a patient who's been unconscious has to stay twenty-four hours for observation. Them's the rules.' He hung her chart at the foot of her bed. 'Why don't you settle down and go to sleep? We'll be right outside, in the hall.'
'So you can discuss who dunnit without me? Not on your life.' She sat up in bed. Quill folded one of the pillows in half and stuck it behind her back.
'You did not,' Meg informed her, 'save my life.'
'No,' Quill said. 'But I thought I did at the time.'
Meg squeezed her hand. 'Were you scared?'
'I was scared.' Quill squeezed back. 'Not on your account. The paramedics were, guess who?'
'Not Maureen and Doyle?'
'Who else? Maureen's tickled pink. Guaranteed this woman will never ever eat in our dining room, but this is the most attention the Department of Health has paid her in years.
She loves us. Oliver kept making noises about how this call interrupted him and his girl friend and giving me hopeful looks as we passed the Croh Bar.'
'It was the volunteer firemen you sent to the Croh Bar,' said Meg. 'You gave the volunteer ambulance a straight donation.' She yawned. Quill glanced at Andy, who smiled reassuringly.
'Quill, Myles. You know the thing that strikes me about these murders?'
'What?' Myles sat calmly in a green plastic chair near the open window, his arms folded across his chest.
'That they were so inept.'
'Yes. There'd be no guarantee that the front loader would actually kill Mavis. The Pavilion was jammed with four hundred people, anyone of whom could have noticed a live body on the sledge before the barn door was lowered on to her.'
'And the balcony.'
'Yes. If Mavis had gone over, she would have landed in I five feet of water. Enough to break her fall, not enough to drown her.'
'So you agree with me.' Meg yawned again, hugely. 'And as for me, that Seconal wasn't enough to stun a pig, much less Mad Margaret.' Her eyelids drooped.
Myles smiled a little at Quill. 'Mad Margaret?'
'We were Gilbert and Sullivan fans as kids. You know Mad Margaret.'
He nodded. 'From Ruddigore.'
'Myles?' Meg forced her eyes open. 'I'm not going to sleep until you tell me I was right. About who dunnit.'
'You were right, Meg.' Myles got up and drew the pillow from behind her back.
'Meg was right!' demanded Quill. 'What do you mean? Who is it? I thought that I was doing the investigation!'
Meg slid down flat on the bed. She smiled seraphically at Quill. 'Mrs. Hallenbeck, stupid.' She closed her eyes and was almost instantly asleep.
'Mrs. Hallenbeck?' said Quill stupidly. 'You said that just so she'd shut up and get some rest, didn't you?'
'Let's go out in the hall,' said Andy.
They left the hospital room and went into the corridor. Quill could see the front lobby from where they stood. Mrs. Hallenbeck, who'd insisted on calling a taxi and accompanying Quill to the hospital, sat upright in one of the green plastic chairs. She was reading a magazine. From this distance, Quill couldn't tell what it was.
Myles leaned against the wall and regarded the elegant figure. 'Meg's right.'
'You're telling me that an eighty-three-year-old widow who's richer than all of us put together killed Gil and Mavis Collinwood?'
'She's got it right on the third try,' said Myles. 'And she's not richer than all of us put together. She's living on the three hundred thousand dollars she took from Mavis, who basically stole it from her in the first place.'
'You mean because she was part owner of Doggone Good Dogs?'
'No. Because Mrs. Hallenbeck was ripping the company off by selling inferior quality meat to third-world countries. Mavis started her blackmail routine with the couriers, first Jack Peterson, and then, when he was killed, Tom Peterson; she had no idea what she was up against. When the couriers reported Mavis' attempts at blackmail to our lethal widow, Mavis didn't have a chance. Mrs. Hallenbeck swooped in, took the money, and convinced her she'd be jailed for blackmail. The two of them had a brief career bilking various hostelries across the country of insurance monies. That was confirmed this afternoon, too.'
'I don't get it,' said Quill. 'What about the money from the black market sales?'
'Leslie Hallenbeck made restitution before he killed him- self. Eddie thinks he knew his wife was involved, and so do I. We talked to John this afternoon, and he helped us confirm it. Hallenbeck didn't have much of an alternative. He couldn't turn his wife of sixty years into the police. But he could give their personal fortune to the parents and relatives of the people who died after eating that meat. And he could take his own life. Which he did.'
'But none of this is a reason for her to kill Mavis. They're all reasons for her to keep Mavis alive,' said Quill.
'Oh, she needed Mavis to take care of her. But she found a replacement. And when Mrs. Hallenbeck wanted something, she didn't let much stand in her way.'
