A Steak in Murder (2 page)

"You want I should put a coupla those in for you?" Doreen shoved open the gate with one sneakered foot and stamped into the yard. "Not near enough room for all of those, you know. Not and the Swiss chard and the broccoli."

Quill's feet were hot in her Wellingtons. She squelched
over to the little wooden bench tucked against the fence, sat down, and pulled her boots and socks off. She wiggled her toes in the rich dirt. Max, who had followed her to the bench, gnawed thoughtfully at one sock. She ran muddy fingers through her hair. "There's not enough room for anything," she said glumly. Doreen sat down beside her. She smelled of starch and lavender. "There's not enough room for people to eat, the kitchen's too small . . ." she bent her head back and squinted up at the second story, ". . . and my bedroom's stuffy."

"We made a mistake," Doreen said. "We shouldn't have sold out."

"Meg doesn't think so. Meg's having a wonderful time."

"Meg ain't here half the time."

This was true. Word that the Quilliam sisters had sold the Inn at Hemlock Falls had swept through the small world of professional gourmets. In less time than it took to evacuate a beach from an imminent hurricane, Meg had received three offers to cook at prestigious restaurants in New York City. She'd decided to work at Levade, a restaurant so historic signed photos of Diamond Jim Brady were still hanging by the bar, and so prestigious that New York's fringe society had to book tables
a year in advance. Meg usually cooked midweek, leaving
Hemlock Falls for New York by train Tuesday morning, and returning Friday afternoons. She left Bjarne, promoted from sous-chef to head chef, in charge of the kitchen. In New York, her career took off like a space shuttle. Within weeks, rumblings that
L'Aperitif
was going to award Meg an unprecedented fourth star rocked the kitchen at Levade. Lally Preston, the current arbiter
of middle-class taste, sent a columnist from her magazine
to interview Meg for a cover story, and ended up giving her a column. HGTV was talking a cable show for Meg.

Selling the Inn was the best thing that had ever happened to Meg's career. She'd said that just last night, in Quill's bedroom, just before she went off to her own room. "And yours, too. Look at the money we're raking in."

This was true. Even with the expenses of refitting the
Palate's kitchen, they were turning a profit. Quill wished
she could shake the notion that in the current economic
upswing, a gourmet restaurant run by Muammar Khadafy
would make money. She shook her head, then ran her fingers through her hair. "You aren't serious about the cows, Doreen. In the rose garden?"

"Yes, ma'am." Doreen's use of the term "ma'am"
was for emphasis only. If the Pope himself came to Hem
lock Falls, Doreen's notion of her own place in the universe versus everyone else might permit an honorific such as "Hey, Pope." If her arthritis weren't bothering her. "You know them little metal fences?"

Quill didn't.

"They're portable. Harland Peterson got 'em for Marge down to the Agway. For free on account of the publicity about the cows. They're temporary, like. Got his hired man settin' em up. Fact. Saw it myself. Ast him, too. Les, the hired man, that is. 'Them is for cows, Mz. Stoker.' That's what he said."

The back door banged. Max raised his head and barked
happily. Meg came out onto the porch. When the old house had been Marge's Hemlock Home Diner (Fine
Food! And Fast!) Quill had thought it was full of charm. Built of limestone blocks, with a slate roof and a covered
porch that wrapped three sides of the building, the place dated back to the 1830's, when Hemlock Falls had been the center of a thriving farm economy. The back porch
was freshly painted (white) and miniature climbing roses
twisted gracefully up the trellised sides. Quill regarded the contrast between Meg's dark hair, the white fence, and the tangerine roses. It made an attractive, if somewhat sentimental composition. As pretty as it was, the back porch was squashed between the house and the dinky little garden. Any place that made Meg look big was too damn small. Like this place.

"Don't get up too fast, or you'll trip over your lower lip." Meg bounced down the three short steps to the garden. She was wearing denim cutoffs, sneakers with no socks, and a baggy T-shirt with a cow on it. "Are you all right?"

Quill smiled at her. "Just a little hot, that's all."

"Don't you guys want some lunch?"

Quill nodded. "In a minute."

"I'm trying a cold cantaloupe soup. And a sort of a
fig and cheese croissant. Figs are big right now in New
York. And croissants are back."
,

Doreen said, "T'uh!"

Meg pushed her lower lip out. "What's the matter, guys? You both cranky? Shall I finish putting in the tomatoes?"

"Where'd that come from?" Quill pointed the trowel at the T-shirt. It wasn't really a cow, she saw now, but a cut of tenderloin steak with two longhorns on either side of it. TEXAS BEEF! it read. LONG ON TASTE! SHORT ON FAT!

Meg tugged vaguely at the neck. "Picked it up at Esther's shop. She was running a special, three for ten dollars, and I can't find the box with my summer clothes in it, Quill. I thought we unpacked everything, but a lot of my Tshirts are missing."

Doreen eased herself to her feet with a grunt. "Coupla boxes still in the basement at home. You want I should go take a look?"

Meg frowned a little. "This is home, Doreen."

Quill drew her sock from between Max's paws, exchanged her Wellingtons for sandals, and got up. "I'll come with you. We should have picked up the last of that stuff weeks ago. We'll take the Olds."

"Nobody around here likes change," Meg said suddenly. "That's it, isn't it? I mean, we've been here for months . . ."

"Two months and three days, exactly," Quill said.

". . . and things couldn't be going any better, and you're still calling the Inn home, Doreen. Which is kind of not logical, because you've got a home anyhow with Stoke . . ."

"Anything else you're missing?" Quill asked. "I've got a master list of all the boxes and furniture somewhere, and I think I crossed off everything but about six packing cases."

"Don't you like it here?" Meg asked. "Quill? Doreen?"

"It's fantastic," Quill said. "No debt for the first time in nine years, no grouchy guests. No corpses! It's wonderful. Isn't it, Doreen?"

There was a long silence.

"What I'd like is some lunch," Doreen said. "My stomach thinks my throat is cut."

Meg nodded. "Come on, then. The last of the lunch trade is just leaving, so we can sit in front." She bounced to her feet. When Meg was in this kind of mood, those in her orbit frequently found themselves being pulled along in her wake, like flotsam in the wake of a speedboat. Doreen and Quill followed her into the interior of the Palate, Max at their heels.

According to the cornerstone on the north wall, the original building dated from 1832. At some point during the turn of the century, the entire back wall of both stories had been opened up, and the space was doubled. As far as Quill knew, the Palate had been a single family home until the fifties, when one of the multifamilied Petersons slapped black-and-white linoleum all over the ground floor, paneled the wainscoted walls with fiberboard, and turned it into a Laundromat. Marge Schmidt took the space over in the early eighties and changed the color of the linoleum to hospital green. She added a utilitarian restaurant kitchen and the skilled services of her junior partner as short-order cook. The Hemlock Home Diner thrived on local business until two months ago, when Meg and Quill exchanged the Inn, with its load of debt, for the Palate.

After a month of intensive remodeling, the ground
floor, at least, had regained much of its early charm. They
hadn't been able to salvage the butternut flooring, but they'd substituted maple, which lightened the entire din
ing area. Almost all of the original plaster and beam walls
had been saved, and a dozen of Quill's acrylic paintings hung against the creamy surfaces. It was a beautiful room, as beautiful as the Tavern Lounge at the Inn had been.

But it was small. Where the Inn had seated one hundred and twenty people in the main dining room, and twice that in the Lounge, the Palate had eight square tables seating four people each. The tables were pushed together for larger parties, but it didn't change the total.

Doreen went to the table in front of the large windows overlooking Main Street and sat down with a grunt of relief. Quill settled next to her, and they sat without speaking while Meg went into the kitchen. She reemerged a few moments later with a tray and set it down in front of them. Cold pears, a creamy blush color, and croissants layered with a rich fig walnut dressing.

"I think I'll pass," Quill said. She lifted the mass of hair off the nape of her neck. "It's too hot to eat."

"The soup's all gone. So I took out chilled pears baked in red wine," Meg said. "With that cream cheese filling." She sat down with a happy sigh. "Bjarne is just terrific, isn't he? He's adding some menu items I never
even thought about. Especially with the fruit. Who would
have thought Finns would be as good with fruits? Try the pears, Quill."

Quill shook her head. "I need to stretch my legs. I think I'll take a walk. I'll go up and get your shirts, Meg. Doreen's right. I think we left a couple of boxes in the basement."

"You want I should go with you?" Doreen asked. "I can show you what I mean about them cows into the garden."

"No," Quill said crossly. "I don't give a rat's behind about the cows, and I need the walk. So does Max."

Max went, "Woof," in approval.

Meg and Doreen exchanged a look that wasn't lost on Quill. It'd been a busy day already, with a full turn at breakfast and a turn and a half at lunch. Of course, full days at the Palate were nothing like full days at the Inn. Despite the line of customers waiting for tables, Quill
had found herself with enough time on her hands to count
the week's receipts—which had been satisfyingly
healthy, more than enough to justify the two new waiters
they had hired, and the under chef to help Bjarne in the kitchen. Every day was like that. She'd even found time to serve on the town Zoning Board, which, given her often-expressed desire to accomplish more in the way of civic duties, should have made her feel virtuous, but didn't. The Zoning Board dealt with even more volatile political issues than the Chamber of Commerce, where she served as secretary, and that was saying something.

"A walk is a good idea," Meg said. "Your afternoon's free, and if you go up the back way, you can sneak in without running into Marge. And the cows."

"I do not need to sneak into my own—I mean Marge's Inn." Quill pushed her food around with her fork. "I wonder what the Zoning Board will have to say about those cows?"

"Why should they care?" Meg demanded.

" 'Course they should care," Doreen grunted. "It's their job to care. It's their job to poke their pointy noses and pointy little heads in where they don't belong and drive normal folks crazy with screwed-up rules and regulations. It's their job to—"

"Doreen," Quill said mildly. The Zoning Board had gotten a little sticky over the request they'd made for a liquor license, which was one of the reasons Quill had decided to volunteer to serve when the seat had opened up unexpectedly. Better to join them when you can't beat them. "For goodness sakes, don't bring those darn cows up at the Zoning Board meeting. I spend enough time looking at leach fields and right-of-ways as it is. Before you know it, the mayor will call an ex-whatis meeting and I'll be spending the next couple of weeks listening to Marge Schmidt try and pull the mayor's ears around his socks." She shoved herself away from the table and got up. She was feeling cross.

Meg rolled her eyes, shook her head, and blew out with a "phut!" "You sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine. Just need a breath of fresh air. I'll be back in a bit."

"We booked solid for dinner?" Doreen asked. "If you need me, I can work tonight. So you take your time." She stretched the back of her neck with an air of nonchalance, a sure sign that her shoulders were aching with arthritis. "Whyn't you go see Sher'f McHale? Drive on down to Syracuse and get some dinner with him. I can take care of the cash register here."

"He's on that job for GE, isn't he?" Meg asked. "The industrial espionage thing?"

"And he wouldn't appreciate my company on surveillance," Quill said. "Things will be fine, Doreen. Running this place is duck soup compared to . . . I mean, I've got it all under control. You go on home to Stoke. Kathleen will be in to give Peter a hand with the tables from five to ten. And I gave Dina a call. She's going to wait tables from eight on, when we're the busiest."

"You sure?"

"I'm sure." She snapped her fingers for Max. "And I'm gone. You two enjoy the pears."

She did need to walk. The past two months had sped
by in a blur of floor joists, PVC pipe, cranky electricians,
and Zoning Board meetings. They'd begun a limited lunch and dinner service almost immediately, and the
customers had been almost genial about the construction
debris and waiting for the liquor license. Between mini
mizing the disturbance to diners and coping with the contractors, spring had zoomed straight into summer without
notice. But the work was done, except for the garden, and the Palate was profitable.