Murder on a Starry Night: A Queen Bees Quilt Mystery Read online

  “Frankly, Leah, I’ve decided a lot worse things could go in there than a B&B,” Po said. “There will be twelve bedrooms, that’s maybe 25 people at one time plus staff. Not exactly a traffic jam.”

  “Maybe it’s the idea that she’s going to be living here that’s infuriating people,” Kate said. “She isn’t exactly a warm and welcoming inn keeper-type.”

  “There’s some truth in that,” said Po. “But I think it’s the disappointed parties that are causing the furor. People who wanted the property for their own interests.”

  “I can vouch for the college’s fury,” Leah said. “Canterbury U. was Ollie’s second home. He was there daily, even after he finally had a degree in his pocket. I think he came alive under Jed Feller’s tutelage. He was always so patient and encouraging of Ollie and let him sit in on his astronomy classes whenever he wanted. The kids teased Ollie sometimes—but they learned to like him, too. But anyway, Ollie had actually told Chancellor Phillips that he’d will the house to Canterbury when he died.”

  “It appears he didn’t get around to doing that,” Po said. “Max Elliot has handled the Harrington affairs forever, and he said Ollie never put anything in writing. Ollie cared more about things like black holes and planets’ orbits than he did about wills.”

  “It’s too bad. Canterbury would have maintained the house’s integrity,” Leah said. She waved at a group of college students walking by.

  Po nodded. “They’d have been a better choice than Tom Adler and his Prairie Development group—I hear Oliver also told them that they could have the house. They actually had a plan in place that they’d shown Oliver. Tom promised he’d keep the lovely grounds as best he could, but the plan was five homes on the land—luxury homes for empty nesters, they described it. I suppose that means people like me.”

  Kate laughed. She picked up a bunch of slender asparagus and a clump of arugula and handed some bills to the young girl behind the stand. “Po, you may think your nest is empty with the kids living on the West Coast, but it will never be true. Has there ever been even a week without a gathering at the Paltrow home? I doubt it.” Po’s home had been a second home to Kate nearly all her life, and especially since her mother’s death a couple of years earlier.

  “I guess you’re right. It doesn’t feel empty, that I know for sure. And maybe that’s Adele’s dream—to fill the Harrington house with people. It’s been a shell for a long time. Oliver always liked it when I stopped by, and I know he had a few friends, but he wasn’t much of a party giver.”

  “Have you been inside the home recently, Po?”

  “A few times. Ollie and I mostly sat on the veranda and talked. He’d go on for hours about stars and galaxies—I think he had read every book ever written on planet alignments. He was such a sweet man. I’d see him every day walking over to campus. As you said, Leah, that was his life.”

  “Oliver would probably have liked the college having his house.”

  “Yes,” Po agreed. “But it’s not to be. So we need to move on.”

  “I talked to Susan after our session today about the quilts,” Leah said. “By next Saturday, we should have materials picked out and ready to go. I’m going to meet Adele at the house today to look at colors. Want to come?”

  “Sure,” Kate said immediately. “Wow, a preview. Po, you come, too.”

  “I need to run by the college library briefly, but that’s all that’s on my schedule until the reception tonight at Canterbury,” Po said. “I’ll be happy to go.”

  “Oh, dear, I nearly forgot about the party,” Leah said. “Eleanor is such a sport to host it. I don’t know what the college would do without her.”

  “I think the whole town must be invited,” Kate said. “Even P.J. got invited.”

  “Even P.J.?” Po teased. Kate’s current relationship with P.J. Flanigan, a member of the Crestwood police department and one-time lawyer, pleased Po to no end. She’d known P.J. nearly as long as she’d known Kate; a kinder, more trustworthy man couldn’t be found. And his sense of humor and laid-back personality helped, too. One definitely needed that to be involved with Kate. “Of course P.J. would be invited,” Po said. “Eleanor figures her payback for hosting university affairs at her home is the license to invite all her friends.”

  “To make it fun, she told me,” Kate said.

  Po laughed, “That’s true. Those events can be mighty dull on occasion. I can’t even remember what this one is for. But I know Eleanor was in the mood for a party and she probably jumped at the chance to have it at her house.”

  “It’s for several faculty members who have had things published recently. Jed Fellers is one of them,” Leah said. “I’m going just for him. He’s such a nice guy, and he’s been trying for eons to get something published. There’s so much pressure on faculty now that Canterbury is a university that we’re all overjoyed when someone makes it to print.”

  “Well, good for Professor Fellers. I took his introduction to astronomy class a couple years ago and it was great,” Kate said. “He’s a terrific teacher.”

  “It’s nice the college gives credit where it’s due,” Po said. “My Sam would approve—and he’d be happy about Jed. He’s been at the college a long time, so this is a good thing for him.”

  “You’re right, Po. Sam would like this—both the recognition for the faculty and the excuse for a party,” Kate said, speaking fondly of her godfather.

  Po agreed. “Sam loved a good excuse for a party.”

  “And no matter what the party’s for, it’ll get our minds off Adele Harrington for a while,” Kate said.

  “Who seems to show up everywhere,” Leah nodded toward a family-run booth across the crowded aisle. Loaves of fresh homemade povitica from Kansas City’s Strawberry Hill filled the table. Adele Harrington was leaning in toward the young woman behind the table. The salesperson fidgeted, moving from one foot to another and casting sideways looks at her mother as if pleading for help. Finally Adele shook her finger in the girl’s face, set the loaf of povitica back down and abruptly turned and walked away. The young woman looked after her with tears in her eyes.

  “Another fallen bird in Adele’s path,” Po murmured. “What is it with this lady?”

  Po wove her way across the aisle and picked up the loaf of cream-cheese bread. Adele’s fingerprints were visible on the wrapping where she had pinched the rich coffee cake. She smiled at the young girl. “This looks delicious. I’d like this loaf please.”

  “I’ll get you a fresh one. The lady squeezed this one, I’m afraid.”

  “That’s all right. It will taste just as good, don’t you think?”

  The young girl smiled gratefully at Po and fumbled in the large pocket of her apron for change. “She is going to buy our poviticas for her inn,” she said. “But I think we will earn every penny of it.”

  “Yes, my dear,” Po replied. “I suspect you will.”

  Adele Harrington, from two stalls up, turned suddenly and looked over the heads of several young mothers pushing strollers. “Po Paltrow,” she called out over the market din.

  “I expect you should come today, too. And you shouldn’t buy damaged goods. It’s not responsible.”

  Adele turned and walked on down the row of stands, her head held high and her eyes looking out toward the river, as if planning her next step. Po watched her disappear along the river walk, wondering with some sadness what was going on inside Adele Harrington. And a sixth sense that her mother often warned her about, told her she might be better off not knowing. Sometimes, there’s safety in ignorance.

  Po gathered up her cloth sacks, heavy now with fall’s bountiful produce and hurried after Kate and Leah.

  CHAPTER 4

  The Harrington mansion was noisy with activity when Po met Susan and Kate at the end of the driveway an hour later. The long drive that lead up to the three-story stone house was lined with trucks, and men in overalls and jeans carried pails and heavy tool boxes back and forth.

  “Adele
doesn’t waste any time,” Kate said, dodging a ladder swinging from a short, no-nonsense man’s shoulder.

  “The place is certainly getting a top-notch manicure,” Po said.

  “It’s pure Gatsby,” Kate mused. “All I need is a martini.” Tall pines lined the perimeters and enormous oak trees shaded the yard, their gnarled branches angling out in all directions. The tips of maple trees were beginning to turn red, heralding the heart of fall. And everywhere, there were freshly tilled patches of earth where brilliant mums bloomed.

  “You don’t get a sense of this place from the road,” Leah said. “It’s magnificent. I can’t believe Ollie lived here all alone.”

  “I wonder if he was lonely,” Po said. “He didn’t seem to be, but one wonders.” Po watched several men working in a shade garden along the side of the property beneath a canopy of trees. Where once volunteer trees and bushes crowded the wrought iron fence, now smooth, rich soil welcomed hostas and red twig dogwoods and hydrangeas.

  Po wondered briefly what had happened to Joe Bates, the long-time gardener who had been on staff at the Harrington home as long as she could remember—a nice old man who had an amazing way with flowers. As unkempt as the property sometimes was in recent years when Joe couldn’t get around to everything, the small plots he tended around the back pond were always perfect. He was always somewhere around when she visited Ollie, puttering in his flowerbeds, eyeing anyone who came near the house like a watchdog. And she wondered now if Adele had kept him on, or if he had become a casualty of the landscapers turning the lawns and gardens into works of art.

  “Looking for Miz Harrington?” a young painter asked as they approached the wide front porch. He was perched on a ladder, a paint can swinging precariously from a hook at the top.

  “Yes,” Leah answered. “Is she around?”

  The man took his baseball hat off and wiped his brow, then pointed to the side of the house. “She’s out back. Not in the best of moods today, just a warning to y’all. Follow the roar and you’ll find her easy enough.” He grinned, then tugged his cap back on and returned to painting the top edge of the porch.

  Po, Kate, and Leah followed his directive and walked along the stone path that circled the house. Windows were flung wide open to catch the cool breezes of early fall, and inside were sounds of more activity—furniture being moved, sanders grinding away years of footprints from the hardwood floors.

  “There she is,” Leah said, pointing to a gazebo situated in a grove of trees.

  “I think there’s someone with her,” Po said, squinting in the bright sunlight as they walked along the slate pathway toward the gazebo.

  As they got closer, their steps were stilled by Adele’s voice, loud and clear—and definitely not happy.

  “Foolish, brazen young woman!” Adele hissed. “How dare you come to my home uninvited. Leave immediately, or I shall have you arrested.”

  “You’re destroying Oliver’s birthright,” a softer voice answered. “He never, ever intended his home to become a commercial property.”

  “I’ve stolen nothing, and you are entirely out of line, young lady.”

  “Ollie was a decent, good man. And…and he didn’t die from a fall down the stairs. You know that and so do I!”

  Adele lifted her hand abruptly, then just as quickly let it fall to her side, She spun away from the woman, staring into the faces of the three visitors. For a brief moment, she appeared disoriented, then just as quickly, a polished smile spread across her face.

  “Hello, ladies,” she said evenly, glancing at a thin gold watch on her wrist. “You’re on time. That’s good.” She walked down the three gazebo steps toward them, leaving her visitor standing awkwardly behind her.

  The woman stared after Adele. Her green eyes shot angry darts toward the older woman’s back. For a brief moment, Po was afraid she was going to fling her backpack at the back of Adele’s head. Instead, the pony-tailed woman brushed past Adele and hurried down the steps. She nodded politely at the three women. Then stopped short, a blush of embarrassment coloring her cheeks as she met Leah’s smile of recognition. She started to speak, then thought better of it and hurried along the path leading around the side of the house.

  Po watched her walk away. She was pleasant-looking in a casual, earthy way, with a sprinkling of freckles across a straight nose. Po guessed her age at thirty-five or so. She looked vaguely familiar, but then, she had the kind of shy face you could have passed dozens of times in Dillons or Marla’s bakery without really noticing. A nice face, nevertheless.

  The woman saw Joe Bates as he walked down the back stairs of the garage apartment. She paused on the path to wave at the gardener. Joe squinted, then smiled in recognition and called out a hello. Then he spotted Adele, and immediately turned and began the long trek back up the stairs.

  “We didn’t mean to interrupt,” Leah was saying to Adele.

  “You didn’t interrupt. We have an appointment, do we not?” Adele looked at Leah and lifted one brow. She made no reference to the unpleasant encounter they had just witnessed, and instead, waved them toward the house. “I want you to see the bedrooms, though they’re in a state of disrepair right now. But the colors are important, and I suspect you will be able to feel the warmth and ambience and plan your quilts accordingly.”

  As the women toured the magnificent second and third stories of the house—where guests would soon be catered to in the finest way—they were awed by the beauty of the old home. It had twelve bedrooms in all, Adele explained, and each would have its own bath. Some rooms boasted small sitting rooms off the bedroom and had balconies that looked out over the long expanse of backyard and gardens and the small pond. Although some rooms were now stripped of furniture and rugs, others, which Po suspected had been the family’s quarters, still had books on the shelves and personal items cluttering tall secretaries and dressers and walnut armoires.

  A closet door, slightly ajar, showed dresses and silk robes hanging on hangers as if waiting for someone to wear them. She imagined it must look exactly like it did when Adele was a girl living at 210 Kingfish Drive.

  As they wandered in and out of the rooms, Po wondered which one had been Oliver’s. It was on the backside of the house, she knew, because he often told her about standing at his window at night and seeing the stars reflected in the pond.

  “Oliver never wanted me to touch a thing after our parents died,” Adele said, as if reading Po’s thought. “As a result, the house is jammed packed with things. He never discarded anything. Every drawer is full. I am weeding away at it, little by little, but it will take years.” She moved down the hallway and ushered the women into a room at the very end. The room was smaller than the others, and simply adorned with a single bed between two large windows, a dresser, several bookcases, and a desk. A large telescope was positioned in front of one of the windows, pointing toward the sky.

  Po walked over and looked at the books on the shelves, mostly astronomy texts and readings about nature, all arranged alphabetically and their spines lined up perfectly on the shelf. “This must have been Oliver’s room,” she said aloud.

  “Yes. It was the only room in the house that he would sleep in from the time he got his own bed. Oliver was as bright as they come, but a few learning disabilities made some things hard for him. But you probably know that. I know you all knew Ollie somewhat,” Adele said. Her voice fell off then, and she looked around the room, memories weighing visibly on her shoulders. She picked up a book from the nightstand beside Ollie’s bed. “Loren Eiseley’s Immense Journey,” she read.

  “Ollie saw himself as a kind of Loren Eiseley, I think,” Po said. “Part philosopher, part scientist. He had such a lovely way of describing the most learned astrological things.” She looked at his desk, everything neat and orderly, a cup holding pencils on the side, a yellow pad of paper, and in the center of the desk, a book Po recognized: A Plain Man’s Guide to a Starry Night. She picked it up and leafed through it. Clearly Ollie had read it—the b
ook was filled with underlined sentences and notes in the margins.

  Adele looked around the room, taking in the neatly made bed, the bookcases, the straight-backed chair. She looked at Po with an unexpected softness in her eyes. “Whatever the design of the quilt you make for this room, it must have stars on it,” she said softly, then straightened her shoulders and walked briskly out of the room, followed by Kate and Leah, and on down the hall.

  Po stood just outside the room for a minute, glancing at the landing of a narrow set of steps just outside Ollie’s door. Were these the steps that led to the kitchen? she wondered. The steps that led to Oliver’s death?

  “Portia, are you coming?” Adele stood in the middle of the hallway, looking back at Po.

  Po looked away from the stairs and smiled at Adele. “I was thinking about Oliver,” she said simply.

  “And what were you thinking about him?”

  “I was thinking that falling down the stairs was a tragic way for him to die.”

  “But maybe fitting. An accident. Oliver’s life, in a way, was an accident.”

  Po was startled by the unexpected anguish in Adele’s voice. “Adele, Ollie was a good man. He didn’t see his life that way,” Po said.

  “No, not at all,” Leah said. “Ollie had a purpose to his life, especially these past years. He spent time writing, and he had interesting conversations with students and faculty. He had a good life, Adele.”

  Adele focused her attention on a Thomas Hart Benton painting hanging on the wall. Finally she pulled her eyes away from it and looked at the three women standing behind her. “I hope so,” was all she said, and then, as if she hadn’t spoken at all, ushered them down the main staircase, through a hallway, and out onto the stone patio that wrapped across the side and back of the house. “Breakfast will be served out here in nice weather,” she said brightly. “Would you like to have a cup of tea?”