Died in the Wool

by Rett MacPherson

  My cell phone rang. The number on the screen was my mother’s. “Hello?”

  “Hi, it’s me.” Mom hasn’t quite gotten used to the fact that she didn’t need to identify herself on the phone anymore. With caller ID on my home phone, office phone, and cell phone, I always know who’s calling unless it’s somebody who doesn’t want me to know. I don’t answer those calls. Who would? Beyond that, she’s been my mother for all the years I’ve been alive. Like I wouldn’t recognize her voice? “I hear you’re going to buy the Kendall house.”

  “Oh, my God, that’s a record even for this town,” I said.

  She laughed. “Well, you know. You just have to know the right people.”

  “You’ve certainly always known the right people.” My mother is in a wheelchair, has been since she was ten years old. She was one of the last children to contract polio in the early fifties before Salk’s vaccine came out. That just seemed to make her all the more determined to keep me under her thumb when I was a child. I could not go anywhere in this town without her knowing it. Not then and not now. When I was about fourteen, I’d hitchhiked to Wisteria with a friend of mine, and my mother knew about it before I’d even made it to my destination. She had the greatest network of spies I’d ever seen. Most parents subscribe to this notion of looking out for everybody’s kids, but my mother had taken it to the extreme. Then again, she’d had to. It’s not as if she could just get in the car and go look for me.

  “I was wondering if you’d like this extra pan of vegetable lasagna that I made,” she said. Did I mention my mother is one of the greatest cooks to ever grace the planet? Another great thing about my mother is that she doesn’t mind sharing. She shares whatever she cooks or bakes, and she’ll even share the recipe. The whole recipe. My father’s mother would always leave out some special ingredient so that whatever it was would never taste quite like hers.

  “Mom, why do you always ask if we want your food? You know, hands down, without a doubt, we are always gonna take your food.” Not because we were poor and couldn’t afford our own, but hers was just so darn good. Yes, far better than mine. You know, when I think about it, I’m not sure I inherited any of the good qualities of any of my ancestors. I’m sort of mediocre at everything.

  Just then I saw Eleanore drive by, speeding ninety to nothing down the street, around the corner, and then out of town. Eleanore. Maddie. Maddie lived out of town. I needed to get over to Maddie Fulton’s house before Eleanore started World War III or worse. Eleanore would catch me out in public and ask me if I’d spoken to the rogue rosarian, and if I hadn’t, she was going to blow a gasket.

  “When you come to get Matthew, I’ll have it ready for you,” she said.

  “Okay, thanks, Mom.”

  I think cooking for us is Mom’s way of trying to help me out. Rudy and I both work, and we take turns with dinner and the like. Usually, whoever gets home first starts on dinner. Most of the time it’s me. So maybe this is Mom’s way of trying to save my marriage. The fewer dinners of mine that Rudy has to eat, the better?

  Well, at least she was subtle about it. It’s not like she said, “Here’s some food so your husband doesn’t leave you.”

  I got in the van and headed toward Maddie Fulton’s house. Maddie lives maybe a mile out of town, right off of the outer road. In fact, driving by her house is a treat. Tobias was right about beauty. Her yard exudes beauty, and I always take an extra long look as I drive by it. I’d just never really thought about it before.

  Unlike Tobias’s yard, Maddie’s was not manicured or orderly. No, her yard had succumbed to flowers and blossoms and vines. I’d never seen her backyard before, so I was sort of looking forward to it. Tobias had me curious now. The house itself was a storybook house. Something you’d see in a Mary Engelbreit drawing. It was brick and had a wooden arch-shaped front door with a round window in it. Above the front door the roof came up into a point, contributing to that fairy-tale look. Even the mailbox had two different gorgeous flowering vines of some sort climbing up over it. One was white and one was purple.

  Lucky for me, wherever Eleanore had been going in such a hurry, it hadn’t been to Maddie’s. I rang the doorbell.

  Maddie answered covered in dirt, wearing an apron, mud boots, and lots of sunblock. Maddie is probably about fifty-two, with a head full of gray curls and glasses that always slide down to the very tip of her nose. She is as short as I am and always has a smile on her face. “Well, hello, Torie. Are you here about the rose show?” she asked. “I just came in to get a drink of water. I’ve been working all day on the roses to take. Come on in.”

  I entered her house, but she ushered me through it and out the back door so quickly that I barely got a chance to see what the inside looked like.

  When I entered the backyard, my breath caught in my throat. Everywhere I looked were roses. There were white and yellow roses climbing all over a fence that marked one side of her yard, and they didn’t just climb on the fence; they climbed up over it, hovering at least eye-level with me. Two trellises were smothered with pink roses. She even had some sort of patio cover that had orangey-colored roses climbing over the top of it, so that when you stood underneath it, the sky seemed to be made of soft, fragrant petals.

  I was overwhelmed.

  “Amazing, isn’t it?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “In case you’re curious, it’s called a cottage-style garden, and I do have things other than roses. So,” she said with a sigh. “What can I do for you?”

  “Uh … Eleanore came to see me,” I said.

  The smile disappeared from her face. “That woman is a plague.”

  “Well, maybe,” I said, “but she is a respected business owner in town, and I think she means well.” God, was I really sticking up for Eleanore?

  “She’s sent you to try to change my mind on the selections for the rose show,” she said. “Am I right?”

  “Dead right,” I said.

  “Look, Torie, I consulted with the other rosarians in town,” she said. “We all came to the same agreement that too many rose shows and rose events focus on the hybrid tea. The hybrid tea has had all of its personality bred right out of it. Oh, yeah, they’re great to get in a bouquet on Valentine’s Day or your birthday, but I personally don’t think they’re the greatest roses.”

  “Well…”

  “I have a few,” she admitted. “There are some dandy specimens, and I believe every garden should have a variety, so I’ve picked the very best of them. Don’t get me wrong, I do like them, but the rosarians in New Kassel decided it would be a really great idea to highlight some of the roses that are lesser known but just as beautiful. Roses with some heritage to them. Isn’t that what this town is all about? Heritage? History? Besides, the officers of the garden club said that was perfectly fine with them. Everybody said so, except for Eleanore.”

  “Well…”

  “Look, Torie, I know you’re just trying to do your job and keep the peace and all that good stuff, but Eleanore knows nothing about roses. Oh, and now she has this ridiculous poll in the paper. Have you seen it? Urging people to call in and vote on their favorite rose. The whole point in having the garden club sponsor this show is so that people can see roses. All roses. Not just Mister Lincoln and Peace.”

  “Right,” I said. “Well…”

  “Here,” she said, scooping up a handful of cuttings from the patio table. She clipped off some foliage on a few and then handed them to me. “Take these to your mother. They’ll brighten her day.”

  That was it. I was dismissed, and I found myself following her back through her house to the front door without having even realized that I’d taken the steps.

  At the last minute, something in the corner of her living room caught my eye. A beautiful appliqué quilt sat draped over the edge of an antique formal sitting chair. I knew instantly that the quilt was old, although I wasn’t sure just how old. “Oh, Maddie, where’d you get that quilt?” I asked. “Can I see it
?”

  “Certainly,” she said. “This is one of my pride and joys.” She unfolded the quilt for me. It was—what else?—a floral appliqué. It looked like a dogwood, except the flower was red.

  “It’s a rose. Rosa moyesii to be exact. I see by the look on your face that you think all roses look like florists’ long-stemmed red roses. The original roses were only four- or five-petaled and flat. Like Rosa moyesii.”

  “But, did you … You didn’t make this quilt. It’s an antique,” I said.

  “I know,” she said. “Glory Kendall made this quilt back in the teens.”

  My mouth dropped open. “How did you get ahold of one of Glory Kendall’s quilts?” I asked.

  “I have several,” she said. “A few of them are still wrapped in paper and in a plastic bag. I haven’t had the chance to get them cleaned. Shoot, I think one of them still has pins in it!”

  “But how?”

  “My grandmother and Glory Kendall were very good friends. These were gifts to my grandmother from Glory. My grandma just passed away about four years ago. I inherited her cat, these quilts, her china, and her roses. My brother got all of the furniture. Our cousin got all of the old jewelry and her old phonograph records and the player. Wow, did my grandma ever have a collection of old records. I’m talking old seventy-eights. My mother got all sorts of things, including the family photos. I think I got the best end of the deal,” she said, just as a cat that I didn’t even know was there jumped down off of the recliner and scared me. “Well, except for that thing. I can’t say the cat has been a blessing.” She was laughing when she said it, so I got the feeling that she didn’t really mean it.

  “I can’t believe you’ve got quilts by Glory Kendall,” I said.

  “What’s your interest in them?” she asked.

  “I love old quilts, and I’m thinking about starting a women’s textile display at the Gaheimer House. I’m about to purchase some of Glory’s quilts from Evan Merchant.”

  “Oh, how wonderful,” she said. “Well, I have four or five of them. Let me know when you get it all together and you want to start a display. I’ll loan you my grandmother’s for a year or so. It’s not as if I’m using them all. Of course, I do want them back, because they mean the world to me. Especially this one, since it was made specifically for my grandma. Glory knew how much my grandma loved roses.”

  “Oh, of course. I’m amazed you’d let them out of your sight.”

  “I trust you,” she said. “You’ve always done right by this town.”

  I ran my fingers over the appliquéd flowers on the quilt once or twice, and then Maddie put the quilt away and I left. Once I got in the car I realized that I hadn’t really accomplished much with Maddie. I’d heard what she had to say on the subject of roses for the rose show, but she hadn’t heard a word I’d said. Maybe that’s because I hadn’t really had a chance to say anything—and I wasn’t very accustomed to not getting to say much.

  I really like Maddie Fulton. I always have, even though we pretty much move in different circles. Our paths do cross, however, as my path seems to cross everybody’s path at some point. If you live in New Kassel and I’ve never met you, it’s because you’ve stayed away from all of the town’s festivals and events. Aside from that, my mother is married to the mayor—the ex-sheriff—and I also have three kids, two very active in school, so I seem to know every parent within a five-mile radius. That doesn’t mean I’m good friends with all of these people. It just means that our paths cross.

  After today, I thought, I might just make it a habit to drop in on Maddie once in a while. Those roses sitting on the seat next to me smelled so good that I was tempted to keep them for myself.

  Five

  Geena Campbell is in her late thirties, about five foot six, with super-dark auburn hair that reaches her shoulders. She’s usually covered in little pieces of thread or fabric and wears her blue-rimmed glasses on her head more often than her nose. I think she really only uses them to hold her hair back.

  I found her by the remnants bin at the Fab. When she saw me, she gave me a big old hug and immediately showed me the fantastic fabric she’d picked out and told me all about what she was going to do with it. Of course, I knew as well as she did that she wouldn’t get anything done with it right away. It would go in her stash until the project that the fabric was for came to the forefront.

  “You’ll never guess what I found today,” I said to her.

  “What?”

  “There’s a woman here in town who has several Glory Kendall quilts,” I said.

  “Really,” she said. “Now that’s interesting.”

  “I have no idea why this came as such a shock to me. I mean, Glory lived here her whole life, however short it may have been, so it only makes sense that there might be townspeople who would have some of her quilts.”

  “Still, how odd that you’d discover this on the very day you were going to buy quilts made by the very same person,” she said.

  “I know.”

  After we talked a bit more and she paid for her fabric, I drove her out Haggeman Road to the Kendall house.

  Geena stepped out of the van and put her hands on her hips. “Wow,” she said. “What a great house. I mean, it could stand to have some work, but just look at that house.”

  “That’s what I thought,” I said. I started to head around back to get Evan, but he had evidently seen us pull into the driveway and was already halfway to the house. I waved to him, and when he was at the porch, I introduced him to Geena.

  He seemed a bit nervous when he put the key in the keyhole. The door swung open with a creak, and he stuck his hands in his pockets. “There ya go,” he said. “Let me know when you’re finished.”

  “Wait,” I said. “Evan, I have no idea where the quilts are. Aren’t you going to come in to at least show me where they’re kept?”

  “Nope,” he said. “Check in the bedroom on the second floor. The one on the far end that overlooks my house. That’s not to say there aren’t any others in the house, but that was her room. So I imagine that’s where they’re gonna be.”

  “But…”

  “Oh, and could you pull the shade down in Glory’s room, while you’re up there?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  He skipped off the front porch and disappeared around the back of the house. Geena gave me a quizzical look. “He swears the house is haunted,” I explained.

  “Really?” she asked with a smile.

  I held my hands up. “Hey, I’m just telling you what he’s told me.”

  She glanced back over her shoulder to where Evan had disappeared. “You’re serious.”

  “I don’t think so, but he sure does.”

  “Hunh. Well, let’s go meet the ghosts.”

  We stepped inside. I flipped on the light switch, since the house was dark. It wouldn’t have been quite so dark if the shades and curtains had been pulled aside to allow the sunlight in, but I assumed this was how Evan wanted the house kept, so I didn’t open them. The first room we stepped into was covered in that heavy Victorian-era wallpaper and had virtually no furniture in it.

  “So, explain to me about the house,” Geena said.

  “Well, I really don’t know that much,” I said. “I’m going to do some research when we get finished here today. Evan is the second owner since the Kendalls lived here. He never actually stayed in this house for very long, but instead took up residence in the guesthouse in the back. From what I understand, the majority of the things in the house belonged to the Kendalls.”

  We stepped down a hallway into a dining room, where cobwebs had made the crystal chandelier even more elaborate than it had started out to be. Then we moved on to another sitting-room type of room. Older houses often have rooms that we don’t have uses for today, like sitting rooms and ballrooms. I guess they’re the equivalent of our home-entertainment rooms. This one had clearly had some renovations done to it—new wallpaper and a new floor. “Obviously, though, Herbie Pyle,
the man who lived here in between Sandy Kendall and Evan, tried to do some renovating.”

  “Why would that person sell the furniture and things with the house? Why not take those things with him? Or maybe sell them separately?” Geena asked.

  “I have no idea,” I said. “I think we’re going to find what we want upstairs.”

  “Right,” she said. She pulled two white bundles out of her blazer pocket and handed me one. “Here.”

  “What’s this?” I said. It was a pair of white gloves, like a bridesmaid would use. “Oh, for the quilts.”

  “Yes,” she said. “No need in getting our oils on the fabric. Makes the fabric break down faster.”

  “Right,” I said.

  The stairway seemed overly long and ostentatious, coming from the heavens and spilling into the middle of the house with a wave of dark wood. We reached the first bedroom and found a chest at the foot of the bed. Good place for quilts to be, in a chest. So we opened it and found a gold mine of antiques, including the Civil War uniforms I had heard about. “Oh, my gosh,” I said. “These are amazing.”

  “And these?” Geena asked.

  “Medals of valor of some sort,” I said. “I’m afraid to move any of this stuff.”

  “I know,” she said. So we just lifted a few of them to see if there were any quilts beneath the uniforms. There were not. There was a diary. Several diaries, to be exact. Oh, my fingers were itching to take those home and read them, but the deal with Evan was for the quilts and all things relating to them, not for the diaries. It was at moments like these that I realized I wanted to know about the who and why more than I wanted things. I’d much rather read those diaries than own those uniforms and medals.

  We opened the drawers. Most of them were empty, but we did find a box of handkerchiefs that hadn’t even been used and some other odds and ends. There were no closets, as was typical of some old houses. Usually closets were added later. Back then people tended to use things like wardrobes and large dressers and chests to store their things in, rather than closets.