Murder on a Starry Night: A Queen Bees Quilt Mystery (13 page)

Going to Marla’s bakery and café Sunday morning with Leah Sarandon was a tradition as old as Po and Leah’s friendship, and it was in keeping with that tradition and nothing else that found the two women sitting in the busy bakery the day after finding Joe Bates’ body. They were surrounded by gossip thicker than the syrup Marla served with her blueberry pancakes.

“Everyone and his brother will be in here this morning,” Po said, looking around at the nearly full breakfast spot. The line was beginning to form outside the windows and would soon be winding down Elderberry Road, people coming from church or home or a college dorm, enjoying the crisp fall day.

“Bad news seems to bring out everyone,” Leah said. “I guess they just want answers. But gossip is such a bad place to look for them.” She sat back as a young waitress put a platter of eggs down in front of her.

“It’s so ugly. All this mess,” Po said, the experience of finding Joe’s body still tightly wrapped around her heart. Adele had spotted them out at the pond, staring at the grisly sight. She’d rushed across the lawn, her face a portrait of horror and shame.

Phoebe and Kate helped Adele back to the house, while Po called the ambulance and police from her cell phone. She had stayed there at the lily pond, feeling an instinctive need to guard Joe until help came. Within minutes the driveway was once again filled with spinning blue lights and the kind of attention no new business would wish upon itself. After all the Bees were questioned by the police, Po and Kate stayed on with Adele for a short time, urging her to rest and wondering if they could help contact any of Joe’s relatives. But there were no relatives, Adele said, that much she knew about the old man. And then she had collected herself, looked out at the garage and carriage house, and announced that she’d now need to do some renovating of the apartment above the garage. It could be a suite—perhaps for honeymooners, she’d remarked. Po had cringed, but was grateful no policeman was around at the time. Sometimes Adele was her own worst enemy.

“Ladies, I thought you’d never get here.” Marla Patrick, her brow dotted with perspiration, sided up to the small table near the window. She wiped her thick hands on a smudged apron and leaned over Po and Leah. “Who would have imagined that skinny woman had it in her?”

“What are you talking about, Marla,” Po asked, though the answer was only too clear. Marla had already convicted Adele Harrington. And that meant there were many othersin the room sharing the same sentiment. Marla’s opinions were usually fueled by others.

“Adele Harrington, that’s who. Drowned old Joe as sure as I’m breathing. I knew she was up to no good soon as she came back to this town.” Marla straightened up and scanned the room to make sure her waitresses were being attentive to customers’ needs. Then she hunkered low again, speaking in a whisper. “Tom Adler’s over there with his wife—” Marla nodded toward the other side of the room. “Comes in right after Mass at Saint Boniface’s. Said that he was over at the house the other day and heard Adele say she wanted to get rid of old Joe.”

“Tom isn’t too fond of Adele, Marla,” Po said, trying to soften the statement that she herself had heard come out of Adele’s mouth.

“Tom hates her, sure. Would love the place to fail, and then he’d scoop it up himself. But that doesn’t matter a whit. What matters is that the Harrington woman will stop at nothing to make things go her way.”

“Marla, you don’t know that,” Leah said, feeling the need to protect Adele Harrington from the surging wave of gossip.

“I know what I know,” Marla said, her small green eyes moving from one woman to the next. “I don’t like to speak ill of anyone, you know that, but we need this evil to stop so we can get back to normal here in Crestwood. We need all those out-of-town folks to keep coming to Elderberry Road. Our businesses need those folks, Po, and they’ll stop coming if this evil cloud hangs around much longer. You know that and I know that. Adele Harrington needs to be put in jail or driven out of town.”

Driven out of town. The words lingered in Po’s head as she looked over at Tom Adler. He was standing now, handing his wife her sweater and collecting his bill. He would certainly like the B&B to fail, she thought. His development business had come on hard times recently, and developing the Harrington estate would help it considerably, everyone knew that. Po watched him talking with his wife and greeting the mayor, who had just come in the door. Could Tom possibly have done something as awful as drown poor Joe Bates to make Adele look bad? But if not Tom, who? Marla was right about one thing—the activities at 210 Kingfish Drive needed to stop now—before any more damage was done.

“Po, a penny for your thoughts,” Leah said. “Marla has moved on, you can come out of your cocoon.”

Po smiled. “Sorry, Leah. I was lost in thought. None of this is making any sense.” She picked up her coffee cup and drank slowly, nodding to a neighbor vacating the table next to them.

“Adele may not be the most lovable person in town,” Leah said, “but I think Marla is wrong about her. Besides, you don’t kill someone just to get them off your property.”

“No, I would hope not.” Po fingered her napkin, thinking about Adele. She knew in her heart that Leah was right. But things were certainly not looking good for Adele.

“Po?”

Po looked up into the sad eyes of Halley Peterson, standing beside the table next to them.

“Oh, Halley,” Po said, reaching out to touch the offered hand off the librarian. “I am so sorry about Joe.”

Halley nodded, forcing a smile to her lips, and Po noticed moisture gathering in her eyes.

“It’s so awful, Po,” Halley said.

Jed Fellers walked up behind Halley and nodded at Po and Leah. His face was drawn, his eyes troubled. “Hi Po. Leah. Not the best of days, is it?”

“Hi, Jed,” Po said. “No, it’s most definitely not. It’s kind of amazing how quickly news spreads in Crestwood.”

“Halley heard it on the news early this morning,” Jed said. “I think it’s all over town.”

“I couldn’t stay in my apartment,” Halley said. “I wanted to scream or beat on someone or be sick. When I called Jed, he suggested a walk instead.”

“Halley was probably one of the few people in Joe’s life since Ollie’s death,” Jed said.

“In these weeks since Ollie’s death,” Halley said, “Joe and I spent time together, going through the few writings and things of Ollie’s that Joe was able to wrest from Adele. He was such a good man, and he certainly didn’t deserve to have his life end like this.”

“No one deserves something like this, Halley,” Po said. She watched Jed order tea and scones for Halley, grateful that the sweet woman had someone to lean on during these difficult times. She was still dealing with Ollie’s death, and now to have another tragedy touch her life must be nearly unbearable.

“Jed has been good to let me lean on him,” Halley said, as if reading Po’s mind. She looked over at him and smiled.

Po watched the exchange. A slight blush colored Halley’s cheeks when she looked at Jed, and his returning smile was comforting. She wondered if a romance might be in the making between the two. They were an unlikely couple, but the difference in age seemed to fall away in the looks they exchanged. And Jed was certainly a very young fifty. Something lovely in the middle of all this sordidness would be a good thing for everyone, she thought.

“Do you know if there will be a service for Joe?” Halley asked. “I wanted to call Adele, but she doesn’t like me very much, and I doubt if she’d give me the time of day.”

“I’ll try to find out, Halley, and I’ll let you know,” Po said.

“Halley and I would be happy to pack up Joe’s things,” Jed said. “Adele probably doesn’t want to be bothered with it. She didn’t like Joe much either, as I understand it.”

“No, she didn’t,” Po said. But she also didn’t like strangers on her property, and Po doubted if Jed’s kind offer would be received well. It was a shame, because Halley cared about the man and would treat his belongings with respect. Adele would most likely shovel everything into a dumpster.

Leah finished the last trace of her eggs and sat back, her napkin beside her plate. “On a happier note, congratulations, Jed. I hear the book served its purpose.”

Jed laughed. “I guess you could say that.”

Leah looked over at Po. “Jed has been offered the department chair. A perk for being published.”

“Good for you, Jed. You certainly deserve it,” Po said. She remembered those tense days when Sam was a young professor, needing that affirmation from the college administration. Well, this was good. And they needed good news these days. Jed accepted the compliment, but seemed uncomfortable with the attention and soon had turned the conversation back to Po and the quilters, wondering if they had finished their quilts for 210 Kingfish Drive.

“Almost,” Po said. “We’re finishing borders and backs now, and then they will all be quilted by a wonderful lady over in Parkville, Missouri. It’s been a nice project for all of us, except for all the grisly goings on over at the Harrington place.”

Po reached for the check that the waitress placed beside her empty plate. She placed a bill down on top of it and pushed out her chair while Leah followed. “You two enjoy your breakfast,” she said.

The two women picked up their bags and wove their way through the narrow space between tables to the front door. “Let’s make a getaway before Marla heaps more gossip on our shoulders,” Leah said softly into Po’s ear. “She means well, but sometimes Marla talks entirely too much.”

Po agreed. She liked Marla, but her small bakery was becoming a hotbed of gossip, and sometimes that did more harm than good. The town needed concrete answers to make this unrest go away, not a sea of suspicion and innuendo. Leah pushed open the door, and Po followed her out into the bright cool sunshine of the fall day. And then the two women stopped, stepping back instinctively into the shadow of Marla’s awning.

Tom Adler stood across the street next to a pear tree, staring through the closed car window of Adele Harrington’s empty Cadillac. His head lifted, and he scanned the block, looking for something, someone. As Po and Leah watched, a figure emerged from Max Elliot’s law office a few doors down. Adele Harrington was dressed in a bright blue silk suit. A leather portfolio hung from her shoulder, and she walked down the short stand of steps and headed quickly toward her car. Sunday walkers passed her by, some greeting her, others casting her curious, suspicious looks, but Adele ignored them all, her eyes cast straight ahead.

Po and Leah watched Tom step back behind the clump of trees, hidden from Adele’s sight until she reached the car and removed her keys from her purse. For a minute Po thought Tom was going to say something or do something harmful to Adele. But then she saw his wife wave to him from a bright red BMW parked a few spaces back, and Tom lowered his head and hurried to his car.

Po and Leah watched the long car taking the corner fast enough to scatter leaves in all directions.

“What do you suppose that’s about?” Leah asked.

“I don’t know, but I’m glad Tom’s wife had the good sense to remind him that she was waiting in the car.”

“Did Adele see him, do you think?” Po shifted her purse on her shoulder, and she and Leah began walking down the street toward Gus Schuette’s bookstore. “And I wonder what she was doing at Max’s office on a Sunday morning?”

“With all that’s going on at her home, she may have needed some legal advice.”

Po had had the same thought, and dear Max would meet someone in need in the middle of the night if they asked. She glanced over at the small brick building that housed his office and noticed his car was gone. He’d clearly come in just to solve Adele’s problem, whatever that might have been. She’d see him later that day—Max hadn’t missed a Sunday dinner at the Paltrow home in nearly a year—and she wondered if he’d bring this up. Probably not. Max was a paradigm of discretion, one of the many things Po was coming to appreciate—and to love—about him.

Leah and Po reached Gus’s bookstore and walked into the shadowy haven. Gus had modeled the store after an old bookstore he visited in London—hardwood floors, paintings placed on available wall space, and lots of small rooms crammed with shelves and library ladders and overstuffed chairs begging to be used. Po loved it here, and the owner, too. Gus and his wife Rita had been in her life longer than she could remember. Sam used to tell Gus that he and Po had single handedly paid for the Schuette kids’ education with the money spent in the store.