A Touch of the Grape: A Hemlock Falls Mystery (Hemlock Falls Mystery series) (26 page)

"I want you to stay with me. Tonight and always." She followed him out of the living room into the bedroom. Max at their heels. "Luck!" she muttered. "Hah! It was brains, pure and simple."

Myles kissed her and left early for Washington. Quill
got up with him and settled herself into her office to
work. She called the hospital and received the news that Freddie and Robin were playing canasta in the TV room. She recorded the cash the dining room had taken in from the day before, the receipts for the three of their twenty-seven rooms that actually held paying guests, and looked
at the revenues for the month of May in dismay. At this rate, the loan from Myles would be eaten up far sooner than she'd planned. A quick review of the bookings for the next three months showed that the lottery angel hadn't recorded an influx of business overnight. She'd
promised John she would pay attention to bookings, and
she meant to fulfill that promise.

She called the Golden Pillar Travel Agency, an ex
cellent client in the past. Would, she delicately inquired,
an increase in the commission help at all? What would
help, was the candid response, was more customers. No
one wanted to travel this year. "And it doesn't make sense," Brian the office manager told her, "the economy's booming, or so the media says. It's just one of those cycles. Quill. We all have to live through it."

Triple A had a different take on the dearth of custom
ers. "Credit card debt," Angela the domestic travel package rep said. "We're pretty tight with American Express. The great middle class has maxed itself out spending, and now they're paying down debt. Me included. Sorry."

Quill felt like the moose with the target birthmark in the Gary Larson cartoon. "What to do, what to do?"
Stalled, balked, and stymied. An ad in the Travel section
of the Sunday
Times
would cost more than their mortgage balance. John had placed ads in the travel and leisure magazines in February and March, when most
people plan their summer vacations, and the only book
ing in response to that had been the Crafty Ladies.
"Good result," she muttered aloud. She could see a new
series of ads now: "Come to the Inn at Hemlock Falls for the Time of Your … Death!"

Her in-house phone buzzed and she picked it up. "It's just me," Dina said. "David's here with the reports for you. Shall I send him in? It'll be a few minutes. I gave him some coffee, if that's okay, and he's drinking it and eating some breakfast. He was up all night."

"Sure." Quill pulled open her bottom desk drawer
and found a new manila folder. She printed "Dunbarton, Lennox, and Patch, et. al." on the edge. She took a clean
sheet of typing paper and wrote:
1. observation of detail

2. comparison of anomalies

3. compare with ordinary circumstances

She put this in the file. She'd accomplished this, at least.

Davy walked in. He was carrying a stack of papers. Dina edged in behind him. She whispered, "Okay if I sit in the corner and watch?"

Davy, puzzled, asked, "Why are you whispering?"

"Because I don't want to disturb you at work. I'll sit right here on the couch. I'll be very, very quiet. You won't even know I'm here."

"Fine." Quill stood up and reached for the papers in Davy's hand. He gave them to her.

"Sheriff said to leave the evidence locked up, but you
should come down and take a look sometime today."

"Davy …" She stopped, caught Dina's eye, and corrected herself. "I mean, David. You're the sheriff."

"Nobody around here seems to think so. And I'm not doing a very good job."

"These are unusual circumstances. You recall that
when Myles really was sheriff, he called on reinforce
ments all the time."

The pink in Davy's cheeks subsided a little. "That's true, isn't it?"

"The lone wolf investigator is much more liable to mess up the evidence," Quill said wisely. "An investigation should be solid, like a piece of furniture that's built to last."

"Beg pardon?" Davy said.

"Well crafted." She paused impressively. "Have a seat, David, and tell me what you think."

Davy was the sort of man who hitched up his trouser
cuffs before he sat down. Quill wondered about this. Were his trousers too long? Too tight across the seat?

"… Quill."

"I'm sorry." She decided to title Myles' list of the
three essentials of investigation Observations Related to
the Case ONLY.

"I said that each of the ladies was killed the same way. Strangled, then the duct tape on their mouths and
hands. Then they were burned up with the phosphorous
bomb."

"Any ideas on why they were strangled first? Before
they were burned?" She shivered, then forced herself into a more professional attitude. If she had to actually look at the bodies, it was going to be a lot tougher than hearing a mere description.

"I don't have any idea why anyone would do this in
the first place," Davy said. "I know why people go over
the speed limit. I like to speed myself. But I don't know
why this guy does all this sh—I mean stuff to these poor
women." His ears were red with indignation. "My mother's about the same age as these ladies."

"Mine would be, too," Quill said softly. "Now. What
kind of physical evidence did you pick up at each scene?"

"The list is right there. The sheriff said to pay attention to any duplications. You know, something that showed up at all three scenes."

Quill scanned the list. Gum wrappers. A cigarette butt.
Coke can. Scrapings from under the fingernails of one partially burned corpse. "Triangular piece of metal," she read aloud. "What's that?"

"I found it," Davy said proudly. "At the scene last night. Doc said it's a musical instrument, although I can't see where you'd blow into it."

"There was one in Ellen Dunbarton's room, too."

"There was?" He looked perplexed. "We didn't find it."

"Doreen did," Quill said a little guiltily.

"We aren't going to be able to prove she did," Davy said. "I don't think it's an official piece of evidence unless a real investigator picks it up."

"She could swear out an affidavit," Quill said, although she had no idea whether this was true or not.

"Where is it now?"

"In the junk drawer in the kitchen," Quill admitted. She forced a laugh. "Guess we broke the chain of evidence, all right."

"I guess so."

"You didn't find a triangle in the Gorge, where Fran's body was, did you?"

"If it's not on the list we didn't find it."

Quill wrote:
triangle, fire, murder
on the sheet headed FACTS and repeated them aloud. "What do those words
have in common, Davy?"

He blinked.

"Cool," Dina said. Quill jumped. She'd forgotten Dina was there. "Sorry," Dina added, "should I shut up?"

"No, no, of course not."

"I like word association," Dina said.

Davy (who was clearly bewildered) said, "Hm!" in an authoritative way.

Dina winked at Quill and said. "Word association goes like this, David: triangle-fire-murder. What do
those words make you think of? Well, the Bermuda tri
angle? Triangle trade route? The Bermuda Triangle, now," she said seriously, "a lot of people think aliens are behind the disappearance of those ships." She caught Quill's look. "What?"

"Aliens?"

"You never know."

"I'll tell you what I know," Quill said nicely. "I know that we may be getting tons of phone calls from people wanting to stay at the Inn this summer, and there's no one on the phones at the front desk. And in Times Like These—" She grabbed her hair. "Aaagh! I said it." She folded her hands on her desk and continued, more calmly, "In times like these where we could
go bankrupt any moment, somebody should be out there,
capturing any stray business that may float by."

"Me, you mean." Dina bounced up from the couch
and headed for the door. "There's one more fire-murder-
triangle thing. The Triangle fire."

"What about the Triangle fire?" Quill said.

"You know, those women that died at the Triangle sewing machine company?"

"Oh, dear. Yes. I remember. Ugh."

"Did they catch the perp?" Davy asked.

"There wasn't a perp," Quill said. "It was in 1911
or something. And it was an accident. I remember seeing a black-and-white picture of the bodies piled against the
door in school." She shuddered. "Horrible. Now, say good-bye, Dina."

"I'll call you
instantly
on the house phone if there's the slightest chance of a booking."

Davy didn't seem particularly interested in decades-old cases, and to tell the truth, Quill doubted the rele
vance, too. Facts, Myles had said, not intuition. "Should
we look for a triangle again in the Gorge, Davy? Your guys, I mean. I won't go near it, I promise. But it would
be interesting to know why, in two out of three murders,
we found an orchestra triangle."

Davy looked pleased at the prospect of achieving something tangible. Quill knew just how he felt. "I'll get a few of the boys right on it. You think it could be important?"

Quill threw her hands up. "Who knows? But it's an anomaly, a recurring anomaly, and I don't think we should ignore it." Her in-house phone buzzed twice. Quill picked it up and said, "Quilliam, here."

Silence.

"Um. Hello?"

"Is that you, Quill?" Dina's voice. "You sounded sort of tough."

I'm feeling tough, cookie. Wish I had a cigar. "Sorry, Dina. Is there a problem? A tour bus filled with people who want to stay here for a month? An airplane load of tourists …"

"A fax just came in from Myles. Shall I bring it in? And Marge called. You want lunch or not, she says."

Quill looked at her watch. "Wow, it's eleven-thirty. Would you call her, Dina, and tell her I'll be there in about half an hour."

"I told her you were behind closed doors with the sheriff," Dina said primly. "And I wasn't sure when you'd be finished."

"You did, huh? What did she say to that?"

Dina giggled. "I'll tell you, if you really want to know."

"Never mind."

"I told her no, it wasn't Myles, it was our elected sheriff, and she was rude like she usually is and hung up."

"Call her back, tell her I'm on the way over. I'll pick the fax up on my way out." She hung up. "I've got to go eat lunch with Marge Schmidt, Davy. Thanks a lot for bringing these papers over."

"No trouble. But I'd better get on that search right away. Did you talk to the ladies at the hospital this morning?"

"I checked. They're playing canasta."

He shook his head. "When we catch this guy, I want to be alone with him for five minutes. Just five minutes. And, pow!" He smacked one hand into the other. "Doesn't it beat all? Killing women who could be your
own mother? I mean, you have to ask yourself why each one of those poor women was strangled, suffocated, and
burned. If he had to kill, why couldn't he kill quick?"

"We'll know when we catch him, I suppose. Do you
want a copy of Myles' fax for your files, Davy? We should share."

"Depends on what it says."

The fax was hurriedly written, in Myles' gracefully
angular hand.

Re: Smith: My old friend now works for a private security firm out of Boston, details of current case to follow, sweatshop abuses in manufacturing. Copies of Vinge correspondence arrive by courier after five p.m. Love to you, Quill. Myles.

"I don't think we need a copy of that for the file," Davy said, reading over her shoulder. "We find that little iron thing, I'll let you know right away."

Quill crumpled the fax into her purse. So there might be a connection between the triangles and the case after all. She'd have to find Thorne Smith and talk to him as soon as she could. "Thanks, David. Dina, I'll just tell Meg that I'm off to Marge's. If you need to reach me, you know the number of the diner."

Quill found Meg asleep on her couch in her rooms. The television was on, the sound turned off. On the screen, a very fat chef in a ponytail was slicing a rabbit breast. Quill shuddered and turned it off.

Like her own suite, Meg's room had a balcony, but it was hard to get to because of the amount of clutter.
Cardboard pots of seedlings sat in every windowsill and
on the floor near the bedroom. Cookbooks were stacked in knee-high piles in front of overflowing book cases.
Meg loved bright, primary colors, and posters of apples, cheeses, herbs, flowers, and kitchenware plastered the
walls.

Meg had refused to install a kitchen in her rooms; she had a drip coffeepot, a small refrigerator, and a tiny cafe table, but that was it. The one professional framed piece
of art in the room hung over this table, the first pencil sketch Quill had ever done of the two of them: Quill herself, at twelve, Meg at eight. Quill hadn't really looked at it for years. Meg stared out at her solemnly,
her jaw firm, eyes bright. Quill had put herself in the background; by comparison she was indistinct, blurry, a
cipher.