hadn’t killed him, I would have had an answer by the
end of next week.”
“Oh?”
“Those investment bankers Victoria hired begin discovery next Monday. Max makes dog food, sends it to the reseller, and makes more dog food again. It’s not a
very complicated business, and Max was a devil for
simplicity anyway. Even with Lila gone, discovery’s
going to be a pretty straightforward process. You know
about discovery?”
Quill looked wise and kept her mouth shut.
Priscilla smiled in a catty kind of way. “Right. Sure
you do. All the accounting’s checked for accuracy. The
bank accounts are verified. That sort of thing.”
“And Lila was important because?”
“Oh, she handled the books for Max, too. To be exact, she checked on what bookkeeping sent her. She didn’t do much physical work herself. At least, not that
kind of physical.”
“Really,” Quill said casually. “By the other kind of
physical you mean . . .”
“Max, of course. Max was such a bastard I think Lila
may have regretted getting involved with him. People
just . . .” she stopped short and bit her lip.
“People?” Quill nudged gently.
“People didn’t really understand Lila.” Priscilla
stared down at her clasped hands for a long moment.
“But there you are.” Her glance fell on her husband.
Cassie had returned with the drinks and bowls of the
handmade chip mix that usually sat at the bar. Millard
was tossing the chips into the air and into his open
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mouth. He missed more frequently than he succeeded.
At the table beyond him, Olivia sat with a tarot deck,
apparently instructing Pamela in the tarot’s mysteries.
“She owned stock,” Quill said suddenly.
“Excuse me?” Priscilla set her glass of sauvignon
blanc down squarely in the middle of the cocktail napkin.
“Lila owned stock, Olivia said. Stock in what?”
“I don’t have the least idea.”
“It wasn’t in Pet Pro?”
“Pet Pro’s privately held, as you very well know,” she
said testily. “And Max owned almost all of it. I think
there’s a bit that belongs to a son, and an even smaller
bit that belongs to his mother. He could have given
some to Lila, I suppose. But why that would make a difference to Olivia, I can’t imagine.”
“And Lila didn’t own stock in your company?”
“Not a chance.”
“Priscilla, what happens to Pet Pro now? Who inherits it?”
She picked up her wine and took a large sip. “The
Kittleburger Trust. It’s a philanthropic organization, if
you can believe it.” She gave Quill a thin-lipped smile.
“At some level, Max knew he was going to hell when he
died, and in my opinion the trust is a sop to the gods. As
for my bid to buy the company? Forget that as a motive.
Max died at a time of maximum inconvenience for me.
Typical of him.” She swallowed the rest of the wine and
said, “I’ll have more of this. Where’s that waitress?”
“Cassie will be by shortly.” Quill got up, a little
stiff from sitting in one place for so long. “Will you
excuse me?”
She slipped through the double doors into the
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kitchen. A smaller than usual dinner staff had arrived
and preparations for the evening’s dinner were well under way. Meg stood in front of the Sub-Zeros, a clipboard in her hand.
“Hey,” Quill said.
“Hey, yourself. Hang on a second. Elizabeth?”
Elizabeth Chou, who had been promoted to part of
Bjarne Bjarnson’s responsibilities in the kitchen after
the Finn had left for more contentious pastures, straightened up as if on military parade.
Meg spoke rapidly and to the point. “The dining
room’s open only to the suspects in this stupid murder.
Which means six dinners, plus the dinners for the rest
of us.”
“And the policemen?” Elizabeth asked.
“Sandwiches,” Meg said firmly. “I’m only going to
offer the guests two entrees and these three sides. If the
pet people don’t like it, they can lump it.” She handed
the clipboard to Elizabeth and sat next to Quill at the
prep counter. “So you’ve fled the scene?”
“I have never, in all my life, met such concentrated
nastiness.”
Meg shook her head. “I’m flat-out amazed that they
haven’t killed each other.”
“Olivia and Pamela aren’t so awful,” Quill said, “although neither one is going to get penalized for having too many brains. I don’t see either of them as killers.
And they both have alibis.”
“But that’s just it,” Meg said with exasperation. “All
of them have alibis!”
“Not airtight, though,” Quill said smugly. “Rudy
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Baranga can’t have been at that meeting all that time.
According to Corrine Peterson, at nine forty-five this
morning he was busy harassing poor Harvey. I mean,
I’m not one hundred percent certain, but who else
could it have been?”
“Of course, that puts Rudy out of the running for the
this morning’s murder.”
Quill could feel her face fall. “Nuts. So it does.” She
bit her lip and thought for a moment. “So what if they’re
all in it together? You remember Georgia?”
“I remember Georgia,” Meg said, a little sadly. “That
was one of the toughest cases we’ve ever had.”
“The trouble is that at least one of them is really annoyed that Mad Max is dead. This has bollixed up Priscilla’s offer to buy Pet Pro. The rest of them are
jumping for joy, though.”
“Man,” Meg said, “I hope that when I die, at least a
couple of people will be sorry.”
“I’ll be devastated,” Quill promised. “But Priscilla
said any hope she had of buying Pet Pro has gone up in
smoke. And I can’t see her agreeing to alibi the murder.
She looked mad enough to murder the murderer, if she
catches him, as a matter of fact. So that leaves us with
Victoria, Robin, and Rudy.”
“And Pamela.”
“I don’t think so. I’m convinced that Max and Lila
were murdered by the same person. And a ton of people
saw Pamela with Harland Peterson the night of Lila’s
murder.”
“And the two murders have to be connected because?”
“Lila and Max were in bed together, literally and fig
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uratively. Just from a logical standpoint, it’d be absurd
to suggest that there are two murders for two different
reasons by two different perp . . .”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it.”
“Meg?” Elizabeth Chou emerged from the refrigerator with a puzzled look on her face. “We are out of pork loin.”
“We are not out of pork loin,” Meg said flatly.
“There’s at least twenty pounds of it in there.” She trotted over to the Sub-Zero, looked inside, and yelled,
“Damn!
What happened to the pork loin?”
“Meg?” Quill said.
“Did you give anybody twenty pounds of pork loin
today?” Meg accused her.
“Of course not.”
“Well, WHERE THE HECK IS IT!” She turned to
the kitchen staff and demanded, “We have to search the
place! That’s a hundred dollars worth of meat.”
Meg was definitely going to be distracted for the next
few hours. Quill slipped off the stool and left the
kitchen by the back door.
She stepped into the cool freshness of early evening.
Autumn was closing in. The air was fragrant with the
smoke of wood fires. Autumn light lifted Quill’s heart.
Its gold was rounder, heavier, and more melancholy
than the light of spring and summer. “And winter’s light
is frozen white,” she said aloud as Max the dog came
dancing up to her. “And how has your day been?”
Max rolled over on his back and wriggled. The
shaggy ends of his coat were fretted with burrs and
twigs. “Down in the gorge again, I see.” Quill pulled a
few twigs free, bringing some of Max’s coat with them.
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She rolled the silky hair between her fingers. “Want to
go up to the old place, Maxie?”
“Ma’am?”
Quill jumped in alarm. Max, good old guard dog that
he was, wagged his tail happily at the young policeman
who approached her through the herb garden.
“You’re not headed out anywhere, ma’am? The
looey wants you all to stick around.”
“I’m just going up the back stairs, officer.” She
looked up. Her former balcony was just above the
kitchen door. “I’m feeling a bit nostalgic.”
“Ma’am?”
“Never mind. How are things going?”
“Not too good, ma’am,” he said seriously. He was
young and a little pudgy. He made Quill feel quite maternal.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Well, the looey’s not too happy either,” he admitted.
“And I think he wants to talk to you before he leaves.”
“I’ll be up in 340,” Quill said. “And please tell him
that there are sandwiches and coffee for the men in the
kitchen. Just talk to my sister.”
“Yes, ma’am. And thank you, ma’am. I’m so hungry
my stomach thinks my throat is cut. How will I know
her, ma’am?”
“She’s the short cranky one throwing the pans
around the kitchen.”
She climbed up the fire escape, Max clicking along
behind her. It’d been months since she’d taken this
route. Months since she’d visited her old rooms. They’d
decided to tear out her serviceable little kitchen and replace it with a wet bar, and an under-the-counter refrig
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erator. It would be ready for guests in a few weeks;
Quill knew that Dina and Meg referred to it as the Sarah
Suite behind her back.
She walked in, Max at her heels. Her comfortable
leather couch had been replaced with a chintz love seat
and chair in rose, greens, and cream. The old pine chest
she’d used as a coffee table was in Myles’ house. The
biggest change was the carpeting. She’d put in a quiet
beige Berber carpet when they’d first moved in more than
ten years ago. It’d been replaced by a thick-piled rose.
But the view out the back was the same. She pulled
the armchair over to the french doors that led to the balcony. It was almost full dark, now. Meg’s herb garden was a dim stretch of humps and brush.
“Ms. Quilliam?”
She’d left the door open. She turned now and saw a
middle-aged man with a bit of a belly and a tired face.
He wore a rumpled tweed sports coat frayed at the elbows. His tie was loosened around his neck. “It’s Mrs.
McHale, now,” she said, with that faint sense of surprise
she still felt at the use of her new name. “You must be
Lieutenant Provost?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He shook hands. “So you’re married
to McHale?” He smiled warmly. “We could use his help
right about now. Tompkins County lost a good man
when he left for that security firm. If that’s what it really is?”
Quill didn’t say anything.
“Right. Well. May I sit down?”
Quill leaped to her feet. “Of course! I’m so sorry.
And would you like coffee or sandwiches? I told
your . . . sergeant?”
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“Patrolman Guinness. Yes, he mentioned the food to
me. I’ll take advantage of that offer a little later, if you
don’t mind.” He waited until Quill had resettled herself
in the chair and then sat on the couch. “We’ve interviewed all of the staff that were here at the time of the murder.”
“And you’re sure the murder occurred at nine forty-
five?”
“Fairly sure, yes.”
“Was Mr. Kittleburger actually on a call at the time?”
Provost sucked his bottom lip, and then eyed her in a
thoughtful way. “Yes. He was. On his Minolta cell
phone, to be precise.”
“Did you punch the little ‘last call’ button on his cell
phone? I mean, who he was actually talking to might be
evidence, don’t you th . . .” Quill faltered to a stop.
Provost’s gaze was not encouraging.
“With all due respect, Mrs. McHale . . .”
“I’ve got one amateur detective on my hands already
down in Summersville. To be perfectly candid . . . you
don’t mind if I’m perfectly candid?”
“No,” Quill said in a small voice.
“Dr. McKenzie is a mighty pain in my backside. I
sure don’t look forward to having another.”
“Of course you wouldn’t,” Quill said warmly.
“But I suppose there’s no harm in telling you that he
was talking to Mrs. Durbin.”
“Pamela?” Quill said, startled. “Really? She didn’t
say a word about it.”
“She seems unaware that the call was terminated because Kittleburger was—ah—terminated. He was sup
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posed to be at this general session of the International
Association of what?”
“Pet Food Providers.”
“And he wasn’t. She said she called him to ask if he
was going to be at the meeting. He said he wasn’t. She
said he grunted very rudely at her, and ended the call.”
“And you think . . .”
“That someone ended the call for him, yes.”
“But you can’t actually prove it.”
Lieutenant Provost looked very unhappy. “Yes, Mrs.
McHale, we can. He received another phone call at ten
to ten and the caller went straight to voice mail.”
“And the phone was in his hand when we found
him?” Quill said. “I see.”
“I hope you can see that I’d appreciate it if you
would limit your contributions to this case to answering
my questions,” Provost said testily. “I swear to god,
mystery novelists have a lot
to answer for. Why does
everybody think he’s a detective? If you want to be a detective, join the police force.” He took a handkerchief from his chinos’ pocket and wiped his forehead. “Sorry.
Had to get that one off my chest. Now, I’ve got some
questions about how you spent your morning.”
Quill took him through her day, although she indulged in a little tactful editing when she recounted her conversation with Marge. Provost seemed uninterested
in Rudy Baranga’s visit to the hapless Harvey, merely
remarking (as Meg had done) that it put paid to any suspicions about Rudy.
“And that,” Provost said as he made a final entry in
his notepad, “wraps it up for you, Mrs. McHale.”
“So you’ve finished up here at the Inn?”
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“You want to reopen? You can reopen.”
Quill sighed. “I’d almost rather stay closed for another day or two. Maxwell Kittleburger was a pretty big deal in business. We’re going to be besieged. It’s incredibly disruptive.” She looked at him hopefully. “Unless we can boot the suspects out?”
“I have asked the Barnstaples, the Finnegans, and
Baranga for a second set of interviews,” Provost said
with care. “I’ve suggested that they stick around for
them. Miss Oberlie isn’t planning on going anywhere
soon, apparently. She’s involved with this dog show?”
“It’s this Saturday,” Quill said. “And, shoot, I just remembered that she’s bringing her camera crew in to stay here for the weekend. She’s going to feature the
darn thing on Mind Doesn’t Matter.”
“Televised dog show, huh?” Provost said. “Pure
breeds and such?”
“Pets and such.” Quill glanced at Max, who lay
belly-up on the floor, both paws over his eyes. “Actually, I was thinking of entering Max.”
“Him?” Provost said with unflattering disbelief.
Quill’s tones became frosty. “He’s not beautiful. I do
know that. But he’s very intelligent.”
“You’re saying they have a smartest-dog class?”
“In a way. It’s a class to test how many words your
dog knows.”
“That I’d like to see.”
“You’re welcome to come.”
“I’d better get on home, or I won’t be welcome
there.” Provost got to his feet with a groan. Quill and
Max followed him out the door and she closed it behind
her. “You’re not locking it?”
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Quill flushed. “I know, I know. But nobody locks up
in Hemlock Falls.”
“So that fire door,” he gestured at the door to the fire