4 Plagued by Quilt

by Molly Macrae

  There were still times when I felt like a fish out of water in Blue Plum, and there probably would be for years. But Wes looked like a fish out of water. Was that enough reason to look at him with more suspicion than anyone else? No, it couldn’t be. Equal-opportunity suspicion was the better approach. Although Fredda was looking more equal than others to me.

  “Nice to see you again, too, Wes. Deputy.” Smiling at Clod took some effort. Not asking him why he was standing there did, too. It took no effort at all to avoid babbling an explanation for last night’s Quickie Mart misunderstanding; this wasn’t the time or place, and the explanation would only have run downhill into something surly.

  “Cole stopped by to let us know the students will be allowed to start excavating this afternoon.”

  “That’s good news,” I said. “Are the bones still at the site? Will that be a problem if some of the students are squeamish?”

  “Hicks removed the bones,” Clod said, “and the additional material.”

  “Is the sheriff releasing any details?” I asked.

  “Not yet.”

  “Do you know any of the details that he isn’t releasing yet?”

  “No.” His “no” was immediate and came firmly stamped with official snoot, but from the slightly calculating look he gave me, and the way his left eyebrow twitched . . .

  Nadine interrupted my surveillance short course. “I meant to tell you, Kath—a gentleman interested in local history stopped by yesterday afternoon. He’d heard about the bones, and he has an interest right up your alley. He put together a proposal to research and attempt to identify them. He was quite thorough. I was impressed.” She turned to Wes. “In fact, I told him if he doesn’t watch out, we’ll draft him the next time we have a board opening.”

  “Who is it?” Clod asked. “Who made the proposal?”

  “There isn’t a problem with approving the research, is there, Deputy?” Nadine asked. “I planned to inform the sheriff, but mainly as a courtesy. Do I need to get an official okay?”

  “I’m sure there won’t be a problem,” Clod said. “But I’d like to know who made the proposal.”

  Nadine looked confused. “Does that matter?”

  “I’m just curious. I wondered if it was anyone Ms. Rutledge knows.”

  “Does that matter?” I asked. The gentleman in question would be John, of course, who was down the hall with Ernestine, the Spiveys, and the quilt, and could answer any of Clod’s unnecessary questions, but there was no reason I could see that Clod needed to know that.

  Wes stepped into our moment of discomfort, proving that he was more than just a pretty suit. “Deputy, I’m sure you realize the bones present an interesting and special problem for the Homeplace. Is there a problem for your department if we go ahead with our own research?”

  Clod held his hands up, as if to calm a rant of researchers. “There are no problems that I’m aware of. If your researcher comes to any conclusions, we’d appreciate being notified.”

  “Absolutely.” Nadine was happy again. “I’ll see that you receive copies of any reports or documents generated. You, too, Kath, if you’d like.”

  Sunlight glinting off a windshield alerted us to cars pulling into the parking lot.

  “Here come the scholars,” Nadine said. “Oh, and Kath, there’s been a change in the schedule after all. Wes is going to follow up on the discussion he had with the students over lunch yesterday. He prepared another short program and we thought it would make a good starting point for this morning.”

  “It’ll take about twenty minutes,” Wes said. “Add time for questions, and you can tell your volunteers the students will join them in about half an hour.”

  “Sounds great.” I hoped my smile was less wooden than my reaction. “What’s the topic today?”

  “The role of philanthropy in public history. You’re welcome to sit in, if you like. You, too, Deputy.”

  It was a worthy topic. I knew that. But while Clod made his excuses, I made my escape.

  * * *

  The Plague Quilt had created peace in the education room. The former combatants had moved two tables side by side so the quilt could be spread out flat and seen whole. Each of them stood on one side of the square they’d created. Shirley and Mercy looked like an odd combination of prison guards supervising a visit and proud mothers watching their offspring entertaining guests. John’s back was to me, with Ernestine opposite, magnifying glass in hand. She looked up when I came in, and her face said it all. She was thoroughly and genuinely enchanted. Geneva floated above everyone. It was hard to tell whether she was engrossed in the scene below or had simply fallen asleep. I hoped that if the twins had divulged any more information about the quilt, she had listened carefully and would remember what they said.

  “Students on their way?” Mercy asked. “Time and quilting wait for no one.”

  “That makes no sense,” said Shirley. “We’re waiting, right now, for all of them. This is better—a diller, a dollar, our ten o’clock scholars, we only have them ’til noon.”

  “Unfortunately, there was a last-minute schedule change, and you’re not getting them for another half hour.” I told them about Wes’ philanthropy talk. “You’re all welcome to sit in if you want.”

  “We’ll pass on that opportunity. Again,” Shirley said.

  “If Less-and-less Treadwell is taking precious time away from the kiddos,” said Mercy, “then our time will be better spent pressing seams and stitching ahead for them.”

  “Better spent doing anything other than listening to Less-and less,” Shirley said.

  Mercy gave Shirley a quelling eye, maybe because she wasn’t close enough to give her an elbow. Geneva was definitely awake. She watched the twins, looking from one to the other as they spoke, looking like a spectator at a tennis match.

  “Why do you call him ‘Less-and-less’?” I asked.

  “It’s his way of operating,” Shirley said. “He starts out small. Treads with care.”

  “But with less and less care, as time goes by,” said Mercy, “because he’s predatory.”

  “Preying,” said Shirley.

  “A pirate.”

  “Listening at the cunning door,” Geneva said.

  The door between the education room and the auditorium was ajar. Was he listening? How would she know?

  It didn’t matter, I turned my back to the door and made mad hand signals for the others to be quiet. The twins and John caught on right away. Ernestine thought I was waving and waved back. While John whispered to Ernestine, the twins faced the door and made elaborate, dismissive, and alarming gestures.

  “Ernestine and I think we’ll attend Mr. Treadwell’s talk,” John said. “We’ll see what sorts of insight we gain.”

  “Shirley, Mercy, thank you for letting us see the quilt,” Ernestine said. “I’ll be back to help with the students.”

  “What about you, John? Are you coming back or are you bailing?” Mercy asked. “That was a nautical term, by the way, to go with your boating background.”

  “Much appreciated, too,” John said. “And I’m sorry, but I have other plans.”

  “That’s no scrap off our quilt,” Shirley muttered.

  “Kath,” John said, “I meant to spend the morning doing research. Now I think I’ll change my schedule, too, and see if I can buy Mr. Treadwell a cup of coffee.”

  “Be careful,” I said.

  “Coffee in well-lit public places only,” he said, and then he leaned close. “I’ll start the research, too, and report on that and the coffee at Fast and Furious tomorrow.”

  “No need to be formal with Less-and-less,” Mercy said, loudly enough to be heard through several closed doors. “What about you, Kath? Going to hear the squawk?”

  I wanted to tell them they owed me days with the Plague Quilt, alone and unsupervised, for the way t
hey were behaving. Instead I told them we needed to talk.

  “I want to hear what you know about Wes Treadwell,” I said quietly, “but not now and not here.”

  “Why don’t we come to the shop,” Shirley said, “later on this afternoon?”

  “We’ll come to your house tonight,” said Mercy, “in time for dessert.”

  Lord love a duck, I said to myself. What have I gotten myself into?

  Geneva swooped down and put her arm around my shoulders, making me shiver. “The darling twins are getting you down. I recognize the signs, which are like the neon lights on Broadway. I would like to see those lights someday. But you should take a walk and calm down. Do not worry. I will stay here and work on developing excellent surveillance skills.”

  * * *

  Getting out into the Spivey-free air and sunshine felt wonderful, especially after Geneva’s bone-chilling heart-to-heart embrace. I halfway toyed with the idea of wandering over to the retting pond to see if any of Clod’s fellow deputies were still searching it for the weapon. I hadn’t asked Clod how that was working out for them, and he hadn’t told me. And if they didn’t find anything, what did that mean? Would that make any difference to Grace?

  I couldn’t make myself go to the pond. The memory of Phillip lying there was too much—it had been only two days since I’d found him. His death was still raw. And his murderer was walking free; I was convinced of that. But how could any person kill another human being and not look raw and wounded, too? How could that person appear healthy and whole and unremarked on, as though nothing had happened or changed?

  The thought of dealing with deputies and the rotten smell of retting was too much, too, and I went to find Jerry Hicks instead. Maybe he would tell me what artifacts he’d found associated with the bones and if he’d found anything to suggest a cause of death. In Geneva’s memory, Mattie wore a dress of white lawn and Sam a frock coat. Sometimes she described the scene as though she’d been part of it, but at other times it sounded as though she’d stumbled across the horror. She had once mentioned a cameo at Mattie’s throat. She hadn’t said, then, that it was a locket. But her memories were so slippery.

  “You can save yourself a walk.” Clod’s legs were as long as Joe’s, but they never ambled. Clod’s legs led a purposeful life. Their purpose now was to interrupt my free time and keep me from my goal. “You can save your breath and whatever questions you’re planning to ask Hicks, too.”

  “You’re presuming, Deputy. You don’t know where I’m going.”

  “You’re trying to make an end run for information,” he said, “but it won’t work.”

  “Again, you’re presuming.”

  “Hicks isn’t here.” He got ahead of me, planting his legs and crossing his arms. Smug clod.

  “Pig.”

  “Say what?”

  “I said ‘pig.’ That’s where I’m going, Deputy. To see Portia the Poland China. She’s a heritage breed pig. Poland Chinas are known for slopping up anything you put in front of them. They aren’t so good at going out and finding things on their own, but that’s the way it is sometimes.” With pigs and some policemen, I thought.

  The way he looked down his long nose at me, Clod reminded me more of Fred the mule than of a Poland China. “Say what?” he said again.

  “I said I came out here to see Portia and her piglets. Now that you’ve brought it up, though, I do have a few questions about the excavation. If I ask you, that won’t be considered trying to make an end run, will it? I won’t be committing some kind of foul?” My anti-sarcasm campaign was faltering. I stopped, breathed, and tried to dial it back. “Deputy, I really am asking this out of curiosity. Please don’t think there’s an implied comment. But why does it seem as though information about the excavation is being kept secret? Isn’t it possible you’d come up with more answers by making what you do know public?”

  “That’s a fair question.”

  I was pretty sure there was an implied comment in his remark. I was big and let it slide.

  “Now that the materials are secured, information will be made public,” he said. “Obviously, we couldn’t keep it entirely quiet.”

  “You had two dozen teenagers with phones here.”

  “Among others. But we didn’t want scavengers, and we didn’t want sensational or unpleasant stories or rumors floating around.”

  “Like what?”

  “Are you kidding? Use your imagination. Oh, wait”—he snapped his fingers—“I forgot. You already are using your imagination. Conjuring cameo lockets.”

  “I explained why I asked about a locket. I could also have asked about shoe buttons or a particular style of eyeglasses.”

  “I don’t think so. I think your locket goes back to your story.”

  “What story?”

  “You know the one. Once upon a time, you heard a story about a sensational double murder that’s completely unsupported by facts or local records. You’re stuck on it. To say you’re obsessed might be going too far, but you’re dying to take these bones and cram them into your cameo locket fairy tale.”

  “That was uncalled for.” And if that was the way he was going to play, then my sarcasm shield was coming down. “Tell me, Deputy, have you or your colleagues had any luck finding the weapon used to murder Phillip Bell? Have you had any luck figuring out what that weapon even is? And without those facts, are you still so sure that Grace Estes is guilty?”

  “Let me tell you something, Kath. Clue you in, as it were. Most murders are fairly simple. They’re nasty and brutal, and after the deed is done, people don’t like owning up to it, but they aren’t really all that puzzling. The simple truth about Phillip Bell’s death is this: It was a crime of passion and Grace Estes is the only one in town who knew him well enough to be that passionate.”

  Darn the simple logic of his last statement. It’s what kept going around in my mind, too. But I still didn’t believe it. It was simple to the point of being simplistic and “true” only because the police had stopped asking questions. I hadn’t and darned if I would. One question I couldn’t ask was if he knew that Fredda had snuck into the cottage the night before. Asking that would open a whole bait shop of worms. But I had other questions.

  “Then how do you account for the fact that you haven’t found the weapon? And how do you account for the fact that Grace hasn’t been able to tell you what that weapon is?”

  “Again, it’s simple. She’s lying.”

  “Or maybe it’s even simpler than a lie, Deputy. Try this—she’s telling the truth.”

  When Clod had planted himself in front of me, he’d put his back to the barn, and he didn’t see what I saw—Fredda standing at the edge of the big open doorway, arms crossed, head tipped, watching us.

  Chapter 23

  Fredda stood in a shadow, making it impossible to see the expression on her face. I used the imagination Clod accused me of mishandling and pictured her eyes narrowed and assessing, her smile sardonic and amused. She lifted her hair off her neck and let it fall again. Then she crossed the open doorway and disappeared farther into the barn. I had questions for her, too, but I wasn’t feeling brave or foolhardy enough to go after her. My imagination conjured pitchforks and scythes.

  “Lost interest in pigs?” Clod called after me when I turned around and headed back to the visitors’ center.

  “Had enough.”

  * * *

  Watching the students get caught up in creating their quilt blocks was soothing. Up to a point. Ernestine and I complimented them on color and pattern combinations and encouraged faltering stitches. We were the good-cop quilters. Shirley and Mercy stalked around the room, adamant about exact and unvarying seam allowances, clipped rather than dangling thread ends, and frequent use of the iron.

  “Start as you mean to go on,” Shirley told them.

  “You don’t just want to learn
the right way,” Mercy said. “You want to learn the best way.”

  “And that’s our way,” said Shirley.

  I got the feeling that if Ernestine and I hadn’t been there, there would have been some knuckle rapping and hand smacking to clarify that message and send it home. The students seemed to be enjoying themselves, accepting the warlord approach to quilting as easily as the good-cop approach. It was nice to see we hadn’t lost any more of them overnight. Without more skeletons to exhume, Zach sat stitching a series of stylized coffins to each other. Even the tenderhearted girl, Carmen, was there. It must have been my deputy-certified overactive imagination that saw her cringe when Mercy stopped to inspect her needlework, because then Carmen proved her courage by asking Mercy a question.

  “Ms. Spivey, if we can embroider as much as we want on our squares—”

  “Quilters call that embellishment,” Shirley said, closing in on Carmen from the other side.

  “Ribbons, beads, lace . . .” Mercy ticked options off on her fingers. “They’re all embellishments, and you can add what you like.”

  Carmen stayed strong. “If we can add as much embellishment as we want, then how will we know when we’re finished?”

  “Buttons and sequins, too,” Shirley said.

  “I’ll tell you the secret,” said Mercy. She paused and looked around the room, until our dozen avid, eager students looked back at her. “How do you know you’re finished? You just do.”

  “And feathers,” Shirley said.

  “Or you don’t,” said Mercy.

  Geneva, meanwhile . . . had started by following the twins around the room, peering over their shoulders, watching with fascination when they showed Ethan and Nash how to correctly press seams without pressing their fingertips, too. She floated by to tell me her sleuth practice was paying off because she already knew that Barb and Ethan were going separately but together to a party Saturday night. She studied Zach’s coffin pattern. But eventually she floated over to the table where Shirley and Mercy had put the muslin bag holding the Plague Quilt. She settled on the table next to the bag, drew her knees up so she could rest her chin on them, and gazed at the bag. I don’t know how long I stood looking at her look at it, but it was long enough that I’d tuned out the room, and I gave a start when Barb asked me a question.