume.

"He's never sounded like that before," Quill said. "You don't suppose he's hurt?"

"You don't suppose he's found another body?"

"You know, John, that really bothers me. Max has been in the Park every day since poor Detwiler was put there, and he never came home and . . ." She trailed off. John took her elbow and guided her to the sound of the barking. "I know he's not Lassie, but . . ."

"He's a dog," John said briefly. "Max!"

Max dashed out of the darkness and danced urgently around Quill. His ears were up. His eyes were anxious. He dashed back into the brush and crouched there, tail wagging frantically.

Quill's heart contracted. John knelt down and shoved his way into the brush. "John?" She cleared her throat and said more loudly, "John! It's not another . . . it's not a body, is it?"

"No. Not a human one. It's Tye. Laura Crest's dog."

"The dog's hurt," Quill said. She knelt beside John in the bushes.

"Don't touch her. She may bite."

Quill shuddered.

He put his hand on her shoulder. "Are you all right?"