Scandal (16 page)

The counter person was Linda, a gal I'd known for years. "I'm here to talk to Sheriff
Kelly."

She played it cool, as if she didn't already know the whole story, greeting me like I was
there to collect for a charity drive. "Is he expecting you?"

"Yes." I didn't elaborate with words like "autopsy", or "dead husband in my back yard", or
any such thing, though it all flashed through my mind. I also thought about Lena shooting the bear
and didn't mention that either. When Linda indicated the waiting bench, I took a seat and looked for
a magazine. None. The walls were bereft of artwork, no plants on stands or pots sitting on window
sills to ease the starkness. All business and a hard one at that.

I didn't have to wait long before Wish came out and beckoned me to follow him. I feared we
would be going directly to see the body but he took me to his office. "I don't have to identify his
body?"

"No, he was identified when we found him." He motioned to the chair opposite his desk, sat
on the corner of his desk, and sighed. "Here we go." He opened a box beside him and pulled out a
clear, plastic bag that had written on it, in black marker pen:
Evidence, Thomas Buler
. It also
had the date. But I didn't see that at first. What I saw was a piece of cloth that I recognized
immediately. Little machine-embroidered, blue and purple spring flowers all over against a pale
yellow background.

"Oh, my God!" popped out of my mouth.

"You know what this is?" Wish laid the bag down on the desk.

I reached for it but he put his hand out.

"You can't touch it. It's evidence. Can you tell me what it is?"

I'd recovered my startled wits. "Can you tell me where you got that?"

He flipped the box closed, set the bag and cloth on top and moved to the chair behind his
desk, like we were having just any old conversation.

I expected him to ask if I wanted a cup of coffee, like they do on television cop shows when
they're trying to put the suspect at ease. To distract them. Instead he said, "How about you answer
my question first, and then I'll answer yours?"

I stalled. "That's part of a piece I bought years ago. Why do you say it's evidence? Where
did you come upon it?"

"Not yet. What did you do with the material? Was it part of one of your quilts?"

"Fabric, please, not material. Well, sure, I used some bits of it in a crazy quilt of leftover
pieces I made some years back." I was getting exasperated with this man, my
friend
, "Where
did you find this piece?"

"How about you tell me? My wife sews and she is particular about her cloth. She knows
where every piece is, and what she used it for. Stop playing with me. I know you don't let go of your
'fabric' easily, especially if you like it a lot. I gather most of it's not in the crazy quilt. Where did this
piece come from?"

"You're asking me to tell you where
you
found a piece of fabric?" I was scared now,
as I did know what had been done with that fabric, but I didn't want to tell him until I'd talked it
over with Sammy first. My face must have showed that I knew the answer to his question, but I
answered it with a small distraction, a white lie, if you will. "I gave some to a friend. I've not seen it
for a long time, now, so I don't know what happened to it."

He wasn't distracted, but I could tell he was becoming annoyed. "The cloth? Or, the
friend?"

Details, he was going for the details. "The cloth. I don't know. Doesn't matter. I used up the
pieces I had left. Not sure I remember when I saw it last. Please tell me where you found it."

"Fair enough. It was gripped in your dead husband's fist. What was his dominant
hand?"

"Huh?"

Wish stood up. "Please, Magda, stop stalling. I think you know what happened to that
fabric. You need to tell me. Now."

"Right. He was right handed." I was having trouble breathing.

He handed me a bottle of water.

I unscrewed it, took a deep breath, and then a shallow drink. I could barely swallow, my
throat was so tight.

I whispered, "She made a dress with it."

He stared at me for what seemed a long time, and then said, "This dress, did it have a
pocket?"

Another small drink. "Yes." I screwed the cap back on.

"Where?"

"The left side."

"Then if he'd been falling, and grasping as he went down, he could have pulled the pocket
off with his right hand, if he was facing the woman?"

"I suppose so." I unscrewed the lid again, took another drink.

"Now, will you tell me who was wearing that dress?"

"I don't know who was wearing it!"

He glared at me.

I'd given the fabric to Lena and she had made a shirtwaist dress from it. One with a breast
pocket. This looked the right shape for that pocket. Yellow threads hanging from where it had been
torn loose. How?

My mind jumped around for a different answer, but none came. I told him the truth. "Okay,
Lena made the dress. She was very pretty in it, too. She's rather old-fashioned looking, you know.
With the way she does her hair, the dress was right. She liked to wear it when she wanted to look
extra nice, like to parties. But I don't know if she was wearing it when the pocket got torn off.

"Surely, you don't think Lena had anything to do with Tommy's death?" Once started I
couldn't stop. "She and Tommy never got on, you know. Her snippy mouth and his controlling ways.
He always said she never knew her place with a man. I always figured he thought that 'cause she
wouldn't give way to him in anything. Even when he knew best, like about fishing.

"She'd belittle the catch he'd bring in, saying if he'd just exerted himself a little more, gone
out farther, not given in so early, he could have brought in bigger ones from deeper down. He'd say
something then like maybe he wanted to get home to me, but that since she couldn't keep a man she
wouldn't know anything about that." I ran out of steam then, and looked at him.

"How could this all tie in with Tommy being dead?" I sounded pitiful, so I inhaled,
breathing confidence into my words. "I'm sure Lena doesn't have anything to do with this."

"Lena would be the one to answer that. We will be asking her."

At that moment a woman said, through the speaker on Wish's desk, "Hey, Sheriff, a guy
named Sam Smithers wants to come in. Says he's with Mrs. Buler."

Wish looked at me.

"Oh, yes. I'd like him here." To myself, I said,
now
.

Sammy came in and I introduced him. They shook hands.

To Sammy I said, "Wish--I mean Sheriff Kelly--and I went through school together. He
knows I couldn't have done this."

I plopped back in my chair while Wish pulled up a chair for Sammy. He moved it so he was
sitting close beside me, his shoulder touching mine.

Wish gave the touch a glance but I didn't care. In my short time with Sammy I felt closer to
him, and safer with him, than I ever had with Tommy. And I didn't care who knew it.

Tommy had been, at the end, a worthless husband. I knew that I'd done my best to be a
decent wife, but then, I'm not perfect. My widow weeds aren't going to be spotless, either. I put my
hand on Sam's knee.

Wish said, "I'd like to agree that you couldn't, but I don't know any such thing. I think it's
time to talk more to Lena. Do you know how I can find her?"

"Wait," said Sammy. "The autopsy? What did this man die of? Shot? Strangled? What? I
thought that's what we were here for?"

Wish started towards the door, motioning that we were done. "Yes, we know what killed
him. You'll know soon enough. We'll get Lena and meet you in an hour at your studio."

On the way to our car he said to Sammy, "You be there with Mrs. Buler."

When Magda and Sam came back to her house I was ready to stop sewing. Soon after I
started putting the pieces together I'd discovered a mistake in Sophie's work. Her diagram didn't
jibe with one of the sewed pieces. I could see where she'd started to undo it. Some of the threads
had been cut, but then she'd abandoned the project.

I knew she'd hated fixing. I could remember her voice when she'd tried teaching me how to
sew, frustration adding an edge to her words. "Annie, this piece here is not right. You have to rip it
out."

I'd glared and grabbed the piece with both hands to rip it apart.

She had stopped my hands with hers. "No, here." She handed me a little thing that looked
like a cuticle pusher but with a tiny sharp knife on its end. "This here is a seam ripper. You'll be
using it more than you're gonna like, but it will be a good friend in the end." She'd held up my
mis-sewed piece, slipped the little knife in, began undoing my precious work.

Made me mad. I'd reached to take it from her hands, managed to get in the way and got a
nipped finger.

"Don't get your blood on it," she'd said. Then, "I hate ripping out my work. But sometimes,
you just have to do it."

I had a clue as to why she'd abandoned this project.

It had waited several years but finally, I'd corrected her job, feeling just the tiny bit
superior at my patience, and yes, at my re-sewing of her seam. The piece now fit correctly into her
pattern.

I'd been going gangbusters on the thing and feeling confident, until I ran out of cut pieces. I
needed more fabric. From Magda's stash in the closet of her sewing room I found a mauve and
cream checkered fabric that I knew would liven it up and bring the zing it had been missing. I
wanted to use my untried tools to measure and cut. For that I needed Magda.

And tea and a sweet. They came in and found me at the fridge, taking out a jar of
strawberry jam to set beside the jar of chunky peanut butter.

One look at Magda's face and I knew I was done sewing for the time. Her hair was shaggy
like she'd been running her hands through it, again.

"You must come with us. I have to get a quilt. Wish wants me to bring it to the studio. He's
bringing Lena."

"To your studio? Why?" She'd gone down the hall, so I looked at Sam while I found the
bread and a butter knife.

"They found a piece of fabric in her husband's hand. I'm not sure what he's thinking, but
looks like it might be something that both Maggie and Lena have to do with."

"In his hand?" A vision came up that wasn't pretty. I nearly put away the idea of the
sandwich, but with me, hunger for something sweet always overrides whatever's going on. I took a
bite and then a drink of milk. That helped quell the queasy that had started with the vision.

By the time Magda returned with a quilt in a good sized tote, I'd finished my lunch and
cleaned up. Magda said she'd rather I drove, so we went in my car, with her and Sam sitting close
together in the back seat. I wanted to ask questions but had to focus on making the correct turns up
into the hills to the place she'd once described to me as her place of serenity.

I wondered how she felt about it now, the place where her husband had been murdered
and buried? I hoped today's quest would put the questions to rest, but perhaps I should fear the
answers even more. Magda was so close to Sam's heart.

What does that quirky Lena have to do with all of this?

I parked beside The Sheriff's car in front of the cabin. Only the sound of nervous breathing
from the backseat was witness that I wasn't alone.

Sam said, "Don't worry, it's gonna be all right."

Magda didn't answer, but opened the car door, stepped out and reached back in for the
quilt. She stood there a moment, gripping the handles of the bag and looking at the straggly bushes
by the front door. "Gotta neaten that up."

Sam came to stand beside her. "I'm your man." He linked his right hand in her left. I came
up behind them and heard him whisper, "Okay, girl, let's get this over and done with." We went
around the side of the house to the back yard.

Sheriff Kelly and a deputy stood under the apple tree near the empty grave. The hole in the
ground still gaped. The tree looked forlorn, with a few apples hanging. The ones on the ground were
drawing yellow jackets. Their humming was the only sound.

Off to one side were Deputy Bybee and Lena. Sheriff Kelly nodded as we went to stand next
to Lena.

"Our need, now, is to find out what happened, and why," he said. "I have reason to believe,
Lena, that you have the answers."

Lena made as if to leave.

Deputy Bybee held her in place.

Lena sagged in defeat, but not in submission. She shot straight up again, wrenching from
the deputy's grasp. She grabbed Magda's hand and pulled her to the edge of the ragged hole.

"None of them will understand, but you. You have to. It was awful! He's...was...a terrible
man. He scared me!"

Magda pulled her hand free.

Lena screamed, "Don't leave me alone, Mag. Please. I didn't mean to ruin your life!"

Magda reached for Lena's shaking hands, wrapped her own around them.

The sheriff stepped close to them. "Ms. Veil, I have something I want you to see."

She recoiled and shrieked when the sheriff put his hand into his jacket pocket and pulled
out the plastic bag with the piece of fabric in it.

"That don't mean nothing. That's just cloth."

"Magda, I believe you have something in that bag. Can I see it?" When she handed him the
bag, he put it on the picnic table and pulled out the quilt. "Grab the other end here, let's open it up,"
he said to the other deputy.

Lena's body hunched. She opened, then shut her mouth.

The sheriff pointed to a piece in the crazy quilt design, a pale yellow, flowered piece. "Do
you recognize this fabric, Ms. Veil?"

She leaned close to look, twisting her mouth. "Uh, yeah. We all made stuff out of it."

He laid the plastic bag on the quilt, beside the fabric she'd admitted she knew. Though its
contents were brown and dirty, there was enough design left to see that they were the same.