4 Plagued by Quilt (26 page)

“S
hall I tell you why the posse works so well together?” Ardis asked during a lull in business later in the afternoon. “I’ve been giving this some thought. It’s because, to a greater or lesser degree, each of us has a quixotic streak.”

“You’re sure it’s not just a love for harebrained adventures?”

“It’s what Ernestine said. We like to set things right.”

“I can see that.”

“And in this case, a tiger pit is going to do the trick for us,” she said.

“What?”

“That’s the kind of trap we’re setting—sharp spikes at the bottom of a hole—a tiger pit.”

“She is quite brilliant,” a voice said in my ear.

I felt a chill around my neck and Geneva shimmered into view, her arm around my shoulders.

“I wonder which of her relatives she gets her brilliance from?”

*   *   *

Ardis wasn’t easy to hide in those woods. John’s knees and hips had a dozen years on hers, but they folded without complaint, and he fit neatly behind one of the large
rounded boulders. Mel wore a dark knit cap over her spikes and sat behind a huge poplar. Joe leaned his back against a hemlock and became one with the trunk. Ardis moved from tree to rock to rhododendron thicket and finally found a rock behind a tree and was happy after Joe arranged cut hemlock boughs to cushion it.

“There. I’m good,” she said, and she took out her knitting.

I went around to check on the others. They were hidden, but alert and ready. And knitting.

“Does a wild Mel knit in the woods?” Mel asked. “Idle hands, Red. Idle hands.”

And that, I reflected, was why I would never produce baby hats at the primo posse pace. I went to my own hiding place behind a rock, took out my phone, and put my idle hands to work another way. It was five o’clock. I called Thea, and then Ernestine, and told them we were in position. Then I pictured them each making their two scripted phone calls. Nadine and Wes would hear from Thea that research undertaken at the Homeplace was about to bear fruit. Fredda might be surprised to get a call from Ernestine, but Ernestine would be sweet and charming and tell her why she could expect to see vehicles in the parking lot after hours, in case she was working late. Jerry wouldn’t know who Ernestine was, but she would tell him that she’d heard of
him
and knew he’d be interested in the search for the sinkhole skeleton.

If I’d taken my knitting, I could have finished the last of the peony pink hats. It would have ended up with embellishments of leaves and twigs, though, so I felt virtuous for leaving it at home. I’d invited Geneva to come see her trap sprung, but she said she was afraid to.

“I do not want to become one of those ghosts who is
caught in an endless loop, reliving one sad moment over and over again,” she’d said.

I didn’t blame her, so, knitless and ghostless, I waited in the woods. Insects droned. A pileated woodpecker hammered. Ardis’ phone rang. She silenced it, but that was the first thing that went wrong. It was five twenty.

At five thirty-five John developed a cramp in his left calf. He whispered an oath, walked it off, and whispered an apology.

At five forty-seven we heard someone coming.

We’d chosen our hiding places with care. Each of us, moving with stealth, was able to get into position so we could see the area around the sinkhole. I held my breath, imagining the others each holding theirs, as we all waited for . . .

Jerry Hicks came whistling down the path. He whistled his way unerringly through the rocks to the sinkhole, stopped midwhistle, and sighed. Then he did what I hadn’t quite expected. He started shoving aside the rocks covering the hole. He had the muscle for it, from his years of digging, and it didn’t take long for him to uncover enough of the hole that a person might climb—or fall—into it. Geneva had told me that Lemuel put the rocks there, so it didn’t surprise me that Jerry could move them away. But after he moved them, he climbed up onto the large rock Geneva and I had scrambled over, the rock she’d fallen from. And he stood at the edge, looking into the hole. Looking like someone gauging the water’s depth before a dive—or someone who’d stepped out onto a window ledge.

This wasn’t what we’d planned, and I didn’t wait for our prearranged signal to come out and confront the murderer. I moved into the open so Jerry could see me, and called to him.

“Hey, Jerry. That’s kind of dangerous, don’t you think?”

He didn’t answer. Mel and Joe came out, still knitting. Jerry looked at them, then looked again. He didn’t move, but his forehead furrowed.

“Blast,” Ardis said from her rock. “I dropped the whole dang row.” She waved when Jerry looked at her, but she stayed seated, trying to recover her stitches.

While Jerry’s attention was on Ardis, John moved closer to the sinkhole. When Jerry noticed him, John saluted with his knitting needles and began dancing a jig, moving around the edge of the hole, his face perfectly serious, not saying a word.

“Hey,” Jerry said, watching John. “Hey, back away from there. What is this? Why’s everyone knitting?”

John kept dancing, moving forward and back.

“That’s crazy,” Jerry said. “Who is that guy? Tell him to back away and stay back.”

“Both of you back away,” I said. “I mean it. John, stop it. Jerry, please. Get away from the edge. I’ve already lost one person down there.”

“What are you talking about?” Jerry asked.

“The hole. I don’t care about the hackle. I don’t care why you killed Phillip. Get away from the hole.”

“Who fell in the hole?” Jerry asked.

John stopped dancing, but neither of them moved back.

“Who fell in the hole?” Jerry asked again. “It’s impossible. No one’s moved those rocks in years.”

The edge was like a magnet, and it was going to draw both of them in—the thought made my breathing hurt.

“Geneva fell in the hole,” I said. “It’s her skeleton down there. She slipped, and Lemuel could have helped
her, but he hit her and let her fall. And I saw her fall again. And if she were here now, she would fall
again
. And again and again and again in a horrible endless loop. So get away from the hole. Stop standing there, and get away from it.
Stop
it!”

“I am. I am. I did,” Jerry said. But he didn’t move away from the edge fast enough for my hysteria.

“Stop it or it’s going to happen again!”

“It’s not happening again. It’s okay.” Hands out, trying to calm me, he backed away from the edge. “It’s all right. It’s stopped. Okay? I fixed it. No one’s hitting anyone again. We don’t need things happening again.” He sat down and pressed the heels of his hands to his temples. “I stopped it.”

And then one more thing went wrong. John slipped into the hole.

“Y
ou terrible old man.” I leaned over John and kissed his forehead. “What were you thinking?”

“That I’d give him a fright and make him confess. Gave myself one, too. I didn’t realize that ledge was quite so far down. I won’t lie, Kath. My life flashed before my eyes, and I am heartily sorry for scaring you so badly.”

“Goofy old man.” I burst into tears, and Ardis wrapped me in her arms while I sobbed for Geneva, who hadn’t had anyone to save her.

“Shh, now, shh. Don’t talk any more now. You have a good cry. We’ll talk later. But did you really see her fall?”

I nodded against her shoulder, and she rocked me like a baby.

“Is she going to be okay?” I heard Zach ask.

“Red? She’s cool. She’ll be fine,” Mel said. “
You’ve
got nerves of steel. I think you’ve got a free lunch at my place anytime you want it. And that’s fine—a shrug is all I need to see.”

*   *   *

Our plan had gone into improv mode as soon as Jerry uncovered the hole. John’s jig was his addition to the plan, and in dancing close to the edge of the hole, he saw the narrow ledge partway down. It must have been the
ledge Geneva initially landed on when she fell. Where she was, reaching for help, when Lemuel hit her and sent her to her death.

John’s next embellishment to the plan, in his bid to scare Jerry into confessing, was to let himself slip down onto the ledge. But he misjudged the depth and everyone else’s reaction too. The interesting part, for me, beyond the sheer panic on top of my hysteria, was realizing how tall Geneva must have been. Her head was still visible in the hole; John—all of five three or four—disappeared entirely.

And that was where Zach entered. Without hesitating, he hopped down onto the ledge and held on to John until Joe and Jerry pulled them both out.

Clod, who had been following Zach, for no good reason any of us could determine, shone his halogen light down the hole.

“It’s down there,” Jerry said. “Shirt, too.”

“We’ll send a light down,” Clod said. “Maybe a camera.”

“Good idea,” said Joe.

“See if you find my knitting, while you’re at it,” John said. “I dropped it.”

Clod cautioned Jerry, told him he should wait for a lawyer, but Jerry said he needed us to understand.

“I want you to see why,” he said. “This was . . . I didn’t plan it, okay? He bullied. Phillip Bell bullied. He broke. He hurt people. He hit women.” Jerry’s hand came up, rigid as a karate chop, the veins in his neck standing out. “I knew him. I knew him in grad school. He’d do anything to get ahead. He’d do anything to put the other guy down. He did whatever he wanted. I heard about him after grad school, too, from my sister. He hit Grace.”

He pressed the heels of his hands to his temples again, then continued more quietly. “You can’t be powerless to stop what’s happening around you. When it happens again and again. It’s an obligation. You have an obligation to make people understand that it has to stop. I didn’t save my sister from her husband.”

He held his hands out, looking at us as though waiting. But for what? For more words? For us to fill in his blanks from dark spaces we might have in our own lives? No one helped him.

“Phillip hit Fredda,” he said. “I saw the bruises. She told me. I went over there that morning to make him see that he had to stop or—that’s all. I went to talk. To fix it for her. To stop it. When I found him, he was taking pictures of that thing—the hackle. Of that and the pond for the Web site or a newsletter, and he didn’t care why I was there. He laughed and said he might use the thing like a hairbrush on her the next time Fredda misbehaved. I didn’t know what that thing was. But it was effective. The camera’s in the hole, too. Tell Fredda—it’s hers, and she’s been looking for it. That’s all. But I didn’t mean for Grace to go to jail.”

“You didn’t mean for yourself to go, either,” Zach said. “You put that stuff in my car?”

“I didn’t know whose car it was,” Jerry said.

“Pffft.”

*   *   *

Nadine made the decision to cancel the rest of the Hands on History program. From what I heard, the students were disappointed. Their parents were grateful. Shirley and Mercy felt thwarted. I did, too. They tried to back out of their end of the bargain. They had the nerve to come into the Weaver’s Cat and tell me. But only enough nerve to come tell me when I was alone in the shop.

“Oh no you don’t,” I said. “You owe me. In fact, you owe me more than we originally bargained for, because I know you two impersonated Nadine. You called the other quilting volunteers and told them you were Nadine. And I will tell Nadine you did that, if you don’t honor your end of the bargain. And I will tell Wes Treadwell that you’re spreading stories about him. I think you owe me a one-week unsupervised visit with the Plague Quilt, don’t you?”

They agreed and said they would deliver the quilt that afternoon, but if looks could kill, I’d have cholera by nightfall.

When they brought it, I surprised myself by asking them if they’d be interested in teaching a quilting class for the shop. They were surprised, too, and possibly suspicious. They said they’d have to think about it. I wondered how I’d tell Ardis, if they said yes.

*   *   *

I shared the Plague Quilt only with Geneva for the first few days. We sat up in the study during the evenings, poring over it. She told me what she remembered of the people whose names Rebecca had embroidered on it. She told me about Rebecca, my great-great-grandmother, and about Mattie and Sam.

“Why didn’t you tell me that Sam was your brother?” I asked one evening.

“It was my fault they were in that field. I encouraged them to run away. I told Sam to take Mattie away from Uley.”

“I thought it was Lemuel.”

“We called him Uley. He was meaner than snakes. Always was.”

“Their deaths weren’t your fault, Geneva.” I wasn’t sure she believed me.

I took pictures of every inch of the quilt and wrote a full description of the fabrics and stitches, and wrote down Geneva’s stories, too. Ghost oral history was a new field for me.

“Do you like the way I deduced you were talking about Ardis when you asked if I had thought about the possibility of having relatives?”

“It was very clever of you.”

“I have thought about the other questions you left me. Have they found my bones in the sinkhole?”

“They were able to bring up the hackle and the clothes Jerry threw down. And John’s knitting. But for now, to dig down farther would be difficult.”

She floated over to the window seat and sat with her feet tucked under her. “I have a home, a cat, friends, and a family. My bones do not need to be disturbed.”

*   *   *

Two loose ends were tied up in one afternoon’s mail. The first was a letter from Grace, thanking me for sending Ernestine to see her and give her hope. She was recovering from her ordeal with a friend back in West Virginia. She planned to go back to school full-time. She no longer had to worry about money. Phillip had never changed his insurance policy, and she was his sole beneficiary. The second loose end was an article in the
Blue Plum Bugle
about the library receiving a generous grant for materials and programming from the Holston Family Foundation. Thea and Wes both smiled in the accompanying photo. Ardis and Mel were of the opinion that Thea’s objectivity, where Wes and the Holstons were concerned,
had been compromised while her grant application had been under review.

*   *   *

Joe and I stopped at Mel’s for an early supper that same evening, before setting out to look for otters again. Clod was there at a corner table. With Fredda. Clod turned a gentle shade of pink above his collar when we went over to say hello. Fredda winked at me. Clod handed me a folded piece of paper.

“You saw it on the machine in Bell’s office,” he said. “It’s a copy.”

I opened it, looked at it, and then looked at him.

“Actually a copy of a copy,” he said. “Nothing valuable.”

I refolded it and put it in my pocket.

Clod was wrong, as he so often was. It was a treasure. That it was a copy of a copy didn’t matter. It was a double image—two small, delicate drawings—a sketch of a young woman’s head and shoulders and a close-up of the cameo locket she wore. The artist had signed her name—
Geneva
.

*   *   *

John decided to continue his—and Phillip’s—research. I still wasn’t sure it was a good idea, but he was hooked.

“It’s riveting,” he said. “Between the indecipherable antique handwriting and incomplete, misplaced, and missing records, I’ve got enough to keep me busy for years with no idea what the conclusion will be. It’s my own crazy quilt, and it just might make me crazy.”

*   *   *

The Plague Quilt was too extraordinary to keep to myself for long. I asked Geneva if she thought we should throw a small party and invite the posse to come see the quilt.

“After all, the quilt played a role in wrapping up the investigation,” I said. “Fictionalized, but still, I’m sure they’ll love to see it.”

“A viewing party!” she said, clapping her hands. “Like a gala gallery opening!”

We set the date for Saturday night, and I sent out invitations. But I sent a special invitation to Ardis, inviting her an hour early, for her own viewing ahead of the others. She accepted, and I spent the next few days with Granny’s dye journal getting ready.

*   *   *

“You did not exaggerate,” Ardis said when she saw the quilt laid out in the TGIF workroom. “I want to fall into it. I want to walk through it. Your great-great-grandmother was an artist. It’s so obvious where Ivy’s talents came from. And I haven’t asked you about your Geneva—
my
Geneva. I didn’t want you to relive that terrible experience again. But do you think my Geneva knew Rebecca?”

“I do.”

“I’m so glad. Isn’t this extraordinary? Wouldn’t it be phenomenal to have a connection to those two women? A letter, a diary, something in their own words to tell us about the quilt?”

“Ardis, close your eyes for a minute, will you? And hold out your hand.”

“If you say so.”

I tied the green bracelet I’d braided onto her wrist. It was a lovely grayish green and made of cotton with a recipe Granny called “Juniper for Long Lasting and Friendships.”

“Open your eyes, Ardis. I want you to meet someone.”

She did. And then she opened them wider. Geneva floated in front of her.

“Hon,” Ardis said, reaching blindly for my arm. She couldn’t take her eyes off Geneva. “Does she . . . does she
speak
?”

Slowly, Geneva floated closer. She opened her mouth.

“Oh my word,” Ardis said. “Yes? Do you have a message for me?”

“Y-e-e-e-e-s-s-s-s,” Geneva said, swaying back and forth.

“What?” Ardis asked, leaning close.

“Boo!”