'Oh, no. No, Myles. No.'
'Let's go into this examining room,' said Andy. He craned his neck; the elderly figure was still there. 'She'll wait for you.'
Quill walked blindly into the examining room, Andy and Myles behind her. Myles leaned against the wall with a sigh. 'There were three things that stood in Mrs. Hallenbeck's way to having you substitute for Mavis. Mavis herself, the Inn, and the two people you most cared for, John and Meg. That first night, she summoned Tom Peterson to her room. We don't know what they discussed, but we can guess that it had something to do with the shipments. Peterson left the matchbook there. It's funny about nervous habits. At any rate, after he left, Mrs. Hallenbeck made her first attempt at murder. I had my suspicions then.'
'You didn't say anything to me,' Quill said indignantly.
'You noticed the scratches on Mrs. Hallenbeck's cheek? She sent Mavis down to find sulfuric acid in the storeroom. John saw her near the kitchen, remember? Mavis poured it around the wrought-iron balustrade. But when the time came to stage the accident, Mrs. Hallenbeck pushed her. Eighty-three's pretty frail, and that ended the first unsuccessful attempt.'
'But why didn't Mavis say something?' Quill demanded.
'Because Mrs. Hallenbeck could send her to jail. She knew all about Mavis' blackmail schemes. And Mrs. Hallenbeck was right, you know. Mavis was a stupid woman.
'The second attempt you know about. Motive's the most important thing in a murder investigation, Quill - even more than the facts. You were right again - Baumer, Tom Peterson, and Marge all had the opportunity to remove that bolt from the front loader, but their motives were nowhere near strong enough. Mavis was a petty thief, and a small-time blackmailer. Mrs. Hallenbeck herself would have been a more likely candidate for murder. Baumer denies Mavis was blackmailing him - but I have a strong hunch she summoned him here, just like she contacted John. Baumer makes enough money so that the two or three hundred dollars a month Mavis demanded wouldn't have proven a strong enough motive to kill. And Marge is just plain too smart to have made an attempt that wasn't one hundred per cent sure. Now, if Marge decided to commit murder, I wouldn't bet on my being able to prove it, but I'd bet a lot on the surety of the victim's demise.
'Mrs. Hallenbeck did get Mavis, of course. The day of the play, Mavis walked from the Inn to the Pavilion with Mrs. Hallenbeck. They'd been in their room drinking mint juleps. Mavis', of course, were laced with the Seconal Mrs. Hallenbeck takes to sleep.'
'She said she never takes drugs,' said Quill.
'She's a pretty good liar. Consistent, and with an excellent memory ,' said Myles.
'I checked the prescription register,' said Andy. 'She's had a refillable prescription for years.'
'The barn door. Why did Tom Peterson try to bum the barn door? When Harvey told me that, I was sure...'
'Edward planted that idea, when the four of you were walking back to the Inn the day of the murder. Guilt's an odd thing, Quill. There could be all sorts of logical explanations about why a shred of clothing was caught on a splinter. But Mrs. Hallenbeck wanted no clues. So she ordered Peterson to burn it.
'So Mavis' death took care of obstacle number one,' Myles continued. 'Obstacle two was the Inn itself. You leave your guest register out for everyone to see far too often, Quill. She noticed it the morning they checked in. She always gets up early to walk every day. Saturday morning, she got up, took the register, and had time to make enough phone calls to clear the Inn's business for the rest of the summer.'
'But a man claiming he was John Raintree made those calls,' said Quill.
'You didn't listen carefully to what Dina said, or question your agents closely. Each of the guests who received the call got a message from someone calling on behalf of John Raintree. I checked with several of them, and each confirmed it'd been an elderly woman.'
'I thought it was Baumer. I was sure.'
'Nope. Although you'd given him enough reasons to do it by that time. Then Doreen's latest craze provided another opportunity to wreck the business; Mrs. Hallenbeck got a note shoved under her door, too, of course. All the guests did. And each of the notes listed the 1-800-PRAY toll-free line. Mrs. Hallenbeck called that one right from the fun. You'll find it in the telephone records.'
'And John?'
'She planted the bolt and the Seconal in his room, once you explained to her that this was the evidence the police needed.'
'Ouch,' said Quill.
'And of course, she knew about Meg's private stock of coffee. While she was waiting in the kitchen for you to show up for tea, she dosed the spring water.'
'And Meg figured it out?'
'It was Meg who pointed out that Mrs. Hallenbeck had fixated on you,' said Andy Bishop. 'And she, of course, found the attempts at destruction both clumsy and ineffectual. The work not only of a rank amateur, but of the kind of pathology that may come with great age.'
'You can't tell me that she's senile. Or has Alzheimer's,' said Quill.
'No,' said Andy. 'We don't really understand what age does to the individual, Quill. But there's sufficient research to establish that in some kinds of personalities, age strips away the normal inhibitors to sociopathic behaviors. Mrs. Hallenbeck was undoubtedly as autocratic and self-focused in her youth as she is now; she just doesn't have the barriers to acting out that she had while young.'
Quill took a moment to absorb this. 'What's going to happen?'
'Eighty-three's pretty old for a trial,' said Myles. 'And our hard evidence is slim to nonexistent. We have the bolt, which has been wiped clean of fingerprints, but the chain of evidence has been broken. We can't establish for certain that it was in her possession, or even that she was at the park. We have a better chance with the Seconal; she's refilled the prescription a sufficient number of times to have the quantities on hand needed to drug Mavis and
