Dread on Arrival (23 page)

∼Josephine’s Corn Pone∼

12⁄3 cups yellow corn meal12⁄3 cups flour½ cup sugar2 tablespoons baking powder12⁄3 cups milk4 large eggs2⁄3 cup salted butter, melted¼ cup raw sugar1⁄3 cup butter, chopped into one inch squares, for toppingMix all ingredients except for last two. The batter will be lumpy. Butter an eight-by-eight square pan and pat the batter into it. Sprinkle the raw sugar and chopped-up butter over the top. Bake in preheated 375-degree oven for twenty-five to thirty minutes. Let stand for twenty minutes. Remove from pan. Serve with maple syrup. A latte at the Balzac’s Café brought Dina back to her sunny self.

The café was very pleasantly laid out, with posters of Honoré de Balzac on the walls and a wide selection of coffee beans in clear glass bins. The tables and chairs were made of pine. The floors were terrazzo tile. It felt Parisian.

“I guess she didn’t murder him,” Dina said. “I guess she didn’t love him, either, but she sure didn’t want him dead.” Dina poked at her latte with the plastic straw. “This sidekick stuff is pretty amazing.” She stared absently into space, and then shook herself, as if getting rid of horrible thoughts. “Who’s next? Belter Barcini? His people-whomping mom? Melanie Vampira Myers? Are they going to turn into monsters before my very eyes, like Rose Ellen Whitman?”

“Are you sure you don’t want to go back to the Inn? It’s been an eventful twenty-four hours.” Quill checked her watch. “Not even that. Eighteen.”

“I’ll say. Edmund Tree dropping dead right in front of my eyes, and then Rose Ellen Whitman dancing on his grave. Stomping, actually, since she’s so pissed off he’s dead. She’s not even going to stick around for his funeral. Who’s going to bury the poor guy?”

“The family, I guess.”

“All he’s got is a half sister he hasn’t seen for years. What do you want to bet she’ll show up speedy-quick? Twenty million dollars is a lot of money. I figured it out, you know. My paycheck if I had twenty million dollars invested at four percent. It’d be eight hundred thousand dollars a year divided by fifty-two, which is sixteen thousand dollars a week, minus taxes. The sister could pay for the funeral and not even notice.”

“His lawyers will take care of the funeral and the sister. In any event, we don’t have to worry about it. If you don’t want another latte, I think we should go back to the Inn. I want to give Marge a call about the umm …” Quill glanced around a little nervously. Why did she feel guiltier about snooping into suspects’ financial backgrounds than about the rest of the detecting?

“The money part? How broke the Bryants are? How much Edmund Tree is really worth? Yeah, I’d like to know that, too.”

Marge would tell her that finances profile a person. That you could get a good sense of who someone was by how they saved, how they spent, how they earned.

“Quill?”

Maybe a financial profile was a matter of character. Which should be private. Unless you’d murdered somebody.

“Quill?”

“Sorry. I was thinking about something else. Did you want another coffee?’

“You should have some. The caffeine would perk you up. None of us got to bed before three last night. I don’t think Davy slept at all.”

She
was
tired. Maybe the ugly scene with Rose Ellen wouldn’t have been so awful if she’d gotten a good night’s sleep.

“I don’t want another latte, although thank you very much for buying me this one. I see it as a sidekick perk. Balzac lived off coffee, did you know that? And he died after drinking fifty cups in one day.”

“He did?” Quill said, startled.

“It’s a fact. Which is why I’ll pass on the second one, and you should, too, come to think of it.”

Quill left two dollars on the table for a tip and followed Dina out to the car. Dina fastened her seat belt with a cheerful air, and was quiet until they reached the bottom of the Inn driveway.

“So when are we going to interrogate the Barcinis?”

“The thing about amateur detecting is that you have no official standing and you can’t appear to be interrogating anybody. I’ve got to think of some good excuse to drop in on the Barcinis in a casual way. You’d be surprised what people will tell you if you’re an interested listener without a badge.”

“If the Barcinis stayed at the Inn, that would give you a good excuse to chat them up, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, but they’re out at the Marriott, and to tell you the truth I’d rather they stayed there. Belter’s so … noisy. And Mrs. Barcini keeps whacking people with whatever’s at hand. Very disruptive. “

“They’re not at the Marriott anymore. Isn’t that their bus?”

Quill braked abruptly. Yes, that was the Barcinis’ bus, gleaming orangely right in front of the Inn and blocking all the traffic. Not that there was any traffic, but still, the bus was blocking prospective traffic.

Quill leaned her head against the steering wheel and groaned.

“And there they are,” Dina said in a pleased way. “You know what I think? I think now that the Provencal suite is free because Edmund Tree is dead, they’re going to move right in.”

Dina was right.

Quill arrived at the reception desk a few minutes later to find Mike hauling an assortment of suitcases up the staircase and the Barcinis headed on in to the dining room. Quill had a moment’s confusion identifying Josephine because she didn’t have the Steadicam on her shoulder.

“It is Signora Quilliam,” Mrs. Barcini said with a broad smile. “Finally you got our reservation right.”

There was something different about Mrs. Barcini, too. She didn’t glitter, glow, or fluoresce. She had on a navy blue pantsuit, tennis shoes, and a rather attractive print blouse. Belter was still in shorts and flip-flops, but he wore an Izod golf shirt in dark green that was almost flattering to his rubicund complexion.

Belter noticed her discreet surprise. “We’re here to kick back some. Don’t figure we’ll have to deal with my fans, like we do at the Marriott. Can’t keep up the glamour twenty-four/seven. Poops Ma out.”

“We are also here to try some of your food,” Mrs. Barcini said. She bypassed Kathleen, who ran after her with a fistful of menus, and sat down at the one empty table in the dining room. It was by the kitchen, and it was where Quill sat herself when she wanted to keep an eye on the guests. “I hope there is no poison in this food, as there was at Bonne Goutè last night,” she said loudly.

A pair of tourists at the table nearby looked nervously at their entrees.

She looked down at the pale blue tablecloth, which was clean but bare of cutlery, glasses, or flowers, and announced, “This table has no forks.”

Kathleen rolled her eyes at Quill. “We don’t usually do a setup here, Mrs. Barcini, but let me …”

“You know who I am?”

“Certainly. If you’ll just take these menus, I’ll go get …”

“It’s because I have a famous son.” She slapped Belter on the shoulder. “A very famous son. Although, as you see, we are not here in our shiny clothes, which attract the fans. We are here to relax and prepare for the tidal wave of attention that is sure to follow the airing of the TV show about the slapping down. After last night, Joey is going to be a bigger star than ever before. Do you know about last night?”

“Ma,” Belter said. “Just cool it, okay?”

“See?” Mrs. Barcini beamed. “I embarrass my boy. Good. Keeps him on his toes.”

Belter raised his arm and headed off another slap. “Okay, Ma. Okay.”

“It’s very nice of you to let us stay here, Mrs. McHale,” Josephine said.

Quill looked at her more closely. Groups always had a member quieter than the others, and Josephine was definitely quiet. Other than the indignant squawk she’d let loose when Marco the security guard had grabbed her camera at the high school, Quill didn’t think she’d ever heard her make a noise. Maybe the camera served as her voice, and without it, Josephine had to speak up.

She rubbed her forehead. Dina was right. She was overtired. She was so overtired she was hallucinating.

“She’s not letting us stay here, Sis. We’re paying her.”

“She could always say there’s no room,” Josephine said serenely. “But you didn’t. Thank you.”

“Has that hap—” Quill cut herself off. If the Barcinis had been kicked out of other inns and hotels, it wouldn’t be kind to ask about it. “I mean, what’s been happening since the tragedy last night?”

“That’s what it is, a tragedy,” Belter said, with the air of someone who’s gotten the answer to a puzzling question. “Here Edmund and me had a nice little feud going—good for market share, feuds are, and someone goes and knocks him off. Right in front of me. Oh, well.” He shook his head and opened the menu. “So what’s good to eat here?”

“Everything,” Josephine said. She smiled a little shyly. “I Googled you guys. Ma and Joey wanted to keep staying at the Marriott because of the stewardesses but I wanted to come here.” She patted Quill’s arm again. “I was pretty sure you wouldn’t turn us away like the last time.”

“We didn’t have any rooms, the last time.” Then, a little desperately, she asked, “Stewardesses?”

“Air hostesses,” Belter said. He grinned widely. “There’s a convention. Most times, we’re stuck in Trenton with the pawn show, and I don’t get out much to meet women.”

“Grandchildren,” Mrs. Barcini said. “Joey’s heading on toward forty and Josie here’s thirty-five and there are no grandchildren.”

“Order anything, Joey,” Josephine said. “Her sister’s specialty is charcuterie, which is French for really good meat with white beans.”

“Beans make me fart.”

“Me, too. So order anything with meat in it.”

“Osso buco,” Mrs. Barcini said. “I will forgive anybody anything for a good osso buco.”

Quill felt as if she was herding cats. “We don’t serve osso buco at lunch. Do you mind if I give you some suggestions?”

“Whatever,” Belter said with a wave of his hand.

Quill turned to Kathleen, who had been standing patiently by. “Bring the country pâté for starters, the steak frites for Mr. Barcini, the pasta Quilliam for his mom, and the mushroom-bacon quiche for Josephine.”

“Hot damn,” Belter said. “Steak. Tell her make it rare. If I stab it with my fork, I want it to move.”

“Will do.” Kathleen winked at Quill, then turned and pushed open the doors to the kitchen.

“Is that where she cooks, back there?” Josephine asked.

“Yes. Would you like to see the kitchens? Are you interested in cooking?”

“That Brunswick stew recipe’s hers,” Belter said. “She makes a hell of a corn bread, too. But we figured that wasn’t flashy enough for the show. Shame about Edmund getting whacked like that, Josie. We could have made something out of that stew once the audience tasted it. Oh, well.”

“Oh, well,” Josie echoed.

“Last night was pretty awful,” Quill offered, figuring it was as good a prompt to an amateur investigation as anything, “Had you known Edmund very long, Belter?”

“Me? Never met the guy before this week. Watched his show, is all. Crook.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I said he was a crook. And his ratings were higher than mine, too. Can you beat that? Just goes to show, in today’s world, it’s the crooks that get all the face time. You’d think the media would have better morals, or whatever.”

“No character, that Edmund Tree,” Mrs. Barcini said. “That one, he would steal from his grandmother.”

“I’m in the business, see,” Belter said. “I get all kinds of people in my pawn shop and all kinds of stuff comes across that counter. So you got to know a little bit about everything, right? Or you end up either cheating the customers or cheating yourself. Maybe both. So I know a little bit of this, and a little bit of that, and I hear things. Basically, what Eddie does is swoop through a town like this one, full of nice folks, full of people who should be watching my show, and he creams off the top. Makes an offer on the good stuff and resells it for the bigger bucks. Now, he keeps just enough of the pricey stuff on the air, ’cause that’s what the audience is looking for. It’s a fantasy, like. That they might own something worth a million bucks and they don’t even know it.” He shook his head. “Crook. And it’s legal crookery, if you get my drift, because it’s not illegal to make somebody an offer if they don’t know what they got.”

It took Quill a moment to work this last sentence out. Then she said, “I see what you mean.”

“Now let’s take what I got on hand for a minute. I got me a guy brought in a Colt .45 belonged to Buffalo Bill Cody. I know a bit about guns. I check the firing pin. I check the grip. Colt didn’t make the kind of grip this sucker’s got till two years after Buffalo Bill bought the farm. Not touching that with a ten-foot pole, believe you me. So I tell the guy to take the gun somewhere else. I got me another guy, comes in with a whacking big sword supposed to have belonged to the emperor Hirohito. I get that checked out. Nope, not touching that, either. So I tell them what they got isn’t worth a plugged nickel and they think I’m robbin’ them blind.” He shook his head regretfully. “I tell you another thing about Fast Eddie. He likes to embarrass folks on the air. That little old lady with the Italian trompe l’oeil?” He pronounced it correctly, with just a hint of his drawl.

“I’m afraid I don’t watch the show.”

“You could tell it was a fake from ten feet away. Does Eddie give a shit? No. Just decides it be a grabber to slam her down.” Belter picked up a toothpick and explored his back molar. “’Course, an old painting like that, something else might be under it. Artists do the darnedest things. You’re broke, you need to paint, you grab an old painting out of an attic somewhere, and paint right over it. You know they found a couple of Rembrandts that way?”