'Anything else?'
'Well - ' Quill blinked at him. 'Shoes... stockings... and, um, underwear?'
'Thank you. Please leave the library without speaking to anyone out there. Except to tell your sister that she's next.'
'That's all?' Quill rose to her feet. 'Yes, ma'am.'
'Do you think you could interview Mrs. Hallenbeck next, Davey? It's been a long day for her, and she's had quite a shock.'
Davey's eyebrows drew together; an obdurate state official following an inflexible routine. 'Myles told me to do these interviews of the people who actually knew Ms. Collin wood in this exact order. Mrs. Hallenbeck's at the bottom, right before the people who were next to the stage.'
'Why isn't he interviewing the people who piled rocks on the barn door?' asked Quill, exasperated.
'I don't know, ma'am. Just doing my job.'
'You'll be doing your job a lot better if you let me get that little old lady back up to the Inn so she can recover from the shock,' said Quill with asperity. 'I'm sure Myles would want you to see to the needs of the elderly.'
'He did tell me to make sure she was comfortable. I got her a glass of water. And a cookie.' Davey slowly erased a line from the bottom half of his notebook and laboriously wrote at the top. 'I'll see her right after your sister and Mr. Lancashire.'
'Would you tell Meg and Mrs. Hallenbeck that I'll wait for them outside?'
'Yes, ma'am. And you're not supposed - '
'To tell anyone you belted me with a rubber hose to extract important information.'
Quill walked outside and sat on the steps of the library. Across the green lawn of the park four lines of tourists stood restlessly in the July heat. Myles had assigned uniformed officers to take the names and addresses of members of the audience. Others patrolled the lines, seeing that the elderly had a place to sit in the shade, and taking little kids to the Porta-Johns. Quill figured the interview took about three minutes, minus the demands she'd made of Davey, and did some calculations on her fingers. At eighty people an hour, it'd be several hours before she could ask Myles what the heck was going on.
Meg bounced out the library door. 'Edward will be out in a minute,' she said. 'I told him we'd wait for him. What do you suppose that clothes stuff was all about?' she continued, coming down the steps to sit at Quill's side. 'I mean, who cares what she was wearing? Does Myles ask people in a car crash if the driver was wearing designer jeans, or what?'
Quill, who had been wondering the same thing herself, let out a gasp.
'Well?' Meg demanded.
'The hood.'
'The hood?'
'The hood. Meg, somebody put the hood on Mavis. She was never supposed to wear the hood. She was supposed to ride on the sledge to the back of the stage, jump off, put the dummy in her place, and stroll on out to watch the rest of the fun and games. But Harland came stomping out complaining that she'd thrown up allover his shoes, and then Harvey said he'd drive the sledge. Mavis could have passed out on the sledge, which would account for the fact that she was there instead of the dummy, but she had no reason to put on the hood.'
'Wow,' said Meg. 'Oh, wow. Murder. Oh, my God. Who did it?'
'How should I know?' demanded Quill. She watched the sheriff's patrol across the green. 'All kinds of people had motives to murder Mavis.'
'Who?'
'Who? I'll tell you who.' Quill, upset, couldn't think of anyone but John and Tom Peterson. But they had wanted Gil dead, hadn't they? Or had they? 'Celeste Baumer for one.'
'I thought she went back to Manhattan after Myles let her out of jail.'
'Maybe she didn't. Maybe she stayed here, lurking until an opportunity presented itself.'
'Dressed like she was, she'd stick out a mile. Who else?' Meg's eyebrows shot up. 'I know! Mrs. Hallenbeck!'
'Why? She's out a companion, and I really doubt she'd find it easy to get another one. She's terrified of being alone. Not to mention the fact,' Quill added sarcastically, 'that she's eighty-three years old and more than likely a grandmother six times over.'
'The Grandmother Murders,' said Meg. 'I like it.'
'Now Keith Baumer - there's a murderer for you.'
'Too obvious,' said Meg. 'I mean, he was the one who lifted the heavy stone onto her.'
'Not if he wanted to divert suspicion from himself.' Quill locked her hands around her knees. She could see Myles's broad shoulders in the distance. 'Maybe Mavis was pressuring him to marry her, or something.'
'I wish John would get back,' said Meg, who obviously wanted to avoid a serious discussion as Quill did. 'This is a mess. Do you suppose they'll cancel the rest of History Days?'
'I don't know.' Quill rubbed her hands over her face. 'Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe it was an accident. Mavis was so drunk, she could have put the hood on as a joke or something, and then passed out on the sledge.'
'Myles will take care of it.' Meg sat up and brushed the seat of her jeans briskly. 'Let's walk over and ask him what's going on.'
