"Of course," said Meg. "You said the person dressed in your coat gave Nora a fistful of money."
"And took it back," Quill reminded them. "And I'll get to what happened to the money in a minute. Nora Cahill told me the day before she was murdered that she had 'more dirt on that guy,' meaning Santini, and that she'd love to publish it, but she didn't yet have enough proof. And she told me she was close to finding out something that would really nail him. Finally, I know for a fact that Santini hated her anyway. He blamed that whole H. O. W. fund-raiser debacle on her. I saw him reading her the riot act right after H. O. W. stopped throwing forks and spoons at him. I think what happened is this: Nora was blackmailing Santini, and he'd been paying her off right along. She said herself she was the only media person to get invited to his wedding - and she was just a Syracuse anchor. I mean, if he's going to "invite anyone, why not Sam Donaldson? Or Barbara Walters? He could have cried all over Barbara Walters and it would have given him an enormous advantage in the next election. He's a national figure. One of them would have come."
"But Nora showed up at the courthouse when you were arrested for running over that little kid," Marge objected. "Why should she do that?"
"I didn't run over a little kid," said Quill.
"But it was the start of his 'national' campaign to rescue small towns." Meg said. "Nora wouldn't want to miss that. Although it was so clearly phony."
Quill smiled gratefully at her. "Just so."
"I get it," said Marge. "There's no reason why Nora'd pass up a good news story, even if she was blackmailing Santini."
"We probably," Quill said a little stiffly, "will always disagree about whether my little traffic ticket was a good news story. Anyway, I think that Frank Dorset recognized Santini in that tape and wanted that money for himself. He went right along with that trumped-up disguise that Santini meant to look like me, and put me in jail on bogus charges."
"That makes sense," said Meg. "I mean, Howie was raving all the way to Ithaca about the high-handed way Dorset was handling due process. He didn't see why or how Dorset was planning to get away with it. But, of course, he was trying to blackmail Santini, too. He was probably planning on taking that blackmail money and hightailing it out of town."
"And Santini showed up at the sheriff's office..." said Quill.
"Pretended to give Dorset the cash..." added Meg.
"And whammo! Cut his throat. Shoved him into my cell. Wiped the knife and tossed it in after Dorset's body..."
"And tried to pin the second murder on you."
"Holy crow," said Betty.
"You two are damn good," grunted Marge. "So how do we go around proving this?"
"We need hard evidence," said Quill. "Something factual, like DNA or hair samples that will link Santini to the scene of the crime. We have to find my coat and that videotape. And, we have to get an eyewitness to place Santini at or near the sheriff's office around five o'clock this morning."
"If the fella's smart enough to stay in the Senate for three terms, he's smart enough to bum that stuff," said Marge. "Or bury it."
"It's a lot harder than you think to dispose of things like that," said Quill. "Where is he going to burn it? Our fireplaces? We can sift through the ashes and find fibers, bits of plastic from the tape - whatever."
"I'll do that," said Betty. "He don't know me from a hole in the ground, and I worked cleaning house in high school before I learned to cook. I'll walk around here with a bucket and look like I'm cleaning fireplaces. I'll get a sample from each one in the place."
"Label them and put them in Baggies," Meg advised. "And as soon as you find something suspicious, call Sheriff McHale. Otherwise, we'll contaminate the chain of evidence."
"I'll tell Doreen what you're doing," Quill offered. "And, although Meg and I have a strict rule about invading the privacy of our guests, this is an emergency. Santini's in the Adams suite, room 224. And his bachelor party's tonight in the dining room, so he's going to be occupied with that from eight o'clock on. If there's anything hidden in his room, tonight's the best time to search for it. What I'm afraid of is that he's buried the stuff, or thrown it into the Gorge."
"It stopped snowing late last night," said Meg. "Andy could ski the parts of the park that lead from here to the Municipal Building and look for turned up dirt."
"Likeliest spot's the Gorge," said Marge. "I could take Miriam and Esther and we could hike down there."
"Why don't you three look in the park instead of Andy," said Betty. "We want this to be a victory for wimmin."
"It counts if we tell the men what to do," said Marge. "My goodness, partner, what would we do without Mark Anthony Jefferson at the bank buyin' and sellin' every time I tell him to? I'd be worth squat if I didn't work with male bankers."
"Good point," Meg said seriously. "So it's all right if I ask Andy to go ahead and search?"
"Long as Doc Bishop reports back to you," Marge said generously. "Be my guest."
"There's one last thing," said Quill. "The witness to Santini's presence near the sheriff's office."
"He sharin' a room with that lemon-faced fianc‚e?" asked Marge. "Course, she'd probably alibi him, anyhow."
"No," said Meg. "Claire's in the Pilgrim suite on the ground floor. Santini's in the Adams suite on two. Claire's father didn't think Tutti would approve if the two of them shared a room, so they aren't."
"So he's by himself. That helps some." Marge sniffed. "Witnesses, huh? Who'd likely be out in a gol-danged blizzard in the middle of central New York in December that might have seen him?"
Quill made a diffident noise and offered, "S. O. A. P."
"Hot damn," said Betty.
Marge swung her head like a turret on a tank. Her eyes gleamed. "Speak of the devil, here comes one a them now."
Mayor Elmer Henry bustled into the dining room, accompanied by the swish-swish-swish of his Gore-Tex ski pants. He caught sight of the four women as soon as he entered, waved weakly, and veered toward the table like a boat in a low wind.
" 'Lo, ladies," he said stiffly.
"You look a little pooped, Elmer," said Marge. "Little frostbit, too. Have a good time in the woods last night?"
"I have no idea what you are talking about. Quill? I'd like to speak to you about our meeting this evening."
"Of course, Mayor. Would you like to go to my office?"
"Sure. Ladies? Good to... um, 'bye."
Quill let him go ahead. She turned and nodded violently to Meg, who mouthed' 'Find out about last night," waved to Marge, and had to trot to get ahead of the mayor before he stamped into her office.
"No, I won't sit down. This won't take but a minute or so." He took a couple of deep breaths, whether because he was hot in his snowsuit or out of breath from racing away from the twin terror of Marge and Betty, Quill wasn't sure.
"John told you we've set you up on the terrace?"
"What? Oh. Yeah."
"We're bringing in some of the heating pots from Richardson's apple farm. Your members should be a lot warmer than they were, um, last night."