with Quincy, the word “stupid” hung in the air. “I don’t
do it myself. I got a couple kids on the payroll. And one
of the accounts I landed was with New York state
troopers.”
“Holy crow.”
Marge smiled. There was one thing at which she was
brilliant and that was making money. “Anyway. I can fix
it to make a service call on the barracks, if you want.
And we can hack into the system and get a look at that
report.”
“Can we get a copy, do you think?”
“Nope. All that kind of stuff is tracked. And I’m not
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putting a business this lucrative on the line by screwing
up. But if we do sort of accidentally see the report, well,
we’ll be a little further ahead on this case, won’t we?”
“Clues!” Quill said. “We’d have clues! This is just
terrific. But how are you going to get me in there?”
“Disguise,” Marge said casually. “I’ve got that all
worked out, too. But you’ll have to put on a wig.”
“I’ll put a lampshade on my head and waltz down
Main Street to get a look at that report. And when do we
do it?”
“Davy says they’ve got to file a preliminary report
within forty-eight hours. That puts us into tomorrow. If
there’s any weird stuff, the results won’t be back by
then of course, but we can always go back for another
service call.”
“Marge, you are brilliant.” Quill reached over and
shook her hand. “Brilliant.”
Marge smiled in satisfaction. She also looked a
lot happier than she had for a few days. Quill looked
at her friend and sighed. Next to Pamela’s luscious
curves, Marge’s solid frame looked workmanlike. And
no makeup was going to make her fierce blue gaze anything but machine-gun-like. If Harland was going to swap all Marge’s common sense, not to mention her intellect, for a soppy Southern belle who was convinced dogs could vote, he was a fool. “Men,” Quill said, half
aloud, “are idiots.”
“You thinking of anyone in particular?”
“Um.” Marge hated anyone interfering in her business. Especially her love life.
Quill’s mind flew back to the Chamber meeting the
day before. “Actually I was thinking about adding an
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other suspect. Remember when you made that remark
about Kittleburger at the Chamber meeting?”
“I didn’t say he was an idiot.”
“You didn’t say anything at all. But you expressed
contempt. Or something like it.”
“I did?”
“You have a very expressive face, Marge.”
“I do?”
“Yes,” Quill said firmly. She believed that compliments, even if untrue, did everyone a lot of good. “What do you know about Kittleburger? I’m on my way to investigate him right now.”
“You’re going to investigate Maxwell Kittleburger?”
Marge stared at her for a long moment, and then hooted
with laugher.
“What’s so funny about that?” Quill asked with dignity. “If you think I’m going to sit down and ask him where he was on the night of Monday the twenty-eighth
at or around eight o’clock, you are much mistaken. I am
far subtler than that.”
“You’d better be. The guy’s gonna chew you up and
spit you out if you’re not careful.” Marge considered for
a moment. “He’d start by suing you for something and
end by owning you lock, stock, and barrel. That’s the
kind of guy Maxwell Kittleburger is, unless you whack
him a good one right off the bat. And you were going to
be subtle around him how?”
“I was going to ask him about stock options.”
Marge looked blank. Then she said, “What the billy
blue blazes are you on about? Stock options? For one
thing, Pet Pro’s privately owned. So why would you be
asking him about stock options? Not to mention the fact
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that the guy’s a lot better at devaluing stock than recommending investments. One of his little side businesses is buying up healthy business. Then he . . .”
“Chews them up and spits them out,” Quill said. “I
get the picture. But when I Googled Pet Pro last night an
article from the Wall Street Journal showed up. Apparently he’s considering taking Pet Pro public.”
“No kidding.” Marge rubbed her chin thoughtfully.
“So I could just say I was reading the Journal the
other day and I came across this article and did he think
I should invest in his company if he goes public.”
“It might work,” Marge said shrewdly. “Guy like that
likes to boast. No question. Look at that Donald Trump.
So you get Kittleburger started on what a big muckety
muck he is in business, you probably won’t be able to
shut him up. Thing is, you’d better have me with you.”
“I should?”
“He’s gonna lose you right about the time he starts
talking discovery,” Marge said. “Now me, he’ll enjoy
talking to. And we can slip in a couple of questions
about where he was Monday night. And maybe some
other things, too.”
“But that still doesn’t explain why you said,
‘Maxwell Kittleburger’ in that odd way at the Chamber
meeting.”
“It doesn’t, does it?” Marge said with a sharklike
smile.
“He must be at Harvey’s,” Dina said in response to
Quill’s inquiry. She and Marge had taken Quill’s Honda
to the Inn. Dina was at her post early this morning. She
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usually was early if she had spent the night in town with
Davy. “At least, that’s what I’m guessing. Harvey’s
pitching him.” She sat behind the large mahogany reception desk and blinked at them through her large, red-rimmed glasses. Mike the groundskeeper had filled the
oriental vases that stood on either side of the desk with
late-blooming lilies, and their heavy scent permeated
the air.
“Harvey Bozzel is pitching an advertising campaign
to Maxwell Kittleburger?” Quill said. She and Marge
exchanged glances that were in equal parts amazed and
appalled. In the past, Harvey had been responsible for a
nudie bar protest song, using the lyrics from “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and the infamous Little Miss Hemlock Falls Beauty Contest. Everybody in Hemlock
Falls loved Harvey—or at least tolerated him with a
modicum of affection—but nobody could accuse him of
even basic competency when it came to advertising and
marketing ideas. He had organized a Civil War reenactment in which the town had lost the battle.
Marge, who thought tact was for wusses, said, “He’s
out of his mind. Kittleburger’ll have him for breakfast.
Come to think of it, how the heck did he convince Kittleburger to see him, anyway? The guy’s an idiot.”
Quill was pretty sure Marge was referring to Harvey.
“Now, maybe Harvey actually came up with a great
idea. You read about little ad companies that come up
with million-dollar campa
igns all the time. They absolutely slaughter the high-powered competition. The Wall Street Journal’s filled with stories like that.”
“Since when do you read the Wall Street Journal?”
Dina asked with interest.
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“Since she started posing as a detective,” Marge
scoffed. “Dina’s right. This doesn’t make any sense.”
“Hey,” Quill protested. “You find real genius in unexpected places. Harvey’s been trying for years to land a big client—and what could be bigger for someone like
him than Pet Pro Protein?”
“How’d Harvey get Kittleburger over to his place,
anyhow?”
“He left this for Mr. Kittleburger. Sort of a sample,
to get his attention.” Dina pulled out a large piece of
tissue paper–covered cardboard from beneath the reception desk. A note attached to the board was headed:
“Bozzel Advertising! Nothing But the Best! For the Best!
H. Bozzel, Pres!” Below the head was a note in Harvey’s spiky handwriting: “An idea for your new logo.”
Quill flipped the tissue paper up.
Harvey was a pretty good illustrator. He’d sketched a
can of cat food and designed a new label. The silhouette
of a cat, ears up, whiskers at a rakish slant, stared out
from the center. The lifeless body of a mouse dangled
from its jaws. The header beneath read: “Mousee
Morsels! Pet Food the Way Nature Intended!”
The three of them gazed at the drawing in silence.
“I think it’s gross,” Dina said. “Frankly.”
“It is gross,” Quill said. “The question is, why in the
world did Mr. Kittleburger bite? So to speak.”
“I don’t know that,” Dina said.
“I know this,” Marge said. “It’d be a darned good
idea to find out.”
“It would?” Quill said. “But what does it have to do
with the murder investigation?”
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“Not a thing. But what d’ya think Kittleburger’s gone
over to Harvey’s to do?”
Quill spread her hands out in a “search me” gesture.
“I’ll tell you what he’s going to do. Kittleburger’s got
a reputation worse than Disney.”
It took Quill a second to work this out. “Oh. You
mean about suing people that mess around with the Disney logo or the Disney image. But for heaven’s sake, Marge, we’re talking about pet food here.”
“Far as Mad Max is concerned, Pet Pro Protein is the
Holy Grail. And I’ll tell you something.” Marge’s chin
jutted out, increasing her resemblance to George S. Patton. “He’s not going to try his bully-boy tactics here in my town. You coming with me, Quill?”
“Wow,” Dina said, “this is just like the movies.”
Quill’s personal preference was to avoid unnecessary
trouble. Between Meg, murder investigations, and the hassles of running the Inn, she had enough upsets. “I should really stay here and settle down to paying some bills.”
Marge grabbed her upper arm and began to pull her
to the door. “You can take care of the bills later.”
Quill hung back. It seemed rude to remove Marge’s
hand from her arm, so she said, merely, “I don’t want to.”
“You think I’m going to start punching old Max, or
something? Nah. I’ll be diplomatic like you wouldn’t
believe. We’ll pry that sucker off of Harvey and take
him back to the Croh Bar for lunch.”
“It’s too early for lunch.”
“Coffee, then. Come on.”
The two of them returned to Quill’s Honda and Quill
drove back the short distance to the village.
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The sun was at an angle that flooded the cobblestone
storefronts on Main Street in golden mellow light. Yellow and white chrysanthemums filled the stone planters that were spaced at intervals down the sidewalks. The
village looked far too peaceful for anything but cheerful
conversation and contented idling.
There was an empty spot right in front of Harvey’s
office. Quill parallel parked quite neatly, and she and
Marge got out of the car. Village ordinances banned any
advertising signs more that eight inches high and three
feet wide. So the dark green sign with the gold letters
over Harvey’s front door read BOZZEL FOR THE BEST!
(ADVERTISING AT IT’S GREATEST) had a fairly tasteful appearance. Although, Quill noted, Harvey still hadn’t deleted the annoying apostrophe from “it’s.” It just, he
claimed, didn’t look right without it.
Marge shoved the glass front door open with all the
subtlety of a tank invasion. Corrine Peterson looked up
from her phone conversation with a startled scream, said
a hasty “No, it isn’t him, thank god,” into the handset,
and hung up. Then she rose to her feet. “Hi, Mrs.
Schmidt. Hi, Mrs. McHale. What’s wrong now?” Her
pretty round face was smudged with either toner ink or
carbon. She looked worried.
“What was wrong before?” Marge demanded.
“Uh,” Corrine said. She smiled brightly, if with
noticeable effort. “Harvey, I mean, Mr. Bozzel is in
production in another part of the building. How-may-
I-help-you?”
Marge snorted. “Corrine. There isn’t another part of
this building where he could be in production. What
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part of this building would he be in except right here?
The pet store? The hardware?”
“Actually,” Corrine said, “he’s out.” She sank back
into her chair. “That production stuff is what I’m supposed to say if he’s not in.”
Marge loomed over Corrine’s desk. Corrine shrank
“Well, sure. The Pennysaver ads are due by ten sharp
on Thursdays or Mr. Stoker goes absolutely bonkers. So
Harvey was working on those.”
“Did Harvey have a meeting this morning with a
guy, pot belly, bald spot in the middle of a bunch of
greasy hair, and a big fat cigar stuck in his puss?”
“Yes,” Corrine said, “he did.” She stared at Marge
with all the fascination of a rabbit in front of a snake.
“And it didn’t go well.”
“No?”
“Nope.”
Marge took her knuckles off the edge of Corrine’s
desk. “What happened?”
“This man. The one you just said. He came slamming in here so hard I thought the glass was going to bust right out of the doorframe.” Corrine took a deep,
pleasurable breath; clearly, the love of drama was edging out her distress. “Well! He said, ‘Where’s this Bozzel.’ Well! I said ‘Do-you-have-an-appointment?’
Well!”
“Corrine,” Quill said. “If you could please just tell us
what happened.”
“The guy went into Harvey’s office. The thing is, he
didn’t just bust in, he quieted down real fast and kind of
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rolled in, you know? Like a showdown. Anyhow, he was
in there for about twenty minutes.”
“You hear anything of what was said?” Marge demanded.
“Huh-uh. The door’s too thick. Anyhow,
he came out
and left. And then Harvey came out and said he was going to be out of town for a while and to hold all calls.”
Corrine leaned forward and said in a whisper, “I think
he was scared of this guy.”
“You do, do you?” Marge said grimly. “And do you
know where ‘this guy’ got to?”
“Nope. Sorry,” Corrine shook her head. “He was
some kind of mad, though.”
Marge turned around without a good-bye, and went
back outside.
Quill said good-bye to Corrine, asked her to call the
Inn when Harvey returned, and joined Marge on the
pavement. “Harvey’s been run out of town, Marge. Good
grief. What do you suppose Kittleburger said to him?”
Marge shrugged. “The usual. ‘I’ll keep you tied up in
court so long, there won’t be enough left to bury you.’
That kind of shit.”
This sounded more like the voice of experience than
mere opinion. “Have you . . .” Quill began.
“Have I what?” Marge peered up and down the
street, as if Kittleburger might be hiding behind one of
the lampposts.
“It just sounds as if you know more about him than
the information you’d get from reading the Wall Street
Journal.”
“Maybe,” Marge said. “Maybe not. Well, I’m not
spending the rest of the morning chasing this guy. I’m
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going to stop at the office for a bit.” She jerked her
thumb in the direction of MARGE SCHMIDT REALTY,
which was three doors down from Harvey’s place, between Nickerson’s Hardware and the loathed Puppy Palace. “Do me a favor. When you do track this bozo
down, give me a call, will ya?”
“Sure,” Quill said. She watched in a bemused way as
Marge stamped off.
“So something’s going on between them,” she said to
Meg when she returned to the Inn. She’d found her sister in the kitchen as usual. She sat down in the rocker by the cobblestone fireplace. The grate was still filled with
summer’s dried hydrangea. Another few weeks and it’d
be time to light the fire.
“Weird,” Meg agreed briefly, “but not relevant to the
murder.” She stood at the birch-topped prep table. She
was chopping pumpkin into one-inch chunks.
At midmorning the Inn’s kitchen was usually quiet.
The furor of the breakfast service had passed, and
the chaos of lunch wouldn’t begin for another hour.