Free 4 Plagued by Quilt by Molly MacRae Page A

hoped that would at least make her smile. It didn’t.
    “I sent the students home,” she said. “I only told them there was an accident.”
    “That was probably best.”
    “And I probably came across as completely without feeling for what’s happened.”
    “I don’t think so. I doubt anyone thinks that.”
    “Because the only thing I know to do right now is move forward. I told the students we’d start back in tomorrow and that we’ll try to make up for missing today.”
    “Good. I’ll let the other volunteers know.”
    “Grace told them before they left.”
    Grace
. Talk about a lack of feeling—I hadn’t given her any thought, hadn’t thought about how Phillip’s death might affect her. “How’s she taking this?”
    “She came in this morning before I had a chance to call her. You just missed her. She and Wes stayed until the students were picked up, and then she went home.”
    I thought about the woman with Phillip the night before. “Were they still seeing each other?”
    “Wes and Grace are seeing each other?” Nadine asked. “Where did you hear that? I really don’t think they are.”
    “No, no, no, sorry. I meant Grace and Phillip.”
    “Yes, of course you did.” She shook her head as if to clear it. “Still, I would say no to that, too, although I suppose stranger things have happened.”
    “Wasn’t it awkward having them both working here?”
    “They stayed out of each other’s way when they could, and when they couldn’t they were civil. At least within my hearing. And then, she’s only here ten to fifteen hours a week. It helps, too, that their interests are quite different.”
    “What were Phillip’s interests? Did he have any specific projects he was working on?”
    “Kath.” Nadine looked at me when she said my name—making it a demand, not remonstrating—and she didn’t say anything else until she must have known I was uncomfortable. “I’m surprised,” she said then. “Are you asking these questions for the deputy? Is that why he kept you so long? Or are you indulging your hobby that I’ve heard about, mounting an investigation of your own?”
    “Nadine,” I said, then waited, playing her game, which I won as easily as she had. But she didn’t look any happier about losing than I’d felt, and that made me feel bad all over again. “You’re partly right,” I said. She pressed her lips together and I rushed to explain. “Not in the wayyou think, though. It’s the skeleton, Nadine. I want to know who it is and I think I have a clue. Phillip was excited about the skeleton, too, and something I said made him think we might be on the same track. He said he was working on something I might be interested in, but then with everything going on yesterday, he didn’t have time to tell me what it was. That’s why I came out early this morning. He was going to fill me in and we were going to compare notes. Except that I don’t know what those notes were.”
    “I apologize, Kath.” She looked down at the binder on the desk and then tapped her fingernail on the keyboard of Phillip’s computer. “I don’t know what those notes were, either. After we hired him he threw himself into learning our basic history and preparing for this program. We talked about site interpretation in general, and he had some ideas about incorporating storytelling into one of the tours. He was full of ideas. That’s one of the reasons we hired him. But I don’t know what
that
idea was. And I cannot imagine what we’re doing with an elbow or an arm or a whole person out there.” She put her elbows on the desk, closed her eyes, and rested her forehead on her fingertips.
    “There’s no need to apologize, Nadine. I obviously did spend too much time in there with Deputy Dunbar if I sounded like I was interrogating you. His bad habits must have rubbed off on me.” That minuscule joke at Clod’s expense didn’t raise a smile, but it did make me wonder about that session with