1 The Underhanded Stitch (6 page)

T
all Pall Johnson was taken aback to find four ladies and a girl at his front door. “I hope you don’t mind,” smiled Maddy Madison. “We dropped by to see how your toe was healing.”

“My toe?” He seemed to have forgotten his “lawnmower accident.” No sign of crutches or bandages on his left foot.

“Yes, you told my husband that you’d hurt it while mowing the lawn,” said Bootsie.

“Oh, that. Perhaps I exaggerated slightly. More like I stubbed it.”

“We brought you this nice pot of soup, thinking you couldn’t get around well enough to cook for yourself,” said Cookie, holding up a covered aluminum container.

“As you can see, that wasn’t necessary. Besides, my wife’s pretty handy in the kitchen.”

“Here’s the soup anyway,” said Lizzie. “May we come in?”

It would have been rude to say no, so the giant reluctantly opened the screen door and allowed them to enter. First thing Maddy noticed when they stepped into the living room was the magnificent hand-stitched patchwork quilt hanging over the mantle. The design seemed to be based on Caruthers Corners. She could recognize the familiar landmarks of the town square, the church with its tall spire, the fire station at the end of Main Street, and the old Town Hall.

“How lovely,” she admired the handiwork.

“A family heirloom,” muttered Tall Paul. “The only thing handed down on the Jinks side of the tree.”

“What about the Colonel’s ruby ring?” Cookie got straight to the point. “You claimed you had it when you sold a fake to Maddy’s husband.”

“Wasn’t the Colonel’s ring in the first place,” the man corrected her. “It belonged to my great-great grandpappy.”

“Whatever,” Maddy brushed his words aside. No point in arguing. “Fact remains, you sold a fake to my husband.”

Tall Paul looked embarrassed. “True enough. I never did have that doggone ring. Only heard tales of it when I was a li’l child. My granny used to say the ruby was buried beneath the Town Hall – but she was an old woman, half-crazy at the time. Don’t s’pect it’ll ever be found.”

“So why did you swindle my husband?” Maddy asked point blank.

“Greed, ain’t no other word for it. Beauregard wanted that ring real bad. And when he offered me a thousand dollars, I just couldn’t turn it down. So I sold him a trinket I’d won at the county fair back in ’96. That was the year I met my wife.”

Everyone hereabouts knew the story, how Tall Paul fell in love with the sideshow tattooed lady and married her in a ceremony right there on the midway. They had toured for a season or two as a couple, him a 7’ giant, and her an example of illustrated skin art. Their traveling came to an end when Emma Johnson developed diabetes and had to retire for health reasons. So she and Tall Paul settled down in this comfortable little house on Easy Chair Lane.

“Buried under the Town Hall?” repeated Lizzie.

“Hm, your great-great grandfather burned down the Town Hall,” said Maddy, working on the puzzle. “Maybe he buried the ring on the site before it was rebuilt.”

“No, that couldn’t be right,” interjected Cookie, the historian of the group. “The Colonel didn’t pass away until just after the new Town Hall was completed. And legend has it Jinks stole the ring off him while he was laid out at his wake.”

“That’s right,” murmured Bootsie. “The old Town Hall was a wooden structure, but they rebuilt it out of bricks so it wouldn’t burn so easily next time.”

“But there was never a next time,” said Tall Paul Johnson. “Ferdinand Jinks was killed in a freak electrical storm just a few years after the new Town Hall was built.”

“God’s punishment,” said Cookie.

“So what about the ring being buried beneath the Town Hall?” interjected Bootsie.

“A crazy story,” said Lizzie, her red hair flaming about her face in the sunlight from the window. “It just proves that Paul’s granny was senile like he says.”

≈≈≈

At dinner that night Tilly made an announcement: “It’s official. Mark’s suing for custody of Agnes. He says he has no choice since I won’t bring her home. I told him ‘why would I bring her home to a father who is too important to ever have a minute to spend with his family!’”

“But I don’t wanna go back to California!” the girl exploded. “I wanna stay here with you and Grammy and Grampy. Why can’t daddy come here instead?” Quite a change of opinion transpiring in the past two weeks.

“There, there. You’re not going anywhere,” said Beauregard. But his promise sounded hollow to everyone at the table.

“We’ll get you a good lawyer,” said Maddy. “Fight him.”

Beau nodded. “I’ll call Bartholomew Dingley. He’ll take the case.”

“No, Bartholomew’s closing his law practice next month.”

“Why do that?” puzzled Beau. “He has plenty of clients.”

“Dear, he’s eighty years old. Give him a break.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t worry, Tilly. We’ll find you a lawyer. They have plenty of sharks like Mark down in Indianapolis.”

“Mom, I already have a good lawyer. Trouble is, Mark’s got lots more money than I have to spend on depositions and interrogatories and motions for summary judgment.”

“Half of his money is yours,” opined Beau. Not quite sure about the legal status of assets in California.

“You once told us he made over two hundred thousand dollars a year,” Maddy reminded her daughter. She was confounded by all this legal wrangling. Why couldn’t couples split up on friendly terms? Aggie needed a daddy even if he had turned out to be a selfish scoundrel.

“Oh he makes a lot more than two hundred thousand when you count in all those bonuses the partners get. But his accountant is claiming heavy expenses.”

“Mercy, what’s this world coming to?” exclaimed Beau. “I only take home forty thousand after expenses at the hardware store and we live well enough on that.”

Maddy wasn’t about to cite the heavy expenses of hiring a sculptor to create a life-size marble statue of a man who got rich swindling Indians out of their rightful land. “Pass the butter,” she said instead.

≈≈≈

The next day while mother and daughter were shopping for the week’s provisions at the Food Lion, Maddy casually asked, “What exactly was the trouble between you and Mark? Another woman?”

“No, mom, nothing like that. It was his job. He works all the time, day, nights, weekends. Look up
workaholic
in the dictionary and you’ll see his picture.”

“Oh my, your uncle Joel was like that. Dead at forty with a heart attack.”

“I worry about Mark’s health. He has high blood pressure. Not exactly a trait you’d want in a high-pressure job like lawyering.”

“Why so concerned about his health if he’s dumping you?”

“Mom, I still love the big lug. Just not how he practices his profession. I was patient for a long time. But it never got better. He never had any time for Aggie and me – even when I begged him to consider what should be the most important part of his life.”

A
special meeting of the Quilter’s Club was called to order. Today’s agenda wasn’t fat quarters and fancy borders, but instead its members were concentrating on the mystery of the Colonel’s ruby ring. Maddy was there, along with Cookie, Bootsie, and Lizzie. And the club’s newest member – Agnes – was seated in the big rocking chair.

“Here’s what we know,” began Maddy, ticking the facts off one-by-one on her fingers. “Three men founded the town of Caruthers Corners: Colonel Beauregard Madison, Jacob Caruthers, and Ferdinand Jinks. Jinks fell out of favor and retaliated by burning down the Town Hall. He was chased out of town, but returned upon the Colonel’s death to steal a ruby ring off his body. The ring has never been recovered. My husband tried to buy it from the last living descendant of Jinks, but it turned out to be a fake. Paul Johnson, the said descendant, says he never had the ring. He quotes his grandmother as saying the ring was buried beneath the Town Hall, but that can’t be right. The timing’s off.”

“Pretty well sums it up,” nodded Cookie, taking notes. As secretary of the Historical Society, she was an inveterate record keeper.

“Why did the three founders get mad at each other in the first place?” asked Agnes.

“Good question,” said Bootsie. “Cookie, do you know?”

“Yes, the Historical Society has Jacob Caruthers’ journal in its archives. According to Caruthers, it was a falling out over a woman. Seems that Colonel Madison married Jinks’ betrothed.”

“I can see why Jinks might have been peeved,” said Lizzie. Always a bit of a
femme fatale
herself.

“He was angry enough to burn down the Town Hall,” Bootsie agreed.

“Yes, but why did he steal the Colonel’s ring?” asked Agnes, her curiosity having the clarity of a ten-year-old mind.

“Hmm, I don’t know,” admitted Cookie.

“Spite,” guessed Lizzie.

“Maybe he was just mean,” tried Bootsie.

“No, I think it wasn’t his ring to begin with,” said Maddy. “Remember, Tall Paul corrected us when we called it the Colonel’s ring. Maybe Ferdinand Jinks gave the ring to his sweetheart, but she kept it when she ran off with Beauregard Madison.”

“Could be,” said Cookie. “Records show that Colonel Madison’s wife preceded him. Perhaps he kept the ring in remembrance of her, not knowing it had originally been Jinks’ ring.”

“So Jinks was merely retrieving the ring he’d given his fiancée before she dumped him for another man,” Maddy summed it up.

“Then it’s properly Tall Paul’s ring, not mine,” concluded Agnes, sounding disappointed.

“That aside, where is the blasted ring?” said Lizzie, frustrated by all this speculation.

“The only clue we have are the words of Tall Paul’s grandmother,” Cookie reminded her.

“But she was senile,” Lizzie shot back.

“Maybe, maybe not,” said Maddy.

≈≈≈

“Your grandmother – what exactly did she say?”

“Huh?” said Tall Paul. He was surrounded by all the members of the Quilter’s Club, having been cornered on his porch as he came home from the Food Lion, his arms filled with groceries.

“What were your grandmother’s exact words,” Maddy repeated as the women followed him into his living room.

Paul Johnson screwed up his face to give it some thought. “She said that the ring was buried beneath the Town Hall,” he replied.

“Are you sure those were her exact words,” insisted Maddy.

The man stood two heads taller than the women who surrounded him. He balanced the supermarket shopping bags in his arms and recited: “Your great-great grandpappy’s ring lies beneath the Town Hall.”

“You said ‘buried’ before,” little Agnes pointed out.

“Just an expression,” the big man said as he sat his grocery bags on a table and turned to face this invading army. “Now that I think back on it, I’m pretty sure she said ‘lies beneath the Town Hall.’”

“Plenty of lying going on here,” huffed Bootsie Purdue. As the police chief’s wife, she wasn’t a very trusting soul.

“Hey now, I’m trying to help you out here. Make amends for gypping Maddy’s husband.”

“You could try returning the thousand dollars,” said Maddy as she studied the beautiful quilt over the fireplace. She seemed fascinated by the stitching, running her hand over the surface as if tracing the shape of the Town Hall.

“That money’s long gone,” replied Tall Paul. “My wife needed a gall bladder operation.”

“Oh my,” said Cookie. “If we’d known, we would have baked her a pie or something.”

“Bertha’s a private woman. All those years with the carnival, people gawking at her, turned her against folks. She hardly goes outta the house these days.”

“Sorry to hear that,” said Lizzie. But you couldn’t be certain whether the redhead was being sincere or not.

“Best we get home,” said Maddy, hand on the latch of the screen door. “Oops.”

Crack!

“Dang, you broke my latch,” griped the giant.

“Sorry about that, Paul. But my husband owns the hardware store. Go down there this afternoon and he’ll give you a replacement – no charge.”

“Well, okay. But don’t break my front step on your way out.”

“Come along, girls. Time to go.”

The Quilter’s Club marched down the front walk toward Maddy’s SUV. The big man called after them: “If you find that ring, remember it’s mine.”

As she slid behind the wheel of the Ford Explorer, Maddy replied primly, “No, Paul, it’s not. You sold it to my husband for a thousand dollars.”

W
atermelon Days
was coming up. That meant the Quilter’s Club had to finish their sewing projects. Quilts of local design were always displayed at the Grange Hall during the festival days.

Maddy’s watermelon appliqué quilt was nearly completed. Lizzie had finished hers – a design based on rows of corn – and was helping Agnes make her sandwich with the batting and backing now that she had her nine squares all sewn together. It had taken every minute of her spare time since she started. Maddy’s granddaughter had picked a mix of solid and printed colors for her nine-patch. The way she put them together didn’t exactly coordinate all the colors, but somehow it still worked. Her finished quilt would be really unique.

Bootsie had chosen a complicated design that she’d found on the
freepatterns.com
website, intricate briars and brambles called “Rose Red.” It featured a brilliant red rosebud in the very center of the quilt.

Cookie was coming along just fine, taking her own sweet time. Historians don’t like to be hurried. Her brick-like design in a variation of a log cabin motif reflected the façade of the local Town Hall, sure to be a crowd-pleaser.

“That looks really cool,” ten-year-old Agnes complimented the older woman, sensitive to Cookie’s being a widow and all.

“Thank you, my dear. But it’s nowhere near the workmanship we saw on that quilt displayed over Tall Paul Johnson’s fireplace. Those old-timey quiltmakers certainly knew how to sew.”

“The Town Hall on that quilt looked different than yours.”

“Remember, I told you the original Town Hall was wooden. But after Ferdinand Jinks burnt it down, they rebuilt it out of bricks.”

“Sounds like The Three Little Pigs,” giggled Agnes. “Brick to keep Big Bad Mister Jinks from huffing and puffing and blowing it down.”

“Something like that,” Cookie admitted. “But he used matches.”

“Did they have matches back then?” asked Lizzie, looking up from her stitching. She was a fast sewer, and Agnes’ hodgepodge design was starting to look passable.

“Yes, indeed,” replied Cookie. “Matches were developed in China in 577 A.D. But
modern, self-igniting matches were invented by a Frenchman in 1805.”

“You’re a font of knowledge,” said Bootsie, but it wasn’t clear whether this declaration was meant as a compliment or not.

“The point being, it wasn’t particularly hard for Jinks to burn down the Town Hall. A few matches and a little kindling, then –
whoosh!
– the rickety old building goes up in flames.”

“The fire station’s just on the other end of Main Street,” noted Maddy. “Wonder why they didn’t put out the fire before it engulfed the whole building?”

“The fire engine – it was horse-drawn back in those days – had a broken axel. At least, that’s what the newspaper account says.”

“Do you think Jinks sabotaged the fire engine?” asked Bootsie, always looking for conspiracies. She was convinced the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King had been a joint effort of the Ku Klux Klan, the CIA, and the Knights of Columbus.

Cookie shook her head. “There was a mention of the fire engine breaking its axel trying to cross the Wabash River to get to a house fire in Burpyville. So I’d expect it was either just a coincidence or Jinks taking advantage of an existing situation.”

“
Ow-w-w
,” said Agnes, pricking her finger. She hadn’t quite mastered the needlework yet. And the basting of her sandwich was a lot harder than she thought.

“You okay, dear?” asked her grandmother.

“Uh-huh, it doesn’t hurt bad.” The girl sucked on the tip of her forefinger, tasting the blood.

“We’ve got Band-Aids over here in the cabinet,” said Lizzie. “Let me get you one.” She rummaged in a big mahogany breakfront, coming up with a square tin box stamped with a red cross.

“How’d you stick yourself?” asked Cookie, leaning forward to examine the tiny wound.

“My needle hit something hard. Glanced off and jabbed my finger that was holding the middle part together.”

“Something hard? That’s odd,” said Bootsie, running her palm along the surface of Agnes’ quilt. “Wait! There is something hard in here.”

“Really?” Maddy ran her finger over the fabric, checking it herself. Bootsie was known to exaggerate. But not in this case, for she came to a lump about the size of an unshelled peanut, something solid and unyielding.

“What is it?” asked Lizzie as she finished wrapping the bandage around Agnes’ injured finger.

“Dunno,” admitted Maddy.

“Hand me that pair of scissors,” instructed Lizzie. A take-charge personality to the point of being pushy. “We’ll find out what’s in there.”

Snip, snip!

The determined redhead clipped just enough of the basting to slip her hand into the part with the lump. Her hands as steady as a heart surgeon’s. “Here you go,” she said, carefully pulling her hand out. “I think I’ve found the culprit.”

“A thimble!” Bootsie declared, staring at the round metal object that had been tucked in the folds of the quilt.

“Why, honey,” admonished Cookie, “you sewed up your thimble inside your quilt.”

“I wondered where it went,” the girl giggled. Showing no apparent embarrassment over her
faux pas
.

“Like a doctor sewing up the patient with a sponge inside,” said Bootsie. “I heard of that happening at the Veteran’s Hospital over in Indianapolis.”

“Never mind that,” said Maddy. “I know where the ring is.”