Murder by Kindness: The Gift Quilt (A Quilted Mystery) Read online

  MURDER BY KINDNESS

  A QUILTED MYSTERY

  MURDER BY KINDNESS

  THE GIFT QUILT

  BARBARA GRAHAM

  FIVE STAR

  A part of Gale, Cengage Learning

  Copyright © 2016 by Barbara Graham

  Five Star™ Publishing, a part of Cengage Learning, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.

  No part of this work covered by the copyright herein may be reproduced, transmitted, stored, or used in any form or by any means graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including but not limited to photocopying, recording, scanning, digitizing, taping, Web distribution, information networks, or information storage and retrieval systems, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  The publisher bears no responsibility for the quality of information provided through author or third-party Web sites and does not have any control over, nor assume any responsibility for, information contained in these sites. Providing these sites should not be construed as an endorsement or approval by the publisher of these organizations or of the positions they may take on various issues.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Graham, Barbara, 1948–

  Murder by kindness : the gift quilt / Barbara Graham. — First edition.

  pages ; cm — (A quilted mystery)

  ISBN 978-1-4328-3097-7 (hardcover) — ISBN 1-4328-3097-X (hardcover) — ISBN 978-1-4328-3091-5 (ebook) — ISBN 1-4328-3091-0 (ebook)

  eISBN-13: 978-1-4328-3091-5 eISBN-10: 1-4328-3091-0

  1. Sheriffs—Tennessee—Fiction. 2. City and town life—Tennessee—Fiction. 3. Quilting—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3607.R336M858 2015

  813'.6—dc23 2015022039

  First Edition. First Printing: February 2016

  This title is available as an e-book.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4328-3091-5 ISBN-10: 1-4328-3091-0

  Find us on Facebook– https://www.facebook.com/FiveStarCengage

  Visit our website– http://www.gale.cengage.com/fivestar/

  Contact Five Star™ Publishing at [email protected]

  Printed in the United States of America

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 20 19 18 17 16

  For Tiny Miranda

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  As an author, I have to thank many people for their patience and assistance. It cannot always be fun to wonder if you are about to be my next victim. Thanks to all of you who have cheered me on, corrected my work and tolerated my mental lapses and excursions. Many of you have answered, more or less politely, any number of odd, inane and frankly murderous questions.

  As usual, there are those who must be mentioned by name.

  My friend Michelle for testing another mystery quilt pattern for me. In spite of not enjoying them, or maybe because of it, she does a wonderful job.

  My husband for proofreading, providing a dose of reality and the willingness to play dead on command (the dogs won’t cooperate). My request usually begins with, “You don’t need to know why, but . . .” Doesn’t he realize what runs through my brain? What bravery!

  Alice Duncan, of course, editor extraordinaire, who sees things invisible to me. She tells me what I have left out and what needs fixing. Now.

  Thank you all.

  THE GIFT QUILT A MYSTERY QUILT BY THEO ABERNATHY THE FIRST BODY OF CLUES

  Finished quilt size is approximately 59 by 76 inches. Fabric requirements given are generous and are based on useable fabric widths of 40 inches. (The useable amount seems to have been shrinking.) This quilt pattern assumes familiarity with basic quilt construction, quilting terms, rotary cutting skills and sewing with an accurate 1/4″ seam throughout.

  This project makes a large lap-sized quilt.

  Fabric requirements:

  Fabric A—2-1/4 yards of a print. It can be a floral, novelty, juvenile, frogs, it should not be directional.

  Fabric B—1 2/3 yards of complementary color

  Fabric C—1-1/2 yards of second complementary fabric

  Fabric D—1 yard of a higher contrast fabric

  CUTTING INSTRUCTIONS

  As you cut, remember to label each stack with color letter and size.

  Cut from fabric (A):

  4 strips—4-1/2″ by LOF (length of fabric)

  48 squares 3-7/8″

  48 squares 3-1/2″

  Cut from fabric (B):

  48 squares 3-7/8″

  96 squares 3-1/2″

  Cut from fabric (C):

  31 strips 2″ by 15-1/2″

  48 squares 3-1/2″

  Cut from fabric (D):

  4 squares 4-1/2″

  12 squares 3-1/2″

  20 squares 2″

  8 strips 2-1/2″ by WOF (width of fabric)

  Because of the variety of fabric widths on the market, be sure to save the remaining pieces of fabric after cutting in case you need to cut a few extra bits as the quilt is being constructed.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Theo Abernathy thought, and not for the first time this year, “It seemed like a good idea at the time” would probably be her epitaph. She was feeling a bit put upon and, to be fair, the year was only about a month and a week old. The “it” of the moment was her involvement in a silent auction and pie sale being planned as a fund raiser. The words of the phrase “silent auction and pie sale” rang in her head like a tune sung as a round, one continuous loop.

  In a moment of madness, Theo had allowed Jane, her mother-in-law, to convince her to create a raffle quilt for the event. Theo was certain she had tried telling Jane she was too busy to do it. Although, to be fair, she had not tried very hard. Her mother-in-law was irresistible. A lack of willpower on Theo’s part when Jane was involved was actually the major problem. The second worst problem was Jane knew her power and wielded it often.

  Jane had smiled and even managed a somewhat sympathetic smile. “You can have the crew hand-quilt it for you.” Jane had been referring to the numerous people who gathered in Theo’s quilt shop on a daily basis and who enjoyed the social diversion of working together on community quilts. The smallest county in Tennessee did not suffer from a lack of volunteers.

  Again, Theo attempted to resist. After all, she had a shop to run and four children and a husband. She was busy. And then, Jane had delivered the winning blow: “You do know what it’s for, don’t you?”

  Theo’s fate had been sealed by her mother-in-law’s simple statement because Theo did know who the proceeds would benefit. Thinking of it made her feel sad and guilty at her selfishness. It was in support of a very good cause. All of the proceeds were to go to a project begun by Mrs. Dixon, the local veterinarian’s wife. A project nicknamed Dixon’s Dogs.

  Once Theo was over her initial hesitation, she jumped in to help. Moments later she decided to make a very special quilt for the silent auction at the planned Valentine’s Day gala.

  The goal of Mrs. Dixon’s project was meant to do more than to train shelter dogs as companion and service dogs, giving them a better life. It was also designed to help transition a small group of veterans including Boston Quist, Kenneth Proffitt and Dillon Teffeteller, who had returned to civilian life but who no longer fit into their previous niches, into becoming the dogs’ trainers.

  Tony, Theo’s husband and Park County’s sheriff, hoped they would even find a dog they could train to search as well as Dammit, Deputy Mi
ke Ott’s bloodhound. Tony believed it was always good to have a backup plan, and Dammit and Mike had other things they needed to do.

  At the very least, the group hoped to supply trained dogs to flip light switches for a disabled person, open doors, carry items and do other similar simple services for their human. Providing companionship was to be their major role.

  Donations for the silent auction were pouring in. There was a wide variety, from inexpensive used books and homemade jams to larger and costlier items like a full day of pampering at Prudence Sligar Holt’s new “day spa” where the lucky “winner” would be treated with a massage, a facial and a pedicure. Theo thought the prize sounded divine. What a welcome escape from her frantically busy everyday life it could be. She had hinted to Tony how she thought it would be a lovely anniversary present but wasn’t able to tell if he was listening to her. Of course, if the cost went too high, she wouldn’t enjoy it.

  One of the more interesting tidbits she’d heard had to do with bedbugs in old books. At first those collecting books to sell had been happy about the generous number of donations. And then bedbugs were found in a few of them and a great debate ensued about whether or not to sell them or refuse to accept them or call Claude Marmot, trash guru, to collect them.

  “Put each book in a sealed plastic bag and pop it in the freezer overnight.” The advice came from Queen Doreen.

  Most of the event’s workers, Theo included, decided if it worked for the fastidious Queen, it was worth a try. They doled books out to as many volunteers as possible so no one was overburdened. After all, who had space in their freezer for a lending library?

  Theo had already put many hours into the design of the new quilt. She knew she could have created a perfectly acceptable, traditional quilt made from simple squares, rectangles and perhaps a few triangles. Predictably, once she began working on the project, Theo had not only begun to enjoy the new design but made one complicated to construct.

  The pie sale, which was expected to bring in most of the money, promised to be very competitive. In a rare moment of genius, the committee had asked Blossom Flowers Baines to be in charge of the pie event. Taking Blossom, the hands-down absolutely best baker in the county, out of the running had opened the door wide for the field of amateur competitors. Many cooks promised to deliver everything from peach pies to chess pies to lemon meringue.

  Tony’s mom, Jane, and his aunt Martha could both make a pie worth buying.

  Theo overheard Jenny Swift and Eunice Plover, best friends and very good, if not great, pie bakers, talking. They were excited to participate but were keeping quiet about their plans. The two women were ardent competitors, especially against one another, and equally ardent in congratulating the other one. There was a fair age difference between the two, Mrs. Plover being the older one by fifteen years, but they were inseparable. Their arrival in any place was usually accompanied by gales of laughter.

  Queen Doreen, who was rumored never to eat because of her stylish, slender frame, had promised to make a couple of her family’s favorite pies. According to Doreen, it was a secret recipe handed down from generation to generation. Her husband, Mayor Calvin Cashdollar, was on record promising to buy one of them for himself, no matter how much he had to bid. The other one would be truly up for another bidder. He was quoted as saying, “It is an exceptional pie.”

  Various other well-known cooks in the county were busy trying to decide their most competitive or desirable recipes. Voting, which was separate from gaining ownership, would be monetary. The more money the pie received in its voting jar, the higher its ranking would be. Because ownership of an entire pie would be auctioned separately, the voting was based on samples supplied from a second, identical pie.

  Theo was not participating in the pie-baking contest. She hadn’t ever actually killed anyone with her cooking, but even she had to admit it was probably more from luck than anything else.

  Not everyone in the community was happy about either the dog training or the Valentine celebration. The grumps didn’t cause a problem for those who were looking forward to it. There were always a few sour grapes and naysayers, the ones who hated all celebrations and any form of change, but the general sense in the community was one of excitement. February in Silersville was not well known for its entertainment. This would give the residents of Park County something fun to do.

  Part of Theo’s reluctance to get involved with the Valentine event had been her concern about an upcoming event involving her business. Maybe she was insane. Caught off guard, she had agreed to be one of the East Tennessee quilt shops involved in a daylong shop hop. A charter bus was going to deliver forty fabric-crazed quilters to her shop, all at the same time. The plan was for the shoppers to spend an hour in each shop on the route and enjoy a catered lunch halfway through the trip. As it turned out, lunch time was when the quilters would be in her shop. Theo didn’t consider the lunch a problem, mainly because it was being catered by Ruby’s Café.

  Everything else about it, though, was turning into an epic headache. She had designed a special quilt-block pattern as a gift for the shoppers. Now she had forty small bags to fill with candy, the pattern and several small pieces of fabric. Theo had to make arrangements for extra seating and find a way to accommodate many extra people in her workroom. She needed extra employees and makeshift cutting stations for the hoped-for banner day.

  Theo’s frequent nightmares involved either no one buying anything so she would lose money, or everyone clamoring for service at once, leaving Theo and crew unable to keep up and thereby upsetting the shoppers. They would lose customers. Somehow in the early hours of this particular morning, Theo became convinced the shop hop was going to be a disaster, a losing situation.

  The giveaway block pattern had not been too difficult to decide upon because each shop started with a holiday theme drawn from a hat. Theo, as luck would have it, got Christmas. It was easy enough for her to design a simple Christmas tree block. Several people had tested it for her and assured her it was a simple block and foolproof. Nothing else had been simple.

  The shopping bus was due on Saturday. Knowing Tony would probably be called into work, Theo had already made arrangements with Maybelle to keep the twins all day at the Abernathy house instead of her usual half day. The one-year-olds were into everything. Not for the first time, Theo gave thanks for the kindhearted woman and thought their meeting some months earlier at the grocery store had proven to be providential. In short, they needed each other.

  Through the receiver of his cell phone, Park County sheriff Tony Abernathy had been listening to Theo detailing all the disasters she could imagine, including the upcoming Valentine’s party and her involvement with the shop hop. He knew Theo tended to be excitable and because she couldn’t say no, she often got involved in things she had no time for. She had been particularly distressed this afternoon. While listening to her chatter on, he had gotten some paperwork done.

  “Sheriff?” The voice of his favorite dispatcher, Rex Satter-field, came through the intercom. “Can you take a moment to talk with Jimmy Zink? He’s out front here.”

  “Sure, send him on back. Oh, and Rex, could you have Wade come in here, too.” Tony explained to Theo and hung up.

  His deputy and the schoolteacher arrived at the same time.

  Jimmy Zink started talking before any greetings were exchanged. “I got a weird phone call in the middle of the night and thought I’d come by your office because I found the conversation so disturbing,” Jimmy said. “It’s bothered me all day.”

  “Have a seat.” Tony thought Jimmy looked like he was trying to act casual about the call in the middle of the night. It wasn’t working out. Jimmy’s skin looked waxy and pale and his breathing was quick and shallow. “Take a deep breath and then start with the ringing of the telephone.”

  Jimmy nodded his understanding. He perched on the very edge of a chair facing Tony and forced himself to take a couple of slow breaths. “The land-line phone rang. It took me a fe
w moments to answer. Most people I would expect to hear from in the night have my cell number, and I had been sleeping so hard that I even tried turning off my alarm in the dark.”

  “So you answered, how? ‘Hello’? Or, ‘This is Jimmy’?” Tony wanted to keep the man talking.

  “I think it was more like ‘ ’lo’?” A faint smile did cross Jimmy’s face. “The first time I said it, I had the receiver upside down. The second time, I was wider awake.” He shivered. “Then this weird voice, maybe male, maybe female, says, ‘Have you found her body?’”

  Tony knew Jimmy well enough to know that on a good day, when he was clear-headed and well-rested, the man was a solid average in intelligence. Jimmy was a competent, popular third-grade teacher. At the hour of the phone call, and clearly distracted, he sounded semi-catatonic. “Who is ‘her’?”

  “That’s exactly what I asked.” Jimmy blinked several times and swallowed hard. “Then there was a sound like muffled laughter and then the voice said ‘Louise’. I don’t know anyone named Louise, so I asked my wife if she did and she said no.”

  “Have you considered it might have been a prank call from one of your students? Or another teacher?” Tony didn’t think it sounded like any of the classic ones but it didn’t hurt to ask.

  “No. It didn’t sound like someone playing a joke.” Jimmy did smile a bit. “You know, like asking if your refrigerator is running and then telling you to go catch it.”

  Tony was baffled. He didn’t know a Louise either. He couldn’t imagine why anyone would call Jimmy asking about a body. The idea of a body being hidden somewhere he didn’t know about made Tony slightly uneasy. A few years ago, he never would have considered the possibility someone might have found a body, but in the past few years there seemed to have been an unusual number of deceased persons in his county.