A Carol for a Corpse (21 page)

Quill thought about this. “But, isn’t Zeke a millionaire?”

Benny burst into laughter. “Sorry! Oh, shit. The vermouth’s up my nose.” He sneezed heartily. “That’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, isn’t it? If I had to make a wild-ass guess, I’d say he’s worth about the same amount of money that his daddy left him. Twenty or thirty million. At best.”

“Which is nothing to sneeze at,” Bernie said. “Unless, like Benny, you’ve got vermouth up your nose.”

“You said that Zeke wanted to subvert
Good Taste
, Ajit? What was that all about?”

Ajit’s slender fingers were restless. He rolled his cocktail napkin into a neat tube and smoothed it out again. “What Zeke is, is a deal maker. One of the best. He was putting together a plan to distribute the show on a global basis.”

“Very profitable,” Benny said. “Potentially.”

Ajit held up an admonitory finger. “But the cable company he was talking to has a strong preference for reality shows.”

“Extreme wrestling,” Bernie said. “Gross-out reality shows. Horrible stuff.”

“Worse, they’ve got amazingly cheap production values.” Ajit sighed. “And, of course, if they bought the show, and agreed to produce however many segments, there was a good chance that it would look like . . .”

“Dog doo-doo!” Bernie drained his vermouth and put the glass on the table with an emphatic thump. “Do you really think the dancing elves were Lydia’s idea?” Quill nodded. “You did? Oh, she’d squirm if she heard that. She has a huge respect for your talent, Quill. Huge. No, that was Zeke’s little baby.”

“She does? Respect my talent?”

“Not that she’d ever admit it,” Ajit said with a faint smile. “It’s not in our Lydia’s character to give credit where credit’s due.”

“Let me see if I understand this correctly,” Quill said. “The only control that Zeke actually has—had—over
Good Taste
was the force of his personality?”

“It’s more complex than that,” Ajit said. “That personality. His public persona, if you will, was having a large effect on the quality of the show.”

“Huge,” Benny said.

“Huge,” Bernie echoed.

“Quill?”

Quill turned around with a start. She’d been concentrating so hard on the conversation with Ajit that she’d lost track of time. “Elizabeth! I’m so sorry! Dina said that you wanted to talk to me.” She stopped herself in midsentence. “You’re holding a baby?”

Elizabeth looked down at the blue-blanketed bundle she held in her arms. “It’s Caleb.” She smiled and stroked the baby’s cheek tenderly. “Melissa’s little boy.”

“Melissa brought Caleb to work with her?” Quill said. “I thought she’d made arrangements with her neighbor at the trailer. Has something happened?”

Elizabeth held the baby out to her. Without thinking about it, Quill accepted the warm little body. “Melissa hasn’t shown up for work. Well, she must have shown up at some point, because Caleb was wrapped up next to the fireplace in the kitchen, but she’s not here now. And she left a note.

“She’s giving the baby to you.”

“Pampers?” Meg’s voice over the cell phone was slightly panicked. “I don’t see Pampers. I see Huggies. I see some Kmart brand stuff. But I don’t see Pampers.”

Quill walked up and down the length of her living room. Caleb lay peacefully asleep over her left shoulder. She cradled his bottom with her right arm and had her left hand cupped over the back of his head. Her cell phone was crushed between her left shoulder and her left ear. She thought her neck might be permanently frozen in that position. “I don’t suppose it matters whether the diapers are Pampers, Huggies, or made by the Jolly Green Giant. Just buy whatever looks the nicest.”

She heard the faint rattle of a shopping cart as Meg went down the aisle.

“Quill?”

“Still here.”

“They come in sizes.”

“Sizes?!” Quill jiggled Caleb gently up and down. “That twenty-four-pound turkey you made for Thanksgiving? He’s about that size.”

“The sizes are not listed according to turkey weight,” Meg said patiently. “It’s umm . . . newborn, three months, six months.”

“Six months. Caleb is six months old.”

The baby stirred on her shoulder. The note from Melissa had read:

“Okay. How many diapers should I get?”

“Well. I don’t know. I would think he’d use one or two a day at least.”

“The packages are huge.”

“Well, one package then.”

“Okay. I’ve a couple of cases of baby food: spinach, squash, applesauce, carrots, strained chicken, etcetera, etcetera. It’s quite a balanced diet.” Meg’s voice faltered, and she said nervously, “I think. It would be for a person, anyway.”

“And the baby formula?”

“Check.”

“And the wipes and the talcum powder?”

“Check. And the baby shampoo and some cream.”

“I wonder if we should get some baby aspirin?”

“Oh, no. Oh, no.” Meg’s voice threatened to spiral into panic. “If he’s running any kind of temperature or anything, we call Andy right away.”

Meg’s former fiancé, Andy Bishop, was Hemlock Falls’ best (and only) pediatrician.

“But I’ll get a baby thermometer. Now, don’t move. I’ll be home in twenty minutes.”

Caleb made a small, sleepy sound. Quill dropped the cell phone and laid him gently on the couch. Max nudged her aside and sniffed the blanket with intense interest. Quill sat down and picked the baby up again. There was a tap at the door and a muffled query.

“Come in, Doreen!”

Quill thought she’d never been so glad to see anyone in her entire life. Doreen gave the two of them a sharp glance, then took off her navy wool winter coat and draped it over the kitchen counter. She put her winter boots neatly by the door and asked, “You’re doin’ all right?” She walked up to the couch. “You want me to take him?”

Quill clutched him a little closer. “No. No. Of course not. I just want to be sure that he’s okay. I gave him the bottle that Melissa left and then I put him over my shoulder and patted him until he burped. That’s right, isn’t it?”

“Exactly right,” Doreen said with a gentleness totally foreign to her prickly nature. “D’ja change him?”

“There were a couple of diapers in the basket. Meg and I did it,” Quill said proudly. “And then Meg figured we’d need more supplies, so she took off for Kmart.”

“She’s plannin’ on coming back, isn’t she?” Doreen said sharply. “Melissa, that is?”

Quill picked up the note. Doreen read it and said, “T’cha.”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

“So what are you going to do now?”

“I’ve been sitting here thinking about it.”

Caleb woke up abruptly, with a wail that rivaled the Hemlock Falls Volunteer Ambulance Corps siren. Quill took him out of the blanket and held him upright on her knee, her hands under his shoulders. “There, there, baby.” His wails increased in frequency and volume.

“Put him back over your shoulder,” Doreen advised. “He’s expecting to see his mamma’s face, not yours. And did she leave him any toys?”

“Just a stuffed lamb. It’s in the basket by the reading lamp.” Quill put him over her shoulder again and jogged him up and down.

Doreen retrieved the lamb and tucked it under the baby’s fists. The crying ebbed, and then stopped.

“How
could
she?” Quill said fiercely. “Just walk off and leave this little guy?”

“Beats me. But the little I talked to her, she din’t seem like the kind of mother, like some I read about.”

“I didn’t talk with her much, either. But she
did
love him. I know she did. This just doesn’t make any sense.”

There was a sharp rap at the door. “That’ll be Meg, Doreen, and she’s probably got her hands full. Would you let her in?” Caleb grabbed her hair in one tiny fist and gurgled. His lamb dropped in her lap. Carefully, she settled him in her lap and looked at him. His eyes were blue. They met her own, and for a moment, his downy brows contracted and she thought he’d wail again. She smiled at him. He smiled tentatively back. Then he hit her in the nose and said, “Gaaah.”

“Gaah,” Quill said. “Did you hear that, Meg? He said ‘gah’!”

“It wasn’t Meg at the door,” Doreen said. “It’s these two.”

Quill looked up and caught her breath in dismay. “Oh, dear. Mr. McWhirter.”

Albert McWhirter stood behind Doreen with his briefcase in his hand and a frown on his face. Fred Sims was with him. Sims lounged against the kitchen counter, a toothpick dangling from his lower lip. “And Mr. Sims?” She made an attempt to get up and sat down again. “This is a very awkward time, as you can see. Could I possibly persuade you to see me tomorrow? And Mr. Sims? I’m afraid these are my private quarters. If you need some assistance, I’d appreciate it if we could take care of it downstairs.”

“That’s my grandson,” Mr. McWhirter said. “That’s my grandson you’re holding. And I want to know where my daughter is.”

Quill stared at him.

“May we sit down?” He glanced at Fred Sims. “This gentleman is a private detective. He found Melissa for me. He discovered she was working here, for you, and reported back to me in Syracuse.”

“Which is why you were so insistent that the bank send you out here and nobody else.” Quill took a deep breath. “Yes, please do sit down.”

“I’ll make some coffee,” Doreen said. “Or tea. Whatever.”

“Nice digs up here.” Fred Sims rolled the toothpick to the other side of his mouth and sat gingerly at the edge of Quill’s Eames chair. It was where Myles always sat. Quill suppressed the urge to tell Sims to move.

“May I?” McWhirter gestured toward the other end of the couch.

“Of course.”

“Gah,” Caleb said.
“Gah!”

Quill kissed his cheek. “Gah. I couldn’t agree more.” She settled the baby more firmly in her lap. “Now, gentlemen. If you would tell me what’s going on?”

It was, Quill told Myles later, a sad and familiar story. McWhirter and his wife divorced. McWhirter had custody of his daughter, Ashley. She rebelled against the discipline— and, Quill suspected—coldness of her home environment and, at the age of sixteen, found herself pregnant.

“Sixteen!” Quill said, in dismay. “She told us she was twenty! Or rather, she told Jinny Peterson. I don’t understand how she qualified for the unemployment program.”

“The real Melissa Smith’s a student at Cornell,” Sims said. “The likeliest scenario, see, is that Ashley hooked up with her in one of the local hangouts in Ithaca and got a look at her Social Security card. Once you got that magic number, the rest is easy. Of course, that’s also how I was able to track her down.”

“The mortgage on her trailer,” Quill said suddenly. “You helped her with that, didn’t you, Mr. McWhirter?” Caleb squealed and gnawed at his lamb. She smoothed the hair on his head with her cupped hand. “That explains how GoodJobs! got into the mortgage business.”

McWhirter’s sallow complexion flushed deep red. “She had to have a place to live. And Ms. Peterson felt that if I confronted Ashley, she’d run and God knows if I’d find her again.”

“So there it is, Ms. Quilliam,” Sims said briskly. “The cat’s out of the bag. So if you could just tell us where we can find Ashley, we’ll take the baby with us and be on our way.”

“Could somebody
please
give me a hand with these?” Meg shouted from the front door.

Quill got to her feet.

“You sit right there, missy,” Doreen ordered. “And as for you two,”—she glared at Sims and McWhirter—“you touch that baby and I’ll give you a clout you won’t forget.”

Meg tumbled into the room, plastic bags dangling from each hand, and a baby car seat slung over her back. She pulled up, shot a glance at McWhirter and Sims, and said rudely, “What are you two doing here?”

Caleb began to shriek. Max started to bark. Meg set the packages down one after the other and dropped the car seat near the French doors to the balcony. This left little place to stand in Quill’s small living room. Sims backed up and tripped over the pine chest Quill used as a coffee table. McWhirter backed into the tiny hallway.

“Stop!” Quill ordered. “Stop it right this minute. Meg? Please take Max out into the hallway and send him downstairs. Doreen? Please take Caleb and do not, I repeat do not, let anyone else have him but Meg or me. Albert? You and Fred follow me downstairs. We’re going to settle this in my office.”

Quill stamped downstairs battling a combination of worry and rage. By the time McWhirter and Sims reached her office, she had dialed 411, asked for Jinny Peterson’s home phone number, and stayed on the line while the call went through. She gestured furiously at the two men to sit.

Jinny answered on the third ring.

“Jinny? It’s Sarah Quilliam here. I have Albert McWhirter in my office. He claims that he’s Melissa Smith’s father. Is that true?”

“Oh, dear,” Jinny said uncertainly. “I was afraid this might happen. Has he confronted her? I told him that would be a very bad idea.”

“He’ll have to tell you that himself. I’m putting you on speakerphone,” Quill said. “He’s here in my office with this Sims person.” She addressed McWhirter, “Jinny wants to know if you’ve spoken to Melissa, Ashley, whomever.” She punched the speaker button.

Jinny’s voice flooded the small office in a tinny echo. “Mr. McWhirter? Are you there?”

He cleared his throat. “Yes, Ms. Peterson. And I have to assure you that I haven’t seen or spoken to Ashley since I arrived here.”

Quill thought about this. Every time McWhirter had come into Meg’s kitchen, Melissa had disappeared. “But she knew he was here, Jinny,” she said. “And it looks as if she’s gone.”