Threads of Deceit (Vineyard Quilt Mysteries Book 1) (8 page)

B
y the next morning, Julie had nearly convinced herself that the search for a ship on dry land wasn’t likely to draw any media interest at all. She kept telling herself that the only people she’d encounter at the farm would be George, Daniel, perhaps the owner … and no one else. No media. No cameras. The pep talk worked until she walked into the kitchen for her coffee.

The smell of fresh muffins hung in the air. Hannah pulled two pans from the oven and set them on cooling racks. “Have you seen the paper?”

Julie shook her head as she walked to the coffee maker. “Not without my coffee.”

“Your boyfriend made the front page—under the fold, but still front page.”

“I don’t have a boyfriend.” Julie picked up the newspaper from the counter. The
Straussberg Gazette
must have been having a slow news day because the headline read, “A Sunken Ship on Dry Land?” She skimmed the article and saw it consisted mostly of the same things Daniel had told her, only the writer had spun the story so that Daniel sounded like a deluded idiot.

“Have you considered that it might not be a good idea to have him at this inn?” Hannah asked as she shook the muffins out of the pans onto the racks.

Julie looked up. “Why?”

“Because you don’t need the media interested in anything around you.”

“The article doesn’t mention the inn,” Julie said. “Just Winkler Farm.”

“Well, someone seems to know about treasure hunters at the inn,” Hannah said. “Or have you forgotten the little hand-stitched love note someone left on our porch?”

Julie stiffened as realization dawned on her. “You know, I had half dismissed the possibility that the message was for Daniel because he’d only just arrived at the inn. But what if the note
was
meant for him? The more I think about it, stitching a threat onto cloth doesn’t seem like the kind of threat a criminal art ring with ties to the mob would make.”

Hannah carefully placed the warm muffins into cloth-lined baskets, then nodded. “You have a point. I envision the art ring sending you a bomb, or maybe a finger, but not a piece of stitchery—and a pretty one at that.”

“It’s possible the stitcher never imagined I would assume the message was addressed to me,” Julie said. “If we weren’t worried about the art ring, we would have been certain the threat was addressed to Daniel.”

“Maybe you should ask him if he has a stalker. Though not this morning.” Hannah pointed a muffin at Julie. “This morning you should stay as far away as possible from Winkler Farm and the media attention that’s likely to be there.”

Julie snatched the muffin out of Hannah’s hand and took a bite. The burst of warm apple flavor was a welcome distraction from all the talk of gloom and doom. “I
have
to go to the farm. I practically extorted the invitation. Daniel will wonder why I changed my mind if I don’t.”

“Tell him there was an emergency here. If you give it a minute, there probably will be.”

“No. I said I’d be there, and I will. Besides, I already have the morning scheduled to be off, so you’re not getting out of crisis-management duty that easy. Shirley will be here to help, but you’ll need to man the front desk.”

“I wasn’t trying to avoid work,” Hannah said. “You need to take this risk seriously. Criminal mafia rings aren’t known for their forgiving nature. You
stole
something from them. Something very valuable. Do you think they’re going to let it go that easily?”

Julie didn’t know how to make her friend understand that she
was
taking the risk seriously. She just wasn’t willing to let it run her life.

“I’ll be careful,” Julie said. “Promise.”

By the time she met Daniel in the lobby, she’d cleared up two small guest complaints and managed to snag another of Hannah’s fantastic muffins. All in all, she considered it a good morning.

One look at Daniel’s face, and she could tell it wasn’t going quite as well for him. “Problems?”

“Did you see the newspaper?” he asked.

Julie nodded. “I thought you wanted publicity.”

“I didn’t want to be described as ‘delusional.’”

“That’s the thing about publicity. Once you let that tiger out of the cage, you can’t do much to control it.”

“I hope they man up and print some kind of retraction when we find the ship’s location today.” He looked around the lobby, and Julie followed his gaze. As always, the room was almost painfully clean. Sometimes Julie wondered if Inga were magic.

Daniel’s next remark snapped Julie’s focus back to the dig. “So are you free to go? My truck’s parked close. It doesn’t look like much, but I promise sitting in it won’t get your jeans dirty.”

“Not that I don’t believe you,” Julie said, “but I think I’d better follow you in my car. If there’s a problem here, I’ll have to come back before you’re done.”

The drive out to the Winkler farm was lovely. It made Julie realize she probably should make more of an effort to get out of the inn and look around the area. Recent rain had brightened the green grass, and the unusually warm fall had held off the frost. In the distance, the rolling hills were patched with shades of green as well.

Winkler Farm rested on surprisingly flat land, crisscrossed with barbed-wire fencing and dotted with outbuildings and a big white farmhouse off to one side. Julie turned onto the dirt road, where a sun-faded sign declared she’d find an organic farm stand within a half mile. Since Daniel continued on past the stand, Julie did little more than glance at the brightly painted wooden table piled with apples, pumpkins, and butternut squash. A slim woman in a dark green apron waved before turning back to attend to a customer.

They circled a long outbuilding with a blue metal roof, then drove past a muddy pond where brown cows with pink noses watched them balefully. Julie was never completely comfortable around farm animals. As a child, she had suspected they knew the farmer had evil designs and were only waiting for the right moment to take over the farm themselves.

The dirt road grew less and less well kept as they traveled away from the recently harvested fields. Eventually the road turned to little more than ruts, and Daniel rolled to a stop beside a boxy Mini Cooper. Julie eased in beside him, looking at the muddy ground suspiciously. She did not want to find herself stuck on the farm.

By the time she climbed out of her car, Daniel was a good twenty yards away, his long legs striding toward a red-haired man with a machine strapped to him and holding what looked like a white boom mike on a pole.

As Julie crossed the field, the red-haired man looked in
her direction, then said something to Daniel that made him laugh. By the time she’d reached them, the man she assumed to be George was almost bouncing up and down with excitement. “I’m so glad I don’t have to spend the day with nothing lovely to look at!”

Julie raised an eyebrow. “The farm is beautiful.”

George snorted. “The farm is a muddy rut with grumpy-looking cows, but
you
are a vision.”

“Maybe you should have your vision checked,” Julie said with a smile. “I’ll assume you’re Daniel’s friend George.”

“That’s right,” Daniel said. “George and I went to college together, but only one of us is still using the lines he learned there.”

George laughed. “I learned all my best lines from my grandfather. Show some respect.”

“Don’t take him seriously; no one ever does,” Daniel said. “And never encourage him.”

“You really don’t need to,” George said. “I encourage myself.” He turned a pointed look at Daniel. “You’re not going to tell me this lovely lady’s name?”

Daniel gestured from one to the other. “Julie Ellis, George Benning. Remember, you’ve been warned.”

“I believe I can take care of myself.” Julie turned an interested look toward the mechanism strapped to the geologist. “So this is a magnetometer?”

“A rather old one, but it’ll do what we need here,” George said. “Those old steamships had massive amounts of cast iron in the engine and boilers. If there’s one under the ground, we’ll find it.”

“I’m certain of it,” Daniel said. “Julie found the beam at the old Stark Mansion, and it had the coded message on it. Since the beam was originally found here, it’s simply a
matter of locating the rest of the ship here too.”

“You don’t need to convince me,” George said cheerfully. He turned to Julie and grinned. “I don’t suppose you’d care to assist me? You can help me carry around my equipment. It’s all connected, so you’ll need to walk really close to me.”

Julie shook her head. “You seem to be doing just fine. I learned to keep my distance from wolves on my first trip to the zoo.”

George laughed heartily before turning to Daniel. “I’m so glad you found this one.” George turned back to Julie to launch into an explanation of how the pulse magnetometer worked to find the magnetic field given off by the iron. She was about to tell him she didn’t know what half the words he was using meant when a van came rumbling along the dirt road toward them. A battered car followed closely behind.

“And the media arrives,” George said.

Julie slunk to the opposite side of George while Daniel stepped forward to greet the bored cameraman and reporter from the local television station. The two men practically had “They made me come” written across their faces. Still, Daniel treated them with his usual warm friendliness.

His tone turned a bit cooler when the woman from the newspaper introduced herself. The woman was thin to the point of looking sickly, as though her high cheekbones might suddenly cut through the skin of her face if she showed too much expression. Her trendy clothes contrasted sharply with the rusty wreck she’d driven up in. Julie’s eyes traveled down to the sleek black trousers with gold zippers on the ankles and the two-inch heels with gold metallic toes. Julie noted how the thin heels of the woman’s shoes kept punching into the packed mud with every move she made, causing her to wobble. Julie imagined that probably drove the woman crazy.
Certainly her smile looked angry and mean.

The reporter took one look at Daniel’s glower and chuckled. “I see you caught my story on the wreck in this morning’s paper,” she said.

Daniel regarded her coolly. “It wasn’t much of a story.”

“I’m certainly open to expanding on it,” she said with a sly grin. “Feel free to impress me.”

Daniel turned away and spoke to the other reporters. “Let’s get this search started.” He led them toward George and the magnetometer while Julie slunk back toward the vehicles to stay out of the camera line. She heard George cheerfully chatter on about his machine as he began working a grid, searching for signs of the ship. The morning crawled by while George searched and Julie dodged any potential photos.

The newspaper reporter only snapped a couple of photos of George and Daniel, paying Julie no attention whatsoever. That suited her just fine.

Eventually the television people gave up and left. Julie had to give them credit; they’d hung in longer than she expected, given the brief attention span of television news. She was finally able to relax a little at that point.

As the sun grew warmer, Julie pulled her dark curls into a messy ponytail to let the breeze from the river cool her neck. Antiquities recovery was definitely more interesting than treasure hunting. She began to regret the thick cotton sweater she’d worn with her jeans. But she refused to give up and go back to the inn after the big deal she’d made out of her interest in the hunt. She could almost picture both Daniel and Hannah laughing at her lack of patience.

The newspaper reporter seemed to be having a similar problem with patience. She’d wobbled back to lean on her car and make cellphone calls. She flicked dirt off her trousers
and shoes while giving Daniel and George occasional glances.

George was the only person clearly having a good time. Periodically, he would burst into song, usually with lyrics he’d obviously come up with on the spot. The songs tended toward bawdy, and virtually all featured really bad puns. In an act of mental self-preservation, Julie had pointedly stopped listening after he belted out, “When you’re down by the sea and an eel bites your knee, that’s a moray!”

The sound of another car rumbling up the dirt road drew everyone’s attention. It was a mud-splashed pickup truck. The driver looked like an advertisement for back-to-nature farming with his neatly trimmed blond beard and a cap advertising organic something or other. He ambled over to Daniel, nodding briefly at Julie. She assumed she was looking at the farm owner, Joseph Winkler, and her guess was confirmed on Daniel’s first words.

“Joseph,” he said, “have you met my friend George?”

The farmer nodded at George. “When he drove in.”

Daniel pointed toward Julie. “That’s my landlady, Julie Ellis.”

From her periphery, Julie saw the reporter perk up minutely. She tensed, expecting the woman to move toward her. But apparently the “landlady” wasn’t worth trudging through the mud for.

“Pleased to meet you,” Joseph said, directing the polite words at Julie but then allowing his head to drift toward the reporter as well. He turned back toward Daniel. “I got a weird phone call and thought I ought to tell you.”

“A phone call?”

“Some lawyer. I didn’t recognize the name, though he says he’s local. Anyway, he made an offer to buy my farm.”

“I didn’t know you were trying to sell.”

“I’m not. Maddie and I love it here and an organic farm is our dream. The lawyer said he represented someone who didn’t want to be named. They offered me a lot more for this place than it’s worth.”

“Why would someone do that?”

Joseph tipped back his cap to scratch his head. “That’s the weirdest part of all. The sale was dependent on my stopping the search for the steamboat immediately. Now, we don’t want to sell, so I’m not stopping you, but it’s weird.”

Daniel’s face clouded darkly, and he folded his arms over his chest. “I’d sure like to know who would want to shut me down. As far as I know, I’m the only person in America who truly believes there’s a steamship buried on this farm. Well, me and George.”

George grinned at his friend. “Me? I’m just here for the beer afterward.”