quilting frame and the quilt she'd been working on were in one corner, next to a chest fil ed with sewing supplies. When Pix was a child, Addie had let her play with the button box kept there. Pix suddenly realized she did want to say good-bye.
She'd been forgetting this was Addie, her friend. She got down close to the body and pul ed back the quilt—at the end she'd have expected the feet to be, after Rebecca's description.
It was horrible, and a more lengthy good-bye would have to wait for the funeral service. Rebecca must have assumed Pix wouldn't uncover the body. Adelaide Bainbridge had died in great agony. Her face was contorted in pain and there was a foul smel of vomit. Pix jumped up and headed for the door. This was definitely a police matter.
She almost col ided with Earl on the stairs. He put a finger to his lips, so it was obvious he didn't want the whole house roused yet. He also made it plain from a look of annoyance she'd never seen directed at her be fore that he wasn't pleased with her presence at the scene—or upstairs, at any rate. She passed him quickly.
“What wil they do now?' Rebecca asked tremulously as Pix reentered the kitchen.
Pix took the mug for a refil and decided to make herself some tea, as wel . Her legs were shaking and it was al she could do to answer Rebecca.
“I'm sure Earl cal ed the state police. They'l probably be here soon. They'l take pictures of everything and ask everyone who's here a lot of questions.' She tried to keep her voice steady. It was going to be a bitch was what it was, but she couldn't say that to Rebecca Bainbridge with her companion of many years--and the object of the investigation—lying dead upstairs.
“I hope we can have the funeral tomorrow. Reverend Thompson wil do a beautiful service, I know, and Addie liked him so much better than Reverend McClintock, although I never minded him myself. It was the candles on the altar that did it. Addie stopped attending after that until he left.' Rebecca was speaking calmly, even affectionately.
Pix decided to try to keep her going on the same track.
Now was not the time to suggest that a funeral tomorrow was extremely unlikely.
It was the calm before the storm. The state police and the coroner arrived in two cars and the guests were roused.
Pix was kept busy making tea and coffee. Norman Osgood seemed to be in almost as bad shape as Rebecca.
Besides Norman, there was a couple from Pennsylvania and a young woman from California. The Californian was in the smal downstairs room off the parlor the Bainbridges used when they were crowded. She was excited by the drama of it al , she told them breathlessly, bemoaning the fact she was such a heavy sleeper that she had missed everything. Pix was a bit puzzled by this last remark, then realized the woman believed if she had only managed to wake up, she could have caught the perpetrator single-handedly. The perpetrator. The whole thing was insane.
Someone going around kil ing people and then wrapping the bodies in quilts? A lunatic? A serial kil er? Who could possibly want to get rid of Adelaide Bainbridge? Pix needed to get to a phone. She had to cal Faith.
It was going to be quite a while before she would be able to chat with anyone except the police, she soon realized. First, they questioned Rebecca. Earl thought it might be a good idea for Pix to come with them, since Rebecca was unable to let go of Pix's hand and had sent an imploring look his way. The older woman had been bewildered by al the activity and had sat in a rocker in the kitchen, shrinking away at the arrival of every new stranger.
Adelaide had been sick for a couple of days, she told them, and was no better or worse the night before when she, Rebecca, had looked in on her before going to bed at about ten o'clock. The noise of the fireworks had kept them up a bit later than usual, Rebecca explained, and Addie had been a bit put out. Addie had first felt il Sunday night after the clambake. They had both assumed it was something she ate, then when it didn't go away, just a touch of summer sickness.
“Summer sickness?' Earl stopped writing for a moment. It was a new one to him.
“You know, the heat and some kind of bug. There's a lot going around.' Rebecca seemed surprised that she'd had to explain.
“And she didn't go to the Medical Center?' he asked.
'No, Addie didn't hold much with doctors. Said they'd only send her up to Blue Hil for a lot of expen sive tests or tel her to lose some weight, which she already knew she needed to do and wasn't going to.' She seemed to be repeating the words verbatim.
“And you didn't hear anything during the night?”
Rebecca shook her head and started to cry. 'If only ...'
She couldn't finish. They waited for her to compose herself, which she did, finishing her sentence with 'I had' and adding, 'There was a bathroom off her room, so even if she was up in the night, I wouldn't have heard her in the back where I am. Sometimes I hear the guests, but after they al came in from the fireworks, I didn't hear a thing until this morning.'
“And what was that?'
“Oh, the first birds and a cricket or two. It was stil dark.
Addie and I have always been early risers.”
Pix knew this to be true, but she hadn't known just how early. It made the Rowes, who carried some sort of puritanical gene that made sleeping beyond seven o'clock physical y impossible, look like layabouts.
“When you opened the bedroom door, what did you see?'
“Nothing'
“Nothing?' Rebecca was getting flightier as the questions went on, what with birds, crickets, and now this.
“There was no one in the bed or in the room. I thought she was in the bathroom and so I went in to cal to her. I didn't want to wake the others, of course. They do like their sleep. Why, we had a couple here last summer who didn't get up until noon every single day!'' Earl tried to lead her back to the matter at hand.
“You didn't see her, so you cal ed to her at the bathroom door?'
“Oh no, I didn't get that far. Why, you couldn't miss seeing that quilt, and I had no idea Addie was in it until I pul ed it off and then it was her feet first and I knew right away she had passed, because they were so stil .' The tears were running down her cheeks again.
“And you're sure this wasn't one of her own quilts or a quilt that's been in the house.'
“Oh no, not a red-and-white one. Addie didn't like them. Said they looked too plain. Hers had lots of colors,'
Rebecca added admiringly.
“But isn't it possible the quilt was one someone else made and it's been in a drawer or trunk for a while?' Pix gave Earl credit. He knew the ways things happened in these entrenched families. She was sure there were things in the trunks in the attic at The Pines that neither she nor Mother had ever laid eyes on.
“No,' Rebecca said firmly. 'We cleaned out everything last fal and there isn't a trunk or drawer in the house and barn we didn't go through. Got rid of a lot of rubbish. Made some money from it, too. What people wil pay for worthless junk never fails to astonish me”
And that appeared to be that. Earl took Rebecca back to the kitchen and left her under Norman's care. Another state police officer was chatting with the guests. Her grandparents had come from the western Pennsylvania town where the couple had lived al their lives and they were having a grand time playing 'What A Coincidence!' and
'Do You Know?”
After Rebecca was settled, Earl returned and said to Pix, 'So your mother cal ed you first?'
“Yes, I think she wanted someone to be with Rebecca as soon as possible and I'm not that far away. I'd like to take Rebecca over to Mother's when you're finished. It must be very painful for her to be here”
Earl was shaking his head. 'First, Rebecca doesn't cal me, then your mother waits God knows how long.' He was taking it altogether much too personal y.
“They're old ladies. Even a policeman they know as wel as you is frightening at a time like this. I'm sure nothing was hurt by the slight delay”
The state police officer looked tired.
