and federal office Quill had ever seen: battleship-gray, incredibly heavy, with tarnished strips of chrome along the desk top edge. She sat behind the larger one, in the black Naugahyde chair that still, she thought, held a faint scent of Myles McHale. Frank Dorset balanced one buttock on the edge of this desk and leaned into her face. She pushed her feet along the floor and edged back, hitting the green-painted wall. Dave Kiddermeister sat at the adjacent desk, holding a small tape recorder.
'You want to go over this again?' Dorset asked. His voice was calm. Silky.
Davy cleared his throat. 'She might better wait for Mr. Murchison, Sheriff.'
Dorset twisted his head over his shoulder, so that Quill couldn't see his face. 'Your shift about up, Deputy?'
'Nossir.' Quill could hear both embarrassment and determination in his tones. 'I mean, yessir, it is, but I should prob'ly stay here. You might need a wit - '
Dorset interrupted like a knife shaving beef. 'That wasn't a question.'
'Sir?'
'I said get your ass out of here.'
Quill, who recognized that she was too mad to be scared, said, 'I'll be fine, Davy. Don't worry about a thing.'
'Thing,' Dorset repeated softly. 'Not a thing.' He said loudly, 'Deputy!'
Quill jumped.
Davy shuffled reluctantly to his feet. 'Leave the recorder, son.'
Davy put the tape recorder near Quill's left hand, then shrugged himself into his anorak. 'I'll be around, Sheriff. Just down the street at the Croh Bar.'
Dorset grunted. The clock on the wall filled the silence with a soft and steady tick-tick-tick. She heard Davy close the outside door, then the crunch of his feet in the snow in the parking lot. His car door slammed. The engine turned over. He drove out of the lot and out of hearing.
Dorset leaned close. He smelled like peppermint toothpaste, sour sweat, and damp wool. 'Ms. Quilliam? One more time. When did you last see Nora Cahill?'
'Right here. About twelve-fifteen this afternoon.'
'She got back to the Inn around five-thirty this evening.'
'Well, I didn't see her,' said Quill.
'I can spit from one end of that place to the other. And you didn't see her? Not once? All evening?'
'It was a busy night, Sheriff. In case you hadn't noticed, we've got a full house.'
'Huh.'
He was so close she could see flecks of red on his canine teeth.
'Did you have pizza for dinner?'
His right hand came up, palm out. He shoved it into her left shoulder so hard that she spun and smacked her cheek against the wall. He grabbed the teal scarf at her throat, twisted it, and pulled her forward. 'You listen,' he hissed, 'to me. You get that? You listen' - he whipped the scarf back and forth, pulling her from side to side - 'to me! Are you listening?'
'Yes,' Quill said calmly. 'I'm listening.'
He released the scarf with a swift, upward movement that jerked her chin backward. 'I want you to sit there. Sit right there.' He swung himself off the desk and turned his back. He whipped around so suddenly that she jumped. 'You sitting? You sitting just nice and quiet, like?'
Quill nodded. It was an effort to keep her face still. She wanted to gasp for air. She took slow, shallow breaths through her nose. She felt as if she were suffocating.
'Good.'
The tall metal cabinet was padlocked. Dorset pulled his ring of keys from his belt and opened it, and took out a small, hand-held videocassette viewer from the top shelf. He began to hum in a high nasal whine, an insinuating, minor-keyed tune that Quill had never heard before. He set the viewer on the desk, then scrabbled inside the cabinet for a tape. He turned, shoved the cassette into the viewer, and plugged the cord into an outlet on the wall. He swayed a little as he moved, humming.
Quill took a long, quiet breath. He whipped his head around. 'You sitting? Nice and calm, like? You little, little thing.' He leaned across the desk, shoving his face against her cheek. He whispered, 'Watch. This.' Holding his head against her, he reached out and turned the viewer on.
The tape was black-and-white. Flickering. Grainy. The tape from the hidden camera. The LED flashed the date and 09:15,09:16,09:17. P.M. P.M. P.M.
The remote switched on, triggered by the approach of a car headed west on main. The car slowed, stopped, the headlights casting a dim field across the snowy street. Someone opened the driver's door and got out. Nora Cahill, her sharp nose prominent for a moment, bent down in front of the headlights to knock the snow from her boots.
A second figure emerged from the darkness. Tall. Slender. Wearing a long down coat and a round fur hat.
My God, thought Quill. She knew that coat. And that hat. And she hadn't been able to find them half an hour ago.
There was a pause in the tape. Quill strained her eyes. The other person, the one who was not Nora - the one, thought Quill, who is not me! Not me! - pulled an envelope from the depths of the coat and handed it to Nora.
