4 Plagued by Quilt Page 12

  This time a few hands rose.

  “Fad,” one of the girls called. Megan.

  “Yes, it is. And scrapbooking was a fad with Victorian women, too.” I put Ernestine’s scrapbook down and held up a pair of thin white cotton gloves. “Watch this.” I put on the gloves and picked up another scrapbook, older and more fragile. “Why the gloves, do you think? To protect my hands from old paper and glue?”

  “To protect old paper and glue from you,” Zach said from the doorway.

  “Absolutely right, and a hank of embroidery floss goes to the unexpected young gent in the doorway. Are you taking a break from digging, or are you joining us?”

  “Jerry said he only needs a skeleton crew right now,” Zach said with the ultimate deadpan. He slunk into the room to a chorus of groans from the other students, and sank onto his spine in a chair at a table by himself.

  An interesting kid, Zach Aikens. As far as I knew him, I liked him. And I heartily resented Clod for planting the doubt in my mind that made me add that qualifier. I couldn’t think of anything about Zach’s behavior that wasn’t part of the typical growing pains of teenagers anywhere or from any family. He was a bright kid who shouldn’t be considered dubious just because he had law-breaking relatives. Nor should he be dismissed merely on the say-so of a deputy who had his own iffy brother. Not that I thought Joe was really all that iffy.

  “Burglars,” I said, regaining the teens’ attention. “Burglars and museum professionals also have something in common. We wear gloves because we don’t want to leave fingerprints behind. Hands, no matter how clean, leave oils that attract dirt. This scrapbook”—I held the clothbound book higher—“comes from the collection here at the Homeplace. Lillian Holston started it in 1876, pasting swatches of silk, velvet, cotton, and linen fabrics in it, and also samples of embroidery stitches. It started out as her quilting scrapbook. Her friends might have made quilting scrapbooks, too, because scrapbooks about quilting were as much a fad as quilting itself. Lillian dated some of the pages, and she wrote notes on others with ideas for color schemes and patterns. Toward the end of the book she began pasting in newspaper articles that must have caught her eye, mostly about parties and social functions. Again, some of them are dated and some aren’t, but she seems to have worked on the scrapbook for about three years.”

  I walked around the tables, turning pages so the students could see the fabrics, stitches, and newspaper articles.

  “Did she ever make the quilt, and do we have to make those fancy stitches?” Megan asked.

  “I don’t know if Lillian made the quilt,” I said.

  “Why not?” Zach asked.

  “That’s a good question. I might know if she made the quilt if I knew the collections better. As a volunteer for this program, and because of my professional background, I was allowed to look through the collections. But the collections are fairly extensive, and I only had time for a brief survey of the records to find appropriate artifacts to illustrate what I’m talking about.”

  “She means it was a rush job, but she looked around and found stuff for show-and-tell,” said Ben.

  “You’re right. That is what I meant. Thank you for abbreviating and clarifying. The bottom line is, any number of things could have happened.” I ticked them off on my fingers. “If Lillian made the quilt, it might be here, resting safely and comfortably in storage. Or she might have made it and given it away. Maybe it’s lying somewhere in sunny California, even as we speak. Or she might have been big on making plans but not so much on following through. Or maybe she made the quilt and it was well loved, well used, and completely worn out. It might have ended up, along with so many other things, in the household dump behind the barn.”

  “Wrapped around one of those other things called a human body,” said Ben.

  I could have thought that last supposition through better. While I kicked myself, Zach offered his observations.

  “The bones in the dump are clean. If the dudes we found out there were wrapped in a quilt, then the quilt rotted with them. They’re dead. The quilt’s gone. And so far the bones aren’t talking.” If he’d been wearing a fedora, he would have pushed it low over his eyes at that point and put his feet up on the table, crossed at the ankles. He settled for crossing his arms and sinking his chin onto his chest.

  “Them?” Megan asked.

  The girl I’d seen crying earlier, when I’d caught Mercy’s skirt and done my momentary flake-out, was sniffling quietly again and staring at the table. Her name was Carmen, and it seemed a good bet she wouldn’t come back after today, or even after lunch. Barb moved over and put an arm around her.

  “Why don’t we take a break from quilts for a few minutes.” I put the scrapbook down and peeled off the gloves. I wasn’t sure what to do, but it seemed pretty harsh to ask these kids to continue with the program as if nothing had happened. “Carmen, would you rather go home? Do you want to call someone?”

  She shook her head no.

  I looked around at the rest of the students. Some of them watched Carmen, and others seemed to be avoiding looking at her. Zach doodled long bones on the back of one of the handouts I’d given them. What I was about to do might not be the wisest idea, but it couldn’t be worse than plowing straight ahead with the program and ignoring obvious distress.

  “Has anyone talked to you guys about the bones or what happened to Mr. Bell? Did Ms. Solberg or Deputy Dunbar say anything?”

  “Is there more than one skeleton?” Ben asked.

  Clod had told me not to say anything about the second skeleton. He probably thought he had a good reason. I didn’t know what it was, though, and I couldn’t see what difference it would make. Lying sure didn’t seem the right thing to do.

  “Yes. It looks as though there are two.”

  Without looking up from his doodles, Zach held up two fingers.

  “Would it help if we stopped and talked about what’s happened? About what’s going on with the dig? Carmen, is that okay with you?”

  She nodded and wiped at her nose with the back of her hand.

  Barb pulled a tissue from a pocket and handed it to Carmen. “Ms. Solberg said we aren’t supposed to talk about any of it, if tourists ask us while we’re here at the site,” she said.

  “This has been a rough, unusual, and emotional start to a program,” I said. “And Barb, I want to thank you for being a good friend to Carmen. You’re all showing how resilient you are by being here. I’d like to thank all of you for that, too. So, what did you think of Ms. Solberg telling you not to talk with visitors?”

  “She said she was treating us like professionals and professionals wouldn’t engage in idle speculation with visitors,” Barb answered.

  Several of the students sat up straighter, as though trying to look more like professionals. Zach sank lower on his spine.

  “That’s a good point,” I said. “Rumors are quick to start and hard to stop, and it’s better not to be the source of them, or the place they splatter when they land. You can call that professional ethics. Or plain old everyday ethics. Ethics aside, though, has anyone said anything specific to you about the skeletons or Mr. Bell’s death?” My possibly unwise plan to offer comfort was skating closer to the thin ice of snooping and prying. “Were any names mentioned? Any theories? Suggestions of a motive? Or a weapon?” Definitely unwise now.

  Carmen and Barb looked at each other and shook their heads.

  “They wouldn’t tell us anything like that,” Megan said. “They want us to act like professionals, but they still treat us like kids. Which is, technically, what we are.”

  “Point taken. They didn’t tell you. But did you happen to hear anything?”

  Ethan raised his hand. “Mr. Bell said something about the skeletons. He said, ‘Up until cemetery dude found the skeleton, this was going to be a good program. Now it’s going be a great program.’”

&n
bsp; “He didn’t say ‘great,’” Nash said.

  “Yeah, he did.”

  “Nope. He didn’t. He said ‘incendiary.’”

  “Dude.” Remembrance and enlightenment lit Ethan’s face. “And that was before he knew there were two skeletons. So what’s better than incendiary? Maybe he thought it would go, like, thermonuclear.”

  “Why, how, and what?” Nash asked with dampening rationality. “Dude, we’re at a two-week history-geek fest at the Homeplace. In Blue Lump, Tennessee. Big whoop. There’s nothing close to thermonuclear here. Besides, he never knew there were two. He was dead before they found the second one.” He turned to Zach. “When did you find the second one?”

  Ethan didn’t give Zach a chance to answer. “But maybe that’s why he was killed. Because he did know there was more than one.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, guys.” I interrupted before Ethan got too carried away. “Remember the ethics thing? Going off on ‘what ifs’ is what Ms. Solberg meant, and why she doesn’t want you discussing this with visitors.”

  The faces of both teens closed a bit.

  “On the other hand, I’m not a visitor and I love ‘what ifs.’ But are you sure Mr. Bell used the word ‘incendiary’? It’s not as over-the-top as ‘thermonuclear,’ but it still is over-the-top.”

  “So was he,” Zach said without looking up from his doodles. He’d started a row of toothless jawbones.

  “No, he wasn’t. He was cute,” Carmen blurted, and immediately clapped a hand over her mouth, her cheeks glowing.

  “Does anyone have any idea what he meant by ‘incendiary’?” I asked, moving away from Carmen, so that eyes might follow me and give her a moment to get her flames under control. “Did he say how the program would change or be different? Did you get the feeling he meant it would be better? He seemed pretty wired after Zach found the bones. But did he say anything that gives us a clue to what he meant?”

  Those questions got nothing but shrugs. Then my phone rang. It was poor form, but I checked the display. Ardis.

  “News about our quilting volunteers,” I said to the teens. “Excuse me for a second.”

  Ardis didn’t wait for a hello. “You’ll never guess who it was who told your volunteers you didn’t need them,” she said. “Flat-out said you wouldn’t need them. You’ll never guess.”

  “Then I won’t try. Who was it?”

  “Nadine.”

  Chapter 14

  “What?” I quickly put my reaction in check and smiled for the students’ benefit.

  “The message came from Nadine.”

  “What kind of sense does that make?” Incredulity fought for the upper hand, but I managed to keep my voice low and even.

  “Heaven only knows. There’s a lot going on, and she might not be thinking. Maybe she was confused.”

  “Right. Thanks for checking, Ardis. I’ll see you later.”

  I disconnected, still smiling for the students’ benefit, seething for my own. Did Nadine want a disaster? If she’d called the volunteers, then that was why Shirley and Mercy disappeared, too. She must have cornered them and sent them packing. With the Plague Quilt. Did that mean I’d have to strike some other bargain with the twins? Talk about disaster! I felt like hunting Nadine down and asking her what her game was. But maybe it really was a game. Maybe Ardis was right and someone misinterpreted Nadine’s message like an old-fashioned game of telephone. That seemed idiotic, but about as plausible as Nadine canceling the volunteers without warning or telling me.

  I talked myself down from my high horse, deciding to give Nadine the benefit of the doubt, or at least a chance to deny or explain. And I knew I’d better find my cool before asking her. We didn’t need more tension, or outright antagonism.

  “Interesting news about our quilting volunteers,” I said to the students. “And that news is we’re going to start our hands-on quilt project with the basics—so basic we don’t need volunteers. Our goal is to end up with a small signature crazy quilt.”

  Ethan raised his hand. “Who gets to keep it?”

  “It’ll be one of the featured items in a gala auction, raising funds for the Homeplace, later this fall.”

  Ethan’s hand stayed up. “Whose signatures?”

  “Yours for starters. And maybe some local celebrities will contribute theirs.”

  “Like who?” Barb asked.

  “Ms. Solberg is working on that. What we’re going to work on, today, is a basic embroidery stitch.” Because I’d never pieced a crazy quilt in my life. But there was time for piecing later, after I reassembled the volunteers. This program, and especially the quilting portion of it, was not going to be a disaster. “How many of you have ever threaded a needle?”

  Without too many fumbles or pricked fingers, I left them practicing their chain stitch. I had to exact a promise from Ethan and Nash that they’d stop using their needles as miniature épées, and then I went hunting, wondering if I needed a sword in case Nadine turned into a dragon. If not a sword, then maybe an apology would do the trick.

  * * *

  Nadine and Wes stood in the visitors’ center lobby talking to a woman whose back was turned to me. The woman had her hands stuck in the back pockets of her jeans, reminding me immediately of Grace, and for that instant, I thought the sheriff had released her. But this woman had more curves than Grace, and hair falling to her shoulders instead of Grace’s shorter hair tucked behind her ears.

  I waited at the corner where the hall I was in met the lobby, not sure if I should interrupt. When I heard Nadine mention the police and Phillip’s cottage, I stayed put.

  “All I can tell you is what they’ve told me,” Nadine said. “They haven’t finished and they aren’t ready to let anyone else go in to pack or clean.”

  While she listened to Nadine, the woman gathered her heavy hair and lifted it off her neck, exposing a small tattoo below and behind her ear. From where I stood, it looked like a cardinal’s feather. She put an elastic band around her hair and let it fall in a low ponytail.

  “When I hear anything, I’ll let you know,” Nadine said.

  The woman said something in return that I didn’t catch. But I did catch her laugh—not a happy laugh, but low, throaty, and familiar. I was sure I’d heard it before, when I called Phillip. This had to be the woman who’d answered his phone.

  Nadine caught sight of me then. I really wasn’t trying to be invisible. Or surreptitious. Much. I smiled to cover a lingering sense of sneakiness, though, and went over to join them. Wes Treadwell, looking serious and concerned, nodded. Nadine didn’t return my smile or nod, but she didn’t snarl or bite my head off, either. She did introduce me to the woman.

  “Kath, you wanted to meet Fredda Oliver, and here she is. Fredda is our wonderful and valuable site caretaker. Fredda, I’d like you to meet Kath Rutledge. Kath is one of the volunteers for the Hands on History program.

  Fredda was . . . steamy. Not just her curves, throaty voice, thick dark hair, and the long-lashed, sleepy eyes with which she regarded me. She was sweaty, too. Apparently she’d just finished mowing the back forty. Or something. I was at least ninety-five percent sure she was the woman laughing and answering Phillip’s phone that night, but she gave no flicker of recognition when Nadine introduced us. What had Clod and Shorty said, though? That Fredda told more believable lies than I did. Or than my face did. So, again, there was the question I’d asked Joe that he hadn’t answered—what did Fredda have to lie about? And what, if anything, did that have to do with Phillip’s death? Being able to lie wasn’t necessarily the first step on the road to ruination and murder. Still, if she lied to Clod and Shorty . . . I decided to put her face to a test.

  “It’s nice to meet you,” I said. “I think we might’ve spoken on the phone, once.”

  She appeared to think back, but all she came up with was a shake of her head. “I can’t think why
we would have.”

  And I couldn’t see how I’d learned a thing from that dumb experiment. She didn’t look as if she was lying, but how was I supposed to know? I hadn’t chosen my question wisely.

  “Any particular reason you wanted to meet me?” Fredda asked.

  “Someone mentioned your name. I guess I was surprised I hadn’t bumped into you before.”

  “And now you have. Nice to meet you, too.”

  I couldn’t tell if that was true, either, but somehow I doubted it. Her greeting didn’t leave me all warm and fuzzy, anyway.

  “I’ll talk to you later, Nadine,” she said. “You’re right; I am curious to see the inside of the place. So, yeah, give me a call when you know his folks will be here, and if it’s after hours, there’s no need for you to come all the way out. I’ll let them in.”

  “I’ll come out no matter what time they arrive, Fredda,” Nadine said. “I’ll want to offer my condolences in person. I can’t imagine what they’re going through right now.”

  Wes put a hand on Nadine’s elbow. She didn’t quite jump at his touch, but for a second her back straightened, then relaxed.

  I didn’t know if Fredda saw that tiny interaction, too, but as she passed me on her way out, she gave me the hint of a wink. “I understand we have a friend in common,” she said, her husky voice low in her throat. Before I could ask her who, her voice chuckled even lower. “That would be the more delicious of the two Dunbars.”

  I sort of lost my train of thought at that point, and it was all I could do not to stare after her with my mouth hanging open. Did she call Joe delicious and imply . . . what? Nadine’s voice snapped me back.

  “Did you need something, Kath?”

  “To apologize for being short with you earlier, Nadine.”

  “We’re all on edge,” she said, sounding on edge and not entirely forgiving. “Is that all?”

  “Also to run something by you.” I’d thought of something I could do to punt the rest of the quilting session for the day. I slowed my breathing, trying to follow Clod’s advice on relaxing one’s vocal cords when lying. “Phillip suggested that I take the students on a tour of the storage area and archives, taking half the group at a time. Now that we’re down to half as many, I thought I might as well take all of them at once. That won’t be a problem, will it?”