Patch of Trouble, page 21
part #6 of Southern Quilting Mystery Series
When Meadow finally did appear, she had Ramsay in tow. He was holding the remains of a sandwich and had a very determined expression on his face.
“This sounds like trouble, Beatrice,” he said uneasily.
“What part of it?” asked Beatrice.
“All of it. Or, at least, whatever Meadow has filled me in on. You had a house fire last night. You’ve got around and asked the people who are most likely to have set it if they were responsible.” He shook his head.
“But she had me with her,” protested Meadow.
Ramsay finished off his sandwich, gulped it down, and said, “To be completely frank, Meadow, what good do you think that does Beatrice? What would you do if she were threatened?”
“I’d find a way to stop them, don’t you worry,” said Meadow.
“That’s all well and good and I appreciate the fact that you’re both trying to be careful. But if it’s all the same to you, I want Beatrice to stay as our guest the next few days. Noo-noo, too.”
Meadow, who’d been looking peeved at Ramsay’s unusual protectiveness, immediately brightened. “A sleepover! Boris will love that. And I will, too. I can cook all sorts of sleepover type foods and plan big breakfasts. We can stay up late giving each other manicures and watching scary movies.”
Beatrice gave them a weak smile. Staying at home in her cozy cottage seemed like heaven in comparison. But she saw that Ramsay was absolutely determined. “All right,” she said. “Thank you. That sounds like a good plan.”
“What it sounds like is a safe plan,” said Ramsay, turning away now that he was satisfied with the direction the conversation had headed.
“But Ramsay, we still want to talk to Gwen,” said Meadow. She held up a bunch of fabric. “On pretext of quilting the preemie quilts.”
Ramsay nodded. “That’s perfectly fine. Go ahead and wrap up your questioning. Then, Beatrice, if you don’t mind, go on and pack up for coming over—whatever you and Noo-noo need. It’ll relieve my mind.”
He tread heavily back to the house and Meadow made a face at Beatrice as she got into the car. “Sorry about that. He doesn’t usually interfere. Although he’s right to be worried about you, Beatrice. I’m worried, too. I think I forgot how worried I was when I got so mad.”
“It’s okay. It’s nice to be worried about,” Beatrice said with a smile.
Meadow said, “Just remember to let Piper know you’re staying with us for a few days or else she’ll be worried sick when she calls your house and no one’s there.”
“Okay, will do. Although usually she does call my cell phone,” said Beatrice. “But first, let’s head over to Gwen’s house before Ramsay changes his mind and forbids us from going!”
Beatrice drove right over and parked in the driveway. Meadow said thoughtfully, “Maybe you better wait in the car while I get positioned inside. Then I can wave you in. I’m worried she’s going to look out the window, see you out there, and just hide.”
“That sounds good. Although, to be honest, I don’t see her car right now,” said Beatrice, peering at the driveway.
Meadow said, “I think sometimes she parks in the garage. So she might still be here. I’ll try.” She grabbed all the supplies, wrenched open the car door, and strode purposefully to the front door.
A few minutes later, she shrugged and returned to the car. “I guess you’re right—she’s not there. We can try again later today, I guess. Maybe she went out to run some errands.”
“Or maybe her car is in the garage and she’s hiding from us,” said Beatrice with a sigh.
“Either way, she can’t hide from us forever. We’re in a service project together every few days, after all! Let’s try back this afternoon,” said Meadow.
“Honestly? I’m thinking I need to go home and put my feet up for a while. Despite the late start, I didn’t have as great a rest last night as I could have,” said Beatrice.
“Well, of course you didn’t!” said Meadow indignantly. “Your sleep must have been absolutely rife with nightmares. Which is why it’s such a good idea that you’re staying with us. I wasn’t sure about it at first, but the plan has grown on me. My Ramsay is a genius!”
“He certainly is,” said Beatrice with a small smile. “A very wise and kind man.”
“All right. So we’ll just have you drop me off home, I guess? Then check on Noo-noo, put your feet up, pack, and I can run by and pick you and Noo-noo up,” said Meadow. “Around suppertime. That way I can cook for you. You look as if you could eat a few fattening meals.” Meadow eyed her friend’s slender figure.
“That’s a matter of opinion,” said Beatrice dryly. “But I love your cooking and that sounds perfect.”
“Unless,” said Meadow, eyes narrowing thoughtfully, “I should just come in with you now, help you pack, and you keep driving us to my house. You could always put your feet up in my guest room.”
Although this sounded like a perfectly reasonable offer, Beatrice knew the loud reality of Meadow’s house. The phone and doorbell were constantly ringing, Boris the dog spent a lot of time in joyful barking, and Meadow’s voice had a way of carrying. Particularly in the lofty acoustics of the converted barn.
“Thanks for the offer, but I think a few minutes at home will do me good. It’s just two o’clock in the afternoon—not a scary time of day at all. I’ll be over before you know it,” said Beatrice.
Beatrice fed Noo-noo and they took a brief walk outside. When Beatrice came back in, she sat for a few minutes and looked through more of Miss Sissy’s old pictures. She sighed. She’d forgotten again to get her those cat clothes for Maisie. Maybe Meadow could drop her by there before she drove her to her house.
Beatrice paused at one picture. It showed a younger Gwen with someone who presumably was her husband ... a man with black hair and brown, piercing eyes. Gwen wasn’t as dumpy as she was now—she was attractive in her own way with a determined chin and high cheekbones. Beatrice studied the picture a bit longer. There was something there in the old photo—something she felt must be significant that she wasn’t quite catching.
Finally, her own tiredness overtook her. She gave up with the photo and headed back to her room to kick off her shoes and lie down for a while.
Sometime later, Noo-noo’s barks woke Beatrice up. She listened hard to determine what was upsetting the corgi.
Chapter Twenty-One
Then she heard it ... a light tapping on the door. She slid off the bed and padded into the living room, feeling disoriented after the nap. A quick glance at the clock showed it was 5:45 and that she’d slept much later than she’d intended. Beatrice groaned. She should have set an alarm.
She carefully looked out the window to see who was outside her door. It was Gwen, carrying what appeared to be a tremendous pile of clearly vintage quilts. A peace offering? Had she gotten over her pique from the quilt meeting then?
Beatrice hesitated only for a second. She did still need to speak with Gwen. And she was bearing quilts, apparently for the history. Just to be on the safe side, she hurried into the kitchen and reached into a drawer for a knife, which she stuck into her pants pocket which was covered by the rust-colored tunic top she wore. Then, still groggy, Beatrice opened the door.
Gwen said levelly, “Sorry about last night.”
Beatrice shrugged, keeping a tight grip on the door in case she wanted to slam it. “Most people would feel defensive when faced with uncomfortable questions.”
Gwen blinked steadily. “Still, I was rude. Thought about it last night and realized I had some quilts that might be helpful for your history. If you want them, that is.”
Beatrice relaxed a little. For Gwen, this appeared to approximate an apology.
It was only after Gwen had stepped inside and adjusted the quilts that Beatrice froze. Because Gwen carried a gun.
Beatrice carefully pushed down her panic and said coolly, “So it’s come to this. It’s pointless, Gwen. Ramsay is already on your trail. Are you really going to kill the whole town to keep your secret?”
“No one knows,” said Gwen, a fierce glint in her eye. “The only ones who even had a hint are gone, as you will be soon.”
“Starting with Sam Holland,” said Beatrice. “Although that was really just luck on your part, wasn’t it? She’d been worrying about Vivian’s disappearance for decades and, at the end of her life, tried to convince you to confess. That was it, wasn’t it?”
There was no reaction from Gwen, and Beatrice suddenly realized the significance of the old photo of Gwen and her husband. Her voice was strong as she said, “Oh, Rita thought that Sam believed Jake was behind it all. But what Sam guessed was that you had gotten rid of Vivian for Jake. You were in love with him. Vivian even alluded to it in her journal—that you felt ‘his blue eyes bewitched everyone, including her.’ I’d thought you were jealous of Vivian because you thought she was after your husband. But your husband had brown eyes, didn’t he?”
This time there was a flicker of surprise in Gwen’s face that Beatrice had figured this out, before her expression was shuttered again. “Well, I was young and foolish,” said Gwen. Her voice, almost friendly, sent a chill up Beatrice’s spine. Noo-noo, sensing her mistress’s alarm, stayed protectively at her side. “I had a very simple idea that if Vivian weren’t around, I might be able to convince Jake that we could be a couple.”
The wistful tone in her voice was at odds with the fact that she was discussing coldblooded murder.
Beatrice said, “And Jake had no idea, did he? No idea that you had eliminated what he’s always thought of as the love of his life.”
Gwen said flatly, “I was stupid. It made everything worse. Maybe if he’d spent more time with Vivian he’d have finally gotten sick of her. But when she disappeared, he got even more obsessed with her.” She muttered again, “It made everything worse. Finally, I just gave up on him. Gave up on everything, pretty much.”
“Vivian let you in her house one night. She didn’t think you were dangerous. But you were. You killed her—with what? A hammer? A fire poker? Then you disposed of her body and some of the things from her house. You typed a short note with her typewriter to make it appear she’d purposefully left town. Covering your tracks,” said Beatrice, trying to keep her voice level and keep the shakes out of it.
Gwen gave a short laugh. “The girl didn’t have much to get rid of! I picked up a few of her clothes and things and tossed them in the lake after I’d weighed them down.”
Beatrice continued, “But you didn’t think about the notebook. Why would you? It was really only incriminating to someone who had a secret.”
Gwen looked only mildly curious at this.
“Huey, for instance, would have loved to have gotten his hands on it. But I’m guessing that the mentions of you wouldn’t have been alarming to you, even if you had known about it. Sam thought the notebook was key, but it wasn’t, really, was it? Sam read it, saw a lot of mentions of Huey and Jake in there, and she wanted to enlist your help to find out if maybe Jake had something to do with Vivian’s disappearance. You must have been so surprised to hear her ask about him. To hear her be so suspicious of him,” said Beatrice.
Gwen kept staring at her. Noo-noo kept a watchful eye on her every movement.
“But you didn’t want anyone poking into the past. You discouraged her, didn’t you? Didn’t take the notebook, didn’t offer to help find out any information. And then she gave it to her son, Oscar. She sent Oscar to find out what he could in an effort to keep this sense of guilt and growing concern at bay. She thought Vivian had been murdered and it weighed so heavily on her mind that she felt someone needed to find out what had happened to her,” said Beatrice.
“Poor Oscar,” said Gwen, an odd smile on her face.
“You must have been horrified when he came by your house, determined to ask nosy questions about Vivian,” said Beatrice.
“What worried me was that he’d definitely come to the conclusion that she had come to some sort of violent end,” said Gwen. “He was the sort of person who was very pushy. He asked a lot of really piercing questions, and he wasn’t going to give up. He was a real terrier. What was more, he surprised me so badly when he confronted me that I accidentally revealed that I knew Vivian was dead. Which wasn’t common knowledge, obviously. As far as anyone in Dappled Hills believed, Vivian had gotten bored with the town and decided to move on.”
“I think, what’s most difficult to imagine,” said Beatrice, “is that a woman of your age would be able to take down a man Oscar’s age.”
Gwen took a step forward and Noo-noo gave a low growl. Gwen said, “It wasn’t at all hard. Not when I could tell by his expression that he knew. Because he did. He knew Vivian was dead and he knew that I knew something about it. He had to be taken care of.”
Beatrice moved her hand slowly to feel for the knife. But weren’t there jokes about bringing a knife to a gunfight? She said, “How exactly did you manage to take care of him? It seems like he should have been both faster and stronger than you.”
Gwen said pleasantly, “What I had going for me was the element of surprise. He was very deep in thought, you see. I saw him right after he left seeing Miss Sissy. I think he’d been upset by his encounter with her. He looked ... disheveled. I came up behind him ... I had a hammer I’d brought with me. Since there were so many houses around, I didn’t want something like the report of a gun going off.”
“A good idea,” said Beatrice fervently, eyeing the gun.
“I called Oscar’s name. He stopped, frowned, turned around. I hit him with the hammer with both of my hands on the hammer, as hard as I could, swinging from behind my head.” She shrugged. “It was easy.”
Beatrice swallowed. Noo-noo, still not understanding the atmosphere in the room, but not liking it, stayed alert, eyes wide open.
“I see. Very clever of you to use the element of surprise,” said Beatrice softly. “And Ida? She knew something, I suppose.”
Gwen squeezed her lips shut into a tight line. “Ida thought she knew something. She’d always thought she knew something.”
Beatrice said, “She suspected even when back when Vivian died?”
Gwen nodded. “She did. She’d spotted me over by the lake ... after. I was damp from the water. Ida was out walking her dog. She looked right at me, didn’t say a word, and then kept right on going.”
“But then, she wouldn’t really have been upset about Vivian’s death, even if she’d known for certain what had happened to her,” said Beatrice.
“She was no fan of Vivian’s,” agreed Gwen cheerfully.
“Which served you well for many years,” said Beatrice.
“She didn’t really know anything,” snapped Gwen. “She knew Vivian had disappeared. She saw me, damp with water from the lake. What she knew was circumstantial.”
“I’m sure the look on your face when you spotted Ida was probably pretty telling,” murmured Beatrice.
Gwen refused to take the bait, choosing to glare at her instead.
“But then something happened, didn’t it? Ida got old and poorer. Meadow and I were both surprised at the condition of her house. Who knows—maybe there was even an underlying medical condition now that needed treating? At any rate, there was more than just the long-ago circumstantial evidence and a mysterious disappearance. Now there was also a murder ... a real, out-and-out murder of someone who Ida knew was asking a lot of questions about Vivian,” said Beatrice.
Gwen repeated, “Ida didn’t know anything.”
“She knew enough to blackmail you though, didn’t she?” asked Beatrice. “Except it didn’t come to that. Because you didn’t want to pay out. You had no intention of paying out. It was a lot more economic to simply kill Ida. What’s more, getting away with murder the two previous times had made you feel cocky. You were filled with confidence, thinking you weren’t going to get caught. You made arrangements to meet Ida at a time and a place where you were both going to be in attendance, anyway—at the craft fair. You had a perfectly legitimate reason to be there, didn’t you? And what if you’d killed Ida at her house? Maybe someone would have spotted you going out or going in. The craft fair was the perfect cover.”
“Oh go on,” said Gwen, raising an eyebrow. “Since you’ve got it all figured out.”
Beatrice took a deep breath. “Although Ida did make you mad enough to engage in a public argument, didn’t she? Was she talking about the deal you were making? You told her you’d meet her over by the tennis courts and restroom. She didn’t suspect a thing. You paid her. She turned her back on you ... after all, you were someone she’d known her entire life. And you, you were furious, weren’t you? Ida had the gall to try to threaten you. She signed her own death warrant. You strangled her with the strength from that fury. Then you gave her a shove so that she fell down the stairs.”
“And I took my money back,” said Gwen wryly. “You didn’t mention that part. And you neglected to mention how much hassle you’ve brought me.”
“I think you’ve brought me more hassle,” said Beatrice, motioning to her front porch. “After all, you tried to burn my house down.”
“And clearly did a terrible job,” said Gwen. She raised the gun.
Beatrice, feeling the unwanted sense of panic rising again said quickly, “Did you mean for it to be a warning? Or were you trying to kill me?”
“Oh, I was trying to kill you,” said Gwen. “And if that hadn’t worked, I figured you’d be scared off at the very least. Shows what little I know. Now I’m back to finish the job.”
Which was when Beatrice’s cell phone started buzzing.
“Ignore it,” hissed Gwen.
Beatrice said in a reasonable tone, “Gwen, you don’t want to do this. It’s broad daylight.”
“That hasn’t stopped me before,” said Gwen with a cold smile.
“And there are people coming and going. All the time. Busy place.”
“Doesn’t seem that busy to me,” said Gwen.
“Someone will have seen your car here,” insisted Beatrice.
