The Devil's Puzzle

by Clare O'Donohue

  “Can I put purple polka dots with green stripes?” Allie asked me.

  “You can if you want to,” I told her. “There aren’t any rules about what goes with what when you make a quilt.”

  “Are you sure?” She scrunched up her face worriedly. Even at six, she had reason to doubt that a place without rules existed.

  “It’s your quilt. You can do what you like.”

  She looked up at me with the same serious expression that Jesse had whenever he didn’t quite believe what I was saying. “I’m not making the quilt for me, Nell,” she said. “It’s kind of for Daddy, so it has to be colors he would like.”

  “He’ll love whatever fabrics you choose.” Eleanor came into the room and grabbed Allie, sending the little girl into a fit of giggles.

  “What do you mean it’s ‘kind of ’ for Daddy?” I asked.

  “It’s for you and Daddy when you get married.”

  Eleanor and I exchanged surprised glances. I was glad to see from the look on her face that it wasn’t my grandmother who had put the idea into Allie’s head.

  “Well, then you have plenty of time to choose colors,” I said, without any idea of what else to say.

  “But I want to make you a wedding quilt,” she said. “That’s what you do when people get married.”

  I could feel my face turn red. “It is,” I agreed. “But . . .” I looked toward Eleanor for help.

  “If I help her, maybe we can figure out what to make,” Eleanor volunteered. That wasn’t exactly the help I was looking for, but for Allie’s sake, I just smiled.

  Natalie, who had been working quietly in the back of the room the whole day, stopped quilting at the longarm machine and came over to us, stretching her arms tiredly. “I think that’s all I have in me for the day,” she said. “The baby is kicking up a storm and it’s wearing me out. Nell, do you want to grab a quick cup of tea at Jitters before I head home?”

  “I’d love the break,” I said. “Is it okay to leave Allie?” I asked Eleanor.

  “Okay? Allie and I have a quilt to plan.”

  “Don’t get too carried away,” I said, but she wasn’t listening. She and Allie were walking through the aisles of the shop adding fabric to the polka dots and stripes.

  “This is getting out of hand,” I said to Natalie when we entered Jitters.

  Carrie looked up and smiled. “This is your fourth time today, Nell. Even for you, that’s a lot of coffee.”

  “I’m not here for the coffee,” I said. “I’m here for help.”

  The shop was enjoying a rare quiet moment, so Carrie left the counter and joined Natalie and me at a table. I told her and Natalie about my conversation with Maggie, and Glad’s strange comment that Eleanor was avoiding Ed Bryant.

  “He’s a nice man, isn’t he?” Carrie asked. “He comes in here every morning for coffee and a muffin. Always apple spice.” She smiled. “Then in the afternoon, he comes back for another one. He’s so gentlemanly. Why would Eleanor dislike him?”

  Natalie shrugged. “Maybe that’s just Glad trying to be mean. You know, saying something provocative to show you how much she knows about this town. That would be just like her.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But there is something. I think Maggie knows what it is, but she’s too loyal to Eleanor to tell me.”

  Natalie nodded. “And if you asked Eleanor, she would just stonewall you, or start talking about your engagement.”

  “Poor Jesse,” I said. “You should have seen the look of terror on his face when I told him that Eleanor thinks he’s the one ready to pop the question.”

  “It wouldn’t be such a bad idea, though,” Carrie said. “Maybe it could be a double wedding.”

  “Maybe in the fall,” Natalie agreed. “How sweet would that be? You and Jesse, Eleanor and Oliver. It would be such a testament to the enduring power of love.”

  “That’s enough of that,” I said. “Let’s just focus on Eleanor and why she apparently dislikes Ed Bryant.”

  “Aside from his order, all he talks about is the movie theater. Poor guy, he doesn’t seem to be making much money at it,” Carrie said. “He just gets his coffee and muffin and sits at the corner table reading the paper. Every day.”

  “Does he ever talk to anyone?”

  Carrie shook her head. “Not that I’ve noticed, but it gets very busy here in the mornings.”

  “Does he live alone?” I asked.

  “As far as I know,” Natalie said.

  “What about a wife, kids?” Carrie asked.

  Like me, Carrie was a transplant, having arrived in Archers Rest just a few years ago. Natalie had grown up in the town, so we depended on her for any gossip that dated back more than five years. And she was happy to oblige.

  “I don’t think he ever married,” Natalie told us. “I don’t think he even has relatives in town. He was a teacher at the high school, but he retired when I was a freshman, so I never had him. My mother said he’s friendly when you talk to him, but mostly he keeps to himself. Just him and his movies. Like a hermit, really, locked away in his projection booth most evenings. I do know that he hasn’t really been involved in town activities before, at least since I was a kid.”

  “But he volunteered to be in charge of the parade and carnival,” I said.

  “And he can’t be too much of a hermit if he comes to Jitters every morning,” Carrie added.

  “Don’t you think that’s strange?” I said. “He’s lived here for years, never gets involved in anything outside the theater, and now he’s suddenly joining up to help the town.”

  “Maybe he just got lonely,” Carrie said.

  “So why would Eleanor dislike him?” I asked. “Assuming Glad isn’t just playing games with me, what could be the reason?”

  “Maybe they dated and he left her, broke her heart,” Natalie suggested.

  “Eleanor’s not the type to hold onto hurt feelings,” Carrie said.

  “And we’re talking about something so big that she would pass a quilt show on to Nell so she wouldn’t have to be in the same room with him.”

  “Don’t say it that way,” Natalie scolded her. “You make it sound like Nell can’t handle the quilt show.”

  “I barely can,” I admitted.

  Natalie thought for a moment. “I could ask around and see what kind of reputation he had as a teacher. Maybe he had a run-in with Eleanor about her kids.”

  “And I can mention Eleanor’s name to him tomorrow when he comes in,” Carrie said. “Just something casual. See if there’s a reaction.”

  “And I’ll ask Jesse what he thinks of Ed,” I volunteered. “Maybe see if there’s an old arrest on the records, something that would be bad enough that Eleanor wouldn’t forgive it.” I tapped the table impatiently. “And I’ll see him at that silly committee meeting tomorrow. That should be fun.”

  Just when I was feeling charged about making headway on Eleanor’s secret, I looked up and saw Oliver walk into the shop. He looked tired, but he winked when he saw us. “May I join you ladies?”

  “Always,” I said, and matched his smile with one of my own.

  “Everything okay?”

  “Working on a new painting, for the anniversary celebration. A new project always invigorates me. It gives me something to think about besides myself and, well, anything that might be troubling me.” He smiled at Natalie and Carrie, who met his expression with worried faces. “Everything okay, ladies?”

  “They’re fine. We’re fine,” I said. “We were just talking about Ed Bryant, the man who owns the movie theater. Have you been there?”

  “No. I tried to get Eleanor to go to see His Girl Friday when it was playing there a few weeks back, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She can’t stand Cary Grant—can you imagine?” He laughed. “Who doesn’t like Cary Grant?”

  Natalie looked at me, and I knew she was thinking what I was thinking. Maybe it wasn’t Cary Grant that my grandmother didn’t like.

  “She prefers the theater by my h
ouse,” he said. “She said the one in town is kind of broken-down. Unlike her not to support an Archers Rest business, but I guess we all have our quirks.” He looked toward me.

  “I don’t have quirks,” I said, a touch too defensively.

  Carrie, Natalie, and Oliver all laughed. Carrie patted my hand. “Of course you don’t, Nell. Being curious isn’t a quirk, it’s a lifestyle.”

  I knew it was all in good fun, but the label was beginning to annoy me. I sat back and smiled, half of me wanting to tell them I was perfectly capable of minding my own business, while the other half wondered what Ed had done to make Eleanor dislike him.

  CHAPTER 17

  At four the next day, I walked into the committee meeting and realized I was the first to arrive. After waiting a few minutes in the library’s conference room, I walked into the main area and looked around for any of the other committee members. Finding none, I headed toward Dru Ann Love, the head librarian, who was sitting at her desk, deeply engrossed in War and Peace.

  “I’m supposed to meet Glad Warren for the anniversary committee meeting,” I told her.

  “At 4:30.”

  “She told me four o’clock.”

  Dru smiled. “You must have done something to annoy her, and this is payback.”

  I sighed. “That’s a little petty, wasting a half hour of my time.”

  “That’s Glad. You might as well just wait in the conference room. There’s some coffee in there that’s pretty fresh. Glad will be here at 4:30, all smiles, insisting you misheard her. I’m actually surprised she hasn’t been in, what with the problems we’ve had today.”

  “What problems?”

  “Didn’t you hear? Someone got into the library last night and tipped over carts, threw books on the floor, just made a real mess of the place.”

  “Was anything stolen?”

  “Not that I can tell. The computers are all accounted for, our videos and CDs. Even the money from the late fees was still here. It’s only about thirty dollars, but if someone were going to steal, you would think they’d take the cash.” She shook her head. “I think they were looking for something.”

  “Like what?”

  “Don’t know. But when I told Jesse that the books that had been displaced were in our New York history section, he seemed very interested. We keep some of the rarer ones in a glass case over by the window.” She pointed toward a wooden and glass case with cardboard taped to it and caution tape wrapped around the cardboard. “Someone broke into the case, left glass shattered all over the floor. We’ve been cleaning up all morning.”

  “I wonder what they wanted.”

  “Well,” she leaned toward me and whispered, “one of the books was a short history of the town written by Glad’s father. Years and years ago, of course. There were pages ripped out.”

  “Which pages?” I whispered back.

  “I don’t know. Jesse took the book as evidence.” Dru looked around and lowered her voice even more, so it was barely audible. “It’s the sort of thing she would do.”

  “She who?”

  “The witch on the hill.”

  The mayor had talked of ghosts and pirates. Now Dru was adding a witch. Archers Rest was turning into quite the colorful community. “What witch?” I asked.

  “Glad’s sister. She’s done a lot of crazy things in this town. Years of it. She once threatened to blow up city hall. Now Glad keeps her locked up in that house so she won’t cause any more trouble.”

  “That can’t be true.” I didn’t like Glad, but I doubted she would keep anyone, least of all her sister, a prisoner. “How did she—how would anyone—get into the library?”

  She pointed the tip of her pencil toward the far corner. “Whoever it was broke a window in the office around back. Perfect spot for it, too. It’s surrounded by bushes, so she—I mean, whoever broke in—was completely hidden.”

  “What about a surveillance camera?”

  Dru laughed. “I talked to Glad about getting one over a month ago, or at least an alarm system, but she said we don’t have the money. Maybe she was afraid of what her sister might do and she didn’t want it caught on tape.” She paused, looking slightly horrified. “When Glad does show up for the meeting, do me a favor and don’t mention anything I said about Mary Shipman.”

  I headed back to the conference room after glancing into the office and seeing the boarded-up broken window. Kids, I guessed, just trying to have some fun. Far more likely than a crazy relative of Glad’s.

  As I waited, I paced the floor of the conference room, my mind going back and forth between the skeleton, the situation with Eleanor, and the growing impatience I felt for Glad’s childish way of asserting her authority. I was building up to a confrontation that would make the break-in—and for that matter, the skeleton—seem dull by comparison.

  “I thought I was early.” Ed walked into the room.

  “She told me four,” I told him.

  “She told me 4:15.”

  “Apparently she told everyone else 4:30.”

  He laughed. “Everyone has a fiefdom. For people like Glad and the mayor, Archers Rest is their little piece of the world and they are going to control everything in it for as long as they can. I guess we’re on the receiving end of that lesson today.”

  “Except they might be at odds over the latest town event.” I told him about the opposite reactions that Glad and Larry had to the discovery of the skeleton.

  “Well, you can’t blame them. In a way, they’re both right, aren’t they? It is publicity for the town, maybe it will get some people interested in coming up here, but it’s not exactly the kind of thing you want to be famous for—a dead body in someone’s garden,” he said. “Any progress yet on who he is?”

  Glad walked into the room. “Haven’t we had enough unpleasantness? Can’t we put that sad business at Eleanor’s behind us?”

  “Not yet,” I said. “But we have found out that the person likely went missing in 1975. It’s just that there are no missing persons reports filed on anyone in ’75 that match the description: male, about six feet tall, maybe mid-thirties to forties. It could have been someone maybe passing through town . . .”

  “In 1975?” Glad asked.

  “We think so. That is, Jesse thinks so. I’m just an interested observer.”

  “You aren’t able to identify him?”

  “Not yet. There really isn’t anything remarkable about the body,” I said. “Except he was wearing a suit coat from Savile Row in London and his teeth were well cared for, but he had a broken leg that hadn’t been properly set.”

  I could see that Glad wasn’t really listening. She lowered herself into a seat and rifled through some papers. She was trying to appear disinterested, but her face was pale and her breathing seemed erratic.

  “Are you okay?” Ed asked.

  “Winston,” she muttered.

  “You know who it is?” I crouched down so I could look at her face. She wouldn’t meet my eyes. “You said ‘Winston.’ Is that his first name or his last?”

  “Winston Roemer,” she whispered.

  “Roemer,” I repeated. “Like Grace Roemer? The woman who owned my grandmother’s house?”

  She nodded.

  “And Winston was related to her?”

  “Her son.”

  I wanted to ask her why she was so sure, but Glad’s breathing had begun to alarm me, and I could see Ed felt the same way. He grabbed a bottle of water that had been left on the table and poured Glad a glass. She sipped it and seemed to relax, though she was lost in her own thoughts.

  “I can’t believe it,” she said, shaking her head.

  “Do you really think it’s him?” Ed was saying, more to himself than to either Glad or me.

  Maggie walked into the room and smiled at first, but then looked at our faces, filled with shock and confusion. “What’s wrong?”

  I looked at her. “Did you know someone named Winston Roemer?” She didn’t move, didn’t even blink, but it
seemed to me that she looked frightened.

  CHAPTER 18

  “Four thirty, exactly on time,” Glad looked at her watch.

  After excusing herself for about five minutes, she’d returned with a fresh coat of lipstick and a peaceful expression. She had, apparently, recovered from the fright of identifying the body and now wanted to pretend it hadn’t happened.

  “So glad everyone is here.” Glad counted heads. “Except the mayor. Well, I suppose he has pressing business, so we can’t fault him. I suggest everyone take a seat and we’ll go around the room and share our progress.”

  Maggie slid into a seat near Glad, keeping her back to me. She’d turned a shade of white when Winston Roemer’s name was mentioned, but she’d been saved from answering any questions by Glad’s decision to “end the discussion on such a disagreeable topic and begin the meeting.”

  I didn’t care about any discussion, disagreeable or not. I was desperate to get out of there and head to Jesse. “Glad,” I said, “I’ve been waiting since four o’clock, and now I have somewhere to go . . .”

  “Yes, I’m sorry about the mix-up, Nell. I meant to call you at the shop and forgot.” It was an unusual admission of failure and it left me unsure of what to say. “Just give me a few minutes,” she continued. “I have some very important news to tell all of you as soon as the mayor arrives.”

  I reached for my phone and texted Jesse. “Skeleton may be Winston Roemer. Glad ID’d.” Then I sent the same text to Carrie and Natalie, with an additional line: “Maggie shook up at mention of his name.”

  I could have—and maybe should have—given Jesse that last line of information, but I didn’t want him thinking I considered Maggie a suspect. It was suspicious, though. Why would the mere mention of Grace’s son have gotten such a strange reaction from her? Even now, as we waited for the mayor to arrive, I could see Maggie sitting tense and angry. And why was Glad so shook up? I knew almost nothing about Grace’s children except that they would have been much older than Glad. I shifted in my seat and tried to focus on the meeting, not my growing desire to ask questions of everyone present.