“You’re crazy!” I sputtered. “A man knows about Ben Crook being buried before the body’s found, and all you can say is it’s something to think about?”
Rita ran her tongue back and forth over her lip. “Hold your horses, Queenie. I’m not saying Skillet wasn’t involved somehow, but I know for sure he didn’t do it. Wait till you hear what I have to tell you. Do you know what a conspiracy is?”
“Well, of course. I’m not so dumb,” I said, trying to remember what the word meant.
“What’s this about a conspiracy?” Mrs. Judd had come up behind us, and neither Rita nor I had noticed her until she spoke. She wore a brown dress with tan stripes that made her look like a piece of her furniture. The dress was baggy, with spots on the front, and crumbs, too, which wasn’t like Mrs. Judd, who’d always been tidy. She’d been a big woman once, but her bones seemed to have shrunk in the past few weeks, leaving her skin loose and saggy. Caring for Ella had taken its toll on Mrs. Judd, but she’d bite her tongue off before she’d utter one word of complaint. So would Prosper.
“Oh, we’re just talking,” said Rita, who was a lot faster with the comebacks than I was.
“Yeah, talking,” I added.
“Well, come and quilt,” Mrs. Judd ordered. “You can talk while you sew.” She wet her finger and touched the crumbs on her bosom, then brushed her hands together.
Mrs. Judd went ahead of us into the parlor, and Rita drew her finger across her throat. “Whew!”
Mrs. Judd’s Dresden Plate was ready for us in the quilt frame, which was propped up on the backs of four chairs. The club members gathered around it, telling Mrs. Judd how nice the quilt top looked, even though Mrs. Judd didn’t have an eye for color. She’d picked orange for the centers of the design, which made the quilt looked like a field of pumpkins. Mrs. Judd had bleached the sugar sacks she used for the background, but I could still make out the writing on some of them. The stitches in the quilt were nice and even, however. Ella leaned over to inspect them, and her monogrammed brooch fell off, right onto the quilt, which was lucky, because the pin was made of china and would have broken if it had hit the parlor’s linoleum carpet.
Rita picked up the pin and handed it back to Ella, first brushing her finger over the gold letters. “E.E.C. Ella Crook. What does the middle initial stand for?”
“Eagles. It’s Ella’s maiden name,” Ceres said.
“Let’s get started,” Mrs. Judd interrupted. “Sit anyplace you like. I’m not particular.” Even so, Mrs. Judd maneuvered Ella as far away from Rita as possible. She didn’t trust Rita any more than Rita trusted her, and I wished now that I’d found out what it was Rita knew. I didn’t want her to spoil our quilting by saying something rash.
“Ladies, the Celebrity Quilt’s all bound,” Mrs. Ritter announced as we took our places and began stitching around the Dresden Plate wedges. We all murmured our approval.
“We used red for the binding, the same fabric as the sashing. It’s pretty. Awful pretty,” Agnes T. Ritter said. Both Ada June and I stopped sewing to look at her. Agnes T. Ritter had never in her life said anything was pretty. “Well, it is,” she sniffed.
“It will make us famous,” Nettie said. She looked at me and smiled, and I smiled back. Neither one of us was thinking about the quilt. We were thinking about Velma’s baby— my baby. Still, I knew from the last club meeting that not one Pickle, including Nettie, would ever say a word out loud about the baby until it arrived, so Nettie and I only smiled.
“So famous, maybe somebody will ask us for our autographs for their celebrity quilt,” Forest Ann said.
“Maybe so,” Mrs. Judd put in. “Maybe Lizzy Olive will.”
We laughed, and I was glad things were back to normal at the Persian Pickle Club. This was going to be as pleasant a quilting as I’d ever attended. The entire club had come, and except for Rita, who was still jumpy, we were all in a good mood. The room was sunny, and big enough so that we weren’t cramped. We sewed with the windows open, since it was warm outside, but we didn’t have to worry about chiggers because the first frost had killed them.
We stitched quietly for a minute. Then Opalina said she’d heard Blue and Zepha had pulled out, and I nodded. “I guess they just got itchy feet,” I said. “Drifters do that. That’s why they’re called drifters.”
“Did they steal anything?” Agnes T. Ritter asked. “People who sneak away in the night ‘most always take something.” Now she was her old self again.
“No, not unless you count the girlie calendar that the last hired man left behind a couple of years ago.” I knew the Massies hadn’t taken it, however, because Grover had removed it when he took the Massies to the cabin in the early summer, then tacked it up in the barn where he thought I wouldn’t notice it. “But they left something behind. Zepha gave me her Road to California,” I said, blushing, because the Pickles knew women didn’t give you their best quilts unless you were special to them.
“Oh, a Road to California’s a nice quilt,” Ella said. She was following things better that afternoon than she had in a long time.
“Zepha’s a fine quilter. She told me that in the hill country, they throw a cat on top of the quilt as soon as the last stitch is in. If the cat jumps into your lap, then you’re the next to get married.” I glanced at Agnes T. Ritter, but she didn’t look up. “I don’t know where they went, but I hope the Massies headed for“California. Zepha always talked about going there.”
“Maybe she’ll see Ruby,” Ella whispered.
“Now, Ella, sweetheart, those people weren’t the kind Ruby would be acquainted with. Besides, they don’t even know Ruby’s name,” Mrs. Judd told her. “We’ll get a postal from Ruby one day soon. Just you believe it.”
We talked about Ruby, wondering where she was and whether she ate oranges every day, until we heard the Packard drive up, and Mrs. Judd said, “That’ll be Prosper. He went to town for lemons. I forgot to get them yesterday. We’ll have tea with lemons this afternoon.”
Prosper came into the parlor with a paper bag clutched in both hands, and when he saw us, he blinked his little pink eyes, then ducked his head with embarrassment. Our husbands stayed away from the Persian Pickle Club, and if they didn’t, we shooed them out. Prosper took off his hat and looked around the circle, nodding at each one of us. When he came to Ella, he smiled and said, “My, Miss Ella, don’t you look pretty as paint.”
“Oh, Prosper.” Ella looked down at her needle and blushed.
Prosper kept on around the circle, and when he reached Rita, he didn’t nod; he just looked away.
“Well, hello, Mr. Judd,” Rita called, bold as brass. Her voice was high and a little out of control, which made me look up. So did the others, and Prosper backed out of the room.
“I’ll set these in the kitchen, Mother,” Prosper said. The back door slammed, and the Packard started up again. Mrs. Judd, who’d been watching Rita since Prosper left the room, continued to stare at her.
In a minute, Rita glanced over and caught Mrs. Judd’s eye, and the two of them watched each other like sniffing dogs, not saying anything. Ella didn’t notice, and she said in her tiny voice, “Prosper’s the best man.”
It was the second time that afternoon that Ella had spoken up. I was about to send her a smile of encouragement when suddenly Rita blurted out, “Like hell, Ella! Prosper killed your husband!” I don’t think Rita had planned to say that. It just happened. Before she could stop the words, they were out. Rita froze, the point of her needle stuck in the quilt.
The room was so quiet, we could hear Opalina’s needle go through the quilt. Opalina was sweating, as usual, and her sticky needle squeaked as she pushed it through the cotton with her thimble.
I finished my stitch at the instant I looked up at Rita, and I ran the needle into my finger. When I glanced down, I saw a little drop of my blood on the Dresden plate I was stitching around. I put my finger into my mouth.
Nettie and Forest Ann turned to each other with shock in their faces,
and Mrs. Ritter grabbed Agnes T. Ritter’s hand. Ceres, her eyes wide, put her knuckles into her mouth and bit down. Ella held tightly to the seat of her chair to keep from sliding off, her face even whiter than usual. We exchanged glances with each other before turning to stare at Rita, who had a look of horror on her face at what she’d said. Her open mouth was a round O, and a little line of perspiration appeared on her upper lip. Her hands shook on the quilt, and to steady them, she held fast to the edge of the frame.
At that very moment, before anyone spoke, a lazy winter fly buzzed in from the kitchen, made big swoops around the room, and landed on the light globe hanging above us. Mrs. Judd stood up slowly so she wouldn’t disturb it, took a flyswatter off the wall, and slapped it against the light. The dead fly fell onto the quilt, landing on the bright orange center of one of the Dresden plates. Using the edge of the swatter, Mrs. Judd picked up the fly and carried it to the screen door, flicking it outside. She closed the door and hooked it, returned the swatter to its nail, and sat down.
“What’s that you were saying about Mr. Judd?” Mrs. Judd’s voice was quiet, but there was an edge of steel in it, the way it got when city people tried to talk her down on the price of her eggs.
We looked at her as she spoke, then turned to Rita for the answer.
Rita swallowed uncomfortably, looking as if she wished she could fall through the floor. After making an accusation like that, she couldn’t back off, and I think she knew not one of us in that room was on her side. She opened and shut her mouth a couple of times before saying, “I told Ella your husband killed Ben Crook.” Rita still didn’t have control of her voice.
“That’s what I thought you said. You as much as told Prosper that the time you caught him out by the horse trough, didn’t you?”
Mrs. Judd waited quietly, but Rita didn’t answer. The rest of us were too stunned to speak.
Ella broke the silence. “Not Prosper,” she stuttered.
“He did, Ella.” Rita gave her a pleading look, then turned again to Mrs. Judd. Her voice was firmer when she spoke this time. “You know he did it, don’t you, Mrs. Judd? Why, I think you all know it, every one of you.” She looked at each of us, even me. I lowered my eyes.
“No,” Ella whimpered, but Rita didn’t pay any attention to her. She watched Mrs. Judd instead.
“You know all about it, do you?” Mrs. Judd asked. “You think you know what happened?”
Rita gripped the edge of the quilt and leaned forward. “I know Prosper was making payments on Ella’s mortgage. I know Ella deeded you a field by the river just before Mr. Crook disappeared. I found that out in the records.”
I didn’t know that. I glanced at Ada June, but her face showed she was as surprised as I was.
“So?” Mrs. Judd said. “So, you think paying a mortgage makes Prosper a mankiller?”
Rita leaned even farther across the quilt toward Mrs. Judd. “Prosper was“—she paused to find the right words—“romantically involved, I guess you’d say, with Ella. That’s why he was paying off her mortgage. You found out about it, and Ella gave you that piece of land to keep you quiet. I think Mr. Crook caught the two of them together or something. So Prosper killed him. I’m not saying it was murder. It could have been an accident. I don’t know how it happened, but Ella does. That’s why you’re keeping her here in your house, so she won’t tell. I think the rest of you“—she stopped long enough to look around the circle at each of us again—“I think you all know about it, and you formed a conspiracy to keep it a secret.”
So that was what a conspiracy was!
“Prosper didn’t. No, Prosper never …” Ella mumbled, shaking her head back and forth. Mrs. Judd reached over and put her hand on the back of Ella’s head to keep it from wobbling, and Ella was still.
So were the rest of us, sitting there as dumb as cows, unable to speak. I wished that fly would come back to relieve the tension in the room. Ceres moved her lips, but no words came out. Even Mrs. Judd seemed talked out. My mouth was as dry as Kansas dust. Why hadn’t I found out what Rita was up to and kept her from saying these terrible things? It was my fault this was happening.
Rita took our silence to mean she was onto something, and she became bolder. “It’s what newspapers call a ‘crime of passion.’ Prosper paid Doc Sipes to say Ben might have fallen out of a tree and been buried by somebody who didn’t have the money for a coffin. That’s what the doctor put in the coroner’s report, and the sheriff would have gone along with it if I hadn’t written up the murder for the Enterprise. I couldn’t figure out why, unless Prosper bribed him. Then today I discovered he and Ella are family. He probably doesn’t want the scandal.” Rita turned to me with a pleading look, and I cringed. My loyalty was to the Pickles, not to Rita. I hoped the club members knew I hadn’t encouraged Rita. “Prosper hired that man to stop Queenie and me on the road, and I think he was that Skillet person, even though Queenie says he wasn’t. Why, he probably helped Prosper bury Mr. Crook’s body.”
If the Judds were paying off half the people in Wabaunsee County, then no wonder Mrs. Judd was piecing on sugar sacks, but that wasn’t what I was thinking just then.
I put my hands over my ears to shut out Rita’s accusations, but I still heard them, although by now, Rita had stopped talking. I shook my head back and forth, hoping the rattling of my brain would drown out the sound. Instead, the terrible words exploded inside my head like Fourth of July firecrackers. I prayed one of the other Pickles would speak, but it was as quiet as death in Mrs. Judd’s parlor, and I thought my skull would burst if I didn’t say something to end the silence. “Stop it! That’s not true, Rita!” I blurted out so loudly, the sound echoed around the room. “Prosper and Skillet didn’t bury Ben Crook. We did!”
No one else spoke. The only sound in the parlor was Opalina drawing in her breath. Rita turned to me in shock, but even she couldn’t say anything. I looked around at the other members of the Persian Pickle Club, then burst into tears. “Oh, I’m sorry. I broke our promise.” I put my head in my hands and sobbed. Rita would put our secret in the newspaper, and we would go to jail, and Grover and I would never have a baby.
They watched me cry, too dumbfounded to say even a word of comfort. Then Mrs. Judd reached across the quilt with her hand, which was wrinkled and covered with liver spots as brown as the furnishings of her house. “It’s all right, Queenie. One of us would have said it if you hadn’t.”
I glanced up, but she was staring at Rita. So were the rest of the Pickles. They weren’t angry at me, but their faces were set against her, and when Rita saw that, she shrank away from them. I almost felt sorry for her, because Rita hadn’t been out to hurt us. At that moment, I came to understand Rita.
She wasn’t lazy like Agnes T. Ritter claimed she was. Rita had worked as hard at solving Ben’s murder as I’d ever worked at farming, and it sure wasn’t easy with everyone trying to stop her. She had courage, because even though I knew that man on the road hadn’t been sent by Ben’s killer, Rita didn’t. She believed he’d come back for her if she kept on with her reporting. Rita stayed with it so that she and Tom would have their chance, just like everyone else in Harveyville wanted a chance at something. For Rita and Tom, it meant getting away from farming. No matter how much I wanted Rita to live in the country and be a Pickle, she didn’t want that and never would.
“I don’t understand,” Rita whispered, looking at us like a cornered animal. “How could ... I don’t—”
“Prosper never did Ella anything but kindness,” Mrs. Judd broke in. “Prosper paid the mortgage Ben took out with a Topeka bank on the farm, the old Eagles place, because Ben spent the money, and the bank said it was going to foreclose. If it hadn’t been for Prosper, Ella would have been turned off her own land. Ella deeded me the only field she still owned free and clear, since Ben had it in mind to sell it out from under her. It didn’t matter to him that the land was left to Ella by her people. Ben would have found a way. Many’s the time Prosper risked his life going
against Ben Crook for Ella’s sake, did it to protect Ella, at the risk of his own precious life. Why, Ella wouldn’t be alive today except for Prosper. You’ve no right to accuse him of being immoral with her. No right at all.” Mrs. Judd’s eyes flashed, and color came into her face, and she didn’t look so tired, after all.
“That was an awful, awful thing to say,” Ada June scolded.
“Nasty,” Nettie added, rubbing one index finger down the other in a sign of shame.
Rita looked at each of us, but not a one of us showed her a friendly face—except Mrs. Ritter, of course. “It’s not Rita’s fault. Maybe we should have told her in the beginning,” Mrs. Ritter said. “I think we’ll have to tell her now.” She looked around the circle for approval. “Do we have your permission, Ella?” she asked after the rest of us nodded.
Ella’s eyes were wild, and she clutched and unclutched her hands. I wondered if she understood Mrs. Ritter.
“Ella, is it all right for Rita to know our secret about Ben?” Mrs. Judd asked her, saying each word slowly while the rest of us waited.
Ella shrugged her shoulders up and down, but at last, she muttered, “Yes. Okay.”
Mrs. Judd nodded at Mrs. Ritter. “You tell her, Sabra.”
“Ben Crook was as mean a man as ever lived. He was born mean, and no one knew that better than Ella,” Mrs. Ritter began.
“Smacked her all the time. Crazy mad. Maybe Ella sat on a table when she was young. That’s a sure sign you’ll marry a crazy man,” Nettie said. Agnes T. Ritter gave her a scornful look, and Nettie muttered, “Well, she could have. You don’t know any different.”
“Awfulest man,” Opalina added.
The Persian Pickle Club Page 19