“I know and I loved it.”
“It’s a big rectangle.”
“Basic structure. I’ve heard it called an Amish buggy and a four-slice toaster. I don’t care what anybody else thinks. The design is brilliant and I love the way it drives. Easy on gas, big enough to haul clothes, backseats that disappear to make like a truck bed. I’m in business. It’s perfect. I need one. I want one.”
“Do me a favor,” Eve said. “Tomorrow, when we get to Goodwin’s, pretend you’re not jonesing, so you don’t pay too much. And be prepared to follow my lead and walk.”
“You like playing the money game, don’t you? You’re such a Connecticut Yankee.”
She buffed her nails on her vest then pretended to admire their black sheen. “I have been known to make car salesmen cry.”
I chuckled. “Fine. I choose; you negotiate, genius.”
“I am a genius. I wrote you a sweet computer program to run the shop. Keeps track of stock, designers, vintage year, provenance, flaws, every thingamabobbin you can imagine. I designed a bookkeeping module that works with it: quarterly tax reports, the works. Bodacious program, if I do say so myself. It’ll work with a tax program, too, so I can file your quarterlies and such.”
“Eve, that’s such an enormous gift.”
“You’re worth it. Are you all right?”
I rubbed my temple. “I’m not sure.” I grabbed the cape and dress off her backseat and set them in my lap.
Eve did a double take. “Oh, please don’t do that in my car.”
“Why? I don’t pee my pants when I have a vision.”
“No, I do!”
Nobody could match my skewed sense of humor as well as Eve. Except maybe Nick, in bed.
When we drove by my shop, the crime scene tape was gone. “Yay. Pull in so I can run up and see what they took. Don’t even stop the engine. I’ll be back in two minutes.”
It didn’t look as if they’d taken anything. Not even the quilt I found folded on the fainting couch, back side up, also quilted but with a different palette of colors, this side as dusty-clean as the other.
No body grunge. Dante was right. What a relief.
I was guessing the police hadn’t figured out that the bones had been wrapped in it. I was of two minds: Don’t tell. And don’t tell until after I spent more quality time with the quilt.
I went with: don’t tell, yet.
I wanted to take it home, but I didn’t want to touch it, so I emptied the drawer from the cabinet and sat the folded quilt on top so I only touched wood. Last time I checked, I couldn’t read old furniture. On the stairs, I screamed when Dante materialized in front of me.
“See?” he said. “You always scream, no matter where I appear around you.”
“I have to run, but I’ll be back tomorrow.”
His disappointment gave me a little heart twitch, but I kept going. I locked up, opened Eve’s back door, and set my package inside.
Eve about fainted when she saw the quilt. “We’re now carrying two, no, three psychic firecrackers? In my car. Don’t take this wrong, but I want you and your vision makers the hell out of here.”
“Take me home, then.”
“I’ll do the computer search on the quilt tonight.” She smacked her head. “Bizarro! Do you think that’s the prize quilt we’re looking for?”
“If I’m taking my clues from the universe, I think it’s possible, though I won’t say I’m thinking straight. I’m weeks behind in getting the shop ready and twelve days away from my grand opening, which won’t be half bad now that the White Star Circle of Spirit witches are having their Halloween costume ball at my place.”
“Say again?”
I told her about Fiona’s request.
“Can I come?” Eve asked.
“Sure, and bring a date.”
“You’re on.”
When we got to my house, she ran my psychic firecrackers up to my room for me, she so didn’t want to be around when I touched them.
“I have an idea,” I said when she came back down. I handed her a cinnamon bun. “Want to go and talk to Sampson’s sister?”
Eve checked her watch. “It might be a bit late for a social call by the time we get there. It’s a heck of a haul around the river along those winding roads.”
“Not by rowboat, it isn’t.”
“You’re right. We could be there by seven forty-five as the fish swims.”
“The Sweets hinted that Suzanne was dating Tunney, which would only give him motive for killing Sampson if he planned to marry her and if she’s Sampson’s heir and if he’s greedy, which he most certainly is not.”
“On the other hand,” Eve said, “maybe she seduced him into it and she’s the greedy one. Men have been known to do stupid things in the name of love.”
“So true. I’d like to think Tunney’s above that, but—Let’s tell her we need her help to get Tunney off the suspect list and gauge her reaction.”
“Makes sense,” Eve said. “Want to change clothes?”
“Of course!” I ran upstairs.
“Can I borrow a spare Windbreaker or something?” Eve asked behind me. “That’s the beauty of wearing casual all the time. I’m up for anything.”
“Except formal,” I said, donning a cashmere cowl-neck top, jeans, matching jacket, a Hermès scarf, and least-favorite boots, in case we had to get out in the mud.
From my closet, I tossed Eve an orange variegated knit poncho.
She squeaked and dropped it as if it would bite. “Get out of my way, you wackadoodle. What do you have that’s black, or at least dark?”
She pulled out the same poncho in browns and blacks. “Brat,” she said, sliding it over her head.
I laughed. “You can’t blame a girl for trying.”
We knew our rowboat and had long ago mastered the art of cutting swiftly through the water, the two of us in sync. Soon, we were pulling up to the Sampson dock.
One problem. Sampson’s sister wasn’t alone, but sitting on the patio kissing a man in a wheelchair. Flirting and foreplay, definitely, when she was supposed to be dating Tunney, or so the Sweets implied, as Virginia Statler nearly did when she bought the parking lot kimono.
“I don’t think it’s a good time,” Eve whispered.
“No kidding. She’s cheating on Tunney.”
“Nah. They’re . . . exploring new territory.”
“Is that man-magnet speak?”
“Yes, we rule mere mortals.”
I started rowing. “Let’s hope Tunney agrees.”
“You’re not going to tell him?”
“Of course not, but he’s bound to find out.”
Sampson’s sister stood. “Is someone in the water?”
“There’s no one there,” the man said. “Stop being so easily spooked. You’ll give us away.”
“Row faster,” I whispered.
“She didn’t see us,” Eve said, out of earshot.
“I’m having heart palpitations, anyway.”
“Did you expect us to get into, and out of, more trouble at home than we did in New York?”
“Out of? Don’t count your chickens. Werner could be waiting at the boathouse when we get back.”
“So let’s put the boat in the Sweets’ boathouse and walk home.”
“Eve Meyers, you wicked little devil. Speaking of which, what do you think that conglomerate was going to pay Sampson for his corner lot?”
“Why does it matter now?”
“I think knowing would give us an idea of how badly someone might want Sampson dead.”
“Unless you go through Sampson’s papers, I don’t see how you can find out.”
“I own the corner lot that mirrors Sampson’s. I’ll give the company a call and see if they make an offer.”
“You wouldn’t sell. Would you?”
“Of course not. But they wouldn’t know that. I want a jumping-off figure.”
“You mean a going-up-in-flames figure?”
“Ouc
h, but yes.” After Eve left, I went up to soak in a hot tub and try to put my random puzzle pieces together, but nothing fit—yet.
By the time I climbed in bed, nothing made sense. I dreamed of dead neighbors and bags of bones. Once, I called my knowledge “synchronicity.” Consoling word.
Aunt Fiona would call it “universal intervention” if I believed in Fee’s “pay attention to the signs” theory.
By six A.M., only “lunacy” made sense. My own. Dad would agree. Aunt Fiona would have a different take. I couldn’t wait to see her. I showered and chose a seventies, front-zip Lolita minidress—easy off when trying on clothes—Belgian loafers in lizard calf, and a Vuitton bag.
I grabbed the garment bag I’d dropped over the cape and dress set last night and the white plastic garbage bag I dropped the quilt in from the drawer. I couldn’t find my father, but his car sat in the drive so I left a note. “Borrowing your car. Call if you need it.”
I rang Aunt Fiona’s doorbell at seven but she answered in her robe. Very unusual. “Madeira,” she said, looking rather like a deer in headlights.
“You’re having a sleep in, aren’t you? I’m sorry. I’ll come back later.”
“No. No, I’m up. Come in.”
“Fee, I can’t find that spare toothbrush.” My father came into the living room wearing nothing but his pajama bottoms, the towel he was using to dry his hair temporarily covering his eyes.
“Harry,” Aunt Fiona said. “We have company.”
Twenty-two
Fashion is the science of appearance, and it inspires one with the desire to seem rather than to be.
-HENRY FIELDING
“Madeira!” My father’s ears positively glowed. How cute and guilty did he look with his salt-and-pepper hair spiked in all directions and his towel now unnecessarily covering him like a loincloth? “I slept on the sofa,” he said. “See the blank—” His gaze whipped to Fiona.
“I like a neat house.” She shrugged. “I put the bedding away.”
I turned back to my dad. For the second time that I could recall, he shocked me. “Dad, you have a tattoo.” Harry Cutler with a pentagram tat on his shoulder. No wonder he wore undershirts summer and winter.
“Your mother made me do it. We’d been touring the Finger Lakes wineries. Had a bit too much Madeira at one. That was the n—I didn’t know what it meant. You don’t, do you?”
“Sure,” I said. “It’s a star.” A pentacle he’d gotten nine months before my birth. He could have said wine instead of Madeira and I wouldn’t know, but that was Harry. “You are such a lousy liar,” I said.
“No, it’s true.”
“I know it is, Dad.” Which meant that he had, indeed, slept on the sofa. “So, what’s up with you two?”
“I took Fee to a psychologist friend yesterday,” my father said, “because of the casket thing. He talked to her and said she shouldn’t be alone for a while, so I stayed here so she could sleep better in her own bed.”
I looked between him and Aunt Fiona. “I see.”
“Your father’s only helping me out of guilt,” she said. “Because he mocked me.”
“Yes, and the ogre needs to get dressed,” my father snapped, disappearing.
“The spare toothbrushes are in the top drawer of the vanity. In the back,” Aunt Fiona yelled.
“I need to talk to you,” I whispered as I dragged her toward her sunroom.
“We’ll have breakfast together, the three of us,” she said, smile forced. “We can talk after your father goes.”
“The three of us for breakfast? After that scene? Just shoot me now.”
“I’m going home for breakfast,” my father said, making us both jump. He looked sloppier than I’d ever seen. Wet hair, barely combed, button-down shirt unbuttoned, one shirt tail in, one out.
Aunt Fiona giggled.
“What?” my father barked.
She winked. “That’s a great look on you. Fetching.”
“Hey,” my father snapped. “I’m trying to convince the kid of our innocence, here.”
“I’m not a kid, and I’m not innocent. I don’t know why you should be. I’ll just stay the hell away from the two of you first thing in the morning.”
My father growled, a bit like a pirate. “You stay with her tonight, Madeira.”
“How about she stays with us tonight?”
“Her name is Fiona,” she said, hands on hips.
My father shook his head and opened her front door. “How did my car get here?”
“I borrowed it. Care to drive it home so the neighbors don’t call the men in white to come pick up the hobo impersonating the fanatically tidy Professor Cutler?”
He sighed, turned, held out a hand, ears red as Ru dolph’s nose, and caught his keys midair. Then he slammed the front door behind him without saying good-bye.
Fiona and I fell into a puddle of hilarity on her sofa. We’d no sooner catch our breaths than we’d start again. Reliving my dad’s look and reactions took us right through breakfast, a break I needed from the death, bones, and fiery chaos of the past two days.
We talked only about my father until the last dish had been put away. Then Fiona went into the living room and took out the cape, dress, and quilt.
She examined them, touched each one, then she lit candles. “This for harmony, for courage,” she said, continuing with positivity, vision, and protection.
I’d always experienced peace here in her earth-toned Celtic-decorated home, which I knew nowhere else. Right now, even my psychic firecrackers fizzled as I calmed.
Aunt Fiona sat on the edge of her butterscotch leather recliner. “I know you came to talk,” she said, “but I have a proposition. Can I go first?”
“Anything to put off vision chasing.”
“I’d like to do a sweeping ritual at your shop before you start moving in, get rid of the negative vibes. And I’m not just talking about the bones, but the residual energy from so many people over the years who might, or might not, have moved on from there.”
“Right, those who were embalmed or cremated. I hadn’t thought. My shop could be riddled with negative energy.”
“I’m sure it has positive energy, too, but that isn’t the problem. Negative is. If you’d like, you can join me in the ritual sweeping?”
The invitation threw me. I’d hardly gotten used to being psychometric. I wasn’t ready to wear my mother’s magic cloak. “Maybe I’ll just watch this time.”
Aunt Fiona patted my knee. “That’s fine, sweetie. Whatever makes you comfortable. How’s your schedule?”
“With eleven days to prepare for my grand opening without having started?” I took a calming breath. “Eve’s taking me to buy a car after she gets home from school today. Can we sweep negative energy tomorrow?”
“Oh, the electrician is coming tomorrow. I nearly forgot to tell you.”
“After the electricians are finished, then,” I said. “We can sweep away their negative energy, too.”
Aunt Fiona smiled. “You said we.”
“Did I? Slip of the tongue?”
“Now, what did you want to talk to me about?”
I told her about my visions and tried on the cape’s matching dress, walked around in it, but—“Nothing.”
She nodded. “Change and we can spread the quilt on the rug to see if we can learn anything more.”
After I did, the quilt was ready. “It’s beautiful with that huge heart at its center formed by the way the fabric is pieced. I’d never have known, if you hadn’t spread it out.”
“I’m anxious to get my hands on it,” Aunt Fiona said. “But I wanted to wait for you. Are you ready?”
I got on my knees across from her, beside the quilt. “Let’s do it.”
Palms down, I got a picture of skillful hands wearing a big diamond embroidering one of the quilt squares and sensed the quilter’s love and sadness.
Moving my hands, I saw through her eyes the memory of her husband dancing with someone else and fe
lt her hurt, but still didn’t see his face.
I found a bump in the quilt near a zipper. “I found another pocket.” I opened my eyes, unzipped it, and slid my hand inside.
Aunt Fiona watched as I pulled my clutched fist from the pocket and opened it.
In my palm sat a platinum wedding ring and an emerald-cut diamond the size of Texas.
Twenty-three
Fashion, even anti-fashion, is forever. It’s the only way we can become the characters we wish to be.
—CHRISTIAN LACROIX
I wanted to cry, but I firmed my lips against the emotion overwhelming me at the sight of that ring.
Aunt Fiona rubbed my arm. “Tell me.”
I had to swallow before I could. “They belong to the woman who wore the cape. I’m afraid the bones the police found must be hers, too. They were wrapped in the quilt. No, wait. I only saw the well when I touched the quilt. Oh! The diamond is what connects the woman who wore the cape to the quilt and to my visions of the well.”
“Maybe,” Aunt Fiona said, “she slipped her rings in the quilt pocket when she was wrapped in it, so somebody would find it and look for her.”
That made sense. “Yes. Her quilt—this quilt, I believe—was entered into some kind of county fair-type competition. Did you get anything from touching it?”
Aunt Fiona shivered. “A dark place. Tire tracks. I’m not as good at this as you are.”
I hugged her. “There has to be something you’re not aces at,” I said. “Let’s turn it over.”
We did and stood back. “Tire tracks,” I said. “Just there.” I pointed. “Very light. Barely visible.”
Aunt Fiona had trouble finding them. “Oh, now I see. It wasn’t run over or they’d be darker, so it must have pressed up against a tire.”
“A spare?”
“In a dark trunk.” Aunt Fiona completed my unwanted thought.
“On her one-way trip to the well?” I suggested. “I have to take the quilt and rings to the police. Too bad I can’t pass along my visions.”
“I’ll take you to get your dad’s car, but give me your shop key, and I’ll fill my car with some of your vintage stash and bring it over, help you start moving in. Meet me there, after. I have some ideas to run by you.”
Larcency and Lace Page 10
