"Miss Shirley, this is Sarah Quilliam. I have an application for employment from a gentleman who lists AmaTex Textiles as a reference." Quill felt a modicum of remorse. If word circulated among Baumer's employers that he was job hunting, he'd probably lose his current job for certain.
"And?" said the insistent voice of Miss Shirley.
"I'm sorry. His name is Keith Baumer. I asked him for a resume." Quill said hastily, "I wouldn't want you to think he was actively job hunting or anything."
"How do you spell that last name?"
Quill spelled it, waited the requested one moment for Miss Shirley to come back on the line, and smiled at Sean as he came back into the room bearing a tray.
"We have no record of a Mr. Keith Baumer ever being employed by AmaTex Textiles," said Miss Shirley.
"Are you certain?" said Quill. "How far back do your records go?"
Miss Shirley chose to take Quill's question as an affront to the efficiency of AmaTex Textiles' record-keeping. "Our files go back fifteen years. They're computerized. And who is this calling again?"
Quill apologized for the inconvenience, thanked her, and hung up. She turned to Sean. "Have you had any other sales conventions here in the past couple of weeks?"
"Nope. Not a one. What's up?"
"I don't know, Sean. This just doesn't make any sense."
-14-
Driving back into town, Quill tried to make sense of Baumer's lie, and couldn't. Had Mavis summoned him to Hemlock Falls to increase the blackmail payment? Was the sales convention a cover for involvement in the spoiled-meat scam? Were he and Mavis partners? Quill worked through this possibility. Baumer and Mavis could have made a practice of bilking inns and hotels of insurance monies. Quill got dizzy at the prospect of a litigious Baumer. She grasped the steering wheel firmly, and forged ahead. If so, there was likely to be a record through the cross-index maintained by insurance companies to track fraud. The person who would know about that would be Edward Lancashire.
If Baumer had made phone calls canceling the Inn business, it was out of malice. Assuming that Baumer and Mavis were partners, why would Baumer murder her? Could Baumer have found out about Mavis' separate deal with Tom and murdered her to keep Mavis from running off with the loot collected from the insurance scams?
This, Quill thought to herself, was pure supposition. Myles was right. What she needed were facts. Who placed the bolt and the Seconal in John's room? Who fed Mavis those mint juleps?
She parked at the Inn's back door, and went to find one of the people who could give her the answers.
Edward Lancashire was sitting at a table in the bar, feet propped up on a neighboring chair, contemplating a painting she'd finished shortly after the Inn had opened. It was an iris, a miniature Dutch variety spread across the canvas in a tidal wave of purple and sun-yellow.
"A lot of relief in that," he said as she sat down. "Retirement must have seemed good to you, then."
Quill blushed. "I didn't realize private eyes were art critics, too."
"I looked at the signature and date before I sat down," he said. "Not too hard to figure out."
Quill laughed. Nate brought her an iced tea and refilled Edward's coffee. "I quit because I peaked," she said frankly. "There weren't any more edges for me to push."
"There was a nice article in Art Review about the abrupt f truncation of a promising career." He smiled at Quill's surprise. "Private eyes read Art Review, too. I don't know much about art..."
"But I know what I like," Quill finished for him. "I could feel it, the fact that the work wasn't growing. To stick with it and repeat myself" - she shuddered - "kind of a little death."
His eyes wandered back to the painting. "You may have been wrong."
"I had an idea for the heart of a hybrid tea rose yesterday," she admitted. "A Chrysler Imperial. It's a dumb name for an artificial organism. It was to have been a painting awash with irony and the angst of modem life."
He raised an eyebrow. "Do you miss it?"
Quill nodded. "The thing that's important about the rose is that I'm starting to think in concepts again."
"So it's a hiatus. Not a total break."
"You're right," said Quill surprised. "Although I hadn't thought of it that way. Somehow, that's a very reassuring idea. Thanks."
"You're a nice woman, Quill."
Quill, momentarily tongue-tied, finally said, "Well, you are definitely not a nice guy. How could you trick my poor sister?"
"So Myles told you I'm not the food critic for L'Aperitif; incognito."
"Yes."
"I take it you haven't told her yet. My food is still ipecac- free. I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't, at least until this is all over."
"What is it, exactly, that's going to be all over?"
"You mean the investigation?" He sighed, straightened up in his chair, and put his feet on the floor. "I uncover corporate crime. Stolen product. Embezzlement. Industrial espionage. When Armour went through the discovery process to purchase the Hallenbeck Franchise, the auditors discovered a total of three hundred thousand dollars had been drained away from the corporate coffers over a period of time. That's not a lot of money, and normally, in a deal the size of this one, Armour wouldn't have brought someone like me in..."
So that's why he can afford the Armani suits, Quill thought. "... but the search for the funds led to something a little bigger than that." He stopped and looked into his coffee cup.
Quill didn't move, afraid that he wouldn't tell her.
"The origin of the three hundred thousand was interesting. Eventually, we discovered that two managers in the meat division had been diverting meat that didn't pass USDA or Hallenbeck's inspection to third-world countries."
"Contaminated meat?"
"Yeah."
"Any idea who's behind it?"
"Maybe."
Edward needed a nudge. "Baumer!" said Quill. "That weasel."
"Keith Baumer?" Edward grinned. "You really have it in for that guy, don't you? I haven't ruled out Baumer. But the scam occurred both before and after his short career at the company. Mavis, on the other hand, knew all about it. We also know that the three hundred thousand passed through her hands, but it disappeared about a year ago. I haven't been able to track it."
"Do you think you're close?"
"To finding the money? My client's not all that concerned about recovering the cash, although it'd help pay my fees."
The Armanis, thought Quill, must be his knock-around clothes. She'd love to see what he wore when he had to dress for the occasion. She examined him through narrowed eyes. Edward, she decided, was not to be forgiven his deception, His client was going to be very impressed when she and John turned up with the photographic evidence of Peterson's involvement.
"We haven't enough to convict the people responsible for sending the contaminated food overseas." He paused. "A number of children died after eating the meat. Believe it or not, my client's got a conscience. Not all that usual with big business. It's a bit of a pleasure, working for them. They aren't as concerned with the money as they are with nailing the people responsible for the shipments. And we were all pretty sure that Mavis knew who they were, That's why I came here. I was going to offer her a deal; the company wouldn't prosecute for the embezzlement if she'd give us some names."