Harvey Bozzel had jumped from the stage to the rescue like some half-baked Dudley Do-Right. The crowd had surged forward when Harvey made his dramatic gesture, and Baumer and Tom Peterson had disappeared in the melee.
Quill concentrated hard: Mrs. Hallenbeck, Nadine Gilmeister, Marge Schmidt, Meg, and Edward Lancashire had all been shoved back as the crowd moved forward.
There was herself, of course, sitting on a bench with two teenaged girls who'd been restless during the trial scene, and able, in the confusion, to walk away unnoticed. "And I sure as heck didn't do it," said Quill aloud.
So all of them had been close enough to slip around the bandstand and assist Mavis Collinwood down the gravel path to death at the foot of General Hemlock.
Who had been at the scene of both crimes? Tom Peterson, Nadine, Mrs. Hallenbeck, and Edward Lancashire had all been in the vicinity, but Marge and Baumer were the only two who'd been there at the time of both killings. Unless one of the others had returned to the scene.
Mrs. Hallenbeck certainly wanted Mavis alive; "Old age is lonely," she'd said. "You have no idea how lonely. And Mavis is a warm body in the house. She's nowhere to go, but to me. Do you know how hard it is to find a healthy, reasonably responsible person to take care of me?"
It was conceivable that Mrs. Hallenbeck had accomplished the murder, but there was no motive. Quite the reverse. Did Tom Peterson want Mavis and Gil dead? Had he tried three times to kill her? She knew the car business was in trouble. Had Mavis and Marge offered to buy Tom out, using Mrs. Hallenbeck's money? Was there a reason that Tom couldn't/wouldn't sell? He said he'd been home watching a videotape the night Gil died, and his wife was gone for the evening. His house was the only residence even close to the park; he could have watched the three of them mooching around in the park; he could have slipped out, loosened the bolt, watched Gil's death, and taken the bolt with him. He'd have been back home in less than ten minutes.
What was the motive? Tom would have wanted Mavis alive, and able to buy Gil out.
What about Nadine? Quill thought long and seriously about Nadine. It didn't fit. In almost any other marriage, jealousy would have been a dandy motive. But it would have been Marge, not Mavis, who Nadine would have wanted out of the way. Besides, Nadine had been shopping in Syracuse with her sister the night of the ducking-stool incident. Her parking validation from the Mall had the time on it; she couldn't have physically been there in time to do the first murder.
And finally, Edward Lancashire. Quill could see no reason why the food critic for L'Aperitif would want to kill Mavis Collinwood. But he had the opportunity. And he'd been asking a lot of questions.
Marge was a most attractive candidate for both murders. Quill scrupulously cleared her mind of prejudice. You didn't pursue a potential murderer because the potential murderer called your sister Megia Borgia, and threatened you and yours with polyester-suited employees from the Board of Health. You investigated reasons why persons of such lousy taste 'o would hate the victim.
"One," said Quill to the Sutter's Gold rosebush at her elbow. "Marge and Mavis worked together at Doggone Good Dogs. Marge claims Mavis told her three hundred thousand dollars was missing. And that John took it. What if Marge had taken it? And what if Mavis found out?" Everyone in town wondered why Marge did so well out of that little diner. She'd lent money to Gil more than once. Even Esther West had once confided to Quill that in times when the banks clamped down on lending, Marge was a good, if usuriously inclined, source of cash. Marge's behavior was definitely suspicious. She loved Gil -or did she? Gil owed her money. Her activities and motives both would have to investigated. Maybe Marge had been after Mavis all along. Gil could have hopped on that ducking stool before Marge could stop him. Quill shuddered at the thought of Marge screaming No! as Gil went drunkenly to his death.
Quill began to feel better. She was getting that l'm-really- good-at-managing-people feeling so often rebutted by the skepticism of her nearest and dearest. She jumped up and moved briskly along the gravel path, hands clasped behind her in the best Sherlock Holmes tradition.
Baumer. Another prime candidate. Quill pulled at her lower lip. She'd read with great interest various books on the personalities of murderers. Motive was frequently rooted in the character of the killers; given a variety of motives in a given number of people, only one would kill. Just considering his character, Baumer fit better than anybody. At least, he'd been positioned right; of all the members of the audience at the Trial, he was in the best position to pop backstage and hood the bird, so to speak. And he'd been with Mavis, Marge, and Gil the night of the duck pond killing. But why? No reason to kill Gil, but, like Marge, perhaps Mavis had been his target. Would he kill to keep his marriage together? Was he afraid that word of his shenanigans would get back to his boss?
"Probably not," said Quill, this time to the concrete fish pond by the French lavender. "But it wouldn't hurt to explore possibilities." She could start tomorrow, ask some tactful, discreet questions of Baumer's employers at the sales conference at the Marriott; go to the diner and confront Marge; investigate. Peterson.
Quill heard the sounds of people leaving the Inn. Car doors slammed in the distance. Voices shouted goodbye. Motors revved, taillights blinked red; the Chamber members had gone home.
Feeling it was safe to go back in the water, Quill went to the kitchen and laid her conclusions out for Meg.
Meg sipped coffee - she was immune to the effects of caffeine, and had been known to drink her special blend to put herself to sleep - and drew circles on the pastry marble with her forefinger as Quill narrowed the number of suspects to two.
"So I'm going to go to the Marriott tomorrow and start with some questions about Baumer's past. The other thing I can do is have Doreen search his room for that bolt. And I thought I'd drop by the diner. If Marge is lying about John's connection to Mavis and Doggone Good Dogs, she did it under the guise of presenting an olive branch. I'll just walk into the diner for lunch, waving my own olive branch, and asking innocent questions."
"Have you talked this over with Myles?"
"Of course I haven't talked it over with Myles. You know that Myles is practically prehistoric in his attitude towards women's ability to do certain things."
"I haven't noticed that at all," said Meg. "He's got two patrolwomen in the Sheriff's Department, he voted for our woman senator in the last campaign, and he does his own housework. Doreen's after him all the time to hire her cousin Shirlee to clean for him. He cooks for you all the time, and I remember distinctly, Quill, that he took his two little nieces to Disney World all by himself last year. Myles isn't a male chauvinist. He doesn't want you messing in his police work, because you're an emotional, biased person. His bias is not gender-specific."
"I am not an emotional, biased person!"
"Yes, you are, Quill! You're a crusader. You've always been a crusader. Remember the protest?"
"Meg, don't bring up the protest."
"I remember the protest..."