A Murder of Taste: A Queen Bees Quilt Mystery

by Sally Goldenbaum

  “There, better?” she asked. “We had film of old class books and have started putting them all on CDs to preserve them a little better. Of course, everything is digital now, so we’ll have it all neatly stored from the beg—”

  “Oh my lord,” Kate said, interrupting. Her eyes were glued to the photo on the screen. “Now I remember her.”

  She leaned over Amber’s shoulder and pointed at the picture that loomed large in front of them. “Kids called her Carrie—after that Stephen King movie. She never smiled, like in the picture, maybe because her teeth were terribly crooked. I always wanted to nab her parents and give them the name of the orthodontist mom and dad made me go to. It made me mad that her folks wouldn’t do some simple things that would make her look a little better so the kids wouldn’t make fun of her.”

  Po looked closer, then squinted, as if shifting the photo into a different kind of focus. She stepped back. “Amber,” she said softly, “can you make Ann Woods a redhead?”

  “Sure,” Amber said. “Photoshop is my second name.” In minutes the plain brown-haired girl on the screen was turned into a redhead.

  “Now some color to her cheeks,” Po said. “And even out her complexion. Maybe smooth the hair a little and straighten out the nose.”

  Kate stared. She saw it now, too, and knew exactly where Po was headed. And somehow it wasn’t a surprise.

  Amber moved a small paintbrush across the pocked face, and in seconds, the Carrie-like young woman had disappeared.

  Ann Woods wasn’t Ann Woods any longer. Ann Woods was Laurel St. Pierre.

  CHAPTER 19

  Kate and Po stared at the picture.

  Po shook her head. “I think I’ve known we were headed this way for awhile. But I couldn’t connect the dots quite right.”

  “Remember when I said Laurel stared at me sometimes? Now I understand. She probably thought I was ‘one of them’—all those kids who teased her mercilessly.”

  “The poor dear girl. What a life she must have had back then.”

  “Didn’t Selma say her mom sent her away to get away from the father?” Kate couldn’t take her eyes off the class picture. Laurel’s beauty was hidden, but it was there, behind the sad eyes and the angry set to the narrow jaw. “Imagine, Po, having to send your own daughter away at that age. I think of you and mom, of Sophie and me. It’s unimaginable. It must have been so hard for Esther. But why did she let Picasso bring her back here, to all those memories of that sad life. Do you suppose Picasso knows about all this?”

  “Or the police? I think we’d better find out.”

  Within the hour, Kate and Po had found P.J. He was sitting on the small deck of the old carriage house he rented just south of Po’s home. He wore sweats and a t-shirt, still damp from his morning run, and was reading the morning paper. Without much discussion and ignoring P.J.’s frown at their investigative fervor, Kate dropped the yearbook in his lap, and then handed him a copy of the photo Amber had doctored with Photoshop, transforming the plain Ann Woods into the glamorous woman who had married Picasso St. Pierre. She followed it with a brief explanation. Danny Halloran said Esther sent her daughter away—there was trouble, he said.

  “So now the police’ll have a new direction in which to go,” Kate said as P.J. stared at the pictures in his lap. “Maybe there’s a police report or something about the dad causing trouble, the mom sending her away.” Unsaid, but as clear as the spring sky, were the words: And leave our friend Picasso alone.

  “I remember Ann Woods now,” P.J. said, pointing at the yearbook photo. “I felt sorry for her. Guys used her mercilessly. I remember her sitting alone in the football stands when we’d be playing. She was always there, always staring at the team. I think she had a crush on someone, but no one would own up to it. They’d just point and laugh. Once I heard a bunch of seniors challenge one of the guys to ‘have her’ as they so crudely put it. Nasty stuff. I can’t believe she’s the glamorous Laurel St. Pierre.”

  “Believe it,” Kate said, patting him on the shoulder. She pecked him on the cheek, then followed Po as she started back down the short flight of deck stairs.

  “Where are you two headed now?” P.J. called over the railing. The newspaper flapped in his hand and his voice held a note of anxiety, as if he didn’t really want to hear their answer.

  “To see Picasso before he hears this new development on the news,” Po said. “That seems to happen these days with frightening speed.”

  ***

  Picasso was already at the restaurant, his apron tied tightly around the bulge of his stomach. A cast iron frying pan simmered on the stove, filling the room with the smell of onions and garlic and fresh, pungent basil.

  “Oh, Picasso, I’m dying,” Kate said, grabbing a hot pad and lifting the lid.

  “You must come tonight and dine. I have sea scallops today—pan roasted—and as round and plump as a baby’s cheek.” He walked up beside Kate and stirred the onions with a long wooden spoon while Kate held the lid. “To the sauce I will add bacon and cream, a splash of fine vermouth.” His eyes closed as he envisioned the creamy and robust delicacy that would grace his dinner tables that night.

  Po noticed that the terrible anxiety of a few days ago was beginning to disappear, and in its place, a saddened, older Picasso took hold, but the chef’s passion for fine food and the art of cooking was still there, emerging from the folds of his grief. It’s that amazing passion that will pull him through all this ugliness, she thought.

  “So why are my two favorite ladies visiting me at this hour?” He put the lid back on the pan and turned the flame down beneath it.

  Po ushered him to a small table beneath the window, cluttered with notepaper, pencils and recipe cards. “Let’s sit, Picasso,” she said, and then began in gentle phrases to tell him about the unexpected lineage of Laurel Woods St. Pierre.

  Picasso sat still, listening carefully as Po talked. His eyes never left her face and his hands were still on the tabletop. When Po finished he lifted his chin and looked for a long moment out the window. Finally he drew his gaze back and focused again on Kate and Po. “That explains many things,” he said slowly, his eyes shifting from Po to Kate and then back again. “It was Laurel, you know, who wanted to come here to Crestwood. She found the information on this little empty place. ‘Kansas?’ I said to her. ‘Whoever heard of a French bistro in Kansas?’” He forced a smile. “But I loved her, and if she wanted to go to the wheat fields, then I would go. She was so secretive here—she said she knew no one—but she was always looking at people, always asking questions. And sometimes an anger gripped her so mightily, and …” He stared at the table, his pudgy fingers drawing invisible circles on the wood.

  “And what, Picasso,” Po prompted.

  “That anger, it would come back and attack me. I didn’t mind. Sometimes it left her feeling better, I think, when she could scold me and accuse me of things, and even, once, she called the police to say I was hurting her.” His voice drifted off and he seemed to be reliving moments with his disturbed wife.

  Po and Kate sat quietly, remembering the police report.

  “I would never have lifted a finger—or even a voice—to cause her a second of pain, you know. But she had these headaches, and I was the one who was there.”

  “Did she ever mention her parents, Picasso?”

  He shook his head. “Only slightly, only enough that told me her father was a bad man whom she hated. Her mother was a weak woman, but Laurel loved her fiercely. She talked sometimes about her mother’s death—and it always caused headaches and confusion.”

  “Confusion?” Kate asked.

  “Sometimes she would talk about getting even. She never would talk about why or who—but here in Crestwood she was sometimes rude and awful to good people—like Max Elliott, my friend.”

  “Why, Picasso,” Po asked.

  “Oh, Po, if only I knew why? She hated Max. I don’t know why. And then she had her … her dalliances. The wine salesman. And another in Ne
w York before him. But she didn’t love them, I knew. She loved only me.”

  Po reached out and covered his hand with her own. His fingers quieted and his smile returned to his face. “She was complicated, my Laurel.”

  On Picasso’s other side, Kate sat still. She knew they had only cracked the surface of who Laurel St. Pierre was, but the pain she caused this sweet man was creating havoc with her emotions.

  “I think Laurel came here for a reason, Picasso,” Po said. “And I think when we find that out, we may be closer to who murdered her, and we’ll be able to banish this awful cloud and make you whole again.”

  Picasso smiled sadly. He nodded and said softly, “With friends like you, I will be fine.” Then he pushed back his chair and walked across the kitchen to attend his sauce, wondering if a fine baby beet salad with creamy goat chevre, a sprinkling of micro greens, perhaps, would be the perfect accompaniment for his succulent, caramelized scallops. Yes, he thought. It would be an excellent choice.

  CHAPTER 20

  Phoebe decided a Thursday-night quilt gathering was in order, and e-mailed everyone to meet in Selma’s backroom at 7:30. They needed to check up on the progress of Picasso’s quilt—and on their lives, she wrote.

  News of Laurel St. Pierre’s real identity had stunned the town, and stories of Ann Woods were rampant.

  “Now it’s clear why Laurel stared at Kate in the restaurant,” Maggie said, looping one leg over a chair. “She was in your class, Kate. She was probably waiting for you to recognize her. Don’t you remember ever meeting her?”

  “Mags, there were over 300 kids in my class,” Kate reminded her.

  “That’s right. And freshmen are such scared creatures,” Maggie said.

  “I don’t remember ever seeing Ann around town,” Eleanor said. “But I did talk to Esther now and then when I took sewing to her.”

  “The thing I can’t get off my mind is that her mother sent her away,” Phoebe said. “It sounds like all Esther Woods had of value was her daughter, and then for some reason the daughter disappears when she’s, like what, 15? Why would a mother do that?” Phoebe thought about her own precious twins, and deep, disapproving furrows wrinkled her brow. She brought her coffee cup over to the table and sat down.

  “She sent her away to protect her from the father,” Eleanor reminded her. “That’s a heroic thing, though an awful situation. And how miserable that there wasn’t anything in place back then to protect Esther and get her help from that abusive man.”

  “Bill McKay is trying to get some tax money to build a place for women just like Esther,” Phoebe said. “So things are changing, finally.”

  “Good for Billy,” Eleanor said. “He seems very tuned in to what this town needs.” Eleanor sat at the end of the table, her cane at her side and a bright silk jacket keeping away the cool spring air.

  “Yes, but unfortunately it’s too late to help Esther Woods,” Po said. She had racked her brain for two days, trying to dredge up any memories she might have had of the Woods family, but came up empty, except for one thing—the amazing quilt—the soaring bird and vital life that poured from the golden stitches that held it together. Esther Woods could certainly have used a friend. And usually Po and Liz Simpson happened upon people like Esther and would help out in some small way. But Esther Woods had slipped through the cracks of their lives.

  Po pulled out the fabric blocks she was working on. They were already shaping up into a smooth black pot—formed from fabric with subtly patterned swirls of black and gray and navy.

  “Po, your pot is looking good,” Leah said, looking over her shoulder. She pushed aside some scissors and pieces of fabric and placed her nearly completed fish on the table. “Let’s see how they look together.”

  “Leah, that’s magnificent!” Maggie said, standing to get a better look at the large vibrant fish that Leah had created. It was now far more than the silhouette they had seen last Saturday. Today the fish was covered with scales made out of small pockets of fabric, filled with light batting. They overlapped artfully on the body of the fish, small patterned flaps of fire-brick red. Toward the head the fins moved into rosier tones—coral and salmon and a rust-colored pattern that would complement the rough-textured walls in Picasso’s restaurant. “Susan’s fish are similar,” Leah said, “but in a different color palette.”

  Susan pulled her fabric out of a large sack and displayed her small cutout fins in shades of orchid and plum, and thistle, and cobalt blue. The tip of the tail, already completed with the neat rows of small fabric pockets, was fashioned of slippery fabric in shades of dark magenta and purple. “We’ll appliqué them onto the pieced background, then quilt around them so they’ll stand out.”

  “Flying fish,” Po said.

  “Just what Picasso wanted,” Kate added.

  “We’re wonderful!” Phoebe said.

  “And not only that, we’ve enough done now that people will get a really good look at the finished product when I display it tomorrow night. Maggie and Phoebe have some of the border done—and Eleanor, you’re background blocks look great. I’m going to lay it all out on that display bed I have out front.”

  “Great idea, Selma,” Susan said as she lifted the pieces of her quilt from the table.

  “This weekend is alumni weekend at Canterbury,” Leah added, “so you’ll have lots of people in, Selma. The timing is perfect.”

  “I should have the pot completely finished, I think,” Po said. “At least I hope to.” She thought of the chaos of the last two weeks, and how regular routines and plans had been tossed to the wind. Laurel’s death had been like a Kansas tornado, ripping though the small town. Picasso’s quilt provided therapy for all of them, and she only hoped by the time it was finished, Laurel’s murderer would be found, and lives could return to normal.

  ***

  Even Hoover sensed the restlessness in his owner, and he crawled up beside Po on the couch later that evening, spreading his golden body comfortably over the forest green upholstery and flopping his head on her lap, directly on top of the morning paper. Max Elliot was expected soon—Po’s lawyer and friend—who needed some routine papers signed and had offered to stop by with them on his way home. So reading seemed a better option than delving into the dozens of other things on her plate—like finishing the pot or working on an article that was almost finished. Dear Max, whose name was being tossed around with increased frequency in the muddy waters of this mystery.

  “Hoover,” Po scolded. “You know better.” But her mood and the comfort of the golden retriever’s presence overshadowed the golden clumps of fur he’d leave on her couch, and she patted his head. Po was distracted anyway, her thoughts scattered, and the dog’s presence had a grounding effect. The fact that a killer was loose, maybe in their own town, was never far from Po’s mind these days, though neither she nor the other Queen Bees alluded to it much. She worried about Kate—and that impulsive streak that sometimes took her into dangerous spots. Po had celebrated P.J’s reentry into Kate’s life, not only because she liked him so much, but because he brought a more cautious element into her goddaughter’s life, a kind of protectiveness that Kate would absolutely deny, but that Po knew was real.

  Po glanced down at the part not covered by Hoover’s head, and a headline loomed large: “Local woman lived in fear and shame.”

  The reporters for the Crestwood Daily were more interested in pulling up tales of Al Woods’ many arrests and drunken brawls and the horrors for Ann and Esther Woods, forced to live in such an environment, than who had killed the young woman and her lover. They’d even gone so far as to badger Bill McKay for quotes, pushing him to speed up the development of the home for abused women, as if there were hundreds of other women in Crestwood needing a haven—and, Po thought, as if that would bring Esther Woods or her daughter back.

  But Bill was taking it graciously, Po had to admit, and was promoting the country club fundraiser for the cause. He and Janna would be honorary co-chairs, the paper read. The ev
ent was being put together hastily, probably an effort on someone’s part to focus attention on a good thing, rather than the sordid goings-on regarding the murders.

  A light knock and the opening of the front door announced Max Elliott’s arrival, and Po pushed Hoover to the floor and stood up. Since Sam’s death, she had been more than comfortable to have Max know all the intricacies of her financial and legal affairs. She felt safe, knowing his fine mind was watching over things for her. But when he’d called to bring the papers by today, she realized with a start, that for all her denial of Max Elliott having anything to do with the Laurel St. Pierre affair, she felt a slight twinge, a wondering, of how he could possibly fit into Laurel’s tangled life.

  “Po, you really need to start locking your doors,” Max said, walking on into the family room. He pecked Po on the cheek, then bent to greet Hoover.

  “Maybe you’re right. I’m certainly not afraid, but the atmosphere around town is a little anxious, I must admit.” She pushed up the sleeves of her long-sleeved yellow sweater that topped a pair of comfortable jeans. “And perhaps you’re just the tonic I need tonight, Max, with all these awful goings on.”

  “Tonic, eh? I’ve been called a lot of things, but that’s a new one.” While Po fixed each of them a small glass of Scotch, Max took the papers out of his briefcase and set them on the coffee table. “You mean about Picasso’s wife and that wine fellow, I presume. Awful, awful stuff.”

  “Yes, it is. And it’s even more awful that anyone could consider Picasso mixed up in it.”

  “I agree. I respect Picasso. He’s a good man, a friend. Bad coincidences, is what it is. Damn bad.”

  Po sat down, slipped her glasses on, and picked up a couple of the papers, scanning the numbers and reading the columns as Sam had taught her to do. “There are others who had motives,” Po said, her thoughts still with Picasso.

  “I don’t doubt it.”

  “Max, Laurel let it be known to several people that she didn’t exactly like you.”