≈≈≈
“This is crazy,” said Bootsie. “The police department has a skiff it uses for dragging the river in drowning cases. Jim could have motored us down here in style.”
Maddy and her friend were crowded into a rubber raft, a remnant of her sons’ Scouting days. She’d used an old bicycle pump in the garage to blow it up, but even so it sagged in the middle from their combined weight. Bootsie had packed on a few extra pounds over the summer, not that she was a lightweight to begin with.
The raft was floating down the Wabash, being kept on course by a few licks of their paddles. They had launched it at the exact spot where Lizzie’s husband had spotted Henry Caruthers.
“Wabash” is an Anglicization of “Ouabache,” the French’s original name for the river. Early traders took that from a Miami Indian word, waapaahsiiki, meaning “it shines white.” Ironically, the clarity of this longest northern tributary feeding into the Ohio River has been diminished by pollution and silt.
Maddy paddled steadily. She noted that the water was a muddy color, like coffee heavily laced with cream. Dragonflies skittered on its surface. The canopy of sycamore trees dabbled the scene with shadows, giving it the appearance of an Impressionist painting.
“Let’s call Jim to come get us. I’ve got my cell phone here.”
“Just paddle,” repeated Maddy for the tenth time. Bootsie was always carping about anything that resembled exercise. She was not an outdoors gal at heart.
“But the police boat has a motor.”
“Your husband would call out the National Guard. And Henry and Nan would see us coming a mile away.”
“Don’t be silly. Those two are long gone, the Pennington quilt with them. I’ll bet they had a car waiting for them at the Burpyville Bridge.”
“Maybe, maybe not.”
They paddled along, Bootsie slapping at an occasional horsefly, Maddy surveying the shoreline for signs of a boat landing. So far, the thick foliage looked untrampled.
“There, what’s that?” pointed Bootsie.
“A deer path.”
“Oh.”
The sun flickered through the lattice of the overhanging trees. An occasional fish broke the surface of the water. Once they saw a beaver or a muskrat in the weeds along the bank. But no sign of Henry and Nan.
This stretch of river wasn’t near the highway, like where Edgar Ridenour had been fishing, so they didn’t encounter any anglers along the banks. The world was silent as they drifted along – merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream!
They came to a stretch where trees blocked out the overhead sun. Even so, Maddy felt a bit overheated, perhaps the exertion of all the paddling. Her friend was leaning against the inflated rim of the rubber raft, paddle across her knees, taking in the passing scenery.
“I could use a little help here,” grumbled Maddy.
“Wait! I think I saw something flash over there in those bushes,” said Bootsie.
Maddy squinted. “I don’t see anything.”
“Go back, you’ll see.”
But the current was too strong at this bend in the river to reverse their course.
“Pull over to the bank. We’ll walk back.”
“Now who’s crazy?”
With a Herculean effort, the two adventuresses maneuvered the sagging raft to the riverbank and tied it to a dead sapling. Pushing through the brambles, they worked their way back up the shoreline.
They came to a break in the trees. “There,” pointed the police chief’s wife. “I told you I saw something.”
The aluminum surface of a flat-bottomed boat flashed in the bright afternoon sunlight, marking the spot among the reeds where it had been abandoned. A path led up an incline and into the woods. Muddy footprints offered proof of human passage.
“This is where Henry Caruthers came ashore. He was alone.”
“Well, aren’t you the Last of the Mohicans. Since when did you get an Indian Scout merit badge?”
“C’mon, Bootsie. It’s as plain as the nose on your face.”
“Hey, leave my nose out of this!” She was fairy sensitive about her prominent beak.
“I mean, look at these tracks. There’s only one set of footprints leading up this deer trail.”
“Okay, I’ll grant you that Henry Caruthers passed this way. Now let’s go home. I’ve had enough of Mother Nature for one day.” She slapped at a horsefly to make her point.
“No, we have to follow him,” insisted Maddy.
“Dear, he’s long gone. It’s been two days since Lizzie’s husband saw Henry on the river.”
“I know, but we might come across a clue as to where he and Nan went.”
≈≈≈
About a half hour later they came to a tumbledown stone structure in a clearing. There was no sign of life, no answer to their calls of hello. Peeking through a dirty window, they could see peeling wallpaper and broken floorboards. The door was locked, but they broke the window with a rock and pried the sash up enough for Maddy to wiggle through. She toppled inside with a loud thump! – followed by a painful “Owww!”
“See anything?” called Bootsie to her advance scout.
“Nothing yet.” Then, after a pause, the voice said, “Wait a minute, I think I’ve found something here.”
“A letter confessing their crimes?”
“More like a map.”
“A treasure map? Did they bury the quilt in a chest?”
“No, silly. An Exxon road map showing Caruthers County. There’s a route traced with a Magic Marker. If I’m reading this correctly, we’re on the south side of Burpyville – just off Highway 31.”
“Great! Let’s go to the highway and thumb a ride home. I’m getting hungry.”
“You and your stomach.”
“Hey, are you suggesting I should go on a diet?”
“No, dear. Just that you’re not going to starve to death in the next hour.” She unlatched the ramshackle door from the inside and swung it open to let Bootsie enter the stone building.
“Hmph,” her friend said as she stepped through the threshold of the one-room structure. She glanced nervously at the ceiling to make certain there were no bats. Mice and snakes she could endure, but not fluttery things like bats and bees.
“Here’s something else I found,” said Maddy, holding up a scrap of paper. “I think it was written by Nan Beanie.”
Bootsie bent over the lined yellow paper as Maddy spread it flat on the table. The words were written in a precise script that she recognized as Nan’s.
Things to Do :
1. Call Dizzy about lunch
2. Leave drawer unlocked
3. Buy bus tickets
4. Reserve hotel room in Indy
5. Meet Kramer
“Nan’s such a list-maker,” commented Maddy.
“This is practically as good as a confession,” gushed Bootsie, ever the policeman’s wife.
“She already confessed,” Maddy reminded her. “That’s why she ran away.”
“Oh right.”
“But here is the outline of their plan. She and Henry Caruthers are taking a bus to Indianapolis to meet with someone named Kramer.”
Chapter Thirteen
Tunnel Vision
Maddy began walking around the tiny room, looking in the closet and opening cabinet doors. “What are you doing?” demanded Bootsie, confused by her friend’s bizarre behavior.
“Looking for the tunnel,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Here?”
“We know the secret passage at the cemetery leads to the river. The National Registry survey shows that. That means it comes out somewhere near here.”
“At this old stone shed?”
“We found this roadmap and Nan’s note in this shed. That proves she was here. And the tracks leading from the boat belong to a man, presumably Henry Caruthers. I think he and his partner in crime met up here, planning to make their way to the bus station in Burpyville, and go from there to Indianapolis to
see a guy named Kramer.”
“Okay, Miss Smarty Pants, suppose you’re right. But if I wanted to find a tunnel entrance I’d look for a trapdoor in the floor.”
“Bootsie Purdue, you’re a genius!” Maddy peeled back the dusty rug to reveal a squarish board with recessed hinges. “Here it is, right where you said it’d be.”
“Now can we go home?”
“Yes, but we have a choice of how to get there.”
“A choice?”
“We can try paddling back upstream. Or we can try to find our way out of these woods to the highway. Or we can take this tunnel back to Pleasant Glades Cemetery.”
“You mean go down in that dark hole? No way!” They had pried open the trapdoor to discover a yawning black passageway.
“Nan came through it, so it must be safe.”
“That ol’ woman is crazy as a loon. Why else would she get mixed up in criminal activities? I’m not nutty enough to go into that rat-infested tunnel.”
“What rats?”
“There are always rats in tunnels.”
“Yes, dear. But you said you’re not afraid of rats and mice. Matter of fact, I recall that you raised white rats as your high-school science project.”
“Romulus and Remus. But it turned out they were Romulus and Rita. I had more baby rats than I knew what to do with.”
“You mean your First Prize in the Science Fair was an accident?”
“I’m still not sure how to tell a boy rat from a girl rat.”
“C’mon, Indiana Jones. Into the tunnel.”
“But we don’t have a light. We’ll get lost in there.”
“It’s a tunnel, leading from Point A to Point B. We can’t get lost. Besides, I have this.” Maddy flicked on the tiny Mag-Light she carried on her keychain. “As the Good Book says, ‘Let there be light!’”
≈≈≈
The two women bumbled their way along the narrow passageway, unsure of their footing due to the uneven stones lining the floor and walls. A lot of work had gone into creating this escape route for runaway slaves.
“Stay close,” advised Maddy.
“Close! – I couldn’t get very far from you even if I tried. This is like crawling through a storm drain.”
They weren’t actually crawling, but the low ceiling did force them to walk slightly hunched over. Perhaps people in the 1860s were shorter than their counterparts today, mused Maddy. She’d have to remember to ask Cookie about that. Her shoulders were starting to ache from this awkward bent-over position, but darned if she was going to admit that to Miss I-Told-You-So Bootsie Purdue.
The tunnel was dank, a musty smell that reminded Maddy of her grandmother’s root cellar. They were still near the river, she reminded herself. Her flashlight played on the vertical stonewalls, braced with wooden beams. The floor was paved with flat rocks, like cobblestones. Muddy earth oozed between them like orangish grout. She was careful where she stepped.
“Maybe a quarter-mile more,” predicted Maddy. She estimated they had traveled about 3/4 of the distance between river and the cemetery.
Her friend was not to be mollified. “My hair’s a total mess, Maddy Madison. I’m going to send you the bill from my next hairdresser appointment.”
“Keep walking. It can’t be far.”
“Says you,” groused her friend. “For all I know, we’re going in the wrong direction.”
“There’s only one direction.”
“Yes, but – ”
“Hold on,” shushed Maddy. “I think I see a light up ahead. That’s strange. I’d think the security company would’ve turned off the fluorescents in the main chamber.”
Bootsie squinted toward the light. “That’s not the chamber. That light’s moving. It’s somebody coming this way!”
≈≈≈
Maddy’s first thought was that the light belonged to a rescue team, volunteers searching the rickety tunnel for her and Bootsie. But when she heard a voice call out, “Who goes there?” she recognized it as belonging to Henry Caruthers. Uh-oh.
She felt Bootsie poke her, a signal not to answer. Her friend had recognized the former mayor’s voice also.
Instinctively, Maddy clicked off her Mag-Light. There was no place to hide, but at least Henry Caruthers wouldn’t be able to judge their distance from him.
“That you, Nan? Did you forget something?”
The two women held their tongues (some say that was a triumph of willpower over natural proclivities). Maddy felt Bootsie’s hand squeezing her arm like a vise.
“Nan?” The man’s light grew closer, less than twenty feet away now.
Thinking fast, Maddy shouted, “This way, Chief Purdue! Tell your deputies he’s up ahead!”
The light bobbed, then flicked out. They could hear feet clattering on the cobblestones, heading in the other direction.
Bootsie tugged on Maddy’s arm. “Come on, Nancy Drew. Let’s get out of here the way we came.”
They hurried through the tunnel, banging their heads on the low ceiling, stubbing their toes on protruding rocks, scraping their shoulders on the sidewalls. You’d think the Headless Horseman was pursuing them. But, fact was, Henry Caruthers was racing pell-mell in the other direction – back toward the cemetery!
“Whew! That’s was close,” breathed Bootsie as they climbed up into the one-room outpost. “Let’s go find the highway and thumb a ride back home.”
“We almost had him,” Maddy said dazedly, as if talking to herself. “Or vice versa,” replied Bootsie
Chapter Fourteen
Home Again, Home Again
They got home around midnight, having caught a ride with a UPS driver outside of Burpyville. All the lights were blazing in the Madison household where everyone had gathered, thinking Maddy and Bootsie had been kidnapped. Jim Purdue had organized a search party, but thankfully the two women returned just in time for him to call it off.
Boy, was the police chief steamed! “You what?” he shouted. “I oughta arrest the two of you!”
“For what?” challenged his wife.
“Obstructing justice. Interfering with an ongoing investigation. Worrying the heck outta me.”
“Oh, sweetie, I’m sorry we worried you.”
“Yeah, well – ”
“Sorry, Jim,” apologized Maddy. “We were only reconnoitering. We didn’t expect to run into Henry Caruthers. I thought he and Nan would be long gone.”
“What’s this you were saying about a list?” interjected Mark the Shark. Exhibiting a lawyer’s instinct for getting at the facts.
“We found a to-do list written by Nan Beanie. It suggests they are heading for Indianapolis to meet someone.”
Beau looked over his wife’s shoulder at the yellow foolscap. “Yep, that’s Nan’s handwriting. I’d know it anywhere.”
“Who’s this guy Kramer?” asked Bill, not to be outdone by his lawyer brother-in-law.
“He was on the Seinfeld Show,” announced little N’yen, a devotee of television sitcoms.
“No, silly. This is a different Kramer,” whispered Aggie, her new cousin’s self-appointed protector.
“Oh.”
“I suspect he’s a fence,” opined Chief Purdue. “Someone Henry and Nan are planning to sell the quilt to.”
“I can’t get over Nan and Henry Caruthers,” said Lizzie Ridenour, a woman who loved juicy gossip. “Do you think they’re an item? Or merely partners in crime?”
“Dunno,” said Cookie. “But I hear Nan’s husband Jasper is not particularly happy about this turn of events.”
“Do you think Jasper will take matters into his own hands?” asked Tillie, belly as big as a basketball. You could see her delivery date was eminent.
“If he does, he’s going to need a good lawyer,” said Mark, almost as if thinking out loud.
“Ambulance chaser,” teased Bill’s wife Kathy.
“Hey, nobody’s chasing me,” rumbled Ben Bentley, who drove an ambulance on weekends for Caruthers Corners Fire and Rescue. Y
ou could tell by his joking remark that he was a good-natured guy, a gentle giant.
“Don’t worry about Jasper. He reacted in his usual manner, with a bit of the barley. He’s sleeping it off in my holding cell at this very moment.”
“Do I need to serve a writ of habeas corpus?” said Mark, just to show that lawyers had a sense of humor too.
“A what?” asked little N’yen.
“It’s Latin for ‘You must have the body,’” explained Cookie. She’d been perusing her dictionary again.
“A body! Is somebody dead?” Aggie wanted to know.
“No, no,” laughed her father. “It’s just lawyer talk, saying ‘You can’t hold someone in jail without a body of evidence justifying their arrest.’”
“Henry Caruthers is going to wish he was dead if I get my hands on him,” growled Cookie. “Tomorrow I’m going to have to call the Smithsonian and tell them one of their valuable quilts is missing.”
“Honey, calm down,” soothed Ben Bentley, patting his wife’s hand. A bearded behemoth, he reminded you of Hagrid from the Harry Potter movies. “Don’t get so upset over this. It’s just a patchwork quilt.”
That’s when all four members of the Quilter’s Club – five counting Aggie – went berserk.
“Just a quilt,” huffed Lizzie. “That’s like saying the Mona Lisa is just a painting.”
“Don’t you realize these quilts have been valued at forty grand each?” asked Bootsie.
“They’re irreplaceable,” declared Maddy. “Sarah Connors Pennington was a master craftsman, perhaps the best quilt designer ever!”
“What’d I say?” moaned Ben, cowering at this onslaught by his wife’s friends.
“Dear, you’ve put your foot in it now,” said Cookie, amused at her new husband’s bewilderment. “You’ll have to learn that we members of the Caruthers Corners Quilter’s Club take our stitching pretty seriously.”
“Ease up, girls,” said Edgar Ridenour, looking almost as fierce with his briar-patch beard as Cookie’s muscle-bound husband. “Ben didn’t mean anything by his remark.”
The Patchwork Puzzler (Quilter's Club Mysteries) Page 6