Katherine Page - The Body in the Bouillon

Now she walked up the stairs nearest to the Hubbard House parking lot and noticed that there were indeed wheelchair ramps and an ambulance entrance at the rear of the nursing wing. She crossed the veranda to the main entrance and noted the big pots of evergreens, which would contain other things in other seasons. There were no rocking chairs, though. Clearly Dr. Hubbard wanted his porch free from any elderly connotations.

A large, gleaming brass door knocker hung on the front door, but Faith felt a bit awkward at rousing the populace. Instead, she turned the knob and pushed gently. The door swung open, and she walked into a beautifully furnished living room. Deep-blue wall-to-wall carpeting was covered by authentic-looking orientals. Wing chairs, Queen Anne high- and lowboys, and other appropriately aristocratic furniture filled the room. It was completely quiet, and Faith thought it was empty until she realized that a few of the chairs were occupied by individuals engrossed in the day's Christian Science Monitor or Wall Street Journal. There was a reception desk off to the side. A door directly behind the desk bore a plaque with OFFICE etched on it in small Gothic letters.

Faith moved behind the desk, which was bare except for a crystal bud vase with a stalk of white freesia in it, and knocked at the door. It was instantly flung open by a small woman of a certain age with pinky-red curls, a navy-blue suit, and a kitty-cat-bowed, fuchsia blouse.

She grabbed Faith by the arm. "Thank goodness you're here! I've been out of my mind trying to get someone. What with Mrs. Pendergast ringing me every other minute from the kitchen and Muriel from the annex, I haven't been able to call my soul my own all morning. Now, come straight along.”

It took only two seconds for Faith to decide to keep her mouth shut and follow this woman. She couldn't have asked for a better entry to the workings of Hubbard House than to be mistaken for a worker, and it appeared the job was in the kitchen, so there wouldn't be any bedpans.

She trotted along obediently as the woman sped through the halls and down a flight of stairs, observing that the decor of the living room had been continued throughout, augmented by rows of hunting and botanical prints. It was almost too predictable. She also observed that the place was completely devoid of the smells Faith associated with nursing homes—Lysol, rubber sheets, isopropyl alcohol, yesterday's cabbage.

Her guide darted through a swinging door and Faith found herself in a cavernous kitchen, not fitted out as she would have arranged, but not bad. Presiding over the cuisine was a middle-aged woman of greater than average proportions on any scale. She was stirring something in a huge marmite on the top of the stove, and when she turned around to greet them, Faith was sure the "Mrs." was an honorary title. Faith had never seen a mud fence and had always thought it would be hard toconstruct one, but "homely as" immediately sprang to mind. Mrs. Pendergast had perhaps tried to compensate for the dun hue of all her features by choosing incongruous black eyeglass frames with rhinestones on the corners, which served only to emphasize the drabness of the rest of her appearance. Still, it suggested a lurking sense of humor—or something. They should get along all right. Two women with the same interest, although at the moment Faith was thinking more of plots than pans.

“Mrs. Pendergast, here is an angel of mercy! Just in time to help you," dithered the woman with the curls. "Now what was your name again, dear?"

“My name is Faith, Faith Fairchild." This was no time for aliases. Besides Farley Bowditch, there could be other former Alefordians who would recognize the minister's wife. She reluctantly shelved Deirdre Morgana, Letitia Carberry, and some of her other favorites for another day.

“Mrs. Pendergast, Mrs. Fairchild. I take it you're all set? Good, now I'll leave you two ladies to your work." After this burst of speech, she scampered out the door and Faith and Mrs. Pendergast stood eye to eye for a moment.

“Did Miss Vale tell you what was needed?”

“Not exactly," Faith responded. "Some kitchen help, I gather."

“Help is right. My lunch regular and her backup have both come down with this flu, and the volunteers so far stay long enough to learn what to do, then leave to finish their Christmas shopping or some such thing. I finally told Miss Vale that if she couldn't find somebody to stay for the next two weeks, they'd have to start sending out to McDonald's. Oh, that got her, you can imagine. Most of these people think a Big Mac is a large truck.”

Faith shuddered. She was an angel of mercy.

“Miss Vale"—for apparently that was the redhead's name—"didn't say anything about two weeks, but I'll help all I can."

“It's getting the food ready and into that contraption there"—she pointed to a dumbwaiter. "You don't have to do pots or dishes. The wheelchair boys and girls do those."

“Wheelchair boys and girls?"

“The college kids who work here and go get the people in wheelchairs who live in the cottages for meals or take others out for a spin around the gardens. They serve the meals and clean up."

“I think I'll be able to help you, but most days only until eleven thirty, because I have to be home when my little boy comes back from nursery school. And only weekdays, I'm afraid."

“That will have to do it and it may not be two weeks, but Dr. Hubbard is very particular about the food preparation, and if he thinks there's a chance of passing the flu around with the food, he'll have them stay home longer. Not but that I agree with him. Of course, I'm never sick myself.”

It would take a mighty germ to fell Mrs. Pendergast, Faith thought, and found herself nodding solemnly—in tacit agreement, she supposed, or just to have some participation in the conversation that continued its one-sided course.

“Now, don't worry about the cooking. I do all of it. Have been for thirty years—the last fifteen righthere. I need you to chop things, help me get organized, and dish it all out."

“Like a sous chef," Faith commented.

“I don't know any Sue chefs. Like another pair of hands is what I mean."

“Fine." Faith reached for an apron. "Why don't you tell me where to start." She was a firm believer that a woman's kitchen was her queendom. Still, it might be possible to introduce some flavor into the cuisine after a few days. The only cookbook she could see was an ancient edition of Fanny Farmer, and while it made for wonderful bedtime reading—caramel potato cake, and her own personal favorite, Canapés à la Rector: caviar on toast sprinkled with diced cucumber pickles and red pepper, divided into sections, by anchovy fillets—she hoped the inhabitants of Hubbard House weren't subsisting on macaroni and chipped beef and the book's other stick-to-the-ribs staples.

“We're giving them fish today—scrod and some greens and potatoes. The first thing you could do is start peeling these with this contraption while I trim the beans. The soup's all made and on the back burner." She gestured toward the stove. "There's always some who want soup first, or they can have juice. Then we give them a salad. And I've got last night's pot roast for those who don't want fish."

“How many people are there?" Faith asked.

“One hundred and fifteen total, but we never get that many for lunch. The cottages have kitchenettes and some people make their own lunch. And there's usually a few who are traveling or eating out. They mark their meal choices in the morning on those little sheets. There's sixty today and seven trays."

“Trays?"

“Yes, for the people in the annex. The wheelchair kids come for those first.”

Faith worked quickly, but it took a while before the potatoes were on. She looked around to see what was next and clamped her mouth shut as she watched Mrs. Pendergast with an ancient canister of paprika, liberally sprinkling the fish before putting it into the oven to bake. They were assembling salads and Faith was about to start priming the pump to get information more relevant to her investigation than the merits of V-8 juice versus tomato when the door swung open and she heard the click of high heels on the kitchen tile.