"Meg," Quill protested. "This is a tragedy shaping up. You're not being very kind."
"It's a tragedy all right," Meg said tartly, "but not the kind you think." She ladled a portion of the crab soup into a small crock and set it in front of Quill. "How sure are you that the senator's behind these murders?"
"Who else could it be?"
"Lots of people. Maybe this Joe Greenwald. Maybe..."
"Maybe who?"
"Maybe Tutti."
Quill put her spoon down. "That's ridiculous."
"Is it? Maybe she's setting Al up. Wouldn't you try to get him out of the way if he was going to marry your granddaughter?"
"I wouldn't commit two murders to do it. And if she's going to kill people, why doesn't she just go straight to the source of the problem and kill Al himself! You've been smoking funny cigarettes, Meg."
"Okay. So Tutti as murderer is a ludicrous idea. I'd just like to point out - "
"That I'm engaging in wild surmise?"
"Well, yeah."
"I've already been informed of the dangers of engaging in wild surmise. So let's change the subject."
"You want to change the subject because you want to solve this case all by yourself."
"Well, I do," Quill admitted. "But not all by myself. I've got a partner."
"Sure you do. Me."
Quill swallowed a spoonful of soup. Then another. Meg's face changed. "Not me. Myles."
"Do you mind?"
Meg's eyelids flickered. "No." Then, "Yes. Yes, I think I do. This is a real reversal, Quill. Normally it's you looking out for me."
"I'm looking out for you!"
"Then that's not what I mean. I mean normally it's been the two of us. Together. Now it's not." Meg ran her hands slowly through her hair.
"So you do mind."
"It's just... different."
Quill couldn't think of anything to say to this. Except that just when you seemed to have one relationship problem solved, another popped up in its place. Meg drummed her fingers on the butcher block, pulled the agenda from the wall, and started making notes with a dull pencil. Her face was flushed.
After a moment, Quill said, "This is terrific soup." Then, "How many for the rehearsal dinner tonight?"
"Twenty. And it's a fabulous menu, Quill. I'm having the best time. I've made a brandied fruit compote, a squash souffl‚, and the piece de resistance - potted rabbit." The flush on her face had faded to two bright red spots.
"Rabbit." Quill bit her lip and chuckled. "Is this an unsubtle signal to the senator?"
"Is what a signal? What?" Alphonse Santini banged through the swinging doors into the kitchen. Both women jumped. "So you heard already? I think it's a sign, too. Like, I shouldn't be getting married again. I mean, one ball and chain in a lifetime's enough, you get my drift. The old lady's loaded, but still. Shit."
"It's Tutti that's - er - loaded?" Quill asked casually. "I thought it was Vittorio, her son."
"In that family, where the money comes from isn't the issue. It's who's got the balls. And in that family, it's Tutti."
"Then how come..." Quill began. She stopped. She couldn't very well ask Santini to his face why Tutti - if she was the driving force in the McIntosh family - was permitting a marriage to go forward of which she clearly didn't approve.
"Then how come what?" Santini moved restlessly around the kitchen, snapping his fingers. He stuck a finger in the soup crock, licked it off, and moved to stick it in again.
Meg took two long strides forward and moved the crock out of reach. "Is there something specific we can help you with, Senator?"
"This dinner tonight. The rehearsal dinner, we got a problem."
Meg raised her eyebrows politely. "With what?"
"Can't have the rehearsal in the church. It's drifted in and the plows can't get to it until later today. So we'll want to push the dinner back, see, and have the rehearsal here, about nine o'clock."
"How far back?" There was an ominous note in Meg's voice.
Quill slid off the stool and said hastily, "It really isn't necessary, is it, Senator? There's been such a lot of disruption around here lately, it'd make life a lot easier for everyone if we just kept to the original schedule." She grabbed him by the arm, guided him back to the dining room, started to ask him how his dinner had been the night before, realized that the reenactment of the rape of the Sabines had probably altered his view of the hospitality offered by the Inn, and blurted out instead, "Why did you send Joseph Greenwald to burglarize Nora Cahill's apartment?"
"Huh?" His eyes narrowed to slits, "You out of your mind, throwing around crap like that? Joe Greenwald?" He grabbed her by her upper arms and thrust his face close to hers, "Joey doesn't even work for me," he hissed, "And if he did, which he doesn't, what the hell were you doing in that broad's apartment?!"
Quill regarded him as steadily as possible with her heart pounding and her hands damp, "I'm onto you, Senator Santini, So are a lot of other people, If I were you..."
His grip tightened, He was stronger than he looked, "Well, you aren't, you little bitch. And let me tell you something,.. Goddammit." He dropped his grip abruptly. "I never should have gotten into this. Married to a whining cow. For what? Money. Goddamned money."
"Alphonse!" Tutti's voice cut across the dining room like a sledgehammer. She stood in the doorway to the foyer, erect, her face stern. Quill had the sudden, eerie feeling that the genial, sweet-voiced grandmother who believed in spirits had been replaced by a refugee from a Godfather movie.
Santini dropped his hands and backed off. "Sorry, Gramma."
Sunlight flashed off the rhinestones in Tutti's spectacles, obscuring her eyes. There was an uneasy silence. She resumed, in tones approaching her normal voice, "I thought you were planning on skiing with Claire, Alphonse."
"Yeah, yeah."
"Don't yeah, yeah me." The whiplash was back.
"Tutti?" Elaine fluttered behind her, a moth against her mother-in-law's stolidity. "The flowers are here. Shall I tell them to bring them in? Quill?" Her voice trailed off into its usual inaudibility. She was wearing yet another long-sleeved blouse with lacy sleeves and high collar, and looked fragile, despite her substantial curves.
Quill stepped away from Santini. "I'm sorry, Elaine, I wasn't paying attention. Would you like me to talk to the delivery people? Are the Cornell students here to do the decorating? They are? Then it shouldn't take too long to have the whole dining room looking wonderful."
"The church," muttered Elaine. Her eyes teared up.
"We'll put the flowers for the church on the terrace. They won't freeze and they'll keep just fine until morning. Then we'll whip over to the church and get them up."