Read Online Murders on Elderberry Road: A Queen Bees Quilt Mystery by Sally Goldenbaum - Free Book Online

and wait for the next soap opera chapter to play itself out.”
    “Kate — a side of you I didn’t know!” Phoebe lifted her eyebrows. “P.J. Flanigan, not bad. Were you part of the in crowd, Katie? I imagine P.J. was quite the hot shot.”
    Kate made a face and Po laughed, remembering the Kate of a dozen or more years ago. Kate had been her own person even back then, and she wasn’t in the popular group — not by a long shot — though she had had plenty of friends. She’d been a wild, beautiful filly, a thorn in her mother’s side much of the time, opinionated, stubborn, but underneath it all, a courageous, sweet soul. Po and Meg were almost always proud of Kate, even while they worried about her and wondered what she’d do next to disrupt their peaceful lives.
    “P.J. was a hot shot, I guess,” Kate admitted. “He played every sport known to man. Me? Well, my best friend Honora liked me. And P.J. did, too. But sorry to disappoint you, Pheebs. You won’t find me on the Prom Queen page in the Crestwood High yearbook.”
    “Speaking of P.J.,” Eleanor said, “what does he think about this awful murder business, Selma?”
    Selma shook her head. “He said they’re still thinking it was a burglary. The ‘perp,’ as P.J. calls the scum bum who did this, assumed the store would be empty that late at night.”
    “So what did this guy steal — a bolt of fabric?” Phoebe asked. “That’ll provide a great Sun City retirement.”
    “Now that’s a good question, Phoebe,” Selma said. “Whoever this person was, he wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box. He took my locked box from under the counter up front. And walked off with a sum total of half a dozen hand-written store charges, some change, and a stack of order sheets I had planned to finish that day. And Owen’s wallet and watch, I believe I heard P.J. say.”
    “Owen died for loose change,” Leah said. There was an edge to her usually soft voice. She lined up her cut strips of fabric on the table and smoothed them out with her fingers. “Owen was a good man, a decent man. This whole thing just doesn’t make sense.”
    “No, it doesn’t make any sense at all. And I think P.J. Flanigan, as intelligent as he is, is dead wrong,” Po said. She blurted the words out with more force than she had intended and was slightly embarrassed when all eyes in the room turned toward her.
    Susan, her arms carrying a bolt of fabric, walked through the arch that opened the meeting room to the front section of the store. The silence stopped her in her tracks. “What?” she asked, looking from one surprised face to the next. “What’s wrong?”
    “Po doesn’t think a burglar killed Owen Hill,” Phoebe said.
    Susan dropped the bolt of cotton and stared at Po. “What are you saying, Po? Of course it’s a burglary.”
    “I don’t think any burglar worthy of the name would attempt to rob Selma’s store. You’ve all said the same thing in some shape or form, and that’s all that I’m saying. I don’t think it makes sense. Not with a busy bookstore down the street, and an antique shop with lamps that cost more than my home. So there, that’s it. That’s what I think.”
    “But,” Susan rested both hands on the back of the ladder chair and steadied herself. “Do you think someone wanted Professor Hill dead?”
    Po wished she hadn’t started the conversation. Susan was a sensitive woman and had her own bundle of worries — caring for an ill mother, going back to college at the age of 38, and working as hard as she did to make ends meet. She had also been on edge lately. Po shouldn’t have burdened her with another fear beyond her control. “I don’t mean to stir things up. Perhaps I spoke out of turn.”
    “You, Po?” Kate said, her voice lifting at the end of the question, and they all laughed at the affectionate jibe. The tension lifted.
    Po shushed Kate with a wave of her hand, but she laughed along with the rest of the Queen Bees. It was true