Ada Unraveled (10 page)

My mind drifted away. Story-telling wasn’t
working anymore. It wasn’t passing the time, it was putting me to
sleep.

My head lurched forward, and I woke with a
start. Abigail giggled, I smiled sheepishly at her, and
stretched.

“You know what I’ve wondered all these years
Vicky? What did I say that made them want to lynch me?”

Victoria looked up at her sister Ruth with a
genuine smile on her old face. “I don’t know. Never did. But it
must have been a doozy.”

Oh, no! That hateful sound.
Dum-dum-dum-dum,
on and on until DUM-DUM-DUM-DUM-DUM. Five!
It was finally five in the morning

Ruth shoved her chair back violently,
crashing it to the floor, and rushed to the chiming Regulator,
opened the front case and grabbed the swinging pendulum by its
neck. I was certain she was going to murder it, rip its throat out.
I would have. But she just stilled the irritating thing then
returned, righted her chair and sat, feigning normalcy. As if the
moment of madness had never happened. I expected her to make eye
contact with me, but she didn’t.

I guessed the railroad clock wasn’t digital
after all.

Her sprint to silence the demon clock had
turned my attention enough to take note of the windows behind us.
At first, I wasn’t sure if I could really see things on the other
side of the glass, so I returned to the task at hand--but a short
while later I looked back over my shoulder. Through them now I
could just make out a faint light creeping across the sodden
landscape. The chill air wafting off the windows also caught my
attention. Day break may be here, but so was winter. Two months
early.

So I’d made it to the end of the quilt. The
last few hours I didn’t think I would.

I hoped the rising sun would soon dispel the
dismal mood we had all been shoved down into, like kittens down a
midnight well.

A fuzzy-headed fatigue had silenced us for
almost two hours.

The quilt rack was again fully extended, so
we could see the whole of our work. It was beautiful--charming
little houses of individual styles, in colors ranging from purples
and blues through maroons and dark reds, all arrayed in a village
scene from an earlier century. I felt honored to have been a part
of top stitching it. And more importantly, my stitching had been
just fine. No grave errors, even and straight.

Gerry interrupted my mental celebration in a
sweet, sing-song voice, “Okay, Victoria. When are we going to hear
one of your wonderful secrets? It’s your quilting bee and we’ve
been waiting all night for you to come out with it.”

I groaned inwardly.
Please no more
insipid childhood secrets.

Victoria pushed herself back and sighed.
“I’ve told you all my secrets. A woman my age doesn’t have any
secrets left. Unless you count the ones I share with my
doctors.”

But there was a sudden wildness in her eyes
as if she saw something coming at her that she’d only heretofore
glimpsed.

“Nonsense. New secrets occur every day of
our lives,” Geraldine Patrone coaxed gently.

“Okay, fine. I’m old and getting older.
How’s that?”

“Won’t do. You know the rule. The secret
can’t be anything we already know.” Gerry.

Abigail giggled, a bit nervously I thought.
But Victoria just returned to her final stitches, a bowed and
determined silence her response.

“Okay, if you won’t share your own secret,
why don’t you tell us a story from Ada’s early childhood? In honor
of her memory. Surely she must have shared one with you over the
years,” the billionaire’s wife suggested.

Was her voice growing smaller as she talked,
or was it my imagination?

Victoria’s fleshy face pinched into her
worst scowl yet. She stubbornly continued to work for a moment
more, then tied off a stitch and buried the thread inside the
layers. She cut her needle free. She’d finished every one of her
rows. Bleakly I looked down at my own slow progress, still a few
inches to complete on all lines. I wasn’t alone. All the stitching
fingers had come to a halt near--but not at--the end of their work.
I was almost too tired to take in the sense of danger in the
room.

But not completely. Something more was going
on. Something I slowly understood was the purpose of this whole
night.

And Victoria went straight to the heart of
it.

“I know why you’ve brought this woman into
the group. Well I’ll have none of it.” Victoria shoved her chair
back, a storm playing on her face to match the sky outside. Her
eyes bored into Gerry’s.

This woman?

This was a new Victoria for me. She’d
suddenly grown paranoid, defensive.

Meanwhile, I felt Gerry grow smaller next to
me.

But then Victoria seemed to accept. But this
new Victoria didn’t last long. Perhaps exhaustion had robbed her of
her determination.

“Okay, fine. Have it your way, Was my way,
we’d leave sleeping dogs lie,” she barked. “Don’t know how this is
so important, anyway.”

A few moments passed in silence and furtive
glances.

As tired as I was, I knew where this was
leading. They’d talked about it a few hours ago. For my research
skills. Because I’m a PI.

So perhaps there’s something here they want
me to investigate. Perhaps Jake’s death.

“And?” Geraldine coaxed again.

With another great sigh, Victoria turned her
furious gaze on me. “You wanted to know why you’re here. Well, this
is why. You and your husband are why. Ada left a comforter for us,
and half the world knows it thanks to that fool boy of hers. And
these fool women all think the quilt contains secrets, like they’ve
been talking about all night.” She dismissed the idea with a wave
of her hand, and sat breathing heavily.

“What fool boy?” Gerry said, echoing my own
confusion. I guess I wasn’t the only one who was out of the loop on
Ada’s family tree.

“He delivered it at her overdue funeral.
Walked down the aisle and draped the thing over her coffin like a
blanket of flowers. Like it was an American flag that you drape
over soldiers,” Andrea said, a bitter smile twisting her mouth.

‘
Her
overdue funeral?’
Not
Jake’s?
And
Gerry hadn’t attended
.

Gerry said. “I thought you said the quilt
was discovered in her home. And…when was this funeral service?”

Gerry leaned across me and looked
questioningly at Hannah. Hannah shook her head.

Okay, so Hannah hadn’t attended the funeral
service either.

But Andrea and Elixchel had. And maybe Ruth?
Hard to tell, she was mostly rocking.

Andrea laughed bitterly.

“What could you find amusing about Ada’s
death, Andrea?” snapped Victoria, before sinking back heavily in
her chair.

Ada’s death. That was her name.

They were talking about the woman I’d
replaced—the one who had died at least three months ago? So…her
funeral had been delayed? My head was reeling with the surprises
and secrets suddenly coming to light about this mysterious
family.

Ruth murmured, “Vicky….”

“I didn’t find any of it humorous,
Victoria!” a suddenly serious Andrea snapped back. “Particularly
the part about you people not having the decency to invite him to
his mother’s funeral in the first place. And his grandpa Jake’s,
for that matter. Did you and your daughters ever find out where
he’d gone that night? Do you even know if Eddie saw his grandpa
die, yet? This could have been damaging to him. He’s had an
unbelievably hard life as it is.” Her face grew darker with each
accusatory question.

At last, another name. Eddie
. Ada’s
boy.

“Andrea! What are you saying? Who is Eddie?”
Gerry.

Good grief! The layers of secrets in this
group were astounding. Gerry, who seemed to be the instigator of
the inquiry, was seeking clarity.

It almost sounded as if no one here knew the
whole truth of the thing they were dancing around. Except for
Victoria. Victoria obviously knew more than the rest of them.

But if that was true, why didn’t she just
tell them all? And avoid all the intrusion of…that woman, as she so
warmly thinks of me.

Andrea ignored Gerry and said to me instead,
“You should have seen him, Rachel. Soaked by the rains,
half-covered with mud. He looked like a lost ghost come to honor
his dead mother’s soul. A grown man, but…like he was going to carry
her soul off on some magic…quilt…didn’t even have the sense to
cover his head with the wrapped quilt…protected his mom’s quilt
instead of himself….”

Good grief. Andrea was about to cry.

“Dead…mother? Ada? She had a boy?” Gerry
sputtered in exasperation.

Victoria sighed raggedly again, her inhale
almost a sob in reverse. Would she die of a heart attack before
telling me whatever it was the others wanted her to say? Her
distress was so great it filled the huge room.

Finally I could stand the cat-and-mouse game
no longer.

I said, “If this is so hard for Victoria
maybe one of you could explain for her. For starters, you could
begin by telling me about the woman I replaced and how she
died.”

Victoria stood. On wobbly legs.
Straightening her ancient back with firm resolve. Sticking her
age-softened chin forward.

“Ada was my daughter-in-law,” Victoria said.
“My son’s wife. And you are a pack of…a….” Victoria staggered.
Elixchel caught her, and helped her painstakingly creep from the
room. An elder tortoise taking its leave. And then Ruth got up and
followed her sister and Elixchel out into the hall.

The others pushed away from the unfinished
work to linger near the fire, stare out the window. Granted, I was
exhausted, and perhaps overreacting, but what the devil was wrong
with these women? How could they keep such weighty secrets from
each other? My outraged sense of how normal families should relate
to one another was warring with my professional curiosity about
this family and its two recent deaths.

After more long moments Elixchel
returned.

Tears were now slipping down Andrea’s face,
an amazing sight given my heretofore feelings about her. She
whipped them away, impatiently.

Elixchel said, “I put her to bed, she’s
exhausted. And grief-stricken.” She cast a reproving glance at
Geraldine, who had sat down again, her questions unanswered.

“Look, I thought she might take the lead in
this. We all did, remember? We decided if we approached this whole
thing slowly, during the night, leading Victoria forward, that
she’d eventually join us. That she’d eventually see that we simply
must get to the bottom of whatever happened to Ada. ” Gerry looked
around at the others for support. But there was none.

She got up again and moved to the fireplace.
She looked angry and hurt.

Hannah said, “We both pushed for this,
Gerry. No one is blaming you. I mean, I didn’t know Ada had a son
either until Andrea told me he showed up with the quilt. I’m sorry
that none of us thought to include you in that information. The
funeral—for both Jake and Ada—were for immediate family only, as I
understand it.

“The fact that we’re being kept in the dark
about so much of the Stowall family history is why we’ve decided to
go forward with this…” Her eyes slid to mine and back to the
others. Finally she continued, “…with this investigation.”

Hannah stopped, as if to wait for an
objection to her use of the word. There was none, so at least the
group was on board for this much.

Except, I thought Abigail was agitated
now.

Elixchel said, “And I agreed to it.”

“Me too.” Abigail said. “But my mom….”

Thus the agitation I’d
noted
.
Abigail’s mom wasn’t supporting this ‘investigation.’

I said, “What about your mom?” I was
thinking about how her mother was a nurse. Maybe I needed to know
where she worked.

Abigail of the deer-in-the-headlights eyes
said, “She isn’t too happy about us…hiring a detective.” She looked
back down at her sewing. Embarrassed?

“Speaking of mothers,” Elixchel said. “You
should ask your mother again, Gerry, since she once quilted with
the group. And you should ask Ruth, Hannah. Victoria is just
not…willing, or able to. I mean, we didn’t know Ada had a son
either until he showed up with the quilt, right Andrea?” She looked
at Andrea for confirmation, but Andrea looked away.

She’d known
. At least, she’d known
for longer than the rest of them.

Hannah said, “I’ve asked my mom about Ada,
she won’t talk any more than Victoria will. It’s like that
generation refuses to talk about personal problems. The bigger the
problem, the tighter they clam up.”

I turned to Hannah. “How big a problem is
this? How exactly did Ada die? What specifically are you asking me
to investigate?”

Hannah glanced at the others. “We don’t know
how Ada died. Her death was unattended. She was cremated before an
autopsy could be performed….” She trailed off.

So one generation was stonewalling the next.
Not unusual, if the secrets were too hurtful for them to
revisit.

Curiosity battled exhaustion. Exhaustion
won. “I can barely stay awake, ladies. I am willing to follow up on
this with you, but it has to wait until I’ve gotten some sleep.
What do you need from me right now?”

“Elixchel, go get Ada’s quilt and let’s do
this,” Hannah said.

“Where is it?” Elixchel.

“
Where we left it, fool woman, hanging in
Luke’s closet,”
Victoria shouted from her bedroom, her ancient
voice surprisingly strong again. Her ears were obviously pretty
good, too.

Luke? Mark’s brother, noted on Victoria’s
quilt?

So maybe Luke was the one who married
Ada.

Elixchel went off to retrieve the quilt and
I asked one of the myriad questions I had.

“Is Luke Ada’s husband? Where is he now and
how does he figure into this situation?”