Diana was torn, as the chaos in the room wrestled her attention in what seemed like a thousand directions. She wondered if she should stop people from leaving or if she should go to the store owner and make sure she was all right; of course, Marta was her responsibility—but Diana decided to see what the woman in front of her needed first. “What can I do for you?”
“My quilt is gone. Someone must’ve taken it by accident.”
Diana pointed toward the store owner. “That’s who you need to tell—”
There was a scream from the back of the store. Diana ran toward the sound. It was the young store clerk, but she wasn’t handing out stickers now or giving Marta paper towels. She stood at the opened back door and screamed again, her face contorted in horror at what was outside.
“What is it?” Diana pushed through the shocked crowd to get there first.
The alley was dark, but a streetlight shone on the face of Rance Bettus, sitting against the building with his legs outstretched. It wasn’t unusual for Rance to be outside smoking. But he should be standing, not sitting. And his face…
His face held a blank stare. The look of someone who was dead!
Wrapped around his shoulders was a quilt. Diana recognized it—the quilt on the front cover of the very first Quilt to Death book. Blood was soaking through the quilt on his left side, closest to the door.
A note was attached to the quilt with a straight pin:
from the buttermilk guild
The store owner rushed out, took in the scene, and was clearly shocked. She led the inconsolable clerk back inside.
Marta stuck her head out. “What’s going on?” She emerged and gave Rance a poke with the toe of her shoe. “What in God’s name are you doing down there?”
Rance’s body moved…and slowly fell over to the side.
Marta looked at Diana with her eyebrows pinched together, incomprehension on her face, as if she was a small child. “Is he okay? Why isn’t he getting up?”
Diana knew shock could take many forms. She’d witnessed it in her mother. She’d experienced it herself.
Empathy washed over her. Gently, she put her arm around Marta’s shoulders. “He can’t get up, sweetie. I believe he’s dead.”
2
Rory Crannach pushed up the yellow police tape and walked into the bookstore. He hated Guy Fawkes Night and the memories that came with it. But it was more than that. There were never enough police officers to cover the mayhem that inevitably broke out. He wondered if the bookstore had been a victim of the rebellious holiday.
He scanned the interior, noting that the place was crowded, and he cringed. Securing a crime scene could be difficult, but with this many people, impossible! He had no way of knowing what evidence might’ve walked out the door already, what evidence had been contaminated, or what evidence had been strewn around. The place should’ve been locked down after the crime. At least a small band of officers had arrived quickly—considering the night—and had made an effort to stop the in-and-out flow of traffic. What were so many people doing here at the book shop on this night of all nights? Luckily, Rory had only been a few blocks away when he’d gotten the call. A hell of a night for a murder.
He pulled out his badge and displayed it. “I’m Detective Chief Inspector Crannach. Who’s in charge here? Where’s the owner?”
A woman near the entrance raised her hand. “I’m the owner.”
“Tell me what happened,” he said.
The owner gestured to the beautiful thirtysomething beside her. “You should speak to her. She’s the one in charge of the event.”
“First,” he replied, “are there security cameras inside?”
“Aye. But I checked. The cameras had been disabled…from my computer.”
“Maybe we can get some prints from the keyboard.”
She hung her head. “Probably not. Ye’ll only find mine. I wasn’t thinking about fingerprints. Just trying to be helpful.”
“It’s all right.” He couldn’t fault the owner; she was clearly upset.
The lovely woman stepped forward and held out her hand. “Diana McKellan.” Her accent revealed she was an American, while her sleek purple dress had big city sophistication written all over it. “I’m with Three Seals Publishing, heading up the PR campaign for Marta Dixon’s new book.” She gestured toward the table with the banners behind it. “If it helps, my assistant had her camera running. However, I’m pretty sure she didn’t catch the killer in the act.”
“Why’s that?”
“She was in here with us.”
“I’ll need that footage,” he said.
Ten feet behind Diana, two tall women stood, one with blood covering her face, hands, and suit; the other one with paper towels, dabbing at the face of the first one.
The bloody one stomped her foot. “Tilly, stop it! Just take me back to the apartment. Now!”
Tilly, the non-bloody one, was hunched, submissive, and halted her ministrations as soon as the first one barked. She looked to be cowering more than before.
Rory raised an eyebrow, as if to ask the American lass who the drama queen was, and the American picked up the cue.
Diana sighed. “Marta Dixon, the author of the Quilt to Death series and the reason we’re here. The other one is her sister, Tilly, who’s also Marta’s assistant.”
Rory projected his voice to the group. “No one is going anywhere until I can get your statements.” He looked at Marta more closely and realized her face might be stained red with dye instead of blood.
The bell over the door rang and two of his team members arrived—Reid McCartney and Corey MacTaggart. Thank goodness.
“Where do you want us to start?”
“Let’s take a look at the crime scene and then we’ll get going on the statements.” He turned back to Diana. “Where’s the body?”
“Right out back. I’ll show you.” She seemed calm, which made him suspect her right away. The rest of the store’s occupants were visibly shaken.
He followed her to the back, taking mental notes to jot down later.
Probably five-six without the stilettos.
Easy measured steps—another clue she might be the killer.
Nice backside.
The last thought, though, wouldn’t go in his report.
Diana opened the back door and went through. “Here he is.”
Rory stepped out and took in the man on the cobblestones, lying in a perfect L-shape. A quilt was wrapped around his shoulders, a pool of blood at his side. Rory read the note. He’d seen a lot of murder victims, but this one was bizarre. From the Buttermilk Guild? Who the hell was the Buttermilk Guild? What did the note mean? “Did anyone tamper with the crime scene?”
“Well…” Diana started.
Tilly appeared out of nowhere. “Marta kicked him.” For someone who seemed so awkward, she had certainly walked up on them quietly enough.
Diana tilted her head to the side. “I wouldn’t say Marta kicked him exactly. More like she nudged him with her foot.” She looked Rory straight in the eye and spoke matter-of-factly, “Rance was sitting up when we found him.”
“Rance?” Rory inquired.
Diana nodded. “Yes. Rance Bettus. Marta’s editor. From New York. I can get you all his information.”
“Aye. I’ll need it. Who discovered the body?”
“The clerk found him,” Diana added. “She’s inside, sitting on the loveseat right now. She’s really upset.”
McCartney and MacTaggart peered through the doorway. “Are you ready for us?”
“Yes,” Rory said. “McCartney, take yere photos. MacTaggart, talk to the store clerk.” Rory wanted to question the Yank himself. “Diana, where were you when this happened?”
She looked puzzled. “I don’t know. I guess I was standing at the side of the room, while Marta spoke to the crowd.” She paused for two seconds and then, “Am I a suspect?”
“At this point, everyone is.”
He squatted down and used
his pen to lift the quilt above the pool of blood. Hmm. Perhaps the killer knew what he was doing. On the victim’s arm, there was an incision, indicating the brachial artery had probably been cut. He lifted the quilt a little higher and saw a strange tool with a circular blade lying underneath. He’d need an evidence bag. He pulled his pen away and the quilt dropped, covering the wound again.
“Excuse me,” a woman said from the doorway, clearly speaking to Diana. “I was telling ye about my quilt. It’s missing.”
Diana walked to the doorway and blocked the view, as if protecting the woman from seeing the dead body. “Yes. Let’s go back inside.”
Rory stood and listened.
“I brought it here for Marta Dixon to sign. I was wondering if you’d seen it.” She looked behind her at Marta, as if to get her to sign it now.
Diana walked through the doorway, arms out a little to the side, as if moving the Caledonian cattle along. “Would you like me to help you look?”
Rory followed her, too.
“We’ve checked everywhere for the quilt,” the woman said. “It’s special to me. My first Buttermilk Guild quilt. Ye know, from the first book in the Quilt to Death series?”
Diana nodded.
The woman continued. “I figured I could only bring one quilt to this event for Marta Dixon to sign. My plan is to bring the rest of my Quilt to Death quilts to my local guild meeting tomorrow night for her to sign them.”
Rory put himself in the conversation. “The missing quilt…what does it look like?” But as soon as he said it, the unsettled expression on Diana’s face registered, and he knew the answer. “Miss…?”
“Judy Keith.”
“Miss Keith, let’s go sit down for a moment.” He’d have to break it to her gently. His mum and grandmother had cherished their quilts and he bet Judy Keith wouldn’t be happy her quilt was now evidence in a murder case. Nay, nor would she be getting it back. But who would want it, anyway, with a good portion of it soaked in blood?
He settled them on chairs that were set out for the event and explained where her quilt was. He questioned her thoroughly, finding out she’d set the quilt beside her chair before the event began. Anyone could’ve made off with it, as the bookshelves were close to her seat—perfect cover for a snatch-and-go scenario.
When he was finished with Judy Keith, he dismissed her and went to find Diana again, who seemed to be consoling the bookstore owner.
Rory cleared his throat. “Ms. McKellan, let’s get back to your statement now.”
“How was Rance murdered?” Diana asked. “With a rotary cutter?”
So that was the tool with the circular blade. “Why would you ask that?” It was an awfully specific guess, Rory thought. Was she just trying to throw him off her scent?
She gazed at the bookshelves behind him, as if her memory lay there and she was scanning it. “In the first Quilt to Death novel, the killer wrapped the victim in a quilt, made by the Buttermilk Guild.”
“And?” he prompted.
“He used a rotary blade to slice an artery or something. Marta did a good job of not putting gore into the book, but it seemed pretty gruesome to me to bleed to death that way.” Diana shuddered, as if murder was unappealing. But he wasn’t marking her off his list of suspects just yet, even though she’d given him some information that might be useful.
“Hmm,” he said.
“Is that what happened to Rance?” Diana probed. “Was he sliced with a rotary cutter?” If she was guilty, she was pretty good at playing as if she wasn’t.
“We’ll have to wait for an official cause of death.” But Rory was worried.
“Do you think this is the beginning of something worse to come because the murder was inspired by the first book in the series?”
“Let’s not jump to any conclusions.” But the thought latched on and gnawed at him anyway.
“What if someone is going to reenact the murders in all the Marta Dixon books?” Diana speculated.
“How many books are there?” Rory asked, hoping it was only a few.
“Ten.” Diana chewed her lip, as if something else was worrying her. “I guess I better tell you now, there’s been death threats. Against Marta, not Rance,” she clarified. “They’ve been pouring in all day.”
“Death threats? More than one?” This was becoming more complicated.
Diana explained about the Buttermilk Guild being killed off and how the fans of the Quilt to Death series were in an uproar. “I can’t imagine why someone would kill Rance, though.” She frowned then, as if an idea had come to her.
“What?” he asked.
She looked around, seeming to take stock of who might overhear her. She leaned closer to him. “Can we speak in private?”
“Sure.” Rory was torn. He wanted to question the rest of the people in the store, probably mostly gawkers, but he didn’t want to give this Diana McKellen time to work on her alibi, if that’s what she was up to. Something was up, though, because she smelled too good to be innocent. “Does the store owner have an office?”
“I’ll show you.”
He followed Diana to a small office and shut the door behind him, and then waited for her to speak.
She was back to chewing her lip. Aye, it was cute, but she was a suspect, and he took his job seriously.
She hugged herself. “I hesitate to say this, because I don’t know anything for sure.”
“Tell me what’s on yere mind and I’ll decide if it’s relevant or not.”
“The rumor is that Rance and Marta were having an affair.”
“Are either of them married?”
She nodded. “Rance is married to the publisher’s daughter. And Marta just got out of a relationship. I heard her boyfriend Leo had to go to some kind of institution to recover. Leo Shamley,” she provided, as he wrote the name on his notepad.
Diana looked down at the floor. “This feels like gossiping. I’ve only heard of Leo. I’ve never met him.”
If he wasn’t a DCI, he would’ve given her points for not wanting to natter on about others. But as it was, this was information he could use. “Anything else?”
“It’s rumored Marta is paying for Leo’s stay at the resort or whatever it is. It’s expensive. Like, five figures a month.”
“Do you have Shamley’s number?”
“Maybe.” Diana pulled out her phone from her sparkly black purse. “I saw on Marta’s paperwork that she has Leo listed as a contact. It’ll just take me a second to find it.”
“While ye’re doing that, tell me why Marta Dixon has red dye on her face and her clothes. That’s not from kicking the body.”
Diana glanced up, but then held his gaze. “Murder isn’t the only excitement we’ve had here tonight. A woman in the audience threw a container of dye at Marta. The woman ran out before anyone could stop her.”
“Did ye get a good look at her?”
“Not really. It happened so fast. But I bet Parker got it all on tape. You know, the one I pointed out earlier?”
“And the death threats toward Ms. Dixon?”
“Three Seals, our publishing house, has been forwarding them. Thirteen of them. I can print them out for you, if you’d like.”
“Aye.”
“Oh, here’s Leo’s phone number.”
Rory wrote it down. “Do ye know the name of the place he’s staying?”
Diana bit her top lip, as if that would help her concentrate. “I believe Marta said he was at Malibu Hills Spa & Treatment Resort, or something like that. It’s a place where the rich go to decompress. Give me a second to double check.” She typed it into her phone, then slid it over for him to see.
“Thanks.” He wrote down that number as well.
This Diana was a lot of help. She seemed too forthcoming and straightforward to have committed the murder, but it was too early to take her off the suspect list. If he had more time, though, he’d like to dig deeper to find out where her calm-in-the-face-of-the-storm came from. But there were ot
hers to interrogate.
He looked down at his pad, double checking that he had her phone number, in case he needed to reach her. He did. “That’s all I need from ye at the moment. You may leave.”
“Okay.” She gave him a perfunctory smile as she stood. “I’ll see if I can use the shop’s printer to print the death threats now.”
Rory watched Diana go, but then pulled out his phone to call Leo Shamley, Marta’s ex-boyfriend. He didn’t pick up. Next, Rory called the spa. After he explained who he was and what had happened, the Malibu Hills receptionist was forthcoming.
“Mr. Shamley has left,” she admitted. “We haven’t seen him for several days.”
Leo could be another victim of murder, like Rance lying in the alleyway, but more than likely, he had just become Rory’s number one suspect.
He flipped to a fresh sheet in his notepad and went to the door, addressing the group, “I’d like to speak with Marta Dixon next.”
Marta stepped out from behind the other Ms. Dixon. She seemed genuinely upset as she walked toward him. But she also carried herself with poise, along with a modicum of underlying hostility.
Once inside the room and the door closed, she put her hands on her hips. “How long is this going to take? I have to get out of this suit.”
“Have a seat, Ms. Dixon. I’ll make this as quick as I can.” But I’ll take as long as I damn well please.
Now that Marta was in the room, the small office buzzed with negative energy. He quickly asked the standard questions and learned Marta owned three residences—one in Malibu, one in New York, and one here in Glasgow. The most interesting thing she revealed was that Rance Bettus was a smoker, maybe the reason he’d stepped out from the bookshop in the first place, only to be murdered. Then Rory asked the most important question of all. “What was the nature of yere relationship with the victim?”
“Rance?” Marta looked a little stricken, but she recovered and straightened herself. “He is…was my editor.”
“And?” Rory pressed.
She rolled her eyes, as if to give up. “We were involved. Nothing serious, though. What does it matter now?”
“And his wife? Did she know about the affair?” Rory asked directly.
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