Elm Creek Quilts [06] The Master Quilter (29 page)

Maybe Diane had so humiliated Mary Beth that she had not told her family. Maybe the guild had turned on her in fury when it sank in that their president had dismissed the Elm Creek Quilters’ invitation without consulting a single member of the board. Maybe they would demand a recall election, and finally, finally Mary Beth would be deposed. New leadership might breathe life into that moribund institution, healing the rift between the guild and the Elm Creek Quilters.

For her next trick, Diane decided, she would drive Fabric Warehouse out of business. In the meantime, she had her own block to make for Sylvia’s quilt.

Sylvia was one of the few people Diane knew whose sharp tongue could match her own, and she respected that. Somehow, though, Sylvia managed to speak her mind without annoying her listeners, a skill Diane had yet to master. Sylvia knew when to soften criticism with a compliment or humor, but when she was deadly serious, everyone knew it and listened with respect. Diane could sew for the rest of her life without becoming the accomplished Master Quilter Sylvia was, but she could, and did, emulate her way with words. Without Sylvia’s example in mind when she crashed the guild meeting, she probably would have insulted everyone present and fled from the library meeting room with an angry mob on her heels. As it was, she had offended only Mary Beth and her inner circle, and that alone deserved commemoration in a quilt block.

Her block was nearly finished by the first day of quilt camp, but then the whirlwind of activity forced her to set it aside. Apparently she was not the only Elm Creek Quilter who had failed to plan well; on the first day of classes, Sarah had to juggle the schedule to accommodate Judy’s sudden trip to Philadelphia and wound up teaching a hand-quilting class herself. Gwen ran out of fusible webbing in the middle of her workshop and had to send one of the cook’s helpers to Grandma’s Attic for more, and Bonnie and Summer had forgotten that running the evening program together left no one to close the quilt shop. Bonnie asked Diane to cover, and Diane agreed, resolving on the drive over to schedule that appointment with Bonnie as soon as the busy first week of camp settled into an easier routine.

Closing the shop meant that she returned home later than usual. Not until she walked through the door and saw Todd and Brent foraging for food in the kitchen did she remember she had agreed Brent could spend the night, and that she was supposed to stop on the way home for pizza and videos. They had heard her enter, so she couldn’t sneak back out to her car. Instead she called in the pizza order and drove the boys to the video store to pick out movies for themselves, which meant twice as many DVDs with twice as much carnage as Diane usually allowed. Tim and the pizza delivery man arrived soon after they returned home, so the evening was salvaged despite Diane’s mistake.

Diane and Tim went upstairs to bed when the first movie ended, after urging Todd and Brent to remember to get at least a few hours’ sleep. Diane heard them moving the sofa to make more room for the air mattresses, so she knew they had at least unrolled their sleeping bags, but the television was still playing when she drifted off to sleep.

She and Tim woke to the alarm clock early the next morning. While Tim took his turn in the shower, Diane went to rouse Todd for school. She had padded halfway down the hall before remembering spring break and the sleepover. With a groan, she returned to bed for a few more minutes’ rest, but she could not allow herself to fall back asleep because she had to be at Elm Creek Manor by eight.

After her shower, she went downstairs, pausing by the family room to check on Todd and Brent. They had drawn the curtains and turned off the television the night before, and one of the boys was snoring. Diane crept away to the kitchen, where Tim was reading the paper and finishing his breakfast. She had planned to make pancakes, but the boys were unlikely to wake before she left for work, so she set out a plate of muffins and a few boxes of cereal for them and took a yogurt from the refrigerator for herself.

She kissed Tim good-bye when he had to leave, then hurried back upstairs to finish getting ready. She stopped by the family room again on her way back—still no sign of life from the two sleeping-bag-shrouded lumps on the floor—and went to the kitchen for her purse. Propped up beside it was a course catalogue for Waterford College, folded open to a page where a paragraph had been circled with a yellow highlighter. Diane picked it up and read a description for COMP 326—Advanced Programming, taught by Dr. Judy DiNardo. A sentence underlined in red ink read, “Students are strongly encouraged to obtain a laptop computer for use in class.”

Diane sighed and stuck the catalogue between the phone and the answering machine. Trust Michael to arrange it so he would have the last word. She wondered what time he had come home the previous night. She was not aware that she slept that soundly. Perhaps the television had masked the sound of the front door.

Shaking her head, she picked up her purse and dug around for her keys on the way to the garage. They were not in their usual corner of the front pocket, but she always left the car door unlocked, so she got in and searched the main pouch and the change purse, to no avail. Sighing in exasperation, she emptied the entire contents of her purse onto the front passenger seat—still nothing. “This is ridiculous,” she muttered, checking to make sure all the zippers and clasps were unfastened before turning the purse upside down and shaking it vigorously. Only a nickel and a crumpled tissue fell out.

Diane glanced at her watch and hastily shoveled her belongings back into her purse. She always returned her keys to her purse—always—and her sons had learned the hard way to follow suit whenever they borrowed the car. She raced back inside and dug around in the kitchen junk drawer for the spare set, blindly groping through birthday candles, address labels, and miscellaneous batteries until her fingers brushed against the Waterford College Wildcats key ring. She pulled it free and shoved the drawer closed as best she could in her haste. The spare set included only the keys for the house and the car, but they would have to do until she could find her own set. Todd might remember where she had put them after they returned from the video store, but she had no time now to wake him and ask.

Fortunately, she was not teaching that morning, merely assisting Agnes and Gwen with their workshops, so she still arrived at Elm Creek Manor in plenty of time. With misgivings, she skipped what was certain to be an excellent lunch in the banquet hall in order to make sure she arrived for her afternoon shift at Grandma’s Attic well before Bonnie departed for Elm Creek Manor and locked the door behind her. In passing, Bonnie told Diane she would be coming back later to go over the books, so Diane wouldn’t need to close that evening. Diane used this as an excuse not to mention the missing key; she would surely find it before she was asked to open or close the shop again.

Todd was watching television in the family room, alone, when Diane came home to fix supper before returning to Elm Creek Manor for the evening program. “Where’s Brent?” she asked.

Todd shrugged and switched off the television. “Hanging out with some ASB guys, I guess.”

“I see.”

Todd sounded dejected, and more than a little irritated. The Associated Student Body was not the same as student government, which was comprised of the traditional elected positions and actually did represent student interests fairly well. Anyone could join ASB—although no one outside the popular cliques ever did—if they had third period available and were interested in planning pep rallies, fund-raisers, and Homecoming events. Michael, who had mistrusted anything that reeked of school spirit, had avoided all things ASB with a passion, and even Todd, who would have been welcomed gladly, was unwilling to sacrifice an academic period for what he called a social hour with an occasional bit of work thrown in. Kids joined ASB for a break from real work and for something to add to their college applications to impress people who didn’t know any better, Todd claimed, and he couldn’t stand it when Brent invited his friends from ASB along when they got together. Diane, who had expected Todd to embrace ASB when he first enrolled with Brent as a freshman, had been astonished when he had declined to sign up for the second semester.

Diane asked, “Are the ASB guys going to monopolize Brent for the rest of spring break?”

Todd said he didn’t know and that it didn’t matter, because he had other plans with some of the guys from the basketball team anyway. Diane nodded, trying to hide her satisfaction. She wouldn’t mind being rid of Brent for a while.

To cheer up Todd—and to assuage her guilt—Diane prepared his favorite supper, spaghetti and meatballs. Afterward, Todd and Tim helped her search for the keys, without success. Diane even phoned the video store and the pizza place, although she knew that was illogical, since she had driven home from the video store and the pizza had been delivered. “Did anyone see me toss my keys into the delivery guy’s truck?” she asked wearily, when they had given up and sat in the living room, watching the last of Todd’s rented DVDs.

“I saw you put them in your purse,” Todd assured her for what must have been the tenth time.

“They’ll turn up,” said Tim. “Eventually.”

Diane agreed, but she didn’t have until “eventually.” Bonnie could ask her to open the store any day, and Diane had too many doubts arrayed against her already without admitting she had lost her key to the store.

She decided to avoid Bonnie as much as she could for as long as she could, which would not be easy considering how frequently their paths crossed at quilt camp. She gave herself until the end of the week to find her keys. After that, she would confess the truth and ask Bonnie for another.

She did not see Bonnie at all the next morning at the manor, but at lunchtime learned that she had congratulated herself for her stealth undeservedly. Bonnie had never shown up that morning, nor had she called.

Diane agreed with her friends that this was troubling and uncharacteristic, but she wondered if any besides Summer knew that Bonnie had not shown up at Grandma’s Attic two days in a row earlier that month. Since no one answered the phone at the shop or at Bonnie’s home, Summer had driven downtown to investigate. She had promised to call as soon as she had news, but the afternoon classes ended without any word. Afterward, Diane wanted to stop by Grandma’s Attic herself, but she did not have enough time between driving home to prepare supper for her family and racing back to the manor to help Gwen with the evening entertainment program. She was only supposed to assist Gwen, who had agreed to fill in for the absent Bonnie, but Gwen must have forgotten because she was nowhere to be found by the time the quilted clothing fashion show was to begin.

“She went to Grandma’s Attic to find out why Summer didn’t report back,” said Sarah as Diane prepared for her unexpected starring role as fashion show emcee. “Something must be terribly wrong. No one’s answering the phones and no one’s checked in.”

“Well, let’s not send anyone else or they’ll get sucked into the same black hole,” said Diane cheerfully, donning the outlandish quilted and sequined jacket Bonnie had intended to wear. It hung on Diane’s slender frame, but she figured that enhanced the humorous effect. “Bonnie’s probably just sick or something and forgot to call. When Summer and Gwen found out it was nothing serious, they decided to wait until tomorrow to tell us. If it was something really terrible, someone definitely would have let us know.”

Sarah looked dubious but said she hoped Diane was right.

The next morning, they all learned she could not have been more wrong.

Gwen and Summer had worked late into the night helping Bonnie restore some order to the ransacked shop, but so much remained to be done that Bonnie wanted to continue working throughout the day, if the Elm Creek Quilters could spare her. They quickly assented, and listened, shocked, as Gwen and Summer told them what they had seen, what the police had determined.

“They think it’s an inside job,” said Gwen, shaking her head in disbelief. “I think it’s more likely Bonnie forgot to lock the door, but she insists she remembered.”

Summer nodded in agreement and said, “What bothers me is that if the police are focused on this theory, they’ll ignore other alternatives.”

“Wait,” said Diane, heart sinking. “Why do they think it’s an inside job?”

“Because there were no signs of forced entry,” said Summer. “So they assume the culprit or culprits must have used a key.”

“Or the door was left unlocked,” said Gwen. “They left no fingerprints, either, so they must have worn gloves.”

“So the police think they were professionals?” asked Judy, who had missed the anxious waiting of the previous day and seemed even more shocked than her friends by the news that greeted her on her first morning back from Philadelphia.

“Anyone who has ever seen a detective drama on television knows to wear gloves during a robbery,” said Sylvia.

“It was cold that night,” said Diane, her voice tight. “Anyone going outside would have worn gloves. So does this mean everyone in Waterford is a suspect?”

They all looked at her, then returned their attention to Summer as she described the inscrutable lists of what had been taken and what had been left behind. Not surprisingly, all the money in the store was gone, as well as one of the most expensive Berninas, but only one. A handful of rotary cutters and shears. Some fine-point permanent pens. With a meaningful look to Sylvia, Summer added, “They also took blocks Bonnie had been saving for a special quilt.”

The bridal quilt? Diane saw her own confusion mirrored in her friends’ eyes.