by Mary Marks
I would bet my new microwave her perky boobs were one hundred percent saline. If I put my large breasts inside a halter top, they’d fall to my waist.
Los Angeles was full of women like Claire’s neighbor—hovering around menopause and desperate to hang on to their lost youth. Women who still wanted to be seen.
“My name’s Martha. Martha Rose.” I touched her arm, attempting to snap her out of her trance.
She looked at me with tears rolling down her cheeks. “I’m Ingrid. Claire and I weren’t just neighbors, we were friends. I can’t believe she’s dead.”
“Come on.” I took her arm and gently led her away. “Let’s go outside with the others and wait for the police.”
Ingrid sniffed and came with me.
Lucy patted Birdie’s hand as they sat on a painted wooden bench outside the front door. Birdie dabbed her eyes with a tissue and kept muttering, “Poor, poor Claire.”
I introduced Ingrid to my friends and she smiled politely. The muscles in her face barely moved.
“We have to wait for the police.”
We sat on the porch steps. Ingrid put her forehead in her hands and cried softly. “What do you think happened?”
“Well, she could have had a seizure or a stroke or even a heart attack,” I said.
Ingrid looked ready to puke.
I edged away a little. “Are you okay?”
She stood up. “I’m feeling woozy. I’ve gotta go home.” She staggered back through her yard and disappeared inside her house.
Lucy sighed. “If I were a drinker, I’d be going for a stiff one right about now.”
Birdie nodded. “I wouldn’t blame you. I could use a nice stiff cup of tea myself.”
A couple minutes later the sirens announced the arrival of the EMTs with an ambulance; right behind them were the police and a fire truck. Uniformed officers secured the house and told us to stay put.
Twenty minutes later a silver Camry arrived and parked on the street. A tall man got out, put on a gray suit jacket, and ducked under the yellow tape stretched across the driveway. A shorter man got out of the passenger side and followed behind him.
The tall one was about my age, only in much better shape. He had a shock of gray hair and a white mustache.
Be still my beating heart. There were two things in a man I was a sucker for: foreign accents and neat facial hair.
He stopped briefly and nodded at us. “Ladies.” Then he disappeared inside the house with his much younger partner.
Ten minutes later they came back outside. “I’m Detective Arlo Beavers with the LAPD.” The tall one handed each of us a business card. “I’d like to ask you some questions.”
His dark eyes looked at me and I morphed into a silly, simpering bowl of vanilla pudding. Heck. I hated when that happened. I didn’t feel out of control very often; I was a natural leader. Treasurer of our quilt guild. Retired UCLA administrator. Now my self-assurance slowly slipped away.
How did we know Claire? When did we arrive? How did we get in the house? Where did we go once we were in the house? Did we touch the body? Did we see anyone else? Where is the neighbor now? During the interview, he sent his partner to question Ingrid. I spilled my guts. By the end of the interview, Detective Beavers knew every single detail we knew about Claire. I even dished the dirt on the rumors surrounding her divorce. Rumors I had kept from my best friends. I had no shame.
When he was done, he smiled. “Thank you for your cooperation. You’re free to go. If you think of anything else, call me.”
Was it just my imagination, or was he looking at me again? All of a sudden, I had the pulse rate of a hummingbird and a hot flash was coming on.
Lucy drove away slowly from Claire’s house, carefully steering the huge Caddy around the police cars parked on the street. She narrowly missed hitting the coroner’s van coming toward us.
Once Lucy hit Canoga Avenue, she squeezed the steering wheel and sped up, exceeding the speed limit by a good ten miles per hour. “I told you I had a bad feeling.”
Birdie clutched the grab bar. “I wonder how she died. All that vomit . . . Maybe she had a seizure. Do you know if she was epileptic?”
“What would account for the blood?” I wondered aloud.
“What blood?”
I glanced at Detective Beavers’s card, still in my hand. The word Homicide jumped out at me. “You didn’t see? Claire had blood on her hands.”
That evening I called Quincy, my daughter who lived in Boston. She fell in love with the East Coast while attending Brown University and decided to settle there, working in the newsroom of WGBH Boston, a National Public Radio station.
“Hey, Mom, how are you?”
“Quincy honey. I had a terrible day. I found a dead body.”
“Shut the front door!”
“Really, honey.” I told her about Claire Terry.
“How awful. Are you okay? How about Aunt Lucy and Aunt Birdie? What did the police say? How did she die?” That was my Quincy. Always curious, always asking questions, ever the reporter.
I was proud of my daughter and missed her. Named after the father I never knew, she was my only child and the only good thing to come out of my marriage to Aaron Rose. I hoped she’d move back to California one day but kept those thoughts to myself. Quincy was fiercely independent, and if she suspected I was trying to push her into something, she’d go out of her way to do the opposite.
I answered her questions the best I could.
“Well, go get a glass of wine and relax, Mom. You deserve it after such a shock. Wish I was there to give you a hug.”
As I pushed the off button, I felt my neck muscles tighten, a familiar and unwanted response to stress that usually led to a migraine. If I didn’t do something about it immediately, I knew from experience the pain would worsen until I had a full body migraine. Instead of a glass of wine, I took a Soma, a muscle relaxer that was my go-to medication for the fibromyalgia that plagued me.
SATURDAY
CHAPTER 3
Four days after finding Claire’s body, we were back in Lucy’s Caddy driving to the annual show of the West San Fernando Valley Quilt Guild. Lucy took her hand off the wheel to show us the bracelet she wore. “Look. My sweetie felt so bad about Tuesday he went out and bought this for me.”
That was some serious bling. Diamonds mixed with something else. “What kind of stones are those?”
“Pink sapphires.”
Ray’s generosity didn’t surprise me. At the birth of each of their sons, he gave Lucy a piece of good jewelry. The more successful his business grew, the bigger the gemstones. When Lucy wanted to remodel their house, he set up a separate bank account to cover expenses and never questioned her. What a guy.
“Lovely.” Birdie’s voice sounded wistful. Long ago she confided her husband, Russell, kept tax returns dating back to when they first married and still made her hand over the grocery receipts. I couldn’t remember Birdie ever showing us anything Russell gave her.
Once she told us he tried to force her to stop buying fabric for her quilts. “There’s enough material in this house to last a lifetime.” Without saying a word, Birdie went into their bedroom with a pair of scissors and cut squares out of his best shirts. After that she bought fabric whenever she wanted to.
Lucy looked at me in the rearview mirror. “How’re you doing, Martha?”
“Oh, I think I’m over the shock, but the whole thing still creeps me out.”
I didn’t have a husband at home to comfort me like they did. Aaron left me long ago for the wife of one of his psychiatrist colleagues. All I had now was Quincy and my elderly Uncle Isaac, and I didn’t want to burden either of them. So, for the past few days, I’d turned to wasabi rice crackers with crumbled Gorgonzola cheese for consolation. Plus lots of chocolate. “I’ve been getting phone calls from guild members curious to know the gory details about finding Claire’s body.”
Lucy nodded. “Me too. You know Carlotta Hudson? The one who keeps tryi
ng to enter her quilts in Houston International and always gets rejected?”
“Sure. She once came to a board meeting and complained that having the same person always win first prize was unfair. She asked if there was some way the rest of the quilts could be judged apart from Claire’s.”
“Well, she had the nerve to ask me if I thought Claire suffered.”
“Good heavens. What did you tell her?” Birdie asked.
“I told her she reminded me of a crow pecking at roadkill.”
We laughed.
Birdie played with the end of her long braid. “Do you think they’ll give Claire first prize again this year?”
“Are you kidding?” my voice rose. “She sold her last quilt for ten thousand dollars. During an emergency meeting two nights ago, the board decided to dedicate the show to her. I heard when the show opened yesterday, there was a huge line waiting to view her quilt.”
Birdie looked surprised. “Can they give a prize to a dead person?”
“We’re about to find out. The judges pinned the ribbons on the winning quilts last night after the show.”
Lucy flipped on the turn signal. “Well, I hate to say this ’cause it really sounds awful, but if they give her a prize, this’ll be the last time. From now on, Carlotta may have the chance she’s been looking for.”
I smiled. You had to love Lucy’s honesty.
We pulled into the parking lot of the Woodland Hills Marriott and found a space using Birdie’s blue handicapped placard.
I got out of the car and snapped on my fanny pack with two quilt show essentials inside—my digital camera and my wallet. Dozens of vendors would be selling everything from sewing machines to antique buttons, and a quilter had to be prepared.
Then I bent down and helped Birdie out of the car. “I can’t wait to find out if your wall hanging won. It’s your best quilt yet.”
Lucy locked the car. “Who were the judges this year?” She slung her pink bag over her shoulder and adjusted her pink pantsuit. You had to admire her. Lucy’s outfit matched her new bracelet.
“The usual. The group of ladies from Glendale.”
Our guild traded judging duties every year with the Glendale guild. In an effort to keep the procedure honest and impersonal, the judges weren’t allowed to know the names of the quilters until the process was over.
In deference to Birdie’s knees, we maneuvered our way slowly through the hotel lobby toward the grand ballroom where the quilts were displayed. A hundred other quilters were trying to do the same thing. Vendor tables lining the walls created a bottleneck as women stopped to browse.
As we progressed, I sometimes glimpsed women quickly turning their heads away and whispering to each other. Was it my imagination or were they talking about us?
Carlotta Hudson made a beeline toward us with a smirk. My heart sank. Any conversation with Carlotta usually began with a complaint and ended in a thinly veiled insult.
Carlotta was tall, but not as tall as Lucy. Her short mousy brown hair was streaked with gray and her bangs hung in her face in limp strings. A red exhibitor ribbon was pinned on the collar of a blouse she’d sewn from a lavender and yellow floral fabric.
Carlotta looked smug. Not a good sign. “Well, well.” She peered at us through glasses with lavender plastic frames. “The three amigas. Be sure to check out the winning quilts at the back of the ballroom.” She put a look of mock sympathy on her face and turned to Lucy. “I’m afraid, however, yours isn’t among them.”
What a witch. We had never been able to figure out what Carlotta had against Lucy.
Then she turned to look at Birdie. “I received a third-place ribbon today. It’s the fourth ribbon I’ve gotten in the last five years.”
Like anybody cared.
Lucy’s eyes flickered. She shifted position, forcing Carlotta to look at her. “I don’t quilt for recognition. I quilt for family.” Then Lucy turned to Birdie. “How many times have you applied to the International Quilt Show in Houston? You know, the one where the best quilters from all over the world get to show their quilts?”
“Two times.”
“How many times have you been accepted?”
“Twice.”
Carlotta glared at Lucy, red creeping up her cheeks. She picked angrily at a gauze bandage wrapped around her arm.
“Did you win any ribbons?”
“Once.” Birdie picked up her braid and looked nervously at the now-livid Carlotta.
Lucy turned back to Carlotta. “Congratulations on winning another third place, Carlotta. Maybe we’ll see you in Houston one of these years.”
Carlotta stormed away.
Lucy smiled and shook her head slowly. “That was way too easy.”
We continued to make our way past hundreds of people to the winning quilts at the back of the ballroom. Claire’s latest wall hanging was certain to be there, and we all hoped Birdie’s would be right beside hers.
CHAPTER 4
We arrived at the platform where the winning quilts hung from black plastic tarp clips along their top edges. Birdie gasped and rushed forward, beaming and lightly touching the white ribbon pinned to the corner of her wall hanging. “I won second place in the appliqué category.”
Her quilt featured fabric images of plants from her garden plus her signature bird’s nest with eggs. I especially loved the egg made out of blue fabric with tiny brown polka dots. Birdie’s real name was Hazel Elizabeth Nightingale. The nurse presented her to her mother after she was born and with a smile said, “Here’s your baby birdie, Mrs. Nightingale.” The name stuck.
Like many quilters, Birdie gave her quilts names and wrote them on labels she sewed to the back. The sign next to her quilt read, BIRDIE’S BOTANICALS. HAND APPLIQUÉD AND HAND QUILTED BY HAZEL ELIZABETH NIGHTINGALE WATSON.
I was shocked to see a blue ribbon pinned on the top corner of my Double Sawtooth Star quilt. “Oh. My. God.” I put my hand over my gaping mouth. “I got first place in the pieced category.” The sign next to my quilt read, CIVIL WAR REPRODUCTION BED QUILT. MACHINE PIECED AND HAND QUILTED BY MARTHA ROSE.
I served as judge once for the Glendale show and knew how picky the criteria could be. Quilts were divided into two categories for judging: pieced and appliquéd. The pieced quilts were made of blocks with geometric designs joined together in an overall repeating pattern. These traditional quilts were my favorite, but this was the first time ever a quilt of mine garnered a ribbon.
Appliquéd quilts like Birdie’s and Claire’s featured images sewn together in the same way a painter created a picture. Small pieces of fabric were applied with hidden stitches to a background fabric. The fabric image was built up layer by layer, much like the brushstrokes on a canvas. Innovative appliqué artists like Claire and Birdie created true works of art.
Lucy clapped her hands. “I’m really happy for you both. I know how hard you worked on those quilts. You both deserve those prizes.”
Birdie put her hand on Lucy’s arm. “I’m sorry you didn’t win a ribbon, Lucy dear. Your baby quilt is so sweet.”
Lucy waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, I don’t care. My family’s too big and I have too many quilts to make. I know you put hundreds of hours into making a single exquisite quilt, but I can’t afford to give that much time to each one of mine. I don’t expect to win prizes. By the way, which one belongs to Carlotta the crow?”
“That one.” I pointed to the quilt with the appliquéd Rose of Sharon block. Each block featured a stylized rosette, a circle with scalloped edges. Radiating from the rosette were four straight green stems, each with two leaves and a one-piece rosebud at the end.
The Rose of Sharon was an old design that I thought lacked creativity. Still, I knew looks could be deceiving. Carlotta had probably spent months finishing this quilt. Effort alone had earned her third place.
The sign next to the quilt read: ROSE OF SHARON. THIS TRADITIONAL BLOCK IS ALSO KNOWN BY THE NAMES OF WHIG ROSE, COLONIAL ROSE, KENTUCKY ROSE, AND MEXICAN ROSE. HAND A
PPLIQUÉD AND HAND QUILTED BY CARLOTTA MARIE HUDSON. Quilt block designs frequently got renamed as they traveled from region to region. You could trace the journey of this block by its various names.
“You have to admit this is a pleasing quilt.”
Birdie peered at it closely. “Yes, but if you look carefully, you can see some of the stitches around the edges of the appliqué. Also, her quilting stitches aren’t even. She’d do better to take fewer stitches per inch and try to make them more uniform.”
I walked over to Claire Terry’s quilt, hanging in the place of honor. Two ribbons were pinned at the top: First-Place Appliqué and Best of Show.
The quilt featured a background of light gray fabric. Scattered on top of this background were appliquéd hearts and roses in pinks, reds, and purples. Each rose was composed of petals individually sewn and layered. In between the roses and hearts, hundreds of little scarlet bumps of knotted embroidery thread called French knots created texture and interest.
The sign next to the quilt read simply, ASCENDING. HAND PIECED, HAND APPLIQUÉD, AND HAND QUILTED BY CLAIRE TERRY. The design of hearts and flowers reminded me of Valentine’s Day and I thought of a joyful heart ascending with love. Then a picture of Claire lying alone on the floor flashed through my mind and I shuddered.
Birdie must have felt it, too. “Poor Claire.” Her eyes teared up.
Lucy reached out and gave Birdie’s shoulder a little squeeze.
I took out my digital camera and shot pictures of the winning quilts: full-length shots as well as close-ups of the wonderful red knots that gave such interest to the background. “Come on. Let’s find Lucy’s quilt.”
We roamed up and down aisles created by row upon colorful row of hanging quilts. People of all ages enjoyed the show. A few women had actually dragged their husbands along.
