Quilt As Desired (32 page)

She added hot water to her bath twice, but after an hour her fingers were so wrinkled it was getting hard to turn the pages. Fred was meowing by the front door when she finally came out of the bathroom.

"What is it?” she asked. She peered out the peephole, but no one was standing on the porch. She went to the window, but she didn't see anything. She turned back to the cat.

"No one's out there,” she told him. She held him up to the window so he could see for himself. She walked into the kitchen and put a piece of bread in the toaster. While it was toasting, she decided to organize the quilts piled in the corner of her bedroom.

She brought them out to the living room, got the stack of registration receipts and did her best to organize them into a logical delivery order.

Her toast was cold and burned when she returned to the kitchen, so she threw it out and put a fresh slice in the toaster and pushed the lever down again. Fred wove through her legs as she paced the kitchen.

She jumped when the toaster popped.

"Get a grip,” she said out loud. “It's not like you've never been alone before."

She buttered her toast and ate it with a glass of orange juice then carefully washed her hands before she returned to her organization project.

She and Mavis must have been getting tired at the end, she decided. They had done a careful job of folding on some of the quilts, but a few were sticking out of the ends of their bags. She stacked the bags according to neighborhood and looked at her watch. She still had an hour before Harold was due.

She looked at the door again. She really wanted to go check on Misty.

"What are we going to do, Fred?” she asked the cat. “Mavis will kill me if I go outside alone, but we have a lot of time."

Fred meowed.

"Okay, maybe we'll have a closer look at the winning quilts."

She spread Jenny's quilt over the recliner. Every corner was perfect. She ran her fingers over the surface. All the join areas were completely flat. She wondered if she would ever reach that level of skill.

"Oh, Fred,” she said. “There's so much to aspire to."

She put the quilt back in its tote bag and pulled out Avanell's. As her hand closed over the center fold her fingers felt something hard; something that definitely didn't belong.

She laid the quilt over the recliner then spread her fingers and systematically ran her hand over the surface.

Like Jenny, Avanell made flat, smooth seams and joins. Harriet turned her attention to the trapunto areas, which were filled with more cotton batting than the rest of the quilt. She hoped she hadn't been imagining things. She placed her left hand underneath and right hand on top and squeezed each section carefully.

When she reached the third square she felt the lumps. She manipulated the area again. It felt like small pebbles were inside the batting. Was it possible gravel had gotten into the quilt when Aiden used it to carry the injured dog? She had repaired a rip, but she could have sworn it was in the pieced, hand-dyed area.

She went into the bedroom, found Mavis's sewing kit and located the seam ripper and a needle and thread. She picked up a tissue in the bathroom and came back to the quilt. She sat in the chair and pulled the lumpy section into her lap.

She wanted to leave the least evidence of her work, so she turned the quilt over and located the back seam nearest the area in question. Carefully, one by one, she picked out a row of stitches. When she had an opening about four inches long, she reached inside with her fingers then, with the other hand on the outside, worked the objects over to where she could reach them and pulled out the first three pieces.

"Oh, my God!"

In the palm of her hand were three perfect diamonds. She laid them on the tissue and dug into the slit again and again. By the time she could feel no more lumps, she was looking at twelve diamonds. The smallest had to be nearly a carat in weight. The largest might be twice that.

Harriet didn't know whose diamonds she was looking at, but it suddenly became clear why someone wanted a quilt so badly.

Fred meowed, and she jumped at a knock on the cottage door.

"Who's there,” she called.

She looked through the peephole as Bertrand called out, “It's Bertie, Avanell's brother. I've come to pick up her quilt."

She opened the door.

"Harold told me he was going to help you deliver the exhibits from the show,” Bertrand continued, “and I thought since I was going right by here I would come by and pick ours up. You know, save you a trip."

"It's really no problem for me to deliver it,” she said, and realized how stupid she sounded as soon as the words were out of her mouth. “Let me lock my cat in the bedroom,” she said and shut the door. She hurried across the room and scooped the diamonds into her pocket.

"I'll take those if you don't mind,” Bertie said. He'd opened the door and followed her in.

"What are you talking about?"

"Don't play dumb with me—it's not becoming. We both know if you were, in fact, dumb, you would have left well enough alone and I would have picked up the quilt and no one would have been the wiser."

Harriet was going to protest again but could see it was no use. She also saw for the first time the shiny gun in Bertrand's hand.

"Give me the diamonds."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't play coy with me, Miss Truman.” He motioned with the gun. “Turn out your pockets."

Harriet stalled, feigning trouble getting her hand into her jeans pocket. She was so focused on the gun she didn't see Misty come in through the open door.

"It was him,” she cried. “He's the one that killed her."

Bertrand turned his attention briefly away from Harriet to the girl. In that split second, Harriet grabbed Avanell's quilt and threw it over his head.

The gun went off.

"Run,” she yelled as she dashed to the door and pushed Misty through it. She ran around the side of the house, passing her, then pulled her through the fence and down the trail. She heard the front door bang but didn't look back to see how close Bertrand was.

Misty started for the potting shed, but Harriet signaled her past and through the woods beyond the yard to the trail she and Aiden had taken to his mother's house. She felt a burning pain in her shoulder before she heard the second gunshot. She knew she couldn't think about it. She kept running, Misty close on her heels.

She imagined she heard Bertrand wheezing then realized it was Misty. She couldn't take much more. Harriet tried to remember how the trail went.

The gun sounded again, but not as loud this time. She left the trail and went into the woods, again pulling Misty after her. The underbrush pulled at their clothes and blackberry bushes scratched their hands and faces, but she kept them moving. She couldn't hear Bertrand anymore.

Ahead, she saw a tunnel some animal had made into a large brushy mound. She dropped to her knees and pushed into the bush. Misty followed her, gasping for breath. She had to be careful; the forest didn't go on forever. It was dense, but she wasn't sure how wide the greenspace was, and whether Bertrand would be able to take the road and get ahead of them.

The tunnel widened into a low den-like area. They squatted in the narrow space. Harriet listened but didn't hear anything. Her shoulder hurt.

"He killed her,” Misty repeated. “I saw him kill her. She was yelling at him. He said give me the bottle.” Tears ran down her cheeks and dripped off her chin. “She pulled a bottle out of her pocket, and he killed her."

"I'm sorry you had to see that, but right now we need to worry about ourselves. He's out there somewhere with a gun."

"The police will come,” Misty said. She was calmer than Harriet had ever seen her, but she wasn't sure if this was the real Misty, or if the drugs were giving her serenity she shouldn't feel in this situation.

"We have to be as quiet as we can. Harold should be arriving to pick me up soon. Hopefully, he'll see something's wrong and either come looking or call the police."

"Harold and Bertrand are friends,” Misty said. “They eat lunch together every day."

"That doesn't mean Harold won't get us some help.” Harriet wasn't sure, but she didn't want to upset Misty any more than she already was.

She couldn't tell how much time had passed before Misty pulled a watch with a broken strap from her pocket.

"What time is it?"

"Ten-fifteen,” Misty said. “Carla should be to town by now."

"What are you talking about?” She prayed there was a rational answer.

"Carla and I were coming to talk to you. We saw Mister Bertrand go into the cottage, and I told Carla she should go call the police. I had already told her he killed Miz Jalbert. She doesn't have a car, so she had to walk to town."

Harriet thought she heard a siren in the distance but couldn't tell if it was coming their way or not.

"Let's go back to the potting shed. You can stay there, and I'll get closer to the cottage and see if I can tell what's going on.

She crept back out of the tunnel of brush and retraced her steps to the path.

"If we meet Bertrand before we get to the house, I'll keep him busy, and you run,” she told Misty when they were both on the trail again.

Misty nodded and followed her closely as she crept back toward the house. They reached the potting shed, and Harriet had to argue to get Misty to stay there.

"Think of your baby,” she said, and Misty finally agreed.

Harriet paused to survey the cottage before she went through the hole in the fence. Nothing seemed out of order. She crept around the side of the house, staying close to the camellia bushes that crowded the windows.

When she could finally see the driveway, a dark Mercedes was parked there. She rounded the corner and could see the front door was shut. She was considering her next move when a voice spoke from behind her.

"Looking for someone?” Bertrand asked. He pointed the gun at her again. “Now, I believe you have something of mine. And don't bother waiting for Harold. I sent him on his way. He believes I came by as we had prearranged so I could pick up the quilt, and that I arrived and found you already gone."

Harriet knew that going in the house would be a death sentence.

"I think we both know you're going to kill me no matter what, so can I at least know why you killed Avanell?"

"If you're thinking you can keep me talking long enough for someone to come rescue you, you can think again. We are going inside—now."

She was trying to decide which direction would give her the greatest chance if she made a break for it when Aiden came out of the woods.

"What's going on here? I was walking Randy in the woods, and I heard gunshots.” He kept walking toward Bertrand.

"Stop. Don't come any closer. I've got a gun,” Bertrand said, as if Aiden couldn't see the weapon in his hands.

"What? Are you going to shoot me? You can't kill us both. If you shoot me, she'll run, and if you shoot her, I'll kill you."

Bertrand spluttered but couldn't come up with a response. His gun hand started to shake.

"It's over, Uncle Bertie. Whatever it is that's going on here. You can't kill everybody."

Aiden moved surely toward his uncle and grabbed the gun. The two men struggled for a moment, but three years of hard living in Africa had toughened Aiden in ways his uncle couldn't compete with. He pulled the gun away and quickly dumped the bullets out onto the ground.

Bertie started to cry. “You don't understand. They will kill me. They said if I didn't get the diamonds back they would kill me. I'm a dead man."

"Don't worry, Uncle Bertie. You're going to be in protective custody,” Aiden said.

"If you don't get the death penalty,” Harriet added. “I'm going to call the police."

After the police arrived and collected Bertrand, Harriet took an ambulance ride to the Jefferson County Hospital for the third time that week. This time Misty was her roommate for the drive. It turned out the bullet had streaked across the flat of her shoulder blade without penetrating anything important. She had a painful groove, but was eventually able to leave after promising to return to the clinic the next day to have her bandage changed.

The doctors decided that, all things considered, Misty needed to stay until she was properly hydrated, fed and stabilized on her medication. After a week and a half on the lam, she was ready to sleep on clean sheets and eat three squares a day, even if it was in a hospital.

Mavis had arrived while the doctor was dressing Harriet's wound and refused to stay in the waiting room.

"Oh, honey, does it hurt?” she asked. “Are you okay? I mean, obviously, you're not okay, but can I do anything?"

"You can get me out of here before they decide to try and keep me."

"This is my fault. I never should have left you alone."

"As soon as you sign the paperwork, and I write your prescriptions, you can get out of here,” the doctor said as he came back into the emergency cubicle. He was holding an x-ray up to the ceiling light. “Looks like no bones were broken. We didn't think there were, but we have to check. Don't forget to come in to the clinic tomorrow so they can clean your wound. One of your prescriptions is for a fairly strong antibiotic, but you still need to keep it clean."

"I will do whatever you say as long as I can go home."

Mavis tried to talk Harriet into staying at the cottage one more night.

"I really appreciate everything you've done for me, but I need to be in my own bed in my own bedroom."

In the end, the only way Mavis would agree is if Harriet let her come along.

"I know Bertie is in custody and the danger is over, but I don't think you should be alone after all you've been through. Beth would kill me if I just sent you home on your own."

"Could we pick up something to eat on the way?” Harriet asked. “I'm starving."

Mavis's face turned pink. “I think we need to go to Beth's first and see what we have there."

"I can tell you what's there. A bunch of rotting vegetables and some canned goods."

A nurse wheeled Harriet to the door. Mavis had parked in the emergency lot, and after a brief negotiation, the nurse agreed to push her all the way to the car.