Toast Mortem (20 page)

Jack appeared at the bedroom door, his bronze red hair floating around his head like a halo. Bismarck yawned and sat up. “Lion!” he shouted, gleefully. He marched toward Quill’s bed like a tiny, determined missile. Quill waved the cell phone in the air. “It’s Daddy, Jack.”

“Daddy!”
Jack leaped on Quill, pulled the indifferent Bismarck’s tail in greeting, and grabbed the phone. He held it in front of him like a microphone and shouted, “
Daddy?
We have a lion and it’s here to stay!”

Quill reached over, pressed the conference call button, and Myles’s voice flooded the room.

“You been crying?” Doreen demanded twenty minutes later. Her old friend looked at her with concern. Then she stooped and took Bismarck’s toy mouse out of Jack’s mouth. She set it down in front of the cat, who looked at it with disdain, as if to say, “Kid slobber is not my thing.”

Quill drew her knuckles under her eyes. She was mostly dressed, except for her shoes. She pulled a pair of sandals out of the cabinet under the microwave and slipped them on. “Yes,” she said. “I miss Myles. I miss not having the family complete.”

“You’re going to miss those urp people if you don’t get downstairs,” Doreen said in a pragmatic way. “They’re all checking out.”

“They can’t do that!” Quill bundled her hair on top of her head and looked around for a scrunchie. “They were supposed to stay until . . .” She thought about it. “They were scheduled to leave today, weren’t they? They were here for a week, and they checked in last Thursday and this is Thursday. Well, they can’t leave, that’s all.”

Doreen took a scrunchie out of her apron pocket and handed it over. “I don’t see why not. It’s a free country.”

“But they might be suspects!”

“You mean one of them might have skewered the Frenchman?” Doreen’s lower lip stuck out, a sign of disapproval. “I thought you told Myles you were through with that kind of goings-on.”

“Myles knows all about it.” Quill patted her skirt pockets, found them empty, and hastily distributed her sketch pad, her keys, sunscreen, and her charcoal pencil between them. “It’s a remote possibility, I’ll admit. They don’t even know the guy. But don’t you think they’re leaving now is suspicious?”

“Not if they booked the Inn for a week and the week is up. Of course the police might want to keep them here, too.” She darted a look at Jack. “Because of the second M-U-R-D-E-R. Last night.”

Quill stared at her. “Because of the what?!”

“The second M-U-R . . .”

“Stop that,” Quill said crossly. “I heard you the first time. Do you mean there’s been another death?”

“I was waiting for the chance to tell you,” Doreen said with a long-suffering air. “But you were on the phone with Myles, and then you were in the shower, and then you were flying around here like you usually do.”

Quill crouched down and addressed her son. “Jack. I want you to go into your room and play with your toys for just a second, okay? Mommy needs to talk to Doreen.”

“No,” Jack said with a huge smile. “I think not. No, no.”

“Okay,” Quill said. “I don’t want you to go near your room today, okay? Don’t go in it at all. Stay out, out, out.”

“Okay,” Jack said cheerfully. “I’m going to my room, now. Come on, Biz.”

“Jack,” Quill began. She looked at the cat. The cat looked at her. (“And I swear,” she said to Myles later, when the whole case was over, “that cat winked at me.”) “Fine,” she said. “Don’t play with your toys, now. Especially the Ding Dong School Alphabet Game.”

“Ohh-
kay
!” Jack said. He trotted into her bedroom. Bismarck yawned widely and waddled after him.

“That worked a treat,” Doreen said admiringly. “I’ll have to remember that.”

“What I want you to remember is why you didn’t tell me about this right away,” Quill said with a certain sternness. “Has there been another murder?”

“That Mrs. Owens. Last night. Somebody coshed her on the head and stabbed her to death to boot.”

Quill put her hand to her lips. “Oh, no. Oh my gosh. This is just terrible.”

“It sure is,” Doreen agreed.

“Where did it happen?”

“Peterson Park,” Doreen said. “By that big ugly statue of General Hemlock. They figure she was there to meet somebody. They figure . . .”

Quill was already out the door. She hurried down the two flights of stairs to the foyer and stopped at the bottom tier. Her first thought was,
There are too many people in the entryway
. Her second thought was,
My gosh, they’re arresting Big Buck Vanderhausen
.

The lobby was small, and it wasn’t designed to accommodate the five members of WARP, three policemen, Dina, Meg, Mike, and a few people with napkins clutched in their hands who had wandered in from the dining room. Patrol-woman Peterson had her hand on Buck Vanderhausen’s shoulder. Vanderhausen’s hands were cuffed behind his back. He looked really, really angry. Davy Kiddermeister had his head down as Mrs. Barbarossa whispered urgently in his ear.

There was also a lot of luggage.

Quill reached the bottom of the steps and tried for a stern, authoritative voice. “What in the name of goodness is going on here?” The only person who paid any attention to her was Meg, who had her tote bag over her arm and her case of knives at her feet.

“About time you came down,” she said. “I sent Doreen up to tell you what happened hours ago.”

“It’s barely seven thirty,” Quill said. “And Doreen comes at seven. Besides . . .” She shut herself up. “What happened?”

“I was on my way over to Bonne Goutè when Davy showed up. Asked if we had an Arnold Henry Vanderhausen registered. Dina’s been so spooked by putting me in jail for a couple of hours that she wouldn’t tell him a thing. And she didn’t want to trouble you, because it’s Thursday morning and Myles always calls on Thursday. Anyhow.” Meg paused and took a deep breath. “So she came and got me, and I got Vanderhausen, and everyone seems to think he killed Mrs. Owens. Vanderhausen,” she added in case Quill hadn’t gotten the point.

“Why do they think that?”

“He has this whacking big bowie knife, right? Well, it was found in Mrs. Owens’s chest.”

“So he didn’t do it.”

“Probably not. Not even a Texan would be that dumb.”

“Why are you casting aspersions on Texans?”

“Because I’m scared and pissed off and I have to pick on somebody.” Meg shifted her tote from one shoulder to the other. “He’s got a record, by the way. According to Dina, who had it from Davy, he served time for armed robbery. A gas station, I think.” Meg sighed heavily and shifted her tote back to her other shoulder. “What a mess. Do you suppose he killed LeVasque, too?”

“Why?”

“Money, I suppose. It’s the usual motive in stuff like this.”

“But LeVasque wasn’t robbed of anything.”

“Do we know that for sure?”

Davy raised his voice. “All right, everybody. Show’s over. If you would all go back to what you were doing, I’d appreciate it.”

Quill stepped forward. “Davy, I mean Sheriff Kiddermeister . . .”

“Not now, Quill, okay? You have any questions, I’ll get around to you later.” He nodded to Officer Peterson, who put one hand on Vanderhausen’s head and guided him out the door. Mrs. Barbarossa, her face pale under the dabs of blusher on her cheeks, gestured feebly to Quill. She stood at the center of the remaining members of her group. William Knight Collier looked as if he’d just received notice of an audit by the SEC. The Frederickses looked cross, too.

“I’m so sorry,” Quill said as she approached them.

“It’s nothing to do with us,” Collier snapped. “We hardly know the man.”

“It is to do with us,” Mrs. Barbarossa insisted. “The police won’t let us leave until this is cleared up.”

“I’m calling our lawyer,” Anson Fredericks said. “This is ridiculous.” He put his arm around his wife, who shook it off.

“Can we at least stay here with you, Quill?” Mrs. Barbarossa’s faded blue eyes were teary.

Quill glanced at Dina, who kept the schedules.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Dina said doubtfully. “Of course, Mr. Vanderhausen’s room is free for the next guest, but your room, Mr. Collier, and your room, Mrs. Barbarossa, are completely booked up. We had a last-minute cancellation, so the Frederickses are all right, but unless Meg moves in with Quill and frees up that space, we’re completely booked.”

“I can stay at the academy,” Meg said.

“I’ll stay at the Marriott,” Collier said. “Although as far as I can see, the police have no right to keep us here.”

“Quill, you must find a space for Mr. Collier
here
,” Mrs. Barbarossa said tearfully. “We all have to stick together.”

Quill struggled to find a tactful way to ask the question uppermost in her mind and couldn’t think of any. “Why?” she said. “Why do you all have to stick together? What does WARP stand for?”

Meg found tact a convenience rather than a necessity of character, so she was more to the point: “Who are you people, anyway?”

“If we don’t have to tell the police, we certainly don’t have to tell you,” Muriel Fredericks said. She turned and glared at her husband. “I have to get out of this lobby, Anson. Right now. Take me down to the beach.”

“The beach is closed,” Anson said. “Some DEC thing.”

Muriel took a deep breath. Quill’s first impulse was to put her fingers in her ears (which would have been a violation of the Innkeeper’s Code of Honor: always take it on the chin), but instead she put her hand under Muriel’s elbow. “We’re going out to the Tavern Lounge, all of us. You’re going to have a little coffee and some freshly squeezed juice and just . . . enjoy the day.” She ignored Meg’s traitorous snicker. “Dina? Get Mike to take the suitcases back upstairs. Get housekeeping to tidy Meg’s room for whoever’s checking in next. Mr. Collier? The Inn van will take you to the Marriott as soon as we arrange your reservation.”

She acknowledged Dina’s impressed, “Yes, ma’am!” with a backward wave of her hand.

Quill walked into the kitchen after settling Mrs. Barbarossa and the Frederickses in the Tavern Lounge. Collier had shrugged off her offer of coffee and pastry and stamped outside for a walk. When she came in, Dina was seated with Elizabeth Chou and Bjarne Bjarnsen over cups of chai.

“Wretched Allergies Recovery Program?” Dina guessed. “Wonky Adults Recovery Program? Weird Aggravators? We were just trying to guess what the acronym means. You know, the WARP people. It has to be a recovery program because of the Serenity Prayer we found in the wastebasket in Mr. Collier’s room, so the ‘R’ and the ‘P’ are easy.”

Quill sat down in the rocking chair. “I don’t know what it means, and I have no idea why they are so secretive about it.” She thought a minute. “And I wouldn’t be all that sure about the ‘R’ and the ‘P.’ Maybe it’s Rack and Pillage.”

“Do you think WARP has anything to do with the murders?” Elizabeth asked.

Quill stopped the forward motion of the rocker with her toe. “I don’t know,” she said. “How could it?”

“It is just another one of the groups on the fringe that come here,” Bjarne said. Bjarne was a Finn with a Swedish name who spoke both of those languages fluently and English quite well. He was tall, with eyes the color of a glass of water. He’d come into Meg’s kitchen many years before, as a graduate student from the Cornell School of Hotel Administration, and he’d never left. He was a very good chef.

“It’s nice to see you back,” Quill said. “How was your vacation?”

“Not as interesting as this,” Bjarne said. “And there has been another murder, too.” He shook his head. “Too many guns about, I fear.”

“Except nobody was shot,” Dina pointed out. “Up until now, at least. What about Wayward Asthmatics Recovery Program?”

“It would be better to Google it, I think,” Bjarne said. “Rather than driving us all mad with your suppositions.”

Dina clapped her hands together. “Why didn’t I think of that?”