The Devil's Puzzle (23 page)

“About what?”

“I don’t know.” She pushed the letters toward me. “Read them yourself, and maybe you can tell me.”

The letter was dated July 3rd, 1975.

“What do you think it means?” I asked Molly. “What choice was he blackmailed into?”

“I don’t know.”

“And what awful harm was he protecting Grace from?”

“I think someone was trying to kill her.”

“Any thoughts on who that might have been?”

She took a long, deep breath, and I watched her study me as she did it. “What about Eleanor?”

“That’s crazy.”

“I’m sure it is. It’s just, well, he did have that argument with his mother about Eleanor.”

Carrie walked over with two cups of coffee—a fresh iced one for Molly and a hot cup for me. “Anything else I can get you?”

I looked up, the anger evident in my eyes. “No thanks. Molly and I are going over to Someday Quilts.”

“Grandma?” I called out as we entered the shop.

“Back here, knee-deep in hand-dyed woolens,” she called back, and as she did I could see her leg from behind the last row of shelves. “I tell you, Nell, there are so many beautiful hand-dyes coming out. Just when I say I’ve made all the quilts I want to make in my lifetime, a new pattern or a new line of fabric comes out and I’m hooked all over again.” She peeked out at me and saw Molly. “Who is this? A new recruit? I warn you, young lady, quilting is addictive.”

“This is Molly O’Brien, Grandma. She’s just come to town.”

Eleanor dropped her fabrics and came toward us. “I know that name,” she said. “Do I know you?”

“You know my grandmother, Elizabeth Sullivan.”

Eleanor’s eyes widened, and she took a step back. “My heavens. I can see Elizabeth in you. And your great-grandmother, too. Grace Roemer. Did you know I worked for her?”

“She did,” I said.

Eleanor looked at me, taking a second before it was clear she had made the connection. “You’re here about Winston.”

“I came down from school in Boston to represent the family,” Molly answered her. “I understand you knew him.”

“I knew him, yes.”

We could have spent a lot of time on small talk leading up to the reason I’d brought Molly to meet Eleanor, but I didn’t have the patience.

“Molly thinks that someone was trying to kill Grace,” I said.

“Apparently someone was trying to cheat her, or at least that’s what Winston believed, and Molly is wondering if that person was you.”

Molly turned bright red, but Eleanor laughed.

“Nell is a bit more direct than she is polite. Why don’t we sit in the classroom and talk?” Eleanor turned to the only customer in the shop, a regular who came in at least twice a week. “Shout when you’re ready to have your fabrics cut,” she said. “We’ll be in back talking over old rumors.”

Once we settled into the classroom, I couldn’t help but notice Molly staring at the quilts. My devil’s puzzle blocks were still on the design wall, waiting to be sewn into a quilt top. But there were finished quilts as well, used as samples for kits and classes, that decorated the walls.

“These are beautiful,” she said. “When this is all over I want to make one.”

“No one better to teach you than Eleanor,” I said. “Assuming you haven’t gotten her arrested for killing Winston.”

Molly blushed again. “I’m sorry,” she said to Eleanor. “It’s just that you were closer to Grace than anyone, so if she was in danger . . .”

“Either it was from me or I might know about it,” Eleanor finished Molly’s thought.

“Exactly.”

“Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, dear, but as far as I know, Grace wasn’t in danger. Certainly not from me, I can assure you of that. And not from anyone else, either. She was ill. What would have been the point of anyone trying to kill her?”

“What about cheat her?”

Eleanor shrugged. “Not that I know of. This is a good town, with good people. I can’t think of anyone who would do something as heinous as cheat a dying woman.”

“The mayor said something about Winston and Grace having an argument about you,” I said, getting to it before Molly could.

Eleanor blushed. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“No idea what it could have been about?”

“They didn’t see eye to eye about a lot of things. But I can’t think of why anyone would harm Winston.”

“But someone did,” Molly pointed out. “And I think it’s because he knew something. Maybe someone wanted her money.”

“Her children were her only heirs, and they adored her,” Eleanor said. “Besides, Elizabeth was in California, as you know, and Winston . . .”

“He was the one raising the alarm,” I pointed out.

Eleanor nodded. “Her money was in trusts, as far as I know. Winston was in charge of them. If he wanted her money, all he had to do was take it. And he was very careful with it. Grace used to call him Scrooge.” She laughed, then looked embarrassed when she glanced toward Molly.

“Well, he was worried about something,” Molly said.

She pulled out the letters her grandmother had sent her, and Eleanor read them one by one. As she did, I noticed that a batch of photos was also included, and I went through them. Most of them were of Winston with Grace.

“When were these taken?” I asked.

Eleanor looked at them. “That summer,” she said. “Right before we left for Canada. Winston had come back in May for a visit and stayed.”

“Was he planning on staying long?” Molly asked.

“He wasn’t at first, then he changed his plans. And then he changed them again,” Eleanor said. “Or at least I thought he had.” She put the photos on the table in front of her. “All those years in that garden. That poor man. And to think I spoke ill of him at his mother’s funeral. I thought he had left without saying good-bye to his dying mother. I thought it was the most selfish thing in the world.”

I picked up the pile of photos and began going through them carefully. One immediately caught my eye. Winston and Grace posed in front of the rose garden, the very spot that would become his grave. But far from being the thick brush of weeds it had been since my childhood, the ground was covered in orange, pink, and yellow roses.

“It was lovely,” I said.

“Wasn’t it?” Eleanor glanced sadly at the photo. “I’m ashamed of myself for not keeping it up. I’ve just never been a gardener, and for so long I couldn’t afford to pay anyone. It just got away from me and became the neglected mess that you and Oliver tried to clean up.”

“Maybe if someone had been tending to it, they would have found Winston sooner,” Molly said.

“Maybe,” Eleanor answered her. Her face was neutral, even friendly, but there was a defiance to her voice that I was quite proud to hear.

CHAPTER 36

“I
’m happy to report that we now have forty quilts promised to us for the show,” I told the group at our Friday night meeting. “Many of them are reproductions, but we also have some genuine antiques that have been generously loaned to us. Ed offered us the movie theater as a space to hang quilts, so I intend to hang the antiques there to protect them. What we need to work on now is what we’ll hang the quilts on, and also who will help me organize things that day.”

I looked around, hoping for volunteers. No one was listening. The door had opened behind me and the newcomer was drawing everyone’s attention.

“Sorry to be so late.”

I turned to see Molly. Eleanor jumped up. “This is Grace’s great-granddaughter. She’s in town about poor Winston being found in the rose garden.”

Though we hadn’t discussed it, as I looked around the room, I could see that no one was surprised to hear Winston being identified as the skeleton, or of Molly being in town. Now that Eleanor knew, there was no sense in the rest of us pretending we didn’t.

“Grab a chair and join us,” I said. “There’s coffee and cookies on the cutting table.”

“I was looking at your quilts yesterday,” Molly explained to the group, “and I thought they were just lovely.”

Bernie leaned forward and studied her. “Are you a quilter?”

“No. Grace was the last quilter in the family.”

“Maybe not,” Maggie said. “We’ll get you started, if you like.”

And they did. Susanne and Carrie showed her patterns that would be easy for a beginner and Eleanor helped Molly pick out fabrics. But I wasn’t buying it, and when I looked over to Natalie, I could see she wasn’t convinced either. I sat next to Natalie and we watched as the others ran around the shop finding all the tools that would turn Molly into a quilter.

“I’ve seen lots of non-quilters making their first pieces,” Natalie said in a low whisper, “and they all have this excited, overwhelmed look in their eyes.”

“And she doesn’t,” I agreed. “She’s studying Eleanor. She thinks Eleanor killed Winston.”

“But she has an alibi, I thought. She was in Canada.”

“She was,” I said. “Molly must assume Eleanor hired someone to kill him.”

“That girl is nuts. The good news is Jesse is the best there is. He would never believe such a stupid theory.”

Natalie and I crossed our arms and watched Molly wander the shop, making our suspicion of her as plain as we could. Not that anyone noticed. They were too busy indoctrinating the new recruit.

“So you knew Winston, too?” Molly was asking Maggie as they walked back toward us.

“Yes. When he was growing up, he came up from New York every summer with your grandmother and Grace. Very smart man. Very articulate.” I could see Maggie straining to compliment a man she had disliked.

“And did you spend much time with him that last summer?”

“Not really. I saw him a few times when I visited Eleanor at the house. We had nothing in common, of course, so we rarely said anything more than hello to each other.”

“What about Eleanor?” Molly asked.

“Eleanor and I have a lot in common, dear. That’s why we’ve been friends for so many years.” Maggie was being deliberately obtuse, and enjoying herself in the process.

“I mean Winston and Eleanor.” Molly looked up at me and I smiled back. I knew she was looking for help, but as my expression made clear, she was looking for it from the wrong person.

Maggie seemed to be having fun, though. “You know, I’ve said many times there was no one fonder of Grace than Eleanor. And no one fonder of Eleanor than Grace,” Maggie said. “When I see Eleanor now with Nell, and the relationship they have, I am often reminded of Grace and Eleanor. Eleanor was Nell’s age then, and Grace’s was Eleanor’s age now.” Maggie sighed. “Funny how time flies. It feels like just the other day I had small children running around the house, and now my grandchildren are having children. Did I show you a photo of my great-granddaughter?”

I could only sit back in admiration. Maggie had thrown Molly, who had been reduced to polite nodding and a strained smile. Of course, she’d used the photo of her family on me just a week ago, and I’d gotten just as confused.

Finally Molly got a word in. “I was thinking that I might try to retrace Winston’s steps that last month he was here.”

“How can you?” I asked. “Did you find a diary in the papers your grandmother sent?”

“No,” she admitted, “but I have his letters and the photographs. I know he went to the bank several times and to the movie theater. I know he spent time at the house, obviously. And I know he got into an argument with Ed.” Molly stood up. “The movie theater is still open, right? I know everything else in town is closed, but people go to movies on a Friday night, don’t they?”

“The last movie on a Friday starts at 8:45,” I told her, “so it’s still playing. Ed should be there.”

“Well, then I’ll go talk to him.”

“I’ve already asked him about Winston,” I said, not adding that his answers apparently had been lies.

“I’m sure you did, Nell,” she said, “but I’d like to talk to him myself.”

Molly smiled a half smile, and for a second I could sense the same smugness that people disliked in Winston in his grandniece. She waved good-byes to the rest of the group, still gathering tools and fabrics for her, and headed out the door.