Ground to a Halt

by Claudia Bishop

  “Yeah?”

  “Nothing like embarrassing a guy in front of his buddies,” Quill said with satisfaction. “And did you hear him? He said, ‘Tell Marge I’ll see her around.’ ”

  “Hm.” But Marge looked a little more cheerful.

  “So. The motives for murder seem to be flying thick

  and fast, Marge. Once we find out who moved that

  money out of Lila’s account, we’ll have the murderer!

  And I can pretty much tell you who it’s going to be. It

  had to be someone who had access, one way or another,

  to the financial records of the company.”

  “Robin Finnegan,” Marge said flatly. “He was the

  lawyer for Pet Pro before he got disbarred. He’s broke

  and not happy about it, and he was having an affair with

  Lila Longstreet.”

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  “We’re thinking absolutely along the same lines. The

  problem all along has been the time of Kittleburger’s

  death. But Marge, the cell phone on Kittleburger’s body

  wasn’t his.”

  “Huh?” Marge looked blank.

  “Wait a second. The police checked the phone records. There was a call to Pamela at the right time. But Robin could have made that call from anywhere. He

  was close to the Inn on that hike. He could have gone

  up the fire escape—we don’t keep it locked, you

  know—gotten Kittleburger to open the door and then,

  whack.”

  “And Lila?”

  “He could have conned Lila into giving him the

  acess numbers to her account, killed her, and moved it

  to his offshore account.”

  “That I can see. But he didn’t have time to kill her.

  You said Nate saw him leave the bar for half an hour,

  maximum.”

  “Time enough to arrange to meet Lila at Horndean

  Gorge, drive down to the Croh Bar here, take Harland’s

  dually, and then . . .” Quill leaned back. “He left her

  there. There’s nothing to say when the body was moved

  after her death. It could have been hours. No one’s

  checked alibis for the middle of the night. And Marge,

  we threw away that note!”

  “Harland’s dually?” Marge said in dismay.

  “He leaves his keys in it,” Quill said. “We all do.”

  “If Robin’s done all that, then why hasn’t he left

  town yet?”

  Quill waved both hands in the air. “I don’t know.

  Maybe he thinks that it’ll look more suspicious if he

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  takes off in the middle of this investigation. The person

  that did this has to have nerve, Marge.”

  “But there’s still a bunch of stuff here that isn’t

  adding up.”

  “That’s just because we haven’t sat down and put

  events into a logical order,” Quill said confidently. “If

  we do, what doesn’t make sense at the moment will fall

  into place. It’s pretty clear that something very funny is

  going on with the purchase of Pet Pro.”

  Marge’s attention had been caught by something

  over Quill’s left shoulder. She was staring, totally indifferent to the conversation.

  “Marge?” Quill said with some exasperation. “I

  said . . .”

  “Hush.” Marge swiveled her head like the turret on

  a tank. Quill knew that look. Someone was about to

  get the full force of Marge’s considerable artillery.

  “C’mon.” She slid out of the booth, and crouching,

  grabbed Quill’s hand and pulled her out of the booth.

  “Down, darn it!” she snapped. Quill obediently dropped

  to a crouch, too. The surrounding diners paused briefly

  in their consumption of Betty’s pot roast, and then

  continued eating.

  “Follow me!” Marge crouch-walked down the narrow aisle between the booths. Directly ahead was the bar, crowded with the usual Friday night custom. Quill

  saw a lot of feet. Marge jerked her to the left and

  through the swinging doors to the kitchen. Quill recognized Betty’s feet, which were shod, as usual, in nurse’s shoes. (Betty’s bunions troubled her, she said, something fierce.)

  “Hey, Betty.”

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  “Hey, Quill.”

  Marge got to her feet with a groan. Quill followed suit.

  “Bet,” Marge said. “I’m goin’ out for a while. You

  can handle things here okay?”

  Betty nodded. “Comin’ back?”

  “I’ll be late.” Marge grabbed Quill’s hand and

  dragged her toward the back door to the parking lot.

  “Where are we going?”

  “You saw her following Harland like a cat in heat?”

  “You mean Pamela?”

  “Ssh!” Marge pushed the exit door open slowly and

  peered out. “Coast is clear. C’mon.”

  Quill followed her into the lot, which was filled to

  overflowing with parked cars. Marge ducked down behind her Pontiac. Quill ducked down beside her.

  “Marge, are you thinking of following Pamela to her

  house to see if Harland’s there? Because, believe me,

  this is not . . .”

  Marge clamped one meaty hand over Quill’s mouth.

  Pamela came around the corner of the building, the

  Peke at her side. Both were trotting, the dog scrambling

  to keep up. Pamela tossed the dog into a Dodge Caravan. Quill was facing the passenger door, which trumpeted the name of Pamela’s shop in foot-high pink letters. Pamela hustled around to the driver’s side.

  There was something different about her. Quill frowned

  in concentration. It was her walk. She’d dropped the

  rather languorous Southern belle shuffle.

  The van rumbled to life. Pamela backed out of the

  lot—rather erratically—and pulled into the street.

  Marge shoved Quill toward her own passenger door,

  jumped into her car on the driver’s side, and before

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  Quill knew it, they were out on Main. Pamela’s taillights

  were three blocks away. Her left turn signal was blinking. Marge put her foot on the accelerator and followed.

  “Marge,” Quill said firmly. “This is not a good idea.

  Believe me, you don’t want to see Pamela and Harland

  together.”

  “I’ll tell you something,” Marge said between her

  teeth. “Miss Molasses-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth is

  up to something. And we’re going to find out what it is.”

  By the time Quill had exhausted the reasons why

  they should be calling Provost to arrest Robin Finnegan

  for the murders of Lila Longstreet and Maxwell Kittleburger instead of chasing after Marge’s rival in love, she and Marge were parked at the lip of the junction between Hemlock and Horndean Gorge, staring down into the darkness. Pamela’s taillights had disappeared down

  the narrow road that led to the foot of the gorge. Far below, Quill saw the steady glow of lights from a house or a barn.

  “She’s up to something,” Marge repeated stubbornly.

  Quill had a lot of sympathy for women who had

  been dumped. She’d been dumped herself, not all that

  long ago, and the memory still stung. So instead of

  jumping out of Marge’s Pontiac and marching down to

  the Inn—which was only a mile and a half away—she

  said in a
reasonable tone,” By ‘up to something’ do you

  think she has the brains to pull off two fairly complicated murders?”

  “Course she doesn’t,” Marge said abruptly.

  “Well, do you think that Robin, who does have the

  brains to pull off a theft like that, has Pamela as a partner?”

  “Course I don’t.”

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  “Well. Gee. Nuts.” Quill tugged at her hair in exasperation. “So why are we parked at the edge of the gorge in the dark instead of getting Robin arrested? I

  know, I know. Because she’s up to something.”

  Marge opened the driver’s door. “You comin’?”

  “Sure. Of course.”

  Neither one of them had taken the time to pull on a

  coat, and the air was frosty. Shivering, Quill followed

  Marge down the rutted gravel. Many of the smaller

  country roads in Tompkins County were unpaved. This

  helped maintain the delightfully rural feel, but the roads

  were a pain to drive on, and Quill was discovering an

  even bigger pain to walk on in the dark. Especially in

  her good boots. On the other hand, the effort to stay upright was warming her up, so that the autumn chill was welcome.

  The lights they had seen from the top of the gorge

  proved to be those of a large house trailer. Two house

  trailers, Quill realized, as she stood in shoulder-high

  brush next to Marge. The first was clearly occupied.

  Light shone from the kitchen windows. Quill made out

  a figure moving behind the thin plastic blind that covered it. The other trailer was a rusted hulk. Quill could see very little of it. It loomed ominously in the shadows.

  Marge sniffed. “You smell that?” she whispered.

  Quill nodded.

  “That dog poop?”

  Quill nodded again. The door to the first trailer

  opened. Pamela emerged with a five-gallon pail in each

  hand. The Peke danced around her feet. “Back inside!”

  Pamela kicked out sideways. The Peke yelped and raced

  back up the shaky aluminum steps. A torrent of barks

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  and howls from the rusted trailer responded either to

  the sound of Pamela’s voice or the injured Peke. Perhaps both.

  “My god,” Quill breathed. “It’s a puppy mill. She’s

  running a puppy mill!”

  “I could use some help out here!” Pamela waddled

  awkwardly forward. One pail seemed to contain water,

  the other smelled of raw meat. Quill suddenly thought

  of the twenty pounds of pork loin missing from the

  Inn’s refrigerators. “Goddamit,” Pamela shrieked, “come

  and give me hand before I spill all this stuff.”

  A second figure came down the steps. The light from

  the trailer illuminated silver-blonde hair, and silhouetted a voluptuous figure.

  Lila Longstreet.

  CHAPTER 13

  The Peke charged down the steps, raced across the

  scrubby excuse for a yard, and planted itself in front of

  the stand of scrub pine where Marge and Quill stood

  flattened against a tree. It yapped with monotonous,

  high-pitched regularity. Lila Longstreet whirled and

  raced into the trailer. Pamela set the pails down and

  walked toward the brush.

  “Pookie? You find a skunk in there, Pookie?”

  Marge raised herself on tiptoe and whispered in

  Quill’s ear: “We can take her.”

  Quill shook her head, and backed carefully away

  from the tree, deeper into the brush. She tugged Marge

  along with her.

  “Scat, you!” Pamela stamped her foot on the ground.

  “It’s just a polecat, or a woodchuck, or something, Lila,”

  she called out. She bent down, grabbed the dog by the

  scruff of the neck, and hissed, “Just shut up!” The Peke

  stopped barking, mostly because Pamela had a choke

  hold on its neck. The volume of barks from the trailer

  increased.

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  A door slammed in the distance. The howling

  stopped. The silence was immense.

  Quill held her breath and stood absolutely immobile.

  Marge was just as quiet and still, although she stared

  steadily at the clearing where Pamela stood with the

  Peke dangling from one hand.

  “You give them all that pork?” she called out. “It’s

  too rich for them, Lila. They’re going to vomit it up all

  over the pens, and I’ll be damned if I’ll clean it up.”

  She hauled the now-silent Peke to the trailer steps,

  tossed the dog inside, and returned to the five-gallon

  pails. She picked them up and headed for the

  makeshift kennel, water sloshing over the top of the

  one in her left hand. “Lila? Where the hell you get to,

  anyways?”

  “Right here,” said a breathy voice in Quill’s ear. Quill

  felt the cold muzzle of a gun in the back of her neck.

  Instinctively, she ducked away from the gun. Lila’s

  long nails dug into her arm. Quill stumbled forward,

  tearing away from Lila’s grip. She tripped and went

  down, crashing against Marge’s sturdy hip. Marge cried

  out. A tremendous roar in her ear sent her rolling desperately into the brush. Deafened, she struggled to her feet. Lila’s eyes were wide, staring straight into hers.

  The light from the trailer turned her silver-gilt hair to

  orange. She looked demonic, and Quill, the least superstitious of women, flung her hands in front of her face as if to protect herself from a devil. Lila swung the gun

  up and trained it at Quill’s chest. Her lips drew back

  from her teeth in a snarl. Then she swung the gun down

  and trained it on the ground at Quill’s feet. Confused,

  dazed by the gunshot, Quill looked down. Marge lay

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  there, curled up in a ball, her hands folded into her

  stomach.

  “Don’t move!” Lila’s voice was a mere thread of

  sound in the roar of silence in Quill’s head. Quill knelt.

  She put her hands over Marge’s eyes, as if to keep her

  from the sight of Lila and the gun. She became aware

  that someone was screaming, and hoped it wasn’t she,

  herself. Pamela, her mouth open, her eyes glazed and

  mindless, ran to Lila and simply stood there. Lila

  gripped the gun with her left hand, and slapped Pamela

  with her right. The screaming stopped.

  “. . . Kill her,” Lila said. She turned the gun sideways

  with a rapid, competent flick of her wrist, jammed the

  magazine home, and pointed it at Marge’s head. Quill

  nodded comprehension. She rose to her knees, slipped

  one arm around Marge’s shoulders, and tried to tug her

  to a sitting position. Her hands were wet and sticky. She

  looked down, and in the dim light from the trailer, she

  saw dark splashes across her palms.

  Quill was rocked with a sudden, consuming rage.

  “Help her!” she shouted. “Help her!” Her voice was

  muffled and dim to her own ears.

  Lila jerked her head curtly at Pamela. The slap

  seemed to have brought her back to her surroundings.

  She squatted next to Quill. Together, they tugged Marge

  upright. Marg
e groaned. Her eyes opened, shut, and

  opened again. The lack of awareness in them struck

  Quill to the heart, and the reckless rage swept over her

  again. Somehow, they got Marge to her feet. Once upright, Marge seemed less vulnerable, more present, Quill thought, and the dread that Marge was mortally

  hurt ebbed a little.

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  Lila and the deadly gun in her hand directed them to

  the house trailer. But by the time Pamela and Quill got

  Marge inside, Quill’s hearing had come back, and her

  own adrenaline-fueled rage had crystallized into a cold

  anger.

  “Put her on the couch,” Lila said.

  “She’ll bleed all over it,” Pamela complained.

  “Shut up!” Quill said fiercely. One arm supporting

  Marge’s back, Quill lowered her onto the couch with as

  much care as she could manage. She sat down next to

  her, aware that her legs were trembling so hard that she

  couldn’t have stood up any longer. She took several

  deep breaths.

  “What in the Sam Hill?” Marge said huskily. She

  cleared her throat and tried again. “What’s going on,

  here?”

  “You’ve been shot, I think.” Quill kept her voice

  calm. “If you’ll just let me see where you’re hurt?”

  Marge nodded in a bewildered way. That, too, cut

  Quill to the heart. In all the years she’d known her,

  Marge had never lost that bluff self-confidence that was

  such an appealing—and occasionally aggravating—part

  of her personality. She ran light fingers over Marge’s

  arms and chest. Her chinos were soggy with blood;

  Quill patted her legs lightly and Marge said in surprise,

  “There, I guess.” She moved her right leg with difficulty. Quill looked carefully. There was a hole in her chinos, in the middle of her thigh.

  “It’s not really bleeding much,” she said. “But we’ve

  got to get help.” She looked up at her friend. “Does it

  hurt much?”

  Pain was replacing shock in Marge’s face. Her

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  lower lip was between her teeth. Her face was pale.

  “Guess I didn’t feel it all that much at first,” she said

  with difficulty.

  Quill turned and snapped at Pamela, “Get me a

  towel. And a wet cloth.”

  Pamela looked at Lila, for permission, and Quill

  fought down the impulse to slap her silly. Lila kept the

  muzzle of the gun trained steadily on Quill, and said,