The Quilters Club Trio (2nd Anthology)

The

Quilters

Club

Trio

(2nd Anthology)

____________________

The Next Three

Quilters Club Mysteries

Books 5, 6, 8

_______________________

Marjory Sorrell Rockwell

ABSOLUTELY AMAZING eBOOKS

Published by Whiz Bang LLC, 926 Truman Avenue, Key West, Florida 33040, USA

The Quilter’s Club Trio: Anthology 2 copyright © 2017 by Gee Whiz Entertainment LLC. Electronic compilation / paperback edition copyright © 2017 by Whiz Bang LLC. Sewed Up Tight copyright © 2014, 2017 by Gee Whiz Entertainment LLC. All Tangled Up and Needled. copyright © 2016, 2017 by Gee Whiz Entertainment LLC. A Christmas Quilt, copyright © 2017 by Gee Whiz Entertainment LLC Needled copyright © 2017 by Gee Whiz Entertainment LLC.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. While the author has made every effort to provide accurate information at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their contents. How the ebook displays on a given reader is beyond the publisher’s control.

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 Take your needle, my child, and work at your pattern; it will come out a rose by and by. Life is like that – one stitch at a time taken patiently and the pattern will come out all right like the embroidery.

- Oliver Wendell Holmes

Other Quilters Club Mysteries

By Marjory Sorrell Rockwell

A Christmas Quit (Prequel)

The Quilters Club Quartet

The Underhanded Stitch

The Patchwork Puzzler

Coming Unraveled

Hemmed In

Sewed Up Tight

All Tangled Up

Needled

A Stitch In Time

Cross Stitch

Available from AbsolutelyAmazingEbooks.com

The

Quilters

Club

Trio

_______________________

The Next Three

Quilters Club Mysteries

_______________________

Introduction

Welcome back to Caruthers Corners, Indiana. With a population slightly over 3,000, this small town in a northeastern corner of the Hoosier State is home to the Quilters Club – a small group of local ladies who like to solve crimes on the side when not sewing patchwork quilts.

Founded in 1829, the town is proud of its heritage. Decendents of Swiss-German and British stock, with a hefty influsion of Old Order Amish and Mennonite traditionalists, the folks in Caruthers Corners offer a bastion of midwestern values. But flyspeck-sized town does have its share of crime and murders most foul, often centered around local history and the art of quiltmaking.

The gals of Quilters Club have had some good successes, puzzling mysteries that you followed in the four previous books (bundled together as The Quilters Club Quartet). Now we bring you a brand-new bundle featuring the next four books in this beloved cozy mystery series.

Here in one collection you’ll find Sewed Up Tight, All Tangled Up, Needled, and A Stitch In Time – the further adventures of those latter-day Miss Marples: Maddy Madison, wife of one of the town founders’ descendents; Bootsie Purdue, wife of the local police chief; Cookie Bentley, wife of a successful watermelon farmer; and Lizzie Ridenour, wife of the retired bank president. Oh yes, let’s not forget those junior members of the Quilters Club, Maddy’s grandchildren – precocious little Aggie Tidemore and that pint-sized brainiac N’yen Madison.

Of course, these intrepid detectives and the town of Caruthers Corners are fictional, fresh from the pen of noted storyteller Marjory Sorrell Rockwell. But they will take on a life all their own. You’ll feel like you know Maddy and her friends … almost like being a neighbor.

I have to admit it: I’m hooked. I can’t wait for Marjory Sorrell Rockwell to follow up on these four books with another entry in this bestselling mystery series. As young N’yen likes to say, I read!

- Hollis George

   Editorial Director and Anthologist

Absolutely Amazing eBooks

SEWED UP

TIGHT

A Quilters Club Mystery

5

Buttons and patches and the cold wind blowing ...

the days pass quickly when I am sewing!

- Old Saying

CHAPTER

ONE

I ain’t a-skeered of no ghost!

Madelyn Agnes Madison did not believe in ghosts. Neither did any of the other members of the Quilters Club. But growing up in Caruthers Corners, they always crossed the street when passing the old Beasley Mansion on Melon Ball Lane. Everybody said it was haunted.

Now in their 50s, married, with grown children, they felt a little silly about this lingering superstition. Like not stepping on a crack to avoid breaking your mother’s back.

However, this adult skepticism was severely challenged last year when Skookie Daniels was frightened to death by a ghost.

Well, that’s what everybody assumed when his body was found stretched out there on the lawn in front of the Beasley Mansion.

The coroner pronounced it a heart attack. But Skookie’s mother maintained that the life had been scared right out of him by an otherworldly apparition.

If that was true, everybody knew the name of the murderer – Major Samuel Elmsford Beasley. Problem is, he’d been dead for over 130 years. The Major had been part of the stranded wagon train that fought off the indigenous inhabitants of this unruly Indian Territory (as Indiana was known back in 1829) to establish the frontier outpost of Caruthers Corners. The big stone mansion was one of the first buildings erected in the fledgling town. Some folks claimed the Major’s ghost still roamed the mansion, angry that his role in founding the town had been usurped by Jacob Abernathy Caruthers, Ferdinand Aloysius Jinks, and Col. Beauregard Hollingsworth Madison.

Maddy’s husband was none other than Beauregard Hollingsworth Madison IV, the great grandson of one of the founders. So in theory the ghost should have a grudge against Beau’s family, not Skookie Daniels. The Daniels were descendants of watermelon pickers who migrated here from Georgia a generation or two ago. Relative newcomers.

The Quilters Club – Maddy, along with her pals Cookie Bentley, Lizzie Ridenour, and Bootsie Purdue – met once a week at the Hoosier State Senior Recreation Center. It was a convenient place with a large rec room. This particular Tuesday their talk was more about Skookie’s demise than quilting squares.

Skookie (né Robert Carl Daniels) had been the principal of Caruthers Corners High School for the past ten years. Even the students had called him by his nickname. No need for formality in a small town like this. The school would be closed the entire week in mourning. Flag at half-mast and all that. He’d been a popular educator hereabouts. Even the students liked him.

Maddy passed out the plastic tubs that held the quilting materials, one for each of them, plus one for her granddaughter Agnes, who was an honorary member of the Quilters Club.

Did a ghost really get Skookie Daniels? asked the precocious twelve-year-old girl. Her blonde hair had been bobbed to shoulder-length for the new school year, making her look a bit like young Chloë Grace Moretz in the movie Hugo.

There’s no such thing as ghosts, her Grammy spoke up. Maddy was the unofficial leader of the group. This year the fluffy hairdo surrounding her cherub face was a chestnut brown, quite stylish in a ‘50s retro way. Sometimes it seemed the town was trapped in another era.

The death of Skookie Daniels has been ruled due to natural causes, Bootsie Purdue reported, as if that ended the discussion. Her hubby was the town’s police chief, so she usually had the inside scoop on local crime. Doc Medford confirmed that Skookie had a bad ticker.

Yes, but why did it happen in front of the Beasley Mansion? insisted Lizzie, the most superstitious of the group. The redhead followed her horoscope in the Burpyville Gazette every morning. And she carried a lucky rabbit’s foot key ring in her purse (although it hadn’t proved very lucky for the rabbit).

Skookie’s grandfather picked watermelons for the Beasleys, pointed out Cookie. As secretary of the Caruthers Corners Historical Society, she knew every family connection in the county. You remember Sam Jr. used to own a big produce farm north of town.

That’s a pretty farfetched reason for Skookie to be at the mansion, said Bootsie, double chin wagging. She was a tad plump. He certainly wasn’t there to pick watermelons.

Lizzie looked up for her stitching. Being the best of the group, she could place precisely twelve stitches to an inch. Do you think he could’ve been drawn there by psychic forces?

Haw, scoffed Bootsie.

Cookie rolled her eyes.

I think I can piece that part of it together, said Maddy, a smile crossing her oval face. Her husband Beau being the former mayor, she had her own inside track. Skookie was checking out the mansion as a potential site for this year’s Halloween Festival. You know the high school puts on a big fundraising shindig every year.

What! shrieked Lizzie. A party in that old house – what was he thinking?

Maddy smiled. Don’t tell me you believe it’s haunted?

No, it’s just … spooky.

Little Aggie looked up quizzically. Doesn’t spooky mean the same thing as haunted?

No, dear, Lizzie defended herself. Spooky is a feeling, a mood. Haunted means an infestation of … well, ghosts.

But how can a place be infested if there’s no such thing as ghosts?

Maddy patted her granddaughter’s arm. There are different ideas about ghosts, she said, always the voice of reason. There’s the Holy Ghost, like you hear about in church. And some people think that souls are kind of like ghosts, floating off to Heaven. But ghosts wearing bed sheets and going ‘Boo!’ are just pretend.

"Come to think of it, the Beasley Mansion would be a perfect place for the Halloween Festival, the girl allowed. It’s – what did Aunt Lizzie call it? – spooky."

Y-you really think so? sputtered Lizzie.

Aggie smiled. Why not? she said. "The house looks haunted – even if ghosts are just pretend."

Yes, it does look like something out of a Charles Addams cartoon, allowed Maddy. She read the New Yorker.

We grew up being scared to walk past that big old empty house, nodded Cookie. She was a pretty, thin-faced blonde who wore her years well. She’d once been a beauty queen.

"It was scary, admitted Bootsie, her bottom hand steadying the quilt, her top hand moving the needle down into the cotton fabric and up again. Perhaps we’ve never got over it."

I know I didn’t, said Lizzie. The high-maintenance redhead was afraid of mice and spiders – and ghosts, if there was such a thing.

Maddy Madison spread out her quilting squares on the large table. She was working on a design based on watermelons, that delicious Cucurbitaceous agricultural product that had become Caruthers Corners’ greatest claim to fame. The town’s annual Watermelon Days Festival was gaining popularity throughout the Midwest. We were all skittish about walking past that old building. But that still doesn’t explain what scared Skookie Daniels to death, she came back to the original question.

Bootsie sighed. Didn’t I just say he had a bad ticker?

Yes, said Maddy, but something had to set off that bad ticker.

Just going up to the front door of Beasley Mansion would give me a heart attack, Lizzie rolled her eyes. "And I have a good ticker."

Cookie frowned. I wonder what made Skookie’s mom say he was scared to death. Bootsie’s right – there’s no medical evidence to support that assertion.

Perhaps it’s a mother’s intuition, suggested Maddy. She continued to stitch, keeping one hand underneath the quilt for stability, ensuring that the needle went all way through to the back of the quilt. Mothers sense things.

Madelyn Madison, I can’t believe you said that, gasped Cookie. That’s something like Lizzie would say. She’s a closet New Ager, but you’re the practical thinker. Intuition – really?

Then let’s call it gut, responded Maddy. We all listen to our gut.

I know I do, said Bootsie. And right now it’s rumbling from hunger. I brought some watermelon cookies. Anybody want one?

Me, me, Aggie raised her hand.

Me too, said Cookie with a flick of her blonde hair. A one-time sad sack, she’d come back into her own after marrying Ben Bentley. Her first husband had died in a tractor accident, but that big lug Ben had given her a whole new reason for happiness.

Maybe half a cookie, allowed Liz, always a finicky eater. No wonder she was so slender.

None for me, declared Maddy, loading several stitches onto her needle and pulling the thread all the way through with an even tension. I’m too busy noodling this mystery.

Mystery? mumbled Bootsie. Only to you. A guy drops dead from a heart attack and you make it into a sinister plot involving ghosts.

Not ghosts, she countered.

If not a ghost, who then?

"Hmm, that’s the question isn’t it? Somebody scared Skookie Daniels to death – but who?"

Little Aggie looked up from her pile of fabric scraps, a kaleidoscope of reds and greens and blues. Maybe this is a job for the Quilters Club, she said.

CHAPTER

TWO

The Upper Window

Agnes Tidemore had a cockeyed view of the Caruthers Corners Quilters Club. In her youthful eyes, she saw it as a quasi-detective agency. That was based on a handful of instances over the past few years where the four friends (with a little help from Aggie) had solved some local crimes.

Bootsie’s husband didn’t exactly approve, seeing it as encroachment on his role as police chief. But he found it difficult to complain when they’d nabbed the bad guy.

Maddy didn’t have that problem at her house. Beau Madison was proud of his wife’s steel-trap mind and ability to ferret out wrongdoers, like some kind of Agatha Christie sleuth. Now that he’d retired from his two-year term as mayor of Caruthers Corners, he was spending more time fishing with Lizzie Ridenour’s spouse, a retired bank president, and helping Cookie’s husband manage the non-profit zoo and wild animal refuse adjacent to the Bentley farm on the outskirts of town.

If you gals want to look around the Beasley Mansion, you can get a key from Mark the Shark, Beau told her.

Mark? Why would he have a key?

Their son-in-law Mark Tidemore – Tilly’s husband and Aggie’s dad – was now mayor, having succeeded Beau in an unopposed election last fall. A former lawyer, he’d earned the Mark the Shark nickname in the courtroom, but discouraged its usage now that he was a public official. Something about maintaining a dignified image, not that anybody paid any attention to that within the family.

The Beasley Mansion is town property. Charlotte Beasley, last in the family line, left it to Caruthers Corners when she died last year. Mark says he’s thinking about turning it into municipal-sponsored low-income apartments. An architect we hired says we can get twelve units if we subdivide some of the bigger rooms.

That’s right, the Beasley Mansion has a large ballroom, doesn’t it?

So I’m told, he smiled sheepishly. I’ve never been inside the building. Some unfounded holdover from when we used to think it was haunted. Funny how childish ideas linger on even after we grow up.

That’s what Lizzie said just this afternoon. Hate to admit it, but I’m almost afraid to go inside myself.

Aw, you know we’re just being silly. You’ll have all your friends with you. And besides you don’t believe in ghosts.

"Have there ever been any … occurrences at the Beasley Mansion?

You mean like ghost sightings?

Well, strange lights. Noises. Something that makes people think its haunted.

Not really, Beau shook his head. But keep in mind it had the reputation of being haunted even before we were born.

Yes, I suppose it did.

Samuel Beasley built that old mausoleum, one of the first buildings in this town. Cookie could tell you the exact year.

1832.

He smiled. So you’ve been doing your homework.

I gather Samuel Beasley wasn’t very fond of your great grandfather.

True. But he hated Jacob Caruthers even more. That’s because the town got named after him. Old Sam was hoping for Beasleyville.

I understand his son Samuel Junior was the last person to live in the house.

Yep. Old Sam died in a bizarre accident, impaled by a falling chandelier. His son Sam Jr. continued living there till his own death in 1902. Got locked in the basement and starved to death. His son John closed up the mansion and moved to the other side of town. And John’s daughter Charlotte left the old home place to the town.

You’re saying it has sat empty for over a hundred years?

He nodded. I imagine it’s pretty dilapidated inside. But the architect we hired said the basic structure is sound. It’s built of huge stone blocks quarried from pits about fifty miles south of here.

Maybe the town should hire an exorcist before it builds apartments there, joked Maddy. They had watched a television rerun of The Exorcist the other night. Nobody would be serving pea soup anytime soon.

More likely it will be Rev. Pillsbury leading a prayer at the ribbon cutting for the new apartments, if the town can cobble together the funds for the renovation.

There was the sound of a car in the driveway. Beau stood to look out the kitchen window, like a sentinel guarding the fort. Hey now, it’s Freddie, he said, recognizing the blue SUV.

Frederic Hollingsworth Madison was the middle of their three children, with Bill being the oldest and Tilda youngest. After getting horribly burnt in a four-alarm fire, Freddie had retired from the Atlanta Fire Rescue Department and moved back to Caruthers Corners with his wife Amanda and their adopted daughter. His disability check allowed him to spend most of his time entertaining local kids as Sparkplug the Clown out at the new zoo.

Dad, Mom, he greeted them as he came into the kitchen. They were sitting at the dinette table, a pitcher of icy watermelon juice sweating in the center. He reached into a cabinet for an empty tea glass and poured himself some of the pinkish juice as he sat down.

What brings you by here this time of day? asked Beau. He was a tall, thin man who reminded you of that actor who played the farmer in Babe. Thought you had a performance scheduled about now out at the Zoo.

Mr. Haney closed down for the afternoon to wash the elephant. Happy was starting to look like a walking pile of dirt. He needed a good scrubbing.

How’s Amanda and little Donna Ann? asked his mother. Her hair glistened with chestnut highlights – thank you, Lady Clairol!

Just fine, Mom. Amanda’s busy making our daughter a Halloween costume. She’s going trick-or-treating as a pumpkin.

Hope nobody toilet papers the house this year, groused his dad. Hard to get it out of the trees out front.

That was always the Duncan boys, remembered Freddie. They must all be grown and married by now.

Yeah, nodded Beau. But they have kids who seem determined to carry on the tradition.

I hope you don’t mind, but I came over to ask your advice.

About what?

Skookie Daniels, his murder.

Murder you say? That was Maddy, her ears perking up.

Well, that’s what Maisie Daniels is saying.

There’s no proof of any wrongdoing, said Beau. Although your mother seems to agree with Maisie’s assessment.

Maddy felt compelled to speak out on her own. I’m merely wondering what gave him such a fright that his heart stopped. It may not have been a deliberate homicide, but something caused it. Could have been a stray cat. A barking dog. The sudden appearance of a ghost –

A ghost?

Well, not that, but you get the idea.

I saw something.

You?

Freddie nodded. He wasn’t in his clown makeup, so he looked more like Phantom of the Opera without the mask. I was passing by the Beasley Mansion about the time Skookie Daniels died. At least I spotted him laying there on the Beasley lawn.

And you drove on by? With your fireman’s paramedical training you might have been able to save him, his mother said accusingly.

Matter of fact, I did stop, but he was dead as a garter snake on a busy highway. I’m the one who reported his death to Chief Purdue.

Beau stroked his chin thoughtfully. Funny that Jim didn’t mention your involvement.

I asked him not to tell anybody. I wanted to remain anonymous. Didn’t want this scarred face being flashed all over the six o’clock news. Even this close to Halloween, it still scares children if not covered in thick greasepaint and a big red clown’s nose.

You’ve got to quit being so sensitive about your looks, his mother advised. It’s no big deal.

"Says you. You look like a kindly Ellen Burstyn in Playing By Heart. No kid’s gonna burst into tears at the sight of you."

Pshaw. I’m not as glamorous as Ellen Burstyn on a good day even after going to the Wonderama Beauty Parlor.

Now, Maddy, don’t talk yourself down, said Beau, patting his wife’s hand. You’re still the good-looking cheerleader I dated in high school.

Oh, you old flatterer. But forget about my looks. I want to hear about Freddie finding the dead body.

The fireman-turned-circus-clown sat there in the kitchen in the house where he grew up, composing his thoughts before speaking. Finally, he said, I was on my way to work at the zoo last Tuesday and I was running late so I took a shortcut across Melon Ball Lane. You know how it connects Highway 33 and Fourth Street. As I was driving past the Beasley Mansion I saw Skookie laying there on the front lawn, looking like he was taking a nap.

You recognized him?

Sure. As you’ll remember, Skookie and I went to high school together, same grade. He was always a cut-up. Funny that he wound up as the school principal. When I spotted him stretched out on the grass I thought he was playing another practical joke of some kind, so I stopped the car to say hello. But when I went up to him I could see he was stiff as a popsicle.

So you called the police.

No point in calling the ambulance. He was long gone.

Must have been quite a shock, coming across a dead man like that, said his father.

"Well, no, that didn’t bother me too much. I saw lots of dead people as a fireman in Atlanta, although most of ‘em were crispy critters. What shook me up came after I found Skookie. Something I didn’t tell Chief Purdue about."

What was that, dear? asked Maddy, patting his arm reassuringly. You can tell us. We’re your parents.

I saw somebody – or some thing – moving about in an upstairs window of Beasley Mansion.

CHAPTER

THREE

Looking for the Apparition

Mark Tidemore – a/k/a Mark the Shark – sat behind the uncluttered desk in his clean-as-a-whistle office at the Town Hall. Mark was a neatnik. The historic brick building was located on Main Street facing the square, a grassy expanse with a picturesque gazebo and a marble statue of Colonel Beauregard Hollingsworth Madison. Mark and Tilly owned the old Taylor house, that Victorian edifice on the far side of the park, making it an easy walk to work each day.

Mark liked being mayor better than he’d liked being a lawyer, although he knew he’d have to return to private practice after completing his term limit. His father-in-law had served only one term, but Mark intended to go the limit – four, according to town covenants. It had been changed after Henry Caruthers held onto the position for nearly twenty years.

There was something about public service that appealed to Mark. He liked helping make the town a better place in which to live. Why, in his first nine months he’d repaved Main Street, recruited a John Deere dealership to town, and raised money to add a wing to the library. Now if he could manage to convert the old Beasley Mansion to low-income apartments …. but that would be a challenge.

It didn’t help matters that Maisie Daniels was telling everybody the place was haunted and that the ghost of Old Sam Beasley had murdered her son. Everybody knew Skookie had been born with a bad heart valve. That’s why he couldn’t play football in high school.

A little damage control was called for here. So he phoned Jim Purdue. The police chief was his father-in-law’s best friend, so Mark knew he’d help out. Hey Jim, I need a favor. Can you issue a statement saying you searched the Beasley place top to bottom and found it empty as a beggar’s cup? We’ve got to stamp out this ghost business.

Well, Mark, I’m not sure I can do that, said the voice in the phone. Cause I didn’t search the Beasley Mansion.

Why not?

Wasn’t any reason to do that. Just because the high school principal dropped dead on the front lawn isn’t proper cause to search surrounding buildings. You’re a lawyer; you know that.

How do you know there wasn’t a murderer lurking inside?

Because there wasn’t any murder. Skookie died of natural causes.

That’s what I’ve been saying.

Then, there you have it.

Mark sighed to mask his frustration. We still have the problem of Skookie’s mother telling everybody he was murdered by a ghost. Nobody will want to live in Beasley Arms with that hanging over it.

Beasley Arms – is that what you’re gonna call the new apartments?

That or Beasley Vista,

How ‘bout Beasley Towers?

Jim, the building’s only two stories high. That not exactly a tower.

Those rundown row houses along the street don’t exactly constitute a vista either.

That’s why I’m thinking Beasley Arms.

Whatever.

C’mon, Jim, just go over to the old Beasley place and give it a look-see, then announce it’s clean as a whistle – that you didn’t encounter any ghosts or goblins.

The police chief cleared his throat nervously. Look, Mark, I don’t wanna go traipsing inside that rat-infested old building.

Dave Winterbottom didn’t have a problem going inside. A ghost didn’t get him.

Who’s Dave Winterbottom?

He’s the architect we hired out of Indy. Thinks he can squeeze twelve apartments out of the place.

The chief chuckled. We got more’n twelve needy people here in Caruthers Corners by my count. Speaking of which, I picked up Jasper Beanie again this morning, drunker’n a skunk.

Jasper’s not needy. He has a good job as caretaker out at Pleasant Glades. Also he works part-time as janitor here at the Town Hall. All told, he makes a decent wage.

Maybe so. But ever since his wife ran off with our former mayor – Henry Caruthers, not Beau – ol’ Jasper’s been drinking more. Spends all his money on rotgut; barely has enough left for food.

I hope that doesn’t become a problem for the big funeral home conglomerate that manages Pleasant Glades. Being caretaker of a cemetery’s not a job just anybody will take.

Oh, I didn’t book him. Just let him sleep it off in the cell. Matter of fact, he’s still in there, snoring like a sawmill.

"Thanks, Jim. I’d sure hate to see those empty suits replace him. He’s always had hard luck, like that guy in the Li’l Abner cartoons."

That was Joe Btfsplk, the world’s worst jinx. Had a perpetual raincloud hanging over his head. I’m surprised a guy of your tender age would remember those old Al Capp comic strips.

Hey, I’m pushing thirty-five. I don’t feel so tender.

The police chief laughed. You just squeaked into office. There’s an age requirement that you’ve gotta be at least thirty-four. They set that up ten years ago when Henry Caruthers was angling to have his twenty-year-old nephew succeed him. Folks thought that was a tad too much nepotism, even for a small town like Caruthers Corners.

Whatever happened to Stinky Caruthers? I’d almost forgotten about him.

He prefers to be called Stanley. Left town after that brouhaha. Last I heard, he was working for a real estate outfit down in Indy.

He was about five years younger than me. A real pest as I recall. Always trying to hang out with the big boys on the football team. They finally made him the waterboy.

You remember how he got the nickname Stinky?

Mark Tidemore laughed. Yes. Comes from that time he fell in the outhouse on his family’s farm.

If you can call that overgrown weed patch a farm. His mother still lives out there, y’know.

"So promise me you’ll go look around the Beasley Mansion and issue a statement to the Burpyville Gazette. Take along one of your deputies if you’re afraid to go it alone. Pete Hitzer would probably find it kind of fun."

Pete’s a good guy. But he couldn’t find a clue if it bit him on the butt. So don’t hold out too much hope that he’ll find your ghost.

The mayor sighed. That’s just the point, he said. "I don’t want you to find a ghost."

"Then why do I have to go out there, if I’m not going to find one?"

Take along your trusty Ectoplasmic Proton Gun. Gotta ring off now. My daughter Aggie just showed up for lunch. I take her to the ice cream parlor on Saturdays. He hung up the phone before the Chief could get in another word of protest.

Ectoplasmic Proton Gun – ha! Ghostbusters was one of his favorite movies. He wondered if an old fogey like Jim Purdue even got the reference.

Hi, Daddy, the girl greeted him. She had her dog Tige in tow, hooked to a yellow leash. He was a Heinz 57 mutt, but looked something like that dog in Benji. Can I have a watermelon milkshake with my cheese sandwich today?

Whatever you like, hon. But you know Tige can’t go into the Dairy Queen. Health codes and all that.

But Daddy, you’re the mayor now. You can ignore those stupid old codes if you wanna.

Mark Tidemore stood up to pull on his suit coat. The weather was getting nippy here in early October. No, Sweetie. As mayor, I have to set an example in upholding the law.

Oh, okay. Guess we don’t want Uncle Jim to arrest you.

He chuckled. More to himself than to his daughter. Don’t worry about that, he said. Chief Purdue is off on a big case. I sent him to arrest a ghost.

Don’t be silly. Grammy says there’s no such thing as ghosts.

Hope you’re right. Otherwise, I’ll have to call in an exterminator for Beasley Arms.

Beasley Arms? Do you mean that spooky old house where the high school principal dropped dead?

One and the same, he admitted. The name Beasley Arms was growing on him.

Then you’d need an exorcist, not an exterminator. She’d seen the rerun on TV too. Not that her parents had approved.

Sometimes Aggie’s Grammy was much too permissive … although Mark had to admit his wife had turned out just fine. Tilly was off to the weekly meeting of the Garden Club, giving him lunch duty with Aggie. Always a highlight of the week. A nanny had the younger two.

They strolled down Main Street past Pic A Pair Shoes, Dan’s Den of Antiquities, and the Dollar General. In the distance they could see the fire station and Caruthers Corners Savings & Loan. Wedged in between were Cozy Café and the Dairy Queen.

The DQ menu was somewhat limited: chili, hot dogs, cheese sandwiches, and BLTs. Plus the usual array of sundaes, blizzards, banana splits, malts, and shakes. But a cheese sandwich and watermelon shake was a well-balance meal in Aggie’s humble opinion.

Look, Daddy, she pointed. There’s Aunt Cookie’s husband. She always addressed her Grammy’s friends as aunts and uncles.

Standing at the DQ counter was a man who looked like a shorter version of the Incredible Hulk (minus the green skin, of course). Ben Bentley had been state wrestling champion in his younger days, but his muscles still bulged his shirtsleeves. Now a retired farmer, he spent his spare hours as a volunteer ambulance driver and helping out at Haney Bros. Zoo and Exotic Animal Refuge. He’d donated the land for the attraction to the town.

Hi Ben, called Mark Tidemore.

The thickset man turned at the sound of his name. Hello there, Mayor.

C’mon, it’s still just Mark, he corrected. He’d never gotten used to the formality of his office.

You and Aggie having lunch?

You bet. Why don’t you join us?

Ben Bentley nodded his bearded head. Don’t mind if I do. I hate eating alone … and Cookie is off at the Garden Club meeting.

Tilly too.

Probably all the Quilters Club gals are there, Ben said, referring to his wife’s best-est friends – Maddy, Bootsie, and Lizzie.

Not all, pouted Aggie. I’m here.

That’s right, her father humored her. Aggie is an honorary member of the Quilters Club.

Are you super-dooper-snoopers gonna solve the principal’s murder? Ben asked the girl, more teasing than not.

Yes, the Quilters Club is on the case, she stated flatly. We’re going to find the ghost who did it.

Hon, you just said there’s no such thing as ghosts, admonished her father. The PR problem was going to be enormous. It would take a lot of damage control to keep Beasley Arms from being branded a haunted house.

Just a figure of speech, she smiled. Ghost, goblin, ax murderer, whatever.

Ax murderer? gulped Ben Bentley.

No axes were involved, the mayor hastened to correct this false impression. Skookie dropped dead from a heart attack – nothing more, nothing less.

Something scared him to death, asserted Aggie, sotto voce, as if conveying a secret.

Now, Hon, don’t be saying things like that. It was just the stress of his job. Being a school principal put Skookie – uh, I mean Mr. Daniels – under lots of pressure.

He was over there checking it out to be the haunted house for the upcoming Halloween Festival, declared Aggie. But it turns out the house was already haunted.

Haunted, you say?

No, not haunted, corrected Mark Tidemore. He gave his daughter a warning look. It had been a mistake to let the high school consider Beasley Mansion for its annual haunted house party. What had he been thinking? Now everything was getting out of control.

Maybe not haunted by a real ghost. But by somebody. My Uncle Freddie saw a face in the window right after he found the dead body. She’d overheard the adults talking.

Probably just a reflection. Tree limbs or something, tried Mark Tidemore. "The building’s