A Darling of Death

by Gin Jones

  I knew a slippery slope when I saw one. I hadn't been ready to end my career as a lawyer, so it would be easy to fall back into old habits, like giving legal advice when asked by someone who was in trouble. And then I'd be the one in trouble, passing out from the stress of feeling responsible for everyone around me. I couldn't let that happen. "I'm not doing legal work right now. There must be someone at the firm who could help you."

  "I sort of tried that already, and no one would take the case." Lindsay hunched deeper into herself, somehow making her muscular frame seem fragile. "You're my last chance, and I can't just give up. It involves my grandmother and her best friend. I kind of can't say no to them."

  "So you expected me to be the bad guy?" That was one thing I didn't miss about the practice of law.

  Lindsay glanced back at the museum's main entrance again. "Aren't you bored? Ready for a challenge?"

  "I have plenty of challenges." First and foremost, I was trying to figure out how to follow my doctor's orders to relax and go with the flow, when it just made me feel like I was caught in a riptide and about to drown. Beyond that, this week was likely to be a turning point in my new appraisal career. Not only was there a window of opportunity here at the museum, but I was also going to be the keynote speaker at the local quilt show on Friday, and I was having trouble writing the speech. It should have been easy, not much different from an opening argument to a jury, which I'd done hundreds of times before, but the drafts I'd written were terrible. Definitely not something that would make a good first impression on the many dedicated quilters and quilt collectors—potential clients for my appraisal services—who came to this event from all over the Northwest.

  "I'm sorry," Lindsay said. "Are you still fainting all the time?"

  "I don't faint. I pass out. There's a difference." At least, that was what I told myself. I hated being seen as weak, even by someone who wasn't trying to use it against me. "And it doesn't happen all the time."

  "That's good. I think." Lindsay glanced at the entrance again. "But you'll talk to my grandmother, right? She'll be here any minute. It just takes her a while to walk around from the parking lot out back."

  I checked my watch. Ten minutes past the hour and no sign of the director's assistant searching for me. I should be able to spare a few minutes for Lindsay. I pointed at the bench outside the tiny gift shop. "I'll wait over there while you get your grandmother."

  Lindsay scurried over to the main entrance with all the energy she seldom applied to her work. She returned a few moments later, ushering two elderly women over to the bench. The older, shorter one appeared fragile and was assisted by a taller and sturdier woman, who appeared to be about ten years younger but still at least in her early seventies. The older one was dressed for business, in a skirt with nylons and pumps, while the other one wore embroidered capris with a matching short-sleeved top.

  Once the older, fragile woman was seated, Lindsay hovered beside her. "This is Dee, my grandmother. Grandma, this is Keely Fairchild."

  Dee pointed at my quilted messenger bag, a checkerboard pattern of light-colored squares alternating with darker squares, no two of them alike. "That's lovely. Did you make it?"

  "I wish I had, but I don't sew. I commissioned this at a quilt show last year when I decided to set up shop as an appraiser. The fabrics are all reproductions, so it works as an informal reference tool for historic fabric styles."

  The other woman helped Dee settle onto the bench before saying, "I'm Emma Quinn. We want to get Randall Tremain pilloried."

  "Emma may be overstating matters a little," Dee said, straightening her skirt. "I'd love to see Tremain punished by being locked up in a public square for people to point and laugh and maybe even throw some rotten food at him. That's definitely what he deserves, but we'd settle for having him charged with fraud and his shop shut down."

  "He's selling counterfeit antique quilts at his shop," Emma explained. "And now he's going to be selling them at our quilt show. People will think the guild endorses his business practices. Lindsay said you'd know what we could do."

  I raised an eyebrow in Lindsay's direction.

  "You know about quilts and about the law," Lindsay said. "If anyone can stop Tremain, you can."

  "It may be too late to do anything to keep him out of the quilt show." I'd seen the contract for the vendors, and it was solid. "You'd have to prove he'd breached his contract somehow, and four days isn't much time to do anything in the legal system."

  "You're our last hope," Emma said.

  "We could always hire a hit man, if push comes to shove," Dee said matter of factly. "I'm not sure the guild treasury has enough money for that, though, so we thought it would be better to exhaust our legal options first."

  Not all of my clients had been that wise. "I do appreciate your preference for the legal route. I'm just not sure I can do anything to help you. Perhaps the local prosecutor would look into it."

  "We've been there already," Dee said, "but the condescending twit of a baby-faced prosecutor wasn't interested in any crime that didn't involve blood and guts. I was tempted to show him some blood and guts. His own."

  "I tried to tell him there's usually some blood on antique quilts," Emma said. "You know, from needles pricking fingers."

  "That wasn't gory enough to interest him or anyone else in law enforcement," Dee said. "We contacted the media, but they weren't interested either."

  "One nice reporter spoke to us, dear," Emma said. "Remember him?"

  "You mean Matt Viera? He is lovely. He did try to help, but he's a freelancer, and he couldn't get his editors interested in the story. Not even at the Cove Chronicles, where they're always looking for filler." Dee smiled at her granddaughter. "We were almost out of options when Lindsay mentioned you. She said you're smart and efficient."

  "But Lindsay also tells us you don't have any patience whatsoever," Emma said, shaking her head. "I'm afraid you'd never make it as a quilter."

  I'd already figured that much out myself. I'd always admired quilts, and I'd once thought I might become a quilter when I retired—many, many years in the future—and had some free time. Then when I left the law firm and had the time to try quilting, I'd quickly realized I had no aptitude for it. I could easily spend a solid week inspecting and researching every detail of a quilt someone else had made, but I couldn't make myself spend more than two minutes in front of a sewing machine.

  "All that matters," Dee said with a quelling look at her friend, "is that Keely knows enough about quilts to identify Tremain's fakes."

  A year ago, I would have jumped at the challenge. Now, my main priority was avoiding even the slightest whiff of stress. I was already anxious enough about my upcoming debut at the quilt show. I didn't need anything else to worry about right now. Even if I wanted to help, the women didn't have standing to file a case in court, since they hadn't been harmed by Tremain themselves. "I'm sorry, ladies, but there really isn't anything I can do."

  "I understand," Dee said. "We're going to have to move on to plan B then."

  The hit man, I thought as my light-headedness increased. It was the first step in the chain of symptoms that, if not stopped, would lead to my passing out. Syncope, the doctors called it. Mine was of unknown origin, presumed to be stress induced.

  I needed to think calm thoughts, maybe even lie down on the bench, before my body took over and forced me to take a break. The museum's tile floors wouldn't be very comfortable to pass out on.

  "Are you sure plan B is a good idea, dear?" Emma helped Dee to her feet, apparently willing to go along with whatever her friend suggested.

  "Wait." Lindsay straightened up from the wall. "What if you just went and talked to Tremain? Let him know you're onto him and Keely's going to sue him for all he's worth if he doesn't stop, but she'd leave him alone if he withdrew from the show voluntarily."

  "No one believes threats of a lawsuit," Dee said. "Not without an actual lawyer in the room."

  "Keely could sort of come wit
h you." Lindsay had the same eagerly apologetic look that had always, just barely, saved her from being fired. "She really is good at threatening people, and she's a certified quilt appraiser, so her saying his quilts are fakes might be enough to convince him to withdraw from the show. He couldn't claim he'd simply made a mistake about the quilts' history. Not after an expert told him they're fakes."

  Lindsay and the two quilters looked at me expectantly. There was a definite family resemblance between Lindsay and her grandmother in their matching blue eyes, although it seemed unlikely Dee had ever been as timid as her granddaughter.

  While they'd talked, my light-headedness had cleared enough for me to consider Lindsay's suggestion. Helping the guild might be good for my business reputation if the word spread that my expertise had been instrumental in keeping a bad dealer from tarnishing the show's reputation. And I did admire Dee's and Emma's determination to protect their guild.

  Surely one little meeting wouldn't be that stressful. A quick appraisal of the store's inventory and a brief conversation. I could handle that without passing out. And if not, well, it wouldn't be as big a deal as if I passed out in the middle of a jury trial.

  I stood up. "If Lindsay can set up the meeting, I'll go with you."

  "I'll call as soon as I've got it set up." Lindsay rushed to escort Emma and Dee out of the museum as if she feared I'd change my mind.

  They'd just reached the front door when the museum director's assistant came striding around the corner from the stairs. "There you are, Ms. Fairchild. I see I just missed Dee and Emma. Did they tell you how much they do for the quilt show each year? Dee is one of the judges, and Emma oversees both the setup and takedown."

  "I'm a friend of Dee's granddaughter." I picked up my quilted messenger bag. "Is Mr. Torres finished with his earlier visitor?"

  The woman smiled. "I'm Gillian Torres, but as long as I can remember, I've been called Gil with a hard G, as if it were short for Gilbert."

  As someone who'd worked in a male-dominated field, I couldn't believe I'd made that mistake. "I'm sorry. I should have known better than to assume."

  "Don't worry." She hummed a few bars of "Don't Worry, Be Happy" as we headed for the stairs. "I'm used to it. I should have warned you. The confusion is almost guaranteed to happen whenever I meet someone solely through e-mail. In any event, I owe you more of an apology than you could possible owe me. Nancy Grant is on our board of directors, and I'm sure you know how that can be."

  "I do understand," I said, grateful that Gil had given me a lifeline after my gaffe. "Office politics is one of the reasons why I'm self-employed now. No backs to stab or be stabbed."

  "Just clients to please." Gil sang a bit of the Beatles' song "Please Please Me." "I'll try not to be too demanding."

  "You have a lovely voice."

  "Thanks. If I hadn't already forgiven you for calling me a man, I would now." She opened the door to her inner office and waved me into a paisley-covered chair that matched the ones out in the waiting room. "I've been looking forward to meeting you ever since I saw you listed in the quilt show's program. The museum has been working with an appraiser in Seattle for years, but he's about to retire."

  "Did you discuss my terms with your board of directors?"

  "I did." She pulled a folder out of a desk drawer. "There's just one minor, teeny-weeny little glitch. They'd like to hire you for one appraisal first, and then if they're satisfied, which I'm quite sure they will be, they'll sign you up as our official appraiser."

  "Something tells me there's more to it than that."

  Gil sang a few notes of the Elvis Presley song "Suspicious Minds." "You won't have any problems with the appraisal. It's just that it needs to be done right away. Before the quilt show, if at all possible. The dealer is available to meet with you any time that fits into your schedule. Still, I'm sure you're busy. If you can't do it, I'll understand, but, well, you saw Nancy Grant when she barged into my office. Now, imagine six more of her, in various sizes, shapes, and genders."

  I knew I should just say no. I'd started the week with plenty of time to write my speech and prepare for the quilt show, even with my limited tolerance for stress these days, but that had been before Lindsay added in a negotiation session for her grandmother. But I wanted this contract with the museum. For the past six months, Gil had been laying the groundwork for making at least one new quilt acquisition a month for the next several years. That kind of regular work would provide a solid foundation for my new career and, over the long run, reduce my stress levels. Besides, working with Gil would be fun. And then there was the enjoyment I got from seeing a new-to-me quilt.

  "Tell me about the quilt."

  Gil sang a line from the "Hallelujah" chorus before getting down to business. "A local antiques dealer found it for us. I'll give you his card. He says the quilt is a simple four-patch but quite old, and he believes it was made right here in Danger Cove. A connection to anywhere in the state would meet our acquisition criteria, but it would be a real coup if it were from this town."

  "I assume the rush is because you'd like to announce the acquisition at the quilt show."

  She nodded. "No pressure to decide either way, though. If this quilt isn't right for us, I'd rather wait for another opportunity. If I make a mistake with my very first acquisition, the board of directors will be even more difficult to wrangle the next time."

  "I should be able to at least give you a preliminary report before the quilt show."

  "Excellent." Gil stood. "Did Dee and Emma say why they were here? I would expect them to be too busy with preparations for the quilt show to have time for a museum visit."

  Accusing someone of fraud was a serious charge, not to be made lightly and definitely not without having seen Tremain's inventory for myself. I settled for saying, "They needed an emergency quilt appraisal too."

  FOUR-PATCH OF TROUBLE

  available now!