' 'Giddyap' twice means faster,' Harland said in a normal tone of voice. 'Never knowed you was such a durn fool, Harvey.'
The band broke into the strains of Gounod's Funeral March and the procession moved down the path to General Hemlock without further incident.
Quill wondered if she should check on Mavis. If she'd gotten sick to her stomach, she was going to feel a lot better, and she might want to see the conclusion of the play. On the other hand, Mavis sober was probably meaner than Mavis drunk, and she had taken grave exception to the dose of fiery pepper. Quill decided guiltily to spare herself the experience.
She strolled on down to the statue, behind the crowd. Howie demanded the laying on of the barn door, while Dookie and Elmer beat a slow and solemn rhythm on a large drum. The dummy, indefinably lifelike, sprawled in the straw. The sacklike hood had been drawn tightly around the high neck of the dress.
She heard the thunk of stone on wood, and the final prayers of the 'judges' condemning the witch's soul to hell.
The crowd usually entered into the spirit of the thing, and so it was with no surprise that Quill saw Keith Baumer heave a stone weighing a good hundred pounds onto the stones already piled high, to shouts of Go!Go!Go! from the crowd.
She saw the stage blood seeping from under the wooden planks.
It was the smell that alerted Quill: the coppery, unmistakable scent of blood-mixed with worse odors. The crowd quieted, then stirred uneasily, like water snakes in a still pond.
The dummy's hand stiffened, convulsed. The nails turned blue.
For a few terrible moments, Quill saw nothing else at all.
-9-
'Squashed flatter than a bug on a windshield,' said Marge, awed.
Myles had taken immediate control, separating those townspeople and Inn guests nearest the stage from the audience at large and sending them to the Village Library. Davey Kiddermeister escorted them to the ground floor, then set up a methodical interview system. One by one, each of the group was called and disappeared into the librarian's office behind the checkout desk.
Pale and sweaty, Keith Baumer paced to the front window and looked out at the Pavilion, where Myles was getting names and addresses from the out-of-towners. 'Are we gonna put up with this? Who does that damn fool think he is?' He borrowed a cigarette from Harland Peterson and lit it with shaking hands. 'He's going to hear from me on this one. I know people.'
Mrs. Hallenbeck coughed and waved her hand elaborately in front of her face.
'You can't smoke in here,' Esther West said. Baumer stubbed out the cigarette with an angry glare. 'Murchison, you know about these things. What are our rights here?'
'I practice family law, Baumer,' said Howie dryly. 'Probate, real estate. I'm not much on problems like these.'
'It wasn't anybody's fault.'
'That rock you heisted onto the shed door was a hundred pounds if it was twenty,' said Harland Peterson brutally. 'I'd say it was your fault.'
'But you have to have knowledge beforehand,' said Baumer. I had no Idea she was there. You people all piled the rocks along with me. If there's criminal negligence here, we're all in it together. I'd like to retain you as counsel, Murchison, until my own lawyer gets here from New York.'
' 'Fraid I can't help you,' said Howie. Quill wondered at the sudden drop in Baumer's buffoonish fa‡ade; he was pretty quick to stand on his rights. Had he been in trouble before?
Tom Peterson came out from the librarian's office. 'He wants to see you next, Quill:' He looked at the assembly. 'Don't worry everybody, Deputy Davey's keeping it short.'
Elmer stopped Quill as she headed to the office. 'Emergency meeting at the Lounge tonight, Quill? Chamber's got to discuss this.'
Quill nodded her agreement and went into the librarian's office.
Davey sat at Miriam Doncaster's desk, his black notebook an incongruous official object among the china ducks, geese, and dogs that the librarian collected. 'Will you sit down, please, Ms. Quilliam?'
Quill sat in the straight chair in front of the desk and folded her hands in her lap.
'Your name and home address, please, and don't tell me I already know it like Tom Peterson just did, because I have to go through this exactly the same way with everybody, or Myles'll have my head on a platter, like that poor fella that messed with the stripper.'
Quill took a moment to sort this out. Davey was a faithful member of Dookie's church. He must mean John the Baptist.
'Sarah Quilliam, the Hemlock Falls Inn, Four Hemlock Road, Hemlock Falls,' she said. 'My zip code...'
'Don't need no zip code.' Breathing through his mouth, Davey peered at the notebook. 'May I see your driver's license, please?' Quill fished in her purse and handed it over. Davey made a check mark in his notebook without looking at it, and handed it back. 'Did you know the name of the deceased?' he read aloud.
'Mavis Collinwood.'
'Do you remember what she was wearing when she left the stage on the sledge? Before Harland pulled her around to the back?'
'A long, black cotton gown. A white ruff around her neck. A black cloth cap tied with strings under her chin.'
