Two Sleuths Are Better Than One

by Elizabeth Ashby

  "But the retirement was five years ago," I said. "Why wait until now to kill him?"

  Merle shrugged. "The delay just means there was plenty of time for the anger to fester. I saw it in my legal practice. It can take five years for a personal injury case to go to trial, and I think some of my clients, and even some of the defendants who felt they were being blamed unfairly, were angrier by the time we got to court than when the injury first happened. Time can make emotional wounds worse, rather than healing them."

  "You're probably right," I said. "But that means it's going to be harder than ever to figure out who killed him if we have to consider everyone he's ever known, not just people here in Danger Cove. I wouldn't know where to start, looking for enemies from his pro football career."

  "I suppose this is when I get to be your hero and tell you that I do know where to start," Merle said. "I'm not a huge pro football fan, but I do sometimes visit the online sports forums. I could ask some questions there."

  "You might not have a starring role in a romance novel, but you're always my hero," I assured him.

  "Even when I have to put the goats' welfare before a trip to Paris with you?"

  "Even then."

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Keely Fairchild

  Since I'd arranged to have dinner with Maria Dolores at the Smugglers' Tavern, it made sense to spend the afternoon at my house in the center of town instead of going to Matt's cabin farther away, although we spent most weekends there. When I told him where I'd be and that we had dinner plans, he insisted on coming over to be with me.

  For months I'd been meaning to wash the floor-to-ceiling windows in the space that used to be an ATM before the bank building was converted into my home. They'd become grimy and blocked some of the light I counted on when doing appraisals in that space. Now was the perfect time to take care of it with Matt's help. As he was wont to remind people, he wasn't just a pretty face. He was also quite useful to have around. His height and physical fitness would come in handy for climbing the ladders. He was also mellow, so he didn't complain about the boring work.

  He did, however, complain good-naturedly about other things.

  "I can't believe you went and found a body without me," Matt said from his perch on the ladder. "I thought that was supposed to be our thing to do together. Like other couples go hiking or play bridge or do crosswords. We find dead bodies."

  "I'll make sure you don't miss out the next time." I handed him the long-handled squeegee. "How did you even hear about it?"

  "I am a reporter, you know." He gave me a reproachful glance between swipes of the squeegee.

  "An arts and entertainment reporter. As you're always reminding everyone."

  "You're the only one who ever remembers." A bit of seriousness crept into his tone. "Duncan Pickles texted me to gloat over getting the scoop on Coach Andy's death. He'll never understand that I don't want to get stuck writing yet another crime story for the Cove Chronicles."

  "As long as you weren't finding a body or writing about one today, were you able to buy a stove for the cabin?" That had been at the top of Matt's to-do list for the day and also the reason he hadn't gone to the farmers' market with me. He'd already had almost nine months—enough time to create a whole human being, for goodness sake—to find a stove for the cabin, and he still hadn't been able to decide on one. As a result, we had two places we called "home"—his cabin on a large piece of wooded property on the outskirts of Danger Cove, and my renovated bank building right in the center of town—but unless we were getting takeout, meals had to be at my place, since it was the only place we could cook.

  "Finding the perfect stove was the plan, but I couldn't narrow down the options before you called me. And I didn't want you to be alone after your traumatic experience this morning."

  "I wasn't particularly traumatized." I hadn't known Coach Andy, and Maria had spared me the worst of the details. The initial nausea and dizziness had dissipated quickly, without any lasting effects. "Do you want to look at some more stoves after the windows are cleaned or would you rather come with me to talk to Gabe's widow? I'm supposed to be bringing her the quilt guild's condolences along with assurances that they'll keep the pressure on to find the killer."

  "I'm coming with you," Matt said as he climbed down the ladder. He moved it to the last section of glass before adding, "Gabe was a major quilt collector, and I'd like to see if his widow will let me do a story about it. I went to the guild meeting last Saturday when you were away, and Gabe agreed to do an interview. It was supposed to happen on Monday morning before he went back to Seattle, but when I showed up at the cottage where he was staying, it was teeming with cops."

  "So I'm not the only one to find a body alone. You did too." I'd been in Seattle updating the appraisals for the inventory of another private quilt collector, so I'd missed the meeting where Gabe had been the guest speaker and had only returned to town on Thursday, days after his body had been found and Lester Marshall had been assigned to the case.

  "I didn't find the body," Matt said. "Gabe's widow found it hours before I got there. And no one would tell me anything."

  "So you were planning to write about the murder? Why not just leave and give the story to Duncan?"

  "I did," Matt said. "I wasn't so interested in the murder itself. I was curious about the quilt he'd come to Danger Cove to pick up. I just wanted to know if it was still in the cottage. If it was missing, robbery might have been the motive. But you know how Detective Marshall is. He refused to say anything except to toot his own horn and promise that the killer would be arrested in due course."

  Matt tended to be a bit flippant with detectives, but that wasn't why Marshall hadn't been forthcoming. He was like that with everyone. Worse than not sharing information, he also didn't listen to anyone who might have useful information if it didn't fit his initial theory of the case. That was why I'd been asked by Dee and Emma to see if there was a quilt-related aspect to the death.

  If the quilt was missing, robbery was definitely a potential motive. Commissioned quilts tended to have a more easily identifiable value than most, since the purchase price was a good starting point for what it was worth on the open market. It depended on the style and size of the quilt, though, and to some degree on the reputation of its maker. "Did you see the commissioned quilt at the guild meeting?"

  He nodded. "It was hung on the wall in the museum's community room where they're meeting these days. It served as a backdrop for his speech."

  "What did you think of it?"

  "It was stunning," Matt said with hesitation. "It's a Modern quilt, like everything in Gabe's collection. A variation on the traditional Shoo-Fly block in grays with pops of purple and teal. And it's massive. King size and then some, I'd say."

  Matt knew enough about quilts that his use of "Modern" didn't just mean that the quilt had been made recently but that it featured a style or aesthetic that had developed in the quiltmaking community in the early 2000s, influenced by modern artists like Piet Mondrian and his followers.

  While the style remained popular, it was a little difficult to describe, not unlike the definition of art in general, I supposed, where you know it when you see it was the bottom line. Modern quilts might sound like they were the opposite of "traditional," but that wasn't true. They often incorporated blocks that had been used for hundreds of years, like the Shoo-Fly used in the quilt that Gabe had commissioned. Modern quilts did tend to be more simply designed than more traditional ones, often with larger pieces and never fussy. Some used extremely bold colors in small doses to pop against neutral backgrounds, although others used a more muted palette with little contrast between the pieces. Many Modern quilts had large background sections that were extensively machine-quilted, as if in homage to early whole-cloth quilts where the quilting designs and textures were of equal or greater interest than the underlying fabric.

  The apparent simplicity of the designs could be misleading. People tended to think anyone could make a Modern
quilt, much like they believed their grandchildren could paint better than Picasso. I had to give Gabe Portillo credit for having recognized the style's value when he'd dedicated his collection to it. It took a real artist to make something beautiful with only a few colorful pieces and simple lines.

  I'd have to ask Dee who had made Gabe's quilt so I could talk to the artist, maybe look at a picture of it and get an idea of whether it was worth enough to have been the motive for the murder. I needed to talk to the quiltmaker anyway, since Dee had been afraid that the woman might be blamed for Gabe's death.

  Matt might know who she was. "Did you meet the quiltmaker?"

  "Afraid not." Matt climbed down from the ladder. "My timing seems to be off these days. I had to leave the meeting early, so I missed the chance to tell her how impressed I was with the quilt last week, and then today I missed the chance to find Coach Andy's body."

  "Let's see if we can change your luck," I said. "You can ask Gabe's widow if she'll let you see her husband's collection for a story. We just need to stop at Some Enchanted Florist on the way to Ocean View B&B. The guild ordered a small sympathy arrangement for me to present."

  "Do you know anything about the widow?" Matt asked.

  "Dee said she's rumored to be a wonderful person. Especially compared to Gabe. Apparently everyone who met him at the guild meeting considered him a self-centered jerk, so they couldn't understand what his wife saw in him."

  "His money?" Matt said, carrying the ladder to the basement door. "He was a rich man, after all."

  I held the door open for him. "Dee wouldn't have hesitated to call her a gold digger if that's what she thought."

  "True." Matt disappeared down the basement stairs. When he returned, he said, "I think the Portillos had two kids young enough to still be living at home. Twins, around ten years old, if I remember correctly. A lot of couples stay married for the children, even if the spouses can't stand each other. Especially when the couple has the financial resources to arrange things so they're not spending much time with each other. I did some background research for the interview, and I read that they owned separate homes."

  "That's not unusual for rich people," I said.

  "Only if the homes are spread out all over the world in glamorous places. The Portillos' properties are both right here in the Pacific Northwest."

  "We've got two houses in the exact same town," I reminded him.

  "We're not in the same class of rich as Gabe was," he said. "And we're usually both in the same house at the same time, not using them to hide from each other."

  "The Portillos lived apart?"

  "That's what I've heard," Matt said. "She prefers a place on Whidbey Island with their children, while Gabe maintained a condo in the city itself with easy access to Boeing Field where he kept his private jet."

  "Sounds like a solid business reason for them to have separate homes. And it doesn't mean they never saw each other. People commute between Seattle and the island all the time. It's less than a half-hour ferry ride." I grabbed my messenger bag from a living room chair. "Still, if they had separated emotionally and only remained married for their kids, then she'd have to be a prime suspect in the murder."

  "Is that why you agreed to visit her on behalf of the guild? So you can ask her if she got tired of a sham marriage and decided to kill her husband?"

  "I'm hoping to be more subtle than that," I said. "But you've got to wonder whether she might have done it for the money. Or if Dee was right about Gabe being a jerk, his wife could have just wanted to be free of him. Maybe she met someone else and fell in love and wanted to be able to be with him."

  "There are easier ways to end a relationship than murder," Matt said.

  "Is that why you've taken so much time to find a stove for the cabin?" I asked. "You're trying to push me away?"

  "I'm never going to want you to leave," Matt said. "But if I did, I'd tell you to your face that it was over. I wouldn't need an excuse. Or a murder weapon."

  *

  The Ocean View B&B was a renovated Victorian on a cliff overlooking the ocean, just a few minutes' drive from the center of Danger Cove. I'd checked with Bree Milford, the manager of the B&B, to make sure Georgia Portillo hadn't left before Matt and I headed over there with the arrangement. The artist at Some Enchanted Florist had somehow turned a mix of colorful gerbera daisies into an elegant expression of sympathy, just the right size to personalize a small B&B suite without overwhelming it.

  The person behind the huge old-fashioned register book on the black marble counter called Georgia's room for us and then told us we could wait in the lobby. After setting the flowers on the coffee table, I noticed that the lobby's yellow accents were the exact same shade as one of the daisies.

  Matt and I sat together on the sofa, and just a few minutes later, I heard a door opening down the hallway. A short but elegant woman who could have been anywhere from her forties to her early sixties came toward us. Her silver-blonde hair was swept back in a meticulous low bun, and her clothes were expensively casual—designer jeans and a long and flowing pink silk tank top.

  We stood, and I thought I spotted the moment when the woman recognized Matt for the celebrity he was, but she addressed me. "You must be Keely Fairchild with the quilt guild," she said. "I'm Georgia Portillo."

  I shook her hand, saying, "And this is Matt Viera, another friend of the guild."

  She waved us back into our seats before settling into a wingback chair across from us. I'd never seen anyone who exuded serenity the way Georgia did. It wasn't just the perfection of her haircut and wardrobe that most people didn't have the time or money to achieve. I wasn't enough of a jewelry expert to know whether her diamond earring studs were real or the value of her simple gold wedding band, but she didn't have a flashy engagement ring—or any other ring at all—and her necklace wasn't anything out of the ordinary, just a heart with gemstones that presumably symbolized the shared birthdate of her two children.

  "You really didn't need to come in person," she said, "although I do appreciate the diversion. Danger Cove is a lovely town, but I've been fretting about what my kids are up to while I'm here wrapping up loose ends."

  I thought that was a remarkably gracious way of saying "Detective Marshall won't let me leave town until he's convinced I didn't kill my husband." And maybe he was right for once. I didn't know what I'd expected to see exactly—it wasn't like anyone dressed in "widow's weeds" anymore—but there was nothing in Georgia's appearance that suggested her husband's death had caused her anything other than some mild inconvenience. Of course, it had been most of a week since the murder, so she'd had enough time to gather her composure for public appearances.

  I nodded at the flowers on the coffee table. "That's for you. A small expression of the guild's sympathy for your loss. They considered your husband a member of their community and a leader in appreciation for Modern quilts."

  "Please let them know how much I appreciate their condolences." Georgia rose and leaned over the arrangement, viewing it from all angles, much like she might have done with her children's artwork when they offered it up for inspection. Finally, she sat down again and suggested, "Why don't we leave it here in the lobby for everyone to enjoy? It's really quite lovely."

  I couldn't tell if that was her way of saying it wasn't up to her standards, or perhaps that she was allergic to flowers, or if she was truly that considerate of others. I decided to assume the best, for once. "We're fortunate to have some excellent shops here, despite being such a small town."

  "I've noticed," Georgia said, glancing at her pink-polished nails. "And foods too. I've got such a sweet tooth, and daily breakfasts of muffins from the Cinnamon Sugar Bakery is taking a toll on my weight. I'm almost afraid to get home and step on the scale."

  "The Ocean View does pamper its guests."

  "Bree has been wonderful, accommodating my last-minute request for a room, and not knowing how long I'll be staying." Georgia glanced at the flowers briefly. "It's too bad I
decided not to come with Gabe for the guild meeting. Then we could have booked a room here for the weekend—I never like to impose on Andy and Eileen's hospitality, since they're both so busy—and then there wouldn't have been any unfortunate surprises for anyone."

  I couldn't help asking, "Why didn't you come with him?"

  "Our kids have a crazy schedule, even in the summer, with sports and music and art and I forget what-all else. I needed to be there for them, or else I would have driven Gabe here for the weekend. He didn't have a driver's license, you know, but I do enjoy a nice road trip. I didn't even mind making the long round-trip drive on Monday to pick him up. The scenery along the coast is lovely."

  Her explanation made sense, but her words seemed rehearsed somehow. She could have prepared the excuse for the police investigation, or she could have had a lot of practice coming up with explanations for living apart from her husband and not spending time with him.

  "It must be extra difficult making the final arrangements while you're away from home."

  "I'm fortunate enough to have a lot of help," she said evenly. "But I do miss my children. I even considered bringing them down here, and Bree said children were welcome, but they really do love their activities at home, and my loneliness isn't a good enough reason to disrupt their lives."

  And neither was their father's death apparently. Had they been estranged from Gabe too? It didn't matter for the investigation though. Even if they'd hated their father, they couldn't possibly be suspects in a murder that happened so far from their home. At their young age, not even in their teens, they didn't have access to a car or other transportation to Danger Cove in order to kill their father.

  "If there's anything the guild can do," I said, "I hope you'll give me a call."

  "It's very kind of you and the guild, especially since I wasn't terribly involved in my husband's quilt collection." Georgia smiled sadly. "Well, except for being the inspiration for it initially. I made a pair of Modern baby quilts when I was pregnant with the twins, and Gabe was always curious about everything. He did some research into their value and was fascinated by what he learned. I drifted away from quilting after the twins were born, but Gabe became more and more involved in the art world."