A Drunkard's Path (26 page)

“One thing at a time, please,” Susanne cried out. “Honestly, we need to approach this with some organization. I feel like we’re just going around in circles.”

“Are you looking for someone to keep minutes and type up an agenda?” Bernie laughed.

“And maybe we should have refreshments,” Maggie added.

“I vote for that,” said Natalie.

“I think we’re getting off topic,” I suggested. My group of amateur detectives was turning into a social club.

Susanne stood up to address the group. “I’m just saying that we need to go in order. Like when we show quilts at the meeting. We each take turns showing our quilts and getting suggestions from the group,” she explained. “And Eleanor keeps things from turning into chaos. There’s no reason that solving a murder investigation should be any less organized than a quilt meeting.”

With that, all eyes were on me.

“Okay,” I said, looking at each face. I settled on the person that seemed the most impatient. “Then let’s start with Bernie.”

Bernie took a deep breath and leaned forward.

“Oliver said he came to the States looking for a fresh start after his divorce,” she said. “He went straight to the Village because, well, that’s where you went if you were an artist or creative type or just looking for some fun.”

“And he said he got into drugs?” I asked.

“Yes.” Bernie leaned forward. “He said he got on a downward spiral. He said he ‘dabbled’ in drugs, that was his word, but that alcohol was his choice for . . . How did he put it? His choice for self-destruction.”

“And Eleanor was sitting right there while he told you?” I asked.

“The whole time.”

“And then”—Bernie looked around, obviously holding the juiciest information for last—“he mentioned that he often painted near the river and once he had a model who fell in the river and nearly drowned. He said it was a scene he would have liked to have painted. He said he ‘reluctantly,’ and that was his word, helped her instead.”

Bernie sat back and watched our faces. Like the others, I didn’t know what to say. Oliver killing models to make great paintings was a motive that had not occurred to me. And if it were true, had that turned Kennette from suspect to potential victim?

“So where do we go from here?” Susanne asked, breaking the tension.

“I don’t know,” I acknowledged. “Anybody else have news?”

“I do,” Natalie said. “Or rather, I don’t. I contacted police departments in the neighboring states and Canada about missing-persons reports on the victims and Kennette Green. There were no missing-persons reports.”

“They just gave you that information?” Maggie asked, surprised.

“No. I faxed them a request on Archers Rest Police Department stationery,” Natalie admitted.

“Where did you . . . ,” I started.

“I stole some for her when I bailed Rich out of jail yesterday,” Susanne said matter-of-factly.

We all laughed.

“Between the two of you and Rich, I’d say we have our very own crime family,” Bernie said.

Natalie glanced at her mom, who did not look amused, and then returned to her report. “I did find out that Lily Harmon is an alias. Her real name was apparently Lily Price. She had a dozen or so arrests in New York City and in Ontario for petty theft, shoplifting, and stuff like that.”

“So Lily wasn’t such an innocent victim after all,” Natalie said.

“Would you kill someone for shoplifting?” Maggie asked. “That might not have anything to do with this.”

“Well, it might have put her in contact with criminals,” I suggested. “And one thing led to another.”

“We don’t have any criminals as suspects. We don’t even know any criminals,” Susanne said.

We all looked at her.

“Rich isn’t a criminal,” she protested. “He’s a kid.”

Susanne got up, as if she were about to storm out of the shop. Carrie coughed.

“Well, if I can go next,” Carrie said. “I looked into Lily’s and Sandra’s financial background and there was nothing on Lily. I’ll try the last name Price and see if I have better luck. And Sandra had a credit rating of 460, which is about the worst you can get.”

“So Sandra was in financial trouble?” I asked. “We know Oliver was giving her money.”

I looked around again. No one else seemed anxious to speak.

“So what’s next?” Susanne asked, sitting back in her original spot.

“I guess we go back to Kennette,” I decided reluctantly. “Carrie, if you can check into her financials—”

“If she has any,” Carrie interrupted. “Has anyone seen her use a credit card?”

“Even so,” I said, “it’s all we’ve got.” I sighed. “And I think I’ll just ask her about modeling for Oliver and see what she says.”

The others began to leave, some through the front door, others the back—just in case anyone was across the street, looking out the windows of Someday Quilts. I was just about to start work on the mural when Bernie came up behind me.

“I forgot to mention this, but I have bad news on the autopsy,” she said. “I went through the reports on both girls and there wasn’t anything we don’t already know. Lily drowned and Sandra was strangled. They don’t seem to have anything in common, except the killer.”

“At least we think so,” I said.

Bernie shook her head sadly. “They both seemed to have put up a fight, poor things.”

“How do you know?”

“Well, Sandra had a few scrapes on her hands, so my guess is that she was hitting her attacker, and Lily’s hands had been bound.”

“By a rope,” I added.

“No, I don’t think it was. There were no fibers. It had to have been something metal or plastic. Anyway, she had bits of blue rubber under her fingernails. If it had been blue paint, we’d have Oliver, wouldn’t we?”

As she walked out the door I stood frozen. I knew instantly that I had held the killer’s watch in my hand. The watch Greg found in Sandra’s bed and then lost.

 

 

 

 

F
or two hours I worked on the mural and thought of how crazy things had become. I felt certain that if I could just figure out the connection between Lily and Sandra I could find the killer. And if I could find the killer, hopefully life would go back to normal.

When Carrie was ready to leave the shop to pick up her kids, I decided to leave as well. But rather than going home, I headed across the street to Someday Quilts. Just a few customers were wandering the store, and Eleanor was at the cash register, ringing up a sale.

“Need help?” I asked.

Eleanor nodded. “We’ve only got about twenty minutes until closing so we’ve got to get this group out of here.”

“Where’s Kennette?”

“She needed the afternoon off,” Eleanor said. “It’s been slow most of the day anyway.”

Feeling for the first time today that I could do something within my comfort zone, I went toward the back of the shop to help a woman who stood staring at a bolt of brightly printed fabric.

“It’s beautiful,” I offered. “Can I cut some for you?”

She stroked the bolt, a technique I recognized as part of the quilter’s courting process. First we fall for the look of the fabric—the print, the color. Then we begin to pet it, running our hands across the smooth cotton. It may seem odd to an outsider, but quilting is a tactile experience, and since quilts are meant to be snuggled under, it’s important that the fabric feels right.

“I can’t decide how much to get,” she said. “I love it, but I don’t know what I’m going to do with it.”

“How large are the quilts you make?” I asked.

“Large enough for a nap, usually. I don’t think I’m ready to make a bed-size quilt.”

“Two yards at a minimum,” I said confidently. “That way you can make borders and use some of it in the quilt blocks. But five yards if you want to use it for the back of the quilt.”

She petted the bolt again. “I really love it,” she said. “And I know if I wait a week it will be all sold out and I’ll never see it again.”

I smiled. “We usually order only one bolt of fabric,” I agreed. “When it’s gone, it’s gone.”

“I can’t live without it, silly as that sounds.”

“Not to a quilter.”

“I know I’ll use it,” she said as she handed me the bolt.

“Five yards, then?”

She nodded.

As I cut the fabric I felt a certain amount of relief. Fabric has that effect. With each customer I helped, I ran my hands across the bolt and felt the cotton between my fingers, and just like the woman with the bright print, I fell in love with the fabric in my hands.

As we closed up the shop for the night I wanted nothing more than to stay there and cut fabric for myself and focus only on making a quilt. It seemed like a silly idea until I picked up a new arrival, a soft yellow floral.

“I want this,” I found myself saying. “I want to make a quilt. And I want to make it now, tonight.”

“I’ll get some food from DeNallo’s,” Eleanor said, “while you pick out a pattern.”

“You’re going to help?”

Eleanor kissed my forehead. “I’ve been missing my granddaughter,” she said.

I chose a simple Irish chain, a pattern of crisscrossing blocks that form diamonds in the quilt. I walked through the shop and gathered complementary fabrics, solids in soft greens and blues, a small floral in blues, and several choices from the collection of yellow florals as well as a yellow and green plaid. I hoped the quilt would be romantic and soothing.

Eleanor and I cut strips for the chain and sewed them together. Then we cut and sewed the strips to create the chain blocks. We cut the squares of yellow floral and added the strips at each side to create the background blocks. It was amazing how quickly two people, working side by side, could accomplish their goal. Within a few hours we had the quilt top I’d wanted. At six feet square it was large enough for a nap—or to hide under if I ever needed to run away from my problems again.

Although the entire time we had been working on my quilt I’d forgotten the murders and all the unanswered questions, as we finished the last block, those anxieties flooded back. I looked over at my grandmother, who had done so much for me and had been such a good friend, and I felt worried that in trying to protect her I was, instead, betraying her.

“How much do you know about Oliver?” I ventured as we pinned the top to the batting and backing.

“As much as you can know about a person after a few weeks,” she said.

“But you love him.”

She looked up at me. “Yes, I suppose I do.”

“Isn’t that kind of fast?”

“At my age I don’t have a lot of time to waste on silliness.”

“Is he worthy, though? Is he . . .” I couldn’t find the right word to convey my suspicions without actually saying I suspected him.

“He’s a good man. That much I know,” she said as she put the last pin in the top. “Do you want to quilt this tonight?”

I shook my head. “Barney will be worried if we don’t get home.”

Eleanor folded up the quilt and put it in her office. “We can work on it again when it’s slow,” she said.

I walked over and wrapped my arms around her. “Don’t get too caught up in him,” I said. “Just in case.”

She hugged me. “I won’t, but you have to do me a favor too.”

I looked into her beautiful brown eyes. “Name it.”

“Don’t keep finding reasons to push love away.”

She kissed my cheek and headed out of the shop. I stood for a moment, confused. I wasn’t pushing love away. At least I didn’t think so. But as I followed behind her, I wondered if she knew something about me that I didn’t.

 

 

 

 

I
walked over to the police station, which seemed quiet even for a cold January night. If Eleanor was right and I was looking for reasons to push love away, then that would stop now.

Greg was supposed to be manning the phones in the reception area, but instead he was furiously writing on a legal pad. When he saw me, he quickly put the pad under his desk.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Not a thing,” he answered.

“Well that’s good news in the police business.” I smiled.

“I guess. Though I wish we had something exciting to do.”

“You have the investigation.”

He grunted. I’d forgotten that he’d been frozen out because of the watch fiasco, but it wasn’t a subject I wanted to get into.

“Jesse in?” I asked.

“His office.”

I walked several steps before I took a quick peek back. Greg had the notepad out again and was hunched over it, writing.

I moved toward Jesse’s office and saw that the door was slightly open. For a moment I stood outside and against the wall. I looked in as Jesse worked at his desk, studying papers as if he couldn’t understand them. He had that stern, strong frown he’d worn when we first met. He was then, and now, so smart and so focused that I smiled just looking at him.

As he studied the papers his glasses slipped down his nose, and he reached up to push them back. Silly as it sounds, it made my heart leap. I’d always liked his laid-back professorial personality, but when I let myself, I realized I loved the way he was both capable cop and shy geek. I felt safe with him, and I knew I could be myself with him.

Things had been a little tentative, but that was only because of one dead body in the river, another on my back porch, and my grandmother’s romance with a man who might be responsible for both. As soon as this murder investigation was behind us, I knew we could finally have the relationship we deserved.

I watched as he removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. I couldn’t wait a moment longer to talk to him, so I pushed the door open and walked inside.

“Hi,” I said. “I know you’re working, but I wanted to come by and see you.”