The Devil's Puzzle by Clare O'Donohue Read Free Book Online Page A

asked.
    “No one but the gardeners, Larry Williams, and his father.”
    “The mayor?”
    “He was a teenager then. His father was a gardener. These days I suppose you would say he had a landscaping business, but back then he was just handy with a garden hoe. Larry would tag along with his father and help as he could. When he got to be a teenager he took over tending to the place. He kept that rose garden in beautiful condition.” Eleanor smiled at the memory of it. “It’s a shame I didn’t keep it up, but after Grace died and I bought the place, there were so many other priorities . . .”
    “You did the best you could,” Maggie jumped in.
    “She did,” I agreed. “And she did a wonderful job. But that isn’t why we are here. I’m in serious trouble unless we figure out what we’re doing about the show and start dividing up the work. So we have no time for investigating mysterious deaths.”
    Bernie laughed.
    “I’m serious.”
    Carrie nodded. “She is. She says she’s staying out of this one.” “Jesse can handle it,” I said.
    “What else is there for him to do?” Bernie jumped in. “Aside from keeping Nell happy, which I’m led to believe is a full-time job . . .”
    “It is.” Eleanor laughed.
    “But what about the break-in at the high school?” Susanne said. “There were a couple of windows smashed early this morning. Nothing was taken, but I think Jesse was there most of the day.”
    “One small break-in,” Bernie said. “That’s probably the most excitement we’ll have in town all year.”
    “We’ve had lots of excitement,” I reminded her. “Even in the shop.” I nodded toward the door, where we had once found a local man dead. “Frankly, I would think you would all be frightened to hear about another odd death in our little town.”
    “This is different,” Maggie said. “This is a skeleton. There’s no killer walking around.”
    “Exactly,” Susanne spoke up. “It’s more like town history than murder.”
    There was a general chattering of agreement on that point—chattering that would get out of hand unless I put a stop to it.
    “If we’re done with the town news, we have a quilt show to put on,” I reminded the group, feeling like a broken record. “I’m a little freaked out by how much work this is, but I may have an idea, and I need your help. I had a conversation this afternoon with one of the shop regulars about how much the history of this country is reflected in the history of quilting. And it got me thinking. I want to do something that’s tied in with the history of Archers Rest,” I said. “I think that would work well with the idea of it being the 350th anniversary.”
    “Maybe we can do a quilt that celebrates different events of the town,” Susanne suggested. “We could do appliquéd blocks. Each block would represent people or events. Sort of a Baltimore Album. I’ve always wanted to do one of those.”
    “I have to admit I’m not sure what that looks like,” I said.
    “It’s a style of quilt made of ornately appliquéd blocks, with floral themes, ships, animals, things like that. It was done in Baltimore in the 1840s, for just a short time,” Susanne explained.
    Eleanor leaned forward. “You’ve seen them, Nell, it’s just that you’ve seen ones with holiday subjects and contemporary fabrics. Beautiful quilts, really. It would be nice to make one.”
    “It will take too long. It can take months, even years, to do one of those,” Bernie said. “We’ve got how long?”
    “Seven weeks,” I told her. “What if we do quilt patterns that were popular in the past, maybe tied to a particular decade? We could use reproduction fabrics to make quilts to represent the Civil War, the Depression . . .”
    I could see everyone getting excited.
    “I have a crazy quilt I made,” Susanne said. “It’s really beautiful silks and satins and hand embroidery. They were popular in the 1870s to the end of the century.”
    “And I could do a