CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

 

Matt dropped me off at the school, and this time the guard let me right in. Dee was on her throne again, the parade of bins had expanded to encircle the entire stage, and Emma was deep in conversation with a middle-aged woman with clown-red hair and a purple quilted vest.

I made my way through the ordered chaos to join Dee. "How are the preparations coming along?"

"It's hard to tell at this point," Dee said. "Every year we think we've anticipated every possible problem, but we always miss something. We'll know when it's time to open the doors. Either everything will be ready or heads will roll."

I hoped the heads were only metaphorical. "Do you have a minute to spare for me?"

"Of course," Dee said. "Unless you're going to lecture me again about hiring an attorney."

"No lectures today. In fact, that's my problem. I'm having trouble with the keynote speech. All my drafts are coming out like the dullest of academic lectures."

"I'm sure you'll do just fine. If there are any hecklers, Emma will take care of them."

"Hecklers?" I hadn't thought about that possibility. No one heckled an attorney giving an opening statement in a courtroom, under pain of being thrown into jail for contempt. I'd been assuming that an audience of quilters and antique dealers would be naturally polite, although I should have known better. Tremain had been a member of the quilting community, after all, and he wouldn't have had any qualms about throwing a temper tantrum in the middle of my lecture if it was as boring as it promised to be. "You really expect to have hecklers in the audience?"

"Not really. But quilters are as diverse as any other group. There are always a few bad apples." My anxiety must have been visible on my face, because Dee continued, "Don't worry. You'll be fine. Just talk about whatever you love about quilts. That's what everybody's here for, to mingle with other people who understand what it's like to appreciate quilts and fabrics and color and design."

Emma came over to consult with Dee. "The woman who's taking over Tremain's booth got here finally. I just went over the ground rules with her, and she's all set."

"That reminds me," I said. "How did Tremain get a booth here in the first place? He's only been in business a couple years, and it should have taken longer than that to get to the top of the waiting list."

Dee and Emma shared an irritated look before Dee answered. "I had the same question when I found out about it a couple of weeks ago. The chair of the vendors committee told Emma they were pressured into it by the museum."

I distinctly recalled Gil saying she had no idea how the vendors' booths were assigned, that it was left to the quilt guild's discretion. "Gil Torres asked the guild to give Tremain a space?"

Dee looked at Emma, who shrugged. "I don't know who asked, but it was someone from the museum."

"Why on earth would they care about Tremain participating in the show?"

"I don't know," Emma said. "I was just told that someone said if Tremain didn't get a booth, we were going to lose the sponsor. We had a couple of openings this year, and we weren't tossing out one of our prior vendors, so the committee didn't think anyone would complain. Of course, at the time, none of us knew he was selling fake quilts. The museum couldn't have known either."

Perhaps Tremain had simply asked for a reference from Gil and then had made it out to seem like more than it was. If Gil had written Tremain even the vaguest of references, she might have been reluctant to volunteer that information now, since it wouldn't reflect well on the museum in the wake of Tremain's murder and the revelations about his fraudulent activity. Not that there was anything connecting Gil to Tremain's murder.

Wait. I knew better than to dismiss any possibility, no matter how remote. Gil wasn't a particularly likely suspect, but she had a motive if she'd bought one of Tremain's fake quilts for the museum. Unlike Dee, Gil was big and strong enough to have committed the murder. Tremain outweighed Gil by a couple of hundred pounds, but his weight was more likely to have hampered him, making him weak and clumsy, than to have been useful in defending himself. Still, I just couldn't picture Gil attacking Tremain, even if I mentally dressed Gil in a Valkyrie costume straight out of an operatic battle scene and had her singing something like the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." If I couldn't imagine her as a killer, I'd never be able to convince Wolfe to consider the possibility.

As if thinking about the prosecutor had conjured him, Wolfe came through the curtains at the side of the stage, flanked by Bud Ohlsen and Richie Faria. Wolfe looked smug and was radiating excitement.

I got to my feet and moved to stand between Dee and the approaching men.

Bud Ohlsen nodded at me. "Counselor."

"Detective. Did you have some more questions for me?"

"We're done with questions." Unlike the others in his group, he looked solemn and resigned rather than triumphant.

"Do you really have to do this right now, right here?"

"I'm afraid so." At least Ohlsen didn't seem happy about it, even as young Richie Faria looked like he couldn't wait to use his handcuffs for the first time ever.

Behind me, Emma stood beside Dee's throne, one hand on the older woman's frail shoulder, as if getting a good hold in preparation for a tug of war with the police to prevent Dee from being taken into custody.

"Don't worry," I told the women. "I'll call my office and arrange for a criminal lawyer to meet you at the station. Don't say anything until he gets there."

"Are you done?" Ohlsen said wearily.

"For now. You know this is completely wrong. Dee had nothing to do with Tremain's murder."

"I do know that. We're arresting Emma Quinn for the murder of Randall J. Tremain III."

Dee gasped and grabbed Emma's hand. "No. She was with me when he was killed. If you want to blame someone, blame me."

Ohlsen shook his head with what appeared to be legitimate regret. "Sorry, ma'am, but we can't do that. We have an arrest warrant for Emma Quinn, and that's who we're taking in."

Dee got to her feet with obvious difficulty. "Over my dead body."

Emma patted Dee's hand and gently unclasped Dee's grip on her. "It's all right. I'm sure it's a mistake and Keely will get it straightened out in no time. It wouldn't do either of us any good for you to get arrested for assaulting a police officer. The quilt show needs you while I'm gone. I'll be back before you know it."

Dee drooped back into her seat, looking small and helpless on the throne that had lost its grandeur when she'd lost her confidence. After a moment, she straightened her spine. "You're right. The show must go on. I'll take care of everything until you're released. I expect you'll be here for setup tomorrow morning."

Emma gave Dee a forced smile. "You know I wouldn't miss that for anything."

 

*   *   *

 

I caught a glimpse of panic in Emma's eyes when she turned to leave with the police and Wolfe. Before she was out of sight, I was on the phone to my office, arranging for a criminal lawyer to meet her at the station. Next up was a call to Lindsay so she could come stay with her grandmother.

I waited with Dee, although she seemed to have her distress under control, better than I did, in fact.

About fifteen minutes later, Lindsay ran up to hug her grandmother before turning to me. "I took a few minutes to finish the list of Tremain's clients before I left. You should have it in your e-mail. I sort of thought it might help to get Emma released from custody. I might not be able to do anything else for you while I'm helping my grandmother. I might even have to quit my job if Emma's not released by next week. I don't think Veronica would give me any more time off."

She was right about that. Regardless of how good the excuse was, Veronica was going to see a request for more time off as proof that Lindsay wasn't dedicated enough to her job.

Dee was poking Lindsay to get her attention, probably to claim she didn't need a babysitter, but Lindsay ignored her.

"You help Dee with the quilt show for now," I said, "and don't do anything about your job until you talk to me first."

Lindsay turned to see why Dee was trying to get her attention, and I headed outside to catch the trolley back to Main Street so I could get another look at Stefan's quilt.

I was trying not to dwell on things I couldn't control, like Emma's arrest, so I used the time on the short trolley ride to consider Dee's advice about my speech. What was it about quilts that had first appealed to me? I'd been going to quilt shows for at least ten years now. The first time had been at the suggestion of a friend who'd wanted to learn how to make her own quilts. I'd quickly found that I wasn't cut out for creating quilts, but I'd immediately been fascinated by the finished products, as art, as history, and as the focal point of a vibrant community of quilt makers and collectors.

Part of that fascination arose out of my awareness of how relatively fragile the quilts and their community were. Someone needed to protect them, and I was good at protecting my clients, so why not extend my reach to the quilt world? I'd started reading everything I could find on the history of quilts and then eventually began studying for certification as an appraiser. Knowledge was power, in both the courtroom and art/antiques collecting.

That could be the focus of my speech: how everyone in the audience could help to protect the art, history, and community of quilt making. It was certainly a timely topic. If I advised the audience to get appraisals before buying a quilt, the audience would practically finish the sentence for me: "Or else you could be cheated the way Tremain cheated his customers."

I finally had the core of my speech, I decided as I climbed down from the trolley a couple of blocks from Stefan's gallery.

Officer Fred Fields was looking in the window of the Cinnamon Sugar Bakery but carrying bags from the café down the street, Veggie-Tables. It didn't really seem like his kind of place. The food wasn't bad, but the service was mediocre, and it catered to the gluten-free vegan crowd, which Fred definitely wasn't a member of. He carried the bags at arm's length as if he was trying to avoid contamination, and his face was screwed up as if he'd just taken a bite of something dreadful and he was looking for somewhere to spit it out. Probably one of the gluten-free, dairy-free soy muffins. I'd had one a few weeks ago, and my expression had probably looked like his. I'd had the sense not to take more than one bite, but he'd probably gobbled the whole thing down before the flavor hit his taste buds.

"Hi, Fred. When did you start eating gluten-free?"

He swallowed, proving that he really was as brave as his uniform would suggest. "My wife makes me, at least once a week. She places the order, and I pick it up on the way home."

"I'm glad I ran into you. Did you know that an arrest warrant was issued for Emma Quinn?"

"I heard that a witness implicated her, but I didn't know they'd actually gotten the warrant or executed it."

"There's a witness to the murder?"

Fred set his bags down on the table outside the restaurant. "Not to the murder itself but to something that happened between Tremain and Emma. Some of the other antiques dealers in town were interviewed, and one of them remembered Emma having a heated argument with Tremain a few days before he was killed."

That didn't sound good, but there had to be an explanation. "Isn't that a little too convenient? Considering Tremain's business practices, his competitors must have wanted to shut him down, and that makes them suspects. So you've got one possible suspect blaming another one. And how did the witness even happen to see the argument?"

"There was a meeting of local vendors participating in the quilt show to go over the rules and regulations. Tremain and the witness were both there as vendors, and Emma was there to run the meeting."

"What were they arguing about?"

"The witness didn't know. He couldn't hear what they were saying until the very end when they were both shouting. That's when Emma said there was nothing she wouldn't do to protect Dee and the quilt show."

"That hardly amounts to a clear threat of physical violence. She could have been referring to what she actually did, which was to organize a picket outside his shop. Perfectly legal exercise of free speech."

"There was more. Emma warned Tremain that she wasn't as nice and law abiding as the rest of the guild was, and she'd do whatever was necessary to stop him. He got a bit belligerent himself, and they engaged in a shoving match. Some reporter had to step in and separate them. I'm surprised it never made the newspaper."

I knew what had happened. Matt had quashed the story.

Irritation with Matt threatened to undo the calm I'd achieved during the ride on the trolley. Matt had known about the altercation, and he hadn't mentioned it. If I'd known, I could have explained it away before Wolfe jumped to another wrong conclusion. "I think I know the reporter. He's a friend of Dee and Emma."

"Enough of a friend to have killed Tremain for them? Or to lie about being with them at the time of the murder?"

"I don't know." Most of what I knew about him came from Dee and Emma, and I didn't even know them very well. They seemed like reasonably good judges of character, but it was part of a reporter's job to insinuate himself into the lives of his sources. If he'd been in pursuit of a story relating to Tremain or his political cronies, he could have been faking his friendship.

But why would he continue to claim to be their friend now, when the story had come to a literal dead end? Was he actually trying to get the elderly women arrested while pretending to be their friend? And if so, why would he care who was blamed for the murder? It couldn't have been to divert suspicion from himself. He didn't have any apparent motive to have killed Tremain.

Matt could have been protecting someone else. Stefan perhaps, if their bickering was a cover for their true feelings for each other. Men could be like that, insulting each other as a means of showing affection.

"I'm not sure about anything anymore."

"Me neither." Fred glared at the take-out bags as if that would make them disappear or be replaced by something from the Cinnamon Sugar Bakery. "I don't think Ohlsen is either. He just doesn't have anything to disprove with Wolfe's theory that Emma did it for Dee and then Dee lied to give Emma an alibi."

Now the arrest made sense, at least as a strategy, if not as a likely route to the truth. "I bet Ohlsen thinks that by breaking up the pair, he'll get one of them to confess and implicate the other. The problem is that neither of them killed Tremain, and they're probably both willing to go to jail to protect the other."

"I don't like it," Fred said. "People aren't going to be reassured if they think the wrong person was arrested, and no one will ever believe Emma killed anyone. That makes for a nervous public, and nervous people do stupid, dangerous things. Officers like me end up in the middle of all that stupidity, and there's nothing we can do to stop it."

"There is one thing you could do to help." I pulled my phone out of my pocket. "I've got a list of Tremain's clients, the ones who might have been cheated and angry enough to confront him. Could you take a quick look at the names and see if any of them are familiar to you?"

He glanced at the bags containing his dinner and apparently decided that having it sit around in the summer sun for a few more minutes couldn't make it taste any worse than it already did. "Sure."

I opened the list Lindsay had sent me and handed the phone to Fred. He scrolled through the names, pointing out the ones he recognized. "Member of town council. A local developer. I think this guy's on some state board. Retired clerk of courts. Hey, it's the police chief." After several more, he reached the end of the list and handed the phone back to me. "Don't know any of the others."

"Those are all pretty small fish, the police chief notwithstanding. I'd heard that Tremain mingled with big-name politicians. You didn't recognize anyone from the state legislature?"

"Could be some from other districts but not from this one."

"Thanks." I tucked the phone back into my pocket, keeping it close as I'd promised Lindsay. "It was a long shot anyway."

"Anything else you want to know, you can call me." Fred gingerly picked up the take-out bags. "I'm no detective, but I know this community. It's not going to be pretty if the prosecutor puts either Dee or Emma on trial for the murder."

It might not be pretty, but I had a feeling it would be colorful. The picket line outside Monograms earlier this week was nothing compared to the force Dee could bring to bear if the charges against Emma weren't dropped. I could picture it now: a combined occupation and quilting bee on the courthouse steps.

Despite the common perception of quilters as sweet, mild-mannered old biddies, I knew them for who they really were: strong, passionate women with enough persistence and determination to sew together thousands of pieces of fabric for a single bedcovering and then spend hundreds of additional hours hand quilting it. If they turned that same dedication toward protecting one of their own, Wolfe could kiss his political aspirations good-bye.