"Okay," said Quill meekly.
Gil's ostentatious white Colonial was in the town's only suburb, about four miles from the Inn. The street where the now-widowed Nadine lived was lined with cars, and Quill parked her battered Olds half a block away. Hemlock Falls citizens were conscientious about funerals and calling hours. Friends of the deceased rallied around the family, dropping by with a continuous stream of food.
The front door was partly open and she slipped in quietly. She set the brioches in the kitchen between a huge home-cooked ham from the Hogg's Heaven Farms, and a chocolate banana cream pie - Betty Hall's specialty dessert for Saturdays.
She was unsurprised to see Nadine dressed completely in black, something that was Not Done in Hemlock Falls, because it was considered a waste of hard-earned cash. ("So whattya gonna do with a black outfit anyways?" Marge Schmidt had been heard to opine. "Only place to wear it is up to Ms. Barf-your-guts-out-Quilliam's, and after a meal there, you don't have enough left to pay for the dress.")
Marge was, of course, conspicuously absent, but most of the Chamber was there, in force. Quill said hello to Mayor Henry, who nodded gravely, and waved at Howie Murchison, who was in close discussion with Andy Bishop.
A large poster featuring a close-up of Gil's grinning face usually stood by the showroom door at his dealership. Some thoughtful soul had brought it to the house, and it now stood in state by the fireplace, a black-ribboned wreath surmounting the legend "Drowned, But Not Forgotten."
"Not real creative," said Harvey Bozzel, a thick piece of brioche in one hand. "But God! What'd you expect on such short notice? And I've decided not to send a bill. Although the printer double charged for the overtime." Mementos of Gil lay scattered on a table underneath the poster. "Nice touch, don't you think?" said Harvey. "His wallet, his Chamber membership, stuff like that. I think Nadine's going to bury it with him. Except for the credit cards."
"Is all this from... ?"
"The body? Some of it," said Harvey. "Quill, now that we have a chance to talk, what about that ad campaign? I've come up with some really exciting ideas."
"Harvey, this just isn't the right time to discuss it."
"Monday, then? I could drop by around ten o'clock."
"Sure." said Quill.
"I'll bring some roughs for you. It's gonna be great."
"Excuse me," said Quill. She edged over to Esther West, who was standing by an impromptu bar set up on the credenza.
"So where do you think she got that?" said Esther bitterly, with a gesture toward the widow.
"The dress?" Quill peered at it. "Looks like DKNY."
"You'd think she'd have the manners to shop at home at a time like this," said Esther. "I have the nicest little black and white suit that's been in the window for ages that would have been perfect. Purchased in the hope of just such an occasion." Esther belted back a slug of what smelled like gin. "Now, where's she going to wear that thing after this funeral?"
Quill said she didn't know.
"Mayor asked me to write a short piece in Gil's memory," said Esther. "You know, after the opening ceremonies tomorrow." She adjusted her earring, It was mother-of-pearl, at least two inches wide. "Taste. That's what the mayor's after, I kind of like what Harvey wrote, you know? 'Drowned, but not forgotten.' But we can't just say that. I thought maybe something from Hamlet might go over well."
"Hamlet?" said Quill, "You mean Hamlet?"
"That play by William Shakespeare, There's a scene from J it on my director's video. This Queen Gertrude is very upset over a drowning. She runs into the palace and has some very nice lines about a drowning. Very nice."
"The ones about Ophelia?" Howie Murchison, occupied with refilling his Scotch, winked at Quill. "'Too much of water has thou, poor Ophelia; and therefore, I forbid my tears'?"
"You know that play, Howie? I think it's nice, And of course, that's what happened to Gil, Too much water. What do you think, Harvey?" Esther inquired of the ad man, who'd I also come to the credenza for a refill.
"Well, Gil was bashed on the head first," said Harvey. "I don't know how creatively appropriate that drowning speech would be. I mean he drowned, yes, Too much water, yes. But he was hit on the head first."
"The rest of this play Hamlet seems to be people dead of sword wounds," said Esther critically, "and I don't suppose that would do."
"There's always 'Cudgel thy brains no more about it,' offered Howie.
"Oh, no," said Quill involuntarily. She was afraid to look at Howie; she bit her lower lip so hard it hurt, "I'll just say something to Nadine. Excuse me again, Harvey."
A space around Nadine had cleared, and Quill went over to see her. "I'm awfully sorry, Nadine," she said soberly, "Is there anything I can do for you? Do you need someone to stay with you?"
"Thank you, no," she said. "I called Gil Junior, of course, and he's driving up from Alfred. He'll be here sometime this afternoon." The two women were silent for a moment. Abruptly, Nadine said, "He was a bad husband, Quill. He ran around on me, and never came home, and caroused too much, and I spent like a drunken sailor to spite him. And now everyone in the town thinks I'm awful. And I was, Quill, I was." Suddenly, she began to sob. The low murmuring in the room stopped. Quill put her arm around Nadine. Elmer Henry proffered a handkerchief. "I'll take her," said Betty Hall with rough kindness, and she led Nadine away.
Quill sighed, turned, and knocked over the table that held Gil's final effects. With an exclamation of chagrin, she bent to sort through the items that had fallen to the floor. Gil's wallet, still damp from the duck pond, had opened and its contents lay scattered. Quill picked up his driver's license (credit cards were conspicuously absent) and a few family pictures. She tucked several of Gil Junior back into the wallet, and flipped over a picture that had been folded in half. She smoothed it out.
A pretty Indian girl stared back at her. The girl in the picture on the night stand in John Raintree's room at the Inn.
-7-
Quill smoothed the photograph flat. The girl was dressed in a pink waitress's uniform, leaning across a diner counter. She smiled into the camera, black hair long and shining, dark eyes bright. Was this a girl John had loved? What would a picture of John's girlfriend be doing at the scene of Gil's drowning? Quill took a deep breath. There had to be another explanation. John couldn't be involved with this. Could she have been a waitress at Marge Schmidt's diner? Could John or Gil have met her there? If that were true, this picture might belong to Marge, and not to Gil at all. No. Marge was Hemlock Falls' most notorious employer, running through waitresses and busboys with the speed of a rural Mario Andretti. And anyone who'd tuck her aged mother into a nursing home on Christmas Eve, as Marge had done, was not someone you could accuse of sentimentality. Marge wouldn't carry a keepsake of a favorite waitress. If she carried photographs at all, they'd be of cream pies she had known and loved.
Mavis and Keith Baumer were from out of town and had never met John before. Could the picture have belonged to either of them? Was there any connection between John and Mavis? What possible connection could John have with the companion to an elderly and wealthy widow?
That left Gil himself. Gil and John were business acquaintances, hardly friends. But John, a loner, had few friends.
Quill carried the photograph into the kitchen. Nadine stood at the sink, staring out the back window.
"Nadine, I just wanted to say goodbye. If there's anything at all that you need, please call me."
"Thanks for coming, Quill. I've been telling everyone I don't know when the funeral's going to be held. Myles said maybe a week or two."
"That long?"
"He wants to complete the investigation. There'll have to be an autopsy. Howie Murchison says that's standard in an accidental death. He won't be able to probate the will until the inquest is done, so I hope Myles is quick about it."
"Will you be... all right... until then?"
This was local code for money matters. Wealthy farmers were said to be doing "all rig
ht." Marge Schmidt was said to do "all right" out of the diner. Betty Hall, a junior partner, was held to be doing not so well.
"Things weren't going so well," Nadine said, confirming the commonly held belief that Gil's money troubles were real and not the grousing of a Hemlock businessman who felt it unlucky to look too successful. "Mark Jefferson at the bank said there's a couple of outstanding loans that have to be paid off, but Gil had a lot of life insurance. That's the one thing he kept up. Now Marge Schmidt" - spite made Nadine ugly - "had better have some damn good proof that Gil borrowed money from her. If she doesn't, she can whistle for it."
"Meg and I could probably find something to tide you over," said Quill.
"Thanks. But I can always call on Tom. He's been a good brother, by and large. Been supporting Gil for all these years."
Quill shifted uncomfortably. "By the way, Nadine, I found this dropped on the floor of the living room. Is it yours or Gil's?"
Nadine glanced at the photograph. Her expression froze. "My sister-in-law," she said shortly.
"Your sister-in-law?"
"John Raintree's sister, yes. She was married to my brother Jack. We don't talk about her or him, so just forget it, I okay?"
"Sorry," said Quill. "I didn't know."
"You didn't?" Nadine lit a cigarette and slitted her eyes through the smoke. "John never told you?"
"No!"
"Then I'm not about to." Nadine crushed the cigarette into a used coffee filter in the sink.
Quill went back to the living room. She made idle conversation with the remaining townspeople, but the visitors were clearing out. She wondered if she'd ever know all the town's secrets, or if she'd always be treated like a flatland foreigner.
Quill looked at her watch. She needed to get back to the Inn and she still had Tom Peterson to tackle about the meat. Perhaps he might tell her about John's sister. She fingered the photograph. She should either leave the photograph here, or take it to Myles as evidence in the case. And if she did that, she'd have betrayed John, perhaps, to the inexorable machinery of the law. If she could just talk to John first, show him the picture.
Her bad angel, a handy scapegoat for childhood crimes and misdemeanors, and little-used until now, whispered, "Swipe it!" She did.
After a hurried exit from the Gilmeister living room, she drove to Peterson's Transport, wondering if the penalty for theft increased relative to the viability of the victim. "He's dead, he won't care," sounded like a practical, if graceless, defense. On the other hand, phrases like "impeding an official investigation" had an ominous ring to them. So did, "concealing the evidence in a crime."
I am hunted, beleaguered, and driven by time, Quill thought as she turned onto Route 96. It was four-thirty; she had to be back at the Inn before six for the Chamber dinner. Maybe she could just toss the spoiled meat in a convenient dumpster rather than talking face to face with Tom Peterson. But Meg would have a fit. Peterson would want to send the meat back to the supplier, who in turn would dispose of it, and process, thought Quill, will be process.
Petersons had owned much of Hemlock Falls at one time or another; as the family's fortunes declined, bits and pieces of their property had been sold off. Tom had leased the parcel on the comer of Route 96 and Falls River Road to Gil when they had gone into the car dealership together. The land abutted the warehouses and dispatch offices from which Tom ran his trucking business, a location convenient to Syracuse, Ithaca, and Rochester. Gil' s hopes of a customer base far beyond Hemlock Falls had never materialized, but the dealership managed somehow from year to year. Quill wondered who, if anyone, would take it over now that Gil had passed on.
Quill pulled into the driveway to the dealership. The Buick flags were at half-mast, and a black-bordered sign had been posted on the glass doors: CLOSED OUT OF RESPECT FOR GIL, which Quill thought had a better ring to it than "Drowned, but not forgotten."
She drove the car around to the converted house trailer that served as a dispatch office for Peterson Transport. It was placed outside the chain-link fence that surrounded the warehouse. She parked the car, got out, took the smelly cardboard box from the trunk, and carried it to the trailer door. Freddie Allbright, whom Quill knew from his occasional appearances at Chamber meetings as a substitute for Gil and Tom, opened the door partway and greeted her with a laconic snap of his gum.
"Hi, Freddie. Is Tom in?"
Freddie jerked his head toward the inside of the trailer. "Mr. Peterson!" he shouted, not taking his eyes from Quill. "Compn'y."
"Quill." Tom rose from his desk and came forward to welcome her. "Come in. Sit down."
Quill sat down in one of the plastic chairs that served for office furniture and set the cardboard box on the floor next to it. The scent of raw meat filled the air. Freddie hulked in the doorway, snapping his gum.
Tom stared at him. "Freddie, I want you to go out and find that dog."
"Just dig hisself out again."
"Then find him and chain him up," said Tom deliberately. "He's the best security system we've got." Freddie slouched out of the trailer. Tom shook his head. "You never seem to have trouble keeping good help, Quill. Want to pass along your secret?" Since this didn't seem to be anything more than a rhetoncal question, Quill didn't reply. Tom settled himself behind his desk and smiled. "What can I do for you?"
"Two things. One's kind of a pain in the neck, the other's more of a question."
"Bad news first," said Tom. "Then we can end on a positive note."
"This last shipment of beef was spoiled," Quill said apologetically. "I haven't brought the whole side, of course, just the fillets."
Tom blinked his pale eyes at her. "It's been awfully warm, Quill. Are you sure your cooler's working properly?"
"This was delivered yesterday," said Quill, "and your guys are great, Tom, they always bring it straight into the cooler. Meg takes the beef out to let it get to room temperature about three hours before the dinner crowd shows up. Anything that isn't used is disposed of that night. She said this stuff is tainted." Quill rummaged in the box and unwrapped a pair of fillets. "See the graininess at the edges?"
Tom raised his eyebrows and gave the beef a cursory glance.
"Meg and I both thought you might want to check the whole shipment."
Tom nodded. His hands fiddled impatiently with a piece of paper on his desk. Quill, exasperated at Tom's indifference, said tartly, "Can you give us credit for this, Tom? And we're going to need another delivery."
"I've got one coming in from the Chicago slaughterhouse in about twenty minutes. We'll have it up there within the hour."
"That'll be fine."
He smiled at her. "And the second request?"
"Oh." Quill, not entirely sure why she was uncomfortable demurred a bit. "I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am that Gil's gone."
"Yes," Tom nodded. "Nice guy. Lousy business partner That it?" He rose, clearly prepared to show her out. The piece of paper he'd been playing with fell to the floor. It was a matchbook. A full one. The cover was folded in threes.
Quill picked it up.
"Nervous habit," said Tom, "ever since I quit smoking."
"I'd like to have a pack with me. Just in case." Quill slipped the matchbook into her skirt pocket. "There was one thing I wanted to ask you, about your brother's wife?"
"Jack's wife?" Tom's eyes narrowed. With his thin lips and prominent nose, he looked more like a lizard than ever. "She's no longer with us, I'm afraid."
"They divorced?" said Quill sympathetically. "I'm sorry to hear that."
"Jack's dead," said Tom. "I don't know where that little bitch is, and I don't care."
Quill's face went hot with embarrassment. "I didn't mean to intrude," she said, "but..."
"None of your business, Quill. The past is past. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to check on Freddie. He's supposed to retrieve that damn German shepherd and plug the hole in the chain-link fence where it dug out. Has trouble remembering orders. I have to keep tabs on h
im every minute." Still talking easily, Tom had her out the door and in front of her car before she knew it. He opened the driver's door and waited for her to get in. "Any more trouble with the deliveries, you call me directly, Quill. See you tonight at the meeting."
Quill drove back to the Inn, the matchbook and the photograph safely in her purse. Something, she told herself darkly, was definitely afoot.
She parked in her usual spot by the back door to the kitchen, turned the ignition off, and thought through the events of the past few days. John, the ready recipient of all her confidences over the past year, her true partner in the sometimes harrowing responsibilities of innkeeping, had to be protected somehow. Quill knew there was an explanation of the picture, of Tom Peterson's matchbook, of Gil's death, if she could just buy a little time for John. She had to talk to him.
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