Quilt Trip: A Southern Quilting Mystery (11 page)

“A search!” Meadow said ebulliently. “We’ll go through the house methodically. Room by room.”

Alexandra rolled her eyes. “It’s pointless. Whoever has the gun won’t be stupid enough to leave it in a place where it could be easily found.”

“I think I’d feel a lot better if we searched for it,” Posy said in a worried voice, pulling the fluffy cardigan up around her neck as if she’d felt a chill.

“Can somebody help me up the stairs?” Dot asked rather plaintively as the others were heading up the stairs to begin searching for the gun. “I want to be part of the search, too.”

Meadow helped Dot up the stairs, pausing halfway because Dot was already winded and red in the face. Beatrice hoped that Dot wasn’t going to end up with a major medical problem while they were stuck here. What if she had a heart attack? What would they do? A feeling of helplessness washed over her and she said, “Dot, you’ve already been pretty active today, especially considering your injury. Why don’t you put your feet up for a while?”

Dot pouted. “I’m not an invalid, you know. It’s not like I have to take to my sickbed. I’m a little out of shape and have a sprained ankle, that’s all.”

Beatrice said quickly, “I know you’re not an invalid, Dot. It’s just that it’s been a stressful situation for all of us and you need more rest to heal properly—not stress.”

“I’ll be fine,” Dot said stoutly.

“Why don’t we find some of Muriel’s home medical equipment?” asked Posy. “She had a walker when we first met her and probably had canes to help her move around the house. Couldn’t they help Dot out since Muriel won’t need them anymore?”

“Good idea!” said Meadow. She asked Dot, “Would you rather use a walker or a cane?”

“I think to take the weight totally off the hurt ankle, she would have to use the walker,” said Beatrice.

“No, really, she needs crutches to take the weight completely off her ankle,” said Alexandra briskly.

“I guess we could search for crutches, then. Otherwise, the walker will provide more support than a cane,” said Beatrice.

Dot sighed. “This stupid ankle. I’m sick of it.”

“Okay, we’ll look around for crutches while we search for the gun, although most people don’t have crutches lying around,” said Beatrice with a sigh. “In the meantime, let’s carefully remove the walker from Muriel’s room.”

“I feel sort of funny taking her walker,” said Dot, shifting uncomfortably.

“As Posy said, she doesn’t need it, Dot. I’m sure if we could ask her, she’d want you to use it,” said Beatrice. Without waiting for a reply, she took a tissue from her pocket and opened Muriel’s bedroom door. The walker wasn’t far from the door, and Beatrice removed it and carried it over to Dot.

“Where should we search first?” asked Meadow. “To be fair, how about Beatrice’s and my room?”

“Seems pointless to me,” grouched Winnie. “Does anyone really think that y’all had anything to do with Muriel’s or Colton’s deaths? You didn’t even know these people.”

“That’s exactly the kind of thinking that’s going to get us killed,” said Dot. “Who knows? Maybe Beatrice and Meadow had a connection with Muriel that we don’t even know about.”

“I agree,” said Beatrice. “Let’s check everyone’s rooms.”

Alexandra’s room was right next to Muriel’s and they automatically started in that direction.

“Wait a minute!” said Alexandra, stepping right in front of Beatrice to block her. “Why are we checking
my
room? I’m the one who
lost
the gun, remember?”

Beatrice said coolly, “Well, let’s glance around anyway. Maybe there are crutches in the closet . . . or an empty bottle of sleeping pills. Maybe your gun got covered up by other things in the room and you simply didn’t see it. We won’t know unless we go in and check it out.”

They pressed into the room. Beatrice peered under the bed and rummaged in Alexandra’s closet. Beatrice frowned at the unmade bed. “I think we should pat down the bed, just to be sure.”

This was enough to set Alexandra’s temper to the boiling point. She grabbed a vase that was next to the bed and smashed it on the hardwood floor.

Meadow gasped. “That beautiful vase!”

“What do I care?” Alexandra sneered. “It’s mine, anyway. As a matter of fact,
everything
here is mine. So, really, when I tell you to get out of my room and leave my stuff alone, I’m speaking as owner of the house and everything inside it.”

Beatrice raised her eyebrows and said in a reasonable tone, “The will hasn’t even been executed, Alexandra. In fact, we don’t even know where the will is. I assume Colton had a copy at his office. You can’t be sure you’re inheriting the house or its contents.”

All Alexandra’s show of anger had done was to demonstrate that she had a dangerous temper. Could she have gotten angry enough to kill?

They did a quick search of Alexandra’s bedsheets and found nothing.

They moved onto Beatrice and Meadow’s room, where Meadow made a big production out of carefully searching every square inch of the bedroom and closet. “Let’s leave no stone unturned!” she cried, lifting up the curtains and examining the undersides with exacting scrutiny. It all took forever and, naturally, they uncovered nothing.

Next they visited Holly and Dot’s room. This bedroom wasn’t as heavily furnished as some of the others and it took very little time to search. Dot, already winded, sat down on a chair once they’d searched under the cushions. Holly, like Meadow, had taken an overzealous approach to searching her own room. Again, they turned up nothing.

“Can’t we finish this exercise in futility another time?” asked Winnie. “I’m thinking there’s no way we’re going to find this gun. We’re just doomed to our fate here.”

“Cheerful,” said Alexandra, crisply. “But you haven’t considered the fact that, if we stop, then whoever has the gun could decide to conceal it in a location we’ve already searched. Besides, it would be awfully convenient for us to stop searching before we got to
your
room.”

Winnie made a strangled cry. “You’re certainly not going to find anything in
my
room! I’m scared to death of firearms. I have no idea how to operate them.”

“Well, let’s go in there and get it over with, then,” said Alexandra icily. “It’s not like we have anything else of any importance to do here, Winnie. And I’d really like my gun back.”

Alexandra strode to Winnie’s door and pushed it open with a flourish, smirking back at Winnie as she did so. Then she stared disbelievingly into the room before giving Winnie a scornful glare. “Scared to death of firearms, huh? What do you call
that
?” She pointed inside the room and everyone crowded over to see.

There was a gun sitting on Winnie’s bedside table, right next to the door.

Winnie gave a long, sustained shriek.

“Sure looks like my gun to me,” said Alexandra, picking up the compact Ruger pistol and calmly sticking it into her pocket.

Winnie’s eyes were wide with terror. “Someone came into my room.” She gasped. “Someone came in and planted the gun here.”

“Baloney,” said Alexandra.

Winnie seemed to be on the verge of total hysteria. “You did it!” she screamed at Alexandra. “You put your gun in my room to throw suspicion onto me.”

Alexandra raised her eyebrows. “And why would I do something like that?” she haughtily asked.

“Because you’ve always hated me,” said Winnie with a sob.

Alexandra blinked twice with surprise, and then her mouth twisted in a cruel smile. “I’ve never thought about you much one way or the other,” she said. “In fact, I felt sorry for you more than anything else.”

“Mean, through and through,” muttered Meadow, glaring at Alexandra.

Winnie cried, “You were always jealous of the friendship I had with your mother! You wanted to spend more time with her.”

Alexandra gave a laconic laugh. “You’ve got that completely wrong. The last thing I ever wanted at any stage of my life—even, I suspect, at infancy—was to spend more time with Muriel Starnes.” She turned to Beatrice. “Okay, so you’ve taken on police duties here, right? What are you going to do now? You’ve found a stolen weapon in a suspect’s room. What will you do about that? I think we’ve found ourselves a killer.”

They all stared at Winnie, who seemed in danger of melting into a puddle on the floor.

Beatrice said, “We found a stolen gun, and she denies taking it. I also have a hard time imagining that she would just leave it sitting right by the door of her bedroom in plain sight. We have no evidence that she had anything to do with the two deaths.”

“So you’re going to do absolutely nothing,” said Alexandra.

“No. I’m going to make two suggestions. One, that you give me the gun and we lock it in a safe place.”

“A safe place?” said Alexandra with a dry laugh. “There’s no such place here, Beatrice. If there was, don’t you think we’d all be trying to get into it? I think ‘safe place’ is code for ‘Beatrice’s room.’ You want the gun for yourself.”

Beatrice forced herself not to respond to the barb. “I was thinking of perhaps locking it in a glove compartment of one of the cars, if I could slide my way over to it.”

“And who would have the key?” asked Alexandra. “You? You see my point. And I’ll save you some time from thinking of another place to put the gun . . . I’m not going to give it up. So save your breath.”

One idea shot down. “My other thought was that we should all try sleeping in the same room. For safety. That way we can effectively keep an eye on everyone at night.”

Surprisingly, it was Winnie who wasn’t impressed with this plan. “I don’t think that’s going to work out well.”

“Of course you don’t,” said Alexandra. “That’s because your plan of hunting us down one by one and murdering us would be foiled.”

Winnie had regained her composure by now, however, and managed to ignore Alexandra. “The problem is that everyone here has very unusual sleep habits,” she said. “Erratic, actually. I know, since I had my door open that first night. Lots of sleeplessness, lots of wandering around. I like the idea of feeling safe, but the only way I can deal with my stress is to sleep. I don’t think I’d get a wink of sleep if I had to be around this group all night.”

Her second idea, shot down. “Then I suggest that everyone locks their doors again tonight,” Beatrice said. “At least that will slow down someone from entering a bedroom. Whoever is behind this is gaining confidence every time she gets away with murder. I’m worried that she’s going to strike again.”

•   •   •

After the search was over, Beatrice felt like crawling back into bed. Meadow saw that her energy was flagging, and she said chirpily, “Time for us to have lunch, Beatrice. I stashed away some of the remaining good stuff for you. Although it’s nothing like I would be cooking if I were at home in my own kitchen. I’d give anything for a hearty chicken casserole or a meat loaf or a bowl of steaming hot chili right about now.”

The remaining good stuff was composed of canned soup, which did hit the spot on a day when the temperatures were cold enough to keep the ice outside intact. Posy had made a small fire in the study and the three women gathered in there with their lunches. They ate quietly. Meadow kept glancing over at Beatrice. Finally Meadow said, “You seem really tired out, Beatrice.”

“It’s these people we’re stuck here with,” said Beatrice. “They’re getting tired and scared and it’s starting to make everyone seriously obnoxious. A couple of them were obnoxious even before all this happened. The way that no one is telling me the whole truth is also making everything a lot harder.”

“What are you thinking so far?” asked Posy in a hushed voice.

“Wait a minute!” commanded Meadow. She leaped up out of her armchair and checked outside the study door before closing it again behind her. “Okay, the coast is clear. Let’s keep our voices down low, though,” she suggested in her stage whisper that could likely be heard all the way upstairs.

“It’s hard to know,” said Beatrice with a shrug. “There’s so much that’s being hidden from me.”

“True, but what’s your
gut
telling you?” asked Meadow.

“Everyone is so un-murderer-like,” said Posy, sighing. “Well, except maybe Alexandra. I hate to say it, though. The poor thing just lost her mother, after all. That might be behind the way she’s acting.”

“I doubt that very much, Posy,” Beatrice replied. “You’re sweet to look for the good side of Alexandra Starnes. But I don’t think there’s much there that’s good. I don’t think she cares a hill of beans about her mother’s death. She’s glancing at her watch all the time, waiting for the moment when we’re all discovered and she can take over this property and Muriel’s bank account.”

“Alexandra is the one who’s responsible for all this,” Meadow said stoutly, still in the noisy whisper. “She had the most motive. It’s always about money—isn’t that what we’ve learned from watching cop shows on TV? And did you see that temper of hers this afternoon, Beatrice? I half thought she was going to sling that vase at you instead of at the floor. She’s nasty.”

“Grief affects people in very unusual ways,” mulled Posy, still determined to think the best of Alexandra.

“Yes, she has a temper and, yes, she has a motive. Yes, she had opportunity,” Beatrice said. “But I think we’re really limiting ourselves if we decide she’s definitely the murderer. We also have to admit, Meadow, that we’re not very fond of the woman and that’s probably coloring our judgment.”

“That’s because she’s a total harpy,” said Meadow in a completely even voice.

“True. But let’s consider everyone else, too,” said Beatrice.

“Holly is very sweet,” offered Posy in a hesitant voice.

“Holly
is
very sweet,” said Beatrice. “No one has had anything negative to say about Holly or seems to have even known Holly before we got here. She’s been completely lovely to everyone, pitches in to clean, is polite, and spends her day working on a quilt for a children’s charity or reading
Little Women
. The only problem is that I can’t understand what she’s doing here. Muriel appears only to have invited people who she had a personal connection to and had wronged in the past. How does Holly figure in? And where was she last night? Dot says she was out of her room for hours.”

“Maybe she simply couldn’t sleep?” Posy offered. “After all, Miss Sissy roams the halls all night with insomnia. Under the circumstances, maybe Holly hasn’t been able to sleep and is going down to the library to read at night. She’s a librarian and we know she loves reading.”

“You should ask Miss Sissy,” said Meadow, snapping her fingers. “She’ll probably know.”

“Depending on whether she’s having a good day or a bad day,” said Beatrice glumly. “But that’s a good idea. I’ll ask her. Which reminds me. Posy, do you want to switch rooms with me? It might give you the chance to get more sleep instead of chasing Miss Sissy down all night.”

Posy beamed at her. “I really do appreciate that, Beatrice. That’s so kind of you. But I think I’ll be fine. I’ve decided that Miss Sissy is so much happier when she can just wander around. She’s not hurting anyone, and I suppose she’ll sleep when she’s ready. But it makes sense to ask Miss Sissy what Holly was up to last night.”

“And I’ll ask Holly herself. She’s the only one I haven’t interviewed about Colton’s death. What do y’all think about the others?”

“Like Dot?” asked Meadow. “I guess she knew Muriel back from when Muriel was involved with her quilt guild, right? So Muriel was ugly to Dot—is that what we’re supposed to gather?”

“Something like that,” said Beatrice. “Except that Dot refuses to say what happened, or even if there was a specific incident. So that drives me a little crazy. But yes, I think we can assume that Dot has a motive. She’s a pretty hefty woman, too—I don’t think she would have had any problems smothering Muriel Starnes. But I still want to find out more about her past and how it intersected with Muriel’s. I’m thinking I’ll talk to Winnie about it, since she’s the one who knew Muriel the longest.”

“Except for Alexandra,” Meadow pointed out.

“The problem is that Alexandra doesn’t know anything about her mother or her mother’s life. She did know about Winnie, but that’s only because Winnie was at her house a lot growing up. But casual acquaintances of Muriel’s? I’m thinking that Alexandra didn’t know and didn’t care. Once Alexandra grew up, I think she left home and didn’t return often.”

“So you’re going to talk to Winnie to see if you can find out more about Dot,” said Meadow. “And I guess you’re going to ask Winnie more about how the gun showed up in her room?”

Beatrice nodded. “Sure. I’ll ask her about it. But I don’t think Winnie even knows how it got there. Unless she’s a really good actress, she was surprised and upset to learn that there was a gun somewhere on the premises. She appeared even more shocked that it was in her bedroom.”

“Of course, Winnie
is
set up pretty well to have carried out these murders,” said Meadow, still in her loud whisper. Beatrice shushed her and she continued in a slightly quieter voice. “After all, she doesn’t have anyone sharing a room with her. It would have been easy for her to slip out and murder Muriel.”

Posy said, “But Muriel had been a good friend for a long time. Could she have done something so awful to someone she’d been so close to?”

“Muriel had also done something unforgivable in Winnie’s eyes,” said Beatrice. “She’d betrayed their friendship by stealing away Winnie’s one true love. Winnie is still teaching school and is bitter that the life she thinks she
should
have had was stolen from her. Winnie’s friendship quickly switched over to hate.”

“That was such a long time ago, though,” said Meadow. “Do you really think that Winnie would carry a grudge for so long?”

“It’s as someone said after Muriel’s death: people hold grudges. Muriel didn’t completely grasp human nature and thought that she could clear her conscience by giving a blanket apology to everyone she’d hurt. It doesn’t work that way, though. Blanket apologies don’t wipe away years of anger or hurt or resentment. Muriel didn’t understand that,” Beatrice explained.

“I can see why several of the quilters would be upset with Muriel,” said Posy slowly, “but why would anyone kill Colton?”

“Maybe he guessed who the murderer was or witnessed someone leaving Muriel’s room. I think he knew too much,” Beatrice replied.

“Poor guy,” said Posy. “I really did like him.”

The three women were silent for a few minutes.

“And you’re still thinking that it was an overdose of sleeping pills in his wineglass?” Meadow asked.

“It would have been easy enough for the murderer,” said Beatrice. “He usually had a glass of wine in the evenings, and he left it unattended for a while last night. Everyone was bustling around, clearing the table. The murderer would simply have poured the powdered pills right into his glass and swished it around real quick. He’d never have known. And there was plenty of opportunity for everyone to have access to that glass.”

Meadow gave Beatrice an evaluating look. “You seem a little more upbeat and less tired than you were before. See—Posy and I make good sidekicks!”

Posy beamed.

“You certainly do,” said Beatrice. “And you’ve inspired me to hop back into my investigating. I’m going to talk with Holly next and then Winnie.”

“Before we know it it will be night again,” said Posy with a shiver. “I still like the idea of sleeping in the library. Particularly since my roommate wanders the halls at night and doesn’t offer much protection from murderers.”

“We can still camp out in the library tonight, Posy,” said Meadow. “I don’t think we’ll be the only ones, either. I bet Holly will join us. Dot might, too.”

“Alexandra is probably feeling pretty secure up in her room, considering she has a gun.” Beatrice sighed. “And we already heard Winnie’s feelings on it. I think Dot would be game for camping out in the library, but she might not be very comfortable. She’s probably barely comfortable even in a bed. But we can plan on sleeping downstairs and leave it so that anyone can join us.”