Anything not sold would either go to the dump with Claude Marmot or be donated to charity. Money earned was earmarked for the senior center.
Theo glanced at Susan. Dressed in new jeans and sweatshirt, she looked fairly rested and almost normal. The haunted expression in her eyes and the tension in her face told the real story. According to her friend Melissa, Susan had not wanted to attend the luncheon. The two younger women had enjoyed Ada's company, though, and felt obliged to pay their respects. Theo waved them over. “I set aside a few more things I'm sure Ada would have offered to you first. If you don't want them, I'll just slap them on a table.”
Stashed together in a corner were some basic quilting supplies like scissors, a mat, rulers, and a rotary cutter.
Susan smiled. “I'll take all of the quilting stuff. Even if I don't have room for it and it's not my favorite fabric or pattern. I promise I'll take care of it.”
“Good.” Theo released a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. “Ada threatened to haunt me forever if her fabric and projects don't find a good home.”
As if they'd been waiting for an invisible signal, the remaining senior citizens from Ada's group joined them. They sorted through Ada's things and bought little but sat together, enjoying the outdoor luncheon, and called encouraging instructions to those more avid shoppers.
“As payment for lunch,” Theo said, rising to her full petite height. She blew a whistle to cut through the chatter. “I think it would be nice if each of us would tell an Ada story. I'll go first.” Theo paused. “The first time Ada came into my shop, she was with her daughter. Ada had just moved here and the two of them were exploring downtown Silersville and stopped by. Ada said that living near her daughter was fine, but having the charity quilts to work on made life worth living.”
Tony stood. He'd joined them just before Theo began to speak. Theo thought he looked tired or sad or some combination of the two. “I've never met anyone, man or woman, who had a finer repertoire of cuss words, and I'm certain I learned at least three very useful ones from Ada.”
“No kidding,” Theo whispered. “I'm sure Chris and Jamie have heard a wide variety of curses over the years, but it made me cringe whenever a mom was in the store and Ada started telling a story. It was blankety-blank this and blankety-blank that. Have mercy, I thought.” Unchecked, fat tears rolled down her face. “I'll miss her.”
Tony rested a comforting warm hand on her back, just below her neck. “I know.”
RUNNING IN CIRCLES
A MYSTERY QUILT
THIRD BODY OF CLUES:
Cut the 5 1/2″ squares of fabrics (B) (C) (D) (E) (F) and (G) diagonally twice to make quarter square triangles and stack them and label them by color letter. To protect the bias edges from stretching, handle as little as necessary.
Divide fabric (B) into two stacks and place, center points touching.
Lay all 48 triangles of (C) into one of the spaces between the (B) stacks and place the 12 triangles of each remaining fabric into the remaining space. Sew together forming 12 hourglass blocks of each layout. Press and trim to 4 1/2″.
Stack the strips made in the Second Clue—D+B+A+B+E on top of each other.
Stack the squares labeled (B+F) with stripes horizontal and place above center (A).
Stack the squares labeled (B+G) with stripes horizontal and place below center (A).
In the corner spaces, stack the hourglass blocks with (F) triangles touching the left end of (B+F).
Stack hourglass blocks with (G) triangles touching the right end of (B+G).
Stack hourglass blocks with (D) triangles in space remaining with (B+D) and (E) triangles touching (B+E).
Before sewing, look at the arrangement. There should appear to be four arrows aligned counterclockwise around center block (A). Sew upper row blocks into strips and lower row blocks into strips. Press. Sew on appropriate side of center strip. Press away from “A”.
Make 12 blocks. Trim to 12 1/2″.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Yes, of course I knew Harrison Ragsdale. We worked together for quite a few years.” Douglas Seaborn sat at his desk, his thick fingers laced on his old-fashioned blotter. Behind him was a poster about the danger of forest fires. “What can I tell you? He did his job. I did my job. We didn't socialize.”
Tony thought Ragsdale's supervisor was evasive, and no wonder. If he gave Ragsdale a glowing recommendation, he'd be lying, and if he told the truth, he'd be a suspect. Tony slipped an antacid into his mouth. He could already tell this interview wasn't going to go smoothly and exchanged glances with Wade who sat next to him. “I'm sure he followed the guidelines as written.”
Seaborn nodded but offered no further information.
“Maybe you can tell me if your office received any letters or phone calls complaining about him.”
“Do you need a warrant to ask these questions?” Seaborn remained still.
“I can get a warrant to arrest you for obstruction.” Tony didn't believe himself to be a man who was easily angered, but within seconds of sitting down he was furious. “I can't see what the problem is. He's dead. Unless you killed him, I'd think you'd want to know how and why he died. So maybe I'll just arrest you and lock you up on the presumption of guilt.” All patience exhausted, he rose from the chair.
“Okay, okay.” Seaborn raised his hands. “I'll tell you the truth, but I really don't want to have to testify. I hated the man. I hated seeing him, hearing his voice. I hated getting phone calls about him. In fact”—he paused to catch his breath—“I don't think paying you to search for whoever might have speeded his departure from this planet is a good use of taxpayer dollars. How's that for an opinion?”
Tony relaxed a bit. “I'd say it's honest and well-earned.” Seated next to him, Wade shifted but remained silent. “Will you answer my questions now?”
Seaborn nodded as he stood up and crossed to a four-drawer file cabinet. He patted the drawer below the top one. “It's filled with letters of complaint about Ragsdale. They date back to almost his first day on the job.” He opened the drawer and retrieved a thick folder. “This file contains phone messages complaining about him. I only kept the ones where the caller identified him or herself.”
“Pardon my asking this, but why?” Tony searched for the right way to ask his question.
“Why didn't we fire him?” Seaborn sat and went back to his laced hands pose. “Because he followed the letter of the law. Believe me, we watched to see if he put department gasoline in his personal vehicle or violated policy in any manner. Although we investigated, most, but not all, complaints about him, he either hadn't done anything technically wrong, or there was no evidence. One whole file is filled with letters from elderly ladies of the county who were miffed because he didn't hold the door open for them at the store or carry their groceries to the car.”
Tony could sympathize. His own small staff did the best they could to accommodate the county citizens, driving them to appointments or helping carry groceries, but they did have their own jobs to do. An accident or burglary had to take precedence over courtesy calls, and while most of the seniors were understanding and grateful for the assistance they did receive, there were a couple of cranky, squeaky wheels. “I've got some of those too.”
Seaborn leaned back in his chair, more relaxed than he had been. “I couldn't fire a man for rumor and innuendo, and while I'm sure he committed every one of the foul deeds in that file, he never left any evidence.” Seaborn suddenly leaned forward, knocking his pencil holder to the floor, scattering its contents. He ignored it. “My own mother's dog went missing, and she said that she ‘knew’ he did it, but didn't see it and I couldn't help her.”
Tony didn't feel like they were getting anywhere. “I've never known another employee of your office or any other, federal or state, whose job entailed anything to do with animals having such a poor attitude about them, have you?”
“Once before, back when I was still living in Pennsylvania as a boy, I met
a man very much like Ragsdale. He lost his job fairly quickly because he wasn't as cagey as Ragsdale.” Seaborn said. “I did nothing to Ragsdale, but I often dreamed of the day the animals would get their revenge. I had rather hoped it might be something painful and prolonged, but I understand he went down fast.”
Wade raised his pen from his notebook like a student interrupting a professor. “Were you aware of Ragsdale's allergy to nuts?”
Bull's-eye. Tony watched Seaborn turn an unbecoming shade of gray.
“I was.” Seaborn rested his hand on Ragsdale's personnel file. “He didn't make a big deal about it, but it was part of his required information, plus his wife is my niece.” He cleared his throat. “I understand that's what killed him?”
“Really?” Tony was curious. “I wasn't aware a final determination had been announced.”
“I presumed. I mean, that is why you're asking about nuts, isn't it?”
Seaborn became so flustered he stopped making much sense.
Wade consulted his notebook. “You were one of the people in the booth serving ramp pie just before he died.”
“One of many. There was a crowd back there, cutting and serving or handing out napkins and stuff, and more pies coming from the kitchen and empty pans going back there. One whole crew stayed in the kitchen cooking.” He exhaled sharply. “We were shocked so many people wanted to eat ramps.”
Tony clicked his pen. “Perhaps you could make a list of the names of the people you remember seeing during your shift. We can compare it with other lists.”
Eagerly, after retrieving a pen from those scattered on the floor, Seaborn began writing on a sheet of stationary. “Do you only want those of us serving?”
“Not necessarily. You can list them by job if it makes it easier for you.” Tony was lazy enough to let other people divide things into similar groupings for him. He really doubted Seaborn was the guilty party and thought it unlikely he'd seen anything of importance. Unlikely things happen all the time, however, so Tony sat calmly watching the man scribble, waiting for him to look up. At length, he did. “If you were going to guess who on your list did it, who would you pick?”
Seaborn scanned his list. “Carl Lee Cashdollar.”
“Why?” Tony sat forward.
“I understand he thought Ragsdale ran over his wife's Siamese cat and barely missed hitting Jill when he drove away. I never saw Carl Lee so angry before. He's usually pretty laid back, but I think I heard him suggest putting ground glass on Ragsdale's slice of ramp pie so he could suffer what he called the ‘miseries of hell.’ ”
“And?” Tony sensed there was more.
“He left before his shift was due to end.” Seaborn handed him the list. “Said he needed to take Jill home.”
Tony thought about it. Just because Carl Lee was an attorney, and a defense attorney at that, did not make him immune to doing wrongful acts. Like Tony himself, he saw lots of people doing bad, criminal, or just plain stupid things every day. And he loved his wife. So if his wife was crying about the senselessly run-down pet, he might consider it an act of public service to try and give the perpetrator a taste of misery. He himself might have given the man something laced with walnuts if he'd known about an allergy, never dreaming it would kill him, but hoping the man would break out in itchy welts.
They found Carl Lee sitting in the hallway outside the courtroom. “Hey, Sheriff. Hey, Wade.” Carl Lee smiled broadly as he watched them approach. “How's it going?”
Tony looked into the man's pale blue eyes and saw no concern in them. “We're still looking for clues about the poisoner of Harrison Ragsdale.”
“He was poisoned?” Carl Lee's focus flickered away and then back. “I suppose you've heard about me threatening to feed him a bit of ground glass.”
Tony nodded. “So you did threaten him?”
“Not to his face. I was spouting off about him in the serving line.”
“You didn't take a little extra something with you and slip it in his food?” said Wade.
Carl Lee shook his head, but there was anger in his eyes and expression. “I wasn't planning to be one of the food servers, or I might have. My wife cried for days. Ragsdale drove by and her cat went missing. It might not have been quite so traumatic if he hadn't done it right in front of her.” He held out his skinny wrists. “You want to slap the cuffs on me, go ahead.”
“Did you hear anyone else talking trash about the man?” Tony kept his hands away from the handcuffs on his belt.
“Everyone.” Carl Lee lowered his hands. “I can imagine the Farquhar boys thinking it's cool to have everyone in the county either hate you or fear you, but what did Ragsdale get out of being so mean-hearted? Since I'm a stay-at-home-in-the-evening kind of guy, I guess he could have had a secret life, hanging out in the bars or going to city for fun kinds of things. For all I know, he was a karaoke fan.”
“Not that I've found out so far.” Tony paused to think about Carl Lee's question. What had Ragsdale done with his spare time? He thought maybe he'd explore the man's house. He might learn something useful.
He had already checked Ragsdale's cell phone records. Besides lots of calls to his office, most of his calls were to Pops Ogle. What did those two men have in common? Pops's loves were music and fundamental religion. Tony tried to imagine Harrison Ragsdale being involved with either of those things and failed miserably.
The Ragsdale house sat at the far end of the two-block long street from Blossom's house with the new, and quite lovely, white picket fence. It was not the house Ragsdale grew up in, but in a town the size of Silersville there wasn't a lot of distance between any two buildings.
Wade parked in front of the house, and he and Tony stared at it for a while.
Tony thought it looked like half the houses in the county. A single story, white house with a sloping roof that extended over the front porch. Four large posts supported it. The front door was painted dark green and neatly divided the front of the house in two sections, each one with a pair of sash windows placed side by side.
He climbed out of Wade's car, adjusted his heavy-duty belt and glanced at his deputy. “Take as many pictures as you want.” Walking over to the ruts worn into the lawn, he looked to the back of the property. A detached garage sat at the end of the ruts. It was big enough to hold a single car. Ragsdale's work vehicle, a pickup with the official insignia on the doors was parked at the curb. “Wade, do you have any idea what happened to the vehicle he drove to the museum?”
“Not right offhand, but I'll find out.” Wade talked into the microphone clipped to his shirt while he took the camera from its case and took a few pictures of the house and lawn. He glanced up at Tony. “No vehicle was abandoned or towed to the storage lot.”
“So how'd he get out there?” Tony checked the mailbox. There were a few pieces of junk mail, nothing personal. “It's hard to imagine he went with friends and they kept it secret.”
Wade shook his head. “Frankly it's hard to imagine he had friends, isn't it?”
“There's not a tree or a bush or a flower, just grass.” Tony's gesture encompassed the entire site. “Considering the growing habits of plants around here, that's quite a feat. Most of us spend time chopping stuff down.”
“Maybe he poisoned everything else.” Wade snapped a picture of the barren patch where a former flower bed had become simply dirt with some clumps of grass.
Tony thought it looked like someone had been digging there recently.
He took the keys from the evidence envelope and unlocked the front door. He didn't know what he expected the inside of Ragsdale's house to be like—maybe one or two recliners and a giant flat-screen television or plain bare rooms—but when he stepped inside, he came to a sudden halt. What would be a living room in most houses was here set up as a workshop. Unfinished furniture pieces sat at one end, and large, well-maintained and very expensive tools filled the dining area. Two closed doors, one in the dining area and one in the living area, were the only parts of the main
wall not covered with peg boards displaying small tools. “Wow.”
“You got that right.” Wade's voice was almost drowned out by the clicking of the camera shutter. “Who knew?”
“Let's see what else he has, and then you can come back and take more pictures.” Tony guessed the door on the left would be the kitchen and on the right, maybe a pair of bedrooms. He headed into the kitchen. He was correct. It was a plain room filled with a sink, stove, refrigerator, a worn countertop, and cabinets. The flooring looked like it hadn't been replaced since the house was built, probably seventy years earlier. A rescued school desk, the kind with the seat attached to it and a wooden writing surface hinged over a storage area was the only place to sit or to eat.
“That's weird.” Wade had opened the refrigerator. “He's got piles of sandwiches made up and wrapped in bread sacks.”
“Ah, hell, I'm going to have to say something nice about him.” Tony recognized the bags. He'd seen some like them not long ago. Rumor said an unidentified man had been handing out bags of cheese sandwiches and peanut butter sandwiches to the hungry and homeless. “Either he was the secret sandwich fellow, or he was stealing bags of sandwiches from the needy.”
“So he probably planned to deliver these on Saturday afternoon or evening. That's the usual schedule.” Wade started to reach for a bag. “He missed this week. I could take them if we knew the drop spot.”
Tony was pretty sure he knew the spot and positive the sight of a county sheriff's department vehicle would keep the intended recipients from accepting them. “Let's call Pops Ogle and get him to do it. I'll go out on a limb and say he was involved anyway.”
“How could Ragsdale make peanut butter sandwiches and not have an allergic reaction?”
“He was only allergic to tree nuts.” Tony was quite proud of knowing the answer. “Peanuts do not grow on trees.”
Minutes after Tony's call, Pops Ogle arrived at Ragsdale's house. He opened the back door of his car, and Tony could see a row of insulated totes. Pops trotted to the kitchen door as if he'd done the same thing many times in the past.
Barbara Graham - Quilted 04 - Murder by Vegetable Page 23
