Elm Creek Quilts [06] The Master Quilter (21 page)

“Of course,” said Sarah. “Is there anything I can do in the meantime?”

“Thank you, honey, but I don’t think so. I have some questions about a local real estate company and recalled Sylvia had some dealings with them.”

“Are you planning to move?”

“No,” said Agnes, determined to stay on the fair side of truth. “A friend of mine may be, and she could use some advice.”

“Well, the only company Sylvia’s dealt with since I’ve known her is University Realty.”

“I thought so. That’s the one.”

“I can tell you what Sylvia would say: Your friend should run, not walk, to another agency as soon as possible. Did you know one of their people wanted to raze Elm Creek Manor and build student apartments in its place?”

“That was Gregory Krolich, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Is he tall, dark hair with gray at the temples, would be distinguished if not for the obsequious smile?”

“Expensive clothes, flashy car—that’s the guy.”

“Thank you, Sarah,” said Agnes. “You’ve been very helpful. Please tell Sylvia she doesn’t need to return my call.”

How far could Craig proceed with the sale of the condo without

Bonnie’s consent? The little Agnes had overheard suggested that Craig had implied he had her consent, or at least that she could raise no objections. Krolich had seemed perfectly willing to believe him.

Agnes’s sleuthing had uncovered more questions than answers, and nothing she had learned explained who or what had kept Craig away from home all those nights.

She pondered this all day as she worked on Sylvia’s bridal quilt and made some last-minute revisions to her lesson plans for her Baltimore Album Appliqué class. Perhaps there was no lady friend. It was possible Craig had spent each night sleeping in his office, alone, but that seemed a great many nights to toss and turn on what Bonnie had called old, uncomfortable furniture, regardless of its resemblance to something finer at his beloved alma mater. Bonnie could not afford to hire a private detective to follow Craig, as a suspicious wife on television would do, nor could Agnes herself stake out the condo every evening.

In Agnes’s experience, if a man was having an affair, his best friends knew about it. The betrayed wife usually found out from their wives, if they were close, or from clues the husband carelessly left behind. Bonnie either had found no such clues or had ignored them, and she and Craig did not seem to socialize with other couples much, other than gatherings of the Elm Creek Quilters and their families. Agnes could not imagine Craig confessing an affair to one of the Elm Creek husbands.

The only people who knew Craig as well as his friends were his coworkers, and they probably saw more of him than his family. If Craig was involved with another woman, he had probably conducted the affair from the office rather than home, especially since five years earlier Bonnie had caught him in that awful liaison with that woman from the internet.

When Bonnie called at five to say she planned to eat takeout at Grandma’s Attic for supper while she caught up on some paperwork, Agnes decided to pay Craig an office visit.

First, she stopped by the Grandma’s Attic building to see if his car was there and if any lights were on in the condo above. The car was parked in its usual place and the condo windows were dark, so Agnes continued on foot along the most direct route to Craig’s building. As she left the back alley, she remembered what Darren Taylor had said about securing other joint assets. She would suggest to Bonnie that she drive the old compact home from work one day and store it in Agnes’s garage. Let Craig walk or bum rides from his good buddy Krolich. It would serve him right.

Craig did not pass her on the way across campus. She reached his building at a few minutes to six and checked the directory posted in the lobby for the room number of the director’s office. Since students rarely came to the Office of the Physical Plant, the halls were deserted except for an occasional custodian with a cleaning cart. Light spilled through one open doorway at the end of the corridor; as Agnes approached, she saw the sign announcing
OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR
posted on the wall beside it. She peered inside and saw three desks bearing computers, papers, and the assorted photos and personal knickknacks that attempted to make the workspaces more homey. Not far from the desks was a waiting area, and Agnes understood at once why Bonnie had commented about it. The pieces were enough alike in design—a sort of hybrid of Shaker and Arts and Crafts—to be considered a set, but the chairs and sofa were upholstered in different fabrics and their wooden armrests and legs had been finished in stains of slightly different hues, as were several tables scattered among them. Their only other unifying features were the dings and scratches of what appeared to be generations of hard use. Unless Craig had more comfortable accommodations in his private office, he surely wasn’t spending the night here.

Agnes glanced at the two doors on the far wall; one was closed, light visible through the long, narrow window beside the door. The other was open and, at that moment, Agnes heard the unmistakable sound of a file drawer slamming shut. Before she could duck out of sight, a slim woman, who had short blond hair with a touch of gray, emerged from the room, a stack of files in her arms. “Oh, hi,” she said, smiling briefly at Agnes before seating herself at the largest desk with the most impressive-looking computer. “Can I help you with something?”

Agnes forced herself to smile. “No, I just wanted to see who else was working late. Is Craig still in?”

“Of course. We can barely pry him out of this place lately.”

Agnes nodded knowingly. “I’ve heard he has … company most nights.”

The woman’s eyebrows shot up. “Who? Craig? Not unless his computer counts as company. He’s too cheap to run up his own internet bill at home.”

“I should have known they were only rumors.” Agnes chuckled and gestured at the waiting area. “I guess they would have to be, if the furniture in his private office is as awful as this stuff. No one could sleep—or anything else—on this.”

“What do you expect when he insisted on redecorating at his own expense? Between you and me, though, he’s roughed it more than once. His wife was here the other day and—” Suddenly her eyes narrowed. “But that doesn’t mean I believe those rumors floating around your office. Where do you work, again?”

Agnes made a dismissive gesture. “Oh, I’ll bet you can guess. The office everyone hates and everyone fears they’ll be transferred to. Thankfully, I’m just a temp, which is probably why you don’t recognize me. At least, you don’t seem to. Maybe you do. That would be nice.”

The woman nodded, her brow furrowed, but Agnes didn’t wait for her to puzzle it out. She bid her good-bye and hurried away.

She walked home, too absorbed in what she had learned that day to notice the chill that had descended with darkness. So. Craig stayed up late “surfing the net” as her computer-savvy younger friends liked to say. For a man with his history, that counted as having illicit company, although his assistant seemed certain he was not seeing anyone in the physical sense. Craig did not seem overly fussy, as his choice in new furniture confirmed, and Agnes could picture him being too lazy to do anything more than slouch over to the nearest sofa, lumps and scratches and all, rather than return home after a late night of computer-assisted romance.

That furniture. Something about it … Agnes paused and frowned. That unusual hybrid of Shaker traditions and Arts and Crafts. She had read about that style somewhere, or had seen something like it before.

“Likely at a yard sale,” she said aloud, and continued homeward. Craig’s assistant was right: Craig was cheap and always had been. He would leave Bonnie with nothing to show for their thirty-some years of marriage except for their children and memories unless Agnes found something more substantial than assumptions and intuition to use against him. He’d shake down Bonnie for her pocket change, if he could.

As the last two weeks before the start of the new camp season passed, Agnes learned little more about Craig or the hypothetical computer girlfriend, despite frequent attempts to follow Craig as he left the condo in the morning or work in the afternoon. She did discover that Craig took two-hour lunches at a sports bar near campus at least twice a week, where he sat alone in the clubhouse, had a beer with his sandwich, and watched three separate cable sports networks on the three giant televisions that rivaled movie screens. Her investigation of Gregory Krolich, however, turned up a few important details. Posing as a prospective tenant, she phoned University Realty and inquired about Bonnie’s condo, which she had heard was for sale. The pleasant young woman who answered told her that while it was true the current tenants were moving out, all of the condos were going to be converted to student apartments, so unless that interested her …

“No, no,” said Agnes, laughing to disguise her outrage. “How disappointing, though! It would have been so convenient to live just upstairs from that charming little quilt shop. I’ve always wanted to learn, you see.”

But the quilt shop was moving, too, Agnes learned. They had decided not to renew their lease, and while University Realty was sorry to lose them, they welcomed the opportunity to take over the space themselves. They had outgrown their current building, which like the other businesses on that block had been converted from a single-family home, and they had long desired a storefront closer to campus, to better serve the student market.

University Realty was proceeding as if Bonnie had already signed away both condo and shop, but although Agnes made a risky visit to University Realty to obtain a brochure or flyer or something, the receptionist at the front desk told her they had no rental literature yet available, no matter how urgent her grandson’s need for a student apartment was, and that despite what she might have heard, they had not yet “finalized” their plans for the building. She also asked, politely but with an edge to her voice, where Agnes had heard otherwise, but Agnes quickly left before turning in the helpful assistant, who had really been a dear and whose name she didn’t recall, anyway.

Without any evidence to back up her suspicions, Agnes reluctantly decided to say nothing of her investigation to Bonnie. Passing on rumors would accomplish nothing, only fuel Bonnie’s anxieties.

The first day of camp brought a welcome respite from worry. Agnes was glad to see Bonnie preoccupied with the last-minute preparations for the campers’ arrival rather than Craig or Grandma’s Attic. Indeed, all of her friends seemed cheerful in their work, except for Diane, who spent much of the time she and Agnes were arranging fresh flowers in the guest rooms grumbling about Bonnie’s failure to appreciate her work at Grandma’s Attic. Agnes hid her exasperation and pointed out that Bonnie might have other concerns on her mind, problems more significant than who worked more hours than whom. Diane snorted dismissively, but she kept her complaints to herself for the rest of the day until she drove Agnes home after the Candlelight welcoming ceremony. Bonnie had insisted on departing the manor later, by cab, rather than reveal that she was staying with Agnes. When Bonnie finally arrived, Agnes encouraged her to reclaim the Markham family car, but Bonnie only laughed and considered her suggestion a joke even when Agnes told her she was in earnest.

Bonnie insisted on returning to Elm Creek Manor separately the next morning to preserve her secret, even though that meant a bus ride that ended at the main road and a rather long walk through the woods surrounding the estate. Agnes urged Bonnie to tell her friends the truth, or at least to confide in Diane so she could ride with her and Agnes, but Bonnie said that telling Diane was like telling the entire town, and she wasn’t ready for all of Waterford to know.

For the first few days of camp, Bonnie’s arrangements seemed to work adequately well. She got to work almost on time, and returned home only a little later than usual. Then at lunchtime on Wednesday, Sarah came to the table where Agnes sat eating with her four Baltimore Album students and asked Agnes to join her. Sarah’s voice was so urgent that Agnes immediately agreed and excused herself, following Sarah to a separate table at the back of the banquet hall where Sylvia and Diane already waited.

“Has anyone seen Gwen?” asked Sarah as she sat down. Sylvia and Diane shook their heads.

Their solemnity sent a shiver of alarm through Agnes.

“Bonnie didn’t show up this morning,” said Diane. “We’ve called the shop and the condo, but no one answers.”

“Didn’t show up?” Agnes looked around the circle of friends, confused. “Of course not. She had to open Grandma’s Attic this morning. She isn’t due in until her workshop.”

“Her workshop began at eleven,” said Sylvia.

“Or at least it was supposed to.” Beneath Sarah’s concern lingered a trace of irritation. “We had to juggle the schedule to cover for Judy, remember? It was Bonnie’s idea to close Grandma’s Attic for a long lunch.”

Agnes did not recall; probably Sarah had been too harried to tell everyone. “Maybe she forgot.” But why did she not answer the phone? Likely she had missed the bus and had been forced to take a later one, and even now was en route to the manor. Agnes should have insisted she take her car. What if Bonnie had tried to, and Craig had stopped her?

Agnes tried to disguise her fear. “Someone—one of us ought to go down there and make sure she’s all right.”

Sylvia patted her hand. “Summer’s already on her way.”