Ocean Waves

by Terri Thayer

  Ocean Waves: A Quilting Mystery © 2009 by Terri Thayer.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Midnight Ink, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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  Any unauthorized usage of the text without express written permission of the publisher is a violation of the author’s copyright and is illegal and punishable by law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  First e-book edition © 2010

  E-book ISBN: 978-07387-2031-9

  Book design by Donna Burch

  Cover design by Lisa Novak

  Cover illustration © Cheryl Chalmers–The July Group

  Editing by Connie Hill

  Midnight Ink is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

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  Midnight Ink

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  Manufactured in the United States of America

  Acknowledgments

  This is a work of fiction. The Asilomar in this book, while bearing a strong resemblance to the Refuge by the Sea, is a bit distorted. There are no hidden buildings, no secret walkways, except in my imagination. At least none that the state of California will cop to.

  Thanks to the California State Park Rangers, especially Ranger Jacobus, for their time and patience. The mistakes, and liberties taken, are mine and mine alone.

  To Jean Dunn, whose retelling of an apocryphal story about a missing woman at a quilting class got me thinking.

  To Linda Stemer, the Blueprint on Fabric lady, for her brainstorming. We had fun conjuring up images.

  Again thanks to Becky Levine and Beth Proudfoot. Their ability to read my rough drafts and tell me what I’m writing about is amazing.

  To all the women of Asilomar, past, present and future.

  Ocean waves

  Quilters have been making Ocean Waves quilts for over a hundred years. The block consists of small half-square triangles surrounding a plain block. The intriguing use of negative space is especially noticeable in two-color quilts, but scrappy versions work well, too.

  “I heard a woman scream,” I said, for the second time. It was just after three in the morning. Buster had picked up on the first ring, answered in his cop voice, but now was drifting away. I needed him to listen to me.

  “It wasn’t me, I’m seventy miles away,” Buster teased sleepily. My boyfriend delighted in getting me to make weird noises.

  I shivered in the night air. The only pay phone I’d seen had been on the outside wall of the social hall, a quarter-mile away from my room. I’d hightailed it over here, slipping on my UGG slippers, but not grabbing a sweatshirt. Thankfully, I’d dragged my old quilt along. I pulled it tighter around my shoulders.

  A cool breeze was blowing straight off the Pacific Ocean. I wasn’t close enough to see it, but I could hear the waves breaking.

  “A long, drawn-out scream,” I continued in my best I’m-not-kidding-voice.

  “Even I’m not that good,” he said. He was, but I wasn’t on the phone to feed his ego.

  “Funny, Buster. I’m serious. It sounded like it was coming from right outside my window.”

  “Don’t be scared. It was probably a raccoon.”

  I shuddered. He knew I hated the little bandit rats that raided my home garbage cans at will. A scraping noise outside in the darkness made my heart race. In the dim light cast by the pole lamp, I saw a squirrel run up a tree.

  I scrunched up my feet and moved closer to the building. The stone was little comfort. Putting the receiver back up to my ear, I heard Buster singing.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “You’ve heard of ‘Muskrat Love,’ haven’t you?” Buster said. Now I recognized the Captain and Tennille song. “What you heard last night was raccoon love.”

  “Bus-ter!” I raised my voice, then thought better of it. Noise carried in the dark. I didn’t want to wake up my fellow quilters. Certainly not the seminar coordinator, Mercedes Madsen.

  I whisper-warned, “Buster.”

  “I thought you liked it when I serenaded you. What time is it anyway?”

  “Midnight,” I lied. I was wide-awake. Alone. And far from home. I didn’t want him to hang up.

  His voice was strong and reassuring. “Dewey, babe, you’re not in San Jose. Asilomar is a wildlife preserve. Animals make weird noises. That’s all you heard.”

  “You think?” I said, my fear diminishing. I hadn’t been sure what had woken me up, but I was sure he was the first person I wanted to tell.

  I was attending the Sewing-by-the-Sea Symposium at Asilomar Conference Grounds in Pacific Grove, California. Five days of study with an internationally known quilt teacher. Five days to try to find ways to connect with my quilting customers the way my banished sister-in-law had. I’d bet the tuition, nearly fifteen hundred dollars, that this experience would fast track me to regaining ground I’d lost in my shop.

  I realized Buster wasn’t completely up to speed. I hadn’t spoken to him since registration yesterday. I had to clue him in. “I’m going to be out of pocket this week. I had to turn in my phone.”

  “What do you mean?” Buster said. I heard his sheets rustle and wished I was there, under them.

  “No cells allowed. We’re allowed to use the pay phone during the evening hours, but that’s it. Mercedes Madsen, the head honcho, collected them. Says they’re a distraction that interferes with the learning process. I’m not even supposed to be on the phone now.”

  “How does she feel about visitors?”

  “We’re not supposed to have them.”

  Buster wasn’t taking this too seriously. “Maybe this Mercury person has a conjugal room set up, like at the jail?” he teased.

  “Mercedes,” I corrected. “Don’t give her any ideas. She might have been a prison guard in another life. She’s a little too happy bossing people around.”

  I thought about my tiny sleeping room in the historic Stuck-up Inn. The bed, advertised as a double, took up most of the floor space. I tried to imagine Buster in there. At 6’4”, he would have difficulty fitting on the mattress.

  Spreading Buster catty-cornered on the bed in my mind, I asked, “When are you coming down?”

  “I’ll come down Wednesday night. I’m an expert at covert ops, you know. I majored in sneaking into dorm rooms in college.”

  It was Sunday, well, Monday morning. That meant nearly three full days with no Buster. My heart sunk. “Not before then?” I said, unable to hide the disappointment. “I nee
d some diversion.”

  “You know how much I love to divert you,” Buster said huskily.

  I felt my cheeks flame. Even after a year of dating, the sound of his voice could set off sparkly sensations in my belly. I squirmed in the phone booth, pushing the phone closer to my head as though I could feel Buster’s breath on my ear.

  “Tell me more,” I said. “How exactly would you manage that?”

  “Well, first I’d light the fire in your room, making it warm and toasty so your clothes feel too restricting. Then I’d take off your …”

  “Stop!” A sharp voice cut into my reverie. I turned, tangling myself in the phone cord and nearly strangling myself.

  Under the light, Mercedes Madsen stood with her hands on her hips. Her lips were pursed dangerously. She was fully clothed, despite the lateness of the hour. She looked extremely awake.

  She reached past me and took the phone from me—along with a hunk of hair that was stuck in the cord. I jumped back, yelping in pain and outrage.

  “What the heck are you doing?” I said, rubbing my sore scalp.

  Mercedes spoke into the black receiver. “Ms. Pellicano will call you back this evening. Yes, she’s fine. Just in violation of the rules. Thank you,” she said in her clipped tones.

  With a perfectly manicured finger, she hung up the phone.

  I could practically hear Buster laughing as she replaced the receiver in its holder. He would be getting a big kick out me being in violation.

  Despite the night chill, I felt the sweat glands under my arms go into action, resulting in a damp sticky sensation I could have done without. Under the quilt, I held my arms away from my body. Mercedes looked at me strangely, and I tried to reduce the angle away from scarecrow down to marionette.

  Of course, the woman standing in front of me was the epitome of organization and cosmetic coordination. Her sneakers were the same sea foam green as her sweat suit. Even at this hour.

  I began to wish I’d shaved my legs this morning. And tweezed. The closer she got, the more I could practically feel my eyebrows growing toward each other, forming the world’s bushiest unibrow.

  “You’re in Room 222? Correct?” she asked crisply.

  I had to be impressed. There were probably three hundred students here. First she remembered my name. And now what room I was in? What was she, Super Woman?

  At my quilt shop, Quilter’s Paradiso, I could barely remember my most frequent customers. That had been Kym’s forte. Kym, the sister-in-law I could not work with.

  Mercedes raised her thin arm and looked at her bejeweled watch with great care. The dial was backlit with an eerie green light. I wasn’t sure it didn’t match the color of her sweatsuit.

  “Phone privileges are allowed only between seven and nine p.m.,” she said sternly.

  “Sorry, it was an emergency,” I said.

  She grimaced. “Unless you’re waiting for an organ transplant, there is no need to be on the phone except at the allotted times.”

  I looked at her stubbornly. I hated rules with no merit.

  “You’re not expecting a new heart or anything, are you?” she said sweetly.

  She was the one that needed a new heart. Or maybe not. I hadn’t seen evidence that she had one to begin with.

  “No, but I heard a woman screaming,” I said.

  I expected some kind of reaction, but got none. She was looking at me with puzzlement but no alarm.

  I wished there was more light so I could tell if she was really this calm. I glanced behind me. Inside, the registration desk was dimly lit. I could see an Asilomar employee behind the desk. I’d noticed the lack of activity as soon as I’d gotten here. Whatever I heard had not been enough to cause any upset.

  “Some people mistake the mountain lion making its kill for a scream,” she said easily.

  My jaw dropped. “A mountain lion? There’s a mountain lion on the loose?” I moved closer to the building, feeling the cold stone through the quilt. I steadied myself.

  “Not exactly on the loose,” Mercedes said dismissively. “There have been sightings in the area. Nothing to be concerned about. If you’d like, I can walk you back to your room.”

  I’d rather take my chances with a feline predator. “No thanks.”

  I waited to see if she’d move away from the phone, but she was protecting it as though it was the original Declaration of Independence.

  “I’ll just go back to bed,” I said.

  “That’s good,” she said. “I need to have everyone in their room from midnight until six a.m. Otherwise, I’m in violation of my contract.”

  She called after me. “Breakfast begins at 7:30. I suggest you don’t be late.”

  ___

  At 7:45 the next morning, I showed my meal ticket to the blue-vested woman at the door of the Crocker Dining Hall. I didn’t want to miss food, but I couldn’t bring myself to be right on time. Small victory.

  Before coming here, I’d shot an e-mail off to Vangie. Surprisingly, despite our rustic surroundings there was free internet access in the small living room in the building I was staying in.

  I’d woken up realizing I had a way around Mercedes’ restrictions. Vangie and I had the laptop and the store computer configured with video conferencing. I told her in the e-mail that I’d call later, on my lunch break, to speak to her. I might look like an idiot talking to my computer in the middle of the wood-trimmed room, but at least I could touch base with her and find out what was going on at QP. Mercedes hadn’t banished video.

  Once I was inside the dining hall, a woman called to me from a table in the corner near the window. I threaded my way through the tables, many of them already filled with diners, mostly middle-aged women, with a few men sprinkled in. Half the tables were designated as reserved for the Sewing-by-the-Sea Symposium. The rest of the tables remained empty.

  “Sit with us,” an angular blonde in a striped sweater and jeans called, waving me over. I couldn’t remember her name, but she shopped at QP. I was grateful to see a familiar, smiling face.

  She speared a piece of French toast and pointed with it. “Move over, Nan.”

  I remembered her name now. Sherry Raney. She poured me a cup of coffee from the communal server, which I accepted gratefully. A lazy Susan sat in the center of the table, holding coffee pots, sugar, cups, and a pitcher of orange juice.

  Nan was a chubby woman wearing a sweatshirt with a hummingbird that disappeared into the folds of her bosom. She grunted as she shifted slowly into the next seat. I sat down in her still-warm chair.

  I nodded to the other nine people already seated. The women introduced themselves. Harriet Cohen and Lucy Lambrusco were from Long Island, another woman from Pennsylvania and another from Arizona. An auburn-haired beauty introduced herself as Red from Portland. Nan Orchard was from southern California. I didn’t catch the rest.

  “Dewey’s our favorite shop owner,” Sherry said to the others.

  Lucy, a spiky-haired blonde wearing a New York Yankees sweatshirt leaned in. Her hair complemented an elfin face. She was wearing a beaded choker with a small charm dangling on her freckled chest.

  She said, “I love coming to the Bay Area. You have so many fabulous quilt stores.”

  Her friend with the out-of-control curly hair, Harriet, said, “I stopped in that shop in San Jose on my way here. Has that place gone downhill! No one greeted me when I walked in the door, and when I tried to get help with my supply list for class, the girl had no sense of color at all.”

  I reddened and Sherry shot me an apologetic look.

  She started to speak, but the complainer wasn’t finished. “Except when it came to her tattoos. Those were colorful.”

  A lump rose in my chest and my own little ankle tattoo felt aflame. Vangie was not every quilter’s dream quilt shop employee. I
loved her and she was invaluable to me, but what she was best at, the back office, was the stuff the customer never saw.

  Sherry spoke loudly over the giggles. “Dewey owns Quilter Paradiso in San Jose.”

  Harriet sat back in her chair, looking slightly ashamed at her outburst.

  Lucy patted my arm maternally. “Any shop can have a bad day,” she said.

  I smiled bravely. “We’re working on our customer service. We’ve hired a new girl, and we’re looking for more experienced people to work on the floor,” I said.

  Harriet didn’t look appeased. I knew it didn’t take much to ruin a quilt shop’s reputation. My mother had told me a story of hearing someone trash one of the local shops when she was at Quilt Market in Pittsburgh. Twenty-five hundred miles away and the negative comments still came.

  “Give us another try. I’ll give you a special discount card,” I said, reaching in my backpack for my business cards.

  “What happened to Kym?” Lucy asked. “She was a big help to me when I bought the fabric for my Snow Pals quilt.”

  All the voices quieted. Red nudged Lucy, and whispered in her ear. It was common knowledge in certain quilting circles that I’d fired my sister-in-law, but word must not have reached the East Coast. Sherry watched for my reaction.

  I felt a frown cross my face, and I struggled to keep smiling. My lips automatically turned down at the mention of my sister-in-law’s name. I forced myself to look cheery, but I knew my eyes gave me away. Nan looked at me quickly and then went back to studiously buttering her sweet roll. She seemed sympathetic.

  “She doesn’t work for me anymore,” I said quickly, hoping to quash any speculation. If anyone asked me what my sister-in-law was up to, I’d have to plead ignorance. I’d seen Kym exactly three times in the last six months. Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day.

  Red said, “I’m going to get my eggs. You hungry?”

  Not anymore, but I pushed back my chair, eager to get away from the table talk about Kym.

  For that, we had to line up and be served cafeteria-style. The hall that led to the kitchen window was lined with black-and-white photographs of Asilomar. I was entranced by the casual shots of smiling young women with bobbed hair.