Tree of Life and Death (13 page)

Now I could see why Stefan was so worried. If Alan had confronted Sunny today while she was getting her packages out of the car, it might have triggered something of a flashback to what had happened in the hospital parking lot. Sunny could have felt like she was being cornered and lashed out in what she thought was self-defense. Or, to put a less sympathetic spin on it, she could have seen it as an opportunity to get rid of someone who'd been tormenting her.

My hesitation seemed to push Stefan over the edge. "Please," he begged. "I don't care what it costs. Just make sure Sunny isn't blamed for this. I can't let anything happen to her."

The sensible, logical thing for me to do was to tell Stefan I couldn't help him. There was an irrational part of me though, the part that I shared with many successful trial lawyers, that insisted I was, in fact, the right person to help Stefan, perhaps the only person who could help him.

I wasn't a criminal lawyer, but I had solid negotiation skills, and I knew some of the potential suspects better than the police did. The only problem with allowing Stefan to depend on me was the risk that I'd pass out at an inconvenient moment. Ever since my diagnosis, I'd experienced recurring nightmares that started out pleasantly enough with me presenting a case in court, confident I could convince the jury of my client's position, only to experience the warning signs of a syncope event. It was too late to withdraw from the case and too late to do anything to remain conscious. No matter what happened, I knew that the client was going to pay for my failure and I would be left with overwhelming guilt.

The dreams were bad enough; I didn't need to reenact them in real life by making promises I couldn't keep. "I'll do what little I can to keep the police from heading down the wrong path. But you've got to promise me you'll hire a good defense lawyer as soon as we're allowed to leave."

"Thank you." Stefan gave me a quick hug. "Sorry. Gotta run. Sunny's trying to stand up, and I need to make sure she's steady on her feet. I'll tell her you'll take care of everything."

He trotted across the room, sliding occasionally on his overly long pants hems, before I could stop him and explain again just how little I could do.

The sense of impending failure didn't feel any better in real life than it did in my nightmares.

The volunteers who'd already given their contact information to the police were huddled as far away from the interview desk as they could get, at the end of the conference table nearest the exit, standing there and nibbling on their lunches. Even the reportedly fabulous pot stickers didn't seem to be cheering them up.

Dee and Emma were being interviewed together by Fred, which had to be against the rules, but he had enough sense to know when to bend the rules a bit. After the fiasco of Emma's wrongful arrest a few months ago, there was no way Dee would have let Emma be questioned alone, even for something as simple as contact information. Dee had a tendency to get whatever she wanted, and she didn't care about making a scene to get it. In fact, I sometimes thought the prospect of making a scene was what would keep her alive well into her hundreds.

I headed for the conference table to get my lunch, still keeping an eye on Fred's interactions with Dee and Emma. I found the take-out container with my name on it and peered inside. It looked good, although it had cooled to room temperature. I ate one of the pot stickers anyway, curious to see if it lived up to its reputation. Even cold, I could taste why Jayne was so enthusiastic about them.

After a minute or two, Dee and Emma got up and returned to their sewing machines. Jayne Connors was giving her contact information to Fred now. I could hear her shrill voice all the way across the room, piercing the background music and the subdued conversation of the other quilters.

Fred began his interview with what was probably a simple request for Jayne's name and contact information. I could only guess at his words; his deep voice wasn't pitched to be heard much beyond the desk where he was working. Jayne's response, however, came across clearly, thanks to her shrill tone. She gave her name as Jenny Smith and then rattled off a street that I didn't recognize, along with a phone number that didn't have a Danger Cove exchange.

I finished about half of my cold lunch and then tossed the rest in the trash container at the other end of the conference table. I looked up to see Meg returning from another bathroom trip. She went over to chat with Jayne, who'd finished her interview.

Right behind Meg, Faria came through the entrance, not looking particularly chastened by his conversation with Detective Ohlsen. That was just as well, since he was heading in my direction.

"Still haven't solved it?" Faria said with what he apparently thought was a light, teasing tone but came across as unbearably smug.

"I haven't really tried to solve it." I'd talked with some potential witnesses and mulled over their responses, but that was only a small part of what a real investigator would do. "It's not my job."

"That's right," he said as if he'd caught me in some sort of gaffe. "Your job is to tear down everyone else's work, making it impossible for us to get the bad guys off the street."

I'd heard that sort of thing about lawyers so often that it didn't bother me. Which was just as well, now that I couldn't handle stress very well. "That's one way of looking at it."

"You won't be able to mess up our case this time," Faria said. "It's obvious what happened here. I just saw the criminal history record on the victim. He's got prior arrests, all drug related. No convictions, but where there's smoke, there's fire. That must have been why he got killed. A drug deal gone bad."

"That's one theory," I said lightly.

"It's not like I'm happy about it," Faria said. "I wish there was another theory that made any sense. A drug deal gone bad like this, well, you know how it is. It usually ends as a cold case. I was really hoping there'd be something I could do to prove how useful I can be, but there's nothing to really investigate in this type of case."

"Just because the victim had a substance abuse problem, that doesn't mean he was killed in a drug deal."

"What else could it be?" Faria said. "Young guy with a habit gets knifed in a back alley. That seems pretty cut and dried to me."

"I wouldn't exactly describe the grounds of the museum as a back alley. This section of town has always seemed quite safe to me."

"The definition of back alleys has expanded. They can be anywhere the dealers are. Dealers and their clients take legitimate cell phone apps and twist them for use in coordinating drug deals. The victim could have ordered a drug delivery while he was standing right next to you, and you'd never have guessed what he was up to."

Alan had definitely used his phone shortly before his death. He'd said it was to call for a ride home, but since he'd had to go outside to get service, I hadn't actually heard the conversation. Could Alan have been ordering take-out narcotics, much like I'd ordered take-out food?

I hated to give Faria even that much benefit of the doubt. There had to be another explanation for what had happened to Alan. I just wished I had another theory to offer, but it was hard to imagine a killer lurking outside this museum or, really, anywhere on Danger Cove's Main Street.

Unless the killer was a thief, like Gil had suggested, and Alan had put up a struggle when someone tried to take his grandmother's quilt. I hadn't stopped to think about what had happened to the quilt until just now, but it hadn't been anywhere near his body. Maybe, as Dee and Emma believed, it had been the motive for the murder, and the killer had taken it.

"Did you see a quilt anywhere in the parking lot? White background, mostly green patches, with some red ones?" Then I remembered Alan had put it in a box before leaving. A thief might have thought there was something valuable in it. "Or perhaps a box big enough for a bed-sized quilt to fit in?"

"I have more important things to do than keep track of someone's blankie."

I was used to Faria's disdain for anything he didn't understand. Money he understood, but I couldn't honestly say that the quilt had enough financial value to make him pay attention. "It just seems odd that it wasn't right next to him. I know for a fact that Alan Miller was carrying a quilt when he left here, and he wouldn't have let it go without a struggle. It should have been near the body."

"Are you saying it was valuable?" Faria perked up. "Worth killing for?"

"No quilt is truly worth killing for, and this one isn't even worth much money. It does have a great deal of sentimental value though, and that type of emotional attachment can make a person go to seemingly irrational lengths to protect his possessions. Could you take me to talk to Detective Ohlsen? The fact that the quilt's missing might not be important, but if it is…" I trailed off, hoping Faria would leap on the possibility that he could be responsible for bringing a key piece of evidence to the detective's attention.

I could see him weighing what would get him more respect at the next crime scene: conveying my message or protecting his boss from my interference. Finally, Faria shook his head. "It's just a stupid blanket. Probably just blew away."

A quilt, either loose or in a box, wouldn't blow away in anything less than gale-force winds, and the day had been sunny and mild with air as calm as it ever got this close to the coast. "Doesn't it make you curious? I'd want to know if something was missing from the crime scene, no matter how small it was."

"Maybe." He shrugged. "I'll tell Bud when I see him, but there's no rush."

Behind me, I heard Matt laughing with his groupies. He had gotten a much better look at the crime scene than I had, so he might know if the quilt had been there and I'd just missed seeing it.

I waved at Matt to get his attention, and then called him over to where Faria and I stood at the conference table. Matt made his excuses and sauntered over.

"I know you're irritated with me about something," Matt said, "but was it so bad that you're going to turn me over to the cops?"

"Not yet," I said. "I need to know something. Did you see Alan's quilt anywhere near his body?"

Matt shook his head. "There was nothing around him except the trash enclosure, asphalt, and blood. Oh, and a cell phone."

"See?" I said to Faria. "The quilt is definitely missing. The killer must have taken it. If you find the quilt, you'll find the killer. I can even give you a picture of it from this morning's appraisal."

Faria snorted. "You want us to put out a BOLO for a
quilt
?"

"Why not?" Matt said. "Sounds like a good plan to me. When you know what to look for, quilts are pretty distinctive, like fingerprints. Plus, if the killer did take it, it's probably got blood on it that would match Alan's."

"I guess." Faria reached for his radio. "Give me a minute to arrange for someone to take my place up here, and I'll take Keely to see Ohlsen."

*   *   *

Matt insisted on joining us, so Richie Faria escorted both of us out to the steps at the rear of the building. Across the parking lot, Detective Ohlsen was seated on the top of the picnic table with his feet on the bench, staring at the fence past where the body had been found.

After telling the officer at the door to make sure we stayed put, Faria continued on over to the picnic table. He stood in the military at-ease position, bouncing restlessly on his toes, while he waited for the detective to acknowledge him.

If Matt and I could convince the detective that the missing quilt was important, he was more than capable of pursuing the lead. Bud Ohlsen was smart, persistent, and dedicated to nailing the right suspect, not just the most convenient one. Still, he'd barely skimmed the surface of the quilting community during the Randall Tremain investigation, so it was as if he didn't speak the same language as the people he was interviewing.

While we waited, I took in the details of the property behind the museum building. The back portion of the lot was relatively small, only about thirty feet wider than the building itself, and about a hundred feet deep. The entire space was paved, providing parking and access to the loading dock between the back door and the trash enclosure, beyond which Alan's body had been found. The far corner where Sunny's car was parked really did look a bit creepy, with overhanging tree branches and the eight-foot-high solid plank fence adding to the gloom back there. All I could see beyond the side fence was the brick wall of the second floor of a building, and beyond the back fence were some trees and the rooftops of the buildings on the next street over.

As a native of Danger Cove, Matt knew the town and the surrounding properties better than I did, so I asked him, "Do you think the killer could have escaped by climbing the fence?"

"Not unless he was a serious athlete. He'd have had to jump from the top of the fence to the roof of the next building over. There's no real alley in between, just three or four inches of empty space. Out back, there's a second fence a couple of feet over from the museum's, and the space in between is full of brambles and weedy trees." Matt turned in a half circle, inspecting the perimeter of the property. "He couldn't have gone through the loading dock, since I know it's kept locked when it's not in use. That leaves only the driveway and this door into the museum."

"Sunny would have seen anyone leaving by way of the driveway," I said. "Alan told me his friend wasn't going to be here for at least thirty or forty minutes, and that's about how long he'd been gone before Sunny found him. If the friend killed him, it would have required
Mission: Impossible-
type, split-second timing for him to lure Alan over behind the trash enclosure, commit the murder, and then leave before Sunny drove into the lot. That kind of timing and luck just doesn't happen in real life."

"We don't know how long he was dead before she found him. If it happened right after he left, it could have been anyone." Matt turned to look up at the second floor of the museum, as if he could see inside it. "But if it happened right before he was found, the odds are that the killer is upstairs in the boardroom. He couldn't have gotten into the museum from back here without setting off alarms, and if he left by the driveway, Sunny would have seen him."