"Test the age of the hare by turning the claws sideways," Meg said, demonstrating. "The claws should not crack. If they do, the hare is old. The ears should be soft, bend easily, and the animal itself should have a short body and long legs." She set the hare aside and reached to the overhead beam, where four animals hung pathetically by their hind legs. "These hares have been hanging for twenty-four hours. They can hang for as long as four days, but if the hind legs are not stiff when you take them down, throw the animal out. You're risking tularemia. Sometimes called rabbit fever, this is a bacterially based flu."
"My goodness," said Bea. "That poor bunny looks so innocent, Birdie."
"It's a hare, Bea, not a bunny." Birdie intercepted a glare from Meg. "Now hush."
"You know a chef by her knives," Meg said. She held up a long, thin boning knife, its edge honed to a dangerous sharpness. "We will prepare this hare for marinating." She drew on a pair of rubber gloves and began to dress the hare. The lights flickered off and then on again. Meg held the knife up for a moment, cursed fluently, then set to, once it appeared the power was going to remain on. She sliced the skin of the front and hind legs away from the joint; tied the hind feet together with kitchen string and peeled the skin off the hind legs, body, and forelegs. "Just like turning a glove inside out," she said cheerfully.
Quill turned away to inspect the kitchen; Meg's next step was to sever the head, remove the intestines, and wash the carcass with vinegar water. One of the women standing at the table looked a little green, but she steadied herself and managed to look attentive as Meg carefully sliced around the heart and the liver.
Cressida Houghton, seeming to glide rather than walk, came to Quill as she was looking critically at a sixty-gallon stock pot. "I'm Cressida Houghton," she said, extending a slender hand.
Quill couldn't think of a thing to say Of course you are! Would seem too hearty. Oh really? Seemed impertinent. "I'm Sarah Quilliam."
"I have two of your iris sketches. They're wonderful."
Quill blushed, unable to respond to praise of her work, as usual.
"The essentials of a marinade," Meg said loudly, "are that of any basic stock: celery, carrots, onions, bay leaf, parsley, vinegar, and water. The choice of your curing agent - vinegar - is critical to the success of the dish."
"Your sister... marvelous," said Cressida Houghton. "I must get back. But the boys and I would love it if you would come out to my house for dinner this evening. Say at seven-thirty for drinks? Then dinner? And perhaps a few hands of bridge?"
White Queen to King Four? Quill sighed. This game was getting murkier and murkier. "We'd love to," she said. "Thanks."
"It's the first place off your left as you come over our little bridge into Hobe Sound. Number four."
She drifted back to the butcher block table. Everyone in Cressida's orbit - except, Quill noted with a sudden stab of fondness, Meg herself - was so aware of her presence that their attention was almost tangible. Tiffany, with a discontented pout, signaled to Quill with one finger. Quill held up a hand in response and slipped out the door. She would wait until Meg's class was over to let Tiffany know how things stood.
With more than half an hour until Meg's class broke for lunch, Quill was somewhat at loose ends. There wasn't time enough to take the Mercedes out for a little run (the speedometer went to two-twenty, and Quill had been dying to find a quiet road and discovered how the car handled at high speeds), and it was too much time to sit and do nothing, unless she had something to read. She recalled that the institute had a small library of cookbooks next to the administrative offices, and she decided to look up old recipes for potted rabbit. Meg was always interested in new ingredients for her marinades - although the one with which she hoped to earn the third star seemed unsurpassable to Quill. Even she didn't know the basic curing ingredient, but she had a hunch it was very old brandy, from a comment John had made about the liquor bills in the past few months.
The library was on the ground floor of the Institute, past what Linda Longstreet had called the Food Gallery. Quill went down the stairs and through the archway to this area and stopped in mild astonishment. The room was square and lined with glass display cases, much like the ones at the British Museum in London. The cases were filled with food art. One shelf was devoted to creations from spun sugar-cottages, flowers, even zoo animals. The case next to that was hung with brush paintings out of cocoa. Several large montages of seashells and driftwood were on the walls unoccupied by display cases. Quill put her hand out and touched one: spun sugar, dyed with food coloring and air-hardened. The work was clearly that of students. Quill viewed all this with bemusement. She had to bring Myles to see it. The displays were the sort of thing you had to see yourself. Like Snake World and Reptile Kingdom along the Florida Turnpike. She passed up and down in front of the exhibits for some time.
"See that," said a voice from behind the wall. "You can see that, can't you?" In a fit of manners, Quill was about to turn away when she heard, "Verger. You heard me. I think he's on to the whole thing. Why else would he have bought this place? He could have put up a chicken palace six times larger than this at half the cost."
Linda Longstreet. No longer in tears, but sounding very angry.
Quill flattened herself against the wall adjacent to the door to the administrative office. Linda's office was on the other side of the wall containing the sugared seashell exhibit. Quill peered around the archway to the corridor. Linda's office door was closed. From this position, Quill couldn't hear a thing. She walked softly back to the point where she'd first heard Linda's voice. By some trick of construction (or, Quill thought, misconstruction) her voice was clearer than ever. She was weeping. There was a soft murmur of a reply, then Linda sobbed, "I'd like to kill him. Just kill him! And you would, too, I know it!" The second voice again, in cadences of agreement. And behind Quill, in the hall leading to the stairs, the shuffling of feet. Meg's class must be out. Quill stepped back in apparent contemplation of a particularly vibrantly colored blue bird, then turned and smiled as the students from Meg's class in potted hare came flooding through the gallery on the way to Le Nozze. After the morning session, Meg was scheduled to create a working lunch for the students in the Le Nozze kitchens. They clattered through the hallway past Linda's door. Quill followed them; as she passed Linda's office the door opened, and Dr. Bob Bittern, head of Excelsior, came into the hall. He saw Quill, stopped, and folded his hands reprovingly. "Ms. Quilliam. May I speak to you a moment?"
Quill felt herself blush. He couldn't have known she was eavesdropping. He took her arm and drew her back through the gallery.