Pleasantly Dead Read Free Page A

don’t mind me saying so,” the laundryman went on, “if you’d put your inventories on a computer. They have invented such things.”
    Rudley gave him a look to melt pig iron and rampaged back to the inn. The laundryman proceeded to load his dolly. Rudley grabbed a pen from the desk, scrawled “fixed” across the laundry list, and rammed it into the bottom drawer. “Computers,” he muttered. “Ugly damned things, sitting about hissing and grumbling.” He rounded up the scattered papers, threw them in alongside the laundry list, and shoved the drawer shut.
    “Mr. Rudley.” Tiffany, the maid, edged into his line of vision.
    “Yes.”
    “The door to the wine cellar is open.”
    “What the hell. Well, close it.”
    Rudley turned his attention to the grocery inventory. Hell’s bells. Extra-virgin olive oil? Couldn’t Gregoire make do with something cheaper? What a damned temperamental bunch these cooks were. First there was the hairy Finn who wanted to serve horse meat. Then the Cajun who blamed him for the Evangeline mess. He’d had Gregoire for five years and every year he had a new bee in his bonnet. One year it was an experiment with acorns, then a plot of horseradish. How much horseradish did one inn need anyway? There was the wild mushroom caper — they wouldn’t be trying that again. All of these conventions, that trip to France. That’s what gave him these strange ideas. Rudley’s face softened in bliss. Gregoire was a magnificent cook.
    “Mr. Rudley.”
    “What, Tiffany?”
    “There seems to be wine spilled on the floor in the wine cellar.”
    “Well, clean it up.” Rudley bit his lip so hard his eyes crossed. He regretted quitting smoking. Smoking made dealing with this group of ninnies much easier. Worse, he knew he was probably responsible for the unlocked door and the spilled wine. He had pulled a bottle halfway out, got distracted, and run out, forgetting to latch the door.
    “Sir.”
    “Yes.” Rudley hunched forward over the desk, arms rigid, jaw thrust forward.
    “You told me never to go into the wine cellar.”
    “I’m saying you can,” he said through clenched teeth.
    Tiffany hurried away. Rudley straightened. If he didn’t have to deal with jackasses and sundry distractions, this sort of thing with the wine cellar wouldn’t happen.
    When he purchased the Pleasant twenty-five years ago, the owner had given him one piece of advice.
    “One piece of advice, Rudley” — a stubby finger had jabbed him in the chest — “always keep the wine cellar locked. Hide the key. Or they’ll rob you blind. All of them.”
    He ruminated over his oversight. Gregoire had demanded a particular Chardonnay for Sunday dinner. He’d taken a quick trip to the cellar to review the stock. He had just pulled out a bottle to inspect the label when Tim interrupted him to say one of the guests was in a flap. She’d found a spider in her bathtub.
    “Hasn’t that damned woman seen a spider before?”
    He’d had to go to her room, capture the spider — all two millimetres of it — and carry it outdoors. He was a superstitious man. Killing spiders brought rain. The last thing he needed was to be trapped in the inn with this crowd, trying to entertain them with bingo, ballroom dancing, and art classes, the latter problematic since it would have involved sweet-talking Mrs. Rudley back from the High Birches. It would have involved an apology. He didn’t think he had behaved any worse than usual and felt abused.
    He loved Margaret, but thought she could be a pain in the ass at times. He couldn’t see how what he had said could possibly have offended the flower lady.
    “I like solid red and solid white,” he had told her, “none of these insipid tinted things you’ve been bringing lately.”
    For some reason Mrs. Blount burst into tears. She was a sensitive soul. More important, she was a friend of Margaret’s.
    “That’s what you get for mixing business with pleasure,” he muttered.
    “