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Meadow watched them leave with her eyebrows high. “I do believe Sylvia knows something.”
Beatrice shrugged. “Maybe she’s the sort of person who likes to know things. I only hope she tells Ramsay about it.”
Meadow said, “I’ll ask Ramsay to go talk with her again. Maybe she’ll give the police more information than she gave us.” Then she added, “And now we’re not going to talk about this anymore! We’re supposed to be distracting you.”
A large snore came from the corner of the store.
Meadow chuckled, “Miss Sissy was getting grouchy about people disturbing her naps in the sitting area, so Posy set up an armchair with an ottoman in the back corner. Miss Sissy has been curled up there ever since.”
Miss Sissy was an elderly and rather irascible quilter who often spent time at Posy’s shop.
“And Maisie, too?” Beatrice hadn’t spotted the shop cat yet.
“Don’t you know it? She’s back there in the corner with Miss Sissy. They’re peas in a pod. Now, let’s talk about my most-favorite subject.”
“Cooking?” asked Beatrice with a grin. She knew exactly what Meadow’s favorite subject was, but decided to tease her co-grandmother.
“Cooking? Heavens no. I can’t imagine what you’re thinking, Beatrice. Will is my favorite subject. You’ll love seeing my latest video of him,” pronounced Meadow, whipping her phone out of her purse.
Meadow had taught Will to sing the alphabet song. He did do a marvelous job, decided Beatrice, despite the fact he had a bit of trouble around k. He’d also created an entirely new letter, lmnop which ran together quite charmingly as he sang the song.
“He’ll be the star in his preschool class,” said Meadow smugly. “He’s clearly very, very bright.”
Beatrice, naturally, agreed. She was a grandmother, after all.
“What are your plans for the rest of the day?” asked Meadow.
Beatrice considered this. “Well, after I pick up my supplies here, I’d better get to work on finishing Piper’s UFO. Then I think I’ll try to take a nap—my efforts were unsuccessful last time, but maybe quilting will relax me a bit.”
“Good idea,” said Meadow, who always thought quilting was a good idea.
“And, of course, it’s Monday,” said Beatrice.
Meadow’s eyes opened wide. “Is it? Goodness, but it sneaked up on me. So you’ll have church tonight then. Youth group, Bible studies, and whatnot.”
The church had Wednesday night activities but was currently running a special Monday night program, with Bible studies focusing on a particular theme.
Beatrice nodded. “And I should be able to handle it all, after a good nap this afternoon.”
And that’s how Beatrice’s day progressed. She bought her materials at the shop, headed back home, quilted until she got drowsy, took a nap with Noo-noo snuggled up against her and gently snoring, woke up, tried to make sense of her hair after the nap, and then headed over to the church.
Beatrice was actually getting a lot from the Monday night program they were running. There were tons of young people there, all engaged in conversation and activities. Often, she’d lend a hand in the kitchen with either food prep or clean-up, or stand in the serving line and dish out the dinner offerings. Wyatt led a Bible study class, and she’d sit in to listen to him.
This time, she decided to help out with clean-up after the spaghetti supper. It was a fairly easy task and the clean-up crew was always chatty. Tobi Daxton was the other woman in the kitchen with Beatrice, loading the commercial dishwasher as Beatrice scraped plates. Tobi was a Sunday school teacher at the church for the elementary program and was involved in various other activities, too. Her husband, Quinn, was also very involved at the church and on several committees.
Tobi said, “You do the Pilates class here, don’t you, Beatrice?”
Beatrice nodded as she handed her a pan to put in the dishwasher. “I do, to the best of my ability, anyway. Sometimes my legs don’t seem to want to make the circles that the instructor wants them to. But I feel like the class helps make me stronger, so I’m trying to keep up with it. It’s only once a week. I don’t think I can handle anything more vigorous than that.”
Tobi said, “That sounds good. I need to start out slow and easy. I was going to go into total bootcamp mode and do one of Summer Cooper’s programs, but it didn’t work out.”
From Tobi’s expression, Beatrice could tell Tobi knew Beatrice had been at the scene that morning. She sighed. “It sure didn’t work out, did it? Poor Summer.”
“What exactly happened?” asked Tobi. She flushed a little and quickly said, “I hope you don’t think I want to gossip about it, but the truth is that Summer and I were friendly with each other.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Beatrice. “Her death must have come as a real shock.”
“It did. I mean, Summer and I weren’t best friends or anything, but we socialized a little in town . . . it’s hard not to in a town this size. I was actually trying to persuade Summer to visit the church.”
Beatrice thought Tobi sounded very matter-of-fact about Summer’s sudden death. She adopted the same tone and said, “Well, there’s not very much to tell. Piper and I were planning on taking one of Summer’s free trial group classes this morning. We’d gotten there fairly early and walked into the studio.”
“Was the studio nice?” asked Tobi in a rather wistful voice. “I heard she was putting a lot of work into it.”
Beatrice nodded. “It seemed really nice, although I didn’t register too much about the building itself.”
“Of course not,” said Tobi quickly. She paused. “I heard it was really early in the morning.”
“It was to be the first class of the day. And, I suppose, the first class for the studio.”
Tobi sighed. “I didn’t hear about Summer’s death for a while this morning. I was sleeping in, then I didn’t really check my phone or run any errands, so it took forever for me to find out about it. Pretty amazing when you think about how fast gossip travels in Dappled Hills.”
“It must have been a shock to hear the news, especially since you and Summer were friends. Such a terrible thing—here she was about to realize her dream and her life was ripped from her. Hopefully, the police will be able to have some good leads as to who is responsible.”
Tobi nodded. “I’ve been thinking about it, too, just trying to think who might have done something like that. At first, I thought it must have been some random person breaking in, looking for money or something.”
“That’s pretty unlikely, I think. After all, the studio was all lit up and visible from the outside because it was so early in the morning. A thief would have been able to see it was all workout equipment in there.”
Tobi said, “That’s when I started looking at whether it might be someone Summer knew. I’m sure poor Harlowe is probably suspect number one with the police. On TV, the husband is always the prime suspect, anyway.”
“I think that’s probably the case in real life, too.”
“But anybody who knows Harlowe would find that hard to believe. Did you meet him?” asked Tobi.
Beatrice nodded and Tobi continued, “He doesn’t fit the part of the murdering husband. Plus, I always got the impression that Summer sort of intimidated Harlowe. I think any money they had was Summer’s money. Harlowe worked at the grocery store before quitting to work for Summer. Somehow, I just can’t see him doing something like this.”
Beatrice handed Tobi another pan to put in the commercial dishwasher. “Is there someone else you think could have harmed Summer?”
Tobi glanced around to make sure it was still only the two of them in the space. “I don’t know the whole story, but Remi Kingston and Summer had a big fight with each other not too long ago. I’m not sure why it happened. They used to be really good friends and then they suddenly stopped talking to each other. There’s got to be a story behind that.”
Then Tobi gave her an apologetic smile. “Sorry. We should probably be talking about nicer topics than this at the church. How’s that adorable dog of yours?”
“Noo-noo? She’s as sweet as ever. She always seems to know what I’m feeling. Earlier today, she curled up right next to me to cheer me up.”
Tobi said, “Aww! Dogs give the best snuggles ever.”
There was plenty of dog fur on Tobi’s outfit to attest to this statement. They chatted happily about everything dog-related for a while, with Tobi talking about a particular trail she walked her dog on that she thought might be fun for Beatrice and Noo-noo. Then Tobi said, “While you’re here, Beatrice, there was one thing I wanted to ask you about. I had some ideas for the youth program—the younger kids. I’m a little hesitant about passing them on since I’m not even a parent yet, although I want to be one.”
Beatrice said, “Oh, Wyatt loves hearing about new ideas. He’s always looking for ways to improve the youth programming.”
Tobi smiled. “That’s great to hear. I really think it could be fun for the youth and it looks like other churches are doing something similar.”
“I’ll ask Wyatt to reach out to you. He’ll want to schedule a meeting with you and someone from the youth committee.”
They chatted for a bit longer before finishing the meal clean-up. Tobi headed off to speak with someone else, and Beatrice straightened chairs in the church hall.
Her friend Mellie, a fellow quilter, came up to join her. Beatrice smiled at her. “Hey there. I was thinking about you the other day and wondering how your online quilt shop is working out.”
Mellie looked pleased. “Well, with Posy’s help, it’s doing pretty well! I have as much work as I can keep up with. And I get a lot of satisfaction in helping to put together someone’s idea.”
“I’m guessing some of them give you more instructions than others?”
Mellie nodded. “Sometimes they’ll just say they need a baby quilt for an expectant mother. But sometimes, they’ll say they want it to be a particular shade of blue and have a certain type of duck on it or the baby’s name.”
“Those folks must be harder to handle. It would be tough to deliver exactly what they’d envisioned.”
Mellie said, “So far I haven’t had anyone complain about a completed quilt. Fingers crossed it stays that way.” She paused. “I wanted to tell you that I was sorry about you and Piper finding Summer this morning. Walking into that scene must have upset y’all so much. Are you both okay?”
“Much better than poor Summer,” said Beatrice with a grimace. “Piper and I are fine. It was just startling. Did you know Summer well?”
Mellie shook her head. “Not really. We moved in different circles, I guess. I need to exercise. I’m sure my stress level would probably go down if I did. But the kind of classes Summer held weren’t really beginner-friendly, I don’t think. From what I saw on her website, anyway.”
Beatrice said wryly, “I had the feeling that might be the case. Piper had persuaded me to go to a trial class with her. But the exercise classes here at the church are probably more my speed.”
“I keep forgetting about those. I need to set an alarm for myself. By the time I remember the class, it’s already halfway finished.” She paused. “I saw you and Tobi were talking with each other in the kitchen.”
Beatrice nodded. “Just catching up with each other. Tobi has some ideas for the youth program here.” She wasn’t about to disclose that they’d been talking about Summer’s sudden demise.
Mellie swallowed. “I’ve been trying to decide what to do. You know the last thing I want is to be involved in another murder case.”
Mellie’s family had been the focus of an investigation not long ago. Beatrice said, “Oh, I have no doubt.” Mellie looked so concerned and nervous that Beatrice said, “How about if we take a seat for a few minutes?”
Mellie accepted that idea with relief and they headed to a remote area of the hall where no one was around.
Mellie said, “It’s probably nothing, anyway. But I was wondering if I needed to tell Ramsay about it just in case. What do you think I should do?”
“Why not tell me about it? Maybe it’ll make you feel better to share it with somebody. Did you talk with your husband about it?”
Mellie shook her head. “He got a new job after so many months of looking for one. It’s hard to find management work around here. He’s just finished up with the training program and all the human resources stuff. I can’t dump something like this on him.”
“That’s sweet of you to try to spare him any worries.”
Mellie gave her a small smile. “Anyway, I was out having a conversation with Tobi outside the Patchwork Cottage not long before Summer died. Everything was fine and we were passing the time. Summer walked by and gave Tobi this really smug look.”
“A smug look?”
“Yes. And Tobi practically snarled at her in response. I had no idea what was going on because one second, we were making pleasantries and then suddenly there was all this subtext that I didn’t understand.”
Beatrice said, “Did you ask Tobi about it?”
Mellie nodded. “I felt nosy, but I was so startled that I asked. Then I felt even worse because Tobi started crying. Then I quickly told her it was none of my business and changed the subject.”
“And when exactly was that?’
Mellie sighed, “It was a couple of days ago. Do you think I need to let Ramsay know? It might not even be anything. Besides, I don’t even completely understand what I was witnessing except that there were bad feelings between Summer and Tobi.”
Beatrice said, “Based on what you’ve told me, I think it might be a good idea to let Ramsay know. He can decide if the information is important or not.”
“Like I said, I’m sure Tobi would never do anything to Summer. But I’ve still had this on my mind. Thanks for your advice, Beatrice.”
Beatrice smiled at her. “You’re doing the right thing. Ramsay is always fair, and he wouldn’t be able to act on the information unless there’s evidence against Tobi.”
Mellie changed the subject to happier things, and they chatted for a while about their quilting projects. Beatrice was wryly saying she needed to get some quilting in so she could finish Piper’s UFO or else she’d have to pay Mellie to do it since Mellie had gone pro. She’d had every intention of finishing the quilt that afternoon, but nap had attacked her and pulled her away from it.
They were laughing when Mellie leaned forward and said in a low voice, “Don’t look now, but somebody’s really giving you a dirty look.”
Naturally, Beatrice couldn’t resist turning around. Sure enough, Miss Sissy was giving her a glare that could have curdled milk. Beatrice smiled at her and turned back around again.
“What did you do to Miss Sissy?” breathed Mellie.
Beatrice chuckled. “I’m guessing she’s mad because I don’t have my grandson with me. Miss Sissy considers me practically worthless unless I have Will in tow.”
“Does Miss Sissy have a UFO assigned to her for the guild meeting?”
Beatrice said, “Now that is a good question. Often Miss Sissy flies under the radar at the meetings whenever we’re doing various swaps. When it comes time to get an assignment, she’ll give this steely look that prevents anyone from giving her anything. Maybe I can get her to finish Piper’s project if I can get the last little bit done.”
“Is she a good quilter?” asked Mellie, looking doubtful.
“Oh yes. She’s a master quilter. Her house is a treasure trove of projects.”
She and Mellie chatted for a few more minutes before she joined up with Wyatt again. Soon it was time to leave and try to unwind after a long, and rather odd day.