The Devil's Puzzle (29 page)

After Molly’s police protection arrived, I went back to the shop and collected the reproduction and antique quilts that some of our regulars were already dropping off. The quilt show was more than two weeks off and I already had sixteen quilts ready to hang.

It was as comforting as ever to spend my time looking at quilts. As much as I wanted to worry and stress about a growing collection of questions, I soon got lost in the fabric choices and the beautiful stitching.

They were an amazing group of quilts. The antique ones dated back to the Depression, and I had promises for quilts from just after the Civil War. But I also had quilts made in the 1970s, 80s, and even ones made less than ten years before. Even though most of the older quilts didn’t have labels to identify who had made them, each quilt provided insight into its maker—a collection of choices in color and pattern that revealed the true passions of the woman behind it.

Some, like the log cabin quilt in bright blues and purples, were exciting and lively, even as a close examination revealed wobbly rows, large stitches, and mismatched seams.

“A beginner who wasn’t afraid of color,” I said to myself. “That’s someone who plunges in headfirst, without a worry about right or wrong.”

Another quilt was a small star pattern, with a carefully plannedout color scheme of reds and taupes. Intricate appliquéd flowers bordered the quilt.

“An expert,” I decided. “Someone who likes order. Someone with discipline and patience.”

“Who are you talking to?” Natalie asked.

“I’m determining the personality of each of these quilt makers. It’s amazing what you can tell about a person by their quilts.”

“I suppose it’s always been a place for people to let their guard down, just be themselves,” she said. “I think we all get so caught up in what other people need us to be that it’s easy to forget what we need. I know when I quilt it’s one of the rare times when I’m truly seeking only to please myself.”

“Mary Shipman was suggesting I try to do that,” I said. “When I talked to her in her kitchen she said I needed to be comfortable with who I am, as the town busybody . . .”

“You only are a busybody if it’s for a good cause . . .”

“Maybe, but her point was that it made me uncomfortable to be seen that way. She said that my worrying about what other people thought was getting in my way. It was weird how she picked up on that, because I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately.”

“Did she give you a potion to cure it?”

“She’s not a witch, Natalie.”

“That’s too bad. I was hoping she’d cast a spell over the baby when it’s born, so it will sleep through the night from day one.”

“I think she was trying to tell me something,” I said.

“Something other than what she actually said.”

“Yeah. Something about Winston’s murder. Maybe someone is not showing who they really are.”

“Like?”

“Who are our suspects? Ed had a fight with Winston at the bank . . .”

“And then there’s Glad, who might have had a crush on him that he didn’t return,” Natalie said.

“Which puts the mayor in play. He was Glad’s boyfriend; maybe he was jealous.”

“Or maybe Mary was jealous that her sister was involved with the man she wanted.”

I sighed. “My head is spinning. There are too many suspects, and those are the ones we know about. What about the maybe dozens of people that Winston encountered in the time he was in Archers Rest? Maybe he insulted someone we don’t even know about and got hit over the head for it.”

“Maybe,” Natalie said, a hesitancy in her voice. “But why would that person take all of Winston’s things?”

“I don’t know. Winston was being blackmailed. He said so to his sister. If we find out what that was about, then we find his blackmailer.”

“And probably his killer,” Natalie finished my thought.

“I hope so,” I said, caught up once again in the thrill of solving a case. “And then we have to figure out who is turning Archers Rest into a hotbed of petty crimes.”

“You don’t think it’s . . .”

She didn’t have to finish. I knew she was talking about the conversation between Ed and Eleanor. “No, I don’t,” I answered quickly.

“Well, Eleanor did say that Glad was next,” Natalie said. “And less than seventy-two hours later, Glad’s picture has a knife sticking out of it.”

“Does that sound like Eleanor?” I asked.

“No. But it doesn’t sound like anyone in town.”

“If there’s someone in Archers Rest who seems to know more about people than they know about themselves, it’s Mary Shipman,” I said.

Natalie frowned. “I think all you’ll get are more of her riddles. But at least you know where to find her.”

“Maybe,” I said. “Unless she’s hiding something, too.”

CHAPTER 46

T
wenty minutes later, I was ringing Mary Shipman’s doorbell for the third time and getting no answer. Standing there felt a lot like this murder investigation, the vandalism around town, and Eleanor’s newfound secrecy—I was putting in a lot of effort and getting no answers anywhere.

I walked around to the back of the house, looking for signs that someone was inside. The windows were all covered with heavy drapes, and I couldn’t see a thing. I did find an empty gallon of red paint in the backyard, but it seemed odd and really careless for Mary to spill the paint on the headstone and then bring the empty paint can back to her own house. Still, I couldn’t just assume she wouldn’t.

I headed back to the front of the house and rang the bell one last time. Just as I was about to leave, convinced that Mary Shipman was the person I saw earlier disappearing into Ed’s theater, the door opened. Only instead of Mary, it was Glad.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“It’s my sister’s house. What are
you
doing here?”

“I’ve come to talk to your sister.”

“She’s sleeping. She had a headache, so I suggested a nap.”

“But she’s home?”

“She’s always home. My sister has a crippling fear of leaving her house. She’s struggled with it for years.”

I had no choice but to take Glad at her word, so I turned around and headed for my car.

“Nell,” Glad called out to me.

I turned back.

“Come inside for a minute.”

I walked back to the house and followed Glad inside. As soon as I crossed the threshold, she slammed the door behind me and locked it tight.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Didn’t you see what someone did to my picture this morning?”

“Yes. Strange.”

“And terrifying. I’ve had to hide out here because I think someone’s trying to kill me.”

“I don’t know if that’s the case.”

“They wrote
kill
across the picture,” she said, her voice trembling, her hands shaking.

“They wrote
killer
,” I corrected her. “It was more of an accusation than a threat.”

“Why would someone accuse me of being a killer?” she asked.

“Who could I have killed?”

“I don’t know. Winston, I guess.”

She sniffed, displeased at me. She walked ahead to the living room and sat on the cream-colored couch, pushing a sleeping cat from its comfortable spot. I sat opposite her with my back to the door, a position I felt gave her an unseen advantage.

“I was only a teenager at the time,” she said, her fear now gone, replaced with Glads trademark sense of superiority. “I barely knew the man.”

“And yet you knew exactly who was in that grave based on a description of his height and clothes.”

“No one in Archers Rest wore anything made on Savile Row except for Winston Roemer,” she said. “He was the very embodiment of sophistication to me.”

“But you were dating Larry Williams. Maybe you wished it was Winston?”

She shook her head. “I only had eyes for Larry. It was one of the loveliest times in my life, when he and I were together.”

Based on the mayor’s recollection of the experience, I wasn’t expecting her to feel that way. “He said it was puppy love.”

“It wasn’t. It was real, true love. I wanted to marry him,” she said. “For years after, I would have dropped everything to be with him.” She sighed. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”

“Maybe the fright of seeing your picture stabbed . . .”

“Maybe.”

Or maybe, I thought, you want me to believe you didn’t have a motive to kill Winston. But I kept that to myself. Instead I told her, “The mayor said you broke up over a baseball game.”

“We did.”

“If it was real, true love, why break up with him just because he wouldn’t go to your mother’s tea?”

“We were supposed to announce our engagement at my mother’s tea. Then at the last minute he said he preferred to go to a baseball game, and we’d do it another time. I wanted to know if he was getting cold feet, and he said that he was. ‘Ice-cold,’ I think he said. And that was the end of it.”

“Was that before or after Winston died?”

“Given that at the time I didn’t know Winston was dead, I would hardly be able to use that as my point of reference.”

I had to concede she had a point.

“What’s all the chatter?” I heard from behind me.

I turned to see Mary walking into the room. She wasn’t alone. Oliver was with her.

“Hi, Oliver,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

He didn’t answer. He seemed to be blushing, but it was hard to tell, because he turned his back to me as if he hadn’t noticed I was there. Then he left without saying a word.

“Nell, how nice of you to come for a return visit,” Mary said.

“And spend time with my sister, the fugitive.”

“You’re not a fugitive if you’re a potential victim.” Glad was scolding her, but there was something good-natured and warm about it.

“Glad said you were sleeping.”

“I was visiting with Oliver.”

“I didn’t know you two knew each other.”

“Don’t feel bad about that. I’m sure I have a lot of friends you don’t know about.”

“Why was he here?”

“Advice, I suppose.” Mary plopped down next to her sister and grabbed Glad’s hand. “More and more sinister happenings. Have you figured any of it out yet?”

“Not a thing,” I admitted. “But I am discovering that everyone in this town has a secret.”

“At least one,” Mary said. “What’s mine?”

“Glad says you’re afraid to go out of the house, but you were at the movie theater this afternoon.”

“Was I? What makes you think that?”

“I saw someone go into the movie theater. I only saw her arm . . .”

“Not much of an ID,” Mary said lightly. “A lot of people have arms.”

“The arm I saw was wearing that bracelet,” I said as I pointed to the jewelry.

“This one?” She held up her hand for closer examination. “Oliver just gave it to me. It was a gift for Eleanor, but she didn’t care for it, so he regifted it to me.”

“He couldn’t have given it to you just now. You had it on when I was here before.”

“You’re right. It was another visit.”

“You said you only got visits from Ed and your sister. Then you added Maggie to the list, and now Oliver.”

I could see Glad stiffen and get ready for a fight, but Mary patted her hand and leaned toward me. “It’s true I didn’t give you an exhaustive list of my visitors, but I had no idea you required one. Now that I know it’s important to you, I’ll begin keeping a guest book.”

She could have sounded angry, but she didn’t. She was playing, having fun. As I looked at the sisters, it was obvious she was Glad’s opposite. Not just in the way they dressed, though Glad was in a dark blue designer suit with an A-line skirt, nylons, and three-inch pumps, while Mary wore a pink T-shirt and patched jeans. But what made them opposites was in their attitudes. Glad was closed off, unwilling to show herself to anyone. If her sister was telling the truth, Mary’s phobias might make her a prisoner in her own home, but in so many ways, she was far more free than Glad.

“Mary, my grandmother said that if I wanted to know what was going on, I should talk to you,” I said.

“What did she mean by that?”

“I’m guessing you know.”

Glad and Mary exchanged glances and seemed to agree on something.

“People come to me for advice,” she said. “I help them. Or at least, I try.”

“So you are a witch.”

Mary leaned back and smiled.

CHAPTER 47

“T
hat’s slander,” Glad said. “I don’t know why people glamorize such ridiculous rumors.”

“Hush,” Mary told her sister. “I’m not a witch, though honestly if I could make people’s lives better with a mix of herbs and incantations, I would do that. Sadly, I cannot. All I offer is a sympathetic ear.”

“People depend on her advice,” Glad said.

“Did my grandmother come to you for advice?”

Mary looked puzzled. “Did she tell you that?”

“No,” I admitted. “I just had a feeling.”

“And your instincts usually are right.”

“What would she need advice for?”

“We all need advice from time to time. And I needed help with something.”

“With what?”

“You live up to your reputation, Nell. As curious as any one of my cats.”

I looked at the sisters, side by side on the couch, so different but approaching me as one. I wished I could question them separately, but I knew that I couldn’t make that happen. Not now.

“The book from the library,” I said. “The one your father wrote.”

“
The History of Archers Rest
?” Mary asked.

“You have a copy, I assume.”

“No,” Glad said, but it was too late. As she spoke, Mary was saying, “Of course.”

“I’d like to see it.”

Mary and Glad exchanged glances. Glad seemed worried, but Mary was relaxed.