The Cats & the Riddle

by Jan Fields

“Caps?” Mary Beth said.

  “They want animal caps with side flaps and strings that can tie under your chin. Joanna wants a puppy cap, and John wants one that looks like a monkey. I didn’t find a pattern for that yet, though.”

  “Won’t a cap with earflaps be a little hot in Texas, especially in the spring?” Alice asked.

  “We have cool spring days down there,” Annie insisted. “Of course, we don’t have a lot of them, and I don’t remember ever having icy ears until I moved here.” Then she grinned. “Actually, they’ll probably end up with sweaty heads, but that’s what they asked for.”

  “I think I have a book that could work for the caps,” Mary Beth said. “I’ll show you after the meeting. A child’s purse would be good for the bazaar. Anyone else? It might be a good idea to bring the things for the bazaar here. That way, if we don’t end up with enough for a whole table, I can still carry them over to the church and leave them with the committee to go on one of their general donation tables.”

  “It’s easiest for me to bring things here,” Peggy said. “Time is so tight, especially with Emily in dance classes now. I seem to be rushing from one place to another all the time. But I am almost finished with a darling cathedral squares pillow top that should be great for the bazaar. I was making it for my aunt, but I just found out that she has redecorated and the colors don’t go at all. I also have some crazy-quilt pincushions I made with some of my scraps. I made one for me, and they were so cute that I ended up making a bunch for Christmas.” She grinned sheepishly. “I guess I overdid it a little.”

  “I can whip up some doll clothes,” Gwen said. “They always sell well at bazaars.”

  “I could do that too,” Kate added. “I actually have some patterns somewhere from when Vanessa was going through the doll stage.”

  “It sounds like we can fill a small table pretty well,” Alice said. “I know I could do a few bookmarks. They shouldn’t take long to cross-stitch.”

  “I could do some of those fuzzy scarves that I’ve seen on the teens in town,” Stella said. “It’s a fairly quick knit, and I saw you have some lovely colors in that textured yarn.”

  Mary Beth asked for everyone to bring their donations to the shop by the next Hook and Needle Club meeting if at all possible. That way she could plan the size of table they would need at the bazaar. Then, any stragglers could be dropped off at the shop after that.

  “I can carry the things over to the church when I go to bell practice,” Mary Beth said. “I know the storage room where the committee is keeping everything.”

  “Vanessa and I will lend a hand,” Kate said, “so Mary Beth doesn’t end up feeling like a pack mule.”

  “Bell practice?” Peggy said. “I always thought the church bell rang itself.”

  Mary Beth laughed. “It does, thank goodness. Can you picture me hanging from a bell rope like Quasimodo? No, we play handbells. A group of us who aren’t exactly gifted singers are trying to form a bell choir. It sounded like a great idea when someone suggested it, but playing handbells is much harder than it looks.”

  “We had a bell choir in Brookfield,” Annie said. “I always enjoyed hearing them during the holiday programs.”

  “We aren’t really at the point where anyone would enjoying hearing us,” Mary Beth said. “Which is why we need the practice. But it does mean I’m at the church two extra times a week, so it’s easy for me to take a box of bazaar items.”

  “Is your bell choir going to perform for Easter service?” Alice asked. “I think I’d enjoy hearing that.”

  “That was the original goal, but you haven’t heard us play.” Mary Beth rolled her eyes and shook her head. “I think it’s probably more realistic to plan on hearing us for the Christmas service.”

  “That would certainly give you plenty of time to practice,” Alice said with a laugh.

  “And yet, still not too much,” Mary Beth said.

  Annie smiled at her friends’ banter, and then she suddenly had a surprising thought. Up until now, it seemed that nearly every community project in Stony Point had required a trip to the attic at Grey Gables for something. And every trip to the attic seemed to turn up a mystery. But finally, here was something that should keep her out of the attic and mystery free for a while. Annie smiled. As much as she enjoyed puzzling over the many Stony Point mysteries, she was ready for a nice quiet spring.

  3

  After the Hook and Needle Club meeting, Peggy rushed off to get to work at The Cup & Saucer before her boss, Jeff, launched a search party. Mary Beth stood and turned to Annie, “I am almost sure I’ve seen a book that has the animal caps you need. I culled my pattern books last week of everything that looked a little shopworn, and they’re all in the back room waiting for me to tag them for a clearance sale. I think that’s where I saw the book. So let me go check—if you don’t mind waiting.”

  “I don’t mind,” Annie assured her. She watched as Mary Beth hurried to the back room, walking with quick strides. Even though Mary Beth was more than ten years older than her, Annie often wished she had her energy. Annie settled back in her seat to wait. She’d seen Mary Beth’s back room more than once or twice, and knew nothing was likely to be found back there very quickly.

  She turned to look at Alice, who was carefully folding a large piece of cross-stitch canvas. “That looks like a big project,” Annie said.

  “It’s a new cover for my party book,” Alice answered. “The old one is nearly in tatters.” Alice sold Divine Décor products and Princessa jewelry in home parties all over Stony Point and its environs. Annie mentally counted Alice as another high-energy businessperson. Between Mary Beth and Alice, Annie sometimes felt a bit like a slug, even though she tended to keep busy herself, between her work on Grey Gables and the almost endless projects that the Hook and Needle Club took part in—not to mention the mysteries that kept popping up when Annie least expected them.

  “I’d love to catch up on what you’ve been doing lately,” Annie said. “Would you like to have lunch? We could go to the diner.”

  “That would be great,” Alice agreed, “if you don’t mind a short detour. I need to stop by the library, but it really shouldn’t take long.”

  “Doing some research for Jim?” Annie asked with interest. Jim Parker, the handsome photographer who came to Stony Point often to spend time with Alice, tended to attract nearly as many mysteries as Annie’s attic. Annie would be happy to take a minor role in someone else’s mystery for a change.

  Alice shook her head. “No, he’s off working on a draft of his next book. He does this mad writer thing where he turns hermit and just bangs on the computer keyboard and mutters darkly. I don’t mind missing out on that.”

  “Doesn’t sound like a spectator sport,” Annie said.

  “And that’s why there are no reality shows where they film writers at work,” Alice said. “At any rate, I just need to drop off a Divine Décor catalog. Josephine Booth wants one, and she only volunteers half days on Tuesdays.”

  “How are you doing with your parties?” Annie asked. She was constantly surprised that Alice managed to make enough on her Divine Décor and Princessa jewelry sales to survive. Annie couldn’t imagine trying to sell things regularly. Although Annie’s dear husband Wayne had been an amazing car salesman, Annie hadn’t even been able to sell Girl Scout cookies. She always lost interest in the product, getting caught up instead listening to the dreams and problems people shared when she talked to them. Wayne often teased her that she was the ultimate people person; she never met a person who didn’t interest her.

  “Actually, it’s going great right now,” Alice answered. “This is normally a slow time—a lull between the Christmas gift-buying rush and the surge that I always see when the tourists arrive—but I’ve been saved this spring by a number of people doing small redecorating projects.”

  “I’d go crazy trying to budget around inconsistent income like that,” Annie said.

  “It’s a challenge,” Alice admitted
, “but I’m used to it.”

  Mary Beth hurried out of the backroom with a cap pattern book in hand. “I found it! This was my last one of these from the holidays last year,” she said. “I remembered that I put it in the back because the cover is a little torn. I can give you a discount for that.”

  “I’ll just be happy if it has the animals,” Annie said. She took the book and leafed through. It had a darling puppy, a kitten, a panda bear, and a teddy bear. “Oh no. It doesn’t have a monkey. John was really specific about that.”

  Kate peeked over Annie’s shoulder. “You could alter the panda bear to be a monkey. Just move the ears down to the side and use the big puppy eyes. And I would switch colors for the whole face; just use the eye patch and muzzle color directions together.”

  “Oh my,” Annie said. “That sounds complicated. I normally just follow the directions, very slowly and carefully.”

  Kate was an amazing designer, but one of the side effects of underestimating her own talent was that she tended to expect everyone to be able to do what she did. She gave Annie an encouraging smile. “It sounds harder than it would be. Why don’t you do the puppy first, and then I can walk you through the changes for the monkey.”

  “OK—that sounds good,” Annie said. With Kate’s help, she bought the yarn for both hats and then headed out of the shop with Alice.

  Alice glanced over at Annie. “You know, you’re much better at crochet than you think you are. You really need to give yourself more credit.”

  “I don’t know,” Annie said. “I’m OK on simple patterns and baby blankets, but anything I’ve done that was complicated involved a lot of hand-holding from Kate.”

  “Kate is incredible,” Alice agreed. “I’m glad her design work is starting to get some recognition. I’d take up crochet if I thought I could add the kind of gorgeous things to my wardrobe that she makes for herself and Vanessa.”

  Annie agreed. As they walked down the sidewalk, Annie looked out over the Town Square. The winter-bare trees were beginning to show glimpses of green near the tips of the branches, and every lawn seemed dotted with crocus blooms. The air was unseasonably warm, which was quite a surprise since winter was usually in no hurry to leave Maine. “Do you think we’ll have a mild spring?” she asked.

  Alice laughed. “This is Maine. There is no telling what kind of weather we’ll have—other than unpredictable. I’ve always said New England meteorologists make weather predictions by throwing darts at a list of possible forecasts.”

  When they reached the beautiful old Greek Revival–style building that housed the Stony Point Public Library, Annie reached out and patted one of the tall columns.

  “What was that for?” Alice asked.

  Annie shrugged. “I don’t know. The library just always feels like an old friend when we visit. I remember coming here as a kid with Gram and carrying out all the books I could carry.” Then she smiled sheepishly. “Wayne always teased me about treating inanimate objects like pets, especially my car.”

  “Hey, I wash my car, feed it gas and oil,” Alice said, “and I worry anytime it coughs or hiccups. How is that different from having a pet?”

  “Well, your convertible probably doesn’t sit on your chest to wake you up in the morning,” Annie said.

  “Ah, the famous kitty alarm clock. Boots has favored me with that one a few times when I’ve looked after her,” Alice said, and then she gestured at the tall columns of the library. “I’m not surprised you’re emotionally attached to the library. You always were crazy for books. I should have spent more time reading as a kid, but I was a little too busy turning my mom’s hair gray.”

  Annie laughed. “I suspect our adventures caused more than a few gray streaks for Gram too. Until you and I met, Gram was always telling me I should get my nose out of books long enough to go outside and live a little. She quit saying that about the third time we were ushered home by an irate adult.”

  “Adults had no sense of humor back then,” Alice said. “What’s life without some real adventure? Though our adventures these days get a little too exciting. I’ve come to love curling up with a good safe book now and then— especially a mystery!”

  They walked through the multipaned glass doors at the entrance. Just as the hush of the library surrounded them, Annie’s stomach grumbled loudly. Both women burst into giggles. “I guess we’d better hurry in here,” Alice said.

  “No, really, I can wait,” Annie said, pressing a hand against her middle. “I’m not ruled by my stomach.” Then she winced when her stomach growled again as if to argue the point.

  Still smiling, the two women walked to the front desk where all the library workers seemed to be gathered in a cluster. “What’s up?” Alice asked as they approached.

  “Someone left us a present,” Josephine Booth said. “I found it in the children’s section.” She gestured at the circulation desk.

  An old book lay open on the desk. Annie could see it was a shabby copy of Alice in Wonderland. The book lay open to a page with an illustration of a grinning Cheshire cat peering down at the little girl, Alice. On the page opposite the illustration, someone had cut a cubby out of the center of the rest of the pages. From that cutout, a grinning needle-felted orange cat in a wild top hat seemed frozen in the act of climbing out.

  Annie leaned closer to see the perfect details of the cat’s wide toothy smile and the tiny-size card tucked into the hatband. She saw that one of the cat’s paws held the handle of a tiny teacup. “The detail is amazing,” she said.

  “Who made it?” Alice asked.

  “We don’t know,” said Grace Emory, one of the reference librarians. “It had this card but no signature.” She held up a small stiff square of cream-color paper. In careful hand lettering, it read, “A book is a kind of mad and wonderful dream. Thank you for years of dreaming.”

  “Wow,” Annie said. “It must be from someone who loves the library.”

  “Well, we certainly love this.” Valerie Duffy, the other reference librarian, touched the tiny cat gently on the nose with one finger.

  “You know,” Josephine said. “I recognize this book.”

  “It’s Alice in Wonderland,” Grace said drily. “We all recognize it.”

  Josephine gave Grace a reproving glance. “No, I mean I recognize this copy. It was in the Friends of the Library book sale last fall. I remember checking to see if it was valuable, since it’s so old.”

  “Was it?” Alice asked.

  “No,” Josephine said, shaking her head. “It wasn’t all that old, just badly abused. I believe there were even some pages missing. I’m surprised it sold.”

  “Do you know who bought it?” Annie asked.

  Josephine shook her head. “I didn’t handle sales. Even if I had, there were so many people and so many books, I might not have noticed.”

  Annie remembered how packed that sale had been. She’d gotten a great bargain on books for herself and a few really nice children’s books for the twins.

  “Well, it certainly is a lovely gift,” Valerie said, “but we’ll have to put it in one of the display cases. I don’t think it would last long on an open shelf in the children’s section.”

  “That was a scary place to leave it,” Josephine agreed. “If I hadn’t found it before school let out, it might have been more than a little damaged by the time we saw it.”

  “Maybe the giver has a specific reason for leaving it in the children’s section,” Annie suggested.

  “I suppose she could be a mom,” Josephine said, “even though I’m impressed that any mom would have the time to do this kind of amazing work.”

  “Maybe it’s a teacher,” Valerie said. “They use the children’s section a lot.”

  “This is all very mysterious,” Grace said.

  Alice turned to Annie with a grin. “Wow, a mystery,” she said. “And we didn’t even have to go to your attic to find it!”

  4

  Annie spent the next several days working on the puppy
cap for Joanna. She wanted to have it finished in time for the next Hook and Needle Club meeting, so she’d feel ready to understand the changes needed for the monkey one. All the crocheting kept her indoors most days, though she cast longing glances at the spring sunshine through the windows more than once.

  She’d had to respond to two calls from that persistent woman with the Garden Club, and once when she looked out the window, she saw a car stop in front of the house so someone could lean out the passenger window and take photos of Grey Gables. Annie wasn’t sure it was related to the Garden Club, but she suspected as much.

  She wondered if it wouldn’t just be easier to agree to let them put her house on the tour. Still, she simply couldn’t decide. She loved working in her yard and making it as beautiful as she could, but did she really want strangers intruding on her privacy? More and more, she felt like she didn’t. Plus, her natural stubbornness hated to give in to such aggressive pushiness.

  On the morning that she spotted the stranger taking photos of her house, Annie had returned to her crocheting with her nerves humming with annoyance. Her stitch tension had tightened as a result, forcing her to pull out stitches and practice a few deep breaths to calm herself.

  Between her nerves and the difficulty of doing so many color changes, the little cap went much slower than she’d hoped. She suspected Kate could probably have whipped up the cap in little more than an afternoon, but the color changes had confused her in a couple spots, and she’d had to undo rows more than once. Finally, she was able to finish the main part of the cap. The ears and flaps looked like they would be much quicker to do.

  Even as she worked on the puppy cap, Annie felt the pressing deadline for the church bazaar. As cute as the bunny purse was, she felt like she ought to do more. So after a particularly frustrating episode of unraveling messed-up stitches, she took a break and dug out some of her pattern books for scrap projects. Then she gathered all the scraps of yarn left over from sweaters and afghans. She found a pattern for adorable small stuffed toys, each with a small jingle bell in the middle.