escape, “it’s not locked from the outside?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“And at night? You don’t lock up at night?”
“Well, no. But the guest rooms lock, of course.”
“But anyone could get in here, any time of day or
night, and hide out in there, for example.” He jerked his
thumb at Quill’s old suite. “You don’t lock the rooms
unless there’s a guest in there. Jeez.” He ran both hands
over his face. “I ought to get forensics in every part of
the heap. I don’t have the budget for this.” He rubbed
the back of his neck. “You say the victim’s pretty well
known?”
“Quite well known, I should think.” She added encouragingly, “But you must have some suspicions at this point?”
“Suspicions. Huh. Do you know what convicts perps
nine times out of ten, Mrs. McHale?”
“Confessions?” Quill guessed. “I remember reading
somewhere that most murderers actually end up admitting they did it.”
“Most murders are spur-of-the-moment domestic or
urban violence. And yeah, the combination of a good
investigation and a good interrogator gets a confession.
That’s how your husband built his reputation. But with
tricky little murders like these . . .”
“These. You just said ‘these.’ You think that Lila
Longstreet’s murder and this one are connected then?”
Quill asked alertly.
Provost glared at her, but sailed on anyway, “. . . it’s
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forensics. Hard evidence. A hair in the carpet. A glob of
spit where a glob of spit shouldn’t be. Even a twig, a
leaf, a splotch of water can bring the perp to his knees.
So no, I don’t have an idea of who killed Kittleburger or
Lila Longstreet, but I’ll have a much better one when the
scene of the crime guys get the evidence back to me.”
He turned and walked down the hall. Quill and Max
trailed after him. “So you’re going to investigate Lila’s
death, too?”
Provost stopped at the elevator—which Quill never
used—and jabbed the down button with his thumb.
“The one good part of my day was getting Harker off
that case,” he said with a good deal of satisfaction. “The
guy’s a menace. I got him shoved off looking for that
missing hiker. He isn’t going to have time to mess
around with the Longstreet case. He’ll be too busy chasing his own rear end through the woods.”
The elevator doors hushed open. Provost stepped inside. He waved at her as the door hushed closed. “I’ll be expecting to see very little of you in these next few days,
Mrs. McHale.”
“Very little,” Quill grumbled to Meg after the police had
finally gone. “You would think, with all the budget
problems, the police would be glad to have some help.”
Meg yawned. “Doesn’t make much sense to me. Are
you going home, or do you want to stay here for the
night?” She looked around her apartment. “We’ve got
an Aero bed in here, somewhere.” Her rooms were
across the hall from Quill’s former home. Just as Quill
needed quiet colors and minimal clutter, Meg required
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colors that shouted amid chaos. Her carpeting was
bright red. The couch was lemon yellow. Cookbooks,
plants, and purple and green throw pillows tumbled
around the floor. Meg sat in the middle of all this in a
nightshirt that read “Yo, Mama” and a pair of striped
socks.
“I think I’ll head out, now,” Quill said. “I’m going to
stop at the Puppy Palace in the morning, and then
Marge and I are going out to the trooper barracks. So I
won’t see you until dinnertime.”
Meg grinned up at her. “If you and Marge aren’t
locked up in the clink.”
“You could come, too,” Quill said. “I’m keeping the
Inn closed tomorrow, too, so we can avoid any skulking media types. Elizabeth seemed to handle herself pretty well today, didn’t she? She can handle things on
her own.”
“She did quite well,” Meg said. “As for going along
on the outside to post bail, if nothing else.”
“Ha ha,” Quill said. But she stopped on her way out
the door and looked over her shoulder. “You will bail us
out if anything happens, won’t you?”
“Sure. But it’ll cost you that Coach bag you bought in
Syracuse last month.”
“Opportunist,” Quill said. “C’mon, Max. We’re going home.”
CHAPTER 8
Pamela’s Pampered Puppy Palace occupied a small
store on Main Street between Marge’s Casualty and Realty and Esther West’s Best Dress Shoppe. It was one of those retail spaces that never seemed to attract a permanent owner, despite its excellent location. It had been, at various times, Blue Man Computing, a yarn shop, an
antiques emporium (the stock a jumble of odds and
ends from various garage sales), and a women’s gym
called Fit After Forty.
It was a pretty spot; like its neighbors, the store was
built from cobblestone. One of the ornate Victorian
lampposts that lined Main Street was right in front of
the store. A pink cloth flag was attached to the base of
the cage that held the lightbulb. A sequined poodle
leaped around the store name, which was figured in silver thread.
Quill parked the Honda on the street and put a quarter in the newly installed parking meters (a revenue-generating tactic by the town supervisors, who were
desperate to avoid raising taxes).
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Pamela had painted the mullions in the large picture
window that fronted her store a bright pink. She opened
her door as Quill approached and cried, “Well, I never!
You came and visited after all!” She embraced Quill
with cries of joy; the scent of her perfume was so strong
that Quill had to hold back a sneeze.
She linked arms with Quill, pulled her to the edge of
the sidewalk, and looked at her window. “I want you to
take a look at this. I jus’ finished painting those little
stripes of wood. What are they called?”
“Mullions.”
“It brightens the whole place up, don’t you think?”
She let Quill’s arm go and looked up and down Main
Street. “I’m hopin’ to start a trend,” she whispered. “All
the other little strips of wood . . .”
“Mullions.”
“Are white! Isn’t that just the most boring thing?”
“Well, it’s the most legal thing,” Quill said apologetically. “The white’s mandated by town code.”
Pamela blinked at her uncomprehendingly.
“All the storesfronts are supposed to look alike.
There’s a town law that says so.”
Pamela’s rather watery blue eyes darkened. “If that
isn’t the stupidest thing. It’s a free country, isn’t it?” She
frowned at the window. “It’d be a real pain in the ass to
have to repaint that.” She clapped her hand over her
mouth in a girlish gesture. �
�Will you listen to the mouth
on me? Sorry!”
“Maybe no one will notice the pink,” Quill said
diplomatically. “May I come in?”
“You are surely welcome. I’m jus’ so anxious to get
your opinion on the way I’ve decorated my little store.”
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The contents shrieked at Quill. Not the puppies and
kittens, who were relatively quiet in their clean nests of
shredded paper, but the pink walls, the pink-painted
floor, and the red glittery balls hanging from the ceiling.
“Pink’s such a happy color,” Pamela said. “And of
course, it starts with P.”
“Starts with P?” Quill repeated.
“P’s my lucky letter. Now.” She rustled over to a wire
cage that held a chubby golden retriever puppy. “This
little darlin’ could be just the dog for you, Quill.”
“Gosh,” Quill said. “We have a dog, you know.” She
tickled the pup’s nose with one finger. The puppy
scrambled to its feet and yipped enthusiastically. “Oh
my,” she said. “He is really cute.”
“She,” Pamela corrected her. She picked the puppy
up and cuddled it under her chin. The puppy wriggled,
caught sight of Quill, and barked. “You little darlin’,”
Pamela said. She dropped the puppy back into the cage.
“I was just about to give them brekkies. You don’t mind
if I keep on working?”
“Not at all.” A small desk jutted at right angles to the
back wall. There was a chair behind it. Quill sat down
rather tentatively.
“That’s right,” Pamela caroled, “you just sit right
there and take a good look around.” A large plastic bin
had been wedged between two of the larger cages.
Pamela scooped a pail full of kibble from it and began
doling out the food.
“They’re awfully quiet,” Quill said.
“Priscilla says I overfeed them.” Pamela tossed the
remaining kibble back in the bin and began to fill the
water cups from a two-gallon jug. “But I want them all
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to grow up big and strong.” She stopped to pick up a
small white kitten. “Like this fellow here. Look at those
eyes, Quill. Have you every seen a brighter green?”
“A Persian?”
“Purebred. This little lovey comes with papers. She’s
worth every penny of the three hundred I’m askin’ for
her. All my dogs and cats come from the finest breeders
in the world. If I had the time, I spend all of it shuttin’
down those awful puppy mills.” She gave Quill a sharp
glance. “So don’t you pay any mind to Priscilla Barnstaple’s mouthy talk.”
“Hm,” Quill said. She had found this response quite
useful when she hadn’t a clue as to what the conversation was actually about.
“That is what she was talkin’ to you about yesterday,
wasn’t it? How piss-poor my little stock of purebreds is.
Golly. There goes my mouth again. But that Priscilla
thinks she knows so much.”
“Hm,” Quill said.
“ ’Course, the AKC didn’t think much of her at all,
did they?” Pamela dropped the kitten unceremoniously
back into its nest. It ignored the kibble, curled up, and
went to sleep.
“The AKC,” Quill said. “Hm.”
“Kicked her off the circuit. Took away her judge’s
certification. Serves her right, she thinks she knows so
much.”
“Took away her certification? My goodness. Why?”
“Well.” Pamela settled her rather large backside
against a cage of Jack Russell terriers. “She says it’s because Max blamed her for his collie not even placing at the Virginia show last year. She says he blamed her for
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the fact that none of his dogs ever placed in the ribbons.
Not so’s you’d notice, at least. I mean, he took some.
But nothing like he wanted to.”
“And so Max had her credentials revoked?”
“She says he set her up.” Pamela smiled. “Have to
say I wouldn’t put it past him.”
“I’m surprised you even wanted him at the meeting
yesterday.” Quill felt extremely clever at the adroit way
she’d introduced the case into the conversation.
“Oh, Max wasn’t at the meeting,” Pamela said. “He
was busy getting killed. And since we wanted to buy his
company, we put up with him.”
“We?” Quill said, startled.
“Well, sure. Priscilla and me. And Millard, too. I
own a good part of Vegan Vittles, you know.”
“I didn’t know.”
Pamela shook her finger playfully in Quill’s face.
“Had to do something with all that money Daddy left
me, didn’t I?”
“So you must have been one of the last people to
speak to Max before he died?”
“I guess I was,” Pamela said with a kind of mild delight. “I mean, who knew? Robin says the police think he was talkin’ to me when he died. I mean, the man was
killed talking right into my ear!”
“He didn’t say anything about anyone being in the
room with him?”
“He was goin’ on about Lila.” Pamela’s smile faded.
“Said the hick police here in this hick part of the country didn’t have a clue. Said he was going to bring in a detective himself.” She shrugged. “He’d been sayin’
that from the git-go, though. He didn’t treat her very
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well when she was alive, oh no. But as soon as she
passes on . . .” She trailed off. “That’s men for you.”
The doorbell jangled. Pamela’s smile broke over her
face like a rising sun. “Now, and look who’s here!”
“Hi, Harland,” Quill said.
“ ’Lo, Quill.” Harland Peterson was a man of few—
very few—words. The largest dairy farmer in the country, he was a big man; not especially tall, but built like one of his Galloway bulls. He’d been a widower for a
long time, after a close and happy marriage to his hardworking wife. He’d begun to come out of his prolonged and silent mourning after a few supper dates with
Marge Schmidt. The once-a-week Sunday dinners had
become every-morning breakfasts at the Croh Bar and
everyone in town was pleased to see it.
And here was Pamela, ten years younger, flirtatious
to the bone, fluttering those fake eyelashes at Harland
like a heifer in heat. (Except that she, Quill, hadn’t a
clue as to how a heifer in heat actually behaved.) She
berated herself silently for snottiness, got up from the
desk, and said, “I guess I’ll leave you, Pamela. I have a
few errands to run.”
“Thank you so much for droppin’ in, Quill. And I
didn’t even get a chance to talk about a little business I
want to throw your way.” There was that playful finger
again. “Now, now, now. Harland here’s told me how shy
you are about your artist’s career.”
Harland’s face was the texture of old saddle leather.
Currently, it was the texture of red old saddle leather.
“But
I want to hire you to paint a puppy mural on this
far wall here.” She waved at the back wall, which was
currently filled with shelves of dog leashes, rhinestone
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collars, cat toys, rubber balls, and grooming aids. “I’ve
got to soundproof this wall, anyway. That awful Marge
Schmidt keeps complaining that she can hear the dogs.
It’s not my fault she can hear the dogs. It’s the fault of
whoever put these cheap partitions in. Anyhow, I’m
thinking about expanding to the space upstairs. I can
put all this stuff up there. And then the first thing customers would see when they walked in was pictures of puppies!”
“You don’t live upstairs?” Quill said. Part of this
store space, she knew, consisted of a one-bedroom
apartment directly overhead.
“Goodness, no, I have a nice little place in the country, which, I hope, Mr. Harland here is going to see pretty soon.” She brushed Harland’s cheek with a playful hand. “Oh! You goin’ so soon, Quill?”
Quill, who hadn’t moved a muscle, said in a startled
way, “Yes, of course.”
“And you do like my little shop?”
“You’ve done such a good job on this shop, Pamela,”
Quill said earnestly, and escaped to the sidewalk outside.
“You been in there long enough,” said a voice from
behind her Honda.
“Marge?”
Marge emerged from behind Quill’s car, a truly horrible scowl on her face. “Don’t just stand there,” she hissed, “keep walking.”
“But don’t we want to go on to the trooper barracks?”
Marge held her firmly by the upper arm. Quill had to
follow her determined march down the sidewalk or
rudely pull her arm free. She chose to march.
“And you said our appointment’s at one-thirty, so we
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don’t have to leave for another three hours—ouch,
Marge. I’ll come along. Just let me go, please.”
Marge cast a harried look back at Pamela’s Pampered Puppy Palace. Pamela came out, one arm linked with Harland’s. Marge gave Quill a sharp poke in the
side. “Go on. Look natural.”
“I hadn’t thought I looked unnatural,” Quill protested.
But she swung into a saunter. Then she said out of the
side of her mouth, “Where are we going?”
“Croh Bar,” Marge said briefly. “Got some more information for you.”
“Good. I’ve got some for you, too.”