"Where's your mother today?"
"She doesn't work on Sundays."
With the weaver's help Qwilleran chose violet for Lori, green for Fran, royal blue for Mildred, and taupe for Hixie. He signed traveler's checks while Chrysalis packed the capes in a yarn box.
"I never saw this much money all at once," she said.
When the transaction was concluded, Qwilleran lingered, uncertain whether to broach a painful subject. Abruptly he said, "You didn't tell me that J.J. Hawkinfield was the man your brother was accused of murdering."
"Did you know him?" she asked sharply.
"No, but I'm renting his former home."
She gasped in repugnance. "Tiptop? That's where it happeneda year ago today! They called it the Father's Day murder. Wouldn't you know the press would have to give it a catchy label?"
"Why was your brother accused?"
"It's a long story," she said with an audible sigh.
"I want to hear it, if you don't mind."
"You'd better sit down," she said, kicking a wooden crate across the floor. She climbed onto the bench at the loom, where she sat with back straight and eyes flashing.
Qwilleran thought, She's not unattractive; she has good bones and the lean, strong look of a mountaineer and the lean, strong hands of a weaver; she needs a little makeup to be really good-looking.
"Forest went to college and studied earth sciences," she began boldly, as if she had recited this tale before. "When he came home he was terribly concerned about the environment, and he resented the people who were ruining our mountains. Hawkinfield was the instigator of it all. Look what he did to Big Potato! And he set up projects that will continue to rape the landscape."
"Exactly what did Hawkinfield plan?" Qwilleran asked in tones of concern. His profession had made him a sympathetic listener.
"After developing Tiptop Estates and making a pile of money, he sold parcels of land and then organized syndicates to promote condos, a motel, a mobile home park, even a ski lodge! Clear-cutting has already begun for the ski runs. Isn't it ironic that they're naming a scenic drive after that man?"
"What did your brother do about this situation?"
"Perhaps he was a little hotheaded, but he believed in militant action. He wasn't the only one who wanted to stop the desecration, but Hawkinfield was a very powerful figure in the valley. Owning the newspaper and radio station, you know, and having money and political influence, he had everybody up against the wall. Forest was the only one who dared to speak out."
"Did he have a forum for his opinions?"
"Well, hardly, under the circumstances. All he could do was organize meetings and outdoor rallies. He had to pass out handbills to get an audience. At first nobody would print them, but a friend of ours worked in the job-printing shop at the Gazette and volunteered to run off a few flyers between jobs. Unfortunately he got caught and was fired. We felt terrible about it, but he didn't hold it against us."
"What kind of response did you get to your announcements?" Qwilleran asked.
"Pretty good the first time, and there was a reporter in the crowd from the Gazette, so we thought we were going to get publicitygood or bad, it didn't matter. It would be exposure. But we were so naive! There was not a word reported in the paper, but he photographed everyone in the audience! Is that dirty or isn't it? Just like secret police! People got the message, and only a few brave ones with nothing to lose showed up for the next rally. This environmental issue has really separated the good guys from the bad guys in this county."
"In what way?"
"Well, for one thing, the board of education wouldn't let us use the school auditorium or playfield, and the city wouldn't let us use the community house, but one of the pastors stuck his neck out and let us use the church basement. I'll never forget himthe Reverend Perry Lump-ton."
"Is he the one with the contemporary-style building on the way to the golf club?"
"No, he has the oldest church in town, sort of a historic building."
"And what was Hawkinfield's reaction?"
"He wrote an editorial about 'church interference in secular affairs, in opposition to the economic welfare of the community which it pretends to serve.' Those were the very words! But that wasn't the end of it. The city immediately slapped some code violations on the old church building. Hawkinfield was a real stinker."
"If your brother is innocent," Qwilleran asked, "do you have any idea who's guilty?"
Chrysalis shook her head. "It could be anybody. That man had a lot of secret enemies who didn't dare cross him. Even people who played along with him to save their skins really hated his guts, Forest said."
"Were there no witnesses to the crime?"
"No one actually saw it happen. The police said there was a struggle and then he was pushed over the cliff. All the evidence introduced at the trial was circumstantial, and the state's witnesses committed perjury."
Qwilleran said, "I'd like to hear more about this. Would you have dinner with me some evening?" One of his favorite diversions was to take a woman to dinner. Beauty and glamor were no consideration, so long as he found her interesting, and he was aware that women were equally enthusiastic about his invitations. Chrysalis hesitated, however, avoiding his eyes. "How about tomorrow night?" he suggested. "I'll pick you up here at closing rime."
"We're closed Mondays."
"Then I'll pick you up at home."
"You couldn't find the house," she said.
"I found it once," he retorted.
"Yes, but you weren't looking for it, and when you got there, you didn't know where you were. I'd better meet you at Tiptop."
Qwilleran, before returning home with his four batwing capes, decided to drive to the valley to have his Sunday dinner ahead of the Father's Day rush. After he parked he looked up at the mountains. Little Potato, though inhabited, looked lushly verdant, while Big Potato was blemished with construction sites, affluent estates carved out of the forest, and Hawk's Nest Drive zigzagging through the wooded slopes. He found himself being drawn into a controversy he preferred to avoid; he had come to the Potatoes to think about his own future, to make personal decisions.
At the Five Points Cafe the Father's Day Special was a turkey dinner with cornbread dressing, cranberry sauce, and nips. "Hold the nips," he said when he ordered, but the plate came to the table with a suspicious mound of something gray alongside the scoop of mashed potatoes. He was in Turnip Country, and it was impossible to avoid them. As he wolfed the food without actually tasting it, his mind went over the story Chrysalis had told him. He recalled Koko's initial reaction to the Queen Anne chair and the French door at the scene of the crime. How would Koko react to the veranda railing that the carpenter had been called in to repair? It overhung a hundred-foot drop, straight down except for projecting boulders on its craggy facade. Qwilleran could reconstruct the scene: a chair thrown through the glass door and a violent struggle on the veranda before Hawkinfield crashed through the railing and fell to his death.
Upon returning to Tiptop he conducted a test, buckling Koko into his harness and walking him around the veranda on a leash. The cat pursued his usual order of business: indiscriminate tugging, balancing on the railing, examining infinitesimal specks on the painted floorboards.
When they reached the rear of the house, however, he walked cautiously to the repaired railing, then froze with tail stiffened, back arched, and ears flattened. Qwilleran thought, He knows something happened here and exactly where it happened!
"Who did it, Koko?" Qwilleran asked. "Tater or Spud?"
The cat merely pranced in circles with distasteful stares at the edge of the veranda.
The experiment was interrupted by the telephone; answering it, Qwilleran heard a woman's sweet voice saying, "Good afternoon, Mr. Qwilleran. This is Vonda Dudley Wix, a columnist for the Gazette. Mr. Carmichael was good enough to give me your phone number. I do hope I'm not interrupting a blissful Sunday siesta."