by Mary Marks
I could barely bring myself to look at him as he stood up to greet me. Before I knew what was happening, he grasped my hand in both of his. Eww. Just his touch made me feel dirty all over.
Terry’s grip remained firm and strong while he searched my face. The muscles in his square jaw bulged as he clenched his molars and sized me up. Was he trying to guess whether I knew? Well, I was sizing him up, too, wondering if he could’ve murdered his only child.
He thrust his jaw forward. “Miss Rose, let me say how grateful we are. My wife told me about the unpleasantness with the police.”
Yeah. I was in the place you ought to be. Jail. However, all I could bring myself to say was, “I’m sorry for your loss.”
He nodded gravely, let go of my hand, and sat.
Lucy cleared her throat.
I reached behind me and waved them over. “I’d like you to meet my friends. This is Birdie Watson, Lucy Mondello, and her husband, Ray.”
“You must be the other ladies who discovered . . .” Siobhan stopped and cried softly.
Birdie, her long white hair neatly wrapped in a conservative bun, leaned forward and touched Siobhan’s arm. “I really admired your daughter. I was looking forward to getting to know her better. I’m so sorry for your terrible loss.”
Siobhan nodded graciously. “Thank you.”
The musicians stopped playing and we looked up. The priest stood nearby apparently waiting to speak to the Terrys.
Siobhan turned to me and pulled me down again so she could whisper, “Martha, before we leave tonight, you must tell me what you know about the messages Claire sewed into her quilts.”
“Absolutely.” Would I really be able to? We walked away and I turned to my friends. “Does anyone have a hand wipe?”
Ray looked at Lucy with a big question mark on his face as she dug a small bottle of Purell out of her purse and handed it to me. She gave him a look that clearly warned, Don’t ask.
I squeezed a blob into my palm and scrubbed until my skin was dry again. “Let’s sit in the back of the room. I want to see who shows up.”
From our seats we counted twenty guild members, including Carlotta Hudson, who wore a homemade number looking like something straight out of the 1940s with little puff sleeves, shoulder pads, and a sweetheart neckline. The bandage I saw on her forearm several days ago was still there, but smaller. When she saw us looking at her, Carlotta’s mouth twisted into an unattractive smirk.
Birdie looked hurt. “What’s with her?”
“Probably came to gloat. You know, one down and one to go.” Lucy was referring to her theory that Carlotta was knocking off the competition so she could finally win first place in the appliqué category at the quilt show.
Birdie had a horrified look.
“Oh, hon’, I’m just kidding.”
I pointed out Alexander Godwin, who came in with a beautiful brunette. She looked about six months pregnant. Godwin held her elbow and gently guided her to a row in the middle of the room. He briefly smiled at her when they sat down. Then he took her hand and kissed it.
Everyone seemed captivated by this glamorous couple so obviously in love.
“That’s Claire’s shrink and, I assume, his wife.”
Lucy raised her eyebrows. “They make a perfect-looking couple—she looks like a model and he looks like the actor, whatsisname.”
Ray, who’d remained silent up to now, nudged Lucy and gestured toward the front.
The priest had taken his place and was about to start the rosary.
I watched fascinated as Ray’s large hands, slightly stained with engine grease and oil, gently fingered the black beads of his rosary.
My heart gave another powerful squeeze.
Lucy was so lucky to have a man who had a spiritual side. Ray was a rock with a humble soul.
Aaron was a Sunday-morning-at-the-deli-lox-and-bagels kind of Jew. He attended services only on the high holidays at the most assimilated congregation in the city. The man didn’t know the Shema from the Kol Nidre. What would it be like to be married to a man of real faith like Ray?
I closed my eyes and listened to the Hail Mary being recited over and over by a hundred voices. The chanting was calming and reassuring. The closest thing I could compare it to in Judaism was the Mourner’s Kaddish. The Kaddish prayer wasn’t repeated over and over like the rosary but was recited once at a funeral, three times a day during the period of mourning, at every anniversary of the death, and on solemn holy days thereafter. Reciting the Kaddish gave me great comfort after the death of my bubbie.
During the service, Dixie Barcelona slipped quietly into the room. She walked over to the yellow baby quilt I’d rescued and reached out her hand to touch it. A security man quickly intercepted her with a smile but a firm shake of the head. Nobody was going to get near those quilts. I tried to get her attention as she looked for a seat, but she seemed oblivious.
How close had Dixie and Claire been? Dixie had given me the impression they were close friends and she’d relied on Claire for years, not only to raise funds but to help teach the children. With her death, Dixie had not only lost a personal friend but an important supporter and advocate for the Blind Children’s Association. I’d just have to wait until after the service to find out why she never returned my call, although now I was glad she hadn’t. The fewer people who knew what Claire wrote in those quilts, the better.
After the service we joined a line of people walking toward Claire’s casket. There was a tap on my arm. I turned around. Ingrid, Claire’s next-door neighbor, smiled. With her blond hair falling softly on her dark green dress, she was a knockout. Ingrid gave me a weak smile. Was it just my imagination or were her lips a tad plumper than the last time I saw her?
“Hello, Martha. This is really sad, isn’t it?”
“Unspeakably sad.”
Ingrid leaned close and growled in a low, angry voice, “I see Claire’s boyfriend is here.”
What did she just say? I looked wildly around to see who she was talking about.
“Over there.” She scowled and pointed a brightly painted acrylic fingernail. “Can you believe it?”
My mouth fell open in shock. “How do you know?”
“I saw him come to her house once. I was on my knees weeding in my yard, so they didn’t see me. The way she greeted him at the door . . . well, it was obvious.”
“How?”
Ingrid whispered, “They, um, you know, kissed and sort of fondled each other as they went inside the house.”
“Have you told this to anyone else?”
“Nobody has asked, and anyway, I don’t know his name.”
I looked at Claire’s boyfriend and putative father of her unborn child. “It’s Godwin. Doctor Alexander Godwin.”
CHAPTER 25
As we moved forward toward Claire’s casket, I slipped out of line and hurried for the door. I couldn’t face looking at Claire’s body. I also wasn’t ready to tell Siobhan what I knew about the quilts. I needed time to figure out what to do about Ingrid’s shocking disclosure. Doctor Alexander Godwin had now soared to the top of my suspect list.
I walked briskly down the hallway, my mind racing. Godwin’s wife was pregnant. Did he know that his lover, Claire, was also pregnant? Had Claire wanted to keep the baby? Had she expected him to leave his wife? Had she threatened to go public with their affair? What if she threatened to withdraw her bequest to BCA? Godwin might stand to lose everything. With Claire dead, his problems would be solved and his secrets would be safe. Maybe.
I started pacing in the lobby. If Claire had told him she sewed her stories into her quilts, Godwin would have good reason to want them to disappear. He didn’t match the physical description of the quilt show thief but, like Will Terry, he could have hired someone else to steal them. Godwin could also have easily gone to the BCA office when nobody was there, taken the quilt and thrown it in the Dumpster, never dreaming it would be rescued by a homeless woman.
There was something else: A
lexander Godwin was a doctor with access to drugs. He had both the motive and the means to kill Claire.
I waited in the lobby for my friends as departing mourners streamed past me and out the front doors. I caught a glimpse of Godwin and his wife. That phony. That lying psychopath. There was his wife, tenderly shielding her belly with her hand as they made their way through the crowd. Smiling. Hanging on his arm. Trusting him. What would the awful truth do to her?
Exposing Godwin was going to devastate his poor young wife, and exposing Will Terry was going to devastate Siobhan. Each man wouldn’t have wanted the information in those quilts to become public, and either one could be Claire’s killer. The time had come to call Detective Beavers and tell him what I knew.
How had I gotten myself into this position? Lucy was right. Why couldn’t I just make quilts like a normal person? Right now I would have given anything to be sitting quietly at home running my size-eleven needle through the layers of my blue and white quilt while listening to a good audio book.
I pulled my cell phone out of my purse and looked for Beavers’s business card when Lucy walked up.
“There you are. Where did you go? One minute you were standing in line and the next you disappeared.” She studied my face for a moment. “You look awful. What happened?”
“I’ll tell you everything once we’re out of here.”
As we waited outside for Ray to bring the car, I quickly told them about Ingrid recognizing Godwin as Claire’s lover.
Birdie gasped. “But his wife is pregnant.”
Lucy made a disgusted noise. “What a sleaze.”
“Yeah.” I punched in Detective Beavers’s number. “He has plenty of motive to silence Claire.” After the fourth ring, I got voice mail. “This is Martha Rose. You need to call me back right away. I think Dr. Alexander Godwin could have killed Claire. I just found out they were lovers, and there’s more. Claire’s father also had a good reason to silence her. The information is all in the quilts. Call me back and I’ll explain everything.” I left my number and then disconnected.
Lucy bent her head and whispered, “Don’t look now, but a foul wind is blowing.”
Carlotta Hudson breezed up to us with her usual sour expression. She examined her fingernails, then focused on Birdie. “This is a real shame, isn’t it? The death of someone so talented. Let’s hope this isn’t some kind of trend.”
Birdie looked puzzled.
Carlotta leaned closer, her crow’s beak just inches from Birdie’s face, her eyes glittering behind her lavender glasses. “I mean, someone is killing quilters and stealing their prize-winning quilts. Did you ever wonder if you might be next?” Then Carlotta looked at Lucy and smiled. “Of course, you won’t have any reason to worry, Lucy. Only the good quilters seem to be in danger.”
“Well, you must also be greatly relieved. Didn’t the thief leave your quilt behind?”
“Witch!” Carlotta murmured as she turned and walked away. She headed for another group of quilters and as she got closer, she pulled a tissue out of her pocket and dabbed at her dry eyes.
Birdie put her hand on Lucy’s arm. “You know what? I do believe you might be right about Carlotta killing the competition.”
Lucy squeezed Birdie’s shoulder. “Hon’, Carlotta Hudson would have to kill off half the guild to be the best quilter around. She’s not that crazy. She’s just an out and out poor loser. Don’t you worry about her.”
I looked around. “I wonder what’s keeping Ray.”
Dixie Barcelona strode toward me with the same energy I remembered from before. Her short, frizzy hair looked slightly deranged and the dark circles under her eyes suggested she wasn’t getting much sleep.
Dixie thrust her arm forward, pumping my hand in a hard grip. “I’m so glad I found you, Martha.”
After a round of introductions she peered at me through the thick lenses of her glasses. “I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you before. My cell phone was out of juice, and I didn’t realize it until this evening. You said you needed help, something about Claire’s quilts?”
“Oh, false alarm. I figured out what I needed to know and, as you can see, the baby quilt made it safely back to the Terrys. How’s the silent auction going?”
“Lots of work, especially now Claire’s gone.” She looked at us eagerly. “You know, I’m still looking for donations to the auction. This is one of our major fund-raisers, and the people who attend are looking for unique and beautiful items to buy. All proceeds go to programs teaching Braille to children. I wonder if any of you ladies have a quilt you’d like to donate?”
Birdie shook her head.
Lucy shrugged sympathetically. “Not right now, but if you let me know with enough time before your next event, I could probably whip up a baby quilt.”
A picture of the little blind boy walking awkwardly into the elevator flashed through my mind. He clung to his mother’s hand, trying to navigate through unseen territory. “I actually have a small quilt I can donate. You should be able to get a few hundred dollars for it.” The quilt was a wall hanging I’d entered in last year’s show, featuring a center medallion with appliquéd fruit in a basket and borders pieced with one-inch patches. The thing was only about thirty inches square but represented dozens of hours of stitching.
Dixie gushed. “You ladies are unbelievably generous. Martha, when can I come over to pick up your quilt?” We settled on Sunday evening.
Back at Lucy’s house, I stood at the refrigerator giving Bumper a late night snack of cheese when my cell phone rang.
“You’re still playing amateur detective?” asked Beavers.
“Nice to talk to you, too.” I tore open a small package of M&Ms and spread the contents on the kitchen table.
“So . . .” The tinge of amusement in his voice really annoyed me. “What evidence did you uncover implicating Dr. Godwin and Will Terry? The entire homicide division of the LAPD would be grateful to know.”
I refused to rise to the bait. He’d be singing a different tune soon enough. “It’s complicated.” I crunched a red M&M and lined up another. I preferred to finish one color at a time.
“Well, let’s start with Godwin. How did you find out he and Claire were lovers?”
I told him what Ingrid saw as I separated out all the green ones. “Godwin was Claire’s lover and is presumably the father of her unborn child, but he already has a pregnant wife.”
By the silence on the other end, I was pretty sure Beavers was considering the implications much the same way I did.
“Of course,” I continued, “her father also had a strong motive to get rid of her quilts. He could have killed Claire out of desperation to protect the secrets hidden in them.”
“Her father? What possible evidence . . .”
I told him about deciphering Claire’s quilts and what was hidden in the Braille of the French knots. By the time I’d finished talking, all that were left were the yellow and brown M&Ms.
Silence again. “First of all, I gotta admit I’m really impressed with how you figured that whole message thing out, Martha. You really do know quilts. But you aren’t an expert in Braille. Are you absolutely certain that is what you read?”
“Disgustingly certain.”
“Have you told anyone else about this?”
“Just Lucy and Birdie.”
“What about Mrs. Terry? Have you told her?”
“She knows I’ve cracked the code, but she doesn’t know the code is Braille or what the messages are. Frankly, I don’t want to be the one to tell her, so I’ve been avoiding her.”
“Good. I don’t want the three of you talking to anyone about this. I need some time to check this out. If you’re right about Godwin, he’s murdered once and would probably murder again.”
“What about Will Terry?”
“You don’t want Will to suspect you know about him and Claire. He’s a very powerful man. If he could kill his daughter, he wouldn’t think twice about having you killed. You’d be wise to s
tay at the Mondellos for now.”
I put the last brown M&M into my mouth. “I admit I was terrified at the thought of someone breaking in to my house and stabbing me. Now I’m just mad! My new alarm system will be hooked up tomorrow, so after Claire’s funeral, I’m going back to my house. I need to start cleaning, and I want to sleep in my bed again.”
Beavers sighed. “I didn’t think I could talk you out of going back home, so I’ve arranged for some extra protection.”
“Extra protection? I won’t need protection since I’m going to take one of Ray’s guns home with me.”
“Not! You need a permit to have a gun, and that process takes time you don’t have.”
Oh crap. I shouldn’t have mentioned the gun. “Did I say I had a gun already? I only meant I could get one if I need it.”
Beavers wasn’t about to be brushed off so easily. “Suppose you did have a gun. Are you prepared to shoot to kill? Because if you hesitate at all, the killer will disarm you and kill you instead. Trust me. Statistics show you’d be the one most likely to be hurt. What I’m proposing is better than a gun, and a lot safer.”
“What is it?”
“Arthur.”
“Who?”
FRIDAY
CHAPTER 26
I woke up Friday morning at eight-thirty and looked out the window to see what kind of day it would be for Claire’s funeral. The weather was typical for late April in Los Angeles: the slightest breeze, aqua skies, plenty of sunshine, and dappled shade from the new green leaves of the liquidambars lining the streets. LA contained the largest urban forest in the nation, and every single tree was teeming with songbirds.
I’d attended many funerals over the years, beginning with my grandmother’s when I was nine. Bubbie’s casket was closed, according to Jewish law. During the service, the cantor sang El Maleh Rahamim, God Full of Compassion, and the mourners recited the Kaddish. While Uncle Isaac talked about how sweet and generous Bubbie had been, I sobbed into my mother’s lap.
I couldn’t imagine my life without Bubbie’s soft hands coaxing my unruly curls into braids, “just like challah,” or her Friday night dinners beginning with chicken soup, ending with apple crisp, and served on the lace tablecloth she crocheted as a young bride. The ache in my heart would take years to subside.