Fete Worse Than Death (9781101595138) (11 page)

“In the hospital, for observation. Andy Bishop was great about it. Anyone else would have discharged her, but she’s better off under medical supervision, Marge. I mean, she’s all alone in that house, and heaven knows what that idiot Carol Ann and her stupid Citizens for Justice are up to. What if they picket her, or something?”

“There’s been discussion about picketing.”

“You’re joking.”

“Nope. They had another meeting this morning to decide what to do.”

“Where? And how do you know?”

“The showroom at Peterson Automotive’s big enough for those fancy cars and a crowd, too. Carol Ann called the meeting there. Just like last night. There’s a sign out front, now. It says
CITIZENS FOR JUSTICE HEADQUARTERS
.”

“Did you go to the meeting?”

“Heck, no. They know Elmer’s staying up to the farm and they know you and I are tight and they know you think Carol Ann’s a terminal disease. No, I sent somebody in undercover.”

“You did? Who?”

“Betty. So don’t order the special since she’s not here to cook it.”

“Wow. Betty’s undercover.” Quill sat back. “That was smart.”

“You bet it was,” Marge said with an air of satisfaction. “Nothing like having a good spy in place to gather intelligence. So. What’s next?”

“What’s next is that I’m starving. Then we need to make a list of people who might have had access to that account. But food first.”

“You better order something and eat it. What you weigh, a hundred and ten soaking wet?”

“None of your business.” Quill looked at the chalkboard. “What do you recommend?”

“The Reuben. The rest of the kitchen’s got the sandwich down pat and it doesn’t matter if Betts isn’t here.”

“I’m hungry, so I’ll go for the onion rings, too.”

“Fries are a better bet.” Without looking around, Marge
raised her voice and yelled, “Reubens-with. Two of ’em.” She directed her beady gray gaze back at Quill. “So. What’d you find out before Adela hit the floor?”

“She doesn’t know a thing about the missing money, I’m sure of that. And I had a chance to talk with her once she got admitted to the ER. The checkbook hasn’t been out of her sight. She swears up and down that nobody on the committee even knew where she kept it. She’s never had a meeting at her house, and it’s locked in her desk drawer.”

“Elmer had access, then.”

“Come on, Marge.”

Marge shrugged. “Just pointing out the obvious. What about deposit slips and things like that? She keep those in her purse? The account number’s on those.”

“I didn’t think of that.”

“Not to mention the bank statements. Those go to the house, right? And the mailbox is right outside for anybody to burgle. Thing is, once you got the account number, it’s a lot easier to hack into the system. Knowing Adela, the password’s ‘fete’ or even ‘1234.’” Marge waited until the waitress set the Reubens in front of both of them. “Doesn’t matter who has the checkbook. The real question is who knows enough about computer hacking to get into the system.”

Quill picked up her sandwich and put it down again. “I’ve been thinking about that. Althea Quince claims to know her way around a computer.”

“She does, huh?” Marge put a couple of French fries in her mouth and thought this over. “Maybe we ought to check Ms. Quince out. Betty texted me the names of the
idiots at that meeting this morning. Althea Quince was there.”

“She was?”

“Got there late, and didn’t stay long. She had a companion, Betty said. Didn’t say who that might be.”

“Mr. Quince, probably.” Quill ate a couple of French fries, too. “He seems like a very nice man. Quiet.” She thought a bit more. “Smart, too. Who else was there?”

Marge pulled her cell phone out of her chinos pocket and tapped at it. “The guys from the
Gazette
. But no TV, like there was last night, and the reporters didn’t stay. There still isn’t any proof, and past a certain point, no editor is going to run what amounts to a bunch of unsupported allegations over and over again.” Marge raised her eyes from her cell phone. “I’d like to get Carol Ann in a small room with a big dog and find out just what the heck she does know.”

“Marge!”

“See, my guess is that Carol Ann never got over having to step out of the mayor’s race last year. This is part of a power grab. She lost that job as food inspector.” A grin flitted across Marge’s face and disappeared. “And now she’s got nothing going on except a job cashiering at Wegman’s over to Syracuse and some loony-tunes diet scam called Nutra-Noshers. Anyhow, once the media figures out this is just Carol Ann after some free press she’s going to go begging for coverage.”

“Carol Ann has a job as a cashier at Wegman’s?” Quill was fascinated by this piece of gossip.

“Not too much that suits her notion of herself in these parts. Job at least keeps the rent paid.”

“I thought she owned her own ho…never mind. So you think she cooked up this investigation to unseat Adela and the mayor, too?”

“Wouldn’t be surprised.”

“But the money’s gone.”

“I think Dina’s right. I think Carol Ann lucked into that.”

Quill shook her head. “That doesn’t make much sense. Somebody tipped her off. I’d sure like to find out who. Unless…Do you think she stole the money?”

“Now that would surprise me. Carol Ann’s too much of a law-and-order type. Besides, did you see her face when Mark Anthony told us how much was in the account yesterday? She was as surprised as anybody there. I think young Dina had it right. She’s a spoiler, Carol Ann is. If the money had been there, she was just going to holler louder, asking for a public accounting, blah, blah, blah. Lot of folks figure where there’s smoke there’s fire, which is why big lies work so well.” Marge sighed heavily. “Tell you what. Unless the bank comes up with some computer error, we might as well look where the smoke’s rising.”

“You mean the people on the fete committee.”

“They’re the likeliest to know how much money was floating around. And they knew where the account numbers could be found.”

Quill ate some of her sandwich without really tasting it. “Okay. So the only person on the fete committee we don’t know a thing about is Althea Quince. “

“So we’ve got a possible lead.”

“Right. A possible lead.”

“Or a what d’ya call it? A line of inquiry.”

“Fine! A line of inquiry, then. Why did she go off to that meeting this morning? I think that’s suspicious, don’t you? She’d want to find out what kind of investigation this citizen’s committee’s going to launch to protect herself.”

“Maybe. And maybe she was just nosy.”

“Who else did you say was there?”

Marge tapped on the phone. “A bunch of Harland’s idiot relatives, but since there’s so many of them you have to expect it. Most of the Chamber members, excepting you, me, Miriam, and Dookie. Some little old guy Betts says is at least a hundred and ten with a cane. She’s never seen him before.”

“A little old…” Quill searched her visual memory, which was excellent. “My goodness! Mr. Swenson? What do you suppose he was doing there?”

“Since I don’t know him from a hole in the ground I couldn’t guess. Who is he?”

“If it’s the same man, he’s a guest at the Inn. He took the Provencal Suite on a Long-Term Let.”

“The only really old people with canes around here are widows,” Marge said. “So maybe it is the same guy.”

“For heaven’s sake, Marge.”

“What?!”

“I don’t know. I’m just asking for a little respect, that’s all. Not for me, for the little old…never mind. Anybody else? Anybody suspicious?”

“If you mean former secondhand-rust-bucket drivers flaunting a new Corvette bought with stolen fete money, no. Or if there was, Betts didn’t text me about it.” Marge clicked her cell phone shut. “Best thing we can hope is
that my guy can go through that bank system and trace the money transfer. In the meantime, we got thirty thousand people headed for the fete in two weeks, and nobody to run it…” Marge broke off and narrowed her eyes. “Who the heck is that?”

Quill turned around. A small, dark-haired woman was entering the restaurant. She was dressed in an expensive suit—Adolfo, Quill thought—and followed by two much taller men, who stayed a respectful two feet behind. She carried a slim Hermes briefcase that might have cost less than the suit, but not by much. One of the men had an affable expression. He had a ponytail, wore a headband, and in general looked like he’d headed for California twenty years before and gotten lost.

The other was a hunk. Tall, broad-shouldered, dark-haired, and muscular. Mid-thirties, maybe, with an aquiline nose, square jaw, and intelligent brown eyes under level brows. He caught Quill’s gaze and winked.

Quill, suddenly mindful of the fact that she was a married woman, looked hastily away from the hunk and again at the short, well-dressed woman preceding him.

She looked around the diner in a calculating way. One eyebrow went up when she sighted Quill and she headed briskly toward the booth. She extended a nicely manicured hand and said, “You must be Sarah Quilliam. Or do you prefer McHale? I’m Linda Connelly.”

Quill dropped the remains of her sandwich in her lap, dabbed futilely at the sauerkraut with one hand, and shook Linda’s hand with the other. “Hello. You’re with the company that we’ve asked to run the fete.”

“That’s right. I just came from a meeting with your mayor. He told me you might be here. Call me Linda. Okay if I call you Quill?”

“Certainly.”

“This is George McIntyre, our driver, with the headband, and Mickey Greer, my assistant.”

The corners of Mickey’s eyes crinkled in an attractive smile. He took Quill’s hand in a brief, firm clasp.

Linda nodded at Marge. “And you’re Mrs. Peterson?”

Marge tore her gaze from Mickey Greer and said, “Schmidt. Marge Schmidt.”

Linda nodded. “Yes. Well. We’ve come to an agreement with your mayor. We’re going to run the fete for you.”

“That’s terrific,” Quill said warmly. “Would you like to sit down?”

George smiled. “What we’d like is to sit down and eat a few of those great-looking Reubens. But we don’t have time at the moment. We’re headed over to the Resort to check in. We wanted to stay at the Inn, right, Linda?”

Linda blinked. Then she smiled. It wasn’t a very warm one. “Right. We would have liked to stay at the Inn—we’ve heard so much about it up in Syracuse, but expenses are going to be on the town’s dollar, so we’re economizing.”

“We’d like to schedule a meeting with you later, though,” George said. “Get to know you folks a little better. We were wondering if we might meet with you and the rest of the fete committee tonight? Say about eight o’clock if that’s not too late for you? I know you need some time with your little boy. We’ve got to come up to speed pretty quick, here.”

“Eight would be fine,” Quill said. “I’ll give the other
committee members a call. Would you like to meet at the Inn?”

“Sure,” Linda said. “Whatever suits you. We’ll see you there.” She shook hands with Quill and Marge, wheeled around, and left, trailed by George, who waved a cheery good-bye, and the hunk, who didn’t look back.

“Holy cripes,” Marge said after they were safely out of hearing.

“She did seem pretty efficient,” Quill said. “Somehow you’d expect an event co-coordinator to be warmer.”

“Who? Linda Connelly? I meant the guy with her.”

Quill rubbed the back of her neck. “Really? Which one?”

Marge pursed her lips. “You know what? If you’d left it at the ‘really’ I might have bought it. It was the ‘which one’ that did it. The hunk, of course. I think I better come to that meeting of yours tonight. Keep an eye out for Myles while he’s away.”

Quill raised both eyebrows. “Oh, yeah? So who’s the one that said ‘Call me Schmidt’ rather than admitting she was married? I think you’d better come to the meeting, too. And bring Harland with you.”

Marge made a rude noise.

“I’m glad Elmer found someone so quickly.” Quill gazed doubtfully out the window. Linda and her crew were getting into a silver Lexus. George the headband guy got into the driver’s seat. Mickey Greer sat next to him. Linda sat in the back. “They certainly knew a great deal about both of us, Marge. Kind of odd, don’t you think?”

Marge shrugged. “Probably pumped Elmer. Or maybe they checked you out on the Internet. There are a lot of discussion groups about your paintings. The big thing is
they’re taking over the fete. It was bad enough when we lost Adela. No offense, Quill, but that thing would have swallowed you up and spit you out. So as long as they handle that, they can be as nosy and rude as they want. It doesn’t matter to me. What does matter is where that money went. As far as our investigation goes…”

Quill opened her mouth and then shut it. Marge loved snooping. She was pretty good at it. And she herself needed a partner.

“…There’s not much we can do until my guy lets us know where the money went.”

“I think we ought to try and talk to Carol Ann.”

“Davy will have better luck.”

This was true.

“What about Althea Quince?”

“You’re reaching.”

Quill felt her cheeks go red. “You’re right.”

“Let things ripen a bit. My tech ought to be getting back to me pretty quick. When she does, I’ll call you.” She looked at her watch. “I can’t sit around here all day gabbing with you. I’ve got things to do.”

“You were the one who asked me to lunch,” Quill said, mildly insulted. “Besides, I’ve got a lot to do, too.” She looked at her watch. “Good grief. It’s after four already. I’m supposed to be at Bonne Goute to go over the conduct code for the food booth judges. Dina was a peach and faxed everyone their assignments. Well,” she said decisively, “I can give them an hour, no more. I’ve got to get back to the Inn in time for Jack’s dinner.”

“You think you’re going to get out of there in an hour?” Marge hooted.

“Adela always did.”

“Adela’s Adela. You’re…”

“I’m what?”

“You’re a pushover, that’s what you are. Why do you think you’ve been Chamber secretary all these years? You’ll be lucky if you get back before next Tuesday.”

“I know how to run a meeting, thank you very much. These people have all been through this before. Well, almost all. Althea Quince is judging the craft jewelry, but that’s not my problem, thank goodness. Just the food and the pets. Clare’s got this new chef who’s going to handle the pies, but I can coach her anytime in the next couple of weeks if she needs extra help. I’ll just whip through the conduct requirements, and be out of there by teatime. Of course,” Quill added honestly, “I don’t quite have Adela’s touch, I’ll admit that.”