Row 2—Place one of block # B in upper left corner, next 3 blocks # C, and end with block # B.
Sew blocks together. Make two sets.
Row 3—Sew five number 3 blocks together.
Make two sets.
Sew the rows together—1-2-3-3-2-1.
Measure through center, both length and width.
From 4 1/2 inch strips of fabric number # 2, cut 2 to length measurement and 2 to width measurement.
Sew longer strips onto sides. Press to border.
Sew 4 1/2″ square of fabric # 1 on each end of remaining strips. Press to fabric # 2. Sew one onto top and one on bottom.
Quilt as desired and bind with the remaining 2 1/2″ wide strips of fabric # 3.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Tony drove up the mountain taking Quentin home. His time in the jail was up, and he said he had no one to call for a ride home. The road was dry and clear, which made the trip at least possible. In bad weather, the road was treacherous at best. Quentin was the sole owner of this section of the mountain. Property rich, but too cash poor to improve it.
Tony made the last turn and stopped next to Quentin's shiny black pickup painted with decorative flames on the front. At the top of the drive, Quentin's mobile home sat to the right. If anything, it was more worn out and miserable than the last time Tony had come up here, but the removal of a crumbling, rusted-out shed improved the appearance of the place. Overall, the property looked better. Tony thought Quentin had also installed a new portable outhouse. The bright blue shed sat slightly downhill of the trailer.
Another new addition caught his attention. To the left sat a camping trailer, quite a bit smaller than a mobile home. The brown and white striped trailer had cinder blocks stacked around the tires, keeping it from shifting position. It hadn't been there the last time Tony made his way up the mountain. “Are you moving, Quentin?”
“No.”
“Do you have a tenant?” At Quentin's blank expression, he tried again. “A renter?”
Quentin said he did at the same time Tony saw Roscoe.
At the far side of the new trailer, a patch of vegetation had been mowed down, forming a lawn of sorts. Cinder blocks formed steps to the door. Someone had put together a porch cover using two-by-fours and a blue tarp. Dora, the vending machine, nestled in the shelter. Smoke billowed from a round black barbeque grill, and Tony smelled cooking meat. Roscoe stood next to the grill, ineffectively waving away the smoke with a long fork.
“What's for dinner?” Tony made his way through the weeds.
“Uh . . .” Roscoe's expression dropped from welcoming to furtive. “Uh, nothing.”
Watching Roscoe stab the cooking meat made Tony doubt the man's veracity. He studied the surface of the grill. He'd bet the meat of the day was squirrel. “I prefer mine fried.”
“It was already dead, just layin' by the side of the road.” Roscoe grinned, his relief palpable. “Don't tell the game warden. He says I can go to prison for this.”
Tony was flabbergasted. Hairy Rags was evidently out of his mind. Maybe a fine. Maybe a warning, but prison for a squirrel dinner? Road kill squirrel at that. “Since I'm here, I thought I'd stop by and talk to you and Baby.”
“Nossir. Baby's moved on.” Roscoe's eyes crossed from his effort to tell a convincing lie.
“She was in your truck the other night.” Tony took a relaxed pose against a tree. “She looked quite festive in all her hunter orange.”
“Well, yeah, but . . .”
“Where'd she go?”
Roscoe caved in. Tony knew he would. The man just couldn't lie worth spit. He always refereed a fair game, and he wasn't good with secrets and half-truths.
“Why's he after my Baby?” Roscoe wailed like a toddler and fat tears ran down his face. “She's working on her winter sleep home back there.”
Baby ran out of the woods toward them, loping on all fours. Ignoring Tony, the young bear stood on her hind legs and licked Roscoe's face; her long pink tongue bore a striking resemblance to a big dog's. With her hunter orange vest and glossy black fur, it was clear she was healthy and well cared for.
“Where's her bear family?”
Roscoe's skinny shoulders rose and fell. He pressed his hands over the bear's ears as if to shield her from unpleasant news. “Her mama was kilt by some of those wackos up past the Old Nest. I seed it myself 'n hid Baby from them. They was going after her too, 'n they're who old Sourpuss ought to be a-chasin'.”
“Can you show me on a map?”
Roscoe nodded and clipped a leash on Baby's collar. “She loves squirrel and ain't learned about fire,” he said as he led the docile bear to Tony's Blazer.
Tony pulled out a stack of maps and waited as Roscoe studied each one in turn. Just when Tony was ready to abandon the project, Roscoe jabbed a map.
“They was here.” He grinned. “Betcha thought I didn't remember.”
Tony hadn't doubted the man's memory as much as his map skills. Roscoe's fingernail rested exactly where Tony suspected it would be. On the county line. Tony smiled. Part of the problem was locked up in his jail. Surely there would be less activity up there at the Nest, at least for awhile.
Tony was sound asleep. After days of trying to keep up with the chaos in the county, he was worn out. He wasn't wild about sleeping alone, but he got to use a lot more of the bed without his overburdened wife. A whisper roused him slightly. The sound of little boys giggling was followed by the vibrations of the two of them climbing onto the mattress. Tony slipped back into his dreams. It was dark as homemade sin when a sound awakened him. His eyelids lifted. Two sets of glow-in-the-dark lime green teeth grinned at him.
Startled, he sat bolt upright.
The little boys laughed and jumped about, making their plastic teeth wiggle and bounce around like fireflies in the room. “Gotcha.”
After the past few days, Tony was feeling more than a bit loopy, and his sons' antics struck him as the funniest thing he'd seen in a year. He laughed so loud and hard, he almost didn't hear his cell phone ring on the nightstand.
“What is going on upstairs?” Theo asked, checking up on them.
Tony tried to describe the glowing teeth and his reaction to them, but it failed to really paint the picture. Most likely because he kept laughing like a fool.
“I'm jealous,” said Theo and disconnected.
The paper jammed down Elf's throat remained with the coroner. A photocopy of it lay on Tony's desk. It was newly composed music. The paper was designed for the purpose with treble and bass staffs. Hand drawn notes on the lines were barely visible under the string of words written in pencil. “My heart. The little heart.”
He felt the sizzle of discovery. He assumed Elf was working on this music, these very words, when her killer arrived. Was she expecting anyone? Whom did she trust, or at least whom did she not fear? He assumed “the heart” was either her lover's or her baby's.
If she was ill and knew it, was she saying farewell to her son? Was she telling him the identity of the fathers of her and Scarlet's babies?
He was still disturbed by the demolition of Elf's house. What about its contents? The furniture? The piles of papers and records and family pictures—where were they? He called Gus.
“Hey, baby brother.”
Tony wondered how to get rid of caller ID. “Hail, Caesar.” He thought being Marc Antony was better than being Caesar Augustus. The one thing all the Abernathy siblings agreed on was how much trouble their mother's penchant for old Rome caused.
“Okay, we're even.” Gus laughed, a great rolling laugh. “Is life better today?”
“No.” Tony did feel better just hearing something fun. “It's an ugly business no matter how you look at it.”
“Can I help?”
“Maybe. Tell me everything you know about the house you demolished for Elf, like what happened to the furniture and papers.”
For awhile, Gus made some humming noise. Then he said, “There was a moving truck, not a big
cross country rig, just a truck from some place in Knoxville. I can see the logo in my head. I just don't remember the name off hand. Anyway, they were pulling away when I arrived to see what Elf had in mind.”
“And?” Tony wanted to squeeze the information out of his brother.
“Hey, don't get your underwear in a wad. I'm trying to remember the details for you.” Gus started humming again. “Okay, the first time I went into the house, there was no furniture, no rugs and nothing hanging on the walls. There was a stack of boxes back in the music room. I assumed they were her gold records and such, but I didn't look into any of them.”
“How big was the stack?” Tony had no idea if the information was important or not.
“Oh, maybe ten boxes, the size even you could carry if filled with books.”
“Was that it?” Tony ignored the jibe.
“Yep.” Gus sounded confused now. “There wasn't another stick of furniture, paper or musical instruments. There wasn't even a can of beans in the kitchen.”
“Did you notice any reason she wouldn't want to give the house to Patrick as it was? Were there termites or mold or rot?”
“Nope. She just said she wanted it torn down to the dust or she'd burn it.”
Ruth Ann waved a hand in Tony's direction. Either she was drying her fingernails or wanted to attract his attention. The phone pressed to her ear made him think it was the latter.
“Here he is now. I know he'll be happy to talk to you.” She extended the receiver and mouthed “Frank Thomas.”
Not sure he'd agree to the “happy” part, Tony accepted the phone call. “Frank?”
“You know them coveralls you was asking about?”
“Yes.” Tony decided Ruth Ann was physic. He was delighted by the call and didn't even know why.
“Well, the oddest thing happened.” Frank coughed into the phone. “They're back. I found them folded all neat-like this morning on the clean stack.”
“Have they been washed? Are they clean?” Had the killer taken the time to do the laundry before returning the stolen item?
“Nossir. They's just as dirty as can be.”
“Don't touch them. I'll be right over.” Tony tossed the receiver to Ruth Ann and headed for his parking bay. He snapped his fingers. “Wade, come.”
It took them maybe three minutes to drive to the garage, where they found Frank and Joe Thomas staring at the stack of coveralls. Sure enough, there was a dirty pair on the top of the stack. Each of the mechanics held clean ones. Tony could feel himself grinning. A stupid move on the part of their killer.
Wade was smiling too. “Not above committing murder, but too honest to steal coveralls?”
“Says a lot, doesn't it?” Tony pulled three large bags from the back of the Blazer. “We need to take the dirty one, the one under it and whichever of those”—he pointed to the ones clutched in grimy hands—“whichever one was on the top.”
Joe Thomas placed his coveralls into the bag like he was delivering a holy relic. “How'd whoever it was get in to put the coveralls there?”
“Excellent question, Joe. Any ideas?” Tony glanced around the interior of the garage. Besides the big overhead door, there were three normal doors. One opened into the office. One for the restroom. One on the front of the building, next to the overhead.
Joe just shook his head.
Frank rubbed his chin and glanced up at the ceiling. “Well, we was both gone for a while this morning. Had to haul a big rig out of a ditch up near the national park.”
“Don't you lock up?” said Wade.
“We lock the office.” Joe glared. “Only at night do we lock it all.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Concerned by the plight of the Bainbridge sisters, Theo called Tony. The news was good. The ladies had arrived mid-morning, well rested. They had carried with them a packet of Emery's papers, per his instructions to them, which they had forgotten all about in their sorrow and panic. Tony and Doc Nash had sifted through the papers while the ladies sipped tea and charmed Ruth Ann. It turned out that Emery had been a fine, if somewhat overprotective, older brother. He had purchased a life insurance policy on himself large enough to allow the sisters to live extravagantly for the rest of their days. No one was even considering pressing charges against them.
Delighted by the news, Theo signaled for Katti to push her into the shop. She braced herself for the inevitable chaos. She was sure it would get even worse by the time of the funeral. Theo thought if Scarlet's funeral had been sparsely attended, Elf's was going to set a record in the other direction. Rumors had suggested music and motion picture stars were expected to attend. The family members in town for Patrick's wedding were by and large the ones who would come for the funeral. They decided to “have the funeral while we're all still here.”
Theo wasn't surprised—or pleased—when Nellie Pearl burst into her shop, carrying with her the aroma of dirt, body odor and menthol. She loved to rub mentholated chest rub on her hair and skin. She was not allowed to touch anything in Theo's shop.
“The funeral's to be at the high school,” Nellie Pearl announced. “Can you believe it? Only heathens would hold a funeral there.”
Theo preferred churches as well, but the decision to use the high school made sense. The gym held more people than any place except the football field, and the weather was not conducive to outdoor services. “Are you going?” What she wanted to say was, “I heard your daughter is coming to get you, bathe you, and lock you up, you old bat.” She didn't.
“Of course. Me and Elf was thick as thieves back in the olden days.”
It was improbable, but possible, that they had been closer many years ago. Theo wasn't about to get into an argument, but maybe she could learn something. “So, were you friends with Scarlet as well?”
“Miss Priss?” The old woman laughed, but there was no humor, only malice, in the sound. “She thought she was special, didn't she? How could anyone ever like her?”
Theo felt the woman's bitter hatred. It poisoned the air around her. “Why not?”
“She tried to steal Easter Lily's man away, didn't she?” Nellie Pearl reached for a pair of scissors, but Gretchen got to them first. “A-course, he was a mighty purty man. The two of them weren't his only conquests.” She flashed a coy grin.
“He was pretty?” Theo tried a smile, momentarily wondering what a young Nellie Pearl might have looked like. “Was he young like Elf? Does Patrick resemble him?”
“I don't know you.” Nellie Pearl suddenly stopped and stared at Theo. She pointed a finger at Theo and stirred the scent of menthol again. “Get out of my house.”
Tony watched the white hearse bearing Elf's body to the high school gym. Someone had arranged an enormous floral display almost covering the entire vehicle, like a float in a parade.
Sitting in the gym, waiting for the cortege to arrive, were the celebrity guests and other mourners lucky enough to draw a number allowing them to attend. The numbers indicated the section of the gym where they could sit.
The fans without tickets lined the road throwing flowers at the passing hearse and the limos carrying the close family members.
Summer Flowers sat alone in the first limo. After Theo's description of the man's attitude about his daughters, Tony was surprised he bothered to attend. Maybe he'd reconsidered his opinion, or maybe he thought it was amusing.
Patrick and Celeste had bowed to the pressure of funeral director and mayor, Calvin Cashdollar. They sat in the back of the second limo, holding hands. Pericles, his face buried in a handkerchief, rode next to the driver.
Blossom, along with her father Autumn Flowers, her mother and the whole garden of girls, their husbands and children, as well as both of Blossom's beaus, arrived in a veritable caravan.
Tony watched the gym fill up, not sure what he expected to see. What he wanted was someone to stand up, holding a sign with an arrow and a confession: “It was me,” or “I did it.” A simple, tasteful “I'm guilty” would be lovely.
Wade sauntered up to him. “I've been looking for anyone who might look like Patrick.”
“Tell me you've found someone.” Tony knew he was begging, but dignity wasn't important. “I'd love to talk to Patrick's mysterious father.”
“Sorry.” Wade held up his camera. “I'm taking lots of pictures, though. Maybe we'll find somebody when we go through them.”
“I don't suppose we could run a DNA test on everyone attending?”
Wade shook his head. “Sorry boss. Do you think the killer is here?”
“Yes.” Tony was sure. The biggest problem, other than identifying the unknown person, was the huge number of mourners and observers who were not inside the gym. It was impossible to check every face.
At last the funeral service began. Tony was relieved it was a dignified service and not the media free-for-all he'd imagined. The football star had a beautiful baritone voice. No one shrieked or fainted. No one streaked the event. Although incredibly slow moving because of the hordes of fans tossing flowers at the hearse, the cortege managed to get to the cemetery. Easter Lily Flowers was buried next to her sister Scarlet. Whether friends in life or not, they would share common ground in death.
Tony couldn't help glancing over at Mr. Beasley's grave. After the Halloween grave digging episode, his dirt had been neatly returned to the site. Tony found himself grateful the disturbed plot hadn't been Elf's grave. There would probably be a photographer ready to sell a picture of the old ladies to the tabloids. He could imagine lurid claims of cloning or sales of body parts on the Internet.
With her wheelchair and temporary handicapped tag, Theo was given a spot close to the front in the gym and at the cemetery. She tried to imagine what had brought murder up to her quilt retreat and how the one murder was connected to the death of a very popular entertainer. What secret did the sisters share? Besides Patrick, who wasn't a secret. The identity of his father was. And did the man even know he'd sired a son?
Barbara Graham - Quilted 03 - Murder by Music Page 24
