A Patchwork of Clues Read online

  She saw the look that crossed Po’s face and balanced the casserole on her hip, then leaned in and planted a kiss on Po’s cheek. “There. That’s for loving me.”

  Po fought off the completely irrational wave of emotion that swept through her, the sting behind her eyelids. Maybe it was the day, or a whole a combination of things—Kate, exploring her life without her mother, and Selma’s troubles. Not to mention Owen Hill’s death. And the simple fact that this odd circle of women had stopped their lives to come together tonight over shrimp and feta cheese casserole to make a friend feel better.

  “Stop it, you,” Kate said aloud, her husky voice a level lower than usual. “Let’s get this food inside before we drop it.”

  A large, hefty figure emerged from the shadowy path between Selma’s store and the empty shop next door.

  “Ladies, let me—” a thick, gravelly voice said.

  Kate jumped. The casserole began to slip between her hands.

  The unshaven security guard shuffled over to the door and held it open.

  Kate regained control of the glass dish and moved quickly inside, followed by Po, murmuring a thank you as she passed him.

  The man nodded his head. The smell of liquor filled the air between them.

  Po hurried in after Kate. She turned to be sure he’d closed the door tightly and watched him walk away, swinging a flashlight and mumbling at the moon. Strange man, she thought to herself. And he certainly didn’t make her feel secure.

  “He scares me,” Kate whispered. “He lurks,” she added.

  “But it was thoughtful of him to hold the door for us. Selma says he’s harmless, but I guess we should be careful.”

  “Especially in dark alleys,” Kate added, glancing out the window.

  “Hi there, ladies,” Maggie called out and Kate and Po turned their attention to the bustling, welcoming scene spread out in front of them.

  Maggie had plugged in a hot tray to keep Kate’s casseroles warm and had wrapped a French baguette in a plaid towel. Eleanor was tossing a huge salad on a small round table on the far side of the room, while Leah arranged the napkins and plastic cups on the side shelf. And in the center of the sewing table, filled with cattails, partridge peas, and crimson and gold mums, was Maggie’s latest acquisition—a clay vase molded in the shape of a voluptuous woman with a secret smile on her face.

  “She’s beautiful, Maggie,” Kate murmured. “What do you suppose she’s thinking?”

  “Ah, that’s for her to know, for us to imagine,” Po said wisely. “But one can sew wild thoughts.”

  “Where did she come from?”

  “One of my clients made her. I think I’ll soon have the finest collection of fat lady art in the entire world. Or at least in Kansas. I call her Anastasia.”

  “This is my favorite so far,” Po said, sliding her fingers over the smooth curves of the lovely figure. “Though I love the painting of the ladies at the beach.”

  “How nice that clients bring you gifts,” Kate said.

  “We’ve been crazy busy at the clinic, and I’ve stayed late to accommodate some people. Sometimes they say thanks with a gift. It sure isn’t necessary—but I love this one.”

  “Why so busy?” Kate asked. “Fleas should be behind us, right?” She picked a cucumber out of the salad and nibbled on it.

  “People are bringing in new pets for shots and checkups—a normal thing to do—but they’re coming in droves and they’re not bringing in puppies. It’s been a week of BIG dogs—Great Danes, Dobermans, German shepherds.”

  “I know what triggered that—an article in that poor excuse Crestwood calls a paper,” Eleanor said. “It’s worse than the National Enquirer if you ask me. The foolish reporter suggested that with all the crime in Crestwood, people should think about ways to safeguard their homes. Burglar alarms, lights all over your house so you can’t sleep, hiring your own private security guard. But the suggestion that had photos with it was buying an enormous guard dog.”

  Leah laughed. “‘All the crime in Crestwood.’ That sounds like a murder a day here.”

  “Geesh. Sells papers, I guess,” said Maggie.

  Susan and Selma walked in from the front of the store. The shop was closed on Thursday nights and the two had just finished closing up the day’s business.

  “I smell a feast,” Selma said. She pulled the foil from a corner of Kate’s casserole and closed her eyes, drinking in the mushroom and wine-scented steam. “This is just what I needed tonight. I have to leave for a bit but save me some, you hear?” She wagged a finger at Kate. “This stuff is sinful—and I need sin tonight.”

  “Bad day, Selma?” Kate asked.

  “Bad week. But it will get better.”

  “What’s going on tonight?” Po asked. “I thought you were free.”

  “Max Elliott came by a little bit ago and had his dander up about something. He’s insisting all the shop owners meet tonight.” She sighed.

  “For what?” Po noticed that the lines in Selma’s face had deepened over the past few days. She looked smaller and weighted down, as if the pull of gravity had suddenly increased by a hundredfold.

  Selma shrugged. “Max is trying to make sense of all the notes Owen left behind about the corporation. Something about corporation books not balancing, needing audits, all that sort of mumble jumble. But he’s being so damn mysterious about it all. I say just out with it, whatever the heck it is, then fix it. And then move on. Anything but a meeting. Those are pure torture. But he insisted. Said it wouldn’t take long.”

  “Where are you meeting?” Eleanor asked. “Do you need this room?”

  “No. Mary volunteered Windsor House. Max had something to do first—something he couldn’t get out of, he said. He’ll be there at eight, though, and he practically ordered me not to be late.”

  “Windsor House was dark when I walked by,” Leah said.

  “Mary will open up for the meeting. She has a nice back room, just like this one, except the table is the kind you can’t set drinks on and I always feel I should cover the tapestry-covered chair with a towel before I plant my butt on it.” Selma stopped talking and frowned, looking around the room. “It’s too quiet in here. Where’s Phoebe?”

  “Ta-da!” As if on cue, Phoebe swept through the back door of the store.

  “Phoebe!” Seven voices rose like steam and collided directly over Phoebe Mellon’s newly shorn head.

  “Like it?” Phoebe asked, pirouetting around the quilting table like a ballet dancer.

  “It’s…short,” Leah said.

  “Good gracious,” Eleanor said.

  “Hair today, gone tomorrow,” Phoebe said, her eyes shining.

  “Phoebe, you rascal,” Selma uttered, her fingers pressed to her lips.

  Kate walked over to Phoebe and looked at the shining platinum globe from all angles. “Pheebs,” she declared, “I like it! It’s cool—very chic.”

  Maggie started to laugh. “Phoebe, you’re the best. It’s great. You go, girl!”

  Phoebe giggled. “Yeah, that’s what Jimmy said his parents would say—you go, girl. And keep going.”

  “However did you do that?” Eleanor said. She touched her own gray hair, falling gently to her shoulders.

  “It’s the miracle of the Flowbee, Eleanor. It’s the greatest. I’m going to do Jimmy’s. And when you’re ready for a cut, I’m your person.” She turned toward Po. “Well, sensible Po—what do you think?”

  “I think you’re handsome, Phoebe, and you’ll probably start a trend. But in the meantime, you might consider stocking up on wool caps for the winter. Perhaps El would knit you one.” Truth be known, she thought Phoebe looked beautiful. Her hair was a one-inch cap of sunshine.

  “Well, I’d just had it with running out of the house with wet hair, never having time to dry it, and always fearful that the twins would gr
ab the hairdryer. One night I couldn’t sleep so I turned on the TV and saw this amazing gadget advertised—you hook it up to your vacuum cleaner.”

  “Phoebe!” Kate yelped. She touched her thick head of hair and imagined it being attached to a vacuum hose.

  “No, Kate, it’s great. Honest. It sucks your hair up and you just slice it all off at whatever length you want.” She grinned, twirled around again and ran her fingers through her glimmering Joan of Arc do. “Now all the time I used to spend untangling my hair, I get to spend with my beautiful babies. How cool is that? I love it.” She patted the side of her head softly. “And Jude and Emma love it, too.”

  “And Jimmy?”

  “Jimmy—hmmm, well, Jimmy will adjust. I think he’s a little nervous about the Harvest Ball at his folks’ club in a couple weeks—but it will be fine.”

  “You look just like Mary Martin in that old Peter Pan production,” Eleanor said. “And if those Mellons say a single word, I’ll clobber them with my cane. Stuffy old busybodies.”

  Phoebe laughed.

  Selma glanced at her watch, then walked over and gave Phoebe a gruff hug. “Sweetie, you’re a crazy girl. Keep it that way—you bring sunshine into our lives.” She grabbed a thick gray sweater from the coat rack and shoved her arms into the sleeves. “I’m five minutes late—Max will be having a holy fit.” She took a deep breath and rested one hand on the door. “If I’m not back in half an hour, girls, send out the dogs.” Selma pushed open the back door and disappeared down the dark alley.

  They waited until the door closed tightly, and then Kate said, “Selma looked worried to me.”

  “Maybe a little,” Maggie agreed.

  Susan stood silently at the food table, staring through the window at Selma’s retreating figure.

  “Susan?” Kate asked.

  Po walked over to the shop manager. She had pulled her hair back in a ponytail tonight. And with little makeup and dressed in jeans and a faded Canterbury College sweatshirt, she looked more like a teenager than a thirty-eight-year-old woman, her sculpted features made even more pronounced by the emotion in her eyes. A haunting kind of beauty.

  Susan offered a slight smile. “Late nights, that’s all. I have a couple papers due at school. Midterm time.”

  “I know that feeling, Susan,” Kate said. “Come, sit.”

  “Well, too much work isn’t good for anyone,” Po said as they all settled around the table. She reached for her bag and pulled out her glasses and several strips of fabric. “Maybe we should go on that quilting retreat in Florida Selma told us about.”

  “That’s a terrific idea, Po. Maybe I’d finally learn how to stitch those blasted curves,” Eleanor said. “We can all stay in my home down there—it’s well stocked with racy movies and wine.”

  Phoebe walked over and planted a kiss on Eleanor’s cheek. “You are a cool lady, Eleanor. You scared me a little when I first joined this group, but you’ve grown on me.”

  Eleanor’s laughter was deep and loose—in the way of people who had seen a lot, lived fully, and chose freely what to let in or keep out of their lives. She tilted her head back and looked up at Phoebe. “Well, missy, I wasn’t so sure of you, either—at least not for a minute or two. You were one sassy lass. But then you whipped out that needle of yours and stitched up those blocks for the Jacob’s Ladder quilt we made for the women’s shelter, and I thought, ‘Now, she can’t be all bad, and she’s kind of cute, with all those dangly little earrings hanging from her ears—reminds me a little of me at that age.’”

  Phoebe pushed Eleanor’s hair away and examined her ear, looking for proof. “Eleanor Elizabeth Canterbury,” she cried.

  Eleanor slapped Phoebe’s hand away and her soft gray hair fell back over her ear. “You mind your manners, Phoebe Mellon, or I’ll take you over my knee.”

  Phoebe was undeterred. “Eleanor’s ear has three tiny holes in it—I saw it with my own eyes. Eleanor, you gypsy you.” Phoebe put her hands on her hips, threw back her head and laughed.

  A sudden, insistent rattle pulled everyone’s attention to the back door.

  Startled, the group fell quiet.

  “What’s all the racket?” a man’s voice asked. “I thought this was a serious group.”

  Phoebe flew over to the door and pulled it open. “P.J, come on in. You’re just in time.”

  P.J. took one step inside the door and stopped. “Don’t want to intrude.”

  “Well of course you do,” Po laughed. “Get yourself in here and talk to us.”

  “I saw the lights, is all.” P.J.’s head nearly touched the top of the doorframe. He walked over to the table and looked around at the piles of fabric. “I wanted to be sure you ladies were okay.”

  “P.J., you came in here because you smelled food, ’fess up,” Maggie said.

  “Well…” He tried to look sheepish. “I did hear a rumor that there might be a feast back here. Heard some talk of a shrimp casserole. And I haven’t eaten for—well, days, I think. Maybe weeks.” He looked sideways at Kate. “So you cooked this, Simpson? Is it safe?”

  Kate shrugged. “Maybe not your portion, but who knows?”

  P.J. walked across the room. “Hey, Phoebe Mellon,” he said, spotting the small figure sitting next to Eleanor. “Nice hair, munchkin.”

  Phoebe touched it with the tips of her fingers. “I like it, too.”

  “How’s Jimmy doing? Saw him over at the Court House the other day working his magic at a trial.”

  “He’s doing fine. Working hard to sort out the bad apples from the good and protect the innocent,” Phoebe laughed. “Just like you, P.J.”

  “We try, Phoebe.”

  A series of gongs from the grandfather clock in the front of the store broke through the chatter and Po glanced down at her watch. “Selma should be here in a second, and we’ll dish it all up. Kate made enough for a marching band, P.J. Help yourself.”

  “Well, now, Po, that’s mighty nice of you.” He tipped his head in her direction and a thick mass of brown hair fell across his forehead.

  Po had forgotten how much P.J. looked like Pete Flanigan senior. A smile as crooked and charming as the streets in Crestwood—starting out in the right place and then spreading clear across that handsome face of his.

  “Hey, there’s Selma,” Kate said, pointing out the back window.

  The back door flew open and Selma burst through, the edges of her long wooly sweater flapping against her hips. “Well, how’s that for a wasted hour!” She shrugged out of the sweater and hung it back on the hook. “I think I’m ready for that wine now, thank you very much.”

  “What happened?” Po walked over to the sideboard and poured a glass of Ambrose’s special cabernet. She handed it to Selma. “You look angry. Or worried. I can’t tell which.”

  “What’s the big dark secret Max had?” Phoebe asked.

  Selma started to answer, then noticed P.J. standing behind Kate. Her face blanched. “P.J., what the heck are you doing here? Is everything all right?”

  “This is strictly social, Selma. I’m off duty.”

  “Well, maybe you better get on duty—seems Max Elliott has disappeared into the night. Either that, or he stood us all up. One worries me, one makes me furious. Which should I be?”

  “Max didn’t show up?” Po’s brows lifted.

  “Never showed.” Selma took a sip of the wine and sighed.

  “And you could have cut the tension in that group with Susan’s cake knife over there…” She nodded toward the double chocolate mousse cake Susan had contributed to the supper. “Tempers were high, let me tell you.”

  “Why’s that?” Maggie asked. “It was just a meeting.”

  “No, no. Not just a meeting. Max had cloaked it in urgency and mystery. According to someone—maybe Daisy—Owen had instructed Max to clean things up, so to speak. Audit books. Check
on our contractors—repairmen, roofers, maintenance folks. Thought there was some sneaky stuff going on. It all had some folks on edge.”

  “I don’t get it,” said Maggie.

  “I’m not sure I do, either. Owen seemed to think that favors were being done, people being hired who shouldn’t have been. Who knows what he thought. I’m not sure I care.”

  She sat down at the end of the table.

  Po shook her head. “It doesn’t sound like Max Elliott not to show up, especially if he had things on his mind. Marla says she sets her clock by him coming in for coffee in the morning. Eight o’clock on the dot.”

  Selma nodded. “You’re right. He’s irritatingly punctual. But we called his house and Ambrose even went over to his office to check.”

  Kate spoke up. “Didn’t you say he had something earlier, Selma? Maybe it just went late.”

  “We thought of that. But why didn’t he call? He never lets that cell phone out of his sight, far as I can tell.”

  A soft ring broke into the conversation. P.J.’s hand went automatically to his shirt pocket. “Sorry, ladies,” he said apologetically. He slipped the phone out and checked the number across the screen. “I better take this.”

  P.J. moved into the front room to take his call.

  Leah walked over to the sideboard and took the foil off Kate’s casserole. “Lately Max looked like he was carrying the world on those slight shoulders of his,” she said. “I saw him at a party the other night and he wasn’t himself. He asked me about the quilting group, who was in it, that sort of thing, which I thought was odd. Wanted to know what nights we were here.”

  “I wonder if he just got sick of all these squabbles with the shop owners. Maybe he just threw in the towel and decided not to come,” Selma said. “We can be an ornery group.”

  “You know he wouldn’t do that, Selma,” Susan said softly.

  “Of course he wouldn’t. It’s just that mad is easier than worry these days. I don’t want one more thing to worry about.” She saw Kate look up and turned to follow her gaze.