Cancelled by Murder (15 page)

He seemed satisfied. But all I could think of was what a motive for murder, with so much at stake. I was relieved that at least he'd sat back and wasn't breathing on me anymore.

The last thing I wanted was to show that I was nervous, that his intimidation techniques were working. I had only one move to prove otherwise. I stood and straightened my shoulders, leaving all five feet five of him hunched over the wooden table.

I had no second move, so I was relieved when a vendor came up to us.

“Excuse me,” the young man said. “I need to borrow Reggie for a minute.”

“He's all yours,” I said, as if I were in charge of Reggie's schedule.

The look in Reggie's eyes, under the Red Sox cap, could have melted an umpire's mask.

I abandoned the idea of hanging around for the vendors' meeting. Some other Saturday, maybe. I beat it back to my car and headed home, leaving the old accordion man playing “Roll Out the Barrel” and the man who might be Anonymous in my rearview mirror.

O
n my trip home, I tried to focus on the lush environment on either side of the road. Rolling lawns with stately white houses set back and, now and then, a stone-based wishing well or Civil War cannons guarding the estate.

I opened my window and breathed in fresh air, listening to the swish of the tall, noble evergreens, remembering trips to Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. One of the last outings I'd taken with my parents had been to a Friday-morning rehearsal on the great lawn. We'd brought a large thermos of coffee for them, a cooler of soft drinks for me, and the makings of a picnic lunch.

Had I expressed my appreciation at the time, or had I been a surly teenager, whining, talking about missing my friends back home? Telling my parents I wished I'd gone to the mall with Jamie and Ashley. Over the years, I'd gotten better about this kind of morose thinking—wishing for a redo of
every holiday, every weekend, every breakfast with the parents I'd lost so early.

I shifted my attention to what I'd learned at the market, other than the fact that Reggie Harris deserved his spot on my suspect list.

Farmers' markets had become significant sources of retail trade in the community. It now made sense to me that kickbacks, if they existed, might involve substantial sums of money or other favors, not simply a twenty-dollar bill slipped under a rickety picnic table. Even the vehicles that carried the goods had been upgraded from when I was a kid—no longer rattling trucks with wooden frames to keep crates of produce secured, but instead, shiny vans with fancy logos on the sides. In Knox Valley, the tent covers were new and multicolored, bringing the beautifully landscaped civic center, with its modern brick buildings, to life.

None of these observations, not even Reggie's rudeness, was enough to take to Sunni as the work of an (almost) legitimate investigator. But there was still a lot left of Saturday. I needed to plot my next move and tackle the next suspects.

The obvious choice? The ladies of the quilting group. And, even better, they were my assignment from the chief of police.

*   *   *

I made a quick stop at my house to pick up a project that had been sitting on a shelf in my spare bedroom, waiting to be quilted. I'd finished the top layer, a simple nine-patch design, as recommended by Sunni and the others as a good quilt for first-timers.

“Just do squares. You're not ready for triangles,” Sunni had said, sounding like my old geometry teacher.

She'd accompanied me to Daisy's shop and helped me pick out novelty fabric with sepia photos of antique lamps and small furniture in browns and rust. Suitable for a lap quilt meant for Quinn.

“Do you think it's too soon for a gift like this?” I'd asked her and Daisy.

“Do you mean, is there a list for dating, like for anniversaries? Twenty-fifth, silver; fiftieth, gold?” Sunni asked.

The three of us had a good time coming up with a parallel list for dating.

“First month, paper,” Daisy had offered. “Like a ‘Thanks for being a friend' card.”

“Second month, food,” said Sunni, who, despite her small frame and trim figure, seemed always to be hungry. “How many months has it been for you and Quinn, anyway?”

“We met about a year ago. It's hard to say when our first date was.”

“Okay, one year is good for a quilt,” Daisy had said. “But only a small one, a lap quilt for the living room, not one for a king-sized bed.”

“Got it,” I'd said, and we all had a good laugh.

Tears welled as I thought of that conversation and of a time when Daisy was so full of life. I imagined Cliff, less than a week after her death, reminiscing constantly, overwhelmed by good memories and a sense of loss.

I stopped in front of my house, not bothering to pull into the driveway. I squeezed between my neighbor's new truck and a beige sedan I hadn't seen before. I walked by
the car and saw the driver. Officer Ross Little, in his dusty blue uniform, holding a map. Strange. Especially since I was pretty sure any car less than ten years old would have a GPS.

I bent down and addressed him through the open window. “What's up, Ross? You got my message about the cancelled pickup this morning, right?”

His response—stuttering, fumbling with the map—indicated that he'd been napping.

“Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said, straightening his posture, crinkling the map. “I'm just checking something out here.”

Again, strange. It looked like a street map of North Ashcot, the freebie at all our fast food and convenience stops. How often would anyone have to look at that map before having it memorized?

I shrugged, told him to have a nice day, and climbed the steps to my house.

Inside, I cast a longing glance at my rocker and stack of books and magazines. Wouldn't it be nice to settle back with a newly acquired McIntosh—the apple, not the laptop—and read for a while? But a cop's work is never done. I took a deep breath and made my way to the back bedroom. I packed up the quilt top, the bamboo batting I'd bought, and a few yards of a mottled-cream-and-gold piece of fabric for the back. My plan was to take the bundle to Fran Rogers, who was one of the quilters in the group who owned a long-arm sewing machine. The other was Eileen Jackson, but I'd already bothered her enough, sending her on a fruitless mission to find my nonmissing sunglasses.

The first thing I'd learned when I joined the group was
that, no! Sewing squares of fabric together by hand or on my basic machine was not quilting. It was just that, sewing, or as the experts in my group called it, “piecing.” Technically, quilting referred to stitching together three layers: a top layer, which could consist of any number of patched-together pieces of fabric or appliquéd blocks; a middle layer of batting; and a final layer or back of the quilt, often one solid piece, though some overachieving quilters in our group created backs as elaborate and complicated as the fronts.

This final step in the quilting process went so much more smoothly with a long-arm machine. Fran's model included a twelve-by-four-foot table with long railings, variable needle positions, a stitch regulator, and a host of other features she was always glad to talk about at our meetings.

I called Fran to be sure it was okay to stop by and take her my project. She agreed to take it on, and said she could have it done in a week to ten days.

“Were you hoping to have it for the display next week?” she asked.

“Oh no. Not hanging next to yours,” I said, thinking of the beautiful quilts, works of art, that she and other members of our group and quilters in neighboring towns turned out. “Maybe a few years from now.”

I didn't bother explaining that I didn't care how long the quilting took; my true motive for the visit was to talk about Daisy's murder. Besides, though I didn't admit it to Fran, it was unlikely that I'd be ready to hand over such a present to Quinn very soon whether it was finished or not.

I'd already stalled with the project, telling myself I didn't have time to work on it, but Linda had gotten me to face the
real reason: I wasn't sure the time was right for such an elaborate (for me) personal gift.

“Didn't you say his birthday was coming up?” she'd asked recently.

“Right after Labor Day. Way too soon.”

So far, Quinn and I had exchanged sweatshirts from our respective alma maters, UMass from me to him, CAL from him to me; and not much else of significance. My birthday had come and gone with no acknowledgment. I'd managed to hide it from everyone in North Ashcot except Ben, who had access to my employment records, but agreed to keep it to himself and claimed it was just a coincidence that he'd brought a strawberry shortcake into work that day.

Was a birthday quilt over-the-top for this point in my relationship with Quinn? Maybe a store-bought scarf was more appropriate. Or a basket of goodies from the farmers' market. Good thing I didn't have to decide on the spot.

I stuffed my fabric into a large tote and carried it to my car. I noted that Ross was still parked out front and gave him a wave.

Fran's home was on the western side of town, well past the post office. On the way, I passed Ashcot's Attic, where Quinn worked. I tried to shut out the image of my quilt one day flung over an old sofa, with
CLEARANCE SALE
signs on both.

*   *   *

Fran welcomed me into her home and into her quilt room. She'd turned what might have been meant as a TV or family room into an enviable sewing room, dominated by
the elaborate machine/table combination, and lined with shelves containing well-organized storage boxes for fabric and notions. The skylights were the perfect source of light for close work.

“Daisy Harmon helped me set up this space,” she said, her tone subdued.

“We all miss her,” I said, feeling a little guilty that I was thinking about seizing the moment for data gathering. “I remember I closed the post office around noon on that day, just last Monday, and went home to wait out the storm. And then I learned that not too long after I drove by her shop, poor Daisy . . .” I trailed off.

Fran shook her head. “It's hard to believe.” She sat on her sewing chair and motioned that I should sit beside her and hand over my project pieces.

“Cliff was all the way down in Springfield for a conference when it happened,” I said. “Isn't it ironic that the seminars were all about security?” A second shot at alibi talk.

“I hope he's doing okay,” she said, separating the three layers of my soon-to-be quilt. It seemed Fran was not about to give up her own alibi for the time Daisy was killed. “Cliff is one of our subs for security at the bank now and then, as you probably know. A very nice guy, not one to start trouble. I'm sure he regrets all the tension between them this last month or so.”

Tension?
This wasn't the first time I'd heard a reference to a less than perfect home life for Cliff and Daisy.

“I heard about that,” I said, tsk-tsking, straining to remember where and from whom the subject had come up. “I thought things were getting better, though.” A fake, and with
it came a sour taste in my mouth. I tried to keep it at bay. I wasn't built for deception at this level.

“That's not how I understand it,” Fran said. “Daisy didn't really care where or when she spoke her mind. She even got into a brouhaha with her accountant, right on the floor of the bank.” When my eyes widened, Fran clarified, “I mean in the middle of the open area, not literally on the floor. The point is, lately Daisy had been stepping it up. Her community involvement was getting out of hand and Cliff was upset. It's never good for businesspeople to be too vocal about political matters.”

Stepping it up? Involvement? Now I remembered. Random suspicions about Cliff. First from Ben, but only on general principles and murder lore. And then again from Sunni. During our suspect brainstorming, she'd implied that Cliff should have been on my list, and more than simply for his position as spouse. Once more from Reggie, this morning. He'd brought up Cliff's displeasure at his wife's activism with regard to the farmers' market. And now Fran.

I felt my loyalty to Cliff taking over. “Right now he's a grieving widower and wants nothing more than to find who killed Daisy.” When Fran didn't respond, I pushed further. “I guess you're in favor of Reggie Harris's proposal. I noticed you were at the meeting last evening.” Pulling out all the stops.

I'd only guessed at the nature of the meeting—another fake that worked. Fran nearly dropped my bamboo batting, which she'd taken from the dryer after a few minutes of fluffing. “You're very observant,” she said, meaning, I surmised, nosy.

“I'm just an interested citizen,” I said, worried that in her
nervous state she'd stick herself—or me—with one of the nearly two-inch, large-head quilting pins on the table between us.

“I'm sure you are,” Fran said. It was the first time I'd seen any sign of anger in the mild-mannered bank teller. Her wiry frame seemed to have come unglued. She took a long, loud breath and held up the top layer of my lap quilt. “We probably should talk about this instead. These seams are very well done, Cassie.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“I see you've followed the common wisdom of using dark colors for the corners and the center and lighter colors on alternating interior squares.”

“I had advice from the chief of police,” I said, but Fran simply smiled, already safely back in her neutral persona. The investigative moment had passed.

“This is for Quinn, right?” Fran asked, arranging the front and back of my quilt on a hanger, then on a rack with other to-be-quilted projects.

“Yes, but there's no rush,” I said.

“Would you like me to quilt some hearts in the center? I can use red thread. Maybe with your initials and his inside? Or some other sentiment?”

I gasped. “Uh, no, thanks. No sentiment, okay?”

Fran gave a short wave to indicate understanding. “Too soon?”

“Uh-huh. Just some of your usual graceful swirls will do.”

“I can do some small items like lamps or clocks. Would that be more appropriate?”

“Much better.”

We both laughed and I was glad we were on good terms
before she attacked my project. I had visions of an angry Fran tearing into my layers of fabric with shredding scissors.

In lieu of a fee for her work, Fran usually asked her customers to make a donation to whatever cause was at the top of her list that week. In the recent past she'd solicited support for a neonatal IC unit, a community food bank, a girls' soccer team, and a homeless shelter. I took my checkbook from my purse and asked her preference.

She spelled out the name of an organization of hospital volunteers. “I'm going to ask our group to help me make at least six wheelchair quilts this fall. I have a special pattern that calls for usable scraps.”