Tree of Life and Death (15 page)

Ohlsen shook his head. "Before I start telling my forensics team that they're going to reenact a fairy tale, I'd have to be sure there's a reason to suspect that the thimble is related to the crime. For now, I'm just going to have it cataloged. Once the case is closed, I'll arrange for it to be delivered to the quilt guild to be returned to its owner. Same for the missing quilt if we find it."

I couldn't always tell what Ohlsen was thinking, but it was pretty clear I hadn't swayed him from his original theory of a falling-out among delinquents. There wasn't anything more I could say, especially since I wasn't entirely sure myself that his theory was wrong. It was just a hunch based on the missing quilt and the discovery of the thimble.

I glanced at Matt, and I thought he was debating whether to push the issue with Ohlsen. Not a good idea. We'd done our duty as upstanding citizens, and the detective had declined to pursue the lead we'd given him. On the other hand, he hadn't forbidden us from finding out more about the thimble ourselves.

Matt opened his mouth to speak, and I linked my arm with his, startling him into silence as I tugged him toward the door to the museum. "I'm sure the quilter who lost the thimble will appreciate your caring for it. Meanwhile, we'd better get back to the boardroom and leave you to your work, Detective."

Matt waited until we were out of hearing range of the officer guarding the back door before whispering, "You know as well as I do that the thimble is important. I never would have expected you to give up that easily."

"I didn't give up," I said. "I retreated to fight another day. Now we can ask around quietly to see who might have lost the thimble. We might be able to catch the killer off guard and get an answer, while Ohlsen would just get a demand to talk to a lawyer."

*   *   *

Matt was waylaid by his groupies as soon as we walked through the door to the boardroom. He gave me a pleading look, but there was no way I was getting between him and his admirers, least of all when they were armed with rotary cutters and seam rippers. Besides, it was a perfect opportunity for him to find out if any of them had lost a thimble.

Matt accepted his fate and allowed himself to be dragged over to the cutting table, although work had mostly been suspended with the arrival of lunch. I searched the room for Fred, so I could reclaim my phone and send Detective Ohlsen a picture of the missing quilt.

Everything felt so much different now compared to when I'd arrived this morning. Gil had been singing a fun pop song, Meg McLaughlin had been basking in the glow of the volunteers' admiration of her, and all the workstations had one or two people enthusiastically doing their part of the process.

Now, Gil was slumped in one of the chairs along the wall, all by herself, quietly singing "Peace on Earth"
with a look on her face that suggested she felt none of the hope expressed in the lyrics. Stefan and Sunny were still huddled in the back corner of the room. Meg was nowhere to be seen. Trudy wandered from workstation to station, trying to keep busy, but no one had any work for her.

I found Fred at the back desk where I'd done the appraisals earlier. He had just finished collecting everyone's names and contact information, so he was free to go get my phone from wherever he'd stashed all of them.

While I waited for him to return, I went to check on Dee and Emma. They were still at the same table in the back of the room, but they'd stopped working, like almost everyone else, and were leaning against the back of their chairs instead of hunching forward over the sewing machine beds. Emma had her arms crossed over her chest and glanced at the doors every few seconds. I suspected she was looking for Meg and wondering why she wasn't in the boardroom, taking care of keeping everyone motivated. Emma certainly wouldn't have let people drift away from their work. Jayne was the only person getting anything done. She was standing at one end of the conference table with her back to the room. Apparently she was so immersed in what she was doing—layering each completed block with batting and a backing—that she hadn't noticed everyone else was slacking off.

A tall female officer I didn't recognize came inside to stand near the entrance. Unlike Faria, she didn't seem to have any immediate aspirations to becoming a detective or a stoic Buckingham Palace guard and seemed content to simply remain in the background, not bothering anyone, but ready in case of any emergency.

Dee caught the direction of my gaze and asked, "Well? Are the police being reasonable?"

"Not really, if by reasonable you mean they're zeroing in on one of the guild members as the killer." I leaned against the corner of the table. No way was I sitting down where I might be expected to use a sewing machine. "Shouldn't you be happy that none of your friends are being considered suspects?"

"I would if I were certain none of them killed that young man," Dee said. "It would be nice to think that quilters never commit crimes, but I'm not either senile or naive. Most of us are decent law-abiding citizens, but there's always a bad apple or two. It's not like we run criminal background checks before admitting people into our guild."

"Maybe we should." Emma straightened and lowered her hands to her lap. "We don't always know people as well as we think we do. Just look at what happened at the Smugglers' Tavern. And at the Painted Lady that Alex Jordan was renovating. Even, and I still can't quite believe it, at the Cinnamon Sugar Bakery. You just never know when someone will snap. Especially this time of year. The holidays can be stressful for quilters who are trying to finish quilts for everyone on their Christmas list. And stress can make people do things they wouldn't otherwise."

I knew that only too well. "I didn't notice anyone who looked frazzled this morning. Anyone with quilts to finish for Christmas is probably too busy to leave her sewing room."

Dee did a scan of the room and its occupants before finally nodding. "You're right. It's mostly beginners who plan to do too much, and except for Trudy, I'm not seeing any real novices here."

"Janiece Jordan and her friends are making Christmas quilts together, and some of them aren't anywhere close to finishing them," Emma said. "That's why they're not here today."

I hadn't met Janiece, but her granddaughter, Alex, had been the contractor who transformed a small bank branch building into my residence.

"They should be here today," Dee said irritably. "There's no need to rush a holiday quilt. There's always next year. In fact, back when Meg still lived in Danger Cove, she made an heirloom-quality Christmas quilt. She did it in stages, just a little bit each December, so it took about ten years to finish."

"I never saw the quilt, but I heard about it from Jayne." Emma picked up the two remaining pieces of fabric next to her sewing machine. "Because of course Jayne had to do the same thing with her own Christmas quilt. She probably could have finished it in half the time, but she made sure it would take the full ten years, as if there was some magic to that number."

Dee pursed her lips disapprovingly. "I've been telling Jayne for years that her quilts could easily eclipse her mentor's if only she'd stop religiously copying everything Meg does. That slavish devotion really limits Jayne. But she won't listen to me. Only to Meg."

That might change soon, judging by the way Emma had abandoned her pieces of fabric and was now staring at Jayne appraisingly. We really didn't need another confrontation today, least of all between two such strong-minded women as Emma and Jayne.

To distract Emma, I said, "I wonder what the history was behind Alan's Tree of Life quilt. It looked like it had been used hard, not reserved for the holidays."

"Mmm," Emma said as she continued to stare at Jayne.

"Oh, not everyone treats their quilts like fine art, to be locked away and untouched most of the year," Dee said. "I use all of my quilts or give them away, and if they get a bit worn or stained, it doesn't really matter to me. It's the process of making them that I love, not owning them. Emma's a bit more sentimental about some of them than I am."

"Only a little," Emma said, finally abandoning her close watch on Jayne. "We quilt all the time, so it's not associated with specific memories. It's different for people who make their holiday quilts part of a family tradition, as meaningful as decorating the Christmas tree or hanging stockings. Eventually, just looking at the quilt or feeling its warm weight wrapped around them can bring back years of family memories."

Dee turned to Emma. "Do you remember a few years ago when one of our guild members lost her house in a fire on Christmas Eve?" Dee turned back to me. "No one was hurt, fortunately, but they lost everything they owned. I think they were more upset about losing their Christmas quilts than losing their kids' baby pictures."

"The guild got together and reproduced their favorite quilt, and the family was grateful," Emma told me, "but you could tell it just wasn't the same for them."

"The reproduction will be part of new traditions for the family," Dee said briskly, clearly done with any hint of sentimentality. "I'm more concerned with the police investigation into Alan's murder. Did they tell you anything useful?"

"Not really," I said. "I did convince them to look for Alan's missing Tree of Life quilt, so it wasn't a total waste of my time. Fred's getting my camera so I can send Detective Ohlsen a picture from this morning's appraisal."

Dee snorted. "Like they'll really look for it. Quilts are stolen all the time, and they hardly ever get found."

I'd heard that before from Stefan, who'd had a few quilts stolen from his gallery over the years and had never recovered any of them. "It must be particularly devastating when a Christmas quilt is stolen."

"It is," Dee said. "And usually the police don't do anything more than take a report. I remember quite a few years ago—at least twenty, long before I met Emma, so she wouldn't remember—a beloved Christmas quilt was stolen right here in Danger Cove. Caused quite a ripple in the community, and it was never found. Alan's probably won't be either."

"Ohlsen promised he'd look for it. If anyone can track it down, he can." I realized this was a perfect opening to ask about the ownership of the thimble without giving away its importance. "He also promised to return a leather thimble that was found in the parking lot, once it's released from evidence. I thought maybe you'd have an idea of who might have lost it."

Dee looked at Emma, and they both shook their heads. Dee said, "I'm afraid I couldn't even tell you who in the guild wears a leather thimble. They're usually used on the bottom hand, out of sight. A few people wear them in place of metal thimbles on the top hand, but I can't think of any current guild members who do that."

"Or you could check with Trudy." Emma nodded at where Trudy was loitering near the cutting table in the front of the room. "She's fascinated by all the varieties of thimbles. Take a look at her charm bracelet. It's got more than a dozen types of thimbles on it. She even had reproductions of some of the more unusual styles custom made for her by a silversmith. If you can find one on her bracelet that looks like the one the cops found, she might know who it belongs to."

"There's no rush. I'll ask her later." Questioning Trudy would have to be done carefully to avoid focusing too much attention on the thimble. I had a better chance of getting honest answers if no one was tipped off to the possibility that it might connect them to the murder. "Perhaps you could help me with something else for now. I noticed on my way over here that the basket of finished ornaments is overflowing. Transferring them into a storage box is about the only thing I'm actually qualified to do. Is there a box somewhere to hold them? I'd rather not get Jayne involved."

"It's always best not to get Jayne involved," Dee said.

"I've got some boxes in my car," Emma said, prepared as always, "but I'd have to go past Jayne and get a police escort to get them."

"I could distract Jayne while you made your escape," Dee said. "I've always wanted to see if she'd dare to tell me I don't know how to quilt. I could use the wrong seam allowance and then go ask her why the block came out smaller than the others."

"If you brought a subpar block to Jayne, she'd know you were provoking her."

"But think how crazy that would make her, knowing that I could do better and was only making a mess to taunt her," Dee said with a gleeful smile. "Emma would have no trouble slipping past her then."

"I think we've had enough emotional upheaval for one day."

"I suppose you're right," Dee said with obvious disappointment. "Jayne is a valued member of our guild. I need to remember that."

"You're only human." Emma patted her friend's hand. "And Jayne could irritate a saint. If she ever met one, she'd probably get into an argument over the proper way to be a good person, trying to convince him he was doing it wrong."

"Jayne's already told the police that she could investigate the murder better than they could," I said. "One of the few things I know about criminal defense work is that it never pays to argue with the police outside of court. I've heard too many stories from colleagues about clients who were on the verge of being let go with a warning until they decided to mouth off and got arrested instead."

"Sounds like something Jayne would do," Dee said. "In fact, I vaguely recall hearing she actually did something like that once. Got into an argument after being pulled over for speeding. She was adamant that she'd been within the posted limit and told the police officer he needed to check his eyesight. I don't remember how it ended, but it sounded a great deal more complicated and expensive than simply paying the ticket or filing an appeal would have been."

Perhaps that explained why Jayne had given a false name during the interview. One bad experience with the police might have led her to be extra cautious in subsequent encounters with them. Except Jayne didn't strike me as the cautious type, or even the learning-her-lesson type. Plus, lying to the police during a homicide investigation was considerably riskier than simply yelling at a trooper writing out a ticket. Why would Jayne take that sort of risk? Unless she was hiding something that would get her into more trouble than lying about her name.