Quill tried a French fry. Both it and the gravy spooned over the contents of the plate were as delicious as the meat.
Marge swept her plate clean of gravy with a soft roll slathered in butter.
Quill started on the peas. "These aren't canned," she said in surprise. "They're fresh."
Marge burped. She held up a pat of butter; its significance was momentarily lost on Quill. "Good food is good business," she said, "but if you want to know somethin', leave this out of it."
"I'm not buttering you up, Marge. I mean it." Quill hesitated, then said, "I'll bring Meg up here, if you don't mind. She never lies about food. And you'll believe her, if you won't believe me. It's wonderful."
"Huh!" said Marge. Her cheeks turned pink. She grinned and shouted over her shoulder, "Hear that, Betty? Miss Fancy Food here likes the grub!"
"I more than like it," said Quill honestly. "I love it."
"Not everything has to be goormay," Marge drawled.
"It doesn't. Marge, can we talk a little bit about what's been happening over the last couple of days?"
"If you want. Been good for business, I'll say that for it. Everybody comes in here to talk. And when they talk, they eat. Good for Chris Croh, too. Gossip and drink are a good mix."
"How well did you know Mavis? Well enough to know her personal tastes? What she liked to eat, what she liked to drink?"
"What she liked to eat and drink?" Marge, for once, seemed at a loss for words. "I dunno. She didn't much like that French gunk you serve up there at the Inn."
Quill put this down to Marge's automatic rejection of Meg's I cooking, and waited.
"And drink? Hell, I don't know that either." Her heavy brow creased in thought. "I know she asked for some damn fool thing at the Croh Bar Saturday night. Chris had to look it up in the bar book, which always pisses him off, and then he couldn't make it because he didn't have lemon or peppermint or something."
"So you've never made a drink for Mavis?"
"Served her beer," said Marge. "What the hell is this about, anyways?"
"Did Mavis take prescription drugs? Or ever ask you for prescription drugs?"
"I don't know what you're gettin' at, missy, but I can tell you one thing right now. I take aspirin. That's it. You ask Doc Bishop, you think I'm lying. I," said Marge proudly, "barf up most anything that ain't natural. Penicillin, and that. Barf it up right away." She patted her ample stomach. "I'm that delicate, Gil used to say to me."
"Did you - correspond with Mavis on a regular basis, say once a month?"
Enlightenment spread over Marge's face like the sun coming up over the gorge. "You mean you wanna know if shewas blackmailing me as well as John?"
"You knew about that?"
"Not till she came here. But I had my suspicions. I was Northeast regional manager for Doggone Good Dogs for pretty near five years. Worked my way up from waitressin'. Heard a lot of gossip about Mavis, of course. Never could prove anything. And what the hell did it mean to me, anyways? She was a lot of fun when she came into the district to do the personnel stuff. We'd go out, have a few pops - Mave knew how to have a good time.
"I decided to come back here and open my own business. Didn't much like having to run things other people's way, wanted to do it on my own; I grew up here" - Quill caught the unspoken message: unlike you and your sister, who moved in and tried to take over - "and this is the natural place for me. 'Sides, Betty and I'd been best friends in high school, and you can't run a place like this all by yourself.
"Anyhow, Mavis came to see me just before I quit the company. Said the home office wanted to keep me, and she offered me a raise and all that. I said no thanks.
"Didn't hear much from her a-tall until she hove into town with that Mrs. Hallenbeck. You know what it's like seein' somebody from way back. You may not have been all that good buddies, but there's some stuff to talk about. That's about it."
"Did you know John well?"
"He was after my time at the company. Heard about it, of course. Not every day the company has an employee what turns out to be a murderer. He come in here on his way back from Attica, as a matter of fact." She eyed Quill sharply. "You know about that?"
"Yes," Quill said.
"Headin' on out to Syracuse to look for a job there. We got to talkin'. Don' matter to me a guy that's been in the joint, so we cleared that up right away. We swapped a couple stories about the company. Things changed quite a bit after Armour bought us out, and ol' John got a couple of laughs out of it. I needed someone to do the books once a month; not enough for a full-time job, and Gil, bless his soul, needed somebody, too, and he always liked John and felt he had to make up for his sister bein' a vegetable and all. The two of us offered him wages for a couple of hours a month work. Then you placed that ad in the paper for a business manager, and he just settled in."
"And you know about Mavis being a blackmailer?"
"Do you know that old girl wanted me to come in on it?" Marge's astonishment was genuine. "We got to swapping stories Saturday about how we each was doin', and she said she was on to a good thing. Wanted me to cut a separate deal with Tom if the old lady coughed up the investment, as kind of, what'd she call it, a fee for brokering the deal. Then we'd split it." Marge shook her head. "Mavis couldn't spit straight, much less do a good honest deal. Just wasn't in her nature."
"John said she insisted the letters with his money be addressed to Scarlett O'Hara. Some Southern belle."
"You mean like that movie, Gone With the Wind?"
"Yes. Marge? What happened when you refused?"
Marge shrugged. "Guess she talked to Tom herself. I tolt her to pound salt. I wasn't so hot on Gil gettin' out after that. I mean" - Marge colored painfully - "I wanted the old biddy to cough up the cash for the dealership. We had this idea, Gil and me. He'd get enough cash together to payoff that Nadine and he'd come into the business with Betty and me." She cleared her throat with an attempt at carelessness. "Said he'd always wanted a wife who'd help him, you know. Rather than being a drag. Didn't matter I was no beauty queen, he said; I had something better than that. I had some sense." Marge crumpled a paper napkin in her fist and blew her nose. "Said our kids would have some sense, too."
Quill bent her head and concentrated on the meatloaf. She waited a few minutes, then said, "I thought maybe you killed them, Marge."
"Me!" As she'd hoped, Marge's outrage doused the tears as effectively as a candle snuffer. "You gotta be kidding!"
"Well, it seemed logical," Quill apologized. "I mean, all this weird stuff's been going on at the Inn, and Meg and I thought you might want us out of business, and then Mavis shows up and you two are connected in what appears to be a shady deal over tainted meat and..."
"Tainted meat?" Marge demanded.
Quill, alarmed, not trusting Marge, stammered, "And I thought maybe you thought John would be a good scapegoat, because of what you knew about him."
"Jee-sus Kee-rist and eight hands around," said Marge, appearing to drop the tainted meat issue. "What the hell do you think I'm made of?"