The dispute didn’t need his two cents. It would be settled with plat maps and land surveys. But he’d have Martha send Sammy a nice note saying he was looking into the matter. Another problem off his desk.
And now that the DNA test had come back positive, another problem was resolved. The Quilters Club could go back to sewing patchwork quilts instead of playing detective.
Chapter Six
At 10 o’clock that night the man claiming to be Bobby Ray found Maud Purdue standing just outside the gate of the Pleasant Glade Cemetery. Judging by the scowl on her face, it was not a pleasant reunion for mother and child.
“You showed up,” he said, as if surprised.
“I told Shorty Yosterman I would.”
The man scratched his beard thoughtfully. “Yeah, but you’ve refused to see me since I returned to home.”
“This is not your home,” snapped the old woman. “I don’t know who you think you are, but you sure aren’t my son Bobby Ray Purdue.”
“No, I’m not,” he said. “But you can’t prove otherwise.”
“Why did you get me out here in the middle of the night? You’ve stolen half the family business, isn’t that enough for you?”
The man shuffled his feet. “I told you there’s a way you can get the business back – ” he began.
That’s what your note said. And it’s the only reason I’m here, who ever you are.”
“I’m Harry Periwinkle, your son’s pal. Yeah, one of what they’re calling the Lost Boys.”
The woman’s head snapped up, eyed blazing. “Where’s my son Bobby Ray?”
“Long dead.”
She leaned against the gatepost, shoulders heaving with sobs. “H-how did he die?”
“In quicksand, like they thought. The day we disappeared.”
“And the other boy?”
“Never you mind. I don’t want to talk about that.”
The old woman righted herself. “How did you fake the DNA test?”
“That’s for me to know and you to find out.”
Her angry gaze stared him down, making him lower his eyes as if studying his shoelaces. “So what is it you want from me?” she demanded.
“Nothing much. Just your grandmother’s quilt.”
≈≈≈
Beauregard Madison was saying to his son-in-law, “Don’t get too involved in watching that TV show. You’re about to get a phone call.”
Mark Tidemore glanced up from a summer rerun of The Good Wife. He liked shows about lawyers, not that they ever got it right. “Why’s that?”
Mark and Tilly had brought Aggie over to see Freddie. The pair was becoming inseparable, ice cream pals and all. She wanted to talk about the seven-animal circus. She was wheedling for her uncle to take her over to Cookie Bentley’s tomorrow to see them.
Beau said, “You’ll likely be getting a call from your client.”
“Sad Sammy Hankins?”
“Your other client.”
Business was slow, so there weren’t that many clients it could be. “You mean Bobby Ray Purdue,” he said. “Why would he be calling?”
Beau cleared his throat. “I couldn’t say anything earlier, but Jim told me your client set up a meeting with Maud Purdue tonight … and that she asked Jim to be on hand.”
“You think Bobby Ray’s going to get arrested?”
“Likely. Based on the note he gave Maud, Jim thinks he’s trying to pull something shady.”
“But –”
Just then the phone rang.
≈≈≈
“You’re under arrest, Harry Periwinkle,” Chief Jim Purdue had said, stepping out of the shadows of a mausoleum.
The bearded man turned to run, but Ben Bentley blocked his path. The big bear of a man had been deputized for this occasion. “Hold on, fellow,” he rumbled. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“Crab apples,” cursed the cornered man. “You set me up, Maud Purdue!”
“That I did, Harry. You were a lying, thieving little boy. And now you’re a lying, thieving man who’s going to get his just deserts.”
Chapter Seven
Maddy carefully laid out her quilting squares, making sure they were going to form the design she’d sketched out on a yellow legal pad. Mark the Shark bought legal pads by the ream. She’d been collecting just the right fabric to make this patchwork quilt for weeks.
“Can you believe it?” gushed Lizzie Ridenour, reveling in the juicy gossip. “We’ve got a Lost Boy. Just not the one we thought.”
The four women – Maddy, Liz, Cookie, and Bootsie – had gathered for their weekly quilt-making session at the senior recreation center. Aggie had bowed out to go see the lions and tigers with her Uncle Freddie.
“Harry Periwinkle passing himself off as Bobby Ray Purdue,” nodded Cookie Bentley. Her husband Ben had been there at the cemetery to hear the confession. “But why would he do that?”
“A scam,” said Bootsie, forever a cop’s wife. “He tricked Jim’s cousin N.L. out of half the chair factory.”
Maddy spoke up. “There, there. Beau says N.L. will get the factory back. That it was a fraudulent conveyance or some such thing.”
The women all felt a connection to the day’s events. Bootsie was related. Cookie’s hubby was in on the capture. Maddy’s son-in-law was the crook’s lawyer. And Liz’s husband had arranged the DNA testing that proved to be somehow wrong.
“Ben says Harry Periwinkle offered to trade those shares in E Z Seat for Maud’s grandmother’s quilt,” offered Cookie.
“Really?” said Lizzie. That detail had not been reported in the Burpyville Gazette.
“I know that quilt,” said Bootsie. “It was hand-stitched in 1899 by Amandine Gersbach Purdue, actually her husband’s grandmother.”
“Wasn’t she your husband’s great grandmother too?”
“Yes,” confirmed Bootsie. “But Jim’s side of the family was in disfavor.”
“Now why would Harry Periwinkle want that old quilt?” mused Maddy, still sorting her fabric. “I’ve seen it. Not a particularly interesting design.”
“That’s a good question,” said Lizzie. “If we figure it out, we’ll know why Harry Periwinkle put on this charade.”
“He still refuses to talk?” asked Cookie, dumping her quilt squares onto the other table in the rec room.
“Clammed up when Jim arrested him,” said Bootsie. “Other than asking to call his lawyer.”
All eyes turned to Maddy. “Don’t look at me,” said the pudgy blonde woman. “Client-attorney confidentiality is all Mark said when I asked this morning.”
Beau and Maddy had met their daughter and her husband for breakfast at the Cozy Diner. Having been up all night with his incarcerated client, Mark needed a pot of black coffee to stay awake.
“He was preparing a writ of habeas corpus,” Maddy added.
Bootsie rolled her eyes. “Judge Cramer will never grant that,” said Bootsie. “Three witnesses heard him confess.”
“Well, it’s not exactly a full confession,” argued Lizzie. “He simply admitted he’s not Bobby Ray Purdue.”
“But he pretended to be in order to swindle Newcomb Lamont Purdue out of half the chair factory,” Cookie pointed out.
“Yes,” nodded the police chief’s wife. “That’s a felony.”
“I’m wondering what happened to that other boy,” said Lizzie, sunlight reflecting on her Lucille Ball hair.
“Me too,” admitted Cookie.”
“I’m wondering why he wanted that old quilt,” said Maddy.
“Me too,” repeated Cookie.
“Surely it’s not worth as much as half interest in the chair factory,” mused Lizzie, thinking like a banker’s wife.
“Yes, why would he be interested in that ratty old quilt?” said Bootsie.
Maddy looked from one to another. “Maybe the Quilters Club should find out.”
≈≈≈
Freddie Madison parked his mother’s SUV in Ben Bentley’s driveway. Aggie
’s face was pressed against the side window. Beyond the barn, she could see two canvas tents, the colorful circus wagon, a flatbed truck, several large cages, and two white horses grazing in the grassy field.
“The circus!” she cried. “It’s here just like Mr. Sprinkles promised.”
“Of course it is,” replied her uncle. “That’s why we came out here. To see the lions and tigers.”
“One lion and one tiger,” she corrected him. “And a bear and an elephant and a baboon.”
“Don’t forget the two horses.”
“Them too. Seven animals in all. Not a very big circus.”
“Your grandfather says it’s a kiddy circus. Plays at malls and shopping centers.”
“Caruthers Corners doesn’t have a shopping center,” said Aggie. “I guess that’s why they’re going to Burpyville.”
“C’mon,” said her uncle. “Let’s go peek in those cages. Maybe I’ll feed you to the lion.”
“You will not.”
“And why not?”
“Because my mother would be very angry if you did.”
≈≈≈
Myrtle Periwinkle had locked her door and pulled down the shades in order to avoid all the reporters gathered outside. Everyone wanted to interview her about her son Harry having returned from the dead to pull off a major swindle was news.
There were two television crews from Indianapolis, an investigative reporter from the Indianapolis Star, another from the Burpyville Gazette, and a freelancer who claimed to be working for the National Inquirer. Myrtle’s flowerbed had been trampled beyond recovery.
“Go away,” she shouted at the knock on her door. Damned reporters.
“Myrtle, it’s me – Chief Jim Purdue. Can I come in for a minute?”
“What do you want?” she continued to shout. “You arrested my son, you pig.”
“Myrtle –”
Before he could finish the sentence, the door swung open and he was face-to-face with Harry Periwinkles wild-eyed mother. “Hurry up, before those reporters start taking pictures,” she beckoned him inside.
The living room was dark, all the shades pulled down. He could make out the shape of a green Naugahyde couch, an upright piano, and a La-Z-Boy chair. A TV flickered in the corner, tuned to an Indy news station.
“Sorry to barge in,” Jim Purdue began politely. “I can understand how you must feel, getting your son back under these circumstances.”
“You arrested him, you storm trooper.” Myrtle Periwinkle had been a member of the Youth International Party (more commonly known as the Yippies) back in the late ‘60s. Despite settling down to raise a family, she’d never quite come to terms with trusting the police.
“Myrtle, he’s the one who tried to pull one over on ol’ N.L., not me.”
“Hmph.” She crossed her arms, a sign of her refusal to listen to reason.
“Gotta ask you a few questions,” the lawman continued doggedly. His smooth head glistened in the flickering light from the TV set.
“Go ahead.” Arms still crossed.
“Did you ever hear from your son after he went missing?”
“No.”
“So you didn’t know he was alive till today?”
She raised her chin as if defying him to doubt her word. “That’s right. I heard it on the morning news. The same station that’s on now.”
“The weather forecast is looking good for the remainder of this week,” a woman standing in front of a large map was saying. Her droning voice was enough to make you wish for a lightning storm to strike her down.
“Got any idea why he might do this?”
“Greed, I suspect. That chair factory’s gotta be worth a pretty penny. We Periwinkles have always been dirt poor. I expect he wanted more. Probably why he ran away from home.”
“Sorry about this, Myrtle. I know it’s been hard for you. Thinking you’ve lost your only child. Then your husband drowning in the well a few years later.”
“I was glad he drowned. He was a terrible husband.”
“Oh,” said Jim, realizing he didn’t know much about the Periwinkle family. Myrtle had been reclusive after her losses, living on a meager pension left by her husband from his job at the chair factory.
“If you don’t have any more questions, I’d appreciate if you’d run those reporters off my property. I’ve got absolutely nothing to say to them.” Sounding like her son Harry.
Chapter Eight
Nobody would ever accuse the Quilters Club of being busybodies, but they did have a certain reputation for nosing around. Thinking of themselves as detectives, they had solved a couple of crimes in the past two years. The police chief was none too pleased with them interfering with his job. But given their success rate, he kept his grumbling to himself.
If asked, the four women were merely “paying their respects” when they showed up on Maud Purdue’s doorstep with an upside down watermelon cake in hand. It was Maud’s favorite, so she invited them in.
“You didn’t have to do this,” Maud was saying as she put the cake in a glass cake dish on the kitchen counter. She tasted the frosting with a swipe of her finger before putting the glass cover in place.
“We were worried about you,” said Maddy. “That scam that Harry Periwinkle tried to pull must have been very upsetting.”
“I knew he wasn’t my son,” she grumbled. “Bobby Ray had blue eyes. But nobody would listen to me.”
“Everybody’s wondering how he fooled that DNA test,” said Liz Ridenour, feeling a little guilty since her husband had helped arrange it.
“It’s a mystery,” Maud Purdue shook her head, still eyeing the upside down watermelon cake.
“Funny thing, Harry offering to sign back the chair factory in return for your quilt,” said Bootsie.
“Harry Periwinkle is obviously crazy. Pretending to be my son and all. That old quilt ain’t worth anything.”
“Where is it?” Maddy asked casually. “I’d love to see it again.”
“Packed away in the attic. In an old cedar trunk to keep the moths away. Ain’t worth anything, but it has sentimental value. My husband’s grandmother made that quilt by hand back in 1899. That was the year of the Big Fire.”
“Yes,” chimed in Cookie. “Burned down half the town. It started at the bank.” She glanced at Liz as if by being the wife of a retired bank president she was somehow responsible.
“I’ve heard Edgar speak of it. The fire was set to cover up a robbery, as I recall. Don’t think they ever caught the culprits. But that was more than a hundred years ago.”
“Grandmother Purdue made the quilt to commemorate the Big Fire.”
“Yes, the design was flames,” Maddy recalled. “Yellows and reds and oranges.”
“Faded a lot,” sighed Maud Purdue. “But it’s all I’ve got to remember her by. She asked me to give it to Bobby Ray when he grew up.”
“It’s a wonderful keepsake,” Maddy assured her. “But puzzling why Harry Periwinkle would want it.”
Maud shook her head. “Never did like that boy. Told Bobby Ray not to pal around with him, that he was trash. But my son didn’t listen. Him and Harry and that Watson boy were thick as thieves. Romping through the watermelon fields. Hiking on weekends. Camping out at Gruesome Gorge in the summer. Fishing in Edwin Baumgartner’s pond. They caught a ten-pound bass there once.”
Maddy could see that Maud Purdue wasn’t going to fetch the quilt from the attic to show it to them, so she eased toward the door. “We’ll go now. Just wanted to deliver that cake. And offer our condolences.”
“No need for that. Bobby Ray’s been dead for nearly thirty years now. Least that’s what the bearded scallywag told me.”
The visitors offered a chorus of goodbyes as they walked to Bootsie’s Jeep Cherokee. Maud Purdue gave a final wave, then turned back to the kitchen where the upside down watermelon cake was waiting.
As Maddy eased into the backseat of the Cherokee, she glanced up at the eaves of the two-story house. Through
the branches of the giant oak tree that dominated the front yard, she could see a small attic window. The mysterious quilt lay just beyond.
≈≈≈
Aggie was delighted to see Sprinkles the Clown again. Even there at the campground on the Bentley farm, he still wore his white greasepaint and red nose. He introduced them to a tall man with slicked-back hair and a walrus mustache. “This is Big Bill Haney,” he said with a flourish. “He’s the ring master, lion tamer, and strong man. What’s more, he owns the circus.”
Freddie Madison glanced at the side of the gaudy circus wagon. The wording proclaimed: HANEY BROS. CIRCUS AND PETTING ZOO. He wasn’t sure what there was to pet, the animals consisting of a lion, tiger, and other dangerous creatures.
Turns out, it was Happy the Elephant. A third guy – a leathery-skinned roustabout they referred to as Bombay – brought the dusty pachyderm around from behind the tent for Aggie to pet. Mr. Sprinkles gave her a pack of peanuts and showed her how to feed them to Happy.
“Ohhh, look at his long nose,” she thrilled as he took peanuts from her hand.
“That’s his trunk,” said the elephant handler. He also doubled as a mind reader known as Swami Bombay. He claimed to be from India, but Freddie thought he looked Mexican. “He uses that trunk like a hand. He could thread a needle with it.”
Freddie knew that was a slight exaggeration, but he merely smiled as the circus performers entertained his niece.
Mr. Sprinkles was also a gifted acrobat, which he demonstrated by walking on his hands.
To his surprise, Aggie emulated him. As the star pupil in her gymnastics class at Madison Elementary, she could walk on her hands, do back flips, and complete straddle vaults on a horizontal bar.
“Excellent,” applauded Mr. Haney. “When you grow up we’ll have a place for you here at the circus.”
“Oh boy!”
“You too,” joked the ringmaster-lion-tamer-owner. “We can bill you as the Alligator Man.”
Freddie couldn’t help but laugh at this reference to his scarred and scaly skin. “I may need a job. Can’t go back to firefighting.”
3 Coming Unraveled Page 3