If so, she would jump to the top of my list of suspects, since I couldn't see why she was still in town if she'd been cleared by Detective Marshall. I was running out of other possibilities. There was still Zoe the quilter, although I really hoped it wasn't her. I'd talked to the last of Gabe's creditors identified by Stefan, and not one of them had seemed angry enough to turn violent, let alone commit murder. They'd all considered Gabe's nonpayment to be an annoyance and, as Condor himself had said, just a fact of doing business. Several of them had even mentioned Condor as having caused their businesses more trouble than Gabe had, and as far as I knew, no one had tried to kill Condor yet.
Dee and Emma were busy giving impromptu lectures about the quilts on display, so I didn't even try to get them to identify the picture. Fortunately I didn't need to talk to them just to set the bait for our trap. I'd taken care of that when they'd called on Friday night for an update on my investigation. I'd explained that it was too early to give them anything definitive but that Maria and I were working on something that we hoped would have results by the end of the weekend. Then I gave them the story we'd concocted to draw out the killer. Word had likely spread throughout the quilting community and beyond by the end of the evening.
Unfortunately, I didn't see any quilters I knew well enough to ask about the picture that might or might not be Tess. I kept an eye out for Zoe while I checked out the quilt exhibit. Emma had told me they'd done it to honor Gabe's memory, although Dee had snorted and said he hadn't deserved a quilt show and it was really for his widow's benefit.
There were about a dozen quilts on display, with Zoe's Modern Shoo-Fly in the most prominent spot. It was also hung higher than the others, so it was easily visible to everyone, whether walking up from the parking lot, down the Memorial Walkway from the lighthouse and market, or over from the salsa contest in front of the historical garden.
While examining Zoe's quilt, I couldn't help thinking that photographs never did textiles justice. Texture was so hard for a camera to capture, and it was such an important feature of quilts. Even from a distance of about fifty feet instead of the up-close inspection I gave the quilts I appraised, I could tell that it was a masterpiece of Modern quilting. Gabe couldn't possibly have had any legitimate reason to breach the contract.
The quilts flanking the Shoo-Fly ranged from about two feet square to double-bed size, with even the largest ones dwarfed by the size of Zoe's work. The other quilts were also less impressive in other ways. They were lovely, but they weren't up to the professional and artistic level of the Shoo-Fly.
I still didn't see Zoe, so if I wanted someone to identify Tess Abbott, I had no choice but to introduce myself to some of the quilters I only vaguely recognized from meetings. I showed a group of three women the picture, but none of them had paid any attention to the young woman during the meeting when Gabe spoke. One of them apologized, saying she'd have paid more attention if she'd known she'd have to pick someone out of a lineup.
I was trying to decide whether it was worth interrupting Dee and Emma when Zoe finally arrived. "Do you have a minute?" I asked her.
"Sure," Zoe said. "I didn't even want to be here for this, but you know how Emma is. Whatever Dee wants, Dee gets. And Dee wanted to put on a show today, with me and Georgia as the focal points. Everyone's dying to see if I'll tell the grieving widow just what a jerk her husband is. Was."
"I wasn't sure if Georgia would be here today."
"She just got here." Zoe pointed to where the widow, dressed in a simple but expensive-looking pair of loose raw silk pants with a matching sleeveless blouse, was being escorted along the row of quilts on display by an animated Dee, who was presumably giving information about each quilt and its maker, since there hadn't been time to organize and print the usual placards.
Georgia looked as serene and elegant as ever, even wearing a quilted vest in a Flying Geese pattern. I might once have appreciated it for its cheerful colors, but now that I knew what to look for, I couldn't help focusing on the poor workmanship, with crooked seams and points that were cut off. I sometimes missed the days when I could just enjoy quilted items without noticing the flaws, but my training made that impossible. Fortunately I didn't have to appraise the vest, so I wouldn't have to spoil Georgia's enjoyment of it.
Zoe didn't have any such qualms. "That's the ugliest vest I've ever seen. I'm not sure whether to be impressed that Georgia is willing to wear it or simply appalled by how terrible it is. Maybe bad taste in clothing was a turn-on for Gabe. What I saw of his girlfriend's wardrobe was just as bad as Georgia's vest, although in a slutty way instead of a frumpy way."
"Speaking of Tess," I said, taking out my phone and pulling up the picture from Maria, "would you be able to recognize her from a picture? Is this her?" I turned the screen toward Zoe.
She took it from me and gave it a quick glance. "Tess is here?" Zoe looked up from the picture, as if expecting to see her nearby. "That's really odd. She made it clear during the guild meeting that she didn't do domestic things. Definitely not sewing or making blankets, as she put it, and not cooking either."
"Maybe she's here for the healthy food she can eat without cooking."
"Not likely," Zoe said. "She wrinkled her nose at the fresh veggie plate on the refreshment table at the meeting and dove right into the brownies."
"Crafts then?" I suggested. "The WoodWell booth has some lovely products."
"Unless something has a celebrity's name on it, Tess wouldn't be interested." Zoe peered more closely at the image. "Yep, that's her. You can see a bit of a butterfly tattoo on her collarbone. Except…" She gave it another long look. "There's something different about her, at least from how I remember her from the guild meeting."
"I thought so too," I said. "But I can't figure out what."
Zoe squinted at the image. "She's not wearing any visible make-up, and the last time I saw her, she had a smoky eye that rivaled the most extreme version that Gia might do at The Clip and Sip but not as well done. You could see it from a mile away. Plus, her clothing is more conservative in the picture than what she was wearing at the guild. It's like she's got a whole new, more subdued persona. And look at that big bag she's carrying."
I took the phone back but didn't see anything interesting about Tess's canvas bag, other than that it was indeed larger than most and could easily have held a duplicate of the flashlight that had killed Coach Andy. Not something that Zoe could have known about. "What about it?"
"Everything she wore or carried two weeks ago was marked with some designer's or celebrity's logo, and that bag is definitely not something name brand. It looks like it came from a dollar store."
I didn't trust my own understanding of fashion, since it had never interested me, but Zoe obviously paid more attention to it. And her quilt designs showed she had a good eye for detail, so she was probably right that Tess was presenting herself differently than at the guild meeting.
"Maybe she's just dressing more casually for an outdoor event."
"Or maybe Gabe's death changed her," Zoe said thoughtfully. "She annoyed me from the start, so I didn't really try to get to know her. I assumed she just saw him as a sugar daddy, but maybe she really cared about him."
There was another possibility, one that I hoped we'd be able to resolve before long—namely that she'd killed Gabe and then Coach Andy and was trying to stay under the radar until she could be sure she'd gotten away with murder.
"I'd better go get ready to make nice," Zoe said, nodding toward where Dee and Georgia had stopped in front of the Shoo-Fly quilt and had turned to face away from it.
While Zoe headed in that direction to stand across from them, Emma joined Dee and Georgia, using the guild's wireless microphone to call for attention. The two dozen or so people strolling along the row of quilts stopped and turned toward her. I was relieved to see two uniformed officers in the audience, confirming that Detective Ohlsen had arranged for an increased police presence. Not that I ever doubted he would. He never took a
ny risks, unlike Detective Marshall, who would have hung us out to dry if we'd asked him for protection.
The audience settled down, and Emma handed the mic to Dee, who looked even tinier than she actually was, dwarfed by the king-bed-sized Shoo-Fly quilt behind her. She offered Georgia condolences and declared the widow to be an honorary member of the local quilting community. Then she handed the mic to Georgia. The widow spoke with apparent ease, a note of sadness in her voice but no deeper emotion apparent. "I can't tell you how grateful I am for your support and the kindness of everyone in Danger Cove over the past two weeks."
I wondered if that gratitude extended to the person who'd killed her husband, but judging by the applause, I was the only one in the crowd who was that much of a cynic. Other than Zoe perhaps, but she seemed to be on her best behavior.
Georgia continued, "And I wanted to express my admiration for Zoe Costa's brilliant work." She gestured for the quilter to come up to stand beside her.
Zoe didn't seem particularly pleased and dragged her sneaker-covered feet as she went up to stand next to the widow of the man who'd cheated her. Would she make good on her obvious desire to denounce Gabe?
Zoe mumbled a not-very-convincing, "I'm sorry for your loss," and then the two women shared an awkward hug.
Once that was over, Georgia looked out at the audience again and pulled something out of the crooked side pocket of her vest. "I brought a check with me for the balance owed on the contract plus a little extra to cover the storage fee during the unavoidable delay before I could pick it up."
Zoe had a stunned expression on her face, and it took a moment before she reached over to accept the check. Her face grew even more surprised when she glanced at the amount. The "storage fee" must have been substantial.
Zoe leaned over to speak into the microphone, and this time the words sounded genuine. "Thank you. You've been very generous. Just let me know where you want it delivered, and I'll take care of it."
"Oh, that's easy," Georgia said. "Beautiful as it is, it holds too many sad memories for me to keep it where I'd see it all the time, and it would be a crime to hide it away, so I've decided to donate it to the Danger Cove Historical Museum. I'm told that they have a collection of local quilts, and I thought this could be one of the highlights. I think it's what my husband would have wanted."
There were some snickers after that last statement, so maybe I wasn't the only cynical person in the audience. But I thought that Georgia seemed sincere in believing that her husband was a generous man. Was she equally deluded in thinking he was a good person, and that was why she'd stayed with him despite his philandering? If so, I had to wonder how she would have reacted if she'd been confronted with the reality of yet another mistress, one who he was planning to show off in front of his wife's close friend, Eileen? Would that have been enough for her to hire someone to kill him? Her presence at the market now was certainly consistent with the theory that the killer would return to the scene of Coach Andy's death. Maybe the memorial quilt exhibit wasn't the only reason for Georgia to be at today's market.
I needed to know more about who had arranged for her to be here today. Had it been Dee and Emma's idea exclusively, or had Georgia somehow planted the idea in order to have an excuse to return to the scene of the crime and stalk another victim?
*
After the little ceremony wrapped up with more hugs of gratitude and condolences, I went to talk to Georgia.
"It was very kind of you to donate the quilt to the museum," I told her. "I'm sure the director will be thrilled. She's always looking for noteworthy local quilts, and since I do most of their acquisition appraisals, you can be sure I'll confirm its value."
"Thank you, Maria," she said. "I'm happy to donate it. I know people don't believe me, but it really is what my husband would have wanted too. He was a big supporter of the arts."
My own skepticism must have shown on my face.
"I know, I know," she said. "If he was such a good patron, why didn't he pay Zoe as he should have? That's what you're thinking, isn't it?"
"I'm afraid so."
"It's just how Gabe was. If you love someone, you have to accept him as he is or else walk away. I chose to accept him and find ways to cushion the effects of his less admirable traits. He liked to play stupid financial games, mostly for the adrenaline. So I let him have that, and then I'd clean up the mess by paying the contractor as soon as I found out about the problem. Usually, at least. I'm no fool, so I do check to make sure the work was done properly. There was one situation right here in Danger Cove, in fact, when I wouldn't pay. Developer named Jack something. Eagle, maybe?"
"Jack Condor?"
"That's it. He'd breached the contract before Gabe refused to pay. I may be a generous person, but I'm not a fool. I got a business degree before I married and turned all my attention to my kids."
"I heard that Condor sued for his money," I said. "And he even claimed to have won the case."
"He's delusional then," Georgia said. "I made it clear that I wouldn't pay more than a single dollar as a nuisance settlement, no matter how much I had to pay in legal fees to defend the case. He got the message and jumped at the offer of one buck. He got to save face, and I got to make it clear I wasn't an easy mark."
"I used to be a trial lawyer, and I frequently wished all of my legal clients had understood the issues as well as you do," I said.
"I've had a lot of practice. I've been cleaning up after Gabe's financial messes for as long as I've known him."
"Like you did today with the quilt," I said. "Judging by Zoe's expression, you compensated her extremely generously for the inconvenience of having to wait a couple weeks."
Georgia shrugged. "Money isn't an issue for me. I don't like to talk about it generally, but I'm an only child, and I come from a wealthy family. More so than Gabe's, in fact. He was proud of his financial status, and everyone thinks the prenuptial agreements were to protect him, but actually it was at least as much or even more to protect me. We kept our assets separate and both waived any right to inherit from the other or to alimony if we divorced. Gabe could have excluded me from the will completely, but he specifically directed that the quilt collection should come to me. That made it a lot simpler for me to donate the Shoo-Fly to the museum."
If the quilts were all she'd inherited, Georgia certainly hadn't killed her husband for money. Someday his collection might be worth a lot of money, but that day was probably a hundred years in the future. He couldn't have turned around and sold the commissioned quilts at anything but a loss in the near future, but if they were maintained in pristine condition until they were antiques, their age alone would enhance the value significantly. Especially if they were truly outstanding, as Zoe's was.
"What are you going to do with the other quilts in Gabe's collection?"
"I haven't decided, but perhaps I'll arrange to have a small gallery named after him in return for getting the quilts and set up an artist-in-residence program to encourage other quilters, particularly those working in the Modern style. I can't bear to think of Gabe being forgotten. He was such an amazing person." She laughed. "You need to work on your poker face. You may not believe it, but I think you'd have liked him despite his shortcomings. He had so much energy and enthusiasm for whatever he was doing. He was always in the moment, always completely focused on whoever he was with. Really heady stuff. Although I did find it tiring to be around him all the time, which is why I bought my house on Whidbey Island. I don't have a fraction of his energy, so he wore me out if we were together all the time, and I slowed him down, which wasn't good either. Living apart was perfect for us both. And when we got together…" She smiled dreamily. "It was magic."
She sounded like I felt whenever I thought of Matt. Except Matt wasn't at all tiring to spend time with, which was one of the things I particularly liked about him, although his laidback approach to life also sometimes drove me crazy. Like with his dithering over a silly stove. I supposed our relationship wasn't a
ll that different from Gabe and Georgia's, in that there were always trade-offs, things we liked about each other and things we just had to accept. Matt and I even had two houses like they did, although we generally used them together, not separately.
"You must be anxious to get back home," I said.
"I am." Georgia laughed. "Mostly anyway. I'm not looking forward to being the mean mom when I get home, reestablishing discipline after weeks of the kids being spoiled by my parents. It's only going to get harder the longer I'm away, but I can't leave here without making sure that everything possible is being done to bring Gabe's killer to justice."
I was now completely convinced that Georgia really hadn't killed her husband or had him killed. There just wasn't any credible motive. Not greed or jealousy or anything else I could think of. That also meant she hadn't had a motive to kill Coach Andy in return for Eileen killing Gabe, so there was one less suspect in both cases now.
If our trap didn't work to flush out the killer, there were still leads I could pursue in Gabe's death. Creditors in Seattle, his current mistress, and possibly even some prior mistress who hadn't accepted the end of the relationship. Assuming I eventually figured out that one of them had killed Gabe, I might never be able to prove that the person had also killed Coach Andy without evidence of the killer trying to cover their tracks by silencing Maria and me.
The trap just had to work. Otherwise I thought Maria would blame herself, like I would if I were in her shoes, for being unable to get justice for someone who'd died at her market.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Maria Dolores
While I waited for Keely to get back to me about whether it really was Tess I'd seen earlier, I checked on the market vendors, ending at Merle's stall, where I hoped to absorb some of his calm confidence before it was time to head on over to the beach to set our trap.
Merle wasn't on duty though. His assistant, JT, was there alone, taking payment for a six-pack of perry. JT was in his early twenties and looked like he ought to be the heartthrob member of a boy band. The girls from the high school's stall had frequently slipped away from their own work to hang out in the Pear Stirpes stall until they'd realized JT wasn't interested in anyone or anything except fermentation and distilling, and he tended to assume everyone else wanted to hear about all the scientific details of his latest experiment.
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