Coming Unraveled (A Quilters Club Mystery No. 3) (Quilters Club Mysteries)

by Marjorie Sorrell Rockwell

  In trying to figure out its provenance, he could pin it down to around 1899, the year Maud Purdue said her husband’s grandmother made the quilt. The various bills were minted in 1880, 1882, 1891, and 1899 – nothing later.

  Abner Purdue had started E Z Seat in 1899, according to public records. Did he come into an inheritance about then? Did he have secret investors? Or did this represent twenty years of scrupulous saving? It was anybody’s guess.

  Hiding money away was not an unusual practice back then. Simple country folk had a distrust of banks. Some buried it in their backyards. Others stuffed it in their mattress. Why not sew it into a padded quilt?

  Chapter Sixteen

  That Monday Cookie Bentley called a special meeting of the Quilters Club. Their regular room at the senior recreation center was booked, so they met at the Caruthers County Historical Society. The office was cramped but provided convenient access to Cookie’s filing cabinets.

  “I know where the money came from,” she announced.

  “What money?” said Lizzie, distracted by being late for an appointment with her hairdresser. Lee Ann would charge her whether she showed up or not.

  “The money in the quilt. Pay attention, hon.”

  “Oh, right.”

  “So tell us,” demanded Bootsie. A no-nonsense gal, she had little patience.

  “What do you know about the Fire of 1899?” Cookie asked, as if she were a history teacher addressing a class.

  “Not much,” admitted Maddy. “Just that most of the town burned down.”

  “Half.” Cookie spread a faded map across her desk. “The south end was completely engulfed in flames, all the buildings lost. The firemen made a stand, stopping the conflagration within a block of town hall.”

  “Didn’t it start at the First Wabash National Bank?”

  “That’s right. Burned to the ground. Even melted the vault. Cleaned First Wabash out of some two million dollars, according to this report.” She laid a yellowing newspaper atop the map. The headline read: FIRE LEVELS TOWN.

  “What started it?” Bootsie wanted to know.

  “No one knows for certain, but according to this account in the Burpyville Gazette it was thought to be ‘spontaneous combustion of paint fumes.’ Seems the bank had been painted the day before.”

  “You don’t think so, do you?” Maddy was a quick study.

  “No, I think the bank was set on fire to cover up a robbery. That’s where the money in the quilt came from.”

  “Stolen by my husband’s great grandfather?” gasped Bootsie.

  “We know Abner Purdue came into money about then. Used it to start E Z Seat. His wife made that ugly old quilt the same year.”

  “And she left the quilt to her grandson’s wife,” Lizzie nodded. “Now I have to go. I can’t keep Lee Ann waiting.”

  “Actually, to her son Bobby Ray,” corrected Cookie.

  “If you say so,” shrugged Lizzie, gathering up her quilt squares.

  “Just a minute,” said Maddy, waving for her friend to sit back down. “We have to solve this mystery.”

  “Oh, okay. But the answer is as plain as the nose on your face. Bobby Ray told his two friends about the money in the quilt and they pushed him into a quicksand bog so they could steal it, right?”

  “Something like that,” beamed Cookie Bentley, proud of her connect-the-dots theory.

  ≈≈≈

  Police Chief Jim Purdue nodded his head. “Looks like the Quilters Club has solved another puzzle,” he agreed. They were gathered in the mayor’s office there in the Town Hall.

  Beau was seated behind his desk. “I’ve gotta admit it all makes sense,” he said. “A bank robbery. That money had to come from somewhere.”

  “Who’s money is it now?” asked Jim.

  “Beats me. Better call the state boys and let them sort it out.”

  “Before you do that,” suggested Maddy, “why not confront Harry Periwinkle with this and see if he confesses. He might know where Jud Watson is hiding.”

  “Not a bad idea, but I’d have to have his lawyer present,” the police chief pointed out.

  “So call Mark,” she said. “He should be at his office.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Mark Tidemore met the entourage at the Caruthers corners Police Department. “Sorry,” he said to them, “but only the Chief gets to question Harry Periwinkle. The rest of you have to wait outside.”

  “But –”

  “Those are the conditions,” the attorney said, avoiding the stares of his in-laws.

  “C’mon,” said Beau Madison to the members of the Quilters Club. “Let’s walk down the street to the DQ. I’ll buy everybody a milkshake.”

  Mark looked at his shoes while everyone but Jim Purdue filed out of the room. The police department was a small brick building: Inside there was a reception area with a long counter, an inner office with two desks, two holding cells, Jim’s own office, and a locked storage room where they kept weapons and ammunition and a battering ram they’d never used.

  Harry Periwinkle was sitting forlornly in the holding cell on the left, as if waiting for something to happen. “Hi,” his attorney greeted him, stepping close to the bars. “The Chief has a few questions for you. I’ll be here to object if I don’t think you should answer. Okay?”

  The prisoner looked up, eyes blank. “Whatever.”

  Jim Purdue edged closer. “A great deal of money has been found inside that old quilt you tried to get your hands on. Do you know how it got there?”

  “Bobby Ray’s great grandmother made the quilt. I’d guess she put it in there.”

  “Where did an old country woman get her hands on that much money?” pressed Jim.

  “Beats me. Bobby Ray never said.”

  “Do you and Jud Watson kill Bobby Ray?”

  Mark interjected, “Don’t answer that.”

  The prisoner shrugged and said, “Whatever.”

  Jim tried again. “Does Jud go by the name Bernard Warbuckle?”

  “Maybe, maybe not.”

  “Did he jimmy that DNA test so you could pass as Bobby Ray Purdue?”

  Mark spoke up again. “Harry wasn’t there at the time. He can’t know what Jud Watson did or didn’t do.”

  Jim scowled in the attorney’s direction. “But that was the plan, wasn’t it?”

  “Maybe, maybe not.”

  “Where have you been for the past thirty years?”

  “I told you,” said Harry Periwinkle. “I became a pirate.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Something about those photographs he’d gotten from Sad Sammy Hankins kept nagging at Mark Tidemore. What was it that danced just outside his recognition?

  He fingered the two snapshots of the Baumgartner pasture. Fence. Elm tree. Grass. The dark tangle of the Never Ending Swamp in the background. Wait – what were those dots in one of the photos?

  He reached in his desk drawer, fumbled around till he found the 6x magnifying glass, and held it over one of the photographs. The older one. There, climbing over the fence that separated the swamp from the pasture were four kids.

  He turned the photo over to check the date – that was what had been nagging at his mind. August 12, 1982, the day those boys disappeared. Could this photograph taken by Sad Sammy have accidentally captured the Lost Boys?

  No, something was wrong. There had been three Lost Boys – Harry Periwinkle, Jud Watson, and Bobby Ray Purdue. The snapshot pictured four tiny figures.

  How silly of him to have thought this was a photograph of those missing boys … it would have been too much to hope for.

  ≈≈≈

  Freddie Madison drove out to the Bentley farm, hoping to say goodbye to the circus performers. They had been nice to him, a freakish fire-scarred ghoul. He appreciated their acceptance.

  As he pulled his mother’s Toyota SUV into the barnyard, he could see the two tents, trucks, and animal cages out there in the field. The elephant was getting a bath, Swami Bombay scrubbin
g him with a soapy brush on a long handle. Big Bill was brushing down the white horses. Little William was playing with Sneezy the Baboon. Mr. Sprinkles was nowhere to be seen.

  He strolled toward the tents, waving a hand in greeting.

  “Hey, where’s your niece?” called Big Bill Haney.

  “Grounded. Her mother is punishing her for some mischief.”

  “Too bad. I know Sprinkles was hoping to see her before we roll out. We’re heading to Peoria first thing in the morning.’

  “I’ll pass along your goodbye to everyone. Things are pretty crazy in town today.”

  Big Bill stopped currying the horse. “Yeah, we heard. You mother and her friends found a lot of money in an old quilt.”

  “A local antique dealer estimated the loot might be worth a hundred million. Too bad my mom and her friends don’t get to keep it.”

  “I’ll say,” laughed the tall ringmaster.

  Freddie glanced around. “Where’s Sprinkles?”

  “In the tent,” said Little William. “Took to his bed. Seems upset about something. Maybe he wishes he’d found that money.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  First thing next morning, Mark Tidemore walked over to his mother-in-law’s house on Melon Pickers Row. It was only a few blocks from where he and Tilly lived in one of those big houses facing the town square. He found her scrambling eggs for Beauregard. She gestured for him to sit down at the table and broke another three eggs into the hot cast-iron skillet.

  “Something’s bothering me,” he said as she poured him a cup of coffee. Beau was dutifully ignoring them, reading the morning paper.

  “What?” she responded. “The way you kicked us out of the police station yesterday?”

  “No, I had to do that. Something else.”

  “I know you were only doing your job,” she said, serving the eggs along with toast and two slices of bacon. “It’s just frustrating to have loose ends.”

  “Seems the case against Harry’s pretty air tight,” he commented. “I’ll deny saying it, but most I can hope to do is get him a reduced sentence. It would be easier if he’d cooperate a little.”

  “What brought you over here this time of morning? I know it wasn’t my watermelon jam.”

  “That would be reason enough,” he said, spreading the pink jam onto his toast.

  “But –?”

  He produced the snapshot he’d got from Sad Sammy. “Do you have a magnifying glass?” he asked.

  “There one over there in the junk drawer,” Beau spoke up without lowering his newspaper.

  Maddy pulled it out and handed it to her son-in-law. “What are we looking at?”

  “A photograph of Baumgartner’s farm on the day those boys went missing in 1982. I think they may be in this picture.”

  Maddy bent over the color snapshot, squinting through the magnifying glass. “Yes, I see them. That boy climbing over the fence looks like Bobby Ray. I remember him. His parents went to our church. The one in the middle might be Harry, judging from the way he’s hanging his head. Reminds me of that hangdog look he had at the jail yesterday.”

  “Hm, you could be right.”

  “I assume one of the other two boys is Jud Watson. I don’t remember him very well. But why are there four figures in this picture? There were only three Lost Boys.”

  “Yes,” nodded her son-in-law. “That’s the question of the day.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “The ICE folks stopped Bernard Warbuckle as he was trying to cross into Canada at Windsor,” Chief Jim Purdue told the mayor when they met for coffee at the Cozy Diner that afternoon.

  “That a fact?” Beau was blowing on the hot liquid to cool it down enough to be drinkable.

  “They picked him up about an hour ago. That ol’ boy was hightailing it out of the country,” the chief nodded. “Windsor’s Ambassador Bridge is the southernmost US-Canada border crossing.”

  “They were watching for him, huh?”

  “There was a BOLO on him. But the reason they caught him was because he tried to run the crossing gate. Must have panicked.”

  Beau Madison sipped at his coffee, careful not to burn his lips. “Have they been able to prove that he’s Jud Watson?”

  “Not yet. But the state boys are on their way out to Myrtle’s place to take a swab to map her DNA. Just a matter of time.”

  “I take it, he’s not talking.”

  “Said he’s Bernard Warbuckle and that he’s on his way to visit a cousin in Winnipeg.”

  Beau snorted. “How does he explain running the barrier?”

  “Claims his accelerator pedal stuck.”

  “Good luck with that story.”

  “State’s filing to bring him back to Indy. His goose is cooked.”

  “Like a Thanksgiving dinner,” agreed Beau Madison.

  ≈≈≈

  Maddy gathered up the Quilters Club and drove out to the Baumgartner farm that same afternoon. It was a pretty summer day with puffy white clouds filling the blue sky. The temperature was hovering at 98° when they pulled up to the wooden gate that blocked entrance to the farm. They could see the two-story house in the distance.

  “Not very inviting,” observed Maddy. There was a thick padlock on the gate. A handpainted sign said GO AWAY!

  “Jim said Errol Baumgartner doesn’t welcome visitors. Not even the FedEx man,” said Bootsie, staring out the car window toward the forbidden citadel.

  “We’re here to see his wife,” said Maddy. “At least that’s the cover story.”

  “Okay,” nodded Cookie. “Let’s climb over the fence and hike up to the house.”

  Ten minutes later they were knocking on the door. “Hello,” called Maddy. “Anybody home?”

  The door swung open and a wild-eyed man said, “Didn’t you see the sign on the gate?”

  “We knew you didn’t mean us,” said Maddy. “We’re the Caruthers Corners Quilters Club and we’re here to see your wife Janey. We brought her some watermelon tarts. We heard she just had twins, so we wanted to see if she needed anything.”

  “My wife is napping.”

  “Well, can you give her this basket of tarts?” Lizzie thrust the offering toward him. “They’re quite tasty.”

  Errol Baumgartner looked at the basket suspiciously, but took it. “Thank you. Now if you’ll excuse me –”

  “Did you hear they found another of those Lost Boys?” Maddy continued as if she hadn’t heard him. “You must’ve known them. They were about your age.”

  “Yes, I went to school with them,” he admitted, eyeing the four women cautiously.

  “You were with them the day they disappeared, weren’t you?”

  “Uh, what makes you say that?” A look of panic crossed his face. He was a slender man with dark hair and unshaven stubble on his chin. Handsome in a way.

  “There’s a photograph of you with them.”

  “That’s impossible,” he protested. “No one saw us go into the swamp.” The blood drained from his face as he realized what he’d just said. “Uh, I mean –”

  “What happened that day?” demanded Bootsie. Always a policeman’s wife.

  “Perhaps you’d better come in,” said Errol Baumgartner, stepping aside to let his visitors enter the house. “But keep your voices down. We don’t won’t to wake up the babies.”

  ≈≈≈

  “Bobby Ray brought his friends over that day,” Errol Baumgartner told the story. “They wanted me to take them into the swamp. Living out here, I’d explored some of it, knew a few trails that were safe. No quicksand.”

  They were sitting around the kitchen table, listening to Errol while his wife served coffee. Everybody was munching on the watermelon tarts.

  “I’ve never told this to anybody other than Janey,” he sighed. “I swore I’d keep their secret.”

  “What secret’s that?” asked Cookie, fascinated with this untold history.

  “That they were running away to join the circus. There was one camped on the
other side of the swamp. They needed me to guide them across.”

  “Circus?” muttered Maud, reminded of her granddaughter’s excited tales of Haney Bros. Circus and Petting Zoo. What kid wouldn’t be tempted by the romantic idea of joining an entourage of lions and tigers and clowns?

  “That’s not so surprising,” said Cookie, handy with her historical facts. “There were lots of circuses passing through. At one time Peru, Indiana, was known as the “Circus Capital of America.”

  “Did those boys push Bobby Ray into a pool of quicksand?” asked Lizzie, looking for a sensational tale of murder.

  “No,” the man chuckled. “He fell into a marshy area and got his clothes wet. But last time I saw those boys – that was thirty years ago – all three were alive and well. They waved goodbye to me as the headed across the field toward those circus tents.”

  “Why didn’t you tell anybody?” challenged Bootsie. “Their poor parents thought they were dead.”

  “The boys made me promise not to tell. Gave me a pocketknife as payment. But I had another reason too. My grandpa would have beat the tar out of me if he found out I’d been in the swamp. It was off limits.”

  “Your grandfather has been dead for years,” Cookie pointed out. “You could have come forward and put their parents’ minds at ease.”

  “By then I was afraid I’d get into trouble with the law for not telling. I had a wife, this farm to take care of. I couldn’t risk it.”

  “You’re going to have to talk to my husband,” said Bootsie. “He’s the police chief.”

  “I know who he is, Miz Purdue. I may live out here like a hermit, but Janey and I go into town once or twice a month. Right, hon?”

  The woman moved around the table refilling the coffee cups. “I told him it’d catch up with him one day,” she said flatly. “Just be my luck that he goes off to jail leaving me stuck with twins to support.”

  “How are the babies?” inquired Maddy.

  “The doctor says they’re doing fine. I’m seeing a pediatrician over at Burpyville Memorial.”