CHAPTER TWELVE

 

After a brief wait at the police station, Richie Faria, the young, uniformed officer from the crime scene, led me to the interrogation room. It was just a plain room with gray walls, a one-way mirror, and a video camera affixed near the ceiling. Bud Ohlsen was seated at the table in the same position as when he'd been at Alyse's desk, tipped back in his chair with his hands supporting the back of his head, studying the ceiling. There was a file in front of him that looked a lot like Wolfe's file on Emma.

Something about this room triggered a prickly sense of guilt, as if I should be confessing to something, even though I hadn't done anything wrong. Or perhaps it was some subtle body language on the part of Ohlsen. I'd heard from colleagues who practiced criminal law that really good detectives were trained to use a variety of psychological tricks on suspects. Of course, the defense lawyers then sought out the same training so they could protect their clients from its influence, so it all balanced out, but I'd never had any reason to study the interrogation tricks.

A wave of nausea punctuated my nervousness. I reminded myself that I wasn't a suspect; Fred had told me so. I was here voluntarily to give the police a piece of potentially useful information, and I could leave if I felt uncomfortable. More uncomfortable, I amended.

Bud Ohlsen tipped his chair forward and placed his hands on the file in front of him. "So, Ms. Fairchild, what can we do for you today?"

"I would like to add to my statement from yesterday. I believe there may have been at least one other person in the shop at the time of the murder."

While Ohlsen contemplated the possibility, Faria insisted, "We interviewed everyone who was there."

"I've been thinking about that." I addressed Ohlsen, even though he was leaning back and staring at the ceiling again. "We can't really know everyone who was there for the ten minutes of the break from our meeting. The side door was open, the front door was unlocked, and there's no bell on the door. Anyone could have slipped inside, gone to Tremain's office, clobbered him, and slipped out again without being noticed."

"We can't interview hypothetical suspects," Faria said.

I waited for Ohlsen to respond. After a few moments, he shook his head and abandoned his study of the ceiling. "You're looking at this like a lawyer, not an investigator. Hypotheticals are good for undermining an investigation but not for moving an investigation forward."

"I thought of one person who was definitely in the building, not just hypothetically."

"How convenient," Faria said. He looked like he would have continued to criticize me, if not for a quelling glance from the detective.

"You'll excuse him, I hope. He's still learning. He's aware you're friends with a couple of the suspects. We wouldn't be doing our jobs if we didn't question whether you're just trying to set up reasonable doubt. We did ask you yesterday if you had anything else to add, and if I remember correctly, you said you didn't." Ohlsen looked at Faria, who flipped to an earlier page in his notebook and then nodded.

"I understand," I said. "Still, I expected you would at least hear me out. That's why I'm telling you about this instead of Wolfe. I think you'll at least do me the courtesy of checking out the information."

"Okay." Ohlsen signaled to Faria to take some notes. "Who do you think we missed?"

"Not just you. I missed it too at the time, with all the shock and confusion. I'd forgotten Tremain's landlord was on the premises at the time of the murder."

Faria frowned and paged through his notes. "Nothing here about any landlord."

"I didn't see him after the murder. That's why I didn't think to mention him yesterday. He went up to the second-floor apartment right before my friends and I went into our meeting, and he brought enough supplies to be there for hours. Did anyone check the second floor when the scene was secured?"

Faria rummaged through his notes again. "I'll have to check with the responding officers."

"Don't you think it's odd the landlord didn't come forward?" I said. "He couldn't have missed hearing Alyse's scream or the sirens. He should have been in the shop when the first officers arrived. Unless he'd come downstairs before then, caught Tremain in his office, argued over the rent or something, and things got out of hand. Then he panicked and ran, so he was gone before you arrived."

"We'll look into it. Don't expect too much though. People don't always come forward when they see the police, even when they have nothing to hide. He could have just stayed upstairs, minding his own business, finishing his repairs." Ohlsen stood up. "Is there anything else we can do for you today?"

I considered mentioning Alyse's change of clothes, but I'd already tested the limits of the officers' patience with me. I'd learned early in my trial career that it was often better to give a jury just one theory of a case, even if there were several that supported my client's position. Pick the strongest argument and go with it.

The detective and his uniformed helper were my jury, deciding the fate of Dee and Emma. Better to stick with my strongest suspect, the landlord, and not confuse matters by offering Alyse as an alternative. They already knew about her, and she had to be high on their list of suspects, given her business relationship with Tremain. Unless they'd bought into Wolfe's theory about Dee and Emma having a motive and using the quilt to protect against blood spatter. I wanted them thinking about people other than the ones who'd been in the meeting right before Tremain's death. That meant keeping the focus on the landlord and Tremain's competitors.

"No," I said finally. "I've taken up enough of your time for today."

 

*   *   *

 

While I was waiting at the museum's ticket desk for a guard to escort me to the locked archives on the second floor, Gil came down the stairs and into the lobby a step behind the blonde board member who'd been so rude the day before. Gil nodded a greeting over the head of the much-shorter woman, who didn't seem to notice me, the handful of visitors milling about, or the ticket desk attendant. The whole way across the lobby to the front door, the board member spoke to Gil in a tone that was angry and clipped but low enough that the words themselves weren't clear across any distance. Her face looked remarkably calm, most likely due to expensive medical intervention rather than the inner zen-like state of peace I was trying to attain.

As soon as the main entrance doors shut behind the board member, Gil's professional smile faltered. She headed for where I was waiting and waved to an elderly man studying a placard in front of a display of antique farming implements.

"Is there a problem?" Gil asked me.

"Nothing that didn't exist the last time we talked. I'm just waiting for an escort to the archives."

"No need to wait any longer. I'll take you." Gil led the way up the stairs and down the hall before unlocking a door marked Employees Only.

Inside was a windowless room. Three quilts were hanging on one wall, along with four or five woven coverlets. Two other walls were lined with storage cases, the last wall held bookshelves, and in the middle was a large metal table and four black chairs.

I tossed my messenger bag onto the table where the reference books landed with a thud. Now that we were away from any museum visitors who might overhear our conversation, I asked, "How was the board meeting?"

"They were like children, each one saying the opposite of the previous comment, just to be contrary." Gil sang the beginning of the Beatles' "Hello, Goodbye."

"That bad?"

"I've still got a job," Gil said. "Other than that, it was fairly grim. The board is reluctant to approve the acquisition of any quilts right now. Tremain's death and the speculation about his business ethics have cast a pall over all dealers, and no one wants to be known for being on the board that approved the acquisition of a reproduction quilt."

"Should I even bother to finish the appraisal of Stefan's four-patch?"

Gil hummed the theme from Jeopardy! while she considered her options. Finally, she nodded. "You might as well. I've already committed to paying your fee, so the museum should get something in return. I may still be able to buy it later. It would have been nice to announce the purchase at the quilt show, but it might be better if we wait a few weeks for the public to forget fake antique quilts exist."

"It's always possible Tremain's quilts were legitimate antiques, and we should know soon. The prosecutor is arranging for me to do an informal appraisal of the Monograms' inventory. I'm not really hopeful, but it would be best for everyone if it turns out his quilts were legit."

"True. And Nancy Grant, the board member who just left, will be thrilled if you can confirm what she's been saying all along—that Tremain's a legit businessman. She's convinced he wouldn't have risked his reputation on petty crimes, and even if he had, he would have been caught in a lot less time than the two years Monograms has been open."

"I wonder why the quilt guild only started to question his business practices recently. He's got a booth at the quilt show, and they were assigned a few months ago. The guild couldn't have heard about any problems with his quilts before then, or they wouldn't have given him a booth."

"I don't know anything about the vendors' spaces," Gil said. "The museum offers some financial support, but we don't have anything to do with the show's logistics. I believe the guild has a committee that oversees the vendors. If you really need to know, I'm sure Dee and Emma could tell you who was in charge of the committee."

"It doesn't really matter. Let's just hope Nancy Grant is right, and Tremain was an honest but misunderstood businessman. And the rest of the board continues to listen to her instead of to the rumor mill. Is she more pleasant with them than she is with mere appraisers like me?"

"Not really," Gil said with a smile. "She can be a bit…difficult. You saw her yesterday. She's impulsive, and she doesn't have that hobgoblin of little minds—consistency. She is perfectly willing to take one position one day and the opposite position another day."

"That must be a challenge for you. Are you going to be stuck with her on the board forever?"

"I'm afraid so," Gil said ruefully. "She's part of a power couple, married to a state senator. She was on Danger Cove's town council, and they met when he came here for a fundraiser during her reelection campaign. She won her election and then gave up her seat to work on his campaign for the state legislature. There's some talk that he's planning to run for governor. Personally, I think she'd be a more effective politician than her husband, but she can be abrasive at times."

"I hope she doesn't pick this issue to push the board too far. You're stuck with her, but the other board members don't have to listen to her. Or at least they don't have to vote with her to support you."

"They don't have to, but unless she goes completely off the deep end, there's a strong incentive for them to do her bidding, because of the influence her husband wields over state grants to local museums like ours." Gil glanced into the corridor behind her, as if making sure no one had followed us. "She's lobbying against signing a long-term contract with you. She knows Dee and Emma have been vocal about Tremain's business dealings for a while, but for some reason she thinks they got the idea from you. She claimed you were just ginning up a fake scandal in order to drum up business for your appraisal services."

I shook my head, mostly at how naïve I'd been to believe that my new career in the quilting community that generally lived up to its reputation for being sweet and welcoming would completely insulate me from this sort of unfounded attack. From what I'd seen and heard of Nancy Grant, she was one of those charmed people who never experienced any stress themselves. They passed it off to everyone around them with their unreasonable demands and poorly thought-out allegations. "I'd never talked to Tremain before yesterday. I never even met Dee and Emma until then, and I tried to stay out of it. I only agreed because I owed Dee's granddaughter a favor."

"I didn't know about the favor, but I told the board you weren't behind the rumors. They're still falling in line behind Nancy, except for some token objections. They don't know you, and they do know how much money Nancy's husband sends to this county and this museum."

"Do you want me to do some sort of presentation for them?" I so didn't have time for this, but if I didn't make the time, my second career was likely to go down in flames. "I could probably rework the speech I'm doing for the quilt show into something that would reassure the board I know what I'm talking about."

"Maybe in a month or two," Gil said. "Once things calm down. Right now, while the investigation into Tremain's murder is active and it's all over the news, I don't think anything either of us could say would sway them."

Gil was likely to be disappointed if she thought the cloud over her quilt acquisition program was likely to blow over that quickly. The initial murder investigation, just to the point of being able to file charges, was likely to take months, and then it could be a year or more before the trial itself. If Gil had to wait until people forgot about Tremain, it could be a couple of years before the museum could move forward with the quilt acquisition program.

Gil wasn't the only one who would be disappointed. I'd hoped to have secured the museum as my first steady customer within the next few weeks, not two years from now.

I couldn't worry about that right now, not without sending my stress levels into the stratosphere. Passing out at Gil's feet wouldn't be as bad as passing out in front of a jury, but still embarrassing.

"I should let you get back to your work." I took a seat at the table next to my bag. "Just one question first. Stefan's quilt has an embroidered name—M. Dolores. I was wondering if you had ever heard it before."

Gil didn't need to think. "There was a famous Dolores family early in Danger Cove's history. In fact, it was an M. Dolores—Maria—who was the first lighthouse keeper here."

"Was she a quilter?" 

"That I couldn't tell you." Gil pointed at the far end of the room. "We have some of her artifacts in that last case. If there's nothing useful there, you might have better luck talking with her family. One of her descendants recently moved back to town. Same name as her ancestor even. You could ask her what she knows of the first Maria Dolores. I have her number in my office. I'll text it to you."

"Thanks." I unzipped my messenger bag. "I'll give her a call after I finish here."

"Take your time. We won't forget about you and lock you inside the building. And if we do, you can always push the panic button." Gil slid her hand along the edge of the table with her fingertips under its top. She stopped a couple of inches from the corner. "There's one right here. Originally, I was just going to put them at the guards' stations and at the ticket desk to keep the employees safe, but I got a good deal on the system, and I used the savings to put a button here too. It can feel a little creepy in here sometimes if you're the only person on this floor."

"I don't panic easily." Which was fortunate, since otherwise I'd wake up on the floor more often.

"I wish more people were that easygoing," Gil said on her way out. "You're only the second person who's visited this room since I started. It's only been a couple of weeks since the last visitor though, so maybe it's the start of a trend. I'm hoping we can attract more researchers by making the archives a little more user friendly. It's just not in the budget yet."

Gil left, and I couldn't help going over to take a quick look at the quilts hanging on the back wall. One was from the late 1800s, like Stefan's, and I thought they both even had some of the same prints. I took my camera over to the quilt and compared the prints in some close-ups to the prints in the hanging quilt. Sure enough, there were several matches, including one distinctive blue print that I might otherwise have thought was manufactured at a later date.

I was confident now that the date embroidered on Stefan's quilt was correct. The only remaining question was whether it had a connection to the first lighthouse keeper in Danger Cove. I might never know whether M. Dolores had made it or had been the recipient of it, but any connection with her would make it particularly valuable to the museum.

What if the board of directors passed on the acquisition simply because I was the one recommending it? I just couldn't let them pass up this opportunity. The lurking nausea worked as a reminder that I was getting ahead of myself. First, I needed to confirm that the quilt really was connected to the lighthouse keeper.

I lost track of time as I went through the documents in the case holding Maria Dolores's belongings, looking for some hint that she was a quiltmaker. As Gil had said, Maria was the first lighthouse keeper in Danger Cove, after it was built in 1894. The job had initially been intended for her husband, a political appointment in recognition of his status as a Civil War veteran, but he'd died shortly before the lighthouse had been completed. Maria had successfully argued that the country owed it to him to provide for his widow and six children by letting her keep the appointment, which was a lucrative one for the times.

If Maria Dolores had made the quilt, she'd done so while occupying the lighthouse, since she, her daughter and her granddaughter had lived and worked there until it was decommissioned in the mid-1900s. Or possibly it had been made for her by a mariner's wife grateful for not being widowed thanks to the lighthouse and its keepers.

Gil's voice came through an overhead speaker, announcing that visitors had fifteen minutes to find their way to the exit before the museum closed. She ended with a few bars of "Goodnight, Irene."