A Murder of Taste: A Queen Bees Quilt Mystery (22 page)

She lifted her shoulders in a small shrug. “Okay, I called him,” she said. “This freaks me out. I think someone is sending us a message—”

“—to mind your own business,” P.J. finished. “May I look?”

Po nodded and stepped aside so P.J. could have a good view of the bleach-damaged fabric. He looked at it from afar, then leaned close, squinting at the circuitous design. “There, see that?” His fingers traced the trail of bleach.

The Queen Bees followed the line of his finger. The path of the bleach was messy, difficult to discern, like a child’s first attempt at writing. And some would have disputed it, saying P.J. was reading into it, like a Rorschach Test.

But the Queen Bees could see it, as clear and crisp as a finely pieced and quilted star.

MYOB, it warned.

CHAPTER 23

“We need to talk about this.” P.J. walked over and helped himself to a cup of coffee. The women remained at the table, staring at the cryptic message. It jumped out of the quilt now, as clear as any writing they’d ever seen, and each Bee wondered how she could have missed it.

P.J. walked back to the table. “The whole lot of you has been asking questions all over town. Someone is telling you very clearly to back off.”

“But …” Phoebe said.

“No ‘buts,’ Phoebe. This is serious. It makes sense you’d be warned this way. The quilt is for Picasso. And you’re all making it. It’s a perfect vehicle for a warning.”

They stood in silence for a minute, the impact of the quilt damage settling down on them like a thick fog. Kate shivered and pulled her sweater close. Po walked over to the window and stared out into the spring day. It had suddenly turned cold and gray. Fear does that, she thought, robs a life of color.

Back at the table, P.J. spoke into the silence. “How many people know about this quilt?” he asked.

“I told my kids’ play group,” Phoebe said, “and all the moms that hang out in the park. Not to mention Jimmy’s law firm. And his mother knows, which is like telling the whole town. Everyone knows, P.J. You know us.”

“I ate at the French Quarter last night and Picasso was telling everyone who came in to come over and look at it,” Eleanor said.

“So hundreds, P.J., to answer your question,” Kate said.

“Well, I think this act was planned,” he said. “Maybe not for days, but longer than the time it takes to get from Picasso’s restaurant to here.” He turned to Selma. “Do you remember who was in here last night?”

Selma shook her head. “P.J., there was an army of people in here. Many I knew, sure—neighbors and friends and regular customers. And I’m sure there were plenty of those I didn’t even see. Leah and Susan and I mingled in different parts of the store at different times. On an ordinary day I could tell you exactly who came in, but last night was not ordinary. And in addition to faces I recognized, there were all the college visitors, most of them strangers.” She shuddered, suddenly. The thought of the murderer being in her store, maybe inches away from her, caused goosebumps to rise on her thick arms. She rubbed them vigorously. “We could look at receipts, P.J., but I don’t think that would tell us much. We sold plenty, but the majority of people came to look at the display. And a goodly percentage of them were from out of town.”

P.J. nodded. Selma was right. It would be hard after-the-fact to put faces to the event. A needle in a haystack, or, more accurately, in a sewing store.

He thought of Kate, and her obsession with this murder case. It was all she talked about last night on their drive to Kansas City. She was putting herself in danger, along with all the other nice, bright women standing around this room. “The person who killed Ann Woods and Sands would probably kill again if there was a need to do it,” he said slowly. “For whatever reason Laurel—Ann—was killed, anyone who gets too close to the truth puts herself or himself in danger. That may have been what happened to Sands. Laurel may have told him something. Maybe he said something to someone. Threatened the murderer. Tried blackmail. And now all of you are putting yourselves out on the line in your efforts to protect Picasso.” He looked around the room, then settled his gaze on Kate’s lovely face. “Please, back off, all of you. And leave this to the investigators working the case. Please.”

***

When Leah and Po met the next morning for Maria’s Sunday special, their appetites weren’t up to crispy French toast, stuffed today with fresh mangoes and topped off with a dusting of powdered sugar and river of almond syrup. But they picked away at it, talking quietly about Saturday’s quilt episode.

After P.J. called the police in and pictures had been taken of the quilt, the Queen Bees realized it wasn’t going to be as easy to repair it as they thought. The police walked off with the section of the quilt that had been damaged, marking it as evidence. Selma immediately went out to the front of the store and found new fabric to replace the missing sections, and by the end of the morning, all the pieces for the body of the appliquéd fish and black pot had been cut and were ready for Leah and Po to work on. It was as if the assault on their quilt propelled the Bees, and what would have taken many hours, was produced out of their anger and frustration in the small space of a morning.

“P.J. seemed worried,” Leah said. “That’s not like him.”

“He’d be concerned anyway, but with Kate involved—and being as impetuous as she can be—he’s especially so.”

Leah nodded. “Well, he’s right. This isn’t a game of Clue anymore. It’s a murder investigation, after all.”

“Yes,” was all Po said, and she pushed her plate away, aware of the danger and concerns that shadowed them all. The bakery seemed especially noisy today, and Po looked around at the crowd. Some of her neighbors sat in the front window, and she spotted Jesse and Ambrose at the table next to them. Their heads were bent in conversation and as Po watched, Ambrose threw down his napkin, pushed out his chair, and abruptly stomped out of the restaurant. Before she could look away, Jesse looked up and saw Po watching him. He smiled slightly, picked up the check, and walked over to their table.

Po looked up into his youthful face. Jesse was in his midthirties, but with blonde, floppy hair, slender physique, and a shy, sweet smile that made him look much younger. She and Jesse had had many fascinating conversations over the Brew and Brie’s fine cheeses and imported fruits and candies about his travels and love of art. She liked this young man exceedingly. “Jesse, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be eavesdropping,” she said.

Jesse brushed away her apology with a wave of her hand. “It’s okay, Po. No matter. Ambrose hasn’t been himself lately.”

Jesse stood at the side of their table as if he wanted to say something more, but wasn’t sure what.

“Would you like to have a cup of coffee with us?” Leah asked.

Jess seemed relieved at the invitation and pulled out a chair and sat down. “I’m worried about all this Picasso mess,” he began, “and I don’t have anyone to talk with about it. Ambrose blows up when I mention it. But I need to talk—” He looked at Po, then Leah, his brown eyes sad.

A waitress appeared with a cup of coffee and set it in front of Jesse. “We heard today about your quilt,” he said, as the young girl walked away. “Another awful piece to this puzzle.”

“You heard about the damage?” Po said. She was surprised and not surprised. The Elderberry neighborhood was tight, and the news of something happening in Selma’s shop was bound to leak out.

Jesse nodded. “Marla told us. Ambrose and I were talking with Billy McKay and his fiancé—” he nodded to a table on the other side of the room where Bill and Janna were having breakfast and chatting with the Reverend Gottrey and his wife.

“Marla was upset. And then Billy got upset, too. Real upset. Turned red in the face. People care about all of you Queen Bees.”

“It’s an uneasy time, Jesse,” Po said. “And how are you doing with all of this?”

Jesse looked away, as if collecting his thoughts, not knowing how much he wanted to say. Finally he looked back at Po and Leah and spoke softly. “I loved Laurel. A sweet person immerged from beneath all that anger that defined her.

I know how awful she could be. I know she hurt Picasso and hated some people in this town, but it was almost as if there were two people inside her.” His eyes filled as he talked about her. “I don’t know how I loved her, if you know what I mean. That’s confusing to me. But I know she was a part of my soul. And the thought that someone could have murdered that special flower blooming inside her is hard to come to grips with.”

Po listened and felt an unexpected rush of compassion for him. Whether Laurel’s affection for him had been real or fabricated didn’t even matter. It had been real to him. “Jesse, I know this must be difficult for you. But I have a question for you. I’m surprised that Laurel hated people in Crest-wood. That’s such a strong word—hate—and I didn’t think she even knew that many people. Who did she know well enough to hate?”

“Laurel didn’t need to know people well to hate them, Po. If they crossed her—like Ambrose did—or did anything that offended her, she would cross them off her list. It was just the way she was. But there were people here that she reserved a real strong distaste for. I never understood why. She’d only say that her life would be different if they hadn’t messed with it.”

“Who was she talking about?” Leah asked.

Jesse shrugged. “Don’t really know. She said I didn’t need to know. It only mattered that her life had been ruined by people who lived here. It didn’t make sense at all because she never told me she had lived here when she was younger. I guess that sheds new light on everything. But I still don’t know why she hated people or why she would have come back here.” He drained his coffee cup and sat back in the chair. “She’d been really hurt. But she’d never be hurt again, she said. Now she’d be the one doing the hurting. When she talked like that, her eyes turned black and she looked like another person. Almost witch-like,” Jesse said, his voice nearly a whisper, as if he could see her standing there in front of him. “It’d be as if she were alone, and she’d mutter to herself. ‘No more hatchet jobs,’ she’d say.”

CHAPTER 24