Quill's rooms were simply decorated, designed as a refuge from the demands of her day. Natural muslin curtains hung at the windows. A cream damask-stripe chair and couch sat under the mullioned south window. A cherry desk and armoire stood in the corner. Beige Berber carpet covered the pine floor. The eggshell walls held two paintings, both by friends from New York, and a few pen-and-ink sketches she'd done as a student. Her easel stood in the southwest window, a half-finished study of roses and iris glowing in the subdued light. She spared the roses a perplexed frown, then showered quickly, subdued her curly red hair into a knot at the top of her head, and slipped into a teal silk dress with a handkerchief hem. The Saturday night before the start of History Days was traditionally fancy dress. The costume rehearsal was an excuse for the actors to parade their elaborate outfits for the admiration of the tourists and those citizens unlucky enough to be merely bystanders.
By the time Quill clattered down to the dress rehearsal, the Inn was filled with the low hum of guests.
Quill slipped into the conference room unnoticed. Two of the salespeople from Esther's store had spent the afternoon cataloging and tagging the costumes in the conference room and Quill walked into a room transformed. Portable clothes racks filled with gold silks, pink taffetas, green velvets, and enough ecru lace to choke the entire flock of Marvin Finstedder's goat farm lined the walls. All twenty-four cast members of The Trial of Goody Martin (eighteen whose participation was limited to the repetition of the phrase "Sink or swim !") squeezed together cheek by jowl. Esther laced Betty Hall into a fuschia chiffon townswoman's costume; Elmer Henry stood in front of a full-length mirror on wheels adjusting the gold lace on his cuffs; Howie Murchison paced gravely around the room, and flipped the lapel of his skirted coat forward to reveal a hand-lettered button that read "Colonial Intelligence Agency" at anyone who'd stop long enough to read it.
"What do you think?" he asked Quill.
"It's just as nifty as the Empire costumes," she said diplomatically. The confusion would be an excellent cover for a few discreet questions concerning John's whereabouts. Howie was as good a person to start with as anyone else. "John had to run to Ithaca, and said he was going to drop off some stuff he picked up from the drugstore for me at your office, rather than take the time to come back here. Did he get there?"
"Haven't seen him all day," said Howie. "Sorry. Do you want me to call Anne and see if she can pick it up for you?"
"Oh no, Howie. Thanks. It'll keep until Monday."
All Quill learned in the next twenty minutes was that practically everybody in Hemlock Falls would be happy to send somebody else to the drugstore for her, which made Quill grateful for the neighborliness exhibited, but left her unenlightened as to John's whereabouts. Nobody had seen him all day.
Quill surveyed the crowded room and wondered what to do next. Pointed questions of both Mavis and Marge concerning their activities last night would give her a better grip on what had happened. Had they seen John after they left the Croh Bar? Was he driving or walking? Was anyone with him?
Mavis, face pink with excitement - and, Quill hoped, nothing else - was being stuffed into her costume with the aid of a heavy-breathing Keith Baumer. Any interruption there would be fruitless. Marge was busy organizing the removal of the clothes racks to Esther's van outside with a verve to rival General Patton's drive to Berlin. Mrs. Hallenbeck stood proudly in the comer, dressed in the black cloak and broad-brimmed hat of A Member of the Crowd. "I have practiced 'Sink or swim,' " she said when Quill stopped to admire her costume. "Miss West seemed to feel that I would add verisimilitude to the mob scene. I shall shake my walking stick, like this."
"You were at dinner with Mavis and Marge last night, Mrs. Hallenbeck. What time did you come back to the Inn?"
"About nine-thirty. I retire every evening promptly at ten, and I insisted that they bring me back here well before that time."
"Everyone came with you?"
"Mavis had to go see Gil's partner, Tom Peterson. Keith Baumer, Marge, and Gil took me home. I left them at the lobby entrance. I believe Marge said something about going to a place called the Croh Bar afterwards."
"You didn't see my manager, John Raintree, with them at all?"
"The Indian? No. I did not. Do you think he could be involved with the accident last night?"
"No," said Quill firmly. "Well, I'm sure you know best, my dear. You seem to have such an excellent head on your shoulders." She leaned forward and lowered her voice. "I am taking your advice. Regarding Mavis."
With the exit of the cast members in full costume to the dining room at six-thirty, Quill knew she should check the front desk, see to the wine cellar, and finally, beard the chaos in the kitchen. Instead, she went to John's room with the picture from Gil's wallet tucked in her pocket. She switched on the overhead light. The room was as she'd left it earlier in the day: silent, the clothes hanging neatly in the closet, the books and papers in the same places. The picture stood on the night stand where she had left it. Quill picked it up and turned it over. The cardboard backing was loose. She drew it carefully out of the frame. The picture from her pocket fitted the back. When she replaced the cardboard backing, it fit perfectly.
She held the frame in her hands, concentrating hard. It was all too obvious that both pictures had been kept here, in this frame. How had the one picture gotten from the frame to the duck pond, and from the duck pond to Gil's wallet? And why? Did John carry it with him, as a reminder of his sister? If he didn't, who took the picture from the frame? Had John or someone else dropped it at the duck pond while drawing the bolt to set a trap for... whom?
"Find anything interesting?"
The frame jumped in her hands. "Myles!"
He came into the room with that infuriatingly silent walk. "Let me see that."
"It's... just a photograph, Myles. Of John's sister."
"John's sister? I found this picture at the pond. Nadine said it was her sister-in-law. Gil was going to put it in the family album." He looked sharply at Quill. "It agitated her."
Quill bit her lip. Myles took both photographs and put them in his shirt pocket.
Myles set the frame back on the night stand. "I'd like to talk with him, Quill. Is he here?"
"How did you know I was here?"
He nodded at the uncurtained window. "I've been waiting for him."
"And you saw the light go on. Of all the sneaky - "
"This is serious business, Quill. We need to question him."
" 'We'? 'Question'? What the hell are you talking about?" He looked at her silently for a long moment. "You'll know eventually, so you might as well know now. The computer's turned up a record on John."
"What kind of a record?"
"I don't want you involved in this, Quill."
"Well, I am involved, Myles. Not only is he the real manager of this Inn, but he's a friend. A good friend. And I think it stinks that there's some stupid accident in that damn duck pond with a bunch of drunks horsing around, and the first thing you think of is - Oh! 'Must be that Indian up to the Inn.' " Her mockery of local speech patterns nettled him, but she went recklessly on. "And of course you go to that blasted database and ask, not for Gil Gilmeister's jail record, or Marge Schmidt's or that fuzzy-headed Mavis', but John's."