by Gin Jones
I pulled a large pot out of a bottom cabinet. "And the rest of what's got you unhappy?"
"It's nothing to do with work," she said defensively without looking up from the potatoes. "You don't have to worry that I'm on probation again."
"Then what's the problem?"
Lindsay sighed. "It's Andy. You haven't met him yet, but we've been seeing each other for about six months now. We were going to take a trip to New England to do some sightseeing this week, but then he announced that he couldn't go because he had to work. He's an accountant, and he's got a client with a last-minute business deal that has to be completed by the end of the year, so he'll be working around the clock until New Year's Eve. I would have gone on the trip without him because we mostly chose the location so I could experience the bells of Old North Church, but he cancelled the tickets before he even told me. I mean, it would have been better with him, but it's not like I'd have been spending much time with him at home this week anyway since he even expects to be working most of Thanksgiving Day. You'd think he'd be happy if I left him alone to do his job."
I'd been on the other side of that situation once myself when I was trying a big case and my boyfriend hadn't understood why I couldn't spend time with him. By the time I'd resurfaced at the end of the trial, the boyfriend had dumped me.
"So now you're mad at him, and you can't even have a good argument about it because he's too busy, so you just left."
"Pretty much. I arranged months ago to take this week off from the office, and as much as I like my job, I'm not going to work through my vacation. I thought coming here would help me forget that I should be in Boston, but it's not working." Lindsay set the last of the scrubbed potatoes on the counter. "At least doing the research on Brooke for you helped distract me for a little while. Do you want to hear what I found out?"
"Definitely." I filled the pot with water and started tossing the cleaned potatoes into it. "You can tell me while these boil."
Lindsay climbed onto one of the stools at the kitchen peninsula and took out her phone. "For starters, she was born in Ohio on Valentine's Day."
The very first block at the top left of Brooke's quilt was an Ohio Star embellished with embroidered hearts. More evidence that the sampler was some sort of autobiography.
"What else did you find out?" I carried a bowl of apples over to the peninsula and emptied them onto the counter for peeling.
"Brooke went to Ohio State, getting both an undergraduate degree and a master's in education there. She got married to Lawrence Donnelly right after finishing college. Over the next thirty-some years, they moved frequently, living in six different states—I'm texting you the full list and the dates—plus Germany and Guam. Then she came here to Danger Cove, where she teaches math at the high school, and her husband opened a car repair shop. She's popular with her students, if you believe the online reviews."
"What about her husband's garage? What are his reviews like?"
"Sorry. I didn't really look into him." Lindsay added eagerly, "Do you want me to? I've got plenty of time while Dee and Emma are busy with the guild's activities from now until the end of the weekend. As soon as the parade's finished, they'll be getting ready for the ornament-making event at the museum this weekend, and even though they say I'd be a big help then, I'd really just be getting in their way."
"If you don't mind, I would like to know more about Brooke's husband." I sliced the peeled apple, dropping the pieces into a bowl. "He's ex–Air Force, I believe, and he definitely knows how to use guns, so he's got the means to commit murder. I just don't know if he has a motive. I met him briefly, but it wasn't enough to know what kind of a person he is or how he felt about his wife."
"I didn't look into his background, but I did check to see if Brooke had been in any trouble with police, and I couldn't find anything. Not even a parking ticket. And no restraining orders against her husband or any police calls related to domestic abuse." Lindsay snitched one of the apple slices and ate it while she reviewed the notes on her phone. "There was one thing in the police records though. Nothing to do with her husband, but she filed a report about a stalker about a month ago."
"A stalker? And not her husband?" I wondered if Tricia had known about it. She certainly hadn't mentioned it when I'd asked about anyone who might have been angry with Brooke. "Did you get any details about who it was?"
"Of course," she said. "I couldn't get the official police report, but I've got something better: Grandma and Emma. They told me Brooke had been harassed since the middle of the previous school year by the father of one of her students. She didn't report it initially, but then he confronted her outside a guild event, and even though Brooke said it wasn't a big deal, of course Grandma made her report it. She and Emma even went to the police station with Brooke to make sure she did it."
"Did the stalker stop bothering her after that?"
"Dee and Emma weren't sure. Brooke refused to talk about it. They did have a chat with Fred Fields to make sure he'd keep an eye out in case the guy showed up at the parade tomorrow, back when they expected Brooke to be part of it. He said he'd take care of it, but of course that's not an issue now."
"Did you get the guy's name?"
Lindsay nodded. "It's Ryan Murchison. He works at the local sporting goods shop. Over by the pier but on the side of the cove that's away from the lighthouse and the beach. Lives there too, on the second floor, above the retail space. Do you want me to go talk to this Ryan Murchison, see what his side of the story is about his interactions with Brooke?"
"No, thanks." Interviewing a suspect was a lot like interviewing a witness, where the words didn't tell the whole story, and reading a transcript wasn't as useful as having a face-to-face meeting. It was important to see the facial expressions and body language and to hear any changes in the tone of voice. That was part of why trial lawyers still insisted on in-person depositions and live testimony whenever possible, instead of less personal forms of communication. "I don't want to put you in a dangerous situation. Stalkers can sometimes escalate from verbal harassment to violence."
"There's got to be something else I can research other than Brooke's husband's business reputation. I've got four days with nothing else to do, and I don't want to spend them dwelling on what Andy's up to and whether he's thinking of me even occasionally and all the things I want to tell him when we finally have our big fight."
"As long as you put it that way," I said, "there is something else you could check for me. I don't want you to go anywhere near Ryan Murchison, but if you can find out without going to his store in person, I would like to know if the place sells handguns."
"It probably does," Lindsay said. "I'll find out for sure. I bet Fred Fields could tell me. I'm sure there's some sort of paperwork that has to be filed with the local police."
"While you're at it, would you see if there's anywhere else in town that might have sold the gun that killed Brooke?"
"Sure." Lindsay made a note in her phone.
The timer rang to indicate the potatoes were cooked, and Lindsay left, eager to get started on her research.
While the potatoes cooled enough to be peeled, I mixed up a batch of corn bread for the stuffing and reflected on where the murder weapon might have come from. If it had been sold at the sporting goods shop, it would be easy to find out who had bought it—whether that was Ryan Murchison or Brooke's husband or someone else I hadn't even considered as a suspect—and the police would probably be way ahead of me in getting that information.
On the other hand, it was possible that the murder was a crime of opportunity. The killer might not have brought the gun with him. It could have been in the house already. If the broken window in the back of the house had been how the killer got inside, Brooke might have heard the noise and retrieved the gun for self-defense and then had it turned on her. If she or her husband owned the gun, they might have owned it for years, bringing it with them when they moved to Danger Cove. In that case, it might not be easy or fast for the police to track
down the ownership of the murder weapon.
I could definitely picture Lawrence owning a gun for self-defense, possibly training Brooke to use it too. He was ex-military and a small-game hunter, after all, so he knew how to handle firearms. But if he had been the one who killed her, would he have left his own gun behind to incriminate himself rather than taking it with him and disposing of it?
Either way, the police had a better chance than I had for connecting the murder weapon to its owner, even if it might take longer than I'd like. Lindsay was a good paralegal, but she just didn't have access to the same resources that Detective Ohlsen had.
I might not be able to trace the gun ownership, but that didn't mean I was completely sidelined. I had some resources that the police didn't have. Starting with Brooke's quilt. And people who knew Brooke would talk to me more easily than to the police. If I found out anything, I'd just pass it along to Detective Ohlsen. I already wanted to make sure he knew about Ryan Murchison. Despite the police record of his alleged stalking of Brooke, it might not have come to Detective Ohlsen's attention, especially if she hadn't told her husband about the situation, preferring to handle it herself or fearing that it somehow made her look like she wasn't living up to the perfection she aspired to. The trick would be to figure out how to let him know about the possible suspect without making it sound like I was meddling in his investigation.
It wasn't like I would be getting in his way while I was trying to figure out if there were any clues in Brooke's quilt. Just as I didn't have the skills to gather forensic evidence, Ohlsen didn't have the skills to interpret a quilt. I wasn't entirely sure even I would be able to fully understand what Brooke had been trying to say with her sampler. There were just too many different names for traditional blocks, and too many personal connections that a quilter made with her work that might seem obvious to her but not to an observer. At quilt shows, I'd always been fascinated by the disconnect I sometimes experienced between my first impression of a quilt and what the maker wrote about it in the program. Quilts that seemed joyous to me could turn out to have been made while undergoing a series of tragic experiences, and at other times, quilts that struck me as quietly contemplative were, to the maker, the very image of high energy.
I had to get it right this time. I had to make sense of Brooke's quilt and why she'd given it to me the night before she'd died. If I did, I was convinced it would offer some insights into why she'd been killed and by whom. Then Brooke would get justice and Matt would get the closure he needed to put the horror of what he'd seen behind him.
* * *
I checked on the corn bread and then went into my office to take another look at Brooke's quilt. I didn't have much time to study it today, but perhaps I could identify a few more blocks that lined up with what Lindsay had told me about the quiltmaker's life.
Her information confirmed what I'd already suspected about the very first block at the top, where the "autobiography" began. It represented Brooke's birthday with the Ohio Star design and the embroidered Valentine's Day hearts. There were also several Schoolhouse blocks, all of them slightly different, which might have represented different jobs as she moved with her husband around the country. The Schoolhouse closest to the bottom had an appliquéd apple in the window of the schoolhouse, and close inspection with my magnifying glass revealed that it had a tiny beaded worm digging into it. I checked the schoolhouses that I thought represented earlier years, and even though they were dominated by the same gloomy gray fabrics, the overall impression seemed considerably more cheerful than the last one. They had burgundy flowers and fruit baskets with not so much as a blemish, let alone a worm in any of them.
I had another fifteen minutes before the corn bread would be done, so I decided to take advantage of the large new table temporarily set up in my living room and not yet covered with linens, dishes, and silverware to spread out the sampler quilt and take some pictures of it. Later, I'd make a corresponding spreadsheet with a cell for each block, where I could fill in what I thought was represented by the relevant design. Once the squares were all filled in, like a crossword puzzle, I might be able to "read" Brooke's life story and figure out if there was a hidden message in it.
As I was photographing it with my appraisal camera, I paid the most attention to the final row. It seemed to depict the entire time Brooke lived in Danger Cove, since the last block in the previous row obviously commemorated her husband's retirement from the Air Force. It featured a pieced plane, and then Brooke had painstakingly recreated in miniature what I assumed were her husband's final military rank, an award he'd received, the seal of the Air Force, and finally the words veteran and retired.
The first block in the final row was a lighthouse that was a remarkably accurate rendition of the one overlooking Danger Cove, presumably meant to commemorate the Donnellys' settling down in their new town. After that came a Sailboat block, suggesting Brooke or her husband enjoyed going out on the water, and then another Schoolhouse, presumably referring to Brooke securing a teaching job in Danger Cove, with Ryan Murchison as the worm in the teacher's apple. Next came a second Monkey Wrench block, which seemed out of order if it referred to her husband's business. I would have expected it to come right after the Donnellys moved to town, but perhaps Lawrence hadn't purchased the repair shop until a few years later. I'd have to ask Lindsay to find out when he bought the business.
The timing wasn't the only thing bothering me about the Monkey Wrench block. The details seemed odd. Among other things, there was an embroidered dollar sign that appeared to be on fire, plus the initials TFQ and nothing that seemed particularly car-related. Perhaps the TFQ referred to some automotive product that I wasn't familiar with. I'd have to visit his shop to know for sure.
The timer rang for the corn bread, which I also took as my cue to put the sampler quilt away in my office until I had more time to work on it after Thanksgiving. Just in case I had any spare time before then, I took a minute to send the pictures from my camera to the cloud so I could study the pictures on my phone.
I took the corn bread out of the oven and left it to cool on the counter. Most of the remainder of the cooking had to wait until the next morning, bright and early before the teenaged helper arrived to keep an eye on the turkey while I was away at the parade. I checked the list in my phone to see what else needed to be done. I could set the table, but Matt had said he'd come over later to help with that. He wouldn't arrive for an hour or two, and I didn't want him to feel unappreciated by doing it without him.
Next on my list was cleaning the kitchen and living room floors, not exactly my favorite chore, and it was complicated by the ten-person table in the middle of the room. I peered at the floors and decided they weren't really all that dirty, and they were only going to need cleaning again after the meal, what with all the guests traipsing through the house and the usual spills that came with a major meal. Besides, as long as the meal and the conversations were good, no one was going to be paying any attention to the floors.
If I crossed the floor cleaning off my list, I would have an extra, unexpected hour of free time to use for more interesting work. My first thought was that I could study the quilt some more, but I was just guessing about the meaning of the blocks. I needed more information about Brooke's life before I could translate the sampler with any degree of confidence. I needed to talk to Lawrence Donnelly, or at least visit his repair shop to see if I could find anything there that matched the embellishments on the Monkey Wrench block.
I did a quick online search and found that the shop was on the trolley line, about fifteen minutes away, near Town Square Park. I must have seen the repair shop from a distance before since I'd appraised a substantial collection of cheddar quilts in a nearby subdivision, but I couldn't remember what it looked like.
I didn't have enough time to do a lengthy interview of Lawrence to get more details of Brooke's life to correlate with her quilt, but I didn't expect him to be there. He would undoubtedly be busy making final arrange
ments for Brooke's funeral and dealing with his grief. Since all I was planning was taking a quick look around the shop, there was plenty of time to get there and back before the earliest time Matt might arrive.
I could count on Matt not to make a fuss about some less-than-clean-enough-to-eat-off floors, and I doubted anyone else would notice.
I crossed the floor cleaning off my list. That could wait. Collecting information for identifying possible clues in Brooke's quilt was more important.
CHAPTER SEVEN
As I entered the waiting room of the shop, a buzzer sounded. While I waited for someone to respond, I noticed that the registration counter held a canister full of the imprinted tire gauges like the one that had been found at Tricia's house near the broken window.
A moment later a wiry young man in blue coveralls rushed in from the work area. His uniform had no name tag, just Donnelly's Garage machine-embroidered on the pocket. "Picking up or dropping off?" he asked.
"Neither. I was wondering—"
I hadn't expected to see Lawrence at work today, but there he was in his own blue overalls, approaching the glass door between the garage and waiting room. His uniform did have his first name embroidered on it, and it looked like Brooke's impressive handiwork.
I'd planned to ask the employee about the initials TFQ, but I couldn't do it in front of Lawrence. The young mechanic might have thought my question was odd, but he wouldn't have associated it with an investigation into Brooke's death. Lawrence however might make that connection, and it wouldn't bode well for me. Even if all he did was mention my visit to Detective Bud Ohlsen, I'd be subjected to another lecture about staying out of criminal investigations. But if Lawrence wasn't as innocent as he seemed, he wouldn't be the first killer to try to silence me.
Before I could leave, Lawrence caught sight of me and nodded a greeting on his way through the doorway. "A problem with your car, Ms. Fairchild?"
