“Unfortunately, he isn’t there anymore. He sold the house after making the needed repairs and moved down to Huntington, Kentucky.”
“And?” Sarah was beginning to look worried.
“And I spoke to him this morning,” Charles added.
Sophie clapped with excitement. “We’re on the trail of the quilt.”
“Not so fast,” Charles said, looking reluctant to continue.
“Surely he must know where he got the quilt?” Sarah asked dubiously.
“He doesn’t know a thing about the quilt. He never lived in the house. It was rented by a family who had just moved into town back in the 70s. He said they were clearly down on their luck, and he lowered the rent for the first few years until they got on their feet. They lived there for fifteen years, from 1970 until the fire in 1985.”
“And then the fire…” Sarah added sympathetically.
“He said they lost everything the night of the fire. What didn’t burn up was stolen during the night. He said it was heartbreaking to talk with them, but that there just wasn’t anything else he could do for them. He said he’d been sick himself and had moved to Kentucky to be near his daughters.”
“But he knows where these people are, right?” Sophie asked hopefully.
“Sorry. No. But he gave me all their names.”
“What do you mean all their names?” Sarah asked.
“Well, that was thirty years ago. The kids are grown now, and Benjamin remembers them all. We have the parent’s names now and all of the children. Their name is Anderson: Susan and Philip are the parents; there are two sons, Richard and Paul; and there’s a daughter, Sadie. She might be married, but I might be able to track her down as well.”
“This sounds like a monumental task,” Sophie sighed.
“Not with the computer it isn’t,” Charles said confidently.
“And definitely not if you were ever a cop,” Sarah added smiling at her husband.
“I’m taking a break and heading over to the gym,” Charles announced as he stood up. “What are you gals up to this afternoon?”
“We have a dress to discuss,” Sophie announced as she swiped her scattered cards into a neat pile.
Once Charles was out the door, the two friends headed to the sewing room where Sarah had hung the dress. She carefully unzipped the dress bag and lifted the dress out.
Sophie gasped and said, “Oh Sarah, this will look stunning on your daughter.”
“It does,” Sarah responded, gently lifting the fabric so Sophie could see the subtle tone on tone pattern. “When Martha stepped out of the dressing room in this dress, she took my breath away.” The dress was silk jacquard in a soft buttercream color with a barely visible variegated floral pattern woven into the fabric. The scooped neckline and A-line silhouette gave the dress a subtle feminine touch.
“I love this dress, Sarah. It’s simple but elegant. She will look beautiful at the church and yet it’s understated enough for the garden party.”
“I love it too, and so does Martha. You should see it with her beautiful olive complexion.”
“I’ve always wanted to ask you about that. With her dark hair and olive skin, she looks almost Mediterranean, not at all like you.”
“She doesn’t look much like her father either, but his mother had that same striking beauty. Her people were from the south of France. I have a picture of her around her somewhere. She was a beautiful woman.”
“So is Martha,” Sophie commented, “And she’ll look fantastic in this dress.”
They put the dress back into the bag and spent some time talking about how Jimmy’s sports quilt should be quilted. “I think I’m just going to leave it up to Christina and her sister. They’re very creative.” Kimberly and Christina had been doing most of the quilting for the members of their quilt club since buying their long-arm quilting machine.
“I’m going home,” Sophie announced, “but call me if you and Charles make any headway this afternoon.”
“I will. I’m hoping we find at least one person from that family that still lives in town.
Chapter 11
“I found him.” Charles announced proudly.
“Benjamin Bentz? You found him yesterday. Oh, you mean you found one of the renters – the Andersons?”
“No…”
“Then exactly who did you find, Charles?” Sarah asked, sounding a bit annoyed.
“Jamal Davis, Maud’s son-in-law.”
“Charles! Why are you wasting time on this?”
“I’m not so sure it’s wasted. Just wait until I tell you where I found him.”
“Okay,” Sarah sighed with resignation. “Where’d you find him?”
“Jamal Davis is listed as the surviving spouse of a thirty-nine-year-old woman in New Orleans.”
Sarah looked up abruptly. “Surviving spouse? Another wife is dead? Has he been arrested?” she asked.
“Yes, another wife is dead, and, no, he hasn’t been arrested. I read about the wife’s death in their local paper, and it’s reported as accidental.”
“Again?” Sarah knew that Maud Templeton suspected Jamal of killing her daughter many years ago, and maybe she wasn’t so far off, but she hoped Charles wasn’t planning to get involved in the investigation. His medications had recently been increased, and the doctor had emphasized the importance of limiting stress. She knew he enjoyed the challenges, but she didn’t want him getting involved in another murder investigation. “What are you thinking of doing, Charles?” she asked.
“I think I should call the investigating officer and put him in touch with Maud. It might help both of them.”
“I agree,” she responded with a sigh of relief. “I’m just glad you aren’t planning to try to solve the crimes yourself, but I’d like to go see Maud and tell her in person before the police contact her.”
“I’ll drive over with you as soon as I get dressed,” Charles said. He was still in his pajamas since he’d gone straight to the computer early that morning, eager to start the search for members of the Anderson family. Being a common name, he knew this would be a challenging search since the only address he had was thirty years old. It was only by chance that he ran the name Jamal Davis before he looked for the Andersons.
“Give me a few minutes to give Louisiana a call first.”
* * *
That evening as Sarah and Sophie were driving to the quilt shop for Delores’ English Paper Piecing class, they talked about Maud and her reaction to the news about Jamal.
“She said she would talk to the police if they called her, but she really didn’t want to even think about Jamal. She said she’s been grieving her daughter’s death for thirty-five years now, and the pain is more like a distant ache and not the raw pain she had felt for years. She said she was afraid talking to the police about it would open the wound.”
“I can understand that,” Sophie responding, knowing too well the effort it took to keep that kind of pain at bay. Her husband had been gone for ten years now and yet, any mention of the nursing home or Alzheimer’s instantly brought the pain to the forefront of her mind. “But she agreed to talk with them?”
“She did, and Charles called New Orleans police department and was able to speak with the investigating officer.”
“Was he interested?” Sophie asked.
“He was, in fact. He told Charles he had his own suspicions about the guy, but there was no tangible evidence. So at least they’ll look more closely now.”
As they pulled up in front of Running Stitches, Sarah saw that there were no parking spaces near the shop. “You get out here, Sophie, and I’ll park up the street.” Sophie started to object but decided to take her friend up on the offer.
“I’ll take both of our tote bags in,” Sophie announced as she climbed out of the car.
When Sarah walked into the shop a few minutes later, she was pleased to see that all the members of the club had come and were excitedly chatting.
Ruth had set up an ext
ra worktable to accommodate everyone comfortably.
Sophie had saved Sarah a seat at the table with Caitlyn, Frank, and the two sisters who did their quilting. Christina told Sarah that the sports quilt they were quilting for her was almost complete, and they arranged a time for Sarah to pick it up.
“I’m delighted to see so many people here tonight,” Delores began, and the room became quiet. “What I’m going to be showing you is the traditional English Paper Piecing technique as it was practiced in England back in the 1700s and later in this country in the early 1800s. What we’ll actually be doing will be a bit simpler since we don’t have to use scraps of newspaper or old wallpaper like they did back then,” she added with a chuckle.
Delores had prepared kits which the students purchased from Ruth ahead of time which included pieces of fabric in various colors, hexagon-shaped papers, and a book on English Paper Piecing. “What we’ll be doing is placing a paper template on your fabric and cutting the fabric a quarter of an inch larger all the way around.”
“I thought there was a plastic template for cutting out the fabric which included the seam allowance,” Christina said.
“Not in the 1700s,” Delores chuckled, “But we have them now, and you can get them from Ruth if you decide to continue with paper piecing. For now, we’re going to do it the way it was originally done by the early settlers.”
“We’re going to be making this small table topper. We’ll start by making seven hexagons and connecting them to form a flower, or rosette as they’re called.” Delores held up a rosette she had made prior to the class and pointed out the seven hexagons, saying, “One in the middle and six round it. Then we’ll make a few more rosettes and connect them to other rosettes, forming what is called a mosaic design.” She then held up a completed table topper for the group to see the finished product.”
The group asked questions about color selection, and Delores directed them to the first few pages in their book.
“What about all these other shapes in the book,” Allison asked.
“We’ll be using hexagons for our project, but you can use the English Paper Piecing technique when working with many different shapes: apple cores, clamshells, diamonds, octagons, circles, squares, even triangles. The technique is generally the same.”
Once everyone had at least one piece of their fabric cut out, Delores continued, demonstrating as she talked. “I like to fold one seam allowance down over the paper and catch it with a pin or a paper clip. At this point, we have two choices. If our papers were thinner, we’d be basting the seam allowances to the paper with long stitches.”
“All the way through the paper?”
“Yes, but the stitches and the papers would be removed later. That was the very earliest method of English Paper Piecing. Later they began to simply turn the seam allowance over the paper and take a stitch in each corner to hold them in place.”
Delores explained the process as she demonstrated it. “Quilters began doing it this way as well in the early 19th century. We’ll use this technique since our papers are made of a light cardboard and it would be tough to sew through them.”
“I have a friend who uses a temporary fabric glue stick to attach the seam allowance to the paper,” one of the women commented. “It’s much easier.”
“Yes, once we’ve done a few this way, I’ll talk about some of the modern innovations which make this process much easier, such as using glue sticks or even iron-on adhesive papers that dissolve when you wash the quilt. Also, we’ll talk about a modern version of English Paper Piecing that’s becoming very popular among experienced quilters where hexagons of various sizes are actually pieced and then arranged to form intricate designs, but we’ll talk about that as well next week, but tonight we’ll be concentrating on the traditional method.”
Frank, who wasn’t confident about his hand stitching, asked whether the hexagons could be made by machine, and Delores told him that it’s certainly possible, but that she prefers doing them by hand. “I enjoy having a portable project that I can carry with me,” Delores added, “and I find it very relaxing.”
Delores continued, “We’ll be making nine rosettes and connecting them to make our table topper, but as you can see in your book, there are numerous looks you can achieve with rows of hexagons. If you look again at the quilt on the cover, the Grandmother’s Flower Garden, you’ll see that the pattern is simply hexagons similar to the ones you're making, but the choice of color placement creates the design. The larger rosettes on the cover have another row of hexagons – one yellow hexagon in the center, six mauve ones around that, and twelve multicolored ones on the outside row.”
“What about those white ones?” Frank asked.
“In a Grandmother’s Flower Garden, a row of white hexagons is placed between each rosette to form what is called the garden path.”
“I’d like to make that quilt,” Sophie whispered to Sarah. “It would make a wonderful wedding present,” she added wistfully. Sarah raised her eyebrows and nodded her agreement.
“How do you connect the hexagons?” Caitlyn asked, holding up the two she had completed. Delores then demonstrated the tiny slip-stitching method used to sew them together.
With Delores’ guidance, the class continued cutting and stitching their hexagons while she walked around, offering individual help as needed. Sophie, with her experience in hand piecing, had completed an entire rosette and held it up for everyone to see. “This is fun,” she declared.
Every participant had several completed rosettes in front of them by the end of the class. “Keep working on these at home and when we meet next week, we’ll talk about any problems you’re having.
“Later, as they were driving home, Sarah wondered aloud if she could possibly reproduce the Memories quilt, using its layout and similar colors as a guide. “Just in case I have to give it up one day,” she added.
“Why would you have to give it up?” Sophie asked, looking surprised.
“I might find someone it should belong to.”
“You don’t think it should belong to you?” Sophie asked.
“In my heart, I think it does,” she responded pensively. “But I don’t know if I’ll be keeping it. I feel compelled to find out where it came from, and I don’t know where that might lead.”
Chapter 12
A few days later, Charles went into Sarah’s sewing room where she sat with a pile of fabric hexagons in front of her. “What are all those for?” he asked, picking up one to examine.
“I’m putting them together in sets,” she responded, reaching for another pile which had been connected with the slip stitches Delores had demonstrated and Sophie had helped her perfect. She had placed one in the middle and six around it but had then attached two extra hexagons, one on the left and one on the right, causing the hexagon to take on a diamond-like elongated design just like the creator of the Memories quilt had done. She had to point out the difference to Charles, who still wasn’t able to look at a quilt and distinguish its various parts.
“And where did all that fabric come from?” he asked, looking at the piles of fabric scraps stacked by color on the worktable.
“I raided the scrap boxes in Ruth’s back room. I was looking for fabrics that remind me of the colors and designs in the Memories quilt.”
“Are you planning to make one just like the one you already have?” he asked, trying to understand.
“I’m going to reproduce it if I can. I want to have one in case I lose this one to someone with a more legitimate claim to it.”
“How could there be a more legitimate claim?” Charles asked, looking confused. “You bought it fair and square.”
“True, but if I find someone from the family of the woman who made it, I would feel obligated to return it to them. The quilt is depending on me to…” but she stopped talking suddenly, not wanting to finish her sentence. She realized that what she was about to say would sound bizarre to her husband, and she didn’t want to try to explain. She was
n’t even sure she could explain. She just knew she felt a strong responsibility to discover what she could about the quilt.
“Anyway,” she continued, “figuring out how it’s made is helping me get to know the quilt better.”
Charles remained silent, trying to absorb what Sarah had said. She was beginning to sound a bit mystical, and that just didn’t seem like his wife, but he decided not to question her.
“So,” he said changing the subject, “I came in to tell you that I’ve had luck tracking down the Andersons.”
“Really?” Sarah responded, laying her sewing down and looking up at her husband who had moved over to sit on the futon where he had tossed his notebook earlier.
“The boys had apparently moved away some time ago. I haven’t located either one of them yet, but their parents, Susan and Philip Anderson remained here in Middletown. I found a death certificate for Phillip dated thirteen years ago, but the wife is apparently still living in their original neighborhood.”
“Where their house burned down?”
“Well, where the house they were renting burned down, but it seems they were able to buy a house just up the street from there.”
“I’m not sure I’d want to do that myself…”
“Well, they had school age kids and probably friends in the neighborhood. Remember, they lived in that rental at least fifteen years. Maybe they just didn’t want to resettle.
“Good point,” Sarah responded. “When can we talk to Mrs. Anderson?”
“I was wondering since she’s in her seventies and apparently alone now, perhaps you’d like to speak to her by yourself, or maybe with Sophie. She just might be more comfortable.”
“I agree. I’ll give Mrs. Anderson a call in the morning, but I think I’ll go alone.” Her friend Sophie had become deeply engrossed in her hexagons, having decided to follow the directions in the book and make the actual Grandmother’s Flower Garden quilt as a wedding present for Martha and Timothy.
Sarah had originally intended to make them a quilt herself, but she didn’t want to steal Sophie’s thunder. She and Charles were talking about offering to pay for the honeymoon Martha and Tim had been talking about. They both loved water sports and were looking at nearby resorts, but Charles had suggested flying them to a more exotic place – “a honeymoon they’ll never forget,” he had said. Not that anyone is likely to forget their honeymoon, no matter where it is, Sarah thought.
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