Make Quilts Not War (21 page)

“You’re starting to sound a little bit like Lauren,” Harriet said with a smile.

Carla’s face turned pink.

“That doesn’t mean I’m wrong, though,” she said quietly.

“Okay, fine,” Harriet said. “Look in the French doors, and then see if you can look in the two sets of bedroom windows you can reach from the patio. If we’re lucky, he’s in one of them and left the curtains and blinds open.”

Carla walked back up Jenny’s path then turned left, cutting across the yard and disappearing around the side of the house. She returned a few minutes later, almost running and looking back over her shoulder. She slid into the driver’s seat and pulled her phone from her purse.

“What’s wrong?” Harriet asked, but Carla didn’t answer. She pressed the face of her phone three times.

“I just found a dead body,” she said.

They stayed in the car, Wendy asleep in her car-seat, in front of Jenny’s house until the police arrived. A knock on the driver’s-side window startled them.

“I can’t even say it again,” Jane Morse said to Harriet when Carla rolled down the window. “Has there been a crime in this town since you’ve been back that you haven’t been involved in?”

Harriet got out of the car. She shrugged then winced in pain when it moved her burned arm too much.

“We were helping Jenny look for her brother. She was going to
try to find him, but you-all were talking to her, so Carla and I
thought we’d help by checking to see if he was here.”

“She came to the station thirty minutes ago. How is it she
wouldn’t know her brother is staying at her house?” Morse asked.

“
Jenny
isn’t staying at her house right now,” Carla offered.

“Her husband is out of town,” Harriet added. “We suggested she not stay home alone, since the trouble at the festival seems to be targeted on her.”

“That’s the first sensible thing I’ve heard today,” Morse admonished. “If she’d been home, she might be lying there beside her brother with a bullet in her head.”

“Jenny was estranged from her brother,” Harriet said. “He came to me at the festival and said he was trying to warn her about something, but she wouldn’t talk to him. He asked me to help him convince her to listen. That’s what I was doing when that woman threw acid on me. And before you ask, no, he didn’t tell me what kind of trouble he was going to warn her about.”

Morse made a note in her notepad.

“Is there anything else you’ve failed to tell me about this whole mess?”

“No,” Harriet said, pausing to think first.

“You’re sure? This information would have been useful last night when I came by your house. We might have been able to save this man.”

“That’s not fair.” I was on heavy-duty pain medication.”

“I’m sorry, you’re right,” Morse said. “I’m just frustrated, and I’m taking it out on you.” She looked down. “Someone killed Pam Gilbert, and until this morning, we were liking the ex-husband for it. Now we have a second victim shot in the same manner. There’s no obvious connection between Pam and Bobbie.”

“Except Jenny,” Harriet said. “They both knew Jenny.”

“They did. And then there’s the slashed tire incident. Other than it having happened to Jenny, it doesn’t fit with either murder.”

“Don’t forget this,” Harriet said and raised her bandaged arm.

“Your incident really doesn’t fit,” Morse said. “That poor
woman is so out of touch, it’s hard to imagine her being part of any coordinated effort.”

“Doesn’t it seem like one coincidence too many?” Harriet asked.

“Normally, I’d say yes, but in this case, the woman is so sick I’m not seeing it.”

Wendy started moving around in her seat, and Carla opened the door then looked back at Harriet.

“I think we need to go home,” Harriet said to Morse. “I’m supposed to be resting.”

“Good idea. Go home and stay there until your arm is better.”

“I was only out today to have my bandage changed.”

“And yet, here you are,” Morse said with a shake of her head. “Convince your friend not to come back here. We told her, but that doesn’t seem to mean anything to you Loose Threads.”

Harriet started to protest, but Carla came to stand beside her.

“Let me help you get in the car,” she said and guided Harriet away from Detective Morse.

Harriet woke from the nap Carla had insisted she take and found Carla gone and that Mavis had replaced her. Scooter was on his fleece mat beside the older woman; her own dog Curley was asleep in her lap.

“Oh, good, you’re awake. I thought I was going to have to wake you, and I was afraid I’d hurt your arm.”

“Are we late? Did I sleep too long?” Harriet asked as she rubbed her eyes with her good hand. She had agreed to go upstairs to her TV room and was propped up on the sofa with her arm resting on a pillow across her chest.

“No, we’ve still got a few hours before we have to go. You were moaning in your sleep. Does your arm hurt?”

“I was dreaming. There was a mountain lion on a narrow ledge looking over a sandstorm. And a scary-looking clown was climbing up the sheer cliff toward the cat.”

“That’s a weird one.” Mavis said.

“During the dream, I was terrified. My heart felt like it was going to burst out of my chest.”

“Your dreams are supposed to mean something if you know how to interpret them.”

“Do you know what this one means?”

Mavis made a derisive noise.

“I don’t believe in that nonsense,” she said.

Harriet laughed.

“Why did you tell me they meant something, then?”

“You young people seem to believe.”

“I’m not sure I follow your logic, but maybe Lauren can look it up for me.”

“Are you hungry? I made a couple of grilled cheese sandwiches and heated some tomato soup.”

“That sounds good,” Harriet said. “I can come down to the kit-chen.”

“As long as you can get upstairs again—if you’re going to
change into a sixties outfit, that is.”

“We have to wear costumes to the kitchen?” Harriet asked with
a smile.

“To the concert, Miss Smarty Pants, but I suppose if it hurts
your arm too much we could make excuses for you.”

“My arm hurts, but it’s a burn, not an amputation or paralysis or something serious.”

“I was just giving you an out,” Mavis said. “Excuse me for trying to take care of you.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to be critical.”

It was full dark when Harriet and Mavis met Carla and Lauren in front of the auditorium; this time of the year it usually happened around five-thirty and then only if it wasn’t cloudy.

“Where’s Jenny?” Harriet asked.

“Robin called and said Jenny didn’t want to come at the last minute, so she insisted she come to her house. Connie and Rod are babysitting Wendy so Carla can enjoy herself. Robin’s husband brought their passes to Connie’s so Carla could bring them to the concert in case anyone needed them.”

Carla reached into her jacket pocket and pulled the passes out.

“I was going to have a sitter come to Aiden’s, but with Michelle there, I didn’t want to risk it,” Carla said.

“That’s a smart decision,” Harriet said. “Has anyone talked to Aunt Beth? Is she coming?”

“I think she’s going to help Jorge with food,” Mavis said.
“They’ve set up tables in the lobby and are going to sell light snacks and drinks during the intermission. Beth figures they’ll be able to hear the concert from there.”

“Has anyone heard from DeAnn?” Harriet asked.

“She called when you were resting and said she needed to spend some time with her kids.”

The door to the auditorium opened, and Colm Byrne’s assistant came out.

“You ladies ready for your tour?” Skeeter asked. “Do we need to wait for more people?”

“No,” Harriet said. “Jenny decided not to come, and our friend Robin is staying with her. And another lady had to be with her kids tonight.”

“Jenny not a Colm Byrne fan?” he asked. It was clear he
couldn’t believe that could be true of anyone.

“It’s not that,” Harriet answered. “She just had something else to do.”

“Well, they’re going to miss a good show,” Skeeter said. “Shall we go in?” He didn’t wait for an answer, just went to the nearest set of doors and held one open.

Burly black-T-shirted men were in evidence inside the door and outside of each doorway they passed. As promised, Colm Byrne had increased the security.

Harriet was wearing bell-bottom jeans and a Mexican peasant blouse. She’d discovered that, after her visit to the doctor, her bandage was too big to comfortably wear a long-sleeved shirt over it. She layered two tank tops under the short-sleeved blouse and put on a knitted poncho Mavis had brought along when she’d come to sit with her. Harriet wasn’t quite sure if Mavis had gotten it at a secondhand store last week or if she’d had it in her closet since the nineteen-sixties, but she was thankful.

Skeeter instructed the women to put the lanyards around their necks and turn the passes so the front was visible. He checked to see that everyone had complied.

“We have strict security procedures in place because of what’s going on here,” he said and, turning, led them to a door beside the stage. “You need to stay together at all times, and don’t wander off into any area I’ve not taken you to.

“We have a green room where performers hang out when
they’re not performing—we usually have a local band from whatever city we’re in to open for us. They play before Colm and then midway between sets.” He made a noise that Harriet guessed was supposed to be a chuckle. “He’s not as young as he once was. He doesn’t perform two hours straight anymore like he used to.

“For this event we ran open auditions for folk artists and other types of tribute bands. We have a Peter, Paul and Mary tribute band, a Four Tops band, a trio that plays Simon and Garfunkle music and a really good Stevie Wonder impersonator.”

True to his word, the room was green, and it was full of people dressed to look like the singer or band they were supposed to be.

“Are you one of the Tops or Stevie Wonder?” Harriet asked a man with coffee-colored skin and shoulder-length dreadlocks.

“Both,” he said with a laugh. “I come out first with the Four Tops and then again two sets later in a different outfit as Stevie Wonder.”

“Are there a lot of sixties festivals?”

“No. We do a few, but mostly we do cruise ships. But never with a big name like Colm Byrne.”

“Cruising all the time must be fun,” Mavis said.

“It’s a living,” the man said with a smile.

The Threads spoke to the other performers, and then Skeeter
ushered them to the backstage dining room. Comfy chairs were placed around small tables throughout the space, with a loaded buffet table along the back wall. Two men in white aprons stood behind the buffet, ready to carve meat for the guests. They were both covered in tattoos, including, Harriet noticed, a stylized peace symbol.

One man had a full head of shoulder-length white hair pulled into a low ponytail. He was big, with biceps that strained the rolled up sleeves of his denim work shirt. The second man also sported a tail, but in his case the top of his head was nearly bald and his hair was a dirty gray color. He was thin but muscular.

“Don’t look like your typical food service people, do they?” Lauren muttered as she headed toward their table.

Harriet had to hurry to catch up.

“Do you cook the food yourselves?” she asked white-hair.

“Do I look like Julia Child?” he shot back.

“My friend meant to say, no, we don’t,” said the gray-haired
man. “Can we cut some meat for you?”

The big man gave his partner a dirty look but didn’t say any
thing.

Lauren asked for roast beef and then moved on down the table. Harriet chose pork roast, which the white-haired man was serving.

“Which one of you was wearing the Afro wig yesterday?” he asked as he sliced her meat.

“None of us, actually,” Harriet replied. “Why?”

White Hair narrowed his eyes and glared at her.

“I thought I recognized her. We went to high school together.”