Sewed Up Tight (A Quilters Club Mystery No. 5) (Quilters Club Mysteries) by Marjory Sorrell Rockwell Read Free Book Online Page B

there just behind him.
    “Eh, whattaya know. Didn’t lose it after all.”
    “Mr. Johansson, you’re under arrest for trespassing on town property,” stated Chief Purdue. “I must inform you that charges of grand thief and armed robbery are likely to be levied against you later today.”
    “You can’t prove anything,” Moose laughed. “Just because I was in the same house where a bank bag is found some two years after a robbery. Just try and prove I was involved.”
    ≈ ≈ ≈
    About twenty minutes earlier Cornelia Tutley had been conducting her daily behind-the-curtains neighborhood watch when she’d spotted Moose Johansson strolling down the sidewalk. Uh-oh. Was Peewee’s pal coming for her? No, he stopped halfway down the block at the old Beasley place, glanced around cautiously, then crossed the yard and disappeared behind the big stone house.
    Whew ! She could barely breath with all the excitement of seeing her old high school classmate in her neighborhood, forcing her to grab her inhaler and take a couple of huffs. There, that was better.
    Then things got even more confusing as two police cruisers, a shiny black Toyota SUV, a dark-blue Ford pickup, and a vintage yellow Chevrolet Impala pulled up in front of the Beasley place, disgorging about ten people – quite a crowd for a somnambulistic Sunday Morning on Melon Ball Lane. As she watched, everybody went inside the big mansion. What was that all about?
    Later when they filed outside with Moose Johansson in handcuffs, Cornelia Tutley knew her ordeal was over. Hallelujah ! she sighed. Throwing all three deadbolt locks open, she rushed outside, waving her arms at the police and shouting, “Did you find the money?”
     
     

 
    CHAPTER TEN
    Gotcha!
     
     
    P eewee Hickensmith was worried that Moose hadn’t reported in yet. Maybe he should’ve waited outside in the car like Moose wanted. But that would have been pretty obvious in a small neighborhood like Melon Ball Lane. Not smart to take chances like that, he reminded himself.
    He paced the length of Mama Leone’s – twelve paces – and back again, waiting for the phone to ring. Silence, other than the clatter in the pizza shop’s tiny kitchen. Barely room back there for the big pizza oven, much less his sister, who was chief cook and bottle washer, the ersatz Mama Leone herself.
    Mama Leone’s Cheese-Stuffed Pizza Parlor only had four booths, two on each side of the cramped dining area. Peewee and his pal usually took up one booth, but no matter – most of the business was take out.
    “Where’s Moose?” asked his sister, taking a batch of calzones out of the wide oven. The Blodgett 999C’s thermometer read 450°F. It was hot in the tiny restaurant.
    “Who knows?” he lied. “Finding him is like looking for a needle in a graveyard.”
    “I just made a batch of three-cheese calzones with pork sausage, his favorite.”
    “Moose was supposed to call me to pick him up, but I haven’t heard a peep from the jerk.”
    Sometimes Peewee thought they had been stupid robbing that savings and loan over in Caruthers Corners. What good did having $212,000 if you couldn’t spend it. He’d read about how banks recorded serial numbers on currency, so stolen money could be traced. Surely, all these years later, the FBI had quit looking for the missing loot. Didn’t the Feds have lots of other crimes to pursue?
    By now Moose had to be back at the rendezvous point, the parking lot at the chair factory, so why hadn’t he called for a pick up? Unable to contain his impatience, Peewee dialed his partner’s cell phone. He listened to it ring, then swallowed hard when a voice said, “Hello, who is this?”
    But it wasn’t Marvin “Moose” Johansson’s voice.
    ≈ ≈ ≈
    No, Moose hadn’t rolled over on his partner, but Cornelia Tutley had. Unmindful of possible charges of having withheld vital information in a police investigation, she made a clean breast of it, telling all.
    Standing there on the