“Perfect,” said Maddy.
“Those bones would have a place in our little museum,” Cookie nodded. “We’d create a display around them.”
They were all seated around the Madisons’ dining-room table – Beau and Maddy, Cookie and Ben, Lizzie and Edgar, Bootsie and Jim. The kids were in bed. Aggie would be irked that she’d missed this late-night powwow.
“Now that we’ve solved the treasure hunting issue, let’s talk about who stole the quilt and who killed Charlie Aitkens,” said Jim Purdue. “May as well get it out on the table, seeing as Boyd’s trying to drag you gals into this.”
“We know the same thing as you, dear,” said Bootsie. “That Edgar overheard Boyd’s son telling someone he knew who stole the quilt.”
“That was probably his friend Spud Bodkin,” nodded Jim. “At least that’s what the state boys tell me.”
“Doesn’t that make it simple?” said Maddy. “All we have to do is ask Spud who Charlie was talking about.”
“Easier said than done,” the police chief replied. “Spud’s gone missing.”
“Missing?” said Edgar.
“That’s right. Nobody has seen him in two whole days. Went to Indy to see a Colts game and never came back.”
“Maybe he’s dead too,” suggested Maddy as she poured coffee, refilling everyone’s cups. The Madisons liked an inexpensive brand that contained chicory.
“You’re saying the thief killed them both to shut them up?”
“That could explain him being missing,” she replied.
Lizzie scowled at her coffee cup. She preferred a high-end coffee from Seattle. A Mucho Grande, with two lumps of sugar. “Charlie Aitkens said it was a guy whose girlfriend has a teenage son who’s into Lord of the Rings. How many people in Caruthers Corners could that be?”
“Hmm,” Maddy considered the question. “Mildred Gertner’s son Stuart is into Lord of the Rings. She says he’s read the book more than a hundred times. Thinks he’s a Hobbit or something.”
“His ears are big and he’s barely five feet tall,” Lizzie pointed out.
“Hobbits aren’t real,” snapped Cookie. A woman used to dealing in hard facts, she wasn’t attuned to fantasy worlds populated by wizards and dwarfs and fire-demons.
“No … but that’s not the point. The boy’s a devotee.”
“Mildred can’t be the thief’s girlfriend,” said Bootsie. “She and Frank have been married since high school. No boyfriend in the picture.”
“Mildred isn’t the woman Charlie was talking about,” agreed Maddy. “But her son may know other boys who are hooked on those Tolkien books. I think Jim should question him to see if any of his friends have a single mother with a shifty boyfriend.”
“Ahem,” Beau cleared his throat. “That’s not a bad idea, Jim.”
The big moon-faced policeman nodded. “I’ll put one of my deputies on it first thing in the morning. Got nothing to lose. We don’t have any other leads.”
Edgar sipped his coffee. He wasn’t as fussy about his joe as his wife. Caffeine was caffeine to him. “At least we have a plan of action. Ben goes down in the well tomorrow morning. And Jim starts hunting for Hobbits.”
“That about sums it up,” said Beau Madison, finishing off his coffee in one gulp. He liked the taste of chicory.
≈ ≈ ≈
Aggie got up to go to the bathroom. It was just down the hall. As she passed her cousin N’yen’s room, she heard sobbing.
Tapping on the door, she whispered, “Can I come in?”
“Y-yes,” came a tiny quavering voice.
“What’s the matter?”
The boy sat up in bed. Aggie could see his silhouette from the moonlight coming through the bedroom window. “I’m worried about my daddy and mommy,” he said. “I don’t want them to die.”
“They’re not going to die,” the girl reassured him. “They just got banged up a little. That’s what my daddy told me, and he never lies. After all, he’s a lawyer.”
“Honest?”
“Honest Injun. Don’t worry so much.”
“I’m afraid of being alone again, like after my first mommy and daddy died. They were in a car accident too.”
“You won’t ever be alone. You’ve got a family now. Forever.”
“Really?”
“Yes, you’ve got me and grammy and grampy and my daddy and mommy and Uncle Freddie and Aunt Amanda and all your new cousins.” She paused. “Besides, your own daddy and mommy will be getting out of the hospital real soon.”
“Promise?”
“You know you can always trust me, your very favorite cousin.”
≈ ≈ ≈
That same night Jasper Beanie heard a noise outside the caretaker’s cottage. Could it be those prankish high-school boys again? They liked to initiate members into the Seniors Scalawag Society by sending unwary boys into the cemetery to retrieve a bone. Some of the crypts were in need of repair, access to skeletons being easier than the town commissioners would care to admit. Principal Dorrety had banned such initiations, but they still went on behind his back.
As Jasper could attest.
Proper procedure was for the caretaker to phone the police and report any trespassers … but after his week of confinement with the Indiana State Police he wasn’t eager to see more lawmen. So he pulled on his trousers and hobbled out the backdoor, flashlight in hand.
“Yo, you boys! Get the heck outta the cemetery. It’s closed to the public this time of night.”
However, the voce that replied didn’t belong to a student at Madison High School. “Hello, Mr. Beanie. Perhaps you could help us? We’re looking for a tombstone with a piece broken off.”
“There’s lotsa tombstones like that. Pleasant Glades is better’n a hundred years old.”
“Take a look at the picture,” said the voice. “Maybe you’ll recognize it as coming from one of your tombstones.”
A light flashed on, revealing two men in suits, a photograph held out for him to inspect.”
“Just who are you guys?”
“We’re with the state police,” said Neil the Nail.
Chapter Fifteen
Hunting for Hobbits
Deputy Pete Hitzer interviewed Harry “the Hobbit” Gertner that next morning. Harry’s mother gave him permission to call her son out of First Year Algebra for the talk. Harry didn’t mind getting out of the math class one little bit. He hated memorizing terms and coefficients. He’d rather be writing fantasy stories in an Elfin language on his online blog.
Principal Dorrety let them use his office. He had sent a teacher’s aide to call the boy out of class so as not to upset students with a policeman’s presence.
“Fare the well, officer,” said the chubby bespectacled nerd. “What wanteth thou of me?” He was dressed in a top hat, vest, and morning coat, despite the school’s dress code.
“First off, let’s speak the King’s English,” said Pete Hitzer. He only had a GED diploma, so he didn’t like it when people flaunted their fancy education.
“Alas, these days the Crown is overseen by a Queen. So should we call it the Queen’s English?”
The deputy put on his tough face, the one he used when arresting people. “I mean plain ol’ American English. Got it, Harry?”
“Uh, yes sir.”
“Good. Now here’s my question –”
It took three minutes for Deputy Pete Hitzer to get two names of local Lord of the Rings aficionados who had single moms.
≈ ≈ ≈
Lt. Neil Wannamaker was on the phone with that hick police chief. “The rock used to kill the Aitkens boy didn’t come off a tombstone at Pleasant Glades,” he stated as if this were a major revelation.
“Why would you think it did?” replied Jim Purdue, determined not to show his cards.
“Because that’s where Charlie’s mother is buried. Thought it might have been a keepsake from her grave.”
“Sounds pretty ghoulish, taking a piece of his mother’s tomb
stone as a memento.”
“Told you it wasn’t that. His mother’s tombstone is as pristine as the day it was placed there ten years ago.”
Jim paused, debating whether to tell him it was a runestone. No, the ISP would never buy that theory. Vikings in Indiana? It was all too crazy. So instead he said, “There are several other cemeteries in the area. Family plots. Small churches. A big one over near Burpyville that’s owned by a funeral home chain – Shady Meadows, it’s called.”
“We’ve checked them all. I had a dozen men poking around local graveyards yesterday. Went into overtime, up to midnight. That rock didn’t come from any of them.”
“So where did it come from?”
“Beats me. Maybe it’s a souvenir Charlie brought back from Boy Scout camp in Michigan when he was sixteen years old. Maybe its origin isn’t even important. But we try to run down every lead.”
Jim screwed up his courage. He wasn’t used to talking back to the state police. “I thought you said this was my case. What the dickens are your men doing checking out the murder weapon behind my back.”
“Just lending a hand. I’ve got more resources than you do, so why not help you out?”
“Yeah, thanks,” Jim said. But he didn’t sound sincere.
≈ ≈ ≈
“No,” said Cookie to the tall man with the thin moustache, “records of where the Church of Avenging Angels was located do not exist.”
“Hey, I checked with the folks at Town Hall. They said to ask you.”
“Wish I could help, but the church’s location is lost to history. Old newspaper articles suggest it was on the far side of the Never Ending Swamp, but no one knows exactly where. A Personal History of Caruthers Corners and Surrounding Environs by Martin J. Caruthers tells us a little about the leader of the church, one Rev. Billingsley Royce. Caruthers claimed the good reverend was really a scalawag from St. Paul, Minnesota, named Billy Bob Rutherford.”
“Is he the one who drowned that witch lady?”
“According to reports in an 1899 issue of the Burpyville Gazette, a local woman was drowned in her own well by a group of religious zealots. They thought she was a witch – and maybe she thought so too. The men were never identified, but rumor had it that Rev. Royce was the ringleader.”
“And nobody ever found the money?”
“W-what money?” Cookie stammered. At this very moment her husband and his pal Bombay were down in the very well where Matilda Wilkins had died. It seemed highly suspect that this stranger would be asking about her murderers on this particular morning.
“Legend has it those religious zealots, as you call them, took Mrs. Wilkins’s money and buried it under the doorstep of their church. Silver bars, it was said.”
“S-silver bars? Why would an old farmer’s wife have silver bars?” She was shocked he knew about the silver.
“Viking treasure she found in her well, the story goes.”
“Where did you hear this?” Cookie could feel her hand shaking as she thumbed through the Caruthers book to the paragraph about the witch’s death.
“My organization is called the Greater Midwest Occult Phenomena Association. G.M.O.P.A., for short. Or G-Mop-A if you like. We research occult phenomena. We’ve catalogued over fifty thousand strange happenings since 1800. Naturally, we pay attention to stories about witches. The tale about Rev. Royce and the witch woman’s silver appeared in a book called Angels of the Lord and the Silver Hoard, supposedly written by one of Rev. Royce’s congregation, a man named Simonton Poteet. It was published in 1937 by the Peoria University Press – now defunct.”
“If you already know so much about Rev. Royce, why are you quizzing me?” She’d have to get her hands on that book, Cookie told herself.
“We try to be thorough. What’s more, we know you and your quilting friends have been poking around the Wilkins homestead. If you’re after the silver bars too, you can forget it. I have a deal with Boyd Aitkens, the gent who owns that land.”
“Matter of fact, so do we. But I thought you said the money was buried at the church … or wherever the church used to be located.”
“That’s just it, we aren’t sure. Legends are never totally accurate.”
“Yes, I certainly agree.”
“Then if you –”
“Sorry, but you’ll have to excuse me. I’m behind in my filing.”
“I thought you were going to show me the reference in that book. We don’t have a copy of it in our library.”
“Yes, it’s a rare book. In fact, this may be the only copy existent. In 1913 Martin Caruthers paid to have it printed on the Burbyville Gazette press. Only 50 copies were pulled, according to the records.”
“Does it say more about Rev. Royce?”
“Perhaps. But I’m too busy right now to look it up.”
“Hey –”
“Go find the treasure on your own,” snapped Cookie, closing the book with a bang! “I have work to do.”
≈ ≈ ≈
At that very moment, Ben Bentley was 82-feet down inside the Wilkins well. Or if the Quilters Club was right, a well dug by Viking explorers.
Perhaps these Norsemen had spent a season here in Indiana, camping under this canopy of oak trees. That would have given them plenty of time to dig a well and carve messages on rocks that were later used by Benjamin Wilkins to build a protective wall around the well.
“How deep’s the water?” Bombay Martinez called down to him. Bombay was a retired circus performer. He worked with the Haney Bros. (actually a man and wife rather than brothers) at the zoo next to the Bentley farm. Among other duties, he took care of the elephant.
“Not very deep at all. Water only comes up to my knees.” Ben was wearing his hip-waders that he used for duck hunting.
“Found any silver bars yet?”
“Nope. Nor any witch’s bones. There is an aluminum Coke can floating down here, but I suspect it’s of a more modern origin.”
“Dastardly picnickers!” huffed Bombay. He hated litterbugs.
“Wait a minute, there’s something here in the muck,” called Ben’s disembodied voice from deep in the well. “A glass jar with something in it. I’ll put it in the bucket and you haul it up.”
“Got it,” replied Bombay, putting the winch in motion.
That was the only find of the day, the glass jar.
≈ ≈ ≈
After his frustrating meeting with that Historical Society lady, Maury Seiderman drove out to the Wilkins cottage. He could see people milling about in the distance, so he parked his 1975 LeSabre convertible on a side road and pulled out his Bausch and Lomb field glasses to spy on them. He wasn’t sure what to do if these interlopers had found silver down there in the well.
Seiderman wasn’t a violent man, but his partners were. His cousin’s boyfriend had killed that Aitkens boy in some kind of argument over the stolen quilt. Maybe he’d call his cuz and let her boyfriend handle this if these people discovered the treasure.
But it didn’t come to that. No silver bars were hauled up from the well. Just a Mason jar and that stocky guy in hip waders.
Chapter Sixteen
A Magic Potion
That evening the Quilters Club and their mates gathered around the butcher-block counter in Cookie Bentley’s kitchen to study the artifact from the Wilkins well. It was a sealed Mason jar, the name showing in bas-relief on the glass side. Some kind of bloated shape could be seen floating in the murky brown liquid that filled the container.
“A Mason jar. That must be from a picnicker, like the Coke can,” Lizzie sighed. Obviously disappointed with the singular find.
“Not necessarily,” said Cookie. “Mason jars were patented on November 30, 1858 by John Landis Mason, a Philadelphia tinsmith. See, there’s the date embossed on the side of the jar along with the name.”
“This jar was made in 1858?” marveled Aggie, standing on her tiptoes to see. She was still small for her age, practically the same height as her cousin N’yen.
“Probably not,” Cookie shook her head. “Jars with that date on the side were manufactured well into the 1900s.”
“But it has to be pretty old,” said Ben. “Look how rusty that lid is.”
“What’s that blob inside?” asked N’yen. He squinted at the jar, the epicanthic folds making this eyes all the more narrow.
“Dunno,” said his grandmother. “Maybe some old vegetable. A turnip or a cauliflower.”
“Looks more like a chicken gizzard,” Lizzie offered a guess. Not that she’d ever seen a chicken’s gizzard in her life. She bought Tyson Farms roaster chickens, prepackaged and ready to slide into the oven. Cooking wasn’t exactly her forte.
“I’d say it’s a magic potion,” guessed Cookie.
Beau Madison picked up the jar and shook it, just enough to stir up its contents. “Look, there’s a lizard in there too.”
“That looks like a tiny feather floating beside it.”
Jim grimaced. “Hate to tell you, but that blob’s not a turnip or a gizzard. It’s an eyeball. See, it just shifted so it’s looking at you.”
“Eek!” cried Aggie.
“I don’t mean that it’s really looking at you,” he amended his words. “It just seems like it is.”
“Can we open the jar?” asked N’yen.
“No,” said the police chief. “I’m going to send it over to the state boys to let them analyze it. Better we don’t break the seal.”
“Ooo, a pickled eyeball,” said Aggie. “Mad Matilda must’ve been a really wicked witch.”
Chapter Seventeen
The Greater Midwest Occult Phenomena Association
Maury Seiderman hadn’t been entirely honest with the town’s mayor or the Historical Society lady. While it was true that he was a field investigator for G.M.O.P.A., he was also its president, its secretary, and its sergeant at arms. Matter of fact, he was the only member of the Greater Midwest Occult Phenomena Association.
Hemmed In (A Quilters Club Mystery No. 4) (Quilters Club Mysteries) Page 7