“You’d have to ask Chief Burke that,” I said. “No one connected with the murder is being allowed to leave just yet.”
“Ah.” He hid his disappointment reasonably well. “So unfortunate about poor Mr. Riordan.”
“Was he staying here, too?” Not that I had been planning to pry, but he had opened the subject.
“He wasn’t a registered guest,” the desk clerk said. He stopped just short of saying, “Thank goodness!”
“But as a friend of Ms. Sedgewick, he might have come to visit her.”
“Yes,” the desk clerk said. “Although we would have no real way of knowing,” he added, as if afraid I’d start questioning him on Brett’s movements. “Ms. Sedgewick is staying in one of the cottages. Very secluded. Guests in the cottages often find it more convenient to go straight from the parking lot to the cottage, without coming through the lobby. Particularly those who are … less accustomed to the amenities of valet parking.”
So much for finding useful evidence from the desk clerk. Although he’d probably gone farther than he should in saying Genette was in one of the cottages. There were only three, each named after a Virginia-born president—Washington, Jefferson, and Madison. Presumably if the inn ever expanded, Monroe, Harrison, Tyler, Taylor, and Wilson could expect their own cottages, too, but for now finding Genette would only require knocking on three doors.
“I’m sure the chief understood why you can’t give him any information about Mr. Riordan,” I continued. Actually, from the look on his face, I suspected the chief hadn’t been all that understanding. “I’ll go see Ms. Sedgewick. You said the Jefferson Cottage, right? I know the way.”
“The Madison,” the desk clerk said quickly. “But Ms. Sedgewick is not in her cottage at the moment. Madam will find her in the restaurant.”
His voice dripped disapproval. I’d heard rumors that occasionally, when guests did not meet their standards, the inn banned them from the restaurant and ordered them to confine themselves to room service. Was Genette about to suffer this humiliation?
I thanked him and crossed the lobby to the entrance of the restaurant. On those few occasions when Michael and I had splurged to eat at the inn’s restaurant, the maître d’ invariably kept us waiting well past our reservation time. And eyed our best clothes as if they only just barely met his standards. Luckily he wasn’t there at the moment, so I could invade his domain uninvited.
I threaded my way through the tables in the cavernous and dimly lit room. My feet sank into the thick, soft carpet and seemed to make little swishing noises as they emerged. Thanks to the heavy drapes, lush upholstery, and fabric-covered walls, those little swishes were the only noise I heard until I drew near the table where an elegant gray-haired waiter was murmuring the specials into the waiting ears of the three wine judges.
I paused by the table to exchange muted greetings with the judges, and then continued on. Three tables farther down, at the very back of the restaurant, in a corner almost completely lost in the shadows, I found Genette.
She was dressed in black, or at least dark colors. It was hard to tell in the near blackness. And she was wearing oversized dark glasses.
“Ms. Sedgewick?”
She lifted her head, peered up at me, then removed the sunglasses and peered some more. Her face looked tear streaked, and she was squinting as if she ought to be wearing corrective lenses.
“Meg Langslow,” I explained. “From the fair.”
“Yeah. Siddown.” Her voice was overloud and startling in the dim hush. As I took a seat opposite her I could see the waiter and the wine judges casting curious glances our way.
Genette fumbled blindly among the various items on the table until she found a highball glass. She picked it up with a shaky hand, gulped down the remaining inch or so of whatever liquid it contained, and set it down carelessly on the table, clinking against the silverware.
Genette was soused.
“Waiter,” she called in the overloud voice of the very, very inebriated. The waiter arrived at our table with surprising speed, as if eager not to have her call again.
“’Nother Scotch,” she said. “Nosso many rocks.”
The waiter frowned and glanced at me.
“Nothing, thanks,” I said.
He blinked disapprovingly, as if he’d really been expecting me to say, “No, I think she’s had enough.” I smiled back, declining to do his dirty work for him. He murmured something and slid noiselessly away.
“Ms. Sedgewick, it’s about your booth,” I said.
“I tol’ you,” she said. “Pack it all up.”