A Taste for Murder (28 page)

Quill took a moment to absorb this. "What's going to happen?"
"Eighty-three's pretty old for a trial," said Myles. "And our hard evidence is slim to nonexistent. We have the bolt, which has been wiped clean of fingerprints, but the chain of evidence has been broken. We can't establish for certain that it was in her possession, or even that she was at the park. We have a better chance with the Seconal; she's refilled the prescription a sufficient number of times to have the quantities on hand needed to drug Mavis and Meg's jug of spring water. Again, a good defense attorney would make mincemeat out of the evidence chain. It's all circumstantial."
"The phone calls to the Inn's guests? The call to Willy Max? Those aren't crimes?"
"Malicious mischief," said Myles. "A misdemeanor."
"So what now?" Quill looked at the two men.
"Eddie's client is Mrs. Hallenbeck's son." Andy Bishop cleared his throat. "He's agreed to commit her to a very comfortable institution. She'll be taken care of, confined, of course, and I will see to it that a complete record of what's happened here is in the psychiatrist's file."
"Have you met him, the son?"
"Just talked to him on the phone." Myles's expression didn't change much, but Quill knew he'd found either the man or the conversation distasteful. "He's made the arrangements to have her picked up. Refused to come himself. There's a secure room here at the hospital. Andy's arranged to have her checked in. I'll have Davey at the door until the morning. Just as a precaution."
"Does she know?" asked Quill.
"We were hoping," said Myles, "that you would tell her." He put his arm around her. She leaned into him and closed her eyes.
Quill walked down the hall and sat in the chair opposite Mrs. Hallenbeck.
She set aside the magazine. Vogue, Quill saw. "And how is your sister?"
"She'll be fine. She wants to go home now, but hospital rules say she has to stay. She's asleep."
"We'll go back to the Inn, then? I would like some dinner. It's late. But I suppose someone on the kitchen staff can be gotten up to make something."
"Dr. Bishop is a little concerned about you," said Quill carefully. "He's arranged for you to stay here tonight, too."
Mrs. Hallenbeck smiled. "Such a nice young man. I always find it easier to get along with men than with women, don't you?"
"No," said Quill truthfully. "I think it's about the same."
"I appreciate Dr. Bishop's concern for my welfare. I don't know how it is, but young physicians always seem to take the greatest care of me." She laughed girlishly. "I've been frequently complimented on my state of preservation, I suppose you'd call it. But I would prefer to go back to the Inn. You take such good care of me, my dear."
Quill took a long moment to reply. "The sheriff would like you to stay, as well. He called your son earlier this evening, and your son has made some very comfortable arrangements for you. The..." Quill stumbled, "hotel where you will be staying will send a limousine for you in the morning. He's concerned for your comfort now that Mavis isn't here to see to you."
Mrs. Hallenbeck's eyes clouded. Her lips trembled. The light from the lamp at her elbow strengthened the lines in her cheeks and forehead. She leaned forward and hissed, "You have no idea what it's like, being eighty-three. But it will happen to you, dear. Just like it's happened to me."
Once again Quill thought of her own mother, her loving : spirit still strong in a body fine-honed by the years.
"No, it won't," she said.
-16-
A July thunderstorm was brewing in the west when Quill brought Meg home from the hospital. It just goes to show you, Quill thought, the perversity of nature. After four days of hell, things were looking up. Doreen had seen to the discreet and tactful (she claimed) removal of Mrs. Hallenbeck's luggage and Mavis' effects. The American Association of Swamp Reclamation Engineers had called and fully booked the Inn for a week in August, which would help offset the fiscal consequences of yesterday's guest exodus. Best of all, Keith Baumer was checking out. Quill, heretofore neutral on the topic of religion, sent a prayer of thanks skyward, toward the thunderheads boiling over the top of the Falls, followed by a promise of a healthy donation to the American Association of Retired Persons, whose members had proved the exception to Mrs. Hallenbeck's homicidal tendencies, and who would undoubtedly be back, like the perennials, next spring.
"A trial would have been tough," she said to Meg as they sat in the kitchen watching the rain lash the windows.
"They came to get her while I was waiting for you in the hospital lobby." Meg poured white vinegar for the third time into her expresso machine in an effort to remove all traces of the Seconal. She was not, she'd informed Quill tartly, over her sister's protests, going to dispose of a perfectly good piece of equipment just because an inept murderer had used it in an attempt to kill her.
"Not so inept, with two deaths on her conscience. Did she seem..." Quill trailed off.
"Seem what? Remorseful? No. Upset? No. Tell me goodbye and thanks for the best meals she's ever had for free? No." The expresso machine hissed, and Meg fussed with it, not meeting Quill's gaze. "I'll tell you what you ought to do, though. Give Myles credit for calling in as many favors as he could to avoid prosecution and a trial. He knows how bad you feel, Quill. A trial would really do you in."
Quill rubbed the back of her neck. She'd dreamed, the night before, of Mrs. Hallenbeck soundlessly screaming her name, over and over again, and of long-nailed fingers shredding the canvas of the Chrysler Rose.
The back door slammed. Doreen stumped in wearing a yellow slicker. Water streamed off the hood. "Wetter'n hell out there," she grumbled.
"I thought this storm hit because you prayed for rain yesterday," said Meg.
"Thought they rnighta pumped some of that sass out of you along with the dope."
"No," said Meg truthfully, "I think they added some."
"Wunnerful." Doreen hung up the slicker, tied her apron around her waist, and sat down at the butcher block. "Got time for coffee," she suggested. "Only one room is still occupied. Baumer."
"Everybody left yesterday?" said Quill.
"Pret' near. It was the ambl'ance cornin' and goin' that done it, I think. When it come for that one" - she pointed an accusing finger at Meg - "lady in one-o-six said if they were tryin' to kill the cook now, it was time to leave."
Quill braced herself. For the past four days, Meg had met prophecies of financial disaster with the sunny confidence of a high-caliber chef cooking for the most influential of captive audiences: the food critic from L'Aperitif.
"John will think of something," said Meg. "If not, we can always purchase Harvey Bozzel's rewrite of "Rock Around the Park" and depend on advertising to bring the customers back."
"That's 'clock,' " said Doreen loftily.
"No, it's not," said Meg. "It's sung by the Chili Stompers on the Three Bean label. Quill sang it to me in the hospital. I told her I'd heard it before."
"Sass," grumbled Doreen.
"Wait a second," said Quill. "What about our four-star review in L'Aperitif?"
"Now that you know who Edward Lancashire really is," said Meg airily, "I don't have to keep up the charade anymore."
"You thought Edward was the food critic from the very beginning!" said Quill. "You cooked your brains out for that guy!"
"You've got to be kidding." Meg scowled. "I knew the second meal I created that he wasn't any gourmet critic. The man's a peasant. I was just keeping your spirits up by going along with your delusion."
"Admit it, Meg. He had you going."
There was a suspicious tinge of pink in Meg's cheek, but she said obstinately, "I knew all the time."
"You did not!"
"I did, too!"
"Good to be home," said John Raintree as he came through he dining room doors. Myles was with him. Both men were soaked. "Not as quiet as your jail though, Myles."
"Has it ever been?" Myles shook the water from his raincoat and hung it on the peg near the back door. He came up to Quill and stood close.
She looked up at him and touched his cheek. "You're soaked. Meg's got coffee on. You both should have something hot." Myles settled into the rocker, declined the expresso with a grimace, and accepted a cup of the Melitta drip.
John sat on the stool next to Doreen. "Quill, I'm not much good at thanks..."
"Neither is she," Meg said briskly. "What we want to know s how all this came down while I was getting my stomach pumped."
"Marge and Doreen," said Myles.
"Marge?" said Quill. "Doreen?"
He shot her an amused look. "What I'm about to tell you s not true. It's a guess. If it were true, I'd have to make a few arrests, for illegal hacking, unlawful entry into private data, and violation of several interstate banking laws." He stretched his long legs in front of him. "I gather that after your visit to the diner, something clicked in Marge's brain."
"It did?" said Quill. "I told her Mavis always referred to herself as a modern-day Scarlett O'Hara. Marge got this funny look in her eye."
"It would have helped Eddie a lot to know about Scarlett O'Hara," said Myles. "Even her son didn't know where Mrs. Hallenbeck hid her money, although he guessed that Mavis was concealing it for her. After you left, Marge hared off to solve the mystery of the missing three hundred thousand. She walked over to Mark Anthony Jefferson's bank. The two of them got on to the phone and into the computer, and they tracked down information that turned most of Eddie's guesses into evidence. Mavis Collinwood, as Scarlett O'Hara and with a fictitious social security number, had close to four hundred thousand dollars in a checking account in Atlanta. The only authorized signatory to the account was Amelia Hallenbeck. Incidentally, six payments averaging twenty thousand dollars each had been paid into the account by various hotel and motel insurance companies over the past eight months. This cross-checks with the information Eddie had from the Insurance Index about fraudulent claims the women had been making."
"So he knew Mrs. Hallenbeck was guilty!" said Quill. "He never said a word to me."
"He was pretty certain she was behind the tainted-meat scandal," said Myles. "And Quill, Eddie wasn't here to solve the murders. He worked for the son. His job was to stop the trafficking in the meat. And I don't blame him for keeping undercover. Confidentiality is the core of his business. Without it, he wouldn't get another assignment."
"Confidentiality," Meg said sarcastically. "Try deceit. Try ripping people off. Try bogus!"
"I knew you thought he was from L'Aperitif;" said Quill.
"Ha!"
Myles rapped the arm of the rocker for silence. "May I continue? Then Marge and Mark turned the computer on to Keith Baumer. They called the American Express Travelers Cheque operations center in Salt Lake. Mark, in his capacity as bank vice-president, convinced the Fraud Unit there of the urgency of the situation. The Fraud Unit gave them Baumer's address, and the name of the bank where he'd bought his cheques. Marge thought there was a strong likelihood the cheques would have been purchased at the bank where he ' had a checking and savings account, and she was right."
"And?" said Quill. "Baumer was in on it. I knew it!"
Myles shrugged. "My guess is he's guilty of something. Just what that is, is anybody's guess. His savings account showed regular deposits of amounts varying from three to five thousand dollars, ever since he left Doggone Good Dogs. But I have no official knowledge of this. Baumer doesn't appear to have committed any crimes here. I don't have jurisdiction anyway, so there's no way for me to follow up. I did suggest to Eddie that he have breakfast at Marge's diner this morning. It may be that Baumer was a co-conspirator with Mrs. Hallenbeck - and that Eddie can prove it after he talks to Marge. But the money must have come from somewhere else."
"What do you think, Myles?" said Meg.
Myles hesitated. "I believe that Mavis was blackmailing Baumer, just as she was blackmailing John and Tom Peterson. I don't believe in coincidence. Baumer, Marge, John, and Tom were all connected through Mavis. There are some people who are natural catalysts. Mavis was a catalyst for disaster."
"You put dough into the oven, and heat turns it to brioche," said Quill. "Mrs. Hallenbeck was the heat. Mavis was the yeast."
"Come again?" said Myles.
"Meg." Quill gestured at her sister. "She said murder's like a recipe. The same set of ingredients don't guarantee the same dish. Everyone who came into contact with Mavis ended up with a motive to murder - but only one killed her."
"Thank you, Dr. Watson," said Meg.
"You're Watson," said Quill. "I'm Holmes. If I'd had a little more time..."
"But it was Doreen, there, who provided the hard evidence in the case," John interrupted loudly.
"You did?" said Quill. "Doreen, how clever of you!"
"That there Willy Max," grumbled Doreen. "I din't call him."
"She got Dina to call the phone company and check the outgoing calls," said Myles. "Tracked the call to Rolling Moses to Mrs. Hallenbeck's room."
"Old witch!" said Doreen. "Lied and made me out a fool. Searched her room proper. Found the makin's of them stupid drinks Mavis liked."
"The mint juleps?" said Quill. "Of course! She fed them to Mavis before they walked down to the Pavilion."
"Tied the glasses and the bottles up in a Baggie and turned them over to Davey," said Myles. "Andy Bishop had them tested for Seconal right there at the hospital. I sent the glasses on to the state lab for fingerprinting. I expect that both Mavis' and Mrs. Hallenbeck's will appear all over them."
"So that's the link to the murder in the Pavilion," said Meg.
"Only piece of hard evidence we have," admitted Myles, "and it's circumstantial. There was such confusion the day of the play that no one remembers seeing Mrs. Hallenbeck going around to the back of the shed, much less pulling the hood over Mavis' face."
"Did she confess?" asked Meg.
Quill winced. Myles reached up and covered her hand with his. "Yes. She did."
"What'd she say?" Meg persisted.
Quill answered the question in Myles's eyes with a reluctant nod.
"There's nothing wrong with her intellect. That sets her apart from most murderers I've known." He grimaced. "Almost all of them are borderline intelligence. Of course, my experience has been with street crime. But she shares one characteristic with them. She's proud of the result. Confessions are easier than the public thinks. Most killers can't wait to tell you, once they know we know."
"So she boasted about it?" said Doreen.
"She wouldn't talk to me with witnesses present and until she was sure I wasn't wired. When she knew, for certain, I couldn't do anything with the confession, she told me she'd decided to kill Mavis as soon as an opportunity presented itself - a decision she'd made before she met you, Quill. "That first night, she and Mavis had planned an 'accident' on the balcony, and as we suspected, Mrs. Hallenbeck tried pushing Mavis over the edge. Mavis was a lot younger, and a lot tougher, and Mrs. Hallenbeck lost that round, as we know.