Part 13 (1/2)
”I can't stand it anymore,” Eve shouted, as if she'd snapped. ”I have to ask. What and who did you see in your vision?”
I sighed. ”The back of a man's head, the top of it, though I think his actions mattered more.”
She finished her coffee. ”So what were his actions?”
”I believe that the woman suspected him of cooking the books, by his reaction to getting caught putting ledgers in a home safe. She practically accused him of it.”
”An embezzler? Who caught him? Who is the woman?”
”His wife, I think. Lots of animosity between them. She was going to a fair where, I believe, she had a quilt entered into some type of craft contest. Can we search for award-winning quilts on the internet?”
”A contest like at a country fair? Sure, but I'm not sure we'll find anything from that far back. Do you know what it won? And, hey, I'm no fas.h.i.+on expert but those clothes are here because they're vintage, right? How long ago was this contest?”
I slipped from the cape and remembered how long Dante said the bones had been here. ”Try late seventies, early eighties.”
Eve scoffed at the outfit. ”She wore that to a fair?”
”Fas.h.i.+on snark from the woman in black?”
She chuckled. ”You're wearing black.”
”Sure. A Mary Quant mini tent dress, black-and-tan Lagerfeld pumps, and a matching two-tone Chanel bag. I have a look. You have a color. Mine is one choice in an unending palette.”
Eve wrinkled her nose like a kid. ”Mine is my favorite.”
n.o.body could make me laugh like Eve.
”The woman could have changed for the fair.” Whatever clothes she was wearing likely went the way of the meat on her bones. I s.h.i.+vered. I was making myself nauseous with speculation.
”Okay,” Eve said. ”I'm ignoring the was, because you think she was killed, right? Never mind. Don't answer. Names to plug into the search?”
”Mr. Hostile and Mrs. Courageous, though I fear her courage was misplaced.” I sighed. ”What if she's Isobel,” I said, ”and that's her quilt upstairs?”
Eve crushed her coffee cup and tossed it in the backseat of her top-down convertible. ”It's upstairs, if the cops didn't take it as evidence.”
”Right,” I said, clenching my fists at the thought of not getting another shot at it. ”I'm beginning to believe Aunt Fiona. There is a reason I get signs from the universe.”
”Two people have died. Sounds like two reasons.”
”But none of my visions seem related to a specific murder.” Why?
My cell phone rang. ”Nick! How's it going? Are you all right? How's Alex?”
”Your brother's fine,” he said. ”But I checked the Mystick Falls paper on the net this morning. You had quite the night last night.”
I wondered if my ears were red after having Werner carry me out of there. ”How do you know?”
”Front page, the two fires, the charred body, you trying to rescue Sampson; you staying with your building to protect it.”
”Oh, for the love of Gucci. They put that in the paper? I don't suppose they mentioned my near arrest?”
”What?”
”Yeah. Half the story. Don't believe everything you read in the papers. Can you access FBI files from where you are?”
”What's it to you?”
”Missing persons case, probably this area, late seventies, early eighties.”
”Who am I looking for?”
”Isobel. Approximately thirty years old.” In the event those were Isobel's bones. ”No last name.”
”Is that a positive on the Isobel?”
I hesitated.
”Madeira? Not another vision?” Most people had one conscience, I had three, my own plus Nick and Eve, the two who annoyed, mocked, and sometimes saved me.
”Please, Nicky,” I said in my most seductive tone.
Eve faked a gag.
Nick sighed. ”No fair. No phone seductions in the middle of a . . . phone call. And most people don't get to request random FBI searches, you know, so keep this query to yourself, would you?”
”Always.”
”You're a pest, but you're my pest. I'll give the search a shot. Let me know if you get a vibe on any other details.”
”She was rich,” I added, ignoring the warm fuzzies from Nick's claim, likewise my guilt over Werner's early-morning rescue. ”An heiress, maybe.” One who could make talking to her father sound like a threat.
”A kidnapping?” Nick asked, his computer keys clicking in the background as he took my information. ”Might there have been a ransom note?”
”I never thought of that.”
”That's why I'm the professional, ladybug. I'll narrow it down to a missing person, possible name Isobel, possible age twenty to thirty, in southeastern Connecticut, that time frame.”
I bit my lip. ”And see if there are any abandoned wells around here that have been dry for like half a century.”
”Hunch or vintage outfit?” Nick asked.
”Both?”
”Ah, ladybug, sometimes you scare me.”
”I hope I do more than that to you.”