"Over a hundred years ago," Aunt Fanny said. "In horse-and-buggy days it was considered the grandest house in town. Would you like me to show you around after lunch?
Grandfather brought over Welsh stonemasons to build the house, and there's an English pub in the basement that was imported from London, piece by piece. The third floor was supposed to be a ballroom, but it was never finished." "While you ladies are taking the grand tour," Qwilleran said, "I'd like to walk downtown, if you'll excuse me. I want to see the Picayune offices." "Oh, you journalists!" Aunt Fanny said with a coy smirk. "Even when you're on vacation you can't forget your profession. I admire you for it!" Leaving the house, Qwilleran looked for Tom, but the handyman and the blue truck had gone.
The commercial section of Main Street extended for three blocks. Stores, restaurants, a lodge hall, the post office, the home of the Picayune, a medical clinic, and several law offices were all built of stone with more exuberance than common sense. Cotswold cottages nestled between Scottish castles and Spanish forts. Qwileran gave the Picayune office a wide berth and turned Into the office of Goodwinter and Goodwinter. "I don't have an appointment," he told the gray-haired secretary, "but I wonder if Mr. Goodwinter is available. My name is Qwilleran." The secretary was undoubtedly a relative; she had the narrow Goodwinter face. "You've just missed him, Mr. Qwilleran," she said pleasantly. "He's on his way to the airport and won't be back until Saturday. Would you like to speak to his partner?" The junior partner bounded out of her office in a cloud of expensive perfume, extending a well-manicured hand, and smiling happily. "Mr. Qwilleran! I'm Penelope. Alex has told me about you. He's attending a conference in Washington. Won't you come in?" She too had the long intelligent face that Qwilleran had learned to recognize, but it was softened by a smile that activated tantalizing dimples.
Qwilleran said: "I just dropped in to report on something your brother discussed with me." "About the mysterious liquor purchases?" "Yes. I don't find any evidence that our elderly friend is tippling." "I agree with you," said the attorney. "That's my brother's private theory. He thinks she's developing a whiskey voice. I say it's hormones." "How do you account for the houseman's liquor purchases?" "He must buy it to treat friends. He has an apartment in the carriage house, and he must have some social life of a sort, or it would be a very lonely life." "He's a strange young man." "But gentle and rather sweet," Penelope said. "He's a good worker and carries out orders perfectly, and some of our affluent families would kill to get him." "Know anything about his background?" "Only that a friend of Fanny's in New Jersey arranged for Tom to come out here and help her. Isn't she a remarkable woman? She amassed her fortune in the days before women were supposed to have brains." "I thought she inherited her money." "Oh, no! Her father lost everything in the Twenties. Fanny saved the family property and went on to make her own millions. She'll be ninety next month, and we're giving a party. I hope you'll join us. How are you enjoying Mooseville?" "It's never dull. I suppose you know about the murder." She nodded without any emotion, as if he had said: "Do you know it's Wednesday?" "It was a shocking thing to happen in a place like Mooseville," he said. "Do you have any theories?" She shook her head.
She knows something, Qwilleran thought, but the Legal Curtain has descended. "Wasn't Dunfield the police chief who was feuding with Fanny a few years ago? What was the trouble?" The attorney looked up at the ceiling before answering cooly. "Simply small-town politics. It goes on all the time." Qwilleran liked her style. He enjoyed his half hour in the company of an intelligent young woman with dimples and chic. Rosemary was attractive and comfortable to be with, but he had to admit he was captivated by career women in their thirties. Fondly he remembered Zoe the artist, Cokey the interior designer, and Mary the antiques dealer.
On his way back to the stone house he spotted another Goodwinter face. "Dr. Melinda, what are you doing here?" he said. "You're supposed to be repairing tourists at the Mooseville Limp-in Clinic." "My day off. Buy you a cup of coffee?" She guided him around the corner to a luncheonette. "Second worst coffee in the county," she warned him, "but everybody comes here." He tested the coffee. "Who's in first place? They'd have to try hard to beat this." "The Dimsdale Diner takes top honors," Melinda said with a flourish. "They have the worst coffee in the county and the worst hamburgers in northeast central United States.
You should try it. It's an old boxcar on the main highway, corner of Ittibittiwassee Road." "You're not going to make me believe Ittibittiwassee." "No joke. It's the road to the Ittibittiwassee River. The Indians had a village there at one time. Now it's time-sharing condos." "Tell me something, Melinda. I've seen the remains of the Dimsdale Mine and the Goodwinter Mine. Where's the Klingenschoen Mine?" Melinda studied his eyes to see if he could possibly be serious. Finally she said: "There is no Klingenschoen Mine. There never was a Klingenschoen Mine." "How did Fanny's grandfather make his money? In lumbering?" She looked amused. "No. He was a saloonkeeper." Qwilleran paused to digest the information. "He must have been highly successful." "Yes, but not highly respected. The K Saloon was notorious for half a century before World War I. Fanny's grandfather built the most luxurious house in town, but the Klingenschoens were never accepted socially. In fact, they were ridiculed. The miners had a marching song that went like this: We mine the mines and the K mines us, but who mines Minnie when the something something something. I don't know the punch line, and I'm not sure I want to know." "Then Minnie K was…" "Fanny's grandmother, a very friendly lady, according to the stories. You can read about it in the local history section of the public library. Fanny's father inherited the saloon but went bankrupt during Prohibition. Fortunately Fanny had her grandfather's talent for making money, and when she came back here at the age of sixty-five, she could buy and sell anyone in the county." As Qwilleran returned to the stone house he walked with a springier step. There was nothing like a juicy morsel of news to buoy his spirit, even when he was not on assignment.
Rosemary was equally exhilarated when he picked her' up for the ride home. She had had a lovely visit. The house was lovely-full of antiques. Francesca had given her a Staffordshire pitcher from her collection, and Rosemary thought it was lovely, Qwilleran thought it was ugly.
He said: "I've been hungry ever since lunch, and we ought to have an early dinner because Nick and Lori are coming at seven. Let's try the Old Stone Mill." The restaurant was an authentic old mill with a water wheel, and the atmosphere was picturesque, but the menu was ordinary — from the chicken noodle soup to the rice pudding.
"All I want is a salad," Rosemary said.
"I'm going to order the mediocre pork chops, a soggy baked potato, and overcooked green beans," Qwilleran said. "That's the Moose County specialty. Why don't you have the chicken julienne salad? It's probably tired lettuce and imitation tomatoes with concrete croutons and slivers of invisible chicken. No doubt they serve it with bottled dressing from Kansas City and a dusting of grated Parmesan that tastes like sawdust. This used to be a sawmill, you know." "Oh, Qwill! You're terrible," Rosemary admonished.
"What did you two emancipated females talk about while I was taking my walk?" "You. Aunt Fanny thinks you are so talented, so sincere, so kind, so sensitive. She even likes your orange cap. She says it makes you look dashing." "Did you tell her about the missing pickax?" "Yes. She said the Historical Society wanted it for their museum, so she had Tom pick it up." "She might have let me know. And what about the divers?" "They wrote to a real estate firm in Mooseville, asking for a summer house to rent.