Murder on a Starry Night: A Queen Bees Quilt Mystery (22 page)

Po had brought the pictures salvaged from Joe’s apartment upstairs and put them on the table in the den, ready to reframe and return to Adele. Several were on the floor, but as far as she could tell, they all seemed to be there, though rearranged and turned upside down. Po walked back through the hallway and into the family room and kitchen.

There were no signs of anyone being in that part of the house, none, except the door of the closet where she kept her quilting supplies was ajar, and there was a slightly open drawer in the kitchen. But she might have done that herself, Po thought. She’d been in a hurry, she remembered—she’d been thinking about Joe and Ollie’s murders, about the stash of things in her basement. She glanced over at the counter where she’d tossed the yellow pad she had been doodling on that afternoon.

It wasn’t there.

Po frowned. She retraced her steps to the den, then returned to the kitchen. She had had the pad of paper in her hand, she remembered, and then had set it down carelessly on the counter and gone upstairs to shower and dress. She was sure of that. Because she had planned to go into the basement, but ran out of time.

The basement
.

Po walked through the back hallway and down the stairs. She flicked the switch and flooded the basement room with light. The remnants of Joe’s life were there, still lined up drying, their pages curled from the process. Nothing seemed to be disturbed.

The trespasser hadn’t been in the basement. But a new-comer to her house would need time to find the basement. The door was at the end of a hall and was always closed. Perhaps he had been scared off before he got that far. Or maybe he didn’t care about the basement. What was in basements—trunks and old furniture? Probably not a robber’s treasure trove. She picked up a small, heat-singed book that she had forgotten the day before and carried it upstairs with her to put with things Halley might want.

Po refilled her water glass and sat on the couch, forcing her heartbeat to slow. Finally, with Hoover curled up in a golden heap on his bed beside the couch, Po walked through the house and locked her doors for the first time since she could remember.

Po poured herself a glass of wine and carried it upstairs. She considered calling the police, but there didn’t seem to be anything missing. What could they do? Instead she picked up the new book Eleanor had bought for her and headed up the stairs to bed.

A soak in a hot bath, the glass of wine, and a few chapters of the book relaxed her weary body, and when Po turned out the light a short while, sleep, though fitful, finally came.

“Po, I can’t believe you didn’t call the police,” Selma said, her eyes blazing.

Po had considered skipping the Saturday morning quilting session, but the Bees were nearly finished with all their quilt tops for Adele’s bed and breakfast, and Po knew her absence would cause more fuss than sharing her news about last night’s break-in with Selma. Now she wasn’t so sure.

“Selma, calm down. Nothing was taken. Everything is fine.”

“Fine, my foot.” Selma walked around the end of the table and plugged in the iron. Her brown clogs pounded on the hardwood floor.

“Have you talked to P.J., Po?” Kate asked.

Po saw the worry fill Kate’s enormous brown eyes, and she reached over and patted her hand. “Katie, don’t worry about this.”

Kate didn’t answer. She slipped her hand away and walked over to the sideboard, pouring a cup of coffee and looking out into the Saturday morning, wondering what her life would be like without Po in it.

Eleanor lowered her cane to the floor and sat down next to Po. “Drink this,” she said, handing Po a cup of coffee.

“Eleanor, I’m fine.”

“Well, I’m not,” Eleanor said, “so humor me. If I had my flask, I’d spike it.”

Phoebe echoed Eleanor’s concern. “Po, it’s like this time it wasn’t dangerous, but next time? We need to figure this out, stop all this nonsense,” Phoebe said. “Why would anyone want to break into your house, Po?”

“That’s the first question that needs an answer. You said nothing was taken?” Selma asked. “Doesn’t make sense.”

“Nothing, except for a yellow pad,” Po said. “And most likely I just misplaced that. I doubt if anyone would want my scribblings and grocery lists.”

“What was on it?” Maggie asked. Her Fox and Geese quilt top was almost finished and she was as proud of it as she was of her veterinary clinic. She’d pieced the simple design with bright red calico pieces and it would be perfect on the double bed in the corner room at 210 Kingfish Drive.

Leah and Susan walked in from the other room, carrying their already completed quilts. Leah had quilted her own, not trusting it to a second party.

“Gorgeous,” Maggie exclaimed as she spied the armful of quilt in Leah’s arms. She was up in a flash and took one corner of the quilt from Leah. Together they held it high for the others to see.

For the quilt top, Leah had created her own design, piecing together a bed of rolling hills—strips of bright greens and blues, shades of rust and goldenrod filled the quilt top in uneven waves. And on top of the design, in crimson and yellows and purples, she had appliquéd sunflowers and daisies and black cherry coleus. Brilliant zinnias, their heads full and flowering. Between the appliquéd prairie flowers, she’d woven strands of prairie grasses into the design. It was a contemporary prairie flowerbed, a work of art, and quilted in graceful waves that matched the field—intricate, perfect lines of stitching. For the binding that held the three layers of the quilt together, Leah had found a navy blue fabric, filled with tiny dots of color that matched the flowers.

“Magnificent, Leah. You’ve outdone yourself,” Po said, grateful for the shift in conversation.

“It’s going in that large bedroom with the sitting room off to the side,” Leah said.

A rattling at the back door broke into the conversation, and Po looked over at P.J.’s lanky frame filling the doorway.

“H’lo ladies,” he said with a lopsided grin, not totally comfortable in a roomful of needles and strange tools he didn’t understand. He walked over to the sideboard, helping himself to a cinnamon roll.

“Are you taking up quilting, P.J.?” Po asked, wondering when Kate had managed to send him an S.O.S. without Po seeing it.

“Not today, Po.” P.J. walked over to her and bent low, his face not far from hers. “Heard you had a visitor last night.”

“I guess I did, P.J.” Po said. “But he didn’t do any damage—”

“He?” P.J. pulled up a chair and straddled it from behind.

“He. She. I don’t know the sex, P.J., but whoever it was saw fit to leave without causing much damage.”

“Except to your peace of mind,” Kate said from her place at the window.

“Yes, that was shaken,” Po admitted.

“Any idea who would have come in like that? Or what they wanted?” P.J. asked.

Po had thought of that question since five that morning when she’d tugged on faded sweat pants and a hoodie, and run slowly through the neighborhood, circled around the campus, and finally run all the way down to the river park and back. Who, indeed? She almost wished a camera or computer was missing. That would make it simple. An honest-to-goodness robbery. But as far as she knew, nothing was missing. So it had to be something else. Someone who wanted something she had—and couldn’t find it.

“Po?” P.J. said. “If all those thoughts rattling around in your head were spoken words, I think I’d be a giant step further in understanding what went on last night.”

Po shook her head. “No, I don’t think you would be. It doesn’t make any sense at all.” But she knew deep down that it
did
make sense, it all made sense somehow—if only her mind could order it correctly. Was it someone she knew? That thought caused the deepest unrest. She could account for those she was with last night, but that was a short list of two. Her emotions fought any possible list she tried to put together. But the truth was, someone had entered house while she was gone. In those few hours, protected by her absence, someone had rifled through her things. Po rubbed her hands up and down her arms and sighed.

Kate bit down on her bottom lip as she listened to the talk around her. She was as sure as she’d ever been of anything in her life that whatever happened at Po’s last night was connected to the murders. And that thought caused ripples of fear to travel up her spine.

P.J. walked over and looped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close. “It’s okay, Katie,” he whispered into her hair. “We won’t let anything happen to Po. If someone had intended to do her harm, they would have come when she was home.” And then he looked around at the room filled with women who’d inched their way into his life—Eleanor and Selma with their plain wisdom and humor, the irrepressible Phoebe and quiet, talented Susan. Beautiful, earthy Leah, And down-to-earth Maggie, smart as a whip, with a heart as big as Kansas. He had only been drawn into this unlikely circle of friends because Po and Kate had put him there.

They were strong, independent women, every single one of them. And that was exactly what pulled at his emotions and caused stabs of concern to settle uncomfortably inside him. There was nothing those ladies wouldn’t do for one another. Even if it meant putting themselves in the middle of a murder investigation. Even if it meant attacking danger head on and worrying about the consequences later.

When Kate and Po walked out of Selma’s store several hours later, the wind was coming from the north, and Po shivered against the unexpected chill. “I’ll drive you home, Kate,” she said.

Kate nodded. She was shivering, too. But whether from the crisp, sharp air or the recent conversation, she couldn’t be sure. P.J. had left earlier with worry in his eyes and his forehead pinched. “Kate,” he had started to say as she walked with him to the door, but Kate quieted him with two fingers pressed against his lips.

“Shhh,” she had said, “We aren’t foolish, P.J.”

But after P.J. had left the shop, the quilters’ conversation grew animated and emotional. “There is no way on God’s earth that a regular old thief would wander into Po’s home, then decide to leave without taking things. This is connected to Ollie and Joe’s murder, as sure as anything,” Eleanor declared.

And Phoebe had stood up at the end of the table and declared that it was time to get serious.

“And find out why someone would want both Ollie and Joe dead,” Eleanor had finished.

“And if you want to know what I think,” Phoebe had concluded, her arms folded across her chest and her eyes clear and wide. “I don’t think it has a thing to do with building condominiums at 210 Kingfish Drive.”

“Po, I think Phoebe is right,” Kate said now, climbing into Po’s CRV. She snapped her seatbelt in place. “These deaths aren’t about that house. Joe and Ollie knew something someone didn’t want them to know.”

“I think so, too, Kate.”

“So it’s more personal, more intimate.”

Po nodded. She turned onto Kate’s street and pulled into the driveway of the small house that Kate’s parents had left to their only child. It was a cozy bungalow, and Kate’s parents had refinished it to its original shine, restoring the dark wood molding and filling it with Stickley furniture in the original arts and crafts style. Po had spent many hours on the wide front porch with Liz, Kate’s mom. Sitting, gossiping, comforting, enlightening. All the things best friends do. Sometimes they’d laugh about how safe their houses made them feel. And today, Po thought, this house felt far more safe than her own.

“Are you listening to me, Po?” Kate asked, undoing her seat belt and shifting on the seat to stare at Po. “You’re not hearing me.”

Po forced a smile. “Of course I am, Kate. I have a lot on my mind today, I guess.”

“Po, P.J. will pass everything along to those working on the case.”

“I know that, Kate.”

“And they will find whoever did this.”

Po reached over and gave Kate a hug. “Yes,” she said. And they’d find out that it might have been right in front of them all along. And that thought had tugged at her all morning, as pieces finally began to fall into place. One had to think outside the box, she thought. However disturbing and difficult that might be.