The Devil's Puzzle (2 page)

I checked my watch. 11:35 A.M. I was already late. I crouched a little and got ready to make my move. But just as I was about to bolt, her hand reached out and grabbed my arm.

“Nell Fitzgerald,” my grandmother whispered at me, “if you don’t sit still I’m going to nail you to that chair.”

I settled back. This was ridiculous. I could have left anyway. I could have argued that as a grown woman I’m pretty much past the listening-to-my-grandmother stage. But there was no point. I’m stubborn; at least that’s what everyone tells me. But my grandmother, Eleanor Cassidy, is immovable.

I rolled my eyes at her, but there was nothing to be done. Now seventy-four, with short gray hair framing her face, making her blue eyes all the more piercing, she was going to have her way. She was up to something; that much I could tell. But that was okay. So was I.

I turned my attention back to the front of the room where Gladys Warren, known to everyone as Glad, was going over the history of Archers Rest.

“As town historian,” Glad said, “I’ve had the great privilege of spending hours digging into our town’s past.” At this she laughed slightly. I looked around. No one—including me—got the joke. “We have quite a history. As you all know I’m sure, we were founded by John Archer in 1661 or thereabouts. Unfortunately Mr. Archer died the first winter of our founding, along with most of the people who had ventured up the Hudson River with him. But despite this setback, a town was born. And as others came after him, they recognized the sacrifices of John Archer and named this town for the place where Mr. Archer was laid to rest.”

She paused and looked around. The audience nodded. We knew the story, knew the macabre reason for our town’s name—it was named to commemorate a man’s grave—and knew that Glad didn’t care that we knew. She was going to tell us anyway.

As Glad launched into the story of John Archer’s heroic deeds, his high moral character, and his ultimate sacrifice, she edited out what I considered the most interesting part about our founding father. He and his original group of followers were supposed to have come to Archers Rest seeking a quiet place to practice witchcraft. It was nothing more than legend, of course, as there were very few actual facts available about the man. Even most of Glad’s version was fiction, or bits of truth heavily embellished by centuries of retelling. Either way, like everyone in the room, I’d heard it all before.

“I have to go,” I whispered to my grandmother.

“Not yet.”

I sighed heavily and dramatically. I couldn’t tell her the reason I was needed at her house, but it was a good reason. I couldn’t make up some story because she’d gotten very good at figuring out when I was up to something. And I couldn’t just get up and leave because, well, because I’d never hear the end of it if I embarrassed her in front of what appeared to be the who’s who of Archers Rest. Instead I sat back and waited for a good moment to break away.

From the podium Glad announced that the town would be hosting a special Fourth of July celebration to commemorate the 350th anniversary of the town’s founding. If it had been 350 years. No one was quite sure. But that wasn’t going to stop a celebration, especially one that might boost tourism.

There was a lot of talk in the town about that recently. The feeling was that we were being bypassed for other Hudson Valley towns that had more to offer the tourists. Local businesses apparently were missing out on cash-heavy New Yorkers coming up from the city and New Englanders coming south. A normal Fourth of July wouldn’t cut it this year. We needed something that put Archers Rest in the newspapers.

Glad asked for volunteers to demonstrate, as she put it, “the kind of community spirit that would show nonlocals what a special place we live in, and give them a reason to return time and again.” Several shop owners and restaurant owners offered to host parties or have special sales during the anniversary celebration. Carrie Brown, a fellow quilter and owner of Jitters, the local coffee shop, suggested a coupon booklet that would highlight town businesses and be handed out to visitors. That met with approval from everyone, and when she looked back to Eleanor and me, we clapped loudly as a show of support.

It was all going well, even if it was a little dull. I was just about to make a run for it when Glad announced that she wanted to introduce those who were chairing committees, and I could see Eleanor sit up straight. Mayor Larry Williams, who also ran half a dozen local businesses, told everyone he would handle the media and the fireworks display.

“I’ll be posting updates of the anniversary celebration on my blog,” the mayor said. “For anyone not familiar with it, it’s a great way to keep up with all the exciting events in our little town. I’m not a writer, but I think I capture the flavor of life in Archers Rest.” He then took out a half-dozen sheets of paper and read several recent postings. For nearly ten minutes.

After the mayor finally sat down, Ed Bryant, owner of the local movie theater, agreed to be in charge of the parade and carnival. And Maggie Sweeney, the town’s former librarian and my grandmother’s closest friend, took charge of the church bazaar.

Then Eleanor stood up.

“I thought it would be a lovely nod to our past to combine quilts, which as you all know is a tradition that predates the nation’s founding, with the celebration of our town’s history,” she said. “I propose doing a quilt show.”

Everyone applauded enthusiastically. If Eleanor was going to help, it wasn’t entirely unexpected she’d help by offering quilts. She was, after all, the owner of Someday Quilts, which had been drawing folks to town for more than thirty years.

While the small crowd was applauding, Eleanor leaned down to me and whispered, “How badly do you want to get out of here?”

“Badly.”

She nodded and stood up straight. “My granddaughter Nell is extremely busy with art school and working at Someday Quilts, so unfortunately she has to leave. But she has offered to take time from her schedule to organize the quilt show.”

I stood up and was about to protest.

“You can go now if you need to.” Eleanor took a deep and triumphant breath.

“This is why you dragged me here?” I asked her.

“I thought you might like to help your town.”

As others applauded my willingness to help, I whispered to my grandmother, “This isn’t over.”

Eleanor smiled. It was over and she knew it.

CHAPTER 2

I
t was shaping up to be a quiet summer anyway, I reasoned, as I sprinted from the library, down Main Street, and toward home. It might be kind of fun to put on a quilt show. And it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to help the town.

I’d lived in Archers Rest since September and it was now only mid-May, but I felt as though I’d been here forever. And that was a good thing. Mostly. But I realized since arriving in Archers Rest, I’d been stuck in a me-me-me kind of place. Worrying about boyfriends, jobs, art classes, a failure to get my borders to lay flat on the first bedsize quilt I’d made . . . and my grandmother had listened to all of it.

Now, with my twenty-seventh birthday in less than two months, I was starting to poke my head out of my world and focus on something really important. Not the quilt show. That wasn’t exactly in my plans, but it was fine. I’d help the community, stay out of trouble, and get to be part of the town I’d grown to love. That was all wonderful, but it wasn’t important. Not really important.

But what I was doing today was. What I was doing was going to pay Eleanor back for all the support, love, and friendship she’d given me these last few months. It would give me a chance to be a small part of what I knew would be one of the happiest days of my grandmother’s life.

As I raced into the driveway of the Victorian home I shared with Eleanor, I nearly ran into the landscaping trucks that were parked there. To someone else it might have looked like old pickups stuffed with lawn mowers, dirt piles, and shovels, but to me it was the most romantic gesture I’d ever been privy to.

Just a few months before, Eleanor had become involved with my art teacher, a well-known English artist named Oliver White. Oliver had spent most of his life accumulating honors, wealth, and girlfriends. Not exactly the kind of man I would expect the guarded and sensible Eleanor to fall for—but she had. In truth, I hadn’t expected to watch my grandmother fall in love at all. Romantic love is so often, and so unfortunately, depicted as a privilege for only the young, and I guess I’d fallen into the trap of believing that at a certain age those feelings just evaporated.

But as I’d watched the relationship develop over the last few months, I’d seen how wrong that thinking was. Eleanor lit up whenever Oliver walked into a room. And Oliver never hid his admiration and attraction for my grandmother. They didn’t play games or get into stupid arguments. They just accepted each other, adjusted to their differences, and fell in love.

Oliver and Eleanor had become serious pretty quickly, but because they were both senior citizens I’d had difficulty referring to him as her boyfriend. “Gentleman friend” sounded like something from a Tennessee Williams play, and “significant other” was a bit too modern for either of them. Usually I stumbled around when I introduced him, eventually referring to him as a family friend.

But Oliver was about to help me out with a better title. He was planning to propose to Eleanor in just a few hours.

As a gesture of new beginnings, he was planting a rose garden in the neglected backyard of my grandmother’s Victorian home. Eleanor always grumbled about the mess her garden had become, but she never had the time or inclination to do anything about it. She told me once that her friend Grace Roemer, the former owner of the home, had a dozen different rose varieties planted there. But when she died, the garden died with her. It was a minor regret, but one Eleanor voiced every spring when the weeds took a stronger hold of what had once been a magnificent wash of color and fragrance.

Now, thanks to Oliver, it would be returned to its former glory. I raced to the backyard to see how the work was coming, hoping I’d find rosebushes already planted. When Oliver and I first cooked up this plan we knew it would be nearly impossible to get the entire garden cleared and planted in one day, but we were confident we would make enough of a difference to give Eleanor a preview of things to come.

His plan was to show her the garden when she returned home in the late afternoon, then open a small box and reveal the diamond ring he’d bought. Ever the romantic, he’d found one that had been made the year she was born. Even though I wasn’t actually going to be there for his proposal, I could picture the whole thing clearly and I was almost as anxious and excited as he was.

If the plan was going to work, then Oliver needed to get to his house, change his clothes, and pick up the champagne and cake he’d ordered. And I needed to supervise the workers and get dinner ready. But when I got to the back of the house, instead of seeing a rose garden in progress and a would-be fiancé ready to propose, I saw Oliver and several workmen standing over a hole, shaking their heads and speaking in low tones.

“Hi,” I shouted, but no one made a move to look at me. I took a few steps forward. “Sorry I’m late, but don’t worry, Oliver. Eleanor doesn’t close the shop until four, so we still have plenty of time.”

Oliver finally heard me and turned. He was tall, over six feet, with gray hair and a neatly trimmed beard. He was imposing, but in his soft blue-gray eyes, there was a sweetness I had come to adore.

“What’s going on with the garden, Grandpa? Don’t mind if I call you that, I hope.” I smiled.

He didn’t smile back. “We’ve run into trouble, Nell.”

“Whatever it is, I’m sure the landscapers and I can work around it. You’ve got to get out of here so you can get ready for your big night.”

Every time I had mentioned the proposal before, Oliver had shyly smiled. This time, though, a weary sadness crept across him.

“I don’t think that I can go through with it tonight,” he said.

“What? Of course you can, Oliver. Don’t get cold feet now. Eleanor is madly in love with you. And you are madly in love with her. We’ll get this garden into shape. You’ll get dressed. You’ll say that beautiful speech you’ve been rehearsing. Eleanor will be thrilled. Everyone will be thrilled. And you and Eleanor and me, and the quilt group, can start planning a wedding, and more important, a wedding quilt.” I smiled, looking for signs of optimism from Oliver, but there were none. I tried again. “Nothing, absolutely nothing is going to stop this proposal from happening tonight as planned.”

Oliver nodded, but he didn’t seem all that convinced.

He motioned for me to come toward the hole where he and the landscapers had all been looking. It wasn’t deep, maybe two or three feet.

“I think this is going to stop it, Nell.”

“No way,” I said.

But as soon as I peered over, I realized he was right. We had run into the kind of problem that would likely change our plans for the garden, the proposal, and maybe much more. At the bottom of the hole, still half covered with dirt, was a body.