Four-Patch of Trouble (8 page)

If Lindsay was willing to give up a hobby that meant so much to her, she was definitely worried. "I'm sure it won't come to that. The prosecutor's theory is ridiculous."

"I know," Lindsay said. "I got the details from the news. Even if she wasn't my grandmother, I'd know there's no way she could have killed Tremain. The killer threw an antique quilt on the body. Grandma would never treat an antique quilt like that. Probably not even a contemporary one. She always says the worst thing you can do to old textiles is to touch them without gloves. Something about the oils in your skin being toxic to the fabric. She and Emma would never have let an old quilt get near a body, dead or alive."

"I'm sure the police will sort it out soon enough," I said before ending the call. It wasn't as easy to cut off the mental image of Tremain's blood soaking into the quilt, destroying it far more than merely touching it could do.

I didn't need Lindsay to tell me that Wolfe's theory was preposterous. Unfortunately, so was the detectives' theory of a robbery gone wrong. Why would a thief go into the far back room that held only papers, instead of simply stealing whatever he or she wanted from the front and making a quick exit?

Maybe the drawers had been empty all along. Monograms wasn't like a big-box store, with constant lines at the cash register. Instead of selling lots of items at relatively low margins, Monograms' business model was premised on selling only a few items at infrequent intervals but at steep prices and high margins. Its clientele was far more likely to pay with credit or debit cards than cash.

But if it wasn't a robbery, then Dee and Emma were at the front of the line of suspects, along with Alyse Laurens. Too often prime suspects became defendants, despite less-than-convincing evidence, simply due to public pressure to blame someone, anyone.

I couldn't let that happen to Dee and Emma. Even Tremain wouldn't have wanted them to take the fall for his death. Not out of any particular concern for them, but because he'd have wanted to be remembered as a powerful businessman, not as the pitiful victim of two little old ladies wielding nothing more lethal than an antique quilt.

The one issue I'd never had to address with Lindsay was tardiness, so it was no surprise to find her at my front door right at 9:00 the next morning. She carried a legal-sized expanding wallet containing information on Tremain and his business partner.

I reached for it, but Lindsay kept it hugged to her chest. "I could stay while you read it, in case you have any questions. I already dropped my grandmother and Emma at the school to continue setting up the show."

"I need to be at the museum when it opens soon, so I don't have time to study the file right now." I pointed to the kitchen peninsula. "Just leave it there so I'll see it when I get home this afternoon. I only have a couple of minutes before I need to leave, but it's plenty of time for you to tell me what's happening at your office. Are you having problems there?"

"Work is fine." Lindsay dropped the file on the peninsula, avoiding my gaze. "I wish I had as good a memory as you do."

"Did you forget something at work?"

Lindsay shook her head. "I was just thinking it would come in handy for remembering change-ringing patterns. I keep messing up during practice."

"You've probably just been distracted lately with helping your grandmother investigate Tremain, and now with his death."

"I suppose." Lindsay dug her keys out of her jacket pocket. "Do you want a ride to the museum? I'm going that direction anyway. Emma asked me to pick up some groceries."

"Just give me a minute to grab my stuff." My quilted messenger bag was on the end of the kitchen peninsula. I'd packed it last night with everything I needed for the initial appraisal work at Stefan's gallery: reference books, camera, gloves, and measuring tape. That should do it. "I wonder if Dee and Emma found a replacement to fill Tremain's booth at the show."

"They sort of already called the first person on the waiting list last night." Lindsay held the outer lobby door while I secured the inner door. "A woman who does long-arm quilting. She was thrilled to have a booth."

"Even with such short notice?"

"She'd have accepted even if they'd called the night before it started. The committee always offers the spaces to prior vendors first, and most of them come back every year. The waiting list is kind of long, and people can be on it for five years or more before they get offered a space."

"Then how did Tremain get into the show? I thought he'd only been in business for a couple of years."

"I don't know," Lindsay said. "I'll ask my grandmother, if you need to know."

"Just curious." I locked the outer door behind us. "It hardly matters now, and I'm sure Dee and Emma have more important things to do than satisfy my curiosity."

In fact, so did I. My suddenly overbooked schedule carried an increased risk of syncope events. The one yesterday was the first I'd had in several months, and while it wasn't worth making an appointment to see my doctor about it, I'd definitely be keeping my phone close at hand, and not just because I'd promised Lindsay.

*   *   *

Gil Torres was singing the blues, passionately enough to be heard in her waiting room while the door was closed.

I didn't know the genre well enough to identify the title of the song, even when Gil sang a bit of the lyrics instead of just humming. Even to my untrained ears, though, the song had the distinctive chord progression of the blues.

I knocked. "It's Keely Fairchild. May I come in?"

Gil stopped singing, and the door swung open. "I was just about to call you. I've been worried sick about you."

"You've heard the news then."

Gil gestured for me to sit and settled back into her own chair. "Oh, yes. From at least a dozen different sources. I'd rather hear it from you."

I was torn between gratitude that Gil didn't blame me for the public relations nightmare and frustration that so many people had managed to give her their stories before I could control the narrative. "I assume your board of directors has been passing along all the rumors."

Gil mustered up a sad smile. "I know they're good people, volunteering their time and all, but they can be a challenge too."

"What have you heard?"

"Tremain was murdered in his shop, shortly after he'd been threatened by two prominent members of the Danger Cove Quilt Guild over his role in the upcoming quilt show, sponsored most prominently by yours truly. The quilters, and I believe you too, were at the scene of the crime, complete with means, motive, and opportunity." Gil hummed a few more despairing notes. "Have I got it about right?"

"That's not quite how I would have presented the facts, but that's the gist of it."

Gil let out a sadly trilling sigh.

"There are some additional facts that change the story a bit," I said, making a desperate grab to regain control of the story. "There were other people there too. Tremain's partner, for one. And a reporter, who can establish an alibi for Dee and Emma."

"I thought you could alibi them."

"Unfortunately, I was…" I thought back to the detective's questioning. "At the exact time of the murder, I was indisposed. In the ladies' room, some distance from where Tremain was killed."

"Still, an alibi for Dee and Emma is a start." Gil scribbled something on a legal pad. "Anything else I can tell the board? They've called an emergency meeting for this afternoon."

"It seems a little premature to hold an official meeting. There's nothing anyone can do until the police arrest Tremain's killer."

"That's exactly the sort of situation the directors like the most—a chance to take a stand when nothing's at stake and no difficult action has to be taken."

"Would it help if I came to the board meeting and replaced some rumors with facts?"

Gil hummed for a minute and then shook her head. "No, I've got this one. It looks like Nancy Grant—she's the woman who cut in front of your appointment yesterday—is going to keep everyone calm. She isn't well liked among the other directors, but she always gets what she wants. Her husband is a state legislator with influence over municipal funding. Danger Cove usually gets some grants for the museum, and the directors don't want to risk alienating the source of our funding by alienating the politician's wife. Nancy is convinced the murder had nothing to do with the quilts or the museum. Of course, she also believes the rumors about Tremain's scams were false, so it's easy for her to believe he was killed by some random burglar, or possibly a jealous business rival. Let's just hope the police catch the killer before Nancy has to accept the allegations against Tremain were probably true." 

"I'm sure they're doing their best," I said, despite my concern that the detective might be unduly influenced by Wolfe's ridiculous theory about Dee and Emma. "I'm even more sure you're doing your best to keep the scandal from affecting the museum. The board will see that."

"I'd like to think so," Gil said. "But I'm new here, so I don't have any goodwill to leverage. The quilt acquisition program was going to be my chance to show them what I can do, and now it could be in jeopardy. They're understandably anxious about adding to our quilt collection in the middle of a scandal over a local dealer passing off reproductions as antiques. No one cared about the fakes before, but it's different now that they're linked to his murder."

"Which means the first appraisal I do for you may be my last. The board will always associate me with Tremain's murder and the related scandal, and they won't want anything more to do with me."

"If it makes you feel any better," Gil said, "if you're out of a job, I probably will be too. I serve at the pleasure of the directors for the next six months. I don't think they're pleased with me at all right now."

*   *   *

On the way to Stefan's gallery, I experimented with a few different approaches for my upcoming speech to the quilters, but none of them felt right. It shouldn't have been this difficult to write. I'd never had this much trouble planning an argument to a jury where far more was at stake than impressing a few potential clients.

Just thinking about it was enough to cause the nausea lurking in the corners of my stomach to stir. I pushed thoughts of the speech to the back of my mind and concentrated on the appraisal I was about to do. The work was challenging, but I found it relaxing. I could admire the artistry and skills of the quiltmaker and then get lost in the puzzle of when and where it had been made. With a little luck, the appraisal would be just the distraction I needed to clear my mind before settling down to write the speech.

The reporter, Matt Viera, was waiting on the sidewalk outside the gallery, talking to someone on his phone. As I approached, he ended the call and dropped the phone into one of the multitude of pockets in his tan cargo pants. Today's sport shirt was a lighter but still unflattering shade of yellow.

We were both early, and the gallery had a
Closed
sign hanging on the door. There were no lights visible through the gallery's front display windows, but that could have been just because of the thick, dark curtains hanging between the glass and the interior of the shop.

"Morning," Matt said. "Have you heard anything new on the murder investigation?"

"As a reporter, you must have better sources than I do." I tried the gallery door, just in case, but I wasn't surprised to find it locked.

"Arts reporters don't really have sources that know anything about murder," Matt said with a shrug. "I thought maybe your prosecutor friend might have told you something."

"We're hardly friends. I only met him yesterday."

"So the preferential treatment was just a case of lawyers sticking together? Like a school of sharks?"

"I wasn't exactly encouraging Wolfe to treat me differently from the rest of the witnesses." He had, though, and had been obvious about it. One of these days, his biases were going to get him into trouble. "I was just being practical. I needed to stay on his good side to keep him from doing anything rash. If it were up to him, Dee and Emma would be in police custody right now."

"I guess I should have kept my mouth shut around him then." Matt didn't look particularly apologetic. In fact, I was pretty sure there was a hint of glee in his eyes. "Isn't that what lawyers always tell their clients?"

Apparently, no one had gotten the memo that I wasn't practicing law any longer. "You're not my client. Neither are Dee and Emma. I was only at the meeting yesterday as a concerned friend of the family."

"I did some reading on you last night," he said casually. "You were a really successful trial lawyer until a year ago. Why'd you quit?"

He might be a small-town arts reporter, but he had a knack for uncovering sore spots. Just one more reason not to get too close to him. "None of your business."

"Actually," he said with a grin, "it is my business. More so than Tremain's murder. I'm covering the quilt show, and you're one of the main speakers. It would be a nice angle if I could write about how the show's new appraiser is a burned-out lawyer who came to realize that an art career may not pay well, but it's still more rewarding than her previous career."

I wasn't ready to talk about it, least of all to a reporter. "Did you look into Tremain's business history as closely as you're looking into mine? Or are you just feeling guilty you didn't expose him before he did any damage, so you're trying to make up for it by manufacturing a story about me?"

"I do feel some guilt," he said. "Or maybe just disappointment that my investigation didn't turn up anything verifiably shady about Tremain's business. I wish it had. He might not have appreciated it, but he might have still been alive if the legal system had stepped in so the killer didn't have to."

It was comforting to know that I wasn't alone in feeling an irrational sense of responsibility for Tremain's death. "Are you sure he was killed over his fraudulent quilt deals? Couldn't there have been some other motive?"