Larcency and Lace Part 14

It didn't look as if they'd taken anything. Not even the quilt I found folded on the fainting couch, back side up, also quilted but with a different palette of colors, this side as dusty-clean as the other.

No body grunge. Dante was right. What a relief.

I was guessing the police hadn't figured out that the bones had been wrapped in it. I was of two minds: Don't tell. And don't tell until after I spent more quality time with the quilt.

I went with: don't tell, yet.

I wanted to take it home, but I didn't want to touch it, so I emptied the drawer from the cabinet and sat the folded quilt on top so I only touched wood. Last time I checked, I couldn't read old furniture. On the stairs, I screamed when Dante materialized in front of me.

"See?" he said. "You always scream, no matter where I appear around you."

"I have to run, but I'll be back tomorrow."

His disappointment gave me a little heart twitch, but I kept going. I locked up, opened Eve's back door, and set my package inside.

Eve about fainted when she saw the quilt. "We're now carrying two, no, three psychic firecrackers? In my car. Don't take this wrong, but I want you and your vision makers the h.e.l.l out of here."

"Take me home, then."

"I'll do the computer search on the quilt tonight." She smacked her head. "Bizarro! Do you think that's the prize quilt we're looking for?"

"If I'm taking my clues from the universe, I think it's possible, though I won't say I'm thinking straight. I'm weeks behind in getting the shop ready and twelve days away from my grand opening, which won't be half bad now that the White Star Circle of Spirit witches are having their Halloween costume ball at my place."

"Say again?"

I told her about Fiona's request.

"Can I come?" Eve asked.

"Sure, and bring a date."

"You're on."

When we got to my house, she ran my psychic firecrackers up to my room for me, she so didn't want to be around when I touched them.

"I have an idea," I said when she came back down. I handed her a cinnamon bun. "Want to go and talk to Sampson's sister?"

Eve checked her watch. "It might be a bit late for a social call by the time we get there. It's a heck of a haul around the river along those winding roads."

"Not by rowboat, it isn't."

"You're right. We could be there by seven forty-five as the fish swims."

"The Sweets hinted that Suzanne was dating Tunney, which would only give him motive for killing Sampson if he planned to marry her and if she's Sampson's heir and if he's greedy, which he most certainly is not."

"On the other hand," Eve said, "maybe she seduced him into it and she's the greedy one. Men have been known to do stupid things in the name of love."

"So true. I'd like to think Tunney's above that, but-Let's tell her we need her help to get Tunney off the suspect list and gauge her reaction."

"Makes sense," Eve said. "Want to change clothes?"

"Of course!" I ran upstairs.

"Can I borrow a spare Windbreaker or something?" Eve asked behind me. "That's the beauty of wearing casual all the time. I'm up for anything."

"Except formal," I said, donning a cashmere cowl-neck top, jeans, matching jacket, a Hermes scarf, and least-favorite boots, in case we had to get out in the mud.

From my closet, I tossed Eve an orange variegated knit poncho.

She squeaked and dropped it as if it would bite. "Get out of my way, you wackadoodle. What do you have that's black, or at least dark?"

She pulled out the same poncho in browns and blacks. "Brat," she said, sliding it over her head.

I laughed. "You can't blame a girl for trying."

We knew our rowboat and had long ago mastered the art of cutting swiftly through the water, the two of us in sync. Soon, we were pulling up to the Sampson dock.

One problem. Sampson's sister wasn't alone, but sitting on the patio kissing a man in a wheelchair. Flirting and foreplay, definitely, when she was supposed to be dating Tunney, or so the Sweets implied, as Virginia Statler nearly did when she bought the parking lot kimono.

"I don't think it's a good time," Eve whispered.

"No kidding. She's cheating on Tunney."

"Nah. They're . . . exploring new territory."

"Is that man-magnet speak?"

"Yes, we rule mere mortals."

I started rowing. "Let's hope Tunney agrees."

"You're not going to tell him?"

"Of course not, but he's bound to find out."

Sampson's sister stood. "Is someone in the water?"

"There's no one there," the man said. "Stop being so easily spooked. You'll give us away."

"Row faster," I whispered.

"She didn't see us," Eve said, out of earshot.

"I'm having heart palpitations, anyway."

"Did you expect us to get into, and out of, more trouble at home than we did in New York?"

"Out of? Don't count your chickens. Werner could be waiting at the boathouse when we get back."

"So let's put the boat in the Sweets' boathouse and walk home."

"Eve Meyers, you wicked little devil. Speaking of which, what do you think that conglomerate was going to pay Sampson for his corner lot?"

"Why does it matter now?"

"I think knowing would give us an idea of how badly someone might want Sampson dead."

"Unless you go through Sampson's papers, I don't see how you can find out."

"I own the corner lot that mirrors Sampson's. I'll give the company a call and see if they make an offer."

"You wouldn't sell. Would you?"

"Of course not. But they wouldn't know that. I want a jumping-off figure."

"You mean a going-up-in-flames figure?"

"Ouch, but yes." After Eve left, I went up to soak in a hot tub and try to put my random puzzle pieces together, but nothing fit-yet.

By the time I climbed in bed, nothing made sense. I dreamed of dead neighbors and bags of bones. Once, I called my knowledge "synchronicity." Consoling word.

Aunt Fiona would call it "universal intervention" if I believed in Fee's "pay attention to the signs" theory.

By six A.M., only "lunacy" made sense. My own. Dad would agree. Aunt Fiona would have a different take. I couldn't wait to see her. I showered and chose a seventies, front-zip Lolita minidress-easy off when trying on clothes-Belgian loafers in lizard calf, and a Vuitton bag.

I grabbed the garment bag I'd dropped over the cape and dress set last night and the white plastic garbage bag I dropped the quilt in from the drawer. I couldn't find my father, but his car sat in the drive so I left a note. "Borrowing your car. Call if you need it."

I rang Aunt Fiona's doorbell at seven but she answered in her robe. Very unusual. "Madeira," she said, looking rather like a deer in headlights.

"You're having a sleep in, aren't you? I'm sorry. I'll come back later."

"No. No, I'm up. Come in."

"Fee, I can't find that spare toothbrush." My father came into the living room wearing nothing but his pajama bottoms, the towel he was using to dry his hair temporarily covering his eyes.

"Harry," Aunt Fiona said. "We have company."

Twenty-two.

Fashion is the science of appearance, and it inspires one with the desire to seem rather than to be.

-HENRY FIELDING.

"Madeira!" My father's ears positively glowed. How cute and guilty did he look with his salt-and-pepper hair spiked in all directions and his towel now unnecessarily covering him like a loincloth? "I slept on the sofa," he said. "See the blank-" His gaze whipped to Fiona.

"I like a neat house." She shrugged. "I put the bedding away."

I turned back to my dad. For the second time that I could recall, he shocked me. "Dad, you have a tattoo." Harry Cutler with a pentagram tat on his shoulder. No wonder he wore undershirts summer and winter.

"Your mother made me do it. We'd been touring the Finger Lakes wineries. Had a bit too much Madeira at one. That was the n-I didn't know what it meant. You don't, do you?"

"Sure," I said. "It's a star." A pentacle he'd gotten nine months before my birth. He could have said wine instead of Madeira and I wouldn't know, but that was Harry. "You are such a lousy liar," I said.

"No, it's true."

"I know it is, Dad." Which meant that he had, indeed, slept on the sofa. "So, what's up with you two?"

"I took Fee to a psychologist friend yesterday," my father said, "because of the casket thing. He talked to her and said she shouldn't be alone for a while, so I stayed here so she could sleep better in her own bed."

I looked between him and Aunt Fiona. "I see."

"Your father's only helping me out of guilt," she said. "Because he mocked me."

"Yes, and the ogre needs to get dressed," my father snapped, disappearing.

"The spare toothbrushes are in the top drawer of the vanity. In the back," Aunt Fiona yelled.

"I need to talk to you," I whispered as I dragged her toward her sunroom.

"We'll have breakfast together, the three of us," she said, smile forced. "We can talk after your father goes."

"The three of us for breakfast? After that scene? Just shoot me now."

"I'm going home for breakfast," my father said, making us both jump. He looked sloppier than I'd ever seen. Wet hair, barely combed, b.u.t.ton-down shirt unb.u.t.toned, one shirt tail in, one out.

Aunt Fiona giggled.

"What?" my father barked.

She winked. "That's a great look on you. Fetching."

"Hey," my father snapped. "I'm trying to convince the kid of our innocence, here."

"I'm not a kid, and I'm not innocent. I don't know why you should be. I'll just stay the h.e.l.l away from the two of you first thing in the morning."

My father growled, a bit like a pirate. "You stay with her tonight, Madeira."

"How about she stays with us tonight?"

"Her name is Fiona," she said, hands on hips.

My father shook his head and opened her front door. "How did my car get here?"