Free Quilt or Innocence by Elizabeth Craig Page B

her. It could be anyone.”
    Posy sighed. “Judith
was
acting especially unpleasant last night. It’s a shame you didn’t have a chance to meet her when she was behaving better. She was a gifted quilter and a great booster for our guild. Judith was very supportive of the Village Quilters and proud of the progress our group had made and the ribbons we’d won.”
    “But I’ve also heard she was extremely competitive and was unhappy when fellow quilters won awards or got chosen as beekeeper,” said Beatrice.
    “We all have our faults, I suppose.” If it was a reproof, it was a very gentle one.
    Beatrice took a deep breath and then jumped right in. “There was something I wanted to ask you about, Posy. Meadow dropped by this morning. She admitted, although she hadn’t wanted to, that she’d seen you out last night. With a shovel in your car.”
    Posy made a soft gasp and gave a little jump. She said quietly, “I
was
out that night. And I
did
have a shovel in the car with me. But I didn’t murder Judith.”
    “What were you doing?”
    “It was probably the strangest night ever, followed by the strangest
morning
ever. I was getting ready for bed when we got an automated call from the alarm company that the shop was being broken into.”
    “The Patchwork Cottage?”
    “Actually, no. Cork’s wine shop. But those calls are starting to be a regular occurrence, because the alarm is malfunctioning somehow. Once or twice, though, Cork
has
had someone break in, so we have to take it seriously.”
    “But
you’re
the one who went out to check on the shop?” That didn’t seem very chivalrous of Cork.
    “No, Cork went—but he had a real bee in his bonnet about it. He’d actually been sound asleep and snoring when I came home from Judith’s house, so the call woke him up. He decided to stay in his pajamas and drive over real quick to see if he saw anything. He wouldn’t even call Ramsay and let him know—he was that convinced it was going to be a false alarm.”
    “So how did you end up driving around with a shovel?” asked Beatrice.
    Posy said sadly, “I told Cork to take some kind of weapon with him, in case there
was
somebody breaking into the shop. But he was so crabby and stubborn that he took off in the car. I decided to pull some clothes on and follow him. I grabbed the shovel, which was the first big thing in the garage that I could get my hands on. I’d just finished preparing a flower bed for planting, so it was really convenient.” Posy swallowed. “I know it sounds horrible, especially since I had a problem with Judith and I was so close to the scene of the crime.”
    “Did you catch up with Cork?”
    “I did, but by the time I got over to the shop, Cork was already stomping out, saying that there was nobody there. So, really, I was no help at all.”
    Posy looked so miserable that Beatrice almost hated to prompt her. She said in a gentle voice, “You didn’t mention to Ramsay that you were near the park around the time of the murder.”
    Posy shook her head. “I sure didn’t. I like to think that it was because I was so shocked by what I’d seen that I didn’t even remember to mention it. But maybe, somewhere deep in my subconscious, there was a little bit of self-protecting going on. And I wanted to cover for Cork, of course, and the fact that he’d gone out that night. I feel just awful about it. And now, if Meadow isn’t mentioning the shovel to Ramsay, she’s not being honest with her own husband.”
    “Did you happen to notice anything out of the ordinary while you were out? Anything that could help us find out who murdered Judith?”
    Posy thought hard, then said, “I wish I could say that I did. About the only thing that I did that night that was useful at all was find Boris. I was on my way home from the wine shop and I saw Boris sitting by the side of the road. When I rolled down my window, he whimpered. It really wasn’t like Boris at all—he was shaking and so