CHAPTER TEN

 

The museum was only a couple of blocks away, on the other side of Main Street, so my path took me past Monograms. The police tape was gone, but there was a handwritten sign on the front door indicating the shop was closed due to a personal emergency. It would reopen on Saturday, and the owners apologized for any inconvenience.

I couldn't resist peering through the large display windows to get a glimpse of the quilts inside. Unlike Stefan's windows, these didn't have heavy curtains keeping out the sunshine, and it was possible to look past the window display of monogrammed silver and linens, into the shop itself. Maybe I'd grown used to the dimness of Stefan's gallery, but the interior of Monograms seemed brighter than natural light could account for. I looked up at the ceiling to confirm that the fixtures there were indeed all on.

The shops on this quaint little street weren't like some of the bigger, corporate stores where the lights were left on at all times. The shopkeepers turned them off when they closed for the day, so why were the lights on in Monograms?

I considered calling the police, but I didn't know what I could tell them. That someone had left a light on? Even if it was several lights, wasting electricity was hardly a crime.

I was about to leave when I noticed movement over near the left wall of the shop. The exit door was propped open with a contractor's bucket. What if someone was inside stealing merchandise and taking it out through hallway to the back door? I knew thieves used obituaries to identify residences that would be unoccupied during the funeral services. What if someone had read about Tremain's death and targeted his shop instead of his home?

I felt in my jacket pocket for the cell phone Lindsay had insisted I needed to keep close at hand. Leaving the lights on wasn't a criminal offense, but turning on those lights to steal merchandise was. I hadn't seen anything being removed though, so I hesitated. A moment later, a beefy man wearing a fully loaded carpenter's tool belt appeared in the opening. Rather than taking anything, he simply kicked the bucket aside and pulled the door shut.

It took me a moment to recognize who it was: Tremain's landlord. He must have returned to finish the plumbing work.

Relieved, I dropped my phone back into my pocket and headed for the museum. I hadn't gone far before new suspicions arose. I was assuming the police had prevented the landlord from finishing his work yesterday when they'd secured the scene, but now that I thought about it, I wasn't sure what the landlord had done after the meeting with Tremain had started. I'd seen the landlord go upstairs before the meeting, but I hadn't seen him afterward.

Where had he been when Tremain was killed? It didn't seem likely he'd have left the property already since he'd only just arrived with enough supplies for several hours' work. If he had been still upstairs when Alyse found the body, he had to have heard her scream or the sirens a few minutes later.

So why hadn't he come down to see what had happened? Did the police know he was a potential witness or possibly even a suspect?

I'd forgotten about him when I'd given my statement, but Fred or some of his colleagues must have gone upstairs to secure the scene, and they would have brought the landlord downstairs to talk to the detectives. I ought to make sure the detective knew about the landlord's presence near the crime scene, although he obviously wasn't planning to flee the jurisdiction. Talking to the detective could wait until after I checked to see what the museum had in its collection that might help me place an accurate date on the four-patch.

 

*   *   *

 

The museum only displayed a fraction of its collection at any one time and kept the rest in a more light- and temperature-controlled storage area, much like Stefan kept his antique quilts in a dark room. According to the elderly woman at the ticket desk, the records relating to early residents of Danger Cove were in storage, so I needed to get Gil's authorization to view them. Unfortunately, Gil was still meeting with the board of directors and couldn't be interrupted.

I wrote Gil a note, explaining that, as part of the quilt appraisal, I needed to research whether there had been any early residents of Danger Cove with the last name of Dolores.

I couldn't do anything more on the appraisal until I had access to the archives, so I thought I might as well go check on Dee and Emma. I headed back down Main Street to catch a cab to the school. As I approached the Cinnamon Sugar Bakery, Fred Fields came out with a box tucked under his arm and a half-eaten cupcake in his hand. Apparently the carbs hadn't hit his bloodstream yet, because his face was red and sweaty, making it look like he was just a few blood-pressure points away from a stroke. I doubted there were enough cupcakes in the world to soothe whatever was bothering him today.

"You okay, Fred?"

He started guiltily. "I was just picking up dessert for tonight, and, well, you know how it is with Riley's cupcakes. I had to have one."

I was lucky sweets weren't my particular weakness, considering how great the bakery's offerings smelled even from outside. "Looks like you've had a bad day."

He finished the last of the cupcake before answering. "I've had better. Everyone's asking me when Tremain's killer will be arrested, and I don't know what to tell them. I don't think anyone has any idea who did it, and that means they won't be making an arrest any time soon."

"You can't let it get to you like this." I was such a hypocrite. If I could figure out how to separate myself from other people's problems, I wouldn't be passing out at the first whiff of stress. "There must be someone you can talk to at the station to get it off your chest. Someone who's not a suspect."

"You're an officer of the court, right? That makes you a colleague. At least as long as you're not a criminal defense attorney or a plaintiff's counsel claiming we messed up a motor vehicle accident report." Fred popped the bakery box open and grabbed another cupcake. "Besides, you're not a serious suspect. You've been ruled out, at least tentatively. They said the odds were against the killer avoiding at least some blood spatter, and your things were clean. That one bit of blood on your shirt was your own, just like you said."

By unspoken agreement, we both started walking toward his patrol car at the end of the block. I could catch a cab from there, and along the way, I could see what else Fred knew about the murder investigation. "What if I'd wrapped something around me to protect my clothes? Like the quilt at the scene? If it covered Tremain, it ought to cover me too."

"It's possible, I suppose." Fred looked at his hand, as if he'd forgotten inhaling the second cupcake and couldn't understand why it was gone. "Just not likely. They checked with some experts. They'd never had a quilt at a crime scene, but plenty of other makeshift covers have been used by killers to block the spatter, and it hardly ever worked. Most people aren't meticulous enough to cover everything, so there's usually some little patch of blood big enough for the forensics team to find. Usually on the shoes, if nowhere else. Yours were clean. Well, clean of blood anyway. Add that to your lack of credible motive, and you're no longer a person of interest."

"That's a relief." I tried to remember whether Alyse had changed her shoes at the same time she'd changed from a skirt to pants, but I couldn't picture what she'd been wearing in any detail. I'd never thought an interest in fashion might someday help identify a killer, and it was too late now to start paying closer attention to other women's clothes.

Fred pulled out another cupcake. Apparently, the long explanation, coupled with our short stroll to his car, had exhausted him, and he needed refueling.

Perhaps I should tell him about Alyse's change of clothes, so he could pass the information along to the detectives. He could also make sure they knew the landlord had been at the crime scene. Fred probably wasn't supposed to be talking to me about the investigation though, even if I had been cleared. If I wanted the detectives to check out Alyse's wardrobe, I'd have to tell them directly.

Fred finished the third cupcake and leaned against the passenger side of his patrol car to stare longingly at the three remaining ones in the box. "I just hate all this uncertainty. It's not good for people to think someone around here got away with murder."

"I wish I could help, but I'm not a detective. I never would have thought about the killer getting blood on his shoes before the murder. If he did that, wouldn't that make it seem premeditated? If Tremain was killed in a fit of rage, I can see the killer grabbing a convenient quilt on the spur of the moment, but where would he find a convenient pair of galoshes to cover his shoes?"

"We don't know the shoes were covered." Fred gave in to temptation and pulled out another cupcake. "If it was a burglary gone wrong, then the killer might well have bloody shoes. All we know is the people we interviewed at the scene didn't have any blood on them, so all of the focus is on motive right now."

"And Wolfe thinks Dee and Emma have a strong motive."

"Yeah." Fred swallowed half of the latest cupcake. "He's wrong, but I don't like the way he's meddling in the investigation or how long it's taking to identify a credible suspect. Most of the time, the killer's still at or near the scene when he's arrested, and it's pretty obvious who the culprit is. It's been 24 hours now, and the best theory is a burglary gone wrong, but that doesn't give them much to go on."

"So they aren't planning to arrest Dee and Emma simply based on a newbie prosecutor's gut instinct?"

Fred rolled his eyes. "Wolfe is an idiot. No one else thinks Dee and Emma had anything to do with the murder."

"I bet Wolfe hasn't considered just how bad it's going to look for him if he goes after a couple of little old ladies. That's not going to get him the kind of press he's looking for."

"He won't get the conviction he wants either. No jury of Danger Cove residents is going to convict Dee and Emma without a ton of evidence, and so far there isn't any evidence at all."

Fred was probably right, but I was too used to looking for the worst-case scenario to feel completely reassured. "Just being charged with murder would be difficult for them. Stressful and expensive."

"I know." Fred looked inside his bakery box, where only two lonely cupcakes remained. "Bud Ohlsen's getting cranky because of Wolfe's interference in their investigation. If this goes on too long, he might have to arrest someone just to get Wolfe off his back."

"How long do you think Wolfe will wait before he forces the issue?"

"I don't know. Bud's a good detective, but he's a bit handicapped by having young Richie Faria assigned to him until the department can hire a new detective. They weren't prepared for when Bud's old partner retired unexpectedly, and now it's just Bud and Lester Marshall handling all the serious crimes," he explained. "You're lucky Bud's got the case. He'd much rather arrest the right person for the murder, not someone who'll get the charges dismissed within 24 hours. He'll follow up all the leads, but if it really was a random burglary gone wrong, there may not be anything to follow up."

That depressing news called for yet another cupcake.

"I'm sure he's doing the best he can, just like you are."

Fred stared sadly at the remains of the next-to-last cupcake. "I just want it solved. I won't rest easy until it is."

"I know what you mean." Poor Fred. I really did know only too well how it felt to assume responsibility for every bad thing that happened and the frustration of not being able to make things right. "But you'd better not set your expectations too high. We're both such dedicated worriers that neither of us ever rests easy."

 

*   *   *

 

Fred offered to give me a ride to the school if I wait until he replenished the box of cupcakes so he'd have something to bring home. He dropped me off a few minutes later, and I headed for the main entrance.

A school security guard stopped me just inside the front door. I explained why I was there, and he used his walkie-talkie to check with someone above him. A few minutes later, Lindsay came trotting down the hall toward us.

"It's okay," Lindsay said. "I know her. She's a friend of my grandmother's."

I signed the visitors' log and followed Lindsay down the deserted hallway. Only a few classrooms were occupied with summer programs.

"My grandmother and Emma are in the auditorium," Lindsay said. "They can't actually set anything up until first thing on Thursday. They're just getting everything checked in and lined up so it's all ready for the last-minute rush. The summer students don't use the stage, so Dee and Emma have established a war room there, with the quilts and hanging poles and exhibit tables. It's sort of amazing to see how the auditorium goes from an empty space to a gallery of quilts in the matter of a couple hours."

"Maybe next year I'll volunteer to help so I can see it for myself."

Lindsay glanced over at me. "Is that safe for you? It's fairly strenuous work."

"Exercise doesn't make me pass out. Which is too bad, in a way. It would be a lot easier to give up working out than it was to give up working."

"I'd hate if it I had to give up bell ringing," Lindsay said. "I could still do the handbells, I suppose. They don't weigh much. But it's just not the same experience as the big bells."

"Giving up your career, though, that doesn't bother you?"

"I'm not giving up my day job. Not really. Just for this week."

"Then what's happening at the office? I know the managing partner, remember, and she doesn't hand out personal time lightly. I also know you use every available nanosecond of your vacation time for bell-ringing events, so you don't have a full week of paid leave available to help your grandmother with a quilt show. You never took time off for it before, and from what I've seen of Emma, she could probably set up everything herself, single handedly, without breaking a sweat. It's nice of you to help, but they wouldn't want you to get fired for helping them."

"I'm not going to be fired for helping at the quilt show," Lindsay said. "I'm sort of on suspension this week."

My heart sank. I'd been afraid of something like that happening after I left the firm. "Suspension?"

"I keep making stupid mistakes." Lindsay sighed. "Typos, missing words, stuff mailed to incorrect addresses. That sort of thing. The final straw was when I was working on an appellate brief, and I forgot to change the type size from the large one I use for drafts to the smaller, standard one the court requires. The court rejected it and gave us 24 hours to fix it."

"You were lucky." The firm's senior partner, Veronica White, wouldn't have had any choice but to fire Lindsay otherwise, and I wasn't in a position to prevent it. Much as I wanted to help, Lindsay was going to have to do this on her own. All I could do was coach her from the sidelines. She needed to understand how serious the mistake was so she didn't do it again. "They didn't have to give you a chance at a do-over. They could have simply ruled against the firm's client."

"That's sort of what Veronica said. She called me into her office Friday and gave me a week to decide whether I wanted to pay attention to my work or pay attention to the help-wanted ads. I'm supposed to come up with an action plan for improving my work product by next Monday."

That was encouraging. "You've had four days to think about it. What have you come up with so far?"

"Not much." Lindsay let out a huff of frustration. "Okay, I've got nothing. It's not like I'm trying to make the mistakes. They just sort of happen."

I could understand both Lindsay's and the managing partner's frustration. Lindsay was bright, she was good with clients, and she had a cheerful personality, at least when she wasn't out on suspension. All she was lacking was the confidence and the commitment that would keep her from making so many careless mistakes. I just wished I knew how to help her.

"You know Veronica is right, and you can do better than you've done in the past."

Lindsay shrugged. "Maybe."

"Does your grandmother know about this suspension? She'd want you to be working on your action plan, not running errands for her." I remembered guiltily that some of Lindsay's projects in the last 24 hours had been for me, not for Dee. "And you definitely shouldn't be doing research for me."

"I sort of thought if I could do something hard while I was on suspension, and do it really well, with no mistakes at all, then it would prove to Veronica I'm not a screwup." Lindsay looked at me beseechingly. "Just tell me what you need me to do to help keep Dee and Emma out of trouble over the Tremain murder, and I'll do it. No mistakes. Not one. Not even a comma out of place."

We'd had a few discussions about how important commas could be, with courts deciding cases based on the placement of a comma or the lack thereof in contracts and legislation, but I hadn't thought Lindsay had actually been listening. My skepticism must have shown on my face.

"I know. I know," Lindsay said. "I didn't mean to be snarky. I'll watch the commas extra carefully from now on. I promise. Just give me something to do. Dee and Emma don't really need my help with the quilt show. Believe it or not, I'm actually much better with office work than anything else. Except maybe for bell ringing."

It wasn't a bad plan, actually, and it was something I could help with. The managing partner had always put more stock in actions than in words. Lindsay could kill two birds with one research project: collect the information that might help the police figure out who really killed Tremain, and at the same time compile a work portfolio to prove she could do her paralegal job at an acceptable level of accuracy.

"I could use some help with a couple of things." It might be useful to know the extent of the animosity between Stefan and Tremain. "For starters, I'd like to see the court documents in the case filed against Tremain by his rival across the street, Stefan Anderson. Get me the pleadings and anything else that's public record."

"How will that help?"

Mostly, it would give her an opportunity to show what a good researcher she was, but I didn't want her to know it was mostly an academic exercise. She needed to believe she was helping her grandmother. "I won't know what I'm looking for until I see it."

"All right." Lindsay pointed at the door at the end of the hallway. "Everyone's in there. Would you ask my grandmother to call me when she needs a ride home? I'll let you know when I've got everything on…um, what was the name again?"

"Stefan Anderson." I held on to my patience but couldn't resist teasing her a little. "Maybe writing things down should be part of your action plan. You could start wearing cargo pants, like Matt, and keep notepads in all the pockets."

"Ugh. Cargo pants." Lindsay dug her phone out of her jacket pocket and brought it practically up to her nose while she typed. "Stefan Anderson, right. With an o or an e at the end?"

"An o."

"I'll call you when I've got everything," she said, jogging away.

"Take your time." I'd seen signs in quilt shops, proclaiming that finished was better than perfect. That might well be true when it came to quilt making, but not for investigating a legal case. "Remember, perfect is more important than fast."