The Cats & the Riddle

by Jan Fields

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  The Cats & the Riddle

  Copyright © 2013 Annie’s.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews. For information address Annie’s, 306 East Parr Road, Berne, Indiana 46711-1138.

  The characters and events in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.

  _______________________________________

  Library of Congress-in-Publication Data

  The Cats & the Riddle/ by Jan Fields

  p. cm.

  I. Title

  2012917582

  ________________________________________

  AnniesMysteries.com

  800-282-6643

  Annie’s Attic Mysteries

  Series Editors: Ken and Janice Tate

  1

  The small silver bell hanging over the door of A Stitch in Time tinkled cheerfully as Annie Dawson walked into the needlecraft store. Mary Beth Brock glanced away from her only customer, a thin woman in an oversize coat who stood with her shoulders hunched as if she were cold.

  When Mary Beth caught sight of Annie, she mimed shocked surprise. Annie offered her a grin in return. It wasn’t often that she beat everyone to the shop on the day of a Hook and Needle Club meeting. In fact, Annie was often the last to arrive. It wasn’t that the Hook and Needle Club meetings weren’t important to her. They were. But she often found herself delayed through circumstances beyond her control. Today, though, it was smooth sailing with no last-minute phone calls or minor catastrophes.

  She drifted over to the crochet pattern books and began leafing through them. One reason she’d been especially careful to arrive early was to look for a very specific kind of crochet pattern. Her twin grandchildren wanted the same Easter present: animal caps with flaps that hung down over their ears. Apparently, they were all the rage at their elementary school. Her daughter, LeeAnn, had called over the weekend just so Joanna could tell her that she wanted a puppy cap and John wanted one in the form of a monkey.

  After flipping through all the books and coming up empty-handed, Annie wandered over to the counter. The thin woman was still leaning over, looking at a yarn catalog as Mary Beth flipped through it. Finally they closed the catalog and Mary Beth said, “That’s the last one I have. Why don’t you give me your email address, and I’ll send you a note if we get a catalog with yarn that color?”

  “That would be helpful,” the woman said as she wrote on the back of one of Mary Beth’s business cards.

  “Annie,” Mary Beth said with a bright smile, “I’d like you to meet Ivy Beckett. Ivy knew your grandmother. This is Annie Dawson.”

  The thin woman smiled up at Annie. She was as short as Mary Beth, though Mary Beth was definitely stouter. “I would have recognized you anywhere,” Ivy said softly. “Betsy showed me pictures of you many times.” Then the thin woman laughed, making her look much younger as her face lit up. “In fact, I saw you in nappies once or twice.”

  “Oh, no,” Annie said, chuckling. “I hope Gram didn’t pull out those particular photos for everyone!”

  “No, actually, the baby photos were part of her showing me how Grey Gables had changed through the years. I remember when she set out the azaleas in the front yard. She called them her ‘Annie flowers’ because they grow both in the South and up here.”

  “So you must have lived in Stony Point for years,” said Annie. “I’m surprised we haven’t bumped into each other before.”

  Ivy’s smile faded a little, and Annie noticed that her eyes looked sad. “I’m not very social, really.”

  The jingle of the bell drew their attention as Stella Brickson swept in looking every inch the matriarch with her perfectly set gray hair and beautiful brocade jacket. Swept along in Stella’s wake were Kate Stevens and a stranger with ash blond hair in tight curls. Ivy whispered something to Mary Beth and hurried toward the door. “It was nice to meet you, Ivy,” Annie called after her.

  Ivy looked back and nodded, but didn’t pause. Kate held the door open for the flustered woman. “Have a good day,” Kate said.

  Annie heard Ivy murmur something as she ducked out of the store, but Annie couldn’t make it out.

  “We seem to have frightened her off,” Kate said.

  “That woman is afraid of her own shadow,” Stella said dismissively.

  “But she’s very sweet,” Kate said.

  “That’s true,” Mary Beth added, “and she adored Betsy.” Mary Beth turned her cheery pixie face toward Annie. “Ivy spent a lot of time at Grey Gables and even did some gardening for Betsy when she began having trouble keeping up with it. I expect she had a hand in planting those azaleas that she mentioned. Betsy never got tired of adding color to the yard. You know your grandmother loved her garden.”

  The stranger who had come in with Kate and Stella peered owlishly up at Annie through very round glasses. “You’re Betsy Holden’s granddaughter? I’ve been meaning to talk to you about your home.”

  Annie looked at the woman in surprise. “My home?”

  “Yes, I’m Nancy Breaker, the president of the Stony Point Garden Club, and we’re planning an early-summer parade of homes this year. We’ve never done one before. Anyway, I’ve seen how much work you’ve put into bringing Grey Gables back to the beautiful condition in which Betsy kept it years ago. The house and garden had grown so run-down, but it’s quite lovely now. I know it would be a popular part of the tour. Will you let us add you in? You may opt for a quiet strolling tour of the outside grounds—maybe with some light refreshments set up under your maples. That would be very nice. Or if you’re open to it, we can actually take people inside to see the restoration you’ve done. I hear it’s lovely. The money we raise will be used for a very good cause.”

  “Oh?” Annie still felt a little overwhelmed by Nancy’s cheerful, but forceful, personality.

  “Yes, we’re raising money to do some major landscaping in the Town Square,” she said.

  “I don’t know, Nancy,” Mary Beth said. “I think the Town Square looks lovely now.”

  “Yes, yes. The grass is nice—don’t get me wrong—but I believe we could do so much more,” the woman said quickly. “We could make the space a bit more formal, reflecting the more cultured element of Stony Point. We’d like to add an heirloom rose garden to the grounds. Each rose will have a little plaque telling its type. And we can sell cuttings once a year to help maintain the garden.”

  “You’re wanting to put a formal rose garden on the grounds where kids play football and Frisbee in the summer?” Mary Beth asked.

  The woman looked pained. “The children have the park. I’ve often thought it would be best if we discouraged such horseplay on the Town Square. Not everything has to be a children’s playground.” She turned back to Annie and said, “So, may we include Grey Gables? I k
now Betsy would have wanted her home to be on the tour. She and I were very good friends. I often bumped into her at the grocery, and we talked and talked about flowers and such.”

  “You were close?” Stella said doubtfully. “Tell us, Annie, did Betsy ever mention Nancy to you?”

  “Um.” Annie didn’t know what to say. No, her grandmother hadn’t mentioned Nancy to her, but she hadn’t mentioned a great many of the people Annie had met since coming to Stony Point—particularly people who had entrusted Gram with their deepest secrets.

  “”That’s not important,” Nancy said. “The question is, will you honor your grandmother’s beautiful home by putting it on the tour?”

  “I’ll need to think about it,” Annie said, growing annoyed that the woman was trying to use Betsy as a bargaining point. Gram did love Grey Gables. Annie knew that was true and that she had been proud of the house. But she couldn’t picture Gram wanting to put the house on the tour. She never sought out accolades for her work. “When will the tour be held?”

  “Late June. We haven’t picked a date. You think about it, and I’ll call you. I really have to be going; I need to speak with some other people.” Then she paused and reached into her oversize leather purse. She pulled out business cards. “Here is my card, in case you want to call me instead of waiting for me to call you. Here’s one for everyone.” She thrust a card into Annie’s hand and then turned and tried to push one onto Stella. The older woman simply glared at Nancy until she gave up.

  “Nancy?” Mary Beth injected, before the woman ruffled Stella’s feathers any further. “Did you come in to shop for something?”

  The other woman blinked at Mary Beth. “Oh, not today. Though I do need to pick up some thread for doilies. I’ll need lots of doilies for my house by June. Plus, I want to have extras in case anyone on the tour wants a few. But I really have to go talk to a few other homeowners.” She turned to Annie again. “I’ll be calling you.”

  Then she turned and bustled out of the store.

  Annie watched as the little woman turned and hurried down the street. “I feel just a little bit like I was run over.”

  Mary Beth laughed. “Nancy has that effect on people.”

  2

  Stella looked annoyed as she glared at the now-closed door. “Thank goodness that tiresome woman spotted you, Annie,” she said. “She drove me half mad demanding I include my home on her silly tour. As if I want a bunch of strangers gawking at my home!”

  “I’m sure she meant the invitation to be flattering,” Kate said soothingly.

  Stella just harrumphed. “Well, she’d better not add me without my permission. The first time her silly tour bus stops in front of my yard, I’ll have Jason call the police and then throw rocks.”

  Annie smiled at the thought of Stella’s calm driver standing in the yard and throwing rocks at a tour bus.

  “She does have a point about both your homes,” Kate said. “I’m still amazed at all you’ve done to bring Grey Gables back to its former state, Annie.”

  Annie thanked her quietly, feeling again the pang of guilt over how much tender loving care Grey Gables had needed once Annie inherited the old Victorian home. She’d largely lost touch with Betsy in the last year of her grandmother’s life. They still talked on the phone regularly, but it was usually about what Annie was going through since her husband Wayne’s sudden death. Annie had no idea her grandmother was declining so rapidly until it was too late. Gram had always sounded so cheerful and full of energy when Annie spoke to her on the phone, and Annie had been distracted by the terrible pain over losing Wayne.

  She sighed. There was no point dwelling on things she couldn’t change. Four years had passed since Wayne’s heart attack had ripped him from her life, and three since Annie had received the fateful call about Betsy’s passing, She had moved to Stony Point, Maine, with the intention of settling her grandmother’s estate, putting Grey Gables in order and up for sale, and then moving back to her native Texas. That was before clearing out the attic at Grey Gables had led her on a series of mysterious adventures—and before she had fallen in love again with the little fishing village. With a mental shake, she turned her attention pointedly back to the conversation.

  “You know, I expect it was Nancy who scared poor Ivy off,” Mary Beth said. “Nancy can be like a bulldog when she wants something. I sometimes feel a bit like running and hiding when she pops in.”

  “I would have guessed that I’d met just about all the permanent residents of Stony Point by now,” Annie said, “and then today I’m introduced to two I’d never met. I guess it’s not as small as I thought.”

  “It’s a wonder you haven’t run into Nancy by now, but maybe it’s more like a blessing.” Mary Beth said. “Ivy is definitely easier to overlook.”

  “Ivy’s looking very thin,” Kate said, turning to Mary Beth. “You don’t suppose she’s been sick? She’s so alone, I can’t imagine who she’d turn to if she had health issues.”

  “Some people just don’t know how to ask for help,” Stella said. “Ivy may be one of those.”

  Annie looked skeptically at Stella. She’d grown very fond of the slightly aloof older woman, but Stella definitely wasn’t one to throw out the welcome mat in Stony Point. Still, Annie was amazed someone could stay on the fringes of Stony Point society for years—overall, this was a town that made a person feel very much at home and very much a part of everything.

  “You know, at one time Betsy had Ivy nearly convinced to join us for a Hook and Needle Club meeting,” Mary Beth said. “Betsy was so excited about it.”

  “But Ivy didn’t come to the meeting, did she?” Stella asked. “Betsy was always a little too optimistic.”

  “I think Ivy had a good reason.” Mary Beth’s brow wrinkled as she tried to remember. “I don’t remember what it was … maybe she was sick?”

  “I can’t remember either,” Kate said.

  “Does she do much needlework?” Annie asked.

  “I’m not really sure,” Mary Beth said. “She has a lovely sense of color, but she buys the oddest supplies sometimes. I’ve really never figured out what type of needlework she does. She never buys patterns, and when I’ve asked, she tends to skirt the question.”

  Stella sniffed. “The girl won’t even share what craft she does. How could we ever feel completely comfortable with someone that secretive?”

  Annie turned and looked at Stella in surprise, remembering the big secret Stella had hidden from the group for years until Annie came along.

  “Ivy is always very generous whenever there’s any kind of need,” Mary Beth said loyally, giving Stella a bit of a glare. “She’s just shy.”

  Stella sniffed. “Kate is shy, and you don’t see her dashing around like a rabbit with a hawk after her.” Stella’s tone softened a little. “I must admit, if I had to choose between spending time with Ivy or Nancy, I would choose Ivy every time. At least she’s not pushy!”

  Before anyone else could speak, the door jingled again and Gwendolyn Palmer came in. As always, Gwen was dressed in a perfectly coordinated outfit that set off her slender frame well. “Who’s not pushy?” she asked.

  “It’s not so much who isn’t, but who is,” Stella said, sniffing. “Has the Garden Club harassed you about putting Wedgwood on their ridiculous tour of homes yet?”

  “No,” Gwen said. “Though I expect John would love the idea. He’s happiest when we’re right in the middle of all the social whirl.”

  The group continued to chat about the tour of homes as they drifted over to the ring of comfortable chairs where the Hook and Needle Club always met. Annie settled into a chair, still trying to decide if she liked the idea of having Grey Gables on some kind of tour. It sounded like a lot of work.

  “Since the shop is empty, I can come and sit with everyone for a while,” Mary Beth said as she slipped into the chair beside Annie.

  Peggy Carson and Alice MacFarlane came in, laughing together. As she sat, Peggy turned toward Stella and g
rinned. “Did you really wade through a swamp in South Carolina to save Alice last fall?”

  “I most certainly did not,” Stella said. “I am hardly likely to ruin perfectly good clothes in a swamp! The ground on that island was only slightly soft.” Then she turned her sharp glance toward Alice. “I thought we decided not to talk about that trip again!”

  Alice’s face was a perfect portrait of mock innocence as she settled into her seat in the circle. “I don’t remember deciding that. Besides, the topic of … um … uneven ground came up. And I’m so grateful to my friends for coming to save me.”

  “If you would pick a less adventurous man to gad about with, you wouldn’t need rescuing,” Stella said.

  “I don’t know about that,” Mary Beth responded. “As I remember, Alice and Annie got into plenty of trouble before Jim Parker came along.”

  “But the trouble is more fun now,” Alice said, “and if you’ll remember, my first kidnapping had nothing to do with Jim.”

  At that Kate laughed. “I believe just being able to number your kidnappings proves you live an unusually exciting life.”

  Annie smiled, but she shook her head ruefully as she thought about counting the times her house or car had been broken into. Her life was certainly more unpredictable now that she lived in Stony Point. The small town seemed so quiet on the outside, but Annie had come to realize that every town had its secrets. And sometimes secrets make people act irrationally.

  “So,” Mary Beth said, “shall we talk about projects? Is everyone busy with personal work, or do we need a group project? Don’t forget it’s almost time for the Spring Bazaar at the Stony Point Community Church. I’m afraid I really dropped the ball on this one. In the past, the Hook and Needle Club always had its own table, but I realize that might not be possible this year. Still, the bazaar is for a good cause. If there is any way we could possibly come up with enough things to fill a table, I’d still like to try.”

  “I have a small bunny purse that I made for Joanna before the twins called to tell me they want caps for Easter,” Annie said. “I could put that in the bazaar.”