"I visited Mrs. Goodwinter yesterday," he said. "She was hardly one of your traditional widows, ravaged by grief and sedated by the family physician."
"She's a courageous woman. When they named her Gritty, they had reason."
“She's made some rather sudden decisions — to sell the house, auction the furnishings, and let the antique presses go for scrap metal. It's less than a week since Senior died, and the auction posters are allover town. That's too fast.”
"People who have never been widowed are always telling widows how to behave," Polly said. "Gritty is a strong woman, like her mother. Euphonia Gage should be on your list for an oral history interview."
"What do you know about XYZ Enterprises?"
"Only that they're successful at everything they undertake."
"Do you know the principals?"
"Slightly. Don Exbridge is a charming man. He's the promoter, the idea person. Caspar Young is the contractor. Dr. Zoller is the financial backer."
"That figures. I suspect he's made a fortune in dental floss," Qwilleran said. "Do X, Y, and Z all belong to the country club?"
He had made a study of the clique system in Pickax, Everything depended on which club one joined, which church one attended, and how long one's family had lived in Moose County. The Goodwinters went back five generations; the Fitches, four.
"I must leave now," said Polly, "before my landlord calls the sheriff and they send out the search posse. Mr. MacGregor is a nice old man, and I don't want to upset him."
After she left, Qwilleran wondered if the fine hand of XYZ Enterprises had guided Mrs. Goodwinter's decisions. They all belonged to the club. They golfed. They played cards. That was the way it worked.
He also wondered if Polly really had an elderly landlord named MacGregor monitoring her activities. Or was it a manufactured excuse for leaving early? And why was she so reluctant to stay late? She was afraid of something. Gossip, perhaps. Pickax imposed a Victorian code of propriety on its professional women, and they took pains to preserve appearances, even though they were privately living in the late twentieth century. Polly's landlord, Qwilleran suspected, might be more than a landlord.
6
Friday, November fifteenth. It was the opening day of gun season for deer hunters. At the Klingenschoen Museum it was the morning after the preview, and Mrs. Cobb was still elated and a trifle giddy.
Qwilleran complimented her on the success of the evening. “Everyone praised the museum and the refreshments, not necessarily in that order,” he said. “We’ve been offered a twelve-foot Christmas tree for the foyer, and the Fitches would like to use the museum for their son’s wedding.”
“It would be a beautiful setting for a wedding,” she said, adding playfully, “Koko could be ring bearer and carry the ring on his tail.”
“You’re making jokes this morning,” Qwilleran said. “You must be feeling good.”
She looked at him coyly. “What would you think about having two weddings here?”
“You?”
Her eyes were glowing behind the thick lenses. “Herb is buying a hundred-year-old farmhouse. He called me just before the preview and said he thought we should get married.”
“Hmff,” Qwilleran said, then searched for something more agreeable to say. “It’s the Goodwinter place. I’ve seen it. It’s a gem!”
“He got a good buy because she’s in a hurry to sell before snow flies.”
“It’s overdecorated, but you’d know how to correct that.”
“It will be fun to restore it and furnish it with primitives.”
“Does Hackpole like antiques?” Qwilleran asked dubiously.
“Not really, but he says I can do anything I want. His chief interest is hunting and fishing. He has cabinets full of guns and hunting knives and fishing rods. He wants to give me a rifle — a .22 rimfire, whatever that is — for squirrels and rabbits.” Her pursed lips expressed disapproval.
“It’s hard to imagine you tramping around the woods, taking shots at small animals, Mrs. Cobb.”
She shuddered. “Herb was telling me how he field-dresses a deer, and it turned my stomach. By the way, he wants to know if you like venison. He always gets his buck, and he says the meat is delicious if the deer bleeds to death slowly. The heart should keep pumping blood out of the tissues.” She quoted without enthusiasm.
“Hmff,” Qwilleran said again, his down-turned moustache drooping more than usual. He was not happy with the turn of events. A housekeeper who worked an eight-hour shift and then went home to cook for her husband would be quite different from the live-in housekeeper who had spoiled him and the cats with her cooking during the last eighteen months. Yet he knew that Iris Cobb, twice widowed, yearned for a husband. Too bad she hadn't found one better than Hackpole.
True, he made a good living-in used cars, auto repair, welding, and scrap metal. True, he was a volunteer fire fighter, and that was to his credit. He had fabricated Mrs. Cobb's mobile herb garden in his welding shop; he had picked the berries for her wild haw jelly; he was an expert woodsman. Yet, all around town Hackpole was considered obnoxious. He seemed to have no friends, except Mrs. Cobb, and this inept Romeo now wanted to give her a .22 rifle! Poor woman! She had hoped for a certain expensive silk blouse for her birthday, and Hackpole had given her an expensive Swiss army knife. The man aroused Qwilleran's curiosity.
How had he arranged the purchase of the Goodwinter house so fast? He was hardly a member of the country club clique, but he might have connections with XYZ Enterprises. His welding shop probably had the contract for the balcony railings on the Mooseville Motel and the Indian Village units.
Then the telephone rang, and Qwilleran took the call in the library.
A little-girl voice said, "Mr. Qwilleran, this is Jody. Juney came back from Down Below last night. He didn't get hired."
"Did he see the managing editor?"
"Yes, the man who promised him a job. He said they'd just hired three new women reporters and there was no opening at the present time, but they'd keep him in mind."
"Typical!" Qwillran muttered. "Typical of that guy."
“Juney tried the Morning Rampage, too, but they’re cutting down their staff. He’s terribly depressed. He got in late last night and didn’t sleep at all.”
“With his academic record he’ll have no trouble getting located, Jody. Newspapers send scouts to college campuses every spring to recruit top students. He’s tried only one city. He should start cranking out résumés to mail around the country.”
“That’s what I told him, but he wouldn’t listen. He left early this morning and said he was going hunting. He said he’d go to the farmhouse and pick up his brother’s rifle — if his mother hasn’t sold it already. That’s why I’m worried. Juney isn’t much of a woodsman, and he isn’t crazy about hunting.”
“Just getting out in the woods will be good therapy, Jody. It’ll sharpen his perspective. And the weather’s not bad. Don’t worry about him.”
“Well, I don’t know ... “
“When Junior gets back, we’ll get together and have a talk.”
Qwilleran had made an afternoon appointment with Junior’s Grandma Gage for an oral history interview, but he had an hour to kill, and he felt restless. Mrs. Cobb’s announcement had distressed him, and Junior’s disappointment made him vaguely uncomfortable, so he took his own advice: He drove out into the country.
It was a gray day, not likely to cheer one up, and without snow the terrain looked dreary. Traveling north to Mooseville, through good hunting country, he glanced down side roads, looking for Junior’s car. Here and there a hunter’s car or pickup was parked well off the shoulder in a desolate wooded area, but there was no sign of a red Jaguar. He caught glimpses of a blaze-orange figure crouching in a cornfield or entering the woods, and he heard rifle shots. He was glad he had worn his own blaze-orange cap.