Ground to a Halt

by Claudia Bishop

Quill pushed the rocker into motion. She loved this

  kitchen. Bundles of dried herbs and flowers hung from

  the old oak beams. Meg’s favorite copper-bottomed

  pans swayed above her head as she vigorously chopped

  squash.

  “And it always smells good in here,” she said aloud.

  Meg raised her head and smiled. “It does, doesn’t it?

  So. Kittleburger must have gotten the best of Marge in

  some business deal, or tried to, at least. I can’t think of

  anything else that would make her madder. But I still

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  can’t see how this relates to poor Lila. Although,” she

  paused, the chef’s knife suspended in mid-air, “it says a

  lot about—what she’d call him? Mad Max? I’ll tell you,

  Quill, from what we’re hearing about this guy, it sounds

  as if he could be the number-one suspect based on his

  character alone.”

  “Wait’ll you hear the rest of what she told me.” Quill

  summarized her early morning discussion with Marge.

  “And you’re going to disguise yourself and sneak

  into the trooper barracks?” Meg rolled her eyes. “Good

  luck. Better have Howie Murchison on hand to bail

  you out of the clink.”

  “It’s quite legal,” Quill said. “All of it except taking a

  look at the forensics report.”

  “At least it’ll give us some hard information.” Meg

  dumped a few handfuls of brown sugar into a sauté pan,

  threw in a large spoonful of butter, and turned up the

  Aga. “At the moment, question number one is where is

  Maxwell Kittleburger?”

  Dina shoved open the double doors that led to the

  dining room. Quill took one look at her face and jumped

  out of the rocking chair. “Dina! What’s happened? Are

  you all right?”

  “I’m okay,” she said. “But Mr. Kittleburger isn’t.

  He’s upstairs in his room. And I don’t think he’s going

  to be coming down anytime soon. At least not on his

  own. Somebody’s killed him.”

  CHAPTER 7

  “Great Jumping Jesus,” Doreen said. “I can’t keep maids

  on staff for love nor money. And for why? ’Cause of the

  corpses. You do realize that this Kittle-whosis . . .”

  “Kittleburger,” Quill said glumly.

  “Was in the same room where we found that Mavis

  person ten years ago?”

  Meg scrubbed at her face with both fists. “Mavis

  wasn’t found dead in her room. She was found dead outside her room. Somebody pushed her off the balcony and into the gorge.”

  “Well they mighta had the same consideration for

  Enid’s nerves. Does it matter all that much to a murderer where the body’s laying? Could’a pushed him over the balcony easy as pie instead of laying him out

  on the bed like that.”

  Meg put her head in her hands. They were sitting in

  the dining room. They’d been sitting in the dining room

  since eleven o’clock that morning, when what looked

  like the entire Tompkins County Sheriff’s Department

  descended on the Inn after Quill had called first, the am

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  bulance, and second, Davy Kiddermeister. It was now

  after three o’clock.

  “At least Davy had his head screwed on right for

  once,” Doreen grumbled. “Called the county before that

  trooper Harker could nose in.” She shifted uncomfortably in the cushioned chair Quill had insisted on bringing in for her. Although she fiercely denied it, Doreen had a mean case of arthritis.

  “I don’t know about that,” Meg said. “These guys

  closed the Inn. Harker at least didn’t close us up.”

  “We weren’t a scene of the crime at the time,” Quill

  pointed out.

  Meg got up and crossed the deep blue carpeting to

  the archway that led to the reception area and peered

  around the corner. “There’s only one room up there

  that’s the scene of the crime. So why close up the rest

  of the place?” She crossed back, swinging her arms

  restlessly.

  “We’re not closed, really. Just nobody new in and nobody old out. And the kitchen’s open.”

  Meg sat down and stretched her legs in front of

  her. “So you think the person who killed Lila killed

  him?”

  “I think it was poison. You saw it. The poor guy was

  blue. And he’d thrown up all over . . . never mind. Why

  don’t you give Andy . . . never mind that, either.” Andy

  Bishop, whom Meg had jilted the day of their wedding,

  was rapidly becoming the best-known pediatrician in upstate New York. He was pretty good at poisons, perhaps because little kids tended to stick things in their mouths

  they shouldn’t. “Murderers mostly stick to the same MO,

  don’t they? So I’m not sure of anything right now.”

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  “I’d just like to know how we’re going to get the

  forensics report on this crime,” Meg said in a near

  whisper. “All the guys in the Tompkins County Sheriff’s

  Department love Myles. Do you think . . .” There was

  the rustle of many people coming down the front stairs.

  Quill nudged her silent. “Whoa,” Meg said. “Here they

  all come.”

  The remaining live members of the International Association of Pet Food Providers came into the room one by one.

  Meg lit up with excitement. “Now that we’ve got all

  the suspects in the same room, maybe we can grill the

  guilty party into confessing. Just like Nero Wolfe.”

  Olivia Oberlie led the way. Her caftan today was bright

  pink. “She’s changed her tote, too,” Meg hissed. Little

  Bit, her head hanging over the edge of another brightly

  striped tote, regarded them all with weary forbearance.

  Olivia saw Quill and turned with the slow deliberation of a cruise ship headed into port. The rest trailed after her like so many tugs. One by one they settled at

  the tables around Meg and Quill: Robin and Victoria

  Finnegan, Millard and Priscilla Barnstaple, Pamela

  Durbin and Pookie the Peke, Rudy Baranga, and Olivia

  herself.

  “We are much diminished in number,” Olivia said,

  settling into the chair opposite Quill.

  “I am truly sorry,” Quill said sincerely. “This whole

  experience has been just awful for you.”

  “So I told the investigation officer. Lieutenant

  Provost. Simon, his name is. His headquarters are in

  Ithaca.”

  “The county seat,” Quill said, “yes.”

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  “Did he bug you with a lot of questions?” Meg asked

  innocently.

  “He was, of course, interested in my Prophecy. He’d

  caught the eleven o’clock news last night.” Olivia’s

  turquoise eyes darkened a shade. “I believe he thought I

  may have had a hand in Max’s death. I soon set him

  straight,”

  “You did? Well, that was lucky.” Meg drummed her

  fingers on the table. “So how did you?”

  “How did I what?”

  “Set him straight?”

  “We were all at a meeting at Pamela’s at the time of

  the
murder,” Victoria Finnegan said. She looked at her

  husband with dislike. “Except for Robin. He says he

  was hiking down Hemlock Gorge.”

  “Which can absolutely be verified,” Robin said. He

  ran one skinny, long-fingered hand through his hair,

  which was dirty blond and lank. “I told you. There was

  an informal search party out for a missing camper. I

  walked along with them for a while. There’s at least six

  Cornell co-eds that will swear I was mucking around in

  that bloody stream at nine forty-five this morning.”

  “Nine forty-five?” Quill said, startled. “How in the

  world can the police be that accurate?”

  “He was on his cell phone when he was stuck,” Millard said, “he was always on his cell phone. I gave him article after article about the research they’ve done linking excessive cell phone use and brain tumors, but did he listen to me? No.” He smirked, “Guess he doesn’t

  have to worry about brain tumors now.”

  “Stuck with what?” Meg asked.

  “They don’t know what the poison is as of this mo

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  ment,” Priscilla said crisply. “But they know it was an

  injection because they discovered the syringe in the

  bedclothes. Whatever it was sent him into convulsions.

  It must have been quite unpleasant.” She curled her lip.

  “And you, Millard, might at least make some effort to

  be civilized about this. The man is dead, after all.”

  “The man, as my dear wife so mincingly calls him,

  was a complete jerk.” Millard tossed his head back. His

  ponytail curled like a snake over his left shoulder. “And

  any of you that pretends to grieve can shove it where the

  sun don’t shine.”

  Pamela took a small lace handkerchief from her

  sleeve and began to sob gently into it. “Any death is

  horrible,” she said somewhat indistinctly. “I don’t believe that y’all are as tough as you’re makin’ out.”

  Meg regarded her unsympathetically. “Would you

  like some tea?”

  “I surely would.”

  “I,” Olivia said, “would like a gin. Neat.”

  “Wait a minute.” Quill bit her lip. At 9:45 that morning, Maxwell Kittleburger had been harassing poor Harvey Bozzel. Hadn’t he? Quill rubbed her neck. She

  was starting to get a headache.

  A guy with a potbelly and a bald spot in the middle

  of greasy black hair and chomping a big cigar.

  That described Kittleburger, all right.

  It also described Rudy Baranga. She looked at him.

  He sat with his left ankle balanced on his right knee. He

  winked at her, waved his cigar, and said, “If the bar’s

  open, Nate knows my usual.”

  “I’ll go and tell Nate to send in that Cassie to take the

  orders,” Doreen grumbled. “Maybe that nosy lieutenant

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  will let me go home now. I already answered all of his

  questions.”

  “As far as I know, he wants us here all night,” Millard

  whinnied. “Ha ha. Just kidding! But man, did you all

  look rattled for a second.”

  Doreen said, “t’uh” in disgust and stamped out of

  the room.

  Meg said sunnily, “It was a good thing you were all

  in that meeting together this morning.”

  “Except for Robin,” Priscilla said. Then, in response

  to his look of active dislike, “I like to be accurate.”

  “What sort of meeting was it?” Meg sat relaxed in

  her chair, ankles crossed, arms folded.

  Pamela dabbed at her eyes, folded her handkerchief,

  and put it away. “I called the meeting,” she said. “I was

  hopin’ that the association would kick in more money to

  support the dog and puppy show.”

  “Hm.” Meg accepted this with bright interest. “And

  what did you all decide?”

  “It degenerated into a quarrel over the vegetarian

  movement, as it always does these days,” Priscilla said

  with an expression of distaste.

  “I jus’ don’t know how you people can eat anything

  with a face,” Pamela said hotly. “And how you expect

  our poor dumb friends to do it either is just beyond me.”

  “They are not dumb,” Olivia pronounced solemnly.

  “I didn’t mean dumb like stupid,” Pamela protested.

  “I mean dumb as in they can’t talk.”

  “They talk to me.”

  “Well, the Lesser Beings, then.”

  “Do you all support vegetarian pet food?” Quill

  asked.

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  Priscilla tilted her head in a considering way. “It’s

  much healthier, you realize.”

  “Bullshit,” Rudy said.

  “I don’t like to hear that language used in my presence, Rudy,” Olivia said.

  “Well, get used to it,” he said rudely. He jerked his

  chin at Quill. “You getting the drift of this, cookie?”

  “No,” Quill said. “I don’t understand why it’s such

  an issue.”

  “Some pet owners are concerned about contamination of the food chain,” Victoria said. “Or at least, Pamela here’s been trying to convince them of the

  dangers.”

  Pamela fluttered her false eyelashes against her

  cheek. “In my own small way . . .”

  “In her own small way,” Victoria said with a malicious smile, “Pamela’s been writing her congressman, hiring a lobbyist, sending out articles, trying to get the

  state of New York to ban meat-based pet food. And of

  course with Olivia’s TV show having such influence . . .”

  “It is nothing less than cannibalism,” Olivia pronounced.

  Meg yawned, blinked, and said sorry.

  “You two don’t seem to get what’s at stake here,”

  Victoria said contemptuously. “Max had just contacted

  an investment banking firm, well, actually, I’d contacted

  it for him, to begin the process of going public.”

  “I get what’s at stake here,” Meg said. “I just don’t

  care very much. Quill? I’ve got stuff to do in the

  kitchen.”

  Quill’s attention was on Victoria and she barely acknowledged her sister’s exit. She’d received an exhaus

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  tive lecture from Marge about the advantages of IPOs.

  Initial Public Offerings, that was it. “There’s a lot of

  money in an IPO,” she said intelligently. And a lot

  of money was the best possible motive for murder.

  Victoria gave her a glance of qualified approval.

  “Under certain circumstances, yes, there is. But if the

  circumstances are that the second-highest populated

  state in the union is going to ban meat-based pet food,

  and your company is the third-largest provider of meat-

  based pet food in those same fifty states, the profit

  prospects go way, way down.”

  “Way down,” Priscilla said with a pleased air.

  Victoria smiled thinly. “And of course, Priscilla was

  supporting this, not out of conviction . . .”

  “Vegan Vittles is committed to the healthy minds and

  the healthy bodies of our dogs and cats,” Millard said

  angrily. “You can say what you like about Priscilla . . .�
�

  “Thank you, Millard,” she said dryly

  “. . . but my company is absolutely founded on vegetarian principles. Our furred and feathered friends can get adequate protein from many sources. It doesn’t have

  to be meat.”

  “Of course, there is that lawsuit from the Great Dane

  owner creeping up on you,” Robin said with a sly grin.

  “Bullshit. Capitalist crap,” Millard said heatedly. “If

  the damn dog starved to death it wasn’t because of my

  food.” He added viciously, “You know what we need to

  do here in this U.S. of A.? We need to disbar more of

  your kind.”

  “May I take your order, please?” Cassie said into the

  silence.

  “Nate knows what I drink,” Rudy said instantly.

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  “I’ll have a martini,” Victoria said. “Now, Quill,

  you’re missing the most important piece of information

  here, because, of course, it’s about money. It’s always

  about the money.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Quill, said.

  “I beg your pardon?” Victoria, startled out of her

  self-congratulatory rant, looked at Quill directly for the

  first time that day.

  “I said it’s not always about the money.”

  “Listen to the woman, Vic,” Robin said meanly.

  “Might make a human being of you yet.”

  “Shut up, Robin,” she said pleasantly. “At any rate,

  Priscilla here has been trying to buy Pet Pro for

  months, now.”

  “Two months,” Priscilla said. “Vegan Vittles needs

  Pet Pro’s manufacturing capacity.”

  “And anything that keeps the price down is just fine

  with her.” Victoria leaned over and scrabbled in her

  purse. “Can I smoke in here?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Quill said.

  “He’s got a cigar.” She nodded at Rudy without looking at him.

  “It ain’t lit,” Rudy said.

  “Then I’m going outside for a minute. Can I go

  through the kitchen?”

  “Sorry,” Quill said, who didn’t feel sorry at all. “New

  York State says no.”

  Victoria walked to the archway with quick, nervous

  strides, turned right, and disappeared.

  “Was Pet Pro actually for sale?” Quill asked

  Priscilla. “Or were you making an unsolicited offer?”

  “With Max it was all about the money. He was either

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  going to take it public or sell it to me. If somebody