The Rose Quilt

by Mark Pasquini

  “Ah, so that’s it,” said Steve disgustedly. “I read the papers, you know. This is about the Mrs. Chandler murder. You want me to investigate her murder on my vacation. What gall. Well, get someone else. You have a dozen people sitting around playing pinochle all day long. Get one of them. Find another fall guy. Hey, what about McQuarry? He could beat up a couple of society folks. He wants my job; let him show you how good he would be.” Steve rose and headed for the door. He knew that he was just putting off the inevitable. Steve admired and liked Bob, even with all his faults, and he knew what a mess this was. The Connecticut State Police were getting this dropped in their lap because it was such a hot potato that the locals did not want it. Already three days had passed since the killing, and the more time that passed the more difficult a resolution would be. As he strolled toward the door, these thoughts caused him to tune out the chief.

  “Steve, STEVE,” Bob shouted. “I need you. No one else can do this. Can you imagine Nelson, McQuarry, or Morgan trying to handle this? The press would have them spilling their guts and letting everyone know just what and how we are investigating this. Then the politicos would be second-guessing us and getting in our way.”

  Steve knew that when the editors of the various newspapers found he was on a case, they understood that they wouldn’t get any news from him. He was known as “Stonewall” to the media, ever since, as a rookie, he had let slip something that had allowed a suspect to go free through the timely “passing” of an important witness.

  Bob continued in a wheedling tone. “This is going to take a delicate hand, an experienced hand. The best I got,” he said soothingly, picking up his extinguished cigar. He scratched a match on the underside of his desk and puffed the cigar alight. “This is big. Think about it: the biggest noise in that part of the state, huge power in the party, lots of moolah, all of that. Only you can do it,” he repeated. “The locals have asked for our help.”

  “No, no, no.” Steve waved a hand as if to knock away the cloud of words. He knew this was political dynamite, but he was Bob’s cleanup man. “They have asked for our help because they don’t want to get in the middle of a mess like this. I haven’t had a vacation since I mustered out of the army in 1919, and I got that only because I took two weeks to get back here from New York. No, I am taking this one. Every time I try to take some time off, something comes up and I am the only guy you trust to handle it,” he finished theatrically. He wondered what concessions he could get out of Bob and how far to push it. “Find. Someone. Else.”

  Bob bowed his bowling ball of a head. In almost a whisper, with a hangdog look, he pleaded, “As a favor to me?” Glancing up for a second through his bushy eyebrows to gauge Steve’s reaction, he hurried on. “Look. I will give you three weeks, paid, if you will just do this for me. I took you under my wing. I thought we were tight. Your dad and I are old friends. I brought you on board and ... ” Bob trailed off, causing Steve to wonder if he had just remembered the relationship that existed, or did not exist, between Steve and his father. From the look on Steve’s face and the narrowing of his eye, Bob realized he had made a mistake by bringing Thomas Walsh into the conversation. He decided on a new tack: “Didn’t I save your job while you were serving? Didn’t I give you a promotion when others thought you were too young to be senior grade? Didn’t I keep the politicos off your back when you got too close to that club thing? Didn’t ... ”

  “Oh, you are pathetic,” snapped Steve disgustedly, deciding that the game had gone on long enough. Another week of vacation was probably the best he could do. “Get off your knees. You are one sorry example of a beggar. I’ll do it. Not because of this pathetic display, but ’cause I want you to stop before I upchuck in your wastebasket.”

  The chief became all smiles at once. “Great, great. Now, there is a train leaving at four this afternoon. Go home and get packed. I’ll have your ticket all ready and waiting. I made, uh, will make reservations at the Chandler Hotel. Best of everything for my star investigator. This will take no time at all. Then off you go—three weeks with nothing to do except collect your pay.”

  He paused as if a thought had just struck him. “And don’t get suckered by the Chandler daughters. One’s a looker, and you know how you get around a pretty woman.”

  Steve felt the flush rise from his collar. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked defensively.

  “Come on. When you first came here, you had the reputation for tomcatting around with every pretty face. Then you got tangled up with Susan, who treated you like dirt. Then Julie, who dropped you like a hot rock when she got tired of you. Between them you became a monk. You’re a monk now. You can’t have a normal relationship with a dame with a diagram and instruction book. You think I haven’t heard the stories?”

  Steve fumed. “You have no idea what you are talking about.” His response sounded lame even to himself. Bob’s analysis came close enough to the truth to sting.

  On a scratch pad, Bob wrote down a name and said, “Contact this guy. He’s the head of the Chandler Constabulary. He will let you know all the details. The murder room is roped off and ready for you.” He was actually trying to sound jolly, Steve noticed. The pressure must be bad for him to pull the cheerful boss act.

  “Constabulary? Don’t they have a decent police force?” asked Steve.

  “They are company police. The company and town hire American veterans for their watchmen and officers. Very patriotic. You may even find some old friends there,” Bob said enthusiastically, rubbing his hands together. “The old man lived in some place when he was a kid where they had a constabulary, and he called his officers that. Don’t give me or Captain Daniels a hard time—just find him and get his help. No, wait. I’ll send a telegram and he’ll meet you at the station.” He escorted Steve to the door, patted him on the back, and did the bum’s rush on him by gently pushing him out and closing the door before the exasperated investigator could think of any other questions to ask or anything else biting to say.

  Steve stood staring through the frosted glass with “Robert Crowder, Chief of Investigations” printed in gold leaf on it. The chief actually thought he had manipulated him. Steve was tempted to take out his .45 and empty it into Bob for his audacity and go on vacation anyway. He mentally tossed a coin; heads for the train and tails for shooting his boss.

  He wished his mental coin did not have two heads.

  Before heading to the train station, Steve picked up his suitcase. He took a taxi to the Hartford Morning Post offices. There, he exchanged greetings with Bobby Ecks, the elevator operator, who looked too young to be out without a sitter. They chatted about the chances of the Red Sox and the Yankees for the rest of the season while Steve took the elevator to the third floor, where the editorial staff was housed.

  He rapped quickly on the news editor’s door. At the shouted invitation, he entered the smoke-filled room. Calvin Johnson was a small man who looked like he never combed his hair and always had a cigarette pasted to his lower lip, where it flapped when he spoke. He reminded Steve of Rumpelstiltskin with his white beard; long nose; and thin, hunched body. That is, if Rumpelstiltskin had worn thick horn-rimmed glasses. Steve had never seen him with his tie cinched or his vest buttoned or his sleeves unrolled and fastened. Two gold cuff links sat in the unused ashtray on the right of the cluttered desk. Smashed cigarette butts littered the linoleum floor, and he was constantly brushing ashes from his shirtfront. Steve thought of Calvin as mussed, while he considered Bob slovenly. He wondered if politics, long hours, and dealing with bad news were a cause of dishevelment.

  Calvin had been the news editor for the past twenty years and had very nearly gone to jail for writing scathing editorials critical of the Wilson administration during the Great War. He had tiptoed around the Sedition Act like a tightrope walker over Niagara Falls. He had been under investigation when the act was repealed in late 1920.

  Steve hung his hat on the tarnished brass rack next to Calvin’s battered fedora and suit coat.<
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  Calvin was on one of the four phones that sat on the battered mahogany desk. He held up a finger and continued taking notes, phone pinched between ear and shoulder. Steve walked around the desk and pulled a bottle and glass out of the bottom drawer. Collapsing on the red leather couch, which was worn to softness, he poured himself a drink and lit a cigarette. He listened to his friend talk about the latest scandals in the big-city police departments around the country. With bootlegger money flooding the streets, there was no end of opportunities for payoffs from the top to bottom of law enforcement organizations. He had even heard that the gangs derisively considered the term “copper” to mean that the police could be bought for a penny. From what Steve could overhear, Calvin’s paper was preparing a series on the issue. Law-and-order editorials were always popular in election years, and this was an election year. He thought about arguing the matter with his friend but knew that he would get nowhere. Corruption was a favorite topic with the publisher when the opposition party was in power.

  Calvin put down the receiver and removed his glasses and tossed them on the cluttered desk. He looked at Steve with a vacant stare, processing the information from the call.

  After a few minutes, Calvin pulled out another glass and held it out. “You can at least offer me some of my own booze. Put your asbestos pants on, old buddy. Looks like the usual fire-and-brimstone “criminals are running the prisons” editorials and stories are coming down the pike. Orders from on high. You might want to move to Europe, but it’s going socialist. The angle this time is that the new federal bureau is going to get involved and be the avenging angels, sending all corrupt officials—theirs, not ours—to perdition. Unless, of course,” he continued cynically, “there is a change in administration, and then we will rail against false accusations. If, that is, we all don’t get blown up in the next war a couple years from now.” Calvin was disgusted by what he considered the United States’s bumbling steps on the world stage. Wilson got the country entangled in the Great War after promising during his reelection campaign to avoid it, and Calvin was positive the government would not be smart enough to avoid the next one.

  As Steve poured him a generous dollop of booze, he commented, “As an officer of the law, I should arrest you for failing to observe the Volstead Act.”

  “Bah. I’ve had that bottle for years. A Christmas gift from ’06 from my dear, departed mother. Besides, who else would let you just drop in and help yourself? What do you want? I’m busy. Unless, of course, you have a hot scoop for me?” His large ears seemed to perk up in anticipation.

  “You never had a mother,” Steve quipped as he moved to the guest chair by the desk. “You were born in a vat of newspaper ink. How is your mother, by the way? Still a pistol? I’ve got to get up there and see her again.” He continued, answering Calvin’s question: “I will have. When I get anything, I’ll make sure that you have first crack at it. Now, what do you know about the Chandlers?” Steve asked, freshening his drink before taking another healthy swig.

  With an absentminded look, Calvin answered, “Yeah, right. I won’t hear from you until the thing’s done. But I want it first, an exclusive.” He grunted at Steve’s nod, knowing it was the best he could expect.

  He continued, “Mom’s fine. Still a hoot and driving the wife nuts. Insists she’s a vegetarian or something. She wants to know when you are going to visit her.” The editor leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He took a few minutes to organize his eidetic memory. Calvin could remember anything he had ever read or heard, but it might take him a little time to find out where he had filed it.

  “Old Josiah Chandler was a clerk in a shipping firm that ran into financial trouble. He had some savings, which he loaned to his employer in exchange for a share in a shipload of trade goods headed to the West Coast and China. When the ship returned, the old man was rich. The owner of the firm retired, and Josiah bought him out. He built the firm into a small powerhouse with a fleet of ships and contacts in San Francisco, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and India. He expanded to the European trade before he died.

  “His sons, Peter and Paul, inherited. Religious family. One clause of his will forbade any involvement in the slave trade. Paul died in a storm off the Azores. Peter decided to diversify and bought the current estate along the Connecticut River. He built a big old pile of a house and settled his family there. He hired a manager and retired. He ended up a big noise in the Abolitionist movement and pulled the political strings from the background. The family has carried this on ever since.

  “He left everything to his sons, George Washington Chandler and Andrew Jackson Chandler, born twelve years apart. G. W. died during a voyage to the South Seas or maybe running the Confederate blockade. This left everything to his brother, since he had no kith or kin.

  “A. J. decided to expand again and started the Chandler Mills, Connecticut Quarry, and Chandler Lumber, along with an expanded farm and breeding complex. Married Alice Jordan in 1875. The marriage joined the fledgling Chandler Mills with the long-established and nearly bankrupt Jordan Cotton operation. Cheaper raw materials. A few government contracts during the Cuban war, and Chandler Mills and Shipping exploded. The company town of Chandler and a dyeing/printing factory were built around 1890. Huge contracts during the Great War. The medical packs they developed set them on the good side of the Medical Corps. They were branching out into a clothing factory, based in New York.

  “A. J. was addressing the company managers in June 1916 when he suffered a heart attack. He lingered for a few days at the Chandler Hospital and died of a second attack. The missus took over without missing a beat. She sold the clothing manufacturer. For a profit. Revamped some of the existing operations, making the company much more profitable. Beat back three takeover attempts by big mills in South Carolina and Georgia. Burned marriage proposals by the bushel basket.

  “They had three adopted children, Francis Dubreuil, Catherine Mermet, and Silene. All named after tea roses. The old man was gaga over them, kids and flowers, both. Last year Mrs. Chandler turned over operations to the three of them. Francis got the mills, Catherine moved to South Carolina to run the farming operation, and Silene is head of merchandising and sales. The old lady kept the political power and the purse strings. Nothing gets done that affects that area without the blessing of the Chandler political machine. State and federal representative and senatorial aspirants owe their positions to her. She was a heroine during the influenza epidemic.

  “Three nights ago, during a meeting of the committee of the A. J. Chandler Memorial Flower Show, they were having a quilting bee to make the annual A. J. Chandler Memorial Lap Quilt, which was to be the best-in-show prize ... ”

  Steve interrupted for the first time: “The old lady was sewing on a quilt?!? For a flower show?”

  Calvin gave him a pitying look. “You should get out once in a while, Steve. This is the biggest show in the state. Sponsored by Chandler Mills in memory of Mrs. Chandler’s husband. The story is that he would have loved to duplicate one of the great gardens of the world—Versailles, Fontainebleau, Westminster, wherever. He had some famous designer come in and design and build something a little smaller. He would sit on the back porch, which is an acre of granite, sandstone, and marble, and enjoy the view. The missus, early on, made him a lap quilt to keep him warm on those cold Connecticut nights. She was big on quilts—learned from her grandma down in Georgia or South Carolina or somewhere. Anyway, that is the grand prize for the show. When the committee broke up for the evening, she returned to the sewing room. When they looked for her, she was found lying by the quilt wall with a pair of shears in her back. Nobody was around. Nobody heard anything. Nobody saw anything. I imagine Bob Crowder has finagled you into investigating this and your vacation is on hold,” he finished, opening his eyes and putting on his glasses.

  “Yeah. Any connection between the two deaths? The old man and her?”

  “Nah.” Calvin lit another cigarette from the stub that was endangering his lower li
p. “His was a heart attack, and she was murdered. There was nothing strange about his death and everything about hers. A lot of witnesses for him and none for her. I never heard of shears in the back being natural causes or an accident.”

  “Anything else you can tell me? Any trouble with the kids? Resentment, fighting among themselves?”

  “Kids were unhappy that she still held the reins, but enough to kill her? No clue.” He grinned. “You can get more information on the family when you get down there. Julie Boroni is there covering the flower show, and she knows all about them.” Calvin laughed knowingly as he finished.

  “Julie, huh,” Steve grunted. She was a tall, slender honey blonde with deep blue eyes, a great sense of humor, a smoky laugh, and a driving ambition to be a top-flight news reporter. The two of them had been a hot item until Julie started getting visions of “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.” Steve, who had been allergic to commitment since Susan had dumped him and run off with a Wall Street trader during the war, had put the brakes on and had told her he still wanted to be “friends.” A slap, some tears, and a quick exit resulted. She was coldly polite when they met. Steve was giving her time to get over it, but the clock was still ticking on that one, and he had a suspicion that it was not going to work out for him.

  After he had wrung Calvin of all he had, Steve hurried out of the building and picked up his suitcase from the reception desk. The doorman waved down a taxi in front of the building. Steve looked at his watch, shoved his suitcase in, and told the driver to step on it because he had a train to catch.

  Chapter 3

  Steve Walsh, running late, shoved a bill into the cabbie’s hand, told him to keep the change, and rushed to the ticket window. Unfortunately, he was behind a stout businessman who was arguing with the counterman. Steve gently shouldered him aside and asked for his ticket over the businessman’s vocal disapproval. He sprinted for the train.