Seven Sisters - Earlene Fowler [97]
I explained what Detective Hudson wanted me to do and my mixed feelings about it.
“Maybe you should talk to Gabe,” he suggested.
I shook my head no. “He doesn’t need that right now. It would just cause a big fuss between him and this detective and maybe some problems between the departments. What can it hurt to just quiz the ladies about the past? Knowing them, they’d bring it up anyway.”
“Sounds like you know what you’re doing, then.” The doubt in his face was evident. “Anything I can do to help?”
“Not really, but you could do me one big favor.”
“Name it.”
I handed back the contact sheets. “Just don’t make my husband look too sexy, okay? I’ve got enough competition as it is.”
He leaned down and kissed my cheek. “You don’t have a single thing to worry about. I guarantee you’ve wrestled that man’s heart to the ground and hog-tied it for life.”
I laughed, hoping what he said was true. “And without a bustier or a garter belt. Thanks, Isaac, you always know just the right thing to say.”
“Old age and lots of bad road gives a man a certain cockeyed wisdom, I guess.”
“Cockeyed or not, it works for me.”
PERCHED HIGH ON a hill overlooking the twisting two-lane highway to Morro Bay, Oak Terrace Retirement Home was a group of salmon-colored buildings where many of San Celina’s senior citizens were living the final years of their lives. It had an ambulatory side where the seniors shared rooms and ate in a communal cafeteria, but for all intents and purposes were on their own. Most of the rooms peered out over alfalfa fields and pastures where the seniors watched the cycle of life in the cattle that dotted the scrubby range. Then there was the hospital side. Death Row, the ladies in my quilting group called it without a bit of compunction.
“We’re sorry,” said Thelma, who at one time owned the largest feed store in the county and had sold me my first pair of spurs when I was seven years old. “We forgot you’re a civilian.” That’s what they called the world outside their exclusive group. Now that I was married to a cop, I was used to their gallow’s humor, though I’ll admit the first time they called it Death Row, the shocked look on my face caused joyous titters to ripple through my group of eight regulars. Even the term civilian reminded me of how Gabe and his colleagues viewed those who didn’t carry a badge.
And I guess what these ladies had was a badge of sorts. The badge of time, of making it this far with the ability to still laugh at and enjoy life. So when I proposed we name our group, since we basically functioned as an in-house quilt guild, the fact that they chose Coffin Star Quilt Guild didn’t surprise me one bit. We even had black sweatshirts printed with our guild’s name in fluorescent pink letters, which each of them was wearing today. The first time I took the ladies to a quilt show wearing the matching sweatshirts, we caused quite a stir and a whole lot of laughter.
They were all set up in the craft room when I arrived. We were working on baby quilts for Gabe’s officers to carry in their police cars to give to kids taken out of violent home situations by Social Services. My function was less of a teacher than a bringer of news, donated quilting supplies and fabric, ideas, patterns, magazines, and gossip. There was nothing they enjoyed more than hearing everything that was going on at the folk art museum, Elvia’s bookstore, the police station, and the Historical Museum. They especially loved it when I was involved in some crime, as I’d been a few times, and were generous with advice on how I should proceed. People’s love lives intrigued them to no end, though Elvia and Emory’s static romance was frustrating them, and Gabe and I had been getting on too well to suit them. So, just to prime them, the first thing I did was tell them about Bliss and Sam, their secret romance, her unplanned pregnancy, Lydia’s arrival on the scene, the engagement party, Giles’s murder, and then