by Gin Jones
The young mechanic took that as an indication that he wasn't needed any longer, and he trotted back out to the garage.
"I don't drive," I said, scrambling for a plausible explanation for my visit. "I just stopped by to leave a message for you to contact me when you had some time to talk about Brooke's quilt. I didn't expect you'd be here today." That much was true.
"I had to come in." His voice was matter-of-fact, and he showed no obvious signs of grief.
I couldn't tell if he was unaffected by his wife's death or just doing the military-background, too-tough-to-cry thing. He looked a little tired, with heavy bags under his eyes, but I couldn't be sure that was new. I hadn't gotten all that close a look at him through the windows when he'd left Brooke's quilt outside my front door.
"I'm sure everyone would have understood if you took a day or two off."
"The owner never gets a day off. Otherwise I might have been at home when Brooke died, instead of here." Lawrence looked down at the greasy rag in his hands for a moment before adding, "But people are counting on me to fix their cars, and there's no point to sitting around the Ocean View B&B with nothing to do until the police let me back into the house. I made all the final arrangements for both me and Brooke as soon as we moved to Danger Cove. Habit, you know, from all the years in the Air Force. Standard operating procedure to have all the paperwork in order. Of course, I always thought I was saving her from having to do it when I died, not the other way around."
"I'm so sorry for your loss," I said. "Brooke was a gifted quilter. I wish I'd had time to get to know her better."
Lawrence stuffed his rag into the back pocket of his overalls. "So what did you need to talk to me about?"
I couldn't ask him the questions I really wanted answers to, not without either upsetting him or getting myself into trouble, so I settled for saying, "I wanted to set a time and place for me to return Brooke's quilt to you."
He raised a hand in a warding-off gesture. "I don't want it back."
"I would have returned it to Brooke if I could have, but since I can't, it should go to you."
"I appreciate the offer," he said, "but I'd rather you kept it. I have several quilts Brooke made for me or for our home, and to be honest, the one she gave you has some negative associations for me. Most of the time she was happy when she worked on her quilts, but with this one, she was in a blue funk the whole time. Or I guess I should say a gray funk, given the colors she used. It took her a year and a half to make it, and she was miserable the whole time. If it were up to me, I'd burn it."
"I completely understand why you wouldn't want it around, but it's too much of a masterpiece to destroy it. What if I donated it to the Danger Cove Historical Museum? I haven't had time to study the sampler quilt fully, but I already know it really is remarkable and would be a good acquisition for the museum's collection of locally made quilts. You wouldn't have to see it, but others would know what an outstanding textile artist she was."
"Everything Brooke did was amazing," Lawrence said. "I just wish she'd been happier about this quilt. Or she'd made a different one."
"Are you sure it was the quilt and not something else that was bothering her?"
He shrugged. "Not a hundred percent. All I know is she hadn't been herself for more than a year. It was like she was going through menopause again. No hot flashes, but definitely moody."
"And you don't have any idea why?"
"All I know is she changed sometime after school started last year. Not this fall, the one before. At first she was just a little on edge, but then it got progressively worse. She always liked bright colors, but all of a sudden gray fabrics started showing up in her workroom. If I had to guess, I'd say it was something to do with a student she couldn't reach. There was this one kid she had trouble with almost from the first day of that semester. Mostly with his father, actually. He kept blaming her for his son's problems. She ended up failing the kid, and he didn't make up the class in summer school, so he ended up having to be held back in tenth grade. She always considered teaching to be a joint effort between teacher and student, so when someone failed a course, she blamed herself as much as the kid. Thank goodness it didn't happen very often. I can't even recall a similar case in the whole time she's been a teacher."
That situation could explain the Schoolhouse block with the wormy apple. On the other hand, there were countless other possible explanations. I couldn't even be sure the Schoolhouse block referred to a time period as recent as the last eighteen months. Considering that each row covered roughly ten years, each block would cover a year or two, depending on how many significant events there were in a given decade. But there were two more blocks after the Schoolhouse, so it could have referred to something that happened five or six years ago. Unless those earlier years were unremarkable and the experiences she wanted to document had happened one after another in the last couple of years.
I was still just guessing. Perhaps the block referred to her problem student and his father, but it could also refer to something from a few years earlier, when she'd first started working at the Danger Cove High School. Maybe the job hadn't lived up to her expectations. The worm in the apple was a small thing, after all, not like the entire schoolhouse was damaged, and Tricia had told me that Brooke held everyone up to impossible standards. Perhaps the worm referred to a single flaw in an otherwise satisfactory work environment and had nothing to do with her death.
The glass door from the garage area opened, and the young mechanic peered through the opening. "Are you almost finished, sir? I could use some help if we're going to get the Audi done on schedule."
"I'll be with you in a minute," Lawrence said. "Unless there's anything else you need, ma'am, I should get back to work."
"Of course," I said. "I'm sorry for the interruption."
"I didn't expect to get much done today," he said. "Part of why I came in to work today, besides my obligations to customers, is that the police wanted to ask me some questions, and I thought it would be less awkward here than at the B&B. Having a cruiser show up there might upset some of the other guests. Detective Ohlsen will be here any minute."
Uh-oh. No matter how much I told myself I wasn't doing anything wrong, it would be better if Ohlsen didn't find me here.
Behind me, the opening of the door to the waiting room triggered the buzzer. I turned to see Detective Bud Ohlsen come to a sudden stop behind me. He didn't usually let his feelings show on his face, but his outrage was unmistakable in the way his eyes narrowed at me.
The detective was not happy to see me talking to a potential murder suspect.
"Have you taken up driving again?" Ohlsen had regained control over his expression, and his tone was no more than mildly inquisitive. "I thought you turned in your license before moving to Danger Cove and gave up owning a car."
"You thought right. I don't drive or have a car." I wasn't fooled by his calm expression, and there was no point in pretending I didn't understand what he was really asking. "We both know that's not why I'm here. But before you give me the 'stay out of police business' lecture, let me say that I'm here about a quilt, not about anything criminal."
He gave me a skeptical look before turning to Lawrence. "Is that right?"
Lawrence nodded. "Brooke gave one of her quilts to Ms. Fairchild recently. She thought I might want it back."
Ohlsen frowned and waited for one of us to say something more. I'd seen him use silence to elicit information before, and I'd seen people succumb to the need to fill the void with words, but it wasn't going to work this time. Lawrence didn't have anything to add, and I knew better than to volunteer anything more. I couldn't erase Ohlsen's memory of seeing me here, and he would be sure to use it against me if he could, but for now, there wasn't much he could do.
"I could show you pictures of the quilt if you'd like," I said, confident that he wouldn't be interested in seeing them.
Ohlsen waited another long minute before shaking his head. "Not right now. I'm sure yo
u've got better things to do today, with Thanksgiving tomorrow and all."
"I do." I'd been at the repair shop longer than I'd expected, so Matt was going to be at my house before I got back, and he'd wonder where I was. I'd text him before I headed home, but as long as Ohlsen was here, I did have some useful information for him, and if I passed it along voluntarily, it might make him forget his irritation with me. "I would like a moment of your time though, if you could spare it and if Lawrence doesn't mind waiting a minute to talk to you."
Ohlsen grunted his reluctant assent, and Lawrence said, "You can use my office." He pointed down a hall. "Last door on the left, past the restrooms."
* * *
Detective Ohlsen had me precede him down the hallway. The office looked like temporary rental space, with nothing more in terms of furnishings than lateral filing cabinets that filled the longest wall, a cheap metal desk, and a worn but functional chair for Lawrence's use. The floors were beige vinyl tiles, and the walls were a drab off-white, unrelieved by any decoration other than a single bright quilt in Brooke's distinctive style, combining simple piecing with intricate embellishment, which was hanging from the wall behind the desk. What the room lacked in style, it made up for in cleanliness and tidiness, with all the paperwork either filed away or neatly stacked in the appropriate in- or out-box.
Since there weren't any visitors' chairs, Ohlsen offered me the seat behind the desk.
I declined, saying, "This won't take long. I just heard something that might be of interest to your investigation into Brooke's death."
Ohlsen left the door open and leaned against the wall beside it, glancing every so often into the hall to make sure no one was close enough to hear us. "What is it?"
"Brooke got a restraining order against someone named Ryan Murchison. Probably the parent of one of her students."
Ohlsen closed his eyes, and usually when he did that, it was because he was blocking out distractions to concentrate on what he was hearing, but this time, I thought it was because he was counting to ten or otherwise trying to contain his irritation.
After a few moments, he opened his eyes again. "And you just happened to hear about that?"
"People talk," I said vaguely. "I listen. And there isn't much that the members of the guild don't know about their fellow quilters."
"I'll look into it," he said. "Is there anything else you think I should know?"
He sounded sincere, so I ran through everything I'd learned about Brooke's life and death. Everything except my theory that she'd left clues in her quilt, which Ohlsen wouldn't find relevant. "There is one thing. Not from yesterday but the night before, when the parade quilts were stolen. I was too much in shock after Brooke died to mention it then, but something was found near the window that was broken when the thief gained access to where the quilts were being stored. It might have been dropped by the culprit, and I was thinking that if there's any chance the two crimes are related, it might be important."
"Right now, I'll take any leads I can get." Even from an amateur, his tone implied. "What was it?"
"A tire gauge," I said. "The imprinted kind that Lawrence gives out to customers."
"And where is this tire gauge now?"
"I don't know," I said. "I can ask, but it's probably so covered with random fingerprints by now that it won't do you any good. I know that Dee's granddaughter, plus Tricia Sullivan and Brooke Donnelly, all held it at some point that night."
Ohlsen checked the hallway before leaning his head against the wall and closing his eyes again. This time, I thought he was processing what he'd just learned, so I settled my backside against the table to wait for him to speak again.
He stayed in his thinking pose but asked, "So, do you think the quilt theft was related to what happened to Brooke?" He opened one eye to peer at me. "I'm not asking for your help, mind. Just asking if there's something I should know about the quilts that wouldn't be obvious to someone outside the guild."
I had to give Ohlsen credit for learning from his mistakes. The first time I'd interacted with him, he'd been dismissive of the possibility that there might be relevant information that only a member of the quilting community would know. At least now he was willing to listen.
"I didn't think they were related at first," I said, "but I'm starting to wonder. I can't see any reason for anyone to have stolen those particular quilts, other than some personal animosity against someone in the guild, like Brooke or the woman whose house was broken into. The quilts are small and not worth much. They were all shared with the guild voluntarily, and they'll be returned to their owners eventually. It's only a guess, but I'd say the thief was trying to send a message to someone. It could have been the guild in general, but if the tire gauge was intentionally planted, then it would seem to have been done to implicate Brooke's husband to embarrass her. But everyone knows Lawrence isn't the only one who has access to the promotional gauges. From what I hear, half the town comes here and could have taken a handful of them from the canister at the registration counter. So either the thief was really sloppy and dropped the gauge by mistake, or he planned it, but not to actually frame Lawrence, just to send a message to someone."
Ohlsen thought for a couple of long minutes and then nodded and straightened away from the wall. "Okay. I appreciate your coming forward with this. Even if it was somewhat belated with respect to the tire gauge."
"Could I ask you something in return?" I knew I was pushing my luck, but it might make Matt feel better if he knew there was nothing we could have done to prevent the murder. "Could you tell me what time Brooke died? It's just that I was late for my meeting with her yesterday, and I can't help wondering if things would have been different if we'd shown up when we were supposed to."
"Can't release that information yet." He relented enough to add, "What time were you supposed to be there?"
"Four o'clock."
He shrugged. "It's possible you could have helped her." He gave me a stern glare. "But it's more likely that if you'd shown up on time, you and your buddy Matt would have ended up dead and I'd have three homicides to investigate instead of just one. Sure, they'd all have been in a single site, but it still would have stretched our resources."
"And you would, of course, have been heartbroken that we'd never get to have one of these little chats again."
"You know," he said with the tiniest of grins, "you're not so bad. For a lawyer."
Our little moment of camaraderie was shattered by an angry, threatening shout from the lobby.
* * *
Ohlsen took off for the lobby at a surprisingly fast sprint for his age. In any event, he didn't need my help. He could undoubtedly handle the situation far better than I could, assuming any help was needed.
I hesitated in the office, wondering if I should perhaps call 9-1-1 while Ohlsen and Lawrence were otherwise engaged with the person who'd caused the commotion. I stepped into the hallway to see what was going on, but everyone was over on the garage side of the waiting room, out of my line of sight. I could still hear a man shouting something about fraud and how he was going to get what was due to him one way or another. He was loud, but there were no sounds of a fistfight or overturned furniture.
The detective could handle a purely verbal confrontation without any backup, I decided, and he probably wouldn't appreciate that I thought he needed help or the teasing he'd get from the responding officers, so I put away my phone. I knew I should slip out the back door and head on home, but I couldn't help wondering what the kerfuffle was all about. Perhaps I could peek around the corner to see the shouting man. I couldn't be too blatant about it, or I might push Ohlsen to give me the "stay out of my way" lecture, complete with brandishing of metaphorical handcuffs.
I crept down the hallway to where I could continue to listen without being visible, pausing to figure out where Ohlsen was and whether I could peer into the room without being seen. While I lingered out of sight, I heard the man complaining about a car problem and how it was all Lawrenc
e's fault.
When I decided it was safe, I looked around the corner. Ohlsen had his back to me, standing between Lawrence and a small older man in mechanic's overalls. They were spattered with a rainbow of paint spots, and the name tag and printed shop name identified him as Albert Hollister of the Danger Cove Body Shop.
"How do I know you're really a cop?" the man said. "You're not in uniform."
Ohlsen dug into his jacket pocket for an ID and held it out to the angry man, who leaned forward to peer at it so closely he almost hit his nose on it.
Ohlsen put away the ID, gestured for Lawrence to go into the garage area, and started to turn the angry man toward the side of the room where there were seats for waiting customers. I took that as my cue to leave before Ohlsen caught a glimpse of me in his peripheral vision, and I turned to slip out the back door to avoid having to go through the waiting room. I was almost to the exit when I heard the angry man threatening to hurt Lawrence if he didn't pay up and then Ohlsen warning him to settle down or risk spending Thanksgiving in custody.
CHAPTER EIGHT
On the way home I detoured over to Some Enchanted Florist to arrange to send flowers for Brooke's funeral and arrived at my own driveway just as Matt's battered old truck was parking in front of the house. His greeting kiss was perfunctory and felt distracted. A glance at his still-troubled eyes confirmed he still wasn't back to his carefree self.
I let him inside, and we got straight to work setting the table for eight people. In the background, I could hear the howling of the wind growing even louder, making me glad I was indoors and didn't need to walk anywhere else today.
Matt eyed the stack of eight plates I'd placed on the kitchen peninsula. "I thought we only had six people for dinner. You, me, Dee and Emma, Lindsay and my cousin."
"I didn't get a chance before now to tell you that Gil and her boyfriend will be joining us." I went over to the kitchen cabinet to look inside. "He's bringing wine, and I gather he's something of a connoisseur. He may not be too happy about the options for what we'll be drinking from. I didn't think to get more wineglasses while we were shopping. I've never needed more than four at any one time before."
