Q is for Quarry (Kinsey Millhone 17)

I must have made a sound because Edna looked at me, saying, “What?”

“Where did you get this?”

“That was given to me by Justine’s mother, Medora—Cornell’s mother-in-law. Why?”

“I need to talk to her.”

17

I stood on the front steps of Medora Sanders’s house, a modest stucco box with a shallow overhang that served to shield the small concrete porch. The exterior was painted dark gray. The wood trim had shed flakes of white paint, like dandruff, on the shrubs planted along the foundation. At the end of the dirt drive there was a detached single-car garage with its door padlocked shut. Edna had allowed me to borrow the quilt and I carried it draped over one arm. The daisy-print fabric had been pieced into the quilt in seven adjoining sections. While it was true that the fabric might have been sold across the country, the coincidence was too striking to imagine it was unrelated.

I couldn’t find a bell so I opened the wood-framed screen and knocked on the glass pane in the front door. A moment passed and then a woman peered out. She was thin and unkempt, with pale green eyes and pale flyaway hair. Her cheeks and the rim of her nose were patterned with spider veins. She smoothed her hair with a knobby-fingered hand, tucking a loose strand into a disordered chignon before she opened the door a crack. “Yes?”

“Mrs. Sanders?”

She wore faded jeans and a red nylon sweater with a runner up one sleeve where a loop of yarn had come loose. I could smell whiskey fumes seeping through her pores like toxic waste. She hesitated, apparently unwilling to confirm or deny her identity until she knew why I asked. “I don’t buy door-to-door,” she said.

I held up the quilt. “I’m not selling anything. I came to talk to you about this.”

Her gaze shifted, though her manner remained fuzzy and her eyes were slightly out of focus. She looked like someone chronically inebriated. “Where’d you get that?”

“Edna McPhee let me borrow it. I’m returning it later, but I have some questions for you first.”

“Why’d she send you over here?”

“She said since you made the quilt, you might have some information. May I come in?”

Medora thought about that briefly, probably wishing I’d go somewhere else. “I hope this won’t take long. I got other things to do.”

She opened the door and I stepped directly into the living room, which was small and cramped, with an acoustic-tile ceiling and a stingy-looking brick fireplace. On the mantel there was a cluster of statuettes: angels, milkmaids, and coy-looking kids with the toes of their shoes turned in.

Medora closed the door, saying, “That Edna’s a pill. I don’t know how Justine manages to put up with her.”

“The two of you don’t get along?”

“I never said that. Edna’s a good person and I know she means well, but she’s holier-than-thou. You know the type— doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, and doesn’t hold with those who do.”

“Cornell smokes.”

“Not around his mother. He’s pure as the driven snow,” Medora said. “She disapproves of cards, too. Devil’s handiwork, she says. Granddaughters come here, we play Canasta, War, Fish, Slap Jack. Doesn’t seem like the Devil’s work to me.”

She returned to the couch and sat dead center, causing the cushions to rise on either side of her. A crocheted green-and-blackafghan was bunched haphazardly at one end. There was an ashtray full of butts on the coffee table, a cluster of prescription pill bottles, a fifth of Early Times, and a highball glass half-filled with melting ice cubes. Many surfaces looked sticky, and there was a fine haze of dust over everything. “I was taking a little nap. I haven’t been feeling well the last couple days. What’s your name again?”

“I should have introduced myself. I’m Kinsey Millhone.”

“Medora Sanders,” she said, “but I guess you know that. What’s your connection to Edna? I hope it’s not through her church. She’s always trying to get me roped in.”

“Not at all. Mind if I sit?”

She waved me into a chair. I moved aside a stack of newspapers and took a seat, keeping the quilt on my lap. There were a number of crafts projects in the room, most from kits, by the look: a wall-hung quilt, embroidered pillows on the couch. In front of the hearth there was a hand-hooked rug bearing the image of a Scottie. There were several framed cross-stitched pieces voicing corny sentiments. She followed my survey. “I used to do a lot of needlework until my joints flared up.” She lifted her right hand, displaying a twisted thumb and fingers that did a slow curve outward. It looked like she’d been tortured for information she’d refused to give. “I don’t quilt anymore in case you want one for yourself.”