"You must be well on your way," Quinlan said. "I don't think so," Martha said, hovering by Thelma's left hand. "She's been eating this for years now. Sherry Vorhees says she'll outlive us all. She says her husband, Reverend Hal, doesn't have a chance against Thelma. He's already wheezing around and he's only sixty-eight, and he isn't fat. Strange, isn't it? Thelma wonders who's going to do her service if Reverend Hal isn't around."
"What does Sherry know?" Thelma demanded, talking while she chewed on one of those fat sausages. “I think she'd be happier if Reverend Hal would pass on to his just reward, although I don't know how just he'd find it. He might find himself plunked down in hell and wonder how it could happen to him since he's so holy. He's reasonable most of the time, is Hal. It's just when he's near a woman alone that he goes off the deep end and starts mumbling about sin and hell and temptations of the flesh. It appears he believes sex is a sin and rarely touches his wife. No wonder they don't have any kids. Not a one, ever. Fancy that. It's hard to believe, since he is a man, after all. But still, all poor Sherry does is drink her iced tea, fiddle with her chignon, and sell ice cream."
"What's wrong with that?" Sally asked, thinking that the Mad Hatter's tea party couldn't have been weirder than Thelma Nettro at breakfast. “If she were unhappy, wouldn't she just leave?" Yeah, like you did, but just not in time. Some of the grease around the sausages was beginning to congeal.
"Her iced tea is that cheap white wine. I don't know how her liver is still holding up after all these years."
Sally swallowed, looking away from those sausages. "Amabel told me that when you first opened the World's Greatest Ice Cream Shop, you stored the ice cream in Ralph Keaton's caskets."
"That's right. It was Helen's idea. She's Ralph's wife and the one who had the recipe. It was her idea that we start the ice cream shop. She used to be a shy little thing, looked scared whenever she had to say anything. If Ralph said boo she'd fade behind a piece of furniture. She's changed now, speaks right up, tells Ralph to put a sock in it whenever she doesn't like something he does. All because of that recipe.
She's really blossomed with her ice cream success.
"Poor old Ralph. He needs business, but none of us will die for him. I think he's hoping the husband of that dead woman will ask him to lay her out."
Sally couldn't stand it anymore. She rose, tried to smile, and said, "Thank you for breakfast, Thelma. I've got to go home now. Amabel must be worried about me."
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
"Martha called her and told her you were here with James. She didn't have a word to say to that."
"I'll thank Martha," Sally said politely. She waited for James to join her. It was raining outside, a dark, miserably gray day.
"Well, damn," James said. He walked back into the foyer and fetched an umbrella from the stand. He said as they walked down the street, "I'll bet you the old men are playing cards in Purn Davies's store. I can't imagine them missing the ritual."
"Sheriff Mountebank will realize who I am, James. It's just a matter of time."
"I don't think so. He probably saw your picture on TV, but that would have been last week at the latest.
He won't make the connection."
"I'm sure the authorities would have sent photos out to everyone."
"This is a backwater, Sally. It costs too much to fax photos to every police and sheriff office in the country. Don't worry about it. The sheriff doesn't have a clue. The way you answered him polished it off."
His eyes were as gray as the rain that was pouring down. He wasn't looking at her, but straight ahead, his hand cupping her elbow. "Watch the puddle."
She took a quick step sideways. "The town doesn't look quite so charming in this rain, does it? Main Street looks like an old abandoned Hollywood set, all gray and forlorn, like no one's lived here forever."
"Don't worry, Sally."
"Maybe you're right. Are you married, James?"
"No. Watch your step here."
"Okay. Have you ever been married?"
"Once. It didn't work out."
"I wonder if any marriages ever work out."
"You an expert?"
She was surprised at the sarcasm but nodded, saying, "A bit. My parents didn't do well. Actually... no, never mind that. I didn't do well, either. That's just about one hundred percent of my world, and it's all bad."
They were walking past Purn Davies's general store. Quinlan grinned and took her hand. "Let's go see what the old guys are up to. I'd like to ask them firsthand if it's true that nobody heard anything the night that poor woman was murdered."
Purn Davies, Hunker Dawson, Gus Eisner, and Ralph Keaton were seated around the barrel, a game of gin rummy under way. There was a fire in a wood-burning stove that looked to be more for show than for utility, a handsome antique piece. A bell over the door rang when Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
Quinlan and Sally came through.
"Wet out there," Quinlan said, shaking the umbrella. "How you all doing?"
There were two grunts, one okay, and Purn Davies actually folded his cards facedown and got up to greet them. "What can I do for you folks?"
"You meet Amabel Perdy's niece, Sally St. John?"
"Yep, but it weren't much of a meeting. How you doin', Miz Sally? Amabel all right?"
She nodded. She just hoped she could keep her fake names straight. Brandon for Sheriff Mountebank and St. John for everyone else.
There was more than polite interest in his question about Amabel, and it made Sally smile. "Amabel's just fine, Mr. Davies. We didn't have any leaks during the storm. The new roofs holding up really well."
Hunker Dawson, who was sitting there pulling on his suspenders, said, "You had us all out looking for that poor woman who went and fell off that cliff. It was cold and windy that night. None of us liked going out. There weren't nothing to find anyway."
9
SALLY'S CHIN WENT up. "Yes, sir. I heard her scream and of course I would alert you. I'm just sorry you didn't find her before she was murdered."
"Murdered?" The front legs of Ralph Keaton's chair hit hard against the pine floor. "What the dickens do you mean, murdered? Doc said she must have fallen, said it was a tragic accident."
Quinlan said mildly, "The medical examiner said she'd been strangled. Evidently whoever killed her didn't count on her body washing back up to land. More than that, whoever killed her didn't even consider that if she did wash up there would be anyone around down there to find her. The walk down that path is rather perilous."
"You saying that we're too rickety to walk down that path, Mr. Quinlan?"
"Well, it's a possibility, isn't it? You're certain none of you heard her scream during the night? Cry out?
Call for help? Anything that wasn't just a regular night sound?"
"It was around two o'clock in the morning," Sally said.
"Look, Miz Sally," Ralph Keaton said, rising now, "we all know you're all upset about leaving your husband, but that don't matter. We all know you came here to rest, to get your bearings again. But you know, that kind of thing can have some pretty big effects on a young lady like yourself, like screwing up how you see things, how you hear things."
"I didn't imagine it, Mr. Keaton. I would think that I had if Mr. Quinlan and I hadn't found the woman's body the very next day."
"There is that," Purn Davies said. "Could be a coincidence. You havin' a dream because of you leaving Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
your husband-that's what Amabel told us-or hearing the wind howling, and the woman jumping off that cliff. Yeah, all a coincidence."
Quinlan knew there was nothing more to be gained. They'd all dug in their heels. Both he and Sally were outsiders. They weren't welcome, just tolerated, barely. He thought it was interesting that Amabel Perdy seemed to have enough control over the townspeople so none of them had revealed to the cops that Sally was here, no matter how much she was obviously upsetting them. He prayed that Amabel's hold on them would last. Maybe he should tone things down, just to be on the safe side. "Mr. Davies is right, Sally," Quinlan said easily. "Who knows? We sure don't. But, you know, I just wish you'd remember something about Harve and Marge Jensen."