Toast Mortem Read Online Free Page A

was a new hire in housekeeping and clearly needed a reminder about the innkeeper’s number one rule: no gossiping. Although, come to think of it, not gossiping wasn’t as important as not belting the guests, so it’d have to be the number two rule.
    “Serenity Prayer. Rehab. Stands to reason,” Harland said thoughtfully. “Drunks, huh?”
    “I wouldn’t call the existence of the Serenity Prayer any kind of evidence at all, Elmer. Lots of people find the Serenity Prayer very soothing.”
    Elmer looked smug. “Drunks, for example.”
    “Look at the Irish,” Quill said. “You’ll find a copy of that prayer in every pub in Ireland.”
    “Like I said. Dru . . .”
    “Shut up, Elmer,” Marge said. “We’ve got enough troubles without you insulting the Irish. You planning on getting this meeting going anytime soon?”
    “I have enough trouble with you insulting me ,” Elmer said, with a certain amount of dignity.
    The meeting descended into a squabble, a regular Chamber practice, and Quill drifted into a brief reverie.
    The precise nature of the WARP group puzzled her a little, if only because none of the members were at all alike. A recovery program was a reasonable explanation for the wildly disparate personalities, so Elmer might be half right. The very urban Fredericks huddled in earnest conversation with Mrs. Barbarossa (seventy-two and a cross-stitching grandmother), who in turn spent most mornings with Big Buck Vanderhausen from Lubbock, Texas (forty-six and an expert in long-haul trucking). And then there was the odiously unctuous mortgage banker William Knight Collier, who had an America for Americans! sticker on his car. What all these people had in common she couldn’t imagine.
    “Anyway!” Elmer whacked the gavel on the table leg. “I call this executive session of the Hemlock Falls Chamber of Commerce meeting to order. And if you can keep your opinions to yourself for a change, Marge Schmidt, I’d appreciate it.”
    “Peterson,” Marge barked.
    “Huh?”
    Marge tapped the very large diamond on her ring finger with an admonitory air.
    “Yeah, well. Whatever. Quill? You got the minutes from the last meeting?”
    Quill gave a guilty start and patted the side pockets of her skirt. She pulled out her sketch pad (which was filled with charcoal drawings of Jack), a couple of tissues, the flash card for her cell phone, and a small tube of sunscreen. No minutes. She tugged at her hair and thought a minute. Since Myles’s assignment overseas was to last six months or more, she had moved out of their small cobblestone house and back into her old suite on the third floor of the Inn. She was pretty sure the minutes were on top of Jack’s clean diapers upstairs. Or maybe not.
    “We don’t need the minutes,” Marge said, after a swift appraisal of Quill’s thoughtful face. “This is an executive session, and we’re here to approve the budget for the Welcome Dinner. We only need the minutes if we’ve got a full chamber meeting, and this isn’t it.”
    “Lucky for us,” Elmer grumbled. “We’d be squashed like sardines if the full Chamber was to meet in here.”
    Quill flipped to a clean page in her sketch pad. “Ready!” she said brightly.
    “Finally!” Elmer said. “Okay, Margie. What we have is this amazing chance to offer a great big welcome to the best thing that’s hit this town since I don’t know what.”
    “Since the Colonel Cluck’s Fried Chicken hut, maybe?” Marge asked sarcastically. “Or maybe MacAvoy’s famous nudie bar? Or the Church of the Rolling Moses?”
    These references to past civic disasters failed to ruffle Elmer’s spirits. “I mean the Bon Gooty culinary place,” he said patiently. “You missed the last Chamber meeting, on account of Harland’s cows calving all at once, but we decided to give M’ser LeVasque a hearty how-do at Chamber expense.” (Under stress, Elmer’s Kentucky origins were obvious in his speech.)
    Marge rolled a startled eye in