Murder Well-Done (22 page)

Evan Blight himself - womanless - cried, "on, men, on! Remember Romulus! Forward, in the name of Romulus. Lance UP! UP! UP!"
Meg and Quill shoved themselves against the wall. Marge and the rest if the bridge party beat a prudent retreat into the conference room, to reemerge as the sounds of the raid faded on the nighttime air.
"They left the back door open," Marge observed.
"I'll get it." Meg walked down the hall, turned around, walked back, and said crossly, `You didn't see Any with those idiots?"
"They weren't carrying any lances," Tutti observed after a moment.
"Heck, no," said Marge. "The `Lances UP!' part of this is pret' obvious. But who's this Romulus guy?"
"Um," said Quill. "The Sabines. He needed wives for his troops." She went to the west door, opened it, and peered out. "It's turned into a snowball fight." She paused. "And the women are winning."
Myles was late. Quill stood at the French doors to her balcony and watched the clearing sky. The storm left a swathe of tatterdemalion clouds. Stars emerged through the misty remnants like lilies floating up from the bottom of a pond. A chilly breeze sprang up. The moon came out. And Quill waited, a cup of coffee in her hand, until she heard him at the door.
-10-
Sunlight crept across the lace coverlet Quill's grandmother had brought from England almost a century ago. The fabric lay in folds at the foot of the bed, and the sunshine threw the rose design into sharp relief. The years had aged the lace from white to cream. Quill, propped against the pillows, thought about how the lace had traveled for over ninety years, to end up here, covering her bed.
She was facing the large mullioned window that kept her bedroom light and airy, even in the depths of winter. The glass was old, perhaps even older than the lace, and her view of the snowy fields outside was distorted, wavy, as though she were underwater.
Myles walked in carrying a tray of coffee and fresh brioche. A pink rose nodded at her from a crystal vase, and the scent of the flower mingled with the odor of fresh yeast.
"Wow." She smiled at him. "You didn't go downstairs dressed like that?"
"Undressed like this?" He grinned. "The bread and the rose were outside the door. Doreen must have left it for you. Or Meg."
"How late is it?" asked Quill. She accepted a cup of coffee and held it steady as he climbed back in beside her.
"Ten o'clock."
"Oh, dear. I should get downstairs. The florist from Ithaca is bringing the flowers in this morning and they're going to decorate for the wedding. Meg's going to be all wrapped up in the kitchen. And John hates doing that stuff."
She set her coffee on the nightstand and stretched, then turned and burrowed into Myles's shoulder. "Well. Here we are again."
His hand, large and warm, smoothed her hair. "I wouldn't have given odds that I would see you again, like this. Wrapped in lace. With your hair tumbled down your shoulders."
She didn't answer right away. "So what about this blonde?"
"What blonde?"
She drew back her hand to punch him, and he caught it, kissed it, and clasped it in his own.
"Meg said that you're wasted as sheriff here in the village. That if it hadn't been for me, you would have taken a job like this global thingy a long time ago."
"That's probably true." Quill sat up, indignant.
"But it would have been a stopgap. Until I found a village like this again. With someone like you in it."
"That's a... a... perplexing sort of statement."
"Is it? It's what I want. You. A family. A town small enough to know. A town large enough to be comfortable in. I'm forty-seven, Quill. And I'm tired. Not of life. But of the kinds of ambition that drove me when I was younger. I want a certain... orderliness to my daily life. That might be the wrong word. I don't believe that I want to see much more of humanity in the raw than I have already. I've had enough."
There was a puckered scar on his stomach from shrapnel, a dimpled hole in his right shoulder from a gunshot wound. Quill traced these marks with one forefinger. "In a way," she said at last, "I haven't seen enough."
"Mmm."
"Was that surprise?"
"I suppose it was. I think you're right."
"I love you." Her voice was husky. She cleared her throat. "I'm not whining, you understand. But why do women always have to choose? Between life outside and making a home?"
"If I were younger, you'd met me before I'd been satisfied I'd seen enough, maybe you wouldn't have to. We're at different stages, Quill. I don't want you to give anything up."
"I don't want you to give anything up, either." She sighed. "I wish I were a clone. Had a clone. Whatever."
His arm tightened around her shoulder. "Let's take it one day at a time. Now, I gather from what you said last night that Greenwald gave you quite a chase."
"Green... oh! The jerk in the pickup truck. You're sure my coat wasn't in it?"
"Positive. I've sent a couple of troopers out to search 81, but it doesn't look good. He dumped it before the rescue trucks got there. But the coat wouldn't be enough, Quill. It's circumstantial at best, unless we find either Nora's or Dorset's blood on it, and even if we do, we'd need harder evidence to convict."
"But you do think it's Santini?"
"I'm not willing to make that leap yet. What's his motive? Guesswork's hazardous in this business, Quill. So far, you're operating on mere surmise."
"Surmise." Quill made a face.
"Intuition? Feeling? What do you want me to say? You don't have any facts. You think that Nora Cahill was blackmailing Alphonse Santini, but you have no proof. And without that fundamental fact, Quill, the rest of the motive falls apart. Why would he kill Dorset? I admit that the videotape you said you saw - "
"I did see it."
"I know you did. But who is a jury going to believe? You can't convict a man of a capital crime on hearsay, Quill."
"But I have proof. Or at least I think I have proof. I didn't get a chance to tell you everything last night..."
He smiled. She blushed, then went on, "But I took some disks from Nora's apartment."
"Quill." He stopped himself, then said with obvious patience, "I won't talk to you about breaking and entering. You know all about that already. But I have told you about the importance of the chain of evidence. And if you've entered the victim's apartment unlawfully and gathered it unlawfully..."
"Stop." Quill held up her hand. "I know all that. I told the H. O. W. members last night that if they found anything not to touch it, but to call you first."
Myles grabbed his forehead with both hands, in a gesture reminiscent of Meg. "You sent thirty women from a feminist organization careening through this Inn looking for evidence against Alphonse Santini?"
"The wedding is tomorrow. Then, he'll be gone. I feel awful about poor Claire. And I'm worried about Tutti."
Myles shut his eyes for a moment. "You don't have to worry about Tutti."
"Why not?"
"I'll let you know after I call New York this morning. I'd like to know something right now, though. Was it the H. O. W. search that kicked off the riot?"
"It wasn't exactly a riot," Quill said a little guiltily. "They didn't find anything, anyway. They all went home to nurse their bruises after that snowball fight. And besides, Myles, you're forgetting the hard drive."
"The hard drive?" He shook his head, "We're talking about you breaking into Nora's apartment again? You mean the hard drive for Nora's PC?"
"Yes! You have her laptop in custody, or whatever, don't you?"
"Yeah. It's been entered into evidence. We do."
"And her laptop was collected in a proper and legal way, wasn't it? Almost every newer PC backs up files automatically. There's bound to be a copy of whatever is on those disks in Nora's hard drive, So it doesn't matter if you can't submit the disks in evidence. You've got the hard drive. All the disks will do is give us the right kind of lead. I hope. They aren't labeled."
He rubbed his chin. "Hmm. You might be right. You still have the disks?"
"Right in my purse. And I can use John's PC to go through them. If you don't mind."
"I don't mind. I've got two murders to solve." He raised an eyebrow, "And I need all the help I can get. But first, I need a shave."
Quill kicked the covers off and jumped out of bed, "Last one in the shower's an unemployed sheriff."
"Eleven-thirty," said Meg. "I thought you two were never coming down."
"Don't be vulgar." Quill settled onto the stool at the butcher block counter and raised her cheek for Myles. He bent down and kissed her. Meg beamed.
"You two want some lunch?"
"He's off to apply a rubber hose to Joseph Greenwald," Quill said. "But I'd love some lunch."
"I'll get something at Marge's later," said Myles. He left, and the kitchen seemed suddenly empty.
"Crab cheese soup?" Meg asked.
"Sounds great. The dining room booked for lunch?" Meg glanced at the agenda posted on the wall. "Most of the wedding party's out skiing."
"Not Tutti," said Quill, alarmed.
"No, not Tutti. She and Doreen and Elaine are in your office hassling the florist about the flower delivery. The senator and one of the aides - it's either Frank or Marlon or Ed - are still upstairs making phone calls. Which is a lot better," Meg said cheerfully, "than any of them hassling me about the reception. Claire and the bridesmaids and the groomsmen are out skiing. There's a plot afoot to make Claire drunk, so she can actually go through with the wedding. Or maybe the plot's to make the senator drunk. Either way, nobody innocent's going to get hurt, if the nuptials do come off."
"Meg," Quill protested. "This is a tragedy shaping up. You're not being very kind."
"It's a tragedy all right," Meg said tartly, "but not the kind you think." She ladled a portion of the crab soup into a small crock and set it in front of Quill. "How sure are you that the senator's behind these murders?"
"Who else could it be?"
"Lots of people. Maybe this Joe Greenwald. Maybe..."
"Maybe who?"
"Maybe Tutti."
Quill put her spoon down. "That's ridiculous."
"Is it? Maybe she's setting Al up. Wouldn't you try to get him out of the way if he was going to marry your granddaughter?"
"I wouldn't commit two murders to do it. And if she's going to kill people, why doesn't she just go straight to the source of the problem and kill Al himself! You've been smoking funny cigarettes, Meg."
"Okay. So Tutti as murderer is a ludicrous idea. I'd just like to point out - "
"That I'm engaging in wild surmise?"
"Well, yeah."
"I've already been informed of the dangers of engaging in wild surmise. So let's change the subject."
"You want to change the subject because you want to solve this case all by yourself."
"Well, I do," Quill admitted. "But not all by myself. I've got a partner."
"Sure you do. Me."
Quill swallowed a spoonful of soup. Then another. Meg's face changed. "Not me. Myles."
"Do you mind?"
Meg's eyelids flickered. "No." Then, "Yes. Yes, I think I do. This is a real reversal, Quill. Normally it's you looking out for me."
"I'm looking out for you!"
"Then that's not what I mean. I mean normally it's been the two of us. Together. Now it's not." Meg ran her hands slowly through her hair.
"So you do mind."
"It's just... different."
Quill couldn't think of anything to say to this. Except that just when you seemed to have one relationship problem solved, another popped up in its place. Meg drummed her fingers on the butcher block, pulled the agenda from the wall, and started making notes with a dull pencil. Her face was flushed.
After a moment, Quill said, "This is terrific soup." Then, "How many for the rehearsal dinner tonight?"
"Twenty. And it's a fabulous menu, Quill. I'm having the best time. I've made a brandied fruit compote, a squash souffl‚, and the piece de resistance - potted rabbit." The flush on her face had faded to two bright red spots.
"Rabbit." Quill bit her lip and chuckled. "Is this an unsubtle signal to the senator?"
"Is what a signal? What?" Alphonse Santini banged through the swinging doors into the kitchen. Both women jumped. "So you heard already? I think it's a sign, too. Like, I shouldn't be getting married again. I mean, one ball and chain in a lifetime's enough, you get my drift. The old lady's loaded, but still. Shit."
"It's Tutti that's - er - loaded?" Quill asked casually. "I thought it was Vittorio, her son."
"In that family, where the money comes from isn't the issue. It's who's got the balls. And in that family, it's Tutti."
"Then how come..." Quill began. She stopped. She couldn't very well ask Santini to his face why Tutti - if she was the driving force in the McIntosh family - was permitting a marriage to go forward of which she clearly didn't approve.
"Then how come what?" Santini moved restlessly around the kitchen, snapping his fingers. He stuck a finger in the soup crock, licked it off, and moved to stick it in again.
Meg took two long strides forward and moved the crock out of reach. "Is there something specific we can help you with, Senator?"
"This dinner tonight. The rehearsal dinner, we got a problem."
Meg raised her eyebrows politely. "With what?"
"Can't have the rehearsal in the church. It's drifted in and the plows can't get to it until later today. So we'll want to push the dinner back, see, and have the rehearsal here, about nine o'clock."
"How far back?" There was an ominous note in Meg's voice.
Quill slid off the stool and said hastily, "It really isn't necessary, is it, Senator? There's been such a lot of disruption around here lately, it'd make life a lot easier for everyone if we just kept to the original schedule." She grabbed him by the arm, guided him back to the dining room, started to ask him how his dinner had been the night before, realized that the reenactment of the rape of the Sabines had probably altered his view of the hospitality offered by the Inn, and blurted out instead, "Why did you send Joseph Greenwald to burglarize Nora Cahill's apartment?"
"Huh?" His eyes narrowed to slits, "You out of your mind, throwing around crap like that? Joe Greenwald?" He grabbed her by her upper arms and thrust his face close to hers, "Joey doesn't even work for me," he hissed, "And if he did, which he doesn't, what the hell were you doing in that broad's apartment?!"
Quill regarded him as steadily as possible with her heart pounding and her hands damp, "I'm onto you, Senator Santini, So are a lot of other people, If I were you..."
His grip tightened, He was stronger than he looked, "Well, you aren't, you little bitch. And let me tell you something,.. Goddammit." He dropped his grip abruptly. "I never should have gotten into this. Married to a whining cow. For what? Money. Goddamned money."