A Steak in Murder (19 page)

Quill sat carefully on the stool vacated by the mayor's wife. She laid the freesia next to the daisies. Mrs. Ros
siter regarded them mournfully, then broke off a fragrant
stem and stuck it behind her ear. She had big earrings, too, Quill noted. Copper cows with gold horns.

"Shirley Rossiter." The brunette extended her hand. Quill took it. Shirley curled her fingers around Quill's hand and drew it to her bosom. "You knew my Royal?"

"Just for a short while," Quill said, reclaiming her hand. "I met him while he was walking his . . . while he and Impressive were out for a . . ."

"Dumb bastard spent more time with that bull than he did with me." She wiped the back of her hand under her eyes. "Dumb bastard," she repeated.

Quill, assuming that dumb bastard was a term of affection in Texas, patted her shoulder. "I'm very sorry."

"Me, too." She sighed. "Everyone here's been just
fine to me. Just fine. Marge here? All this beer and a shot
is free."

Marge opened her mouth, then closed it with a snap.

"In honor of my Royal. My Roy . . ."

"Had he had any heart disease?" Quill asked hastily, since subtlety would be wasted on Mrs. Rossiter.

"Roy?" She furrowed her brow.
"Heart
disease," she said flatly. "That's what that cute young doc told me carried him off. It isn't," she added suddenly, "the cough that carries you off, it's the coffin they carry you off in."

"Ha," Harland said.

Quill, emboldened by this foray into doggerel, said, "I
suppose poor Roy left a pile."

"A pile," she repeated. "Well, I don't know that I'd call it a pile. Where's that lying son of a sea biscuit, Calhoun?"

"The colonel? Went out somewhere this morning," Harland said. "He was over to my place early on, checking out the slaughterhouse. We gotta get a couple of squeeze chutes that'll handle the horned cattle, and he was looking the land over."

Shirley blinked. Her mouth opened and closed like the
koi that were (undoubtedly) no longer in Quill's pond. Eaten by cattle.

"Do cattle eat fish?" Quill asked.

"Sure they do. Fish meal. Good for them," Harland said. "Shirley, the colonel'll be back to pay his respects. Seems like the kind of fella that will do the right thing."

Marge nodded sober agreement.

Do cattle make a meal out of fish, or did he mean fish meal? "Harland," Quill began.

"Colonel!" Shirley said. "Colonel of what, I may ask."

"Well, what is he a colonel of?" Marge asked. "Thought it was the Army, myself."

"Army!" Shirley snorted. "Army!" She subsided into her beer.

"He wasn't in the Army?" Quill leaned forward and placed her hand on Shirley's arm. Her head dropped forward onto her chest. She began to snore.

"Thought that last beer'd do it," Harland said. "Out like a light. Margie? You, Nate, and I better get her to bed."

Marge rose off the bar stool and dusted her hands together. "Hell, Harland. The two of us can get her. You grab the feet."

"Done. Then we'll go check out the herd. Thought we'd move 'em down to my place rather than have 'em up here with you. When Shirl comes to, we can discuss how much she wants for 'em."

Shirley, slumped over the bar, stirred and murmured. Marge grabbed her shoulders with rough expertise, swung her around, and Harland lifted her feet with a grunt. Quill watched them carry Shirley off, and when they were out of hearing, said, "Nate, did Harland make arrangements with Mrs. Rossiter to buy the cattle?"

Nate took off his captain's hat and ran his fingers across his bald spot. "Bought them from Rossiter yesterday, far as I know. They were discussing the deal over a beer or two. You know how these things go . . ." His fingers stopped moving. "Do you think I've been losing more hair?"

Quill craned her neck to look. "Yes," she said ruthlessly. "Since you took this job, especially. Stress will do it, you know. What were the terms of the deal?"

Nate sighed. "You think Rogaine might work?"

"Nate?"

He leaned forward.

"I like you bald. Forget the Rogaine. Answer my question. What were the terms of the cattle deal? I had the impression that ownership of the herd was shared by Roy and the colonel."

"I don't know about that. I do know that CarolAnn Spinoza has been raising holy heck about the permit for the slaughterhouse."

"She has?" Quill thought a moment. "It hasn't come up before the Zoning Board. Although come to think of it, those space cadets from Q.U.A.C.K. mentioned it. CarolAnn must have told them about that, too." She didn't ask why CarolAnn was sticking her nose into the permit for the slaughterhouse. CarolAnn stuck her nose into everything. "Who has she been talking to?"

"The mayor. Harland. Augustus, too. And since he's the one who issues the permits, he's the one she's been harassing most. He's scared shi—I mean green whenever CarolAnn opens her mouth, so who knows whether Harland will get that permit or not?"

Quill took out her sketch pad, wrote down
LEADS,
and under that,
slaughterhouse.
Then she wrote:
Cardiac his
tory, Rossiter? Ask A. B.

"Who's A. B.?" Nate asked, craning his neck for a better look at the notepad. "Oh. Andy Bishop." He grinned at her. "Off on a case again, huh? I thought Mr. Rossiter's death was natural."

"You heard his wife—widow, rather. Royal was never
sick a day in his life."

"She didn't say that, Quill. She said 'heart disease' like she was surprised. But she didn't say he was never sick a day in his life."

"Brady did," Quill said. "Somebody told me Brady did. Where is Brady?"

"Checked out this morning."

"He's gone?"

"No. He went down to that Motel 48 near the vet's place. Said he wanted to be near his horse."

"I think I'll go and see him. I'll either be there, or at the vet's if anyone's asking for me. And, Nate, could you leave a message for the colonel? I'd like to invite him to dinner at the Palate tonight. About seven-thirty, if it suits him."

"Will do."

Quill went out the front door feeling as though she was accomplishing something. Max lay curled up in the front seat of the car and wagged his tail lazily as she got in. "What do you think?" she asked. "Do you want to go with me? Or do you want to stay home?"

Max barked.

"Okay. You can go with me. But you can't hang your nose out the window. It looks like rain." The sky was threatening a shower, if not a downpour. She reconsidered her decision to take Max; there was nothing worse than a car filled with wet smelly dog. Max barked and put his paw on her knee. "Okay. But you'll have to stay in the car. All right?"

Max cocked his head. Quill made an unsuccessful attempt at getting him to go back to his nap. She even relented on keeping the window open, and as she drove down Route 15 to the Motel 48, it began to rain.

The Motel 48 was one of the many cheap, well run
places that had sprung up at the end of the eighties, when
occupancy of luxury hotels was down, and business trav
elers needed inexpensive places to stay overnight. Quill pulled into the parking lot. She didn't see Brady's truck among the vehicles parked in front of the two-storied
structure. She dashed through the rain to the door marked
OFFICE. The motel had forty-eight rooms, named for each of the contiguous forty-eight states. Brady, appropriately enough, was in Texas. "But he was up early this
morning. Went out before six o'clock. The night manager
told me.
"
The clerk was young, with that kind of uniform prettiness that Quill saw in kids under twenty. She fervently hoped this observation wasn't a function of her own age.

"He didn't tell the night clerk where he was going? For example, to see his horse?"

"No, ma'am." The clerk sighed. "If I knew, I think I might have followed him. Is he married, do you think, Ms. Quilliam?"

Quill left a message for Brady, just in case she missed him at the vet's.

The rain was off-again, on-again as she drove a little farther down Route 15 to get to the Paradise Veterinary Practice. As soon as they turned down the familiar road, Max began to whine.

"No vet, Max. No vet."

Max barked, jumped into the backseat, then into the front seat and into her lap. She caught a sudden flash of hooves, cream, and a booted leg. She heard a shout, and slammed on the brakes. Through the windshield, she saw a horse down in the graveled yard, and a figure lying beside it. She jumped out of the car and ran toward the horse. The animal snorted, rolled its eyes at her, and heaved itself to its feet. The figure on the ground got to its feet, readjusted its hat, and gave her a level look.

"Brady! I'm so sorry! Are you all right?"

"I'm fine." He ambled over to his horse, who blew out with an angry sound. "Scooter's fine but you look a little pale, Quill. Here. Sit down and put your head between your knees."

Quill sat. It started to rain again. Brady left her alone, went to his horse, and methodically began to remove the strap under its stomach, the bridle around its head. "Dang," he muttered. He hiked up his jeans leg and pulled out a slender knife. It looked wickedly sharp. Quill's breathing slowed. Her head cleared. She watched as Brady sliced through a snagged buckle on his saddle with the knife. He stuck the knife back in its sheath in his boot and removed the saddle.

"I'll just put her back in the stall. Too wet to ride today anyhow. Didn't bring my slicker."

Quill leaned her head against the Olds' quarter panel.
Did all cattlemen carry knives? Long and thin, Andy had
said. Sharp enough to slice through bone. Or wet leather.

Brady led the horse into the vet's barn. Quill got to her feet and followed him.

The barn was more of a giant, three-sided shed than what Quill knew as a horse barn. Back home in Connecticut, horse barns had been gabled, shingled, fancy affairs that were sometimes better kept than the houses of her friends who owned them. This place had a highly utilitarian, no-nonsense feel. The building was perhaps
one hundred and fifty feet long and about forty feet wide.
The door to the yard and clinic was on the short wall to the east. As Quill entered, she saw a row of pens on her left, and hay and supply storage on her right. The lights
were on. It smelled of horses, cows, and the omnipresent Betadyne. Laura Crest was standing about halfway down,
in a well-lighted area that had an arrangement of metal bars about waist high. A horse stood placidly between the bars, its foot in a rubber bucket. Brady led his horse past them, and Quill heard her say, "You all right, Jack? I heard you shout."

"Yeh. No problem." He paused by her. "Sarah Quilliam's here." Was that a cautionary note in his voice? He put the mare into a stall and came back toward Quill.
He brushed the vet as he recrossed the aisle toward Quill;
Laura was bent over the horse, but Quill could see her smile.

They'd met before. She was sure of it. The tone of voice, the brief physical contact, the intimacy of Laura's
smile. Friends of long standing at least, if not more. Quill tried to remember what had happened the day she, Royal,
and Brady had come out here to get Max's rabies shot. She'd been worried about Max, about whether he'd bite Laura, or whether she'd be rough with him. But she was darn sure that Royal had introduced the two of them to each other. And they had behaved with the politeness of strangers.

"The dog okay?"

Quill jumped. Brady bent slightly toward her. She edged back a little. "Max is fine. I mean, I'm not here because of Max." She smiled ruefully. "Although I suppose I should ask Laura if she runs obedience classes."

"Just have to let them know who's boss." He raised his voice. "Dr. Crest? You mind if we use the office for a talk?"

"Not at all." She stepped back from the pipe pen and spoke to the horse. "You just stand there for twenty minutes. Let that sucker soak." She wiped her hands on a towel as she came on through to the front door. "It's nice to see you again, Quill. Is Max okay?"

"Max is fine."

She darted a brief look at Brady. "Then, can I help you?"

"Actually, both of you probably could. You heard about Candy Detwiler's death yesterday?"

"I sure did." Laura's face sobered. "I understand you found die body. I'm sorry."

Quill considered several responses to this. I'm used to it, seemed too flip. I'm sorry, too, seemed insincere, for some reason. "Yes," she said. "I did. I thought I'd ask Brady a little bit about him, and then ask you about the Texas longhorn cattle. So if you both have some time, I'd appreciate it."

Laura looked back at the horse with its foot in the bucket. "I've got twenty minutes while that abscess soaks. And there's coffee on in the clinic."

"You don't have patients waiting?" Quill asked as they crossed the yard to the office.

"Not until five o'clock on Fridays. I allow this time for farm calls and work in the hospital." She blushed. "Not that you'd call the shed a hospital, really. But I always thought as soon as I got the practice built up a bit, I'd put in a real operating room, something like the arrangements they have at Cornell." She unlocked her office door and switched on the lights. "Here we are. And there's the coffee. Can I get you any?"