'Why don't we just go ahead and have it outside if they've already gotten started?” Gideon suggested. “We don't have to make a big deal out of it. There's nothing that says we have to call it a picnic or a memorial or anything else.'
'Fine!” Miranda said. “Excellent idea. I'll settle for that.'
'Simply an alfresco dinner,” Leland said. “A picnic. That sounds like a reasonable compromise to me.'
It did to the others, too, and the matter was settled.
'Well, I'll be there,” Nellie said to Gideon as they got up to leave, “but I can't say I'm looking forward to it. I'm afraid it's going to be an awfully gloomy affair.'
[Back to Table of Contents]
CHAPTER 20
* * * *
But Nellie turned out to be wrong. Although it was true that the general level of hilarity wasn't up to that of previous years’ Weenie Roasts, Singalongs, and Chugalug Contests, there was an unmistakable crackle of lively interest in the air as people gathered in the cookout area near the crumbling, weedy tennis courts at seven o'clock. Even the qualmish presence of Farrell Honeyman, who had come to confer with John and had been induced to stay for the cookout, failed to dim the sparkle. The eyes of the younger members, in particular, returned again and again to the faces of the Founding Members, not so much with outright suspicion as with a kind of curious and speculative relish.
Julie, John, and Gideon, off to one side, surveyed the scene from the small rise on which the tennis courts were set. Below them the line at the barbecue pit, which Honeyman had just gone to join, was beginning to shorten as people got their steaks and found seats.
'Well, look at the bright side,” Julie said. “You're not going to have any trouble getting a big registration for the 1993 conference.'
Gideon smiled. “Wouldn't you love to have a booth selling buttons and T-shirts? ‘I survived 1991.’ You could make a fortune.'
He turned to John, who was looking glum. “No progress?'
John shook his head and sipped beer from a bottle. “Anything from the fingerprint people?'
'What can they tell us? There aren't any fingerprints on the weapon, and finding prints on anything else doesn't prove a thing. Everybody and his grandmother was in there playing poker Monday night.'
'Everybody but Frieda,” Julie said.
'Wrong,” John said. “She came in to drag Nellie out of there at about two in the morning, so she's got an excuse for her prints being there too. Oh, one thing: we pinned down the time of death a little closer. Now it looks like Harlow bought it somewhere between four and five o'clock Wednesday afternoon.'
'How did you come up with that?” Gideon asked.
'One of the employees, the kid who brought around the towels.” He gestured with the bottle at a tall, skinny boy with a turned-around baseball cap, one of three people who were working at the barbecue pit and who was at that moment serving Honeyman his steak. “Him. He was there a couple of minutes before five, and the do-not- disturb sign was hanging on the door. I figure that's got to mean Harlow was already dead, don't you? I mean, why would Harlow put the sign out? He wouldn't know anybody was coming around with towels.'
Gideon nodded. “True.'
'The employee,” Julie said. “Did he see anything?” “Nah, just the sign. He couldn't see anything through the window. Come on, they're starting to run out of steaks over there.'
They walked to the stone barbecue pit and got utensils and plastic plates from a table alongside it.
'Why couldn't he see anything through the window?” Gideon asked. “I could see through the window.'
'Weil, there were those flowers right in front of it. They made it hard to look in.'
'But I looked in. I saw Harlow.'
John shrugged as he helped himself to a roll. “I guess he didn't look as hard as you.'
'Were those his exact words? He couldn't see anything?'
'Look—'John lowered his voice; they were approaching the boy. “This is not a particularly swift kid, you know? Words are not his thing. But go ahead and ask him, if it's worrying you.'
'It's not worrying me. I was just wondering.'
John had reached the boy, who was standing at the ready, tongs in hand, having just served Julie. “How're you doing, Vinnie? Let me have that one on the side there.'
'It's pretty well-done.'
'Great, that's the way I like ‘em.” He held out his plate. “And my associate here has something he wants to ask you.'
What he really wanted to ask him, Gideon thought, was why so many kids walked around with their baseball caps on backward, a fashion that had mystified him since the first time he'd seen it. Instead he said: “I understand you're the one who left the linens at Cottage 18.'
The boy regarded him suspiciously.
'I understand you said you couldn't see anything through the window.'
