Murder Well-Done

by Claudia Bishop

  "Of course we will," said Esther West. "My goodness, do you think she'll be attacked? Right here at the Inn?"

  "It's possible."

  Meg cleared her throat, rolled her eyes, and yawned.

  "How long do we keep this watch?" asked Miriam.

  "Midnight," said Quill, with a sangfroid unimpeded by Meg's giggle. "There's something else. Marge and Betty, how did the search go today?"

  "Quill?" Adela Henry rose to her full thin, elegant height. "If there is to be a disclosure of the activities of the investigatory subcommittee, perhaps I should chair this meeting."

  "Well, sure," said Quill.

  "What subcommittee?" Miriam demanded.

  "H. O. W. shall solve," Adela said grandly, "the murders of Nora Cahill and that disgusting Frank Dorset," Her eyes flickered. "And then we shall seek to replace the lamentable town government with a mayor of quality. A town justice of integrity, a sheriff of - "

  "Be quiet, Adela," said Miriam. "What's going on here, Marge?"

  "Quill, Meg, Betty, and me have been looking for that down coat of Quill's. It's what the guy wore when he stabbed Nora and Frank Dorset."

  "And I've been looking for the videotape from that there hidden camera that shows him doin' it," said Betty. "I checked each one of the fireplaces in the Inn today, Quill, and I didn't find a thing."

  "So that's why you dragged Esther and me allover the bottom of the Gorge today, Marge Schmidt," said Miriam. "I'd like to have died from the cold, too. Why didn't you tell me?"

  "I'm tellin' you now, or Quill is. What's next, Quill?"

  "First, who wants to guard Tutti?"

  "My goodness," said Tutti, her cheeks pink. "And to think the spirit guides led us to this, Tatiana!"

  "We want the big ones, like me," said Marge with satisfaction. "That means you, Shirley Peterson, and you, Trish Pasquale. We'll stick to you like debentures in a bear market, Tutti."

  "And the rest of you have to turn this Inn inside out," said Quill, "discreetly. And you should work in pairs, for protection."

  "What are we looking for?" asked Betty.

  "A videotape that's mini-sized, you know, about half the size of the ones you rent from the video store. It's the tape of Nora's murder. And a hat."

  "A hat? What kind of hat?" said Esther.

  "My rabbit hat."

  "You mean that horrible old thing with the earflaps you wore all winter last year?" asked Esther.

  "The murderer disguised himself in it," said Quill.

  "Disguise?" somebody muttered. "Heck, you show up in that thing at a school picnic and half the little kids would fall over from fright."

  "I always thought the hat was one of the reasons the sheriff dumped her," said somebody else.

  Quill maintained her aplomb. "Just two caveats ladies. Don't be so obvious that the other guests suspect anything. And if you do find the hat or the videotape, don't pick either one up. One of you guard it, the other one should come and find me. Or the sheriff."

  "Well, I'm ready," said Miriam. "Esther, you come with me. We'll start right away."

  "What about the guest rooms?" asked Doreen. "You want I should get out the master key?"

  "There's only one room I need to search," said Quill. "And I should be the one to take the risk."

  Meg started to whistle the theme from The Bridge Over the River Kwai.

  "Tutti," said Marge. "How'd you feel about a game of bridge?"

  "Fifty cents a point? We'd love it. Wouldn't we, Tatiana?" The dog gave her a skeptical glance, hopped off her lap, and followed Doreen and the other H. O. W. members out the door. Tutti pulled a deck of cards from her capacious handbag and shuffled them expertly. Quill strode toward the hall. She felt great.

  "Colonel!" Meg snapped to attention and saluted.

  "Cut it out, Meg."

  "You're right. I should be addressing you as Inspector Alleyn. He always gathered the suspects in the drawing room and exposed the murderer. Nope. Sorry. Wrong again. It's Holmes himself and the Baker Street Irregulars."

  "Why are you bugging me, Meg? I've had a tough day. And you didn't tell me what went on at that s‚ance."

  "You didn't give me a chance to tell you about the s‚ance!"

  "Tutti's clearly in danger, and you didn't do a thing about it."

  "I most certainly did," Meg said indignantly. "Why the heck do you think she was in the kitchen with me all day? I mean she's a sweetie, quill, and I learned a great new recipe for homemade pasta, but this is one of the busiest days of the whole darn year!"

  "Oh," Quill said.

  "I mean, really. How irresponsible do you think I am? You never look at anybody the way they really are, Quill. You look at them the way you think they should be."

  "I do?"

  "Yes, you do. You make up your mind first and then you decide what's happening. Have you ever known me to boot an important clue like the one Tutti rolled out this afternoon?"

  "No, Meg."

  "And don't we usually solve these cases together?"

  "Yes, Meg."

  "So how come you came in all hissy this afternoon and picked a fight with me?"

  "Because I was scared out of my mind!"

  "Then why didn't you tell me? Honestly, Quill, it does nobody any good if you keep your emotions buttoned up. It doesn't do any good with me, that's for sure. And look what happened with that lunch with Myles. You were so busy keeping a stiff upper lip that you didn't even talk to each other. And look what almost happened. If Myles hadn't taken the risk to come back... restraint is all very well, Quillie. But not when it screws up your emotional life."

  Quill stared at her. "You really think so?"

  "I really think... what the devil is that noise?"

  "The bachelor party, I suppose. Meg, I was scared out of my mind, but only partly from being almost run off the road."

  "Somebody really did? Quill!"

  "Soembody really did. But that's not what's bothering me."

  "My Lord, Quill. Did you report this man? Are you hurt? It's a good thing you have that big heavy car."

  "I'm pretty sure that the truck's at Bernie's and Joseph Greenwald is in the hospital. Do you think you could call Andy and verify that he's going to be in overnight?"

  "Joseph Greenwald?" said Meg.

  "'There's a funny look on your face."

  "He showed up here right after you left for Syracuse. Good-looking guy? Looks like a Philadelphia lawyer?"

  "He showed up here?"

  "Tried to check in, but of course there wasn't any room. So I sent him on to the Marriott."

  "Well, I'll be dipped, as Nora Cahill once said."

  "That's not the reason you should be dipped. The reason you should be dipped is that he's an attorney. And he asked for Alphonse Santini at the desk."

  "Wow. Meg, I think we should interrupt that bridge game."

  "I think you're - Quill. If that's the bachelor party I hear, it's getting really out of hand. We'd better check that out first. It sounds like a riot."

  Quill had heard sounds like that before: whoops, yells, screams of laughter, cheers, the thump of running feet. "Pamplona, Meg. The summer I spent in Madrid? With the foreign exchange group?"

  The thrumming of running feet drew nearer and shook the walls of the solid old building. Marge burst from the conference room. Tutti, with a perplexed expression, trotted after her, her bridge cards in her hand. Her two other guards peered over Marge's shoulder.

  "What'n the hell?" asked Marge.

  The door at the end of the east end of the hall led to the Tavern Lounge. It shuddered, rattled, and for a moment seemed to bow outward from a massive weight on the other side. It burst open, to reveal Mayor Henry, naked but for a loincloth, with red stripes on his cheeks and his forehead painted stark white, dragging Claire's bridesmaid by the hand.

  "Meredith!" called Quill. `Are you all right?"

  "Let go, you geezer!" Meredith said irritably.

  "Lances UP!" shouted the mayor.

/>   "Lances UP! Came a male chorus in response.

  "Lances UP, UP, UP!" yelled Evan Blight.

  The members of S. O. A. P. stampeded through the hall like maddened buffalo. Most of them dragged a person of the opposite sex by the handiest protuberance: an arm here, a collar there, three or four by the hair, for those participants of H. O. W. and the bridal party whose hair was long enough for the S. O. A. P. snatch-and-grab technique. One of Harland Peterson's Norwegian cousins - a blacksmith notable for the breadth of his shoulders and the strength in his back - carried Esther West over his shoulder. She looked thoughtful. Her screams were perfunctory.

  Evan Blight himself - womanless - cried, "on, men, on! Remember Romulus! Forward, in the name of Romulus. Lance UP! UP! UP!"

  Meg and Quill shoved themselves against the wall. Marge and the rest if the bridge party beat a prudent retreat into the conference room, to reemerge as the sounds of the raid faded on the nighttime air.

  "They left the back door open," Marge observed.

  "I'll get it." Meg walked down the hall, turned around, walked back, and said crossly, `You didn't see Any with those idiots?"

  "They weren't carrying any lances," Tutti observed after a moment.

  "Heck, no," said Marge. "The `Lances UP!' part of this is pret' obvious. But who's this Romulus guy?"

  "Um," said Quill. "The Sabines. He needed wives for his troops." She went to the west door, opened it, and peered out. "It's turned into a snowball fight." She paused. "And the women are winning."

  Myles was late. Quill stood at the French doors to her balcony and watched the clearing sky. The storm left a swathe of tatterdemalion clouds. Stars emerged through the misty remnants like lilies floating up from the bottom of a pond. A chilly breeze sprang up. The moon came out. And Quill waited, a cup of coffee in her hand, until she heard him at the door.

  -10-

  Sunlight crept across the lace coverlet Quill's grandmother had brought from England almost a century ago. The fabric lay in folds at the foot of the bed, and the sunshine threw the rose design into sharp relief. The years had aged the lace from white to cream. Quill, propped against the pillows, thought about how the lace had traveled for over ninety years, to end up here, covering her bed.

  She was facing the large mullioned window that kept her bedroom light and airy, even in the depths of winter. The glass was old, perhaps even older than the lace, and her view of the snowy fields outside was distorted, wavy, as though she were underwater.

  Myles walked in carrying a tray of coffee and fresh brioche. A pink rose nodded at her from a crystal vase, and the scent of the flower mingled with the odor of fresh yeast.

  "Wow." She smiled at him. "You didn't go downstairs dressed like that?"

  "Undressed like this?" He grinned. "The bread and the rose were outside the door. Doreen must have left it for you. Or Meg."

  "How late is it?" asked Quill. She accepted a cup of coffee and held it steady as he climbed back in beside her.

  "Ten o'clock."

  "Oh, dear. I should get downstairs. The florist from Ithaca is bringing the flowers in this morning and they're going to decorate for the wedding. Meg's going to be all wrapped up in the kitchen. And John hates doing that stuff."

  She set her coffee on the nightstand and stretched, then turned and burrowed into Myles's shoulder. "Well. Here we are again."

  His hand, large and warm, smoothed her hair. "I wouldn't have given odds that I would see you again, like this. Wrapped in lace. With your hair tumbled down your shoulders."

  She didn't answer right away. "So what about this blonde?"

  "What blonde?"

  She drew back her hand to punch him, and he caught it, kissed it, and clasped it in his own.

  "Meg said that you're wasted as sheriff here in the village. That if it hadn't been for me, you would have taken a job like this global thingy a long time ago."

  "That's probably true." Quill sat up, indignant.

  "But it would have been a stopgap. Until I found a village like this again. With someone like you in it."

  "That's a... a... perplexing sort of statement."

  "Is it? It's what I want. You. A family. A town small enough to know. A town large enough to be comfortable in. I'm forty-seven, Quill. And I'm tired. Not of life. But of the kinds of ambition that drove me when I was younger. I want a certain... orderliness to my daily life. That might be the wrong word. I don't believe that I want to see much more of humanity in the raw than I have already. I've had enough."

  There was a puckered scar on his stomach from shrapnel, a dimpled hole in his right shoulder from a gunshot wound. Quill traced these marks with one forefinger. "In a way," she said at last, "I haven't seen enough."

  "Mmm."

  "Was that surprise?"

  "I suppose it was. I think you're right."

  "I love you." Her voice was husky. She cleared her throat. "I'm not whining, you understand. But why do women always have to choose? Between life outside and making a home?"

  "If I were younger, you'd met me before I'd been satisfied I'd seen enough, maybe you wouldn't have to. We're at different stages, Quill. I don't want you to give anything up."

  "I don't want you to give anything up, either." She sighed. "I wish I were a clone. Had a clone. Whatever."

  His arm tightened around her shoulder. "Let's take it one day at a time. Now, I gather from what you said last night that Greenwald gave you quite a chase."

  "Green... oh! The jerk in the pickup truck. You're sure my coat wasn't in it?"

  "Positive. I've sent a couple of troopers out to search 81, but it doesn't look good. He dumped it before the rescue trucks got there. But the coat wouldn't be enough, Quill. It's circumstantial at best, unless we find either Nora's or Dorset's blood on it, and even if we do, we'd need harder evidence to convict."

  "But you do think it's Santini?"

  "I'm not willing to make that leap yet. What's his motive? Guesswork's hazardous in this business, Quill. So far, you're operating on mere surmise."

  "Surmise." Quill made a face.

  "Intuition? Feeling? What do you want me to say? You don't have any facts. You think that Nora Cahill was blackmailing Alphonse Santini, but you have no proof. And without that fundamental fact, Quill, the rest of the motive falls apart. Why would he kill Dorset? I admit that the videotape you said you saw - "

  "I did see it."

  "I know you did. But who is a jury going to believe? You can't convict a man of a capital crime on hearsay, Quill."

  "But I have proof. Or at least I think I have proof. I didn't get a chance to tell you everything last night..."

  He smiled. She blushed, then went on, "But I took some disks from Nora's apartment."

  "Quill." He stopped himself, then said with obvious patience, "I won't talk to you about breaking and entering. You know all about that already. But I have told you about the importance of the chain of evidence. And if you've entered the victim's apartment unlawfully and gathered it unlawfully..."

  "Stop." Quill held up her hand. "I know all that. I told the H. O. W. members last night that if they found anything not to touch it, but to call you first."

  Myles grabbed his forehead with both hands, in a gesture reminiscent of Meg. "You sent thirty women from a feminist organization careening through this Inn looking for evidence against Alphonse Santini?"

  "The wedding is tomorrow. Then, he'll be gone. I feel awful about poor Claire. And I'm worried about Tutti."

  Myles shut his eyes for a moment. "You don't have to worry about Tutti."

  "Why not?"

  "I'll let you know after I call New York this morning. I'd like to know something right now, though. Was it the H. O. W. search that kicked off the riot?"

  "It wasn't exactly a riot," Quill said a little guiltily. "They didn't find anything, anyway. They all went home to nurse their bruises after that snowball fight. And besides, Myles, you're forgetting the hard drive."

  "The hard drive?" He shook his hea
d, "We're talking about you breaking into Nora's apartment again? You mean the hard drive for Nora's PC?"

  "Yes! You have her laptop in custody, or whatever, don't you?"

  "Yeah. It's been entered into evidence. We do."

  "And her laptop was collected in a proper and legal way, wasn't it? Almost every newer PC backs up files automatically. There's bound to be a copy of whatever is on those disks in Nora's hard drive, So it doesn't matter if you can't submit the disks in evidence. You've got the hard drive. All the disks will do is give us the right kind of lead. I hope. They aren't labeled."