Murder on a Starry Night: A Queen Bees Quilt Mystery (18 page)

For an hour Po rummaged through books and charred papers, scattered across the shelves and on the floor. She collected those that were still intact and made a small pile near the door, then added some framed pictures of Oliver and his mother that were wavy beneath the glass but still intact. There was a picture of Oliver and Joe, and one of a young Oliver—perhaps twenty or so—standing next to a beautiful young woman. Po took it over to the window and looked at it more closely in the sunlight, rubbing the surface clean with her finger. Only in the bright natural light did Po realize the woman was Adele. She was standing next to her brother, smiling into the camera. Po took a piece of paper towel and rubbed the cracked glass. Adele and Ollie. Happy. Po wrapped the picture in folds of paper towel to protect it and added it to her pile.

A solid old roll-top desk, its legs darkened by the fire but still holding up the top, stood a few feet from the bookshelf. It was a massive thing, Po saw, and seemed to have resisted the fire by its very boldness. The curved roll-top, swollen with water and singed by flames, stuck when Po tried to slide it up, but a few strong tugs and it gave way. Inside, Po found more of Joe’s life—pads of paper, damp bills, pens and pencils, and several small books. Some legal-looking documents that were waterlogged and curled. Po pressed one flat and could read Ollie’s name at the bottom, but the rest was smeared and indecipherable. Po frowned. Odd. And somewhat unsettling. Po thought about all the claims on Oliver’s house, and the thought that he may have written up a will before he died surfaced briefly, then disappeared beneath the weight of the task in front of her. Po gathered what papers were intact and set them beside the door to look at later.

Po emptied the cubby-hole containers in the old desk and found bank books and scraps of papers, a small garden guide filled with newspaper clippings on gardening and notes Joe must have written to himself. She picked up a still-intact book jacket, soggy now and darkened from heat.
A Plain Man’s Guide to a Starry Night
. She smiled at the thought of Joe reading the book, maybe sitting by the window, looking up at the night sky that Jed had written about in his book. Clearly, Adele was wrong. Joe did read. And read books that Ollie would have liked, perhaps that Ollie had encouraged his friend to read.

Po piled the desk contents into a box and continued poking though the cavernous lower cabinet of the old desk, pulling out more pictures, an old pipe that still had tobacco packed tightly inside the bowl, and a whole stack of legal-sized yellow pads of paper. Po smiled at the pads. She and Joe had something in common—capturing thoughts on yellow pads of paper. Po had them lying all over her house. She picked one up and realized it was Ollie’s, his familiar, neat printing filling the lines. Notes from a class, it looked like, and another cited books from the library, and in the margin of one, she spotted Halley’s name and a small heart doodled next to it.
This is the kind of thing Halley must have been looking for
, she thought. The things she had shared with Ollie and that Joe had taken from his room before Adele arrived. Po scooped up the pads and added them to her stash. Perhaps she would give Halley the pad with her name on it—a small reminder of how much Ollie cared about her. It would mean something to Halley, and Adele surely wouldn’t want it.

A few hours later, Po decided she had done all she could do and the rest could be done by workmen who would remove the debris and prepare the small apartment for its renovation. She hailed a painter walking behind the house and had him help her pile the salvageable things in boxes— the telescope and a couple of lamps that had escaped the fire’s wrath. Some silverware that might have been Adele’s mother’s. Po decided Adele should see them and decide their fate. She directed the painter to carry some of the boxes over to the house, storing them for now in the basement where the smell wouldn’t bother Adele.

The other things—the desk contents, some books, a pile of photographs and the yellow pads—she piled in boxes and carried to her car. She’d dry them out at home and return to Adele anything that might have memories of Ollie attached to it.

A day’s work well done, she thought, driving down the driveway and tugging her cell phone from the pocket of her jeans. She was pleased that she had relieved Adele of a task that would clearly be a burden to her.

And now that the Adele was settled and the carriage house was cleaned out, there were other things Po needed to put her mind to. Phoebe, bless her platinum head, was right this time. Things were moving too slowly, and a woman’s reputation was at stake—and maybe her life. Something had to be done soon to salvage Adele Harrington’s reputation—and the beautiful bed and breakfast inn at 210 Kingfish Drive.

Po paused at the end of the drive and pushed the buttons on her small silver phone. “P.J.,” she said out loud. “How wonderful that I’ve caught you. How would you like to share a bowl of spicy shrimp soup with me tonight?”

“I’m only here because of your cooking, Po,” P.J. said, standing over the stove and stirring the rich coconut milk broth. He closed his eyes and breathed in the pungent smell of garlic, ginger, and parsley. “It’s definitely not the fact that I strongly suspect I’m being lured here for other, less delicious motives.”

Po smiled and spread two placemats out on the oak table that had been the heart of the Paltrow home for thirty years. Small indentations along the surface spoke of years of homework, games being played, and friends gathering to argue politics, literature, and philosophies of life while eating and drinking in the warmth of the Paltrow family room.

“Better set three, Po,” P.J. said, glancing at the table.

“Kate knows you’re here?”

P.J. nodded. He scooped up a small amount of soup in a ladle and tasted it. “This is fantastic. You’ve outdone yourself, Po.” He set the spoon in the sink and walked across the kitchen to the small bar in the family room bookcase and began mixing gin and ice cubes in a silver shaker. “Kate doesn’t care about me, Po,” he said over his shoulder. “It’s your Thai soup.”

Po pulled out another placemat. She had purposely not called Kate because she didn’t want her around when she talked to P.J. about the murders. But that was silly, she knew. Kate had never fit nicely in a cocoon, and Po’s instinct to put her there whenever there was a chance of anything bordering on danger or sadness was irrational, if heart-felt. And there was always plenty of food—she’d made enough soup for an army, planning on taking some over to Adele the next day and freezing the rest.

“Kate had a yearbook meeting with the high school kids but will be here when it’s over. She was skipping pizza for your Thai soup.”

“I’m honored,” Po said. The sound of a car in the driveway announced Kate’s possible arrival, but when Po looked over at the back door, it was Leah coming in, a deep rust corduroy skirt swishing around her ankles and a hand-woven scarf wrapped around her neck. And just a step behind her was Jed Fellers.

“It’s getting chilly out there,” Leah said, taking off a wool jacket and hanging it on a hook by the door. “I hope you don’t mind my barging in, Po. Jed and I had a committee meeting, and I convinced him that the only antidote for it was a bowl of that Thai soup you told me you were making tonight. Tim was on call, and I needed to be with people.” She waved across the room at P.J. and gave Po a hug. “And I convinced Jed that he did, too.”

Behind her, Jed smiled sheepishly. “Hope it’s okay, Po. Leah was hard to say no to.”

“Of course I don’t mind,” Po said, smelling the bouquet of flowers Jed handed her. “I’d have been offended if you had said no, Jed.”

“I think it’s all this unrest, Po,” Leah went on, searching in Po’s cupboard for a vase. “I feel it on campus every day. Just bad vibes everywhere.”

“The kids are confused,” Jed agreed. “It’s a tense time.” He took the vase from Leah and filled it with water.

Po pulled out a couple more placemats. “The soup will ease the chill. But you’re absolutely right about the tension. The neighborhood is filled with bad energy. And, unfortunately, it’s going to take more than soup to get rid of it. How is Halley handling it all, Jed?”

Jed thought for a minute before answering. He put the flowers in the vase, set it aside, and leaned back against the counter. “I think she’s doing all right, Po. We’re both wondering now if we’ll ever know who is at the bottom of all this. And Halley is trying to accept that, trying to move on.”

“I was inclined to think that myself. But the fire changed that. It brought the presence of someone evil closer to us again, not someone who did those awful deeds, then skipped town.”

“There’s the possibility that they’re not connected,” Leah said.

Po thought about that. P.J. had told her the same thing before the others came. The police were considering all angles. But deep down, Po didn’t buy it. There were connections between all the happenings at the B&B, she felt sure of it. Unfortunately, feelings didn’t solve crimes. She needed some facts.

A minute later, Kate breezed through the back door, pulling it shut behind her. She strode across the kitchen and swung a lumpy cloth bag onto the counter. “Fresh French bread from Picasso’s, a bottle of wine and hunk of cheese from Brew and Brie, and Marla’s cheesecake. Elderberry Road in a bag,” she laughed. She planted a kiss on Po’s cheek and hugged Leah.

“Come here, woman,” P.J. bellowed in a deep feigned accent from the other end of the room. “What am I— chopped liver?” He set down the martini shaker and spread his arms wide.

Kate walked across the room and into his embrace, wrapping her arms around his waist. Her thick dark hair brushed his cheek.

P.J. breathed in her scent. “Katie, my love, you smell almost as good as Po’s soup,” he murmured.

“And you smell like gin.” Kate pulled her head back and looked into P.J.’s wide smile. A lock of sandy hair fell across his forehead, and Kate brushed it back with her finger. She pulled away. “I’ll leave you to your shaking, Flanigan. Make mine with an olive, please.” Kate moved back to the kitchen and began pulling out platters for the cheese and bread.

Po knelt down before the floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace that filled one end of the roomy living area. She pulled the black screen open. “I’m going to start a fire. I know it’s early, but somehow it seems to fit the night.”

“My job,” Jed insisted, and knelt down beside the fireplace. “Let me put my Eagle Scout training to work.”

“Perfect,” Leah said, and carried the platter filled with cheese and crackers to the coffee table. “Maybe it will warm our bones a bit.” She slipped out of her clunky clogs and settled down on the overstuffed couch, her feet tucked up beneath her.

Po sat down beside her and accepted a martini from P.J. “And together we’ll warm each other’s spirit.” She sipped the martini slowly, enjoying the tingly sensation as it passed down her throat. The evening hadn’t turned out exactly as she had planned—a private talk with P.J. to pull what information she could out of him about the investigation into Ollie and Joe’s deaths. Even though P.J. wasn’t working the case, he always knew what was going on, especially when it was as personal and close to home as this case was. She wanted an update, wanted him to know she was absolutely convinced that Adele had no part in any of the bad things that were happening in their neighborhood. She wanted him to help salvage what was left of a proud woman’s reputation.

Kate stepped into her thought. “I stopped by on my way over here to check on Adele.” Kate had curled up on the opposite couch, her long, jeans-clad legs twisted like a pretzel beneath her. A red cashmere sweater that Po had given her for Christmas last year matched the color the fire was bringing to her cheeks. “She’s one gutsy woman. Tom Adler stopped by while I was there. That guy just doesn’t give up. He left his wife out in his Beemer and barged right into the house. He suggested the time had come for Adele to sell the place before she ruined the whole town. His words, certainly not mine.” Kate cut a piece of cheese and handed it to Leah.

“What?” Po sat up straight, nearly spilling her martini down the front of her black turtleneck. “What is he talking about?”

“He insinuated that Adele was personally responsible for two murders, a fire, nervous neighbors, and the loss of business to the town because people were afraid to come to Crestwood with Adele around.”

“The man is certifiably crazy,” Leah said.

“And desperate,” P.J. said.

Jed stoked the fire until the embers were glowing and flames began lapping at the brick sides, then lifted himself into a chair nearby where he could give it a poke when needed. “Adler came into Picasso’s the other night when Max and I were having a drink. He’d been drinking pretty heavily and Picasso asked him to leave. I think the fellow has some personal problems.”

“He’s in some financial trouble, yes, but that’s no excuse for that kind of behavior. Adele should have accused him of trespassing,” Po said.

“Oh, she did,” Kate said. “She threatened to call the police, and I think she would have, but the damsel waiting for Tom became impatient and began honking the horn. Tom went running.”