Tree of Life and Death (6 page)

We followed the screams out through the museum's employee-only back door, which had indeed been propped open for today's event. There was a loading dock about halfway down the back of the building, and then beyond it a fenced-in area jutted out into the parking lot to contain the museum's Dumpsters. Sunny Kunik was at the far corner of the fencing, with her back to me and Matt, still screaming hysterically.

It wasn't obvious what the problem was until we stumbled to a stop beside her. There, on the ground just past the trash enclosure, was the bloody and apparently lifeless body of Alan Miller.

Sunny's screams tapered off. I took her by the shoulders, turned her around, and walked her over to a picnic table that had been set up for museum employees to take breaks during nice weather. It was directly across from the back door of the museum and far enough away from the trash enclosure that we couldn't see the body any longer. Matt called 9-1-1 and then apparently noticed that curious quilters were emerging from the museum to see what was happening. He went over to encourage everyone to remain huddled there, a safe distance from the crime scene.

Stefan pushed his way through the crowd to rush over to the picnic table. He took Sunny in his arms.

"Shock," Sunny said, her voice trembling. "Need to lie down. Raise feet."

I heard sirens in the distance. Help was on its way for Sunny, even if it was too late for Alan.

Gil appeared beside me, as calm and confident as ever. "You can use my office, Sunny. There's a sofa in there where you can lie down. I'll stay here to let the police know where you are. Help yourself to some water from the mini fridge."

"No," Sunny said, extricating herself from Stefan so she could sit sideways on the picnic table bench. She lay down and closed her eyes. "Can't move. And nothing to drink until paramedics check me out."

"She's got medical training," Stefan said as he knelt beside the picnic table bench. "It's always best to do what she says."

Matt called out my name from where he stood at the back door. He tossed me his truck's keys. "Look in the duffel bag behind the driver's side seat. It's got a blanket for emergencies."

"I'll be right back," I told Stefan before hurrying off to get the blanket. I recognized Matt's battered old truck immediately. I'd ridden in it once, back when I'd thought he was an impoverished reporter, but I'd later learned that he could easily have paid cash for any vehicle he wanted, up to and including the most expensive luxury models. And this beat-up clunker was what he'd chosen.

I didn't have time to dwell on his quirks at the moment. I unlocked the driver's door, and right where Matt had said to look, I found a synthetic fleece blanket. I grabbed it and headed back to the picnic table. I could hear Stefan making soft, reassuring sounds, although I couldn't tell if they were actually words.

I didn't want to startle them, so I whispered, "I've got the blanket."

Stefan took it from me and wrapped it around Sunny. The sound of sirens grew louder, and Matt sent Trudy out to Main Street to flag down the first responders and point them to the back of the museum.

Feeling helpless and useless, I was surprised to not also feel lightheaded and nauseated. Apparently the adrenaline from seeing poor Alan's body had counteracted any inclination my nervous system might have had to send me into unconsciousness. Too bad I couldn't carry around a shot of adrenaline like people with severe allergies carried an EpiPen, for when I started to feel the symptoms of a syncope event.

Two patrol cops I'd met before, the veteran Fred Fields and rookie Richie Faria, were the first to come running down the driveway. Matt pointed them in the direction of the body. A few seconds later, a pair of paramedics arrived to follow in the cops' footsteps. A second set of paramedics arrived moments later, and Matt sent them over to check on Sunny.

The paramedics politely but firmly moved Stefan out of their way, leaving him looking as helpless as I felt. He tugged at his bow tie.

"She could have been killed." Stefan stood next to me, keeping his gaze fixed on his girlfriend. "If she'd arrived in the parking lot just a few minutes sooner, she could have been killed."

"It doesn't do any good to dwell on what might have happened." At least that was what I'd always told my clients. Putting the advice into practice myself was another matter. I'd never managed to actually let go of that type of second-guessing of my behavior, especially when it came to whether I could have done a better job for my clients. "Sunny's safe now."

"We don't know that," Stefan said. "She wouldn't say whether she'd been injured. What if she was shot and just hasn't felt it yet because she's in so much shock?"

"I didn't hear a gun, and I didn't see any blood on her. Did you?"

He squinted at Sunny through his little round glasses. "I didn't think to look. I'm such an idiot. And now she's covered with a blanket, so I can't see anything."

"The paramedics are with her, and they'll check her out."

"But she could have died," Stefan wailed. "And I haven't even told her how much I love her and that I want to spend the rest of my life with her. It would be such a cliché if she died without knowing, and she hates clichés. She'd never forgive me."

"She's not going to die," I said, reasonably sure there was nothing wrong with Sunny that some time and emotional support wouldn't fix.

"The museum should have had better security." He turned to glare at Gil.

"It's the middle of the day, just a few feet from Main Street in quiet little Danger Cove," I said. "It's not like we're in some gang-infested, drug-dealing, big-city slum."

"Maybe not, but it's awfully isolated back here. Nobody can see what's going on from the street or any of the adjoining buildings."

He was right about that much. The driveway was nothing more than a narrow alley, which had been more than adequate when the building had been constructed in 1898, but was barely wide enough for today's massive SUVs. On the opposite side of the building, an eight-foot-high solid plank fence ran from the back corner of the building, along a side street to the far corner of the property, and then across the other two sides of the parking lot and driveway, all the way around to Main Street.

It wasn't entirely private back here though. I pointed at the two security cameras, one on each corner of the building. "There are at least two witnesses. They can see everything that happens back here."

"The cameras couldn't stop what happened though." Stefan covered his face with his hands. One of his neatly turned-back sleeves had unfolded and was flapping loose. "I should have gone with Sunny instead of letting her go to the shop all by herself. It's my fault that she was alone and in danger."

"I just met Sunny, but I don't think she'd appreciate your hovering over her like that."

"But she could have died," Stefan repeated with every bit as much distraught emotion as the first time.

Right. Much as I preferred an appeal to logic, it wasn't going to have any effect on him right now. Perhaps an emotional approach would work better. "You can't fall apart on her now. She's going to need you. You have to be strong so you can support her when the paramedics declare her to be okay. Can you do that?"

He peered out from behind his hands and nodded uncertainly. "I can do anything that will help Sunny."

The paramedics, who'd been crouched beside Sunny, rose to their feet and looked around. One of them caught sight of Stefan and apparently recognized him as the person who'd been holding the hand of the patient when they'd arrived. He gestured for Stefan to return to her side.

"Go on," I said. "It doesn't look like they're going to insist on taking her to the hospital."

Stefan hurried over to be with Sunny. The one good thing about his panic over her safety was that it had prevented him from thinking about another, more likely risk: that the police would think Sunny was the one who'd killed Alan Miller. She would definitely be a suspect, since she'd found the body. She didn't have any apparent motive, however, so I wasn't particularly concerned. Besides, the museum's cameras had undoubtedly captured the entire crime, and Sunny would be ruled out as soon as the police viewed the videos.

Unless, of course, Sunny had actually killed Alan.

*   *   *

I returned to the steps outside the back door of the museum. Carl Quincy, apparently acting on instincts drilled into him during his years as a cop, had taken charge of the quilters and herded them back inside the museum to wait in the hallway until the detective in charge of the case arrived.

Matt remained outside on the back steps with me and Gil. We couldn't see Alan's body from there, just occasional glimpses of a paramedic or one of the responding cops if they stepped out from the cover of the trash enclosure.

We had a better view of the picnic table where the paramedics appeared to have declared Sunny to be out of danger. They were packing up their supplies and letting Stefan kneel beside her, holding her hand again.

Gil headed over to collect Sunny and Stefan so they could wait for the homicide detective in her office. She'd just gotten them inside the museum's back door when Officer Fred Fields stepped back from the crime scene and pointed toward me and Matt. Beside him was an older man in a suit. I hadn't seen him arrive, but I recognized him as the detective who'd been in charge of the Randall Tremain investigation a few months ago.

Bud Ohlsen was a large man, tall and not exactly fat, but his solid build had softened as he neared retirement age. His eyes remained sharp despite the wrinkles around them. He stared at the ground as he walked over to us and stopped a couple of feet from the back steps. I knew from past experience that there was no point in saying anything until Ohlsen had finished whatever train of thought he was following. When he'd interviewed me in the aftermath of Randall Tremain's murder, I'd initially thought the prolonged silences were an affectation, a conscious effort to guilt witnesses into filling the silence by spilling all their secrets. I'd since come to believe it was just a habit he'd developed over his long career, blocking out distractions while he focused on whatever little piece of evidence he was considering.

While he thought, I considered what information I might have to offer him. I'd been in the boardroom all morning without leaving for any reason until Sunny screamed. I was pretty sure the same was true for Dee and Emma. I knew they had definitely been in the boardroom between the time Alan Miller left to wait for his ride and the first of Sunny's screams. I'd been with them for part of that time, resisting their efforts to convert me into a quilter. Matt had been there throughout that same time frame too, arriving just as Alan left and then working the room for his job, interviewing Meg McLaughlin and then getting stuck listening to Jayne Conners.

Unfortunately, I couldn't vouch for the whereabouts of anyone else. Stefan and Gil had both been in and out of the boardroom all morning. So had Meg McLaughlin, with her constant trips to the ladies' room. Jayne had been out of sight for a bit while she was in time-out for yelling at Trudy. Trudy had made some trips out to the parking lot in that time frame, but I couldn't imagine someone as meek as she was committing murder. Carl Quincy had definitely been outside the boardroom for a while, having stomped out after he'd been praised by Meg, and I hadn't noticed when he and his dog had returned. Elizabeth Ashby had left at the same time as Alan, apparently on her way home, since she'd never come back inside. The rest of the quilters I didn't know well enough to have noticed if they'd left the room.

Detective Ohlsen reached the end of his train of thought and looked up to assess his two waiting witnesses.

"We've got to stop meeting like this," he said. "And if that's not possible, I expect you both to mind your own business and let me do my job."

"Of course," I said.

Ohlsen frowned at Matt. "And you, I expect you to not compromise my investigation. Don't even think of quoting me unless I specifically say my words are on the record."

"Hey," Matt said with a shrug. "I'm just an arts reporter. Nothing to do with criminal stuff."

Ohlsen snorted, obviously recalling the front-page story Matt had written about the capture of Randall Tremain's killer. "I'm serious. After you two give your statement, you need to stay out of the investigation."

"Just tell me one thing," I said. "Alan is dead, right?"

Ohlsen nodded. "Stabbed several times. Which, if you need a reason to do what I tell you, is why you should stay out of it. Whoever killed him is strong and angry and vicious. If you start meddling, he could come after you next."

"Strong? As in, capable of moving him after he was killed?" Even as I spoke, I realized something had been bothering me about the crime scene. What had Alan been doing way over beyond the trash enclosure? "He was waiting for a friend, and I would have expected him to be out on Main Street, not back here. It would have been quicker and easier for his friend to pick him up out there, without having to drive down the narrow little alley."

"We don't know for sure that he was waiting for a ride," Ohlsen said, "He could have lied to you. It's possible he was actually casing the museum to steal from it. The victim fell into the category that you're going to end up in soon:
well known to the police
. It's not a good label to have. Trust me. And stay out of this."

Ohlsen was a good detective, and he'd find out soon enough that Alan Miller hadn't needed to loiter in the parking lot to check out the museum. He'd had free run of the building while getting his grandmother's quilt appraised. If Ohlsen didn't figure that out on his own, I'd explain it when my formal statement was taken. Assuming that was even necessary. With a little luck, the video cameras would show exactly what had happened, and the police wouldn't need anything from me.

Of course, luck didn't seem to be with me today. Otherwise, everyone would have had a wonderful time making ornaments, there wouldn't have been any tears, and no one would have been hurt, let alone killed.