Murders on Elderberry Road: A Queen Bees Quilt Mystery Page 16

  Looking to his left and then to his right, then scurrying down the steps — like the inept burgler in a Peter Sellers movie, Po thought — was Ambrose Sweet, a thick pile of papers tucked beneath his arm.

  CHAPTER 23

  End of the Day

  After Leah and Kate left the cafe, Po hurried over to Ambrose’s store and confronted him outright about what she’d seen, a decidedly foolish thing to have done, she thought later. Something Kate and Phoebe might have done.

  But Ambrose had been cool and discreet.

  Of course he’d been over at Max’s, Ambrose told her. “Max was a friend, our attorney, and who in heaven’s name do you think was mowing Max’s lawn for him and picking up his newspapers while he has been so indisposed?”

  Ambrose was so quick and articulate in his explanation that Po was held to uncharacteristic silence. She didn’t for a minute believe him. But at a loss for words, she bought a bottle of sauvignon blanc, a hunk of Vermont white cheddar, and then hurried out of the store.

  From Ambrose’s shop, she walked slowly toward her car, her head full of unconnected facts and her heart heavy. There was a pall over the Elderberry shops, an invisible gray cloud. It was surely time for it to blow away. She put her packages in the back seat of her small Honda. Then, without conscious plan or careful thought, she drove across the river, through the west side of town, and out near the highway, where a lonely strip of warehouses stood along a wide street. Nearby was the garden supply store she went to every spring, and next to that, a tiny diner that had somehow lured Max Elliott into tragic danger.

  Inside the diner Po found a small woman, perhaps seventy or so, behind a spotless Formica counter. A few workers in jeans and plaid shirts, probably taking an early lunch, lingered in a booth near the door, smoking cigarettes and talking.

  “I told the police everything I know,” the woman said, rubbing her hands on her apron nervously. “Mr. Max came here every single Thursday for twenty years. He never missed. If you know Mr. Max, you know he comes to Hedda’s on Thursday.”

  Po looked around the restaurant. It was clean and simple. And, she suspected from the smells coming out of the kitchen, the food was probably wonderful. “He was your friend?” Po asked.

  The woman nodded. “I had some legal problems a thousand years ago and went to one of them groups that helps you out. Max volunteered there, and he helped me. Then helped me get this restaurant. He never took a dime from me, so I insisted I feed him. And he came every Thursday without fail.”

  She smiled sadly and put her hands on the counter, looking off toward an empty booth that Po suspected would always be Max’s.

  “He loved my meatloaf, you know,” Hedda said.

  Po left Hedda’s, then drove out of town, skirting the highway and turning onto a road that headed west, as far as the eye could see. Her head was swimming with thoughts of a kind man, who put a standing engagement with a lonely lady ahead of everything, even a meeting of Elderberry shop-owners.

  The town of Crestwood fell behind and in minutes Po was in the country, driving past farmland and wheat fields on a flat country road that stretched across the state like a long thin line. If you followed it far enough, you’d find yourself in the middle of the Kansas flint hills and rolling ranch lands. But Po didn’t have to go that far to find what she needed to see.

  Peter had just finished mowing the lawn and was putting the mower back in the garage when Po returned. The temperature had dropped to an uncomfortable chill. “The yard looks great, Peter,” Po called to him. “I think you just made it before the first snow.”

  “My mom would be happy to hear that,” Pete said. “She says I’m not ahead of anything.”

  “Well, you are in my book. We still have a deal for shoveling snow, ok?”

  “Cool.” Peter started to walk down the driveway, then stopped suddenly and turned around, walking back toward Po.

  “I almost forgot. I found something weird in your backyard.” He dug around in his pocket and pulled out a medallion with a dirty red ribbon dangling from it and handed it to her.

  Po looked at it curiously. At first she didn’t recognize the flat, dirty piece of metal that nearly filled her palm. “Where did you find this?”

  “Behind that oak tree in the back of the yard. Back where Hoover buries his bones. Wasn’t there last time I mowed, that I know for sure because I raked that whole area. Besides, it’s big. I couldn’t have missed it, and it’s not dirty enough to have been there long.”

  “Well, thanks, Pete,” she said absently, staring at it, her fingers rubbing off flakes of dry dirt and recognition falling on her like the night. She turned and walked through the back door, her heart lodged tightly against her ribs. She knew exactly what this was. Sam had started the tradition, and after he died, the new president continued it — giving honorary medallions to professors who had done exemplary jobs. They handed them out at commencement, one award each year. Po walked over to the sink and held it under running water, washing off the loose dirt.

  She sat down at the table and rubbed it lightly with a soft rag, then slowly turned it over. A poem or saying was engraved on the back of each large medallion to make it personal and unique. Po pulled her glasses from her pocket and put them on. She recognized the poem. It was by Franz Boaz, and was one of Sam’s favorites:

  The woods were made for the hunters of dreams,

  The brooks for the fishers of songs;

  To the hunters who hunt for the gunless game,

  The streams and the woods belong.

  And she knew before she looked what initials she would find engraved beneath the poem — the initials of last June’s faculty honoree: O.P.H. — Owen Patterson Hill.

  Po looked down at Hoover. Her chest was tight. Sadness fell on her like a heavy wool cloak.

  “Hoover,” she said softly, “you shouldn’t take things that don’t belong to you.”

  And as the pieces of the puzzle finally began to fall into place, Po grabbed her jacket, put the medallion in her pocket, and flew out the back door and into the early darkness.

  Susan was home and waiting for her when she pulled into the drive. “Selma called to see how I was. She told me you called to see if I was at the store today,” she said quietly. “I figured you’d come back. Come in, Po.”

  Po followed her into the living room. A small light cast warm, yellow shadows about the room.

  “My mom’s in bed,” Susan said. “It’s okay to talk. You recognized the quilt, didn’t you.”

  Po nodded. “Not for awhile, though. I went for a ride in the country today. I headed out that way without real thought. Then there it was.”

  Susan smiled softly. “Probably the only place in my life where I’ve been completely happy,” she said.

  “And then there was this.” She handed Susan the medallion.

  Susan gasped. “How did you get this?”

  “I think Hoover stole it from your backseat the night you took me home. When I read the poem on the back, I remembered Owen’s great love for his farm, and it all came into focus: the quilt, the black and white photographs. When I drove out there today, it all began to fit together.”

  Susan looked up. “I loved him, Po. More than anything in this world.”

  “I can see that, Susan. It’s there in the quilt.”

  “That was our amazing, magical place.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I took a class from Owen right before starting work at Selma’s. It was complicated, Po. But not sordid, and believe it or not, his wife didn’t care.”

  “No one knows what goes on between two people,” Po began.

  “But I know.” Susan looked up. “Owen and Mary’s marriage had been dead for a long time, Po, as self-serving and trite as that sounds. Mary would probably tell you herself if you asked her. She and Owen had separated in spirit years before. Mary had her church, Owen his work. They hadn’t shared their life in any meaningful way for a long time. Mary didn’t want a divorce because of the way it would look,
so they just went their own ways. Then we met, and it changed things for him.” Susan looked at the quilt again and the tears that had collected in her eyes began to fall.

  “But I was ready to walk away from it, afraid it would become a scandal and hurt someone, until …” Susan stopped for a minute and gathered her emotions.

  “It was Max,” she said finally, looking back at Po. “Dear Max. He convinced me not to leave Owen. He said Mary and Owen were deadening each other’s life, and they’d both be happier apart. He was loyal to them both, you see. But he thought Mary was slipping into an unreal world and needed to face life. She wasn’t speaking to Owen any longer, and was spending increasing amounts of time at the church, seeking their recognition and approval. She hated Owen. She only wanted his name and her good standing.” The tears ran down her cheeks. Susan walked over to a roll-top desk. She pulled out a document and handed it to Po. “Max gave me this the day after Owen died.”

  Po read the legal document. It was the deed to Owen’s farm, and ownership had been transferred to Susan Miller. “The farm is yours, Susan?”

  “We were so happy there. We spent hours in the woods, hiking, riding horses.”

  “What have you done about this?” Po held up the deed. “Mary has given this property away.”

  “I haven’t done anything. I don’t want to cause any trouble, Po. I’ve lost Owen. I just want to know who did this horrible thing. Mary can give the land to the church if she wants.” Susan managed a small smile, then added, “though Owen must be hollering in his grave over that. He was ready to cut off all donations to the church. He thought they’d given them plenty of money, and he had found other charities that were doing wonderful things for the homeless and children. Kids with no place to go after school. He wanted to help them for awhile, he said.”

  “And Mary?”

  “And Mary, what?”

  Susan and Po jerked around. Mary Hill stood in the front door, her lovely suit smooth and perfect, her hair pulled tightly back. She stood still and calm, a small antique pistol in her hand.

  “Please,” she said, “finish your conversation. I’ve only heard a little, but I’m terribly interested. I came here to settle a few things with Susan, but I got double my money’s worth, Po. That’s just fine.”

  Po didn’t move. Her heart hammered inside her chest as she looked into the cold, glinting eyes of a woman who now seemed a stranger to her.

  “Mary …” Susan started to move toward her.

  “Sit,” Mary said calmly. She looked around the room, the gun held steady. “Owen didn’t put much money into this place, I see.” Then she turned her attention to Po. “You probably didn’t know he had a girlfriend, did you, Po? I encouraged it. It suited us nicely. As long as no one knew. No one could ever know.” Her voice turned icy, and she turned and glared at Susan. “But you got uppity, didn’t you? You were going to leave him. You awful woman, you!”

  Po leaned forward. “Mary, you’re not making sense.”

  The gun swung in her direction. “That’s all you know, Po Paltrow. You and your Sam and your books and your friends. People think you’re something. Well, I’m an elder at my church now. Did you know that? People look up to me. They respect me. They love me.” She smiled, the same smile she had put in place to thank the Reverend Gottrey for making her an elder of the church, for the mayor when he gave her the citizen’s award. It was a smile on a billboard — careful, perfect, empty.

  “Of course they do, Mary.” Po tried to rise in her chair but Mary pushed her back with a swing of her pearl-handled gun.

  “But what do you think they would do if they knew my husband was going to cut off the funds to the church and divorce me? How would that look, Po? They don’t make elders out of divorced women without money, ones whose husbands run off with cheap women.” She stood very erect and pulled her thin brows together. “They’d be feeling sorry for me. I’d be the one they prayed for on Sundays. I’d be poor, divorced Mary Hill. People would come in my store and point at me. How would that look, Po?”

  Mary’s voice had risen so high that Po wouldn’t have recognized it if Mary hadn’t been standing in front of her, brandishing a gun.

  “Mary, you have friends, no matter what. There’s Max …”

  “Max Elliott is a fool,” she said sharply. “He agreed with Owen. Always, always. And he had the nerve to come to me at the store and show me her name on that deed.” Mary pointed at Susan, the tip of the gun inches from her face. “Foolishness. It belongs to the church, not Owen’s lover. Max was foolish and fickle. He said he was there to help me, and he wiped away my tears that day. And the whole time, he planned to see that she got the farm. He got what he deserved, foolish man.”

  “But how did you …” Po started. Then she glanced at the photograph of the farm, and spotted the truck in front of the barn. A beat-up old truck that Owen used to lug around his fence posts and fertilizer. Mary. She’d taken that truck.

  “I drove that truck right over Max,” she said proudly, following Po’s gaze. “He used to tell Owen and me about that old woman — how he used to eat her meatloaf every Thursday in that empty dismal restaurant. Such a foolish man. He has never been made an elder, you know.”

  Po thought back to the day she and Leah had seen Mary crying in the store — the shadowy figure holding her, the crumbled paper in her hand when she had hurried down the street.

  “And Wesley must have seen you, maybe the night you killed Owen?” Po asked.

  “That snoop saw everything. He knew about Susan. She and Owen used to meet in the quilt store sometimes. In Selma’s back room. She was there that night after the meeting. They were making plans. I knew it. Wesley knew it, too. He sneaked around, drinking his liquor, making his slurs. Silly, useless man. I paid him off — a truck. But he kept wanting more.”

  “The paperweight?”

  Mary laughed. It was a hollow, eerie sound.

  “A fake. I told him he could sell it someday for thousands of dollars, but he had to wait for the value to go up. Damn fool took it directly to a pawn shop, of all things. And they told him it wasn’t real. Of course I would never give that ugly man a Perthshire.”

  “And us, Mary? Susan and me?”

  “I stopped by Selma’s today and saw that chart you had put together. Those other girls won’t figure it out. They think Ambrose or Gus, maybe, or that crazy Daisy Sample. But you I don’t trust.” She pointed the gun at Susan. “And you? You are the cause of it all. He wanted to marry you!”

  “Mary, the church can keep the farm,” Susan said, but she realized Mary wasn’t listening.

  Po had seen the shadows fall over the windows behind Mary, then disappear. She saw the black hat and jeans, the sunny hair. And Kate, tall and gangly. Maggie and a flash of red hair. Selma, bless her heart. Leah brought up the rear and disappeared just before Mary looked out the window, then back to the two women in front of her.

  “Mary, it won’t work,” Po said. She watched carefully and wondered if there had been other times, other instances, when she should have noticed the grave imbalance in Mary Hill.

  Mary’s eyes were beginning to glaze over. She tried to focus. “Of course it will work. I am a very smart, very well-loved woman. I’m an elder in my church, you know.” She smiled brightly.

  The door opened so quietly that Po thought for a moment Mary didn’t hear it. But then she turned, staring straight into Phoebe Mellon’s blazing blue eyes.

  What happened in the next 60 seconds was a scene straight out of a Charlie’s Angels flick, as Phoebe described it to anyone who would listen.

  As Mary spun around, Po raised one strong, well-exercised arm and snapped Mary’s slender wrist up higher than her head. The small pearl handled gun flew out of her hand, straight up into the air.

  Eight heads followed its flight.

  Mary lurched for control. And at that precise moment, the law of gravity kicked in and the gun fell soundly and surely into Phoebe’s waiting palm.

&nb
sp; “Yahoo!” she screamed.

  Mary, her face bright red, moved toward the door. Maggie and Leah and Kate, their legs stretched wide, blocked the way.

  In the distance, sirens screamed their way through the quiet neighborhood.

  “P.J.,” Kate beamed. And then she grabbed Po and hugged her close, tears streaming down her face.

  EPILOGUE

  Joy Bells

  It was springtime when the Queen Bees finished Selma’s Crystal Star quilt. By then the story had grown old, told and retold so many times that sometimes even the Queen Bees got mixed up on what really happened.

  The papers said the police had found sound, incriminating evidence that Mary Hill had murdered her husband and Wesley, including a receipt for the hundred-dollar bills and the pint of Scotch. She’d thrown the rock that crushed Owen’s skull into Hans Broker’s backyard, where Hans had found it and used it to replace an old one in his small rock garden. Sparky finally unburied it, revealing the bloody edge. And the beat-up old truck, Owen’s own farm vehicle, had fingerprints galore, the paper said.

  As for the final capture, Selma herself had played an important role. She’d been suspicious for weeks that Owen and Susan had a thing for each other. “You can’t be around it,” she admitted, “and not have a feeling.” But it was Susan’s business, and she left it alone, trusting that Susan would do the right thing.

  But the day of the phone calls asking for Susan’s address — first Po, then Mary — worried her no end. And when Kate and Maggie came in with the news that Mary had bought the whiskey, and Leah remembered seeing the old truck out at Owen’s farm, they began to put the pieces together. Phoebe drew crossing lines on the white easel paper, and bingo — they had it.

  Kate called P.J. to tell him their news and promised him they’d stay put. Then they flipped the closed sign on the front door of the shop, piled into Selma’s car, and the rest was Crestwood history.