The senior paramedic pushed Wolfe out of her way and addressed her partner. "Can your patient walk to the doorway? I've got the gurney, but it won't fit inside the room."
The other paramedic helped Alyse stand up. She leaned heavily on him as she crossed the room and climbed onto the gurney. She didn't look good.
"Is she okay?"
"She'll be fine," the male paramedic said. "Someone needs to keep an eye on her for a while, though, and she's refusing transport to the county hospital. I'm going to take her somewhere quieter to see if I can change her mind."
The two paramedics wheeled Alyse out to the back corner of the shop, where the four-patch quilt hung.
Once they were out of earshot, I turned to Wolfe. "You can't possibly know who killed Tremain. And there's even less chance you have all of the evidence."
"There's really only one possibility. You didn't do it, and I wasn't even here when it happened. That leaves your clients, Dee and Emma. The victim even had a letter on his desk, accusing him of fraud and threatening him. It was signed by your clients. That's plenty of evidence for a jury."
"Dee and Emma wanted him in jail. They didn't want him dead."
Wolfe shrugged. "So it wasn't premeditated. They still killed him when they realized you couldn't negotiate a deal."
"Dee and Emma weren't the only people in the meeting."
"You mean the reporter and the business partner? No motive."
How blind did Wolfe have to be to discount a business partner? "Alyse's reputation would have been damaged if Tremain was convicted of fraud. She's much better off with him dead."
"I considered that. Discarded it just as quickly. Did you see what an emotional wreck she was at losing her partner?" He winked at me. "But I do appreciate the heads-up about your clients' defense theory."
Nausea crept into my stomach. Not because I'd given anything away but simply because I'd let him draw me into the argument. "It's too early to be developing defense theories. Or filing charges."
"There will definitely be charges filed against your quilters, Counselor. I'll make sure of it, once I'm officially assigned to the case."
I thought I had enough time to make one last stab at changing his mind before I risked passing out again. "Your theory just doesn't make sense. Where did Dee and Emma get a bed-sized quilt to drape over Tremain? I can tell you one thing for sure—they didn't bring it with them to the meeting. I would have noticed. It wasn't dragged in from a display in the shop either. I saw the quilts out front when I arrived, and none of them were anything like the one on the body. The closest match is to the four-patch on the back wall, but it's still there."
"Tremain could have had the quilt in his office."
I hadn't seen any other quilts stored back there, but Wolfe was probably right. It could have been a particularly valuable quilt Tremain had been keeping far away from sunlight, or it could have been a new arrival that needed to be processed. I couldn't remember if there'd been a price tag affixed to it. All I could picture right now was the blood seeping into the quilt.
The arrival of two more police officers, a young one in uniform and an older one in a plain suit, probably a detective, distracted me from the grisly memory. They brushed past us, even as Wolfe was telling them he'd already solved the case.
* * *
Half an hour later, Wolfe called me out of the conference room, announcing I was to be interviewed first. It was the best news I'd had all day. It suggested the detective wasn't as convinced of the quilters' guilt as Wolfe was.
He took me to Alyse's office, which had been commandeered by the detective. Wolfe left to keep an eye on his prime suspects and to make sure Matt knew his name had an e at the end.
The uniformed officer was young and blond with an open, trusting face. It was hard to tell exactly how tall he was, since he seemed to be in constant motion, bouncing on the balls of his feet, but I thought he was an inch or two below average.
Behind Alyse's desk was a man in a suit, presumably the detective Fred had mentioned earlier, Bud Ohlsen. He was older than the uniformed officer, with salt-and-pepper hair, and much larger too, tall and solid but not fat. Alyse's chair, perfect for her rail-thin body, was much too small for him, and he made his position even more precarious by leaning back with his hands locked behind his head. He seemed to be staring at the ceiling, as if it held the answers to who had killed Tremain.
The younger man waited for me to choose a chair and then sat beside me. He took out a notepad to write down my contact information before asking me what I'd been doing when Tremain was killed.
I rattled off the basic information as if I were dictating a statement of facts for a court brief and then waited for a reaction from the detective behind the desk. He kept me waiting for several minutes while I wondered if he really was contemplating what I'd said or if he was simply bored. Or perhaps it was just a ploy, his own twist on the fictional Columbo's "just one more question" trick.
Did the detective think I'd be so uncomfortable during the prolonged silence that I'd volunteer incriminating information? It might have worked on someone who was less experienced and more guilty, but I didn't have anything to confess. At least, nothing relevant. My private health issues had nothing to do with Tremain's death.
The detective finally seemed to notice I wasn't rushing to confess to murder. He dropped his hands from his head and leaned forward. "So, you were indisposed at the time of the murder. Is it possible someone came into the shop and you didn't hear him?"
It was more than possible. The proverbial herd of elephants could have tromped through the shop while I was unconscious, and I wouldn't have noticed. "The ladies' room is somewhat secluded in the outer corridor. I vaguely recall hearing people outside the building but nothing inside."
"So there could have been an intruder." This time the contemplative pause was brief. "How long were you indisposed?"
"I'm not sure."
"Long enough for an intruder to have emptied the cash registers?"
All of my previous blackouts had been brief, only a few seconds. I couldn't swear that today's had been equally short, and the detective was circling around the one fact I would prefer to keep private. "I don't really time my indispositions."
"It's just that the cash drawers were empty when we arrived," he said, seemingly unperturbed by my irritation. "I don't suppose anyone decided to be a Good Samaritan and close out the register drawers before we got here."
"No one except me entered the shop area after Tremain's body was found and before Mr. Wolfe arrived. I came out front to greet the responding officer. I certainly wasn't thinking about the cash registers."
"I'm guessing you never worked in retail then," he said. "Is there anything else you can tell us, Ms. Fairchild?"
"I'm afraid there's nothing else I can think of right now."
"Very well. You can leave," he said, raising his hands onto his head, tilting the chair back, and closing his eyes. "If you wouldn't mind, would you tell Wolfe we'd like to see the reporter next. I'm a little short handed today."
I stood, and the young officer raised the hand holding his pencil as if he were asking for permission to talk.
"Oh, yes," the detective said without shifting his position, although I suspected he was peeking through the bottom of his eyelids to see my reaction. "I almost forgot. We're going to need your clothes."
"My shirt?"
The young officer jumped to his feet and pointed his pencil at my collar. "Blood."
The detective added, "It's just a small spot, and I'm sure it's nothing to do with the murder. Whoever killed Tremain would have gotten considerably more than a single spot on him. Still, we need to be sure. We'll need your shoes too. Standard procedure."
I wanted to ask how much blood the killer would have been spattered with, but now wasn't the time to indulge my curiosity. Maybe Matt knew something about forensics. He was a reporter, after all, and unlike the detective, he wouldn't find my curiosity suspicious.