Gil's relationship with Marge, as yet unacknowledged by either wife or girlfriend, appeared to be the next item on the agenda. Quill, sensing ill will, if not the potential for outright violence, stepped forward to take a hand.
'What is this dreadful noise!' demanded a familiar voice. 'What has happened here? Mavis! Why in the world are you dressed in those wet clothes?' Mrs. Hallenbeck trotted out of the darkness, well-wrapped against the evening air in a plaid Pendleton bathrobe.
'What're you doin' here, Amelia?' asked Mavis sourly.
'If I may remind you, both our rooms overlook this view. The emergency vehicle lights wakened me. I knocked on your door. There was no answer. I deduced that you must be down here. What has happened?'
'Mrs. Hallenbeck.' The authority in her own voice surprised Quill. She would have to practice more. 'I want you and Mavis to come with me. Marge, I think you should check with the sheriff to see if you can go home now.
Nadine, I am so very sorry for your loss.'
'Let's go, Nadine,' said Tom. 'You'll want to ride with... er... to the hospital.'
Nadine glared at Marge. 'The ambulance's waiting on me,' she said. 'I'll leave you to later, Marge Schmidt.'
Marge took herself glumly off. Quill walked Mavis and Mrs. Hallenbeck back to the Inn.
Most of the Inn's guests had crowded into the lobby, and when Quill shepherded the widows in the front door, they volleyed questions. Meg, John, and Doreen were dressed, all three prepared to offer assistance. 'But John said to stay here in case we had to evacuate or save the silver or something,' said Meg. 'What happened?'
Quill explained there'd been a drowning. The orthodontist's wife clutched her youngest offspring, an unprepossessing ten-year-old, and wanted to know if the Inn was all that safe for children. The orthodontist cleared his throat portentiously and said, as a medical man, he'd be glad to help if the accident had anything to do with teeth, gums specifically. Quill, engulfed in waves of tiredness from a second disturbed night's sleep, told everybody to please go to bed, and that breakfast in the morning would be on the house.
Keith Baumer, who'd apparently headed straight for the safety of the Inn's bar, volunteered to take the widows to their rooms. Edward Lancashire offered instead. Mavis, dimpling at them, said, 'I swan!' with what she clearly thought was a delightful giggle. Mrs. Hallenbeck clutched Quill's arm and demanded that Quill see her to her room. 'You must have some tea sent up, my dear, and we can have a nice, long talk.'
'Quill's got an inn to run,' said John. 'I'll take you up, Mrs. Hallenbeck.'
'Absolutely not!' said Mrs. Hallenbeck. 'That is an intolerable suggestion! Quill, you will come up to my room at once.'
'I'm sorry, Mrs. Hallenbeck,' said Quill, 'but I have my responsibilities here.'
Keith Baumer, loud in confused explanations of why he had left the scene of the accident, escorted Mavis and Mrs. Hallenbeck upstairs.
Meg, after a close look at her sister's face, marched her into the kitchen and poured her a double brandy. John and Doreen trailed after them.
'What I don't understand is why the heck it took so long to pull Gil out of the pond,' said Meg. 'It's not that deep.'
'Drink is the opiate of the masses;' said Doreen, apropos of nothing.
'You're mixing up Marx with the Victorians,' said Meg briskly. 'And what do you mean, 'drink'? If this religious stuff you've come back from vacation with is teetotal, you can just forget it. Nobody wants you charging the bar and whacking the boozers with your mop.'
'If Jesus turned water into wine for the Kennedys, then he blesses those that take a nip, on occasion,' said Doreen loftily. She poured a hefty belt from the brandy bottle into a coffee cup. 'What I meant is, those three was down to Croh's after, eatin' at Marge's.'
'Real-ly?' said Meg with interest. 'Probably to help them forget what they'd had for dinner. But were they soused, you think?'
'I saw them,' John volunteered. 'I'd say half the town did. They were knocking them back.'
'You were at Croh's?' said Meg. 'Is that what you do on your nights off? I've never seen you take a drink here, John - not in all the months you've been here.'
'Meg,' warned Quill, 'give it a rest.'
'Eternal rest,' mused Doreen, 'rocked in the Everlasting arms.'
'Poor Gil,' said Meg. 'Better everlasting arms than Nadine, though.'
Quill choked on her brandy, and raised a hand in protest.
'So that shovel just whacked him on the back of the head and those two ladies were too smashed to pull him out of the water,' Meg continued sunnily. 'What a lousy accident.'
'If it was an accident,' said Quill. 'And you didn't actually see it, Meg, so let's not joke about it, okay?'
'What do you mean, 'if it was an accident'?' said John.
'The bolt that attaches the payloader to the support was missing,' said Quill. 'Now, admittedly, that's an old tractor. A fifty-six or fifty-seven, somebody said. And the Petersons don't spend a lot on maintenance. But if it fell out, where was it? I investigated and I didn't find it.'
'You investigated!' hooted Meg. 'I should have sold all your Nancy Drews to Bernie Hofstedder in the sixth grade.'
