Rebecca fol owed her glance. "Your mother thought I should cal Earl, but I just couldn't, so she said she'd do it. I couldn't cal anybody except her.”
Ladies like Rebecca and Adelaide did not get involved with the police. Wel , they were involved now. Pix wondered when Rebecca had discovered the body. But first things first. Rebecca appeared to be in shock.
“Let me make you some tea. Are you warm enough?”
It was already stifling hot again, but Rebecca was shivering. Pix took a jacket from one of the pegs inside the door and put it around Rebecca's thin shoulders. From the size, it must have been Addie's.
“Tea." She managed only the one word and Pix took it as a yes. After a moment, Rebecca finished the thought. "I was on my way to make our morning cups when I went in to check on Addie. She's been poorly lately and I wasn't sure she was awake or, if she was, whether she'd want any."
Rebecca sighed heavily. Pix could imagine what would have ensued if her sister-in-law had awakened Addie or brought her a cup of unwanted tea. Yet Addie had been Rebecca's main job in life for so many years, now what was she going to do?
“And there she was, al wrapped up like some kind of parcel. I went over and pul ed that strange quilt down. It was her feet first. Then I found her head and she wasn't breathing." Rebecca broke down completely and sobbed noisily. What was taking Earl so long? Pix wondered frantical y. She wanted to get Rebecca over to Mother's.
Ursula had obviously cal ed her daughter first so someone would be there to take care of Rebecca, but the best thing of al would be to get her with her old friend. Pix debated waking Norman. He had become so close to the two old ladies. She decided to let Earl handle things and put a mug of tea with lots of sugar in Rebecca's hand. The warmth of the liquid seemed to steady her. She stopped crying to take a few sips.
“Why don't you go up and say good-bye? They'l al be here soon and you won't have a chance”
It was exactly what Pix wanted to do, except she hadn't wanted to leave Rebecca, and it wasn't real y to say goodbye.
“Are you sure you'l be al right?”
Rebecca nodded and patted Pix on the hand. There seemed to be a lot of that happening lately. "You're a good girl. Now run up quick. I'l be fine here”
Adelaide's bedroom was a large one in the front of the house. Pix darted up the stairs, glad the rag runner was there to muffle her steps. She wasn't sure how many of the rooms were fil ed and she didn't want anyone waking up right now.
She turned the old glass doorknob slowly—Rebecca had already obscured any prints—and went in. At first, the room looked empty. The big old four-poster that had been in the family for generations had obviously been slept in, but no one was there now.
Then she saw the quilt. Rebecca had covered the body again. It was so close to the bed as to be almost underneath. Dark red patches in a spiral pattern stood out sharply against the white muslin background, which, as she bent down, she realized was not completely white. There was a second spiral, the material white, with the tiniest of red dots. Dots like pinpricks.
But there was no sign of any blue thread—in a cross or not.
Pix stood up to steel herself. She looked around the room. There was no sign of a struggle. Addie's comb and brush, along with several bottles of scent, Evening in Paris vintage, were arranged neatly on the embroidered dresser scarf gracing the top of the painted Victorian dresser that matched the rest of the furniture in the room. Her 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.