'Was that John's recommendation? The private loans?'
'John? He didn't have much to say about it.'
'Does he audit all your books, Tom? You know, for the transport company and your private affairs?'
Tom's face closed up. 'I don't know that that's really any business of yours, Quill. No offense.'
Quill flushed. Great detectives of fiction were never accused of rudeness; she'd have to brush up on her technique. 'I was just thinking of having John do my personal taxes, that's all. Wondered if you found him as good at that as he is at the commercial end.'
Tom frowned. 'Quill, you hired him. You know him better than I do.'
'Just wanted your opinion,' she murmured. She cleared her throat. 'Will you have a new partner now? Did Gil leave key-man insurance, or do you get the whole dealership?'
'Quill, I don't know what game you're playing at. But you don't play it with me. I'm warning you.' He held her eyes for a long minute. Quill gazed coolly back. He turned away from her. 'Time for you to be going down to the Pavilion, isn't it? Wouldn't want to miss the play. Unless you'd rather continue to stick your oar into my personal business.'
The sun was hot, but not hot enough to account for the heat in her face. Quill decided her chief irritation was with Myles, who had failed to clarify the embarrassing pitfalls awaiting inexperienced interrogators. She shoved the recollection of Myles's prohibitions against any kind of detecting firmly out of her mind, waved cheerfully at Nadine, who raised a hand listlessly back, and walked the two blocks to the Pavilion, absorbed in thought.
The open-air Pavilion was ideally situated for the presentation of The Trial of Goody Martin. Thirty wooden benches, seating three to four people each, formed a series of half-circles in front of a bandstand the size of a small theater stage. A forty-foot, three-sided shed had been built in back of the bandstand in 1943 to provide space for changing rooms, sets, small floats for parades, and band instruments. Between the shed and the municipal buildings that housed the town's snowplows, fire engines, and ambulances was an eight-foot- wide gravel path. The path debouched onto the macadam parkway that circled the entire acreage of the park. The action in The Trial of Goody Martin required that the audience sweep along with the actors and props in a path from the duck pond to the bandstand to the bronze statue of General Frederick C.C. Hemlock.
The statue of the man and his horse had been erected in 1868, two hundred years after the founding of the village. Something had gone awry in the casting process, and the General's face had a wrinkled brow and half-open mouth, leaving him with a permanently pained expression as he sat in the saddle. On occasion, roving bands of Cornell students on spring break heaped boxes of hemorrhoid remedies at the statue's base, which sent the mayor into fits. Most years the statue sat detritus-free, except for the six-foot heap of cobblestones piled at the foot and used to crush the witch each year.
The crowd was enormous, the benches jammed. Quill stood at the periphery and scanned the mass of people for Meg and Edward Lancashire.
Esther West jumped up on the lip of the bandstand, and shaded her eyes with her hands. She caught sight of Quill, pointed at her, and waved frantically.
Elmer Henry appeared out of the crush of people and grasped her arm. His face was grim. 'You memorize that Clarissa part?'
Quill's heart sank. 'Why?'
'That Mavis is drunker than a skunk. Esther don't want her to go on.'
'Elmer... I...'
'You're the understudy, aren't you? You got to do this, Quill. For the town.'
'Maybe we can do something,' said Quill weakly. 'A lot of black coffee?' The mayor looked doubtful. 'Come on. She may not be drunk, Elmer; she may just have stage fright. I mean, look at all these people.'
'That's what I'm looking at. All these people. We can't have the Chamber look like a durn fool in front of these folks. Do you know that some have come all the way from Buffalo?'
Quill plowed her way determinedly through the sightseers to the shed at the back of the bandstand, the mayor trailing behind. The shed was seething with a confused mass of costumed players and uniformed high-school band members. Harland Peterson's two huge draft horses, Betsy and Ross, stamped balefully in the comer. The sledge, the barn door, and the band instruments squeezed the space still further.
'Quill! Thank God! Do you see her, that slut?' Esther gestured frantically at Mavis, then clutched both Quill and a copy of the script in frantic hands. Sweat trickled down her neck. Mavis, blotto, swayed ominously in the arms of Keith Baumer. Her face was red, her smile beatific. Esther shrieked, 'Can you believe it? Here's the script. You've got ten minutes until we're on.'
Surrounded by Mrs. Hallenbeck, Betty Hall, Marge Schmidt, and Harvey Bozzel, Mavis caught sight of Quill and caroled, 'Coo-ee!'
'Coo-ee to you, too,' said Quill. 'Esther, I can fix this. I need a bucket of ice, a couple of towels, and Meg and her picnic basket.'
The ice arrived before Meg. Quill ruthlessly dropped it down Mavis' dress, front and back. Someone handed her a towel. She made an ice pack and held it to the back of the wriggling Mavis' neck.
Meg and Edward Lancashire joined them a few moments later. 'Oh, God,' said Meg. 'Will you look at her?'
'You've got your picnic basket?' Quill asked through clenched teeth.
'Sure.'
'You have those Scotch Bonnet peppers for that salsa?'
A huge grin spread over Meg's face. 'Yep.'
'You have your special killer-coffee?'
'Uh-huh.'
