Scandal

by Patsy Brookshire

  Lena shook off Magda's hand. Her jaw was set, her posture rigid.

  Her gaze flicked to the leopards, and her eyebrows went up. She looked at us, her expression changing to why are you here?

  "Lena, to get this all straightened out, we must work together. Sammy has an idea. Let's give him a listen, okay?" Magda knew how to work this girl. Lena bounces between being flirty and being angry with every man she meets, looks like to me. With three of us here she chose to be agreeable.

  Big Juan had to have his say, of course. "This is your problem. We will be having our match as we've advertised. Period." He crossed his arms.

  "And that's where we can work it out," I said. "The conflicting match is on Friday night. The Quilt Show is Friday and Saturday, during the days. Right? We just need some help from you and it will work to everyone's satisfaction."

  Russ was nodding agreement with me, but Big Juan had his own cranky going.

  "How's that?"

  "It's simple. On Friday the show will close long before the matches start. Plenty of time for Russ here, with some lodge guys, and you with your wrestlers--plenty of muscle there." I couldn't help myself, but he just nodded." Together, you can get the quilt frames moved to the wall, lickety-split. Heck, Lena, You might even get some customers to come back the next day and buy one of your super-dooper hand-done jobs."

  Juan took another look at her.

  She colored up. The pink cheeks made her attractive. Maybe this would all work out, get her off my case, and onto his.

  Russ stepped up. "Let's step into the office and coordinate time schedules. We'll have to get together early enough to get the space cleared to turn it from Show to Arena, and back again."

  We all followed Russ to the office at the side of the hall.

  All except Magda. "Great. I'll leave you now. I've got another appointment."

  "You're going to stay, right?" said Big to Lena. To Russ he said, "You can show us where we should move the quilts to."

  While he was talking Magda walked out, after calling back to me, "I'll be back to pick you up. Or come on over. The station is just a few blocks. Somebody can tell you where."

  Wait a minute, I was supposed to go with her to the police station. She seemed awfully eager to be rid of me.

  So Russ, Big, and I worked it out with Lena's aid.

  "At no time is anyone ever to lay bare hands on a quilt. No matter large or small. I will raid the Guild kitty to buy several cotton gloves of a size large enough for your man hands, to make sure."

  "Miss Lena, will you be here to guide us?" Big said.

  "Why, of course. Especially if you want me to help you, that is."

  "It would be a pleasure, Miss Lena."

  "Oh, just call me Lena." She did that dang simper thing. "I'll be here with gloves on."

  "Okay, Lena. And after the match perhaps you could show me the highlights of nightlife in Willamina?"

  She simpered again, and then laughed, something I seldom saw her do. "That won't take long. Our bars aren't that exciting."

  "Oh, Miss, I mean Lena, I won't be wanting to see your bars. You don't think I'd endanger a body like mine with alcohol, do you?"

  "Well, Big, honestly, I hadn't really thought much about it. It's something to ponder, for sure. But we don't have juice bars or any fancy stuff like in the city. You mean yogurt, stuff like that?"

  "Oh, I think for one night I could let down my guard enough to have pie and a good herbal tea."

  Working around their flirting, Russ directed us. We set the times to make the changes, complete with a list of who was to do what, and when. We all got a copy. I took one for Magda. I left Miss Lena in the pure hands of Big and walked the few blocks to the City Hall where the Sheriff had an office.

  A truck rolled past me, carrying a full load of logs with bark on them. Seeing as my son owns and drives a log truck, I was happy to see the business doing well here in Willamina. What says Northwest better than a load of logs on the way to the mill? With one part of my mind I saluted the log truck driver, with another I wondered why Magda had gone alone. Was there something she didn't want me to know?

  Chapter 27

  Magda Reveals The Autopsy Truth

  My knees were knocking as I walked into the Sheriff's office. Wish had called earlier, said the autopsy results were in and they'd appreciate me coming down this morning if I could. "If you can't," he'd said, "I could send someone to get you."

  That was not going to happen.

  Up until I was at the VFW, I'd not known I wanted to be alone when I heard the results. I didn't even want Sammy, though I was glad he'd be here, later on.

  Wish and I were old friends. He'd been my Prom date when I was a sophomore and him a senior. It was never a romance, but a close friendship that we've kept for years. I was still proud to be his friend, but this way of relating was new, and uncomfortable.

  Tommy had been my husband. A bad one in the long run, but we'd had some excellent times, day and nights, in the early years. Watching Lena and Big Juan spar over the space, I'd realized what a waste of time arguing is, how inconsequential most of my fights with Tommy had been. I wasn't thinking right then of the awful ending of our last time together and the ugly things he'd said to me, and the ugly things I'd said to him.

  The counter person was Linda, a gal I'd known for years. "I'm here to talk to Sheriff Kelly."

  She played it cool, as if she didn't already know the whole story, greeting me like I was there to collect for a charity drive. "Is he expecting you?"

  "Yes." I didn't elaborate with words like "autopsy", or "dead husband in my back yard", or any such thing, though it all flashed through my mind. I also thought about Lena shooting the bear and didn't mention that either. When Linda indicated the waiting bench, I took a seat and looked for a magazine. None. The walls were bereft of artwork, no plants on stands or pots sitting on window sills to ease the starkness. All business and a hard one at that.

  I didn't have to wait long before Wish came out and beckoned me to follow him. I feared we would be going directly to see the body but he took me to his office. "I don't have to identify his body?"

  "No, he was identified when we found him." He motioned to the chair opposite his desk, sat on the corner of his desk, and sighed. "Here we go." He opened a box beside him and pulled out a clear, plastic bag that had written on it, in black marker pen: Evidence, Thomas Buler. It also had the date. But I didn't see that at first. What I saw was a piece of cloth that I recognized immediately. Little machine-embroidered, blue and purple spring flowers all over against a pale yellow background.

  "Oh, my God!" popped out of my mouth.

  "You know what this is?" Wish laid the bag down on the desk.

  I reached for it but he put his hand out.

  "You can't touch it. It's evidence. Can you tell me what it is?"

  I'd recovered my startled wits. "Can you tell me where you got that?"

  He flipped the box closed, set the bag and cloth on top and moved to the chair behind his desk, like we were having just any old conversation.

  I expected him to ask if I wanted a cup of coffee, like they do on television cop shows when they're trying to put the suspect at ease. To distract them. Instead he said, "How about you answer my question first, and then I'll answer yours?"

  I stalled. "That's part of a piece I bought years ago. Why do you say it's evidence? Where did you come upon it?"

  "Not yet. What did you do with the material? Was it part of one of your quilts?"

  "Fabric, please, not material. Well, sure, I used some bits of it in a crazy quilt of leftover pieces I made some years back." I was getting exasperated with this man, my friend, "Where did you find this piece?"

  "How about you tell me? My wife sews and she is particular about her cloth. She knows where every piece is, and what she used it for. Stop playing with me. I know you don't let go of your 'fabric' easily, especially if you like it a lot. I gather most of it's not in the crazy quilt. Where did this p
iece come from?"

  "You're asking me to tell you where you found a piece of fabric?" I was scared now, as I did know what had been done with that fabric, but I didn't want to tell him until I'd talked it over with Sammy first. My face must have showed that I knew the answer to his question, but I answered it with a small distraction, a white lie, if you will. "I gave some to a friend. I've not seen it for a long time, now, so I don't know what happened to it."

  He wasn't distracted, but I could tell he was becoming annoyed. "The cloth? Or, the friend?"

  Details, he was going for the details. "The cloth. I don't know. Doesn't matter. I used up the pieces I had left. Not sure I remember when I saw it last. Please tell me where you found it."

  "Fair enough. It was gripped in your dead husband's fist. What was his dominant hand?"

  "Huh?"

  Wish stood up. "Please, Magda, stop stalling. I think you know what happened to that fabric. You need to tell me. Now."

  "Right. He was right handed." I was having trouble breathing.

  He handed me a bottle of water.

  I unscrewed it, took a deep breath, and then a shallow drink. I could barely swallow, my throat was so tight.

  I whispered, "She made a dress with it."

  He stared at me for what seemed a long time, and then said, "This dress, did it have a pocket?"

  Another small drink. "Yes." I screwed the cap back on.

  "Where?"

  "The left side."

  "Then if he'd been falling, and grasping as he went down, he could have pulled the pocket off with his right hand, if he was facing the woman?"

  "I suppose so." I unscrewed the lid again, took another drink.

  "Now, will you tell me who was wearing that dress?"

  "I don't know who was wearing it!"

  He glared at me.

  I'd given the fabric to Lena and she had made a shirtwaist dress from it. One with a breast pocket. This looked the right shape for that pocket. Yellow threads hanging from where it had been torn loose. How?

  My mind jumped around for a different answer, but none came. I told him the truth. "Okay, Lena made the dress. She was very pretty in it, too. She's rather old-fashioned looking, you know. With the way she does her hair, the dress was right. She liked to wear it when she wanted to look extra nice, like to parties. But I don't know if she was wearing it when the pocket got torn off.

  "Surely, you don't think Lena had anything to do with Tommy's death?" Once started I couldn't stop. "She and Tommy never got on, you know. Her snippy mouth and his controlling ways. He always said she never knew her place with a man. I always figured he thought that 'cause she wouldn't give way to him in anything. Even when he knew best, like about fishing.

  "She'd belittle the catch he'd bring in, saying if he'd just exerted himself a little more, gone out farther, not given in so early, he could have brought in bigger ones from deeper down. He'd say something then like maybe he wanted to get home to me, but that since she couldn't keep a man she wouldn't know anything about that." I ran out of steam then, and looked at him.

  "How could this all tie in with Tommy being dead?" I sounded pitiful, so I inhaled, breathing confidence into my words. "I'm sure Lena doesn't have anything to do with this."

  "Lena would be the one to answer that. We will be asking her."

  At that moment a woman said, through the speaker on Wish's desk, "Hey, Sheriff, a guy named Sam Smithers wants to come in. Says he's with Mrs. Buler."

  Wish looked at me.

  "Oh, yes. I'd like him here." To myself, I said, now.

  Sammy came in and I introduced him. They shook hands.

  To Sammy I said, "Wish--I mean Sheriff Kelly--and I went through school together. He knows I couldn't have done this."

  I plopped back in my chair while Wish pulled up a chair for Sammy. He moved it so he was sitting close beside me, his shoulder touching mine.

  Wish gave the touch a glance but I didn't care. In my short time with Sammy I felt closer to him, and safer with him, than I ever had with Tommy. And I didn't care who knew it.

  Tommy had been, at the end, a worthless husband. I knew that I'd done my best to be a decent wife, but then, I'm not perfect. My widow weeds aren't going to be spotless, either. I put my hand on Sam's knee.

  Wish said, "I'd like to agree that you couldn't, but I don't know any such thing. I think it's time to talk more to Lena. Do you know how I can find her?"

  "Wait," said Sammy. "The autopsy? What did this man die of? Shot? Strangled? What? I thought that's what we were here for?"

  Wish started towards the door, motioning that we were done. "Yes, we know what killed him. You'll know soon enough. We'll get Lena and meet you in an hour at your studio."

  On the way to our car he said to Sammy, "You be there with Mrs. Buler."

  Chapter 28

  Back at the Studio

  When Magda and Sam came back to her house I was ready to stop sewing. Soon after I started putting the pieces together I'd discovered a mistake in Sophie's work. Her diagram didn't jibe with one of the sewed pieces. I could see where she'd started to undo it. Some of the threads had been cut, but then she'd abandoned the project.

  I knew she'd hated fixing. I could remember her voice when she'd tried teaching me how to sew, frustration adding an edge to her words. "Annie, this piece here is not right. You have to rip it out."

  I'd glared and grabbed the piece with both hands to rip it apart.

  She had stopped my hands with hers. "No, here." She handed me a little thing that looked like a cuticle pusher but with a tiny sharp knife on its end. "This here is a seam ripper. You'll be using it more than you're gonna like, but it will be a good friend in the end." She'd held up my mis-sewed piece, slipped the little knife in, began undoing my precious work.

  Made me mad. I'd reached to take it from her hands, managed to get in the way and got a nipped finger.

  "Don't get your blood on it," she'd said. Then, "I hate ripping out my work. But sometimes, you just have to do it."

  I had a clue as to why she'd abandoned this project.

  It had waited several years but finally, I'd corrected her job, feeling just the tiny bit superior at my patience, and yes, at my re-sewing of her seam. The piece now fit correctly into her pattern.

  I'd been going gangbusters on the thing and feeling confident, until I ran out of cut pieces. I needed more fabric. From Magda's stash in the closet of her sewing room I found a mauve and cream checkered fabric that I knew would liven it up and bring the zing it had been missing. I wanted to use my untried tools to measure and cut. For that I needed Magda.

  And tea and a sweet. They came in and found me at the fridge, taking out a jar of strawberry jam to set beside the jar of chunky peanut butter.

  One look at Magda's face and I knew I was done sewing for the time. Her hair was shaggy like she'd been running her hands through it, again.

  "You must come with us. I have to get a quilt. Wish wants me to bring it to the studio. He's bringing Lena."

  "To your studio? Why?" She'd gone down the hall, so I looked at Sam while I found the bread and a butter knife.

  "They found a piece of fabric in her husband's hand. I'm not sure what he's thinking, but looks like it might be something that both Maggie and Lena have to do with."

  "In his hand?" A vision came up that wasn't pretty. I nearly put away the idea of the sandwich, but with me, hunger for something sweet always overrides whatever's going on. I took a bite and then a drink of milk. That helped quell the queasy that had started with the vision.

  By the time Magda returned with a quilt in a good sized tote, I'd finished my lunch and cleaned up. Magda said she'd rather I drove, so we went in my car, with her and Sam sitting close together in the back seat. I wanted to ask questions but had to focus on making the correct turns up into the hills to the place she'd once described to me as her place of serenity.

  I wondered how she felt about it now, the place where her husband had been murdered and bu
ried? I hoped today's quest would put the questions to rest, but perhaps I should fear the answers even more. Magda was so close to Sam's heart.

  What does that quirky Lena have to do with all of this?

  I parked beside The Sheriff's car in front of the cabin. Only the sound of nervous breathing from the backseat was witness that I wasn't alone.

  Sam said, "Don't worry, it's gonna be all right."

  Magda didn't answer, but opened the car door, stepped out and reached back in for the quilt. She stood there a moment, gripping the handles of the bag and looking at the straggly bushes by the front door. "Gotta neaten that up."

  Sam came to stand beside her. "I'm your man." He linked his right hand in her left. I came up behind them and heard him whisper, "Okay, girl, let's get this over and done with." We went around the side of the house to the back yard.

  Sheriff Kelly and a deputy stood under the apple tree near the empty grave. The hole in the ground still gaped. The tree looked forlorn, with a few apples hanging. The ones on the ground were drawing yellow jackets. Their humming was the only sound.

  Off to one side were Deputy Bybee and Lena. Sheriff Kelly nodded as we went to stand next to Lena.

  "Our need, now, is to find out what happened, and why," he said. "I have reason to believe, Lena, that you have the answers."

  Lena made as if to leave.

  Deputy Bybee held her in place.

  Lena sagged in defeat, but not in submission. She shot straight up again, wrenching from the deputy's grasp. She grabbed Magda's hand and pulled her to the edge of the ragged hole.

  "None of them will understand, but you. You have to. It was awful! He's...was...a terrible man. He scared me!"

  Magda pulled her hand free.

  Lena screamed, "Don't leave me alone, Mag. Please. I didn't mean to ruin your life!"

  Magda reached for Lena's shaking hands, wrapped her own around them.

  The sheriff stepped close to them. "Ms. Veil, I have something I want you to see."

  She recoiled and shrieked when the sheriff put his hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out the plastic bag with the piece of fabric in it.