"Okay, Pete. I want you to think about this, Think hard! Think like a cop. And if you come up with anything that might throw suspicion in any direction, you know how to reach me. Now I'll drive you home."
Qwilleran dropped the paperhanger at a terrace apartment halfway down the hill and waited until the man was indoors. Then he drove home, wondering how much of the story was true.
That Pete hated Harley for stealing his girl was undoubtedly a fact. That Pete hated Belle for deserting him was a possibility. That Harley proved to be impotent and that Belle turned to Pete for solace might be a wild fantasy in the mind of a disappointed lover. In that case, Pete was a logical suspect. He had the motive and the opportunity, and in Moose County everyone had the means. Belle was the first to be killed, according to the medical examiner. She and Pete might have argued in the bedroom, and he might have shot her in a fit of passion, But he was cool enough to wreck the room and make it look like burglary. One would suppose that he was about to leave the house with the smoking gun and a few jewels in the pocket of his white coveralls, when Harley returned from sailing. They met in the entrance hall. Perhaps they had a few words about the fine weather for sailing and the difficulty of hanging wallpaper in an old house with walls out-of-square. Then Pete presented his bill and Harley wrote him a check. Perhaps Harley offered him a drink, and they sat in the kitchen and had a beer, after which they said" Seeya next time" and Pete pulled out his gun and eliminated Harley.
There was a flaw in this scenario, Qwilleran realized. Harley would be wearing sailing clothes, and the newspaper account stated that both victims were in their "rehearsal clothes." Also, it was 7:30 when David and Jill approached the mansion and saw a vehicle speeding away on the dirt road, creating a cloud of dust.
More likely, Pete was innocent. He left at five o'clock with his ladders and paste buckets. Harley came home and changed into rehearsal clothes while Belle (who was also in rehearsal clothes for some unexplained reason) put a frozen pizza in the microwave. And then the murder vehicle arrived.
Qwilleran was too tired to figure out how the murderers first killed Belle upstairs and then killed Harley downstairs. Furthermore, there was the possibility that Roger's information from the medical examiner had been distorted by the Pickax grapevine. Slowly and thoughtfully he mounted the stairs to his apartment. At the top of the flight the Siamese were waiting for him, sitting side by side in identical attitudes, tall and regal, their tails curled around their toes - counterclockwise this time. He wondered if the direction had any significance.
-Scene Four-
Place: The Toddwhistle Taxidermy
Studio in North Kennebeck
Time: The next morning
Introducing: MRS. TODDWHISTLE
IN MAKING HIS APPOINTMENT with Wally
Toddwhistle, Qwilleran asked for directions to the studio.
"You know how to get to North Kennebeck?" Wally asked. "Well, we're east of Main Street... I mean west. You know Tipsy's restaurant? You go past that till you get to Tupper Road. I think there's a street sign, but I'm not sure. If you get to the school, you've gone too far, and you'll have to turn around and come back and turn right on Tupper - or left if you're coming from Pickax. You go quite a ways down Tupper. There's a shortcut, if you don't mind a dirt road - not the first dirt road; that one dead - ends somewhere. There's another dirt road..."
A woman's voice interrupted - a throaty voice with a great deal of energy behind it. "I'm Wally's mother. If Wally stuffed owls the way he gives directions, he'd have the feathers on the inside. Got a pencil? Write this down: Two blocks past Tipsy's you turn left at the motel and go nine-tenths of a mile. Then left again at the Gun Club and we're the third farmhouse on the right - with a sign out in front. Pull in the side drive. The studio's out back."
On the way to North Kennebeck Qwilleran visualized Mrs. Toddwhistle as a large woman with football shoulders, wearing army boots. Wally himself always looked hollow-eyed and undernourished, but he was a nice kid - and talented.
He allowed an hour for lunch at Tipsy's and even had time to stop at the Gun Club. The pro shop, open to the public, was stocked with rifles, shotguns, handguns, shells, scopes and camouflage clothes. Here and there were mounted pheasants, ducks, and other game birds.
"Help you, sir?" asked the brisk man in charge.
"Just passing by and stopped for a look," Qwilleran said. "Are the birds Wally Toddwhistle's work?"
"Yes, sir! Certainly are!"
"The sign in the window says you teach the use of firearms."
"Certainly do! We don't sell anything to anybody unless they know how to use it. We have classes for children and adults, ladies included. Safety is what we stress, and care of the firearm."
"Do you sell many handguns?"
"Yes, sir! A lot of hunters are using handguns."
"Do you find people buying them for personal protection?"
"Our customers are sportsmen, sir!"
Qwilleran priced the handguns and then went on his way to the taxidermy studio. There was a neat, white farmhouse with lace curtains in the windows and the usual lilac bush by the door and a modem pole barn in the rear. That was the studio.
He was greeted by Mrs. Toddwhistle, with Wally two steps behind her. She was not what he expected, being short and chunky and aggressively pleasant. "Have any trouble finding us, honey?" she asked. "How about a cup of coffee?"
"Later, thanks," he said. "First I'd like to talk to Wally about his work. I saw the stuffed bear at the Hotel Booze last night."
"Mounted bear, honey," the woman corrected him in a kindly way. "We don't stuff animals any more, except birds and small mammals. Wally buys or builds a lightweight form and pulls the skin over it like a coat. It's more accurate and not so goshdarned heavy... is it, Wally? When they used to stuff animals with excelsior, mice got into them and built nests. My husband was a taxidermist."
"I stand corrected," Qwilleran said. "Be that as it may, the bear looks great! They've got it spotlighted."
"Very bad to have a mounted animal under a spotlight or near heat," she said. "Dries it out... doesn't it, Wally? And all the smoking in Gary's bar is going to ruin the pelt. It's beautiful work. A shame to spoil it! Wally didn't charge half enough for that job."
They were in an anteroom with several specimens on display: a bobcat climbing a dead tree, a pheasant in flight, a coyote raising its head to howl. Qwilleran directed a question to the silent taxidermist. "How long have you been doing this work?"
His mother was relentless. "He probably doesn't even remember... do you, Wally? He was only a few years old when he started helping his daddy scrape skins. Wally always loved animals - didn't want to hunt them - only preserve them and make them look real. I help him with scraping the meat off the hides, getting the burrs and straw out of the pelts - things like that."
"May I ask you a favor, Mrs. Toddwhistle," Qwilleran began amiably but firmly. "I have a problem. I've never been able to interview two persons at the same time, even though I've been a reporter for twenty-five years. I have an unfortunate block. Would you mind if I interviewed your son first? After that I'd like to sit down with you and get your story - and have that cup of coffee."
"Sure, honey, I understand. I'll go back to the house. "Just give me a buzz on the buzzer when you're done." She bustled from the studio.
When his mother had gone, Wally said, "I haven't heard from Fran. What's the club going to do about a summer show?"
"No summer show, but they plan to do a serious play in September, with rehearsals beginning in August. No doubt you'll be called upon to build the sets, although I don't know who'll design them. Jill is taking David to South America for a few weeks. He's having difficulty adjusting, and she wants to get him away for a while."