Died in the Wool
Authors: Rett MacPherson
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Contents
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HIS BOOK IS FOR MY HUSBAND
who lives with my little quirksâlike never having enough roses, or enough quilts, or enough fabric, or enough booksâand manages not to complain, too much. And who at the end of the day still considers me “his woman.”
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ND FOR THE AMAZING WOMEN ON MY FAMILY TREE
who passed the love of quilts and quilting down to me either through their written record or through the record of their craft.
The author wishes to thank some people, as usual.
My writer's group: Tom Drennan, Laurell K. Hamilton, Martha Kneib, Debbie Millitello, Sharon Shinn, and Mark Sumner. You guys have been such great cheerleaders for Torie and her gang.
My editor, Kelley Ragland, and everybody at St. Martin's Press. My agent, Merrilee Heiftez, at Writers House.
Darla Cook for doing a lot of hand holding.
For the ladies at the Quilted Fox and Quilters Cottage. I feel inspired just being around them; their amazing quilts and the fantastic fabrics.
My kids, for keeping me sane, but not too sane. That would ruin all the fun.
It was springtime in New Kassel. As much as I love winter and snow, I always love to see spring come, bringing baby rabbits, lilacs, and birds busy at the feeders. It was the month of May, and our first annual New Kassel Garden Club rose show was about to kick off, and I was overseeing all of the festivities. Which would be interesting since the only thing I can really tell you about roses is that you stick them in the ground and they come up in pink, red, yellow, and white. I didn't really need to know a lot about roses, though. I just needed to know about making the tourists happy. The garden club would worry about the roses.
I, Torie O'Shea, wear several hats in this town. I used to work as a tour guide for Sylvia and Wilma Pershing, who had owned the Gaheimer House. Now I
own
the Gaheimer House. Sylvia left it to me when she passed away last year. I'm also a genealogist and serve on the Events Committee and am the president of the historical society. I have transcribed more Granite County records than I care to think about. The level of activity comes and goes. For several weeks I'll be in a frenzy trying to get everything prepared for a particular event, and then I'll have weeks and weeks of nothing much to do except to give tours of the Gaheimer House.
As much as I love the Gaheimer House and know every nook and cranny, I was beginning to feel the faintest flutter of boredom. I know, I know, it's something I never thought would happen to meâand can I just say that I think it's uniquely American that I could be both overwhelmed and bored all in the same month. I live and breathe this town and everything in it, but there was a part of me that longed to learn everything I could about a
new
place.
That's why when Helen Wickland entered my office at the Gaheimer House with the news that the old Kendall house was now on the market, I almost swallowed the cap on my pen.
“I swear,” Helen said, crossing her heart. Helen is a dear friend of mine, a decade older than I am with more salt than pepper in her hair. She's lived in this town longer than I have. She's also the resident chocolatier. Oh yes, everyone should be best friends with the local chocolatier. It definitely has its perks. “I just heard it from Elmer.”
Elmer Kolbe is the honorary fire chief. He got too old to work, so we made him retire, but he shows up to work every day anyway. “Really?” I asked.
“Just the other day you said that you wished Evan Merchant would finally put the Kendall house up for sale,” she said. “Remember? You said it was an eyesore and that you wanted to buy it?”
“Well, it is,” I said. “Sort of. Merchant doesn't keep up with the repairs and the painting, and sometimes he doesn't even mow the grass for, like, a month.”
“Well, he's put it up for sale, and get thisâhe's selling off the contents, too,” she said, beaming. “So if there are a few things inside that you'd like to buy for the Gaheimer House, you're about to get your wish.”
“Incredible,” I said. “How much are they asking for it?”
“I don't know,” she said. “Are you seriously thinking about buying it? I mean, it's one thing to say you'd like to buy it, but it's another to actually buy it.”
“If they're not asking an arm and a leg for it, I'm game.”
Her eyes twinkled with anticipation, because she knew exactly what I'd do with the old Kendall house. Legend has it that a banker from up north by the name of Byron Kendall fell in love with the Mississippi river valley when he came through on his way to Kentucky during the Civil War. Supposedly, he'd vowed that if he made it through the war alive and the country was still intact, he was going to return and settle here. He did just that.
When he died in 1902, he left the house to his oldest son, Sanders. Sanders “Sandy” Kendall then raised his family of three in it. Everybody around here knows the name of Sandy Kendall because of the tragedy that befell him and his family. His wife died shortly before World War I. Then his oldest son fought in the trenches in Europe. A few years after that son came home from the Great War, all three Kendall children committed suicide in the house. It was a legend known throughout the Mississippi valley, and it would make one hell of a tourist trap.
“It would be New Kassel's newest attraction,” I said. Helen smiled. “Not just for the revenue it would bring the town, but because I've wanted to tell the story of the Kendall children for a long time.”
“So you'd set up tours?”
“You bet,” I said. “You know, they say that the inside of the house is pretty much as it was when Sandy Kendall died.”
“I know. I remember as a kid peeking through the slats on the windows,” she said. “Did Evan ever live in the main house?”
“I'm not sure,” I said. “I'll have to ask him when I see him, but I'm fairly certain he's always lived in the guesthouse.”
“Hmph,” she said, working her lower lip with her fingers. “Seems odd.”
“Nothing about that house or that family is normal,” I said. “Do you know what's in that house?”
She shook her head.
“Supposedly all of Lieutenant Kendall's Civil War papers and uniforms, and his granddaughter's quilts. I can't remember her name, but she was a world-renowned quilter. I think I remember Sylvia saying that the girl's quilts had been shown at one of the World's Fairs and one was even in the Smithsonian.”
“Wow,” Helen said.
“It would make an excellent exhibition,” I said.
“They're probably asking a bundle for it,” she said.
“You're probably right,” I said, “but it won't hurt to find out.”
The back door to the Gaheimer House burst open just then and a loud, shrill voice yelled out, “Torie! You have got to
do
something about that woman!” My ears told me the visitor was Eleanore Murdoch long before she actually entered my office. Helen sat down in the chair across from my desk and rolled her eyes. Eleanore appeared in my doorway, huffing and puffing and clearly upset. Her ears were blood red, and Eleanore's ears only turn blood red when she is extremely peeved.
Eleanore owns the Murdoch Inn with her husband, Oscar, and has a little gossip column in the local newspaper. She's top-heavy and wears the most outrageous combinations of clothes, loud jewelry, and bright colors I've ever seen on a mammal. Today, I'm assuming in honor of spring, she wore a grass-green shirt with giant pink tulips appliquéd across the bottom of it. Her pants were bright gold tucked into green socks. Her purple and pink tennis shoes looked a bit out of place, but my guess was that she didn't have any yellow or green shoes. On her ears, she sported hummingbird earrings that looked as though the birds were about ready to take a drink from her neck. She didn't wear a hat with this ensemble, so I was a bit disappointed. “What can I do for you, Eleanore?”
“Maddie Fulton has got to be put in her place,” she said. “First of all, the rose is not a superior flower to the clematis, but I let her have her way. Are we having a first-ever annual clematis show? No, siree. We're having a stupid rose show.
Now
she won't even listen to my gentle suggestions as to which roses should be in the show!”
Helen smiled and smothered a laugh. I wasn't laughing, though, because I knew that once Eleanore got on to something ⦠Well, let's just say Eleanore is not unlike me in that she is a bit tenacious when it comes to something she believes in. Also, although the things I find important are quite often worlds apart from what Eleanore finds important, we both react sort of the same way about things, and that could spell trouble for everybody involved. She's much more obnoxious about it than I am, though. At least I hope so.
“Hybrid teas, Torie. That's what she should be focusing on. But no, she has no less than twelve floribundas, for heaven's sake. And don't even get me started on the Noisettes. And the few hybrid teas that she's picked, well, they're just not worthy,” she said. “And she thinks David Austin is the Rose God or something.”
Eleanore might as well have been the teacher in a Charlie Brown cartoon, because all I heard was
blah blah rose blah blah blah.
I had no clue what she was talking about, so I honestly didn't know if there had been a horticultural travesty committed or not. A rose is a rose is a rose, right? “Eleanore,” I said.
“Who is the president of the New Kassel Garden Club, anyway?” she asked.
I started to answer but didn't get the chance.
“I'll tell you who,” she said. “Dudley Froelich, that's who. And who is the vice president of the garden club?”
Tobias Thorley, but I didn't get to say so.
“Tobias Thorley,” she said. “Not Maddie Fulton! Maddie Fulton does not hold an office in the garden club!”
“But,” Helen spoke up, “Maddie is the resident rosarian, is she not?”
What the hell was a rosarian?
Eleanore got quiet a moment. “There are three other rosarians in town.”
“Yes, but everybody knows Maddie is the woman you go to when you have problems with roses,” Helen said. “Have you seen her garden? It's absolutely amazing.”
Eleanore lifted her chin a notch. “I don't recall that I was addressing you, Helen,” she said. “Torie, you must do something.”
Helen made a face at Eleanore behind her back and acted like she was about ready to kick her in the pants. This made me laugh, which completely incensed Eleanore. “Sylvia would have done something!”
“Well, Eleanore,” I said, “this has been discussed many times in the past. I am not Sylvia. What exactly is it you want me to do?”