Forget Me Knot: A Quilting Mystery Part 4

I felt a rush of empathy for this grieving mother. G.o.d forbid anything should happen to Quincy. My own tears would never stop.

I pretended I didn't know where this conversation was headed. "Well, I didn't know her very well. . . ."

"I mean tell me how you found her. What did she look like?"

Rats! "Siobhan, I don't think-"

"Please. I want to know. Did she suffer?"

"I really can't answer that. When we got there, she was already gone. She was lying on the floor like she just went to sleep." I was not going to tell Claire's mother about the vomit around Claire's mouth and in her hair, or the blood on her hands.

"So you don't think she suffered?"

"She didn't look that way to me," I lied.

"You know"-I hoped to deflect further questions-"Claire was widely admired. She was the best quilter in the guild. My friends and I were so pleased she invited us to quilt with her."

"I was upset when they told me yesterday a thief stole her quilt."

"I know how you feel. My quilt and my friend Birdie's quilt were also stolen."

"Yes, Detective Beavers told me. Claire had no children, so her quilts are all I have left of her. I think this last one is the best she'd ever done. I'd very much like to get it back."

"Yes, but I don't think the police are very optimistic about our chances. They're more interested in . . ." I stopped myself.

"In who killed her?"

"I'm sorry. Yes. In who killed her."

The older woman looked somewhere over my shoulder. The blue in her eyes turned to ice and her face hardened. Parchment skin stretched over the white bones of her knuckles as she clenched her fists. "Whoever killed her will pay."

I didn't know what to say in the face of her grief and anger. I decided this was one of those times when it was better to just say nothing.

After a minute, Siobhan relaxed a little and looked at me. "How did you get involved in quilting?"

"Well, my grandmother was a quilter. I have fond memories of her cutting out pieces of colorful old clothing and sewing them together to make beautiful patterns. I made my first quilt for my daughter's crib. That was thirty years and over one hundred quilts ago."

"I'm afraid I would never have the patience required to sit and sew like that."

"That's a common a.s.sumption people make. Quilting has nothing to do with patience. Working with your hands can be a form of meditation. It can bring great peace." I looked at the other woman's well-manicured hands and doubted they'd ever done a day of work.

"Would you say you know a lot about quilts after thirty years?"

"Actually, yes. I've studied technique, textiles, and quilt history extensively."

"In that case, you may be just the person I'm looking for. Claire once told me her quilts were her journals. When I asked her what she meant, she said they each have a story to tell about her life. Because you know so much about quilts, maybe you can figure out what those stories were."

"Well, there is such a thing as a Story Quilt. Those depict everyday scenes from the life of the quilt maker. Each block is appliqued or embroidered to make a scene of some significant event in the quilter's life. The pictures are usually quite obvious and simple, like planting corn or sweeping the house. The overall effect is primitive but quite charming. Did Claire ever make one of those?"

"No, but I keep thinking maybe she left some kind of message in her quilts."

"You mean like a note sewn inside each one?"

Siobhan looked up earnestly. "I don't know. That's what I'm hoping you can figure out."

"Why don't you tell all this to the police?"

"I tried talking to that young detective, but I don't think he took me seriously."

"Detective Kaplan, Beavers's partner?"

"Yes, I think that's the one." Siobhan fixed me with a pleading look. "Martha, I want you to look at her quilts. Most are privately owned now, but a few are at Claire's. Go back to her place. There's a key on the side of the house. You can let yourself in."

I remembered Claire's neighbor, Ingrid, reaching around the corner of Claire's house to get the key. "Her neighbor took the key to open the door last Tuesday, when we were there."

"I know. She called. I asked her to put it back. Take the key and keep it for now. See what you can find, and please hurry."

We stood.

Siobhan appeared diminutive and breakable, but her gaze was firm. "Maybe the clue to my daughter's death is in her quilts, especially the last one. I keep thinking that whoever stole Claire's quilt may also have killed her."

I bent down to hug the older woman, something I wouldn't have dreamed possible when I first walked into this imposing house. Bird bones hid under her soft cashmere sweater. "I'll do what I can," I said, mother to mother. "I promise."

CHAPTER 8.

I drove back to my house in Encino to change clothes. Peeling off my panty hose was like opening a bag of compressed marshmallows. Instant release. I stepped into a pair of jeans and comfortable shoes, grabbed a blueberry m.u.f.fin the size of my head and a cold c.o.ke Zero from the refrigerator. You had to draw the calorie line somewhere.

The yellow tape was gone from Claire's circular driveway, so I parked my white Corolla near the front door. A horn honked briefly somewhere down the street, stabbing the Sunday afternoon quiet. I walked over to the side of the house where the neighbor had removed the key. My way was blocked by an iron gate secured by a heavy steel padlock. I tried to look around a large oleander bush, but the branches were in the way.

I closed my eyes and snaked my arm through the bush and the iron bars of the gate, feeling blindly along the smooth, melon-colored stucco of the side wall. My fingers brushed against something hard that felt like a miniature aluminum awning. I knew what this was: the vent cover for the clothes dryer, just like mine at home.

I hesitated to put my fingers inside a hole I couldn't see. G.o.d forbid there should be a spider lurking there. I held my breath, squeezed my eyelids, and felt around the edges of the vent cover until I found the bottom. I pushed at the little piece of aluminum hanging down like a tiny swinging door and walked my fingertips inside the hole. The key rested on a bed of soft lint and felt cool to the touch. I grabbed it and quickly withdrew my hand.

When I let out my breath and opened my eyes, there sat a fat brown garden spider on a web in the oleander leaves about three inches away from my face. All of its eyes looked straight at me.

"Ewww," I yelled, jumping away and brus.h.i.+ng imaginary spiders out of my hair and clothes. "Ewww. Ewww." I did the spider dance all the way to the front door .

Still shuddering, I turned the key in the lock but hesitated before opening the door. Did Claire have an alarm? Siobhan hadn't mentioned anything. I took a deep breath and slowly pushed the heavy blue door open. Silence. Okay, good.

The air in the house smelled faintly like the men's restroom in a bus station. I didn't remember any noxious odors five days ago when we found Claire's body.

The inside of the house was pretty much as I remembered-yellow walls, hardwood floors, generously upholstered white sofa with an applique quilt hanging behind. Claire must have loved yellow, because the dining room was painted a mustard color. Beyond that was a kitchen with white cabinets and black granite countertops.

I looked at the litter on the floor from the EMTs. I pushed at some of the paper wrappings and empty plastic bags with the toe of my blue Crocs. Were they allowed to just leave a mess like this?

A faint whine suddenly came from the other room. I froze in place. Another whine, a little louder now. Oh my G.o.d, there's someone else here. I looked around desperately for something to defend myself with and picked up a ceramic table lamp. Then I saw an orange tabby cat padding cautiously around the corner. He looked at me and whined again.

I put the lamp back down on the table. "Gosh, you scared me." I bent to pet the cat. "You must be Claire's kitty, you poor thing. Did everyone forget about you? Are you starved?" I went to the kitchen. The smell grew much stronger. I looked around and found two empty cat bowls sitting on the laundry room floor along with an overflowing litter box. "Yuchh." I looked over the cat. He slowly closed his eyes and regally disavowed any responsibility for the mess.

I found some cat food and filled one bowl with kibble and one with water. The cat made up for lost time while I cleaned the litter box and poured in some fresh sand. Then I went back to the hallway and picked up the debris on the floor where Claire's body had lain.

Spots of blood were smeared on the wall, probably when they were swabbed for evidence. A gray, powdery film appeared in smudges here and there. Dusting for prints?

I put the debris and used cat litter in the trash barrel outside, came back inside and washed my hands. "Okay, kitty, time to look at quilts." The cat was too busy crunching little star-shaped pellets to care.

I went back to the living room and over to the quilt hanging from a wooden board with clips behind Claire's sofa. I remembered seeing this work of art on the cover of Pieces quilting magazine a couple of years ago.

The flowers, herbs, and birds resembled a painting of a garden. When I got close enough, the subtle layering of different fabrics created the illusion of brushstrokes. The light tan background was heavily dotted with Claire's trademark French knots in dark brown embroidery thread. They reminded me of a pointillist painting. Not wild and generous like van Gogh. More controlled-like Seurat.

I took off my shoes and stood on the sofa, sinking unsteadily into the soft cus.h.i.+on. Reaching up to the wooden quilt hanger, I pulled the wall hanging out of the clips and sat down, sinking again into the downy cus.h.i.+on. The quilt was about three feet by four feet. The label on the back read, Secret Garden.

Secret Garden won a first-place ribbon two years ago and appeared shortly afterward in the magazine. What a privilege it was to be holding this exquisite piece of art in my lap.

I rubbed the quilt between my fingers, searching for a note Claire might have sewn inside. Cotton fabric was soft and pliable. A piece of paper inside the layers would feel stiff to the touch. Maybe I could even hear it crinkle. I started methodically in the top left corner, feeling through the layers inch by inch.

I closed my eyes in concentration as my fingers explored. There was something very sensual and comforting about a finished quilt. Sewing through the three layers of the top, batting, and lining produced a b.u.mpy texture-a real testimony to the hundreds of hours spent sewing. A quilter left her very essence in the texture of her quilts.

I reached the bottom right corner without detecting anything. If there was a message to be found, it wasn't on paper. I decided to look for the other quilts Siobhan had said were in the house. If there weren't actual notes sewn inside, maybe I could decipher some sort of hidden relations.h.i.+p between the different designs or maybe there'd be a clue in the names of the quilts.

Once again I approached the spot in the hallway where Claire's body had been found. I looked at the s.p.a.ce where she'd fallen. What a terrible waste of a young life and a fine artistic talent. A picture of my daughter flashed in my head, and I shuddered. Even though Quincy was grown and living on her own, I still worried about her every day. Eternal worry was a mother's curse.

A picture of my mother flashed by. She was the exception to that rule. My mother wasn't very functional and needed to be taken care of herself. She was the reason we lived with my uncle Isaac and my bubbie, my grandmother. They told me my mother was devastated by the death of my father. Had she always been that way-remote and dreamy and disconnected from life? Every time I asked, they changed the subject.

Walking down Claire's hallway, I pa.s.sed two bedrooms with an adjoining bath. A quick search revealed no quilts in either room. A third door was shut, and at the end of the hallway was the master suite. I opened the third door to find a well-appointed sewing studio.

The wall facing the backyard was all windows, flooding the s.p.a.ce with natural light. No wonder Claire chose this room as a studio. Fabric colors were truest in natural light. An old wooden sewing table sat under the windows next to an upholstered chaise longue, the perfect spot for sitting and quilting.

White floor to ceiling shelves and cabinets lined two of the walls. The third wall was painted white and featured a white quartz counter spanning the entire length. The counter was empty except for two sewing machines, a CD player, and a green cutting mat with one-inch yellow grid lines. The drawers beneath contained every gadget and notion a quilter could possibly want.

There were several things a serious quilter needed besides fabric, needles, and thread: a reliable sewing machine, a rotary cutter, a cutting mat, an acrylic ruler, sharp scissors, a good thimble, a steam iron, and a wooden hoop. Claire's sewing room was a warehouse of quilting supplies.

On the shelves were books about quilting and a large collection of audio books. I quickly scanned the t.i.tles and discovered Claire preferred mysteries, memoirs, and biographies. Like Claire, I also listened to stories while quilting. Were there other things we might've had in common? If she'd lived, would we have become friends?

I didn't like the idea of prying into the life of someone who was defenseless to stop me. With a mental apology to Claire for the intrusion, I started opening the cabinets. Piles and piles of neatly folded fabrics sorted by color sat on shelves. Clear plastic storage boxes held smaller pieces of fabric and were labeled according to color or theme. In this we couldn't have been more opposite. I didn't own a label maker, and fabric was strewn over every surface of my sewing room, resembling the Gulf Coast during hurricane season.

I mentally drooled when I saw the plastic Rubbermaid container labeled Vintage Fabric. Collecting old fabric was a particular pa.s.sion of mine. Vintage fabrics weren't easy to find. They usually became available when somebody died and their heirs cleaned out the attic or sewing room. Then the fabric might occasionally find its way to a quilt store or antique shop, but you really had to look hard. I was dying to see what was hidden in Claire's stash.

Carefully lifting the layers of fabric, I discovered a piece of sky blue cotton printed with little cowboys dressed in tan and red. Suddenly I was back in the fifties in elementary school when my cousin Barry once spent Pa.s.sover night with us. I was sure his pajamas had been made out of this same material.

I carefully put the cowboys back, closed the container, and continued my search. I came to a locked cupboard and guessed this was where Claire stored her quilts. Something tickled my ankle. Oh G.o.d, I thought in a panic, a spider!

The cat meowed. "That makes twice in one day you've scared me." I bent down and scratched him under the chin. "Are the quilts in this cupboard? Did your mommy tell you where the key was?" The cat blinked twice and started to purr. I swore he smiled.

I opened every drawer in the room and didn't find a key to the cupboard, so I moved on to the master suite. Luxurious pink silk drapes hung like ball gowns in front of the tall windows. A matching silk duvet and lots of puffy pillows covered in silks, brocade, and lace adorned the queen-sized bed. Decorative bone china plates hung in a grouping on one wall and a real Mary Ca.s.satt painting of a mother and child hung on another wall. This room was a luxurious feminine retreat.

The key to the cabinet wasn't in the bedroom, so I moved to the room-sized closet. Claire's clothes hung precisely like soldiers in a military parade: blouses all together, size six slacks neatly pressed, a row of designer dresses in pink garment bags, and dozens of shoes in plastic containers that weren't only labeled but identified with snapshots of the actual shoes glued onto the outside of the boxes.

Really? What would compel someone to be such a compulsive neat freak? What was the driving need behind all of this organization?

I opened the top drawer of a built-in dresser and found neat little piles of scanty underwear. I lifted out a lacy black thong no larger than the palm of my hand.

Maybe if I lost about fifty pounds.

Well, well. What had we here? Next to the underwear was a half-empty box of condoms. So Claire had a boyfriend. Did they have a fight? Did he kill her?

I replaced the tiny piece of black lace and the box of condoms and came out of the closet feeling a lot fatter than when I went in.

At the back of the bedroom was a door leading to an office. A polished walnut desk sat under a large window facing the backyard. A laptop and a telephone sat on the uncluttered desk. No mess here. No surprise.

I sat and opened the top desk drawer. A red and white Altoid tin rattled when I picked it up. A faint peppermint smell lingered inside along with unmarked keys of various sizes.

I took the tin full of keys back to the sewing room and unlocked the cupboard on the third try. Inside were only three quilts. I unfolded the first one.

This quilt was a brilliantly designed applique about four feet square. Mother's Asleep featured a naked woman with her arms over her head. She floated with her eyes closed on white clouds discretely covering her private parts. French knots made of gray thread covered the clouds like thousands of silver seeds. Clear teardrop-shaped beads dripped from the bottom of the clouds.

I felt for a note inside the quilt. Nothing. Claire's message must be in the design itself. Silver seeds. Water. Clouds. All of those elements suggested rainmaking, but what did that have to do with the t.i.tle, Mother's Asleep?

I took out my cell phone and punched in Siobhan's number. The maid put me through to the familiar soft voice.

"Yes?"

"Siobhan, this is Martha. I'm at Claire's and have found three of her quilts. Four if you count the one in the living room. Is that all of them?"

"I'm sure there are more. She kept a record somewhere of all the quilts she made. Maybe you could look for it."

"I think you're right about the messages in the quilts, but it's going to take a while to figure out what they are. Do I have your permission to take them home where I can study them more at length?"

"Yes. Just give me a list of the ones you've taken. And, Martha, I'm afraid whoever stole Claire's quilt might try to come after the others."

"Why?"

"Well, they're valuable, you know. So let's keep their location secret for now. It's safer that way."

I snapped the cell phone shut and looked outside. It was past six and the sun was going down. Siobhan warned me the thief might strike again. If so, I didn't want to be alone in Claire's house after dark.

I locked the empty quilt cabinet and put the Altoid box of keys in my shoulder bag. If someone was going to come after Claire's quilts, I wasn't going to make this easy. If he figured out Claire locked her quilts in the cabinet, he'd have to look for the key just like I did. He wouldn't find it, so he'd be forced to jimmy open the door. Not only would he not find the quilts there, he might actually leave fingerprints for the police.

I smiled at my cleverness. I'd never played chess, but if I had, I thought it would feel exactly like this.

When I opened the door to the linen closet, the fragrance of lavender and gardenias floated out in a pleasant cloud. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Then I pulled out a couple of crisp pillowcases and put the quilts into them. I locked the front door and put the bundles in the trunk of my car.

On the drive home I remembered the cat. I decided to leave him there for now. He had plenty of food and water and a clean litter box. Anyway, I'd be back soon to look for a record of Claire's quilts.