Beatrice’s breath caught in her throat. Miss Sissy was quickly backing up, spooked. Beatrice forced herself to be calm. “Miss Sissy,” she said, a peremptory note in her voice, “would you call for help? You’ve got your phone?”
Miss Sissy nodded and seemed happy for the distraction as Beatrice quickly strode to the other side of the sofa. She stopped. Henrietta lay on the floor, a heavy sewing machine on top of her head. It had apparently fallen from the sofa table next to her.
Beatrice picked up Henrietta’s wrist with shaking hands.
Miss Sissy was saying, “Calling Ramsay. No ambulance. Dead woman.”
Miss Sissy was right. Henrietta was a dead woman. Beatrice gently laid down Henrietta’s arm and stood up as Miss Sissy dialed Ramsay’s number. She couldn’t see any way this could be an accident. Henrietta was facing away from the table. It wasn’t as if she’d stumbled, grabbed the table for support, and pulled the machine on top of herself. Even if that had been possible, the table would have fallen over as well. It looked like someone had deliberately and coldly pushed the sewing machine onto Henrietta.
Beatrice could tell that Ramsay was asking questions and that Miss Sissy didn’t seem to be communicating effectively with him. When Beatrice reached out a hand, Miss Sissy handed the phone wordlessly over to her.
“Ramsay?” asked Beatrice. “Yes, I’m here, too. It’s Henrietta Hunnicutt. I was invited to run by her house to see some of her quilts and Miss Sissy and I found her dead when we got here.”
“I’m on my way,” said Ramsay grimly.
Miss Sissy backed up until she was standing near the door. “Are you okay?” Beatrice asked. Miss Sissy gave a fierce nod and Beatrice said, “Good. I’m just going to glance around a second and see if I can figure out who’s behind this.”
“Don’t touch!” said the old woman.
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” said Beatrice. “Or, at least, I’ll touch only one thing.” She laid the ribbon carefully on a nearby table without touching the table.
The only thing that really drew her attention in the room was the cluttered desk. The rest of the living room and, in fact, the rest of the small house was immaculately tidy.
She walked over to the desk and peered at the papers covering the top of it. Then Beatrice stooped to peer closer. There was a list of names—names of quilters on one piece of paper. Beside each name there was a dollar amount that varied widely. Beatrice saw Julia Tharpe’s name with one hundred dollars next to it. Then she spotted Hazel Struby’s name with forty dollars beside it. Were these quilting-related guild fees of some kind? Or something else?
Beatrice reached in her purse to pull out her phone, remembering that taking a picture could be useful. But the battery was dead. “Miss Sissy, I don’t remember. Does your phone take pictures?”
Miss Sissy said scornfully. “No. It’s for talking and texting on.”
Beatrice pulled out a small notebook from her purse and a pencil. She noted the names she saw with the dollar amounts: Minerva Lundy, Orrilla Bush, Hazel Struby, and Julia Tharpe. Her pencil hovered over her notebook as she saw another scrap of paper with more writing on it. This one looked more like doodles of the sort one might make while talking on the phone. There was a sketch showing a thin woman with dark hair and eyes. When Beatrice noticed the pearl earrings and pearl necklace on the woman on the sketch, she realized it was a picture of Julia Tharpe. She also realized that Henrietta had drawn daggers pointed right at Julia and put an X over her face. That didn’t seem like the friendliest of drawings.
The door had been unlocked and Beatrice hadn’t noticed any broken windows or other signs of a break-in. Keeping the threatening email in mind, it certainly looked as if Henrietta had been murdered by someone she knew. She’d let whomever in the house, lost her balance or perhaps been pushed or shoved, and then the killer had knocked the heavy sewing machine on top of her. Then the killer had walked back out the door.
Miss Sissy remained absorbed in her focused study of the quilt. Beatrice heard a car drive up outside and hurried footsteps. “It’s okay, Miss Sissy,” she said quietly, “Ramsay’s here.”
Judging from the fresh spill on his shirt, Ramsay appeared to have been eating supper when he got the call. He said urgently, “Are you both okay?” Getting a nod from both Miss Sissy and Beatrice, he added as he started striding toward the feet he saw around the side of the sofa, “No sign of any intruder when you arrived?”
“Nothing,” said Beatrice simply. “And we were sure not to touch anything. I just laid Henrietta’s blue ribbon from the quilt show down.”
“Do you ladies mind waiting for me by my car?” asked Ramsay. “Just in case there’s any evidence of any kind that I need to protect.”
Miss Sissy, still clearly disturbed by the events, was already halfway out the door when Beatrice turned to follow.
They waited for what seemed a long time before Ramsay appeared again. He was rubbing the side of his face with his hand and apparently had been doing so for quite a while, judging from the red mark on his face.
Finally he said to them, “The state police are on their way with a forensic team. Although, to me, it all looks fairly cut and dried.” He gave Beatrice a questioning look as if wanting to see if she agreed with him.
Beatrice cleared her throat. “Especially keeping the email in mind.”
“Wickedness!” hissed Miss Sissy. She appeared on the verge of being extremely worked up and was worrying a button on her long dress to the point that Beatrice wondered if it would pop off.
Ramsay gave the old woman a wary look. “Now, now. Everything is fine, Miss Sissy. We’ll work through this. Here, why don’t you take a seat in my police car while we wait? It may be that the state police would like to talk to you both, although I’m also going to take a statement from you.”
Miss Sissy, still muttering under her breath, stomped off to sit in the back of the police cruiser.
Beatrice said, “It must have been murder. There’s no way that I can think of that Henrietta’s death was an accident.”
“Especially considering that email,” said Ramsay. “As you said. Which leads me to my next question. I know that from time to time there’s gossip going on in the quilting community.”
Beatrice hid a smile. Ramsay spoke as if it were fairly unusual for the quilters to talk about each other.
“And I know if I were to ask Meadow, she’d say that everything was hunky-dory with the quilters. She’d insist that Henrietta Hunnicutt was the nicest woman she’d ever known. She was even trying to convince me that a hacker from outside Dappled Hills had hacked Posy’s email to threaten Henrietta since there was no way that anyone in our community would do such a thing.” Ramsay shook his head at the type of issues that he had to deal with.
“A hacker from outside Dappled Hills. Who knew Henrietta’s name.” Beatrice’s voice was dry.
“Meadow was sure it was a Russian hacker intent on evildoing,” said Ramsay with a hint of a smile.
Beatrice said, “I’m pretty sure that it was a quilter that Henrietta knew. She apparently isn’t winning any popularity contests with the Cut-Ups guild. Well, that might be overstating it. I can’t speak for the entire guild, but I certainly noticed that Orrilla Bush was unhappy with Henrietta at the quilt show earlier.”
“Orrilla Bush,” mused Ramsay. “Somehow I can’t see Orrilla getting into fisticuffs at a quilt show.”
“A very reserved woman, ordinarily,” agreed Beatrice. “And it definitely wasn’t a physical altercation, although Orrilla did grip Henrietta’s arm quite fiercely at one point. It was more of a furious confrontation. But Orrilla seems too smart to send a threatening email and then get into a public argument with someone she’s about to murder.”
“Getting back to the murder,” said Ramsay. “Let me get this straight. I know I should see how this all fits into quilting, but I can’t keep all of Meadow’s quilting events straight. Can you just briefly hit the highlights of the timeline here?” He absently patted his pockets before pulling out a small notepad and pencil from his right pocket.
“The threatening email you know about—that was days ago,” said Beatrice. “By the way, you said you were going to ask Henrietta about it. Did she give any insights?”
“None,” said Ramsay succinctly. “She simply thought it was a childish prank by someone jealous of her quilting ability.”
Which was very similar to what Henrietta had told Beatrice. “Hmm,” she said.
Ramsay lifted an eyebrow. “I’m taking it that she probably knew more than that and didn’t want to let on?”
“That’s what I’m thinking. Generally, there’s not the kind of jealousy in the quilting community over ability that would prompt someone to send out a nasty email like that. I wondered if maybe Henrietta wasn’t as nice as Meadow would like to believe,” said Beatrice.
Ramsay nodded. “Okay. So the nasty email goes out and Henrietta sort of pooh-poohs the whole thing. Then you have the quilt show today and you witness some sort of quarrel between Henrietta and Orrilla Bush. That likely isn’t over Henrietta’s quilting aptitude.”
“Yes. Except what I witnessed was at the quilt show set-up. That was earlier today.”
Ramsay made a note. “And then you left and returned later for the quilt show. Henrietta wasn’t there, though?”
“She was there, but she wasn’t there for the whole show. She told Meadow that she had a headache, and left early. I asked her if it were still all right for me to come by and see some of her other quilts. During the set-up, she’d noticed how interested I was in her quilting, knew my background as a curator, and invited me to drop by briefly.”
Ramsay looked sharply after her. “So you were likely the last one to speak to her.”
“Besides whoever killed her,” said Beatrice, a sad note in her voice. “I know it’s likely that she was mixed up in something that led to her death, but she was friendly to me and did create some beautiful art through her quilting.”
“What time do you think it was when you talked to her?” asked Ramsay.
Beatrice said thoughtfully, “I didn’t actually talk to her at all. Meadow texted me Henrietta’s phone number, but I texted it instead of calling her. It just seemed less-intrusive, especially if she weren’t feeling well.”
Beatrice and Ramsay looked at each other. “So what you’re telling me,” said Ramsay, “is that, potentially, the killer could have been the one who texted you back.”
“That’s right. Although I can’t think of a reason the murderer would do such a thing.” But Beatrice stopped, because suddenly she could definitely think of a reason. What if the killer had returned to the quilt show in time for the awards? The text message would make it look as if Henrietta had possibly been murdered after she had been—giving the killer enough time to establish an alibi.
Ramsay made a note. “I think you’ve already come up with a reason for that to happen. And I’m not saying you didn’t get a text from Henrietta herself, but we just can’t be sure. Let’s move onto the quilt show and who was there when.”
Beatrice shook her head. “There were a good number of people there. And some of the people I noticed were from the set-up time—like Orrilla. Hazel Struby was also there at set-up. And, of course, during the show, they don’t stay in one spot where you can see them. The room is set up to hang quilts, so there are lots of screens up. It’s probably the perfect way to leave somewhere and then return. I didn’t even notice that Henrietta had left until it was nearly time for the awards and I didn’t see her there.”
Ramsay said, “Let’s start with her own quilt guild. Just who you saw at some point there. I’ll ask others the same thing and maybe I can piece it together. Because, considering that email, I’m thinking it’s someone she knew from quilting.”
Beatrice added slowly, “And someone who knew that she was at home. Someone who might have seen her leave the quilt show. The only problem is that I realized that I don’t know all the Cut-Ups as well as I should.” She glanced over at Ramsay’s police car. Miss Sissy sat sedately in the backseat. A car drove past and she shook her fist at it. “Let’s ask Miss Sissy. She knows all the quilters.”
“Yes, but does she know their names? And how accurate is her memory? Does she even want to cooperate?” asked Ramsay dryly.
Miss Sissy still seemed on edge from her frightening discovery in the house. She gave Ramsay and Beatrice a wary look as they approached.
Ramsay said in a kind voice, “We were trying to figure out who might have been at the quilt show this afternoon, Miss Sissy.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“Well, it might help us find out who could behind Henrietta’s death,” said Beatrice.
Miss Sissy deflated a bit, slumping at the mention of Henrietta. “Wickedness,” she muttered.
“Exactly,” said Ramsay, without missing a beat.
“Fighting!” hissed Miss Sissy.
“Who was fighting?” asked Ramsay intently. “Someone was arguing with Henrietta?”
“No!” said Miss Sissy scornfully. “Henrietta fighting with someone.”
Beatrice took a deep breath meant to help give her more patience. “Who was the quilter that Henrietta was arguing with?”
“That one with the blonde hair!” said Miss Sissy, flashing her a resentful look for pushing her.
Ramsay nodded. “Okay.” He turned to look at Beatrice. “Ring any bells?”
“Not really. There are several quilters who’ve sort of frosted their hair and it may have looked blonde. Oh, wait.” Beatrice turned to Miss Sissy. “Do you mean the woman who has that dyed-blonde bang? The rest of her hair is a different color—more of a chestnut.”
Miss Sissy nodded.
“Well, at least it’s something to start out with. She’s in the Cut-Ups, right?” asked Ramsay.
Miss Sissy said, “Cut-Ups. The blonde. Arguing!” The old woman sounded most indignant at the fact that there was unrest at the quilt show.
“Okay, okay, got it,” said Ramsay soothingly. “Who else do you remember being there—especially if they had a run-in with Henrietta?”
But Miss Sissy appeared to be tapped out. She gave a shrug of her bony shoulder and galloped off for the backseat of the police car.
Ramsay glanced at the road at the sound of approaching cars. “That’ll be the state police. At least I’m getting somewhere. I think.”
Beatrice said hesitantly, “You know, while Miss Sissy and I were waiting for you, I noticed there was a list inside. It looked to be members of the Cut-Ups.”
Ramsay nodded, watching as the cars pulled up to the curb in front of Henrietta’s house. “I saw it. Figured it had to do with some sort of quilt project or something.” He looked closer at Beatrice. “You think it might not?”
“I don’t know. I guess it could. But the amounts were all different and there was some sort of mean-spirited doodling on there, too. Combined with the email everyone got about Henrietta being a liar, I wondered if maybe she wasn’t trying to blackmail people she knew. I know she was doing some interior design work—maybe her fellow guild members had tried to give her some business and she’d found information on them during her time in their homes.”
Ramsay made a note in his notebook. “Well, if she was blackmailing people, we’ll soon find out. That’s the kind of thing that will stand out in her checking account—small, regular deposits over a period of time. And now I better go. You’ll stick around for the state police to shoot a question or two at you?”
It really wasn’t a question. Beatrice decided she might as well join Miss Sissy in the police car to wait. When she climbed in, she saw that Miss Sissy was fast asleep and snoring with gusto.
The sun was going down when Ramsay finally gestured to Beatrice to speak to one of the state police investigators. She was about to step out of the car when she froze. Wyatt. She’s completely, if somewhat understandably, forgotten about Wyatt. And, of course, her phone was completely dead.
“Miss Sissy?”
The old woman continued snoring with abandon.
Beatrice reached over to tentatively touch Miss Sissy’s arm.
Miss Sissy jumped, reared back, and stared suspiciously at Beatrice.
“I’m sorry to wake you. But could I borrow your phone? Wyatt has no idea where I am and we were supposed to go out together,” said Beatrice.
Miss Sissy patted the pocket of her loosely fitting dress and pulled out the flip phone, handing it to her. “Need it back,” she growled.
“In just a second,” promised Beatrice. She started texting awkwardly on the phone, stopping for a moment to call to Ramsay, “I’m sorry. I’ll just be a minute.”
She wrote: Wyatt, this Beatrice on Miss Sissy’s phone.
It was a text message from Wyatt. Everything okay?
Beatrice rubbed her forehead with her free hand. The fact she’d completely forgotten about their dinner, made her feel completely guilty.
So sorry! Ugh. Something urgent came up. Miss Sissy and I are fine. You at the restaurant? For the life of her, she couldn’t remember if she and Wyatt had planned on meeting at the restaurant or if he were picking her up first.
No—outside your house. It’s okay, now that I know you’re all right. Noo-noo keeping an eye on me through the curtains. Should I keep waiting?
Beatrice typed quickly back: No, afraid need to resched. So sorry.
When Beatrice finally finished speaking with the police, it was completely dark out. What’s more, she felt absolutely exhausted from the discovery.
Ramsay asked, “Do you mind taking Miss Sissy home? I think I’m going to be a while or else I’d take her myself. And Beatrice—be sure to get some sleep. You’re looking pretty worn out.”
Ramsay didn’t have to tell her twice. She took Miss Sissy back (the old woman muttered to herself the entire time about death and bodies and evil, which didn’t make for a light atmosphere), took Noo-noo out as soon as she got home, and crawled right into bed.