Tree of Life and Death (12 page)

It was just a theory though, and I didn't want to worry Gil any more than necessary. "You can't blame yourself for everything that criminals do. There's no way to prevent crime completely."

"I'm still going to look into increasing our security," Gil said. "Maybe some sort of fail-safe option for situations when the main cameras are out, like now."

I was distracted by footsteps coming up the stairs, and a moment later Fred arrived, shadowed by a young uniformed officer I didn't recognize. Both men were laden down with the black-and-silver take-out bags from the Teriyaki House. The corner of one more bag, this one the distinctive pink and brown of the Cinnamon Sugar Bakery, stuck out from Fred's jacket pocket.

Gil and I scurried back inside the room before Fred could say anything about our being in the hallway. The two men carried the bags over to the conference table, and then the younger officer left without a word. Fred stayed beside the table, wearing the worried expression that I knew was typical of him in the aftermath of a crime he hadn't been able to prevent. I was sure he didn't mean to scare people away from claiming their lunches, but that was the effect he was having.

I told Gil, "Everyone will feel better after they've had something to eat," and I headed over to see if I could get Fred to relax a little.

Gil came with me. "I hope so. Did you know I paid for a good chunk of my education by working in food service? I never thought I'd use those skills again, but at least it will keep me busy while the police do their work."

As soon as we arrived at the table, Fred patted his bulging pocket again and then pulled out my credit card to return it. "I'll be at the door if you need me."

Each of the boxes from the Teriyaki House had a neat label describing its contents, making them easy to identify. I found the ones for myself, Matt, Stefan, and Sunny and then borrowed a pencil from Gil to mark them with our names.

Trudy was the first to join us at the refreshments table. She reached for one of the bags to peer inside, setting her charm bracelet to jangling. "Do you need some help?"

"I never turn away volunteers." Gil placed a stack of the black-and-silver containers in Trudy's startled hands. "You can deliver the lunches. There's a description on each lid. Just call it out and take it to whoever claims it."

The first order turned out to be Jayne's, and I was impressed by the way Trudy straightened her shoulders and trotted over to deliver the food to the woman who'd been so mean to her earlier. Carl would have been proud of her.

I turned to Gil. "Where did you learn to manage people by keeping them busy? In business school or in food service?"

"Neither one," Gil said. "I'm the oldest of six kids, and that automatically made me the designated babysitter. I quickly figured out that as long as my siblings were busy, they didn't have time to get into trouble. It works with employees, volunteers, and board members too."

"I wish it worked on cops," I said. "I need to have a chat with Detective Ohlsen."

I left Gil to take care of the food distribution and went to see if I could get a message to Ohlsen. Fred was more than willing to step out into the hallway to discuss it, since then he could dig his cupcake out of the bakery bag and nibble on it.

"Richie Faria is going way beyond just collecting names and contact information," I told him. "Could you let Detective Ohlsen know about it? Faria really doesn't have the experience to question anyone at a murder scene, and I doubt Ohlsen asked him to do it."

"I'll take care of it." Fred swiped at a bit of frosting on his upper lip. "Is that all you needed?"

I wanted to stay and listen while he talked to Detective Ohlsen, just to make sure my message was passed along accurately, but I also needed to stay on good terms with Fred, so I couldn't question his abilities. I needed an excuse to stay outside the noisy boardroom where I might be able to eavesdrop on the conversation inconspicuously.

"I'd like to use the ladies' room, if it's okay." If I timed it right, I might be able to catch at least part of Fred's conversation with the detective.

"Sure," Fred said, reaching for his cell phone. "I should have an answer from Ohlsen by the time you get back."

I headed down the hallway, aware of Fred watching me. He wasn't as obsessed with following the rules as the rookie Faria was but was thorough in his own low-key way. He would be able to report, if asked, that he had kept an eye on me, even though he had to know I wasn't going to make a sudden turn and race down the stairs.

I passed Meg, who had just left the restroom. I spent the bare minimum of time in the ladies' room and returned in time to hear Fred repeating my concerns about Faria almost verbatim. There was a moment of silence, and then Fred said, "I'll send Faria out to you right away."

He put his phone back into his jacket pocket. "I'll be taking over the interviews. Bud's going to have a chat with Faria."

"Thanks." Fred was no detective, but unlike the rookie, he knew his limits, and he was good with people. I couldn't fix what had happened so far today, but at least with Faria reassigned, we should be able to get back to some semblance of normalcy.

*   *   *

Fred followed me into the boardroom. I paused in the doorway while he went to the back of the room to replace Faria. Almost everyone had claimed their lunch and was quietly eating. I spotted Stefan and Sunny seated together on the floor in the far back corner, past the conference table and separated by the width of the room from the desk where Faria was resisting his eviction.

 I scooped up Sunny's and Stefan's lunches and carried them over to where Sunny was leaning against Stefan with her eyes closed. Stefan seemed tense, as if he were on guard duty.

I wasn't sure if Sunny was awake, so I crouched down next to Stefan and whispered, "How's she doing?"

"She's strong," Stefan said in an equally soft voice. "She'll be okay eventually."

Sunny opened her eyes and straightened away from Stefan. "I'm fine now." She laughed ruefully. "I wanted to be an ER nurse originally, but I could never handle the sight of blood. I passed out dozens of times before I finally accepted that physical therapy was a better career for me."

"I probably would have passed out in an operating room too." I handed Sunny one of the take-out containers.

I gave Stefan the second one, which he placed next to him on the wood floor. His face remained tight with anxiety, and his eyes looked a bit dazed, as if he'd been the one to find the body, not Sunny. She, on the other hand, looked completely recovered. Maybe Stefan's seemingly over-the-top praise of her was actually an accurate representation of her. She had been quick to respond to Carl's emergency and had handled it with obvious competence.

Stefan ignored his lunch and asked me, "So, how are you going to find the killer?"

Whispering was only going to draw attention to our discussion, so I spoke in a normal tone. "I'm going to let the police do their job. They're busy gathering the basic information from the crime scene, and soon they'll interview everyone who might be a witness. I'm sure they'll want to talk to both of you eventually."

"I don't have anything useful to tell them," Stefan said. "I didn't see anything. Right after Sunny left, I went to find Gil. I've got information on a quilt she might be interested in acquiring. I thought she'd be in her office, but she must have been downstairs somewhere."

Detective Ohlsen would undoubtedly find it interesting that Stefan had been outside the boardroom at the time of the murder. As long as he hadn't left the museum though, the interior security cameras ought to provide him with an alibi, just as they would for Gil. In fact, they might be able to alibi each other. "Did you ever find Gil?"

Stefan shook his head. "I got distracted. I visited the restroom and then remembered there was something I wanted to check in the archives. Gil gave me a key card, so I can go there any time the museum is open. I only meant to take a quick look at the handwoven blankets, but once I started studying the collection, I lost track of time. I'd probably still be there if Sunny hadn't started screaming."

"Time always gets away from me in the archives too," I said lightly, hiding my concern that Stefan didn't have an alibi.

"I should have been with Sunny," he said. "I meant to meet her in the parking lot and help her bring in the batting. If I'd been there, maybe none of this would have happened. The kid might still be alive, and even if I hadn't prevented the murder, at least I could have given Sunny an alibi."

"It's not your fault," Sunny said briskly. "I didn't need help, or I would have asked. I think whatever happened to that poor young man, it was over before I parked my car. I didn't see anyone else the entire time I was looking for a parking space or even afterwards, at least not until Keely and Matt came running out of the building."

That reminded me of something I'd wondered about. "How did you find the body anyway? That spot is pretty isolated."

"Bad timing," Sunny said. "If I'd parked anywhere else, I never would have seen him. I really didn't want to park way back there. No one ever does, because it's kinda dark and creepy there, with just the big blank brick wall of the building—that's sort of prison-like. Plus, you have to walk past the trash, which I found out today isn't actually stinky, but you'd think it would be. Anyway, someone had taken my previous parking space, and all the other spots in the lot were occupied, so I had to take the one that no one else wanted. Even so, I wouldn't have seen the body in the shadows if I hadn't noticed a cell phone in a patch of brighter light. I went over to pick it up, thinking one of the quilters had stepped outside for a smoke and then lost her phone. That's when I saw the blood." Sunny closed her eyes again and leaned against the wall.

Stefan took her hand and patted it, but he spoke to me. "What do we do now?"

"Eat your lunch."

"No, I mean, about making sure no one blames Sunny."

"Just what I said: eat your lunch. Try to relax. Detective Ohlsen will want to talk to you both. If you have any concerns at all during the questioning, you should tell them you want to talk to your lawyer first."

Sunny opened her eyes and reclaimed her hand. "Stop worrying about me. I'll be fine. Perhaps it's just as well I was the one who found him. I don't respond well to blood, but this isn't the first corpse I've seen up close. No sense in traumatizing anyone else."

"That's my Sunny. Caring more about everyone else than about herself." Stefan stared at me meaningfully. "It's going to get her into trouble someday."

"Not today," I said firmly, hoping I was right.

He turned to Sunny. "Will you be all right for a minute without me? I need to talk to Keely about something."

Sunny had opened her take-out container, and her mouth was full. She wordlessly waved Stefan off. I had a feeling she didn't need his support as much as he needed to provide it for her.

Stefan scrambled to his feet and dragged me over to the front of the room near the white board. Once we were there, he seemed to lose all of his sense of urgency. He leaned against the wall, stared down at his feet, and tugged on his bow tie.

"Well?" I said.

He straightened and abandoned his futile adjustment of the lopsided bow tie. "I want to hire you."

In the middle of a murder investigation, he needed an appraisal?

"We can talk about it later," I said, humoring him, since he was clearly worked up about something. "You can call me any time to arrange for an appraisal if you really want one, but you've got at least as good an eye for both valuation and dating a quilt as I do. You've never needed me to second-guess you before. Why now?"

"I don't need you to do an appraisal," he said earnestly. "I need you to make sure the police understand that Sunny had nothing to do with Alan's death."

"You should talk to a criminal lawyer, not me. That was never my specialty."

"I don't care what licenses you have. All I know is that if it weren't for you, the police never would have found Randall Tremain's killer, and the wrong person would have paid the price."

"That was a fluke," I said. "I'll make sure the police understand anything they need to know about the quilting community to see possible motives in this case, but that's all I can promise."

"There's got to be more you can do," Stefan said, completely undoing his bow tie this time. "They're going to find out that Sunny hated Alan Miller, and they're going to think she killed him."

I couldn't believe it was as bad as Stefan thought. "From what I've heard, Alan had a reason to hate Sunny, but not the other way around. The police don't need me to tell them that."

Stefan huffed in frustration. "I don't understand why you're so determined to avoid using your legal skills. It's bad enough that Matt wastes his potential most of the time, but why are you doing it too?"

I didn't want to talk about my less-than-voluntary decision to leave the practice of law. Besides, while I'd heard what Matt thought the problem between them was—that Stefan couldn't accept he'd been wrong in steering Matt into a career as a fashion model and therefore couldn't accept Matt's decision to quit at the peak of his career—I was curious how Stefan would explain it. "You never did say what your problem with Matt is."

"Forget about him." Stefan waved his hand as if brushing away an irritating fly. "He gets enough attention on his own. We need to focus on protecting Sunny. She was furious with Alan for stalking her at the hospital. He couldn't accept being turned down for a job, especially when he found out no one else had been hired. She lost her temper one night when she found him lurking out near her car in the parking lot. She shouted at him, threatening to have him taken care of permanently. She only meant she'd get a restraining order, but it won't look good if it comes out. And it will. Apparently several of her friends at the hospital overheard her shouting, and they've been teasing her about it. They'd never seen her lose her temper before."