Ms. Wesland looked up from the papers that littered her desk and peered at us through heavy glasses. I fought back the impulse to stammer an apology for disturbing her.
“We’re from the Service Club of Upper River Gulch Environs,” announced Gerda.
“Oh, the SCOURGEs,” sighed Ms. Wesland, thereby delighting me. “It’s about time. I thought you were going to get that pumpkin out of here by last week at the latest.”
“Pumpkin?” I brightened even more. “You mean it’s here?”
Ms. Wesland rolled her eyes heavenward. “It’s been taking up most of the freezer. Really, if you weren’t going to use the stuff…”
“We are,” I said quickly. “We’ll take it away with us, I promise.”
“But we need another favor,” Gerda stuck in brightly with her usual lack of timing.
Ms. Wesland placed her hands palm down on the cluttered surface of her desk. “Another favor?” she asked in tones of foreboding. Obviously, she’d had prior experience of the SCOURGEs. I hoped she had as little resistance to their persuasion as I had.
Somehow, we smoothed out the details. It involved a free book of tickets for the turkey raffle and a pair of free tickets to the breakfast, but in the end she agreed to not only let us store the perishables in the school refrigerator, but also to show up at the school early on Thanksgiving morning to unlock the kitchen and let us retrieve the stuff. Somewhat reconciled by the deal she had struck with us, she rose and led the way to the small kitchen that fed the three hundred plus students who infested the place.
The vision of clean, sparkling stainless steel countertops, undoubtedly new since my time, greeted us. It smelled of disinfectant and a flowery air freshener that kept puffing its sickly sweet perfume into the room. A large freezer with double doors, and a matching refrigerator, stood against the back wall. I checked the latter for space, was relieved to find more than enough room available, and Gerda and I set about ferrying boxes and bestowing them under the watchful gaze of the secretary. I shoved in the last batch of sausages with a sigh and turned toward the door.
“Not so fast,” called Ms. Wesland. “The pumpkin?”
Oh, yes. The pumpkin. An unwelcome thought crossed my mind. Now that I’d found it, I was going to have to use it. And that meant rounding up cooks. That was another detail Cindy Brody never got around to, conning people into baking, and baking, and baking. Boy, were the SCOURGEs—and everyone else I knew in town—going to be thrilled to hear from me. And then I’d have to visit every one of them to deliver the frozen stuff. Apparently I hadn’t even begun to touch the highlights of this day.
Then another idea struck me, and I turned back to the secretary. “I can’t get the pumpkin into my car unless I can leave the coffeepot here.” I honestly didn’t think I’d get away with it, considering Hans Gustav stood outside, but twenty minutes later I headed for home with Freya’s trunk mercifully closed on the tubs of frozen pie filling.
Gerda followed, saying she needed a break from the store. With both our cars safely in the garage, we headed up the stairs toward afternoon tea—I’d long since missed lunch—and for me, a round of begging phone calls. As I shook out my wet coat before going into the house, I remembered one question I hadn’t had time to ask Gerda.
“How much did Cindy know about Brody’s finances?” I called after my aunt.
“To hear her tell it, everything and nothing.” Gerda’s answer floated out from the kitchen. Already I heard her filling the kettle.
“How so?” I trailed after her into the comfortable room. The calls could wait a few minutes.
“She’s been complaining for months he was hiding his income.” She stooped to detach Furface from his tooth-hold on her ankle, and brought him up to purr in contentment on her shoulder. “And once when she caught me at Sue Hinkel’s, she complained for a good fifteen minutes, nonstop, about how his lawyer had cooked up a way so she wouldn’t get anything in the divorce settlement.”
I frowned. “So, with his death, she’ll inherit everything?” Absently, I scooped up a gray and white armful of Dagmar.
Gerda nodded. “Unless that sister of his has anything to say about it—but knowing Cindy, I’ll bet she made sure of his will. Oh, and don’t forget his insurance policy. I gather that’s a hefty one. Perfect Cindy will be a very wealthy widow.”
I stroked the soft fur. That gave Perfect Cindy, who enjoyed her money very much indeed, an excellent reason for murdering her husband before all his beautiful money escaped her.
Chapter Seven
“Why can’t people be at home the day before Thanksgiving?” I griped after leaving far too many messages on answering machines. “Of course, if I knew someone was about to call asking me to bake a dozen or so pies, I probably wouldn’t answer, either.”
Gerda looked up from the two she had just slid onto her oven’s center shelf. She had called one of the teenagers who helped out in her shop to cover for her while she baked, and the girl had been delighted at the chance to earn a little extra Christmas money by working that afternoon. “Don’t be ridiculous, dear. Why wouldn’t everyone want to help? It’s fun.”
I paused in my dialing of the next number, then just shook my head and continued. The entire board of the SCOURGEs was like that—if they were behind a cause or an event, they simply couldn’t understand that the rest of the town might regard it with horror. And it was no good trying to disillusion them, either. I’d tried that before, and they just stared at me blankly, then laughed as if I’d told them a joke.
“I know poor Nancy Fairfield isn’t feeling well,” Gerda went on, “but I’m sure Adam will bake a few for you. It’s not as if it’s any trouble, after all. He’d just have to pour the defrosted mix into a pie shell.”
“I’ll put you down for another ten, then. I’d hate to deprive you of the fun.” I hung up—someone had had the sense to disconnect their answering machine, undoubtedly in anticipation of my call. I’d try them again later. “Right now,” I added, since my aunt stared at me in open-mouthed consternation, “I’ve got to get over to the Still. Perfect Cindy never got around to soliciting any liqueurs.”
“For the breakfast?” demanded Gerda.
“The park clean-up crew, and the Dinner-in-the-Park,” I called over my shoulder. “The Still’s probably closing early for the holidays, so I’ve got to run. Why don’t you make a few more pie calls?” I added as I grabbed my purse and ducked out the door. It was already late afternoon. I’d have to hustle if I hoped to find Hugh Cartwright, the Still’s owner, on the premises.
Freya responded with her usual rumblings and complainings when I turned the key, but by the time I’d backed out, turned around in the driveway and headed down the rain-slicked hill, she purred at her usual ear-splitting decibel rating. A nasty wind whipped pine needles and oak leaves across my windshield, where the wipers beat a steady tattoo at their fastest pace. And to think I’d come home for a rest. For a moment I recalled my tiny cubicle, my obnoxious boss, the unreasonable clients, my ongoing battle to keep at least the pretence of honesty over the deductions of one account in particular, then weighed it all against heading a SCOURGE project. Seemed pretty evenly balanced, to me. Although the fact that the pancake breakfast raced at me with frightening speed caused the scales to teeter in favor of Hastings, Millard and Perkins, Inc., accountants to the conceited and dishonest.
The road to the Still lay just outside of town. I eased through our tiny business district, passed our one main intersection, then continued down Last Gasp Hill for a quarter mile before turning over the bridge and following the narrow two-lane street that wound along the top of the river gulch. Some twenty feet below, just beyond the metal guard rail, the water churned over the rocks in its rough and ready bed. No one, as far as I knew, had ever tried white water rafting there. Perhaps I’d have to suggest it as a summer excursion to the SCOURGEs. The next moment I changed my mind. Knowing them, they’d be crazy enough to try it, and I really was very fond of them, in spite of their landing me with their Thanksgiving mess.
I rounded the last bend and pulled into the parking lot, which could hold two dozen cars. Only four gathered together near the main door. I considered pulling around back and down the hill to the receiving dock, but decided it wasn’t worth the effort. If I got a single bottle, I could consider myself lucky. Hugh Cartwright talked a good line about charitable donations, but I’d never heard of his actually making many. But you never knew.
I turned off the key and climbed out into a whipping wind. Clutching my parka about myself, I ran for the shelter of the front door. To my surprise, it opened. I’d fully expected some security-minded soul would have locked it with so few people in the building.
The wonderful aroma of cranberries reached out and enveloped me as soon as I stepped inside, and for a moment I just stood there, practically drooling. I didn’t remember that as one of their products, but they experimented all the time. Hugh Cartwright didn’t believe in relying on only a few tried-and-true staples, not when there might be a buck to be made by branching out. Success, declared the motto over every employee’s work station, lay in diversity.
The lobby was a small room, boasting a couple of chairs, a couch, several potted plants, the receptionist’s desk—empty—and a few lamps that eased the gloom of the day. One door led to the tasting and sales room. I wandered through the other, which led along a corridor. Here, the cranberry scent became overpowering, sickeningly sweet and cloying.
The main production facilities lay on the downhill side. You could look—if you weren’t acrophobic like me—through a wall of glass down a storey to the floor where one bathtub-like vat lay in the center, more for show than actual use, I’d always suspected. Two rows of cabinets flanked it on either side, topped by copper stills ranging in size from eighty liters all the way up to five hundred, fruit presses, fermentation and maceration tanks, and a number of mysterious-looking stainless steel contraptions. Somewhere down there would be the chemistry labs and, for all I knew, experiments in weaponry for culinary and alcoholic warfare.
On the other side of the corridor, level with the upper storey parking lot, lay offices. I looked around, not seeing anyone, but I could hear the hum of distant machinery. Then came the whine of a forklift and a man’s muffled shout.
“Mr. Cartwright?” I called. My voice sounded loud and echoed hollowly along the empty passage. I turned around in a circle, wondering if I should try to find shipping and receiving, after all.
Metal clanged to the steady rhythm of someone climbing stairs, and in another minute the door to the catwalk that circled the facilities below opened. A head of thick dark hair popped around the edge, followed by a lithe body in jeans and a sweatshirt. Tony Carerras glared at me. “What do you want? We’re closed.”
“Tony?” I stifled an uneasy shiver. He looked like the sort you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley—or a brightly lit main street, for that matter. But both Peggy and Gerda swore he was a good soul, despite a few little legal discrepancies in his background. Juvenile records are sealed for a good reason, Peggy averred. Everyone, especially a kid from a rotten background, deserved a second chance. And a third. And a fourth. I think Tony was on his fifth, and that only thanks to the generous—or gullible—nature of Peggy. “I’m Annike McKinley. I’ve come to see Hugh Cartwright. About a donation of bottles he promised.”
Tony looked me up and down with thinly veiled insolence. “Oh, yeah. Ol’ McKinley’s widow.”
“And Gerda Lundquist’s niece.” It never hurt to set a positive item against the fact my late husband had arrested him on more than one occasion.
His smile flashed, bright and startling, showing teeth unexpectedly white and even. “That’s right. She’s okay.” He nodded, his smile broadening. “Well, what you need is ol’ Cartwright, but he ain’t here.” He considered a moment. “I’ll get Dave.” He spun around and vanished.
As the metal stairs clanged under his descending sneakers, I leaned against the wall, relieved by the change in his attitude. And that unexpectedly blinding smile. Maybe Peggy was right about him. And then again, maybe he’d just mastered a touch of charm to get himself out of trouble.
The stairs announced someone coming back up, a slower, heavier tread than before. The sound changed as the climber reached the upper catwalk, then the door opened, and a uniformed figure stood silhouetted against the brighter light. He peered forward. “Hi, Annike.” His voice sounded dull, tired, depressed. He regarded me with an expression that lightened from bleak to merely morose. “I’m night watchman here,” he told me with no enthusiasm.
“So I’d heard. Congratulations.” I’d known Dave Hatter for most of my life, even though he was five years older than me. Two of his younger sisters had been my friends all the way through high school. “Isn’t this a bit early for you to be on duty?”
“Need the overtime.” Despair flickered in his dull gray eyes. His light brown hair looked as if he hadn’t combed it that day, and his shoulders slumped, making him look shrunken, frailer than I knew him to be. I remembered him as wiry and athletic, with only a slight touch of that middle-age spread that comes to us all.
I considered offering him a sympathetic ear, but something in his expression warned me not to intrude. Instead, I waved a hand toward the mysteries below. “Pretty impressive.”
“I could give you a tour,” he offered, unenthusiastic, almost listless. “Nothing much ever happens here.”