A Touch of the Grape: A Hemlock Falls Mystery (Hemlock Falls Mystery series) (11 page)

"Point taken."

"What I do know is that this winegrowers' union will
radically change the way we do business. So I don't know if we should leap at it. And I certainly don't see
it as our salvation. Not yet. And there's something else."

"Ah."

"What do you mean, ah?" Quill said crossly.

"I mean all of these objections have sounded vague. No facts. Just feelings."

"You should have heard Selena's speech. The facts were there, all right, but no one knew what she meant until Elmer got up and explained. She said she doesn't have the kind of brain that retains them. Her brain is more feminine, she said."

"Oh, baloney! It's work to pin things down, Quill. And just like somebody else I know, Selena's a leetle lazy intellectually."

"Are you accusing
me
of being intellectually lazy?"

"Heavens, no."

Quill, who was tired, chose to let this pass. It was too late (and Meg was probably too right) to go into her character deficits.

Meg stretched her legs onto the oak chest Quill used as a coffee table. "Anyway. It sounds like an incredible opportunity to me. Just when we're really down on our uppers, along comes this fabulous idea to get tourist trade into a sinking economy. I mean, face it, Quill. Upstate New York probably wasn't the best choice to open a business. The taxes are intolerable. John's been telling us for a year that we simply can't afford to operate. Do you realize that if we were running this business in a state without a state income tax that we would have enough cash to keep John on at a livable salary? That if we didn't have to pay almost twenty thousand a YEAR in worker's compensation taxes we could keep Dina on full-time and she could finish her dissertation?!"

Quill gazed at her, openmouthed. "When did you retain all this? Business never interested you!"

"I haven't been completely deaf to John's warnings.
Look,
all I'm saying is that your life's work is in this place. I don't want to see it go down the tubes any more than you do."

"You'll put Summerhill port in the cellar? Their table
red on the wine list?"

Meg was pale, but her voice was steady. "I don't think it will come to that. I think it's negotiable. A lot
depends on how this meeting goes tomorrow. If it looks
like we're going to be railroaded into compromises we can't make in good conscience, then we'll just kiss that
grant money good-bye and find our way out of this mess
some other way. But we can do it. Quill.
We can do it!!"

Quill tried not to look as sour as she felt. "You're right."

"Right? I'm inspired. You call Selena right now and set up a meeting for us tomorrow, before that person from Albany talks to the town. We want to have our ideas about the Summerhill Inn at Hemlock Falls Axis lined up and ready to roll when the politico asks his questions."

"What axis are you talking about?"

"Gourmet dinners and winery tours? Are you kidding? It's political power, Quill. It's that axis."

"The Axis powers lost the war."

"Pooh! If we work together, I can plan menus that'll draw the gods from Olympus. I can cook dinners that will make almost anyone forget about the taste of New York reds. Go on. Quill. Call Selena now. Take her up on her offer to work together. It doesn't have to be formal—tell her we'll meet her just before the noon meeting for the public."

Quill hesitated. "Are you sure?"

"Positive. Come on, sweetie. This whole week has been a big depressing mess for you. I mean, you're so bummed you even adopted an ugly dog. You have to cheer up before we end up with a menagerie. Call Selena, Quill. It's going to be fun."

Not certain as to how much of this enthusiasm was forced, and how much was genuine, Quill gave up. She looked up Summerhill Winery's number, talked to Hugh, and arranged a "preliminary discussion of possible joint plans" for eleven the next morning.

Quill hung up and chuckled. "He may be 'her Hugh,' Meg, but boy is he stuffy."

"Are we on?"

"We're on." She looked at Meg intently. "Meggie. Tell me something. How come you've got all this information about taxes and worker's comp on the brain anyway?"

"Because I've been listening to John for the past six months even if you think I haven't. I know what's going on, Quill, even if you think I don't"

"You do, huh?"

Meg sprang to her feet. "Forget it. All I want to know before I go to bed is why you aren't jumping for joy that the cavalry's coming over the hill with reinforcements."

"Because," Quill said slowly.

"Because? That's it? Because?"

"It's too pat. You realize that everyone in town knows we've been in trouble?"

"I suppose."

"The insurance policy business …"

"Where you 'forgot' to tell John you'd written those checks on the business account, and the premium check bounced? Yeah."

"I did forget," Quill said weakly. "And if I have to say I'm sorry one more time I'm going to throw a fit of hysterics you wouldn't believe."

"Okay, okay, okay. I'm sorry. So, everyone in town knows that we were about to be uninsured …"

"I mean, we bank here, and the insurance policy that
was canceled was from the Peterson Agency, which is right on Main Street next to—" Quill stopped.

"Next to what?"

"Marge's diner," Quill said slowly. "Don't you think it's just a little bit coincidental that the fire occurred the day the policy lapsed?" she asked, after a moment.

"Ol' Sock-it-to-me Burke certainly seems to think so," Meg said.

"Well, I think so, too. I think someone is trying to put us out of business."

"You inhaled too much smoke last night."

"Think about it, Meg. Everyone knew we were in the
middle of turning that suite into two rooms so we could get a little more income. The remodeling hadn't started, but we weren't booking anyone into that room. Until I took Ellen Dunbarton and her friends on that tour, and she loved the view, and asked to sleep in it at the very last minute, and if I hadn't said fine, she'd still be alive." Quill put her hand to her eyes for a moment.
Meg patted her knee. "Anyhow. For all the world knew,
that suite was empty. I tell you what I think, Meg. I think that somebody torched that room on purpose. Without knowing anyone was in it, to be perfectly fair. But I think someone wants to buy us out. Force us to the wall. Get us to the point where we can't afford to go on anymore."

"And who is this mysterious someone?"

Quill couldn't say it. Not even to her sister. But she thought it. Unworthy, nasty, spiteful, unjustified as it was, she thought it.

Marge Schmidt.

Quill woke early to sunlight flooding her bedroom and a deadweight at her feet. She lay motionless for a moment, then wiggled her toes under the blanket. The weight shifted, rolled, then thumped to the floor. "You," she said to the dog.

He approached the bed cautiously, head down, tail waving frantically. He nudged her hand with his head,
then leaped away. He smelled awful, a combination of
smoke, mud, and unwashed dog.

Quill sat up. "How are you getting in?"

He went to the bedroom door, barked once, then looked appealingly over his shoulder.

"I take it there were no alarms in the night, or you would have licked my face off."

He sat down with a sudden, exhausted movement and
put his head between his paws. His days in the wilds of
Hemlock Falls were doing nothing for his looks. He was
dirtier than ever, and there were bare spots on his sides.
She looked at the bedside clock: six o'clock, and the sun was already well over the horizon. Hooray for May. She
loved it when the days got longer. She supposed she could sneak into the kitchen and get the dog something
to eat. Unless she had something appropriate in her little
refrigerator. She mentally reviewed the contents: white wine, some cheese, eggs, and skim milk. And a loaf of Meg's rye bread.

"Bread and milk, boy?" She supposed she'd have to think of a name. With his pendulous lower lip, grizzled whiskers, and slyly mischievous expression, he looked a little like a sketch of Max Beerbohm she'd seen in the Oak Room at the Algonquin. "Max?" she said.

"Woof."

"Come on. Max. Food, and then maybe a bath."

She threw on her oldest pair of jeans, a T-shirt she used to paint in, and pulled an old pair of tennis shoes over her bare feet. Max followed her downstairs. When
she reached the foyer, he turned left, to go down the hall
to the Tavern Bar. Curious, she went after him.

The Tavern was quiet, deserted, smelling faintly of
smoke—the cigarette kind rather than the fire. The only places that had been affected by the conflagration of two nights ago were the second and third floors. Max headed
directly for the long bank of windows facing the vegetable gardens. He crawled under the small round table set into the corner and disappeared from view. Quill crouched down and went after him. Max was a large dog. At his normal weight, he'd be close to her own of 120. Any hole he could go in and out of, she could, too.

Max had been getting in and out through a loose bottom windowpane. Quill poked experimentally at the
crumbling wood and groaned. More repairs. More bills.
And this expense could have been prevented. At some point in the Inn's history, this side of the building had housed a conservatory, and Quill had insisted that they
leave the charming roof-to-foundation windows in place when she and Meg had done renovations eight years ago. The contractor had warned her the frames would rot out,
and he'd been right.

She crawled out the opening and into the damp morning air. Max barked happily at her. "You didn't pull this
away by yourself, did you. Max?" She took a close look at the wood. Someone—and she didn't believe it was Max, had pushed the frame in from the outside; the
newly splintered wood around the frame pointed into the
room, not out. And the damage was recent.

Quill stood up. This entire side of the building would
be in full view of anyone walking the grounds or work
ing among the raised beds. She could see the garden shed from here, and the whole length of the path winding around this side of the house. No trees, no high shrubs. And no floodlights. The outside lighting was all at the front of the Inn, not back here where there was nothing in particular to see. So whoever had broken in had done it at night. And within the last forty-eight hours. The floor beneath the table had been dry; there
had been no rain yesterday. Quill got down on her hands
and knees and examined the frame closely again. She found a scrap of reddish-gold hair (her own), tufts of dirty brown fur (which explained the bare spots on Max's side), and a bottle cap, pierced through the middle. She'd seen that bottle cap before. "Ellen Dunbarton," she said to Max. "Now why in the heck would
Ellen Dunbarton be crawling into the Inn at night? Why
didn't she just ring? Because whoever let her in would know she'd been out, that's why. But who would care?
Unless somebody here was suspicious of her already?
Because she didn't want anyone to know she'd been out?"

Max, who had been following this monologue with
upright ears and a puzzled expression, barked loudly.
"Shh, Max. You'll wake everyone up. Whisper, Max,
whisper."

"Woof," Max said in a very small voice.

Quill was absurdly delighted with her first foray into dog training. She crouched and ruffled his ears. "C'mon, Max. Let's go get you some food. Breakfast, Max, breakfast."

Since the Inn was still locked for the night, she crawled back in the way she'd come out. Max wriggled through behind her, and together they went to the
kitchen. Quill rummaged through the Zero King, giving
Max a running commentary of the contents. "Well, there's some leftover chicken liver pate, but not much. Meg uses one part butter to one part chicken liver, did you know that. Max? Guaranteed to give you a major heart attack. And the cognac in it will make you sneeze. Let's see. Well, there's rice, Max. Which is supposed to be good for a dog in your condition, which, if you'll pardon me, is perfectly awful. How would you like it if I beat up a couple of eggs in the rice, and later we go down to Nicholson's and pick up some real dog food. Something healthy."

"So you've named him," John said. "I told you that was the beginning of the end."

Quill whirled, startled. He was dressed in a three-piece suit, and he was freshly shaved. She caught the faint drift of shampoo. "I hardly recognized you."

He spread his hands in a deprecatory way. "I've got a meeting at ten."

"In Syracuse?"

"Long Island."

Dismayed, Quill said, "So soon?"

"Waiting isn't going to help. Quill."

"But we haven't even had time to say good-bye. Oh, my, that sounds like a bad Country Western ballad, doesn't it? What I meant is that I haven't had time to adjust to this, John. You're part of the Inn for me."

"Like the furniture?"