"The prayer breakfast buffet was terrific," said Quill. "You heard about the Rolling Moses?"
Meg grinned. "Anybody checked out yet?"
Quill hadn't thought of the effect of the Christian Terrorists on the rest of the guests. "I know Baumer hasn't. Do you think we'll lose people?"
Meg shrugged. "Probably. They've canceled History Days, right?"
"You seem pretty sanguine about this. I mean, between the practical joke about the cancellations and the murders, we're going to be hurtin' turkeys."
"Won't last," said Meg confidently. "I'm guaranteeing you a rave review in L'Aperitif: Edward thinks my cooking is fabulous."
This did not bode well for Myles's revelation. Quill weighed the relative merits of Meg's temper tantrum over Edward Lancashire's imposture-although to be fair, he'd never claimed to be anything at all, much less a food critic - against Meg's gradual realization that the L'Aperitif review wasn't going to appear. And of course, Quill thought optimistically, the magazine would have to review them sometime; they always checked on the progress of their starred restaurants. It was not at all cowardly, she decided, to neglect to mention Edward Lancashire's real occupation. Diplomacy was the province of successful innkeepers as well as long-lived kings.
"Myles is back early, Meg. The autopsy showed enough Seconal in Mavis' system to sink a tugboat. The stomach contents showed the Seconal was in the mint juleps she was drinking just before the play. He says this shows premeditation."
"Really?" said Meg. "That's interesting."
"There's something else." Quill told her of John's return and his suspicions about the embezzled three hundred thousand dollars.
"Jeez." Meg began stuffing the sausage meat into the casings. "Maybe you're right, after all."
"You think John's innocent, too?"
"I never thought he was guilty. All I said was that your reasoning was screwed up. The facts say John did it. But it doesn't seem to me that murder is a rational act-you know what I mean?" She waved a half-stuffed sausage aloft. "It's like recipes. People think they can learn to cook if they follow a recipe exactly. Remember the Armenian dentist?"
"Haaiganash? The one who thought she'd have a more profitable career as a pastry chef? Yeah. You threw her out of the kitchen."
"She didn't have any soul," said Meg. "She thought cooking was a science. She didn't understand the basic ambiguity of cooking. Something goes into the recipe you can't account for. Cooking isn't rational. Neither is murder."
Quill, who thought this was a somewhat dubious simile, ate some parsley.
Meg worked in silence for a moment. "You know what I think?"
"What?"
"You're exactly right about the mint juleps. Find out who made those mint juleps for Mavis, and you've got the murderer."
"I've already decided mint juleps are the essential clue," Quill said testily.
"There's one other thing." Meg took the colander of beans to the sink and rinsed them. "A recipe's a pattern of ingredients. Everything that goes into it reacts so that you get something else. The whole is greater than its parts."
This foray into Jungian theory impressed Quill not at all. "So?"
"So look at everything that's happened since Mavis got here. All of it resulted in murder."
"All right," said Quill irritably. Meg hadn't been out of the kitchen once the entire four days, except for the play, and here she was giving Quill advice about the investigation. "Mavis shows up. She falls off the balcony. Mrs. Hallenbeck says this is a little con game she cooked up, which, for all we know, she's been running for ages. John disappears. Gil drowns in the duck pond, presumably because somebody set a trap for Mavis. Mavis gets squashed under a barn door. John comes back. We learn that Mavis is a blackmailer who's probably been getting money from Keith Baumer and Marge Schmidt for years. We learn that Mavis very probably approached Tom Peterson with some scheme for buying the business, which Marge may have discovered... God! It's Marge. It has to be."
Meg looked at her. The water ran unheeded over the beans. There was a distant look in her eye. "Who called up our customers and told them the Inn was closed? Who called the Christian Terrorists to hold an exorcism at the Inn, which can only result in the worst possible publicity for us? Who poured the- sulfuric acid around the balcony, which resulted in even worse publicity for us?"
"Marge?" said Quill doubtfully. "She could have done stuff like that any time these years past," said Meg. "There's something odd going on, Quill. None of this fits. If it were a souffl‚, it wouldn't rise more than an inch."
Quill glanced at the kitchen clock. "It's twelve-thirty. The lunch crowd will have left Marge's diner by the time I get there. It'll be a perfect time to talk."
"You're not going to eat there, are you?"
"Do you think she'll try to poison me?"
"Not on purpose," said Meg seriously. "Besides, it's too public."
Quill parked in the bank's lot, near the sign that said "For Hemlock Falls Savings and Loan Bank Customers Only! Violators will be towed," walked to the diner, and peered in the plate-glass window. Two of the Formica-covered tables were filled; the rest were littered with the small detritus of a busy restaurant after a herd of customers has left.
Marge slouched against the cash register, talking to Mark Anthony Jefferson. He smiled at Marge, teeth white in his dark face, and shook her hand with the enthusiasm of a banker happy with his deposits. Quill pushed the glass door open and went in.
"Hi, Mark, Marge."
"Hello, Quill." Mark offered her a prim smile and a genial nod. Quill wondered if bankers took affability courses. The object of this course is smile wattage: the small depositor, or the cash-poor, should be greeted with the proper degree of reserve, say seventy-five watts.
Mark shook hands with Marge a second time. "Drop by any time, Marge. Be happy to talk about that transfer. I'm sure I can get that extra point for you. Quill? I wonder if we could meet this week sometime to talk about who is going to take over from John. He's a great loss to the business, and we'll want to be sure that whoever replaces him has the same level of expertise."
Quill muttered, "It's a little soon, Mark," and both she and Marge watched him leave.
"Good fella," Marge said. "Knows his onions. What're you here for?"
"Lunch," said Quill.
"Yeah?" Marge eyed her with a certain degree of skepticism. "Betty!" she hollered suddenly. "You wanna bring out a couple of Blue Plates? Have a seat, Quill."
Quill sat down at one of the small tables. Marge swung a chair around backwards and straddled the seat, elbows on the back. She and Quill regarded each other in a silence that stretched on until Betty plunked a platter in front of each of them. The Monday Blue Plate was meatloaf and French fries smothered in gravy. A small dish of green peas accompanied the platter. Quill took a bite of the meatloaf. Her eyebrows went up.
"Marge, this is delicious."
Marge methodically cut both potatoes and meat into small squares, and just as methodically ate each fork-sized bite.