Buried in Quilts

by Sara Hoskinson Frommer

  “The Ives, oh …” She’d forgotten. “There goes my last chance at it. I promised Alex I’d set up the trumpeter on the balcony.” She was already loosening her bow. “You can cover for me Sunday, too.”

  While Alex rehashed the fanfare with the brasses, Joan tucked her viola into its case, under the old blue velvet blanket. I suppose I could ask Rebecca to quilt me a new one, she thought, feeling the bare threads in the worn spot over the bridge. If I could afford her.

  She started up the curving stairway to the balcony.

  “Joan!” Alex bellowed.

  “Right here.”

  “Are you ready for the ‘Unanswered Question’?”

  “Sure. Come on, Eddie.”

  All joints, ears, and Adam’s apple, Eddie bounded up the stairs.

  “Do you think he’ll sound better on top, or halfway down the stairs?”

  “As far away as possible. But where he can see me! I can’t do this on Sunday.” Alex was craning her short neck.

  “Let’s try around here,” Joan said, and Eddie followed her around the balcony until they were looking directly at Alex from over the trumpet section. The violas and Rebecca’s sleeping bag were invisible under the stairs on the left.

  Alex nodded, held a finger to her lips, and pointed at the concertmaster, who stood up to beat a steady four for the strings. Almost inaudible chords—whispers—rose to the balcony. Alex pointed to Eddie.

  Raising his silver trumpet, he played five haunting notes—Ives’s “question.” Eddie had a clear, sweet tone even a violist could love. Joan was sorry when Alex broke the spell.

  “Too close. Eddie, you should be coming from a mile away. Can’t you back up?”

  They were already backed against the wall, hung with quilts. Joan knew that the closed doors all around the balcony hid rooms filled with others.

  “In there?” Eddie asked, pointing to the nearest door.

  “Try it,” came from below.

  It opened easily, and Eddie disappeared. Softer now, the plaintive trumpet question floated out over the balcony.

  “Perfect!” Alex cried.

  Eddie came to the door. “I can’t hear a thing in there,” he complained. “And I can’t see you. How will I get my cue?”

  “Easy,” said Alex, unfazed by details now that she had the sound she wanted. “Joan, you cue him.”

  “I don’t know, Alex,” Joan said, dubious.

  “Nothing to it,” Alex promised. “Come on, try. We don’t have all night.”

  Eddie rolled his eyes and disappeared again into the darkness. Joan heard a crash and a muttered curse.

  “Are you all right?” she called into the darkness.

  “Not if I bent my trumpet. Where the hell are the lights?”

  Reassured, she felt for the switch and flooded the room with light. On the far side Eddie was scrambling to his feet near a limestone fireplace with a Franklin stove extending into the room, the precious trumpet safe in one outstretched hand. But Joan groaned at the devastation around him. And she recognized the brilliant Double Wedding Ring quilt now hanging along one side wall. This was the Ellett room. She sighed.

  “Mary Sue Ellett will have a duck fit.”

  “Huh?” Clearly, Eddie was oblivious to the quilts crumpled on the floor.

  “It’s all right, Eddie. You couldn’t help it. I would’ve grabbed them, too, if I’d gone down like that.”

  Seeing them at last, he shook his head.

  “I didn’t grab anything.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll deal with Mary Sue. Come on. We’d better do the Ives before Alex skins us alive.” She picked up the old-fashioned sadiron that must have tripped him and set it on the walnut mantelpiece.

  The rest of the piece went well. Joan relayed cues to Eddie as if she’d been conducting all her life. Leaving the strings to the concertmaster, Alex beat a contrasting rhythm for the quartet of flutes, whose last notes tumbled all over each other—no “answer” at all.

  Hearing the Ives from between the trumpet and the strings and flutes sent chills down Joan’s spine.

  And to think the composer spent his life as an insurance salesman.

  At last Alex was satisfied and declared a break. From the balcony, Joan made a couple of routine announcements, ending with a reminder.

  “We don’t play until Sunday. Between now and then there’ll be judging and lectures. We’ll be held responsible for any mess they find in the morning. So please take a look around your seat before you leave today.”

  Down below, the chatter started. At her elbow, Eddie said, “I really didn’t grab those covers, but I’ll help you put ’em back.”

  “Thanks, Eddie.” No point in arguing. She only hoped they weren’t damaged. She’d never hear the end of it from Mary Sue as it was.

  While Eddie laid his trumpet safely on the mantelpiece, Joan studied the quilts that were still hanging. She had hoped for something simple, like clothespins. But she should have remembered. The Elletts had hung Edna’s quilts on poles by the same method she’d seen used downstairs, but in spite of his protests, it was clear that their basting stitches had yielded to Eddie’s weight. This was no quick-fix job.

  Eddie was right about one thing. He could at least help pick up the fallen quilts before they got any dirtier. But he was just standing there, holding one corner of the nearest one and staring down at the floor.

  “Eddie? Are you okay?”

  He looked a little green around the gills.

  Then she saw it, too.

  A slingback pump with a three-inch heel. A foot protruding from a green polyester pant leg. And, when she threw back the quilt, a plastic bag clinging to a square face, the color drained from it.

  This isn’t happening, Joan thought. It’s not real.

  She stooped to confirm what she already knew. Touching that foot was like touching a dressed fryer in the supermarket. Chicken under nylon.

  “She’s cold.” Joan felt as sick as Eddie looked. “And stiff.”

  “That—that was in here the whole time?” he croaked.

  Joan nodded. “Go across the street and get the police, Eddie.”

  Eddie bolted for the stairway.

  Joan sat down on the floor. She wouldn’t have to call Mary Sue, after all.

  The chicken was just beginning to smell like food when the phone in Fred’s kitchen rang.

  “Sorry to bother you at home, Lieutenant,” the dispatcher said. “But a kid ran in here a couple minutes ago pointing at the inn and yelling something about not grabbing quilts. Then he fell apart. I can’t get any sense out of him. You want me to send someone across the street?”

  “No, I’ll come. Keep him there.”

  Fred turned off the oven and slapped some mozzarella between a couple of slabs of his own bread. He’d long since quit trying to deal with crises on an empty stomach.

  Chewing as he drove back to the station, he was glad he’d already changed clothes. Maybe his Mister Rogers sweater would have a calming effect.

  He didn’t recognize the skinny kid trembling on the bench by the desk, but the dispatcher nodded yes when he tilted his head that way.

  “I’m Lieutenant Lundquist,” he said. “There’s a problem over at the inn?”

  The boy jumped to his feet. He was a good six-three, several inches taller than Fred. White, dark hair, brown eyes, big Adam’s apple. He wore jeans and a T-shirt with a question mark of a man in a jumpsuit under a white hat.

  “I didn’t do it!” His voice verged on panic.

  “Nobody says you did. What’s your name, son?”

  “Eddie. Eddie Stalcup.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Eighteen. But I didn’t do it!” He was holding it together. Just.

  “Okay, Eddie, suppose we walk over there, and you can show me.” He held the door.

  “Show you what?”

  “What you didn’t do.”

  “Oh.” Eddie looked around vaguely, a little calmer. “Just us?” />
  “For now. You can tell me about it on the way.” He didn’t wait for an answer.

  Eddie followed him out. Fred set a pace that would stretch those long legs, maybe clear away some of the cobwebs.

  “So, Eddie, what happened?”

  “I don’t know! One minute I was playing, and the next thing you know I was flat on my face. But I didn’t grab those quilts. I know I didn’t! And I didn’t have anything to do with it. With her.”

  “Her? Who’s that?”

  “I don’t know. The manager will tell you—she was there all the time!”

  That could mean only one person. Fred girded himself for Mary Sue Ellett.

  Flat Iron

  Why is it taking so long?

  Sitting on the floor, Joan was getting chilly. She tried not to look at the lumpy quilt, but her mind’s eye saw the body under it flattened against the floor, like the possum she’d peeled off her sidewalk one morning.

  From time to time she stood up, stretched, and looked over the railing. So far the orchestra was making remarkably little fuss.

  She had called down to Alex when Eddie left, “There’s a problem up here—Eddie’s gone for help. He’ll be right back.”

  To her relief, Alex had extended the break and she hadn’t had to explain, much less ask the orchestra members to wait for the police. By now most of them had laid their instruments aside. Some were talking, some reading, some looking at the quilts around them. The percussionists were playing gin rummy across one of the timpani.

  The doorframe dug into her back. Come on, Fred, she thought. This is your baby.

  And then he was standing over her.

  “Joan, what’s wrong?”

  “Fred, I’m so glad you’re here.” Her voice startled her by shaking. “I’m not used to this.”

  She reached up a hand. He pulled her to her feet and put an arm around her shoulders. His sweater felt warm, comforting.

  “Used to what?”

  Hadn’t Eddie told him?

  “It’s Mary Sue.” She pointed. “We found her like that.”

  Eddie was behind him. “I didn’t do it!” he said.

  “No, of course you didn’t.” Her own asperity quieted her shakes. “She’s been here for hours.”

  Releasing her, Fred bent down and lifted the quilt by a corner. Joan looked again.

  Except for the clear plastic bag clinging to her face, Mary Sue’s body might have been laid out for viewing at Snarr’s. The eyes were almost closed, and the right hand covered the left on her bosom. Her jaw sagged, though, and only the heavy makeup on her face and the bright red polish on her nails—if they were her nails—masked the pasty color of death. There was no condensation on the plastic, Joan noticed now. She wondered whether that meant anything.

  Fred dropped the quilt.

  “Did you touch her?” he asked.

  Warmth rushed to her face. “Her foot,” she said. “I touched her foot. I had to be sure.”

  Fred nodded. “How did you find her?”

  “Eddie tripped in the dark, and there she was.”

  “You trip over the body?” he asked Eddie.

  “No, over there,” Eddie said, pointing to bare floorboards near it.

  “Just tripped, is that it?”

  “Yeah. And I didn’t bring those quilts down with me, no matter what she thinks!” Eddie glared at Joan. “I didn’t even touch ’em!”

  “What were you doing up here in the first place?”

  “It wasn’t my idea,” he said. “She made me do it. Because of the questions.” Fred looked to Joan.

  “He means the Charles Ives piece we were rehearsing,” she said. “A distant trumpet plays a short theme that the flutes try to answer. We were up here trying to get Eddie far enough away from the orchestra to sound right. It worked fine. But he tripped in the dark. When I turned the lights on, we found her.” She shrugged, feeling useless. “That’s all I know.”

  “Anyone else been up here since then?”

  “No. I sat in the doorway.”

  “What else did you touch besides the lights and her foot?”

  “Just the quilt she was under. That’s how we found her.”

  “Either one of you been up here before?”

  “No,” said Eddie.

  “Yes,” said Joan, remembering.

  Fred raised his eyebrows.

  “I came up yesterday, about half an hour after you let me in. The building had pretty well emptied out by then, but Mary Sue and her whole family were in here, hanging her mother’s collection.” She waved at the quilts that surrounded them. “I left before they did.”

  “Okay, we can get to that later,” Fred said. “Let’s get you out of here.”

  But instead of leaving, Eddie went back to the fireplace.

  “Hey!” Fred said. “Come back here!”

  “Just getting my trumpet.” Eddie reached for the silver trumpet lying on the high mantel.

  “Don’t touch that!”

  Eddie froze in mid-reach.

  “How did it end up there?”

  “I put it there.” Injured innocence, but Eddie was right. Joan felt obliged to back him up.

  “It’s true, Fred. He was going to help me pick up the quilts on the floor. I did accuse him of bringing them down with him.”

  “Okay, Eddie. But you’ll have to wait to take your horn until we’re done in here.” He herded them out of the room. “You two stay up here for now. And I don’t want you discussing any of this with anyone. In a homicide, the less said, the better.”

  “Homicide!” said Eddie, his eyes wide. “You think someone killed her?”

  “I don’t know how she died.”

  “Could it be the plastic bag?” Joan asked, glad to be out of there. Was it the kind with printed warnings? She couldn’t remember.

  “I don’t know,” Fred said. “One thing’s for sure. She didn’t lay herself out like that.”

  “Not if she was already dead. But—” and Joan stopped herself. Mary Sue a suicide? Not the Mary Sue I know. And not the woman I saw last night. I don’t believe it.

  “Stay here, both of you. Don’t let anyone else come up. I’ll be right back.”

  Joan settled down on the floor outside the door. Eddie paced. This time the wait was much shorter. The first uniformed officer to arrive shooed them off. Politely. “Thank you, ma’am, but we’re here now.” She could imagine what Rebecca would have said.

  The photographer had started work when Sergeant Johnny Ketcham arrived. Fred was glad to see him. Ketcham was steady, reliable, and good with a crowd like the one downstairs. They worked well together.

  “What’ve we got here?” Ketcham asked.

  “I’m still not sure,” Fred told him. “Take a look.” He lifted the quilt that still covered the body. She’d been lying there a long time. The body fluids had pooled against the floor.

  Ketcham pushed his wire-rims back against his nose.

  “How?”

  “I don’t know.” Fred dropped the quilt.

  “That doesn’t hold a candle to the rest of those quilts,” Ketcham said. “Looks more like the kind of thing my grandma used to make for the hired hands.”

  Ketcham would know. Five generations of Ketchams had lived in Indiana. Fred didn’t think his own grandmother, a Swedish immigrant, would have known the difference.

  “You call the coroner?” he asked. “And the state police?”

  “On their way,” Ketcham said.

  Good. Sometimes Fred thought he spent most of his life waiting.

  They waited for the state police lab technicians to roll back the quilt and peel off the plastic and waited again while the cameras flashed.

  Dr. Henshaw arrived in sweatpants, probably straight from the Y. His body ran to a paunch. Lately, he’d taken to running to keep it off.

  “Hmph.” Henshaw squatted effortlessly beside the body. “Help me turn her,” he said. He needed the help. Mary Sue Ellett had been a hefty woman. Now, with
rigor well established, she was a hefty stiff, and rolling her over her elbows onto her side was difficult.

  Once they finally had her facedown, though, there was no question why she was dead. There were visible indentations in the back of her head.

  “Sweet Jesus,” Ketcham said reverently.

  The cameras flashed again.

  “That would do it,” Fred said.

  “No weapon?” Henshaw asked.

  “She could have fallen on one of those wooden gizmos,” Ketcham said.

  “And dragged herself over here to die, with a plastic bag over her face?” Henshaw objected.

  “Yeah.” Fred looked around. There was plenty to look at—besides all the quilts, the room was full of old things. Most of the time the Sagamore Inn was a museum of sorts.

  Maybe the Franklin stove? It was closer. But that head didn’t look like a fall. It looked like more force than you’d see in a fall. No blood, though.

  Then he saw it.

  He had glanced at the mantelpiece when Eddie tried to claim his trumpet. But that was before he’d seen the back of Mary Sue’s head. A blow like that would dent a trumpet, but this one was unmarred. Now the old-fashioned flatiron jumped out at him.

  “How about that iron?” he asked. “Think it could do that much damage?”

  Ketcham grinned.

  “Are you kidding? My grandma Matlock kept on lifting those things on and off a coal stove in her kitchen long after the electricity reached their farm. She had muscles you wouldn’t believe.”

  “The kid who found her parked his trumpet on the mantel,” Fred said. “What do you want to bet he put the iron up there, too? Let’s do a quick check on the people downstairs and then talk to him.”

  “Right.”

  Halfway down the stairs, Fred stopped. Sixty expectant faces turned up, and the hubbub died.

  “Thank you for your patience,” he said. “By now you may have guessed that there has been a death in the building. If you know anything at all about it, if you’ve been upstairs, or if you were here yesterday or today at any time before the rehearsal, we’ll need to take your statements over at the police station. Otherwise, you’re free to go. Please give your name and address and any information you might have to Sergeant Ketcham at the door.”