Murder Well-Done (4 page)
Authors: Claudia Bishop
Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Mystery & Detective, #Women Detectives, #New York (N.Y.), #Women Sleuths, #Sisters, #Unknown, #Taverns (Inns)
"You want to talk about it?"
"No."
"You're sure?"
"I'm sure."
"Well, at least it should end all this angst."
"What angst?" Quill demanded.
"The angst that's kept you functioning at half speed for the past couple of months. Good grief, Quill, you haven't even gone through the mail this past week."
Quill, who absolutely did not want to talk about her farewell to Myles until it was all over, changed the subject abruptly. "What's with the pig? It's down on the schedule as a delivery before noon. It's half past eleven now. Would you like me to take it somewhere before I leave for Syracuse?"
"One of the sous-chefs should be here soon. Unless the snow gets worse." She pulled the clipboard that held the day's rota from the wall by the small TV and studied it. "Bjarne's on today. He's a Finn and they're used to the snow. I'll get him to do it." Meg moved the roast pig into one of the aluminum pans they used to transport food and looked at it with a frown. "Do you think the holly's too Christmassy?"
Quill vaguely recollected Santini's offhand comment. "On the pig? Maybe a little."
"The holly's not in celebration of Christmas. It's a subtle reminder of the Druid influence on the S. O. A. P. rituals. Not that those idiots would know a Druid from a downspout."
Quill looked doubtful. "Suckling pig only serves twelve to fourteen, doesn't it? Last count, actual S. O. A. P. membership was thirty-two."
"The meeting this afternoon isn't the whole membership. It's just the executive committee. Elmer Henry, Dookie Shuttleworth, Harland Peterson, and those guys."
Quill sat in the rocker by the cobblestone fireplace, propped her feet on the hearth, and rocked back and forth. Menu planning had been a lot simpler before the Chamber of Commerce had split into two rival factions. S. O. A. P. wanted earthy, primitive fare with a gourmet touch, and H. O. W. was seriously considering vegetarian. She had a vague recollection that holly had something to do with Druid rites, but she wasn't sure what. "I don't think that S. O. A. P. is based on Celtic mythology. I think it's AmerInd."
"Do American Indians strip to the waist, paint themselves blue, and stick stones in their hair?"
"Is that what they do at those meetings?"
Meg grinned. "So I've heard. But it's just gossip. The men won't talk about it, and the women don't know anything because the men aren't talking." She began to pack the pig in aluminum foil. "It's all Miriam Doncaster's fault, anyway. She never should have let the mayor have a copy of The Branch of the Root. It's a stupid book."
Quill's mood wasn't improving, and wouldn't, she knew, until the final lunch with Myles was over. She said crossly, "How do you know it's a stupid book? Have you read it?"
Meg raised her eyebrows. "See this look on my face?"
Quill shoved the rocker into motion and muttered, "Never mind."
"Cheerful sarcasm," Meg said, "that's the look on my face. We're still recuperating from the Thanksgiving rush. We're headed into even worse chaos between Christmas and the most boring wedding of the decade, and you want to know if I've found time to read a seven-hundred-page book that's supposed to get white guys in touch with their maleness, for Pete's sake?"
"Good point."
"You betcha," She glanced at her watch, "You go on to your lunch in Syracuse."
"I've got lots of time." Quill wriggled her toes in the warmth of the fire, The kitchen was redolent with cinnamon, sage, and garlic. Meg had left the Thermo glass doors to her grill open when she'd removed the roast. Every now and then a bit of cracking fell from the rotisserie spit onto the flames with a hiss. The smell of seared pork and the warmth of the fire contrasted pleasantly with the wind-whipped snow outside.
The back door banged and Bjarne the Finnish sous- chef burst into the room,
"I am late," he announced. He was very tall - as most of the Finnish students seemed to be - and had a ruddy, hearty sort of face with bright blue eyes.
"So you are," said Meg, "Don't take off your coat. I want you to deliver this pig."
"It is a beautiful pig," said Bjarne, "A prince of a pig."
"It is, isn't it?" said Meg, pleased. "It's for the S. O. A. P. meeting."
"Ah," said Bjarne, with an air of enlightenment.
"You've heard about them, too?" asked Meg,
"Oh, yes."
"Have you been to a meeting, Bjarne?"
He shook his head.
"Well, take this pig and see if you can crash it. Then report back to us, Quill and I want you to be a spy."
"I don't," said Quill. "Who cares what goes on at those meetings?"
"I do. Ever since the Chamber of Commerce split into these two factions, the village hasn't been the same. It's depressing. It's depressing me and everyone else. Although, to be fair, it's not what's depressing you. This business with Myles is what's depressing you."
"Stop," said Quill. "It's not that the women aren't incredibly curious about S. O. A. P. Marge Schmidt thinks they hold sacrificial rites under the statue of General Hemlock in the park. Betty Hall thinks they toss the bodies into the gorge because Esther West told her she's heard weird noises at night near the waterfall."
"Esther thinks The X-Files is based on factual information from the FBI," Quill pointed out. "She's not what I'd call a reliable source."
"The X-Files is what's going to happen now that the Republicans have been reelected," Meg said darkly.
"I know what happens at the men's group," Bjarne offered, to Meg's surprise. "There are drums. Drums are an important part of the ritual. The Branch of the Root connects the hand and the heart and the" - his pale blue eyes looked wistfully down at Meg - "male root. Through the drum. The root of the primitive puts us in touch with ourselves. They chant. They eat. And beat drums."
Meg, who was short, bent her head back to look Bjarne in the eye. "How do you know? Nobody's even sure what the acronym means."
Bjarne shrugged. "I hear. From the other students. At the hotel school. This S. O. A. P. is the Search for Our Authentic Primitive. It is perhaps based in a true Norse heritage. The heritage of the dominant, all-conquering male. There is a warrior code, involving this pig. Pigs are well-known hunter-gatherers of the animal kingdom. They are a forest animal, living off of roots and berries. There is a spiritual link to the earth when you eat a pig. This is not merely a pig. This is an emblem for the wild boar. Wild boar is warrior food. The strong, the heroic, the conqueror warrior male is very Finnish. This S. O. A. P. search is a familiar one to us Finns."
"We Finns," Meg said, a little testily. "Norse. Indian. Druid. Whatever. It's hooey. If I catch you joining these bozos, Bjarne, I'll turn you blue myself. With a rolling pin."
Bjarne grinned. Meg's temper was a matter of legend among the Cornell students who apprenticed in her kitchen.
"Besides, in this weather you'll catch cold and sneeze allover the sauces."
Bjarne frowned. "This cold, it is nothing. You should be in Helsinki in November. Besides, Finns don't catch cold. We are quite tough."
Meg planted her wooden spoon firmly in the middle of Bjarne's chest. "Wrap the pig. Then deliver it to the park. To the statue of General Hemlock. And forget spying and get back here fast. We've got a lot to do today."
Quill looked past Meg, Bjarne, and the pig to the mullioned windows. One of the big advantages of the location of the twenty-seven-room Inn she owned with Meg and their partner John Raintree was the sprawling grounds and the room for a good-sized vegetable garden. Quill could see most of this garden from her seat by the fire. The snow was falling faster than ever and the parsnips weren't visible at all. She said aloud, "It's going to be cold and miserable in those woods. Maybe we should add hot coffee to the delivery. Those S. O. A. P. guys will freeze their blue-painted chests off. Or what about some mulled cider?"
"Nothing but what the woods provide," said Bjarne. "They cannot eat or drink food from unauthentic civilizations."
"Unauthentic?" asked Quill.
"Any culture that's been afflicted by technology."
Meg snorted. "Well, this pig's the product of some of the best farm technology around." She leered like Jack Nicholson after his wife in The Shining. "It was a happy pig. A clean pig. A pig with buddies. A pig that never even knew the end was coming."
"Cut it out," Quill said testily.
"Anyhow, this pig came straight from the Heavenly Hoggs farm yesterday morning. They're not only the best pork producers in central New York, they're the most up-to-date. This pig's never even seen a tree, much less rooted in the mud for grubs. Half the guys in S. O. A. P. know this. So, phooey on this authentic wild man stuff, and phooey on thinking it's a stand-in for a wild boar."
Bjarne frowned again, then gazed at the pig with a fond expression. "Perhaps I am wrong about this being a boar. Perhaps it is a representation of a poem," he said to Meg, his pale blue eyes alight with passion. "Yes! This pig is an epic poem. An Edda."
"It's not a poem, it's a pig. Headed for a party in the woods. 'The woods.' " Meg added, with inspiration if little accuracy, " 'are lovely dark and deep/and we have promises to keep.' "
Quill smiled. "What part of the cold and snowy woods does this get delivered to, Meg?"
"Just to the park. Mayor Henry will be there at noon to pick it up." Meg looked at Bjarne in an abstracted way, as if calculating his market weight. "I'd almost sell my Aga stove for a chance to see what those guys really do in the woods. Myles has got to know where they meet. He was the sheriff, for goodness sake. I don't suppose you'd want to ask him about it at-never mind. I'll join the women's group and bring it up at the next H. O. W. meeting. We'll find out. Nothing can stop a bunch of women with their minds made up."
Quill set her feet on the hearth with a thump. "Why don't you just leave the poor guys alone? If they want to meet in the woods, let them. And let's stay out of this whole village contretemps. We've talked about that before."
Meg gestured grandly with the wooden spoon. "Because the village is falling apart. We don't have a Chamber of Commerce anymore. We've got the Search for Our Authentic Primitive instead and their archrivals the Hemlock Organization for Women and goodness knows what else. Now, I don't care that Elmer and those guys bounce bare-naked around the statue of General Hemlock in twenty-degree weather. But I do care that what passes for town government and plain old social intercourse has come to a screeching halt. Not to mention other kinds of intercourse. Most of the members of the rival groups are married to each other, and nobody's speaking to anyone else. Ever since Elmer started S. O. A. P. and Adela Henry started H. O. W. it's been chaos. Total chaos. Look at what happened with the town elections. Howie and Myles are right out on their kiesters. And we've got some weird new guy in charge of the sheriff's office that gives me and anyone who gets a traffic ticket the creeps. It's not just that S. O. A. P. is ridiculous. It's that something is going on in those meetings that's a threat to comfortable community living."
"I am going now," Bjarne announced. He picked up the foil-wrapped pig. "You will come with me, Meg?"
"No," Meg said. "Don't go out without your hat and gloves. It's freezing out there!"
"I am not so cold," Bjarne said stubbornly. "You just think it's not so manly to protect yourself against the snow. Wear a hat. And if you drop that pig or join that men's group, don't bother coming back!"
She scolded him out the back door, then returned, accompanied by a swirl of cold air. "Now, where was I?"
"You were giving a Margaret Quilliam lecture, 'The Decline and Fall of Hemlock Falls.' We'd be better off planning the Santini wedding."
"Let me tell you something about the Santini wedding, I've decided we can't plan it until after it's over."
"You might have something there," Quill said.
"So, since we can't plan the Santini wedding, we can plan your love life." Meg settled on a stool behind the butcher block countertop and tugged at her short dark hair. She was wearing a fleecy green sweatshirt with the emblem of the Cornell medical school, a red bandanna around her forehead, and her favorite fleece-lined jeans. She looked about sixteen. "How come you've decided to whack Myles around? I thought things were going relatively well. A couple of months ago, you two were talking marriage. Does he even know you're planning on dumping him this afternoon?"
"I'm not planning on dumping him," Quill said indignantly. "I'm terminating the relationship with tact and affection. And does he expect it? Probably not. This new job keeps him on the road. I don't have a chance to see him."
"I can't believe we lost the election," Meg said, momentarily diverted. The results of the town elections in early November had been the topic of exhaustive, repetitive discussion for weeks, Myles had been replaced as sheriff by newcomer Frank Dorset. Howie Murchison was no longer town justice. Bernie Bristol, a retired Xerox engineer from nearby Rochester, had campaigned successfully for Howie's job. The only member of the Old Guard left was Elmer Henry who was the founding father of S. O. A. P. The mayor had retained his job by the merest margin, since H. O. W. sympathizers represented slightly less than fifty percent of the voting population. While most townspeople put the election upset down to what Howie Murchison called the gender wars, Quill herself wasn't so sure. Meg was right. Something very peculiar was going on in the village.
Meg dropped the perennially promising discussion about town politics and bored back in on Quill. "So what are you going to tell him?"
"I haven't thought about it."
Meg went "Phut!" and sprayed Quill.
"Don't go 'phut'!" said Quill.
Meg appeared to be honestly startled. "I went 'phut'?"
"Yes. Do you go 'phut' all over Andy?"
"I don't go 'phut' over anybody."
"You just went 'phut' all over me."
"I give up. Sit there, be a jerk, and just forget it."
Meg began to hum through her nose with an elaborate air of indifference.
"And while you're at it, don't make kazoo noises, either."
"All right," Meg said with a deceptive assumption of amiability. "Why don't I just wrap my emotions in Ace bandages like a certain red-haired, straightjacketed, uptight, rule-abiding lady manageress - "
"Lady manageress?"
"Victorian enough for you? Yes! Lady manageress who can't stand it when the seas aren't calm." Meg set her hands on her hips, leaned forward, went "Phuut! Phut! PHUT!" and started to hum a Sousa march through her nose so unmelodiously Quill couldn't tell what it was.
" 'Stars and Stripes Forever'?" asked John Raintree, coming through the doors that led into the dining room. Doreen stumped in after him.
"No."
"You're sure?"
"I'm sure."
"Well, at least it should end all this angst."
"What angst?" Quill demanded.
"The angst that's kept you functioning at half speed for the past couple of months. Good grief, Quill, you haven't even gone through the mail this past week."
Quill, who absolutely did not want to talk about her farewell to Myles until it was all over, changed the subject abruptly. "What's with the pig? It's down on the schedule as a delivery before noon. It's half past eleven now. Would you like me to take it somewhere before I leave for Syracuse?"
"One of the sous-chefs should be here soon. Unless the snow gets worse." She pulled the clipboard that held the day's rota from the wall by the small TV and studied it. "Bjarne's on today. He's a Finn and they're used to the snow. I'll get him to do it." Meg moved the roast pig into one of the aluminum pans they used to transport food and looked at it with a frown. "Do you think the holly's too Christmassy?"
Quill vaguely recollected Santini's offhand comment. "On the pig? Maybe a little."
"The holly's not in celebration of Christmas. It's a subtle reminder of the Druid influence on the S. O. A. P. rituals. Not that those idiots would know a Druid from a downspout."
Quill looked doubtful. "Suckling pig only serves twelve to fourteen, doesn't it? Last count, actual S. O. A. P. membership was thirty-two."
"The meeting this afternoon isn't the whole membership. It's just the executive committee. Elmer Henry, Dookie Shuttleworth, Harland Peterson, and those guys."
Quill sat in the rocker by the cobblestone fireplace, propped her feet on the hearth, and rocked back and forth. Menu planning had been a lot simpler before the Chamber of Commerce had split into two rival factions. S. O. A. P. wanted earthy, primitive fare with a gourmet touch, and H. O. W. was seriously considering vegetarian. She had a vague recollection that holly had something to do with Druid rites, but she wasn't sure what. "I don't think that S. O. A. P. is based on Celtic mythology. I think it's AmerInd."
"Do American Indians strip to the waist, paint themselves blue, and stick stones in their hair?"
"Is that what they do at those meetings?"
Meg grinned. "So I've heard. But it's just gossip. The men won't talk about it, and the women don't know anything because the men aren't talking." She began to pack the pig in aluminum foil. "It's all Miriam Doncaster's fault, anyway. She never should have let the mayor have a copy of The Branch of the Root. It's a stupid book."
Quill's mood wasn't improving, and wouldn't, she knew, until the final lunch with Myles was over. She said crossly, "How do you know it's a stupid book? Have you read it?"
Meg raised her eyebrows. "See this look on my face?"
Quill shoved the rocker into motion and muttered, "Never mind."
"Cheerful sarcasm," Meg said, "that's the look on my face. We're still recuperating from the Thanksgiving rush. We're headed into even worse chaos between Christmas and the most boring wedding of the decade, and you want to know if I've found time to read a seven-hundred-page book that's supposed to get white guys in touch with their maleness, for Pete's sake?"
"Good point."
"You betcha," She glanced at her watch, "You go on to your lunch in Syracuse."
"I've got lots of time." Quill wriggled her toes in the warmth of the fire, The kitchen was redolent with cinnamon, sage, and garlic. Meg had left the Thermo glass doors to her grill open when she'd removed the roast. Every now and then a bit of cracking fell from the rotisserie spit onto the flames with a hiss. The smell of seared pork and the warmth of the fire contrasted pleasantly with the wind-whipped snow outside.
The back door banged and Bjarne the Finnish sous- chef burst into the room,
"I am late," he announced. He was very tall - as most of the Finnish students seemed to be - and had a ruddy, hearty sort of face with bright blue eyes.
"So you are," said Meg, "Don't take off your coat. I want you to deliver this pig."
"It is a beautiful pig," said Bjarne, "A prince of a pig."
"It is, isn't it?" said Meg, pleased. "It's for the S. O. A. P. meeting."
"Ah," said Bjarne, with an air of enlightenment.
"You've heard about them, too?" asked Meg,
"Oh, yes."
"Have you been to a meeting, Bjarne?"
He shook his head.
"Well, take this pig and see if you can crash it. Then report back to us, Quill and I want you to be a spy."
"I don't," said Quill. "Who cares what goes on at those meetings?"
"I do. Ever since the Chamber of Commerce split into these two factions, the village hasn't been the same. It's depressing. It's depressing me and everyone else. Although, to be fair, it's not what's depressing you. This business with Myles is what's depressing you."
"Stop," said Quill. "It's not that the women aren't incredibly curious about S. O. A. P. Marge Schmidt thinks they hold sacrificial rites under the statue of General Hemlock in the park. Betty Hall thinks they toss the bodies into the gorge because Esther West told her she's heard weird noises at night near the waterfall."
"Esther thinks The X-Files is based on factual information from the FBI," Quill pointed out. "She's not what I'd call a reliable source."
"The X-Files is what's going to happen now that the Republicans have been reelected," Meg said darkly.
"I know what happens at the men's group," Bjarne offered, to Meg's surprise. "There are drums. Drums are an important part of the ritual. The Branch of the Root connects the hand and the heart and the" - his pale blue eyes looked wistfully down at Meg - "male root. Through the drum. The root of the primitive puts us in touch with ourselves. They chant. They eat. And beat drums."
Meg, who was short, bent her head back to look Bjarne in the eye. "How do you know? Nobody's even sure what the acronym means."
Bjarne shrugged. "I hear. From the other students. At the hotel school. This S. O. A. P. is the Search for Our Authentic Primitive. It is perhaps based in a true Norse heritage. The heritage of the dominant, all-conquering male. There is a warrior code, involving this pig. Pigs are well-known hunter-gatherers of the animal kingdom. They are a forest animal, living off of roots and berries. There is a spiritual link to the earth when you eat a pig. This is not merely a pig. This is an emblem for the wild boar. Wild boar is warrior food. The strong, the heroic, the conqueror warrior male is very Finnish. This S. O. A. P. search is a familiar one to us Finns."
"We Finns," Meg said, a little testily. "Norse. Indian. Druid. Whatever. It's hooey. If I catch you joining these bozos, Bjarne, I'll turn you blue myself. With a rolling pin."
Bjarne grinned. Meg's temper was a matter of legend among the Cornell students who apprenticed in her kitchen.
"Besides, in this weather you'll catch cold and sneeze allover the sauces."
Bjarne frowned. "This cold, it is nothing. You should be in Helsinki in November. Besides, Finns don't catch cold. We are quite tough."
Meg planted her wooden spoon firmly in the middle of Bjarne's chest. "Wrap the pig. Then deliver it to the park. To the statue of General Hemlock. And forget spying and get back here fast. We've got a lot to do today."
Quill looked past Meg, Bjarne, and the pig to the mullioned windows. One of the big advantages of the location of the twenty-seven-room Inn she owned with Meg and their partner John Raintree was the sprawling grounds and the room for a good-sized vegetable garden. Quill could see most of this garden from her seat by the fire. The snow was falling faster than ever and the parsnips weren't visible at all. She said aloud, "It's going to be cold and miserable in those woods. Maybe we should add hot coffee to the delivery. Those S. O. A. P. guys will freeze their blue-painted chests off. Or what about some mulled cider?"
"Nothing but what the woods provide," said Bjarne. "They cannot eat or drink food from unauthentic civilizations."
"Unauthentic?" asked Quill.
"Any culture that's been afflicted by technology."
Meg snorted. "Well, this pig's the product of some of the best farm technology around." She leered like Jack Nicholson after his wife in The Shining. "It was a happy pig. A clean pig. A pig with buddies. A pig that never even knew the end was coming."
"Cut it out," Quill said testily.
"Anyhow, this pig came straight from the Heavenly Hoggs farm yesterday morning. They're not only the best pork producers in central New York, they're the most up-to-date. This pig's never even seen a tree, much less rooted in the mud for grubs. Half the guys in S. O. A. P. know this. So, phooey on this authentic wild man stuff, and phooey on thinking it's a stand-in for a wild boar."
Bjarne frowned again, then gazed at the pig with a fond expression. "Perhaps I am wrong about this being a boar. Perhaps it is a representation of a poem," he said to Meg, his pale blue eyes alight with passion. "Yes! This pig is an epic poem. An Edda."
"It's not a poem, it's a pig. Headed for a party in the woods. 'The woods.' " Meg added, with inspiration if little accuracy, " 'are lovely dark and deep/and we have promises to keep.' "
Quill smiled. "What part of the cold and snowy woods does this get delivered to, Meg?"
"Just to the park. Mayor Henry will be there at noon to pick it up." Meg looked at Bjarne in an abstracted way, as if calculating his market weight. "I'd almost sell my Aga stove for a chance to see what those guys really do in the woods. Myles has got to know where they meet. He was the sheriff, for goodness sake. I don't suppose you'd want to ask him about it at-never mind. I'll join the women's group and bring it up at the next H. O. W. meeting. We'll find out. Nothing can stop a bunch of women with their minds made up."
Quill set her feet on the hearth with a thump. "Why don't you just leave the poor guys alone? If they want to meet in the woods, let them. And let's stay out of this whole village contretemps. We've talked about that before."
Meg gestured grandly with the wooden spoon. "Because the village is falling apart. We don't have a Chamber of Commerce anymore. We've got the Search for Our Authentic Primitive instead and their archrivals the Hemlock Organization for Women and goodness knows what else. Now, I don't care that Elmer and those guys bounce bare-naked around the statue of General Hemlock in twenty-degree weather. But I do care that what passes for town government and plain old social intercourse has come to a screeching halt. Not to mention other kinds of intercourse. Most of the members of the rival groups are married to each other, and nobody's speaking to anyone else. Ever since Elmer started S. O. A. P. and Adela Henry started H. O. W. it's been chaos. Total chaos. Look at what happened with the town elections. Howie and Myles are right out on their kiesters. And we've got some weird new guy in charge of the sheriff's office that gives me and anyone who gets a traffic ticket the creeps. It's not just that S. O. A. P. is ridiculous. It's that something is going on in those meetings that's a threat to comfortable community living."
"I am going now," Bjarne announced. He picked up the foil-wrapped pig. "You will come with me, Meg?"
"No," Meg said. "Don't go out without your hat and gloves. It's freezing out there!"
"I am not so cold," Bjarne said stubbornly. "You just think it's not so manly to protect yourself against the snow. Wear a hat. And if you drop that pig or join that men's group, don't bother coming back!"
She scolded him out the back door, then returned, accompanied by a swirl of cold air. "Now, where was I?"
"You were giving a Margaret Quilliam lecture, 'The Decline and Fall of Hemlock Falls.' We'd be better off planning the Santini wedding."
"Let me tell you something about the Santini wedding, I've decided we can't plan it until after it's over."
"You might have something there," Quill said.
"So, since we can't plan the Santini wedding, we can plan your love life." Meg settled on a stool behind the butcher block countertop and tugged at her short dark hair. She was wearing a fleecy green sweatshirt with the emblem of the Cornell medical school, a red bandanna around her forehead, and her favorite fleece-lined jeans. She looked about sixteen. "How come you've decided to whack Myles around? I thought things were going relatively well. A couple of months ago, you two were talking marriage. Does he even know you're planning on dumping him this afternoon?"
"I'm not planning on dumping him," Quill said indignantly. "I'm terminating the relationship with tact and affection. And does he expect it? Probably not. This new job keeps him on the road. I don't have a chance to see him."
"I can't believe we lost the election," Meg said, momentarily diverted. The results of the town elections in early November had been the topic of exhaustive, repetitive discussion for weeks, Myles had been replaced as sheriff by newcomer Frank Dorset. Howie Murchison was no longer town justice. Bernie Bristol, a retired Xerox engineer from nearby Rochester, had campaigned successfully for Howie's job. The only member of the Old Guard left was Elmer Henry who was the founding father of S. O. A. P. The mayor had retained his job by the merest margin, since H. O. W. sympathizers represented slightly less than fifty percent of the voting population. While most townspeople put the election upset down to what Howie Murchison called the gender wars, Quill herself wasn't so sure. Meg was right. Something very peculiar was going on in the village.
Meg dropped the perennially promising discussion about town politics and bored back in on Quill. "So what are you going to tell him?"
"I haven't thought about it."
Meg went "Phut!" and sprayed Quill.
"Don't go 'phut'!" said Quill.
Meg appeared to be honestly startled. "I went 'phut'?"
"Yes. Do you go 'phut' all over Andy?"
"I don't go 'phut' over anybody."
"You just went 'phut' all over me."
"I give up. Sit there, be a jerk, and just forget it."
Meg began to hum through her nose with an elaborate air of indifference.
"And while you're at it, don't make kazoo noises, either."
"All right," Meg said with a deceptive assumption of amiability. "Why don't I just wrap my emotions in Ace bandages like a certain red-haired, straightjacketed, uptight, rule-abiding lady manageress - "
"Lady manageress?"
"Victorian enough for you? Yes! Lady manageress who can't stand it when the seas aren't calm." Meg set her hands on her hips, leaned forward, went "Phuut! Phut! PHUT!" and started to hum a Sousa march through her nose so unmelodiously Quill couldn't tell what it was.
" 'Stars and Stripes Forever'?" asked John Raintree, coming through the doors that led into the dining room. Doreen stumped in after him.
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