Tree of Life and Death (21 page)

"He wasn't a poor young man. He was horrible." Her surprising assertiveness faded almost as quickly as it had appeared. "I'm sorry. It's not that I don't want to help. I just don't want my fingerprints on record anywhere. These days, you never know who will end up with them, and there's no privacy anymore. I didn't kill anyone, and I wasn't anywhere near the corpse where I might have touched something, so taking my prints is just a waste of time."

Jayne's shrill voice preceded her as she pushed her way to the front of the crowd. "How long is this going to take, anyway? We've wasted at least half an hour coming out here while the equipment is being set up. How hard is it to open up a few ink pads and set out the index cards? We could be making more ornaments instead of standing out here in the hall doing nothing."

Meg emerged from the crowd to say, "I'm sure everyone's doing their best. Jayne, perhaps you could be one of the first to be fingerprinted, right after Gil, and then if they let you stay in the room, you can organize everyone into finishing the last of the ornaments. If we concentrate all our effort on the ones that are partly done, instead of starting any more, we should be able to finish quite a few."

"But you're the featured instructor," Jayne said. "I'm just the assistant. You should go in before me."

"I would, but I'm afraid I need to visit the ladies' room again. Then when I come back, someone needs to stay out here and keep everyone calm." Meg looked at Fred. "Do you mind if I make a quick trip?"

Fred deputized Gil to stand at the door to the boardroom and keep anyone from going inside until the techs were ready. Fred went with Meg to the openings for the two stairwells, which led in one direction to the museum lobby, and in the other to the back parking lot. Meg continued along the hallway while Fred stayed behind where he could keep an eye on both the ladies' room door on one side of the stairwells and the quilters outside the boardroom on the other side.

I turned to see how Dee and Emma were doing. They were standing at the end of the hall, beyond Stefan and Trudy even, having a fiercely whispered conversation. What were they planning now? Even if it had mostly been a joke, I had promised Gil I'd keep them out of trouble during the police investigation, so I went over to check on them. They stopped arguing before I could make out their words.

Emma gave me a grateful look. "Dee wants to refuse to give her prints, like Trudy did."

"I'm eighty-three years old, and I've never had so much as a speeding ticket," Dee said. "No way I'm getting added to the criminal justice system at this point in my life. Not after what happened to dear Emma last spring."

"That's certainly your right." Arguing with Dee would only make her more set on her plans. All I could do was try to minimize the damage. I glanced at where Trudy was huddled nearby on the floor with her back against the wall. "I'm sure Trudy would enjoy the moral support. She looks a little scared after her big stand against authority. I assume Emma will also refuse in solidarity with you, so the three of you can keep each other company until the detective gets a court order. You should be home by midnight with a little luck."

"Midnight?" Dee said, some of her defiance fading like Trudy's had.

"More or less." The reality of how slowly the legal system could grind might change Dee's mind. I explained as we walked over to join Trudy. "It will take a while to get the warrant application together and figure out how to establish that they've got reasonable cause. If they're lucky and can find a prosecutor to present the request for them on a Saturday afternoon, it shouldn't be hard to get it approved. They'll still have to find out which judge is on call for emergencies and arrange to meet somewhere to make their argument and get his signature. Depending on the judge's mood, he might insist on hearing them close to where he lives, which could be some distance from here. Then they need to process the paperwork back at the station and finally bring it out here to serve on you. So midnight, more or less. Possibly into the wee hours of tomorrow. Shouldn't be longer than that though. You'll be home in time for church. Probably."

"I don't care if I have to pull an all-nighter," Dee said with renewed defiance. "Trudy's got it right. Taking innocent people's fingerprints is just wrong."

"I can't stay overnight," Trudy whispered. "My family would be worried."

"I'm sure they'll let you make a phone call," I said.

"Oh. Good." Trudy didn't sound even a little bit reassured.

"You can claim my phone call too if you need to make more than one," Dee said. "Keely can call my granddaughter to let her know I'm fine. Did you know they used to work together? Lindsay introduced us to Keely."

"Really?" Trudy looked less scared now that she had an ally.

"Really." Dee leaned against the wall next to the young woman. "It's a good thing too. She was a big help a few months ago when we needed a good lawyer."

One of the boardroom's doors was opening, and everyone in the hall took a couple of steps backward, looking down at their shuffling feet like young students who were unprepared and hoping that if they didn't look at the teacher, they wouldn't get called on. The nervousness was only going to get worse as reluctant witnesses were dragged—metaphorically, if not physically—into the boardroom. That kind of stress could be contagious, something I really didn't need to be exposed to, and it would only make the process take longer.

I scooted over to the doors to tell Ohlsen in a voice loud enough that everyone in the hall could hear that I'd be glad to go first with the fingerprinting. I wasn't just doing it to reassure everyone else. I also wanted to find out whether the thimble had fit Carl. If so, Ohlsen would gather all the evidence anyway, just to prevent a defense attorney from claiming the thimble might have fit someone else as well, but there wouldn't be much question left in anyone's mind about the actual culprit.

Gil was right on my heels in the line forming outside the doors. Matt ambled over to join us, beating out Jayne, who was a few steps behind him. Jayne might not be happy about setting an example for the others, but she was still obediently following her idol's orders.

The detective took me, Gil, and Matt inside, leaving Jayne behind for now. Fred returned with Meg in time to block Jayne from peering through the crack between the doors.

Inside the boardroom, the techs had removed the sewing machines from the first long table and had set up three adjoining stations, the first one with the leather thimble and a stack of latex gloves, the next one for fingerprinting, and the last one to scan for blood spatter.

Carl had been moved to the back desk where I'd done appraisals this morning. Ohlsen went over to the tech at the thimble station and said, "Well?"

The tech shook his head. "Didn't fit. It was sort of the right size, or at least it didn't swim on him like it did on Ms. Fairchild, but the contours were all in the wrong places."

I skipped the thimble station, since I'd already established it didn't fit me, and went straight to the first fingerprinting setup. To distract myself from the automatic tendency to interfere with the tech's methodical placement of my fingers across the scanner, I watched Gil trying on the thimble. Even from a few feet away, I could tell it didn't fit.

My relief turned to curiosity. Who else could the thimble possibly fit? Gil was the tallest woman in the museum today, with proportionately large bones, so if anyone's fingers were large enough for that thimble, it should have been Gil. The only person here today who might have larger bones was Matt, who was right behind Gil. The tech had him slip it on each of his middle and index fingers. It wasn't a bad fit at the tip, but flared out much too wide as it approached the first joint. The tech glanced at me, as if seeking my opinion, and I shook my head. The excess leather at the knuckle would have made the thimble more irritating than helpful.

Four suspects down, about thirty to go.

Carl was being interviewed at the back desk by Detective Ohlsen, and the tech supervising the thimble fittings radioed for Fred to send in the next three witnesses. Jayne strode over to the first station, where she immediately began arguing with the tech. Her shrill voice reached all the way to the back of the room, where Matt and I kept Gil company while she waited to be interviewed by Ohlsen. The tech who had taken Gil's prints had told her that the processed witnesses were supposed to stay in the boardroom, so it would be easy to keep track of who'd finished the testing and who still needed to be printed. I suspected it was also so that no one would ruin the surprise of the thimble by spilling the secret to the quilters still waiting in the hallway.

"What was that thimble test all about?" Gil said.

"Probably nothing important." Until she gave her statement, I couldn't tell her anything substantive. "They're just being thorough."

"That's not what I wanted to hear," Gil said. "I was hoping you'd tell me they were going to pull some Perry Mason trick and identify the killer with absolute certainty by her thimble."

"Or
his
thimble," Matt said. "Carl and I just proved that men are capable of wearing thimbles too."

There was one other man to test, assuming he didn't insist on waiting for his attorney. "I wonder if Stefan knows how to use a thimble."

"As of about six months ago, Stefan hadn't done any more sewing than you have," Gil said. "But he's been spending a lot of time at his girlfriend's shop lately, so he might have picked up some new skills."

I watched Jayne and the next two quilters as they were tested, half expecting the tech at the thimble station to shout some code phrase after finding a match, so Fred would come running into the boardroom to take the suspect straight to Ohlsen for more intensive questioning and probably a Miranda warning. I couldn't seem to look away from the tech stations, until I caught a glimpse of Matt and Gil in my peripheral vision, one on either side of me. They too were mesmerized by the testing process.

There had to be something more useful we could do than to watch the testing. I forced myself to look away from the spectacle and then lightly elbowed both Gil and Matt to get their attention.

"What's the parallel saying to
a watched kettle never boils
, for forensics work?"

"How about
slow and steady wins the trial
?" Matt suggested. "Or perhaps
fingerprint in haste, repent at leisure
?"

Gil looked away from the techs and their subjects. "I just feel so helpless sitting here. How could someone get killed right here on the museum's property? And what are our donors going to think when it hits the news that there was a murder on the premises? They're going to think the museum is in a bad neighborhood, not the sort of place they want to be associated with or give money to."

I recalled Gil mentioning a new donor who'd made a sizeable contribution, one that had covered the expenses of today's event, as well as funding the local quilt registry. "Are you worried about your new major donor?"

Gil glanced at Matt, and he shook his head.

I'd seen that sort of exchange before when Matt hadn't wanted me to know he'd been a model before becoming a reporter. What was he hiding now? Was he the new major donor? If so, how had he found time to arrange it, when he'd been out of town for the last twelve weeks?

"I'm not worried about him reneging on his pledge," Gil said. "But other donors might, and the museum depends on them for our day-to-day expenses. We're a small museum, no real endowment to speak of. Losing even a few of our consistent donors could be the beginning of the end. Not just for my job and your contract for the quilt appraisals, but for the museum itself. When word gets out that longtime donors are dropping out, no one else will want to contribute."

My stomach was starting to churn in sympathy for Gil's obvious distress, but one thing I was trying to do better for controlling my stress levels was to not dwell on worst-case scenarios that might never happen. "They can't blame you for a murder you didn't commit."

"That's the thing about being the person in charge," Gil said sadly. "I'm ultimately responsible, so they can blame me for everything. You know how it goes: the buck stops here."

The room was filling up as more and more quilters went through the forensics gauntlet, trying on the thimble. As far as I could tell, none of them had come close to having fingers of the right size and shape. It was starting to look like it had belonged to one of the quilters who'd left before Alan did, and it had simply been dropped on his or her way in or out, rather than during the murder. Possibly whoever had parked in the far corner of the lot before Sunny did.

I consoled myself with the reminder that the thimble had been a long shot, something of a shortcut, but not the only way to find the killer. I had to believe that Ohlsen would find another way to close the case, clearing Gil and the museum of any responsibility. "Ohlsen is a good detective. You really don't have anything to worry about in the long run."

"Time isn't my friend here," Gil said, apparently too anxious even to find an appropriate bit of lyrics to sing. "If the arrest isn't in the same headline with the murder, it'll be too late. Charitable donors are notoriously fickle and easy to scare off. I was hoping to really impress the board and our donors with the holiday events this year. Looks like I'll be making an impression, all right, just not a good one. Even if the scandal doesn't land the museum in serious financial trouble, there will definitely be cutbacks. Probably starting with the quilt acquisition program. You and Stefan are going to feel the cuts."

"Don't worry about us." I hadn't expected to make a profit with my appraisal business for another year or two, and I was actually doing a bit better financially than I'd anticipated, thanks to both Gil and the Danger Cove Quilt Guild enthusiastically spreading the word about my services. I was fortunate too, to still have a healthy nest egg from my years as a lawyer. I was more concerned about the toll it would take on Sunny if the investigation dragged on. I was certain the thimble wouldn't fit her, but unless it fit someone else, Sunny was likely to remain at the top of the list of suspects. "Stefan will be happy as long as Sunny isn't arrested, and I collected a number of leads on new clients today, so I'll be fine."