Forget Me Knot: A Quilting Mystery Part 26

"Go on, I need to know."

"Dixie admitted she burned them in her fireplace. The police went through her trash, but the remains were already in the landfill."

Birdie pursed her lips and frowned hard. "They're sure?"

"Yes, Birdie. Forensics found some singed sc.r.a.ps of fabric in Dixie's fireplace. I was able to identify one of them as the double pink from my quilt."

"So then what happened?" asked Lucy.

I picked up a green and blue print featuring little flying swallows with forked tails. "Well, you remember the following Tuesday was when I visited BCA and stumbled upon the baby quilt the homeless woman, Hilda, had rescued from the Dumpster? The same evening, I got a call from Dixie offering to drive over and pick up the quilt. When I declined, she decided to come over anyway and take it from me. If I'd been there, she probably would have killed me rather than leave a witness behind."

Birdie looked up from her tracing. "How did she know where you live?"

"I gave her a donation earlier that day, and she got the information off my check. I also let slip Claire's other quilts were at my house, so I really made myself a sitting duck."

Lucy paused and raised her head. "Fortunately for you, you got arrested and spent the night in jail. Otherwise she would have killed you right then."

"Yeah. Fortunately." I had a hard time keeping the sarcasm out of my voice. "Anyway, on Thursday Dixie came to the wake to see if she could read any of the other quilts, but the guards wouldn't let her touch them."

"So when you offered to give a quilt to the auction, she saw a chance to go to your house and kill you?"

"Not exactly. I don't think Dixie came over with the intent to do me any harm. After all, I didn't have the quilts anymore. I left my translations of the quilts on the counter. Dixie saw them, made a comment, and I realized she was somehow involved. As the pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place I couldn't help myself. Stupidly, instead of keeping my mouth shut, I confronted her. Once she realized I knew what she'd done, she tried to kill me. Even so, I'm glad I only wounded her." I reached for a new piece of fabric.

Lucy shook her head. "I just can't accept that someone who'd devoted her life to helping handicapped children could murder Claire and her unborn baby."

Birdie nodded in agreement. "I know what you mean. Dixie seemed like such a nice person. She must have been crazy to do what she did."

"Yes, I was totally taken in by her, too. Dixie poured her life into BCA. Her work was her whole world. I found out from Arlo she had a rough time as a visually impaired child. She'd lost a significant amount of her vision by the time she was seven. When she grew up, she devoted her life to helping blind children.

"Then on Sunday night I saw another side of Dixie, the same side Claire must've seen before being overpowered. Dixie thought her life's work was about to be ruined. She became enraged and willing to kill to protect the thing that mattered to her most."

Lucy nodded and pointed at me. "Remember, if it weren't for Ray's gun, you'd be dead, too."

I shuddered at the mention of the gun. "Thank G.o.d Joey taught me how to use it. By the way, the police will return the pistol when the case is concluded."

Lucy nodded. "What about the break-in at Claire's house? Why didn't Dixie look for the quilts and the list of quilts right after she killed Claire? Why wait and come back later?"

"Dixie didn't break in to Claire's house. Will Terry arranged that."

"You're kidding!"

"After I left Siobhan's house the first time, she told her husband I was going to find the stories in Claire's quilts. Naturally he didn't want anyone to know those stories, so he arranged for someone to stage a break-in at Claire's and steal the quilts. Unfortunately for him, I'd already removed them. All his hired goon managed to get was the list of quilts Claire kept in her files.

"When he found out his thug had been too late, Will called me and tried to talk me out of looking at the quilts. When that didn't work, he insisted on giving me only three days, hoping I wouldn't have enough time to decipher the stories-if there were any."

"What did he want with the list of her quilts?"

"In case there were stories in the quilts, he hoped to buy them all back under the guise of 'sentimental value.' It was all about damage control."

I started cutting a piece of yellow and green yarn-dyed plaid. "As for G.o.dwin, the media is hot on the scent of a good story. Apparently that wasn't the first time G.o.dwin seduced a patient, especially the pretty or the wealthy ones. Turns out G.o.dwin's wife was a former patient of his, too. She had no idea he was being unfaithful with Claire."

"What a dog!"

Birdie handed over a new stack of marked fabric pieces to be cut. "I'll say. What did she do when he was arrested?"

"Well, when the police asked Mrs. G.o.dwin to corroborate her husband's alibi, Kaplan made sure she knew all about Claire and her pregnancy. I think he hoped to shake the alibi, as they say."

"Poor thing. I imagine she was quite shocked."

"And angry. She threw her husband out."

"And here I thought she was just a 'pretty face.'" Lucy wiggled her fingers in the air. "That young woman gets major points for having the good sense to dump him."

"Well, the media will have afield day with G.o.dwin. He's sure to be disgraced once all the facts of his involvement with Claire are revealed. He may even lose his medical license. Unfortunately, BCA is done for."

"At least there will be a little justice for poor Claire." That was Birdie again, the gentle optimist. "Some of the scoundrels in her life are getting their just desserts!"

Lucy asked, "So, what about Will Terry? How's Claire going to get justice where he's concerned? The statute of limitations must have run out on the incest years ago."

"Yes and no," I said. "The statute has expired on the childhood incest, but the recent incest is still considered a crime. Unfortunately, Claire's not alive to file a complaint. The good news is Siobhan kicked Will out of the Benedict Canyon house the night of the funeral-preventing him from destroying Claire's quilts."

Lucy finished cutting the piece she was working on and put her scissors in her lap. "Good for Siobhan. Unfortunately nothing will have a real impact on the man. He has more money than G.o.d and can live wherever he wants."

"It is a shame, but making Will Terry's crimes public would mean exposing Jerry Bell as a product of incest, and Siobhan won't do that to Jerry. She cares for him a lot."

"How do you know?"

"Jerry called me yesterday to thank me for everything. Told me he has visited Siobhan every day since the funeral. Siobhan learned from the family attorney that Claire left everything to Jerry in her will. They all were completely surprised."

Lucy raised her eyebrows. "Lucky boy!"

"There's more. Siobhan informed Jerry she's revising her will. Jerry is now a very rich man and will become even richer. He told me he and Siobhan plan to set up a multimillion-dollar foundation in Claire's memory to provide psychological and medical care for kids who are underserved." My cheeks heated. "They want me to sit on the board."

Birdie smiled at me tenderly. "Martha, dear, you hardly knew Claire, yet you risked your life to get to the truth about her story and her murder. You turned out to be her best friend, poor thing. Wherever she is right now, thanks to you, Claire must be very happy to see her mother and son are finally together."

"Amen." Lucy smiled at me and picked up another piece of fabric. "So after they took Dixie away to the hospital, what happened?"

"Arlo told Detective Kaplan to take over and close things up. Then he helped me pack a few things and we left."

"The same Detective Kaplan who arrested you for stealing Claire's computer?" asked Birdie.

"Yeah, the same."

"He didn't try to arrest you again for attempted murder?"

I laughed. "He wouldn't dare. Besides, when Dixie's DNA is matched to the DNA found under Claire's fingernails and in the blood on her hands, he said a conviction would be a slam dunk, even if Dixie later denied what she confessed to me."

"So when can you get back into your house this time?"

"Actually, I can go back now, but Arlo advised me to hire a crime scene cleanup company to come in and get rid of the blood first because it's a biohazard. The cleanup will happen tomorrow." I looked down and gathered all the pieces I'd cut out and stacked them into a neat pile.

Each time I called Beavers by his first name, my friends stole a glance at each other and smiled.

Lucy put her scissors down again and looked at me. "So, aaah, do you have anything to tell us? You know, maybe about where you've been since Sunday night?"

Sunday night I didn't ask Arlo Beavers to take me back to Lucy's house, even though he told me he and Arthur would drive me and b.u.mper anywhere I wanted to go. I didn't bother to point out to him I was perfectly capable of driving myself, or that I didn't need to be taken care of. After all, hadn't I proved myself by sussing out the real killer and surviving an attempted murder?

Instead, I looked into his dark brown eyes and told him to take me home. His home. Warm honey spread all over my insides at the memory of the last two nights. I leaned back in the chair and surrendered myself to the soft chenille upholstery. I couldn't remember the last time my body felt so relaxed and free of pain.

"So?" Lucy insisted. "Where have you been?"

It had been difficult to say good-bye to Arlo this morning. I still felt his moustache tickling my neck as he held me close and could still smell the clean scent of patchouli soap on his wet skin fresh from the shower. But Tuesdays with my friends were sacred. I looked at them with great affection and smiled slowly. "Let's just say Arthur and b.u.mper are cultivating a close friends.h.i.+p."

"How close?"

I grinned. "As close as you can get."

Please turn the page for an exciting sneak peek of Mary Marks's next Quilting Mystery Coming in November 2014 from Kensington Publis.h.i.+ng!

CHAPTER 1.

Yesterday I joined Weight Watchers for the eighth time. The lecturer Charlissa told me to get rid of all the bad food in my house and take a walk every day. So I did what she told me, confident this time I'd work the program successfully.

After a breakfast of egg whites scrambled in one teaspoon olive oil, I bent over to put on my new white athletic shoes. The top of my size-sixteen Liz Claiborne stretch denim jeans dug into my waistline. No doubt about it. At the age of fifty-five I, Martha Rose, was outgrowing the largest clothes in my closet. I didn't think I could feel any worse today, but I was dead wrong.

I lived with my orange cat b.u.mper in a friendly residential area of the San Fernando Valley. Directly behind my house stood a fenced off baseball field. A ritzy private school, whose nearby campus had run out of room, had muscled their way in and built a large new stadium on parkland right behind our quiet street.

On the far side of the field, less than two hundred yards distant, the Los Angeles River flowed east through the San Fernando Valley crossing Glendale to downtown LA and out to sea at Long Beach. I planned to walk around the perimeter of the field to the bank of the river and back again. What a mistake.

In the summertime, the air can sizzle by noon. At eight o'clock this morning in late August, the temperature had already reached seventy-nine degrees. Gravel crunched under the rubber soles of my new shoes as I ambled along a dry path just outside the tall chain-link fence around the baseball field and onto the river bank. No bushes were allowed to grow on the near side, the private school side of the river. Only small weeds and gra.s.ses parched in the heat. But thick coyote brush, deer weed, and cottonwood trees topped the far side of the riverbank.

Concrete covered the bottom of the river, and the slopes were sprayed with stucco courtesy of the Army Corps of Engineers. In the wintertime, rainwater from the mountains transformed the LA River into a raging swift water death trap. Someone managed to drown in it every year. And after the rainy season ended, the river dried to just a trickle. This day in late August, only a thin thread of brown water inched downstream.

I heard something scuttle through the dense brush on the far side of the river and looked up to see the fluffy brindled tail of a coyote just before he disappeared into the landscape. I also made out bits of color hidden beneath the larger bushes, flashes of metal and plastic. I could barely identify a couple of sleeping bags and what looked like a cooking pot. I knew those bushes sheltered the homeless almost year round. I just couldn't detect anyone there at the moment. The homeless knew how to become invisible.

As I walked on I spotted a large heap of clothing about ten yards ahead. At first I thought someone used this isolated spot to dump their trash. But when I walked closer I saw the body of a man tangled inside the dark jeans and maroon and gold baseball jersey. The dark red ground underneath his battered head crawled with ants and flies. His jaw hung open at an unnatural angle and I didn't need to check his pulse to know he didn't have one.

The shaking started somewhere in my knees, and my stomach pushed up toward my throat. This was the second time in four months I'd discovered a dead body. My head started to float away-deja vu all over again.

The first time I'd been with my quilting friends, Lucy Mondello and Birdie Watson, when we discovered the murdered body of another quilter. I was the one who eventually figured out the ident.i.ty of the killer. The guy who worked the case was Arlo Beavers, a tall, hunky LAPD homicide detective with a white mustache.

Beavers and I have been dating since then, which is kind of surprising since we started off on the wrong foot. He kept warning me to stop poking around the investigation. In the end he was right. Because I refused to stop searching for answers on my own I was thrown in jail and almost killed. After that, I promised myself and my friends I'd just quilt like a normal person and leave the policing to the pros.

And now, I would have to tell him I just stumbled on what was obviously another murder. I wondered how he would react. Still staring at the dead man, I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket with badly shaking hands. Thank goodness Beavers was on speed dial.

"Arlo, it's me. I just found a dead body."

end.