Wild Goose Chase (24 page)

I turned left out of the booth, heading for the back wall, toward the dock where we’d unloaded Wednesday night. That was only three short days ago, but the difference was immense. A wide gulf between what was then and what was now.

I heard the air conditioner cycle off, a large bang when the cooled air hit the metal baffles. I passed a sewing machine that had not been shut down, the red lights on the panel glowing. My footsteps sounded loud on the wooden floor, each reverberation a reminder of how alone I was. Weird undersea light emanated from a digital sign, casting blue stripes in front of me. Looking up, I saw the sign that read “Award-Winning Quilts.”

Through there was the door Buster had used to escape earlier. My steps slowed as I passed into the alcove. Wall sconces illuminated the space. I made my way to the back wall, but I found no door. I remembered that the door Buster had used was behind the panels that had been opened earlier for Myra’s lecture and were now closed up tight. There was no way to exit through here.

I turned to wend my way back through the exhibit to the main hall. Several rows of quilts were in front of me.

These were the penultimate quilts—the best in their field. The Extravaganza was one of the biggest conventions in the country, attracting the most elite quilters. Tomorrow the show would be closing, and these quilts would never be assembled again. This was my last chance.

Time spent with my mother was only a memory now. I had to glean something new from the lessons she’d already given me. The thousands who came to the show found something in the quilts. I needed to figure out what drove all these people to attend.

And maybe drove one person to kill.

I walked down the first row, studying the wonderful color and designs of these quilts. As I came into the next row, I gave out an involuntary yelp. A tiger’s face was staring at me, watching through jungle fronds, his green eyes glowing in the low light. The tiger had been rendered in thread, the orange and black colors intensifying the bright eyes.

I moved away, feeling as though the animal’s eyes were following me. The tiger’s fierce look reminded me of Eve protecting Justine. Could it be that the same fierceness had led her to murder?

I stopped in front of a quilt. The card attached said the title was
Sunbonnet Sue Does Dallas
. There were twelve blocks, each featuring a strange-looking character with a large hat covering her face. She was in profile, walking in front of images of Texas: oil wells, a city skyline, longhorn bulls. Her shape and hat never changed, just her dress fabric. I didn’t get that one.

The next quilt was abstract. Like a Mondrian, blocks of color were assembled on a black grid. I admired the way the colors were rendered, but it didn’t do anything for me either.

The quilts were hung in threes. Each grouping was interconnected by the quilt racks. I moved to the next batch.

I stepped back, trying to get a better view. I had seen my mother look at quilts. She usually stood back and squinted, I remembered. Blurring the lines of the quilt was important to visualize the quilt as a whole and not see the individual blocks. As she got older, she joked she didn’t need to narrow her eyes; she only needed to take off her glasses.

Claire’s first-prize quilt was to my left, and I turned to read the card. The quilt was made of what I knew now were flying-geese blocks, although these flew in a curved formation.

“How do you like that quilt, Dewey?”

I was startled to hear Myra’s voice. I turned; she was watching me. How long had she been there? The natural light coming in from the high windows was beginning to fade, putting her face in shadow. I couldn’t see her eyes clearly.

“How’d you get in here?” I asked.

“I sneaked in—the guard is fast asleep. I’ve been looking for you.”

“I was heading home.” Why was she looking for me? Warning bells went off in my head.

Myra pointed at the quilt. “Take a good look. Do you think this quilt deserved to win first prize?”

Her colorful bracelet caught the low light, throwing tiny rainbows of color onto the floor. It looked different than when I’d first seen it on her, outside Claire’s room. One button didn’t reflect like the others. I looked closer and saw it wasn’t a button at all, but a hardened glob of amber-colored glue. Something was missing. A button about the size and shape of the one I’d found on the stage had fallen off. Myra had taken the button from me on the loading dock after Justine died. Had she taken it to repair the bracelet?

My mind raced. Pam, the smoker, said Myra saw me get into Buster’s truck. That was at two o’clock, well before the fashion show. Hours before Myra said she’d arrived. Myra had lied about being in the building when Justine died.

She was the one who arranged to meet Justine.

I blurted out what I knew. “You set up a meeting with Justine at the auditorium before the fashion show.”

Myra looked away from the quilt, studying me with a smirk on her face.

“Indeed I did. Very smart. I didn’t think anyone remembered me coming in.”

“The smokers,” I said, almost to myself. “No one pays them any attention.” I was embarrassed that I hadn’t noticed them either. In fact, I’d ignored everything Pam said because she’d said Kym was out there with her, smoking. She’d been right about both things.

“Justine got greedy. She wanted her money back. She thought that with Claire dead, I’d hand it over. Just because she saw me argue with Claire.”

I had to get out of here. I was locked in the quilt show, after hours, with a murderer.

Myra reached into her purse and thrust something at me. I jumped back, but it was only a neatly strapped bundle of money with the now-familiar JustEve logo. Myra must have taken the money from Claire’s room after Justine had repaid her debt.

“Take this. Put it in your bag.” She pulled at the tote hanging over my shoulder. I shied away. I didn’t want her hands touching the Wild Goose Chase quilt.

“You put the money in Lark’s bag?” I asked.

“I thought it was your bag. A mistake I will not repeat.”

She held out the bundle of cash. I took it reluctantly. I opened my bag. This was my chance to get my cell. I could push the buttons that would call Buster without taking it out of the bag. She didn’t have to see me. As I rooted around, my heart sank. My cell was still in the charger, under the table at the booth. Defeated, I dropped the money inside.

Myra stuck her hand into her purse again. I was ready for another bundle of cash, but instead she palmed something else. I felt a sharp stab in my ribcage and looked down.

Myra was holding the gun that had killed Justine.

Days of speculating who
had killed Claire, who had murdered Justine, had not led me to Myra. She’d hid her hatred well until now. It was as though the inside of a beautiful quilt was suddenly revealed, with twisted seams, uncut threads, points that didn’t match up.

Even if the security guard made rounds, it was unlikely he would see us. We were hidden in the alcove, surrounded by quilts. I took a step away from Myra, but she stopped me, her long fingers curled around my arm above my elbow, the bracelet dangling from her arm. I tried to push her away, but she had a death grip on me. Her brown eyes were as dark as night; the whites looked unnaturally vivid. She smelled bad, like wood rot coming to the surface.

I pulled back, feeling her fingers dig deeper into my bicep, and got another steely jab in my side.

“We’re going to do this my way, Dewey.”

“Myra, come on. I never did you any harm. Why are you doing this to me?”

“Because you are the one. You’re the one the cops will believe killed Claire and Justine.”

“Not true, Myra. I was with Buster when Justine was killed.”

“Time of death is so tenuous, you know. I guess she was killed earlier than they thought. Or later. You’ll explain it all in your suicide note. Do you think the cops are going to look much harder once you’ve confessed to the dirty deed? I don’t think so.”

“Buster will. He won’t believe that I’d kill myself.”

I flinched as spittle hit my face. I wanted to lash out and hit her, but the gun was supreme right now; I didn’t want to do anything to make her mad enough to use it. I held my breath, only releasing it when she began talking again.

“First we’re going to go sign the contract, selling me the shop. Gee, I think the price just went waaay down. My negotiating skills are greatly enhanced by this,” she said, waving the gun.

I had to keep her talking. As long as she was talking, she wasn’t shooting.

“The shop? You want Quilter Paradiso? You can have it; you don’t need to hold a gun on me. I’ll give you the shop.”

“First, you confess to their murders.”

“Listen, Myra, I’m no lawyer, but I don’t think it’s murder if you didn’t mean to kill them. They were both accidents, weren’t they? Take Claire—she dropped the rotary cutter; it fell open and cut her. Justine, you were talking, the two of you chatting, the gun went off …”

Myra looked interested. Was she buying my idea that she would be able to talk her way out of a murder charge? I kept going.

“You didn’t mean to kill Claire, did you? She was like a mother to you.”

She laughed, a cackle that cut through me, seemingly cutting my spinal cord in half, making it impossible to stay upright. I started to slide, but she caught me under the right shoulder and hauled me back up. I had to stand on my own; there was nothing solid to lean on. The only things around us were quilts hanging from their frameworks. I steadied my knees, straightened my spine, and threw back my shoulders. It was a brave posture, one I did not feel. What had Freddy said? Fake it ’til you make it. I faked courage.

“That’s not a good thing, Dewey. For you, being compared to your mother is wonderful. That’s all I heard all weekend. Isn’t Dewey just like her mother? Sweet, kind, sooo nice.”

I’d spent the last six months trying to measure up to my mother. Was I going to get the chance to prove myself or was Myra going to cut me short?

“My mother, on the other hand, was a junkie and a whore. Although she preferred to be called a free spirit. She should have thanked me for putting her out of her misery.”

“You killed your mother?” Shit, shit, shit. I was getting in deeper and deeper. I needed to get out of here now, away from Myra and her tiny, deadly gun.

Myra laughed. “Anyone can kill, Dewey. All you need to be is hungry enough, battered enough, desperate enough.”

“I couldn’t kill.” The words came out in a squeak. I tried to clear my throat. I wanted to sound strong.

“Oh yeah? How about that stone-cold bastard who killed your mother?”

“Leave my mother out of this!” I yelled. She was closer to the truth than she knew. Many nights I had imagined what it would be like to run the unknown drunk down with my car. I hadn’t acted on my impulse. Was that because I was a better person than Myra or because I’d never had the chance?

“I can’t. Your mother’s the one that started all this. She had what Claire wanted, what I want, what you don’t want. Quilter Paradiso. This all started with that infernal store.”

“Are you saying you killed Claire because of my mother’s store?”

“Let’s walk. We don’t have all night.”

“Wait, I want you to tell me what my mother has to do with all this.” I had just gotten my mother back. I wasn’t going to share her with a murderer. I planted my feet, and Myra stopped, still standing in front of Claire’s quilt.

“Your mother never cared about you, Dewey. She cared more about her shop than her kids.”

I lunged at Myra. “That’s a lie.”

She hit me across the head with the gun. I saw stars and cried out, feeling my knees buckle beneath me. I struggled to stay standing, the colorful quilts competing with the sparks in my head. I grabbed onto the nearest quilt. The quilt stand swayed, but then straightened.

My head swimming, I felt a presence in the space. My mother. My mother was here with me. I cleared my head, half listening to Myra’s tirade, trying to gather my strength.

“Come on, Dewey. Behave. Let’s go.”

“How can we get out? We’re locked in.”

“Not to worry. I stuck a piece of tape over one of the locks in the back. The final security check isn’t until eleven. That cute little security guard likes his work. He was happy to tell me all about the schedule.”

I couldn’t let her take me out of the building. Myra was staring at Claire’s quilt. An idea began to form. I tugged the quilt to my left. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the joint where the quilt stands hooked together move. I pulled again and saw the wooden stand sway slightly.

“It’s all very poetic,” Myra said. “You commit suicide with the gun you used on Justine. I don’t want to do it here. We wouldn’t want to get your brain matter all over this lovely exhibit now, would we? Lark took footage of this quilt for her show about me. It would be a shame to ruin it.”

With my peripheral vision, I studied the quilt stands. Each piece was dependent on the other; a kind of surface tension held the whole thing together. When I’d watched Eve’s minions putting the quilt stands together, I’d been struck at how tenuous the arrangement was, how one relied on the other to stand up.

If I pulled hard enough and quickly enough, maybe I could bring down the whole display. These stands were much heavier than the stands that had fallen on Myra earlier. If I could start a domino effect, these stands with their thick wooden supports and heavy metal pipes would come crashing down on Myra’s head.

The problem was my head was underneath here, too. I’d have to run as fast as I could. I bounced lightly on my toes and felt my head rock.

“I need one thing from you. Give me the notebook, Dewey.”

“You lied to me.” I tried to sound wounded. “You told me you didn’t know anything about WGC and Claire’s money lending.”

Her face tightened, and she gripped the gun so hard that the tips of her fingers were white.

“I didn’t. I was the only one who didn’t know. Right up until Claire pulled out that little notebook to show Justine what she owed.”

I held my breath, my stomach muscles shaking from the effort of keeping still. I let my hand explore behind me. I wasn’t close enough to the quilt yet to get a good grip.

“You saw Justine that morning?”

“That twat,” Myra sneered. “She was in and out of Claire’s room, first repaying the money, then begging for it back. The last time she knocked on the door, Claire and I were having our dispute over her lending practices. Justine told me later she’d overheard.”

“I saw her. She was going down the stairs when I got there.”

“I told you she couldn’t stay away. She knew that money was in the room, and that was all she could think about.”

Or maybe she was trying to see if Claire was alive. If I hadn’t been the one to find Claire’s body, would it have been Justine? The last few days would have been so different.

“The thing about Justine was she didn’t know when she had it good. She called me Thursday, begging for money. She’d lost all her money at the card club and was ready to go back for more. She was desperate to pay back Eve.”

“And you took advantage of her vulnerability.” I moved closer to the quilt behind me.

“I want that notebook,” she repeated.

“I gave it to the police, Myra. That book is going to lead them right to you.”

“You think so? Let’s find out. Give me your cell phone,” Myra demanded.

“I don’t have the phone on me,” I stammered. “I left it in the charger, back at the booth.”

“Come on, I really want to call Officer Studly. What’s he got in those pants, anyway?” She grinned lasciviously.

“Leave Buster out of this.”

“Leave Buster out, leave Mom out,” Myra mocked me. “Next you’ll be telling me to leave Claire out. Who says you’re making the rules? I’m the one with the gun.”

I needed more time to figure out which pole would take down the rest. I took another baby step away from Myra. “How can you kill someone with a rotary cutter, Myra?”

“I got lucky with Claire. I mean, she gave me the idea. She was so insistent on cutting the borders herself. She was sitting down, for pity’s sake. What did she think was going to happen? She pulled that rotary cutter right off the edge of the mat and into her lap. If she hadn’t been using the safety cutter, she would have cut herself right then. But I took care of that.”

She leaned in, and I caught a whiff of her foul scent. She was going to kill me. Would my mother be there to greet me if I died? She was surely in heaven, but I didn’t know about my own life. Had I lived a good enough life to end up where she was?

I wasn’t ready to die. I backed away another inch.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said with a bravado I barely felt. “I’m not the one who killed Claire or Justine. The police will figure out that you killed both of them.” And me, I thought.

“Would your faith in the cops be so strong if you weren’t banging Officer Meat? I doubt it.”

“You don’t need to get rid of me, Myra. Let me go. I won’t tell a soul.” No longer pretending, I was begging for my life.

I tried to appeal to her emotions.

“Didn’t you love Claire?” I asked.

She looked up at me sharply, then focused her attention on Claire’s quilt. Her features softened, and she answered me quietly. I got closer to the quilt behind me.

“I did, but it was never enough. Not enough for her to acknowledge me publicly. Not enough to keep her from starting over without me. She had been running this side business all these years and never told me. Then she was going to buy your mother’s shop and leave me out of that, too.”

I knew how she felt. It was not easy being the odd one out.

She shook herself, and her expression changed back to the woman ready to kill.

“She kept talking about a fresh start. I gave her a fresh start.”

I flattened myself against the quilt behind me. Myra had a clear view of Claire’s quilt. I needed to distract her so I could get a good grip on the quilt.

“Claire’s quilt won first prize, Myra,” I said, trying to inject as much sneer into my voice as I could. “But no one has given you the recognition you deserve.”

Myra looked at me and then at the quilt. The metallic quilting thread glowed and reflected in her eyes. She seemed mesmerized by the quilt. This was as close to Claire as she was going to get again.

My back was right up against the crazy quilt that hung at right angles to Claire’s. I felt the soft velvet, the rough edges of the embroidery, the cool metal of a charm, as my fingers scrambled for a hold.

“I made this quilt. Not her.” With her open hand, Myra hit Claire’s quilt. The quilt moved wildly.

“Destroy it, Myra.”

She shifted the gun to her left hand and slapped at the quilt again. She grunted like a tennis player as she took the quilt by the binding and twisted.