Deadly Thanksgiving Sampler: a Danger Cove Quilting Mystery (Danger Cove Mysteries Book 21) Page 2
"So whoever took them wanted them for reasons other than resale value," I said.
"It doesn't make any sense," Emma said. "There's no reason for anyone to steal them. There isn't much of a market for them, and it's not like we forced anyone to contribute their quilts for use in the parade and then in the exhibit at the museum. They were all donated voluntarily, just for a few weeks' use, not forever. Besides, if anyone had changed her mind, all she had to do was ask and we'd have given her back the quilt right away."
"You mentioned that the guild has participated in the parade every single year since it started," I said. "Could someone be angry with the guild and want to embarrass it by forcing you to break the participation streak? Or a rival parade sponsor wanted to take the record away from you?"
Emma shrugged. "Anything is possible, but I'm not aware of any jealousy among the parade participants. There are a few other groups who've been involved as long as we have, so we're not the only one with that long of a record. Although we do tend to win a lot of judges' ribbons, so maybe someone wanted to get rid of the competition for them."
Tricia was still standing next to us, no longer wringing her hands, because she'd stuffed them into her jeans pockets, her arms rigid with anxiety. I didn't want to upset her further by suggesting that the only other likely scenario I could think of was that someone had been angry with Tricia, rather than with the guild, and had stolen the quilts to make her look bad. I'd have to find a better, more private time to ask about any enemies she might have.
I settled for asking, "Who else knew the quilts would be here?"
Tricia answered. "The whole guild knew that Brooke and I were in charge of keeping them safe until the parade, but we didn't say where we'd be storing them."
"Who's Brooke?"
"Brooke Donnelly." Tricia turned toward the base of the porch stairs, but the group that had been gathered there was gone. "She was over there just a minute ago."
"Everyone's probably gone over to the scene of the crime," Emma said. "Come on. You'll want to see it too."
CHAPTER TWO
Matt stayed behind to talk to Dee, while Emma led me over to the right side of the house where the window closest to the front porch had been broken. "That's where the thief got in."
"The jerk wasn't very good at it either," Tricia said. "You can't see it from here, but he cut himself and bled all over the carpet inside."
"He'd better not have bled all over the quilts too, or Dee will be even more furious than she already is," Emma said.
"No, they were in a covered blue plastic storage bin, so they were protected," Tricia said. "At least I did that right."
Three women were wandering around beneath the broken window, occasionally nudging something with the toes of their shoes. Presumably they were looking for clues, and it was too late for me to suggest that we should preserve the scene of the crime that they'd already trampled. Besides, Emma was right that the police wouldn't make finding the quilt thief a priority. The most they would likely do was to take a report so Tricia could file a claim with her insurance company, more for the broken window than for the quilts. The police certainly wouldn't bring out a forensics team or dust for prints.
Two of the women doing the search were probably quilt guild members. I didn't know them by name, but they looked familiar, as if I'd seen them at a meeting without being introduced. The third woman was my ex-paralegal and Dee's granddaughter, Lindsay Madison. She was in her midtwenties and average height but muscular from the weight lifting she did as training for her hobby, ringing big bells, the multi-ton behemoths found in churches and other public towers. She must have been on the porch when I'd arrived, but I hadn't noticed her then. Her designer hoodie and tight jeans marked her as a bit younger than the other women, but not so obviously that she'd stood out from the crowd earlier.
Lindsay stopped suddenly to peer at the grass about six feet out from the window. She knelt and picked something up. When she stood again, she was holding what looked like a black stick pen, except there was no pointed end, and instead of a flat cap, it was topped with an orb just a bit bigger than the shaft. She raised it out in front of her. "Anyone know what this is?"
There was a stifled gasp from a woman who'd been standing to one side, watching but not participating in the search. I didn't recognize her, so if she was another guild member, she must have attended different meeting sessions than I did. She was petite, with artificially blonde hair that was short and looked like each strand had been arranged individually before she left home in the morning and hadn't moved since then. The softness in her jawline suggested she was approaching sixty, and the quilted jacket she wore identified her as likely to be a member of the quilt guild.
Tricia spoke from beside me. "I know what it is. It's a tire gauge. Brooke will know even more about it. She gave me one a couple of years ago. Her husband has them printed with the name of his repair shop and gives them away to customers."
"Is that Brooke inspecting it now?" I nodded toward the petite blonde who'd run over to take a closer look at what Lindsay had found.
"Oh, sorry," Tricia said, reaching up to touch the fancy braid around her bun, as if to make sure it was still in place. "Yes, that's Brooke Donnelly. I didn't know you hadn't met each other through the guild. It was ages ago when she first mentioned that she wanted to make an appointment with you to get her quilts appraised. She'd seemed pretty anxious to get it done, and she's not the sort of person to leave loose ends hanging, in her quilts or in life, so when she stopped mentioning it, I thought she'd already gotten the appraisals. Although, she was worried about the cost. They have a sort of old-fashioned marriage, with her husband making all the financial decisions, and he might have thought it was a waste of money. And she'd never do anything he didn't approve of."
"Maybe she hired someone else." I liked to think I was the best quilt appraiser between here and Seattle and that my rates were reasonable, but there were other options. "Someone cheaper."
"Maybe." Tricia didn't sound convinced. "I'll introduce you if you'd like. Brooke and I work together at the high school. She teaches math, and I teach English."
Lindsay caught sight of me then and trotted over with Brooke following more slowly.
"Check this out," Lindsay said, holding out the tire gauge. "Do you think the burglar might have dropped it?"
"Without a forensics team to investigate, it will be impossible to know for sure." I took the tire gauge, and it was, as Tricia had suggested might be the case, imprinted with the name and contact information for a local vehicle repair shop, Donnelly's Garage.
"You don't have to keep looking for the burglar." Brooke's head drooped, and she focused on the grass instead of looking anyone in the face, except for a fleeting glance at Tricia.
What I could see of her expression was sad. Of course, so was everyone else's in light of the theft of the miniature quilts, which had brought everyone together. There was something else in Brooke's eyes though. I didn't get a close look, and it could have been nothing more than the resignation that her words reflected, but I thought I caught a glimpse of fear before she looked down at the ground again. "I know who it is."
"Who was it?" Tricia asked.
Brooke shook her head, keeping her gaze focused on the ground. "I can't tell anyone."
"Could I at least help you get them back?"
"No. I have to do it myself. Otherwise, I'm afraid the quilts will be destroyed."
Tricia reached out to give her friend a hug, but Brooke shrugged her off.
"I'm so sorry." Brooke's voice quavered, and she stopped speaking to take a deep breath. She kept her focus on the ground as she continued in a more determined tone. "It's all my fault, so I'll make it right. I'll have the quilts back before dinner tomorrow. I just need a little time after school is over for the day, and then Dee and Emma can pick them up at my house. Say around four o'clock?"
Her gaze flickered briefly in Emma's direction before turning downward again.
I was amused to hear that there was something that actually took precedence over quilts for Dee and Emma. And chagrined that I hadn't thought to make an appointment to at least trim my hair, which was as much in need of tidying up as Matt's usually was.
I hadn't noticed that Matt had rejoined us until he spoke. "We can pick up the quilts. Just tell me your address, and I'll act as chauffeur. We can store them in Keely's office until you need them again."
"That would be perfect," Emma said. "I'll send Keely the list of quilts so you'll be able to make sure none of them are missing."
Brooke started in apparent surprise and looked up from the ground to peer at me intently. "Are you Keely Fairchild? The quilt appraiser?"
I nodded.
"I've been meaning to call you for an appointment, but…" She made a vague gesture with her hand. "You know how it is. Things came at me faster than I'd expected, and I thought I'd have more time to wrap up the loose ends."
"I'm sure we can work something out," I said, handing her a business card. "This week is busy, but I'm available next week."
Brooke hesitated before taking my card, and I thought she was going to say something else to me, but she just nodded and turned to Matt to give him her address and a phone number in case we needed to contact her.
A vintage Porsche in an ugly, flat, dead-leaf brown pulled up next to the walkway to Tricia's house. Brooke glanced at it and said, "There's my husband, and I can't keep him waiting." As she trotted toward the street, she tossed over her shoulder, "I'll see you at my house tomorrow, and we can talk about scheduling an appraisal."
"I look forward to it."
As the Porsche left, a small pickup truck took its place. Even if it hadn't followed directly in the wake of the depressingly dull color of the Porsche, the truck would have been eye-catching. The entire length of the passenger's side had been painted with a seascape clearly inspired by Danger Cove. It even had a lighthouse, the top of which was painted on the window using semitransparent paints. Neatly tucked into the sand of Two Mile Beach was Manny's Murals and his phone number.
A short, wiry man in paint-spattered white overalls and a Hawaiian shirt that rivaled the brightest of the ones worn by Tucker at One Man's Trash climbed out of the truck. He walked with a noticeable limp as he went around to the back to fold down the tailgate and retrieve a toolbox that he set on the ground beside one of the tires.
Tricia ran over to greet him. The man pulled out a sheet of plywood, presumably to cover the broken window temporarily.
Matt and Lindsay went to help carry the supplies to the house, and I stayed behind with Dee and Emma.
"I didn't know Lindsay had come down from Seattle," I said.
"She's here for the whole week," Dee said. "I was wondering if we could bring her to dinner on Thanksgiving."
"Of course." One more person wouldn't be a big problem, now that Matt had offered to help me get a table. Anything that would seat five would also seat six people. And surely even a heritage turkey would have enough meat for six servings, if not for leftovers.
I was more concerned by the apparently last-minute nature of Lindsay's decision to come down to Danger Cove from Seattle, where she still worked for the law firm I'd left when I'd been unable to continue as a trial attorney. Lindsay visited her grandmother frequently, but Seattle was far enough away for it not to be a spur-of-the-moment decision. If the holiday visit had been planned in advance, Dee and Emma would have known about it two weeks ago when I'd invited them to Thanksgiving dinner, and they'd have mentioned it then. It might have slipped Dee's mind, but not Emma's.
And a weeklong unannounced visit was completely out of character for Lindsay. She wasn't an impulsive person, and she didn't usually visit her grandmother for more than a day or two at a time. Besides, all of her free time was dedicated to bell-ringing, so it was odd that she'd spend a whole week of her vacation on something other than her hobby. Plus, it wasn't easy to get time off at this time of year without planning for it well in advance. Unless she'd been forced into a work hiatus. Lindsay had struggled a bit for the first couple of years on the job and had even been put on probation for a while. She'd turned things around, but I hadn't talked to her in months, so it was possible she was backsliding.
"Is Lindsay having problems at work?"
"Of course not," Dee said. "She got a raise just last month in recognition of how much she contributes to her team's success. They couldn't be half as successful without her."
Emma's eyebrows rose, and she bit her lip as if to keep herself from openly contradicting her friend. It was enough to alert me to the possibility that things weren't as rosy as Dee believed. I'd have to have a chat with Lindsay later to find out what was going on at the office. I still felt a bit responsible for her career since I'd left her in the lurch when I'd left the firm fairly suddenly after my syncope diagnosis.
"I saw that," Dee said to Emma. "Stop making faces and send Keely the list of quilts that we chose for the parade."
"Do you have pictures?" I asked. What the makers called their quilts wasn't always enough to pick them out of a pile, since the names were often either based on some emotional connection the maker had with the quilt or on traditional blocks that were known by half a dozen or more different names.
"They're on my home computer," Emma said. "I'll send them to you later tonight."
"We're counting on you to make sure they're all accounted for and in good shape when you pick them up," Dee said. "If one's missing, it might help you to figure out who stole the whole collection."
"Does it matter who took them, as long as they're returned?"
"Of course," Dee said. "We need to know who to press charges against. We can't let him get away with it, or no quilt will ever be safe again."
"Let's see how it goes tomorrow," Emma said with deceptive mildness. "Right now we need to get home and finish our outfits for the parade."
They headed for their car, leaving me to wonder if I was expected to have some sort of special outfit for the parade. No one had mentioned anything about costumes or uniforms. And I didn't have time to go clothes shopping—one of my least favorite things to do, even in less busy times—with everything I needed to do for Thanksgiving dinner. I was going to be cutting things close as it was, between grocery and table shopping with Matt, picking up the quilts from Brooke, and finishing up some work that had to be done for the museum before Thursday.
* * *
After Matt brought me home from Tricia's, I spent a solid hour completing my to-do lists for the rest of the week, so it was after nine o'clock when someone startled me by knocking on my outermost front door. The sound was somewhat muffled, since there were two exterior doors between my private space and the public space. One led outside, and directly across from that, one opened into my living room. The space in between was about ten feet deep and used to be an ATM lobby with floor-to-ceiling windows, which I'd turned into a room for meeting with appraisal clients. Usually, unexpected visitors turned out to be longtime customers of the bank who'd forgotten the branch had been closed and didn't notice the discreet sign I'd posted on the exterior wall with information about the next nearest location.
Although the large windows made the lobby a perfect, bright spot for daytime appraisals, they didn't do much for privacy in the evening. I opened the inner door just a crack and could see a bald man of average height but solid build wearing jeans and a brown hooded duck jacket and holding a box about two feet in each direction. He wasn't being overtly threatening, but I didn't know him, so I took my cell phone with me as I pulled the inner door all the way open and entered the lobby area.
Even though I didn't turn on the interior lights, he apparently saw me approaching t
he outer door. He set down the box and took a large step back to stand right where an exterior spotlight illuminated him. I could see the wrinkles around his eyes and across his forehead that pegged his age as more likely to be in his sixties than the forties I'd originally thought from his muscular build and lack of middle-aged spread around his waist.
He raised his hands as if in surrender. "Lawrence Donnelly." His voice was gravelly, like a lifelong smoker's, and loud enough that it carried through the door and windows as easily as if there was nothing between us. "Brooke's husband. You met her earlier today. She wants you to have this."
"I'm going to see her tomorrow," I said. "I could get it from her then."
"She said it couldn't wait." He nudged the box with his foot until it was touching the front door. "I'll just leave it here and go. I only wanted to be sure you were home first so you could take it inside before it got stolen. It's a quilt, and she spent the last year making it."
"A quilt?" Judging by the size of the box, it was bed-sized, not something small enough to simply give away to a virtual stranger on a whim. "I can't accept that. I don't even know her."
"You will take it," Lawrence barked. "I promised I'd make sure you got it."
"Why me?"
"She says you'll understand, that you're the only one who will understand." He snorted irritably. "Hell of a thing to say to her husband of forty-some years, but she wasn't in any state for me to argue with her."
His stance indicated that he wasn't leaving until I agreed to take the quilt. I still wasn't opening the door until I saw him drive away in the vintage Porsche I could see idling in the driveway.
"I'm not keeping it," I said finally. "But I'll make sure it's safe until I can return it to her."
"Good enough. I can tell her I completed my mission. But she won't take it back. She can be stubborn."
"I'll worry about that later." If Brooke really wouldn't take it back, I could arrange to have it added to the collection of locally made quilts at the Danger Cove Historical Museum. I had an appointment to talk to its director, Gil Torres, later in the week anyway.