Mavis flirted, giggled, and ignoring Mrs. Hallenbeck's imperious frown, beckoned to Baumer. Baumer shuffled over from his table and sat on Mavis' left. Sprightly conversation wafted through the air. Meg pulled at her lower lip. Quill looked at this familial symptom of deep thought in alarm. "Meg, I know that look. What are you going to do?"
"Me?" said Meg innocently. "Not a thing, sister dear, not a thing. Excuse me a moment." She sprang up and went into the kitchen. Quill swallowed her French toast, took a gulp of tea, and followed her hastily.
"A lot of tarragon, I think," Meg was saying to her sous chefs, "and what else? Ideas, guys, I need ideas."
"Baking soda instead of baking powder?" said the shorter one. His name was Frank Torrelli; his father ran a good restaurant in Toronto, and Frank was slated to take over the family kitchen when his apprenticeship with Meg was up. The taller one was a Swede from Finland, studying at the Cornell Hotel School on a green card. Bjorn's blond hair and blue eyes had the pale, icy look of plain water in a glass.
"Salt," said Bjorn. "A lot of it."
"Too obvious;" said Meg. "I want subtle stuff. So he's not really sure what it is."
"I got it. I got it!" said Frank. He ran excitedly to the cupboard, pulled out a small bottle, and waved it in the air. "Eh? S'all right?"
"All right!" said Meg.
They burst into laughter.
"What's all this, then?" said Quill, feeling a little like a policeman in a medium-grade British mystery.
"Never you mind," said Meg. "Don't you have a lot of stuff to do today? Beat it."
"Peter's going to manage the front desk today. Doreen's taking care of the housekeeping staff. And I thought that Bjorn and Frank were in charge of the kitchen shifts." Quill folded her arms and leaned against the butcher's block. "One of the advantages of taking management courses at Cornell at nights is that you learn to empower your employees. So, I've got lots of time to spend with you guys, since you seem to be making all the decisions, anyway."
"Hey. Wouldn't your life be a lot easier if that miserable Mavis and sleazy Baumer beat feet?" demanded Meg.
"Well, yeah. Baumer at least." Frank had the mysterious bottle in his large hand and she couldn't see the label. Quill didn't know if she wanted to see the label. "But if Mavis doesn't stay the week, I have to play Clarissa. And you could rate my enthusiasm to be dunked and squashed right up there with getting nasty letters from the Board of Health. Not only that, but Mavis is going to be subpoenaed as a witness in Gil's drowning accident. So she can't leave."
"Just Baumer, then," said Meg. "We're just going to encourage Baumer to leave a leetle bit earlier than he had planned to. He's going to find the food not to his taste." Gales of giggles came from the sous chefs. Meg flung out both her hands at Quill's outraged expression. "Nothing illegal, immoral, or actionable. I swear."
"Please, Meg," said Quill. "Think of the bad publicity."
"From a guy whose wife shows up while he's in the sack with Mavis the Bimbo? From a guy whose wife whacks him up the side of the head with a lamp? He's lucky we don't turn him in to his company. One call to his boss at the Marriott, one call, that's all it'd take! He's lucky we don't sue him for damages. He's lucky he's alive!" Meg raked her hair back with both hands. Her cheeks were flushed.
Her eyes glittered. Frank and Bjorn exchanged meaningful glances and melted into the background. "I will SHUT DOWN MY KITCHEN before I serve my good food to pigs like that!" Meg shouted. "I will THROW MY SPATULAS INTO THE FIRE!"
"Mornin' ," said Doreen, stumping into the kitchen. She was wearing her best polyester pantsuit and a small straw hat. She put her hands on her hips and stared at Meg. "Well, missy. Looks like the Devil's got aholt of you."
Meg drummed her fingers on the countertop.
"You look nice, Doreen," Quill ventured into the charged silence.
"Been to see the Reverend," she said. "Givin' him tips on how to wake up the sinners. Gave him a couple of ideas for his sermon, he said." She went to the locker room to change into her work clothes. Her voice floated back to them. "Told him about last night. Said he'd never heard of such a scandalous thing." She reappeared, tying her capacious apron neatly around her waist. "Thinks that there Baumer's goin' straight to Hell. Along with Mavis. Called her a right fine name, too." She rummaged in her purse, withdrew a piece of paper, and squinted at it. "Wrote it down. Suckabus."
Meg started to laugh.
"Succubus," said Quill. "Oh, dear."
"Sounds nasty," said Doreen hopefully. "Innit? What is it, exactly?"
"Succubi are female demons," said Quill. "They visit afflicted men in the dead of night and... ah..."
"Sap their life force," said Meg with a wicked grin.
"You mean there's more than one?" said Doreen. "It's not just this Mavis Collin wood?"
"Quite a few in Times Square, when I visited," said Frank. He and Bjorn, noting the ebb of Meg's temper, had rejoined the women.
"They aren't real, Doreen," said Quill. "A succubus is a , metaphor for the way the people of Old Testament times viewed a certain type of woman, and as far as I'm concerned, it's a bunch of male chauvinist hooey. I don't want any more discussion about sex vampires of Hemlock Falls, or for that matter, foul substances in Keith Baumer's food. I want everyone to go back to work."
"Yes, ma'am." Meg saluted. "Whatever you say, ma'am!" Quill marched back to the dining room, ignoring the snickers from the kitchen with the dignity befitting a manager who had successfully quelled an employee revolt. A hoot of laughter with distinctly Swedish overtones modified her conclusion to a half-muttered, "Well, I told them, anyway."
She sat down at the table to finish her breakfast. In a few minutes, Edward Lancashire joined her. "Ready for the big day?"
"It's not really a big day for me," Quill explained, "or Meg either. Everyone's checked in; the dining room, Lounge, and bar are all booked, and the staff knows what to do."
"It's the front-end preparation that's the toughest," said Edward.
"You'd know about that," Meg said cheerfully, as she rejoined her sister at the table. "You're not planning on dinner here tonight, are you, Edward?"
"No. I've booked a table at Renees in Ithaca. Opening day of History Week is a little too raucous for me."
"You're going to the play this afternoon, though," said Meg. "We're having a picnic. Nobody should miss the play. And you shouldn't miss my gravlax. The Scotch Bonnet salsa is fabulous."
"Oh, I think everyone will be there," said Edward Lancashire. "Mrs. Collinwood. Mr. Baumer. The delightful Ms. Schmidt. I've eaten at her restaurant, by the way. It's quite good for American diner food. Perhaps even Mr. Raintree will join us?
I haven't seen him around lately." "He had some personal errands to run," said Quill hastily. "But I'm sure he'll be there, too. Nobody within fifty miles of Hemlock Falls misses The Trial of Goody Martin."
Seeing the crowds that afternoon, Quill revised her estimate upward; tour buses brought day trippers from Rochester, Buffalo, and Syracuse. Myles and his men cordoned off Main Street, and allowed cars to park on the shoulder of Route 96 outside the central business district.
The Kiwanis beer tent did a thriving business, the Lions hot dog stand ran out of buns at two o'clock, and the Fireman's Auxiliary kiosk posted a triumphant SOLD OUT sign on the counter that had displayed wooden lawn ornaments of geese, pigs, cats, ducks, cows, and the rear ends of women in long print dresses. Gil's Buick dealership always took a booth for History Days. Quill, intent on finding out more from Tom Peterson about John and Gil, caught a glimpse of the awning over the late-model car that the dealership always planted in front of the booth. She wound her way through the tourists to it. Tom Peterson greeted her with a wave and a smile. Nadine sat under the awning, hands folded in her lap. Freddie, unexpectedly garrulous, was there, too.
"Missed you in church this morning," said Tom, who was a deacon at Dookie's church.
"John's out of town for a bit, and I got caught up," Quill apolog
ized. "You know how it is in the summer. John's due back today, though. So I'll be sure to try next week."
"I wouldn't miss it, if I were you," said Freddie. "Something sure lit a fire under the Reverend this morning. Whoo-weee!"
Quill, intent on forming questions that would give her some clues as to Gil's relationship with the girl in John's picture, gave him an encouraging, if absent-minded, look.
"Hellfire and brimstone. Quite a little sermon." Freddie leaned forward and said in a low voice, "Just between you and me? Collections were up pretty near seventy-five per cent. The Reverend was as pleased as Punch, said the Lord was showing him the way to a resurgence of faith. And where there's a resurgence of faith, there's a resurgence of cash. Now, Miss Quill, wish we could come up with something for you that would give us a resurgence of cash. You think about tradin' in that old heap you've got for a good late-model car?"
"You're taking over from Gil?"
Freddie shot an anxious look at his boss. "Just temporarily, like. Now, about that old heap..."
"Gil sold me that 'old heap' two years ago," said Quill indignantly. "It wasn't an 'old heap' then."
"Got to have the look of success in your business," said Freddie wisely. "Now, I could show you..."
Quill laid a hand on Freddie's arm and promised to look at new cars. Then she walked up to Tom and said flatly, "Was Gil worried about the business?"
"Hell, we both were. I floated him a couple of private loans to tide him over first and second quarter. He expected business to pick up."
"Was that John's recommendation? The private loans?"
"John? He didn't have much to say about it."
"Does he audit all your books, Tom? You know, for the transport company and your private affairs?"
Tom's face closed up. "I don't know that that's really any business of yours, Quill. No offense."
Quill flushed. Great detectives of fiction were never accused of rudeness; she'd have to brush up on her technique. "I was just thinking of having John do my personal taxes, that's all. Wondered if you found him as good at that as he is at the commercial end."
Tom frowned. "Quill, you hired him. You know him better than I do."
"Just wanted your opinion," she murmured. She cleared her throat. "Will you have a new partner now? Did Gil leave key-man insurance, or do you get the whole dealership?"
"Quill, I don't know what game you're playing at. But you don't play it with me. I'm warning you." He held her eyes for a long minute. Quill gazed coolly back. He turned away from her. "Time for you to be going down to the Pavilion, isn't it? Wouldn't want to miss the play. Unless you'd rather continue to stick your oar into my personal business."
The sun was hot, but not hot enough to account for the heat in her face. Quill decided her chief irritation was with Myles, who had failed to clarify the embarrassing pitfalls awaiting inexperienced interrogators. She shoved the recollection of Myles's prohibitions against any kind of detecting firmly out of her mind, waved cheerfully at Nadine, who raised a hand listlessly back, and walked the two blocks to the Pavilion, absorbed in thought.
The open-air Pavilion was ideally situated for the presentation of The Trial of Goody Martin. Thirty wooden benches, seating three to four people each, formed a series of half-circles in front of a bandstand the size of a small theater stage. A forty-foot, three-sided shed had been built in back of the bandstand in 1943 to provide space for changing rooms, sets, small floats for parades, and band instruments. Between the shed and the municipal buildings that housed the town's snowplows, fire engines, and ambulances was an eight-foot- wide gravel path. The path debouched onto the macadam parkway that circled the entire acreage of the park. The action in The Trial of Goody Martin required that the audience sweep along with the actors and props in a path from the duck pond to the bandstand to the bronze statue of General Frederick C.C. Hemlock.
The statue of the man and his horse had been erected in 1868, two hundred years after the founding of the village. Something had gone awry in the casting process, and the General's face had a wrinkled brow and half-open mouth, leaving him with a permanently pained expression as he sat in the saddle. On occasion, roving bands of Cornell students on spring break heaped boxes of hemorrhoid remedies at the statue's base, which sent the mayor into fits. Most years the statue sat detritus-free, except for the six-foot heap of cobblestones piled at the foot and used to crush the witch each year.
The crowd was enormous, the benches jammed. Quill stood at the periphery and scanned the mass of people for Meg and Edward Lancashire.
Esther West jumped up on the lip of the bandstand, and shaded her eyes with her hands. She caught sight of Quill, pointed at her, and waved frantically.
Elmer Henry appeared out of the crush of people and grasped her arm. His face was grim. "You memorize that Clarissa part?"
Quill's heart sank. "Why?"
"That Mavis is drunker than a skunk. Esther don't want her to go on."
"Elmer... I..."
"You're the understudy, aren't you? You got to do this, Quill. For the town."
"Maybe we can do something," said Quill weakly. "A lot of black coffee?" The mayor looked doubtful. "Come on. She may not be drunk, Elmer; she may just have stage fright. I mean, look at all these people."
"That's what I'm looking at. All these people. We can't have the Chamber look like a durn fool in front of these folks. Do you know that some have come all the way from Buffalo?"
Quill plowed her way determinedly through the sightseers to the shed at the back of the bandstand, the mayor trailing behind. The shed was seething with a confused mass of costumed players and uniformed high-school band members. Harland Peterson's two huge draft horses, Betsy and Ross, stamped balefully in the comer. The sledge, the barn door, and the band instruments squeezed the space still further.
"Quill! Thank God! Do you see her, that slut?" Esther gestured frantically at Mavis, then clutched both Quill and a copy of the script in frantic hands. Sweat trickled down her neck. Mavis, blotto, swayed ominously in the arms of Keith Baumer. Her face was red, her smile beatific. Esther shrieked, "Can you believe it? Here's the script. You've got ten minutes until we're on."
Surrounded by Mrs. Hallenbeck, Betty Hall, Marge Schmidt, and Harvey Bozzel, Mavis caught sight of Quill and caroled, "Coo-ee!"
"Coo-ee to you, too," said Quill. "Esther, I can fix this. I need a bucket of ice, a couple of towels, and Meg and her picnic basket."
The ice arrived before Meg. Quill ruthlessly dropped it down Mavis' dress, front and back. Someone handed her a towel. She made an ice pack and held it to the back of the wriggling Mavis' neck.
Meg and Edward Lancashire joined them a few moments later. "Oh, God," said Meg. "Will you look at her?"
"You've got your picnic basket?" Quill asked through clenched teeth.
"Sure."
"You have those Scotch Bonnet peppers for that salsa?"
A huge grin spread over Meg's face. "Yep."
"You have your special killer-coffee?"
"Uh-huh."
"Then let's get to work."
The Scotch Bonnet had the most dramatic effect. Mavis gulped the coffee, squealed girlishly at the reapplied ice pack, but howled like a banshee after Meg slipped a pepper slice into her mouth.
"Language, language," said Meg primly. The two sisters stepped back and surveyed their handiwork. Mavis glared at them, eyes glittering dangerously.
"And Myles claims you can't sober up a drunk," said Quill. "Actually, he's right," said Edward Lancashire. "All black coffee does is give you a wide-awake drunk. I don't know that Scotch Bonnet has ever been used as a remedy for drunks before. I'd say what you've got there is a wide-awake, very annoyed drunk."
"You can write about it in your column," Meg said pertly. "Well, Esther? What d'ya think?"
"I think we've got ourselves a Clarissa," said Esther grimly. "Just in case, Quill, I want you to study that script. She'll make the ducking stool, but I don't know about the trial. C'm
on, you."
In subsequent years, Chamber meetings would be dominated periodically by attempts to resurrect The Trial of Goody Martin, and it was Esther West, newly converted to feminism, who firmly refused to countenance it. "Anti-woman from the beginning," she'd say. "It was a dumb idea in the first place, and a terrible period in American history, and we never should have celebrated it the way we did. Now, Hamlet - that play by William Shakespeare? I've always wanted a hand in that."
Mavis handled the ducking stool and the swim with a subdued hostility that augured well for the artistic quality of her impassioned speech at the trial to come. Marge Schmidt, Betty Hall, Nadine Gilmeister, Mrs. Hallenbeck, and others in The Crowd, may have yelled "Sink or swim" with undue emphasis on the "sink" part, but the audience failed to notice a diminution in the thrust of the whole performance, and joined in with a will.
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