by Tess Rothery
“Imagine loving something enough to be ready to kill for it,” Tansy murmured from the safety of her camping chair.
“How does it feel to be related to a murdering bastard?” Pyper asked Aviva.
Aviva lit up at the question. “Bad people make great stories. Fill my whole family tree with skeletons, please.”
Jeanne topped off her hot coco. “Okay, but who in this town is the lawyer related to?”
Lorraine caught Taylor's eye.
Taylor shook her head and frowned. She didn't know who the lawyer was.
“I have no evidence that he was related to anyone in this town, but the lawyer's name was Archibald Quinn.”
Taylor laughed out loud. Her stomach hurt. The old wound in her shoulder ached from being held in rigid fear, and a couple of tears rolled down her cheek. She'd never heard of any Archibald Quinn, and her Grandpa Quinny wasn't even from the area.
“But you know how small towns are,” Lorraine said. “When this house was built in 1904, it was called the Boone-Love House because the Boones and the Loves are important people in the area. When the new owners moved in, it was said Archie Quinn lived in the Boone-Love house. That is what it was then, and has remained through its many different owners.” Lorraine’s straight posture and serene face implied she was proud of the story she had told.
Taylor felt like some of the numbers didn't quite add up, but she couldn't put her finger on how. Perhaps she should have taken a history degree. It seemed like that's what a person needed in a small town. It would take a degree to keep all of these stories, dates, and names straight.
“I've got shivers now,” Jeanne said. “I hope I'm not sleeping in Abraham's room. But Taylor can you please tell me the story of the quilt in my room? All quilts seems so fancy to me, and art in general is so much out of my area.”
“Happily. Belle, which quilt is in her room?”
Belle laughed. “As it would happen, she’s got Mom’s Cabin Fever quilt.”
Laughter in the group released the tension in Taylor’s shoulder. If they could still laugh about it in fourteen days, it would have been a successful quarantine. “That’s a pretty one, and maybe a little too appropriate.”
“I don’t have cabin fever, yet,” Jeanne assured them. “But ask again when the two weeks are up!”
“This is one-hundred percent the season of cabin fever,” Belle said. “I admit that’s why I picked it from our stash. And trust me, we have a lot of options.”
“Some of you remember our mom, Laura. She’d been married for two years and was pregnant with her first child: me.” Taylor began the simple story of the thirty-two-year-old quilt.
Aviva clapped.
Taylor gave the girl a smile. "She’d been studying at the College of Art and Craft but to hear her tell it, she was spending too much time barfing to complete her degree. She and my dad were living in the little apartment above Flour Sax, and as she was completely sick the whole pregnancy, she rarely left those few rooms.
“Her husband, that young and handsome Todd Quinn, was a busy firefighter. You know Comfort doesn't have its own firehouse, just some volunteers. He worked in Salem and stayed many nights in the firehouse rather than with his young, barfy wife. She didn't have much money and few of her friends had stayed in the area. All she had to occupy her time were the off-cuts, remnants, and scraps from the quilt shop.”
“Please tell me there is no murder related to this blanket!” Jeanne suddenly cried out.
“I could try to be a little more dramatic, but there's no murder. Just a young, lonely girl who decided to make the Cabin Fever quilt because it was just so fitting.”
All that remained of their fire were the perfect coals for s’mores, so Belle passed around sticks and marshmallows. The ladies toasted their treats, not in silence but in light chatter.
Belle was smart. Story time had been good.
They were relaxed and entertained. Happy even. Whoever had been crying had forgotten their woes. Whoever had an axe to grind with Maddie had laid it aside for now. She wished Maddie had stayed around long enough for this. It might have helped. Either way, she hoped her old friend was having some kind of peace tonight.
Later that night as Sissy, Taylor, Aviva, and Belle put away the chairs, ran mugs back down to the kitchen, and tidied up the snacky detritus, she realized she’d almost forgotten that the active infection was hanging over their heads.
Surely, none of them had contracted Covid. It’s not as though they'd shaken hands with the driver or spoken to him face-to-face. He was a mini-bus cab driver, after all. Not one of the guests. Taylor hoped they’d all worn their masks inside the van as had been requested. This quarantine was just a precaution.
She took one more pass outside checking to make sure they had collected all the debris of a delightful evening and then decided to do the same thing through all the main rooms of the house.
From the front hall she could hear two voices in the parlor. By now it was easy to recognize them as Jeanne and Courtney.
Jeanne, Taylor thought, must be using her best bedside manner because she sounded comforting even though the words were a bit ominous. “After what she did to your daughter, I certainly wouldn't blame you. And I am absolutely not going to tell Belle or Sissy.”
Taylor snuck around the other direction so as not to interrupt them. Probably the conversation related to something that had been done while counseling Courtney's daughter, and that was none of Taylor's business.
She noted with a bit of chagrin that the thing that bothered her about the overheard statement was the way the two women assumed the event was being run by Belle and Sissy rather than Belle and Taylor.
It was after midnight and Taylor and Belle were snuggled in Belle's bed. They were snuggled under a Bright Pathways quilt—made from Flour Sax stock in plums and mustard yellows with a light, creamy contrast. Belle had made it long after Taylor had moved out. The king-sized bed cover was new in contrast to the home, but soft from light wear and washing in a machine. A quilt that didn't have a story to tell yet and was perfectly innocent and safe.
Though they were exhausted and knew they should be sleeping, they were engrossed in their mom's YouTube show. At this point she’d seen all of them many times over. Unless Jonah was hiding footage somewhere, there were no new videos to be seen. But that didn’t matter. Taylor would watch them a million times more, even after she had every word, gesture, and look memorized.
“It’s about integrity.” Laura smiled from her place at her work table. “If the fibers are weak, the whole thing falls apart. But you can save it if you carefully unpick it and rebuild it from the inside out.”
Belle paused the video. “I'm worried about Jonah.”
“What do you mean?” Taylor propped herself up on her elbow and looked at her little sister.
“A lot of temptation in those influencer hype-houses. I didn't tell you earlier, but I saw a video and he wasn't wearing his mask.”
Taylor gritted her teeth. Being too proud to wear a mask was a pet peeve of hers.
“I'm afraid he's going to do something while he's there that'll make his fans hate us. We've tried to be careful with our money, but all of this was expensive and if he screws up…”
Taylor wondered if “screws up” was standing in for “screws around.”
“If he screws up,” Belle continued, “we could lose everything.”
“He won’t’ screw up.” Taylor wanted to believe it. “He’s the one that filmed this little video about integrity, isn’t he? Or edited it, at least. He’d never let you down.”
“Do you think Archibald Quinn is really related to us?” Belle abruptly changed the subject.
“That's a good question. I bet Grandma Quinny knows.”
“It was nice of Lorraine to do a story time, but if the Quinn's are related, then that's my story and I can tell it.” Her voice was wistful and young.
“We’ll find out. I know the Bakers have been around here for a long ti
me, but I never think of the Quinns having deep roots in Comfort.”
Belle just nodded and began to fiddle with her phone. Taylor slipped out of bed and went to the sleeper sofa that had been made for her.
Her sister had not insisted on vintage furniture in the modern wing of the house, and Taylor was glad because there was nothing as uncomfortable as an old sleeper sofa. “Oh, by the way, Belle,” Taylor said, "I asked Valerie and the Juvies to look into something for me regarding the trouble that Maddie's been having. Someone will be getting back to me soon. I could ask them to check on Jonah if you want.”
A sniffle from the king-sized bed worried Taylor.
“No, please don't. The last thing Jonah and I need is all those teenage girls obsessing over our marriage."
Chapter Nine
The sun rose the next morning like it was always going to. This would have been their last day if it weren’t for the virus exposure.
Aviva made waffles, again, and they were well received.
The room seemed quieter without Maddie, maybe even more peaceful.
Pyper and Tansy sat with Lorraine at breakfast, and they seemed to get along, smiling, passing the strawberries and cream, refilling each other's mugs. Lorraine received the attention with grace. Though she accepted the service of the girls, she had a deep crease of worry on her pale forehead.
Or was that the look she always wore? Perhaps, after all, Taylor was the one who was paranoid.
Jeanne and Courtney had a table to themselves. They sat at an angle from each other and seemed deep in a private conversation. Every fiber of Taylor's nosy amateur-detectivey-being wanted to hover at the table listening in. Her one little trip around the dining room indicated they were merely talking about their kids.
As soon as the tables were cleared, she and her sister were going to disinfect Maddie's room.
She hadn't heard from Maddie and didn't know for sure that she'd gone to the little house on Love Street, but she certainly wasn't here and hadn't been to the fireside story. If she was just enjoying alone time in her room, perhaps Taylor and Belle could convince her she would like it even more at Taylor’s house.
The elevator was too small for six feet of distance between two people so the rule was one person at a time. Taylor thought an exception could be made for sisters, but Belle rejected the suggestion. "After all, you've had more contact with the ladies than I have. You could have the virus and give it to me in the elevator. Wouldn't you feel terribly guilty if that happened?" She smiled a cheeky little grin.
They had been snuggled down for a sisterly cuddle to watch their mom’s YouTube show last night and Belle had not been worried about contagions then, but Taylor didn’t argue. After all, even while snuggling they’d worn their masks.
Belle hauled a new broom and small vacuum up to the second floor where the guests were sleeping.
Taylor had a bucket with spray bottles of vinegar, Lysol, and bleach, as well as rags. “It seems to me someone who could afford a house like this could afford to keep cleaning supplies on every floor of the house."
Belle did a few reps lifting her vacuum with one hand. "But then I'd have to have an exercise room and make time to get in a workout. Why do that when you we can just live inefficiently?"
Taylor crossed her fingers as they knocked on Maddie's door. The last thing she wanted was to find the woman pouting and hoping for a heart to heart. A wave of relief rolled over her when they got no answer. They pushed open the door ready to decontaminate the guest room.
Belle stopped short and Taylor walked right into the back of her. She dropped her bucket with a clatter and bent over to pick up the various bottles that had fallen out. It was then that she saw the recumbent form of Maddie Carpenter.
Taylor yanked her arm backwards, far from the fuzzy-sock clad feet.
“The knife. Oh, the knife. It's the Boone knife. Oh God, the Boone knife." Belle's shaking voice repeated over and over again.
Taylor was transfixed by the fuzzy socks. She didn't want to look at the rest of the body. She didn't want to see what her sister could see.
“Call 911. Please call 911.” Belle dropped to her knees next to her guest.
Taylor turned away. She'd call 911. That’s what she would do. This time, her sister could check for signs of life. This time, Taylor didn’t have to be the one to feel for a pulse or beg for the hope of faint breathing.
It didn't take the hazmat-suit-clad coroner to tell them Madeline Carpenter was dead. By the time the authorities had arrived, Belle had checked for a pulse, held a mirror under her nose to make sure she wasn't breathing, and because she wasn’t blind, she’d noted the bone-handled hunting knife sticking out of the left side of her chest.
Small red blots stained Maddie’s cotton pajama top. It wasn't much, and at first it had made Taylor hope it wasn’t serious. Belle had kept checking over and over again to see if the girl was alive. But though the knife blade had acted like a cork and prevented her from bleeding out, the wound had been fatal.
Maddie hadn't needed to bleed to death. The knife had gone directly into her heart.
Taylor sat alone in the small room that Jonah used as an office. Though as far as she could tell all he ever did there was film TikTok videos. Nonetheless, it was private, and she'd been told to go there and to wait for Sheriff Rousseau. She wasn't looking forward to it. She had too many answers for his questions, and too much guilt about not having done something sooner.
Sheriff Rousseau, clad in a disposable hazardous materials suit, a facemask, a clear plastic shield, and a disheartened attitude, entered the small room quietly. He sat gently and his eyes, which were all she could see because of his face mask, held a look of compassion. “I hear the deceased was an old friend of yours,” he said. “I'm so sorry for your loss.”
"We were really close back in high school,” Taylor said, though she had a feeling someone else would've spilled the beans about their falling out already.
"Can you tell me any reason why someone might have wanted to do this to her?” Rousseau asked.
"I can’t think of anything worth killing her over." Taylor wrapped her fingers around each other over and over again. “I'm not trying to be coy. I just… I've been trying to figure out who was bothering her, and I can’t understand it."
"Tell me more about this."
Taylor described the various instances from the chicken bones to the weird bit of receipt tape in her cookie. "I don't think they can have been accidents, and she was really upset about it. I gave her the key to my house so she could leave. It seemed easier to just get her away from here. Like, moving the problem instead of dealing with it.”
“I hear you and Maddie had a falling out a few years back."
"Yes, it was silly, really, a misunderstanding. Hudson had suggested that Maddie might have volunteered to chaperone Belle on an overnighter so she could seduce her, which even sounds ridiculous as I say it. Belle was only sixteen and I had sent them to that bed and breakfast where my mom died. You remember the place on the river?"
"I remember."
“Hudson didn’t like the look of it. Maddie was her counselor, so it didn’t sit right with him. He talked to me, and I talked to Maddie. It upset her a lot. She was defensive, and I can’t blame her. We were old friends and that was a pretty terrible thing to suspect her of. I didn’t suspect her, though, just so you know. I thought it was absurd, but also, I didn’t want things to look bad in the future. All I wanted to do was explain why we had to change our counseling situation. She got defensive and then we just never spoke again." Taylor blurted the whole mess out as quickly as she could.
“You know of anyone else who's had an experience like that with Maddie?" Sheriff Rousseau didn’t even blink.
Taylor swallowed nervously. Was it her place to bring up what she'd overheard from Courtney? She didn’t have a choice in a murder investigation. But she didn’t like it, either. “She told me a bit about where she thought the Yelp review had come from. She said s
he had a client whose brother was upset about his sister’s troubles. And it sounds like something happened with Courtney's daughter, Jubilee. I don't know what, but they were fighting, and I heard Courtney say she’d found a different counselor for her daughter.” Taylor paused.
The Sheriff remained silent.
“She said she didn't hold it against her. She didn’t seem upset about it.” Taylor was warming to the subject. “And yet, later, I overheard something between Courtney and Jeanne that made it sound like Courtney had done something she was ashamed of.”
“Any ideas what it might have been?” Rousseau nodded.
“No. But Jeanne said after what had happened with Jubilee, she didn’t blame Courtney. I wish I had caught up with them and asked. But at the time it didn’t seem necessary.”
“I also wish you had," the sheriff said. “I'm going to be honest with you because I trust you, and you know that.”
Taylor swallowed.
“This doesn't look good for you. I've had you in here before. Not in here, literally.” He looked around the small space set up to film for the phone app.
Taylor straightened up. She had a terrible feeling about what was coming next.
“Someone once said that the more acquainted you are with murder, the more likely you would be to see murder as a solution to your problem.”
“That's absurd.”
He shook his head. “I think it's absurd to apply that to you, but there will be people at the state level who don't agree. So, I ask you with my whole heart Taylor, please do not interfere with our investigation. The more your name appears in our notes, the more it looks like you had something to do with it.”
Tears smarted in Taylor’s eyes. If she couldn't help solve this crime, what was the point of everything she'd gone through in the last several years? "I hear you, but I can't see how my name could escape these files. There are only ten of us here. We've all got to stay here for the next eleven days. Anyone you talk to is going to bring me up. Probably again and again and again because, like I said, there’s only ten of us.” She stopped, remembering that Maddie was no longer with them. “Nine of us. There are only nine of us here now."