Toast Mortem (24 page)

Quill sat on the edge of the couch. “So you know why I’m here?”

“You want Justin to order a writ to forfeit any claim on the legacy of the late, and apparently unlamented, LeVasque.” Howie wedged himself onto a corner of the secretary’s desk. He wore rumpled gray trousers, a rumpled blue shirt, and his striped tie was askew. Quill found his whole demeanor extremely reassuring.

“So it’s possible to do it? Marge thought that maybe we were stuck with it.”

“Of course it’s possible. You can’t be forced to accept an inheritance if you don’t want to.” He looked at her over his half-glasses. They were tortoiseshell and were a useful adjunct to his sterner pronouncements from the bench. “The process is called Renunciation.”

Quill had a quick vision of Christians sprawled among the lions in the arenas of ancient Rome “And what will happen to the property?”

“It devolves to the next heirs, by law.”

“Which would be Mrs. LeVasque.”

“Presumably. But you never know. LeVasque might have named someone else, on the chance that you two’d refuse it.”

“Barstow’s getting a copy of the will to us,” Justin said. “I’ll take a look at it and we’ll get the Renunciation going right away. If you two are sure that’s what you want to do.”

“Couldn’t be surer,” Quill said simply. “Thank you both. But what happens until
that
happens? I mean, who’s in charge over there? Who pays the salaries and sees that things are kept up?”

“The court can appoint a guardian,” Justin said. “It’d be better if you and Mrs. LeVasque could come to some informal agreement.” Quill’s hand went to her head involuntarily at this suggestion. “I’m assuming that she signs the payroll checks. She was the manager of the place, wasn’t she? Let’s hope she’s willing to keep things rolling along until the dust settles.”

“She doesn’t seem to be the sort of person to let the roof fall in, no. But it’d be better, maybe, if one of you two talked it over with her.”

“I’ll have a chat with Barstow,” Justin said. “I have to go through her counsel.”

“That’ll take some time,” Quill muttered. “Darn. Look. I’ll go on up and talk to her myself. There’s just one more thing.”

“Clarissa Sparrow?” Justin said. “We’re working on it.”

“Can I see her, do you think?”

“She’s going to be moved today, to Five Points.”

The correctional facility was out on Route 96, near the little town of Covert. It wasn’t a long drive, but it would take time. And time was one thing she was short of. Quill rubbed her forehead. She was getting a headache.

“You can see her there, Quill. You know that the station here doesn’t have the facilities to keep a prisoner for longer than twenty-four hours.”

“Are they moving Mr. Steinmetz, too?”

“I don’t know. He’s got a high-priced lawyer coming in from Manhattan, that I do know. But you don’t need to be worried about him, do you?”

“I was hoping to talk to him. Do you think he’d see me?” Howie frowned a little. “I thought Quilliam and Quilliam had suspended operations,” he said. “Myles . . .”

“Myles is fully aware of everything,” Quill said tartly.

“Quilliam and Quilliam?” Justin looked puzzled. “Isn’t the Inn incorporated under something else?”

“Quill and Meg’s detective agency operates on an ad hoc basis,” Howie said drily.

“Never mind,” Quill said brightly. She’d just remembered Miriam. Of course. The case notes would be written up by now. They could move old Bobby Ray to Timbuktu, as long as it was online, and she’d still be able to get his story. Quill smiled sunnily at both men. “Thank you, Howie. I feel so safe knowin’ you big, strong men are lookin’ out for me.”

Justin looked alarmed. Howie looked suspicious. Quill waved as charmingly as she could and went to tackle Madame.

She drove back to the academy feeling a lot of sympathy for gerbils, stuck on a little wheel hour after hour. She’d spent more time at the academy in the past few days than she had in her own bed.

The parking lot was almost empty. The place looked quiet and serene in the sunlight. The first faint tinge of fall colors had touched the maples out front. A tour bus pulled away from the circular drive as she parked, full of chattering tourists.

She decided against going into the building by way of the kitchen. Meg would have her hands full getting the staff to focus on tomorrow night’s dinner. She doubted that Mrs. LeVasque would be there. She wouldn’t want to interfere with what was perhaps the final income-earning event. If the woman hadn’t decided to run away for good—and Quill wouldn’t blame her if she had—she’d most probably be in LeVasque’s office, standing guard over the accounts.

She was right. The scared-looking receptionist at the front desk was clearly loath to call her, so Quill simply said, “I’ll let her know I’m here myself, shall I?”

“Thanks!” The girl, who was young, and not, Quill recalled, from Hemlock Falls, chewed nervously at her lower lip. “Things have been a little upset here.”

“But you got that tour bus through, I see?”

“Last one of the day, thank goodness.” She took a deep breath. “I guess I could call Madame, if you’d like.”

“No problem. Really. I know the way.”

Quill walked through the tasting room, which was littered with crumpled napkins, bits of cracker, and used wineglasses. She pushed through the doors to the back; the kitchen was down a short hall, and she glimpsed a lot of flurry. But it was normal flurry; the clink of pans and the chatter of people working together may have been a little more self-conscious than usual, but Meg clearly had things well in hand.

Quill tapped at the office door and went in. Madame sat at the conference table, her head bent over a stack of papers, staring at her hands She raised her head as Quill came in.

“You,” she said.

“It’s me. I thought maybe we could talk a bit?”

“All right.”

Quill settled herself at the opposite end of the table.

“Madame,” she began.

“You can call me Dorothy,” she said unexpectedly. “I’m getting pretty tired of this Madame stuff.” She sat back and looked out the window. The sunlight wasn’t kind to her face. Years of angry living had left their mark in the furrows from her nose to her mouth. The skin under her eyes was puckered and yellowish from fatigue. But her eyes were sharp and hard, and her posture erect. Quill fought the impulse to grab her charcoal pencil and start to sketch. She could see this woman challenging the rush of winter water over the falls in the gorge.

“You meant what you said about giving up the academy?” Her voice was suspicious, disbelieving.

“Yes. I’ve just come from our lawyer’s office and asked him to start the paperwork. The process is called Renunciation and it means we don’t want it.” Quill winced at herself. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. It’s a wonderful place. It has everything my sister’s ever dreamed of and anyone who loves food and wine and the whole business of delighting guests would want it. But it can never belong to us.”

“It certainly won’t,” she snapped. “I’d fight you with everything I’ve got.”

“There’s no need. Truly.”

“So. I hope your lawyer’s quick about it.”

“As quick as he can be,” Quill promised. “I didn’t come here to talk about that—well, I did, in a way, because I wanted to be sure that you were comfortable seeing to things here. We wouldn’t want there to be any interruption in your services, either . . .” Quill trailed off. This uncompromising, suspicious woman was making it difficult. “Anyhow, I just came to say that things should continue just as they are.”

“They will.”

“And to ask you if you have any idea who killed your husband.” Quill got this out in a rush.

“Police think it’s that Clare Sparrow.”

“I’m sure it isn’t.”

“She had a contract. She had to pay us a lot of money if she quit on us.”

“She didn’t quit. She was fired. And there’s no employment contract in the world that would force a financial penalty under those circumstances. Not to be rude about it, Dorothy, but Clare was relieved to be out from your husband’s thumb. Why kill him now? If she were going to kill him, why not before, when she thought she was indentured for the next God-knows-how-many years?”

A small, sour smile crossed Madame’s face. “You’ve got a point there. So?” She shrugged. “He’s dead. If Clare didn’t do it, somebody did. And either the cops will find out or they won’t. What’s it to you?”

“I’ve got a good friend who’s had a very bad time and she’s headed for a worse one. It isn’t fair. And justice . . . justice isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. So it means a lot to me.”

“Fair enough. What do you want from me? You think I did it? What’s more, if you think I did it, do you think I would tell you?”

“I wondered about that. But no, I don’t think you did it.”

Madame raised her eyebrows in mock appreciation.

“You needed him too much. He was the main attraction here. He was outrageous and rude, but he was the guiding genius behind this place, and you of all people wouldn’t kill the goose with the golden egg. No matter how he treated you. It’s just like Clare. If his behavior was going to drive you to murder, you would have done it long before you incurred all this.”

They both looked out the window. The sun was low in the sky and the shadow cast by the academy spread over the fine green lawn.

“He had money on him,” Madame said suddenly. “I figure whoever stuck him, robbed him. You want my opinion about who did it, it was one of them out there.” She waved at the lawns. One of the gardeners was pushing a wheelbarrow along the graveled paths, picking up sticks and wayward plastic bags. “We try and do background checks on all our people, but it takes time and money.”

“Just because someone’s a gard . . .” Quill bit her lip. Meg had a T-shirt that read:
Help me! Help me! I’m talking and I can’t shut up!
She’d meant to get one of her own. Instead, she said, “Was it a lot of money?”

“A fair bit. It was in fifties, or so it seemed to me. A wad about this thick.” She held her finger and thumb apart about an inch.”

“Where did it come from?”

“God knows. He liked his toys, Bernie did. I let him have a personal account just to get him off my back.” She said, without apparent irony, “Makes a better marriage that way. Anyhow, it wasn’t on him when the police went over the body. Like I said, I want it back.”

“But you didn’t tell the police about it.”

Madame smiled that sour smile. “I don’t have to tell you about that, do I? We have a fair bit of cash coming in here, one way or the other. People pay cash for tastings. Sometimes they pay cash in the gift shop. Rather take the hit than get the tax people on my back.”

“Did he tend to carry a lot of cash?”

“Not as a rule, no. Maybe a couple hundred, that’s all.”

Quill swallowed another protesting comment. A couple of hundred was a lot of money to her. “What about Mrs. Owens? Did she carry cash around?”

“Her?” Madame made a noise between a “tsk” and a contemptuous “phooey.” “You know what I think?”

Quill looked encouraging.

“I think she had something on old Bernie. It’s anybody’s guess what it was. Maybe found him harassing one of the young girls that waits tables. I’ll say this for her, she always had enough to spend. Bernie insisted on a big raise for her just last month. And with the rest of the chefs bellyaching all the time about the quality of her food, I was all for getting rid of her. So there’s another suspect for you, Nancy Drew. If it wasn’t one of them.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder to the outside. “It was probably Mrs. Owens.”

“And Mrs. Owens? Do you have any idea who killed her?”

This time the smile was wide but just as mirthless. “Can’t pin that one on me, either. I was having dinner with that mayor of yours. We were whooping it up until one thirty in the morning. As a matter of fact, it was the call from the police about her body being found in Peterson Park that broke the party up.”

“I didn’t suspect you for a minute,” Quill said untruthfully.

“I’m just tickled pink about that,” Madame said sarcastically. “Her death wasn’t much of a loss. More of a gain, really. You’re right about Bernie’s death, though. He’s going to be almost impossible to replace. Even if I get someone of the quality of your sister. Notice I said almost.” Her jaw jutted out. “It may take a while, but I will get someone who can live up to Bernard.”

“I sincerely hope you do.” Quill’s voice was warm. She had a sudden vision of this woman, friendless, money-mad, with her only reason for happiness a pile of stone and wood.

For the first time, Madame seemed discomfited. Quill didn’t think of herself as a fool; she believed in the entire spectrum of human behavior. Most people were decent, and the anger and hostility that came from them originated in fear or a horrible kind of anxiousness that grabbed them by the back of the neck and wouldn’t let go. Some people were just plain mean. Not evil-mean, which was another kind of horror altogether, but spiteful, the kind who sincerely enjoyed the small torments they inflicted on others. She wasn’t sure about Madame. Who knew what the years of living with LeVasque had done to her? If there was a good woman underneath, now was the time to seek it out.

“I have a favor to ask.”

The suspicion was back in her eyes, sudden and hard.

“If you have Mrs. Owens’s personal computer, may I have it?”

Madame’s shoulders shifted uneasily.

“I desperately want Clare out of jail. I only have one lead in this case and it’s incredibly tenuous.” Well, there were two, if you counted the fragment of recipe in LeVasque’s hand, but she didn’t think a combination of puffed rice and marshmallow was the reason behind two murders. “Mrs. Owens was bent on researching something before she died. There’ll be a record of it on her PC.”

“What makes you think I have it?”