Pix laughed and asked if he'd heard what the weather was going to be for the next couple of days.
“Same as it's been. Good for vacations and good for me; not so good for the crops or fires. Heard they had a big one up to Baxter State Park,” Sonny observed.
“My garden is going to shrivel up and die.” There was that word. Pix had used it on purpose. “Like Mitchell Pierce.”
They looked at each other.
“If you hadn't have gone out there, no one would ever have found him. Seth was fixing to pour this week.”
“I know. It's scary. Who do you think wanted Mitch out of the way so badly?”
Sonny had to have a theory. He did about most things and he did about Mitch.
“I figure he must have gotten in over his head somehow with the antiques or maybe the cars. He was a trusting soul for a crook and not a real good judge of character. This time, he put his faith in the wrong man.”
“Crook!”
“Come on, Myrtle,” Sonny was virtually the only person who used her name in everyday conversation. “The man was running scams up and down the East Coast. Where do you think he got all those fancy cars?”
Mitch had a fondness for vintage sports cars.
“Saved up?”
“Touch one of those fenders and like as not you'd burn your fingers.”
This was food for thought: a stolen-car ring.
“Lot of talk about a car wash place in Belfast that really laundered the vehicles. Mitch was a regular.”
“And the antiques?”
“Fakes. Don't look so surprised. Just because he could tell a good story and did a nice job for your mother doesn't make him a member of the choir. People are not always all of a piece like you.”
Pix wasn't sure whether this was a compliment or not. She suspected something in between. Oh, for a bit more intricacy.
“Not that I'm suggesting you change. I like you just the way you areâespecially those long legs of yours.” Sonny stood up and eyed them, exposed to full advantage in Pix's denim shorts. For an instant, they were teenagers again, ready to take off for a picnic on Strawberry Island, a little knoll off Prescott's Point. Pix was suddenly acutely aware that Sonny was
divorced and her own husband was almost three hundred miles away. She paid for her fish and left with a pleasant sense of having been tempting and tempted. The fact that she was absolutely and totally in loveâand loyalâto her husband made it all the more enjoyable.
At home, she began the mammoth task of cutting and chopping, running what Sonny had said about Mitch through her mind as she alternately was drenched in tears from the onions and splattered fat from the sizzling bacon.
Maybe there would be a chance to talk to Earl in private at the clambake tomorrow. Jill said he was coming, although he'd probably be called away just as they were uncovering the lobsters. There were going to be about fifty people of all ages at the party, and Pix found large gatherings often offered more opportunities for intimate conversation than small ones. Two people strolling off to gather driftwood for the bonfire were much less likely to attract anyone's notice than say two people disappearing from a group of eight at a dinner party.
She decided to call Faith and have her give Sam a book that Pix had about identifying quilts, so that he could bring it up. Sam would never find it himself, and Faith wouldn't stop until she did. Pix was absolutely sure it was in the stack of books by her bed, in with the cookbooks in the kitchen, or down in the basement in a carton waiting for more bookshelves. The quilt looked authentic, yet it was possible that it was a fake. Using the book, she could date it. Which would mean what? That she had been swindled? The man hadn't said it was an old quilt. Maybe the quilt on Mitchell Pierce's body wasn't old either, but what would that matter? It did somehow, though. She was sure. She took her cleaver and whacked the head off an enormous cod Sonny had missed when he cleaned the fish. She thought of the mice. She thought of Mitch. The cod stared at her, glassy-eyed. She came to her senses. Chowder, rich, fragrant fish chowder. She tossed the
head into a pot for stock and beheaded the other cod she found with aplomb. These were fish, not French aristocrats, and she was definitely not a murderess.
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“Anything I can do to help?” Samantha's voice was a welcome alternative to the sound of tumbrels.
“Perfect timing. Could you peel these potatoes?”
“Mother! There are mountains of them,” Samantha shrieked.
“Well, just do as many as you can and I'll help when I get the onions done and the rest of the fish cut up.”
Samantha had spent the morning at The Pines. She often bicycled over to see her grandmother. They had a very special relationship. Pix wondered what they found to talk about, but they shared a love of the outdoors and it was Ursula who had started Samantha on the first of her many collectionsâseashells at age three.
“Granny's helping me with the mosses,” Sam told her mother.
“I thought you'd given the project up.”
“Of course not, after all that work last summer!”
“This wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that Arlene is otherwise occupied, would it?” Pix was curious to know how Samantha was taking Arlene's defection.
“Not really. Besides, she and Fred aren't married. She is allowed to go places without him.” Samantha cut the sarcasm in her voice and admitted to her mother, “It's true, I miss her, but with her job, we wouldn't see each other that much, and she does like to spend time with her boyfriend. Otherwise, why bother having one?”
Pix decided to change the subject.
“I bought some beautiful quilts this morning antiquing with Jill and Valerie. One is especially lovely. It's on the couch. Take a break and go look at it.”
“You didn't tell me Valerie was going. I thought it was just Jill! What did she buy?”
Correctly surmising Samantha meant Valerie and not Jill, Pix gave an account of the morning.
“She has got such perfect taste. We should hire her to do our house.”
“But our house is done.”
Samantha raised an eyebrow, clearly indicating that a decorating scheme that had evolved simply because that was where things had happened to land did not represent interior design in her opinion.
“How about my room, then? We could send her pictures. I'm sure she'd have some great ideas.”
“Some expensive ideas,”
Pix heard it inside her head before it was said: “Oh, Mother!”
Samantha, happy for an excuse to leave the potatoes, went to look at the quilts.
“The one with the triangles is really beautiful, Mom. We should hang it on a wall here or at home.”
“That's what I was thinking.” Pix went into the other room and the two of them held the quilt out.
“What's that blue cross on the bottom?” Samantha moved her thumb to indicate the threads.
“I have no idea,” Pix replied truthfully, but something in her voice betrayed her.
Samantha looked her straight in the eyeâand where she had picked up this trick, Pix didn't like to think. “Come on, Mom. What aren't you telling me? You are such a bad liar.”
“And you're a good one?”
“Don't try to change the subject.”
Pix realized that the proximity in which they were spending the summer would make keeping secrets difficult. “I don't know what it means. Probably nothing. It's just that there was a cross like this one on the quilt out on the Point, too.”
“Nothing! It could be a major clue!” Samantha was excited, yet after they discussed it some more while finishing the
chowder preparations, both women were forced to agree that if it was a clue, they were without one.
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The chowder was simmering and Samantha had gone off to the dance at the Legion Hall. It was an island institution, a mixture of ages, groups, and most especially musicâeverything from “Like a Virgin” to the Virginia reel, with a stop at “a one and a two and a three” in between.
She'd called Faith, who had then called back to say she'd located the book and placed it in Sam's car just before he left. That was at six o'clock. He'd arrive, like Samantha, before midnight. Pix told Faith about the discovery of the quilt and the second mark.
“Perhaps both quilts belonged to the same family,” Faith suggested.
“Sullivan!” Pix was annoyed she hadn't made the connection before. “The man said the linens had come from Sullivan and that was where Mitch was living before he was killed.”
“It does seem like more than a coincidence. What you need to do is figure out if your quilt is authentic and talk to Earl.”
Pix was tempted to say she'd already planned this very course of action, but instead she thanked Faith for getting the book and told her she'd be in touch soon.
“I know,” her friend said before she hung up.
Pix never minded being in the cottage alone. It was so familiar and felt so safe that she thought of it as a kind of shell. Now she curled up inside, actually in one of the big overstuffed armchairs in the living room, with a mug of Sleepy-time tea and the latest issue of Quilter's
Newsletter
Magazine.
The first car door slam was her husband's. She'd dozed off but awoke instantly at the welcome sound and was at the door. He dropped his suitcase and held her tightly.
“I wish I could have come up right away. It has to have been a hellish time for you both.”
After a moment, she leaned away and told him, “It honestly hasn't been too bad. Everyone is more puzzled than
alarmed, and it's easier because none of us was really very close to Mitch.”
“He was an interesting son of a gun, though. Remember the night he came and played the mandolin at the Hamiltons and he and Freeman got to trading stories. I don't think I've ever laughed so hard in my life.”
“That was a great night.” It had been many years ago, before Danny was born. That reminded her. “Did you stop at Chewonki and see Danny?”
“No, I did not.” Seeing the look on her face, Sam took both his wife's hands. “First off, it was late and I would have interrupted the evening program, thereby embarrassing him for the remainder of his summer, and second, he likes, even loves, his old man, but at home. Chewonki is his turf, a parent-free zone for Danny. Don't worry, sweetheart, he'll be back before you know it and expecting you to do everything for him just as usual.” It was not entirely a frivolous observation and they'd had this conversation beforeâmany times before, inserting Mark or Samantha for Danny.
“Are you hungry?” Pix asked, hoping Sam would want only a drink and maybe some crackers and cheese. She had some of the chutney spread still left from Friday's Sewing Circle.
Sam saw the look on her face. He had not stopped to eat, but he couldn't do it to her.
“Not very, how about a drink and maybe a few crackers or whatever you have around.”
Pix beamed. Why wouldn't Jillâor Earlâwant to get married?
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In bed, Pix found having someone to keep her company while she listened for Samantha to come home did a great deal to diminish the anxiety. Also, they were busy telling each other all the things that had happened in their respective worlds since they'd last been together. Atypically, more had been going on in Pix's than Sam's.
He did not seem to think the quilt marks meant much. “It was probably a common way to mark where something else was going to goâthe name and date, as you suggested. Or maybe it was part of the basting that didn't get removed.” Sam had watched his wife complete several quilts and was quite knowledgeable about how they went together. Sam was the type of man who liked to know the way things worked. This had led him to medical school, but the discovery that he fainted with great regularity at the sight of an abundance of blood curtailed his career, although not his interest. He still read
The New England Journal of Medicine
and
the Harvard Health Newsletter
in between briefs.
Slam
âmusic to the ears of parents of teenagers, just as the cessation of noise was for the parents of toddlers. Samantha was home safe and sound.
Pix reached up to turn out the light.
“No, I want to say hello. I'll be right back.” Sam threw on his robe, a well-worn Black Watch plaid flannel one he kept hanging on the back of the door, and went downstairs. He had missed his daughter and wanted to tell her so. He also wanted to tell her that a quarter after midnight was the thin end of the wedge on a twelve o'clock curfew. Pix had enough to cope with this summer without Samantha's coming in just a little bit later every Saturday night.
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