Nobody said anything, and Jane reluctantly raised her hand. 'Shelley and I saw him here, after the lunch crowd had left.”
Taylor looked around. 'Anybody else see him later? What was that time, Mrs. Jeffry?'
“One-thirty maybe? We didn't know it was going to matter.'
“All right. So I want a detailed account of everyone's movements from noon until now,' Taylor said. The man was in control, but obviously furious. 'Everybody at separate tables, please. No consulting with each other.”
Liz opened her mouth, glanced at Al, and snapped it back shut.
They sat obediently at their separate tables, writing, thinking, crossing out items, inserting others. John was idly scratching his shin. Al was tapping a pencil against his teeth. Edna was doodling around the margins of the page. Liz asked for a second sheet of paper for her opus.
It took around twenty minutes for everyone to finish the assignment. Taylor collected the papers, then addressed the group again. 'We have people trying to get a temporary bridge in place so that police vehicles can get in and out. But nobody is leaving until I give permission. If you need to let anyone know why you are delayed, you may call from the front desk. Make yourselves comfortable here, because this is where you're staying for a while. The more cooperative and helpful everyone is, the shorter that timewill be. I have my people posted at all the exits from this building.”
Taylor took his pile of papers and left the room.
For a long moment everyone was silent, then several people rose from their isolated positions. Liz rejoined Al, Shelley came back to Jane's table, and Eileen rushed to comfort Marge, who looked like she was on the verge of a complete breakdown. Marge was so pale, Jane feared she was going to pass out. Allison was looking bad, too. She, Edna, and Benson were talking quietly. Benson patted her shoulder, then came to the middle of the room.
“Although my family isn't responsible for what's happened here, I'd like to express our most sincere regrets to all of you,' he said. 'This has turned into the Weekend from Hell for all of us. I just want you to know that I feel certain of what your decision will be about sending your students here for summer camp and that we don't blame you a bit.”
He glanced at his wife, who smiled wanly and nodded.
“That's all, I guess. I'm sorry,' he added, and sat down.
Jane went back to eating her now cold dinner.
The sheriff started calling people out of the room, one at a time. First Marge, who stumbled out like a disoriented ghost, then Eileen. John Claypool was next.
“At this rate, we're really going to be here all night,' Jane said. 'I've never been so homesick. If I start whimpering out loud, slap me out of it, will you?'
“Gladly,' Shelley said. 'Shouldn't we say something polite to Marge?'
“Like what? 'Sorry your husband died — again and by the way, did you kill him'?'
“That might be a little tactless. But if she didn't do it, we're sure going to feel bad later.”
Jane let herself be dragged over to the table where Marge and Eileen were sitting. 'Marge, we're awfully sorry,' Shelley said ambiguously.
“I've been widowed twice in one day,' Marge said in a shaky voice.
They were spared having to respond by Eileen saying, 'When this is sorted out, I'm going to make sure that damned sheriff is taken apart. This is horrible, making Marge sit here this way. She should be in bed. She should be under a doctor's care. The man is a savage.”
She sputtered along in this vein for some minutes. Jane tuned her out. Eileen was right, of course, but Taylor had a bunch of strangers on his patch who were murdering each other. Because he hadn't believed her and Shelley the first time (not that he could be blamed for that), he was naturally determined to get all the facts he could now without any possible conspirators having the opportunity to consult with each other. She could sympathize with him for being angry — probably with himself, certainly with all of the guests.
Bored, and not wanting to talk to anyone else, Jane and Shelley went into the lobby where Benson had mentioned that there was a small library. They selected a couple of illustrated nature books and pretended great interest in them for the next hour.
Everybody was nervous and irritable. There was a lot of aimless pacing, very little conversation, and when a door slammed somewhere in the building, everybody jumped as if it had been a gunshot.
Jane and Shelley were the last ones to be called for their interview — and the only ones to be called in together. Taylor was in a small office near the kitchen that they hadn't seen on their tour. It was apparently where Benson did his bookkeeping and kept office supplies and guest ledgers. The desk was covered with the yellow legal-pad sheets they'd filled out earlier.
“Ladies, I'm going to make a leap of faith with you,' Taylor said. 'I got a call from a' — he rummaged through his notes—'a Detective Mel Van-Dyne, who is apparently a friend of yours you told about finding the first body. He was checking on your welfare, being unable to reach you by phone, and assures me that neither of you could be involved in this. I'm going to have to take his word for that.'
“Thank you — I think,' Jane said.
“Sorry, but I'm past good manners,' Taylor said. 'Now I'd like for you ladies to look over these other accounts and see if there are errors that you know of. Somebody who said they were somewhere you don't believe they were.”
Most of the accounts were brief and vague. Apparently during questioning, Taylor had pinned a few of them down on times a little better because there were notations in the margins.
Not surprisingly, Al Flowers's was the skimpiest. Fie was a man of few words. He'd eaten lunch early, taken a nap, gone for a walk and, true to Liz's con- stant predictions, gotten thoroughly lost, but finally found himself at the far side of the Conference Center. He'd seen his wife walking hard on her heels toward the lodge and deliberately dawdled so he wouldn't catch up with her. He didn't wear a watch and had no idea what time it was then. Maybe
