"She came in. Saw the plaque that says 'Established 1693.' Closed her eyes. Spun around for a second saying 'prophecy' a couple of times and then started hollering about three knocks on the door and blood, blood, blood, blood, blood..."
"Stop," said Quill.
Dina gazed consideringly at the little old lady for a moment, then said indignantly, "I didn't do a thing to her."
"Of course you didn't," Elaine McIntosh said in a helpless way. "She does this all the time!" She grabbed her mother-in-law's wrist and shook it gently. "Tutti. Tutti! TUTTI!"
"What!" Mrs. McIntosh demanded in a suddenly pragmatic tone of voice.
"Are you all right?"
"I'm fine, dear. Thank you." Mrs. McIntosh regarded Quill, John, Dina, and Doreen - who had appeared at the dining room entrance rolling her mop-bucket - with cheerful equanimity. "How do you all do?"
"Lot better since that caterwauling stopped," said Doreen. "What'n the hell was that all about? You woulda thought..." Her suspicious gaze fell on the carpet. "Dog pee!" she murmured. "Dog pee. On my carpet."
"Tatiana didn't do it," Mrs. McIntosh said immediately. She bent to pick up the pug, who backed away, snarling ferociously. She sang, "Good doggie, good doggie, good - OW!" Then she dropped it.
"Outta the way," Doreen snarled. She jerked the bucket forward, the water sloshing. Tatiana stood defiantly over the small pool on the rug and yapped.
"G'wan," said Doreen, brandishing the mop. "You little bastard."
"Doreen," John said mildly.
Tatiana's yaps ascended the scale and increased in pitch. Dina clapped her hands over her ears. Doreen bent over, pushed her nose into Tatiana's and roared, "SHUT UP!"
Tatiana's little pink mouth closed. Her button eyes bulged. She panted, yipped once, rolled her eyes up into her head, and spasmed. She rolled on her back and lay upside down, all four legs in the air, motionless.
"My God," breathed Dina. "It's dead!"
"Huh," Doreen said, pleased.
Quill clapped her hands over her mouth.
"She's not dead," Tutti said briskly, "she's fainted. Actually, she just wants us to think she's fainted. She's faking. Does it all the time." She nudged Tatiana with her toe. "Up, darling. Up. Up. Up."
Tatiana, still upside down, opened her eyes and gave Doreen an evil look.
"Come to Mummy!"
Tatiana rolled to her feet, gave a standing jump, and landed in Tutti's arms.
"Wow!" said Dina. "That's a valuable dog, Mrs. McIntosh. I mean, jeez. Did you see that, Quill? John? How did you train her to do that, Mrs. McIntosh?"
Doreen, on her knees scrubbing at the damp spot on the rug, looked up at Tatiana with a steady considering stare. Tatiana stared steadily back.
"Um, Doreen," said Quill. "Maybe we could all just kind of forget this. Mrs. McIntosh, I'm Sarah Quill - "
"Sarah Quilliam," she said with a gracious air. Her voice was high and sweet. "The noted painter. I am very, very pleased to meet you. I've seen your work in the galleries in New York. Such an eye for color, my dear! Such sensitivity! You of all people should understand the aura here. You feel it, too, don't you?"
"Well, actually," said Quill, "I don't... feel what, Mrs. McIntosh?"
Her voice dropped an octave. "The Coming Disaster. I felt the vibrations as soon as I walked in that door. This marriage must not take place!"
"Tutti!" Elaine wailed.
"Where's Claire?" Tutti demanded briskly.
"Claire?" asked Quill. "Urn. Yes. Claire."
"The bride," John said helpfully.
"Oh! Of course! Come to think of it, I haven't seen her today. Have you, Dina?"
"Nope."
Mrs. McIntosh gestured, her bracelets clanking. "I must see her. As soon as she arrives. There is danger here, I tell you. Three knocks at the door, and then blood, blo - "
"Mrs. McIntosh!" Quill said firmly.
"Claire took the Caddy to pick up her father at the train station, Tutti," said Elaine. "They should have been here by now, but with the snow coming on so fast, they must have been delayed."
"I told Vic to take the train," said Mrs. McIntosh. "It's more comfortable. It's safe. And a lot cheaper." She adjusted the large diamond brooch on her scarf with a virtuous air. "I just hope he doesn't get into an accident coming from Ithaca. Norton almost ditched my limo twice on the way up from Boston."
"They'll be fine. Vic's a wonderful driver." Elaine looked a question at Quill. "Now, Tutti, why don't I take you up to your room?"
"What a good idea! We've put you in the Proven‡al suite, Mrs. McIntosh. I'm sure you'll be very comfortable up there. And would you like a tea? We've got fresh scones and Devonshire cream. And our hot chocolate is very good."
The little dog in her arms barked.
"And I'm sure we can find a biscuit for, um..."
"Tatiana," Mrs. McIntosh supplied.
"Of course, um... good doggie," Quill said inadequately.
"We don't hold with dog pee here," Doreen said in an ominous way. "I don't do dog pee. Windows. Terlits. Refrigerators. I do all that. I don't do dog pee."
"Of course you don't!" Mrs. McIntosh said sunnily. "Now, if this very good-looking young man could escort me upstairs, I think I could use a little rest. It's Mr. Raintree, isn't it?"
John inclined his head gravely.
"Are you married, Mr. Raintree?"
"No, Mrs. McIntosh. Not yet."
"Mrs. McIntosh took his arm and twinkled at him. "Call em Tutti! Everyone does. And I'd adore it if you could meet my granddaughter. She's single, too."
Quill watched them proceed up the winding stairs to the upper floors. Tatiana, flopped over Tutti's furry arm, regarded Doreen unblinkingly with her shoe button eyes.
"I didn't know you had two daughters, Mrs. McIntosh," said Dina.
Elaine took a deep breath. "I don't. She doesn't either. Have another granddaughter, I mean. Oh, Quill, what am I going to do? You see what I mean?"
"Well, I think your mother-in-law is cool," Dina said in a reverent tone. "I mean, is she really, like, psychic and all? Did you see how she knew John's name before anybody, like, introduced him?"
Quill tapped the nameplate under the "Reception" sign, which read, Your Hosts: Sarah Quilliam/Margaret Quilliam/John Raintree.
"Honest, Quill, she walked right in here and started prophesying right away. She didn't have a chance to read a thing! Besides, John could have been anybody. Like, another guest or something."
"I don't think so," Quill said repressively. "Elaine, why don't we go back to my office and rework the plans for the reception? We're essentially doubling the number 0 of guests, is that right? It's going to put a bit of strain s: on the kit - "
The knocker on the Inn's oak door sounded once, twice, and a third time, echoing impressively in the It foyer. Dina screamed. Doreen raised her mop like a club, grasping the handle firmly in both hands.
"My God," said Elaine. "Oh, my God." She backed against the newel post to the stairway, quivering.
The knocks on the door were succeeded by a series of thumps and bangs. Quill marched across the foyer and flung the door wide. A gust of cold air blew snow across the Oriental rug. An extremely cross male voice ordered Quill to get the goddamned luggage.
"Vic!" cried Elaine. "You made it! I was so worried!"
"Roads were a goddamned pain," he snarled. "Claire? Will you get your ass in here, for Chrissakes?"
"Quill, this is my husband, Vittorio," Elaine fluttered.
Vic grunted. This was the first she'd seen of Vittorio McIntosh. And there was blood all over his hands.
"I hadn't even heard of him before, other than the name on his gold card," Quill said to Meg and John in the kitchen a few hours later.
"Well, I have," said John. "The fortune is privately held, but a conservative estimate would be in the area of fifty million. And Nora Cahill's information was sound. There have been rumors about his links to organized crime for years."
"He was bleedi
ng?" asked Meg.
"Of course he was bleeding!" Quill, exasperated, bit into a leftover pate puff. It was soggy. "That's why I had to give Dina an aspirin. He'd barked his knuckles on the door knocker trying to get in out of the snow. He said it was locked."
"The door's never locked until lights-out," said Meg. "If you ask me, Mrs. McIntosh - I mean, Tutti - locked it when she came in," Quill said gloomily. "That old lady's a corker. And she sure doesn't like our Alphonse. Did John tell you what she did to him at dinner?"
"No!"
"Hot coffee," said John.
"All over his trousers," said Quill.
Meg grinned. She was sharpening her kitchen knives. She tested the blade of her favorite paring knife with her thumb, then asked, "What's Vittorio like?"
"Well, I'll tell you," Quill said crossly. "He could be Alphonse Santini's older uglier brother."
"That bad, huh? Dang." She counted through the knives laid out on the counter. "I'm one short." "Check the dishwasher," John suggested.
"They know better than to put my good knives in the dishwasher."
"He called me dolly twice," Quill said loudly, feeling ignored. "Why is it, Meg, that women are just nicer than men?"
"Nicer? You think Nora Cahill's nicer? I mean, here Santini's her sworn enemy and she ends up in cahoots with him just like that. All for a good story."
"It's a lousy story," Quill said firmly. "Back to my point. Women are nicer than men. If you put one hundred women in a room with one hundred men, eighty , percent of the women would be nice versus... versus..." - she waved her hands in the air - "twenty percent of the men. Would be nice."
Meg and John exchanged looks. "So!" Meg said brightly. "The Santinis and the McIntoshes will all be gone and it'll all be over in three days. Unless it keeps on snowing. You mind if I switch the television on? I want to get the weather report."
"No you don't," Quill said indignantly. "You just want to see if Nora Cahill's plastered my face and my boots and my ugly coat allover the eleven o'clock news."
"I do not!" Meg made a deprecatory face. "Well, maybe a little. But I also want to be sure that the weather's not going to interfere with the food order getting here from New York in time. I grabbed Elaine after dinner and we finally reworked the buffet menu."
"Are we going to hire extra help?"
Meg, clicking though the channels of the small television set built over the Zero King refrigerator, nodded in an abstracted way. "Yeah, but I can't do much cooking - so it's a lot of fresh stuff: caviar, crab, shrimp. Dull, dull, dull!"
"And expensive," Quill said.
John agreed, then said, "There it is. The Syracuse channel."
Meg shrieked. "You're on! You're on!"
Quill stuck her fingers in her ears and hummed loudly, but try as she might, she couldn't keep her eyes shut. So she saw, although she didn't hear, a full color videotape of herself in her ugly down coat, hair every which way, a scowl on her face, sock Nora Cahill in the nose with her boot.
The station cut to a commercial. "I need a haircut," said Quill.
"You need a new coat," said Meg. "Don't turn it off! Her commentary's next."
"That's not Nora Cahill," said Quill.
"It sure isn't," said Meg. "It's some guy."
"She told me she was on vacation," said Quill, with hope. "Maybe she just forgot about the story. What kind of story is a small-town traffic ticket, anyhow?"
"... that news flash repeated," the male anchor said soberly into the camera. "The body of Syracuse television newswoman Nora Cahill was found under the traffic light of an intersection in the central New York village of Hemlock Falls. Sheriff Frank Dorset has refused to release details of the death pending investigation. No further details other than the report of the death are available at this time. KSGY-TV will be the first to bring you periodic updates on this tragic event. And now, for a look at the weather. The word is snow..."
"She was killed? Here?!" shrieked Meg. "Right here?!"
John reached up and switched the television off.
"You don't suppose..." said Quill. Her mind leaped to the last time she saw Nora, in angry conversation with Alphonse Santini. Except that it wasn't the last time she'd seen Nora. The last time, the very last time, struck her with the force of a fall on thick ice; she'd been wiping her cheeks free of the muddy spray from Quill's boots.
"Car accident," said John. "Had to be, in this weather."
"They would have said car accident," Meg insisted. "And that bozo Dorset refusing to release details? It doesn't sound good at all. Poor Nora! Maybe we should poke around a little bit, Quillie. You know, a lot of people must have had it in for that poor thing."
"No," said Quill. "No investigation. No murder inquiry. We are out of that business and into the Inn business. Full-time. This time I really mean it."
"Things have been so quiet lately," Meg complained.
"Quiet for you, maybe. I don't need to remind you that while you were peacefully chopping away in your kitchen I spent practically the entire morning in jail." Except, she thought, for the part where I tried to whack Nora with my boots.
"Three hours," Meg muttered. "Big deal."
"You try it! God, I feel awful. I mean, the last time I saw her, I tried to break her nose."
"Oh, Quill. You were really provoked. Anyone would have tried to - um..."
"Um, what? I feel like a jerk. I'm a swine. I don't know why I ever agreed to run this place. All I've seemed to do is create one huge mess after the other. It's not worth it."
"Of course it's worth it," Meg said stoutly. "We have a terrific business, great guests..."
"Oh, right, Claire the cranky bride, Elaine the water faucet, Vittorio the mysterious Scottish-Italian, and let's not forget his psychic mother. And who has to deal with all this craziness while you retreat to this chrome and stainless steel haven? Me, that's who! And poor John has to run around cleaning up after all the messes I create."
"Quill, you are hardly responsible for Alphonse Santini and his choice of prospective in-laws," said John. There was a faint grin behind his eyes.
"She's hysterical," said Meg. "And about time, too. I was wondering when all of this would hit her."
" `Three knocks,' " Quill repeated with what she felt to be justifiable bitterness. " 'Three knocks and then, blood, blood... ' "
Three knocks sounded at the back door. They tolled through the kitchen like the bell announcing the arrival of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. Like Scrooge, Quill felt like flinging the covers over her head, but the only thing at hand was a dish towel. She clutched Meg. "Sassafras," Meg said, patting her arm, "or comfrey. Herbal teas'll help you get right to sleep."
"I'll get it." John walked unhurriedly to the back door and snapped on the outside light. There was a murmur of male voices, John's voice louder than the others, an argumentative note to it. The door slammed and he stepped back into the kitchen. His dark hair was sprinkled with snowflakes.
"Quill," he said, so quietly that she had to strain to hear him, "get upstairs and lock yourself in your room. No questions. Just do it. Meg, get Howie Murchison on the line as fast as you can."
The back door rattled. A cold eddy of outside air curled around Quill's feet.
"Move, Quill!"
"But, John, what in heaven's name is going on? Why should I lock myself in my room?"
"Sarah Quilliam?" Frank Dorset pulled the hood of his dark blue parka away from his face. Davy Kiddermeister shuffled behind. Their snow boots left muddy tracks on the floor.
"You know very well who she is," Meg said tartly. "Have you come to apologize? It's about bloody time."
"You're under arrest, Ms. Quilliam, as a material wit- ness to the murder of Nora Cahill. You have the right to representation by an attorney for your defense. If you do not have an attorney, the court will appoint one for you. You have the right to remain silent." He grinned, his teeth sharp and yellow. "And I sure as hell hope you do. Nothing worse than a yapping female behind bars."
The drive to the Tompkins County Sheriff's Department had taken about five minutes, Quill figured, which meant it must be about eleven-thirty. She wasn't sure. Deputy Dave had taken her watch. She was sitting under the halogen lights in the sheriff's office huddled in John's parka. She'd been too dazed to find her own coat, and she missed its comforting warmth. The room felt too small. The linoleum - which had been installed at some point in the dim and faraway sixties - was as cracked and peeling as it had been that morning, although there was a fresh smell of disinfectant. Metal filing cabinets lined one wall. There were two metal desks, of the type found in every state and federal office Quill had ever seen: battleship-gray, incredibly heavy, with tarnished strips of chrome along the desk top edge. She sat behind the larger one, in the black Naugahyde chair that still, she thought, held a faint scent of Myles McHale. Frank Dorset balanced one buttock on the edge of this desk and leaned into her face. She pushed her feet along the floor and edged back, hitting the green-painted wall. Dave Kiddermeister sat at the adjacent desk, holding a small tape recorder.
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