Quilt Trip: A Southern Quilting Mystery by Elizabeth Craig Page B

really
can
make you exhausted. I broke my arm once and I napped all day long.” Meadow paused. “Who are we checking on next?”
    “Let’s see how Miss Sissy is doing. Although she’s probably simply worn out from wandering around the house all night. Poor Posy had to chase her down and plead with her to go back to bed.”
    “Eventually she gave up trying, though,” said Meadow. “At least that’s what Posy said over breakfast. She decided to let Miss Sissy wander around since she wasn’t making a lot of noise and waking everyone up.”
    They tapped on the door to the room Miss Sissy and Posy shared. There was no welcoming “Come in,” but the door suddenly flew open and a suspicious, wizened face appeared, surrounded by the iron gray hair standing around her head like a halo.
    “It’s just us, Miss Sissy,” Meadow said in her jolly voice. “Good morning!”
    Miss Sissy gave a distinct growl.
    “You certainly appear to be alive and kicking this morning,” Meadow said playfully.
    Miss Sissy glowered at her.
    “You’ve slept in kind of late, didn’t you?” Beatrice asked. “I thought you’d be downstairs helping to knock out all the breakfast food.”
    “Didn’t sleep well,” Miss Sissy offered in a grouchy voice. She moved past them and hurried down the stairs, presumably to make sure there was enough breakfast left for her.
    “That leaves Colton,” said Beatrice, watching the cadaverous old woman sprint down the stairs like a youngster. “I guess our track record for living guests here is pretty good. Let’s knock real quick at Colton’s door.”
    They knocked and heard nothing.
    Meadow frowned. “Try it again. These doors are heavy—we might not have heard him.”
    Beatrice rapped again at the door, harder this time. They strained their ears listening, yet couldn’t hear anything from inside the room.
    Beatrice and Meadow stared at each other.
    “Maybe he’s in the bathroom?” Meadow wondered.
    They peered down the hall and saw that the bathroom door was open.
    “Should we just go in there?” asked Meadow.
    Beatrice was already slowly opening the door and calling through the crack, “Colton? It’s Beatrice. Can we come in?”
    There was no answer, so she continued to push the door open. Then she stopped short. Colton Bradshaw was lying very, very still in the tall four-poster bed. Beatrice saw his empty wineglass on the bedside table.
    Meadow whispered, “Oh, no.”

Chapter Nine
     
    Beatrice strode to the side of the bed and gently felt for a pulse on the side of Colton’s neck. She felt nothing. She turned to shake her head at Meadow.
    “What do you think happened?” Meadow asked quietly. “Did he have a heart attack or something? Maybe all the stress here caused him to have a heart attack. That can happen, you know.”
    Beatrice gestured to Colton’s empty wineglass. “No, I don’t think
that’s
what happened.”
    Meadow gasped. “You think—the sleeping pills?”
    “Yes.”
    “You think he killed himself?” Meadow asked, reaching a hand to her throat. “That maybe he killed Muriel and decided to do away with himself?”
    “No, I can’t see it. Colton told me he had an idea who Muriel’s murderer was. He was thinking about approaching her to get some kind of an explanation for what he’d seen or heard. It appears he was intercepted before he could do that. Somebody took those sleeping pills from Muriel’s bedroom and put them in Colton’s drink.”
    Meadow’s brows knit together. “When would someone have been able to do that? We were all sitting together at supper last night. Colton had his glass with him—obviously, since he even took the glass upstairs with him. How could someone possibly have—? Oh!” Her eyes widened as a thought occurred to her. “Beatrice. When he left the room to talk with you?”
    Beatrice nodded sadly. “It would have given his murderer the perfect opportunity to swipe his glass while everyone was clearing the table. She could