Free A Taste for Murder by Claudia Bishop Page B

wildly, bouncing off the cars and pickup trucks already jamming the small parking lot. Most of the onlookers were patrons-in-residence at the Croh Bar. Situated directly across from the Volunteer Firemens' garage, the bar acted as a kind of holding pen for rubberneckers.

There was a shout. The floodlights switched on. Quill stopped, dismayed. Gil's body lay face-down on the grass beside the pond, the ducking stool twisting slowly above him. Mavis and Marge, both soaking wet, huddled near the body. Keith Baumer was nowhere in sight. There was a short silence as Myles approached, then a babble of voices.

"Who pulled him out?" asked Myles. Davey jerked his thumb at Marge.

"Andy Bishop here?" Myles crouched by the body.

"He's on his way, Sheriff," somebody called from the crowd.

Myles took a pen from his shirt pocket and pushed Gil's rocked-up shirt collar aside. Quill peered over his shoulder. There was a gash in the back of Gil' s head. The water had washed it clean, and the purple lips gaped at Quill.

"Davey, I need a hand here." Myles grasped the body's shoulders, Davey the feet, and the two men turned Gil over.

Quill had never seen a drowning before; one look at the blue face, the foam at nostrils and mouth, and she turned quickly away. Myles cleared the area around the body with a few sharp words. Quill backed up, then walked around the fence that concealed Harland Peterson's John Deere tractor. It crouched like a metal Arnold Schwarzenegger, arms holding the front loader extending over the top of the fence. The front loader itself hung at a sharp angle, one end dangling free of the metal arm. Quill stood on tiptoe. The heavy shovel had worked loose. Partially dried blood glistened on the edge. Quill squinted at it in the glare of the floodlights. Blood, hair, and what may have been a bit of bone.

"Gotta close this off, Ms. Quill," said Davey.

"Where's the bolt?" asked Quill.

"Ma'am?"

"The bolt that held the front loader to the tractor arm."

Davey shrugged. "Into the river, maybe? It'd be swept away for sure. Sheriff wants to know if you could see to Mrs. Collinwood and Marge."

Marge and Mavis huddled under a blanket marked "Hemlock Falls Volunteer Ambulance." Quill sat down in the grass next to them and folded her arms around 'her knees. "You guys all right?" she asked. "Can I get you some hot coffee or anything?"

Marge snorted.

"What happened?"

Mavis began to cry. Marge herself was weeping silently, and impulsively, Quill put her arm around her.

"We were just practicin'," wailed Mavis, "for the play. Just foolin' around. I swear I never dreamed this was gonna happen."

"And Gil sat in the ducking stool?"

Mavis gave a gigantic sniff. "He was saying my lines. Jus' jokin'. Hopped in the stool, and the next thing happened was that big ol' shovel came right down on his head. He fell into the pond and we went to drag him out, but we couldn't find him. Marge here kept going under water and pokin' around" - a convulsive shudder shook her - "and his arm or somethin' brushed my leg and I screamed."

"Was Keith Baumer with you?" asked Quill.

"Him," said Marge with contempt. "Took off like a scalded cat. I pulled Gil out, tried CPR. Didn't work. Mavis here called the ambulance from the pay phone."

A brand new white Corvette screamed into the parking lot and came to a screeching halt. The passenger door slammed, and a tall, skinny woman with bleached blond hair walked toward the body. Tom Peterson got out from the driver's side.

"Shit," said Marge. "Tom Peterson's brought ol' Nadine."

"Nadine is Gil's wife," said Quill in response to Mavis' bewilderment, "and Tom's her brother." And Marge is Gil's girlfriend, she said silently. "Maybe you two ought to come back to the Inn with me."

"Too late," said Marge practically. "Here she comes, and Tom with her."

Years of up-and-down dieting, combined with a permanent, free-floating discontent, had not been especially kind to Nadine Gilmeister's face. Quill noted with