The Rose Quilt

by Mark Pasquini

  Barry jumped to his feet and leaned on the desk, supported by his spread sausage-like fingers. “Are you accusing us of this crime? Just because we’re foreigners, you can’t pin this bloody murder on us.” He turned to his wife and said, “Come on, Wanda. I am not about to stand here and be railroaded.” His Yorkshire accent became more profound the madder he got.

  Steve sighed. First Sullivan, now Jones, he thought. With all the rampant rumors about crooked cops, half the time he questioned anyone it seemed they thought he was getting paid to scapegoat them to save the real perpetrator. He gave the man his standard reply: “I am not accusing anyone of anything at this time. It is very likely that I will, but not at this time. Unless you want me to, and then I will happily cuff the both of you and drag you off to Hartford. Now, either hold out your hands or sit down.” This last was delivered in a whipsaw voice that rose in volume. Barry was a big man, and when he leaned over the desk in an intimidating manner, Steve squared his feet beneath his chair. He was ready to rise and meet any aggression.

  “Be careful, Mr. Jones,” he said quietly, looking him in the eye. Steve was prepared to slide his chair back and out of reach. He certainly did not want to get into a fight. Even though Steve gave away twenty pounds and a couple of inches of reach to the nurseryman, he was not worried. He had been beaten and robbed in London when he had strayed into an unsavory part of town. When he had been released from the hospital and returned to his intelligence office at the embassy, his Japanese counterpart had worked with him on the art of jujitsu. Over the years, he had found a trainer to help him continue working on his skills, when he had a chance. However, even though he was confident in his ability to do some damage to Barry, the room was too crowded, and someone was sure to get hurt or furnishings damaged.

  Buck, unaware of Steve’s skills, had risen slowly and taken two silent steps forward. He had drawn his sap out of a hip pocket and was balancing it in his hand, gauging the distance to Barry’s head.

  “Barry. Please, sit down. Please,” Wanda begged, grabbing her husband’s arm.

  He glanced at her and back to Steve. Hesitantly, he sat down and held his wife’s hand. “Sorry,” Barry said gruffly.

  Buck repocketed the lead-shot–filled leather bag and backed up to his position next to the door. Barry had never even been aware how close he had come to waking up in a cell with a severe headache.

  “Same question.” Steve returned to the interview, leaning forward and glancing at his notebook.

  While Barry answered, Jeremy entered quietly with a chair. Buck nodded his thanks, and the butler silently closed the door as he left. Barry answered in a calmer tone, “We broke about eight, eight thirty and went into the dining room. I think the last person to leave was Emma. She was talking to Alice about the hanging loops or banding or something. We had decided on the light or dark between us, but not which.

  “Wanda and I got something to eat, and when we finished, we went outside.”

  Wanda inserted disgustedly, “We would rather not hang around with that malicious woman, Emma Black.”

  “Shh, Wanda,” her husband said. Steve noticed that when Barry got excited, Wanda brought him back to earth and vice versa. “Anyway, we went out. The professor was talking to Mary. Anna had already gone outside. I don’t remember what the servants were doing. I didn’t notice. Sorry.”

  Steve looked at Wanda. “Is that what you remember?”

  “Yes, yes. After we ate, by the balustrade, I went to look at some bayberry plants that we had replaced. We take care of the grounds now, you know. Since Huskins retired.”

  Barry quickly said, “I went to some new bushes on the other side of the terrace. Alice had a tendency to overwater, no matter how many times we told her we would take care of it when we came out.”

  “Did you see Anna Carlyle?”

  Barry shook his head, and Wanda looked thoughtful for a few seconds before she answered. “Yes, she was sitting on one of the benches by the door. In the shadows. I think she was drinking tea?”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Barry and snapped his fingers. “Lech came out and was talking to her after I checked on the bushes; then Anna went inside.”

  “Wait, Barry—wasn’t Alice in the dining room? She said something to Anna and left the room. She usually goes back to the sewing room to look at things. I remember Emma wanted to accompany her, but Alice went alone. Then we went out to the terrace.”

  “Yes, Inspector. That’s the way it was. Anna went through the hall when she left Lech. Wanda and I were sitting on the balustrade then.”

  “Then Miss Carlyle talked to Mrs. Chandler before she went upstairs?” Steve wanted to catch someone in a lie.

  Wanda took a deep breath. “Wait. Barry and I went to see the plants after we filled our plates. It was after that I saw Anna speaking with Alice. It had to be after she came back down, unless ... Oh, I can’t remember now.”

  Barry put his arm around his wife. “Inspector, give her a minute. It must have been after she came down. When we sat down, after looking at the plants, Alice was alone. Or, she might have been talking to Jeremy or Emma. I don’t really remember. But a few moments later Anna stepped into view and said something to Alice.”

  Steve wrote and asked, when he finished, “How were relations between you and Mrs. Chandler?”

  The couple glanced at each other. Finally, Barry said cautiously, “Mrs. Chandler brought us over after the war. She ... ”

  Steve interrupted. “Is this necessary? I am not really interested in how you got here.” He did not want another long conversation like the one with Poltovski.

  “Well, I think it is,” Barry answered diffidently. “To understand the relationship between the Chandlers and us.” Wanda nodded encouragement.

  Steve nodded for him to continue with a shrug.

  “A. J. was staying with our employer in England before the war. General Williams was in procurement for the War Department. Mr. Chandler was over selling products from the cotton mill. After the war, when the general died, we wrote to him. Mr. Chandler had admired our gardens and asked if we wanted to leave and come to America. The death taxes forced the family to sell the property, and we, and Jeremy, did not much care for the new owner. Acted like King of the May.

  “Mrs. Chandler wrote back and informed us of the death of Mr. Chandler. She had heard of us from her husband and, to honor his wishes, paid for our passage. We emigrated. When we arrived, she loaned us the money to start the business, as a silent partner. Mrs. Chandler already had a gardener on the property. He had been with the family for years, and she did not want to set him out on his ear, so she refused to hire us here at the house to avoid any problems, as old Huskins had his own staff. That’s when she suggested that we start the nursery.”

  Buck interrupted, “How did you feel about that? Mrs. Chandler not wanting you around and all.”

  Wanda twisted around. “Oh, we understood. Mrs. Chandler couldn’t very well oust the current gov’nor just because we showed up. We were perfectly happy with the business. It gave us a chance to work for ourselves. Make something. Later, when Huskins retired, Alice gave him his cottage on the property to stay in for the rest of his time and started asking us to offer suggestions and work on the property for special projects. We did work for the house and the farms.

  “We also had the work at the mill. And we took care of the city parks and other city properties. Alice liked real plants rather than the silk. We took care of the potted plants at the city hall and company properties. We also did work for other families in the area and sold plants and trees and the like.”

  Barry patted her hand and picked up the train of thought. “Mrs. Chandler put us on the flower show committee. I don’t do much on the quilt, of course. I would probably sew my fingers to it if they let me near with a needle and thread.” He gave a little self-deprecating laugh. “I was around to do scut work—fetch and carry, bring thread, move the frame around, things like that. A lot of the time, I just talked with
Jeremy and waited for instructions. But when the show was being set up or during and afterward, that’s when they needed me, to move plants around and such. Also, I studied garden layout, and Lech, Wanda, and I designed the layout of the pavilion.”

  Wanda quickly added, “We never were late with the payments. The business was doing well. I mean, after the rough time right after the war, but everyone was having difficulties then. Mrs. Chandler let a few months slide here and there, but we paid her up.”

  Steve flipped back through his notes. He rubbed his nose, trying to think how to present the next question. Finally, he took a deep breath and braced himself for a strong reaction. “This has come up in prior interviews. I understand that there was an incident at the Christmas party held at the nursery ... ”

  Wanda spat out an expletive. “That bloody bi ... ”

  “Wanda,” snapped her husband.

  She threw an angry look at him and continued, with a rein on her temper. “That would be Emma Black. She is a vicious gossip. I suppose she told you that I drink, too.”

  “Wanda, let me, please,” interrupted Barry. “About Christmas. Yes, I was a little tight, as was Miss Silene, though that does in no way make it all right. There was mistletoe over all the doorways and around the grounds, you know, as decorations for the party, and she was standing under a cluster. I kissed her, and she returned it. I got carried away and she put me in my place. I apologized. Wanda came out then and took me aside and tore into me. She was that angry I acted as I did, but even more, she was worried that Mrs. Chandler would be angry and we would lose the mill and town business. That she would call in her loan and we would lose everything. Alice had a large amount of influence, and she could have ruined the business.”

  When he paused, Steve asked, “And the drinking?” He was interested in the answer more to ease his own curiosity about how Mrs. Black twisted the facts than to further the investigation.

  “My wife,” continued Barry, “had an accident while exercising a hunter for a sick groom when she was young. Her horse was startled when a covey of quail burst in front of him, and she was thrown. She spent many months recovering and was given opiates, which she still takes on occasion. Wanda only takes them when necessary, but the pain is so great that, at times, she overmedicates. The effects are much the same as overindulgence in alcohol. Unsteadiness and slurred speech.”

  Steve nodded. He had seen the results of opium addiction when he was young. A sailor uncle of his indulged on one of his rare visits to the family farm and was told that he would not be welcome again if he brought “that poison” with him. His father had been livid.

  “So there is no truth that you went to Mrs. Chandler and demanded that she talk to Silene?”

  Wanda looked offended. “Certainly not! Mrs. Black was there at the party, and we knew that she would be more than happy to spread her vitriol. As I understand, she did go to Alice and had her ears scorched about something with Catherine and didn’t dare bring this thing about Silene up. Barry and I were more than happy to let it drop. I guess Silene didn’t say anything either. That one is straight up.”

  “One more question and we are through for now. Did you see anyone? A stranger or someone you didn’t expect to see around?”

  Both of them thought a moment and shook their heads. Steve thanked them and threw down his pencil in disgust as they left the room. “Well, from everyone being a suspect to no one being a suspect.”

  Buck chuckled. “You expected it to be easy? Someone to walk in here and admit everything?”

  Steve flicked the cigarette he had just extracted from the box on the desk at the constable. “I can hope. No, but I had hoped for a clue somewhere along the line,” he replied as he moved around the desk to pick up the cigarette.

  “What next?” asked Buck.

  Steve perched on the corner of the desk and contemplated the question. “Tomorrow I am going to look around the plant. Can you get me the medical examiner’s report from the sheriff’s office? Also, the report on their investigation on fingerprints and the rest of anything in the sewing room. I will need a car, though. Lend me one from your department?”

  Buck finished his coffee and said, “Sure. I’ll take you to the station and you can take my car from there. I’ll use the official automobile for the run up to the county seat to meet with the investigators who were at the house that night. Just don’t wreck it. You will have to answer to Margaret while I get on the next slow boat to China.”

  They bid farewell to the committee members in the sewing room, to mixed reactions. Steve observed that they had decided on the olive and magenta loops to hang the quilt.

  Chapter 13

  On the way back down the hill, Buck shot Steve a curious look. “I thought you wanted to rattle Mrs. Black’s chain.”

  Steve chuckled. “I was tempted after all the blind alleys she set us up with. Typical of a malicious rumormonger—everything she said had a kernel of truth but was actually a lie. I think she is the only one who is hated by the rest. Anyway, it wouldn’t be professional,” he said with an air of sanctity. “A woman like that always gets her just deserts when she least expects it. But to tell you the truth, I just couldn’t make it convincing. Even she would have trouble believing the gossip I had cooked up.”

  “Tell Uncle Buck just what you had planned,” he entreated with an anticipatory grin.

  Steve lit a cigarette and rolled down the window to flick out the match before he said, “Oh, I was going to tell her that I heard that some people said that all three of the Chandler children were hers, and that she had cheated on her husband with A. J. Chandler and begged him to adopt them.”

  Buck laughed out loud and almost wrecked the car on the narrow drive. “And what was Mrs. Chandler doing while all of this philandering was going on?”

  “She was saving the family name. Mrs. Black was probably a long-lost cousin or something. She couldn’t abide the scandal, you know, really,” he finished, with an atrocious upper-crust accent. “And watch where you are driving. I don’t want to be the main guest at my own funeral. My boss would exhume me just to kick my tail for inconveniencing him.”

  Buck snorted. “You would have a wonderful ceremony. What with all the women who hate you. We would have to hire the hotel’s ballroom to hold them all.” They came to the gate, waved to Huskins walking his old dog by the road, and turned toward town.

  Buck drove to the police station and parked next to his private automobile. Steve opened the door, but Buck asked before he stepped out, “Do you have any thoughts about the case?”

  Steve sighed deeply and shook his head. “First of all, the people at the house. Mrs. Black and the professor don’t have the strength. With the way his hands tremble, I would guess that he has palsy or something like that. Mrs. Flowers is just too timid. Unless she is the greatest actress in the world, Miss Carlyle just doesn’t fill the bill. The servants are out, as far as I’m concerned. They had duties and would have been missed, even for a few minutes. The Joneses said they had been moving plants all week. Wanda was probably taking her medication, like tonight, and was too fuzzy to plan, much less carry out, the murder. That leaves Barry, but he was at the opposite end of the terrace. He was in sight of either Wanda or the professor or the Carlyle woman.

  “How would someone get around here where everyone knows everybody else and being incognito is almost impossible? I mean, there are two independent taxis in town, you told me. And you talked to both drivers. Silene, Francis, and the Sullivans would all be recognized. Same thing with borrowing a car—if they could borrow a car, someone would see it and them, or the owner would undoubtedly say something when Mrs. Chandler died. Added to that, Huskins would be around at the gate and would have seen them unless they parked the car and walked in, which would have taken a lot of time and left the car to be seen. And if they couldn’t have gotten there using a car, they certainly couldn’t have walked in the time frame we’re talking about. Silene has an alibi, so she is out. So, if Franci
s or the Sullivans are involved, how did they get from the mill or town to the house and back? The Sullivans didn’t have a car, and Francis would have been seen by the watchman at the mill. That means Haney and/or Huskins would have had to be part of it somehow.”

  Steve snapped his fingers and grabbed Julie’s notebook from his pocket. “Wait a minute.” He flipped pages until he came to the write-up she had on Francis. “Francis cycles. Could he have gotten to the house from the mill without being seen on a bicycle?”

  Buck gave himself a slap on the forehead. “I must be getting old. Francis wants to be a captain of the United States Olympic cycling team in the next Games. He travels all over the countryside. And, yes, he rides from the house to work on good days, along an old farm road. There is a private bathroom on the office floor, complete with a shower. He has changes of clothes in a closet upstairs.”

  Steve smiled. “Then the only thing is to prove or disprove that he cycled to the house, murdered his mother and cycled back. All without being seen.”

  Buck nodded. “The ‘not being seen’ would not be difficult from near the mill to the side of the house. Like I said, an old farm road runs along the hillside around the town, through thick trees. It’s on the far side of the house and mill.”

  Steve tapped his finger on the roof of the car. “It would all be circumstantial, though. There is no way to place him in the room with the shears in his hand. With as much pull as this family has, we would almost need photographs and film footage, plus an audience of judges. Well, let’s prove that he or the Sullivans could have been there and worry about the actual murder later. Ah, I hate cases like this. Give me an old-time shoot-out with gangsters any time.”

  “Just out of curiosity, what was that gut feeling you were talking about?” asked Buck.

  “Something along the cycle lines. Long-distance running. This cycle thing is a lot better. It would get him there and back faster.”

  Buck asked, “So you’ve settled on Francis?”