As Maddy motherhenned her brood toward the gazebo in the middle of the town square, she noted a lone figure on the nearby bench, sitting there calmly, as if watching a ho-hum sporting event. Something seemed oddly familiar about him.
Then it came back to her: This was the same shadowy figure she’d encountered here in the square the other night. She recognized the spiky hair and gaunt face, a ghost-like figure who struck her as being up to no good.
Somehow it irked her that this fellow remained so placid amid the danger around them, a bomb about to blow up the Town Hall and her courageous, damaged son along with it.
“Stay here,” she ordered her entourage and struck out across the dark grass toward the solitary figure on the bench. “You, hey you,” she called. “I want a word with you.”
On her words, the skinny man stood, looked around for a path through the oncoming crowd, and ran … ran like a prisoner making a jailbreak, bloodhounds at his heels. Or in this case, Maddy Madison.
Lifting her Grecian toga, she kicked off her sandals and gave chase. She moved pretty fast for a slightly overweight middle-aged matron, actually gaining on her prey.
“Hold up there,” she shouted, waving a fist. Upon later reflection, she would admit her actions were largely irrational, her reason for running after the strange man more the result of pent-up emotions than any overt evidence of wrongdoing.
Glancing back over his shoulder at the mad woman in pursuit, Stinky Caruthers did not see the Old Settlers Well looming in the dark before him. He hit the stone wall at full speed, flipping forward, his weigh breaking the rotten planks that covered its mouth. With a surprised “Aiiiii!” he tumbled inside.
Fortunately, the dried-up well was only 15-feet deep, the bottom a layer of mud. Stinky wasn’t badly injured, but he was stuck down there until the police chief and his deputy pulled him out about an hour later.
≈ ≈ ≈
Worried about her Uncle Freddie, Aggie Tidemore slipped away from her mom and the others, working her way through the crowd toward the Town Hall. It was like a salmon swimming upstream. Her dad and Uncle Jim were blocking the front entrance, waving people into the park. She skirted them to the right, circling the big brick building. The back door was usually kept locked, but just as she suspected some of the high school boys has opened it earlier in the evening so they could slip out for a cigarette. A nasty habit, but some boys thought this rebellious act made them seem grown up.
Pushing the door open, she entered the hallway where the restrooms were located. In a few steps she was in the atrium, standing in front of the door marked ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE.
“Uncle Freddie!” she called. “Are you in there?”
No answer.
“Uncle Freddie, come outside where you’ll be safe!”
No answer.
She pushed the door open. Unlike earlier, when passing as a scary haunted house, the lights were now on and panels were shoved aside. The fake spiderwebs were in shreds. The pop-up zombie lay askew, one arm broken off. A plastic skeleton dangled from a chain in the corner like a forgotten victim. There was a tangle of netting in the far corner, a stand-in for a spider web, decorated with six or eight plastic black widows. The place lay in complete shambles.
“Uncle Freddie,” she called.
But the room was empty.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Tick … tick … tick
Freddie Madison glanced at his watch as he hurried toward the hundreds of people bunched together in the town square. It was 9:56 – only four minutes to go, according to the alarm clock he found hooked to the bomb.
“There you are,” called Mark Tidemore. “Did you get it disarmed?”
“No,” he said. “I couldn’t figure out the wiring. You’d better stand back.”
“A shame,” sighed the mayor. “That’s a fine old historic building.”
“The bomb’s an amateur job. The color-coding of the wires all jumbled. I couldn’t tell which one to clip.”
Mark ran his hand through his hair. “At least we got everybody out.”
As they retreated across the grass, Beau Madison joined them. “Have either of you seen Aggie?” he asked.
“I thought she was with her mother,” said Mark the Shark,
“Apparently not. They got separated in the crowds. I’ve been looking all over for her.”
Mark looked around desperately. “You don’t think she went back in the building, do you?”
“Surely not,” said Beau.
“What do you think, Freddie?” But when Mark looked around Freddie was gone.
≈ ≈ ≈
Frederic Hollingsworth Madison took the front steps in two strides, threw open the front door and disappeared into the Town Hall. “Aggie!” he shouted. “Are you in here?”
“Uncle Freddie,” came her voice.
It emanated from the haunted house ... where the bomb was. He glanced again at his watch as he raced toward the storeroom. Two minutes to go. ABANDON ALL HOPE indeed!
“Where are you?” he called as he burst through the doorway. Then he spotted her, trapped in the spider-web netting on the far side of the room.
“I can’t get loose,” she squealed, waving her arms to get his attention. Like the ending in that old Vincent Price movie The Fly.
“Hold on,” he said. But realizing there wasn’t enough time left to untangle her.
He turned toward the open heating duct where the firebomb waited, its Big Ben clock ticking away the minutes. The Swiss Army knife lay on the floor where he’d left it.
“Over here, Uncle Freddie. I’m over here,” the girl screamed. But he ignored her, diving toward the duct, sliding across the floor on his belly. He could feel the rug burn, even though there was no carpet on the floor. It reminded him of sliding into home plate that time in the eighth grade, winning the championship for the Caruthers Corners Melons.
Picking up the knife, he flipped it around to expose its wire-cutter blade. Then he pitched himself into the dark hole, disappearing up to his waist. He couldn’t see a thing, but he found Bootsie’s penlight beside the bomb. He flicked it on and the metal tunnel glowed with a yellowish light.
The reason he’d abandoned the bomb before was that he couldn’t figure out which wire to cut. Snip the wrong one and the napalm would blow up in his face, not that there was much more damage to be done there.
The smell of gasoline was almost overwhelming in the closed space of the ductworks. He coughed and cleared his throat. He knew he didn’t have time to examine the wiring again, there was less than a minute left on the clock. So he reached out and cut the first wire he could reach – klick!
The alarm went off and he jumped, banging his head hard against the roof of the narrow tunnel. “Ouch!” he said, but realized he was still alive.
Bz-z-z-z!
The alarm was ringing but no bomb had exploded. He’d clipped the right wire.
≈ ≈ ≈
A loud cheer went up as Freddie walked out of the Town Hall, Aggie at his side. Everybody seemed to sense the danger had passed, and that Maddy and Beau Madison’s youngest boy had somehow saved the Town Hall … and the mayor’s daughter.
Mark and Tilly ran to hug their daughter. Beau Madison pounded his son on his back. Maddy was in tears.
Aggie said, “What’s the big deal? Nothing happened.”
Fire Chief Pete Watson sent his men – Volunteer Unit 1 – into the building to check it out. About an hour later Ben Bentley found the second bomb in the basement. It had failed to go off due to faulty wiring. Freddie showed them how to dismantle it.
Police Chief Jim Purdue and his deputies pulled Stinky Caruthers out of the Old Settlers Well, covered in mud and blathering about his rightful place as leader of the town. He was transported to the Woodwing Psychiatric Center at Burpyville General. On the way there he confessed about making the bombs.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
A Second Chance
“You want the job, it’s yours,” Mark Tid
emore told his brother-in-law. Fire Chief Pete Watson had hung up his helmet, declaring he was too old for any more excitement like the HALLOWEEN BOMB SCARE (as the Burpyville Gazette termed it in the next day’s headline.
Freddie Madison grinned and said, “I’ll take it. I’m tired of being a clown.”
Bobby Ray Purdue took his understudy’s retirement with good grace. Perhaps because he was busy with architect Dave Winterbottom planning Beasley Gardens. He declared himself semi-retired from the clown business too.
Big Bill Haney hired a couple of replacements from the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. You could do that when you had an endowment as large as the one Bobby Ray had set up for Haney Bros. Zoo and Exotic Animal Refuge.
“Satisfied?” said Maddy Madison to her son as they sat in her kitchen snacking on ginger cookies.
“What do you mean?” mumbled Freddie as he washed a fat cookie down with a swig of milk. In Caruthers corners a milkman employed by Dingle’s Dairy still delivered it to the doorstep.
“You said you missed being a fireman, doing something important like saving lives.”
“Yeah, I did.”
“Well, you certainly made up for lost time. You saved the lives of six hundred people, disarming that firebomb.”
“Aw, it was probably a dud like the one in the basement. With Stinky’s fouled-up wiring it might not have gone off.”
“I don’t think anyone wants to test that theory.”
He grinned, unmindful of his horrific face. People had quit flinching when they saw him on the street. Being a hero overcomes minor things like appearance. “Good news is I get to keep my disability pension despite having a new job. I’m going to need the extra money. Amanda’s expecting.”
“She told me.” Nobody in the family kept secrets from Maddy. “That’s good. Donna Ann needs a brother or sister.”
“And I need to be somebody they can look up to. No more moping for me. I’m going to be a better husband and father.”
“So the Ugly Duckling turns into a Swan,” teased Maddy.
“Something like that,” he said sheepishly.
“Well, Aggie certainly looks up to you. You saved her life.”
Freddie patted his mother’s hand. “Aggie’s one brave little girl. What people are overlooking is that she went back into the building to save me.”
“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” Maddy admitted. “I suppose you’re right.”
≈ ≈ ≈
“The psychiatric evaluation at Woodwing indicates Stanley Caruthers is suffering from acute schizophrenia,” reported the mayor at the Town Council meeting. “Seems he had convinced himself that by killing me he would become mayor himself, a position he had obsessed about for the past dozen years.”
“Maybe if we hadn’t imposed those age limits, he would have achieved his dream and never taken up making bombs,” sighed Beauregard Madison. Always considering the “what if’s.”
“No, it just means we’d have had a mayor crazier than his uncle,” said Edgar Ridenour.
“Or the one we have now,” joked Bobby Ray Purdue. He’d just been appointed to the Town Council. When you raise $200 million for a low-income housing development, you get a seat at the table.
“Hey, don’t push it,” growled Mark the Shark. “I gave in on calling it Beasley Arms. And you promised the landscaping would live up to the name Beasley Gardens.”
“Next thing I know, you’ll be asking for palm trees.”
≈ ≈ ≈
Police Chief Jim Purdue was keeping his voice low, so as not to wake up Jasper Beanie who was sleeping off a bender in a nearby jail cell. “We found Stinky Caruthers’ car parked in the Home Depot lot. A ratty old Buick Regal littered with candy wrappers and dirty underwear. And guess what, there was $161,957 stashed in the trunk.”
Mark Tidemore looked up from his cup of coffee. The coffee here at the Police Department tasted like mud. “Does that mean Stinky robbed the S&L?”
“Naw. It means he stole the money from the crooks. Found it in those trunks in the basement of the Beasley Mansion … uh, I mean Beasley Arms.”
“Forget about Beasley Arms,” the mayor said.
“All those candy wrappers in his car were the same kind we found in the upstairs bedroom. Stinky had been camping out there. Probably stumbled across the money by chance.”
“I thought there was supposed to be $212,000.”
“Was. But you gotta deduct the money he spent at the Dollar General. That Phantom of the Opera getup and a sack of candy bars.”
“That’s still fifty grand short.”
Chief Purdue shrugged. “We don’t know what happened with that.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The Family Reunion
The next day Maddy placed a call to the Beasley Heritage Museum in Hobson’s Landing, Massachusetts. She’d looked it up on the map. It was located on the Powwow River near the New Hampshire border.
“H-hello,” came a tenuous voice.
“May I speak with Eunice Smith-Cardwell?”
“This is Eunice. Is this about the museum? We’re closed for the season. The museum’s only open to the public during summer months.”
“Well, it’s kind of about the museum. I’m your distant cousin on the Taylor side, Madelyn Taylor Madison from Caruthers Corners.”
“Rightfully it should have been Beasleyville,” the old woman said petulantly. “Your last name’s Madison?”
“I married Col. Beauregard Madison’s great-great grandson. But I’m related to Major Samuel Beasley same as you. My great grandfather was William Taylor, Eunice’s brother.”
“Guess we are cousins then,” allowed the voice on the phone. “Pleased to me you, I’m sure.”
“Same here. I think it’s wonderful that you have a museum devoted to Old Sam.”
“We don’t call him that on this side of the family. It seems disrespectful.”
“We mean it affectionately out here in Indiana,” Maddy recovered the fumble.
“The museum is a way of honoring Samuel Beasley and the heritage he left behind.”
What heritage? Maddy wondered. An abandoned mansion and a fake quilt. “What type of items do you have on display at the museum?” Maddy asked.
“Not many. Just the ones handed down by my grandmother. An old sword. A pair of boots. A few letters. A handful of tintypes. A US Model 1816 Marshall Pattern Flintlock Pistol. And, of course, the Beasley Heritage Quilt.”
“About the quilt –?”
“I sent pictures of it to your local historical society. I’m sure they will share them with you.”
“I’ve seen them,” Maddy admitted. “That’s what I’m curious about. Your letter said it was stitched by Madelyn Taylor Beasley, Old Sam – uh, Major Beasley’s wife. My namesake, as a matter of fact. As I understand it, she was killed by the indigenous natives when the wagon train got stranded in Indian Territory.”
“That is correct, murdered by Red Indians.”
“Potawatomi, I believe they were.”
“Yes, savages. The Major helped eradicate the vermin.”
Maddy cleared her throat, trying not to answer with anger. She was big on Native American rights. Vermin, indeed! She was deciding that she didn’t like her cousin very much. “Here’s my question. If Madelyn Taylor Beasley was killed on the wagon train, how could she have created a pictorial quilt showing the founding of the town? That came later.”
“You make a good point,” the old woman acknowledged.
“But your letter said it was her quilt…”
“Well, we’re not totally sure of that. ‘Attributed to’ would be more accurate. It was discovered in my grandmother’s trunk. Maybe Granny made it, maybe her mother Eunice made it. The women on my side of the family have always been very talented at needlecrafts.”
“But the pictures on the quilt give a false history.”
She had expected to get an angry reaction to that statement, but Eunice Smith-Cardwell su
rprised her. “Who’s to say?” muttered the old woman. “As Napoleon put it, ‘History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon’.”
“So the quilt’s provenance is murky –”
“Only to a degree,” said the old woman. “If it wasn’t made by Madelyn Taylor Beasley, it was made by her daughter or granddaughter. That much is clear.”
“And the alternate history?”
“That’s the way it should have been. Major Samuel Beasley should have gotten more credit for his role in founding that wide place in the road where you live.”
“Beasleyville? My husband doesn’t complain that it’s not called Madisonville.”
“Hmph. Why would it have been called that? Col. Madison just led the wagon train. If he’d done a better job our great-great grandmother wouldn’t have been murdered by those horrible Indians – and history would have turned out differently.”
“So what are you going to do about the quilt? You can’t keep passing it off as authentic.”
“Perhaps not. Maybe we should change its name. How does Beasley Memorial Quilt sound?”
“An improvement,” said Maddy – thinking Beasley Fantasy Quilt would be more accurate. Eunice Smith-Cardwell was crazy as a loon.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Aggie Solves the Mystery
That Tuesday the Quilters Club met at the Hoosier State Senior Recreation Center for its weekly session. It was a gray, overcast day, with wind snow in the air. They were working on Christmas quilts for a showing next month in Indianapolis. Lizzie, the fastest sewer, was close to being finished with hers. Maddy and Cookie were coming along fine, while Bootsie was still struggling with the hemming. Little Aggie was working on a lap quilt, not quite as large as the other members’ projects.
“That’s good, dear,” encouraged Maddy, looking over her granddaughter’s shoulder. “Keeping your stitches even – six stitches per inch – is the most important part of hand quilting.”
Sewed Up Tight (A Quilters Club Mystery No. 5) (Quilters Club Mysteries) Page 14