Ada Unraveled (11 page)

“He’s…missing. Since…Ada…was found. Maybe
before.” Andrea.

Good. She was finally talking again.

“Which was when?”

“Ada was found a week ago, during the
firestorms.” Andrea.

“How old was Ada and how did she die?”

Hannah answered. “I think she was about
sixty-two. We don’t know how she died. A physician was called in, I
believe he is distantly related to Jake and Victoria, he examined
her body, said she appeared to have died from complications of
influenza, and she was cremated within the day.

“But…given that Luke had disappeared before
she was found, and certain…rumors some of us have heard about
domestic violence, we thought this should be looked into further,”
she concluded.

“What about her son, Eddie?” I asked. “Can
he shed any light onto his mother’s death?”

Andrea answered. “Eddie can’t.
He’s…confused.”

Getting answers out of these women, even
when they were asking for my help, was an immensely frustrating
task, and one that I was frankly no longer up for.

When I’d stood to leave the quilting room
and this long night of secrets, I wondered if my legs would get me
to the front door.

At the front door I wondered if my head
would get me and my car home.

And, at the front door, Hannah told me a bit
more about my new assignment.

“There’s a book on the Stowall family in the
Carlsbad library. It’s some sort of genealogy written by John
Stowall. You might find that helpful.”

“And here’s a copy of the family genealogy.
You might want to look at that first. I’m sorry about…all this. The
way it transpired. But….” Gerry pressed taped and folded sheets of
a computer printout on top of the pile in my arms. I pulled it
against my body, shielding it behind the quilt. The rain was just a
sprinkle now, but soon there would be more.

“I appreciate how painful this has been for
all of you. I only wish I’d understood where this night was headed
in the beginning.”

Right at that moment, I was concentrating on
getting in my car and driving for the better part of an hour. I was
wishing there was some travel god who could teleport me directly
into my warm bed.

“Goodbye, Rachel. We’ll see you in a month,
if not sooner,” Elixchel called from the kitchen doorway. She sent
a tentative wave, similar to the feeble one I’d waved at her, way
back in the beginning of this long night.

I turned in a weary daze and chose the best
path through the mud to my car. They’d given me paper towels to
clean my shoes, but I decided it was best to just take them off and
place the mud caked Mocs on the floor on top of the towels. Ada’s
carefully folded quilt lay on the passenger’s seat on top of the
papers Gerry had just given me as I prepared to drive away.

As the road passed under my wheels, I tried
to lift my spirits with thoughts of how clean the landscape looked
after this good washing. Then I tried the radio, but the first news
station I came to was blaring out the muddy details of a massive
slide in LA. I glanced at the beautiful quilt I’d been entrusted
with. What complex and masterful work. As I wondered about the
woman who had created it, I noticed a huge white truck with some
sort of device attached to its front bumper looming in my rear
mirror. Elevated abnormally on those wacky monster truck springs,
it was so close I was mostly looking back at its undercarriage—with
a cruel bumper above, a bumper made of metal pipes and a flat panel
of scarred sheet metal.
It was a bulbar, wasn’t it?
I
wondered briefly where that tidbit of fascinating information had
been buried. No doubt some long-ago reference question was the
source.

I glanced up at the mirror again. What? Were
we playing Red-Light, Green-Light? The truck was much closer. The
narrow two-lane road curved before me. I sped up a bit.
Jacked-up guy was probably late for work.

The monster truck edged closer on its
ludicrously oversized wheels
. I wished I’d called Matt to
pick me up. At least the rude pig was keeping me awake. The white
truck lurched forward and faded back.
What was with him?
It
was as if he was working up the courage to….

The monster truck leapt forward again—to
within inches! I couldn’t go any faster, the road was too curvy and
I was too tired to navigate safely as it was. I rolled my window
down all the way as I spied a slight widening in the road, and
signaled him to pass, easing my wagon closer to the shoulder.

A blaring noise drove my adrenaline level up
a notch. The monster truck had a monster horn.

He sprang at me again,
definitely
threatening me
, and this time he didn’t pull back. Carefully, I
thrust a searching hand into my bag, looking for my phone. Oh, no!
It was off. From the bee. I pressed and held the red button and
waited for the stupid thing to jingle its way toward a connection.
I needed help. This guy was obviously on cocaine or speed or
something.

Bang!
He rammed the back of my
car!

I grabbed the wheel with both hands, letting
my phone fly solo to the passenger side floor.

Bang! He rammed me again. I held on for dear
life, breathing like I was in a marathon. He was pushing me now,
connected, like a runaway train!
I barely made it through
the next curve in the road. My mind was racing. Where was the next
town? This guy was deliberately driving me off the road!

We flew through another curve, still
connected.

Where was Escondido? How close was I? The
truck pushed my speed up to eighty! I had to slow us down, so I
gently but firmly began applying my brakes--praying the old Ford
could hold against the powerful force hell-bent on killing me. The
truck had taken on a persona in my mind. As if it was driving
itself.

I wished I’d kept on my Mocs, my
sock-covered braking foot was killing me. I’d managed to lower our
linked-speed down to sixty-two—but my brakes would need to be
replaced. Then I spotted another sharp curve dead ahead and braced
myself. At the last second I saw an opportunity to rid myself of
the damnable ram truck.

As we entered the turn, I switched my aching
foot from the brake to the gas pedal and pressed it to the floor.
My good old wagon jumped for joy, quickly sending my speed up over
seventy. The wagon took the curve on two wheels, rising up off the
pavement before settling down as the curve straightened. Then, I
watched as the Evil Bulbar Truck flew off the road straight into a
field, throwing up clots of mud as it ground to a halt.

Matt was standing in the garage waiting for
me, cell phone in hand, when I finally made it home, his face full
of concern. That’s when the tears came.

Matthew Lyons, lover of golf, gardening, and
all things Marine, led me upstairs to our bedroom. He helped me
strip off my sweats then stripped off his own clothes. I was still
shaking, though the tears had stopped. He steered me into the
oversized shower stall.

He turned the hot water up as high as we
could bear, and we washed each other.
You do my back and I’ll do
yours.

I loved these together showers. One of our
great rituals. His hands caressed my body gently, slipping through
the water, blending with the water,
water hands.
We should
do this every day, I thought sleepily. Then remembered we usually
did. For lots of reasons, but this morning it was for emotional
comfort.

Well, it was always for that.

Wisdom our German shepherd stood bravely by
with his nose pressed up against the glass door, whimpering. His
black and tan coat was still gleaming from his last bath. Normally
he stayed as far away from the shower stall as he could because in
the winter that was where I washed him, but he was worried about me
now. Dogs knew.

Matt was putting me under the bed covers.
Dreamily, I watched him shoo Wisdom out of the bedroom. I heard the
dog slump against the door with a loud complaint and then I fell
asleep.

After five hours I could sleep no more. It
was just as well, I would be up all night again tonight if I slept
any longer.

I was experiencing bee-lag instead of
jet-lag. Carrying a mug of hot tea and still wearing my favorite
terry robe, I went into the spare bedroom to glance at Ada’s quilt
again. Matt must have spread it out on the bed while I slept. Now
he was out in the garden. The quilt made me speechless it was so
beautiful.

I gazed at it and sipped as my head cleared
from the fog of sleep, and I realized two things: first, that this
group of women had wanted to get to know me, and wanted me to get
to know them, before they hired me; and second, none of them were
willing to talk about what they knew of Ada Stowall and her
death--at least, not in front of each other.

So the third question became, would they
talk to me individually? I thought my best shot would be through
Hannah and Gerry.

Then I remembered that Geraldine Patrone
hadn’t even known that Eddie Stowall, the son of Ada, was still
alive. Maybe because she lived in a fantasy world with a
billionaire miles from Victoria and Ada’s world. So maybe my best
shot was only Hannah.

I briefly wondered why the other women
present during the long night didn’t seem as accessible as these
two women. Maybe because Gerry and Hannah were closer to my age.
Maybe because four of the group had been separated from me by
several widening feet as the evening had progressed and so most of
my chatting had been done with the ladies on either side of me.

And Ruth, who had also sat on the
window-side, well, she was distant for reasons I hadn’t yet thought
out. Reasons more complex than the simple fact of her age.

“Hey.”

Matt had snuck up behind me, making me jump.
His favorite little-boy’s joke. He wrapped his arms around me. I
smiled, reached back and ran my fingers through his thick brown
hair, sprinkled with gray and no longer as short as a Marine’s. It
felt silky and thick. Other women over the years had shown an
interest in my husband, had thought he was pretty darn sexy. I
killed some of them, beat up the rest.

Matt said, “I found these inside the quilt
when I spread it out earlier. The quilt’s pretty, huh?”

“Priceless,” I answered and took a small
book out of his hand. It was a diary. As I opened it an envelope
fell out on the quilt. I picked it up. It had been opened. “This
was inside?”

“Yeah.”

I tucked the envelope behind the diary and
flipped to the title page. “Oh, lord. This book belongs…belonged to
Ada Stowall.”

“Yeah. And the quilt is hers, too. Says so
on the dated label. Sorry to hear she’s dead.” I glanced at him,
surprised, as he flipped the nearest corner of the quilt over so I
could read it. It was dated April of this year.

The diary was dated also. It must have been
written when Ada was a child. I opened the envelope, still
wondering how Matt knew about Ada’s death. I certainly didn’t tell
him when I arrived home. All I could think about early this a.m.
was that I’d barely survived an assault. I said, “Wow.”

“So the billionaire’s wife sends her love
and thanks, and a hefty check to research Ada’s death. What
gives?”

I quickly brought him up to date on the
events of the bee, without elaborating on the weirdness of the
night.

He said, “They want to hire us to research
this woman’s death?”

I nodded, yes.

“Well, this is a new twist in our career.
First potential murder case we’ve been hired to investigate.
Certainly the police haven’t asked for our help before. What
gives?”

I said, “It seems someone doesn’t want
anyone to learn how Ada Stowall died, police included. She was
cremated almost immediately after being discovered.”

“Where?”

I shrugged.

“When?”

I shrugged again.

“Who was with her? Who had her
cremated?”

I told him the little I knew. Pretty much
nothing.

“So you’re basically starting from scratch.
Sounds fascinating.” He switched gears, pointing at the quilt.
“What’s with that?”

I almost shrugged a third time, but the joke
was done.

“They gave it to me last night and asked me
to study it. They think it will help me…us…with investigating her
death.”

Matt moved to my side, arm still around my
waist. “So you’ve hooked up with a cult group.” I ignored his
rudeness. Frankly, I wasn’t sure if he was right or wrong. He
continued. “So why was Victoria Stowall so upset about this whole
thing?”

“Turns out Ada is Victoria’s deceased
daughter-in-law. In fact, most of the women are related to the
Stowall family. At least peripherally. And I was invited to join
them because of our business.

“Okay. But the quilt?”

“They believe it contains a secret. The
central design makes it an album quilt—a pattern that is usually
used to depict significant events in a person or family’s
life.”

“Good to know.” He turned to stare at the
open doorway. Leaving. Thinking of excuses to exit, like needing to
practice for his next golf game. Speaking of cults.

Golf was as close to a guy-cult as any.

“Beautiful,” I murmured, still mostly caught
up in the magnificence on the bed.

He glanced back down. “Yeah. Lot of work,
but, research…?”

My eyes moved from one intricate scene to
the next, created from bright fabrics carefully cut, hemmed and
then appliquéd to the smooth ivory surface. Perfect. It spoke to me
as only a quilt…well, no. Other things spoke to me this way, too.
Spiritual things.

I muttered, “Research all the symbols and
strange topstitching on it. They think there’s some secret sewn on
or inside of it. The pictures in the nine central squares are
certainly interesting. They think its Ada’s darkest secret,
quilted.”