Murders on Elderberry Road: A Queen Bees Quilt Mystery Page 9

  Po noticed the pillows beneath Susan’s eyes and the fear in her voice. But who could blame her? A shadow of fear hovered over all the shop owners.

  Kate poured herself a cup of coffee. “P.J. said the police are still saying it was a random robbery, but by this time the person is probably hundreds of miles away. It was unfortunate they picked up the wrong man, because timing is so important in cases like this.”

  “Is P.J. buying the robbery theory?” Po said.

  The way Po said “P.J.” made Kate’s cheeks turn pink. “I don’t know,” she answered quickly.

  “So that’s it?” Selma said.

  “I guess so, Selma. At least for now. It’s going to be hard on Mary to have this all talked about again, but P.J. said people just have to move on.”

  “Move on?” Susan said. Her face was pale. She rose from the table and carried the stack of fabric into the other room.

  “Is Susan all right?” Po asked.

  “She’s as concerned about me as anything,” Selma said. “We spent some time on the books this weekend, and things aren’t looking good. And having a man murdered on your doorstep doesn’t do a lot for business. People come and gawk, but they aren’t looking at fabric, I’m afraid.”

  Selma wrapped her fingers around the back of a chair. “I don’t know, Po. Sometimes I get so tired. Ever since Owen’s murder, there has been a lot of tension among the shop owners. People didn’t always like Owen because he took a hard stand on things — and his vote often determined what we did or didn’t do. But he also had a stabilizing influence. And now others are trying to step into his shoes.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, take Jess and Ambrose, for example. They’re back on the brick sidewalk kick. It isn’t just the cost of the sidewalks, but people trip on bricks, so insurance goes up, and they’re harder to keep clear, so snow removal costs more. It’s all a vicious circle. But now they’re back at it again, campaigning among the other owners, having little private meetings.”

  “Won’t it be more expensive for them, too?” Phoebe asked.

  “Not so much. They have that narrow little store, so their fees aren’t what mine are.”

  “I love their little store,” Eleanor interjected as Maggie rethreaded the machine — she’d had to rewind the bobbin and, of course, it ran out halfway through a seam. “But I have noticed they’re a little persnickety about things.”

  “They’re determined to dictate taste for all the Elderberry shops, I fear,” Selma said. “And though they don’t actually say as much, I think a fabric shop is on the fringes of good taste, in their book. Not ‘arty’ enough.”

  “Selma, that’s ridiculous,” Eleanor said. Her voice was firm. “If these amazing quilts aren’t works of art, nothing is.”

  “We may as well be weaving potholders,” Selma said. “They view us as ‘crafty.’ They’d much rather have a fine china shop here, or yet another gallery of some sort. On some things, Owen was able to rein them in. Ambrose and Jess were afraid of him, I think.” Her voice dropped off.

  “They’re just two people, Selma,” Maggie said quietly.

  “That’s right. That’s what I keep telling myself. Though one of them seems to have taken up permanent residence in Gus’s bookstore, always trying to get his ear. It’s just politics. It will be okay — I’m going to see if Susan needs help up front.” She walked resolutely out of the room.

  “It’s awful that Selma has all this trouble on top of everything else,” Phoebe said.

  “I wonder how Mary feels about all this.”

  Po knew the answer to that. “Mary wants the new sidewalk.”

  “Well, ladies, we need to put our heads together and help Selma,” Eleanor said.

  Phoebe lifted her fabric square into the air. “For starters, we can make this quilt an unquestionable work of art. People will come from near and far to see it.”

  “Even from New York!” Maggie said.

  For the next hour, Phoebe regaled them with stories of her energetic twins and the efficient way they had rearranged her house. “Nothing will ever be the same — and I love it!” She glanced at her watch. “Yikes, I promised to help Jimmy with the babies’ baths tonight. So long, lovelies.”

  Phoebe’s departure set the others in motion, sweeping up scraps and packing tote bags and satchels with fabric. Po packed up her bag and wandered into the front of the store. Kate had offered her a ride, but she wanted to check out some new fabrics Selma said had arrived that morning. She needed something subtle for the diamond she was piecing in the center of her star.

  She wandered slowly past rows and rows, crowded with bolts of fabric. Selma’s was like Gus’s bookstore. Po could wander for hours, looking, reading, smelling. In times of stress, she found the soft fabric and rainbow of colors comforting. She looked up when she heard Selma shutting down the computer.

  “Selma, am I keeping you from closing?”

  “Nope. Take your time. Max is coming over to talk to me about something. Something about the corporation, he says.”

  “That’s ominous.”

  “No. Max is a worrywart. And with Owen gone, he’s taken on all these group disagreements himself. As our lawyer, he is determined to make the group work better together. Told me he wants to make sure Owen’s work doesn’t go unfinished, whatever the heck that means.”

  “Hmmm.” Po picked up a crisp deep purple print. The pinpoints of pattern were barely visible, giving the fabric texture, without being busy. “Well, it’s good you have someone like Max. He’s sensible.”

  But Selma had gone into the backroom to lock the door and windows, and Po decided it was time to leave. She’d come back for the fabric tomorrow.

  Max Elliot met her at the door.

  “Good evening, Max,” Po said pleasantly. Po had known Max for years. They’d been on a half dozen boards together and always enjoyed one another’s company. Though they had different friends, they had skied together at Owen’s farm several times. Po liked the pleasant-faced lawyer, and she admired the fact that he had resisted the lure of corporate law to keep his small office on Elderberry Road. Max handled everything from neighborhood feuds to estate planning to divorce, and always with a fair, kind hand. He had also been Owen Hill’s closest friend, a fact Po could see etched into the deepening lines on his face.

  “Hello, Po.” Max held the door open for her. “Is Selma still around?”

  Po nodded. “Yes. She’s expecting you.” Po started to walk on, then stopped briefly and turned around and called his name.

  Max turned.

  “I never got a chance to tell you, but please know how sorry I am about Owen. I know his death is an enormous loss to you.”

  Max offered a slight, sad smile. “Owen was the best sort of friend,” he said quietly. “And I’ll be relieved when this whole mess is settled and we can mourn him in peace.”

  “I guess you’ve heard that the wrong person was arrested.”

  For a time Max stood silent, looking at Po, but without seeing her. Po thought he was seeing something else, perhaps far away. Finally, he spoke. “Yes, I heard that.”

  “The police seem stymied.” Po felt like she was rattling on, but Max seemed to have drifted off into a totally other place, and she wasn’t sure how to end the conversation comfortably. “I guess what we need to do now is to somehow put this behind us.” Po knew the words sounded hollow. But for once in her life she was at a loss for words. “We may never have a satisfying conclusion.”

  Max’s eyes shifted, then came back to settle on Po. He was back from wherever he’d been, Po thought, but had brought something horrible with him.

  “Po,” he said forcefully — the power in his voice capturing Po’s full attention. Max fixed her with a stare that made Po wish she had slipped out the back door and scooted on home, as had been her original plan.

  Without averting his gaze for a second, Max reached out and took her arm. “Po, you are wrong about that. We are a long, long way from putt
ing this behind us.”

  His grip was so tight that when he lifted his hand, small white ovals remained on Po’s skin.

  The usually mild-mannered man took a step back then, as if startled by his own intensity. His lips lifted in an attempt to smile but all Po saw was an enormous sadness. “I’m sorry, Po. It’s a difficult time, is all.” He slipped his hands into the pockets of his gray slacks, shook his head in apology. “And you’re probably right that this won’t be brought to a satisfying conclusion. Such ugly things never are. But it will be brought to some conclusion, with as few casualties as possible, one can hope.”

  Had he been born in an earlier time, Po thought, he would have tipped his hat at that moment and bowed slightly, then gallantly disappeared. Instead he simply nodded sadly and pushed his way through the heavy door of the quilt store.

  Po watched him through the window until he disappeared behind a row of fabric. She wanted to follow him and make him explain himself. But of course she wouldn’t.

  Instead, she turned and walked toward the crescent moon that nearly touched the roofs of the Elderberry shops, her heart burdened by that awful sixth sense — that horrible, inexplicable foreboding.

  CHAPTER 12

  Storm at Sea

  Po showered and slipped into a pair of jeans, pulled on her tennis shoes and a bright yellow sweatshirt, and headed for the kitchen and a cup of wake-up coffee. Hoover lumbered along behind her. After neglecting her book severely for over a week, she was determined to make some progress this morning.

  She loved writing about these amazing women. With reluctance, she had finally finished the section on the Civil War and closed the chapter on the Underground Railroad and brave, young women like Elizabeth Keckley, a slave who had bought her freedom and become an amazing quilter. She took her young son and went to quilt for Mary Todd Lincoln, consoling the widow after her husband’s tragic murder.

  Po poured cold water into the coffee carafe and thought about the irony. While she was writing about one Mary coping with a murdered husband, another Mary, so close to Po’s own life, was suffering the same.

  Today she would move on to the suffrage movement and a young woman named Abigail Dunaway who migrated with her family to a new life in Oregon. Abigail began to quilt out of necessity — to provide warmth along the cold journey. And when forced to support her family, she did it the only way she knew how, by quilting.

  Po opened the refrigerator and rummaged around for a bag of coffee beans. She thought about the impact the suffrage movement had on women. The leaders cried out for women to cast aside their sewing — a sign of subservience, some thought — and join the marches. And Abigail Dunaway did, marching and speaking and organizing masses of women to fight for their rights.

  The attitude reminded Po briefly of the perception of some of the shop owners who thought a quilt shop unworthy of their block.

  Po found it fascinating that something so intricate and amazing as the creation of a quilt could have been considered a lowly task and frowned upon so fiercely by women seeking rights to a bigger, more equal world. Of all the women she knew in the small town of Crestwood, the Queen Bees were among the most informed, self-contained, and the most comfortable in their own boots. And as for art — goodness, who could hold a candle to Susan’s fine eye for color or Leah’s amazing sense of space and shape?

  What would she have done, living a century and a half ago? Po wondered. She put down her notes and set her glasses on the desktop. Probably what Abigail Dunaway did — yes, she might abandon her craft to speak her beliefs, to effect change. But wasn’t it a good turn of history that crafts and art and liberated women could all live in the same room? And quilts were now displayed in the Smithsonian, in art galleries everywhere. It was a shame, she thought, closing the refrigerator door, that the Elderberry shop owners weren’t so enlightened. Perhaps the Queen Bees could teach them a thing or two.

  Po checked the cupboard shelf and sighed. No coffee anywhere. Beside the back door, Hoover greedily wolfed down his breakfast. He looked up at her, and she laughed. “No sweet pup, I won’t eat yours.”

  But writing without coffee and something in her stomach besides vitamins wasn’t going to happen, even about something as intriguing as the suffragettes. She’d go to plan “B.”

  In short order Po had filled her worn backpack with pencils, a pad of paper and her laptop computer. She would head for Elderberry Road, grab a cup of coffee at Marla’s, and settle into a quiet corner in The Elderberry Bookstore. No ringing phone, no unexpected visitors, and the short walk would wake her up.

  Gus’s bookstore was never empty — even on a lazy weekday morning. There were the regulars — self-employed writers like herself, retired folks, and moms with small children who never missed story hour. And students liked to slip into cozy corners to study or write papers. Gus accommodated his clientele well, placing stuffed chairs and small tables throughout the well-stocked store — crammed on the first floor with new books, and on the lower level with thousands of used volumes. Po loved the comfortable old smells and streaks of dusty sunlight that slipped through the racks. So far Gus’s store had held its own against the big chains and she suspected it would continue. They were a loyal crowd.

  “Po Paltrow,” Gus Schuette bellowed as she walked through the door. “What a welcome sight for these tired eyes. And just the person I need to see.”

  “And why’s that, Gus?” Po continued toward the back of the store and her favorite niche, smack dab between the reference books and mysteries. She liked Gus, but knew firsthand how long conversations with him could be if there was something on his mind — and sometimes even if there wasn’t. She settled into a red velvet chair and pulled her laptop out of the bag, positioning it on her knees.

  Gus grabbed a straight-backed chair from a nearby table, dragged it over in front of Po and straddled it from behind, his arms dangling over the back of the chair. “It’s this damn murder business, Po,” he said. “How’s Selma doing?”

  “Selma?” Po pulled her glasses from her pocket and put them on. “Why do you ask?”

  “You know — the talk. That she and Owen had an argument that night — a real doozy.”

  “From what I hear, you shop owners have perfected the fine art of arguing.”

  “Come on, Po, you know what I mean. Jesse and Ambrose said they left the two of them going at it like a couple of mean roosters that night.” Gus scratched his chin and pulled his thick brows together.

  “Gus, what are you saying?”

  “Oh, heck, Po, I don’t know. But all this gossip, folks wondering why someone would come into a quilt store if he was looking for something to steal. Seems to be a lot more questions than answers, and it’s not like it used to be around here. I wish they’d catch the guy.”

  “That may not happen.”

  Gus continued as if Po hadn’t spoken. “Or maybe Jesse and Ambrose are right — maybe it’s time for Selma to close that store. We could put in another gallery or something and start clean.”

  Po lifted her glasses to the top of her head and stared at Gus. She leaned forward in the chair. “Gus Schuette, what are you talking about? Start clean? And what makes a gallery cleaner than a quilt shop — or a bookstore, for that matter!”

  “Oh, don’t get your undies bunched, Po. It just feels tainted, that’s all. That’s what people are saying. There’s this ugly shadow over the neighborhood. Maybe if someone took over that corner property, renovated it, fixed it up nice, we could forget about it and move on.”

  “Gus, I’m ashamed to hear you talk like that. You’ve known Selma all your life. How can you be so disloyal?”

  Gus chewed on her words for a minute before answering. Then he lifted one leg across the chair and stood. “I guess maybe it does sound disloyal. But I know that my after-dark business isn’t what it used to be. And Ambrose and Jesse said their wine bar clientele is dropping off, too. People seem nervous.”

  Po’s heart sank. This kind of sentiment wa
s bound to hurt Selma.

  Gus looked over to the main desk near the door. He frowned. “There’s Max Elliot, probably wanting to have another meeting with the owners. He’s become a pain in the you-know-what.”

  Po looked across the store and saw Max talking to a customer. He had seemed so worried the day before. She’d asked Selma about his visit later, but Selma had shrugged it off. Said Max was a decent man, was all. He wanted to help everyone — her, Mary, Ambrose. Most of all he wanted things done right and fairly.

  “Max Elliot is mad as a wet hen at all of us,” Gus said. “He wants to check this, check that, make sure everyone’s audits are done. Heck, we don’t have time for all that. He and Owen had taken on some kind of a crusade around here. But who knows — maybe Max will move on now. He was only around because he was Owen’s best friend — we could use some fresh lawyer blood.”

  At that moment, Ambrose Sweet appeared around the edge of the bookshelf, his arms heavy with books. “Well, hello, you two. Having a little tete-á-tete back here in the thick of the mysteries? And talking about blood? Oh, my.” He clicked his tongue against his teeth and shook one long finger at them from beneath the pile of books.

  “Hi Ambrose,” Gus said as he swung the chair back into place. “Looks like you’re set for some heavy reading.”

  Po noticed the titles of the top two books: Legal Loopholes for the Small Shop Owner, Tax Breaks Beyond the Norm.

  Ambrose followed her gaze. “Owning a store is more than knowing where to get the finest cabernet at the best price,” he said. Then he winked at Po as if the two of them shared a profound secret.

  Po found the gesture irritating. “Doesn’t Max handle that sort of thing for you?” she asked.

  “Oh, Max? Yes, Max is involved in everything, thanks to Sir Owen Hill.” Ambrose rolled his eyes, then leaned forward from his slender waist and said in a hushed tone, “God helps those who help themselves, Po.”

  Ambrose spotted a book on the shelf behind Po that interested him, and managed to pull it out of its tight space and wedge it beneath his arm. With a small wave, he strode off toward the front of the store.