She marched to the Inn's back door, her adrenaline charged from annoyance, stripped off her winter clothing, and hung it on the coat pegs. She ditched her boots and walked into the kitchen in her socks. It was overly warm. There were six sous-chefs busy at the Aga, the grill, and the butcher block counters. To her surprise, Meg was seated in the rocking chair by the cobblestone fireplace, smoking a forbidden cigarette.
"Hey! I thought you'd be up to your ears in work. How come you're sitting down?"
Meg threw the cigarette into the open hearth with a guilty air and bounced out of the rocker. "Hey, yourself! I was just beginning to worry. You're more than an hour later than you said you'd be and that storm Bjarne predicted is a doozy."
"In Helsinki, this is spring," Bjarne said. He whacked at a huge tenderloin with the butcher's knife, and whacked again.
"I thought you'd be run off your feet, Meg." "You're kidding, right? Santini's closed the dining room so that he and his eleven pals can eat tenderloin in lofty seclusion. Ten pals actually. One of them got held up by the storm. Listen. I spent the day with Tutti McIntosh, and I've got something really interesting to tell you."
Quill interrupted, "Santini paid the table minimum? For all twenty tables?"
"Claire's doting dad did, I think. Anyhow, everyone's eating away and they're all taken care of. The mayor and his soapy friends ordered cold stuff, except for their roasted cow which they did somewhere in the woods themselves, and I made all that this afternoon. And the H. O. W. ladies each brought a dish to pass. That's where Tutti is now, surrounded by the entire protective brigade of - "
"John's not going to like that. Guests aren't supposed to bring their own stuff."
"I like it," Meg said firmly. "I've got enough to do with this rehearsal dinner for twenty tomorrow night. And then the wedding. Thank God the truck got here just before the snow. We got all that stuff unloaded. And then Tutti was with me in the kitchen all afternoon. I'll be glad when this is all over and we can put up our tree and close the place down for two days. By the way, Myles called and said he won't get here until midnight or after. The snow's caused the usual numbers of crises, including some damn fool wrecking his pickup truck at the 96 exit to 81 and you'll never guess what Tutti did - "
"At the moment," Quill said crossly. "I just don't give a hoot." She settled on a stool at the butcher block counter. Exhaustion overtook her like a dam bursting. She could just sit here and go to sleep. She yawned. "Can you tell me the fascinating news about Tutti later? I have to speak to Myles about that pickup." She glanced casually at Meg. "It sounds like the one that tried to run me off the road."
"Oh, yeah? Well, you can go pound on the driver personally tomorrow. The truck's been towed to Bernie's garage and the guy's at the hospital with a broken arm. Andy says he's not going anywhere soon. Let me tell you what happened here this afternoon."
"Oh, yeah? That's all you have to say when I tell you I was almost murdered right there on 81 by a crazed guy who very probably is involved in Nora Cahill's death, not to mention Frank Dorset's?"
"You're here all in one piece, aren't you?" Meg said callously. "Honestly Quill, sometimes you exaggerate as much as Dina does. It's either that or the other extreme - like failing to mention your absolutely awful driving record to Howie Murchison, which is when all this nutty stuff started. Try to be a little rational for once, will you?"
Pressure always upset Meg. In some remote part of her mind, Quill tried to remember this, and failed. "I am perfectly rational!" she shouted.
"Perfectly rational people don't shriek their heads off at a little mild criticism from a beloved relative. No, they don't. Wait until you hear about the s‚ance this afternoon."
Quill slid off the stool. "I'm numb with cold. I'm sweaty with the aftermath of fear - "
"The what?!"
"And I'm going up to my room and call Myles and tell him about the evidence I just uncovered in this murder case, because it's practically solved, Meg, and then I'm going to take a hot, hot, hot shower, wash my hair, nap, and be gorgeous for poor Myles when he finally gets off road duty."
"Practically solved the murders, huh?" Meg shouted after her as she shoved open the swinging doors to the dining room. "Quill! Don't go that way!"
Quill took two steps into the dining room and encountered the affronted glares of Alphonse Santini, a well-known Supreme Court Justice, an equally well-known Democratic senator, and Vittorio McIntosh, among others.
They were all in black tie.
Quill was jerked out of her fatigue into the present. Sweat streaked her face. Her knitted cap had made a tangled mess of her hair. She'd been wearing black long johns under her snow pants, and she was suddenly aware that rather than resembling leggings - which they were not - they looked like long underwear. Which they were. And there was a hole in her argyle socks.
She retreated to the kitchen.
Meg looked smug. This, Quill reflected later, was the straw that broke the camel's back, the monkey wrench in the machinery, the penultimate push. Actually it wasn't the smugness as much as the pious comment that accompanied it:
"You never listen to me. You'd never get into half the trouble you do if you'd just listen to me."
Quill washed her hair in the shower, drained the tub, filled it with water as hot as she could stand it, and threw in four capfuls of Neutrogena Rain Bath Shower and Bath Body Gel. She had, she realized, told Meg (and any interested person within forty feet of the kitchen) that in the past two days she'd a.) been thrown in jail for a bogus traffic ticket, b.) renounced her lover, c.) been humiliated on television, d.) been thrown in jail on a trumped-up murder charge, e.) been assaulted and sexually harassed by a human asparagus, f.) witnessed a murder, g.) spent the night with a corpse, and finally, been terrified almost to death by a high-speed chase in a snowstorm. Meg's tart rejoinder ("There's no need to get hysterical about it!") made her so mad that she'd upended an entire canister of whole wheat flour on the kitchen floor. The Finns thought this was hilarious. "Americans," Bjarne said with a pleased air, "how I love this country."
A knock on the bathroom door roused her from the gloomy contemplation of her soapy knees. "Yes?" Quill shouted.
There was a bout of furious yapping, a thump, and a muttered "Gol-durn it."
"Doreen?"
"Yap-yap-yap-yap," came Tatiana's voice, in a furious fusillade, "yap-yap-" Crash!
"YAP!!"
"You git, before I turn you into earmuffs!"
There was another crash, as of a mop hitting a hardwood floor, and a ferocious growl. Doreen wouldn't dare deep-six the dog. Would she? Quill waited for a canine gurgle. Maybe that growl had been Doreen. Maybe a short dog drowned in a tall mop bucket didn't have time to gurgle.
"Doreen?"
"It's me," came Doreen's familiar foghorn voice.
"You decent? - OW!"
Decent, she thought. How decent is a person who yells at her sister?
"I'll be right there." She sloshed out of the tub, pulled on her terry cloth robe, and opened the door.
"Doreen. You look really nice."
The housekeeper was dressed in a long velvet skirt, a metallic gold turtleneck with blouson sleeves, and sandals with rhinestones at the toes. This gave her a charmingly old-fashioned (if gaudy) appearance. She was carrying a mop. Quill smiled at her. "You ought to wear soft shapes more often. But why the mop?"
"You'll see," she said with a glower. "'Bout this outfit, Stoke bought it for me. I think it makes me look like I'm plugged inta a outlet. Say, Quill. The girls, I mean the organ'zation members, sent me up to see if you're comin' to the meeting."
"The H. O. W. meeting?" Quill stepped barefoot into the room, the sash to her bathrobe trailing. "Boy, Doreen, I'm just so - OW!" Tatiana, who'd been hiding under the couch, retreated as soon as her needle teeth got Quill's ankle.
Crash! Doreen wielded the broom with prompt efficiency. "Durn thing," Doreen said glumly. "She'll do that. Ain't hit her yet."
"It doesn't
seem to me that you try very hard." Quill nursed her ankle with one hand and hobbled to the couch. "Why is she up here?"
"She follers me around. Why it is, durn'd if I know."
"Is Tutti here?"
"Yeah."
"She's not at the shower for Claire, is she?"
"Heck, no. She's in the H. O. W. meeting. Where you bin, anyways?"
"To Syracuse. Why?"
"Big hoo-ha here this afternoon, I can tell you."
She remembered suddenly: s‚ance. And Meg anxious to tell her about it just before Quill lobbed verbal fireballs at her over the tenderloin. "Did something happen at the s‚ance?"
"You bet it did. That Tutti's amazin'. She ought to be on TV. You know how many serial killers that one'd catch if she went public?"
"What?! What serial killer?"
Doreen gave a patient sigh. "This one that killed that Dorset and that poor Nora Cahill. He spoke to us. Right there in the Proven‡al suite next to the fireplace. We don't have to worry about him. He's dead. Deader than a doornail. Which is how come he come back from Beyond to speak through Tutti. You shoulda heard him. You know how Tutti has that nice sweet voice? Well, it was like somethin' from that movie where the devil was in that Linda Blair and turnt her head right around like a screw cap. Ol' Tutti's head turnt around - "
"All the way?" Quill asked sarcastically.
"No, ma'am. Just partways. Then this here voice comes out. Low. Ugly-like. A man, of course." Doreen's voice, although hoarse, was generally clearly feminine. She pitched it several octaves lower than usual and growled, "I DONE FOR 'EM. I DONE FOR 'EM BOTH."
"Yap!" went Tatiana, "yap, yap!!"
"See, the dog's a familiar, like. Tutti don't do her sayance without her. Good girl," Doreen cooed suddenly. "Good girl. She got two mice in the storeroom today, too."
Tatiana made a noise like a Norelco shaver. Quill shifted back nervously. "Did Tutti say anything else?"
"You mean he, the murderer. Oh, yeah. RABBIT! RABBIT!"
Quill opened her mouth, then closed it. Nobody knew about her rabbit hat. Except Dorset, and he was dead. Except herself, and she didn't do it. Except the murderer, who had worn it.
Tutti? Impossible. She was too short. Too round. And the murderer was a male - Quill wasn't entirely sure how she knew that, except that she'd been no more than three feet away from him while he slashed Frank Dorset's throat. The sound of his breath, the way that he walked on the videotape. And the arms, she thought suddenly. The arms extended way past the sleeves of her coat. So the murderer was a man. She trusted her painter's eye that far. And Tutti, for reasons known only to herself, was letting the murderer know she knew.
But why? To stop Santini from marrying Claire? If she knew about the rabbit hat, she knew enough to turn Santini in to Myles. It didn't make any sense for Tutti to warn a man who had killed twice already.
"Alphonse Santini was at the s‚ance, wasn't he, Doreen?"
"Yep. Shook him up some, I'll tell you that."
"I'll bet it did."
What did Tutti know? And how had she found out? More important, a man who had killed twice wouldn't shy away from killing again. Now that Tutti had revealed her hand, she was in danger.
Unless Tutti were protected, there'd be one less guest at that wedding, Quill thought, and it wouldn't be Alphonse Santini.
"Is the senator still in the dining room?"
"Yep."
"Doreen. You've got to get back to the H. O. W. meeting right away. I believe Tutti's in danger."
"Nah, Tutti said the murderer's dead. That no matter how long the sheriff - Myles, I mean - searches for him, he'll on'y find him in the next world."
"Or at her daughter's side at the church." Quill shook her head to clear it. "Doreen, you don't believe all this s‚ance hooey."
There was an all-too-recognizable glint in Doreen's beady black eyes. "Tell you the truth, I was feelin' kinda psychic myself, the longer that there sayance went on. Anyhow, Tutti's holding another one for the wimmin of H. O. W., to help us find out ways we can get these men off our backs and into their proper role, she says." Doreen took a deep breath. "You comin'?"
"Of course I'm coming! We don't want a third corpse in Hemlock Falls. What time is it?"
"Nine-thirty."
Two and half hours until Myles came. "You get down there right now. And stick to Tutti like glue, you hear me? Don't let Alphonse Santini come within a country mile of her."
"If you say so," Doreen said doubtfully.
"Is everyone as dressed up as you are?"
"Not them boobs in the S. O. A. P. meeting. Members of the organ'zation have the sense to dress with respect. So you get dressed with respect. I'll see you down there." She turned and marched out the door, mop slung over her shoulder. Tatiana poked her blunt little nose out from under the couch and eyed Quill with suspicion.
"Go on," Quill said encouragingly. "Go find Doreen."
Tatiana rolled her upper lip over her teeth and advanced sideways, like a mongoose stalking a cobra. Quill jumped up on the oak chest. "Beat it, Tatiana. Go hunt some ghosts. Better yet, go bite the senator."
The prospect of senatorial flesh between her jaws apparently appealed to Tatiana. She cocked her head, trotted off, and Quill climbed down from the chest. She was so tired she felt as though she were swimming through mud.
She pulled on a stretchy ankle-length velvet dress over her head, swept her hair into a knot, and slid on a pair of black sandals. "The well-dressed host," she muttered, spraying herself with musk perfume, "goes to meet her fate."
She heard the drone of Tutti's voice halfway down the hall. The conference room was only three years old, and John had designed it for several purposes. Wood panels on the walls opened up to reveal whiteboards and film screens. The long credenza on the south wall opened up into a serving bar. And the long mahogany table in the center of the room could hold more than twenty people in a pinch.
Quill knocked on the door and opened it in a single motion. The room was dark, except for a single lamp at the head of the table. It was a lava lamp in the shape of a globe, the viscous red liquid churning like the contents t of somebody's stomach. Tutti's round face hung over the lamp like a wrinkly white moon.
"Nnnnnnnnmmmmmmmm," she hummed.
"Nummmmmmmmmmm," responded the members of the Hemlock Organization of Women.
"Shut the damn door," somebody called out. Quill flipped on the light. Doreen sat at Tutti's left, Marge Schmidt at her right. Tatiana barked from the safety of Tutti's lap. Tutti herself blinked owlishly and smiled. She was dressed in a fuzzy angora sweater, a long plaid taffeta skirt, and an emerald necklace that weighed more than her dog.
"Sorry," said Quill. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything."
"Of course you are," Miriam Doncaster said testily. "What is it, Quill? We were just about to hear the truth about what goes on in that dratted men's group."
"I won't keep you. I have something to ask you guys. It's important, but short."
She walked to the head of the room. The women of Hemlock Falls looked back at her: Esther West, in a black chiffon cocktail dress with rhinestone earrings; Betty Hall in purple lam‚, a red bow in her hair; Marge in a size twenty-two Diane Freis after-dinner suit that cost more than Quill's automobile when it was new. Even Adela Henry looked vulnerable in the sudden flare of the overhead lights.
Quill felt a wave of affection so strong she blinked back tears.
"You okay, honey?" Nadine Wertmuller (Hemlock Hall of Beauty) snapped her gum in concern.
"Yep," Quill said a little huskily, "I'm just tired, that's all."
"PMS," said somebody. "Gets me like that, too."
"I want to ask your help." Quill tugged at a tendril j of hair. "Some of you were at the s‚ance this afternoon. By now, most of you have heard what went on. And I believe that Tutti's been given a warning."
There was a swell of excited comment, like wheat, rippling in the wind.
"Tutti was right - or ra
ther, her - um - spirit guide was. The man who killed Nora Cahill and Frank Dorset is connected with rabbits."
"Those bums at S. O. A. P.," yelled Nadine. "Torturing animals in the woods!"
"Oh, no!" Quill flung her hands out. "The killings don't have anything to do with S. O. A. P. Sheriff McHale is very close to obtaining evidence that will convict this man."
"You find something in Syracuse?" asked Marge.
Quill made what she hoped was a noncommittal "hmm." Tutti regarded her with the set, unblinking gaze of her dog. "I found something that I think will be useful in bringing this person in. But until the case is wrapped up, I believe that Tutti is in real danger."
Murder Well-Done hf-4 Page 18
