only two." I pulled a pair of rubber boots onto my feet.
"One of them Willow picked up," Ellie said, following
my thought. I'd described this to her. "And the
other one, Heywood got." She pulled her own rain
gear on and took an umbrella from one of the other
hooks.
"Marcus had a one-in-three chance of choosing the
one that was harmless. So," she concluded, "maybe
Marcus was just lucky or something."
"Right," I said, pulling on my rain hat. "Or something."
Tomorrow morning, the weekend would be over.
Ordinarily, the town's visitors might stay longer, but
lousy weather combined with the news that Eastport
harbored a murderer would make the causeway look
like the Long Island Expressway.
And somehow I had no doubt that one of the first
cars onto the mainland would contain a tall, statuesque
blonde, heading for the hills.
"Let's," I said grimly, "go find Willow Prettymore."
The Motel East was a low, well-kept structure
of dark wood with a blacktopped parking
lot and manicured landscaping. The lot
was full of cars, most with out-of-state
plates, the blacktop awash and the shrubberies bent in
the driving wind. We made our way among them and
headed for Willow's door, which was around back facing
the water.
The wind howled as we struggled to keep on our
feet; the tide was so high that the bay itself surged
nearly onto Sea Street, below the granite ledge the motel
was built on.
Then the door opened, and whatever Ellie said got
us in.
"I don't know what you're doing here," Willow
began, "but I am very upset, and I wish you'd just--" :
"Shut up," I gasped, still busy catching my breath
after the maelstrom outside. Her jaw dropped, and she
fell silent.
The room was huge, equipped with two queen
sized beds, three armchairs, bureaus, and a big TV. A
kitchenette held a small sink, a microwave, and a coffeemaker.
Pulled up in front of the television were the
two young blond kids I'd seen earlier, now in thrall to
the screen.
A bottle of Cutty Sark and an ice bucket stood on
the sink. "You can't ..." Willow tried again. Ellie
walked over to the sink, poured a stiff slug of Cutty,
and handed it to Willow.
"This is my friend Jacobia. You're going to talk to
her, or tomorrow we're going to start reminding people
why your nickname used to be 'Willow the Pillow.'
I believe it had something to do with lying down," she
finished sweetly. "Isn't that right?"
Willow took a slow, furious swallow of her Cutty
Sark. "You always were a holier-than-thou little
bitch," she grated in low tones. "I knew I shouldn't
have come back here."
So much for the image. I glanced at the kids but
they were watching a wrestling match with the sound
turned up loud. No husband was in evidence. "Have
the police been here?" I asked.
"Just Bob Arnold," Willow replied resentfully.
"He thinks we'll have to stay an extra day, for the state
police. I told him it was inconvenient and he got extremely
huffy with me."
She took another gulp. "As if it's any concern of
mine what goes on among the locals."
She gave the final word a scornful twist, and suddenly
I realized how hard it would be, trying to figure
out who might've wanted to poison Willow Prettymore.
I, for instance, had only known her about
three minutes, and I wanted to put a couple of cyanide
laced ice cubes in her Cutty, just for the fun of it.
"Be that as it may," I began. She was wearing Joy
perfume, full makeup, and enough gold jewelry to sink
a battleship.
"I'd still like to know what puts you in the same
category as Heywood Sondergard, Weasel Bodine,
Mike Carpentier, and Reuben Tate. I mean, in the
sense that I think someone wants to kill you all, and so
far has succeeded three times out of four."
That widened her eyes, all right. If she wasn't acting.
I was lying a little bit myself. But only a little bit. I
went on:
"Someone dosed the last two glasses of lemonade
very fast, as they were passing by the drinks table. And
as you and Heywood were already nearly in the act of
reaching for the glasses."
I'd been thinking hard on the way down to the
motel. "To be sure," I finished, "that the right people
got them."
"But ... how?" She stared at me in shock.
"Have you any idea how little rat poison it takes to
kill a person?"
Or whatever it was, and I didn't know how much
it took, either; all I knew was that it smelled like the
stuff. But maybe Willow did know; she'd been standing
by that drinks table, too.
"Palm two doses," I theorized, "preferably folded
in slips of paper so it doesn't get on your skin. Then
... just walk along, dropping the stuff in. Toss the
paper slips in the trash."
I sat down at the Formica-topped table in the
kitchen area. "The killer would have come prepared,
hoping for a good moment. Maybe even mutilated
Molly Carpentier's doll, to get attention focused elsewhere.
The timing didn't quite work out, maybe, but it
worked well enough. And when the moment arrived,
bingo."
I smiled at her. "Neat, sweet, and complete. Only
you didn't happen to drink from your glass. How," I
finished, "convenient."
"Oh, now wait a minute! You don't think I had
anything to do with--"
"I don't know. I'm trying to find out. And until
now I must say you haven't been very helpful. I'm
wondering why not. And don't," I added, "give me any
nonsense about your reputation. I'd think helping to
solve a murder would do wonders for it, but you
haven't bothered."
"Mike Carpentier hasn't been attacked," Willow
retorted waspishly. She refilled her glass, sat across
from me at the table. She hadn't invited me to sit, but I
had decided to anyway; for all her glossy image she
was a little short in the manners department.
"Maybe he's behind it all," Willow added, her
voice filled with venom. "He's nuts enough."
"Oh, but he has. The doll mutilation was pretty
graphic. I'd say it went beyond distraction. If I were
Mike, I'd be wondering if it was meant as some kind of
a preview."
I was cold, damp, and not feeling like standing on
much ceremony. Someone should have taught Willow
that the high-class society ladies she was apparently
trying to imitate were generally more hospitable, and
less jewel encrusted, than she imagined. I got up, found
the coffee and equipment, and started the coffeemaker
while Willow regarded her whiskey glass sullenly.
"I'm not saying you've all been attacked at the
same time, you see," I went on. "Or even to the same
degree, so far."
On the television, large men in spandex grappled
with each other. Ellie had joined the children and was
watching the wrestling match with the air of one raptly
learning about social customs on Mars. She glanced up
absently, intent on the sight of one very large man pretending
to stomp hard on another very large man's
throat.
"Is this," she wanted to know, "real? Or faked?"
"Neither," I said. "It's Greek theater. You know,
struggle and climax and catharsis, and all that."
"Oh," she replied comprehendingly, and returned
to studying the spectacle as if she were an anthropologist.
"The police are going to question you very
comprehensively," I told Willow. "Along with your husband.
Where is he?"
She shook her blond head impatiently; probably he
was out somewhere trying to buy a case of bananas,
maybe some peanuts. Willow's perfect pale hair had
escaped its chignon, and her pink lipstick was thick on
the plastic whiskey glass.
"We had an argument," she admitted.
Darn, and I had missed it: all that jungle chest
beating. At the supper he'd sat apart from the rest,
glowering like something out of a traveling circus.
"He didn't want to come in the first place. I
wanted to show off, he said. I just wanted people to see
that I'd ... that I'd ..."
A sob escaped her. I poured her some coffee. She
sipped it, made a face, drank more. "I'm sorry," she
muttered. "I'm not usually so disgusting. But Ellie was
right," she went on a little drunkenly, and I thought
the Cutty bottle was turning out to be a stroke of luck.
"When I grew up here, I was the town slut."
She looked up miserably. "I just wanted them to
know I'm not Willow the Pillow anymore. Is that so
awful?"
"No," I said, pitying her suddenly. "It isn't." Just
then it occurred to me what I didn't see anywhere in
the room.
"Urn, Willow, may I use the bathroom?"
She nodded, and I found my way to the facilities.
Closing the door, I locked it as quietly as I could, the
sound from the TV covering me. As I'd hoped, Willow's
purse hung on the hook behind the door.
A quick rummage was all I had time for: keys, wallet,
usual credit cards, and a driver's license. A couple
of hundred in cash. No handy tin of Acme rat killer.
But at the bottom of the bag was an interesting discovery:
a small orange plastic bottle of Valium tablets.
Three or four of them rattled lonesomely around in the
bottom of the bottle.
Which made me wonder: Victor had written Reuben
Tate a prescription for sedatives. But was that the
sedative Tate had in his system when he died? The definitive
toxicology tests, Bennet Berman had informed
me, wouldn't be back for a couple of weeks.
Tucking the bottle away swiftly, I flushed, ran the
water, and went back out to the kitchenette. Either the
Cutty had begun making Willow feel even more talkative
or she'd decided it was time to blow some smoke
at me; I couldn't tell which.
"My husband is in business with all the right people,"
she sniffled.
Visions of organ-grinders danced in my head; with