The Double Cross (34 page)

Frank took a deep breath. “I had no idea you were so miserable,” he said to his wife.

“Of course you didn’t, because you never think of my needs. George did everything for Rita and you did nothing for me.”

“So you set me up for murder?” Not that I blamed him, but the tone of Frank’s voice had gone from disbelief to hatred. I watched as Jesse moved closer in case it crossed over into something physical. But Frank made no move toward Helen. He just yelled at her for having made him a suspect.

“That,” Helen screamed, “is what I have put up with! That temper. Yelling at me if dinner is late. Yelling at me if the children were acting up. I want some quiet time in my old age. I’ve been good to you and instead of appreciating what you have you yell at me and go running after women like Rita and Susanne, who couldn’t be bothered with you.” She was now in near hysterics.

McIntyre walked over to her and put his arms around her. “I’ll get a deputy to drive you home, Helen.”

“I don’t want to go to jail,” she sobbed.

“You interfered with a police investigation, but I think we can look past that. You just go home and get some rest.”

She nodded and let herself be led away by McIntyre’s deputy.

We all stood in silence, watching for a further explosion from Frank. But he seemed to deflate.

“I deserved it,” he said quietly, his anger changed into disbelief. He turned to Rita. “Even knowing what you and George were going through with your illness, I envied you. The way you loved each other. I should have been to Helen what George was to you.”

“We all have regrets,” Rita said. “I guess the trick is to make your peace with them and move on.”

“Who would have guessed that she was so devious?” one twin said to the other after Helen had gone.

“Pot calling the kettle,” I said. “One of you is guilty of breaking and entering this morning.”

They shrugged in unison. “But only one of us. And you don’t know which one.”

“The one with the pierced ears,” I said. Since Susanne had pointed out the small difference between the sisters, it was easy for me to check when I saw the one in the kitchen with her hair behind her ears. “Which one is that, Susanne?”

“Alice,” she said.

“Then McIntyre you can arrest Alice for stealing.”

“But we were only taking what was ours,” Alysse said.

“Nothing in that house is yours,” Jesse pointed out. “And you knew that or you wouldn’t have been sneaking around.”

Alysse looked sheepish. “Maybe not legally ours,” she acknowledged. “But we took care of Mr. Gervais. We visited him once a week and brought him his groceries and anything he needed. In return he promised us this.” She reached into her purse and took out a piece of paper. When she handed it to me, I saw that it was a drawing of two plus signs.

Alice added, “When he gave us this drawing, he said it would provide us with financial security.”

“He wouldn’t tell us what it meant,” Alice explained. “He thought if he told us, we would take it, and then we wouldn’t come to visit him anymore.”

I studied the sketch. “It reminds me of something,” I said, “but I don’t know what.” I held it up so the others could see.

“A double cross,” my grandmother offered.

“That’s what we thought,” Alysse said, “but the double cross quilt George showed us is worth just a few hundred dollars.”

“Maybe it means he double crossed you,” McIntyre said. “You ladies helped him and got squat in return. And he told you in the form of a puzzle, which was just like the old coot. He loved riddles and games.”

“We’re going to jail for nothing!” Alysse began to cry.

Rita stood up and walked over to the twins. “You’re not going to jail. I won’t press charges. Nothing you took means anything to me, and if you were promised something, then you had every right to it.”

A week ago I couldn’t have imagined Rita making such a statement and, looking at the tears forming in Joi’s eyes, it was clear that she wouldn’t have, either. But it was also obvious that she was proud of her mother.

“But we didn’t get anything,” Alice said, joining her sister in tears. “And we brought everything back.” She ran to her car and began frantically taking items from the trunk. The three quilts, a candlestick that matched the one I’d found on the stairs, the ugly collage, and a dozen other items.

“You can have everything back,” Alysse said. “We weren’t going to keep anything that didn’t rightfully belong to us. We were just waiting for the right time to sneak these things back into the house.”

“That’s what I was doing with the clock,” Alice said. “I was bringing it back. I swear.”

“One of you stood in the woods and signaled,” I suddenly realized. “Why?”

“In case a light went on or the door opened. If Alice was in the house, searching, I’d signal her to get out.”

“You took my postcards too,” Susanne blurted out.

“But when we realized they had nothing to do with the house, we returned them. We were just looking for that.” She pointed to the sketch.

I studied the two plus signs again, and started laughing. “You said Mr. Gervais liked puzzles?”

“He loved them,” McIntyre said.

Suddenly, I remembered. I whispered in Jesse’s ear, and he smiled and then went running toward the house. When he came back, he was winded from the climb up three flights of stairs, but he had the two landscape paintings from Rita’s room.

“Is this what you wanted?” he asked.

“I knew something struck me when I was in Rita’s room,” I said. “I was just so focused on finding evidence against her that I didn’t look closely at anything that didn’t seem to matter. But I know I studied this painter in art class.” I looked at the nearly illegible signature, and confirmed it. “They are both by Patrick Cross. I didn’t recognize it at first. He’s not that well known, and I think he’s terrible, but after he died two years ago, his paintings went up in value. They’re maybe worth two hundred thousand dollars.”

The twins were too shocked to cry anymore, and they just stood staring at the painting that Jesse held. Rita whispered to her daughter and then turned to the ladies.

“When my husband and I bought this place from Mr. Gervais’s nephew, we bought everything in it. He didn’t see the value in those paintings, and obviously neither did we. But, then, they didn’t really belong to us. They belong to you two.”

Alice and Alysse looked at her. “We can have them?” they asked almost in unison.

“Don’t be sure that money will bring you what you want,” Rita warned. “You have something far more important, because you have each other.”

It was a lovely sentiment, and one the twins obviously agreed with, because they hugged each other, and then Rita, for a long time. For a moment I thought they might leave the paintings. But I was wrong. They took them gingerly from Jesse’s hands and held them as if they were newborn children.

“What are you going to do with the money?” I asked.

They laughed. “I don’t know,” Alysse said. “We were so focused on getting it that we never considered what we’d do with it. But we will finish George’s quilt and we’ll help you, Rita, in whatever way you need.”

“And you don’t have to promise us a fortune. We’ll keep coming to help,” Alice added.

“Well, Nell, it looks like you’ve solved all the mysteries of this old place,” Rita said.

“Not all of them,” I said. “What’s in your bedroom?”

She laughed.

CHAPTER 53

The next morning Jesse put my suitcase in his car. “Do you want to go back with me or Eleanor?”

I pointed to my suitcase. “I guess I’m going back with you.”

He put his arm around me, and I winced and pulled back. I tried to position myself so I was in his arms but not in pain. I bent my knees a little and moved slightly to the left so that my shoulder didn’t touch his arm. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but at least we were holding each other.

“When you get better, I am going to yell at you for a really long time,” he whispered.

I looked up at him. “Looking forward to it.”

“Nell, I love you,” he said. “I know I should have said it before . . .”

I kissed him. “I love you too. And, look, I know there’s a way things are supposed to go: we date, get married, have kids. And that would all be wonderful. I just don’t want . . .”

“To end up like Helen.” He finished my thought.

“I just don’t want to follow the pattern someone else creates for me. I want a life I create for myself.”

“Do you want me in it?” There was tentativeness in his voice, and it broke my heart that he felt he even had to ask the question.

I reached into my purse and pulled out my unfinished future quilt. “I was going to give this to you when it was done.” I handed him the sketch I’d made of us with his daughter. “This is the future I want.”

Jesse didn’t say anything. He just held me for a long time, and this time I didn’t feel any pain in my shoulder.

Just as we finally let go of each other, Bernie walked out of the house with Joi on one side and Rita on the other.

Rita was still holding the memorial quilt we had made for George. After the excitement of the arrest died down, Frank and the twins stayed to help Eleanor, Susanne, and Jesse finish the quilt. With my bad arm, I couldn’t do much in the way of sewing, but I did stay up to offer support. We left out Pete’s block, but there were still the eight blocks we had created in class, plus a block Bernie made, with three colors wrapped together to symbolize Rita, George, and herself. With our nine blocks, we made a three-by-three arrangement, and we cut up George’s favorite shirt to use for the sashing. What had started off as a way to get a bunch of suspects together in the same room had taken on great meaning for us, and I was glad everyone had spent the night piecing and quilting it. It was clear how much it meant to Rita.

“Susanne wants to head home to her grandson,” I told Bernie, when I saw her, “so you better get packed up if you’re going with her.”

Bernie nodded. “I think I’m going to stay a few days,” she said. “I can help Rita and Joi around here, and we have a lot of catching up to do.”

Rita walked over to me and took my hand. “Thank you. You gave me everything I could want. I’d never known the kind of friendship you all have. Maybe I should have joined a quilt group.” She smiled. “I’ve been so touched by the way you all help each other. And by the way you’ve helped me. I wish George were here to see this, but somehow his death made it all possible.” She shook her head. “And I’ll see him again soon.”

“Mom,” Joi said quietly. “Not too soon. I need to spend time with you, too.”

Rita nodded. She reached into the pocket of her cardigan and pulled out a black-and-white photo. “Nell, you asked what was behind my locked door.” She handed me the photo. “All my valuables were there. I was worried about having strangers in the house, so I put everything of importance in the room and locked it.”

I looked at the photo. It was a young and smiling trio: Rita, George, and Bernie.

“She has tons of photos,” Bernie said, “of Joi, of us as kids. And two quilts her mother made. It will take us a week just to look at them all.”

Rita smiled at her old friend. Behind her I could see Susanne come out of the house with her suitcase. Like me, she stopped when she saw what would have seemed impossible a week before: the two old friends holding each other.

Susanne walked over and hugged Bernie. “I’m so glad it all worked out.”

“Why didn’t you call me an old fool for holding on to such a silly idea for all these years?”

“I don’t know why I didn’t think of it.” Susanne laughed.

Bernie turned to me. “I don’t think all these years I was wondering why I had lost George to Rita. I think I was wondering why I’d lost Rita. She was my best friend. I’ve missed her terribly.”

“It’s nice to have an old friend to rely on,” I said, as I looked at the two women.

Bernie took my hand. “And it’s nice to have a new friend to rely on, as well.”

I could feel tears coming down my face but I didn’t stop them. After wanting for an entire week to go home, I couldn’t bring myself to leave so I just stood there while Bernie and Joi helped Rita back into the house.

“Honestly, Nell,” Eleanor said as she walked down the steps, with Barney at her side. “It’s bad enough that you have only one good arm. Now you’re crying. We have a shop to get back to and quilts to make. You can’t help if you’re completely worthless.”

“Completely worthless?” I said in mock alarm. “I did manage to solve a murder and learn to long-arm quilt.”

She smiled. “You do remember it’s Friday, don’t you? We should be back in Archers Rest by this afternoon. And I assume we’re having a quilt meeting tonight.”

“I’ll make sure we’re ready. But no gossip. We’re going to have to talk about quilting for at least five minutes,” I said sternly.

As we got in our cars to leave, I sensed that everyone, including Barney, was laughing at such a ridiculous idea.