Quilt or Innocence by Elizabeth Craig Page B

writer?” she asked Beatrice.
    Beatrice shook her head. Meadow seemed oblivious to Ramsay’s glower at the mention of his writing. How could he handle living with Meadow, who seemed to have no filter at all for what came out of her mouth? Beatrice shuddered at the thought.
    Posy said in a small voice, “Such a horrible thing for this town. And for you, too, Ramsay. You’re not any more used to dealing with murder than we are.”
    “Isn’t that the truth?” Ramsay looked intently at his ginger ale, as if hoping to transform it into something a little stronger.
    “Do you know more about what happened to Judith?” asked Daisy. “I heard that it looked like she’d been struck over the head by something.”
    Ramsay grunted. “It’s sort of early to know much. But I guess there’s no harm in saying that it does look like she was hit with some heavy object. The fatal blow was caused by a flat-surfaced object, nothing sharp. There are tons of things that fit that description. It could have been anything.”
    “Could you tell anything about the angle of the blow?” asked Beatrice. “Could you tell if her attacker was taller or shorter than Judith?”
    Ramsay said, “We think it was someone about her size or slightly taller.” There was a small murmur from Posy, and Ramsay smiled. “Yes, Posy, that takes you off the hook. Unless Judith was content to just stand there and wait to be murdered while you found a stepladder.”
    Posy beamed happily with relief.
    “It was probably somebody mugging her,” said Meadow with certainty. “Seeing a woman out by herself at night—they must have thought she was an easy mark. They just came up behind her and hit her over the head and took her money.”
    “Except,” said Ramsay drily, “that her attacker was facing her. And there were no defensive wounds, so Judith wasn’t expecting to be attacked. Both of these things indicate to me that she knew and trusted her murderer.” Meadow sputtered an interruption, but Ramsay held up his hand to stop her. “Plus the fact that she had a fifty-dollar bill in her pocket that hadn’t been taken from her. I don’t see robbery as a motive.”
    “So the weapon wasn’t found, then? And it could have been anything with a flat surface. Like a shovel?” asked Daisy. “Something like that?”
    There was a gasp from someone at the table, but Beatrice didn’t see who. “Most decidedly
not
a shovel!” said Meadow. “The very idea! How could someone go into a park late in the evening, carrying a shovel, and not look conspicuous? Maybe it was a fireplace poker or a baseball bat, or something like that.”
    Ramsay raised his eyebrows at his wife’s fervency. “Or maybe it was a shovel. The killer might not have thought that anyone would be out to
see
him or her at that hour. Dappled Hills
seems
like a sleepy little town.”
    “But there sure isn’t much sleeping going on,” said Posy with a little sigh. “So many of my quilters say that they get most of their progress done on their quilts in the middle of the night. We all have trouble sleeping, I guess.”
    “I sleep like the dead,” said Cork in a grouchy tone.
    Daisy sat up a little straighter in her chair. “I know this isn’t very pleasant dinner-party conversation, but it’s probably inevitable that we’d want to talk about the biggest news story this town has ever seen. And I had a thought earlier today, Ramsay, which I wanted to tell you about.”
    Ramsay’s face seemed to struggle to put a patient expression in place. He looked morosely again into his glass of ginger ale.
    “I was thinking,” said Daisy, tapping her French-manicured nails on the table, “that Judith and I had a lot in common.”
    “Oh, I don’t think so,” said Meadow, as if a question had been asked. “You were both into quilting, of course. Both fairly competitive.” Meadow studied Daisy over the top of her red glasses. “You were both fond of heading up committees. You . . .”
    “I