Stitches in Time (23 page)

He broke off, frowning.

“What?” Adam asked.

“There could be another factor,” Pat muttered. “Something unknown to us as yet. Oh, forget it. Speculation of that sort is a waste of time. For all we know there have been other vehicles over the years. We haven't investigated its history—”

“Precisely,” Kara interrupted. “Seems to me your first move should be to find out who made the quilt, and what she was like.”

“But the damned—excuse me—thing is over a hundred years old,” Adam protested. “There won't be documentation; women's work wasn't considered important enough to merit written records.”

Kara gave him a sardonic smile. “Records made by male historians, you mean? How true. But sometimes there are diaries, notes written by proud daughters and granddaughters, even annotated photographs in old albums. An expert might be able to determine the approximate date, possibly even the region of the country where it originated, from the type of fabric, the prints, the dyes. I'm surprised at you, Pat—and you too, Adam. You're supposed to be scholars; if you ran into a problem in a field with which you
weren't familiar—paleobotany or medieval French art, for example—you'd consult an expert. Why didn't you ask Rachel? She could have told you all this.”

“If you're accusing me of male chauvinism,” Pat began furiously.

“They were afraid to ask me,” Rachel said. “I have a habit of going into fits when people ask me direct questions. It's unnerving.”

After a moment Kara said, “Yes, I see. Sorry, Pat.”

“You have a point, though,” Pat admitted. “I wasn't thinking of this as a legitimate research project. Old habits die hard. So you're willing to accept my hypothesis?”

Instead of answering, Kara went to the bookshelf. Selecting a book, she found the page she wanted and began to read aloud. “‘My whole life is in that quilt. All my joys and all my sorrows are stitched into those little pieces. My hopes and fears, my loves and hates. I tremble sometimes when I remember what that quilt knows about me.'”

“What's that?” Pat made a grab for the book.

“It has nothing to do with your quilt,” Kara said. “But it supports your theory, doesn't it? I remember hearing another woman talk about her embroidery. There was one piece I wanted to buy, but she wouldn't sell it. ‘There's too much in that tablecloth,' she said. ‘The times I sat by the baby's crib, loving him and thanking the Lord for him; the days I watched over my girls while they played, safe and happy; the nights I waited for my son to come home, not knowing where he was or what kind of trouble he could be in, and my hands shaking so bad I couldn't hardly hold the needle. See that part there, how uneven the stitches are? I should have pulled them out, but I won't. Because he did come home, and he's a grown-up man now, and a good man.' Then she laughed, a little sheepishly, and she said, ‘I stitched my soul into that tablecloth, Miz Brinckley. What price could I put on that?'”

“Stitched her soul into it,” Pat repeated. “Did she really believe her sewing brought a wayward youth safe home to mama? Hell's bells, superstition is my speciality. How could I have missed this sort of thing?”

“Because you're a man,” Kara said tolerantly. “Women don't talk about ‘this sort of thing' to supercilious male scholars. They're afraid they will be laughed at.”

Her eyes met Rachel's in a long look of understanding and private amusement.

“They don't think of it as working magic,” Rachel explained. “They don't really believe in it, but…‘It don't do no harm.' Isn't that what people say, when they toss a pinch of spilled salt over their shoulders or walk wide around a black cat? Modern superstitions are based on ancient religious and magical practices.”

“Don't lecture me on my own field, young woman!” Pat shouted.

“Seems to me you're not the expert you thought you were,” Kara said. “And that what you need right now is a little more action and a little less theorizing.”

Pat began, “That book—”

“Yes, that book. If the author did her research, and if she was lucky, she was able to trace the ownership of the quilt back to its maker. But we can't waste time looking through books at random; there are dozens, possibly hundreds, of them. The quickest way to find it is to ask Mrs. Wilson. Shut up, Pat, I can't hear with you swearing.”

She had picked up the telephone and dialed. After a brief conversation with someone—her secretary or housekeeper—she reached for a pen, wrote down a telephone number, and dialed again. The ensuing conversation was also brief. Kara slammed the phone back into the cradle.

“What a bitch. ‘Ah'm afraid Ah'm too busy right now, but Ah might could spare you a few minutes later today, if it's all that important to you.'”

Her imitation of Mrs. Wilson trying to sound like a southern lady was cruelly accurate. She added sourly, “This is probably going to cost me money, Pat. I had to let her think I was after the quilts, and it's a mistake to sound too eager.”

“Now just a cotton-pickin' minute,” Pat exclaimed.

“Oooh, how cute.” Kara grinned offensively.

“Don't fight,” Adam pleaded.

“We're not fighting.” Pat's grin was equally provocative. “Just trying to settle a little matter of the chain of command. I'm obviously the best person to talk to Mrs. Bitch. I can get more out of her than you can. I'll tell her I'm writing an article. I'm a historian—”

“No, you're not, you're just a bloody anthropologist. And a man. Two strikes against you.” Kara glanced at Rachel and her smile faded. “Don't be misled, Rachel. We go on like this all the time. It doesn't mean we aren't taking the situation seriously.”

“I know.” Rachel glanced at Pat's apoplectic countenance and added wryly, “I suppose I'll get used to it.”

Kara sat down on the arm of the sofa. “Seriously, Pat, I have an edge with Mrs. Wilson you lack. You can talk to her about research till you're blue in the face. She's not interested in history or genealogy, she's interested in money, and she's not the type to give anything, including information, away for free. My pitch will be that I need to know where the quilts originated in order to establish a fair price. They're worth more if they have a provenance—that's true, and she probably knows it. She'll be anxious to cooperate.”

“Huh.” She was right and he was too honest to deny it, but the grunt was as much of an admission as she was likely to get. “So what are Adam and I supposed to do, follow you around and take notes?”

“You can start by cleaning up that mess in the workroom.”

“Who, me?”

“If you can con Adam into doing it, that's fine with me. For heaven's sake, Pat, stop grunting and rolling your eyes and playing
ego
games. There's too much at stake.”

“Okay, okay. Suppose I take a sample and have that stuff analyzed.”

“Good idea. Then you and Adam can search the house. Obviously he didn't do a thorough job the first time.”

“Pat told me to concentrate on places where Rachel wasn't likely to go,” Adam protested. “She works in that room—”

“You don't know where she's likely to go or what she is likely to do,” Kara said. “That's the trouble with your procedure, Pat; instead of looking for evidence on which to base a theory, you act as if your tentative hypothesis were a fact. You had better start with the workroom. Rachel and I will help you.”

The job took over an hour. They cleared every cupboard and emptied every drawer and opened every bottle and jar. Adam even checked the wiring. Finally Kara said, “I don't think we've missed anything. Have you guys got the hang of it now? Can we trust you to do as thorough a job elsewhere?”

Pat got stiffly to his feet. “Don't push me too far, Kara. I don't mind eating a little crow but you're rubbing it in. And don't tell me I'm mixing my metaphors.”

“Would I do that?” Kara tucked a loosened lock of hair back under her scarf and glanced at her watch. “We've got just enough time to finish in here before we call on Mrs. Wilson. Take this cloth, Pat, and dust those shelves before you replace the materials. And stop glowering. I'm going to tell Cheryl we decided to give the place a good cleaning if she notices, as she surely will, that things have been disturbed.”

“You think of everything, don't you?” Pat didn't stop
glowering, but he took the dust cloth and there was grudging admiration in his voice.

By the time Kara was satisfied, the room had been restored to order, Mrs. Grossmuller's “whites” were soaking in a mixture of water and bleach, and the mysterious bottle had been sealed in a plastic bag. The only remaining evidence was a stain on the tiled floor. Adam had wiped up the puddle, but the stain had proved resistant to soap and water.

“It is indelible,” Kara murmured. “I wonder if bleach—”

“Leave it for now,” Pat said. “Once we find out what it is, we can figure out what cleaning agent will be most effective.”

“Very good.” Kara gave him an approving smile. “Old dogs can be taught new tricks, I see.”

“Oh, I'm loving every moment of this. Next you can teach me how to knit.”

 

Kara allowed herself only ten minutes for lunch. “I have to change clothes,” she explained. “Looking rich is part of the technique of intimidating a seller.”

“I thought the idea was to look poor,” Adam said interestedly.

“That may work in the bazaars of the Near East and in flea markets, but it's not effective with people like Mrs. Wilson. You have to intimidate them or they will try to intimidate you. You needn't bother changing, Rachel,” she added. “I can intimidate enough for both of us.”

Rachel hadn't realized she was expected to go along. The idea wasn't especially appealing, but she didn't argue. Might as well argue with a tornado. She was still dazed by Kara's calm acceptance of the incredible and by her energetic response.

When Kara came back she looked like Cinderella after
the fairy godmother's visit. Rachel recognized the dress; it was a thirties silk print from the shop. Kara's hair was pinned up with a pair of faux tortoiseshell barrettes from the same source, and her makeup was impeccable.

“Lucky Cheryl and I wear the same size shoes,” she said, seeing Rachel stare at the smart pumps. “Well—almost the same size. These pinch like hell but I can stand it for a couple of hours. Ready, Rachel? While we're gone, you guys can investigate the upstairs kitchen. Toss anything that looks suspicious.”

Pat tugged at his forelock. “Yes, ma'am.”

Kara seemed preoccupied, frowning as she drove. When they halted at the stoplight in the middle of town she reached into her purse and handed Rachel a small bottle.

“You don't remember this, I suppose.”

According to the label the bottle contained foundation, a popular, moderately expensive brand. “It's not mine,” Rachel said. She had a premonition of what Kara was going to say.

“No, it's Cheryl's.” The light changed. A horn behind them blared and Kara rolled down the window and made a rude hand gesture before transferring her foot from the brake to the gas. “While I was up there I thought I might as well look through the medicine chest in her—their—bathroom.”

“What—what's wrong with it?”

“Something gritty has been added.” Kara rolled up the window. “Can't be ground glass, it doesn't sparkle. Can't be sand, it's too sharp.”

“So if she put it on her face…”

“It wouldn't have done her complexion any good.” Kara's voice was quite calm. “Ever seen her put on makeup? Hard and fast, the way she does everything. She probably wouldn't have noticed anything was wrong until after she slapped the first lot on.”

Rachel eyed the little bottle as if it had been a snake coiled to strike. “I can't stand this,” she muttered. “I've got to leave that house. Now, today.”

“Copping out? No. You're not going anyplace until we've settled this business—one way or the other.”

“Why are you doing this?” Rachel whispered.

Kara's eyes remained fixed on the road. “I'll let you know when I've figured it out myself. There's a notebook in my purse. Get it, and a pen if you don't have one with you. Do you take shorthand? No? Well, do the best you can. Write everything down. That's part of the intimidation process,” she added with a tight smile.

Mrs. Wilson lived in one of the subdivisions that had grown up around the old town. The curving streets had names like Azalea Drive and Dogwood Lane and the houses sprawled pretentiously over a quarter-acre of land. After a wrong turn—“The damned woman doesn't know right from left,” Kara grunted—they found Daffodil Court. Kara had a final word of instruction. “Let me do the talking.”

If she hadn't been so distracted Rachel would have been amused at the unarmed combat between Kara and Mrs. Wilson. The latter was also familiar with the basic tactics; she just didn't employ them as skillfully as her opponent. Her dress was too fussy and too formal, glittering with sequins and beads, and she wore too much jewelry—all of it fake, except for her engagement and wedding rings. The living room was painfully neat, every cushion “plumped,” every wooden surface slick with polish. The mantel over the fireplace (gas) held a row of family photographs. The “entertainment center” covered an entire wall, the single bookcase contained a few bestsellers and
Readers' Digest
condensed books plus a collection of collectors' plates featuring scenes from
Gone With the Wind
, and a two-foot-tall Scarlett O'Hara doll wearing the famous “barbecue” dress.

Rachel told herself not to be a snob.

Kara didn't bother concealing her feelings. The curl of her lip relaxed only once, when she admired a massive silver candelabrum.