advice about the dog and puppy show the town is hosting on Saturday, Priscilla. There’s a Chamber meeting here in a little while. I’m sure we could all benefit from
your advice.”
Millard gave a shout of laughter, and then muttered,
“Sorry.” Priscilla flushed dark red. Olivia half-closed
her eyes and smiled like a cat. Pamela fluttered, charm
bracelets tinkling like wind chimes.
“Just forget it,” Priscilla muttered.
So for whatever reason, Priscilla’s dog expertise was
a volatile topic for this group. Quill cast around for a
safer topic of conversation. “I haven’t been down to see
the Puppy Palace yet, Pamela,” Quill said, in desperation. “Have you finished painting?”
Priscilla snorted in loud contempt, “Pampered puppies, my foot. You’re nothing more than a pet store.”
“I love dogs,” Pamela said earnestly. “And I believe
in them and I take care of them. You save that ‘pet store’
snottiness for the kind of person who buys from puppy
mills.”
“You certainly have a lot of luxury goods at your
place,” Quill intervened. “Or so I hear.”
Pamela dimpled. “Why, yes I have. And I’m jus’
dyin’ for your thoughts on my decoratin’ scheme. Rumor says you’re a famous artist, Quill. I just knew I should have asked you about what color to paint my
walls.”
Millard gave a shrill hoot of laugher. Priscilla smiled
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sourly. “She’s not that kind of artist, Pam. You are such
a fool.”
Pamela’s blue eyes filled with more tears. She placed
a damp, plump hand over Quill’s. “Did I say somethin’
offensive? I’m so sorry.”
“Certainly not. And I’d love to come and see your
store.” Quill snatched at that reliable diversion and
asked, “Anyone for coffee?” just as she saw Meg approach the table, a laden tray in both hands.
“And a side of sausage?” Millard chortled.
This met with a disapproving silence. Millard
slouched farther down in his chair and shrugged, “Just
kidding, ladies. Millard’s quite a kidder. So. You’ve all
heard the news? About Lila being ground up into
sausage?”
“Awful,” Pamela said. “Just purely awful.”
Priscilla’s lips tightened. She stared fixedly at Millard.
“I’m afraid it was no surprise to me,” Olivia said
gravely.
Pamela opened her blue eyes as wide as they would
go. “It wasn’t?”
Olivia shook her head, much as Julius Caesar must
have done when he refused the emperor’s laurel leaves
the first time. “I believe I saw something. Last night. An
omen.”
“Olivia,” Pamela’s voice was hushed. “Do you
mean . . . do you think? That is, your Gift . . .” she
turned to Quill. “You know, of course, about Olivia’s
Gift?”
Quill nodded.
Pamela reached out and touched Olivia’s purple-clad
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49
forearm. “Do you think it’s growin’? So that you can
read people?”
Olivia nodded gravely. “I have wondered about it.
Yes. This past year, especially.” Olivia brought her hand
to her brow in a gesture that said she was infinitely
weary. She dropped her hand suddenly. “But no. No,”
she said, decisively. She sat very upright in her chair, reminding Quill of nothing so much as a giant eggplant.
“My Gift, such as it is, is directed solely to the lives and
welfare of the Lesser Ones. Except.” She went very still.
“Except that I see another murder!”
CHAPTER 4
The noise in the Lounge was horrific.
“Olivia ‘saw’ another murder, huh?” Meg said furiously. “What she saw was the television crew from WKFC barging through the terrace doors. Just in time
to catch the ‘prophecy’ on tape. Argh! Just look at those
idiots!”
Quill stood between Nate and Meg behind the bar,
watching the melee with bemusement. She wondered
how much of a rat she’d be if she just slipped out the back
way and went home. She’d moved into Myles’ cobblestone house immediately after their marriage. It sat at the edge of a small, heavily treed ravine with a stream and a
pool at the bottom. They owned the ten acres of woods
surrounding the house. And it was quiet. So quiet that
you could hear the bass splashing in the shallow pool at
night. In marked contrast to the peace at her new home,
the Inn was never truly quiet; a twenty-seven-room, two-
hundred-year-old building at the edge of a thriving village was never quiet. It was rarely this noisy, either.
“Don’t even think about it,” Meg said.
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51
Quill jumped guiltily. “About what?”
“You’ve got that look. Like you’re planning on
sneaking out the back door. Don’t you dare. Besides.
We’ve been through worse.”
Quill didn’t think so.
“And there’s a Chamber of Commerce meeting in
about half an hour, so you’re stuck. Anyway,” Meg
added optimistically, “this crowd will clear out. Half
the people in here are here for the Chamber meeting.
The whole thing’s a matter of bad timing.”
The news of Channel 15’s arrival—with popular anchor Angela Stoner at the head of the crew—had spread like Mazola on linoleum. Anyone within jogging distance of the Tavern Lounge had shown up to get in on the action. In a matter of minutes, the Lounge’s teal-blue walls were lined with gawkers, and the empty tables filled with curiosity seekers.
And there was a lot to gawk at. Millard Barnstaple
argued furiously with his wife. Robin Finnegan, the disbarred lawyer, sat with them, his legs crossed, his mouth sulky, and his indifferent eyes on the raging Priscilla,
whose raised voice had the penetrating volume of a
buzz saw. Her rant, Quill noted with interest, appeared
to be about Millard’s refusal to buy something. Since
the phrase “less than twenty million, you idiot” appeared with regularity, Quill assumed the something in question was large.
In the opposite corner, Pamela had an ineffectual
hold on Pookie the Peke, who was busy outyapping the
smaller, shriller-voice Little Bit by a country mile. Most
everyone’s attention was on the activities in the middle
of the room, where Olivia held court.
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Claudia Bishop
Olivia was in full professional spate. Angela Stoner
leaned attentively toward her, microphone in hand. The
Channel 15 Steadicam rolled tape. Victoria Finnegan,
elegant and unmistakably a lawyer in her gray pin-
striped suit and her Hermes briefcase, sat at Olivia’s
side. Occasionally, Victoria’s attention was drawn to her
husband Robin, who ignored Victoria and the battling
Barnstaples with arrogant aloofness.
The Lounge itself was a mess. Bits of shattered coffee cups and the best part of a Sachertorte littered the wood floor. Doreen Muxworthy-Stoker, the Inn’s septuagenarian housekeeper, wielded a mop in the middle of the detritus with a nice disregard for the newspeople’s
ankles. Her gray hair
bristled around her sharp-nosed
face. She looked like a cranky chicken. Once in a while,
she looked up at Quill and winked. Quill always winked
back. Doreen had been with the Inn almost from the
outset, showing up at the kitchen door with her suitcase
in one hand, and a bottle of floor polish in the other.
Cassie Winterborne wound her way through this
chaos serving coffee and drinks and uttering an occasional “Wow!”
Rudy Baranga surveyed all of this from his bar stool
with the foggy concentration of the truly swozzled.
“We should get her a hockey stick,” Meg muttered.
“Who?”
“Doreen.”
Doreen swung the mop with vigor. Angela Stoner
gave a shriek, jumped hastily aside, and shouted, “Cut
tape, dammit!”
“Score one for the home team!” Meg shouted. “Hit
her again, Doreen!” She lobbed a handful of peanuts
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over the bar. Pookie the Peke shut up as soon as his
beady black eyes fixed on the peanuts. He lunged off
Pamela’s lap and charged, knocking Angela Stoner off
balance yet again. Angela swung at the dog. The Peke
snarled and lifted his leg. Angela turned the air blue
with curses and swung her microphone in a lethal arc.
Shrieking with dismay, Pamela dashed into the melee,
grabbed the Peke by the scruff of the neck, and hoisted
him into her arms. She scurried back to her table with a
sob, while Pookie howled curses at Angela over Pam’s
shoulder.
“I suppose,” Quill said after a long moment, “that we
should do something.”
Meg cupped her hand behind her ear. “What?”
Quill raised her voice. “I said we should do something!”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Get up on a table and blow a trumpet.
Call the cops. You suggest something.”
They both looked at Nate, who had, on the rare occasions when rowdiness overcame the Lounge, served as bouncer. He shook his head regretfully. “Sorry, Quill. I
don’t take on females.”
“There’s men out there, too!” Meg said indignantly.
“It’s not just women!”
“But the women are making all the noise,” Rudy
said. He belched, and raised his finger for another shot
of Johnny Walker Blue. Nate shook his head regretfully
and raised the empty bottle.
Quill realized Rudy was right. If you included
Pookie and Little Bit, the females were making all the
noise. Although to be fair, the females outnumbered the
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Claudia Bishop
males by a substantial margin. So statistically. . . . Quill
started to count heads. Suddenly, she stiffened and cried
out, “Oh, no!”
“Now what?” Meg broke off in mid-sentence as she
followed Quill’s pointing finger. “Oh, nuts. The cops. And
not the good kind. Quick. Duck down behind the bar.”
Quill dropped to the floor next to her sister.
Meg ran her hands though her hair, making it stick
up in dark brown spikes all over her head. “Wait. I’ve
got a better idea. We can’t crouch down here until they
leave. We’ll get out of here altogether. We’ll hide out at
the Croh Bar and drink beer.”
“Sounds good to me. What about the Chamber
meeting?”
“You can forget the Chamber meeting.”
Quill was secretary. She was terrible at it. “Great
idea.”
“But stay down. And follow me.”
In the best covert style, they crouched, ran, and
crouched again. They got as far as Rudy Baranga and the
remains of his Johnny Walker Blue before Nate leaned
over the bar top and said, “Too late. He’s seen ya.”
They both rose to their feet under Rudy’s bemused
gaze.
“What are you two up to?” Rudy said.
“We just . . . see someone we’d rather avoid,” Quill
said.
Meg brushed peanut shells off her bare knees. “Like
you’d rather avoid the avian flu,” she said acidly.
“You mean those cops that just walked in?” Rudy
squinted blearily at the three uniformed men filing
through the terrace doors.
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“Not all of them,” Quill said glumly. “Just the one
with a face like a ferret.”
“It’s the state police,” Meg said unnecessarily, since
the uniforms were unmistakable. “Not the cops. As
such.”
“Yeah?” Rudy swung his head around and looked at
them with friendly interest. “You guys wanted for
somethin’?”
“I thought Davy was handling Lila Longstreet’s murder,” Meg said crossly. “That wimp. One stupid little murder and he freaks out and calls in the state troopers.
We could have handled this by ourselves.”
“At least it’s quiet in here,” Quill said fervently. Which
it was. The arrival of the state police had startled everyone into interested silence. Otherwise, there wasn’t any positive side to this situation at all. State Police Lieutenant Anson Harker was one of the few sociopaths Quill had ever met. Come to think of it, he was probably the
only true sociopath she’d ever met. Even the murderers
that she and Meg had helped capture over the years had a
conscience.
Harker had no conscience at all.
Harker had developed an unhealthy interest in Quill
ever since a noted journalist had fallen dead at her feet
years ago.
He smirked at her, crept up in his snide way, and
touched the brim of his cap in a parody of politeness.
He was a neatly made, compact man, with flat black
eyes and a face almost totally devoid of expression. “If
it isn’t the Quilliam sisters,” he said. “Again.” His
glance slid over Quill’s figure like a pair of clammy
hands. He barked, “Sarah Quilliam? I’m taking you in
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Claudia Bishop
for questioning as a material witness in the murder of
Lila Ann Longstreet.”
“Me?” Quill said indignantly. “A material witness is
someone who is involved some way with the crime. I
haven’t been anywhere near Lila Longstreet since she
checked into the Inn three days ago!”
“So you say,” Harker sneered dangerously.
Quill looked around helplessly. Meg stepped in front
of her and stood with her arms crossed defiantly. “You’ll
have to get through me before you get my sister.”
“Just a moment, officer.” Victoria Finnegan clicked
crisply across the floor. Quill had met her when she’d
checked in with her husband, but hadn’t had much of a
chance to get to know her. She was big-boned but very
thin, the kind of slenderness that comes from rigorous
dieting. She looked like a woman who denied herself as
many of life’s pleasures as possible. Olivia floated behind her like a large purple balloon. The TV people jostled behind Olivia. It was quite a procession.
“We’ll get this on tape, guys.” Angela Stoner and the
Channel 15 crew elbowed their way through the rest of
the curious crowd up to the bar itself. Angela stuck the
microphone in Harker’s face. He pushed it aside, drew
his thin lips back in a grimace, and addressed Victoria
with contemptuous courtesy. “And who’re you?”
“I’m an attorney,” she said flatly. She stepped in
front of Quill and pushed her behind her back, for
safety, Quill assumed. Grateful for the support, but a little bewildered by it, it took her several moments to realize that Victoria was positioning herself for the camera and didn’t have Quill’s safety in mind at all. You could
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drop a plumb line between the camera lens and her profile. If plumb lines were horizontal.
Victoria stuck out her pointed jaw, lifted her chin, and
demanded, “And how do you figure that this woman is a
material witness?”
“None of your business,” Harker said.
Victoria addressed her questions to Quill over her
shoulder to avoid losing the camera angle. “Did you see
the murder, Quill?”
Quill peered over Victoria’s shoulder and shook her
head.
“Did you see anyone with any kind of weapon entering or leaving the scene of the crime?”
“No, of course not. If I had, I would have chased
them.”
Victoria opened her mouth to speak, then thought the
better of it. She turned to Harker instead. “Have you established a time of death?”
“That’s a police matter, counselor.” The sneer in
Harker’s voice was palpable.
“She’d been dead several hours at least,” Quill offered. “Livor mortis was quite marked.”
Victoria accepted this with a nod. “There you are,
Lieutenant. Miss Quilliam is not a material witness.
She’s a witness to finding the body. Along with, as I understand it, about thirty grade-schoolers and a hog farmer. Officer? I demand that you let this woman go.”
She smiled into the cameras. “And if you need to find
me officer, I’m Victoria Finnegan, attorney-at-law.
You’ll find my name and phone number on my website,
Victoria at Finnegan.com.”
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“You planning on leaving my employ, Vicky?”
Maxwell Kittleburger cut through the crowd like a shark
in the middle of a herd of seals. Like Rudy Baranga, he
had a dark fringe of hair around a balding scalp. And he
was heavily built. But it was a thick, muscular stoutness
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