A Carol for a Corpse (15 page)

“That explains it, then. He’d go to the ass end of Death Valley for an interview.” She shook her head. “I swear to God that the man would shrivel up and die without attention. I’d better go with him. He hates to drive. So, Benny. The kitchen’s ready? Are you planning on laying tape this evening?” She snapped her fingers. “C’mon, folks. Time’s money. I’ll go catch Zeke.”

Nate and Quill watched as Lydia swept out of the Lounge like a particularly ill-tempered sheepdog. She narrowly avoided Mr. McWhirter, who was headed into the Lounge, with a seedy-looking man at his heels.

“Who’s that?” Quill asked.

“Name’s Fred Sims. Checked in yesterday.”

Sims was a short, stout man with a sullen lower lip and narrow little eyes. He sat down with McWhirter. The two of them engaged in desultory conversation. Quill tugged at her lower lip. She felt like Dorothy Parker: What fresh hell was this? “He looks kind of . . . sneaky?”

“Yeah?” Nate said indifferently. “We get all types in here.”

“True,” Quill said. “And just because McWhirter’s out to totally dismantle my inn doesn’t mean that he’s bringing in sneaky-looking guys to help him do it, does it?”

“I don’t see how,” Nate said sensibly. “Now, about this Lydia. You guys were best friends in high school?” Nate said. “Was she like that, then?”

Quill, realizing that denying she had been Lydia’s best friend in high school was as futile as reminding people Myles was no longer sheriff, addressed the second question. “She wasn’t arrogant. And she wasn’t bossy. But she did focus on things neither Meg nor I had time for, like cheerleading and the prom queen competition. But she was smart, Nate. Not that cheerleaders aren’t smart, but she was a terrific student, and I remember that she aced her SATs.”

Nate grinned at her. “And you ended up cheerleading anyways, didn’t you?”

“You mean here?” Quill laughed. “Yikes. I suppose you’re right. Anyhow, what I remember most about Lydia is that she was absolutely bound and determined to marry a rich man.”

“Huh,” Nate said. “She accomplished that, I guess.” He looked at his watch. “Shift’s over in five minutes.”

“Are you leaving, Nate?” Benny said from the other end of the bar. “Then I suppose we ought to go back work. Come on, ducks. And Melissa. Where’s our Melissa? Let’s go, people!”

Quill watched them file out of the Lounge with a smile.

Nate nudged her. “You going to go sing at the church? Or are you going to go watch them dancing in the kitchen?”

“I suppose the church.” Quill sighed. “Are you?”

“’Course,” Nate said.

“I thought you were planning on going down to the Croh Bar and taking Dooley Norton for every penny he’s got.”

“Nah. It’s Christmas. I’ll catch him later. I’ll just let Kathleen know I’m outta here early, and I’ll drive the both of us to church.”

“When Meg and I were little,” Quill said as they drove through the Christmas-lit dazzle of Main Street some five minutes later, “our family did the same thing every Christmas Eve. After dinner, and before the midnight carol service, Dad would drive us through the neighborhoods to look at all the Christmas lights. I’ve loved driving at night during the holidays ever since.”

“We opened our presents on Christmas Eve,” Nate said.

“You didn’t!” Quill paused, not sure how to pose her question without sounding like an idiot, then she decided she didn’t care. The strings of lights under the eaves of the cobblestone storefronts made her feel positively swampy with holiday good sprits. “You guys didn’t believe in Santa Claus?”

“We’re Swedes. We don’t have Santa Claus. The next day,” Nate went on with satisfaction, “we visited all the aunts and uncles, one by one. That was the chance for all the aunts to bring out the
lefse
, the lutefisk, the smorgasbord, the works.” He sighed happily. “On Christmas Day, we made our way up one side of Lake Minnetonka and down the other. We didn’t have time to miss Santa Claus.”

“Meg believed in Santa Claus until she was eight.”

“What happened when she was eight?”

“Rupie Farnsworth,” Quill said. “He ratted Santa Claus out. He was in my class in sixth grade. A born bully, Rupie was.”

“With us Swedes, the oldest girl in the family puts a lot of candles on her head and we all sing and maybe say a prayer.”

“Santa Lucia,” Quill said. “Sure. It must be a beautiful ceremony.”

“Not very,” Nate said dispassionately. “The candle wax got in my sisters’ hair all the time. And one year the head-dress set my sister Ingrid’s hair on fire.”

They pulled into the Hemlock Falls Church of the Word of God parking lot. The life-sized carved wooden figures of Mother and Child were illuminated by the soft amber glow of lights from a tall menorah. The saddles of the three camels accompanying the Three Kings glowed with glass rubies, diamonds, and emeralds. The kings had been placed in a procession toward the crèche. The display glowed in the light of a seven-foot-high minaret with a miniature prayer platform at the top.

“Looks pretty good,” Nate said.

Quill, who thought that the unorthodox display of the three great religions displayed a true holiday spirit, said, “It looks wonderful,” and she and Nate walked up the stone sidewalk and onto the church steps in perfect accord.

Like most of the cobblestone buildings in the village, the church had been built more than 175 years ago. The pews were made of polished mahogany. The scuffed oak aisles were partly covered by a long, worn runner of that indeterminate red carpeting characteristic of old churches everywhere. The walls were wainscoted, surmounted by moldings carved with fruits and vines. And like all old churches, the scent was faintly musty, a combination of worn leather hymnals, furniture polish, and the passage of time itself. The aisle ended at a shallow step that led up to the nave. To the right of this step was a spinet piano. Esther West sat at a bench in front of it, studying sheet music.

At the far end of the church, a fair-sized pipe organ occupied the left side of the nave; to the right was the entrance to the robing rooms and the sacristy. The altar cloth was gold and white, and urns of white Christmas roses had been placed just beneath the marble altar itself.

Three steps down from the altar were the pews for the choir, two rows on either side. Harvey was busily directing basses and altos to the right, sopranos and tenors to the left. Nate took his seat with the basses with a cheerful wave. Quill stopped in the middle of the aisle, not sure where she should turn. Except for an occasional outburst in the shower, she hadn’t sung a note since high school.

Harvey, dressed in a red vest, tartan-patterned trousers, and a white button-down shirt, was in the middle of a heated discussion with Harland Peterson and Marge. He caught her eye and waved her closer. “There you are, Quill, at last. Would you
please
remind both these people that the choir-master’s decisions are final? Final. You, Harland, are a tenor. You, Marge, are a contralto. Contraltos to the right. Tenors to the left.”

“I told you this was a bad idea,” Harland said to Marge. He took off his John Deere hat, wiped his forehead with his sleeve, took a glance at the altar, and tucked his hat in his back pocket. “What d’ya mean, tenor? I’m the same as Johnny Cash.”

Marge jerked her thumb in Harland’s direction. “He thinks Harvey thinks he sounds like a girl. And he thinks if he doesn’t sit next to me, he’ll lose the tune. I sing loud enough so he won’t go off the key.”

“Mario Lanza,” said Quill firmly, “was not a girl. Mario Lanza wasn’t even remotely girly, Harland. And Mario Lanza was a tenor.” Then, in a moment of inspiration, she added, “So was Dean Martin.”

Harland remained dubious.

“I’ll tell you something that’s not generally known,” she added. “John Wayne was a tenor.”

“That ain’t right,” Harland said skeptically,

“Sure it is,” Marge said, with a large wink in Quill’s direction.

“Can’t be. The Duke?” Harland shook his head, and muttered, “What the hey, it’s Christmas,” He took his place next to Dookie Shuttleworth and the high school principal, Norm Pasquale, with a resigned air.

Harvey heaved a huge, beleaguered sigh. “Okay. Now, Quill. I’d say you were a soprano?”

“I have no idea,” she said humbly.

Harvey hollered, “Esther?! Give us a note!”

Esther played a cadenza on the piano. Harvey motioned at Quill. Quill opened her mouth and closed it. Esther played the cadenza again. Then a third time. Quill took a breath and sang: “Ah-ah-ah-ah.”

Harvey frowned. “Are you doing that on purpose?”

“No, Harvey. I am
not
doing that on purpose.”

“Well.” He scratched his head. “Sit next to Marge, okay? Harland’s right. She sings loudly enough so that if you sing along with her, you won’t lose the note.”

Quill sat next to Marge in a state of mild dudgeon. “I
told
Harvey I didn’t want to do this.”

“You need to warm up,” Marge said. “That’s all. You warm up, you’ll be surprised at what you sound like.”

“I just hope no one else is surprised.”

“You want surprise, I got a surprise. You see Will Frazier anywhere?”

Quill scanned the ranks of would-be choristers. Will caught her eye and nodded. He sat between Frank Harley and Ossie Newcome; Quill recognized both men from her occasional appearances at church. She nudged Marge. “He’s over there.” She watched the three men for a moment. “You see that?”

Marge craned her neck around. “I see Will and I want to talk to him. What else am I supposed to see?”

“Well, Frank’s manager of the QuickStop. And Ossie’s a teacher at the high school. I’m pretty sure both of them know Will. But see how they’re sitting, Marge. Both of them are shoved over. It’s as if they don’t want to touch him. And they’re talking across him, as if he isn’t there. And Will looks just furious about it. It’s that money. People resent it.”

Marge gave her a cynical look. “You can think about it this way. At least they’re not trying to
borrow
money from him.”

Quill bit her lip. Marge marked a page in the hymnal with a piece of tissue and settled back in the pew with an air of having something to say. She looked at the three men and raised her voice. “Ossie, you switch places with Will. I think he might want to hear what I have to say.” She waited until Will had resettled himself behind them. “Listen up, the both of you. I put in a few calls this afternoon. To a couple of friends of mine in Chicago.”

Marge’s friends tended to be people in rarified financial circles.

“You two ever hear anything about the Kingsfield corporation that issued those checks?”

“Me? Of course not,” Quill said.

Will shook his head.

“It’s called Bigger Fields Direct, Inc. And I’ve got a five-dollar bet with a friend of mine in the SEC the thing’s owned by a series of other companies. I think the corporate veil’s so thick around that company you couldn’t pierce it in a hundred years.”

Quill grasped about one word in three in this conversation. “You think there’s something dicey about it?”

“He’s trying to cheat us out of our million bucks?” Will said. His eyes were wide with dismay.

Marge snorted. “I sure do. But it’s a legal cheat. I think BFD’s a shell corporation and I think Kingsfield’s up to his usual tricks. He’s after the publicity. He’s made a huge splash with this thing.
WSJ
’s giving him a story above the fold tomorrow—and this, mind you, in the middle of a pile of articles claiming that he’s not as rich as he claims to be—so all of a sudden he’s looking pretty good to investors.”

WSJ
, Quill knew, was the
Wall Street Journal
. “I’m not sure I’m getting the whole picture here.”

Marge gave Quill’s arm an impatient thump. “If this project of Kingsfield’s falls on its keister—which I’m betting it’s going to do—the Gorgeous Gorges trailer park people are going to be left with a ten-thousand-dollar check and a nice warm doorway to sleep in. That’s what I’m sayin’.”

“He’s getting all those folks out of there so he can trash their trailers?” Will said. “He can’t do that.”

“You just took his ten thousand bucks, didn’t you? Sure, he can do that.”

“But they signed a contract to get a million dollars each from Zeke Kingsfield!” Quill said. “And he may not be a multibillionaire for real, Marge, but there’s no denying he’s worth a lot of money.”

“Haven’t you been listening to me? Will Frazier, here, and his friends didn’t sign a contract for a million dollars’ worth each of Zeke Kingsfield’s money. They signed a contract with BFD. And from what my friends in Chicago tell me, BFD has a net worth of four hundred forty-six thousand dollars.”

Will looked stunned. Then he looked mad.

Marge turned to him. “So what you want to do, Will, is get yourself on back to that trailer park right now and tell Kingsfield he’s gotta wait thirty days before he starts haulin’ those trailers out. You got that? Then if things go bust, at least you all will have a roof over your heads through the winter.”

Before Marge had concluded this speech, Will had struggled out of the pew and was on his way out. “Looks madder than a warthog with a thistle up his butt,” Marge said in satisfaction.

Quill watched Will bang out the church door. A few moments later, she heard the roar of his pickup truck. “Good grief, Marge,” she said soberly. “Do you think you should have dropped it on him just like that?”

“It was the fastest way I could think of to keep those poor suckers from running bills up all over town. Will’s the manager of the trailer park and the president of their board. Not, of course, that the board exists anymore. Kingsfield got more than two-thirds of the partnership signed over to him today. But he’ll put the brakes on the spending, as far as anyone can. And he’ll keep those trailers in the park for a spell.”

“Do you really think Kingsfield’s that cruel?” Quill said indignantly.