Quilt By Association

peripheral vision.

'I wish I had more to show for all my injuries,” Harriet said when Detective Morse had run out of questions, “but like I said at the beginning, I stopped on a whim. I don't even know Joseph all that well. I had just been at our friend DeAnn's house. She and her husband recently adopted a little girl, and Joseph is their social worker. We had a question for him, and he's been sort of hard to find, so when I saw the light I thought I'd stop by and see if he was in.'

'You said, ‘we’ had a question. Who're we?'

'DeAnn, me, the Loose Threads-we,” Harriet said.

'Does your quilt group always get involved in each other's business?'

'Keeping in mind that I'm a recent returnee to the area and the group and therefore have a limited amount of data on the subject, I'd say from what I've seen that's exactly how the Loose Threads operate, and also from what I've seen, it isn't just them, it's most of Foggy Point.'

'I'm not from this area, either,” Detective Morse admitted with a half-smile. “But that's how it seems to me, too.'

'With a network like this, it makes you wonder why no one can find Joseph,” Harriet mused.

'I wouldn't say no one can find him. We just haven't found him yet. It's entirely possible he's just out of town and doesn't know anyone is looking for him. Other than owning the house where the dead man fell on you, he hasn't done anything. Unless you know something about him I don't. Or maybe you'd like to tell me what it was that you and your group were so anxious to find him for.'

'As I said before, he's the social worker handling DeAnn Gault's adoption of a little girl from Africa, only we're beginning to suspect the child isn't from Africa.'

'That's strange,” Morse said.

'That's what we thought,” Aunt Beth interjected as she carried in a tray with teacups and a teapot on it. She set it on the side of the ottoman that wasn't occupied by Harriet's feet. Mavis followed, carrying the sugar bowl and creamer.

'We can't figure out why someone would claim a child was from a third-world country if she's really from a depressed island in the South Pacific.'

'Unless Joseph was playing with immigration numbers,” Harriet said. “But I don't even know if that makes sense.'

'Maybe their paperwork got mixed up,” Morse suggested. “Do you know if anyone else in the area adopted a child of the same age in the same time frame? Maybe there's another family out there that has the African child when they were expecting an island child.'

'DeAnn had received quite a bit of information about her child before the adoption went through, including pictures,” Harriet countered.

'Moving on,” Morse said. “What was…” She looked at her notes. “…Rodney Miller doing at Joseph's house?'

'Other than dying?” Harriet asked.

'Yeah, other than that.'

'We already told you about that,” Aunt Beth said as she distributed teacups. “He seems to have followed Neelie here for his own reasons.'

'Which we were never able to figure out,” Harriet added. “The last thing I'd heard about him was that someone had seen him arguing with Joseph in front of Little Lamb, and then he was dead at Joseph's house. What happened in between is anyone's guess.'

'You're sure you don't know anything else about Rodney Miller or Neelie Obote?'

'If we did, I'd tell you,” Aunt Beth said.

'What happened to the baby?” Morse asked.

'Which one?” Mavis asked, and offered the cream and sugar to each person in turn.

'The one Neelie brought to town.'

'She's in foster care,” Aunt Beth said. None of the women felt inclined to identify Connie as the foster mother.

'Two people who know each other come to Foggy Point and die within days of each other, you have to believe there's a connection,” Morse said thoughtfully.

'Rodney told anyone who would listen he was Neelie's grieving husband,” Harriet said.

'That's great, except there's no legal proof the marriage existed,” Morse said. “And believe me, we've checked. If they were married, they didn't file a license in this country.'

'Is it possible the Neelie-and-Rodney story is simply one of domestic violence?” Aunt Beth asked. She picked up her cup and sipped. “She and the baby were trying to escape, and he followed them here. He kills her, and someone sees him do it, and that someone else kills him in retaliation.'

'Anything's possible,” Morse said. “But, believe it or not, most people who witness a murder actually call the police.'

'Is that it?” Harriet asked.

Detective Morse raised her left eyebrow.

'If you're done with your questions, I have a few of my own.'

'I can't guarantee I can answer, but if I can…” She trailed off with a sigh.

'Okay, first, I'd like to know if you know what was used to hit me.'

'A blunt object?” Morse offered.

This time both Mavis and Aunt Beth glared at the detective.

'Okay, okay, I suppose it can't hurt to tell you we think you were hit with a baseball bat. You can thank your friend Darcy Lewis for that.” Morse referred to the pixie-faced criminalist who also was a part-time Loose Thread member. “She was the one who found the bat in the garage behind the house. It was leaning against a set of golf clubs along the back wall. Darcy noticed that the clubs, the workbench and virtually everything else in that bay of the garage was coated with a thick layer of dust and cobwebs.'

'Everything except the bat,” Mavis finished for the detective.

'Exactly.” Morse picked up her cup and took a long drink.

'I don't suppose there were any prints on the bat,” Harriet asked.

'It obviously had been wiped down, but Darcy got a partial print off the end.” Morse didn't look hopeful.

'That's good, isn't it?” Harriet asked.

'It looks like it's a child's print.” Morse said.

'A kid hit me?'

'Probably not,” Morse said. “The print most likely belongs to the actual owner of the bat. If we could identify the kid, it might give us a circle of adults with access to look at, but unfortunately, there isn't a huge database of children's fingerprints to compare it to.'

'I thought the grade school did a big drive to collect all the children's fingerprints to use in case of child abductions,” Mavis said.

'Unfortunately, not all fingerprints are created equal. If they aren't taken by someone the forensic lab has trained, they often are unusable-smeared or flattened beyond recognition.'

'That's too bad,” Aunt Beth said. “I suppose almost anyone could have wielded a bat. I mean, any household that has or has had children in it is likely to have a bat and ball.'

'You begin to see the scope of our problem.'

'Have you been able to verify the identification of Neelie or Rodney?” Harriet asked.

'No. We've interviewed quite a few people, and no one has known anything other than that two people we have in the morgue used the names Neelie Obote and Rodney Miller.'

'This is all making my head hurt,” Harriet said, and leaned that head against the back of her chair. She closed her eyes for just a moment.

Chapter 33