A Taste For Murder
( Hemlock Falls - 1 )
Claudia Bishop
A delightful new series featuring two sleuthing sisters who run the Hemlock Falls Inn. While Sarah takes care of business, her sister Meg runs the inn's kitchen. During the annual History Days festival, a mock witch stoning takes a grisly turn when a guest at the inn is substituted for the fake witch.
Claudia Bishop - Hemlock Falls 01 - A Taste For Murder
-1-
Elmer Henry, mayor of Hemlock Falls, swallowed the last spoonful of zabaglione, disposed of the crystallized mint leaf with a loud crunch, and burped in satisfaction. He whacked the Hemlock Falls Chamber of Commerce official gavel and rose to his feet. This familiar signal jerked Sarah Quilliam out of a daydream involving rum punch, Caribbean beaches, and a lifeguard. She grabbed her notebook, scrawled "HFCOC Minutes," and tried to look attentive.
Elmer looked down the length of the banquet table with a somewhat bovine expression of pleasure. Twenty of the twenty-four members of the Chamber looked placidly back. The imminence of the annual celebration of Hemlock History Days brought the members out in force. The corps of regulars - Quill, the mayor, Marge Schmidt, Tom Peterson, and Gilbert Gilmeister among them - were swelled considerably; like Easter, Hemlock History Days offered unbelievers. a chance to hedge their bets.
Oblivious to the command of the gavel, Marge Schmidt and Betty Hall held a sotto voce conversation concerning their mutually expressed preference to die rather than consume one more bite of suspect foreign substances such as the Italian pudding just served them. Quill rejected various witty rejoinders in defense of her sister's cooking and opted for a dignified silence.
Elmer rapped the gavel with increasingly louder thwacks until Marge and Betty shut up and settled into their seats. "This meeting is called to order," Elmer said. He nodded to Dookie Shuttleworth, minister of the Hemlock Word of God Reform Church.
Dookie was thin, rather shabbily dressed, and had a gentle, bemused expression; under stress, input frequently vanished altogether from Dookie's hard drive, a circumstance wholly unrelated to his vocation and met with tolerance by his parishioners. He wiped his napkin firmly across his mouth and stood up for the invocation. "Lord, bless this gathering of our weekly session, and all its members." He paused, looked thoughtful, and suppressed a belch. "Most especially, the management of the Hemlock Falls Inn, Meg and Sarah Quilliam, for this fine repast."
Quill smiled and murmured an acknowledgment, which Dookie ignored in his earnest pursuit of the Lord's attention. "Lord, if you see fit, please send us fine weather and generous folks for the celebration of Hemlock Falls History Days next week. May these men and women seek you out, Lord, particularly in Your house here at Hemlock Falls. When the collection plate is passed, may they open their hearts and more, in Your service. As you know, Lord, the church checking account..."
Elmer Henry cleared his throat. Dookie concluded hastily, "All these things we ask in Jesus' name. Amen."
"Amen," echoed the assembled members. "Hadn't you ought to ask the good Lord for blessings on our stummicks so we don't end up in the hospital after eatin' this pudding?" Marge Schmidt demanded. A principal in the only other restaurant in town, Marge's German heritage was evident in her fair hair, ruddy complexion, and blue eyes. The protuberance of those eyes, the double chin, and the belligerence were all her own.
Quill straightened in indignation. Marge continued blandly, "Made with raw eggs, this stuff. What d'ya call it? Zabyig-something."
"Zabaglione," said Quill. She pushed back her mass of red hair with one slim hand and said mendaciously, "It's one of Meg's eggless varieties."
"It's made with raw eggs everywheres else," said Marge. "You won't find raw eggs in good old American food. Strictly against the New York State Department of Health instructions. Din't you and your sister get that notice they sent out last week? Got one down to the diner if you need a copy."
"Salmonella," interjected Marge's companion and business partner, Betty Hall. "All of us in the restaurant business got that notice. Maybe that sister of yours can't read."
Quill reflected that nobody, including the patrons of the Hemlock Hometown Diner (Family Food! And Fast!), got along with Marge and Betty, and a response would invite acrimony. The first law of successful innkeeping was to maintain neutrality, if not outright peace. "I can't imagine anyone getting sick on Hemlock Falls cooking, Marge," she said diplomatically. "Yours or ours."
Marge rocked back in her chair, to the potential danger of the oak. "Me, either. No, ma'am. But that's something different from bein' in violation of the American law with weird Italian food. Betty and me stick to pizza. And this - here pudding is a clear violation of the law. Right, Sheriff McHale?"
Myles McHale nodded expressionlessly and dropped a wink in Quill's direction. He was looking especially heroic this afternoon, and Quill made a mental note to ask him if he'd ever been a lifeguard. With that chest, it was certainly likely.
Myles said, "Why don't I just go ahead and arrest both Meg and Quill, Marge? Been wanting to do it anyhow. Locking Quill up may be the only way I'll get her to marry me. And I'd have Meg's cooking all to myself."
"Ha, ha." Marge adjusted her blue nylon bowling jacket with a sniff and subsided, muttering, "Eggless, my ass."
"Let's get to the agenda," Elmer said. "First off, Quill, will you read the minutes from the last meeting?"
"Shall I move to dispense with everything but the agenda for today?" Quill asked. She hadn't translated her scrawled shorthand and wasn't at all sure she could read last week's notes out loud.
"She can't do that," said Marge. "She's the secretary. The secretary can't move not to read the minutes."
"Then I'll so move," said Myles.
"Let's just get to the agenda for today," said Elmer. "History Days is less than seventy-two hours away, unless every- one's forgotten. What's the status as of last week, Quill?"
Quill squinted at her notes. "Booths. Four P's," she read uncertainly.
There was an expectant silence.
Four P's. Quill tugged at her lower lip. Four P's... "Parade. Play. Parking..." She tugged harder. "Promotion!" She smiled triumphantly. "We need a report on the status of the booths, on the parade, and on the rehearsals for the play...."
Elmer deciphered the remaining P with no trouble; Quill had been Chamber secretary for five years. Promotion was adman Harvey Bozzel's job. "So the first thing is the booths. How many we got registered, Howie?"
Howie Murchison, local attorney and justice of the peace, paged methodically through a manila folder drawn from his briefcase. "One hundred and twenty-two, as of yesterday." He peered deliberately at Quill over his wire-rimmed glasses. "I'll go slowly so you can get the information into the minutes. Twenty-three home-crafts. Sixteen jewelry. Fifty-eight assort- ed pottery and painting. Six food. Seven habadashery, that is to say, T-shirts, straw hats, and other clothing items. Eleven miscellaneous, such as used books, something referred to as 'collectibles,' and Gil's display of the new line of Buicks. Forty-three percent of the registration fees have been prepaid for a total of six hundred and fifty-nine dollars and forty-six cents."
Quill scrawled: 101. 23 ditz. 16 ? ? ? ? $659, 46 is 47%. Then, after a moment's thought: Re. NYS memo: Meg.
"And the parade report?" Elmer turned to Norm Pasquale, principal of the high school.
Norm bounced to his feet. "The varsity band's been rehearsing all week. They sound just terrific. The Four-H club has fourteen kids on horses signed up to ride. We've got eight floats, down one from last year because Chet's Hardware went out of business after the Wal-Mart moved in." He sat down.
Elmer nodded matter-of-factly. "I told Chet he'd never get
a dollar and a half a pound for roofing nails. What about the play, Esther? Rehearsals going okay there?"
Esther West owned the only dress shop (West's Best) in Hemlock Falls. She was director of the re-creation of the Hemlock Falls seventeenth century witch trial, The Trial of Goody Martin, a popular feature of History Days. She frowned and adjusted the bodice of her floral print dress, then patted a stiff auburn curl into place over her ear. "I do believe that the Clarissa's sickening for flu."
A murmur of dismay greeted this statement. "Who's playing Clarissa Martin this year?" asked Quill. "Julie Offenbach, Craig's girl."
"Oh, my." Quill knew her. A wannabe Winona Ryder, Julie spent the summers between high-school semesters waitressing at the Inn. "She'll be crushed."
"You got that right!" hooted Gil Gilmeister. Even Quill, a relative newcomer to Hemlock Falls, knew Gil had been a star quarterback for the high school twenty years before; like Rabbit Angstrom, he'd gone into that quintessential small-town American business-car sales. Unlike his fictional counterpart, he was filled by more Sturm than Angst, with a boisterous enthusiasm for Buicks, Marge Schmidt, and town activities not unrelated to his days on the football field. "Go-o-o-o Clarissa!" he shouted now, thumping a ham-sized fist on the table. "Splat! Splat! Splat!"
The witch trial dramatized the real seventeenth-century , Clarissa's death by pressing. Most pre-Colonial American. villages burned, hanged, or drowned their witches, and Hemlockians were inordinately proud of their ancestors' unique style of execution - Hemlock Falls witches had been pressed to death. Although any large flat surface would have done, Hemlock Falls citizens of bygone days dropped a barn door on the condemned, then piled stones on the door until the victim succumbed to hemorrhaging, suffocation, or a myocardial infarction. Julie, as Clarissa Martin, would be replaced by a hooded dummy at the critical moment, but there was a wonderful bit of histrionics as "Clarissa" was driven off to await her fate. Julie had rehearsed with enormous relish for weeks.
"Doesn't Julie have an understudy or something?" asked Betty Hall. "No?" She jerked her head at her partner. "Marge here. She could do it. She's a real quick study. Memorizes the specials at the diner every night, just like that." She snapped her fingers.
Elmer, perhaps thinking of the size of the barn door required to squash a dummy of Marge-like proportions, not to mention the creation of a new, more elephantine dummy to replace the one traditionally used for years, said sharply, "Budget," which puzzled everyone but Quill, whose thoughts had been running along the same lines but in a much less practical way.
"Marge'd be terrific," said Gil Gilmeister earnestly. Since almost everyone at the table - with the possible exception of Dookie Shuttleworth - knew that Marge and Gil had been a hot item for several years, Gil's support was discounted without any discussion. "Although," Esther whispered to Quill, "if Nadine Gilmeister could get herself out of those Syracuse malls long enough to do right by the poor man so he didn't have to spend his nights over to the diner, maybe more people would listen to him." Elmer rapped the gavel loudly, and Esther jerked to attention.
"What do you want to do then, Esther? Appoint an understudy?"
"It should be somebody stageworthy. Somebody with presence. And good-looking. The execution is the highlight of The Trial of Goody Martin. It's what everyone comes to see." Esther's eyes glinted behind her elaborately designed glasses. "When the actors pile the stones on the barn door, the audience should be moved to enthusiasm as Clarissa's blood spews out. Most years, as you've observed, the tourists join in."
"Well, they'll more likely laugh if fat ol' Marge is supposed to be under there," said Harland Peterson, the president of the farmer's co-op. A large, weatherbeaten man, Harland drove the sledge that carried "Clarissa Martin" from the pavilion stage to the site of the execution. "No offense, Marge," he said, in hasty response to her outraged grunt. "Now, the ducking stool - that's gonna be just fine. That ol' tractor of mine'll lift you into that pond, no problem. But we get a dummy your size under that barn door, it's gonna stick out a mile. What about Quill, there? She'd be great."
Harvey (The Ad Agency That Adds Value!) Bozzel cleared his throat. "I'd have to agree." His tanned cheeks creased in a golf-pro grin. "Try this one on, folks. 'Quill fills the bill.' "
Quill, who so far had managed to avert Harvey's advertising plans for the Inn (No Whine, Just Fine Wine When You Dine!), said feebly, "I don't really think..."
"I'm not sure that Julie's vomiting is going to continue through next week," said Esther thoughtfully, "but you never know. And of course, the costume is black, and just shows everything."
Myles said, "I move to nominate Sarah Quilliam as understudy for Julie Offenbach."
Quill glared at him.
"I second," said Harland Peterson.
"All in favor?" said Elmer, sweeping the assembly with a glance. "Against?" He registered Marge's, Betty's, and Gil's upraised hands without a blink. "Carried. Quill takes Julie's place as Clarissa Martin, if necessary."
Quill experienced a strong desire to bang her head against the solid edge of the banquet table. This was followed by an even stronger desire to bang Myles McHale's head against the banquet table, since he'd started the whole mess in the first place. She took a deep breath and was preparing to argue, when the Hemlock Inn's business manager, John Raintree, appeared at the door to the Banquet Room.
"Yo, John!" said Gil. "Mighty glad to see you. Sorry I missed our meeting last night. I figured you and Tom could handle any stuff that needed to be decided anyways, and I had some things come up at home."
Esther looked significantly at Quill and mouthed, "Nadine!" Then more audibly, "Poor Gil."
"No problem, Gil," said John easily, "but I won't be able m to get the audit to you until next week."
"That's okay with you, innit, Mark?" Gil wiped a handkerchief over his sweaty neck. "It's not gonna hold up the loan or anything?"
Mark Anthony Jefferson, vice-president of the Hemlock Palls Savings and Loan, tightened his lips. "Why don't we discuss this later, Gil? Your partner should be present anyway, and John's on Quill's time, now."
"Oh, I don't mind," said Quill. "John's moonlighting has never interfered with our business." She looked hopefully at him. "Do you need me, John?"
"Yep."
Quill sprang out of her chair with relief. "I'll be right there. Would you all excuse me? Esther, could you take over the minutes? I'd appreciate it."
Quill made her way swiftly into the hall and closed the door behind her. "Just in the nick of time. I was about to be forced into taking Julie Offenbach's star turn. I have no desire to be dunked and squashed in front of two hundred gawking tourists." She frowned at his glum expression. "Any problems?"
John claimed three-quarters Onondaga blood, whose heritage gave him skin the color of a bronze medallion and hair as thickly black as charred toast. He had an erratic, whimsical sense of humor that Quill found very un-Indian. Not, Quill thought, that she knew all that much about Indians, John in particular. He'd been with them less than a year, and for the first time, the Inn was showing a profit. Despite the money he made between his job at the Inn and his small accounting business, John lived modestly, driving an old car, wearing carefully cleaned suits that were years out of date. He refused to touch alcohol, for reasons tacitly understood between them, and never discussed his personal life. He nodded. "Guest complaint. And one of the waitresses called in sick for the three to eleven shift. Doreen's on vacation this week; otherwise she could pinch-hit. So that means we're short two staff for the dinner trade."
"Did you try the backup list?" John nodded Yes to the phone calls and No to the results. "Exam week for summer session," he said briefly.
"Damn." Most of the summer season help came from near-by Cornell University. "All right. I'll take the shift myself. Unless Meg's short-handed in the kitchen?"
"Not so far."
"And the guest complaint?" She swallowed nervously. "No digestive problems or anything like that? Meg had Caes
ar salad on the menu for lunch, and she just refuses to omit the raw egg."
"Not food poisoning, no. But we'd better comply with the raw egg ban, Quill. We're liable to a fine if we don't."
"I know." Quill bit her thumb. "You tell Meg, will you, John? I mean, I should take care of this guest problem."
"Tell your sister she can't use raw eggs anymore? Not me, Quill. No way. I'd walk three miles over hot coals for you, shave my head bald for you, but I will not tell your sister how to cook."
"John," said Quill, with far more decisiveness than she felt, "you can't be afraid of my sister. She's all of five feet two and a hundred pounds, dripping wet. That makes her a third your size, probably."
"You're half again as tall as she is, and you're afraid of your sister."
"Then you're fired."
"You can't fire me. I quit."
They grinned at each other. "I'll flip you for it," said Quill. John pulled a nickel from his pocket and sent it spinning with a quick snap of his thumb. "Call it."
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