Wild Goose Chase (6 page)

“Chill, Eve. The fashion show isn’t until Saturday night,” Freddy said.

“Easy for you to say. Rehearsal is tomorrow,” Eve said.

“You’re not going to stop any of the events?” I asked.

Eve turned to me. “Why would I?”

“Claire’s death.” I left off the “duh?” but it seemed obvious enough to me.

“Listen, Dewey, I know you’re new to all this, but a show this size is like a small town. Heck, it’s bigger than lots of towns up north. Every day in Smalltown, USA, people die and life goes on. It’s just the way it is.”

My eyebrows arched in surprise at her condescension. I started to protest, but she interrupted with a wave of her hand.

“I’m not insensitive, but people come from around the world to this show, Dewey,” Eve said. “Take the fashion show. We’ve got outfits from sixteen different countries. I couldn’t stop these festivities if I wanted to.”

“Plus, she doesn’t want to. Business might even be better,“ Freddy put in.

She shot Freddy a look.

He pulled away, laughing, out of Eve’s reach. “You know it’s true. Same as grief sex. Consolation shopping. Spending money proves you’re alive, unlike the dead sucker …”

Eve put up a hand to silence him, and he obliged, his poor taste under wraps for now.

“And the lecture on Saturday? I saw on the schedule that Claire was supposed to give a talk Saturday afternoon.” I asked, still stuck on the idea that the show could not go on as planned, determined to show her things were not normal, no matter what she thought.

“Sold out,” Eve said.

This time I didn’t bother to hide my double take. “Who’s going to speak?”

“Myra said she would fill in.”

“When did you talk to her?” I asked. Did she get out of police questioning sooner than I did?

“About an hour ago.”

Right about the time Sanchez was pawing through my backpack. He must have questioned Myra, found the packaging in my bag, and let her go. He didn’t find any reason to hold
her
. I was singled out.

“She said she would put together a grouping of quilts. Do an Armstrong retrospective,” Eve said.

“Claire Armstrong—the Wonder Years,” Freddy put in.

“How could she do that, so soon after her boss’ death?” I could barely talk about my mother, nearly six months later.

Eve shrugged. “We’ll see. If anyone can pull it off, it’ll be Myra. She’s really good at focusing on the task at hand. Besides, it’ll be good for her. Like a wake, a memorial service.”

Wow, Myra wasn’t the only one who could focus. Eve was pretty good at putting unpleasantness behind her, too.

“It’ll be good for everyone involved. The customers loved Claire, too,” Eve said.

“Justine will really miss Claire,” Freddy said, his voice lilting up in a way that meant he was teasing.

“You really are a bastard, Freddy.” Eve lunged for him, and he danced away. He ran in front of us, laughing. Eve was visibly upset, but I was just puzzled. Why would Justine miss Claire more than anyone else?

“Come on, lighten up,” Freddy said, holding his arms out to Eve, offering her a hug that she ignored. “I was just kidding.”

When he couldn’t get more of a rise out of Eve, Freddy inserted himself between me and Eve. “Look at the thorn among the roses,” he said.

“More like the prick,” Eve scowled.

Suddenly, I wanted to go home. The fake bonhomie and inside jokes were making me sick to my stomach. Claire had only been dead a few hours. “Look, you guys, you don’t need me to tag along. I’m going to go …”

“Suit yourself,” Eve said. “Your mother always came for one drink the first night of the show.” She moved ahead of us, striding toward the bar as though the drink awaiting her was the only thing that mattered.

“Besides,” Freddy continued. “Now that Claire’s dead, aren’t you going to look for a new buyer for Quilter Paradiso?”

Freddy was facing me,
walking backward.

“How did you know?” I said, grabbing him by the arm and forcing him to stop. Eve never hesitated, just kept moving toward the bar.

“Claire has been interested in your mother’s shop for a while now.”

“Why?” I asked.

“I think she was tired of being on the road and liked the idea of having her adoring fans come to her for a change. When I heard you were talking to her this morning …” He shrugged.

“But I wasn’t selling to her then. I mean, when she and I met this morning, that was the first time I knew anything about a sale.”

“So I put two and two together and got six. Sue me. But judging from the look on your face, you’re thinking about selling now.”

“I am,” I admitted. “Know anyone who might be interested?”

“Not me, I’ve got my hands full,” Freddy said. “Let’s go in the bar. I’ll introduce you around. Lots of vendors from the show will be here. Pretty soon this place will be crawling with potential buyers.”

We entered the darkened space. Straight ahead was a long wooden bar with red upholstered stools and a mirror reflecting rows of neat liquor bottles. To my right, round tables with matching tub chairs were scattered around the floor. We headed for the table in the back where Eve was already seated. I sank into the chair next to her.

There were about twenty people in the bar, most sporting vendor IDs from the Extravaganza. Freddy produced a hundred-dollar bill from his wallet and announced that he was paying for drinks for everyone.

Eve looked up in surprise. “Now I’ve seen everything. He’s actually going to buy drinks.”

“What that man won’t do to impress a pretty girl,” she continued, after Freddy left to go fill our orders. “He likes you.”

I shrugged. “I doubt it. He just feels bad about this morning.”

I helped myself to a handful of pretzels. “I do wish Justine were here though. I’d like a chance to talk to her,” I said.

Eve’s eyes narrowed as she checked out the room. “I wonder where she is. We always go to the bar the first night of a show. Our little tradition. I’m surprised she’s not here already.”

“I’m sure she’s fine, Eve.”

“I know
that
,” she said sharply. “Justine and I are a team. We’re so connected, I’d know if something bad happened.”

Oh boy, I knew how untrue that was. When my mother lay dying in her Volvo, I was at happy hour with a bunch of engineers. We were comparing worthless stock portfolios, cursing the Alternate Minimum Tax and doing Jell-O shots. Before that day, I’d thought I would know, too. Now I knew better. The moment my mother died, I was laughing at a joke about the size of Larry Ellison’s plane.

I hadn’t been in a bar since that night, I realized. I would only stay long enough to meet potential buyers.

Eve’s phone rang, playing “Let It Be,” and her eyes lit up. It was the first time I’d seen her smile. Her face brightened, her features softened, and she looked years younger. “Hey, babe,” she shouted, holding the phone with one hand and clamping the other over her free ear. “Where are you?” She moved to a quieter corner toward the front of the room.

Returning with our drinks, Freddy rolled his eyes. “Must be Justine.”

Freddy had linked Claire and Justine. I’d seen Justine outside in the hall before I knocked on the door. What was their connection?

“Why did you say that about Claire and Justine?” I asked him.

Freddy’s answer was drowned out as cries of “Bonnie” and “Rick” rang out. A middle-aged couple dressed in matching plaid shirts came in. The room was filling up quickly.

“I know, it’s not really funny that Justine borrows money from Claire,” Freddy said.

“What are you talking about? Why would Claire lend money to Justine?” I asked.

A large bang jump-started my heart. Freddy and I looked in the direction of the noise. Across the room, a large man with a sweater vest almost covering his belly was standing. His table was still rocking from his fist pounding. His beer glass was raised high, slopping the liquid over the side. He licked his hand and lifted his glass even higher.

“To Claire!” he shouted. “Claire, who had the biggest balls in the business. May she rest in peace.”

A cheer went up from the crowd.

“News travels fast in this place,” I said to Freddy, over the din.

“What else would people talk about?” he said. “It was too good to ignore—the woman who taught the world to rotary cut, the queen of strip-piecing, falling on her rotary cutter? How much more Siegfried and Roy can you get?”

I cringed at Freddy’s characterization.

“Which one was it that got eaten by the tiger?” he continued, hand on his chin. “Roy? No, Siegfried. Or is that the same person? I can never remember.”

A rash of toasts broke out from all corners of the room. I swiveled, trying to follow the cheers from my chair.

“To Claire, who taught quilting to the klutzy, math-challenged, uncreative masses,” a brassy blond chimed in from her bar stool.

“To Claire, whose sense of decency never got in her way.”

“To Claire, who never met a dollar bill she didn’t like.”

From behind me, a stout woman in black jeans and a red denim jacket said, “Remember that time Claire arrived at the Extravaganza by helicopter?”

“Scaring every living creature within a square mile,” another woman put in.

“How about that time she decided to decorate the fountain out front to match her latest quilt? The dye killed every plant within a hundred yards. She didn’t know the water was recycled into the sprinkler system.”

A roar of laughter filled the space.

Eve came back to the table. She picked up her drink and took a deep sip. “To Claire! That rotten bitch. May she rot in hell!” she said, low enough that only Freddy and I heard her.

We exchanged a glance. Freddy watched Eve over his glass, his reptilian eyes following her as she tossed back the rest of her drink. Eve turned, her face creased with a false smile. “At least Justine’s up a thousand dollars.”

“Up a thousand dollars?” I said, not understanding her meaning.

“Gambling,” Freddy put in, sotto voce.

Eve shot him a look and explained to me, “She’s playing poker at the local card club. That’s how she blows off steam.”

I tried to hide my surprise that a woman like Justine had spent the day gambling. It seemed kind of tacky.

“You okay with that?” I asked Eve, trying to keep the judgment out of my voice.

“Why not? She always comes home when she’s finished,” she said defensively. “Granted, it would have been nice if she’d told me where she was going. She thought she was on track with the fashion show, figured she wouldn’t have to deal with anything until tomorrow. She’ll be back later. It’s fine.”

“Whatever gets you through the night,” Freddy said.

Eve took a sip of her second martini and glared at him. I felt like a kid in the crossfire of an adult argument. I didn’t understand exactly what was going on, but it was uncomfortable. I tried to move the conversation to less incendiary topics.

“This seems like a very different crowd than the quilters I see at the store,” I said, pointing at a representative table. “Younger for one thing, more my age.”

Eve agreed. “With business savvy. When quilting became a billion-dollar industry, the corporate world started to take notice.”

That meant Mom had been on the right track with the software. I needed to finish computerizing the store to attract a good buyer.

Freddy sighed and sipped his scotch. “I’m old school, like your mother was. We were interested in quilts and spreading the word. We started vending at these shows for the same reason we started our shops—because we loved quilts. We made the mistake of making our avocation our vocation.”

“Why was that a mistake?” I asked. “Seems like you should be happy doing what you love to do.”

“Things changed,” Freddy said and lowered his voice. Eve looked bored as though she’d heard this diatribe before. “This new generation of vendors are business people first. They could be selling sewer pipe, for all they care.”

Eve’s face twisted with impatience. “Just because owners have starting running their shops like businesses meant to turn a real profit,” she said, “doesn’t mean they don’t care about the industry.”

Freddy pouted. “They don’t give a hoot about quilting. These people are direct descendents of the snake-oil salesmen. They’re vagabonds, setting up at quilt shows like itinerant traveling salesmen. Claire, for all her faults, was one of us.”

Eve sniffed and took a drink. “Selling is selling, Freddy.”

“Quilting is big business now, run by people ignorant of the art,” he continued.

Was he including Eve in that characterization? I glanced at her to see how she was taking this. Her eyebrows were gathering like thunderclouds.

“That’s the type of owner I am,” I said, trying again to lighten the mood. “I know nothing about quilting.”

“Yeah, but you’re different because you know nothing about business either,” Freddy quipped.

I punched him in the same spot Eve had hit earlier. He grunted and rubbed his bicep. I had more experience inflicting pain than she did.

“What was Claire, artist or businesswoman?” I asked.

Freddy brightened. “Claire was the exception. She managed to do both.”

I thought about Claire’s assistant. What would she do for a career now that Claire was dead? “And Myra?” I asked.

Eve and Freddy exchanged a look and laughed. “She’s all business, that one,” Freddy said.

Eve picked up her drink. “I’m going to make the rounds,” she said.

“Watch her work the room,” Freddy said as Eve put on a smile and stopped at a nearby table. “She’s like a bride at her wedding, greeting her guests. All she’s missing is the money bag to collect her gifts.”

To sell the store, I had to talk to some of these people. Swallowing a sudden shyness, I tapped Freddy on the arm. “So what about it, Freddy?” I said, with far more enthusiasm than I felt. “Are you going to introduce me around or what?”

Freddy and I followed in Eve’s wake as she circumvented the room. For the next hour, Freddy made good on his promise. I met at least thirty new people. Conversation centered around two things: the amount of business done today and Claire’s death. I was surprised to hear several men comparing the sizes of their daily totals, and I felt stupid when I didn’t know exactly how much business the booth had done today. I ducked any conversation about Claire. No one knew I was the one who found her and I wanted to keep it that way.

The muscles in my face were beginning to ache from constantly smiling so I decided to have one more glass of wine and leave. I gave Freddy a twenty and sent him to the bar and found a seat at a table just vacated by a group from Fresno. It felt good to be alone.

Freddy returned with a fresh drink for me and one for himself. A commotion went up at the front door. He stood up to see what was going on.

“Sweet. Lark Gordon in the house,” he reported. “Have you met her yet?”

I looked where he was indicating. Over the heads of a barrier of people, I could see the elaborate pattern Lark’s tiny braids created on the back of her head.

I shook my head. “I saw her earlier, talking to Claire. She’s got a show on cable, right?”

“Yes,
Wonderful World of Quilts.
”

“I hear customers quoting her all the time,” I said. “Too bad she doesn’t have a way of letting the shops know what’s coming up on her show. My life is hell if she mentions a tool on the air that I don’t have in stock.”

“I’ll introduce you and you can suggest it.”

“Oh yeah, right. I’m sure she’s interested in what I have to say.”

Freddy stood up and snagged Lark as she went past. I got out of my chair, and he introduced us. When Lark turned, I could see why she was a successful television personality. With her eyes on me, I felt like I was the only person in the room.

“So sad about Claire. I saw you talking to her earlier,” she said. “She was a frequent guest on my show. We were good friends.”

Good friends? It hadn’t looked like that to me. If that was true, then something had happened between them, because it was obvious that Claire hadn’t wanted to talk to Lark this morning.