Part 13 (2/2)

”Flora had it last.” Mamie patted the tabletop with pale twig fingers. ”I sent it to her just before she died. We were the last, you see.”

”Then it should've come to you. Her granddaughter didn't mail it back?”

She closed her eyes, and I could see I was tiring her, but my guilt was laced with purpose. This woman was my last link to something that happened over seventy-five years ago.

”Didn't think to ask her. It's not something I like to remember,” she said.

Ignoring Tess's warning look, I knelt beside Mamie's chair and spoke as firmly and as evenly as I could. I didn't want her to miss my meaning. ”Mrs. Estes, what is it about that quilt? Why did you pa.s.s it from one to the other?”

Her mouth turned up in a halfway smile. ”Hot potato,” she said.

I remembered a party game we played as children where we pa.s.sed an object from one to the other until the music stopped. If you were caught holding the ”potato,” you had to drop out of the circle.

”You mean n.o.body wanted to keep it?” I asked. ”It was Annie Rose's quilt,” she said, and began to cut out Christmas angels in the dough. I could see she wasn't going to tell me any more.

I was surprised to see by the kitchen clock that it was after twelve noon, and apologized for staying so long. ”I didn't mean to intrude on your lunch hour,” I said, rising to go. ”And I can't tell you how much I appreciate your taking the time to see me.”

”Bos.h.!.+ We don't go by a schedule here,” Tess said, wiping her hands on a blue-striped dish towel. ”We eat what and when we want, don't we, Mother Estes?”

The old woman grunted something that sounded in the affirmative. ”Why don't you and your friend stay for lunch?” Mamie said to me. ”Maybe we can play some bridge.”

”My friend?” I glanced at Tess, who shrugged.

”That pretty thing over there! She looks just like an angel.” Mamie finished a row of angel cookies and smiled at a point near the kitchen doorway.

I thanked her and stammered excuses, then stooped to kiss her cheek as I said goodbye.

”Guess it's time to take a break from Christmas baking,” Tess whispered as she walked with me to the door. ”She's got angels on the mind!”

”She saw you, didn't she?” I asked Augusta once we reached the car.

Augusta held up a crisp mola.s.ses Santa and smiled. ”Not only that, but she slipped me a cookie!”

”You certainly don't seem disappointed about the quilt,” I said. ”Mamie Estes was number six, Augusta. We've run out of members. It looks like none of these people knows what happened to it, and I don't know where else to look.”

”What did I tell you about determination?” Augusta said.

”But can't you see we've reached a dead end?”

Augusta's necklace winked violet-gold-plum in the sunlight as she ran the stones through her fingers. ”We've only come in a circle, Arminda. Now we have to find out which one isn't telling the truth.”

Chapter Seventeen.

I'm pretty sure I know which one,” I said.

Augusta didn't say anything.

”It has to be Flora's granddaughter. Remember how she reacted when I mentioned the emblem on Flora's gravestone? Downright hostile!”

”Peggy O'Connor. She obviously didn't want to admit her grandmother had any connection to that group. Why, I wonder.” Augusta watched traffic whiz past at a busy intersection. ”Where do all these people come from? And where are they going in such a hurry?”

”To lunch if they're lucky,” I said. ”Want to stop somewhere for a bite?”

Augusta said she wouldn't mind if we did, so I picked up some pizza to go, and we ate it in a roadside park. It had been sunny and mild when we started out, but now the air had turned brisk, and a chilling wind sent paper napkins tumbling across the gra.s.s. I watched openmouthed as Augusta stood and held out her hand. The napkins did a bobbing little ghost dance and sailed into the nearest trash can.

”I so dislike litter,” she said. Then took her time searching for a piece with pepperoni before taking a dainty bite.

”Do you think Mamie's daughter-in-law, Tess, knows why the quilt was so important?” she asked.

”She seemed to be aware that the subject was disagreeable to Mamie, but she'd seen it, of course, said it looked innocent enough to her. Like folk art, Tess said. I don't think Mamie talked much about it. Tess said she didn't remember her ever using it on a bed or anything.”

”Then I suppose you'll have to make another trip to Georgia,” Augusta said. ”There must be some way to make Flora's granddaughter realize the seriousness of the situation.”

”You mean we we, don't you? I don't want to have to face that horrible woman alone. Acts like she has a pole up her a.s.s!”

Augusta let that one pa.s.s with an almost imperceptible twitch of her eyelid. ”It might be nice if your cousin kept you company this time. I should think she'd want to know what's going on. After all, Otto was her kin, too, and he did remember her in his will.”

”If you mean Gatlin, I wouldn't count on it. She's all wrapped up in her own world right now.”

”Do I detect a faint hint of resentment here?” Augusta sipped coffee from a paper cup.

I shrugged. ”I know she's busy and worried about money and the bookshop and all, but she doesn't seem too curious, either. I hate to drag her into this, Augusta. I haven't told her about finding the pin. I'm not sure she'd want to know. After all, Otto's murder might not have had anything to do with the Mystic Six, and Gatlin doesn't seem to think the quilt is important to what's been going on.”

Augusta gathered up the debris from our lunch and tossed it into the trash. ”We're not absolutely sure that it is,” she said, ”that's why it's necessary to learn just what Annie Rose's pin was doing on that bathroom floor.”

”I think it must've fallen out of Otto's pocket when he pulled out his handkerchief.” I said. ”The police found a handkerchief in his hand.... But why would Otto be carrying around a pin that belonged to somebody who died before any of us were even born?”

Augusta hurried to the car and wrapped herself in her downy cape until only her face peeked out. ”Perhaps you and Gatlin should take time to talk,” she suggested.

”About what?”

”Arminda, why don't you tell me what's really bothering you?”

”I miss her,” I said. No use trying to keep things from Augusta. ”Gatlin's always been there for me, and when Jarvis died she was wonderful. Now she doesn't seem to have time anymore. I'm lonely, Augusta. I don't have anybody.”

Two sea-blue eyes looked at me over a puff of silvery cloud. The warmth from them zapped me about mid chest.

”I know I have you you, Augusta, but you aren't here to stay. You said so yourself. One day you'll leave me, too-just like Jarvis and Mama.”

I hated how I sounded. Childish and selfish. And jealous. I was jealous of my own cousin, my best friend, because she had a family to come home to at night and I didn't. I didn't like myself at all.

My head began to throb, and Augusta touched it with the tips of her fingers, leaving my temples cool and refreshed. ”It's been a rough few days, Arminda Grace Hobbs, but you've endured it well. And I, for one, think you have true grits.”

I giggled all the way home The light on my answering machine blinked red at me from the table in the hallway, and I almost knocked over a lamp in my rush to push the PLAY b.u.t.ton. Maybe the police had found out who had meant to send me tumbling off Water Tower Hill, or it could be Vesta calling to say the errant Mildred had returned at last.

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