Down the hall, in the ballroom, things were chaotic. Tables and steam tables were set up, and dishes were emerging from the kitchen to fill them, but instead of putting them in place the waitstaff appeared to be running around with them in random directions. Had the drama next door unnerved them?
After making a few inquiries, I figured out that half the staff had been instructed by Ekaterina to put all the special Hanukkah dishes in one section and the various nostalgic Christmas foods in another, while the other half were following Mother’s orders to arrange the meal by course and content—meat dishes together in one section, fish in another, vegetables in another, and so on. One poor busboy had been carrying a bowl of horseradish back and forth for fifteen minutes. I hunted down Mother and Ekaterina, explained the problem to them, and then sat down in a corner to watch them sort it out. They soon came to an agreement, and the buffet took shape.
Not only was there a Hanukkah section, there were also sections with Indian food and Japanese delicacies. And everything was neatly labeled, so anyone who wanted to avoid anything—meat, milk, pork, beef, seafood, onions, garlic, gluten, mushrooms, and who knows what else—could safely navigate the buffet.
“I think we’re ready,” Ekaterina said finally. And just in time. We heard a loud burst of cheering and applause from the Hamilton Room next door—apparently the last panel was over.
“I’ll open the doors,” Mother said.
The first few people to enter the ballroom halted just inside and stood gazing at the buffet in amazement. Then they hurried to grab plates and another batch of awestruck diners took their place.
First in line was the Hanukkah table, all a-glitter with blue and silver tinsel and featuring a huge antique Art Deco menorah in sterling silver. There were platters of smoked salmon, trays of rugelach, babkas, and sufganiyot, and on small nearby steam tables, dishes of brisket and of latkes. The main table also held a large collection of side dishes or trimmings—cream cheese, applesauce, onions, pickles, horseradish, tomatoes, capers, and such—and was strewn with Hanukkah gelt and chocolate-marshmallow dreidels on pretzel sticks. I’d had the Inn’s brisket before, and planned to hit that table before it ran out if I had to trample a few scientists to do it.
Next up came Indian food: samosas, pakoras, dal, naan, poori, paratha, chicken tikka masala, butter chicken, tandoori chicken, rogan josh, lamb vindaloo, malai kofta, matar paneer, and biryani. Since Indian was one of my favorite cuisines, I was planning a stop there, too.
The soup kettles included oyster stew, chili, matzoh ball soup, tomato soup, vegetable beef soup, hot and sour soup, and miso soup. The main dish table featured turkey, Virginia ham, prime rib, standing rib roast, pork roast, roast goose, Peking duck, lasagna, pizza, burritos, tamales, macaroni and cheese, and, in direct defiance of Grandfather’s orders, grilled portobello mushrooms in red wine sauce.
Anyone who had an inch of space left on their plate by this time would have to choose between mashed potatoes, candied sweet potatoes, collards, grits, black-eyed peas, okra, glazed carrots, green bean casserole, corn pudding, baked beans, stewed tomatoes, cranberry relish, cranberry gelatin mold … and I was probably overlooking a few things.
I planned to hit the four or five kinds of salad heavily and do what I could to ignore the dozen kinds of bread and rolls. But no power on earth could keep me away from the dessert table, though I hoped I could keep my foraging there to a crème brûlée cup or two and a chocolate chip cookie. Okay, Mother had conned someone into making the family pumpkin pie, so add that in. And there were blueberry, pecan, cherry, apple, and key lime pies. Chocolate, yellow, angel food, and carrot cake. Brownies, sugar cookies, M&M cookies, and more gingerbread people. Chocolate mousse. Plum pudding.
Beyond the desserts was a section I wasn’t sure I wanted to visit—though I was curious to see how Dr. Hirano and Dr. Arai would react to it. The two Japanese scientists were moving methodically down the buffet line, taking tiny samples of each dish on offer. Their politely smiling faces didn’t quite convince me that they were delighted with all this. More likely, they were taking detailed mental notes of the kind that would be useful when they got back home and wanted to regale their friends and family with stories about the peculiar foodstuffs the Americans tried to feed them.
But I kept my eyes on them, and even though their backs were to me I could tell the second they hit the part of the buffet Ekaterina had arranged with them in mind. I had no idea what dishes were there—a passing glance had revealed that the ingredients included rather more tentacles and seaweed than I wanted to think about, much less eat. But clearly Dr. Hirano and Dr. Arai were delighted. They took generous portions of everything in that section and hastened back to their table to dive in. I suspected they wouldn’t be disappointed. The Inn hosted enough Japanese tourists that Ekaterina had seen the wisdom of hiring a chef whose training had included a stint at the Tsuji Culinary Institute.
I took my seat with Michael and the boys, who had worked up enormous appetites while shoveling snow. I was delighted to see that the boys’ heavily laden plates included a wide variety of foods—including some of the seaweed and tentacle concoctions intended to delight the Japanese scientists.
“This is great, Mom,” Jamie exclaimed, through a mouth full of prime rib. “We should eat like this more often.”
Josh was too busy consuming some tentacles to comment, although he gave his brother’s suggestion a thumbs-up.
“We can have any of these foods whenever you like,” Michael said. “Just don’t expect all of them at once, since we don’t have a dozen staff members to cook them for us.”
Grandfather either hadn’t noticed the presence of mushrooms on the buffet or was taking a mellow holiday attitude toward them. I worried a little when I saw Dr. Czerny bustle up to him holding a conference tote bag full of … something. A whole lot of paper, by the look of it. But to my relief, it seemed to be something Grandfather wanted, or at least wasn’t entirely displeased at receiving. Not that Grandfather wasn’t perfectly capable of telling Dr. Czerny to go to hell if the occasion warranted. But it had been a long and tiring weekend and I wanted to spare him stress. I felt slightly easier when I saw that Dr. Czerny had only stayed long enough to drop off whatever it was. He then filled a plate at the buffet and slipped out. And I cheered up even more when, a few minutes later, Grandfather handed over the tote bag and his key card to Rose Noire, who dashed off with them. Good. Whatever Dr. Czerny had been entrusting to Grandfather, it was out of his hands—and, I hoped, off his mind.
He seemed to be having a wonderful time, sitting with the two Japanese scientists on one side of him and Dr. Craine on the other, with Dr. Green and Rose Noire nearby. Although I did notice that whenever the door opened for another attendee to enter, most of them looked up. And when Dr. Lindquist arrived, a little later than most, he got a round of applause and cheers. He still looked slightly shaky—was it the close call with jail or the aftermath of his migraine? But he also looked happy as he took his seat at Grandfather’s table.
When the traffic at the buffet had died down a bit, I noticed that the staff were taking turns slipping out of the kitchen and filling plates at the buffet—although they went down the back of the tables instead of the front, and seemed more than a little anxious.
“I gave them permission.” Apparently Ekaterina had noticed my glance. “And the Inn will, of course, be picking up the tab for that portion of the meal consumed by the staff.”
“Don’t be silly,” I said. “Grandfather will insist on treating them. Between the weather and the murder, they’ve all had to do much more than is in any of their job descriptions. And when are you having your dinner?”
“I will fill a plate and join you in a bit,” she said with a smile. “As soon as I check on one or two more things. And I’m going to take a plate up to Mrs. Ackley. It’s not her fault her husband turned out to be a homicidal maniac.”
Her tone somehow suggested that she had had extensive experience comforting unfortunate women to whom this had happened.
“How is she taking it—do you know?”
“Not well,” she admitted. Then her face darkened. “But she can’t not eat.” With that she slipped into the kitchen.
I saw the chief and Horace sitting nearby, deep in conversation. I stopped by to see them.
“This dinner almost makes up for the walk here.” Horace hoisted a forkful of mashed potatoes as if giving a toast.
“Horace and I were just discussing the fact that Mr. Ackley was probably responsible for the attack on you,” the chief said. “We found two key cards on him, one of which appears to have the same kind of access as the one that was taken from you. We’ll figure out for sure when Ekaterina has time to do some digging in her card system.”
“I should have told you that I’d found Ackley wandering around in the basement Saturday afternoon,” I said. “He claimed he’d gotten there through a propped-open door and then got lost in the maze, and it sounded perfectly plausible to me. He even pointed out the doorstop he claimed had been used to prop open the door he used to get into the staff-only parts of the hotel. He played me.”
“Even if you had told us, I’m not sure we would have found it suspicious,” the chief said. “Since we were unaware that he had any connection to Dr. Frogmore.”
“And we knew whoever stole Serafina’s key card had accessed the freight elevator,” Horace said. “We just didn’t know why.”
“Do we now?”
“We have an idea,” the chief said. “Apparently his original plan was to burn down the Inn with as many ornithologists as possible trapped inside.”
“Please tell me you’re kidding.”
“No.” The chief shook his head.
“For someone who supposedly wants to exercise his right to remain silent until he gets a lawyer, he’s sure been pretty verbose,” Horace said through a mouthful of burrito. “His original plan was to check out, put his wife on a plane for home, telling her he had a business meeting somewhere, come back here and set the Inn on fire, and then shoot anyone who tried to escape. He used Serafina’s stolen key card to scout out the staff-only parts of the hotel for a likely place to set his fire. And then to plant evidence in Dr. Lindquist’s and Dr. Blake’s rooms.”
“What evidence?”
“Matchbooks from some restaurant or other,” the chief said. “That would be identical to the matchbook he was going to leave at the scene of the crime. At least that’s what he’s claiming now.”
“Do many restaurants still give out matchbooks?” I asked.
“Evidently,” the chief said. “But since we found no matchbooks of any kind in either room, we’re not sure whether to believe him.”
“It’s a little worrisome,” Horace said. “What if he actually planted something else? Something more dangerous.”
“Something directly related to the poisoning,” the chief added.
“If Mr. Ackley planted matches in their rooms, the housekeeping staff would have confiscated them,” I said. “Ekaterina’s orders. She’s a little paranoid about guests setting the hotel on fire. She’d have kept the matchbooks, of course, so she could give them back at checkout if their owners cared enough to complain.”
“That would explain it,” the chief said.
“I’ll go and ask her.” Horace stood.
“Finish your dinner,” the chief said. “It will keep. At any rate, he’d already planted the matchbooks before the snowstorm came along to derail his arson scheme.”
“So when he realized burning down the hotel would incinerate him and his wife along with the rest of us, he changed his plan and decided to kill Frogmore instead?” I asked.
“He’s not talking about that,” the chief said. “And we can’t interrogate him until we get a lawyer here for him. I expect he assumes it’s perfectly safe to talk about the arson plan, since it never came off, but he’s wary of getting into the things he actually did, like attacking you and killing Frogmore.”
“My theory is that he didn’t necessarily target Frogmore at all,” Horace said. “He used his illicit access to the staff-only areas to poison something he knew was headed for the banquet, and it was pure luck that he got one of his biggest enemies.”
“Doesn’t sound all that plausible to me.” The chief shook his head. “Too big a coincidence. At the very least, I think we’ll find he put the poison in something that had a good chance of getting to Frogmore.”
“We’ll know more once we get him back to town and hook him up with a lawyer,” Horace said.
The chief nodded.
“So are you going to get Randall to take you back to town?” I asked him. “Or did Ekaterina find you a room for the night?”
“Actually, your grandfather offered me the study in his cottage,” the chief said. “He assures me that the Inn’s Murphy beds are actually quite luxurious.”
I was relieved. Not that I’d have hesitated to offer the chief space in our cottage, but things were already a little chaotic with Horace and the boys in residence.
“Let me know if you need me for anything,” I said.
The chief nodded, and they went back to police talk.