A Taste For Murder hf-1

by Claudia Bishop

  Elmer Henry, Tom Peterson, and Howie Murchison dragged Mavis the forty feet from the pond to the bandstand, and the trial itself began. Dookie Shuttleworth, surprisingly awe-inspiring in judge's robe and wig, pronounced the age-old sentence:

  "Thou shall not suffer a witch to live."

  Mavis soggily surveyed the audience, smoothed her dripping gown over her hips, and addressed the judges. "My lords of the Court, I stand before you, accushed of the crime of witchcraft..."

  So far so good, thought Quill, perched on a bench in the front row. The s's are mushy, but what the heck. Half the crowd's mushy from the heat and the beer.

  "A crime of which I'm innoshent!" She burped, swayed, and said mildly, "I'm not a crimin'l. lush tryin' to get along. Good ol' Southern girl in the midst of all of you" - She paused and searched for the proper phrase. "Big swinging dicks?" she hazarded.

  "She's off script!" screamed Esther. Apparently finding the response from the audience satisfactory, Mavis raised her middle finger, wagged it at a blond family of three in the front row, and took a triumphant bow.

  Quill pinched her knee hard, a defense against giggling she hadn't needed since high school.

  Dookie thundered his scripted response, "Scarlet whore of the infernal city! Thou shalt die!" then called for the sledge. Harland Peterson drove Betsy and Ross to the side of the stage, the straw-filled sledge dragging behind them.

  Mavis spread her arms wide, in her second departure from the script, and leaped into Harland's arms. He staggered, cussed, and dropped her into the straw. Responding to a harmless crack of his whip, Betsy and Ross phlegmatically drew the sledge down the path behind the shed.

  As the business of trading Mavis for the hooded dummy went on in the back, Howie, substituting for Gil, read the grisly details of the sentence aloud, straight from the pages of the sentencing at Salem three hundred years before.... planks of sufficient weight and height to be placed upon the body of the witch..."

  Harland Peterson appeared at the edge of the stage, scowling hideously. He waved at Howie, who ignored him.

  "... and the good citizens of this town to carry out the justice of the Almighty..."

  Harland gestured again, furiously.

  "... and the law of the Lord is as stones, and as mighty as stones... What, Harland?"

  "Barfed on my boots! I ain't drivin' that sledge! You git somebody else to drive that sledge." He stomped off. Howie looked around helplessly. The crowd sniggered.

  Harvey Bozzel, teeth displayed in a wide shiny grin, jumped off the stage and reappeared some minutes later on the front seat of the sledge, reins in hand. There was a scattering of applause. "Gee!" he hollered firmly. Betsy and Ross turned obediently to the right. Meeting the wall of the municipal building, they stopped in their tracks.

  Ripples of laughter washed through the audience. Quill stole a look at Elmer and Esther out of the comer of her eye and pinched her knee. She was going to have an almighty bruise.

  "Haw! you durned fool. Tell 'em to haw!" Harland yelled. "Haw!" said Harvey, in a more subdued manner.

  Betsy, or perhaps it was Ross - Quill couldn't tell for certain - flicked an ear, gazed inquiringly at her partner in harness, then pulled to the left. This brought the forward edge of the sledge frame into view. Failing further direction, Betsy and Ross continued to pull left, and the sledge frame hit the shed side with a thud.

  "Giddyap!" roared Harland at his horses. "Ignore the durn fool up there."

  Ross, or perhaps it was Betsy, snorted, shook his head in genuine disgust, and pulled straight in response to the man who fed him oats twice a day - not to mention the occasional sugar cube. The sledge with the dummy finally emerged intact from behind the shed.

  "You got that, Harvey, you idjit?" Harland shouted as he spelled out the commands to make them clear. "H-A-W means left. G-E-E-U-P means right. 'Giddyap' means straight."

  Betsy and Ross broke into a rumbling jog. "Giddyap" was something they understood. The dummy bounced on the sledge, black hood flapping in the breeze.

  " 'Giddyap' twice means faster," Harland said in a normal tone of voice. "Never knowed you was such a durn fool, Harvey."

  The band broke into the strains of Gounod's Funeral March and the procession moved down the path to General Hemlock without further incident.

  Quill wondered if she should check on Mavis. If she'd gotten sick to her stomach, she was going to feel a lot better, and she might want to see the conclusion of the play. On the other hand, Mavis sober was probably meaner than Mavis drunk, and she had taken grave exception to the dose of fiery pepper. Quill decided guiltily to spare herself the experience.

  She strolled on down to the statue, behind the crowd. Howie demanded the laying on of the barn door, while Dookie and Elmer beat a slow and solemn rhythm on a large drum. The dummy, indefinably lifelike, sprawled in the straw. The sacklike hood had been drawn tightly around the high neck of the dress.

  She heard the thunk of stone on wood, and the final prayers of the "judges" condemning the witch's soul to hell.

  The crowd usually entered into the spirit of the thing, and so it was with no surprise that Quill saw Keith Baumer heave a stone weighing a good hundred pounds onto the stones already piled high, to shouts of Go!Go!Go! from the crowd.

  She saw the stage blood seeping from under the wooden planks.

  It was the smell that alerted Quill: the coppery, unmistakable scent of blood-mixed with worse odors. The crowd quieted, then stirred uneasily, like water snakes in a still pond.

  The dummy's hand stiffened, convulsed. The nails turned blue.

  For a few terrible moments, Quill saw nothing else at all.

  -9-

  "Squashed flatter than a bug on a windshield," said Marge, awed.

  Myles had taken immediate control, separating those townspeople and Inn guests nearest the stage from the audience at large and sending them to the Village Library. Davey Kiddermeister escorted them to the ground floor, then set up a methodical interview system. One by one, each of the group was called and disappeared into the librarian's office behind the checkout desk.

  Pale and sweaty, Keith Baumer paced to the front window and looked out at the Pavilion, where Myles was getting names and addresses from the out-of-towners. "Are we gonna put up with this? Who does that damn fool think he is?" He borrowed a cigarette from Harland Peterson and lit it with shaking hands. "He's going to hear from me on this one. I know people."

  Mrs. Hallenbeck coughed and waved her hand elaborately in front of her face.

  "You can't smoke in here," Esther West said. Baumer stubbed out the cigarette with an angry glare. "Murchison, you know about these things. What are our rights here?"

  "I practice family law, Baumer," said Howie dryly. "Probate, real estate. I'm not much on problems like these."

  "It wasn't anybody's fault."

  "That rock you heisted onto the shed door was a hundred pounds if it was twenty," said Harland Peterson brutally. "I'd say it was your fault."

  "But you have to have knowledge beforehand," said Baumer. I had no Idea she was there. You people all piled the rocks along with me. If there's criminal negligence here, we're all in it together. I'd like to retain you as counsel, Murchison, until my own lawyer gets here from New York."

  " 'Fraid I can't help you," said Howie. Quill wondered at the sudden drop in Baumer's buffoonish fa‡ade; he was pretty quick to stand on his rights. Had he been in trouble before?

  Tom Peterson came out from the librarian's office. "He wants to see you next, Quill:' He looked at the assembly. "Don't worry everybody, Deputy Davey's keeping it short."

  Elmer stopped Quill as she headed to the office. "Emergency meeting at the Lounge tonight, Quill? Chamber's got to discuss this."

  Quill nodded her agreement and went into the librarian's office.

  Davey sat at Miriam Doncaster's desk, his black notebook an incongruous official object among the china ducks, geese, and dogs that the librarian collected. "Will you sit down,
please, Ms. Quilliam?"

  Quill sat in the straight chair in front of the desk and folded her hands in her lap.

  "Your name and home address, please, and don't tell me I already know it like Tom Peterson just did, because I have to go through this exactly the same way with everybody, or Myles'll have my head on a platter, like that poor fella that messed with the stripper."

  Quill took a moment to sort this out. Davey was a faithful member of Dookie's church. He must mean John the Baptist.

  "Sarah Quilliam, the Hemlock Falls Inn, Four Hemlock Road, Hemlock Falls," she said. "My zip code..."

  "Don't need no zip code." Breathing through his mouth, Davey peered at the notebook. "May I see your driver's license, please?" Quill fished in her purse and handed it over. Davey made a check mark in his notebook without looking at it, and handed it back. "Did you know the name of the deceased?" he read aloud.

  "Mavis Collinwood."

  "Do you remember what she was wearing when she left the stage on the sledge? Before Harland pulled her around to the back?"

  "A long, black cotton gown. A white ruff around her neck. A black cloth cap tied with strings under her chin."

  "Anything else?"

  "Well - " Quill blinked at him. "Shoes... stockings... and, um, underwear?"

  "Thank you. Please leave the library without speaking to anyone out there. Except to tell your sister that she's next."

  "That's all?" Quill rose to her feet. "Yes, ma'am."

  "Do you think you could interview Mrs. Hallenbeck next, Davey? It's been a long day for her, and she's had quite a shock."

  Davey's eyebrows drew together; an obdurate state official following an inflexible routine. "Myles told me to do these interviews of the people who actually knew Ms. Collin wood in this exact order. Mrs. Hallenbeck's at the bottom, right before the people who were next to the stage."

  "Why isn't he interviewing the people who piled rocks on the barn door?" asked Quill, exasperated.

  "I don't know, ma'am. Just doing my job."

  "You'll be doing your job a lot better if you let me get that little old lady back up to the Inn so she can recover from the shock," said Quill with asperity. "I'm sure Myles would want you to see to the needs of the elderly."

  "He did tell me to make sure she was comfortable. I got her a glass of water. And a cookie." Davey slowly erased a line from the bottom half of his notebook and laboriously wrote at the top. "I'll see her right after your sister and Mr. Lancashire."

  "Would you tell Meg and Mrs. Hallenbeck that I'll wait for them outside?"

  "Yes, ma'am. And you're not supposed - "

  "To tell anyone you belted me with a rubber hose to extract important information."

  Quill walked outside and sat on the steps of the library. Across the green lawn of the park four lines of tourists stood restlessly in the July heat. Myles had assigned uniformed officers to take the names and addresses of members of the audience. Others patrolled the lines, seeing that the elderly had a place to sit in the shade, and taking little kids to the Porta-Johns. Quill figured the interview took about three minutes, minus the demands she'd made of Davey, and did some calculations on her fingers. At eighty people an hour, it'd be several hours before she could ask Myles what the heck was going on.

  Meg bounced out the library door. "Edward will be out in a minute," she said. "I told him we'd wait for him. What do you suppose that clothes stuff was all about?" she continued, coming down the steps to sit at Quill's side. "I mean, who cares what she was wearing? Does Myles ask people in a car crash if the driver was wearing designer jeans, or what?"

  Quill, who had been wondering the same thing herself, let out a gasp.

  "Well?" Meg demanded.

  "The hood."

  "The hood?"

  "The hood. Meg, somebody put the hood on Mavis. She was never supposed to wear the hood. She was supposed to ride on the sledge to the back of the stage, jump off, put the dummy in her place, and stroll on out to watch the rest of the fun and games. But Harland came stomping out complaining that she'd thrown up allover his shoes, and then Harvey said he'd drive the sledge. Mavis could have passed out on the sledge, which would account for the fact that she was there instead of the dummy, but she had no reason to put on the hood."

  "Wow," said Meg. "Oh, wow. Murder. Oh, my God. Who did it?"

  "How should I know?" demanded Quill. She watched the sheriff's patrol across the green. "All kinds of people had motives to murder Mavis."

  "Who?"

  "Who? I'll tell you who." Quill, upset, couldn't think of anyone but John and Tom Peterson. But they had wanted Gil dead, hadn't they? Or had they? "Celeste Baumer for one."

  "I thought she went back to Manhattan after Myles let her out of jail."

  "Maybe she didn't. Maybe she stayed here, lurking until an opportunity presented itself."

  "Dressed like she was, she'd stick out a mile. Who else?" Meg's eyebrows shot up. "I know! Mrs. Hallenbeck!"

  "Why? She's out a companion, and I really doubt she'd find it easy to get another one. She's terrified of being alone. Not to mention the fact," Quill added sarcastically, "that she's eighty-three years old and more than likely a grandmother six times over."

  "The Grandmother Murders," said Meg. "I like it."

  "Now Keith Baumer - there's a murderer for you."

  "Too obvious," said Meg. "I mean, he was the one who lifted the heavy stone onto her."

  "Not if he wanted to divert suspicion from himself." Quill locked her hands around her knees. She could see Myles's broad shoulders in the distance. "Maybe Mavis was pressuring him to marry her, or something."

  "I wish John would get back," said Meg, who obviously wanted to avoid a serious discussion as Quill did. "This is a mess. Do you suppose they'll cancel the rest of History Days?"

  "I don't know." Quill rubbed her hands over her face. "Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe it was an accident. Mavis was so drunk, she could have put the hood on as a joke or something, and then passed out on the sledge."

  "Myles will take care of it." Meg sat up and brushed the seat of her jeans briskly. "Let's walk over and ask him what's going on."

  "He'll just tell us to butt out, Meg. He always does." Quill was seized with a desire to get back to the Inn, and jumped to her feet. "Where's Edward? He's been in there quite a while. Did he go in right after you?"

  "Yep. I'll go check."

  "Meg, we're not supposed to go in there. Davey said..."

  "Bosh!" Meg jumped up, disappeared into the building, then reappeared a few moments later with Edward Lancashire. "Mrs. Hallenbeck just went in to see Officer Kiddermeister," he said in response to Quill's inquiry.

  "You were in there a long time," said Meg. "Did he ask you the same questions he asked us?"

  "I'm sure he did," Edward said easily.

  The door to the library swung open, and Mrs. Hallenbeck felt her way carefully down the steps. Quill went up and took her arm. "Are you feeling all right? This must have been such a shock!"

  "This has been quite an experience," the old lady said. "Most interesting. I warned her that liquor would be the death of her someday - that, and those pills." She gazed around with satisfaction. "It's a lovely day."

  "Did Mavis drink much, Mrs. Hallenbeck?" Edward asked.

  "A cocktail every evening, without fail. I myself neither smoke nor drink, nor put any drugs in my body," she said firmly. "I am often complimented on my youthful appearance. It is the result of taking care of myself. Shall we walk to the Inn? I could use a cup of tea."

  "Would you like me to call the van from the Inn, Mrs. Hallenbeck? It's all uphill." Quill was worried about her in the heat.

  "What a thoughtful child you are, Sarah. You take such good care of me. No. I shall walk. I walk four or five miles a day most of the time. I am frequently complimented on my stamina."

  The four of them set off at a rapid pace, Mrs. Hallenbeck leading the way.

  "Had you known Mavis long?" asked Edward of her.

&n
bsp; "Oh, yes. She worked for my late husband, you know. Had a title - Human Resources Director or somesuch. Quite a stupid woman, really, when you think about it."

  "Such a terrible way to die," murmured Quill, half to herself.

  "Perhaps the sheriff will find some evidence on the barn door," suggested Edward.