Murder Well-Done (26 page)

"Put her the storeroom," Meg said callously. "With some food and water. Better yet, give her back to Tutti. Maybe she'll bit Vittorio."
"Are they still eating?" Quill peered through the swinging doors. Everyone at the table seemed to be having a fine time. Two of the Cornell students that worked as waiters in their spare time stood at polite attention beside the mahogany sideboard. Tutti was holding court. Vittorio was leaning back in his chair, genially smiling at Marlon Guppa. Elaine, sitting painfully erect, was chatting with Merry Phelan. Even Claire was smiling, flirting in a gawky way with Joseph Greenwald.
"He looks like a murderer, doesn't he?" Meg said into her ear. "Vittorio, I mean."
"Claire doesn't seem tot be too upset that the senator's not here," Quill observed. "Didn't anyone say anything about it at all?"
"Oh, there was quite a bit of discussion," said Meg. "Claire finally went up to the Adams suite with her bridesmaid and found that all of the senator's clothes and personal effects were gone. They also found that envelope you did, from the travel agency. So they came back down and Claire cried that she'd been jilted and Joseph Greenwald poured her more champagne. After a second bottle of that Avalon Patriot's Red, Vittorio got up and proposed a toast. `To the absent bridegroom,' he said. `May he never return.' That got a big laugh, for some reason. Then Elaine started fluttering on about plumbing money, and about how the senator really wasn't their kind of people and good riddance to bad rubbish, and Vittorio told her to shut up. We should have known he'd done it the minute we saw him."
"But he hadn't done it then. Anyhow, I don't think anyone really looks like a murderer," Quill said in an uncritical way, "but Vittorio's going to get off scot-free if we don't' find that tape."
"When will Myles get here with the search warrant?"
"Not for a couple of hours yet." Quill frowned. "I know the thing's here."
"Gol-durn it," Doreen exploded behind them. "You git!"
Tatiana whose brief nap seemed to have brought an unfortunate degree of vigor to her sixteen pounds, had jumped up on the counter and was worrying the rabbit hat. Quill turned around, regarded the dog, and pulled thoughtfully at her hair. "Hey, guys. I've got an idea. Meg? Can you ask one of the guys to bring another case of champagne?"
"For who? For them? Haven't they guzzled enough?"
"No," said Quill, "not nearly enough. Tell them this one's on the house. Doreen? Dan you keep that darn dog quiet?"
"Prob'ly."
"Good. I'm going to my office. Meg? When you give them that champagne, offer to videotape it. Get the camcorder from Marlon and bring it back with you. If he's drunk enough, he won't even notice that you have it. And then I want the three of us to go upstairs."
It took an interminable time for the McIntosh party to get through the extra twelve bottles of champagne. The Reverend Shuttleworth, who arrived for the wedding rehearsal, only to be told that the groom had failed to show, returned home in mild confusion. (Since mild confusion was a more or less permanent state of mind with Dookie, none of his family noticed.) Quill, Doreen, and Meg waited patiently on the second-floor landing for the party to wind down.
"They're comin'," Doreen said. "Hear that?"
There was a scrape of chairs, the kind of dismissive laughter that signals the end of a long party, a murmur of "good nights."
Tutti, Vittorio, and Elaine proceeded up the stairs. Meg moved the camcorder into position. Doreen set Tatiana on the floor. Quill stood at the head of the stairs.
"Now," Quill whispered.
"Git it!" Doreen roared at the startled dog. She held a mini-sized videocassette above Tatiana's head. The dog leaped for it. Doreen jerked the tape out of reach and ordered, "Git it! Git it!" The dog, irritated to a frenzy by the incomprehensible behavior of this bad-tempered human, barked like Joshua at the walls of Jericho. She leaped, and leaped again.
"They're looking up," Quill said from her vantage point on the landing. "Any time now."
Doreen let the cassette drop. Tatianan snatched it up with a triumphant "Yap!" Tutti, hearing the barks, cried, "Tatty! Come to Mummy!' Tatiana raced down the stairs, videocassette in her mouth.
Tutti caught he dog in her arms and grabbed for the tape. Tatiana wriggled and dropped it. Vittorio picked it up. His swarthy face turned pale.
"Goddammit!" roared Vittorio. "Ma! You told me you hid the goddamn thing."
Quill walked down the stairs. Doreen thumped down beside her and snatched the tape from Vittorio's hand. Meg followed, the camcorer rolling, the camera eye fixed on the group on the stairs.
"Give me that thing," Vittorio demanded. He swayed, caught himself with one hand o the banister, and blinked blearily at Doreen.
"Is it yours?" Quill asked sweetly. "I'm afraid the little dog went through your things when Doreen was straightening your room, Tutti. Where she unearthed this thing I don't know. It can't be yours, can it, Mr. McIntosh? It's marked, `Property Tompkins County Police Department.' "
"Give it to me, you bitch!"
"Vic!" sanpped. Tutti. "Shut up!"
Quill took two more steps downward. "This is it, Mr. McIntosh? The videotape from Frank Dorset's hidden camera? The one that shows you killing Nora Cahill?"
"Yes, goddamit! Yes!"
Meg shut the camcorder off. "Well," she said sunnily, "I got it all. And the little dog, too."
Quill surveyed the wreckage in the dining room with a sense of satisfaction. It was a shame about the roses, or course. But it had taken less than half an hour that morning to strip the walls and windows of the wedding finery.
Mike the groundskeeper poked his head in from the foyer. "You want I should take the?"
Quill nudged one of the garbage bags with her toe. The scent of crushed roses was strong. "Yes. Thanks, Mike."
"I'll bring the tree in, then. You want it here?"
"I think so. Everyone's coming at eight tonight, so we have plenty of time."
"No problem. I got all the ornaments down and I'll bring `em in first. Meg having that oyster stew again this year?"
"And Marge is bringing the pumpkin bread."
"Ahh!" Mike patted his flat stomach. "You didn't hear me say this, Quill, but I'd almost give up the holiday bonus for that pumpkin bread."
Quill stripped the rose-patterned cloths from the tables, bundled them into a box, and replaced them with the red plaid she used for the holidays. She set out the buffet plates, the flatware, and the punch bowl, humming "The Boar's Head Carol" under her breath, then "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen."
Mike brought the tree in, a fifteen footer he'd cut from the woods beyond Hemlock Gorge. It filled the windows overlooking the Falls. It smelled of snow, of cold fresh winds, of pine tar. The two of them strung the hundreds of tiny white lights that Quill had collected over the years, then stepped back to view the result.
"It'll look great at night," Mike said. "You want I should plug `em in?"
"Degradation!" Evan Blight bellowed, so suddenly that Quill nearly fell over. "Young man? Remove those artifacts of man's inhumanity to the arboreal immediately."
"Hello, Mr. Blight," Quill said. "Can I get you some hot chocolate? I'm afraid that breakfast is over."
"There was," he said a little pathetically, "a disturbance in the night."
"There was indeed. I hope it didn't keep you up."
"She most certainly did," he said with indignation. "Not to mention going through my personal effects."
"She?" said Quill. "You mean someone was in your room?"
"That....dog. That... perverse mutant of the noble wolf."
"Tatiana? Oh, I'm sorry. I guess in all the confusion last night, we sort of ignored her." Quill chuckled. "Tatiana isn't a dog that likes being ignored. But, under the circumstances, I hope you will forgive her."
"I understand from the Red Man that several guests were arrested."
Quill thought about this for a moment. "Do you mean John Raintree?"
"Yes! The Primal Savage. The nobility of him! It's a shame," Blight continued, "to see on him the wrappings required by our so-called civil-ization, although anything less civil..."
"Do you mean his clothes?"
"Why, yes. At any rate, I understand that the primal urge has been satisfied, the blood lust quelled."
"If you mean by that that Vittorio McIntosh has been arrested for three murders, the answer is yes, he has."
"And the motive. Lust, no doubt."
"No doubt at all. It wasn't. He killed for gain. He killed Nora Cahill because she was blackmailing him over evidence she'd gathered of his organized crime connections. He killed Frank Dorset because Dorset recognized him on the videotape and also tried blackmail. And he killed Alphonse Santini because Tutti told Santini about the murders - to guarantee to the senator that she had Vittorio under her thumb, and that she would call the political shots - and Santini was ready to turn all the McIntoshes in to the police." Quill reflected a moment. "So I guess he died a better man than he lived. Or something like that."
"Cherchez les femmes," said Evan Blight.
"If by that you mean that women were behind Vittorio's downfall, you couldn't be more wront." Quill, sorry that she'd lost her temper, asked if he would like some lunch before he checked out.
Mr. Blight ran his finger through his beard in agitation. He circled the dining room. His beard was even wilder and untrimmed than before. He'd exchanged the shapeless gray sweater he'd been wearing for two days to an equally shapeless brown sweater. "As you see," he said grandly, catching Quill's eye on him, "I have donned my holiday garb."
"You were planning on staying over Christmas, then?"
The gray eyes blinked behind the fringe of tangled hair. "I would not be welcomed?"
Quill had the feeling, apropos of nothing whatsoever, that Evan Blight, world-famous standard-bearer for manly men, had nowhere to go. She sat down at the table she reserved for the Inn staff, and indicated the chair next to her. He shook his head warily, rather like a small goat approaching a large obstacle.
"Of course you're welcome," Quill said warmly. "We don't' normally keep the Inn open over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but we'd love to have you join us. As a friend, Mr. Blight. Not a guest."
"The bountiful hospitality of Woman!" exclaimed Mr. Blight
Quill held her hand up. "There's just one thing. Elmer Henry. Our mayor. And the gentlemen of S. O. A. P. You may not be fully aware of the - um - divisive nature of your beliefs, Mr. Blight. Especially now, at this particular time in the town's history. Perhaps you could soften your views, somewhat? I mean, in the spirit of the season. We need, Mr. Blight, to have the men and women of this town talking to each other again. And you could help, if you wished."
"Humpf."
"Humpf?" Quill sat back, frustrated.
"You would have me abandon a lifetime of beliefs? A value system carefully built up over years of study, years of effort, years of - "
"Bullshit," said Doreen. She marched into the dining room, clutching a pink, elastic object. Tatiana leaped beside her, jaws snapping for the straps dangling from Doreen's hand.
"Down, Spike," said Doreen.
Tatiana dropped to the floor obediently.
"Spike?" asked Quill.
"They was goin' to shoot her," Doreen said flatly. "On account of she betrayed that Tutti. And her name's Spike. Tatiana's no name for a dog."
Quill sighed. "Okay, I guess. But if she bites anybody, Doreen, that's it, do you hear me?"
"You'd think a lot better of this dog if you knew."
"If I knew what?"
"If you knew how she could keep this here Blight from wrecking our Christmas party tonight."
"The dog's going to do that?" Quill said, bewildered.
"The dog did it already. Look here." She thrust the pink elastic object at Quill. Beside her Evan Blight yelped. Spike yelped back.
"Godo grief," Quill said. She unfolded it. "It's a minimizer bra."
"So it is." Doreen grinned in satisfaction. "Well, Ms. Blight. What you got to say for yourself?"
There was a long, long moment of silence. Blight tugged at her beard, pulled it slightly away from her chin, and winked at them.
"What do I have to say for myself? It's going to be a very Merry Christmas in Hemlock Falls."
"We'll wait to turn the lights on," said Quill. "Myles might be here soon."
Meg gave her a hug. "He'll be here."
"I hope so. He took Vittorio straight to the FBI office in Syracuse. But you know how these things go. He might not make it at all."
They came early, her friends. Marge and Betty, Miriam, Esther, and all the members of H. O. W. Elmer Henry and Adela, Harland Peterson and his wife, Dookie Shuttleworth and the patient Mrs. Shuttleworth, Kathleen and her brother Davy; it seemed as if the whole village gathered together in the warm and capacious dining room.
They talked, and laughed, and sang carols, and listened to Evan Blight talk about the harmony of love.
Meg brought hot stew from the kitchen. Andy Bishop poured hot cider. One by one the ornaments went on the tree; the flying unicorn that Meg had given her years before, the bubbling lights from Marge and Betty, the beaded angel for the top of the tree from John's grandmother.
The sky grew dark. Snow began to fall, tapping against the windows like the tips of feathered wings.
John's quick ears heard it first, the roar of the Jeep as it came up the drive to the front door of the Inn. He switched the tree lights on, and it glowed in the window, a galaxy of stars, to welcome Myles home.
The End