A Touch of the Grape: A Hemlock Falls Mystery (Hemlock Falls Mystery series) (2 page)

Like how to pay this month's gas bill.

Or how to keep out of filing for Chapter Eleven. "It's
not bankruptcy, Quill," their attorney Howie Murchison
had said. "It's protection from bankruptcy."

She headed for the glass-fronted refrigerator where Meg kept her leftovers.

"What'n the double-dyed
heck
is all that noise?" Doreen, Quill's head housekeeper, chief nemesis—and.
Quill freely admitted, one of her best friends—banged through the double doors leading to the dining room and addressed Quill, one hand on an aproned hip, the other armed with a mop. There were days that Doreen looked
more like a rooster than others, and this was one of
them. Her sparse gray hair spiked over her head like a cockerel's comb, and her eyes were narrowed into birdy
black beads.

"Meg and the dog," Quill said briefly. She opened the refrigerator door and began to search the shelves.

"Why are you out playin' with that damn dog when all we got stayin' here at the Inn is that ladies organi
zation? And
they'll
be gone as soon as that president of
theirs shows up for their meeting. You should be out bangin' the bushes for business." Doreen leaned back and addressed the ceiling. "Who was that damn fool
Eye-talian who played the fiddle while the whole place
burned down around him? Nero. That's the one. Nero." She lowered her gaze.

Doreen's stare was so accusing, Quill could feel it through her back. She ignored it and continued her
search through the refrigerator. The glass bowl contain
ing stew was gone. There was a huge mound of tenderloin for the steak tartare scheduled for that evening's Crafty Ladies dinner; two loaves of chicken liver pâté
shaped like dollar signs for the Association of Insurance Agents banquet; and a casserole dish filled with an un
identifiable green goo that turned out, on a quick taste test, to be pesto. Quill muttered, "Dang," shrugged, and scooped up a handful of raw tenderloin.

Muttering, Doreen filled her mop bucket at the sink and set it on the floor with a bang. "Insteada dog tricks, you oughta—" She broke off, and gasped. "You ain't gonna feed that good meat to that DOG!?" Outraged, she advanced like Patton on Inchon. Or was it MacArthur? Quill could never get military history straight.

"Missy?!"

"What?!!" Quill closed her hand defensively on the meat. That was a mistake. She patted futilely at the red oozing over her knuckles.

"That meat's a hunnert dollars a pound—"

"It's nowhere near a hundred dollars for
twenty
pounds, much less one pound—"

"—and in Times-Like-These-Here you're gonna feed a damn dog that there meat? What, you're gonna put it
on his bill? In Times-Like-These-Here, you gotta watch
the bottom line. That means cash flow, missy, in case you don't know it."

"I don't," Quill said tightly, "want to hear another word about Times-Like-These-Here. As for the dog, I called the people at the pound. Selena Summerhill's come to take him away."

"That's a sign for you," Doreen muttered darkly.
"The wife of one a the best winegrowers in central New
York takin' a job as a dogcatcher. I ask you, what are things coming to when—" She stopped herself in mid-flow. "She's takin' the dog?"

"That's right. I think it's been hurt, Doreen, and I just couldn't stand watching it mooch around here. It won't let anyone near it."

"You know what's gonna happen to that dog once it gets to the shelter, doncha?"

"Probably," Quill said with a sigh. "But it's a stray, Doreen, and it needs a vet, and we can't afford to help it. Besides, what do you care? I thought you hated that dog."

"Ugliest damn thing I've ever seen," Doreen agreed with suspect belligerence. She thought a moment, her jaw working. "What you should do is, you should tell Mike to get out the shotgun and just …" She cocked her forefinger.

"Why don't
you
tell Mike to get out the shotgun and shoot him?"

"You're the boss. You do it."

"The only time you agree that I'm the boss is when there's something horrid to do that you don't want to do
and I'm not going to do it. Like try to get more business
here at the Inn. I don't notice you standing by the side
of the road flaggin' down tour buses
…
oh, no. You just
come in here and nag on at me." Quill shook her head, exasperated and ashamed that she'd lost her temper. "Never mind. There's a very nice vet that volunteers at the shelter, Selena says, and there's a chance the dog can be treated and adopted. So. Good-bye. I'm going
back to the garden shed and help Selena get the dog into
her pickup truck." Clutching the beef. Quill marched toward the back door. She heard Doreen marching after her. Quill skidded to a halt and turned around. "Why are you following me?"

"I'm goin' out to he'p you. Scrawny thing like that'd soon as bite you as look at you."

Quill looked at her suspiciously. She was carrying her
mop like a rifle. "Okay. You can help. But don't scare it."

Doreen gave an indignant sniff.

"And don't even think of bashing it. Leave your mop in the kitchen."

Doreen set the mop against the side of the long birch
worktable that dominated the kitchen, raised her eyebrows at the meat in Quill's fist, and said truculently, "You better ditch that meat and get some Doritos."

"Doritos?"

"Doritos," Doreen said flatly. "Damn dog like that, it ain't used to meat. Used to eating out of garbage cans.
You wanna catch it, you get yourself something it's used
to. Like Doritos."

"Doreen, this is a three-star gourmet restaurant attached to a two-star hotel. We don't have any Doritos. Meg wouldn't let a bag of Doritos within sixty feet of the Dumpster out back, much less in the pantry itself."

"Bjarne's got himself a stash right next to the stockpots."

This didn't surprise Quill at all. Bjarne was a young Finn from the Cornell School of Hotel Management (as were all of their
sous-
chefs
),
and he thought no one knew about his addiction to junk food. He was wrong. When Quill regretfully laid off all the others due to the
desperate state of the business, it was the first thing they
told her.

Doreen tramped to the shelving underneath the long windows and rummaged among the pots. After a prolonged bout of clanking (an unwelcome addition to the
cacophony still drifting in from the garden ) she emerged
with a familiarly marked cellophane bag. "See?"

"Do you think we should just take it? I mean, those are Bjarne's, not ours."

"Finns are a bunch a damn Socialists anyways. They don't believe in ownership."

Quill tried to keep the beef from dripping out of her
hand and onto the floor, and decided not to clarify the
distinction between communism and socialism. She
rather hoped the dog preferred Doritos to beef. The dog looked as if he might be a very good biter if he had the
inclination, and you could just scatter Doritos in front of it. "Come on. Let's get this over with."

Outside, the mist had turned to a fine rain. Quill ignored the damp air and the puddles forming under her feet, and strode purposefully back to the azalea bushes. The dog was sitting bolt upright near the shed, clearly anxious. Whether this was because Meg had switched from "Doggie in the Window" to "Old Shep"—in which, Quill recalled, the dog died—or because Selena Summerhill had returned from her pickup truck armed
with a long pole and capture collar. Quill wasn't entirely
sure. She brandished her fistful of beef. "Here, boy. Here, boy."

The dog looked alertly at Quill. His tongue lolled. He
licked his lips.

Selena flourished the catch pole. "You go up to him, Quill. I'll be right behind you." He looked at Selena. His lips curled back from his teeth. He growled. It was
a low, nasty growl, entirely ferocious. Meg stopped sing
ing, rose to her feet, and backed carefully away. "Ah, Quill …"

"I've got this side covered," Selena said bravely. She was wearing a long flowered skirt and a gauzy blouse
that hung limply around her slender figure. She was get
ting very damp in the misty rain. She didn't look like any dogcatcher Quill had ever seen. "You take the other."

Meg shrieked. "Are you
crazy,
Selena? He'll bite her hand off! He'll bite all of us!"

"Be quiet, both of you!" Quill said. "Here, boy. Here, boy." She advanced slowly, her hand out
stretched, palm up to display the beef. The dog extended
his neck and sniffed. Quill took two steps forward. The dog sneezed, shook his head, and backed up. "Easy, boy. Whoa, boy."

"He's not a horse," Meg said.

"Well, 'stay' then, boy. Or sit. Can you sit?"

The dog barked and ran under the azalea bush. Quill
could hear him panting. Doreen, gazing skyward, pursed
her lips in an "I told you so" whistle.

"Do you think I should crawl in after him?" Selena asked.

"I do
not,"
Meg said.

"I can't believe that four intelligent women can't get a little old dog out from the bushes," Quill said. She clucked in what she hoped was a dog-tempting way.

"Three intelligent women," Meg said. "Not four."

"Speak for yourself."

"I was."

Quill glared at her.

"For heaven's sake. Quill. What kind of lunatic is
going to go after a stray sick dog with a fistful of meat?
You're nuts."

"It's just a dog, Meg. Not a wild boar."

"That dog's a hundred and twenty pounds if it's fifteen," Meg said. "It might as well be a wild boar. Did you see those teeth? I think we'd better get the guys. This could be dangerous."

"Crimney's
sake,"
Doreen said. She rattled the Doritos bag, then shook all the chips onto the ground. The dog emerged from the bush flat on his belly and inched forward. Grasping the catch pole in both hands, Selena moved to the dog's left. Meg began a series of duck-like squawks as what Quill presumed was an encouraging diversionary tactic. Suddenly, the dog jerked his head back and stared over Quill's left shoulder. Distracted, Quill turned, saw the group approaching the garden shed, and groaned under her breath. Five middle-aged ladies gathered under three brightly colored umbrellas were strolling in a clutch on the path through the gardens. Headed straight for them. That many people were bound to scare him off. Quill turned back to the dog. All she could see was a tail thumping at the perimeter of the azalea bush. The rest of the animal was nowhere in sight. The Doritos were gone. "Damn," Quill said.

Doreen smoothed her apron and greeted the approach
ing group with a toothy grin. The largest umbrella, the one with the Cinzano label on it, dipped forward and a voice cried, "Miss QUILLL-I-yam."

"Oh, yippee," Meg muttered. "It's the crafty ladies."

"Qué pasa?
" said Selena. "This name-calling does not suit you, Meg."

Meg looked startled. "It's what they call themselves. Their organization is the Crafty Ladies. They're into …" She waved her hand vaguely. "You know— crafts. They stuff things. They booked into the Inn for a week. As a matter of fact, they're the only guests we've got booked for the entire summer."

"That's not true," Quill said. "Two of the insurance brokers are staying overnight after their banquet this evening."

"The Crafty Ladies do more than stuff things," Doreen said indignantly. "I've been talkin' to that Ellen Dunbarton all about it. They're artists. They make things. Quite a bit a money innit, or so she says."

"And so there is," said the Cinzano umbrella. The
canvas tipped up to reveal a cheerful woman with a comfortably plump figure, bright orange-red hair, and a star
tling pair of earrings. The earrings appeared to be made of bottle caps. All of the Crafty Ladies seemed to be on
the far side of sixty. Quill admired the verve for life that
resulted in their colorful clothes and attention-grabbing (if peculiar) jewelry.

"Ecology-minded, too," Doreen added. "Them are caps from Coke and like that."

"We recycle," said the red-haired woman. "Have you forgotten, Quill? The tour?"

"Madonna," Selena said.

Quill, not knowing whether this was an imprecation or an attempt to seem saliently hip, abandoned her con
templation of the dog's tail and made a guilty face. "Oh,
dear. I had forgotten we had arranged to tour the Inn."

"That is a very ugly dog," Ellen Dunbarton observed pleasantly. "OOPS! It went back into the azaleas again."

"I am attempting to catch it," Selena explained. She
waved her catch pole. "I am the dog warden. Warden
Summerhill." She smiled in a pleased way.

"Sorry," Quill said, "I'm forgetting my manners." She began introductions. "Selena, I'd like to present some of our guests."

"Our only guests," Doreen added, "on account of somebody here'd rather play with dogs than get any more of 'em."

"Hush, Doreen. Selena, this is Ellen Dunbarton."

"Vice president, the Crafty Ladies." Ellen smiled
graciously at Selena. "And these are all the members of our group but one. We're ladies-in-waiting, you see. Our group has assembled to meet our president, which brings our total organization to six. Fran Grimsby's there in the hand-painted muumuu. Right beside her are Robin Rob
inson and Mary Lennox; Robin's the sequin sweatshirt, Mary's the pink twinset—hand crocheted. And that's Freddie Patch, under the yellow umbrella. Short for Frederica. She's our craftless Crafty Lady."