"Where are you staying?"
"Hotel in Pickax."
"Have you been there long?"
"Two weeks. People very nice. Desk clerk give me big room in front. Very good, I talk to chef. I tell him how to cook vegetables, He try, but...not good."
"Yes, we do have friendly people here. How did you happen to find Moose County? It's off the beaten path, and few people know it exists."
Shyly she explained, "My honeymoon I spend here - long time ago. Was nice."
"Honeymoons are always nice," Qwilleran said. "So your husband is no longer with you?" He considered that a good way of putting a prying question.
She shook her head, and her face clouded, but it soon brightened. The Siamese, who had been rolling and squirming on the concrete of the back porch, now arrived to inspect the stranger and leave their seal of approval on her ankles. "Be-yoo-ti-ful!" she said.
"They're especially fond of people who read cookbooks."
"Ah! Cooking I learn very young, but something more is always to learn."
"What do you think of the food in our local restaurants?"
She looked at him askance, from behind her curtain of hair. "Is not too good."
"I agree with you, but we're trying to improve the situation."
Brightening, she said, "Mediterranean restaurant - very good here, I think."
"You mean, stuffed grape leaves and tabouleh and all that? When I lived Down Below I haunted Middle Eastern restaurants. We used to ask for meatballs in little green kimonos."
"Very good," she said. "I make meatballs in little green kimonos." She waved a hand toward a tangle of foliage on the dune. "Wild grapevines you have in woods. Very good fresh. In jars, not so good." She paused uncertainly. "You have kitchen? I stuff some for you."
Qwilleran's tastebuds were alerted. "I have kitchen, and I have salt and pepper, and I drive into town to buy whatever you need." Without any intention of mocking, he was imitating her cavalier way with pronouns, verbs, prepositions, and adverbs.
"Is too much trouble," she protested. "Not so! Tell me what to buy."
She recited a list: ground lamb, rice, onion, lemon, fresh mint. "I pick small young leaves - boil five minutes - ready when you come back."
Before leaving, Qwilleran checked out the Siamese. They were asleep on the guest bed. If Koko had wanted so badly to drive to the cabin, why had he spent five minutes rolling on the concrete and the rest of the after- noon in sleep? Cats were unpredictable, unfathomable, and impossible not to like. Koko raised his head and opened one eye. "Mind the house," Qwilleran instructed him. "I'm running into town."
There were stores in Mooseville, but he would hesitate to trust their meat. Fish, yes. Lamb, no. He drove to Pickax. At Toodle's Market, where he was a regular customer for lunch meat, the butchers knew him and gladly ground some lamb, fresh. Onoosh had not specified quantity, so he asked for two pounds, to be on the safe side. At the produce counter, a Toodle daughter-in-law helped him choose a lemon and three onions but said they never had fresh mint. "Everybody has it in the backyard," she said. "It grows like wild."
At the rice shelf he was puzzled. There was long grain, short grain, white, brown, precooked, preseasoned.
Another customer, better-groomed and better-dressed than the other women shoppers, said, "Having a problem, Mr. Q? Perhaps I can help you. I'm Elaine Fetter. We've met at the library, where I volunteer."
"Yes, of course," he said emphatically, as if it were : true. She was a statuesque woman with an air of authority and surely some opinions about rice. "What kind of rice would you suggest for... uh... meatballs?"
"I believe you'd be safe with white short-grain: Do you have a good recipe for meatballs?" she asked. "I'm compiling a community cookbook for the Friends of the Library, and we'd be honored if you would let us print one of your favorite recipes. I know - "
At that moment they were both startled by a loud BOOM!
"Oh, heavens !" she exclaimed. "What was that? It sounded so close!"
"I'd better go and check it out," he said. "Excuse me. Thanks for the advice." He snatched a package of white short-grain and took his purchases to the check-out counter.
"Did you hear that sonic boom?" the cashier asked. "It was loud enough to curdle the milk."
"Sounded like an explosion on Pine Street," Qwilleran said. "They're doing construction work on Stables Rowand could have hit a gas main."
As he pulled out of the parking lot, scout cars were speeding toward downtown, and the flashing lights of emergency vehicles could be seen coming from the hospital and the firehall. The trouble was not on Pine Street, however. Main Street traffic was being detoured. He parked where he could and ran toward the center of town.
One irrelvant and irreverent thought crossed his mind: Whatever the blast might be, it was not happening on the newspaper's deadline, and Arch Riker would have a fit! It would be Monday before the Something could report it, while WPKX would be broadcasting it all weekend.
That was the way it always seemed to happen in Pickax. Like the Friday night toothache after the dentist's office closed for the weekend, disasters always happened after the Friday newspaper had gone to press.
A procession of pedestrians was hurrying to the scene, and the shout went up: "It's the hotel! The hotel blew up.!"
A cordon of yellow crime-scene tape kept onlookers away from the shattered glass and debris that covered the sidewalk and pavement in front of the New Pickax Hotel. There were businessfolk standing in front of their stores and offices... farmers in town on business... shoppers carrying bundles... teens wearing high school athletic jackets. Many were horrified; others were there for the excitement; a few grinned and said it was about time they bombed it. Stretcher bearers hurried up the front steps. The medical examiner arrived with his ominous black bag and was escorted into the building by the police.
"Somebody's killed," the watchers said. On the far side of the yellow tape was a gathering of persons Qwilleran knew. To reach them he ran around the block and into the back door of Amanda's Design Studio. The shop was empty. He zigzagged through the furniture displays and found everyone on the sidewalk, watching and waiting: Amanda Goodwinter herself, her assistant, the installation man, and two customers. One of the studio's large plate glass windows was cracked. No one noticed Qwilleran's arrival; they were all looking up at the second floor of the hotel.
Like all the buildings on downtown Main Street, it was solidly built of stone that had survived fire, tornado, and even a minor earthquake. The windows of all three floors were shattered, however. On the second floor, wood sash had been blown out. Fragments of draperies and clothing hung from projections on the outside of the building. The arm of an upholstered chair lay on the sidewalk.
"Lucky it's only the arm of a chair," the installer said with a sly leer.
Amanda, cranky as usual, said, "Old Gus probably bombed it himself to collect the insurance, or had that creepy helper of his do the dirty work."
"He ain't creepy! He's an all-right guy!" the installer said belligerently. He was one of the big young blond men indigenous to Moose County, and he contradicted his employer with the confidence of an indispensable muscleman in a furniture business run by two women.
"Shut up and get some tape on that cracked glass!" Amanda shouted.
"Hi, Qwill!" said Fran Brodie, her assistant. "Are you covering this for the paper, or just nosing around?" She was not only a good designer and one of the most attractive young women in town; she was the daughter of the police chief and, as such, had semiofficial status. She said, "Dad always complains that nothing big ever happens on his turf, but this should keep him quiet for a while."
The chief was swaggering about the scene, towering over the other officers, giving orders, running the show. The state police were assisting.