Bad Company

  BAD

  COMPANY

  A Stoner McTavish Mystery

  By

  Sarah Dreher

  New Victoria Publishers

  © Copyright 1995 by Sarah Dreher

  All rights reserved, worldwide. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Published by New Victoria Publishers

  Cover Art by Ginger Brown

  Author Photo by Margaret Langdell

  Acknowledgments

  No writer creates in a vacuum. Ideas are all around us, waiting to be picked up. Overheard scraps of conversation. The way a person stands at the check-out counter at the supermarket. A sudden memory. A dream. The color of a stranger's jacket. Newspaper stories. Television. Anything can jog a realization, or a thought, or a solution.

  Those of us who are truly blessed know people who are gold mines to a writer, people who have an instinct for what works, people who can think around corners for that elusive answer, people who can follow a train of plot and find where it went off the track. When we get bogged down in our own words, or fall in love with a moment or scene that doesn't really belong, they can find it and gently help us to let go.

  I have been and continue to be deeply grateful to Elisabeth Brook for being such a person. Her editorial sense and intuitive inspirations are always invaluable, and once again she has gotten me and Stoner out of some real messes. And she does it while walking that very delicate and dangerous line between tact and honesty.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Dreher, Sarah.

  Bad company : a Stoner McTavish mystery / by Sarah Dreher.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 0-934678-66-9 ISBN 0-934678-67-7

  I. Title.

  PS3554.R36B3 1995

  81 3' . 54- -dc20 94-37032

  ClP

  To all our villains.

  What would writers do without them?

  Chapter One

  “Dear Stoner McTavish... "

  The letter was typed on business stationery in bold, enthusiastic print. The business was an inn and resort near Sebago Lake, Maine. Probably another promotional letter, which she'd have to answer. Ever since she and her friend and business partner Marylou Kesselbaum had decided to forsake Boston winters and a city clientele, and move Kesselbaum and McTavish, Travel Agents, to the wilds of Western Massachusetts, they'd been deluged with promotional letters. And they had to answer them all because they couldn't afford to lose the contacts, now that they were starting over.

  Marylou insisted the sudden attention had nothing to do with their leaving, but with the region's continuing economic uncertainty. "They all have to hustle now," she was fond of saying, as she jangled her silver bracelets for emphasis. "Even the cruise lines, curse their souls. Better they should lower their rates, if you want my opinion."

  Nevertheless, she had to read them all, even if it meant opening mail over dinner in a public restaurant with Gwen.

  "I was given your name by someone at the Cambridge Women's Center," the letter went on.

  Cambridge Women's Center? Her old stomping ground. That caught her attention.

  "I know you must be terribly busy, and I'm reluctant to intrude on your time and privacy, but I think I need your help.

  "I'm the owner and manager of The Cottage, an historic inn providing lodging and resort facilities for women only."

  Women only? Her attention deepened.

  "For the past month, we have had a wimmin's amateur theater group rehearsing here. A great bunch! We're all crazy about each other. (I'm the producer, by the way.) But lately things have been going wrong. Unexplained accidents, injuries, that sort of thing. Nothing too serious yet. But we're all afraid it might mean something, and everyone's nerves are on edge, as I'm sure you can understand. I was told you have some experience with helping people in trouble, and might be able to help us. Do you think you could? I would, of course, provide you with free room and board for yourself and anyone you might want to bring along to assist you.

  "I haven't told the theater wimmin about this, as I don't want to alarm them —or to give anything away, in case the perpetrator is one of us (Goddess forbid!). If you were to pretend to be a guest of The Cottage, and then volunteer to help with the production, I feel you could fit in and be inconspicuous.

  "Do you think you'd be interested? I do hope so. It would be a tremendous relief to me (and to all of us, of course).

  Yours in Sisterhood,

  Sherry Dodder”

  "You're practically drooling," Gwen said with a laugh. “What is it?"

  Stoner handed the letter across the mosaic tiled table and built herself another chicken fajita.

  "Looks good," Gwen said as she scanned the letter. "Tempted?"

  "Maybe, but..."

  “But?”

  "I can't just run off and leave Marylou with all the cleaning and packing. It wouldn't be right."

  "I'll bet she wouldn't mind."

  She shook her head. "She'd say it was okay, but she wouldn't mean it."

  "Stoner, my love," Gwen said, "I don't know quite how to tell you this, but..."

  "What?"

  "Well, packing really isn't your long suit."

  "There's a brochure," she said quickly, hoping to divert attention from the fact that she felt like a fool. She spread it out between them.

  It was printed in sepia on textured cream colored paper, tasteful. The front showed a stone building with French doors leading onto a flagstone patio. Inside, a formal-looking living room with wing chairs arranged into conversation nooks and stiff antique throne-like seats lining the walls. The dining room appeared (as far as she could tell from the photographs) to look out over gardens to rolling hills beyond. The tables were set with linen cloths and napkins, each table centered with a carnation-filled bud vase. The Cottage was unquestionably elegant. And disturbingly formal.

  "The Cottage," the brochure read, "was modeled after the elegant 'cottages' built in the Adirondacks and Berkshires by wealthy New Yorkers around the turn of the Century. Gracious living in a rural setting, with all the amenities of a first-rate New York hotel."

  "Have you ever noticed," Gwen asked, "how people always say, 'around' the turn of the century? Never 'at' the turn, or 'during' the turn. Always 'around.' Do you think it's the word 'turn' that does it?"

  "Beats me," Stoner said, staring at the dining room picture. It didn't look like any Women's Inn she'd ever seen. Women's Inns, or hotels, or B&B's were usually sparsely furnished, run-down, and in need of repair which guests were encouraged to provide in partial payment for lodging. Short on amenities, but long on privacy. The Cottage looked like the sort of place where you were expected to mingle. "I don't know about this. It may be kind of rich for my blood."

  Gwen leaned across the table for a better look. "Hard to tell, really."

  "All that stuff about 'elegant' and 'amenities.' Sort of gives me the willies."

  "It's not exactly the kind of place you see advertised in Lesbian Connection," Gwen agreed. "I wonder if they do much business."

  Stoner thought about it. "I guess they could. I mean, there are probably a lot of lesbians around who'd go for elegant amenities. We just don't happen to know them."

  "It doesn't say lesbians only," Gwen said as she chased the last of the extra hot sauce around the stoneware bowl with a tortilla chip.

  "Yeah, but how many straight women are going to go to a women-only resort?"

  "Marylou would. After all, these are the 'nineties.'''

  "Marylou would do anything."

  "True," Gwen said. "Do you want the rest of your guacamole?"


  Stoner shook her head. She gazed at the brochure, mixed feelings tearing at her. If she did this... and she was sorely tempted. Hard to turn down a request for help from a Sister. She couldn't imagine it. And the outside really did look fine. She could see herself, sprawled on one of those carved wooden benches scattered here and there among formal flower beds, feet propped up, contemplating the scenery and her next move. But the inside... How could she think in a dining room with hard wooden chairs that made you sit with perfect posture, and flowers on the table? Or take charge of things-which, she had learned to her dismay, one inevitably had to do when solving mysteries, or rescuing people, or finding missing persons, or whatever it was she did-in that formal, over-stuffed Queen Anne living room. How can you think clearly when you feel inferior to the furniture?

  Of course, she knew what the real problem was. The Cottage, despite its deceptively rustic name, was exactly the sort of place her mother would love.

  Well, she'd love the inside, anyway. Nothing like rooms stuffed with antiques to make her mother's eyes sparkle. And she'd know which ones were genuine and which copies, and which ones were safe to sit on...

  Stoner was sure she'd break the first chair she landed in. Even one of those big, heavy-looking things. She had a way with antiques. She always had. It wasn't that she was careless. She just had a perverse inability to do the right thing around them. It was probably a curse from a past life.

  And why did she care what her mother would do? She was pushing forty, for God's sake. She'd hardly seen her parents, much less lived with them since she ran away from home at sixteen. They'd given up trying to contact her, apparently feeling her Aunt Hermione... with whom Stoner lived and whom she loved with all her heart... deserved what she got for taking her in. So what difference did it make, anyway, whether her mother would go orgasmic over The Cottage?

  Besides, her mother would be utterly appalled at the prospect of an inn for women only. To say nothing of what she'd think of a women's theater company. If there was one thing Dot (her real name was Dorothy, but she believed "Dot" made her seem fun and "with it") McTavish couldn't see the point to, it was anything that involved women only.

  The Women's Movement had had minimal impact on the adults in the McTavish household. In fact, Stoner was willing to bet her mother, who had never joined anything in her life except the D.A.R. and Colonial Dames, was a card-carrying, lifetime supporting member of Concerned Women for America. Her father's awareness of the feminist revolution had been limited to the nasty jokes he read in the American Legion Magazine.

  "So," Gwen asked, "what do you think?" She had found an uneaten fajita wrapper amid the dregs of Stoner's dinner, and was piling it with left-over lettuce and cheese and onions and guacamole and salsa and frijoles and whatever else she could find on their plates. She rolled it tight, folded the ends over, and took a bite. "God, that's good."

  "You are the only person I know," Stoner said with an affectionate smile, "who eats garbage."

  "Not true," Gwen said. "Edith Kesselbaum eats garbage."

  "That's just Marylou's opinion. Daughters' opinions don't count."

  "Trust me," Gwen insisted. "Taco Bell is garbage. Have you made up your mind, or is it too depressing?"

  Stoner fingered the brochure. "My thoughts are depressing. About this...?" She gave a shrug. "What do you think I should do?"

  "I already said. Take her up on it. What's the problem?"

  "I don't think... " She hesitated to say it. She was ashamed to admit why she was hesitant, even to Gwen—after all, she firmly believed all lesbians were Sisters in oppression, and had the same pains and fears—and it wasn't her place to tell someone else how to live, when she hadn't walked a mile in their moccasins...

  Gwen was looking at her. “What?"

  "The people who probably go here... well, sometimes I have a hard time with Yuppie Dykes in high heels."

  "Nobody calls them Yuppies any more. These are the 'nineties.'''

  "Will you please stop saying 'These are the 'nineties' every two minutes?"

  "We're supposed to say it every two minutes. After all, these are the 'nineties.''' Gwen took a drink of water. "Do you know the first time I heard that expression? On January 1, 1990, at 12:01 am."

  Stoner narrowed her eyes and faked a scowl. "I'll bet you were with that man, weren't you?"

  "What man?"

  "That Bryan Oxnard person."

  "My husband?" She calculated. "I guess so. We weren't married yet, but we were working on it." She laughed. "I think the beginning of a new decade made more of an impression on me than he did. Unlike the impression you made on him."

  "I didn't mean to kill him," Stoner said. "It was an accident." She glanced up to see the waitress—waitperson, or maybe waitron, after all, this was Cambridge—poised beside their booth. It wasn't the same young woman who'd served them. They must have sat through the shift change again.

  "Ready for me to clear these?" the woman asked cheerily.

  "Uh, yeah, sure," Stoner muttered. "Listen, what you just heard… it wasn't what you think… I mean, it was self-defense. He was trying to kill her, and..."

  "That's cool," the woman said, and reached for Gwen's plate.

  Gwen grabbed the plate in both hands and pinned it to the table. "Not until it's so clean you can see yourself in it," she growled.

  "Anything you say, Ms. Owens," the waitperson said with a laugh. "I'm glad to see you haven't changed."

  "I'm glad to see you have," Gwen said. She patted the young woman's arm affectionately. "You were one of the most... unfocused... adolescents I've ever taught."

  "And you were the scariest teacher."

  Stoner looked up in amazement.

  "I had to be a little intimidating," Gwen explained. "Junior High students can't even control themselves. If the teachers lose control, anarchy reigns. Did you ever settle down enough to think about college?"

  The young woman nodded. "U. Mass. Boston. Starting my third year next month. I want to be..." She hesitated and blushed slightly. "...a history teacher, like you."

  Gwen put her head in her hands. "I've failed."

  "As you always used to say, Ms. Owens, it depends on your point-of-view. Can I get you anything more?"

  "Coffee?" Stoner said.

  Gwen nodded.

  The waitperson withdrew.

  "I think you scared her," Stoner said.

  "I doubt it." She took another bite of her creation. "You know, I really am pleased. Carol always worried me a little. She was so flighty, almost hyperactive. I was sure there was trouble at home, but I couldn't get her to open up. The only way I could get through to her was to play the heavy."

  "She seems to be doing okay," Stoner said. "And, considering how she blushed when she told you she wanted to follow in your footsteps, I'd guess you reached her."

  "Uh-huh." Gwen gazed off in the direction of the kitchen. "Teaching's such a strange business. You have these intensely emotion-filled relationships with kids for a couple of years. Every day a crisis or a triumph. Every minute, every little thing you do or say, seems so terribly important... a matter of life and death. And then June comes and they disappear, and most of the time you never see them again."

  "I don't know if! could do it," Stoner said.

  "It'd be hard on you. You get so attached, you'd want to keep up with every kid you'd ever met."

  Stoner shook her head. "I meant that I'm afraid of kids. They're too—well, too sudden."

  "They are sudden, that's a fact."

  Sometimes Stoner tried to imagine what it would have been like if she'd had Gwen for a teacher. During most of her adolescence, having a crush on a teacher had been an incentive to do well. Which was why, she supposed, she'd gotten such a strange scattering of grades—A's in English one year, math the next, while English fell to a B. There was one half-year in which she sparkled in Social Studies, but that ended abruptly when Miss Collins left to get married. She had no innate aptitude for science, but her first loo
k at Mrs. Lurie turned her into a genius, thereby proving that innate ability didn't count for everything. Of course, her other subjects were likely to suffer when all her attention was diverted by one teacher, but she didn't care. Her worst year had been tenth grade, when she hadn't had a crush on anyone and ended up with a nice, dull B minus average.

  But if Gwen Owens had been her teacher...

  It probably would have been a disaster. Because Gwen was so softly beautiful, so smart and wise, had such a wonderful, soothing voice, and brown eyes you could get lost in... Stoner knew, given her adolescent awkwardness and insecurity, she'd have been paralyzed with passion and anxiety. Sometimes she was even now. Like right here, at this very minute, in the middle of Chili's in the middle of Cambridge, on a Friday night, with the place filling up with beer-guzzling summer school students.

  "So," Gwen said as she finished off her fajita, "what are you going to do about the letter?"

  "I don't know."

  "Want to stop by Marylou's and run it past her?"

  "I know what she'll say," Stoner said. "She's been trying for weeks to get me to go away, so she can get us ready to move."

  "She WHAT?"

  "She's been..."

  "I heard you," Gwen said. "It was a rhetorical WHAT. Then why haven't you at least taken a vacation?"

  "It wouldn't be right."

  Gwen choked on a shred of lettuce and sour cream. "Oh, God, I really am in love with a crazy person."

  "It really wouldn't be right," Stoner repeated, a little hurt.

  "Stoner, my love, nobody on the face of the earth would question your ethics or your manners. But sometimes you have to take into consideration how people feel about things."

  "I know that," she grumped.

  Gwen took her hand. "I love you to death, Pebbles, and I didn't mean to criticize you or hurt your feelings. But don't you see...?"

  "Yeah, yeah," Stoner said, feeling like a real jerk. "You're right. You’re always right."