Deadly Patterns (24 page)

Chapter 32

My curiosity got the better of me. As I hurried through the audience, I stopped short when I came upon Hattie and Arnie arguing in hushed voices, back and forth, back and forth, until he finally threw down his paper and stormed away.

“Are you okay?” I asked Hattie. I bent to pick up what he’d been reading.
Numismatic News
. It was really more of a periodical, I realized. Sort of a cross between a newspaper and a glossy magazine with a newspaper-like headline across the front page and articles about coin collecting.

“Oh yeah, I’m fine,” she said. “He wants to go to the Cowtown Coin and Gun Show, and I want to stay here. I don’t wanna leave Raylene. Is that wrong?”

“Of course not,” I reassured her. “She’s your sister and she’s been through a lot.”

I handed her Arnie’s paper before I excused myself and headed inside. The holiday tunes came through speakers Abernathy Home Builders had installed for the event, and the festive mood spilled into every room. Trays of Raylene’s tea sandwiches lined the island, but there was no sign of her.

Mrs. Abernathy walked by, glancing my way, nodding, just barely, and moving on.

A hearty “Ho, ho ho!” bellowed from the foyer. I poked my head in to see Will listening to a little girl recounting a long list of Christmas wishes. He
ho, ho, ho
ed again, Gracie tickled her cheek with the end of her ruffled scarf, Libby handed the girl a candy cane, and she was off. Another child climbed onto Will’s lap and he let out another boisterous “Ho, ho, ho!”

“He’s a good man,” Mrs. Mcafferty said, coming up beside me. Her voice brimmed with emotions, her eyes turning glassy.

“And a good father.” Not every man stepped up to the plate when it came to being a single dad, but Will certainly had, and he’d done a fine job raising Gracie.

“We talked, you know,” she said after a beat. Her voice sounded steadier. “He introduced me to Gracie. They’re going to come over tomorrow afternoon and spend a bit of their Christmas with us.”

I took her hand, giving it a gentle, encouraging squeeze. “I’m so glad, Mrs. Mcafferty,” I said, hoping that through their reunion, she’d keep quiet about the Cassidy charm. I still wasn’t comfortable with the idea of our secret getting out to the whole town.

I spotted Raylene, and excused myself from Mrs. Mcafferty.

She still held Boone, clutching him in her arms as if she were afraid to let him go. I didn’t blame her after she’d almost lost him. Arnie trailed behind her looking like a lost puppy dog. “Maybe she’s in the kitchen,” Raylene said.

Hattie. So Arnie had come back to make up to her. Good husband.

Mrs. Abernathy’s voice drifted out from the parlor, the sound of it forcing a series of memories to the front of my mind. Abernathy Home Builders had taken the remodeling job of the Denison mansion even though it was small change. If anyone knew what might be hidden in this house that had Dan Lee on the hunt, it would be Mrs. Abernathy.

I listened to her tell stories about the quilts on display in the parlor. “The piecework on a quilt like this is detailed. Look how exquisite. Hand-stitching. Exacting work, and tedious. From what I . . .”

The talk of sewing gave me an excuse to go in and listen. I was like a moth to the light. I walked into the parlor and saw her talking to Josie, who looked exceedingly worn-out. All that strutting up and down the catwalk.

I pulled a chair forward for her and she sank into it, still listening to Mrs. Abernathy as she recounted the importance of quilts to women’s history.

“My mom and grandmother can cook circles around anyone here,” Josie said when Mrs. Abernathy paused to take a breath, “but they never did learn how to sew.”

Another memory surfaced; this time, though, it wasn’t about Mrs. Abernathy.

They kept talking. Somewhere in the back of my mind I heard my name.

“W-what?”

Josie leaned back in the chair, one hand on her swollen belly. “I said, I’m in awe of what you can create with fabric, Harlow.”

I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. Something about what she’d said didn’t make sense.

“There she goes again,” Will said as he sidled up to me, still in his Santa suit. “Woolgathering.”

“No. No, I was just thinking . . .” I trailed off as I tried to pinpoint what was bothering me. And then it came to me. “Oh!”

The three of them gawked at me. Well, Josie gawked. Will and Mrs. Abernathy looked, waiting for me to explain my outburst. “Oh, what?” Will asked.

“The quilt at the historical society.”

His fake snowy eyebrows pulled together in a V. “What about it?”

“You said Josie donated it?” I turned to her for confirmation. She nodded, and I went on. “But you just said your mom doesn’t sew. And neither does your grandmother, right?”

She reached up as Nate came into the parlor. Hattie, Arnie, Raylene, and Boone were in the foyer just outside the parlor, and Mama and Hoss were snuggling in Santa’s chair. Mama gave an unconvincing, “Quit,” followed by a giggle.

Ah, young love.

“They don’t,” Josie said.

“Who’s ‘they,’ and what don’t ‘they’ do?” Nate asked, moving behind her and gently rubbing her shoulders.

“Harlow was asking about the quilt I donated to the Historical Society.”

“The one Pearl Denison made?”

Everything screeched to a halt as the pieces of this puzzle fit themselves together in my head. I could finally see the mystery in its entirety. “Pearl Denison made that quilt?” I remembered the faded letter from the signature. An
I
and two
N
s.

“She made this one, too,” Mrs. Abernathy said. “It’s been in this house all these years.”

“So Pearl made quilts,” I muttered, processing that information. “And the Kincaids inherited those quilts when your great-great-grandfather won this house from Charles Denison?” I asked Nate.

He nodded as the front door slammed. Mama laughed again. And from where I stood I could see Boone crying in Raylene’s arms. None of it stopped my mind from pulling together tidbits of information just like pieces of a quilt sewn together. Each fabric cutting by itself was just a scrap. But taken together, they made an entire story.

Goose bumps pricked on my arms as more ideas converged until finally one rose to the top. “Pincher’s Jewelers,” I said under my breath.

Josie stared at me like I was three sheets to the wind. “Pincher’s—?”

“The jewelry store on the square,” Nate finished.

“They’ve been there a long time, right?”

Nate nodded, his hands still rubbing Josie’s shoulders. “Forever.”

I whirled around to Will, grabbing his red velvet–covered arm, my words spilling out faster than I could even make sense of them. “There’s an article in the courthouse about a Roosevelt coin from the U.S. Mint. It said something about Pincher’s Jewelers.”

“Yeah, the original Pincher—Jeremy, I think—came here from New Jersey. The story goes that Teddy Roosevelt wanted to make the American coins better-looking.”

“I remember this story,” Nate said. “My great-grandfather used to tell us about the artist the president hired and the double eagle design he created.”

Will nodded. “Augustus Saint-Gaudens. It had the eagle on the front and the back. The mint changed the design to make it easier to strike.”

“Weren’t they all melted down?” Nate asked Will.

“No!” I exclaimed. “Not all of them. Two were put in a museum, but some were switched before the melting.”

Now they all stared at me. “How do you know that?”

“Dan Lee Chrisson wrote an article about it,” I said, remembering the Google search I’d done. “The mint produced the coins from 1907 to 1934.”

Josie heaved herself up from the chair. “And one of them supposedly ended up in Bliss?” she asked.

Nate gave a single nod. “With Jeremy Pincher.”

“Yes,” I said, the goose bumps on my arms multiplying, “but Pincher’s was robbed by Bonnie and Clyde.”

All the chatter from the festival had vanished from my consciousness. The Christmas music faded away. Will folded his arms over his robust Santa chest. “Dan Lee Chrisson knew about the robbery. He must have thought Bonnie and Clyde hid the coin here in this house. That’s what he was looking for.”

A quiet sob came from behind us. Raylene. “D-did he find it?” she asked. “Is th-that why he was killed?”

Hattie appeared. When she saw her sister’s tears, she handed her a wad of tissues. “Did he find what?”

“Some gold coin from the 1930s that’s worth a lot of money. Dan Lee wrote an article about it. Harlow thinks he might have been lookin’ for it.”

“Worth a lot of money is an understatement,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief. “Try about eight million.”

The color drained from Mrs. Abernathy’s face. “Eight million dollars?”

“For one coin?” Raylene choked out.

“For one coin,” I said.

Raylene dabbed the clump of tissue against her nose. “We’ll never know if he found it.”

I was pretty sure he hadn’t. “Someone’s still looking,” I said. “There’s a hole in the wall on the widow’s walk—”

“No there’s not.” Mrs. Abernathy’s color had returned, but she looked stricken. “We had a crew come out and fix everything, and Barnett’s did the finish work.”

I shook my head. “The hole’s there, and it’s as big as my head.”

Josie gasped, the realization of what that hole meant hitting her. “So someone else knows about the coin and is looking for it, too?”

“And they thought it was hidden in the widow’s walk. Will showed me the original blueprints. The widow’s walk was added on. Dan Lee might have thought the coin was hidden there because of the addition.”

Silence fell over us. I studied each of them, considering. Nate and Josie were out, of course, and so was Will. Dan Lee might have told Raylene about the coin. Maybe her motive wasn’t the divorce and the woman scorned at all. I wanted to clear her name, but I just couldn’t.

Mrs. Abernathy moved away from our small group. The Abernathys, and her own family, went way back. Any of them might have known about the Saint-Gaudens coin. “Why’d you take this renovation job, Mrs. Abernathy?” I asked her. If she or her husband had known . . .

“We work closely with Barnett Restoration—” She choked, but managed to go on. “They won the bid, so we came on board.”

Nothing made sense yet. I wandered to the window. Josie and Nate were called to the foyer by Madelyn. “Let me take your picture,” she said.

Mama and Hoss got up from Santa’s throne and Nate and Josie took their place. Madelyn started snapping.

Nana came through the kitchen, her cooler in tow, Mrs. Mcafferty and Mrs. James in her wake. They spotted Mrs. Abernathy and summoned her over. The clucking started instantly.

“Woolgatherin’ again, Harlow?”

“What?” I looked up to see Will, Hoss, and Mama all watching me. “No, just thinking.”

Hattie and Raylene sat in matching Queen Anne–style chairs by the Christmas tree. The red and white of the quilt in the parlor caught my eye and Mrs. Abernathy’s talk about quilts came back to me. Quilting bees. The Underground Railroad. Marriage quilts.

The pieces by themselves don’t tell a story, but put them all together . . .

“Oh Lord.” That had to be it. I spun around and ran.

Chapter 33

Sheriff Hoss McClaine’s boots crunched on the salted sidewalk behind me. He caught up with me at my car. Will was right by his side, ripping the snowy white beard from where he’d let it hang around his neck. “Where’s the fire, Harlow?” Hoss said warily as Mama crashed through the gate.

“It’s in the quilt,” I said, breathless. “Just like the quilt Gracie got for Josie and Nate’s baby.”

They all stared at me. “What are you talking about, Cassidy?” Will asked.

“The Underground Railroad.”

“The Underground Railroad,” Hoss repeated.

“Yes! Bonnie and Clyde robbed Pincher’s Jewelers, but they were run out of town before they could get their stuff.” The image of a woman I’d gotten when I’d touched the dressing gown upstairs flashed in my mind. I’d seen the gold, but I’d thought it was a ring.

Mama put the back of her hand to my forehead. “You okay, child?”

I stepped back and her arm fell to her side. “I’m fine. Listen! Dan Lee’s real name was Charles Denison. He must have known about the coin from stories his family told way back when. Will,” I said, looking at him, “you told me that every time you came around, Dan Lee was here. He must have thought that Bonnie and Clyde had hidden it in the house before they had to skip town. He was looking for it!”

“Go on,” Will said.

“Quilts. They were a signal used during the Underground Railroad, but some folks also hid messages in them.”

“In a torn seam, you mean?” Mama asked, understanding dawning in her eyes.

The cold air blew through my clothes until I shivered, my teeth chattering. “Yes! They would have hidden the coin while they were here, expecting to take it when they left, but if they didn’t have time—”

“And you think it’s in the quilt at the museum?”

Will stripped out of his Santa coat, draping it around my shoulders. He had long johns on underneath his faux belly. I’d never seen a man look so ridiculous . . . or so attractive.

“An eight-million-dollar coin is sitting out in the open over there?” Hoss said, shaking his head.

“Just like it has been for nearly a hundred years,” I said.

I hurried toward my truck.

“Cassidy!” Will called, coming after me. “Where the hell are you going?”

I wrenched open the door, looking over my shoulder at him. “To the courthouse.”

“Who else knew? Who pushed Dan Lee Chrisson?” Mama hollered.

That was the question I hadn’t quite answered—

“I’ll drive,” Hoss said.

But as I turned to shut the door, I saw the half slip of goldenrod paper from this morning at the bakery. Cowtown Coin and Gun Show. One word popped out. “Numismatic,” I muttered. The word was familiar.

And then it hit me like a big ol’ bale of hay to the head. I grabbed for my bag and dug out the magazines I’d stuck inside to return to Hattie. A home-decorating glossy and
Numismatic News
.

Will caught the door. “What’s that?”

“A coin magazine,” I said slowly. I looked up at the house, the pieces of the quilt beginning to tell the whole story. Hattie had said that Arnie was going to Fort Worth to the Cowtown show.

“Dan Lee and Arnie were brothers-in-law,” I said, realizing that a story about an eight-million-dollar Roosevelt coin was exactly the kind of thing two guys who were hobbyists would talk about. “Oh Lord.” I turned to stare at the house again, as if I could see right through the walls to Hattie. I’d seen both her and Raylene in outfits perfect for a bed-and-breakfast. Because they only truly had each other?

I breathed out all the nervous air in my lungs. “It’s Arnie Barnett.”

The door. It had slammed earlier when we’d been talking in the parlor. He’d heard about the quilt and put it together.

I dashed toward the sheriff’s car. Will’s black Santa boots crunched against the icy cement behind me. I hit an ice patch just as I reached Hoss and Mama. My feet slipped out from under me and I went flying, but Will’s hand grabbed my arm and he yanked me up before I hit the ground. “Darlin’, you’re going to get yourself killed.”

I grabbed on to him to stay upright. “We have to get there before he does.”

Hoss didn’t even ask me to explain any more than I already had. He flung open the door to his patrol car, yanking out the handheld police radio. “Dispatch, get me Deputy McClaine,” he demanded.

There was a blast of static and then Gavin McClaine responded. “Get over to the courthouse,” Hoss snapped.

Gavin’s response was muffled through the static.

“I’ll explain later. Be on the lookout for Arnie Barnett.”

We piled into the sheriff’s car, Will and me in the back and Mama in the passenger seat.

The tires spun before catching. “Black ice,” Hoss said. “Buckle up.”

The car skidded at the corner of Mayberry and Maple, sliding through the light. Too bad Zinnia James hadn’t bought enough salt to ice the road straight to the courthouse.

The car spun out in front of the limestone building; then we poured out of the car like a nest of agitated black water moccasins. Will charged ahead, plowing through the door, barreling past the visitors milling around. A minute later, the four of us slid to a stop in front of the empty quilt rack.

We heard the heavy, quick clomp of footsteps heading down. “He’s got it!” I took off running, Mama and Will with me. From the corner of my eye, I saw Hoss head in the other direction. The back stairs. If he was quick, he’d be able to cut Arnie off at the door.

The courthouse door slammed open below us, the grunts and scuffling sounds of men fighting rising like hot air. We took the stairs two at a time, stopping short at the dog pile. Gavin was on top. Hoss rounded the corner by the stairs just as Will reached the bottom. After Gavin managed to stand, Hoss hauled Arnie up.

The courthouse door was flung open again, slamming against the wall. Hattie rushed in, Raylene and Boone on her heels. Hattie stopped short, Raylene crashing into her back with an “oomph!”

She spotted Arnie. “Lemme at him!” Hattie bellowed. The veins in her neck popped, her face turning the same red as Will’s Santa pants. And then, like a snorting bull pawing the ground, Hattie hunched her shoulders and charged, careening into Arnie and Hoss. Hoss kept his balance, but Arnie fell to the ground like a gunnysack of flour. “You rat. You lying, thieving rat!”

“Jesus Christ, Hattie. I didn’t mean to hurt him.” He shook his head as if that one statement made everything all right.

She flung her arm out toward Raylene. “Boone’s father is dead, Arnie. Dead.”

His face contorted, his jaw trembling. “I told him to come in off that damn widow’s walk. Those bolts were loose. You know how many times I tightened them,” he said, looking at her with puppy dog eyes.

But Hattie was too smart to fall for that. “Because you loosened them, didn’t you? And you let me sit out there. You killed that man for a stupid gold coin,” she spit.

“An eight-million-dollar gold coin,” he shot back.

“Reckon that didn’t work out too well for you, pal.” Gavin grabbed Arnie by the arm and led him outside, reading him his rights along the way.

Raylene sobbed, but she held Boone close. Her lifeline. Hattie wrapped her arms around the both of them, hugging on them like there was no tomorrow. I didn’t have any new wardrobe flashes for them. So the bed-and-breakfast it was. I’d make them their outfits, and maybe some costume pieces for authenticity.

The truth. I’d discovered it and while it didn’t right the wrongs, it filled me with peace.

They headed outside, Hattie to face the husband who’d betrayed her, and Raylene to face her new future. She was innocent, just like Meemaw had said. And no one would ever think otherwise.

Pearl Denison’s quilt had flown out of Arnie’s arms in the tussle. I grabbed it up by one corner. Mama caught the other end, and without a word we laid it flat on the courthouse floor and began working our hands down our respective edges. The gray and pastel calico prints had been painstakingly pieced together into a complex honeycomb pattern. Section by section, Mama and I felt for something hard hidden in the pattern. The pads of my fingers dusted over the old cloth. I remembered how I’d snagged them on a small section of broken thread when I’d looked at it before.

“Look at the stitches,” Mama said. “So uniform. She did lovely handwork.”

I moved on to the centermost section, feeling each piece of each hexagon. I found the torn seam. Stuck my finger inside. Will and Mama and Hoss held their collective breath. I dug around, but it wasn’t there.

My shoulders sagged. “Maybe he did find it,” I said, surprised at how disappointed I was. “It could be gone forever.”

I folded the quilt in half, then picked it up and folded it in half again.

“But it was probably there.” Will had stripped off his faux belly. Black suspenders held up his pants. “You figured it out, Cassidy. You did good.”

“You sure did, honey,” Mama drawled. “Now we oughta get back and start the cleanup—”

“Oh!” When I folded the halves together, my fingers ran over something hard under the center hexagon of one of the honeycomb shapes. “There’s something here!”

The threads were loose, but I dug at the seam, pulling the pieces apart enough to fit my fingers inside. Once again, Will, Mama, and Hoss seemed to hold their breath.

My fingers grabbed hold of the cold, hard object with the embossed picture. “It’s here. It’s here! I got it!” I cried, finally extricating my fingers from the quilt and holding up a twenty-dollar Saint-Gaudens coin worth eight million dollars.