"So what happened, exactly?" Marge demanded.
"I'd fallen asleep on that cot, and I think it must have been the voices that woke me up."
Marge's eyes narrowed in a calculating way, which for some reason irritated Quill profoundly. "You heard their voices?"
"Uh-huh. One was Dorset. But as soon as they came in the cell block, the lights went out. The killer stabbed him, then shoved him through the door to my cell and rolled him in next to me. Then the killer relocked the cell door and took off, taking the key with him."
"Dorset musta weighed all of a hunnert and seventy pounds," said Marge. "Musta been a man, to wrestle all that deadweight."
The Breton sausage, one of Quill's favorites, stuck halfway down her throat. She swallowed carefully, then said, "He didn't die right away."
"Hung on awhile, did he? He musta said somethin' about who killed him, then."
"He whispered for help." Quill set her fork carefully on her plate and folded her hands in her lap. "His throat was cut. I don't think... he couldn't get anything else out."
Marge pursed her lips, "Hmm." Then, "Lemme pour you a little more coffee." She did so, then pulled a small notebook from the pocket of her bowling jacket. "You got times on this? And did you get any impression at all of the murderer's weight?"
"Marge!" Meg said suddenly. "Are you investigating this case?"
Marge shifted her large shoulders and scratched her neck with an abstracted air.
So that's why I was irritated, Quill thought with guilty surprise. Petty old me. I don't like the competition. She sat back, frowning. This feeling had something to do with Myles. And she didn't like what it said about her own motives for failing him in their relationship. If she had. Marge nudged her, and she blinked, startled.
"Thing is," said Marge, "Adela dropped to the diner this morning, early, with the milk crowd, and said she'd about had it up to here with town guv'mint. I mean, she'd just heard on that police scanner she carries around in her purse about you offing Dorset - "
"I did NOT - " Quill began hotly.
"Well, I see that now, don't I," Marge said equably. "Anyways, she's all hot for me to run for mayor."
"You, Marge?" said Meg. "But Elmer's mayor. I mean, to tell you the truth, you'd be an absolutely super mayor, and I wish we'd thought of it before the November elections, but there you are. Elmer's mayor. Duly elected and sworn in."
"That's as may be," Betty said mysteriously, "that's as may be. Anyways, let Marge go on. Go on, Marge."
"Right. What H. O. W. needs is some good P.R. Public relations, like. So, I figger we find out who killed Nora Cahill and Frank Dorset, this'd be just about the best P.R. we could get."
"So all of H. O. W. is investigating this?" asked Meg. "Thought maybe you two'd give us and Adela a hand," said Betty, "seein' as how you have so much experience in the detective line."
"But," said Quill, "Myles - I mean, Sheriff McHale is back."
"Don't we know it!" said Betty. "And a damn good thing, too. Marge was thinking maybe now you'd put some of that weight back on."
Marge, whose nineteenth-century German forebears seemed to have passed on a genetic predisposition for substantial poundage, nodded judiciously, her three chins folding and unfolding.
"Thing is, Adela didn't know the sheriff'd be back when she laid out the campaign this morning." Betty hitched forward and hissed conspiratorially, "See, what we have here is Marge for mayor and Adela for justice. What d'ya think?"
"Marge would make a terrific mayor," Quill said promptly. "I'll go door-to-door for Marge anytime."
"Me, too," said Meg. "But Adela for town justice?" She rolled her eyes. "Sheeesh. Remember the year she was judge at the geranium competition and she brought in those Dutch imports and said they were hers and she tried to arrange a boycott of Esther's shop when Esther blew her in?"
"Yeah," said Betty. "I'd forgot about that."
"And don't forget what happened after the Jell-O Architecture Contest."
"Um... yeah," said Marge.
Meg swallowed most of Quill's grapefruit juice, burped, and added, "That lady is mean."
"Well, Bernie Bristol's crooked," Quill said flatly. She gazed with a ruminative air at Alphonse Santini, who was saying goodbye to his bride at table seven with a remarkable degree of indifference. Of course, practically anyone contemplating marriage with the whiny Claire the day after tomorrow was going to have to be equipped with indifference to whining. "But why do we have to choose between mean and crooked? Why can't we find a town justice who's fair and honest? Like Howie Murchison."
Marge snorted, leaned over her eggs, and rumbled, "The point of H. O. W. is, see, that it's the wimmin who are going to run this town."
"Oh," said Quill.
And Adela's right. If the wimmin find this killer and make the streets safe again, then it's the wimmin the voters are goin' to put in government."
"By and large, I agree with you," said Quill. "Except that Adela Henry's a witch."
"She's right, Marge," Betty said without officiousness. "We'll have to think about this. In the meantime, are you with us, Quill?"
"Well, sure," said Quill. "I guess so. Except that I really think Howie'd make a great - "
"Lame, girl, lame." Marge patted her shoulder with one elephantine hand. "Now, what's the next step in this investigation?"
"Me?" asked Quill. "You're asking me?"
"You solved three murders before this," said Betty.
"Who better?" asked Marge.
Meg went, "Whoop!" and finished the last of Quill's sausage. Quill, both flattered (at the tribute to her investigative skills) and annoyed (Meg had eaten most of her breakfast - and who was it that had spent a sleepless night with a corpse, anyway?), looked over her shoulder. The Mclntoshes had gone. More important, Alphonse Santini had gone.
"Okay, guys, I'll tell you my theory. I had a lot of time to think about it last night, while John was looking for Davy to get me out of that cell. In the videotape of Nora's murder, a figure dressed in my coat waited for her by the intersection. The figure was tall for a woman, short for a man. That coat was down and really huge. I don't know if you remember seeing me wear it."
Betty hooted. "Everybody in town knows that coat. That's the ugliest winter coat I've ever seen in this life. I dunno how many times I seen you walking into the bank in that coat and wonder why the heck - oof!"
Marge, who'd given Betty a substantial poke in the midriff with her elbow, rumbled, "Go on, Quill."
"So if you had a little potbelly, it wouldn't show when it was zipped up."
"A nine-months pregnancy wouldn't have shown with that coat," Meg remarked. "I know you loved that coat, Quillie, but, honestly, it was an ugly coat. I'm glad it's at the bottom of the Gorge, or wherever it is that the murderer put it. Same for the hat." Meg yawned.
"Shut up, Meg. Now this is mere supposition at this point, because that tape has disappeared, but I think the only person it could have been was Alphonse Santini."
"The senator?" gasped Betty.