"By the pond?"
"Yes. I matched it with the one you had in your room."
"Gil was going to put it in the family album. He never had much sense. So, that explains the APB. Myles thought it connected me to the scene of the crime."
"Yes, John. Where have you been all this time?"
"I made some - acquaintances in prison. There's a network, if you know who to talk to, where to look. That's one of the things I did while I was gone. I spent a lot of time trying to find out why Mavis came here, what she was after, what she'd been doing since I saw her last at the company."
"So you did work together, then?"
"For about six years. It was just after I got my MBA from RIT." He shook his head. "I really thought I was going places, then." His face shuttered closed. Quill waited patiently.
"We were a close family, growing up," he said. "My dad worked the high steel and was gone a lot. My mom stayed home. My sister Elaina was quiet, shy, never dated much in high school." John stopped, sighed, then went on. "I was a rowdy kid in high school, ran around with a bunch of guys who got into stupid small-time things. Lifting cigarettes from drugstores, joy-riding in other people's cars. I straightened up my senior year, and left all of it behind me when I got the scholarship. All but friends, one in particular, who married my sister. Tom Peterson's brother, Jack." He looked at Quill, the skin drawn tight over his cheekbones.
"My dad died in a fall from a high beam. My mom passed on soon after that. Cancer. Elaina had no one but me. And Jackie, of course. Jackie who got into the booze every Saturday night, then every Friday and Saturday night, then every day of the week and came home from the bars and beat her.
"She never said a word. Not for all the time I was in school, not for the years I started working my way up to D.G.D.'s headquarters. I'd drive in from headquarters in Syracuse. We'd get together now and then, and I noticed things, as you will, in passing. A black eye. A fractured elbow. A cracked rib. Falls, she said, or clumsiness. Anyone of the million transparent excuses you hear from battered women."
John stared at his clasped hands. "I was into the booze pretty good myself. Earning good money. On my way up. Ignoring all the signs that told me I was in trouble, refused to believe I was another alcoholic Indian. I'd beat the stereotype, right?
"I dropped by Elaina's one Saturday afternoon. Hadn't seen her for a couple of months. I'd been to a sports bar with some of the guys from the company and we'd gotten into the Scotch. Somebody had called me at the bar. Said there was trouble. I knocked on the front door and waited. Nobody answered for a long, long time. I went around to the back. I looked in the kitchen window. The place was a mess; pots and pans allover the floor. There was a huge smear of chili on the ceiling, from where a pot'd been thrown off the stove, I guess.
"Elaina lay face down in the middle of the kitchen floor. I kicked in the lock. Went to her. Called her name. I turned her over." A shiver went through him. It didn't reach his face. Quill swallowed, and dug her nails into her hands.
"Tomatoes get hot. He'd thrown the chili into her face, after hitting her with the pot, I guess. She was burned, from her temple, here" - he touched his own - "to her chin. Later, we found out that she'd lost the sight of one eye. That pretty face. Gone.
"I shouted. I shouted again. I could hear the TV yowling from the living room. I ran in. Jackie was passed out on the couch. His mouth was open. He was snoring. There was tomato sauce down his shirt, on his hands. I beat him to death. And they sent me to prison."
Quill was cold. She couldn't speak. "Why don't I make you something to eat?" She went to her small kitchenette and busied herself. When she returned, she brought a small bowl of soup.
John sipped it, then said, "It didn't make a big splash in the papers. But everyone in the company knew, of course. And that included Mavis. "Mavis had a nice little sideline going."
"She was Human Resources Director, wasn't she?" Quill's voice was rusty. She cleared her throat.
"The employees had a joke. That she directed the resources into her own pocket. Nobody knew how much money she made, but she was in a position to find out things. And she did. Have a little problem with your former employer? Mavis would approve your hiring on the condition that ten per cent of your pay check be turned over to her, every Friday. Swipe a few cartons of frozen meat from the storeroom? Same deal. You couldn't turn her in without turning yourself in. And nobody complained, of course. Nobody in management knew, or at least I like to think they didn't. I sure didn't find out until I came to work here. She tracked me down and gave me a call."
"She was blackmailing you?"
"Mavis was blackmailing everybody. By that time, she'd weaseled herself into the old lady's back pocket, and when the old man was alive, you couldn't touch her. Mavis had something on the guy who took over the accounting after I left - I don't know what it was, but it gave her access to the books. And she cooked them. Three hundred thousand dollars were missing soon after I went to jail. After I got out, she called me, and sent me documents that "proved" I'd been systematically bleeding the company during my time as head of accounting. A small monthly stipend, she said, would keep this news from my current employer."
"I wouldn't have believed it for a second," said Quill indignantly.
"No? How well do you know me? I've been here less than a year, Quill. And if you'd been approached by a woman with proof of my prison trial, my alcoholism, and 'proof' I'd diverted three hundred thousand dollars for my private use, what would you have done? What would anybody have done? I would have stopped you from hiring someone like that myself."
"I would have asked where the three hundred thousand went," said Quill. "The way you live it's obvious you haven't got it."
"Mavis had that covered, too. Elaina is... not right. She's been in a hospital down in Westchester for a long time. The state pays a part of it, but it's not enough." He reddened. "Gil and Marge and most of my clients pay me in cash. My income from my business is unrecorded, and I pay it directly to the institution. It'd be a bit of a job to prove where that money came from - and get a lot of other people into tax trouble."
"So between Mavis and your sister, it must be quite a stretch to make enough money to live."
"I live pretty well, Quill. Except for the lack of junk food. I think we should try to convince Meg to add potato skins to the appetizer menu."
"The kind loaded with Baco-s," said Quill. "No problem."
"You want to tell her, or shall I?"
"Flip you for it."
The lighthearted game wasn't working. Quill set her coffee cup on the end table. "So you must have been pretty upset when she showed up here."
"Quite a motive for murder," John agreed. "Quill, on my sister's life, I didn't kill Mavis. And I didn't kill Gil."
"Then we'll have to figure out who did."
"The woman of action," mused John. "I haven't seen you like this before, Quill."
"Well, there aren't that many crimes to solve in Hemlock Falls."
"Just put one in front of you, and you drop your normally diffident manner and charge?" John asked. "I mean, I have heard the story about the kindergartener's protest march, but I thought it was apocryphal, at least until now."
"Hah," said Quill. "Let me bring you up to date."
She summarized the discovery of the photograph among Gil's effects, the conversations with Tom, Nadine, and Myles, and Marge's disclosure at the Chamber meeting. Her review of the deadly conclusion to The Trial of Goody Martin was succinct but accurate.
"So you believe that Baumer and Marge are the likeliest suspects, with Tom Peterson running a poor third just because he had the opportunity."
"Don't you? I mean, that matchbook's pretty significant."
"There's an old saying in the audit business, Quill: 'Follow the money.' When I left here Friday, I was in a panic." He smiled slightly. "Not usual for me, I know. But I thought if I could find out what happened to that three hundred thousand three years ago, I might be able to disco
ver who was being squeezed by Mavis badly enough to kill her."
"It did occur to you, didn't it, that Mavis took it herself?"
He hesitated. "It's possible. But I don't think so. I have a friend who's pretty good on the computer. We got into Mavis' financial records this morning. If she did have it, she doesn't have it now. Mavis is just about broke. She needed that job with Mrs. Hallenbeck."
"But what about the money you sent her?"
He shrugged. "A couple of hundred dollars a month. I found that, all right, along with a few other contributors to Mavis' nest egg, who are more than likely in the same position I am myself. She appeared to be taking in about eight hundred a month. That's enough to keep her in red lipstick and mid-range designer clothes, but that's it."
Quill hesitated to ask the next question. Somehow, theorizing in the perennial garden was a lot different than a cold discussion of facts with your accountant. "What about Marge? Was she being blackmailed, too?"
"I don't know. I was reviewing records of deposits, Quill, and they don't list the origin of the money in any bank I ever heard of. If I have a little more time, I can take a look around Marge's accounts." He shook his head. "I have a hard time believing it, though. Two hundred a month is a pretty slim motive for murder. Then there's the fact that I like Marge. I've known likable murderers in the joint, but I can't believe she'd have to resort to killing Mavis to get rid of her."
Quill explained her theories. John, unlike certain sheriffs she could name, listened with interest.
"Baumer's a possibility. The guy dresses like he's on the edge. Tom Peterson? I don't know. The partnership..." He stopped.
Quill waited. "What? What about the partnership, John? Don't stop now. We may solve this, just sitting here!"
"You mustn't repeat any of this, Quill. When people hire me to handle their books, they trust me with a fundamental part of themselves."
"You're worried about my finding out about Gil Gilmeister's financial affairs, when you're being hunted for murder?" Quill said. "Oh, for goodness sakes, John. That's absurd."
"Not to me."
Quill bit back her laughter, figured she never in this world would figure out why men behaved the way they did, and promised never to reveal to anyone the state of Gil Gilmeister's general ledger. "Plus," she said dramatically, "I hereby absolve you of the least little suspicion that You Did It. No one with that kind of honor system could possibly have swiped that bolt. And since you weren't even here when Mavis was... you know... you're totally in the clear."
John looked at her gravely for a moment. "Let's get back to the partnership. Gil and Tom have a fifty-fifty partnership in the business, not ideal for a number of reasons, because they had to agree jointly on every decision they made, and sometimes the interest of one partner conflicts dramatically with the needs of another. This was very true in Gil's case. Nadine was quite a consumer, and Gil's drinking problem didn't help matters either. Towards the end, Gil was drawing heavily against the equity in his part of the business; and business isn't all that good to begin with."
"The cash loans came from Marge?"
"Yes. And I'll say this for her, Marge Schmidt is a hell of a good businesswoman. She didn't let her affection for Gil stand in the way of liens against the units."
"You mean Gil borrowed money from Marge against the cars he hadn't sold?"
"Against the cars he sold. You know most of the profit from that business comes from the car loans."
It seemed to Quill that John's admiration of Marge's business acumen was misplaced, and that the nature of business itself was perverse. Marge's stranglehold on Gil's business was a good thing? She forebore comment and said, "But none of this has to do with Tom Peterson's half."
"No. Although Tom was getting fed up, and looking actively for a new partner. Funny thing was, he wasn't helping Gil get the loan he needed from the bank. They require an audit, and Tom kept ducking me, putting me off, Gil knew this. Gil also knew that Tom could force Marge to call those loans in by threatening to take his profitable side of the business else- where, He was even talking about setting up in competition with Gil, Marge had lent Gil a lot of money, and it'd be a case of her business or his, As I said, Marge is good, She wouldn't let her and Betty's ship go down to save Gil."
"So my theory about Marge and Mavis bringing Mrs, Hallenbeck's millions into Gil's business wasn't all that farfetched."
"No. Although from the little I knew of Mrs. Hallenbeck when I worked for the company, she'd be a hard sell, She was a tough cookie right from the start. Nobody was real surprised when old man Hallenbeck locked himself into the garage and turned the car motor on."
"Oh," said Quill softly. "How terrible!"
"Yes, She's got the life, though, doesn't she? Or she did. Doggone Good Dogs was sold to Armour's, She retired with a tidy sum, to say the least. And she had Mavis to run her errands for her."
"Not anymore," said Quill.
"Will she find someone else?"
"I don't know - it's very difficult. There's very little help for the elderly these days - unless they're willing to accept a nursing home, and I can't see Mrs. Hallenbeck doing that."
"It'd be a heck of a nice nursing home, with her money."
"But none of that explains why Tom Peterson would have a motive to kill Mavis."
'There's something funny going on." John's habitual self-containment kept him on the couch; any other man would have been pacing the room. He allowed himself a slight frown, "I knew Mavis was coming, She called from the gas station in Covert to tell me that we had to discuss what she called a 'rearrangement' of the payments."
"You paid her once a month?"
"Yes. To a post office box in Atlanta, The envelope was addressed to Scarlett O'Hara."
"Good grief," said Quill. "It figures."
"She was..." - John hesitated, searching for the right word - "ebullient. Chattering." He moved his thumb and forefinger together rapidly to indicate mindless babble. "Said the money was rolling in from every side."
"She's got the wrong heroine in Scarlett O'Hara," said Quill. "Behaving much more like the rapacious Evita, don't you think?"
John dismissed this excursion into light-mindedness with a tolerant twitch of his mouth. "I guess. The point is, Quill, she chose Hemlock Falls for a purpose. Not just because I was here. I got the impression that she'd come to some crossroads."
What, thought Quill, would be considered a career milestone t for a professional blackmailer? "She must have come across something that would really feather her nest. Big money," she said aloud. "More than you could afford. And since she obviously came to Hemlock Falls for a reason, it must have to do with people she knows here. Something that Marge is involved with?" Quill guessed. "Something Tom Peterson is involved with?" She jumped to her feet. "John! The matchbook! The memo from the D.O.H. !"
"The mysterious folded-into-threes matchbook?"
Quill waved her arms excitedly. "You said that Tom was ducking an audit. That you couldn't get his personal finance statement out of him. That Gil was getting desperate, because without it the bank wouldn't give him a loan. That's fact one."
John nodded. Quill began to pace around the room. "Fact two is that the matchbook showed up on the balcony. He must have been there. He must have tried to push her over the edge."
"Wouldn't Mrs. Hallenbeck have seen him?"
"She said she was in the bathroom. He's been in our back room any number of times, delivering meat; he'd seen the drum of sulfuric acid. If Mavis called him, like she called you, he'd have a lot of time to set it up. The register's out all the time at the desk; he could have found out what room they were staying in, no problem. And he was here in the Inn while Mrs. Hallenbeck and Mavis were at dinner. And he lives right across from the pond. He said himself he was home alone. And of course, he was right there at the play."
"But what's his motive? And how would he know Mavis before she came to the Falls?"
"Did his brother work for the company?
"
"For a while. He was a salesman. Most kids from Hemlock Falls end up either at the paint factory, or working for Doggone Good Dogs."
"And Mavis knew all the dirty secrets." Quill stood still, closed her eyes, and concentrated hard. "Meat..." she said slowly. "Tainted meat. That D.O.H. memo Marge was waving at me said something about tainted meat. E. coli bacteria. I went to Tom's to check on the shipment of beef that Meg said was spoiled. Tom got very weird about it. Doggone Good Dogs is a large customer for meat shipments. Help me out here, John."
Quill opened her eyes and discovered that Indians could turn pale.
"Jesus Christ," said John. "That's it. The beef is delivered directly to the franchise from the slaughterhouse. The franchise is the point of inspection. We had a real run on rejections from the restaurants just before I..." His lips thinned. "I was just about to take our inspector out to an Ohio supplier when..."
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