Tree of Life and Death (22 page)

"Hey," Matt said. "How come no one's worried about me? I could lose my job as a reporter if I keep ending up at major crime scenes without getting much of a scoop."

I snorted. "You can always go back to being an internet sensation. It must pay considerably better than small-town journalism."

"It's not all about the money," he said. "I like being an arts reporter. Or at least I did until people started dying all around me."

"Maybe you should retire from journalism," I said. "The cops are going to start wondering if you're a serial killer, and you're too pretty to go to jail."

"I didn't think you'd noticed."

Oh, I'd definitely noticed back in August. But before I could do more than simply be aware of Matt, his pretty face and all the rest of him had disappeared without a word.

*   *   *

Jayne was bearing down on us, so I left to collect some blocks that needed ironing, Gil waited to be called up for her interview, and Matt loped over to claim the sewing machine next to Carl again and throw himself into the work. I didn't know why he was so anxious to avoid Jayne; he could charm any woman on the planet. And it wasn't just about sexual attraction. He could charm most of the men he met too.

Jayne caught up with me at the table where three women were layering blocks with batting and backing. "What's taking the cops so long? It's past the time when Meg planned to leave, and she's got a long drive home to the far side of Seattle. The guild can't afford to pay for her to stay another night at the Ocean View B&B, and we can't expect her to pay for it out of her own pocket. She's already been incredibly generous with her time, especially since she's doing this event for free instead of charging her usual rates."

"Some things can't be rushed," I said. "Think of a murder investigation as comparable to making a quilt. The work needs to be done right if a person's going to be sent to prison for life. That means it takes whatever time it needs to take."

She grimaced. "We all know there are only two possibilities. It's got to be either Carl or Sunny. The rest of us should be allowed to leave."

Jayne might be annoying, but she also had traits that would have made her a good detective. She was smart, and she paid attention to detail.

"Why those two in particular?"

"It's obvious," she said. "Carl's little medical incident was just too convenient, which makes me think he did it on purpose to avoid being questioned."

That didn't seem at all likely to me. Carl hadn't appreciated being the center of attention when Meg had praised him, and I knew from personal experience just how embarrassing it was to pass out in public. Carl would never have done anything to bring attention to his weakness, least of all when someone like Richie Faria was around to carry tales back to the rest of the police department. Besides, I'd seen how anxious Carl's service dog was before he passed out. I didn't think that could have been faked.

"And what about Sunny? Is it just because she found the body?"

"That was just what got me considering her initially," Jayne said. "Then the more I thought about it, the less it made sense that she'd been so freaked out by finding him. She's a nurse, so she must have seen dead bodies before. The hysterics had to have been an act. And why would she fake her reaction other than to cover up the fact that she'd killed him? She was fine when Carl needed help. If she were the type to panic, she should have been screaming then too."

I could have explained that the difference was that Carl's emergency was bloodless, but I wasn't sure how well known Sunny's blood phobia was, and it really wasn't any of Jayne's business. Besides, I only had Sunny's word for the blood phobia. Her reactions out in the parking lot had seemed real enough to me. Of course, as a nurse, Sunny would know exactly what the symptoms of shock were, so she could fake them, at least well enough to fool a casual observer like me. The paramedics might have questioned her condition, but they still probably would have recommended standard treatment for shock even in the absence of objective findings, just as a safety precaution. Otherwise they might find themselves in the witness stand with someone like myself—before I retired, of course—grilling them on standard practice for treating a witness to a traumatic event and why they hadn't followed it in this case.

Much as I hated to admit that Jayne could be right, I wasn't absolutely sure that neither Carl nor Sunny had killed Alan Miller.

*   *   *

When Jayne finally let me get back to work, the techs were packing up their gear, and I realized that everyone who'd agreed to be fingerprinted had completed the process. Meg was encouraging the quilters to keep making ornaments, Gil was reassuring anyone who appeared anxious, and Jayne was undoing all their work by making everyone tense again. As far as I could tell, only Trudy, Sunny, Stefan, Dee, and Emma were still out in the hall with Fred Fields, having apparently stuck to their decision to wait for a warrant before being fingerprinted.

At the interview desk, Ohlsen raised his phone to his ear. A moment later, he stood and left the room. Before the door closed behind him, I caught a glimpse of Fred Fields out in the hall, keeping an eye on the last few recalcitrant witnesses. As long as Meg didn't need to be escorted to the ladies' room again, Fred's presence in the hallway was sufficient to keep us all under lockdown. It wasn't as if anyone could really make a run for freedom—there were officers stationed at the two exits downstairs, and there was nowhere to hide from the surveillance cameras on the first floor. There were windows in Gil's office and the adjoining break room for employees, but even though we were only on the second floor, the building's high ceilings downstairs made the distance to the ground more comparable to being on a standard third floor. Anyone jumping out a window would be lucky to only break her arms and legs and not her neck and back. She certainly wouldn't be in any condition to run away.

Shortly after the doors closed, they opened again, and Fred appeared to call me out into the hallway. I dropped off the freshly ironed blocks I'd been transporting and went into the hall. I'd been right. Only Trudy, Sunny, Stefan, Dee, and Emma were still out there, seated on the floor in the far corner of the hallway, holding hands to demonstrate their solidarity. Ohlsen was nowhere in sight.

Fred silently walked me away from the remaining witnesses, past the stairwells, in the direction of the restroom until we were out of casual hearing range. He turned so he could keep an eye on his charges and then spoke, his voice low and worried. "I don't like the way things are going here. I think Ohlsen's stumped and just going through the motions."

"I assume the thimble didn't fit anyone."

"Too big mostly," he said, nodding. "A few times they thought they might have had a match in terms of circumference, but it was lumpy in the wrong places. They didn't even have enough to hold anyone for further questioning, and now they've got a new theory. They're taking another look at Sunny, since she's refused to be printed, and she was of interest anyway as the person who found the body."

Damn. Stefan had been right to worry. "She wasn't the only one who refused."

"The others aren't likely suspects. Dee and Emma have alibis, credible ones, not just vouching for each other. Besides, I think Bud's a little bit nervous about going after either of them after the uproar the last time."

"What about Trudy?" I didn't want to cause her any trouble, but she didn't have an alibi, and she'd admitted to being in the parking lot during the time after Alan left. The police needed to consider all the possibilities, even though it was hard to imagine the easily cowed young woman stabbing someone. Then again, Trudy had been much more assertive when she'd refused the fingerprinting. If Alan had provoked her sufficiently, who knew what she might have done? "It's not often that someone has the courage to say no to the police, which makes me wonder if she's got something to hide."

"Oh, we know why she refused," Fred said dismissively. "She told me she's got psoriasis, and she's afraid the fingerprinting process will cause a painful flare-up. She even showed me a prescription ointment in her purse, and I looked it up. The only thing it's ever prescribed for is psoriasis. She can't be exposed to the scanner or the gloves we're using. We've got special equipment and allergy-free gloves at the station for that sort of thing, and she agreed to go there after we're done here. That just leaves the woman who found the body as the prime suspect."

Stefan was going to blame me for this development, and there wasn't much I could do about it. Butterflies started flitting around my stomach. Feeling helpless was a major cause of stress, worse than outright conflict.

"Sunny Kunik didn't kill anyone," I said.

"You sound awfully certain."

"I am." Or at least I was trying to convince myself that I was certain. "For one thing, she doesn't have a motive, unless it was self-defense, and in that case, she didn't have any reason to lie about stabbing Alan. The fact that the victim had been harassing her was well documented, so it wouldn't have been difficult to prove self-defense. For another thing, she's got a blood phobia. She'd have passed out if she'd cut him, but she was fully conscious when Matt and I got out to the parking lot."

"I was hoping you'd say she had an ironclad alibi," Fred said.

"Hardly any suspect truly has a solid alibi that can't be challenged in court," I said. "It's too bad the thimble didn't fit anyone. That might have given Ohlsen a solid lead. The only other useful piece of evidence is the missing Tree of Life quilt. If you could find that, I think you'd know who killed Alan. He was carrying it when I saw him leave, and it had considerable sentimental value for him. He wouldn't have simply tossed it away or given it up easily."

"You think he might have been killed for it?"

I headed off the question of the quilt's value. "I was thinking more in terms of the killer using it to clean the blood from his hands and then hiding it in case there was forensic evidence on it that would identify the killer. Maybe he got cut too, so some of the blood belongs to the killer. Find the quilt, and you'll find the guilty person."

"All I know is that the quilt wasn't anywhere in plain sight," Fred said. "To really look for it, Bud will need a warrant to search the museum and the vehicles in the parking lot."

"He'd better get working on it then." Ohlsen had probably started the process already, to go along with the warrant to gather the remaining fingerprints. "No one's going to complain too much about being cooped up in the boardroom as long as they've got the ornaments to keep them busy, but the event was supposed to be over in about an hour, and people probably have plans for the evening. It won't be long until people start demanding phone calls and legal representation."

"I'll see if the warrant's on its way." Fred stuck his hand into his jacket pocket to pull out his phone and came out with only a napkin from the Cinnamon Sugar Bakery. He sighed before using his free hand to pat down the rest of his jacket and pants pockets, which fortunately weren't as numerous as Matt's.

Fred finally found his phone, but instead of dialing it immediately, he took a moment to stare at the pink-and-brown napkin. Finally, he stuffed the reminder of his addiction to sweets back where he'd found it. "I need a break."

"Not as much as Ohlsen needs a break in this investigation."

Fred stayed where he was to make his call, and I went over to see how the conscientious objectors were doing. Someone had gotten them chairs, apparently deciding wisely there was no chance that mere discomfort would make Dee change her mind about her fingerprints, and it wouldn't look good to keep an eighty-three-year-old woman seated on the hard floor for hours on end.

Dee and Emma had the two middle chairs, with Sunny and Stefan on one side of them, and Trudy, looking miserable, on the other. She must have felt guilty about having given in to the pressure to be fingerprinted, because she'd scooted her chair about a foot away from the others and turned sideways on the chair with her back to them, like a toddler who believed that if she couldn't see them, they couldn't see her.

"Well?" Dee asked. "Have they found a match yet?"

"It doesn't work that way," I said. "Fingerprint matching isn't quite the science that TV and the movies make it seem. It's a slow process. I don't know exactly how long it takes for this police department, but it will definitely be days rather than minutes. And that's assuming they got clear prints from the murder weapon."

Trudy turned in her chair to face us. "They found the murder weapon?"

"They believe so."

"I bet it was a pair of scissors." Trudy slumped deeper into her chair. "Maybe I'd better call a lawyer. My prints are probably on all of the scissors in the room. Sunny brought enough for everyone to have her own pair, but you know how it is. You can never find your tools when you need them. People were always asking me to get them scissors. Even Jayne thought that was one job I could do reasonably well, although she did take one pair away from me and stick it in her back pocket. I think she was just looking for an excuse to tell someone not to run with scissors. I wasn't, really. I just have long legs, so I move pretty fast even when I'm walking."

"It sounds like there'd be multiple sets of prints on any of the scissors you handled, and they were probably smudged by whoever used them after you did. Even if they can find your prints along with others, they'd have to have a reason to suspect you instead of the owners of the other prints. Something like a motive for wanting Alan dead."

"That's the problem," Trudy said. "I do have a motive. Sort of. I mean, I wouldn't actually kill anyone, but I knew Alan Miller. We went to high school together. He had a crush on me, and he wouldn't leave me alone when I said I wasn't interested in him. Really freaked me out by following me around town. He still does…I mean, he still did it all the time. At least, it felt that way. I'm not sure if he was following me exactly, but it's a small town, and he'd see me somewhere and come over and tell me how pretty I was, and how I'd look even better in tight clothes, and how come my boyfriend wasn't with me? That sort of thing. Every single time he saw me."