She sat down at the table to finish her breakfast. In a few minutes, Edward Lancashire joined her. "Ready for the big day?"
"It's not really a big day for me," Quill explained, "or Meg either. Everyone's checked in; the dining room, Lounge, and bar are all booked, and the staff knows what to do."
"It's the front-end preparation that's the toughest," said Edward.
"You'd know about that," Meg said cheerfully, as she rejoined her sister at the table. "You're not planning on dinner here tonight, are you, Edward?"
"No. I've booked a table at Renees in Ithaca. Opening day of History Week is a little too raucous for me."
"You're going to the play this afternoon, though," said Meg. "We're having a picnic. Nobody should miss the play. And you shouldn't miss my gravlax. The Scotch Bonnet salsa is fabulous."
"Oh, I think everyone will be there," said Edward Lancashire. "Mrs. Collinwood. Mr. Baumer. The delightful Ms. Schmidt. I've eaten at her restaurant, by the way. It's quite good for American diner food. Perhaps even Mr. Raintree will join us?
I haven't seen him around lately." "He had some personal errands to run," said Quill hastily. "But I'm sure he'll be there, too. Nobody within fifty miles of Hemlock Falls misses The Trial of Goody Martin."
Seeing the crowds that afternoon, Quill revised her estimate upward; tour buses brought day trippers from Rochester, Buffalo, and Syracuse. Myles and his men cordoned off Main Street, and allowed cars to park on the shoulder of Route 96 outside the central business district.
The Kiwanis beer tent did a thriving business, the Lions hot dog stand ran out of buns at two o'clock, and the Fireman's Auxiliary kiosk posted a triumphant SOLD OUT sign on the counter that had displayed wooden lawn ornaments of geese, pigs, cats, ducks, cows, and the rear ends of women in long print dresses. Gil's Buick dealership always took a booth for History Days. Quill, intent on finding out more from Tom Peterson about John and Gil, caught a glimpse of the awning over the late-model car that the dealership always planted in front of the booth. She wound her way through the tourists to it. Tom Peterson greeted her with a wave and a smile. Nadine sat under the awning, hands folded in her lap. Freddie, unexpectedly garrulous, was there, too.
"Missed you in church this morning," said Tom, who was a deacon at Dookie's church.
"John's out of town for a bit, and I got caught up," Quill apologized. "You know how it is in the summer. John's due back today, though. So I'll be sure to try next week."
"I wouldn't miss it, if I were you," said Freddie. "Something sure lit a fire under the Reverend this morning. Whoo-weee!"
Quill, intent on forming questions that would give her some clues as to Gil's relationship with the girl in John's picture, gave him an encouraging, if absent-minded, look.
"Hellfire and brimstone. Quite a little sermon." Freddie leaned forward and said in a low voice, "Just between you and me? Collections were up pretty near seventy-five per cent. The Reverend was as pleased as Punch, said the Lord was showing him the way to a resurgence of faith. And where there's a resurgence of faith, there's a resurgence of cash. Now, Miss Quill, wish we could come up with something for you that would give us a resurgence of cash. You think about tradin' in that old heap you've got for a good late-model car?"
"You're taking over from Gil?"
Freddie shot an anxious look at his boss. "Just temporarily, like. Now, about that old heap..."
"Gil sold me that 'old heap' two years ago," said Quill indignantly. "It wasn't an 'old heap' then."
"Got to have the look of success in your business," said Freddie wisely. "Now, I could show you..."
Quill laid a hand on Freddie's arm and promised to look at new cars. Then she walked up to Tom and said flatly, "Was Gil worried about the business?"
"Hell, we both were. I floated him a couple of private loans to tide him over first and second quarter. He expected business to pick up."
"Was that John's recommendation? The private loans?"
"John? He didn't have much to say about it."
"Does he audit all your books, Tom? You know, for the transport company and your private affairs?"
Tom's face closed up. "I don't know that that's really any business of yours, Quill. No offense."
Quill flushed. Great detectives of fiction were never accused of rudeness; she'd have to brush up on her technique. "I was just thinking of having John do my personal taxes, that's all. Wondered if you found him as good at that as he is at the commercial end."
Tom frowned. "Quill, you hired him. You know him better than I do."
"Just wanted your opinion," she murmured. She cleared her throat. "Will you have a new partner now? Did Gil leave key-man insurance, or do you get the whole dealership?"
"Quill, I don't know what game you're playing at. But you don't play it with me. I'm warning you." He held her eyes for a long minute. Quill gazed coolly back. He turned away from her. "Time for you to be going down to the Pavilion, isn't it? Wouldn't want to miss the play. Unless you'd rather continue to stick your oar into my personal business."
The sun was hot, but not hot enough to account for the heat in her face. Quill decided her chief irritation was with Myles, who had failed to clarify the embarrassing pitfalls awaiting inexperienced interrogators. She shoved the recollection of Myles's prohibitions against any kind of detecting firmly out of her mind, waved cheerfully at Nadine, who raised a hand listlessly back, and walked the two blocks to the Pavilion, absorbed in thought.
The open-air Pavilion was ideally situated for the presentation of The Trial of Goody Martin. Thirty wooden benches, seating three to four people each, formed a series of half-circles in front of a bandstand the size of a small theater stage. A forty-foot, three-sided shed had been built in back of the bandstand in 1943 to provide space for changing rooms, sets, small floats for parades, and band instruments. Between the shed and the municipal buildings that housed the town's snowplows, fire engines, and ambulances was an eight-foot- wide gravel path. The path debouched onto the macadam parkway that circled the entire acreage of the park. The action in The Trial of Goody Martin required that the audience sweep along with the actors and props in a path from the duck pond to the bandstand to the bronze statue of General Frederick C.C. Hemlock.
The statue of the man and his horse had been erected in 1868, two hundred years after the founding of the village. Something had gone awry in the casting process, and the General's face had a wrinkled brow and half-open mouth, leaving him with a permanently pained expression as he sat in the saddle. On occasion, roving bands of Cornell students on spring break heaped boxes of hemorrhoid remedies at the statue's base, which sent the mayor into fits. Most years the statue sat detritus-free, except for the six-foot heap of cobblestones piled at the foot and used to crush the witch each year.
The crowd was enormous, the benches jammed. Quill stood at the periphery and scanned the mass of people for Meg and Edward Lancashire.
Esther West jumped up on the lip of the bandstand, and shaded her eyes with her hands. She caught sight of Quill, pointed at her, and waved frantically.