When Magda and Sam came back to her house I was ready to stop sewing. Soon after I started putting the pieces together I'd discovered a mistake in Sophie's work. Her diagram didn't jibe with one of the sewed pieces. I could see where she'd started to undo it. Some of the threads had been cut, but then she'd abandoned the project.
I knew she'd hated fixing. I could remember her voice when she'd tried teaching me how to sew, frustration adding an edge to her words. "Annie, this piece here is not right. You have to rip it out."
I'd glared and grabbed the piece with both hands to rip it apart.
She had stopped my hands with hers. "No, here." She handed me a little thing that looked like a cuticle pusher but with a tiny sharp knife on its end. "This here is a seam ripper. You'll be using it more than you're gonna like, but it will be a good friend in the end." She'd held up my mis-sewed piece, slipped the little knife in, began undoing my precious work.
Made me mad. I'd reached to take it from her hands, managed to get in the way and got a nipped finger.
"Don't get your blood on it," she'd said. Then, "I hate ripping out my work. But sometimes, you just have to do it."
I had a clue as to why she'd abandoned this project.
It had waited several years but finally, I'd corrected her job, feeling just the tiny bit superior at my patience, and yes, at my re-sewing of her seam. The piece now fit correctly into her pattern.
I'd been going gangbusters on the thing and feeling confident, until I ran out of cut pieces. I needed more fabric. From Magda's stash in the closet of her sewing room I found a mauve and cream checkered fabric that I knew would liven it up and bring the zing it had been missing. I wanted to use my untried tools to measure and cut. For that I needed Magda.
And tea and a sweet. They came in and found me at the fridge, taking out a jar of strawberry jam to set beside the jar of chunky peanut butter.
One look at Magda's face and I knew I was done sewing for the time. Her hair was shaggy like she'd been running her hands through it, again.
"You must come with us. I have to get a quilt. Wish wants me to bring it to the studio. He's bringing Lena."
"To your studio? Why?" She'd gone down the hall, so I looked at Sam while I found the bread and a butter knife.
"They found a piece of fabric in her husband's hand. I'm not sure what he's thinking, but looks like it might be something that both Maggie and Lena have to do with."
"In his hand?" A vision came up that wasn't pretty. I nearly put away the idea of the sandwich, but with me, hunger for something sweet always overrides whatever's going on. I took a bite and then a drink of milk. That helped quell the queasy that had started with the vision.
By the time Magda returned with a quilt in a good sized tote, I'd finished my lunch and cleaned up. Magda said she'd rather I drove, so we went in my car, with her and Sam sitting close together in the back seat. I wanted to ask questions but had to focus on making the correct turns up into the hills to the place she'd once described to me as her place of serenity.
I wondered how she felt about it now, the place where her husband had been murdered and buried? I hoped today's quest would put the questions to rest, but perhaps I should fear the answers even more. Magda was so close to Sam's heart.
What does that quirky Lena have to do with all of this?
I parked beside The Sheriff's car in front of the cabin. Only the sound of nervous breathing from the backseat was witness that I wasn't alone.
Sam said, "Don't worry, it's gonna be all right."
Magda didn't answer, but opened the car door, stepped out and reached back in for the quilt. She stood there a moment, gripping the handles of the bag and looking at the straggly bushes by the front door. "Gotta neaten that up."
Sam came to stand beside her. "I'm your man." He linked his right hand in her left. I came up behind them and heard him whisper, "Okay, girl, let's get this over and done with." We went around the side of the house to the back yard.
Sheriff Kelly and a deputy stood under the apple tree near the empty grave. The hole in the ground still gaped. The tree looked forlorn, with a few apples hanging. The ones on the ground were drawing yellow jackets. Their humming was the only sound.
Off to one side were Deputy Bybee and Lena. Sheriff Kelly nodded as we went to stand next to Lena.
"Our need, now, is to find out what happened, and why," he said. "I have reason to believe, Lena, that you have the answers."
Lena made as if to leave.
Deputy Bybee held her in place.
Lena sagged in defeat, but not in submission. She shot straight up again, wrenching from the deputy's grasp. She grabbed Magda's hand and pulled her to the edge of the ragged hole.
"None of them will understand, but you. You have to. It was awful! He's...was...a terrible man. He scared me!"
Magda pulled her hand free.
Lena screamed, "Don't leave me alone, Mag. Please. I didn't mean to ruin your life!"
Magda reached for Lena's shaking hands, wrapped her own around them.
The sheriff stepped close to them. "Ms. Veil, I have something I want you to see."
She recoiled and shrieked when the sheriff put his hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out the plastic bag with the piece of fabric in it.
"That don't mean nothing. That's just cloth."
"Magda, I believe you have something in that bag. Can I see it?" When she handed him the bag, he put it on the picnic table and pulled out the quilt. "Grab the other end here, let's open it up," he said to the other deputy.
Lena's body hunched. She opened, then shut her mouth.
The sheriff pointed to a piece in the crazy quilt design, a pale yellow, flowered piece. "Do you recognize this fabric, Ms. Veil?"
She leaned close to look, twisting her mouth. "Uh, yeah. We all made stuff out of it."
He laid the plastic bag on the quilt, beside the fabric she'd admitted she knew. Though its contents were brown and dirty, there was enough design left to see that they were the same.
"I understand, Ms. Veil, that you obtained some of this cloth from Mrs. Buler. Correct?"
She glared at Magda, shrugged, and then nodded. Yes.
"And that you made a dress from it? A dress with a breast pocket?"
Lena leaned to look close at both pieces. "Yes."
"This other cloth matches, does it not?" Before she could answer he said, "Is it from the same piece?"
Lena was sniffling, "It could be. But it's a mess. Where did you get it?"
"From Tom Buler's hand. His dead hand. He took it to his grave with him. I guess you didn't notice when you buried him." Her face went blank, until he leaned back against the table, against the quilt.
"Don't lean on the quilt!" Lena snapped.
If it hadn't been out of place I'd have laughed.
"That piece of fabric was from your dress, wasn't it? Will you tell us how it got into a dead man's hand? Now! Stop fooling around."
That was all it took for her to crumple, literally. Her knees bent and she wobbled.
Magda caught her on one side and Sam hauled her upright on the other. Deputy Bybee took over, moving the quilt to one side and helping Lena sit on the picnic bench.
Lena's mouth was crimped tight against her teeth, and her hands were on her face. Finally she took one big breath and started talking.