Robert Kramer was no fool, Lydia assured herself. He wouldn’t walk away from the chance to make a quick fifty grand or more. Dishonest people think like that, assuming that everyone else has the same degree of larceny running in his or her veins.
And now that Maddy Madison and her lawyer son-in-law had discovered the first switch, Lydia didn’t have any time left. Having the keys, she could grab the remaining quilts from the Town Hall’s conference room and forget about replacing them with replicas.
She was standing there, tracing her fingers along the blue fabric, feeling its texture, admiring the simplicity of the quilt’s design, when she heard the doorbell. Darn it, she hated salespeople, missionaries, and kids selling Girl Scout cookies coming uninvited to her door. Privacy was important, she told herself. Especially when you were in the middle of the biggest robbery Caruthers Corners had ever experienced.
Padding to the front door in her bathrobe, she threw it open and shouted her constant mantra: “No solicitors – go away!”
Chief Jim Purdue said, “Don’t think you could rightly call me a solicitor, Lydia. May I come in?” Before she could refuse, he added, “Police business, ma’am.”
At that moment, Lydia intuited that the jig was up. Instead of her Golden Years spent in a condo in Florida, she would be stuck behind bars at Indiana State Prison up in Michigan City. “How’d you catch me?” she asked. “Did my ungrateful daughter turn me in?”
“No ma’am. It was your cousin Henry.”
“That rat! I used to baby-sit him when he was a snotty little boy. I shoulda dropped him on his head back then.”
“So you admit you stole the Pennington quilt?”
“May as well. That nosy Madison woman and her lawyer already figured out the real one was here. I ’spect she tipped you off, huh?”
“That’s right, ma’am.”
“Hmph,” Lydia Lazynski grunted. “I never shoulda voted for her husband.”
≈≈≈
“So Henry Caruthers was telling the truth?” said Cookie. Astonished at the news. His track record was not a good one.
“Apparently so,” replied Maddy as she sliced a fresh batch of gingerbread. Aggie and N’yen were hovering nearby, awaiting a helping while it was still warm from the oven.
“First time for everything,” commented Lizzie.
Bootsie was pouring milk for the children. “Jim says Henry’s getting off scot-free. He did take the keys from Nan’s desk drawer, but lost them before he had a chance to break into Beau’s office and retrieve those incriminating documents from the file cabinet.”
“Yes, but what about those papers?” asked Maddy. “Don’t they give Jim enough evidence to arrest him for taking kickbacks?”
Bootsie shook her head. “Seems our husbands have decided to sweep that particular mess under the rug. Bad for the town’s image.”
“I don’t know if I agree with that,” said Maddy.
“Don’t think our opinion is being solicited. The town council met this morning and took a vote.”
“Oh well.”
“What’s happening with Nan Beanie?” asked Cookie as she passed out colorful carnival plates for the gingerbread.
Maddy used the cake spatula to deliver fat slices to each plate. “I hear she’s coming home, subject to Beau’s promise he won’t file charges against her. And Jasper’s taking her back, forgive and forget.”
Bootsie added, “Jim says her brother flew back this morning after faxing the police department a letter from Lydia Lazynski offering to sell him the quilts. He claims that he wanted no part of it and has agreed to testify against her.”
“How about Holly Eberhard?” inquired Lizzie. “I’ll bet she’s steamed about being arrested.”
Bootsie shrugged. “Oh, she’s threatening to sue the town, sue the police department, sue Maddy, sue the next person who looks at her cross-eyed.”
“Mark the Shark tells me not to worry,” Maddy interjected. By now everyone was nibbling on the warm gingerbread. The Madison family recipe, handed down through the generations, was a closely guarded secret. Even Bootsie hadn’t been able to worm it out of Maddy, despite years of trying.
“So will her mother go to jail?” asked Cookie. Surely somebody in this criminal affair was guilty of something.
Maddy understood her friend’s frustration. She shared it herself. “Lydia Lazynski will probably do some jail time. But given her age and no prior record, Mark says she’ll probably get off with six months plus probation.”
“I’d do six months for a hundred thousand dollars in rare quilts,” joked Lizzie.
“Keep in mind, Lydia doesn’t get to keep the quilt she stole. In fact, Marks says she’ll probably lose her house after all the legal bills.”
“Why doesn’t her daughter help her out?” said Lizzie, a little disillusioned with Holly Eberhard. “Caruthers Corners Gazette says she’s getting two million dollars in her divorce settlement. That should cover quite a few legal bills.”
Maddy shrugged. “Unfortunately for Lydia, she raised an ungrateful daughter. So sad.”
The women contemplated that state of affairs. But Lydia Lazynski was not a character deserving of much sympathy.
“More please,” said N’yen, holding out his plate like the waif in a Charles Dickens story. For an eight-year-old kid, he could certainly pack it away.
“Yes, more,” Aggie chimed in, but her first slice wasn’t finished. She was just trying to keep up with her new cousin. The Boy with the Bottomless Pit, his new mom called him.
“How do you like having a sister, honey?” asked Cookie.
Aggie grinned, mouth covered with gooey frosting. “She’s too little to play with. I like N’yen better for now.”
“She’ll grow up before you know it,” said Lizzie, who still felt competitive with her younger sister who lived in Burpyville. “Enjoy the peace and quiet while you can.”
“Quiet?” said Aggie. “She cries all the time.”
“A colicky baby,” Maddy explained as she sliced a piece of gingerbread for herself. The knife cut through it like butter. The secret was in using buttermilk rather than regular milk.
“Well, at least the mystery is solved,” said Bootsie.
“And the Smithsonian will get back all its original quilts,” Cookie sighed with relief.
“Plus the State’s Quilting Bee Committee has agreed to use our Watermelon Days contest as a First Round in its official competition,” Lizzie said proudly. As the likely winner again this year, that meant she’d be going to Indy for the Finals.
“Best of all,” said Maddy Madison, “this week my family increased by two!”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Wrapping Up the Quilt Mystery
Bill and Kathy were heading back to Chicago today. Tillie and Mark the Shark had come over to Melon Picker Row to say goodbye to them. Aggie was holding the new baby very carefully, as if the tiny entity were a fragile China doll. Beau had wandered off somewhere, but that was par for the course.
“I can’t tell you what a great visit this has been,” said Bill, hugging his mother.
“Yes, it has,” agreed Kathy, lining up for her hug. She liked being a part of this ungainly, something-always-happening family.
“We’re so happy for you children, having a child of your own now. I know that’s what you’ve always wanted.”
“N’yen is such a wonderful boy,” smiled Kathy.
“Where is N’yen?” asked Bill, looking around with a slightly worried expression crossing his chiseled face.
“He was here just a few minutes ago,” said Mark.
“Maybe he’s in the backyard looking for fireflies,” suggested Aggie, still holding her baby sister.
“Fireflies? It’s ten o’clock in the morning,” said her mother, keeping an eye on the baby.
“N’yen doesn’t know they only come out at night,” giggled Aggie. Her joke on a new cousin.
“Let me go check,” said Maddy. “You guys can be putt
ing your bags in the car.”
“Sure, mom.” Bill gave her a wink. He knew everything would be under control with his mother on the case.
Maddy walked through the kitchen to the sliding glass doors. You could see the goldfish pond at the far end of the backyard, hints of red and gold swirling beneath the surface. There on the bank was her husband, the small Vietnamese boy at his side. Their words carried across the open expanse of the yard.”
“Gee whiz, Grampy, look at the fish.”
“Next time you come to visit, the two of us will go fishing. I know a great spot on the river where the catfish are as big as sharks.”
“Oh boy, I’d like that, Grampy. You promise?”
“Count on it, young man. I’m going to teach you to hike and camp and fish. We’re gonna have us a grand old time.”
Maddy slipped back into the house, unseen by the man and boy. She couldn’t help but smile, knowing that everything was right with the world.
“Hmm,” she said to herself. “Maybe I’ll start me a new quilt today.” She always liked sewing on a quilt when she was happy.
= = =
Bonus
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About the Author
Marjory Sorrell Rockwell says needlecraft arts – quilting, crocheting, knitting – are pastimes every woman can appreciate. And she particularly loves quiltmaking. “It’s like painting with cloth,” she says. But when not quilting she writes mysteries about a midwestern sleuth not unlike herself, a middleaged lady with an unpredictable family and loyal friends. And she’s a big fan of watermelon pie.
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