2 Knot What It Seams (12 page)

The door to the shop dinged again and Posy said quickly, “Let me show you those new fabrics you wanted to ask me about before I get caught up with more customers!”

This time the interruption came from outside. There was suddenly a persistent honking coming from the parking lot behind the shop. “Mercy!” said Posy in alarm. Even Miss Sissy woke from her deep slumbers, jumping violently at the shrieking sound.

Beatrice sighed and stood up, pointing her key ring in the direction of the noise, which immediately stopped. “I’ve
got
to get that car alarm fixed,” she sighed.

* * *

The problem with getting fun, new fabrics was that you wanted to start using them right away. She’d ended up with the pretty Woosleys and was itching to start cutting the triangles for the pinwheels. If she got into the pattern of not finishing what she started, though, she’d end up with a bunch of UFOs—unfinished objects—like Meadow. Uncompleted projects weren’t a good way for Beatrice to stay motivated. If she had a precedent for not finishing a quilt, it gave her an out whenever she got bored or started losing her way with it. Instead of moving on to the shiny new object the new fabric represented, she spent the rest of the afternoon and evening finishing up the quilt she was working on: colorful appliquéd flowers on an ocean waves blue-green background.

The next morning, she slept a little later than she usually did. She’d wanted to finish the quilt before she turned in, so she’d been up past her usual bedtime. Beatrice was pouring herself a cup of coffee when Noo-noo’s ears perked up and she started giving a low growl and her fur stood up on end as she stared at the front door.

Beatrice waited to see if anyone was planning on knocking at her door or ringing her bell—but heard nothing. Actually, she did hear something—a strange snuffling, snorting sound. Feeling the hairs lift on the back of her neck, she moved slowly to the door and peered cautiously out the window. She didn’t see anything. She was returning to her coffee when she heard the sound again. This time she looked down . . . and saw Boris sitting to the far side of her porch, grinning up at her hopefully. He wagged his tail and it thumped loudly on her porch.

Somehow, much as Boris annoyed her, she couldn’t resist him. He was always in such a bubbly mood. He showed up so frequently at her house that she now had a treat jar full of extra-large treats especially designated for Boris. Noo-noo’s expression was horrified as Beatrice opened the door, gave him a couple of treats (she’d seen before that Boris would help himself to anything on her counter if she didn’t feed him), and refilled Noo-noo’s water bowl. She also opened another jar and gave the corgi a couple of smaller-sized treats. Noo-noo would turn into a tummy with feet if she ate as much as she’d like to eat.

Beatrice glanced at the clock. It was still really too early to make phone calls to the Downey household. Ramsay might have been up late, working the case with the state police. Besides, the now-full and satisfied Boris had curled himself up on Noo-noo’s pillow (causing yet another expression of horror on the corgi’s face) and was sleeping soundly. Noo-noo begrudgingly napped herself, lying on her back and making small snores. It was all enough to make Beatrice snuggle into the soft sofa, cover herself with a quilt, and read quietly until she, too, fell asleep.

A gentle tap on her door woke them all up. Noo-noo gave sharp warning barks and Boris cocked his head curiously at the front door. Beatrice extricated herself from the softness of the quilt and the sofa and half staggered to the door, still a bit fuzzy from the nap. Meadow’s knock was unusually tentative. She peered out the window to the side of the door and saw an apologetic Ramsay there, holding a leash and collar.

“I’m sorry to be coming by so early, Beatrice. You haven’t seen Boris, have you?”

Beatrice didn’t even have time to answer before the dog had pushed through the door and joyfully greeted his master by throwing his tremendous paws up on the police chief’s stooping shoulders and licking him on the face. Ramsay turned his face to the side and lifted the dog off to the ground. “I’m sorry again, then! We didn’t mean for you to have an unexpected houseguest this morning. I’ve got to figure how he’s getting out.” He sounded baffled.

She might not have been delighted to see Boris this morning, but Ramsay was a slightly different matter. There were a few things she’d like to ask him, and having him show up on her doorstep this way was most convenient. She could always try to siphon information through Meadow, but then, you could never really be sure about the information you were getting.

“Can you come in for a minute? I was about to pour some coffee—would you like a cup?” asked Beatrice.

Ramsay said, “Oh, that would be great. I didn’t get a chance to even drink mine before I realized that Boris wasn’t there. Surprisingly, Meadow is still asleep. The coffee that I make is never as good as hers, anyway. I don’t think I’ve ever really figured out the ratio of water to grounds.”

Soon they were sitting companionably in Beatrice’s tiny living room, sipping coffee and talking about the personalities of dogs. Noo-noo acted more cheerful now that Ramsay was there. The leash and collar that the police chief held probably helped the corgi realize that Boris was a temporary addition to the household.

Beatrice was wondering how to introduce a discussion of the murder into this very relaxed conversation when Ramsay blessedly introduced it himself. “You’re a well-read and thoughtful woman, Beatrice,” he said in a musing voice. “Have you read
On Walden Pond
?”

“Not recently, but I’ve read it, yes.” Beatrice had a feeling that the seclusion of Walden was extremely appealing to a man like Ramsay Downey. Particularly since he lived with Meadow and her nonstop motion and talking.

“Well, it’s made me think. Thoreau, of course, had this ideal of being solitary. But in fact, he had many unexpected visitors. Sort of like you’ve had this morning,” added Ramsay ruefully. “Thoreau lived around a lot of characters himself. And he probably was one of the primary unusual characters.”

Beatrice was frowning in concentration by now, trying to follow Ramsay’s rather scattered train of thought. He noticed her frown and waved a dismissive hand. “I’m not making sense, am I? It’s still so early in the morning. I’m just saying that we can never really know a person, can we? Not even if we’ve lived around her our whole lives in a small town. People seem easy to understand. But they’re not.”

“Case in point?” asked Beatrice, trying not to sound too hopeful.

Ramsay studied her thoughtfully for a few moments, then said, “Well, Jo, for instance. I thought she was an open book. She was a little prickly, into her quilting craft, and enjoyed her job as postal carrier. It always looked like she and her husband were trying to make ends meet, particularly after Glen lost his job as a mechanic. Why wouldn’t it? Jo wouldn’t make much from the post office, and with Glen out of work, it looked like they were really having tough times.”

“But she wasn’t so easy to read after all?” asked Beatrice.

Ramsay shook his head slowly. “Not so easy, no. Turns out she has a whole ton of money. She was her dad’s only child and he owned a string of factories. Sold them, made a bunch of money, died, and left everything to her.”

“I guess she and Glen were simply conservative with their money,” said Beatrice with a shrug. “It happens. Maybe they liked to live under their means instead of pushing it.”

“That’s another funny thing,” said Ramsay. “Glen acted totally surprised about the inheritance. Like he had no idea there was anything in the bank at all. How could you be married to someone for a couple of decades and not know their financial situation?”

Beatrice wasn’t sure. “Are you certain that Glen didn’t know?”

“If he did know, he put on a good show of not knowing. But I guess he’d do that if he possibly murdered for money.” Ramsay shook his head, bemused. “I somehow can’t see it, though. Glen has always been devoted to Jo. In fact, he always seemed sort of under her thumb. He’s an interesting fellow himself. Glen is very well educated and well read and we like to hang out and talk to each other about literature sometimes. But he chose a career as a mechanic because that was what he liked to do.”

Could Glen have finally gotten fed up with Jo’s controlling ways? It had to have gotten old sometimes. “As you said, though, do we ever really know someone? Maybe Glen did know about the money and decided he was tired of living so simply. Maybe he’d have liked to travel or to relax and read all day and buy a big library of books.”

“Or maybe he got tired of being pushed around by Jo,” said Ramsay, echoing Beatrice’s thoughts. “Still—you were there when he got the news about his wife, weren’t you? How did he appear to you then?”

Beatrice thought back to the quilt show. “He looked completely shocked. And you’re saying he was surprised about Jo’s money. Maybe he really is a good actor.”

Ramsay shrugged and looked baffled. “That’s what I’m saying. It’s hard to believe you can live in a town your whole life and not really know a person.”

“I guess you would know people pretty well, Ramsay. I bet they probably open up a lot to you, too,” said Beatrice.

“Maybe,” said Ramsay, tilting his head to one side and looking at her inquisitively. “Is there somebody you can’t really make out?”

“Well, Opal Woosley for one,” said Beatrice. “She looks like this very stereotypical old maid. But she’s supposed to be psychic and she’s obviously got some very passionate feelings about particular topics.”

Ramsay rolled his eyes. “Oh, Opal gives me fits. Maybe she
is
psychic, I don’t know. But if she was so psychic, it seems to me that she could have kept her little dog out of harm’s way. She was always telling me that she thought Skippy was in danger from various evil forces—coyotes, mean neighborhood cats, a little girl down the street. Although she never mentioned Jo.”

“Who apparently was someone to watch out for,” said Beatrice.

“Clearly. But as I mentioned before, Jo wasn’t the best of drivers. Opal should have realized that. Here you’ve got someone who drives to your house
every day
and isn’t really focused on driving.” Ramsay sounded a bit disgusted and Boris lifted his head to see if there was something he should do to help out his master. Seeing nothing, he groaned and rolled over and fell asleep.

“I gather Opal was on something of an anti-Jo vendetta after Skippy died,” said Beatrice.

“Oh yes. And that made another big pain for me. Apparently, Jo Paxton kept having all these practical jokes played on her. She was convinced that Opal was behind them.”

Beatrice said, “Well, that’s likely, isn’t it? After all, who else is going to do something like that? Did Jo have any other enemies?”

“That’s something the state police and I are getting to the bottom of. But yes, I think there were some folks who weren’t all that crazy about Miss Jo. Opal was the most vocal. However, there wasn’t anything I could really do about the practical joking. I didn’t have any proof against Opal, and I never caught her in the act of playing a trick on Jo.”

Knowing Ramsay, he probably hadn’t knocked himself out trying to investigate it, either.

He cleared his throat. “You did mention, earlier, that you thought Karen Taylor wasn’t a member of the Jo Paxton fan club.”

“That’s right. I heard them arguing in the Patchwork Cottage myself. It sounded like Jo was jealous of Karen’s ability—well, either that or she really didn’t like her quilts at all. Karen is sure that Jo was the judge holding her back from winning a bunch of quilt shows. Karen is a pretty competitive person,” said Beatrice. “Nice. But she wants to win.”

Ramsay looked as if he’d prefer a philosophical discussion instead of an analysis of his various suspects. “What
is
winning?” he asked with a sigh. “That’s what I want to know.”

“Being happy,” said Beatrice. “But for some people, it’s a very complicated emotion to attain.”

“Not for me,” grumbled Ramsay. “Just give me a quiet house and a good book. It doesn’t take much.”

“Do you think that Booth Grayson cares a lot for winning?” asked Beatrice curiously.

“What, the mayor? For sure—he wants to keep his job. That means winning elections,” said Ramsay.

“I thought that the job of mayor wasn’t even a full-time paid position here,” said Beatrice.

“You’re right. It’s not. We couldn’t afford for it to be,” said Ramsay.

“Then why does he care so much about it?” asked Beatrice.

“Oh, I think he’s a fella who likes to have control.”

“Ah,” said Beatrice. “I can see that. For him, it’s definitely not the little bit of salary that he gets. He wants to control the town and the people, to some extent. Like the quilters.”

Ramsay looked warily at her. “You’re not going to go off on a rant, are you? Meadow started fussing about the mayor last night, right out of the blue. I thought she was safely distracted by the Village Quilters membership, but she suddenly latched right on to the fees and taxes and stuff. Out of the blue!” he repeated again, looking frustrated.

“Like you said, the mayor likes to impose some control. I complained about the fees directly to Mayor Grayson, and he told me to print out this form 21-DRV off the town Web site and fill it out. It sounded to me like the form was going to get buried in his own version of the Circumlocution Office.”

“If the man has any sense in his head,” said Ramsay, “he’ll leave quilting out of it. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my years of being around quilters, it’s that those women can get vicious.”

Chapter 8

The guild meeting was not off to a good start, and the other members hadn’t even arrived. Meadow was, as usual, flitting around pulling hot hors d’oeuvres out of her oven, dumping ice cubes in a bucket, and placing pitchers of tea and lemonade out. That was all good. In fact, that was the best part of having a guild meeting at Meadow’s house. The problem was the words coming out of her mouth.

“So that’s why I invited Opal here. I figured that having her at a guild meeting would help us to get to know her a little better in a more relaxed setting.”