"That we'd get rid of him!" said Meg with spirit. "Have him move to the Marriott or something. Let them put up with him."
"Good plan," Quill said cordially. "Excellent plan. I like a plan that means we're going to have to wait on him hand and foot for the next three days. For free!"
"Tell you what," said Meg with a charitable air. "Since you're so upset about this, let me take care of it. You don't have to worry about a thing."
"That's big of you." "It's the least I can do." A shout came from behind the closed door of 221. Quill smiled sweetly. "That call's for you."
The Chamber members were eating lemon tarts when Quill returned to the Lounge. She sat down, looked at the yellow custard filling, and pushed it away.
"Everything all right?" asked Howie after a moment. "Elmer wanted to come stampeding to the rescue, but I convinced him that another eighteen bodies stuffed into your front lobby would only confuse matters."
"Seventeen," said Marge. "I hollered at Ollie Doyle out the window. Said your sister finally poisoned somebody."
"Don't be absurd, Marge," said Esther. "What we have to worry about is whether a murderer's running around loose in Hemlock Falls. He might be staying right here at the Inn!"
"The only person who'd want to murder Keith Baumer is his wife," said Quill. "And she went back to Manhattan this morning after Myles let her out of jail." Well aware of the town's propensity for gossip, she came to a decision. She ground her teeth, looked Marge in the eye, and said, "You were right. My sister thought Keith Baumer was the ultimate pest. So she put ipecac in his food." She shut her eyes, waiting for the barrage of indignation sure to follow.
"Really?" said Betty Hall with interest. "Marge tried that once with this smartass yuppie from New Jersey that kept sending his food back. Worked a treat. Never saw him again."
"Made him pay the bill, too," said Marge with satisfaction. "Tell Meg baking soda in the scrambled eggs works just as good. And there's no mess to clean up."
"Well, we all hope that Meg's efforts are rewarded," said the Reverend Shuttleworth. "There are certain signs about the man that are very disturbing, very disturbing. There is strong evidence that he was an instrument in the downfall of that poor creature who went to her reward this afternoon. And I have your Doreen Muxworthy to thank for first bringing them to my attention."
"The staff at the Inn aims to please," said Quill. "Mayor, if the meeting is going to go on much longer, I'll need to leave you to your coffee. I've got to see to some things."
"Yes. With John being accused of these murders, you will have many extra duties," said the Reverend Shuttleworth. "The members were telling me about this APR."
"APB," said Quill, "and John has not been accused of these murders, Mr. Shuttleworth. And I'd appreciate it very much if you all understand that. Myles just wants to talk to him. That's all. He has... evidence germane to these incidents."
Nobody would meet Quill's eye. She wondered just exactly what had been discussed while she was occupied with Baumer. "You've known him for years," she said. "He grew up in this town. He does the books for half the businesses in town. You've trusted him in the past. Has he ever betrayed that trust?"
Mark Anthony Jefferson cleared his throat. "Well, that's just it, Quill. We've been talking the matter over and - " Quill drew breath to protest, and Jefferson held his hand up.
"Please. He knew, for example, quite a bit more about Gil's car business than Tom here - his own partner - did. I'm going to go over the books tomorrow with Tom, at the bank, to see if there may have been any irregularities that Gil could have discovered."
"You have no basis for that belief," said Quill hotly. "None!"
"It's wise to take precautions," said Mark Anthony. "As for Ms. Collin wood..."
"He'd never even met Mavis Collinwood before she came here!" said Quill. "This is all - There's a word for it. Howie?"
"Supposition?" said the lawyer.
"No!" Quill knew her face was red with anger. "Slander!"
Howie looked at Marge and raised his eyebrows.
"I'll tell her," said Marge gruffly. She rocked back in her chair. "Mavis told me something about John that you have to know, Quill. I'm sorry to be the one to do it, too, because although I ain't sure about this fancy schmancy kwee-zeen you all serve, you've been a good enough friend and neighbor over the years. And you know I'm mostly joking when I give you a little bit of hassle over stuff. The way I figure, we've got a friendly rivalry, that right, Howie?"
"You ought to get to the point, Marge," said Howie. "John was the head of the accounting department for Dog- gone Good Dogs some years back. After my time. Mavis figured he was the one who embezzled near three hundred thousand dollars from their company. Then he disappeared and nobody saw hide nor hair of him for a couple of years. Mavis was that shocked when she met him here at your Inn." Marge looked around the table. "So what we figure is, John had himself a real good motive to get rid of both of them, Mavis and Gil."
Quill left them sitting there without a word.
-10-
Quill wanted a place with no phones, no people, and no problems. When being nibbled to death by ducks, she thought, the best thing to do is leave the pond. Meg was the sort of person who'd mince the ducks into pate, and not for the first time, Quill envied her sister's direct, assertive approach. For Meg, all odds were surmountable.
Even murder. She left the Inn and walked to the gazebo in the perennial garden. Evening was coming on like high tide on a still night, the purple-blue darkness flowing over the Falls' ridge to touch the crescent moon. The dark hid the colors of the roses, but their scent recalled their names, and their names their sturdy beauty - Maidens' Blush at its peak; the damasks Celsiana and La Ville de Bruxelles in full bloom; the hybrid teas Tiffany and Crimson Glory a constant undernote, as they had been all summer. Quill's hand flexed as though it held a paint brush. She sat in the gazebo and let pictures of new paintings drift through her mind's eye. The heart of a Chrysler Imperial rose would make a wonderful painting - a man-made rose with a man-made shape at odds with the essential nature of flowers. It would give the painting an energetic irony. And the color - an aggressive, insulting, dangerous red.
Like blood seeping from under a barn door.
"Ugh!" said Quill into the dark. She asked herself the logical question: Who wanted Mavis dead? She shut her eyes and thought about the scene of the crime as a painting. The bandstand with the three witnesses - Howie, Elmer, and Tom Peterson; Dookie, in the judge's seat, the crowd immediately in front of the bandstand.
Who in this picture had the opportunity to kill? Baumer had been standing extreme stage left. If he'd looked over his right shoulder, he would have seen the sledge stop and Harland dismount. He could have waited until Harland stomped around stage right to accost Howie and tell him he wasn't going to drive anymore.
Did Baumer take the chance to pull the hood over Mavis' slack mouth and dulled eyes?
Tom Peterson had been standing at Baumer's elbow after he moved off-stage. The two men hadn't known each other, and hadn't spoken together, at least not in the replay Quill saw before her. Tom, too, could have ducked around the stage and gone into the semidarkness of the shed. Except that Quill could find no link between Tom and Mavis. And Mavis had been the target of the murderer, who had succeeded the second time, after failing the first.