Tree of Life and Death (2 page)

Stefan must have closed his folk-art gallery for the morning. That wasn't as much of a sacrifice as it might seem, since he did most of his business in the summer, and his major deals, the ones that netted most of his profit, were by appointment only. As far as I knew, Stefan wasn't a quilter, but he was always welcome at the museum, both for his successful brokering of some recent additions to the museum's quilt collection and for his extensive knowledge of the museum's collection of folk art. He sometimes led tours at the museum and enjoyed sharing his extensive knowledge in excruciating detail with anyone who didn't run away from him.

I didn't recognize the stocky, black-haired woman at his side, who appeared to be lecturing Stefan, forcing him to do the listening for a change. Her smooth round face made it difficult to pinpoint her age, but if I had to guess, I'd have said she was at least five years older than Stefan, maybe more. She wore jeans and a red turtleneck covered with a handmade green smock decorated with what Dee and Emma would have called "cheater cloth." The fabric was printed with scaled reproductions of miniature quilts, which could then be cut apart and appliquéd like the woman in the smock had done, or simply layered and finished to make a quilt without having to actually piece together all the little bits of fabric.

Just as I was about to call over the first person for her appraisal, a tall, willowy blonde in her early twenties, and wearing a pink twinset and heathery purple jeans, came trotting over from the white board. "I'm Trudy Kline," she said. "Emma sent me over to help you."

I handed her the appraisal forms and pencils so she could distribute them to the women seated in the line of chairs along the wall. While they waited, they could fill out the top portion of the forms with their names and addresses and any other background information they had about their quilts.

I called the first client over to the desk and soon lost myself in the work. The first quilt was a faded green-and-white version of a traditional appliqué design known as Oak Leaf. It wasn't terribly old, maybe fifty years, but the workmanship was excellent, as close to perfection as any human being could get, so I quickly checked the box to suggest that the owner get a full appraisal and insurance. The quilt's owner left with one of my business cards, promising to call for an appointment.

Over the next hour, Trudy kept the line supplied with forms and pencils, while a wide variety of holiday quilts passed through my cotton-gloved hands. They ranged from contemporary quilts using fabrics printed with obvious holiday motifs, to vintage quilts that, like the first Oak Leaf, were red and green but didn't otherwise have any holiday references in either the fabrics or the patterns. There were simple nine-patches, more complicated star designs, and even a vintage Sunbonnet Sue variation in which Santa and his elves all wore sunbonnets.

It had been easy enough to identify the various quilt patterns this morning, but there were other challenges with a holiday quilt, especially the ones that weren't brand new. They were likely to have become something more than an object and instead were a symbol of family memories, including lost loved ones who could no longer join in holiday festivities. Oftentimes these sentimental quilts were unremarkable from any objective viewpoint, so while it was simple enough to come up with a dollar amount, it was far more difficult to explain to the owner why the number was so low. Anything less than an astronomical price tag was often considered a slur against the memories that the quilt represented.

I hadn't encountered that type of reaction so far this morning, but it was probably just a matter of time before the pleasant perfection of the morning turned a little rocky. I just hoped that when the inevitable emotional scene arose, I'd be able to handle it without passing out. The local ambulances might be red and white, but they definitely lacked the Christmas spirit.

*   *   *

As my latest client prepared to leave, I looked up to see who was next in line. It was a man in his early twenties, dressed in a light T-shirt, cargo shorts, and sandals.

Trudy glanced at him, her eyes narrowing in obvious recognition. She froze for a moment before blocking him from approaching the desk, keeping her back to him. "Emma said you need to take a break now."

I'd been too wrapped up in the appraisals to notice until then that my stomach was growling. Ever since I'd been diagnosed with syncope, I'd tried to pay better attention to my body's various warning signs. The general medical consensus was that stress was the major culprit in the condition, but no one knew the exact cause. To be on the safe side, I'd been warned not to risk dehydration or hunger, either of which might trigger a stress response and then the loss of consciousness.

I could definitely use a break, but I could also feel trouble brewing, and I was the most likely candidate to diffuse it. Behind Trudy and the appraisal client, the male quilter I hadn't been introduced to yet was closing in on our corner of the room. He was an inch or two over six feet tall, solidly built, with faded brown hair and a neatly trimmed beard that was equal parts gray and brown. Tiny snippets of red-and-green threads clung to his denim work shirt and jeans, giving them a festive appearance at odds with his facial expression, which promised the complete opposite of goodwill toward men. Close behind him was the rust-colored Labradoodle, wearing a blue vest that identified it as a Diabetes Alert Dog. He had a matching blue collar, and hanging from it was a stuffed blue nylon tube the size of a chew toy.

The newcomer walked up to the young man behind Trudy, invading his space and glaring down at him. "What are
you
doing here?"

"It's a free country," the younger man said sulkily and then sniffled. "You've got no authority here. No authority anywhere anymore. So butt out, or I'll call the cops on you. That'd be pretty funny, actually. Don't you think?"

"Not really." The older man pulled back a few inches, just to the very edge of an appropriate conversational distance. "I'll be watching you. Don't touch anything that doesn't belong to you. I've still got friends on the force."

"Whatever." The young man peered at me over Trudy's shoulder.

The older man retreated a few feet to lean against the end of the nearest sewing table, where Dee and Emma were seated. He made an
I'm watching you
gesture at the younger man, adjusted the water bottle clipped to his belt, and settled in for what he obviously considered to be a one-man stakeout.

"Maybe I'd better do this one last appraisal before I take a break," I told Trudy.

"But Emma said you had to do it now." Trudy shook her wrist nervously, setting a charm bracelet to rattling. "She's going to yell at me if you don't."

"I'll take care of Emma when I'm done here." I knew Emma Quinn, and she didn't yell at anyone. That was part of her magic. She could organize and supervise every detail of a quilt show, even after being falsely accused of murder, without ever losing her calm demeanor. If I could ever figure out how she maintained her even temperament, I might be able to return to my law practice. "For now, why don't you go take a long bathroom break? By the time you return, I'll be done with this appraisal and ready to take my own break."

Trudy gave me a grateful look then turned toward the exit, coming face to face with the young man waiting for his appraisal. Apparently she hadn't realized how close she was to him, because she started and sidled a few feet away before telling him he could go on over to my table. Then she announced to the remaining half-dozen people in line that I'd be taking a five-minute break as soon as I finished this appraisal, so everyone should go over to get some refreshments at the conference table.

The young man remained standing while he handed me the form he'd completed. He was excruciatingly thin, which made his lightweight summer clothing even more inappropriate. The weather might be mild for the time of year, but it was still the end of November, not August, and he didn't have even the slightest layer of fat that might have made him less susceptible to a chill. I knew people didn't catch a cold simply from being chilled, but I'd heard him sniffling for the last fifteen minutes, and I couldn't help thinking he'd never get better if he continued to dress so inappropriately for the weather.

I glanced at the completed form he'd handed me. "Is this right? The quilt belongs to Georgia Miller? Or did you mean that it was made by someone with that name?"

"No, it belongs to her." His speech was rapid and clipped even though his eyes drooped with fatigue. "My grandmother. I'm Alan Miller. She doesn't get out much these days."

He dropped into the seat across from me, bouncing his knee up and down restlessly. I was no expert, but between the sniffling, the lack of other signs of a respiratory infection, and the restlessness, I had to wonder if he was under the influence of something other than the common cold. The sooner he was done here, the better.

"You left most of the form blank," I said. "It helps to know a bit about the quilt's history. Did your grandmother tell you anything about who made it or when?"

"She doesn't really talk about it, and I didn't have time to ask before I left this morning," he said between sniffles. "I just know she really likes it. I thought she might want to know what it was worth. All official and everything. It's my Christmas gift to her."

It was a heartwarming story, but not the first one I'd heard today. Besides, I couldn't help wondering how much of it was true. All of my training, as both a lawyer and an appraiser, made me a bit of a skeptic when it came to unproven claims. There was at least one other obvious explanation for his ignorance about the quilt: that he'd stolen it, perhaps to sell to feed a drug habit, and he wanted to know how much it was worth before he put it on the black market.

There was always a risk, especially when doing low-cost appraisals, that I was inadvertently abetting a crime. In that sense, being an appraiser came with some of the same stress I'd had as a lawyer. Before taking on a personal injury case, I'd always had to consider whether the client was lying about how he'd been injured or how badly he was hurt in order to defraud an insurance company or government program. At least with quilts, the risk was relatively small compared to the harm caused by a false personal injury claim.

I might be able to tell more during the process of appraising the quilt. I spread it out on the desk so I could see the whole thing. Regardless of who owned it, the quilt was a masterpiece. It was about six feet square, made up of only five large blocks on point, surrounded by a row of triangles that formed a sawtooth border. The blocks were a traditional design known as the Tree of Life, in which rows of dark and light triangles made up the leaves and branches of the tree.

During my training, I'd seen several Tree of Life quilts, but none quite like this one. For obvious reasons, the design was often made out of green prints on a white background, so it was no surprise that this quilt was predominantly green and white. What set it apart though was the random placement of occasional red triangles, like little ornaments, in the trees.

If I needed any additional confirmation that the quilt had been intended for use during the holiday season, I found it in the holly wreaths hand-quilted into the large, white triangles set between the pieced blocks and the outer border. One of the wreaths had a date, 1968, quilted into it, along with what I thought were the initials SM. Quilted letters were often difficult to decipher, but I was absolutely sure the first one wasn't a
G
. Alan's grandmother might be the current owner of the quilt, but she wasn't its maker.

Frequently, a masterpiece-quality quilt, especially one with a holiday theme, was saved for special occasions and used gently, but this one had been used hard. There were stains and broken seams, and some of the greens had faded.

"Well?" Alan said. "What's it worth?"

"This isn't an easy quilt to appraise," I said honestly. "There are a number of pluses and minuses here. The craftsmanship in getting all these triangle points to be so sharp, and in the hand quilting, is extraordinary, which is a plus. Holiday quilts tend to be sought after, so that's a plus too."

He sniffled. "What's the bad news?"

"The design isn't rare, and the quilt is less than a hundred years old. Both of those factors reduce the price a collector might pay. The biggest problem is that the quilt has considerable wear and tear. Just like with other collectibles, items that are new in the box, or otherwise in pristine condition, tend to be more valuable than the ones that have obviously been used."

"My grandmother says quilts get better with use."

"That's true in personal and emotional terms," I said. "Not so much in financial terms. Of course, your grandmother isn't likely to sell something she's so attached to, so what really matters is the enjoyment she gets from it."

"Maybe this wasn't such a good idea." Alan pulled the quilt toward him, preparing to leave.

"Bringing the quilt here was definitely a good idea." I pointed at the quilted initials. "If you can find out who those initials belong to, the quilt might qualify for a program to recognize the quilts made by residents of Danger Cove. All you need to do is fill out the registry form, and your grandmother's quilt will be part of history with its information and a picture maintained here at the museum forever."

"Yeah?" He stopped trying to roll the quilt into a ball. "Do I have to pay anything extra for the honor? I spent all my spare cash to get here, and jobs are scarce these days."

"No, it's free. All we need is for you to find out the rest of the information for the documentation form. We'd also need your contact information since you're the one who brought it in, so we can arrange for it to be professionally photographed."

I was expecting him to come up with another excuse, but he shrugged and said, "Cool. Do I get something to show my grandmother that she's in the registry? She'd like that a lot. Better than the appraisal, even."