Murder on a Starry Night: A Queen Bees Quilt Mystery (23 page)

From Kate’s, Po drove directly to Canterbury University, hoping that the library would be very quiet on a Saturday afternoon. It was not a trip she wanted to make, but she needed to talk with Halley. Her behavior at the bookstore had been strange. And where was Halley before that, when someone was wandering around Po’s house without an invitation?

Po parked her car and walked up the stairs to the massive stone library, built many years ago by Eleanor’s grandfather. When she walked through the turnstyle, she spotted Halley immediately, standing behind the resource desk working on a computer. She looks sad, Po thought, as she made her way around a book display. The range of emotions the woman had displayed in just a few days was remarkable, Po thought. Joy, anger, jealousy, sadness. What would be next?

“Halley?” Po said.

Halley’s head jerked up. Her face was drawn, and she seemed, at first, to not recognize Po.

Po stood there, silent, waiting for Halley to step in, to fill in some of the cavernous cracks.

Finally, Halley collected herself. “I’m rather busy, if you’ve come to see me.” Her voice was formal and cool.

“Is everything all right, Halley?”

Halley managed a smile. “Of course.”

“Did you get my message about the things I’d found at Joe’s?”

Halley nodded. “Thank you. I came by last night— but you weren’t home.”

“And did you find it?”

Halley looked puzzled. “Find what?”

“The things you were looking for at Joe’s apartment.”

“Of course not,” Halley snapped. “Are you saying I went inside your house?”

“Kate and the others sometimes just go right in and make themselves at home.”

“Maybe they would. I wouldn’t do that.” Halley played with a strand of hair that had fallen across her cheek, twisting it into a spiral. She stared at Po, challenging her, her chest moving in and out as she tried to control herself.

“Did you tell anyone else about Joe’s things?”

“Of course not. Why would anyone else care?”

“No matter. I’m going to look through some of Joe’s things later today—and if you’d like, you’re welcome to see what’s there. There’s a photo of you and Ollie that you might like. Perhaps I’ll find some other things in the meantime.”

Halley face was expressionless. She nodded.

An awkward silence filled the space between them.

“Well, then,” Po said, “Perhaps I’ll see you later.”

Halley nodded and looked down. Her fingers began frantically punching keys on the computer, dismissing Po. Her face was grim.

Po paused for a moment, then rummaged in her purse for her car keys. Her fingers touched the small book she had found at Joe’s and dropped in her purse. Impulsively, she pulled it out and set it on the library counter. “Here, Halley. Take this. It’s from Joe’s and perhaps belonged to Ollie.” Then she forced a smile to her face, turned and walked out of the library, feeling Halley’s eyes on her back as she walked through the wide front door.

In the car Po tried to process Halley Peterson’s behavior. Had she totally misread this young woman? Though Po had seen Halley’s anger when she talked about Adele Harrington—and in Gus’s bookstore more recently—the frosty façade she presented to Po today was something new. But if Halley was trying to rebuff Po, she was choosing the wrong tactic. If nothing else, her behavior only added to Po’s resolve to talk with her.

Po’s next stop was the Harrington mansion, and she found Adele walking in the back gardens, looking relaxed, in spite of the still-swollen ankle that kept her pace slow and measured.

Adele smiled at Po as she approached. “What a nice surprise, Po. What brings you here today?”

“I thought I’d give you a quilt update,” Po said. She fell in step beside her. “Susan and Leah have finished theirs, and the rest are nearly ready to go. I think you’re going to love them.”

“I’ve no doubt, Po. I hired the best.”

Po smiled. “I wanted you to know that I’m drying out some of Ollie’s things that I found at Joe’s. Some pictures. Some writings of his. He was quite good, people tell me.”

“Oh, he was a lovely writer, even when he was young. I sent him a computer once—but he hated it. He said his fingers needed the feel of the pen in them, that his thoughts worked themselves down from his head, through his fingers and the pencil to paper. The computer messed up the route.”

Po laughed. “I thought that way once, but forced myself to get used to it. And of course it became my good friend. But I understand what Ollie was saying. So he always wrote in longhand?”

“Always.” Adele looked off toward the pond. “I found a bunch of yellow pads in his room, filled from top to bottom with his familiar scrawl. But I couldn’t quite get myself to read them. I found Joe up in his room shortly after Ollie died, going through them. He wanted them so badly, that I gave in.” She frowned. “It was odd, now that I think back. He was very peculiar that day, muttering that it would be better for me if he had them. But he was such a strange little man, that I guess I didn’t pay much attention.”

Po listened carefully to Adele. “If find anything in the things I’ve taken home, I will save it for you. It would be good for you to have some of Ollie’s things.”

“Yes. I’ve reached the point, I think, where I can talk to people who knew Ollie. For a while, it made me feel guilty, that people like Joe and Halley Peterson and Jed Fellers knew Ollie better than I did. Even Tom Adler spent more time with him in recent months. And Ollie liked them all. I’m not so fond of some of them, but I’ve decided that keeping them all at bay is rather foolish of me because they knew a part of Ollie I would like to know better. And so I shall not be so standoffish. In fact, for starters, I intended to talk with Jed Fellers about building a small observatory in Ollie’s honor. He seems to know a lot about that sort of thing and Ollie certainly loved it.”

“That’s a lovely thought, Adele,” Po said. “I imagine Jed thought so too.”

“Well, my discussion with him was interrupted,” Adele said. “We didn’t quite get around to it. Later, perhaps.”

“That was your dinner at Picasso’s?” Halley Peterson’s jealousy was most definitely misplaced, Po thought.

“Yes. There are no secrets in this town, are there? You heard about the episode, of course.”

Po nodded. “Picasso told us. He was concerned. And I am, too. You need to be careful, Adele.” Careful and judicious, Po thought. Adele was so close to the dreadful things going on. Po wondered if she gave that fact proper attention. And she was wrong about one thing—there were plenty of secrets in this town. Perhaps dangerous ones.

“Don’t worry Po,” Adele said, seeing the concern in Po’s eyes. “It will take more than a drunk to frighten me away. He has a demanding wife, that’s all.”

“But when people drink too much, you don’t know what they are capable of.”

“Some people are more dangerous when they are sober, Po. But don’t worry. If I am anything, I am cautious.”

“Adele,” Po said suddenly, “Why did you leave Crestwood the way you did, and not return?”

“I left for college,” Adele said. It was a pat, no nonsense answer, without the personal touch of their earlier conversation.

“But after that, when Ollie came home. You didn’t seem to be around much. Perhaps I am treading on personal ground, and please tell me if I am. But did you not get along with your mother?”

“Oh my, is that what people thought?” Adele sat down on a stone bench near a garden of mums and looked off over the yard. “I loved my mother, though we disagreed about a lot. Ollie, mainly. She babied him too much. Protected him so severely because of his learning disabilities that when she got sick, she made Joe Bates promise to stay here forever because Ollie had never lived alone.”

“Why didn’t she want you to be that person?”

For a long time Adele didn’t answer, but Po could see the years passing across her mind. Sadness and happiness, pain and joy flashed from her eyes as the memories rolled. Finally she answered the question Po had posed. “It was my father whom I disliked. Intensely. He was not a good man, at least not in all respects. His affairs during mother’s pregnancies—she lost three babies—were cruel, but when he bedded a friend of mine on a college break, then threatened me later if I said a word, it became too much. And my mother urged me to leave this town and make a life for myself away from it all. She used to come and see me every chance she got—she was a good person. But she needed the money Walter Harrington provided. She needed it for Ollie.

“My father never cared for Ollie. Broken, was the word he used. I, the healthy twin, survived. Ollie was weakened. An accident, my father said, and he made it clear to me that I should have been the one. Not Ollie. Not the boy.

“But Walter Harrington did genuinely worship my mother, in spite of all his transgressions. And when she laid down the rules, he complied, leaving her and Ollie to live their life as mother saw fit.” Adele rose from the bench and began walking back toward the house. Po fell in beside her.

“We weren’t exactly the Cleaver family, were we? But we survived. And I think my mother did the best she could. But even knowing that, I resented what this town, this house, stood for, for a long time. But when Ollie died, I decided I’d at least give it a try—try to make peace with some of the demons.”

“And I think you have,” Po said. “Or are on your way.”

“Not yet. Not completely. As long as there are still people out there who think I murdered my brother, I can never really fit in here, can I?”

The sad plea from the strong, implacable Adele Harrington touched Po in a way that made her shiver in the cool fall air. She pulled her wool sweater closed and buttoned it. “Adele,” she said, touching her arm lightly, “Hang in a little bit longer. I think that will end soon.” And for better or worse, Po knew her words to be true.

Po pulled out of Adele’s driveway and headed home. This time she wouldn’t be distracted. She would go through every single piece of paper, every picture she had taken from Joe Bates’ apartment. And she’d find the answers to all her questions, she was sure of it. At the least, she’d get closer to the ties that bound Ollie Harrington to the few people he allowed in his life each day.

She thought back to her brief conversation with Adele. Why was Joe Bates so insistent that he get Ollie’s musings? What had Ollie written that was so important to someone like Joe Bates, someone who didn’t even like to read? Joe wasn’t sentimental, that much she knew about him. But he loved Ollie Harrington. And Ollie’s murder had turned him into a mumbling old man, a man determined, perhaps, to bring his murderer to light. That would have been Joe’s goal. Of course it would.

And stuck in his desk and apartment were legal papers, notes from Ollie, and heaven knows what else. The gatherings of a man determined to right a terrible wrong.

Po punched in Gus Schuette’s phone number on her cell. “Gus,” she said quickly, knowing he probably had a store full of Saturday shoppers. “Gus, you mentioned recently that Joe Bates had come into your store shortly before he was killed. Joe wasn’t much of a reader. What was he buying?”

As busy as his store was, Gus liked to chat, and Po waited patiently while he confirmed that Joe didn’t seem to read much, but he sure loved Gus’s garden magazines when he used to come in the store more often. But that day—Gus remembered it clearly, he said, because it was shortly after Ollie’s murder, and Joe was a broken man. He’d shuffled into the store, made his purchase, and shuffled out, head down, face a mask of sad anger. He’d picked up a book Gus had ordered for him. Not a garden book at all.

Gus didn’t need to finish.

Po knew. It made sense now, what she should have figured out weeks ago. She drove into her driveway, scattering leaves in all directions. Around her, night began to settle in. Po turned off the ignition and slid quickly out of the car. The box with Ollie’s yellow pads was still in the back of her car, a safer spot than her house these days, she’d decided. She pulled it out and carried it through the back door, into the soft lights of her kitchen.

Po glanced at the phone and saw that the message light was blinking. She set the box in the den, returned to the kitchen and punched the machine button. The voice was tight and controlled. “Po,” it said, “This is Halley Peterson. Perhaps you and I need to have a talk.”

Po shivered.
No, not yet
, she said to herself.

Po switched on more lights, then turned her radio to a Saturday jazz concert. The mellow strains of an old Miles Davis rendition of
Summertime
filled the room. Po found odd comfort in the clear trumpet sounds, but she knew it would take more than music to get rid of the chill in her bones. She needed Max, someone else in her home.

A quick call to his home went unanswered. Po tried Kate, but when she got the answering machine, she realized she didn’t want Kate around anyway, not tonight, and she left a mundane message instead.

Minutes later, with a large mug cradled in her hands and the smell of orange and spices wafting up from the steaming tea, Po sat down at Sam’s big desk, and went to work. “Sam, help me here,” she whispered. “Let’s get this over with, however sad and distasteful a task it may be.” Po pulled out Ollie Harrington’s yellow pads and began to read.