A Puree of Poison

by Claudia Bishop

  Myles was across the floor to the front door in three strides. He opened it to a parking lot suddenly packed with vehicles. The cars and trucks disgorged men, their faces shadowy in the uncertain light cast by sodium lights. The three Japanese became very still. Quill started after Myles and was stopped by Meg’s urgent hand on her arm.

  “Quill, it’s a mob!” Her voice was astounded.

  “It’s a what?!”

  “A mob. M-O-B. As in a large group of pissed-off citizens, mostly male, from the looks of it, ready to lynch somebody. Most likely poor Mr. Motoyama there, and all because he’s Japanese. My God! I was just trying to snap you out of your lousy mood before. I couldn’t have been right. A racist mob in Hemlock Falls!”

  “That’s absurd!” Quill protested.

  “Sher’f!” came a shout from the parking lot. “Bring that Jap on out!” Myles jerked his head at Dave Kiddermeister, stepped outside, and shut the door behind him.

  “My God,” said Quill.”It is a mob.” To her own amazement, she gulped.”You stay here, Meg, out of sight.”

  “Where the heck do you think you’re going?”

  “Out to help Myles.”

  “No, ma’am.” Dave Kiddermeister, a little pale around his ears and nose, hooked his thumbs in his regulation leather belt. His attempt at official cool was somewhat undermined by his trembling chin. “Myles said to put you all in the lockup, just for safety.”

  “He said no such thing!” Meg glared at him. “Put the Sakuras in the lockup, if you want to, but we’re going out there.”

  “No, ma’am, that’s not part of riot-control procedure.”,

  “The heck with riot-control procedure.”

  Quill pulled the door open and stepped outside, Meg at her heels. Myles looked very tall against the crowd of men facing him. He stood easily, balanced on the balls of his feet, hands at rest against his sides.

  Meg began a nearly inaudible version of the theme from High Noon. “ ‘Do not forsake me, oh, my darlin ...’ “

  “Shut up,” Quill hissed.

  “ ‘On this our weddin’ da-a-ay,’ “ Meg hummed, several decibels lower.

  “Meg!” Quill’s whisper was furious.

  “You know I always sing when I’m nervous,” Meg hissed back. “Besides, it diffuses the tension.”

  “Try giggling if you want to diffuse tension. What’s wrong with a nervous giggle?”

  “It makes me more nervous. And right now, I’m scared out of my tree.” She resumed her tuneless hum.

  “Well, gentlemen?” Myles didn’t raise his voice, but it carried in the humid night air.

  An ominous shifting of many feet, a low-voiced muttering: “We want that Jap.”

  Quill’s bare arms prickled with gooseflesh.

  “Elmer. Harland.” Myles picked the men easily out of the crowd. “You men have some questions I can answer? Mayor? You have something to say, step out here in the light. Where I can see you.”

  There was a short, significant hesitation, followed by a sort of ripple in the thick of the crowd and subdued cries of “G’wan out there!”

  “Leggo!”

  “You chicken?”

  “I’m going, durn it.”

  Elmer Henry’s tubby figure emerged from the clustered group, the collar of his shirt rucked up around his neck.

  “Adela sees that shirt, you’ll get what for,” Myles observed.

  As always, the mention of his formidable wife’s name made Elmer jump.

  Myles smiled a little. “Now what’s this in aid of, this meeting?”

  “We demand to see that Jap.” The anonymous voice came from somewhere behind a battered blue van.

  Elmer directed a tremendous frown in the van’s direction, then cleared his throat twice. “Yes, Sheriff. That Mr. Sakra? He as rich as they say?”

  Myles nodded.

  “Like, a billionaire?”

  “So I’m told. You thinking of holding him for ransom?”

  “Well, it’s like this. We were having a little informal meetin’ at the Croh Bar, just the fellas here, and we started talking about that mall project. And the unwanted publicity. Yes, unwanted publicity.”

  “From Mrs. Conway’s death?”

  “What? That? Yeah. That and other unwanted publicity. Of any kind. And we thought as how—”

  The voice from beyond the blue van came in a belligerent shout: “We wanna see—”

  “Pete,” Myles interrupted. “Come out of there.”

  The van, Quill now realized, belonged to Peterson’s Septic and Floor Covering. Petey Peterson himself, as broad as his cousin Harland, and as indefatigable as a rusty set of box springs, edged reluctantly into view.

  “Ms. Quilliam?” Petey touched his billed John Deere hat. “Them terlits working okay?”

  “Just fine,” said Quill, a little huskily, “thank you.”

  Meg straightened herself to all five feet two of her inches and shouted suddenly, “So, Petey. You want to see Mr. Sakura? You and forty of your liquored-up buddies? Hah! Well, you can’t, see? Before you do, you’ll have to go through him”—she jerked her thumb at Myles—”and my sister. Got that?!”

  “What about you?” Quill muttered.

  “What d’you mean, what about me?”

  “They just have to go through the two of us?”

  “Yankee go home!” Meg shouted.

  “Uh, Meg—” said Quill.

  “You mean you already got to him?” said Petey a little desperately. “He bought your shares in the mini-mall project already? He don’t wanna buy any more?”

  Meg, who had swung into the “lookit that big hand move along” chorus of High Noon at the threatening level of a mosquito whine, stopped humming abruptly and said in a normal voice, “You want to make a deal with Mr. Sakura to buy out your shares of the mini-mall?” - “Yes, ma’am.” Petey touched his hat in what was apparently a nervous reflex. “Rich as Jesus, this guy, right?”

  “Croesus,” Meg corrected. “This isn’t a mob hunting justice?”

  “A what, ma’am?”

  “No attempts at lynching an innocent foreigner because of the color of his skin?”

  “Ma’am?”

  “You mean this is just a mob over a merger!?”

  “Meg, darn it!” Quill cast an exasperated look at Myles, who jerked his thumb toward her Oldsmobile. “We’re going home.”

  “Tell you what, Petey,” said Mayor Henry. “Maybe we can talk to this Mr. Saicra at the party tomorrow night. Is he invited, too, Quill?”

  “The party?” repeated Quill a little stupidly.

  “Chamber’s looking forward to it. Thing is, if he’s gonna be there, we wait a bit to discuss bidness. That all right with you, Sher’f?”

  “The Chamber’s coming to the party?”

  Meg started to laugh.

  Quill looked at Myles out of the corner of her eye. “Meg. It’s time to leave.”

  “Hoo!” Meg said.

  “Meg!” Quill grabbed her sister firmly by the sleeve and pulled her through the crowd to her Oldsmobile. “Say goodbye, Meg.”

  “Goodbye, Meg!” Her face pink with suppressed giggles, Meg waved farewell, trailing a final “waaaaittt, waaaiit along ...” as Quill squealed an illegal right turn at the red light.

  “They’re all going to think you’re crazy,” said Quill back in the kitchen. “Or drunk.” She’d scooped up her phone messages from the front desk as they’d come in, and was separating them into two piles: return immediately and get-to-it-eventually.

  “Well, I’m neither. Did you ever think about the total usefulness of country-western music, Quillie? I mean, there’s a song for every emotional crisis known to the human heart. This is an insight.”

  “Who cares?” asked Quill callously. “There are three calls here from Hedrick Conway.”

  “Maybe he wants a date,” said Meg flippantly. “Can you believe that Ken Sakura? Wow!”

  Quill held Hedrick’s messages over the get-to-it eventually
file, “Oh, damn, I’d better call. It’s probably about his poor mother.” She crumpled the paper and went to the phone at Meg’s recipe station.

  “Ask him to the party tomorrow.”

  “Oh, right. With the entire Chamber of Commerce there, petrified he’s going to expose some pathetic little secret? Not to mention the fact that he’d insult Mr. Sakura, or something. Besides, even Hedrick wouldn’t show up at a party just two days after his mother died.”

  She dialed. He picked up with a careless “Yeah” on the third ring.

  “Mr. Conway? This is Sarah Quilliam. I’d like to say how very sorry I am over your mother’s ... um... passing.”

  “She will be missed,” he said, breathing through his nose. “Sadly missed.”

  “The ... um ... observances? They’re scheduled soon?”

  “The funeral, ya mean? You gotta talk to Carlyle. She handles all that.”

  “Well, if there’s anything we can do, please let us know.”

  “About what?”

  “About your mother’s, um, passing.”

  “Oh. No. No. Casket. Grave. Not much to it. Although she will be missed.”

  There was a prolonged silence. Quill dropped the pink slips into the garbage bin. “I’m sorry to call so late, but I noticed that’d you left a couple of messages for me.”

  “Yeah. I did. About this party tomorrow night. I didn’t get the time.”

  “The time?”

  “Yeah. What time’s the party going to be? I gotta arrange coverage. There’s no telling what kind of news day it’s going to be, so I can’t promise I’ll be there myself—people gotta get used to that, around here. They think they’re gonna get my personal attention, they got another think coming. But Carlyle will be there with Sheriff McHale.”

  “Indeed,” said Quill icily. “How nice.”

  “So when is it?”

  “Seven,” said Quill. “Seven o’clock.”

  “Dress?”

  “Oh, is Carlyle planning on wearing clothes?” asked Quill sweetly. “I mean, especially? It’s white tie.”

  “White tie!” shrieked Meg.

  Quill covered the receiver with one hand and glared at her.

  “Got it,” Hedrick said into her ear and hung up with the careless bang of a busy man.

  “What!” Meg demanded. “White tie? Are you crazy? That’s gloves and floor-length and colored stones.”

  “Huh,” said Quill.

  “She’ll be so embarrassed, she’ll go home,” said Meg thoughtfully.

  “Maybe.”

  “Even Hedrick will be embarrassed and go home. And how are we supposed to swipe the goods book if he’s not there?”

  “We’ll create,” said Quill, “a diversion.”

  “Like the diversion we had tonight? Thank God Myles stopped it.”

  “Stopped what?! A bunch of guys storming the sheriffs station over a business deal? You made a complete and utter bozo of yourself. And if it weren’t for me, it would have been even more complete.”

  “You mean you didn’t notice?”

  “Notice what?”

  “Quill, dammit. Marcos DeMarco was there with three of the guys from the site. In the shadows, behind Petey’s van. Myles saw them, too. They had guns.”

  CHAPTER 8

  “Meg said they had guns.” Quill, behind the desk in her office, fiddled nervously with her paper cutter. The windows were open to the sweet summer air; lavender mingled with the scent of August lilies and the air was as soft as bathwater. It was just after nine o’clock. She and John were waiting for Doreen and Meg to start the weekly staff meeting.

  “But you didn’t see them?”

  “I was so flipped out by her behavior that I wouldn’t have seen Godzilla flattening the Town Hall.”

  “But as far as you know, the incident’s closed. Nobody harmed the Sakuras, and Motoyama’s out of jail.”

  “Mr. Motoyama is, yes. I think they’re all back in the suite, including Ken—that is, Mr. Sakura.”

  “The art critic.”

  “It does not make a particle of difference to me what he is,” said Quill.

  John looked at her.

  Quill had spent a restless night. She had dreamed her paints had been locked away and that she’d lost the key. She’d dreamed she was lost. She’d wakened to a bed without Myles, and wakened crying. “About the guns.”

  “I don’t know about the guns. It’s odd, certainly.”

  “Guns in the Falls. John. What’s going on? Do you think there’s something criminal about the mall project? Louisa was out there with a camera. What if she found out that...” She trailed off. Her mind was foggy. She was tired. She focused on the job at hand with an effort.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I’m worried about the investment. About the employees. We talked them all into subsidizing part of the project with payroll deductions. And Meg’s savings, too. And mine, and yours, I guess. We’d been doing so well.”

  “We’d been doing very well. Which is why we put that three hundred thousand into the mini-mall. And which is why we’re cash-short at the moment. We’re watching expenses, remember? Now, I’d like to talk about this party tonight.”

  Quill, who’d forgotten to tell John about the mysterious increase in party attendance, said hastily, “I remember the days when three hundred thousand dollars seemed like a fortune. Six of my friends in SoHo could have lived on that for five years, each.” She felt wistful. “And buy paints and canvas with it, too.”

  “Well, look forward to the time when you and Meg will be retired. That’s your pension fund. Three hundred K may seem like a lot of money now, but it won’t when you’re ready to retire.”

  She reached across the desk and took his hand. “You’re so good to us, John. We’re feckless, Meg and I. Feckless. Without you, we’d be up the creek for certain.”

  “Without me, you might have invested that cash into certificates of deposit. Which is maybe where it should be.”

  “You’re not really worried about the mini-mall investment, are you?”

  He rose from the couch and went to the window. The buzz of the lawn mower reached them, one of the comforting sounds of summer. “Yeah,” he said after a long moment. “I am.”

  “What makes you think that there could be something wrong with our investment? I know why I think that.. . but it’s no more than a feeling. An intuition. Well, an intuition based partly on the fact that there’s been a murder, and that the out-of-town construction crew was lurking around the sheriff’s office with weapons last night. Myles always discounts intuition in an investigation. He says that you have to stick to facts. I have this horrible feeling that the mayor and Howie and Harvey are involved. All I’ve really got to go on is the reaction of some of the Chamber members to the latest edition of the Trumpet! Goodness knows I could be imagining it.”

  John rubbed the back of his neck. “I have to admit you’ve got a point. You know what’s bothering me most? I don’t know anyone from the work crews. The construction company that has the bid for completion is from New Jersey, so I’d expect the foreman and the supervisors to be from out of town—but they brought all the workers with them. Not one’s from Hemlock Falls.”

  “We didn’t do a what-d’y-call it—background check on the low bidder, did we?”

  “Of course we did. DeMarco seemed to check out. He posted a bond, his bank gave us the go-ahead, and he gave us photos and letters of reference from various jobs he said he’d done before. But we never personally talked to anyone who actually dealt with the company before. Letters and photos can be faked. And his bank’s a small, privately owned one, which means he could have a lot of influence over the kind of information released to us.”

  “But construction’s going well. All the deadlines have been met. And the mall itself looks wonderful, John. I didn’t look at progress yesterday, of course, because of the tragedy, but I’d been down to see it the week before— everyone who’s invested ha
s dropped by. It’s terrific. It’s beautiful. So, maybe I’m just imagining things.”

  John shrugged. “There was a murder. You didn’t imagine that.”

  “Yes,” said Quill. “Have you talked to Myles about this?”

  “Myles talked to me about this. He’s the one that noticed the work crew. He’s been doing some checking on his own.”

  “And?”

  “It’s inconclusive.”

  “Inconclusive? What do you mean, inconclusive?”

  “Quill, you know how he feels about you and Meg mixing into these kinds of things. You’re both civilians.”

  “You’re a civilian, too!”

  “That’s true. But I don’t spy on Inn guests, which is a misdemeanor, by the way—”

  “It was surveillance!” said Quill. “On the Parker case. And we only did it once.”

  John grinned. “And I haven’t hung out my shingle—if only metaphorically—as one half of a private detective team, and I don’t go breaking and entering every chance I get.”

  “Now, wait just a second, John Raintree. You most certainly have contributed to the sort of mild bending of little laws that Meg and I occasionally—occasionally—engage in.”

  “I helped once. Under extreme provocation.”

  “I also know precisely what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to divert my attention from what Myles may or may not have found out about crimes at the mini-mall by laying down red herrings to make me forget it. Between you trying to keep me off this case, and Meg trying to keep me on it, I think I’m just going to go to Detroit.”

  “Detroit?”

  “Detroit,” said Quill firmly. “Nobody who knows the least little thing about me would ever dream that I would go to Detroit. Which means I couldn’t be found, which would suit me just fine at the moment.”

  “That little depression hasn’t lifted?”

  “I am not depressed, thank you very much. Now. What’s Myles discovered?”

  John hesitated. “I really can’t say, Quill.”

  “You ‘can’t say’ to me!? Your partner in crime heretofore? And, dare I say it, your boss! If you don’t deliver the goods, Raintree, you’re fired.”

  “You can’t fire me, I quit.”