Threads of Deceit (Vineyard Quilt Mysteries Book 1) (20 page)

T
he autumn breeze made the dry cornstalks scrape against Julie’s car in whispery scratches as she sat inside, waiting for her panic to subside. After a moment, she pushed her door open, shoving over another stalk, and climbed out. She circled the car, keeping one hand on the frame since her legs still felt wobbly. She was surprised to see very little damage done to the car. The cornstalks had gone down without a fight. She was still inspecting the vehicle when a man burst through the corn, startling her.

“Gah!” Julie let out a small shriek.

He froze and held up his hands. “Sorry, lady. I didn’t mean to scare you. I saw that SUV run you off the road. I’ve seen some crazy drivers, but that guy must have been drunk.”

“Must have,” she said, her voice still as wobbly as her knees.

“I called the cops,” he said. “They should be here soon. I didn’t see the license of that thing, but I got a real good look at it.”

Julie nodded. She hadn’t caught the license details either. The farmer’s wife pushed through the stalks then and began mothering Julie in earnest. She commanded her husband to wait at the car for the police while she took Julie inside the house and made some hot cocoa. “It’s the best thing in the world for shock,” she said as she led Julie away.

The cocoa did help, though the round of questions from the police didn’t. After years of avoiding police interaction as she skated the fine line between legal and illegal in her business, it was hard to just open up and talk about the threats she and
Hannah had received. She couldn’t see the point. What could the police do? It was all so vague. She had no enemies that she could name, especially since she was pretty sure the art theft ring was not driving the back roads of Missouri, hoping to run her into a cornfield. She described the incident and the vehicle, but that’s all she offered. The officer diligently took notes, but she could see he didn’t have much hope of finding the offender. Black SUVs weren’t exactly rare.

The farmer’s wife insisted her husband drive the car out of the field and check it over thoroughly before letting Julie back in it. “You don’t want to get halfway home and have a breakdown on top of everything else.”

Julie agreed. She could tell it would do no good to argue. Eventually she was on the road again, though she was far from completely recovered. Every time a new vehicle came over a rise in the road, Julie felt a jolt of fear. She was grateful to finally reach Straussberg and the inn.

To her surprise, she found the owner, Millie Rogers, standing at the front desk when she walked in. Julie’s smile at the older woman was not returned.

“What’s this business about murderers staying at the inn?” Millie asked sharply.

So much for pleasantries.
Julie’s smile darkened. “We haven’t had any murderers staying at the inn.”

“That’s not what I’ve heard.”

“Heard from whom?”

Millie ignored the question. “Tell me
exactly
what’s been going on here.”

After the day she’d had, Julie simply didn’t have the energy to spar with Millie. So she sighed. “Can I possibly sit down to tell it? It’s lengthy.”

Millie nodded. “In the library.”

They walked back to the dark paneled room that held the smell of old books—a combination of dry leather, ancient ink, and mustiness. As they settled down, Inga stepped into the doorway.

“May I bring you coffee and pastry?” Inga directed her question at Millie.

Millie smiled brightly back. “You’re a love as always. Yes, please, bring us a tray.”

Inga nodded and backed out. Julie quietly began to fill Millie in on everything that had happened from the moment Daniel walked into the inn. She left out anything tied to her own colorful past and skirted around possible illegal activity on her part, but beyond that, she gave an honest account of the events.

In the middle of the spiel, she paused when Inga brought in the tray. Millie thanked her and the dour-faced woman left. Julie sighed. “I wish I knew why Inga disliked me so.”

Millie shook her head, making her iron-gray curls bounce. “I doubt it’s you. Inga’s a lamb, but she doesn’t like change.”

Julie couldn’t imagine Inga as a “lamb” or a “love,” but she decided she was close enough to being fired without insulting someone Millie clearly liked. She wrapped up her recital of events with the trip into the cornfield, then sat back and waited to be fired.

Millie’s eyes widened. “What a horrible experience. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. I was shaky for a while, but the farmer and his wife were really nice.”

Millie looked her over, her eyes sharp. Finally she said, “I don’t like the fact that someone is willing to be so violent over this.” She paused. “But it’s undoubtedly the most
excitement Straussberg has seen in decades. No wonder the guests are so thrilled.”

“Thrilled?” Julie scoffed. “They demanded I throw Daniel out on the street.”

“Yes, I heard that too. But the whispers I’ve caught since I got home have mostly been full of excitement at the mystery of it. I suspect the people pretending to worry about bloodthirsty killers are secretly delighted to be so close to a murder mystery. It’s a big adventure.”

“It’s hard for me to see it that way,” Julie said. “I knew George and liked him. He was sweet and funny.”

Millie’s bright expression turned sad. “I am sorry about that. I never met him, of course, nor did any of the guests. I imagine it’s like a television drama for them.”

“I suppose.”

Millie seemed to turn that over in her head for a few moments. Then her face brightened again. “Maybe we could figure out some way to bring guests that sense of adventure without so much misfortune. We should consider having mystery weekends at the inn.”

“It would certainly be different,” Julie said.

“We’ll have to decide when to have our first one. Halloween would be marvelous, but that doesn’t leave us enough time to plan a special event like that.”

That reference reminded Julie of the one event she’d failed to include in her recitation. “We may have another function to schedule.” She told Millie about Mrs. Parson’s interest in having a fundraiser for the senator at the inn because of her fond memories of the place.

Millie’s brows knit together while she tried to call up memories of so long ago. “I don’t really remember them, but that doesn’t mean much. That far back, I’d only remember people
who made trouble, and it sounds like they wouldn’t have.”

“No, Mrs. Parson seemed very gracious,” Julie said.

Inga bustled in to collect the tray, commenting as she did so, “Mrs. Parson is an angel and so is her husband.”

“You know her?” Millie asked.

“Of course not,” Inga said, her slight German accent making her sound stern. “I’d not be knowing a senator or his wife. But I do know that my brother would have lost his farm if not for Senator Parson. Michael’s wife wrote to the senator about the situation, and the man personally got involved and helped. The senator didn’t have to do such a thing, but he did.”

“That’s lovely,” Millie said. “Well, I’ll have to call Mrs. Parson and check on her final decision about the venue. It would be a lot of work to get ready for an event like that, but I’d love to meet an angel or two.”

“You’re making fun of me,” Inga said stiffly.

Millie smiled, a twinkle in her eye. “Only now and then.”

Julie spent another hour or so going over figures and plans with Millie and listening to the woman’s stories of her whirlwind tour of popular Missouri tourist traps.

“This was only the first step,” Millie said. “When I leave again, I plan to spend two full weeks in Branson, then I’m going to Tennessee.”

Julie smiled at the way Millie said “Tennessee” as if it were a distant land. “I’m glad you won’t need a passport.”

“Sure, you laugh at my trips,” Millie said. “But you try being plunked in one place for nearly your whole life. You’d take baby steps too.”

Julie didn’t think that she would. She wasn’t really the baby-steps type in anything she did. It was one of the things that drove her dear friend Hannah crazy. Which reminded
Julie that when she finished up for the day, Hannah would definitely want an update.

And she did.

“Senator North sounds disgusting,” Hannah said when Julie finished filling her in. “But my money is on the lawyer as the genius behind the road-rage incident. I doubt it’s a coincidence that you ended up in a cornfield shortly after finishing your conversation with him.”

“He does seem like the type who wouldn’t mind being violent,” Julie said as she picked at the salad her friend had made her for supper. “But I think it’s suspicious that Senator Parson knew who I was.”

Hannah shrugged. “Of course, it might have been something simple, like his wife was visiting, saw you outside, and mentioned it to her husband, who then realized you weren’t likely to be both an innkeeper and a magazine reporter.”

“So another coincidence. They’re piling up a bit around the senator.”

“True, but the lawyer sounds more like the sort of creep who’d run you off the road. I can practically picture him doing it.”

Julie huffed, absently stabbing at a piece of lettuce. “I just wish I’d actually met Senator Parson. I would like to get some kind of reading on the man. See how genuine he seems.”

“He’d hardly be likely to spill any dastardly deeds while you talked to him.”

“No, but right now he’s nothing but a big blank hole in all of this. Is he the angel that Inga believes him to be? Or is he a monster who killed Daniel’s best friend?”

Hannah frowned at Julie’s salad. “Either eat that salad or bury it. You’ve stabbed it enough. You know, it would be helpful if you had some kind of motive for any of these people.”

Julie shoved a bit of salad into her mouth and nodded. “That is an issue. None of them seem to be tied to Daniel or to Winkler Farm. The closest would probably be Parson, but that’s because he likes to help out farmers, which doesn’t exactly make him a villain.”

“The lawyer,” Hannah said. “We know he tried to buy Winkler Farm to stop the excavation.”

“On behalf of someone else.”

“So he claims. Not everything a guy like him says is necessarily true.”

Julie accepted that. She could imagine Randall Cantor cheerfully lying right to her face. “But
why
would he want it?”

“That’s the million-dollar question. When you try and answer it, please, do so without any breaking and entering.”

Julie shrugged. “I already broke and entered, and I didn’t learn anything useful. I need another way.”

As Julie walked through the inn, checking locks and reassuring herself that her work for the day was done, she wondered how she might learn more about Cantor. The contractor who was dating the lawyer’s mother would probably be happy to talk about him, but considering the bad feelings between them, Julie doubted the man was Cantor’s confidant. She wondered if it would be worthwhile to pay another visit to the lawyer’s uncle. He might know some family stories.

She still wasn’t settled on a plan of action when she climbed the stairs to the third floor. She put the kettle on and rummaged through her packets of herbal tea until she found chamomile. She needed all the help she could get in relaxing for sleep after the day she’d been through. Her muscles were beginning to ache from the accident.

She was in the middle of debating whether it was worthwhile to hunt for her bottle of aspirin when her phone rang.
She groaned as she shifted to pull the phone out of her blazer pocket. The note from the senator came out with the phone. Julie frowned at it before tossing it onto the table beside her.

“Julie!” Daniel half-shouted in her ear. “It’s been a fantastic day.”

“It has?”

“We found a boot. It’s perfectly preserved. I couldn’t believe it. You would expect the mud to be so wet that things degrade, but this boot looked like it was lost yesterday.”

“It must be an exciting boot.”

“It is, but more than that, it means we’re beginning to dig up cargo. At the speed we’re working, we’ll be uncovering crates within the next few days. Once we bring up the first crock or crate, I’m going to work this site around the clock.”

“Your crew will be thrilled.”

“When I pay them all that overtime, I’m sure they will. You should come out and see the site soon. It’s nothing like the big hole you saw last. With the earthmoving machines, we’ve got it looking more like a small, very muddy valley.”

“Sounds enchanting.”

He chuckled. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I suppose. Still, once we start bringing up containers, we’re bound to discover a link to that message you decoded.”

Julie’s attention sharpened. She’d nearly forgotten the coded message for the treasure. She was trying to call it up in her tired thoughts when Daniel simply recited it from memory. “‘Mey apples fill the finest crock and hew a space for Southern stock.’ As soon as I haul up the first crock, I’ll call you. You can be here when we unseal the thing.”

“You expect the crocks to be sealed?”

She could almost hear his shrug. “It was common, especially with perishable goods. The crock would be
sealed with wax to make it airtight and slow decay. Of course, after all this time, I doubt any contents will be fresh, even in the cold mud.”

“Do you expect to find apples?” she asked, then she remembered. “‘Mey apples.’ Is that a kind of apple?”

“A mayapple is actually a kind of wildflower that you can find in the woods,” Daniel said. “But the spelling is different. Of course, inventive spelling isn’t all that unusual from that time. Even a ship’s captain might not be the best of spellers.”

“Maybe,” Julie said. “But what if ‘Mey’ is a clue to the identity of the owner of the treasure?”

“That would make sense.”

She sighed. “Too bad none of our suspects has ‘Mey’ in their names.”

“Not today, but who knows what a good genealogist could shake out of their family trees? I have a friend I could call. …”

Julie laughed. “You seem to have a friend to call in all situations.”

“What can I say? I’m a friendly guy. Anyway, she’s also a historian. Her specialty is genealogical research. I can give her our list of suspects and set her on the trail in search of Meys.”