The Lover's Knot: A Someday Quilts Mystery

by Clare O'Donohue

  "My compliments to the chef," I said out loud to myself.

  Ryan staggered sleepily into the kitchen and watched the domestic scene with clear surprise.

  "I didn't know you could bake," he said.

  "Apparently I can." I smiled, still impressed by my accomplishment. "Have one."

  He cautiously took a bite, then greedily ate it all. "These are really good," he praised me with his mouth full of muffin.

  I nodded and made a tray of coffee and muffins to take to my grandmother.

  Eleanor was up and hobbling around when I walked into the living room.

  "I brought you breakfast," I said, and put the tray down on the bed.

  She eyed the tray, then picked up a muffin. "It's still warm."

  "I followed your recipe."

  She took a nibble. "I could not have done a better job myself," she said, paying me her highest compliment. After eating the rest of the muffin, she turned to business. "I've called Jesse's brother-in-law. He'll meet us at the shop at noon."

  "Are the police letting us back in?"

  "Briefly. But Jesse called me to say the place will be all ours tomorrow."

  "So they've found as much as they will find?" I asked.

  "I assume, dear. Put some milk in the coffee, will you?"

  I did as she asked. "Did Jesse say if he found anything?"

  "No." She stopped. "He asked me about a hole in the wall."

  "Marc was knocking it down."

  "Yes, but there was a deposit bag stuffed in the wall from my bank." She sipped her coffee. "It was empty, but he wanted to know if I knew anything about it."

  "Do you?"

  "When are you taking your detective's exam?" She peered at me. "No, I don't know anything about it. Most likely it dropped behind the shelves lining that wall."

  "And got stuffed into the wall? That doesn't make sense."

  "Maybe a very smart mouse wanted a comfortable bed," she said. "I can't see that it has anything to do with Marc, poor boy." She got up and steadied herself on a crutch. "It's after nine. At my speed, it will take the next three hours to get ready."

  Her plan was to be bathed and dressed and ready to leave for the shop by eleven-thirty. She had declined any help, other than asking Ryan to put a kitchen chair in the downstairs shower. Whether it took her longer or not, my grandmother was determined not to be, in her words, "a fussy old woman about it."

  "I may not be able to do a lot of things," she said, "but I can take care of myself."

  "Then you've got me beat by a mile," I sighed.

  "Not true. You can sew a nice quilt square and can follow a recipe that makes a darn fine muffin."

  "And in 1952, that would be all I needed."

  "Yes," she replied, her sarcasm at full volume. "No woman had problems in 1952."

  "Take your shower," I said, another battle of wits lost.

  She grunted. "Close the door behind you."

  Ryan and I waited awkwardly in the kitchen, talking about the tornado in the Midwest, and how, thankfully, it had done little damage and cost no lives. How quickly a relationship goes from intimate chatter to banal chitchat.

  When Eleanor was ready, I packed up the car with her crutches and an oversized sewing bag, then settled Barney in the backseat while Ryan helped her to the car.

  "I'm going to walk to the shop," Ryan said suddenly as he closed my grandmother's car door.

  "You don't need to be there," I said.

  "Why not?" interrupted Eleanor. "It will be quite the party. I talked to Nancy this morning and she and the quilt club are heading over for a peek." She was interfering again, but I knew there was no point in making an issue of it.

  "I'll bet Jesse will be thrilled," I said as I pulled out of the driveway.

  "I think we all need to understand what happened," she said quietly.

  "It feels like they all need to gawk. No one is exactly grieving, if you haven't noticed."

  She nodded. "I suppose we owe Marc that. I do, especially."

  "Why you?"

  "He was in my shop, working for me. If I hadn't hired him . . ."

  "He would have been killed somewhere else."

  Eleanor turned her head away from me and looked out the window. "Maybe."

  CHAPTER 29

  As Eleanor predicted, the shop--or at least the street outside it--was getting to be quite a party when we arrived. Susanne and Natalie were looking in the window. Maggie, Bernie and Nancy were exchanging theories on the crime, and Carrie, an ever-present coffee in her hand, was watching Jesse talk to another man.

  "Jesse says only the two of you and his brother-in-law are allowed in the shop," Nancy complained as we arrived. "I really think you should insist I be allowed in. I do work there. I am affected by the design."

  "I agree," said my grandmother reassuringly, though I doubted she felt she needed Nancy's--or my--presence in the shop.

  Jesse nodded at both of us, but, as always, turned his attentions first to Barney. By the time the two were done with their greeting, Ryan was walking to meet us.

  "Came by to help?" Jesse asked him.

  "Observe, really," Ryan started to say, then looked around to see that all eyes were on him.

  "You are Nell's . . . friend," Maggie said crisply, pausing just enough between "Nell" and "friend" to make it clear to Ryan that everyone present was aware of the entire history of our relationship.

  "I am," said Ryan gamely, holding out his hand. "Nice to meet you."

  Ryan met her suspicious eyes, and I could see she was quickly charmed by him. Then each of the quilt club in turn shook his hand, exchanged pleasantries and was won over by his easy smile. It was a sad, sick commentary on my feelings that I was both annoyed by the women's reactions and proud that Ryan could easily captivate such a difficult audience.

  I decided not to pay attention to Ryan's growing fan club, and instead pretended to listen to the discussion between my grandmother and Jesse's brother-in-law, Tom. Tom was a solid man of about thirty, slightly balding, and with the easy smile that Jesse lacked. His hands were large and covered with nicks and calluses. I could see Eleanor noticing his hands at the same time I did, and nodding approvingly. This was a man unafraid of hard work, she seemed to be thinking.

  When they headed over to the old diner site, Nancy, Jesse, and I followed. Eleanor pointed to where the office and the bathroom should be, where shelves should be hung, and showed him the napkin that had been our original plan. Tom nodded, took notes and walked the space, hitting beams and saying how solid they were.

  I looked over at Nancy, who for all her insistence on being included, seemed as distracted as I was.

  "I hope he can do this quickly," I whispered to her.

  "I'd love to get this over with myself," she whispered back.

  Eleanor shot us a look as if we'd been caught passing notes in an exam. We immediately shut up.

  "Let's look at the other side," Tom said.

  Nancy, Jesse and I held back as my grandmother hobbled toward the door. Tom, being new, offered to help without being asked, and even called her ma'am.

  "I'm fine," she shot back, even as she leaned on his arm to get down the one step to the street.

  Outside the women completely lost interest in Ryan as they saw us head toward the quilt shop door. This was what they had come to see, and each of them wanted a good look.

  "I thought only the killer was supposed to return to the scene of the crime," I said to Jesse as we walked into the quilt shop.

  "Maybe they all did it." He smiled as he closed the door on everyone but Tom, Nancy, Eleanor and myself.

  Inside the shop seemed cold and full of secrets. Outside I could see the women were openly staring through the large display window, but there wasn't really anything to see. Marc's body was gone, though traces of his blood remained on the floor. Nancy and I stared at them, but Tom merely stepped past as if they weren't even there.

  "Is this where you want the cash register?" he asked as he
moved in front of the picture window.

  "I hadn't thought of moving it there, but I like that idea." Eleanor nodded.

  "With the bigger space you can move it. It makes for a better flow of customers," he said.

  "I can see that." She smiled brightly at him.

  Tom lit up at her response. In only ten minutes of knowing my grandmother, he already sought her approval as much as the rest of us did. He started making other suggestions, changes in the plan on the napkin. He talked about adding whimsical touches, like a crib to hold the baby fabrics. He suggested a stronger wood for the shelves, crown molding at the ceiling and a revarnish of the wood floors.

  "I was thinking of replacing this floor," Eleanor said.

  "People don't look down when they shop," Tom said. "All you need to do is freshen it up and cover up the . . . stain." He pointed to Marc's blood. "There are better places to spend your money than on a floor."

  Eleanor nodded. "Marc was going to do this for very little money. As you can imagine, a quilt shop in a small-town operates on a thin margin of profit. And I'm an old woman. I'm not likely to reap the benefits of a complete overhaul for more than a few years." She was playing him, but he seemed not to notice. "With the added expense of your labor, which is, I'm sure, well worth the cost, I'm don't know that I can afford all these fancy extras."

  "I suppose I can cut out some things," Tom replied.

  "What things?" I interjected.

  "We can do something simpler. Keep as many of the old materials as possible. I can work without an assistant, but it will take longer."

  "That won't do," Eleanor said. "This can't take longer than a few weeks or it's not worth doing." She seemed to be genuinely considering just returning the shop to its previous, overcrowded state.

  "Oh, Eleanor, we've gone too far to turn back now," Nancy said.

  Tom looked as his feet. "I know a young guy who works practically for free just to get some carpentry experience," he said. "And as far as my labor is concerned, I can lower the price a bit, for a trade."

  Eleanor smiled just a little. "Trade what?"

  "Well, I passed this shop many times when I visited my sister. And someone here made her a quilt when she went to the hospital."

  "The quilt club," said Eleanor. "The ladies outside, Nancy and myself."

  "Well, it was really nice, and it cheered up my sister throughout that whole ordeal." Tom looked toward Jesse, who nodded slightly and looked away. "It got me to thinking. My wife is home with our twin boys all day, and she's awfully stressed about it. I thought maybe if I . . . if you . . . made her a quilt, she could curl up in it at the end of the day and it would be, you know, something special just for her."

  "That's the trade you would like?" Eleanor said.

  "If it's not too much trouble."

  "What are your wife's interests?"

  "Um," said a puzzled Tom, "she likes to garden, or she did before the boys."

  Eleanor steadied herself on one crutch and held out her hand. "It's a deal," she said. Tom reached out his, and they shook on it.

  "You'll start tomorrow?"

  "Yes, ma'am . . . Mrs. Cassidy."

  "So will I. On the day I'm done with the quilt, I'd like you to be done with the shop."

  "She's fast, by the way," I warned.

  Tom just nodded. "First thing we should do is get paper over the picture window. I'll need to leave tools and supplies in here overnight, and people sometimes help themselves to things on a construction site. Especially if they can get a clear view in like this."

  I turned bright red, remembering my afternoon with Marc.

  "I've got the paper in my truck," Tom said. "I can do it now, if that's all right."

  "It's fine," Jesse said. "We've done all the fingerprint and blood work here, but I'm not releasing the scene completely until tomorrow morning. I want to give it one more look."

  "We'll stay out of your way until tomorrow," Eleanor said. "In fact, we should all go now."

  Eleanor headed for the door, and the others filed behind her, like a rock star's entourage. But my attention had turned to the hole in the wall. I walked over and examined the space.

  "What?" Jesse was suddenly behind me.

  "The hole . . . it's larger," I said.

  "You remember the size?" He looked at me, a bit impressed, maybe, but mostly skeptical.

  "Yes," I said. "Marc and I discussed it. I remember it was about the size of an orange. It's bigger now, grapefruit size, maybe."

  "Well, you know your fruits," he said lightly, but he bent down and examined the hole more closely.

  "Are you coming?" Eleanor called back to me.

  "In a second," I said. Then Jesse and I both turned and followed the others out of the shop as Tom came back in with a large roll of brown paper.

  CHAPTER 30

  Tom felt he would need two weeks, with one helper, to complete work on the shop. I agreed to supervise the work while Nancy helped my grandmother out at the makeshift shop at her house. helped my grandmother out at the makeshift shop at her house.

  "We have some work to do," she said to the ladies as she exited the shop. Then she told them about Tom's extra charge for the work. "Construction on this place starts tomorrow morning, and then it's a race to see if we finish before Tom. I don't want to give him any excuse for delays."

  "I say we keep it simple, maybe small squares in color-wash effect, greens, yellows, pinks, purples . . . a kind of Monet's garden," said Nancy, immediately sketching out a quilt on the back of an envelope. "If you all work on that, maybe Eleanor and I can applique flowers and vines along the borders."

  Everyone had gathered around to see her design, and then just as quickly they dispersed to their cars, ready to get started.

  "We should get to Eleanor's and pick the fabrics," said Maggie.

  "Natalie," Jesse called out. "Can I speak with you a second?"

  Natalie stopped and turned to Jesse. "Sure," she said nervously. "What for?"

  "Just a quick question."

  "Well, we'll wait," said her mother, Susanne.

  "That's not necessary," Jesse said firmly. "I can drop her at Eleanor's."

  Susanne took a long look at her daughter, then climbed into her car. Ryan was all but kidnapped by Bernie, who insisted repeatedly that he join her for the ride over. After a few protests, he went along.

  Eleanor was taking her time walking toward our car. The hard-nosed businesswoman of a minute before suddenly seemed tired and fragile.