Hemmed
In
A Quilters Club Mystery
Marjory Sorrell Rockwell
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“Our lives are like quilts – bits and pieces, joy and sorrow, stitched with love.”
- Anonymous
Hemmed
In
Chapter One
The Mad Matilda Wilkins Quilt
Turns out that Maddy Madison missed Tuesday’s gathering of the Quilters Club because she had to drive to Indianapolis to pick up her grandson, N’yen. Bill and Kathy had adopted the boy last year. Just turning nine, he’d asked to visit “Grammy and Grampy” as his birthday present. Which meant that he really wanted to see his favorite cousin, eleven-year-old Agnes.
Aggie was an honorary member of the Quilters Club and N’yen wanted to join too. The kids saw it as an undercover detective agency, being that its members – Maddy Madison, Lizzie Ridenour, Bootsie Purdue, and Cookie Bentley – had solved a couple of local crimes last year.
However, the four members of the Quilters Club saw it as … well, a quilter’s club. The crime solving had been incidental.
Aggie and her mom had joined Maddy for the drive to Indianapolis (a two-hour journey each way) to pick up the boy. As a result, they missed the biggest robbery that had ever taken place in Caruthers Corners – the theft of the Mad Matilda Wilkins quilt, a patchwork masterpiece that had hung in the lobby of the Town Hall for over one hundred years.
The quilt had been appraised at $100,000 ... but to the good folks of Caruthers Corners it was priceless.
Back in 1897, Matilda Wilkins had hand-stitched this wondrous patchwork creation, a scene that might have been conceived by Hieronymus Bosch. There on the fabric danced angels and demons, sinners and saints. The border was decorated with odd symbols that some thought might be a secret code, supposedly the language of Satan himself. You see, Mad Matilda was known to be a witch.
She had lived on Cloven Hoof Lane, so-named in deference to its only resident. Her cottage had been located at the end of the narrow dirt road. Once a stone structure with a slumping roof, the cottage has long since fallen to the ground. Nonetheless, visitors like to drive out to look at the scattered stones and the well where she is said to have died, refusing to float, as witches are wont to do.
The religious zealots who tossed Mad Matilda into the 80-foot well were never officially identified, but legend had it they were members of a snake-handling cult that maintained a house of worship over near the Never Ending Swamp. Other than the leader – Rev. Billingsley Royce – the identities of its members are a forgotten part of history. There’s no sign of the church today, its exact location debated by old-timers.
Mad Matilda’s patchwork quilt had been rescued from the crumbling cottage by a distant relative and donated to the Caruthers Corners Historical Society. Thereafter, the quilt has been displayed in the lobby of the Town Hall as a decorative wall hanging – its satanic history ignored, its craftsmanship admired.
Quilting Bee magazine once called it “the best example of allegorical quilt design extent in Indiana.” Many museums had offered to buy it, but the Historical Society refused to sell this piece of the town’s heritage.
For over five generations the 8’ x 8’ objet d’art had loomed over visitors to the Town Hall, accepted as an oddity, but nonetheless mesmerizing in its intricate design.
Then it was stolen.
There one day, gone the next – the very date that N’yen Madison had turned nine. Of course, there was no connection. Or was there?
Chapter Two
The Quilters Club On the Case
Caruthers Corners had been founded in 1829 by three stranded fur trappers. One of them, a sour and dyspeptic man named Jacob Caruthers, had lent his name to the town that grew up on this very spot. The other had been a sneaky backstabber named Ferdinand Jinks. And the third had been a crusty old Indian fighter named Beauregard Madison. As it turns out, Col. Madison was the great-great grandfather of Beauregard Hollingsworth Madison IV, Maddy’s husband – and the town’s current mayor.
“This will be the ruination of me,” groaned Beau as he sat at the kitchen table, head cradled in his arms. His wife had just returned from the airport in Indianapolis with young N’yen in tow. She was shocked by the news. The Wilkins Witch Quilt was one of the town’s claims to fame, that and its annual watermelon festival.
With a population of only 2,577 (not counting N’yen’s singular visit), the town got more recognition than you’d expect. Watermelon Days had been featured last year on The Today Show, with Al Roker entering the watermelon-eating contest. He came in 63 out of 87 contestants.
Beau had just finished reciting the known facts: The quilt had been in its place on the wall in the lobby when he locked the Town Hall last night. It was gone when he opened up this morning. The alarm had not been tripped.
Police Chief Jim Purdue was baffled. He was more used to handing out parking tickets along the town’s two-block business district than solving art thefts. Jim was Beau Madison’s best friend and the husband of Maddy’s pal Bootsie. “I’ve called in the state boys,” he said, patting Beau reassuringly on the shoulder.
The kitchen was crowded – Beau, Jim, Maddy, Bootsie, daughter Tilly and her husband Mark. Even Cookie and Lizzie. Plus the kids, Aggie and N’yen. The Vietnamese boy’s parent’s had entrusted him to the airlines for the trip, allowing the Chicago couple to enjoy a mid-week vacation at the Wisconsin Dells.
Tilly’s hubby was also the town’s attorney. Mark the Shark (as he was known to the family) had been a big-time Los Angeles lawyer before downsizing his life and moving back to the ol’ hometown. “I spoke to the SBI this afternoon,” he reported. “They’re sending in an electronics expert first thing in the morning. Said they want to figure out how the perp bypassed the alarm system.”
“Perp?” asked Tilly.
“Perpetrator,” Jim Purdue explained the verbal shorthand.
“The SBI says –” Mark Tidemore continued.
“SBI?” interrupted Tilly.
“The State Bureau of Investigation,” Jim translated.
Mark plowed on, “– says the alarm was still set, no signs of forced entry, no clues whatsoever. They can’t figure out how the quilt
was stolen.”
“That makes two of us,” sighed the police chief.
“Beats me too,” nodded Beau. “That quilt disappeared as if by magic.”
“Of course, it was magic,” giggled little Aggie. “The woman who made it was a witch.”
“Aggie!” scolded her mother.
“That’s what my Sunday School teacher said.”
“There is no such thing as a witch,” her mother corrected.
“Didn’t you say the lady who runs the Clothes Horse Boutique is a witch?” That was a small dress shop on Main Street owned by Missy Yager. Missy was a former Watermelon Days Queen (1998).
“That’s because she said I was fat.”
“Missy said that?” exclaimed Tilly’s mother.
“Not exactly. She suggested I needed to go up a dress size.”
“That was after the second baby,” her husband pointed out. “You’ve lost all that extra weight.”
“What? You think I’m fat too?”
Mark rolled his eyes, sensing a no-win conversation. “You look perfect, hon.”
Maddy turned to her granddaughter. “Sometimes people call each other names when they get upset. But that doesn’t mean Missy Yager is actually a witch on a broomstick.”
“Like the ones at Halloween?” asked Aggie.
“That’s just pretend,” said Maddy. “Like ghosts and goblins.”
“If there aren’t real ghosts, how does a dead person float up to Heaven?”
“We’ll talk about that later,” grinned Maddy. “But as far as the quilt’s disappearance is concerned, it has nothing to do with magic.”
“That’s right, honey,” said Jim Purdue. “When I said ‘magic’ I was just exaggerating.”
Aggie wrinkled her forehead. “Exaggerating?”
“Stretching the truth,” explained Maddy.
“Well, yeah,” grunted Jim.
Mark the Shark stated the obvious: “We still have to figure out how the thief managed to steal that quilt.”
“Don’t worry,” said N’yen. “The Quilters Club will solve this case.”
Chapter Three
An Inside Job
Police Chief Jim Purdue shook his head. “Sorry, young man, but your grandmother and her friends are sitting this one out.”
“Why?” pouted N’yen. “The Quilters Club could help you find the burglar.”
“It’s bad enough when the Quilters Club meddles in one of my cases, but the state boys won’t hesitate to arrest them for interfering with a police investigation.”
Aggie Tidemore frowned. “But aren’t you the police, Uncle Jim?”
“Well, yes. But these are state police. Higher up the ladder than me. They’re taking over the investigation.”
“Why can’t you just deputize the Quilters Club?” argued N’yen. “Let them handle it.”
Maddy was trying hard to conceal her smile. “It doesn’t work that way, dear. We are ex officio. Not official detectives.”
“That’s right,” nodded the girl’s grandfather. “You gals are just pretend detectives.”
“Gals?” challenged N’yen. “What about me? I wanna be a pretend detective too.”
Chief Purdue laughed. “Oh? What could you tell us about this case?”
The boy raised his chin defiantly. “Well, if nobody broke into Town Hall, maybe they broke out instead.”
That stopped everyone.
“Hm, if someone knew the code, he could reset the alarm system from inside the building, giving him time to get out without setting off the bells and whistles,” admitted Beau Madison.
“But what about the locked door?” said Mark the Shark.
“The deadbolt has a knob inside. You could unlock it, step outside and let it snap back into place,” replied Beau.
“But you’d have to be inside the building to begin with,” argued the police chief.
Beau thought for a moment. “I suppose someone could have hidden in a restroom,” he said. “Can’t say that I checked them before leaving last night.”
“An inside job,” exclaimed Bootsie.
“Now don’t go saying that,” Jim Purdue warned his wife. “Anybody could have gone into the building during office hours and hidden out in the restroom.”
“That’s what I meant. Someone inside the building.”
Beau thought about it. “If it really was an inside job, someone who works there, the list of suspects would be short – me, my secretary, the Town Clerk, and the Tax Assessor. The head of Building and Zoning was out sick, and the Director of Public Works is on vacation.”
“What about the Town Planner?” asked Bootsie.
Beau shrugged. “We don’t have one at the moment, not since Joe Johansson went to meet his maker last month.”
“Oh, that’s right,” she nodded. “He’s the fellow who stuck his finger in the light socket while changing a bulb. I don’t think I ever met him.”
“Joe was new to town,” answered Beau. “I’d just hired him down from Gary. He was moving into his house on Rocking Chair Lane when it happened. Blew out the circuits on that side of town. They were without electricity for two whole days.”
“I remember,” said Maddy. “The funeral home is on that side of town so the refrigeration was out. They had to store his body at the ice plant till the electricity came back on.”
“First, we need to establish alibis for all the town employees,” said Mark. Liability insurance would kick in, if one of the officials were at fault.
“Me, I was here last night,” said Beau.
Maddy nodded. “I can vouch for that. This isn’t like the time Beau stole that statue of his great-great grandfather.”
“That was different,” muttered Beau. “It was a ploy to immortalize my forbearer.”
Jim Purdue waved away their words. “You’re not under suspicion, Beau. You’re the mayor, for goodness sake.”
“The last mayor was a crook,” Beau pointed out. Not looking for any favoritism.
“But you’re not,” the police chief ended the discussion. “Besides, you have a reliable witness vouching for your whereabouts – your wife.”
“That’s right,” said Maddy. “I barely slept last night, anticipating N’yen’s arrival. I can attest you were in bed beside me – except for two trips to the bathroom. That nervous bladder of yours.”
“We’d better clear the other town officials,” Beau quickly changed the subject from his bladder, “so the state boys can focus on real suspects.”
“And we need to make a list of everyone they can recall being in the building yesterday,” added Jim Purdue. “I’d better interview them while memories are fresh.”
“I can’t believe the Wilkins Witch Quilt has been stolen,” said Bootsie.
“Yes, it’s an irreplaceable heirloom,” nodded Cookie.
“Valuable too,” added Lizzie.
“True,” agreed Maddy. “A hundred thousand dollars is nothing to sneeze at.”
“Point well taken,” sighed Beau Madison. “Guess we’d better put surveillance cameras back into next year’s budget.”
Chapter Four
Rev. Royce and the Church of Avenging Angels
In addition to being a member of the Quilters Club, Cookie Bentley served as head of the Caruthers Corners Historical Society. So it was no surprise to her friends that she knew all the sordid details about Mad Matilda Wilkins – the town’s alleged witch.
The Quilters Club had gathered in the cramped quarters of the Historical Society to conspire. Despite last night’s warning, they couldn’t resist looking into the theft.
“Yes, Matilda Wilkins was certifiably mad,” Cookie affirmed, sitting there behind her antique desk. “The old woman truly believed she was a witch. People came to her to buy love potions, have her to cast spells on their enemies, and predict their future. By all accounts these occult activities made her quite wealthy. But no money was found after her death. Everybody assumed that those fanatics who murdered her took it.�
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“Why didn’t they take the quilt?” asked Liz Ridenour. Being a banker’s wife, she always thought in monetary terms.
“We value it today, but back then it was just a fancy bedspread,” explained Cookie. “Besides, all those symbols on the quilt may have scared them. It was said Mad Matilda used it in satanic ceremonies.”
“Why didn’t those people who murdered her get arrested?” asked Bootsie. As the wife of the police chief, she was curious about such details.
Cookie patted a stack of yellowed newspapers. “According to contemporary reports, all the members of the Church of Avenging Angels left the county in the dark of night. None were ever captured.”
“Church of Avenging Angels?” repeated Maddy. “That sounds quite ominous.”
“They were an extremist cult. Believed that violence against evil was justified. Hunted down witches.” She pulled a faded photograph out a drawer. “This is Rev. Billingsley Royce, leader of the Avenging Angels. If anybody got Matilda Wilkins’s money, it was this guy.”
Maddy leaned forward to study the photo. The man had close-set eyes and spikey, unkempt hair. His pointed chin looked very defiant. A wine-stain birthmark covered half his forehead. He held a coiled snake in his hands. “Scary looking,” she observed.
“Rev. Royce may have been crazier than Mad Matilda. It’s said he slept in a bed of rattlesnakes. But I suspect that’s just a tall tale,” added Cookie.
“What does any of this have to do with the stolen quilt?” scowled Lizzie Ridenour. The redhead had a short attention span.
“Maybe nothing,” admitted Cookie, pushing her wire-rimmed granny glasses back upon the bridge of her thin nose. “But knowing the quilt’s history may be helpful in recovering it.”
Hemmed In (A Quilters Club Mystery No. 4) (Quilters Club Mysteries) Page 1
