Murder on a Starry Night: A Queen Bees Quilt Mystery by Sally Goldenbaum

yourself. And it’s a vast improvement from that rusty truck, beloved or not.”
    “Let’s get this show on the road,” Selma said. “I want to be back before the Saturday crowd comes in and drives my staff crazy.”
    “Selma, don’t fret so,” Susan said, “things will be fine. You need to start taking some time off, away from the store.”
    “And realize that it really will survive without you,” Leah chimed in.
    Selma waved off their words and pulled herself up into the van, puffing a little as she settled herself near the window. “Hand me my bag, will you?” she asked Phoebe, who promptly spun her diminutive body up next to Selma, her own backpack and Selma’s sewing bag in tow.
    “Very cool, Maggie,” Phoebe said as she reached down and helped Eleanor up into the van.
    Kate, Leah, and Susan slipped around the settled bodies into the wide back seat, Po joined Maggie in the front, and in minutes the Queen Bees were off, heading down Elderberry Road toward the Harrington mansion.
    “Why do you suppose Adele wanted us all to come?” Maggie called back over her shoulder. “You’d think looking at quilts on the beds would be the last thing she’d be thinking about.”
    Po shifted on the seat. “I think she’s just wanting some assurance that something in her planning is going right and is under her control. She seemed jittery yesterday when I talked to her.”
    “Very jittery,” Kate piped up from the back of the van. “And a little paranoid. She stopped me yesterday as I was biking by the house—she was pulling out of the drive in that long Cadillac of hers—and wanted to know if I had seen anyone suspicious in the neighborhood. I almost felt sorry for her.”
    “This is an enormous undertaking for her,” Po said. “Max said it’s costing more than she had thought, as things do.”
    “Well, maybe we can cheer her up a bit,” Leah said. “I think our quilt tops are beautiful.”
    “Of course they are!” Phoebe said.
    “And we’re here,” Maggie announced, pulling into the driveway.
    “This is the first time in weeks I’ve been able to see all the way back to the carriage house,” Po said as Maggie pulled over to the side of the drive and turned off the ignition. “Not a truck in sight.”
    “But there will be,” Selma said. “The renovation crew is here seven days a week, old Mrs. Porter tells me. She said she can hear the commotion all the way from her house on the corner. She’s ready to spit fire at Adele. Her husband patrols the street, just waiting for something to go wrong.”
    “A truck ran over the Porter’s new chrysanthemum bed, Mrs. P announced last week in the supermarket,” Eleanor added. “Unhappy neighbors are not a good thing.”
    “But it is a good thing we beat the mob. Shall we get this over with?” Po asked, opening the van door and stepping out into the drive.
    The others followed suit, and when they walked up the wide fan of steps leading to the front door, Adele was waiting for them.
    “You are prompt, as always,” Adele said, holding open the door. “Thank you for coming.”
    “Like I haven’t been dying to see the inside of this place?” Phoebe answered. She touched Adele on the arm and smiled brightly. “This is amazing, Adele. I want to see every single inch of it.”
    Po watched the exchange and noticed the instinctive tightening of Adele’s muscles at Phoebe’s light touch. The poor woman probably isn’t touched much, she thought, and the thought made Po suddenly sad.
    “I thought we would go directly up to the guest rooms and lay each quilt out on a bed so I can get a feeling for how they fit in,” Adele said, and led the group of women carrying their quilt tops up a wide, winding staircase to the second floor. Her back was rod straight, and her face unreadable as she walked next to Po.
    “Maybe my sweet Emma will get married here,” Phoebe whispered to Kate, her small hand sliding along the walnut banister.
    “Phoebe, she’s