by Gin Jones
Lawrence gave me a parting nod and jogged back to his car. I waited until it pulled out of my driveway before collecting the box. It was tempting to unpack the quilt and take a quick peek at it, but I knew that a superficial glance was likely to turn into an intense study followed by several hours of insomnia while I considered what the design could tell me about why Brooke might have wanted me to have it. With everything on my schedule for the next few days, I couldn't afford a sleepless night.
Instead, I put the box on the chair in my office, where it was out of sight, and settled down with one of Elizabeth Ashby's Christmas-set mysteries, something I did every November to get into the holiday spirit. I'd already reread one of her Thanksgiving stories, Deadly Dirty Martinis, and now I was looking forward to a relaxing hour or two with A Poison Manicure and a Peach Liqueur.
CHAPTER THREE
The next morning, thoughts of the still sealed box in my office kept niggling at me, and I fought the urge to settle into my office to study its contents. I couldn't keep the quilt of course, but there wasn't any reason why I couldn't at least admire it. In fact, that was probably all that Brooke had intended anyway, and her husband had probably misunderstood.
If quilts were sentient, I'd say that they wanted to be shared. Their makers certainly wanted them to be seen by like-minded spirits at exhibits, parades, and guild show-and-tell sessions. I'd even done a few appraisals for clients I was pretty sure would never get around to using them to insure their quilts but simply wanted the value of their work to be acknowledged by someone they respected, and they were willing to pay me for the experience.
I would gladly give Brooke's quilt the attention she craved as soon as I could, but I had paid work to do first. Unpacking the box would have to wait until I finished the report that I'd be delivering to Gil Torres at the Historical Museum on Wednesday morning. I'd been hired to confirm that an antique holiday quilt she was considering acquiring was legitimate. The plan was to finalize the deal on Friday if my report was positive so she could announce the acquisition during the guild's ornament-making workshop in the museum's community room on Sunday. I couldn't afford to be late in turning in a project for my biggest client, and perhaps even more important, I didn't want the museum to lose out on the deal. The quilt was perfect for the collection, with a provenance that was exactly what the owner had represented it to be, and the purchase price was extremely reasonable.
I settled down at the kitchen peninsula with my laptop to fact-check some last details for my report. Quilt history was rife with urban legends that sellers sometimes used to inflate the offered item's value, and I was always reluctant to trust my memory of which stories had been debunked and which were still accepted, so I always double-checked any relevant ones before mentioning them in a report. It took longer to resolve these last few issues to my satisfaction than I'd expected, so I was still proofreading the draft when I heard Matt's pickup truck come to a stop next to my front walkway. Matt would wait with more patience than I had myself if I asked him to, but I didn't like to take unnecessary advantage of him. There would be time to read the last few pages of my report and print the final version tonight, well before the next day's meeting with Gil, so I slipped into my sneakers, grabbed my phone and purse, and raced out the front door to get the shopping done.
We started with One Man's Trash, a secondhand shop run by a wannabe flower child who'd been born twenty years too late to be authentic. I hadn't been optimistic about finding what we needed there and anticipated having to go to a large chain store next. I was pleasantly surprised though to find that a back corner of the shop had a dozen dining tables in a variety of shapes and sizes. We ended up spending the better part of an hour debating whether to get the cheap, wobbly table for six or splurge on a solid, larger table that seated ten, even though that would leave several places empty. Matt was patient, not even teasing me about my having added Dee's granddaughter to our guest list, which was just as well because I was always irritable when shopping.
We eventually decided on the larger table, even though it had a few scratches and watermarks on the dark wooden top. The smaller one was too unstable, and we were both worried that Dee might get hurt if it was unable to support her leaning on it. Dee's safety was more important than any other consideration, and the minor blemishes could be covered easily by a holiday tablecloth.
The table took up most of the bed of Matt's old truck, and then at the grocery store I began to doubt there would be enough room left for all the food we bought. Matt kept throwing things into the shopping cart as if he was intent on making sure there was enough food for twice as many people as would fit at the oversized table. Occasionally, he'd open a package and take several bites of the contents as we moved along the aisle before putting the item into the cart, and once he raced back to grab three extra boxes of a particular variety of crackers after he'd tasted them.
Eventually we made it through the busy checkout line and got everything into the truck's bed with barely a cubic inch or two to spare. Then we had to make a trip to his house to unload some of the bags since my refrigerator wouldn't hold all the perishable food Matt had just bought, and his cabin compensated for its lack of a working oven by having a massive refrigerator.
Because of the various delays, it was already four o'clock by the time we'd unloaded all the groceries that needed to be stored at Matt's, and we were half an hour away from Brooke's house. I used Matt's phone, which had her phone number in the contacts, to call her. There was no answer, so I left both a voicemail and a text to let her know we were on the way.
Brooke lived in a fairly new and upscale subdivision of modern colonials with three-or-more-car garages. Her house was white with shutters in a green so dark it almost looked black, and there was a porch across the entire front facade. It was decorated for Thanksgiving with a rafter of carved and fancifully painted wooden turkeys affixed at precise intervals along the top of the railing that lined the porch on either side of the steps.
Matt parked behind the blue SUV already in the driveway, and we went up to the front door to ring the bell. No one responded, which seemed odd. Brooke should have been home and expecting us at four o'clock when I'd called and texted her. If she couldn't wait for the extra half hour, she could have responded to tell us not to come, but we hadn't gotten any message from her.
I peered in through the sidelight to the right of the front door, but I couldn't see any activity inside.
"I'll go around back," Matt said. "It's a nice day, so maybe she went outside and can't hear us."
While he strolled out of sight, I wandered along the porch to a large window that let filtered light into what I guessed would be the living room. Sheer curtains prevented me from seeing any details inside the house, but I could make out the general lines of furniture and accessories. There was an almost military precision and a Spartan feel to the placement of the minimalist furniture. The only softness came from a folded quilt draped perfectly symmetrically over the back of the sofa and from some colorful square artwork on the walls, which, based on Brooke's quilting hobby and the lack of rigid frames, was probably a collection of miniature quilts rather than paintings.
I wouldn't have paid any attention to the wingback chair near the sofa if it weren't for the contrast with the spare perfection of the rest of the room. The wingback seemed lumpy, as if the dozen or so pillows that might otherwise have been scattered among the rest of the furniture pieces had all been tossed on top of that one chair.
I squinted, trying to get a better look through the gauzy curtains.
The chair definitely had something in it. Not pillows, I decided quickly, but it took longer to realize it was a human being, small and blonde enough to be Brooke. Perhaps she'd fallen asleep while waiting for us and that was why she hadn't answered either the phone or the doorbell.
I rapped on the window and called her name. She didn't move. I shouted louder and punctuated the words with a heavy pounding on the window. Still no reaction.
I shouted for Matt while I was confident I still could. He must have been on his way back already because he came around the corner of the garage a mere moment later. His ambling gait was replaced by a jog to the porch and up the stairs.
I gestured for him to join me at the window. "See that chair over to the left? Can you tell if that's Brooke sitting in it? Someone is, and whoever it is isn't responding to my pounding on the window. No one could sleep through the racket I've been making."
Matt peered at the window and tilted his head to various angles as if that would give him a better view of the interior. He knocked on the window and shouted, his professionally trained speaking voice carrying much better than mine did.
And still no response.
"I'm calling 9-1-1," I said as I took out my phone and punched in the numbers. "But what if she needs immediate help and can't wait for them to arrive?"
"Stay here." Matt dislodged the closest decorative wooden turkey from the railing and used it to break the sidelight beside the front door.
He reached through the opening to let himself in as I held my breath for fear he'd cut himself on the jagged edges of the glass. He disappeared inside before I could say I'd wait on the porch to flag down the police, although I was mostly afraid that if I followed Matt inside, I might pass out and be more of a hindrance than a help.
I'd barely finished telling the dispatcher Brooke's address and asking for an ambulance and police to be sent when Matt came lurching back through the door with his hand over his mouth.
"Is everything okay?" I asked automatically, although it was obvious that something was seriously wrong.
Matt didn't stop to answer but raced down the porch steps to empty his stomach of the various snacks he'd eaten while we were shopping. When he stopped heaving, he said, "Brooke's dead."
"Are you sure?"
"Trust me—you don't want to go see for yourself," Matt said, his face ashen.
I'd never seen him so shaken, not even after we'd encountered other dead bodies.
"There's blood everywhere, and there's a gun on the floor beside her where she dropped it."
* * *
A wave of lightheadedness struck, and I wobbled over to sit on the stairs to wait for the first responders. Matt flopped down beside me, offering me his chest to lean against.
Had Brooke killed herself? She'd indicated that she was somehow responsible for the theft of the miniature quilts, but had she really felt so bad about it that she'd taken her own life, unable to go on living with the guilt? No one had seemed to blame her as much as she'd blamed herself, so that seemed unlikely. Another thought hit me. What if her death had something to do with the quilt she'd sent her husband to deliver to me? He'd said that she'd been in a rush to get the quilt to me and that it couldn't wait until today. If I'd opened the box sooner, would I have realized what she was planning to do and been able to prevent this tragedy?
Fortunately, I didn't have much time to blame myself for what had happened. The first medical responders arrived quickly, confirmed that there was nothing they could do for Brooke, and then made sure that neither Matt nor I was experiencing any physical effects from the shock. Matt remained quieter than usual afterwards, but otherwise seemed as fine as could be expected in the circumstances. I'd been spared a close-up of the crime scene—and thus escaped a likely syncope event—so I didn't need any medical assistance either.
The first police officer on the scene wasn't anyone I knew. He had us wait in the back of a patrol car for the arrival of a detective. I immediately began hoping that Bud Ohlsen would be assigned the case, since I'd heard less-than-flattering things about the only other possible candidate. Of course, the overeager and patronizing rookie Richie Faria usually ended up being assigned to cases that Ohlsen led, but maybe he'd be off duty today.
And then it struck me—when did I become the sort of person who knew that much about members of the local police department?
I must have done something that revealed the disbelief I was feeling, because Matt bumped my shoulder with his.
"What is it?"
"I just realized that not only do I know the local police detectives and their colleagues by name, but I have strong opinions about their relative expertise," I said. "I couldn't have named a single officer back when I lived in Seattle, let alone two detectives and a handful of uniformed cops. Or provided any information about the officer's skills or lack thereof."
"It's part of living in a small town," Matt said, peering down at me. "You aren't thinking about leaving, are you?"
"Don't worry. I'm not going anywhere. Not even after we're allowed to leave the scene." I nodded at an approaching SUV. "There's Bud Ohlsen."
Matt offered me a grin that wasn't up to his usual standards, but that was understandable in light of the situation and what he must have seen in Brooke's house. "Now you can add recognizing the local detective's vehicle to your unexpected store of knowledge about the police. You're becoming a true local."
A moment later, Detective Bud Ohlsen, a large man nearing retirement age, as evidenced by the preponderance of white in his salt-and-pepper hair, climbed out of the SUV. For once, his usual shadow, Richie Faria, wasn't with him. Ohlsen conferred with the other uniformed officers on site as well as the forensics team who had arrived just a few minutes earlier and were preparing to go inside. Ohlsen went into the house with them briefly, and then eventually he made his way back outside and over to the patrol car where Matt and I were waiting.
Ohlsen opened the door and let us out. "Back of a patrol car is no place to conduct an interview. I'm told there's a patio table out back that we can use, if it's not too cold for you."
"I can handle the weather." It would have had to be a lot chillier than the current fifty degrees or so for me to want to stay in the police cruiser.
"Fine with me," Matt said. "I wanted to let someone know that a window was broken out back anyway, so you can let Brooke's husband know. It's sort of hidden, but I can show you where it is."
We all went around the house to where there was an oblong wooden table that had a hole in the center for inserting an umbrella, although it had apparently been put away for the winter. There were also six chairs. I dropped into one of them while Matt took Ohlsen over to where the broken window was.
A few minutes later, Ohlsen returned, placing his hand on the back of the chair across from me. Matt immediately flopped into the seat at my right hand, and we waited for Ohlsen to start his questioning.
He settled into his chair before asking, "The first responders got your contact information, right?"
Matt nodded silently, which was somewhat unusual for him. During previous cases we'd both been involved in, Matt had had a tendency to be a bit confrontational with the detective. Despite the chilly wind that I was sure had pinkened my cheeks, Matt's skin retained the unhealthy pallor it had had since he'd come out of Brooke's house. He wouldn't appreciate me fussing over him in public—despite his highly visible career, he was a very private person—so I turned to Ohlsen to answer his question.
"The officers played it by the book," I said. Not that it really mattered whether our names and numbers had been written down. Everyone in town knew Matt, and while I wasn't that famous, Ohlsen knew as much about me as I knew about him. Probably more. I'd met him shortly after moving to Danger Cove, when a shady quilt dealer was murdered after being accused of selling fake antiques. Since then, I'd run into Ohlsen at more crime scenes than either of us would have liked. Maybe one of these days I should invite him to
dinner so not all of our interactions were in the course of a criminal investigation.
"So," he said. "Tell me what happened."
Matt gestured for me to start.
I explained about how we'd been picking up some quilts for the Thanksgiving parade, the time we'd arrived, and why we'd been afraid that Brooke was in immediate danger, which had led to the decision to break the window and go inside to check on her. I ended by explaining that only Matt had gone inside the house and gotten a good view of the crime scene.
Matt took it from there. "I'd only gone a few feet into the living room before I realized everything was covered with blood. I didn't think Brooke was still alive, but I figured I'd better check in case there was anything I could do. When I was a kid, I harbored fantasies of becoming a doctor until I flunked out of organic chemistry. I did manage to complete some fairly advanced paramedic courses before then."
So I wasn't the only one who hadn't shared everything about our pasts. Matt had never mentioned his early career dreams before, perhaps because he was sensitive about people thinking he was nothing more than a pretty face and washing out of a premed program would have reinforced their preconceptions about his not being too bright. In any event, I was looking forward to asking him more about his pre-celebrity experiences. Among other things, it might serve as a good opener for talking to him about my syncope, and his interest in medical science could make my confession easier than I'd been expecting.
Matt had stopped talking and was staring at the well-maintained side yard to the detective's right. Matt appreciated beauty, as evidenced by his journalistic specialty in the arts, but I didn't think he even noticed the professional landscaping. Even in late November when nothing was in bloom and the only color came from a few evergreens and the red bark of some shrubs, the place was lovely. But his eyes were unfocused, and I had a bad feeling the view wasn't compelling enough to erase or even dim the images he'd seen in Brooke's living room.
