Dead at Breakfast (7 page)

The cooking class had a rather antic quality in the afternoon of that day. With both blond interlopers gone, the mood was oddly bubbly. People kept asking Hope if she would do their charts.

“I
knew
this would happen, that's why I never tell people. Anyway you need to know what time of day you were born.”

“I know mine,” said Teddy. “March eighteenth, 1965, Houston, Texas, four-thirteen
A.M
.”

“I'll call my mother and find out,” said Nina.

“I'm February fifteenth,” said Margaux Kleinkramer, “and I know I was born right after midnight because my father said I had a red ribbon in my hair. I'd just missed Valentine's Day.”

By the end of the class Hope had everyone's birth date and place, and she had promised to take her laptop to town and see what she could do. She also had no idea how to make the ceviche or gravlax the rest had been working on but Maggie said she'd teach her. And that, by the way, her own birthday was October 16.

“I know,” said Hope, “and you have Scorpio rising. I did your chart ages ago.”

“You did?”

“I was on the search committee that hired you, remember?”

“You mean you chose me based on my
sun sign,
or whatever it's called?” Maggie was offended.

“Of course not, we chose you because you are wonderful. I just find it a useful tool.”

Maggie was slightly cool to Hope the rest of the class.

It was teatime when Mr. Rexroth's seedy Grand Marquis made its way majestically up the drive. He parked in front of the steps, then got out and started around the car to help Lisa get out, but Glory got to her sister first. Maggie and Teddy Bledsoe, playing bridge with Bonnie and Nina, watched the arrival from their table in the bow window of the lounge. The whole right side of Lisa's face was
black and blue and swollen, the eye nearly swallowed within puffy purple-green bruising, the skin stretched shiny and taut. Both her right wrist and foot were in high-tech splints involving a lot of Velcro. Glory put her arm around her sister and acted as her crutch as she negotiated the porch stairs. Neither woman seemed to be speaking to Mr. Rexroth. He busied himself with producing a wheelchair from the trunk of the car and setting it up for Lisa at the top of the porch stairs.

Mr. Gurrell hurried out from behind the reception desk to see if he could help.

“Just send a bucket of ice up to our room,” said Glory shortly. “And tell Mr. Antippas his wife is back.”

Ten minutes later, Glory reappeared.

“Did you find Mr. Antippas?” she demanded.

“We're looking for him.”

“How hard could it be? He isn't small.”

“We think he may have gone for a walk,” said Mr. Gurrell.

“That would be a first,” said Glory acidly.

“I'm a little short-staffed at the moment but someone has gone to look.”

“And has the rental car arrived?”

“Yes, Miss Poole. It's in the parking lot. Would you like the keys?”

“Yes. I'll bring it around and you can send a bellman for our bags.”

Glory swept out.

A few minutes later, she was back, furious. “They brought a stick shift! It's a fucking stick!” she yelled at Mr. Gurrell. He looked rather frightened.

“I'm sorry—I'm sorry, did you tell me you needed an automatic? I'm afraid I didn't hear that, this was all they had in Bangor. It's an Escalade. I thought you'd be so pleased . . .”

“I can't drive a fucking stick, and my sister can't drive at all for at least a month. They'll just have to bring another one. The plane will be waiting for us.”

“But this was the last car they had, at least the last sedan, and you said . . .”

“Oh for Christ sake, well obviously if they didn't have a sedan I could drive you should have ordered something else.”

Mr. Gurrell didn't answer, though he looked unhappy, and after a silence even Glory seemed to realize that this wasn't his fault, though she wanted it to be somebody's.

“Then call us a taxi. There must be a taxi in this shit hole.”

“Well—no. I might be able to get one to come from Ainsley, but at this time of day, she's usually having her supper. Mr. Rexroth might be willing . . .”

“Forget that. That guy is creepy weird and his car is a death trap.”

“Miss Poole, do you really think your sister should travel tonight? She didn't look as if she . . .”

“She wants to go home. That's what she wants. She's going to that funeral if she has to go on a gurney. Call the rental people and have them send another car.”

“Miss Poole. This was all they had. I'm afraid they'd have to find someone to come from Portland, four hours both ways . . .”

“Look. If the president of the United States wanted a car here tonight, they'd get one here, right?”

“I imagine so . . .”

“Well then get one here. That is all. Make it happen.”

Mr. Gurrell looked as if he didn't think it was going to help, but he started to dial.

He was on the phone, saying, “Three people, I think. And a dog. Wait, I'll ask. Miss Poole?” when Earl shambled up to the desk.

“Found 'im,” he said sourly. “Last place I looked. His wife's room. Heard them yelling at each other from a floor below.”

The elevator doors opened, and Mr. Antippas appeared, half-smoked cigar in one hand.

“This is like a three-ring circus,” said Teddy happily. Then returning his attention to the game, he added, “The rest are mine,” and swept up the tricks on the table.

In retrospect, there were people who might have offered to make the drive to Bangor with the sisters. Martin Maynard could have done it, but he didn't hear about the scene in the lounge until he was halfway through dinner and well launched on a very nice bottle of zinfandel. Hope could have offered, but she'd already spent several hours in the village using the library wi-fi and wanted her supper. No one felt much inclined to devote the evening to solving the Antippas family's problems.

Mr. Gurrell couldn't leave the front desk, and it didn't occur to him to see if someone else on staff was willing to go. The hotel van was in the shop for inspection and now the garage was closed. The staff parking lot was full of junkers, and you never could tell who was or wasn't keeping up their insurance. Much as he wanted all three of them gone, four counting the dog, he assumed the family would be litigious, and the last thing he needed was an accident laid at his door, followed by a lawsuit. Besides, no one who had seen Mrs. Antippas thought she should be traveling. She had looked as if she should still be in the hospital. Her face was a mess—could the pressure of a flight be good for that? And concussions were tricky.

Chef Sarah had another migraine. The cooking class members had broken into small groups and were taking their dinners in the dining room. Mr. Antippas was at a table for two against the wall, by himself, eating steadily with his napkin tucked into his shirt to
protect his tie, and his full lips were bright with grease from the roasted pork on his fork. Maggie and Hope were at a table for four with Albie Clark. About halfway through the meal, Glory came into the dining room. Maggie, who was facing the door, saw her take one look at her brother-in-law holding a piece of crisp pork skin in his fingers and ripping at it with his even white Hollywood teeth, and then head straight to Maggie. She dropped into their open chair and said, “Can I sit with you?”

All three expressed welcome, whatever they may have felt.

“How is your sister?” Maggie asked.

“Fucked. I don't think she'll ever look the same. She wanted a mirror but I wouldn't give her one. A double gin martini, rocks, with a twist,” she said to the waiter who had materialized beside her.

“And to eat?” he asked.

Glory made a dismissive gesture. “Anything. Whatever they're having.” As all three at the table were eating different things this didn't help him much. “One cheekbone is two inches higher than the other, she looks like a Picasso,” said Glory. “The nerves on that side of her face are crushed. They don't know if they'll come back or not.” Glory's own makeup was smeary, and she looked raddled. She loves her sister, Maggie registered, with a little surprise.

“
He
was a big help,” she added bitterly, jerking her head toward her brother-in-law. “I could really kill him. He
laughed
at her for wrecking the car, and stone-cold refused to drive us to the airport, even though the plane is waiting. She just wants to go home. She was crying,” said Glory, and she began to cry herself.

The martini arrived and she gulped it. Hope patted her shoulder. After a bit Glory found a ratty Kleenex in her pocket and blew her nose. “She's asleep now. It was bad when the pain meds started to wear off. She didn't want to take more, she really doesn't like drugs, but I made her, and she did feel better and then she went to
sleep. They told me not to say the name of the pain meds out loud, for fear someone will mug her for them. Around here it's called redneck heroin. Did you ever just want to stick someone with a knife and twist it?” She looked over at Alex Antippas, who was solemnly pondering selections from the cheese cart with the air of one whose decisions could bring peace to the Middle East.

Hope signaled to the waiter and ordered lobster bisque and a bowl of pasta for Glory.

“You need comfort food,” she said kindly. Glory ignored her and ordered another martini.

Buster Babbin lived in a trailer in a clearing just north of Bergen. His neighbor owned the land but was glad to let Buster live there. The neighbor was getting on in years and none of his children had stayed in the area to farm, so it was good to have a young man nearby, especially a deputy sheriff. It deterred people from jacking deer in his driveway, right up by the house the way they used to, scaring his wife, and it meant their road got plowed out right quick during snowstorms. The town paid good money to have Buster on the job, and he wasn't any use if he couldn't get out of his driveway.

Also Buster was handy. He had got his trailer up on cement blocks, and set about building a thing he called a studio onto the back of his house, and it was handsome. Had a high ceiling with a skylight in it, and a big wood-burning stove to heat it, and he'd put in a well and septic, all improvements to the property. The studio was where Buster would paint his watercolors in the evening. He was real good, the neighbors thought. When you looked at Buster's pictures, you could tell right away what it was a picture of. Also he had a dish on his roof that gave him TV from Bangor, and an
Internet signal. He didn't put a password on it either, so when their children came to visit they could sit in their cars outside Buster's house and pick up their e-mail, which was a big improvement over hearing them bitch about having to drive into town to use the library wi-fi, or up to the Subway shop in the Tradewinds Market in Bergen Falls.

Buster was contracted to the town—well to the three towns, Bergen, West Bergen, and Bergen Falls—from the sheriff's department in Ainsley. He was a peace officer more than anything, parking his cruiser near the high school when school let out, or when there was a game, driving around in the evenings to watch for DUIs, responding to domestic disputes and animal control calls. He'd joined the Bergen Grange and the Oddfellows, and was well liked in the village. He was real good with the teenagers, who tended to get into trouble just out of being balked and bored. Mostly minor scrapes but you didn't want them becoming major. Kids with no place to go would break into hunting camps to party and leave a mess. They'd make off with peoples' outboard motorboats in the summer and zoom around the lake at night. Sometimes crash somewhere, but mostly just run it out of gas and leave it full of beer cans. The kids in town tended to tell Deputy Babbin the truth, even when they'd screwed up and knew there was punishment coming. It didn't hurt that everyone knew he'd been a bad boy himself at one time.

There were a couple of hard cases in the neighborhood, guys who'd gone to Iraq or Afghanistan and come back wrecked, who stockpiled guns, and beat up their wives and children, and knew they were driving away the people who loved them but couldn't stop. One guy had disappeared into the woods where he was probably cooking meth, and another one flew the American flag upside down outside his house, marine in trouble, and man, was he ever. His wife had taken the children and moved back in with her par
ents in Totten, and he would get a snootful and drive to their house and stand on the lawn roaring that if she didn't come back he would kill all of them. When he was sober he could understand what was wrong with that strategy, but he was rarely sober. More than once Buster had talked him down, locked up his guns, and let him sleep in his studio until he sobered up because he knew that most of all, the guy shouldn't be alone.

There had been only one capital crime in Buster's bailiwick since he got the job: two summers ago, after a night of drinking, a young woman had pushed her boyfriend out of the car and run over him on purpose. Twice. She rolled over him going forward and then she put it in reverse and gunned it backward until she'd made two sets of tracks across his T-shirt, right below where it read
DO I
LOOK
LIKE A FUCKING PEOPLE PERSON?
Buster caught that call.

This call, from the Oquossoc Mountain Inn at 2:14 in the morning of Thursday, October 10, was not for police, but for the fire department. Buster's radio crackled to life on the kitchen table. His girlfriend Brianna, who was a light sleeper, heard it first. She pulled up her sleep mask, peered at the clock, then gave Buster a poke. She resettled the mask and felt for the yellow earplugs that lay beside the clock. Buster made an awful lot of noise crashing around the tiny room getting dressed in a hurry in the dark.

He was in the cruiser heading up the hill when the Bergen fire truck passed him. He already knew it was a structure fire up at the inn. When the fire truck from Bergen Falls caught up with him and sped past, sirens screaming, he knew it was no paint fire in the garden shed.