A Carol for a Corpse (12 page)

“His next suggestion was that we buy in bulk.”

“Bulk? We already buy in bulk. Toilet paper, tissue paper, dishwashing powder. We buy all that in bulk.”

“We don’t buy food in bulk.”

Meg shook her head and laughed. “No, no, no, no, no.” “He thinks we should . . .”

“. . . Sure, I get it. Buy sides of beef and freeze them. Whole hogs. Those liquid eggs. I know what you’re talking about.” Meg took another sip of wine and winked. “He’s an idiot. He’s a dope. He just doesn’t get it. No, no. No. No. No.”

“Meg, you don’t understand the power this guy seems to have. If we don’t take at least some of these recommendations to heart, he’ll tell the bank to call the loan. And then we’ll be in the soup. I suppose we can borrow against the lease that we have with the Kingsfields, but the interest rates would be ruinous.”

“No, no, no, no, no.” Meg patted Quill on the knee, and kept on patting. “The Inn at Hemlock Falls is famous for the quality of its food. The fineness of its linens . . .”

“. . . And that’s another thing,” Quill said. “No more six-hundred-count sheets.”

“. . . the excellence of its chef. Nope. This guy doesn’t get it. It’s not possible. No, no, no, no, no.”

“I had hoped,” Quill snapped, “that you’d have more constructive comments than ‘no, no, no, no, no.’ And
stop
patting my knee!”

“I
do
have a constructive comment. It’s more than a constructive comment. It’s a solution! Wait here.” Meg heaved herself up from the couch with an “oof” and disappeared into her bedroom. She reappeared moments later with a pistol.

Quill felt all the air rush out of her lungs. When she did speak, it was in a whisper. “Where did you get that thing?”

“It’s a paintball pistol!” Meg said gleefully. “A little teeny derringer that shoots little balls of paint! Jerry Grimsby gave it to me as a Columbus Day present.”

“A Colum . . . a what . . . a . . . Meg!” Quill clapped her hand over her mouth. Then she said, very quietly, “You’re the Christmas vandal! You’ve been shooting inflatable Christmas ornaments all over Hemlock Falls!”

“I hate those inflatable thingies. But who says I’m the Christmas vandal? It could be one of
hundreds
of right-thinking people.” She waved the gun, steadied, and pointed at the wall.

Quill yelled, “Don’t shoot!”

A large splotch of orange paint knocked the clock off the mantel, and then dribbled down the brick.

“Pow!” Meg said. She swiveled the gun around.

Before she could change her drapes from cream to orange, Quill wrestled the little pistol away from her. “Jerry Grimsby has a lot to answer for.”

“Jerry Grimsby,” Meg said dreamily, “is my sweet patootie.” She opened her eyes and said, “So that’s what we’ll do to McWhirter. We’ll turn the bugger orange. Or purple.”

“What a good idea,” Quill said cordially. Meg reached for the gun and Quill, who was at least four inches taller than her sister, kept it out of reach. “Oh, no, you don’t. I think I’ll keep this with me.”

“I think you won’t. Give it back.”

“You promise not to shoot Mr. McWhirter?”

“No.”

“You promise not to shoot Mr. McWhirter tonight?”

“Yes.”

Quill gave her the pistol. “Good night, Meg.”

“G’night, Quill.”

“Good grief, Myles,” she said into the phone some half hour later. “What am I going to do?”

“Is anybody dead?”

“Nope. Nobody’s dead.”

“Then it’ll wait until I get home.”

“You are coming home for Christmas?”

“I’ll do my best, my love. You know that.”

“I do know that. I love you, Myles.”

“I love you, Quill.” He paused. Quill was sure she could hear the sounds of gunfire in the distance. She bit her lip to keep from asking him where he was. She knew he couldn’t tell her until he did return to Hemlock Falls, and then it would be information for her ears alone. “Quill. You will keep that paintball gun out of your sister’s clutches?”

“I will.”

“And get that ulcer looked at.” There was a world of amusement in his voice. “If it is an ulcer. You could always try Maalox.”

“I put a call in to Andy Bishop. He says it sounds like the start of an ulcer. Maybe.” Actually, Andy, too, had advised Maalox, which made Quill feel quite old and subsequently, quite cross. She patted her stomach. “Myles? If you’re on your way home, I’m feeling better already.”

Zeke Kingsfield slapped his hand on the table and said loudly, “There’s nothing like an early morning cross-country run to set up the appetite.”

“You enjoyed the skiing, then?” Quill moved the small tray containing the raw sugar and the brandied raisins closer to his bowl of oatmeal.

“It’s quite beautiful out there over the gorge,” Lydia said. “The view from the crest is fabulous. Just fabulous. I don’t know how you stay in business with that beautiful hotel perched right on the river. I hear it’s doing quite well?”

“Very well,” Quill said. “There were some problems at first, but I understand they’re running close to full capacity now.”

“Shame about that little trailer park downriver, though,” Lydia said. “Quite spoils that wonderful view. Don’t you think?”

“It’s affordable housing,” Quill said, trying hard not to sound defensive. “And the residents keep the grounds up. Several of our housekeeping staff live there.”

Lydia looked at her husband and smiled in a secretive way. “Do they? Now, Quill, do tell me why it took you so long to decide to fix up that cross-country trail.”

Quill shrugged. “No real reason, I guess. Although we did think that it might attract guests in the winter. We put the run in last year. The property extends for some way down the gorge, and it’s really lovely out there any time of year. But especially in the winter, I think.”

“It’s supposed to snow later this afternoon and tonight,” Lydia said. “If the forecast’s reliable, that is. The trail could use another couple of inches.” She frowned at the raw sugar and dumped several spoonfuls of wild blueberries into her yogurt. “How many miles did you lay out?”

“You saw how twisty it is,” Quill said. “Our land runs to about half a mile, but Mike was very clever about the design. There are two trails. One goes by the gorge. That’s a mile round-trip. The course you took this morning is three miles one way.” She looked at Lydia with unfeigned admiration. “And a lot of it’s uphill. If you both got around that at six o’clock in the morning, I’m truly impressed.”

Zeke leaned over and smiled into her eyes. “You want to be truly impressed, you should take a little trip with
me
this morning.”

Quill drew back a little. Zeke smelled of soap, toothpaste, and a men’s scent so expensive she had no idea what it was called, although it’d been in the air at the men’s counter at Bergdorf’s the last time she was in New York City. “Thank you, Zeke. But I have a pretty full schedule this morning.”

“Cancel whatever it is,” Lydia advised. “You have people, don’t you?”

“People?”

“People to take care of whatever.”

Not if Mr. McWhirter has his way. Aloud, Quill said, “Maybe another time.”

Zeke scowled and hunched a little closer. If she backed up any further, she’d be in the lap of the couple at the adjacent table. “My guess is there’s been a few rumors about the old Zekester floating around town.”

“A few,” Quill admitted.

“Then you’ll be one of the first to know.” His eyes narrowed in an assessing way. After a long moment, he leaned back and said casually, “It’s big, Quill. What I’m planning is big. And it’s going to affect every single person in the town of Hemlock Falls.”

“I see,” Quill said coolly. “And this—big—plan is to be announced at the special meeting of the Chamber tomorrow afternoon, I take it.”

He struck the table with the flat of his hand and shouted, “Yes! So, you ready to rock and roll?”

“Let me take care of a few things first. I’ll meet you at the front door in twenty minutes?”

“Make it ten. I’ll have the car brought up.”

Quill turned to Lydia. “And you’ll be coming with us?”

“Not a chance. They’re bringing in your new kitchen this morning. I want to be ready to start this shoot this afternoon.”

“This afternoon?” Quill said, astonished.

Lydia folded her napkin and rose. “It’s all in the organization, dear. See you at lunch? There are a few things about the Christmas decorations we need to discuss.”

“Certainly.” Quill’s spirits, which hadn’t been all that high to begin with, sank a little lower. “About one o’clock?”

“See you then!”

Quill excused herself, promising to be at the Inn’s front door in ten minutes’ time, and escaped to her office. She left a note for Dina and a message on Meg’s cell phone, and rescheduled a meeting with Jinny Peterson, who had another job candidate to interview. An impatient horn sounded outside her office window. She went to the window and drew the drape aside. A large limo idled in the circular driveway. Zeke must have rented one from Ithaca. Quill sighed, pulled on her wool coat, wrapped her muffler around her neck, and promised herself no matter what, she wouldn’t give in to the temptation to smack the Hammer right over the ear.

“Sorry about the fact it’s a Cadillac,” Zeke said as the chauffeur settled her into the passenger seat opposite him. “We’re too far upstate to have easy access to a Bentley.”

He was perfectly serious. Quill looked at the rosewood bar, the Bose sound system, and the calfskin seats. She wished she’d worn her knitted hat. She could have pulled it over her face as they drove—slowly—down Main Street. Kingsfield waved out the window with the genial affability of Idi Amin in a hometown parade as they rolled past Nickerson’s Hardware, Blue Man Computing, and Harvey’s advertising agency. People swarmed out on the sidewalks to watch the limo passing by.

“Will this take very long?” Quill asked politely. “And where are we headed?”

“It takes as long as it takes. As for where we’re going, I’ll leave that as a surprise. Now. I bet you didn’t know my people have been scouting upstate New York for quite a while.”

As they left Main Street and turned onto Route 15, Zeke slumped back in his seat and stretched his legs next to hers. Quill edged a little further down the leather and said, “Not exactly.”

“Not exactly?” His eyes sharpened. “What does that mean?”

“Your name wasn’t mentioned. And certainly nothing specific’s been said. But both my banker and our mayor have been dropping hints about some . . .” Quill paused and picked her words carefully. “. . . benefit to the village in the near future.”

“Benefit.” Zeke seemed to savor the word. He smirked in pleasure. “I guess you could call it that. And I’ll tell you something, girlie, I guess you could call it the biggest thing to hit your little village since . . . well . . . ever in its history, I guess.”

Reminding herself that Hemlock Falls had survived worse things than the Hammer—the Spanish flu in 1918, two Civil War battles, and the Depression—Quill said, “Oh?”

Zeke drew his legs under him, put his arms on his knees, and hunched over, an expression of deep sincerity on his face. “People tend to overlook upstate New York.”

“They do?”

“State’s got a bad rep. High taxes. Big-city crime. Declining population. Thing is—all those problems are going to be hitting your other big states quicker than you want to think. Florida. South Carolina. California. And look what you’ve got here.” He swept his arm in a wide arc. Quill looked out the window. “Snow?” she ventured.

“Psh. Your weather’s nothing like the northern half of the U.S. of A. Look at North Dakota. Minnesota. Hell, even Michigan. Now that’s bad winter weather. Nope, what you’ve got here is ninety-two percent of the fresh water in the whole damn globe, some of the richest farmland, low population density . . .”

Quill watched the woods and the fields roll by. They were making an arc around the village. They had passed the newly minted grandeur of the Resort and had turned on the road that ran along Hemlock Gorge. “And some of the most beautiful country in the world,” she said.

“Real estate,” the Hammer said with a fat chuckle. “And it’s goddam cheap.” He leaned forward and pressed the intercom button next to the rosewood bar. “Turn here, Frank. I want her to see the site.”

The big car lumbered left and bumped down a dirt-covered road. Suddenly, Quill knew where they were headed. “Are you going to buy the Gorgeous Gorges trailer park?”

“Who told you that?” he asked sharply. “Nobody knows that but me and my private banker.”

Quill raised her eyebrows at his unpleasant tone. “It’s not hard to guess, is it? The trailer park sits on the lip of the gorge. It overlooks that wonderful lichen-covered shale and the river that winds through it. The trailer park is on one of the loveliest sites in this part of the state.”

The limo came to a stop in front of a single-wide trailer with a hand-lettered sign to the left of the front door that read OFFICE. Zeke eased himself out of the limo with a grin, and stood, bareheaded, with his chamois wool coat flung carelessly around his shoulders.

The park was laid out on a grid, like a giant tic-tac-toe board. Each of the nine squares held five trailers. The dirt paths that separated the squares were mounded with dirty snow. Green street signs with white lettering stood at each intersection: Waterfall Drive, Stone Steps Lane, Granite Street. The house numbers began at 35, for some reason.

Most of the trailers in the grids were double-wides, and most of those had small front yards, each with a mailbox on a white post, a row of empty window boxes under the living room windows, and a Christmas lawn ornament. Inflatable Santas bobbed gently in the light breeze. Six-foot-high inflatable Christmas trees glowed brightly even in the sunlight. One giant bubble had snow—or something very like it— falling inside the sphere, around the shoulders of kid-sized inflatable skaters.