A Steak in Murder (26 page)

"Now, now," Dookie said.

"For heaven's
sake,"
Meg stormed. She shot out of her chair and waved her arms like a windmill. Her face was red. Her teeth were clenched. "I have a dinner to cook tonight. The dinner's going to be televised to forty million people! If we don't get to my part of the agenda
pretty damn soon I am WALKING out of here and catch
ing a bus to Detroit!"

"Why Detroit?" somebody asked.

"Because it's the last damn place anyone would think to look for me, that's why! I'm going to dye my hair black, wear lifts in my shoes, and no one will EVER BE ABLE TO FIND ME! If you don't want the Wednesday night menu testing to be the last meal I ever cook in this town, GET ON WITH IT!"

"Motion to discuss the menu for International Night," Howie Murchison called out.

"I second," Quill said.

"Great!" Meg stomped up to the mayor, grabbed the gavel, and whacked it on the table with all her one hundred and three pounds behind it. "This is the menu. Texas longhorn beef. I'm cooking it any way I damn please!" She handed the gavel back to the mayor, and the temper tantrum was gone as swiftly as it had come. She saluted the company with a cheerful forefinger and walked out of the room.

"Well, I
must
say," Esther West muttered.

Betty Hall, who as far as Quill could recall had never
opened her mouth in a Chamber meeting in the past eight
years, said loudly, "Let her alone! Cooking is hell!"

"Can we have a review of the minutes up to now, Quill?" the mayor asked a little desperately.

Quill looked at her notes in bemusement. "Actually, we never got to the official agenda. Except for Howie's motion to discuss the menu. And that's been discussed, sort of. I guess since the Chamber is sponsoring International Night, we ought to vote on the menu." Quill read the menu off, a vote was called, and the motion passed.

"The next order of bidness, Quill?"

"Um. That would be to vote on the program for tonight. On Tuesday, the subcommittee for International Night met and approved program design and the agenda for the evening." Harvey, who had picked the programs up from the printer that morning, passed them around. Murmurs of approval swept the room.

"And the agenda for the evening?" Adela Henry asked. "I understand that the mayor is scheduled to speak."

"If you'll open your programs you'll see the order of
events. Harvey Bozzel will do the introduction, followed by the mayor's welcome speech. Mr. Menshivik will give
a talk, titled, 'Why I Love This Country.' Then the colonel will deliver a short address on the longhorn cow."

"Hm," said the mayor. "Harvey, you got fifteen minutes for the introduction."

"Well, yes," Harvey said nervously, "but an order of business has come up. It's the visual?"

"Come again?" asked the mayor.

"Lally Preston doesn't want to use the colonel's slides."

"I must protest." The colonel rose to his feet. "All my speeches are illustrated with the right sort of slides. It is not possible to do justice to the longhorn cow in the time allotted without visual aids."

"I thought," Harvey said in a sprightly way, "that you would feel that way. So if you wouldn't mind, Colonel, you can deliver the illustrated part of the speech now. I have the slide show all set up for you and everything."

The mayor was clearly annoyed. The colonel looked baffled, but already had his hand on the slide remote. Clearly any opportunity to bore his audience with six thousand slides of identical-looking cattle was not to be missed. Quill, who knew very well that Harvey was attempting a diversion from a discussion of the length of his introduction—or even the fact that he should be allowed to give it at all—settled back in her chair with a sigh and took a forkful of chicken a la king. It was de
licious. She smiled appreciatively at Betty Hall, and tried
unsuccessfully to shut out the more explicit parts of the colonel's slide show. This consisted of slides of cuts of
beef, statistics about back fat, more slides of cuts of beef,
and a paean to heart healthiness, purity of the line, and once again, the fact that when it came to breeding, the Nazis had the right idea. (Except they shouldn't have tried it on humans, of course.)

Quill got sleepy. This frequently happened to her in Chamber meetings, especially if she'd slept poorly the night before. She pinched her knee. This didn't help. She bit the inside of her lip, but didn't have the nerve to bite really hard. Finally, she decided that after all that iced tea, no one would question a foray to the ladies' room. If she didn't get outside into the fresh air, she was going to fall face forward into the rice pudding Betty Hall had prepared for dessert. She picked up her purse, smiled apologetically to no one in particular, and headed into the foyer. The Ladies' Lounge was under the stairs to the left. Quill took a sharp turn to the left and was out into the warm July afternoon. She took several breaths of air, then walked briskly down the path to the rose garden.

There were four heifers now, in the metal pen. Quill winced, knowing the reason for the absence of the fifth. Meg was probably unwrapping parts of the poor thing even now.

Impressive stood quietly with his hindquarters back to
her, and his nose pointed to the far side of the fence. His head was down, and all Quill could see was his muscular back and two feet of horn sticking out either side. She
walked around the fence to face him, and found Sky lean
ing over the fence, scratching his nose with a stick. The bull's eyes were half closed. Slobber dribbled down his nose. He looked blissful.

"Hello, Sky." Quill stood next to her and also leaned against the metal bar. "How's it going with Norman?"

Sky shook her head. "I don't know. That terrible trooper transferred him to the sheriff's office in Ithaca. They wouldn't let me go with him."

"Do you guys have an attorney?"

"Oh, yes. He's a volunteer. Of course, he's more used to defending animals' rights than people's rights, but I think it will be okay."

"I hope so."

"You don't think Norman killed anyone, do you?"

Quill didn't know if she was prepared to answer this question. "Sky, why do you think Laura Crest died?"

The little woman blinked at her. "Why? I don't know."

"Was it because she was—um—torturing lab animals?"

Sky flushed. "Oh, no. Actually, I kind of liked Dr. Crest."

"You met her?"

"Yeah. After CarolAnn told us about the lab animals."

"CarolAnn Spinoza?"

"Right. Well, this is a big part of our mission, you know. To free these poor tortured creatures. So we went on up to the clinic, and Dr. Crest was there, and she showed us around and explained everything. Those horses were nice. The ones that help save babies with their blood. Dr. Crest showed us how she drew blood, she even," Sky said proudly, "drew it from me, first, so I could feel that the needle didn't hurt much at all. So she served us all some herbal tea and we went home."

"You didn't—ah—trash the place?"

"Of course not." Sky's face turned pink with indignation. "We only trash the place when the torturers deserve it. Dr. Crest loved animals." Her face softened. "You could tell from the way she got on with that wonderful dog."

"Tye."

"That one. The Australian kelpie. She showed us all the tricks Tye can do. That dog's amazing. I wish I had a dog like that."

Quill patted her arm. "When this is all over, maybe you will."

It was a glittering evening for Hemlock Falls. Main Street was lined with cars. Excitement was in the air. Everyone attending International Night was dressed in clothes used
only for special occasions such as funerals, weddings, and the Christmas gala. Lally Preston's TV crew was wandering in and out of the restaurant, steady cams on their shoulders, their faces inexpressibly bored. The two most vividly dressed were Adela Henry, resplendent in the sequined purple and gold mother of the bride dress she'd worn on the Henry girls' weddings, and Shirley Rossiter in scarlet lamé with a back cut so low she had a second cleavage.

The line of people waiting to get into the Palate stretched all the way to Esther's dress shop. Quill, in a sleeveless white dress with ruffles at the ankles, her hair swept up, long gold earrings and gold sandals, watched the crowd through the plate glass window as she waited for the stroke of eight o'clock. She'd left off the primrose tablecloths for the dinner, and gone to starched white linens. Doreen (who'd been taking flower arranging classes at the Tompkins County Junior College) had exhibited an unexpected restraint with the centerpieces: bluebonnets (for the Texans), red roses (for the Russians), and white statis. The blue bonnets had already begun to show signs of wilt. The color, at least, should last the evening.

John, handsome in his tux, unearthed from goodness
knew where, made a last-minute inspection of the tables.
"I sprang for the Piper Hediseck," he said. "Just for the toast. You've had a good month, Quill."

"I never thought I'd hear you say that again." She smiled at him, conscious of looking pretty and of the perfume she'd sprayed around her shoulders. "It's nice to be in the black again."

"How's the time?"

She looked at the clock over the discreet sign that read "Occupancy by more than sixty people is strictly prohibited." "Another twenty minutes. Meg will have a fit if I let them in early. I hope it's not too hot out there." She turned back to the plate glass window. Adela (who'd arrived shortly before and unapologetically inserted herself at the head of the line) nodded majestically. Quill nodded solemnly back, and then felt like an idiot. She shivered suddenly and rubbed her bare arms.

"What is it?"

"What if we're going to serve dinner to a murderer?"
She bit her lower lip. "What if one of the people standing in that line killed Laura Crest, Candy Detwiler, and Royal
Rossiter? And what if one of them plans to kill the colonel tonight?"

"The police think they've got the murderer in custody.
I've got Howie Murchison seated next to the colonel, and he's keeping an eye on him. Nothing's going to happen tonight, Quill."

"I don't believe Q.U.A.C.K. is behind these deaths or the threat the colonel sees to his cows."

"Quill, look at the evidence. Norman and the other Q.U.A.C.K. members were all in Hemlock Falls the day
that Candy arrived. They protested Royal Rossiter's beef
raising methods, confronted Royal himself. They even
had an opportunity to obtain DMSO. They raided Laura's
clinic. Norman has a record involving assault with knives. As a member of Q.U.A.C.K., he has a motive. Fanatics are just that: illogical, narrowly focused, irrational. It makes perfect sense to a fanatic to kill the human beings who are killing their animal friends, just as it makes perfect sense to the abortion protesters to bomb clinics."

"CarolAnn has a motive, too. She hates those cows. She's squirrelly about the manure. And she was the one
who got Q.U.A.C.K. here in the first place and told them
Laura Crest was doing experiments on lab animals." Quill frowned. "But there's no real motive to kill Laura, is there? Unless she stole the DMSO from Laura's clinic and Laura found her. And she admitted to seeing Candy Detwiler the day he arrived and hassling him about the cattle."

"You can guess what I think."

"You've said it before. And you've been right before. Follow the money. Which would make Shirley Rossiter a logical suspect in the death of her husband. But why kill Candy Detwiler? A jealous rage? And what about Laura Crest? Jack Brady knew all three of them, but he
was genuinely fond of Royal and Laura both. Did he kill
Candy out of revenge on behalf of his boss?"

"Royal may have paid Brady to do it."

"I can't believe Brady would have killed Laura. As a matter of fact . . ." She bit her lip. John was easygoing, but if he knew that she, Meg, and Brady were planning to search Laura's clinic for evidence linking the crimes together he'd insist on going along. And three people involved in breaking and entering was two too many.
Four would come close to being a crowd, and they would
be sure to be discovered.

Outside the windows, Leonid, Vasily, and Alexi milled
about the head of the line uncertainly. Then, reacting to the turned backs and stern frowns of the villagers, the Russians meekly walked down the block to the end of the line. And if one or more of them was behind the murders, then the colonel's life was definitely in danger. Nah. There was a kinder, gentler Russia now that the country was splintered into separate states, if only because they couldn't get it together enough to make war on each other. But the Russians' dogged mission to take the cattle back with them one way or the other was sinister, if not fanatic in its intensity.

Quill scribbled for a few minutes on her sketch pad and announced, "There are three bodies, but only two
murders confirmed. There are five suspects, but none for whom we've satisfactorily identified means, motive, and
opportunity."

"And it's eight o'clock, with a lot of impatient people to feed," John said. "Why don't we talk about it later tonight?"

"In the morning," Quill said, adding hastily, "We're all going to be whipped after this is over."