by Molly Macrae
“Ah. Where’ve they been since?”
“Aaron said they pitched the tent down in the Smokies. Incommunicado.”
Ardis sidled back over, at that, unable to take her eyes off Angie. “It’s beautiful,” she said. “Her voice is absolutely haunting.”
“Haunting,” I agreed. “Oh my gosh.”
“Hush,” said Shirley and Mercy.
Much as I hated to leave in the middle of Angie’s beautiful song . . .
• • •
Geneva, Argyle, and I sat next to one another in the front window listening to the end of Angie’s two o’clock set. The sun was slipping through the window and puddling around the ghost and the cat. I’d moved over to be in the cooler shadow.
“Mattie had a beautiful voice,” Geneva said. “But I like Angie’s better. She sounds the way I so often feel. I could listen to her singing all day. Could you?”
“I could . . . oh . . . oh my.” I could also smell “the drains.” “Geneva, honey, do me a favor? Go see if John has fallen asleep in that chair, will you?”
She floated away and so did “the drains.” Oh my. I could see the label now: “Ghost—keep out of direct sunlight.” I’d have to tell her, but not just then. I scooped up Argyle and wandered out to the kitchen. Joe was there with the door open, making adjustments to the new alarm.
“Hey,” he said. “I was just about to take off.”
“Oh, well, thanks for everything—all your help and for finding Angie—and especially for that.” I nodded at the alarm.
“My baa-ck door alarm. Glad you like it.”
“Before you go, can I tell you about a theory I’ve been working on? It kind of fits in with part of the investigation.”
“Sure.” He stuck his screwdriver in his back pocket and leaned against the open door.
“At the museum, I used to tell the curators that there’s correct information and sufficient information. For example, in terms of the investigation, cow parsnip causes a poison ivy–like rash. That’s correct information. But it wasn’t sufficient information for identifying Reva Louise’s killer. So my theory is that correct isn’t always sufficient and making decisions based only on what’s correct isn’t necessarily the best path. What do you think? Does it make sense?”
Joe thought about it, nodding, arms crossed, hands tucked in his armpits. “Sure. Yeah. You could sum it up by telling a guy, one of your curators, for instance, not to jump to conclusions. About something he saw, for instance.”
“That’s it. You’ve got it.”
“But you and Cole. Correct or . . .”
“Insufficient, Joe.”
Argyle looked up and mrphed. Joe scritched him between the ears.
“You want to go to Mel’s tomorrow night?” he asked. “Test the new cook?”
“Love to.”
He hesitated for a second, then bent forward and gave me a kiss so quick it was tantalizing. I didn’t realize I’d closed my eyes. When I opened them, Joe was gone, and the door closing behind him said, “Baa.”
Ghost Finger Puppet
© Kate Winkler, Designs from Dove Cottage, 2013
Designed for Spinning in Her Grave by Molly MacRae
MATERIALS:
About 10 yards of sock yarn, fingering weight yarn, or baby yarn* (recommended gauge for yarn should be about 7–8 stitches per inch)
US size 1 needles (a pair of double-pointed needles will do)
Tapestry needle
Scraps of contrasting yarn* or embroidery floss, beads, or small buttons for features
*For a classic ghost, use white yarn for “body” and black yarn or floss for eyes/mouth.
ABBREVIATIONS:
K = knit; K2tog = knit two stitches together (decrease); SSK = slip next two stitches knitwise, one at a time, and knit them together through the back (decrease)
INSTRUCTIONS:
Cast on 21 stitches.
Row 1 (right side): Knit
Row 2: Purl
Repeat these two rows until work is about 2½ inches long, ending with a purl row.
Shaping Row 1 (right side): K3, K2tog, K1, SSK, K4, K2tog, K1, SSK, K4
Shaping Row 2: Purl
Shaping Row 3: K2, K2tog, K1, SSK, K2, K2tog, K1, SSK, K3
Shaping Row 4: Purl
Shaping Row 5: K1, K2tog, K1, SSK, K2tog, K1, SSK, K3
Shaping Row 6: Purl
9 stitches remain. Cut yarn, leaving a 10-inch tail. Using the tapestry needle, run the tail through the remaining stitches, removing them from the knitting needle, and draw them up tight. For additional security, you may run through the stitches a second time.
Sew seam and weave in ends on the inside of the puppet.
With the seam at the center back and with the right side facing, embroider the eyes and mouth onto the front with contrasting yarn. You may add hair or other features as desired. If you want your puppet to have arms, you could knit an inch or so of I-cord for each arm or crochet chains of the same length and attach them in the appropriate locations.
Baked Black Bean and Spinach Burritos
Serves 4
INGREDIENTS:
canola oil
22/3 cups cooked black beans, drained
2 10-ounce packages frozen chopped spinach, thawed and pressed dry
4–6 cloves garlic
2/3 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese (about 2 ounces)
1/3 cup pine nuts, toasted
11/3 teaspoon ground coriander
2/3 teaspoon ground cumin
2/3 teaspoon ají amarillo chile powder (or cayenne pepper)
1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro
¼ cup fresh lime juice
salt to taste (about 1 to 1½ teaspoons)
¾ cup crumbled feta cheese (about 4 ounces)
8 10-inch flour tortillas
1 cup salsa (optional)
DIRECTIONS:
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly coat the bottom of a 9-x-13-inch baking dish with canola oil. In a large bowl, combine the beans, spinach, garlic, Monterey Jack cheese, pine nuts, coriander, cumin, ají amarillo chile powder, cilantro, lime juice, and salt. Toss to blend. Add the feta cheese and toss again.
Place 1 cup of the mixture in the center of a tortilla. Fold up one-third of the end of the tortilla facing you, then fold in the sides and roll up the tortilla. Repeat with the remaining tortillas and filling. Place in the oiled dish and bake, uncovered, for 10 to 15 minutes or until heated through. Remove from the oven, top with salsa, and serve at once.
Mel’s Rhubarb Sourdough Bread Pudding
INGREDIENTS:
12 ounces sourdough bread ripped into pieces ranging ½ to 1 inch
4 tablespoons butter
1½ cups milk
5 eggs
1½ cups sugar
1 tablespoon fresh orange zest
4 cups rhubarb, chopped
¼ cup crystallized ginger, chopped
½ cup raw sugar (or brown sugar)
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ cup pecans, chopped
DIRECTIONS:
Spread bread on a cookie sheet and lightly toast, then place in a greased 3-quart casserole dish. Melt butter with milk, pour over bread in casserole.
Mix together eggs, sugar, salt, and orange zest. Stir in rhubarb and ginger. Stir rhubarb and egg mixture into bread mixture. Top with raw sugar (or brown) and pecans.
Bake at 350ºF 55–60 minutes until set.
Read on for a sneak peek
at the next Haunted Yarn Shop Mystery,
PLAGUED BY QUILT
Coming in December 2014 from Obsidian.
“But where will we find the real story behind the Holston Homeplace Living History Farm?” Phillip Bell asked his audience of two dozen high school students. “Where will we find the dirt? Where . . .” The end of his sentence disappeared as he paced the stage in the small auditorium, hands clasped behind his back. I watched from the door, where I could see the students’ faces as they tracked his movements lik
e metronomes.
Bell, who couldn’t have been ten years older than the youngest student, screwed his face into a puzzle of concentration, shoulders hunched, as he continued pacing. He brought one hand from behind his back to stroke the neat line of beard along his chin. He would have looked like a freshly minted junior professor if he hadn’t been dressed in mid-eighteenth-century farmer’s heavy brogues, brown cotton trousers, a linen blouse, and a wide-brimmed felt hat. If he’d had a wheat straw between his teeth, it wouldn’t have looked out of place. The students’ reactions to him were as entertaining as Bell himself.
Without warning, Bell jerked to a stop, swiveled to face the students, and flung his arms wide. “Where?” he asked. “Where are the bodies buried?”
Startled, the teens in the front row jumped back in their seats. The boy nearest me recovered first. He slouched back down on his spine, stretching his long legs out so his feet rested against the edge of the stage. He smirked at his neighbor, then turned the smirk to Bell.
“In the cemet—” the boy started to say.
Bell flicked the answer away with his hand. “No, no, no. Not the cemetery. Boring places. Completely predictable.”
“Unlike Phillip Bell,” a woman’s voice said behind my left ear. “Full of himself, isn’t he? What a showman.”
I glanced over my shoulder to smile at Ruth Wood. She’d crossed the carpeted hall from her office without my noticing. She didn’t return my smile. She was watching Bell as raptly as the students and gave no indication that she expected an answer to her comment. I turned back to watch, too.
“No,” Bell said to the students, “there’s someplace better than cemeteries. That’s beside the fact that no living Holston—or anyone else—is going to let us dig up his sainted uncle Bob Holston or aunt Millie Holston from the family cemetery. And you can bet that is chiseled in stone. Not chiseled on a gravestone, though.” The students laughed until they realized Bell wasn’t laughing, too. When their laughs died, he turned and stared at the boy who’d brought up cemeteries. “You aren’t a Holston, are you?”
The boy started to open his mouth, then opted for a head shake. Under Bell’s continued stare, the long legs retracted, and the boy dropped his gaze to the open notebook in his lap.
Bell looked around the room. “Are any of you Holstons? Last name? Unfortunate first name? Anyone with a suspicious H for a middle initial?”
Students shook their heads, looked at one another.
“Just as well,” Bell said. “The Holston clan might not like what I’m about to tell you. Have you got your pencils ready? Take this down. Two words. Two beautiful words describing some of the most interesting places on earth. Some of my favorite places. Much less predictable than cemeteries.” He turned a pitying look on the formerly smirking boy. “And that makes them so much better than cemeteries. Where are we going to find the real stories? Two words. Garbage dump.” Bell nodded and rocked back on his heels. “Yes, sir, I love a good old garbage dump. ‘Old’ being the operative word.”
“Will your ladies and a crazy quilt be able to compete with Phillip and his garbage dump?” Ruth asked in my ear.
“I think we can hold our own, although ‘crazy’ might be the operative word in our case. Is he always on like this?” I nodded toward Bell, who was describing the contents of a nineteenth-century household dump in loving detail.
“You should have seen him when he interviewed for the position,” Ruth said. “He wore a purple frock coat. He looked like the Gene Wilder version of Willy Wonka, and he gave the search committee a tour of the site like they’d never heard before. As I said, quite the showman.”
“I’m glad he’s not wearing the purple coat today. It would clash with his garbage dump.”
“It was really more of a deep plum,” Ruth mused.
“Anyway, it worked. You hired him.”
“Not on the basis of how he looks in a plum coat, but yes.”
There was something in her voice that made me turn my back on Phillip Bell’s theatrics and look at her more closely. What I saw was the usual, impeccable Ruth Wood, longtime director of the state-owned Holston Homeplace Living History Farm. “Slim, silver, successful, and sixty” is how my friend Ardis Buchanan summed her up. “Sparkling” would usually suit Ruth, too, but the sparkle was missing today.
“How’s he doing as assistant director?” I asked. “Are you happy with him?”
“I am,” she said. “He’s only been here two months, though, and the Holston jury is still out.”
“Ah.”
Ruth’s unease was easy to understand. For years, she’d lobbied the state legislature for funds to hire a full-time, professionally qualified assistant director, and for years her efforts were fruitless. Then one day she’d mentioned her wish to a well-heeled Holston visiting from Houston, Texas. That Holston knew other Holstons, who in turn knew more Holstons, and apparently they all knew how to make things happen—privately raised funds, a new foundation, and Phillip Bell were the results.
“They’ve been miracle workers,” Ruth said. “They’re kind and generous people.”
“But that generosity comes with hidden costs?” I asked, thinking of the strings a powerful family might attach to the money they donated.
“You will never hear those words from my lips,” she said.
“Ms. Wood?” Phillip Bell called. “Ms. Rutledge? Coming on the tour?” The students hesitated at the edges of their seats, waiting to be released and probably willing to follow Bell anywhere.
Ruth stepped past me into the room. “Unfortunately for me, there’s a meeting I can’t miss. But I’ll see you all back here in an hour or so. We’ll have snacks and cold drinks in the education room, and then we’ll get down to the nitty-gritty of Hands-On History.” She paused. “Unless by then you’ve buried yourselves in Mr. Bell’s garbage dump and can’t pull yourselves out.”
The students laughed. Bell didn’t ask again if I planned to join the tour and didn’t wait to see if I tagged along. Without looking back, he led the students out the door on the opposite side of the room. I turned to Ruth, but she’d already disappeared across the hall into her office and shut that door. I turned back to the auditorium in time to see the door closing there, too. Drat.
Getting to that other door either meant walking around the solid block of auditorium seats or threading my way along the row leading straight across the room. The shortest distance won, but not without complaints from my knees as I banged them on upturned seats along the way.
“Yes, thank you,” I said, feeling grumpy. “I’d love to take your tour.”
“That’s not what I was going to ask you,” a voice said from the stage. “But I’ll be happy to show you around, if you want.”
I jumped and banged my hip against a seat back. I looked, and there was a young woman standing in the middle of the stage, hands in the back pockets of her jeans, short dark hair pushed behind her ears.
“Are you one of the students with . . .” I pointed to the door Bell and the student had gone through. But the room had been empty. I’d watched them leave.
“I’m a volunteer,” the woman said. “You’re Kath Rutledge, aren’t you? I recognize you from your shop. I’ve been in a few times. I love the Weaver’s Cat.” She looked down at the front of her T-shirt. “And I forgot my name badge again. I’m Grace Estes.”
“Where did you just come from?” I asked, ignoring her pleasant greeting and proving to myself, once again, how clumsy my manners could be when something puzzled me.
Grace didn’t seem to mind. She looked over her shoulder at the wall behind the stage, hands still in her back pockets. I followed her gaze. Of course. There was a discreet door in the wall for backstage entrances and exits.
“The education room’s through there,” Grace said with a nod. “I was setting out the refreshments.”
She hopped off the stage, and I resumed my trek between the rows of seats. We met at the door.
“Won’t it be great
if the money for renovations comes through?” she said. “It wouldn’t be the highest priority, considering the need for better storage, but maybe they can bump out this wall, add seats, and improve the traffic flow in here.” She grinned. “Do I sound like I’m doing a building-usability study?”
“Are you?”
“Practicing, anyway. I took a class in building and design for historic sites last semester, and I’m still psyched. Were you serious about taking a tour?” She opened the door. “Come on. We can catch up with Phil.”
“It’s nice to meet you, by the way,” I said, falling in beside her and offering my hand.
Up close, it was easy to see she wasn’t the high school student I’d first mistaken her for. She fit somewhere in age between Phillip Bell and the teens, but how close to either end was hard to tell. Her warm smile and her hands slipping into her back pockets again made her look confident and comfortable. I liked her. I liked the humor in her eyes.
We followed a brick path across an expanse of lawn toward the site’s dozen or so historic buildings. The two-story antebellum clapboard house—the centerpiece of the Homeplace—sat on a rise to our left. Straight ahead, I spotted Bell and the students leaving the log corncrib and heading for the barn—one of east Tennessee’s distinctive cantilever barns.
Grace nudged my arm with her elbow and leaned close. “The whole overhanging-cantilever thing isn’t my favorite look in a barn. Don’t tell anyone.”
“Sacrilege. So you’re studying site management?”
“On again, off again,” she said. “Small problem with cash flow, but I’ll get there, eventually.”
“Stick with it. Of course, the cash-flow problems will stick with you, too, if you stay with the public-servant side of sites and preservation.”
“Oh, yeah,” she said. “I’ve got firsthand experience with that. I worked part-time for a couple of years at a site in West Virginia. So, yeah, I’ve been there, but it’s what I love, so I plan to keep doing it.”