Quill sat.
"I received a phone call from Joseph this morning, after your sheriff had a little interview with him down at the Municipal Building." Quill blinked at her.
"Joseph is a young member of a law firm that has represented my family's interests for years," Tutti said.
"Then you absolutely need another law firm, Tutti. This man tried to run me off the road last night. In the storm."
"Why in the world would he want to do that?" Tutti cocked her head. One white curl fell charmingly over her left ear. She patted it back into place. "If Joseph was following you, and I say if, it was because perhaps you had something that belongs to me."
"Belongs to you?"
"What are those little things called, dear? You know, they stick them into those machines all the young people have these days."
"Computer disks?" Quill, perhaps because she'd had a late night, was feeling a little faint.
"That's it. Computer disks." She turned to Joseph, who had resumed his seat next to Quill on her couch. "Now, Joey. What's the number of that New York State statute you were telling me about?"
"The breaking and entering statute? Or the fraudulent impersonation statute?"
Tutti turned her blue gaze onto Quill. There was a scene in Jaws that had scared the dickens out of her as a little kid. The one where Bruce the shark pulls along the boat, and his flat black eye hypnotizes Robert Shaw. "Either one," said Tutti, with a click of her white teeth. "Either one."
"I have no idea what you're talking about." Quill kept her hands still and her voice steady.
Tutti pulled out a jeweled compact, a lipstick, and frowned at herself in the mirror. Then she reapplied the lipstick, put the compact away, and said, "Rita the security guard does. The boy from the pizza parlor who stuck the flyer under the windshield of that battered Oldsmobile of yours does. On the other hand -if you said that you'd met Joseph on Interstate 81 headed north - there wouldn't be anyone who could gainsay that - or prove it, either. You see, dear." She leaned forward. "No witnesses." She sat back. "We'll wait here."
"It's not going to do you any good." Quill stood up. "You know about computers, Mr. Greenwald."
"Some."
"What type did Nora Cahill use?" He shrugged.
"I can give you a hint. Those software disks you found in the box of her office equipment? It was the latest edition of Microsoft Word. Practically every PC with the power to run that software automatically backs up files. Even if Nora erased it, the likelihood of one of those disk doctors being able to recover it is pretty high. And you know who has her laptop?"
"Who?" Tutti demanded.
Joseph Greenwald rubbed his forehead. "Mrs. McIntosh, ah, McHale's got it."
"The local sheriff?" she asked sharply. "How much trouble can we get from a local sheriff?"
"He's not just any local sheriff."
Quill got up. "If you two will excuse me, I have some work to do."
Tutti jerked her chin at Greenwald.
"If you don't mind, Ms. Quilliam, we'd like to recover our property despite the - er - circumstances."
There was a long silence.
"They're in my room," Quill said finally.
"Go with her," snapped Tutti. She got to her feet with a groan. "This arthritis is acting up again. I'm going to have a hot bath before the dinner." She patted Quill's arm. "I hope we see you there, my dear. In one of those lovely velvet gowns like the one you wore last night." She patted Quill's cheek. Quill had to restrain herself from biting her.
"And you gave them to her?" Meg asked, several hours later. She was standing at the Aga, an egg whisk in one hand and her copper saut‚ pan in the other. A brown sauce was bubbling in the pan. It smelled rich, earthy and winey. Quill, dressed for the evening in bronze silk, nibbled at a piece of sourdough bread.
"What else could I do? I can just see poor Howie trying to defend me on felony charges of breaking and entering."
"It's a misdemeanor, I think. Depending on what you swiped. Whatever. Tell me I was right. She is the murderer."
Quill cut a piece of Stilton from the wheel Meg had set out for the rehearsal dinner. She added it to the bread.
"Will you stop?" Meg said testily. "You're wrecking the display."
"Okay. You were right. But you were right for the wrong reasons. I can't believe you care about the quality of the food you're going to serve to a family whose business is organized crime. And a sweet little old lady who's capable of knocking off six people before breakfast."
"It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game," Meg said obscurely. "And you don't know that they're members of organized crime."
"Ha!"
"Or that Tutti's the Godmother."
"Ha, again. It should be obvious to the meanest intelligence."
"What's obvious to the meanest intelligence is that you're still no further in discovering who killed Nora and Dorset and why."
"If we could just find some hard evidence," said Quill. "The videotape. Or my coat. Even my hat, which has got to have blood on it."
"Whoosh." Meg shuddered. She dropped the whisk, startled. "Darn it, do you hear that? You don't suppose it's those idiots from S. O. A. P. again?"
Quill listened: muffled barks and equally muffled curses, followed by the crash of a mop against the floor. "Tatiana," she said. "From the dining room. Maybe she caught another mouse. And that's Doreen whacking along behind her. She seems to have taken a liking to Doreen."
"That'll shorten her life." Meg dipped a spoon into the sauce, tasted it, scowled, and dumped it down the sink. She rinsed out her copper bowl and began to reassemble the sauce. Tatiana's barks came closer, accompanied by the thump of tennis shoes against carpet. There was the skritch-skritch-skritch of canine claws against the dining room doors. Quill pushed them open. Tatiana burst in, barks at an hysterical pitch.
"You did catch a mouse," Quill said. "Ugh. Good girl."
Doreen stamped in behind her. "That ain't a mouse. It's a hat. Your hat. And there's blood allover it."
-11-
"Catch that dog!" Meg screamed.
"I'm tryin'!" Doreen thwacked the mop on the floor. Tatiana raced around the kitchen, the rabbit hat flapping in her jaws. Bjarne jumped, cursed in Finn, and leaped out of the way, a serving of squash souffl‚ held high above his head.
"Wait!" Quill commanded. She grabbed a leg of potted rabbit (despite Meg's agonized cries of "My dinner!") and crouched down on the floor. "Here, doggie, good doggie."
"Don't you dare give that dog my good food, Sarah Quilliam!"
Tatiana came to a halt next to the boot box at the back door. She sat down, the hat dangling from her jaws. Her little black eyes glared malevolently over the bedraggled rabbit fur. She growled. Doreen growled back.
"Don't, Doreen." Quill inched forward, the roasted rabbit held temptingly in one hand. "Gooood dog."
The back door opened. Tatiana whirled. John walked in. Tatiana leaped past him and into the night.