Murders on Elderberry Road: A Queen Bees Quilt Mystery Read online

  Ambrose Sweet must have left the bottle there by accident, probably meant to take it home to that fancy house of his, but hell, he sure wouldn’t miss it, not with a store crammed with the stuff. Wesley had helped himself to a small bottle or two in the past, slipping it into his pants pocket when he checked out the storage room. But he’d never have touched this pricey stuff, yet there it was, just waiting for him. It sure beat the rotten swill he usually drank. And from the bottle alone, he knew this hooch had to cost a buck or two. Wesley smiled crookedly. Yeah, it was a good sign for Wesley Peet. Bright, sunshiny days ahead. And bucks to burn.

  He’d been smart for once in his useless life — done what was good for Wesley and the hell with the rest. What had the world ever done for him anyhow? He’d taken care of everything this time, showed ‘em who was boss. Couldn’t pull the wool over old Wesley, not on your life. He sure proved that.

  Wesley stumbled down the empty alley, his head so full of thoughts that he didn’t see the old truck parked at the end of the alley, just across the street from the antique place. But if he had seen it, he wouldn’t have given it much thought. Just another truck parked at the curb, somebody visiting somebody, somebody spending the night.

  He checked the round watch on his wrist and focused hard until the numbers stopped jumping around. Midnight. He’d just leave a little early tonight, take the rest of that bottle back to his place and have his own little celebration. Who cares? Who’d rob this place? This was a place to get murdered, not robbed. He giggled foolishly at his own attempt at humor and snapped on his flashlight, pointing it at the back door of the quilt shop.

  Right there, he thought. His flashlight formed a perfect circle of light on the step, like a spotlight on a stage, waiting for someone to step into it. Or to fall dead in it.

  Maybe Owen Hill didn’t know it, Wesley thought, but there were worse things in life than getting wasted in a quilt shop. He could tell him a tale or two about growing up with a boozin’ father and no mother to speak of. Brawls, beatings. Owen Hill sure didn’t know about that. Bump on the head, go to sleep. Besides, he’d sure had his little pleasures, hadn’t he? A life full of ‘em, Wesley suspected. And now it was Wesley’s turn. The new truck was already his, but that was just the beginning. Now that he’d proved he meant business — that no one could fool old Wesley Peet … hah! — now the real payoff would come. Tomorrow. All arranged. All set. And Wesley’d be off into the sunset, a happy man at last. Mexico maybe? No Kansas winters there.

  He’d promised to do this one last shift. Then off he’d be. Forever.

  The moon was as big as a pumpkin and a crisp breeze tugged off the few remaining leaves on the elm trees. The round beam from Wesley’s flashlight wobbled up the back of the brick building that housed the wine shop, up to the slanted roof, then back down again. Wesley took another long drink of Scotch, then lumbered on, nearly stumbling smack into the dumpster behind Daisy Sample’s flower shop. The heavy metal lid was open, held up by the metal brace. Wesley stared up at it, curious why the flower lady’d done that, left it open like that. He hadn’t noticed it on his way down the alley earlier. Fighting hard against the fuzz in his head, he shined his flashlight up to the lid, then down, and looked into the deep belly of the trash bin. Almost empty, he thought. His flashlight traveled over a couple of cardboard boxes and packing foam. Then stopped short. There at the bottom, scattered around on top of one of the boxes, were several bills.

  He peered closer. “Hundred smackers!” he said aloud. Damn! It is his lucky night. He looked around, spotted one of Daisy’s flower crates, and pulled it to the edge of the bin, then hoisted his huge body up onto it and leaned over the edge of the dumpster. His head was filled with cotton but not enough to blot out the thrill of found money. He chuckled softly as his fat fingers fumbled for the bills. He didn’t need the money now, but old habits die hard, as his old man used to say. There, two fingers touched the first one hundred dollar bill and curled around it.

  At first, the crunching gravel went unnoticed, blotted out by the excitement of the treasure he’d found. Wesley leaned a little further into the bin and reached for another bill.

  He wrapped his fingers around it and only then did he hear the sound, distinct now, closer. This time it was right next to him. He pulled his head up and looked to the side.

  Their eyes met, and Wesley knew right then and there that there would be no Mexico. Nada. He’d been duped. His old man had been right all along. Stupid kid. Worthless, shiftless excuse for a human being. Would never amount to anything. In the distance Wesley heard another noise, one he recognized — the incessant barking of that foolish mutt across the fence.

  And then everything turned black as the heavy metal lid of the dumpster came crashing down on Wesley Peet’s head.

  CHAPTER 20

  Barn Raising

  Wesley Peet’s murder was too late to make the Tuesday morning paper, but the local television station reported it hourly as “breaking news.” By noon, the town was alive with speculation. Po heard it through her Walkman earphones as she ran along the river. As the first burst of news traveled through the thin wires, she stopped dead in her tracks and moaned. She leaned forward from the waist, her hands on her hips. Perspiration dripped from her forehead.

  “Oh, my,” Po murmured as her heart sank down into her running shoes. The investigative reporter on the radio continued her detailed account, telling Po that at first, police thought Wesley’s death was a tragic accident — a uniformed security guard examining suspect refuse in a dumpster, was hit on the head by the heavy lid when a broken support latch collapsed. It crushed the man’s skull, causing immediate death.

  But after careful examination, the reporter announced, clearly pleased her story didn’t end on such a note, the police determined that it was not an accident: The man’s blood’s alcohol level was a whopping .13, he was scavenging for money in the metal garbage bin, and his death appeared to be a planned execution.

  Po pulled the earphones out and looped them around her neck. Execution. Good grief. What was this, The Untouchables? She held one tiny earphone back to her ear and learned that a bottle of pricey Scotch whiskey was found nearby. A bit out of his league, Po thought.

  Po also learned that Wesley had a ticket confirmation in his pocket for a flight to Mexico two days off, that he was trying to lay claim to several one-hundred dollar bills lying on the bottom of the dumpster when he met his untimely demise, and that he had worked for the Elderberry Shop corporation for several months.

  This time Po groaned out loud.

  “Po, is that you?”

  Po looked up. A small silver Passat idled at the curb near the end of the running path.

  Leah leaned through the open window. “I can see by the look on your face that you’ve heard the news.”

  Po wiped the perspiration from her brow with the small towel around her neck. She wasn’t sure which had caused her heart to race so — the running or the news. “How much more can those poor folks take, Leah?”

  “I don’t know. Selma must be beside herself. I was going to go over there tonight anyway. Care to join me?”

  Po assured her that she did. And knowing Kate would want to be there, too, she called her after showering and dressing, and left a message on her answering machine.

  They all showed up, of course, just as Po knew they would. Kate had called Phoebe and Maggie. Leah had stopped by Eleanor’s.

  “So, you ladies need some extra quilting time?” Selma asked, and then she allowed herself to fall into Po’s tight embrace.

  “Here,” Maggie said. “I’ve brought food.” She set a large, colorful platter in the middle of the table. The ceramic plate was glazed to a high sheen, but the real point of interest was its shape — a large, beautiful woman, lying on her back and floating serenely in some invisible sea. She wore a bright red bikini and sunglasses, and her wide, round arms, her shapely hands and painted nails formed a rim around the edge of the platter. In the center, an
ample pink belly held a platter full of Maggie’s homemade chocolate chip cookies. Two giant breasts, covered in a bikini top, watched guard over the cookies.

  Phoebe collapsed in laughter. The others paraded around the table, viewing the newest piece of Maggie’s art with great delight.

  “And her name?” Kate asked between giggles.

  “Madame Cookie, of course,” Maggie answered, “My sister found her at the Plaza Art Fair in Kansas City last month. Couldn’t resist her.”

  “Of course she couldn’t,” Selma said. “Who could?”

  “She’s worthy of carrying your chocolate chip cookies, Maggie, and I wouldn’t say that about just anyone.” Leah grabbed a warm cookie off the plate.

  Maggie blew her a kiss.

  “Well, I brought something, too,” said Phoebe. She walked over to the back door, opened it, and pulled inside an easel with a giant pad of white paper on it. “Jimmy bought this for the twins, but since it’ll be a couple years before they can use it, he loaned it to us.”

  “For a Queen Bees’ crime briefing,” Po said. “Phoebe, you’re a genius.”

  “I figure we’ve all been sleuthing like crazy and it’s time to put thoughts to paper.” She stretched out the easel legs until the board was steady and pulled out a pack of marking pens. “Okay, so let’s start with you, Kate. What does P.J. say about this latest development?”

  In minutes the Queen Bees had gathered around the table, munching on cookies and sipping the coffee Selma had put on when she saw them coming. Phoebe stood at the end, scribbling comments on the large white sheet of paper.

  The police didn’t know what to think, Kate admitted. P.J. had tracked her down and called her out of class that day, wanting to make sure she was okay. And then he’d filled her in. There were no fingerprints on anything, he said, so who ever had released the lid of the dumpster knew exactly what he was doing. The only other thing they found was the bottle of Scotch. And it was covered with fingerprints. All Wesley’s.

  “That’s odd,” Po said. “Someone had to give him the bottle.”

  “P.J. said a kid from the Elderberry neighborhood saw the bottle when he rode his bike through the alley on his way home around eight o’clock. It was sitting outside the wine store on the steps.”

  “Odd place for a pint of Scotch. Someone must have put it there and wiped it clean,” Po said.

  “Someone like Ambrose or Jesse? They’re the only ones who sell good Scotch around here.” Selma walked around the table with her coffeepot. She was more at ease when moving, less anxious when there were tasks to be done.

  “And it was their store,” Maggie added.

  “But why would they leave it outside? Everyone knows Wesley is a rumpot.” Phoebe scratched her head.

  “Someone may have wanted him to have it. To get tipsy.” Maggie frowned, then decided she may have hit on something. “If he was tipsy, he couldn’t fight back. Wesley was a frightful brute and could have beaten anyone off. I think it would have been a wise move to get him drunk, lure him to the dumpster, then smash! It’s all over.”

  Kate frowned. “But why would anyone want Wesley dead? That’s the real issue here. He was an unfortunate lush who wasn’t very good at his terrible job, but that really doesn’t merit a terrible death like that. There must have been something else.”

  Po thought back to the night he frightened her and Susan in the shop. “He said some odd things that night he came into the shop,” she said aloud. “I thought he was speaking nonsense through the haze of the liquor, but he talked about knowing things, being curious. And how it all paid off. The way he talked about Owen being dead and Max nearly so, made me think he did it. He was about to be fired, he hated Owen Hill — it all fit.”

  The others nodded.

  “But he also talked about being safe, protected,” Po continued. “Which means he probably did know something.”

  “So he was blackmailing someone,” Phoebe said, writing BLACKMAIL in huge letters on the white sheet of paper. “Okay, so who?”

  “The person who killed Owen and put Max into a coma,” Leah said, and Phoebe duly recorded it.

  “Daisy was ready to kill Owen,” Selma offered. “And Max was picking up the torch.”

  Phoebe wrote DAISY on the sheet.

  Selma looked up at the list. “You might as well put me up there, too, Phoebe. I didn’t do it, but I had motive.”

  “No,” Phoebe said simply.

  “What about Ambrose and Jesse?” Maggie asked. “They could have put that bottle out to get Wesley snockered, then unlocked the latch as he was hanging over the side trying to get the money. And they both knew Owen was at the shop late that night. They’d have much more control now that he’s not the corporation director.”

  “That’s true,” Selma admitted. “Owen squelched many of their uppity ideas.”

  Phoebe added AMBROSE and JESSE to the list.

  “I may be struck dead,” Eleanor said, “but I think we’ve forgotten someone important on this list.”

  “Who’s that, Eleanor,” Kate asked.

  “The Reverend Gottrey. I don’t mean to speak ill of a man of the cloth. I happen to think our priest at St. Pats is amazing, wonderful and talks spirituality better than Gandhi and Mother Theresa. But I think the Reverend may have mighty powerful money motives.”

  “The Owen Hills Spiritual Retreat, the church roof —and those may just be the tip of the treasure,” Leah said. “I know he would never be getting that wonderful farm if Owen were alive.”

  Phoebe drew a steeple on the white sheet of paper. “I just don’t feel right printing his name out,” she explained.

  “I’m fond of Gus,” Po said. “But I guess if we’re doing this, we should do it right. He belongs up there with the rest of them. Max told me that Owen was calling for an audit of Gus’s books. He wanted to be sure he was contributing his fair share to the maintenance fund.”

  GUS was added to the list.

  “Who have we forgotten?” Kate asked.

  “Well, if we’re adding the whole block,” Phoebe said, “I suppose we have to add Mary Hill as well.”

  They were all silent. Happily married wives killing their terrific husbands was difficult for all of them to swallow. Dutifully, Phoebe wrote MARY on the chart.

  “She inherited a bunch of money,” Maggie said.

  “And I saw her chew out Wesley in the alley yesterday,” Selma said. “She was clearly upset with him.”

  “Wesley may have stole something from her store,” Po said. “That may have been why she was angry.”

  “What would Wesley want from an antique store?” Leah asked.

  “One of those beautiful glass paper weights that Mary has on display.”

  “Isn’t that what was thrown through Mary’s window?” Eleanor asked.

  Po nodded but didn’t elaborate about how she knew Wesley stole the glass paperweight. She didn’t want to embarrass Phoebe and Kate by telling everyone about their adolescent adventure.

  “Phoebe and I found a glass ball in Wesley’s truck Sunday night, the night before Mary’s shop was vandalized,” Kate announced, unabashed. “And I forgot to tell you, Po, but P.J. said they checked it out and, though Wesley may have stolen it from Mary’s, it wasn’t one of the expensive ones. It was the kind you buy at a fine gift store for forty or fifty dollars. But it was still quite beautiful, P.J. said, and looked a lot like those in Mary’s shop.”

  Po’s mind was still on Mary. No one knew what went on between a husband and wife, but Po knew Mary cared deeply about Max. Just this afternoon she had met her coming out of his office. Mary explained she was taking some pictures up to the hospital, things that he might recognize, that might help reconnect him to the world if he comes out of the coma. All this while still dealing with her own pain.

  Po frowned, trying desperately to put the puzzle pieces in place. Why would Wesley steal from Mary’s store? And more puzzling, why would he vandalize it later? She rested her head on her hands
, her elbows on the tabletop and listened with half an ear to the gathering of suspicions and motive. It seemed the more information they pulled together, the less sense any of it made. But something was clearly missing. And they needed to discover it quickly before someone else was killed on Elderberry Road.

  “Where’s Susan?” Kate said suddenly

  “She wasn’t feeling very good. I sent her home,” Selma explained. “She hasn’t been eating much, and I think she’s run down. She needs a good night’s sleep.”

  “Run down,” Phoebe repeated. “That brings us back to the truck piece of this puzzle. Daisy has a truck. But the others? I can’t quite imagine Mary Hill behind the wheel of an old beat-up pick-up.”

  “Or the Reverend,” Eleanor said, reluctantly. “But it isn’t that hard to get your hands on a truck if that’s your goal.”

  Kate raised her hand. “Phoebe, it might be time to call it a night. I’m brain-dead.”

  Phoebe looked at her watch in mock frustration. “Oh, I suppose.”

  But they had made great strides, they all agreed. And a night to sleep on it might be a good thing.

  “Let’s all do a little snooping on our own,” Eleanor suggested.

  “Good idea, El,” Phoebe said, collapsing her easel and leaning it against the back wall. “I’ll leave this right here. We can e-mail anything that comes up, but by Saturday we should have this solved. Right, Bees?”