Four-Patch of Trouble (13 page)

"Well?" Wolfe said. "What's the quilt telling you?"

"Not enough." I'd need a magnifying glass, my reference books, and more time before I could even offer an educated guess about whether it was a real antique. I'd never tried to do an appraisal from a picture before, and I wouldn't ever confirm a quilt's age or value without seeing the quilt in person. Still, a careful inspection of the picture might be enough to spot something to
dis
prove its bona fides. "May I have a copy of this?"

"Sure. You can take that print. I've got several more. It's not going to help your friends though. Using the quilt to cover up Tremain only helps my case against them. Looks like they used it to keep from getting any blood on themselves."

"That only makes sense if the quilt's a fake," I said. "Dee and Emma wouldn't ruin a new quilt, let alone a real antique. And if it is a fake, they were right about Tremain's fraud, and his victims would have stronger motives to kill him. You know, as long as you've got that quilt in custody, you should have someone give you an opinion about its age and value."

"I don't have time for anything that's not directly related to the murder."

"The quilt's value might well be related to the murder," I said. "Do you have any idea what it's worth?"

Wolfe glanced at the duplicate copy of the picture and shrugged. "A few hundred bucks?"

"That's about what it costs to make a new quilt. If it's a museum-quality antique, the purchase price could be fifty or a hundred times as much. I just finished appraising a similar quilt, and I haven't set an exact price yet, but definitely five figures. Something truly extraordinary could hit six figures."

Wolfe picked up the picture gingerly, as if the print itself were museum quality. "Seriously? Six figures for a blanket?"

"Seriously," I said. "For a legitimate and rare antique. If Tremain was passing off copies as antiques, he was defrauding his victims of four to five figures with each transaction. I've seen allegations he copied at least six different real antiques, and there's no limit to how many copies he could have made of each one."

Wolfe's eyes narrowed while he did the math in his head.

While he was still interested, I added, "If I were you, I'd really like to know if the rest of the quilts in his shop are real. You don't want to be ambushed at trial with evidence that Tremain was a crook and dozens of his victims had threatened him. If you know ahead of time, you can prepare for it."

"You angling to get hired as an expert witness?"

"We both know I wouldn't be able to testify in this case since I'm too personally involved. But I could give you a quick heads-up on whether the quilts are fake, at no cost to you, and then you could hire an independent expert for trial."

"What's in it for you?"

"First, it'll satisfy my curiosity." Judging by Wolfe's skeptical expression, he couldn't understand the need to know, purely as a matter of principle, whether Tremain had been committing the fraud he'd been accused of. I needed to make it seem like I had a more ulterior motive in mind. The only one I could think of was that I wanted something in return that would help Dee and Emma's defense attorney. "But beyond that, if I review Tremain's quilts for you, saving you the cost of an expert to make a preliminary review, and it turns out he was a crook, you'll agree to investigate all of Tremain's clients to see if they're viable suspects."

"At this rate, you're going to have me investigating everyone in the state. First his business rivals and now his customers. Anyone else you want added to the list?"

I pretended not to notice the sarcasm. "Not yet."

Wolfe stared at the quilt picture. "Five figures, huh? Times six. Or a multiple of six."

I was pretty sure I had him hooked, and now I knew what bait to use: the total value of the fraudulent quilts. "There were at least that many, possibly a lot more."

"Okay." He picked up the handset for his phone. "I'll arrange for his partner to let us into Monograms. You can check out the merchandise. If you're right that they're fakes, it will confirm your clients' motive for me. If you're wrong, I'll still be able to use it to make them look less sympathetic since they killed him for nothing."

I didn't care what Wolfe thought, as long as he let me view the inventory at Monograms. I could be wrong, but just as I trusted my gut reaction when doing an appraisal, I had to trust my hunch that Tremain's quilts held the answers to his murder.

After a brief wait at the police station, Richie Faria, the young, uniformed officer from the crime scene, led me to the interrogation room. It was just a plain room with gray walls, a one-way mirror, and a video camera affixed near the ceiling. Bud Ohlsen was seated at the table in the same position as when he'd been at Alyse's desk, tipped back in his chair with his hands supporting the back of his head, studying the ceiling. There was a file in front of him that looked a lot like Wolfe's file on Emma.

Something about this room triggered a prickly sense of guilt, as if I should be confessing to something, even though I hadn't done anything wrong. Or perhaps it was some subtle body language on the part of Ohlsen. I'd heard from colleagues who practiced criminal law that really good detectives were trained to use a variety of psychological tricks on suspects. Of course, the defense lawyers then sought out the same training so they could protect their clients from its influence, so it all balanced out, but I'd never had any reason to study the interrogation tricks.

A wave of nausea punctuated my nervousness. I reminded myself that I wasn't a suspect; Fred had told me so. I was here voluntarily to give the police a piece of potentially useful information, and I could leave if I felt uncomfortable.
More
uncomfortable, I amended.

Bud Ohlsen tipped his chair forward and placed his hands on the file in front of him. "So, Ms. Fairchild, what can we do for you today?"

"I would like to add to my statement from yesterday. I believe there may have been at least one other person in the shop at the time of the murder."

While Ohlsen contemplated the possibility, Faria insisted, "We interviewed everyone who was there."

"I've been thinking about that." I addressed Ohlsen, even though he was leaning back and staring at the ceiling again. "We can't really know everyone who was there for the ten minutes of the break from our meeting. The side door was open, the front door was unlocked, and there's no bell on the door. Anyone could have slipped inside, gone to Tremain's office, clobbered him, and slipped out again without being noticed."

"We can't interview hypothetical suspects," Faria said.

I waited for Ohlsen to respond. After a few moments, he shook his head and abandoned his study of the ceiling. "You're looking at this like a lawyer, not an investigator. Hypotheticals are good for undermining an investigation but not for moving an investigation forward."

"I thought of one person who was definitely in the building, not just hypothetically."

"How convenient," Faria said. He looked like he would have continued to criticize me, if not for a quelling glance from the detective.

"You'll excuse him, I hope. He's still learning. He's aware you're friends with a couple of the suspects. We wouldn't be doing our jobs if we didn't question whether you're just trying to set up reasonable doubt. We did ask you yesterday if you had anything else to add, and if I remember correctly, you said you didn't." Ohlsen looked at Faria, who flipped to an earlier page in his notebook and then nodded.

"I understand," I said. "Still, I expected you would at least hear me out. That's why I'm telling
you
about this instead of Wolfe. I think you'll at least do me the courtesy of checking out the information."

"Okay." Ohlsen signaled to Faria to take some notes. "Who do you think we missed?"

"Not just you. I missed it too at the time, with all the shock and confusion. I'd forgotten Tremain's landlord was on the premises at the time of the murder."

Faria frowned and paged through his notes. "Nothing here about any landlord."

"I didn't see him after the murder. That's why I didn't think to mention him yesterday. He went up to the second-floor apartment right before my friends and I went into our meeting, and he brought enough supplies to be there for hours. Did anyone check the second floor when the scene was secured?"

Faria rummaged through his notes again. "I'll have to check with the responding officers."

"Don't you think it's odd the landlord didn't come forward?" I said. "He couldn't have missed hearing Alyse's scream or the sirens. He should have been in the shop when the first officers arrived. Unless he'd come downstairs before then, caught Tremain in his office, argued over the rent or something, and things got out of hand. Then he panicked and ran, so he was gone before you arrived."

"We'll look into it. Don't expect too much though. People don't always come forward when they see the police, even when they have nothing to hide. He could have just stayed upstairs, minding his own business, finishing his repairs." Ohlsen stood up. "Is there anything else we can do for you today?"

I considered mentioning Alyse's change of clothes, but I'd already tested the limits of the officers' patience with me. I'd learned early in my trial career that it was often better to give a jury just one theory of a case, even if there were several that supported my client's position. Pick the strongest argument and go with it.

The detective and his uniformed helper were my jury, deciding the fate of Dee and Emma. Better to stick with my strongest suspect, the landlord, and not confuse matters by offering Alyse as an alternative. They already knew about her, and she had to be high on their list of suspects, given her business relationship with Tremain. Unless they'd bought into Wolfe's theory about Dee and Emma having a motive and using the quilt to protect against blood spatter. I wanted them thinking about people other than the ones who'd been in the meeting right before Tremain's death. That meant keeping the focus on the landlord and Tremain's competitors.

"No," I said finally. "I've taken up enough of your time for today."

*   *   *

While I was waiting at the museum's ticket desk for a guard to escort me to the locked archives on the second floor, Gil came down the stairs and into the lobby a step behind the blonde board member who'd been so rude the day before. Gil nodded a greeting over the head of the much-shorter woman, who didn't seem to notice me, the handful of visitors milling about, or the ticket desk attendant. The whole way across the lobby to the front door, the board member spoke to Gil in a tone that was angry and clipped but low enough that the words themselves weren't clear across any distance. Her face looked remarkably calm, most likely due to expensive medical intervention rather than the inner zen-like state of peace I was trying to attain.

As soon as the main entrance doors shut behind the board member, Gil's professional smile faltered. She headed for where I was waiting and waved to an elderly man studying a placard in front of a display of antique farming implements.

"Is there a problem?" Gil asked me.

"Nothing that didn't exist the last time we talked. I'm just waiting for an escort to the archives."

"No need to wait any longer. I'll take you." Gil led the way up the stairs and down the hall before unlocking a door marked
Employees Only
.

Inside was a windowless room. Three quilts were hanging on one wall, along with four or five woven coverlets. Two other walls were lined with storage cases, the last wall held bookshelves, and in the middle was a large metal table and four black chairs.

I tossed my messenger bag onto the table where the reference books landed with a thud. Now that we were away from any museum visitors who might overhear our conversation, I asked, "How was the board meeting?"

"They were like children, each one saying the opposite of the previous comment, just to be contrary." Gil sang the beginning of the Beatles' "Hello, Goodbye."

"That bad?"

"I've still got a job," Gil said. "Other than that, it was fairly grim. The board is reluctant to approve the acquisition of any quilts right now. Tremain's death and the speculation about his business ethics have cast a pall over all dealers, and no one wants to be known for being on the board that approved the acquisition of a reproduction quilt."

"Should I even bother to finish the appraisal of Stefan's four-patch?"

Gil hummed the theme from
Jeopardy!
while she considered her options. Finally, she nodded. "You might as well. I've already committed to paying your fee, so the museum should get something in return. I may still be able to buy it later. It would have been nice to announce the purchase at the quilt show, but it might be better if we wait a few weeks for the public to forget fake antique quilts exist."

"It's always possible Tremain's quilts were legitimate antiques, and we should know soon. The prosecutor is arranging for me to do an informal appraisal of the Monograms' inventory. I'm not really hopeful, but it would be best for everyone if it turns out his quilts were legit."

"True. And Nancy Grant, the board member who just left, will be thrilled if you can confirm what she's been saying all along—that Tremain's a legit businessman. She's convinced he wouldn't have risked his reputation on petty crimes, and even if he had, he would have been caught in a lot less time than the two years Monograms has been open."

"I wonder why the quilt guild only started to question his business practices recently. He's got a booth at the quilt show, and they were assigned a few months ago. The guild couldn't have heard about any problems with his quilts before then, or they wouldn't have given him a booth."

"I don't know anything about the vendors' spaces," Gil said. "The museum offers some financial support, but we don't have anything to do with the show's logistics. I believe the guild has a committee that oversees the vendors. If you really need to know, I'm sure Dee and Emma could tell you who was in charge of the committee."