years. Mavis was that shocked when she met him here at your Inn.' Marge looked around the table. 'So what we figure is, John had himself a real good motive to get rid of both of them, Mavis and Gil.'
Quill left them sitting there without a word.
-10-
Quill wanted a place with no phones, no people, and no problems. When being nibbled to death by ducks, she thought, the best thing to do is leave the pond. Meg was the sort of person who'd mince the ducks into pate, and not for the first time, Quill envied her sister's direct, assertive approach. For Meg, all odds were surmountable.
Even murder. She left the Inn and walked to the gazebo in the perennial garden. Evening was coming on like high tide on a still night, the purple-blue darkness flowing over the Falls' ridge to touch the crescent moon. The dark hid the colors of the roses, but their scent recalled their names, and their names their sturdy beauty - Maidens' Blush at its peak; the damasks Celsiana and La Ville de Bruxelles in full bloom; the hybrid teas Tiffany and Crimson Glory a constant undernote, as they had been all summer. Quill's hand flexed as though it held a paint brush. She sat in the gazebo and let pictures of new paintings drift through her mind's eye. The heart of a Chrysler Imperial rose would make a wonderful painting - a man-made rose with a man-made shape at odds with the essential nature of flowers. It would give the painting an energetic irony. And the color - an aggressive, insulting, dangerous red.
Like blood seeping from under a barn door.
'Ugh!' said Quill into the dark. She asked herself the logical question: Who wanted Mavis dead? She shut her eyes and thought about the scene of the crime as a painting. The bandstand with the three witnesses - Howie, Elmer, and Tom Peterson; Dookie, in the judge's seat, the crowd immediately in front of the bandstand.
Who in this picture had the opportunity to kill? Baumer had been standing extreme stage left. If he'd looked over his right shoulder, he would have seen the sledge stop and Harland dismount. He could have waited until Harland stomped around stage right to accost Howie and tell him he wasn't going to drive anymore.
Did Baumer take the chance to pull the hood over Mavis' slack mouth and dulled eyes?
Tom Peterson had been standing at Baumer's elbow after he moved off-stage. The two men hadn't known each other, and hadn't spoken together, at least not in the replay Quill saw before her. Tom, too, could have ducked around the stage and gone into the semidarkness of the shed. Except that Quill could find no link between Tom and Mavis. And Mavis had been the target of the murderer, who had succeeded the second time, after failing the first.
Harvey Bozzel had jumped from the stage to the rescue like some half-baked Dudley Do-Right. The crowd had surged forward when Harvey made his dramatic gesture, and Baumer and Tom Peterson had disappeared in the melee.
Quill concentrated hard: Mrs. Hallenbeck, Nadine Gilmeister, Marge Schmidt, Meg, and Edward Lancashire had all been shoved back as the crowd moved forward.
There was herself, of course, sitting on a bench with two teenaged girls who'd been restless during the trial scene, and able, in the confusion, to walk away unnoticed. 'And I sure as heck didn't do it,' said Quill aloud.
So all of them had been close enough to slip around the bandstand and assist Mavis Collinwood down the gravel path to death at the foot of General Hemlock.
Who had been at the scene of both crimes? Tom Peterson, Nadine, Mrs. Hallenbeck, and Edward Lancashire had all been in the vicinity, but Marge and Baumer were the only two who'd been there at the time of both killings. Unless one of the others had returned to the scene.
Mrs. Hallenbeck certainly wanted Mavis alive; 'Old age is lonely,' she'd said. 'You have no idea how lonely. And Mavis is a warm body in the house. She's nowhere to go, but to me. Do you know how hard it is to find a healthy, reasonably responsible person to take care of me?'
It was conceivable that Mrs. Hallenbeck had accomplished the murder, but there was no motive. Quite the reverse. Did Tom Peterson want Mavis and Gil dead? Had he tried three times to kill her? She knew the car business was in trouble. Had Mavis and Marge offered to buy Tom out, using Mrs. Hallenbeck's money? Was there a reason that Tom couldn't/wouldn't sell? He said he'd been home watching a videotape the night Gil died, and his wife was gone for the evening. His house was the only residence even close to the park; he could have watched the three of them mooching around in the park; he could have slipped out, loosened the bolt, watched Gil's death, and taken the bolt with him. He'd have been back home in less than ten minutes.
What was the motive? Tom would have wanted Mavis alive, and able to buy Gil out.
What about Nadine? Quill thought long and seriously about Nadine. It didn't fit. In almost any other marriage, jealousy would have been a dandy motive. But it would have been Marge, not Mavis, who Nadine would have wanted out of the way. Besides, Nadine had been shopping in Syracuse with her sister the night of the ducking-stool incident. Her parking validation from the Mall had the time on it; she couldn't have physically been there in time to do the first murder.
And finally, Edward Lancashire. Quill could see no reason why the food critic for L'Aperitif would want to kill Mavis Collinwood. But he had the opportunity. And he'd been asking a lot of questions.
Marge was a most attractive candidate for both murders. Quill scrupulously cleared her mind of prejudice. You didn't pursue a potential murderer because the potential murderer called your sister Megia Borgia, and threatened you and yours with polyester-suited employees from the Board of Health. You investigated reasons why persons of such lousy taste 'o would hate the victim.
'One,' said Quill to the Sutter's Gold rosebush at her elbow. 'Marge and Mavis worked together at Doggone Good Dogs. Marge claims Mavis told her three hundred thousand dollars was missing. And that John took it. What if Marge had taken it? And what if Mavis found out?' Everyone in town wondered why Marge did so well out of that little diner. She'd lent money to Gil more than once. Even Esther West had once confided to Quill that in times when the banks clamped down on lending, Marge was a good, if usuriously inclined, source of cash. Marge's behavior was definitely suspicious. She loved Gil -or did she? Gil owed her money. Her activities and motives both would have to investigated. Maybe Marge had been after Mavis all along. Gil could have hopped on that ducking stool before Marge could stop him. Quill shuddered at the thought of Marge screaming No! as Gil went drunkenly to his death.
Quill began to feel better. She was getting that l'm-really- good-at-managing-people feeling so often rebutted by the skepticism of her nearest and dearest. She jumped up and moved briskly along the gravel path, hands clasped behind her in the best Sherlock Holmes tradition.
Baumer. Another prime candidate. Quill pulled at her lower lip. She'd read with great interest various books on the personalities of murderers. Motive was frequently rooted in the character of the killers; given a variety of
