Free 2 The Patchwork Puzzler by Marjory Sorrell Rockwell

blazing in the Madison household where everyone had gathered, thinking Maddy and Bootsie had been kidnapped. Jim Purdue had organized a search party, but thankfully the two women returned just in time for him to call it off.
    Boy, was the police chief steamed! “You what?” he shouted. “I oughta arrest the two of you!”
    “For what?” challenged his wife.
    “Obstructing justice. Interfering with an ongoing investigation. Worrying the heck outta me.”
    “Oh, sweetie, I’m sorry we worried you.”
    “Yeah, well – ”
    “Sorry, Jim,” apologized Maddy. “We were only reconnoitering. We didn’t expect to run into Henry Caruthers. I thought he and Nan would be long gone.”
    “What’s this you were saying about a list?” interjected Mark the Shark. Exhibiting a lawyer’s instinct for getting at the facts.
    “We found a to-do list written by Nan Beanie. It suggests they are heading for Indianapolis to meet someone.”
    Beau looked over his wife’s shoulder at the yellow foolscap. “Yep, that’s Nan’s handwriting. I’d know it anywhere.”
    “Who’s this guy Kramer?” asked Bill, not to be outdone by his lawyer brother-in-law.
    “He was on the Seinfeld Show ,” announced little N’yen, a devotee of television sitcoms.
    “No, silly. This is a different Kramer,” whispered Aggie, her new cousin’s self-appointed protector.
    “Oh.”
    “I suspect he’s a fence,” opined Chief Purdue. “Someone Henry and Nan are planning to sell the quilt to.”
    “I can’t get over Nan and Henry Caruthers,” said Lizzie Ridenour, a woman who loved juicy gossip. “Do you think they’re an item? Or merely partners in crime?”
    “Dunno,” said Cookie. “But I hear Nan’s husband Jasper is not particularly happy about this turn of events.”
    “Do you think Jasper will take matters into his own hands?” asked Tillie, belly as big as a basketball. You could see her delivery date was eminent.
    “If he does, he’s going to need a good lawyer,” said Mark, almost as if thinking out loud.
    “Ambulance chaser,” teased Bill’s wife Kathy.
    “Hey, nobody’s chasing me,” rumbled Ben Bentley, who drove an ambulance on weekends for Caruthers Corners Fire and Rescue. You could tell by his joking remark that he was a good-natured guy, a gentle giant.
    “Don’t worry about Jasper. He reacted in his usual manner, with a bit of the barley. He’s sleeping it off in my holding cell at this very moment.”
    “Do I need to serve a writ of habeas corpus?” said Mark, just to show that lawyers had a sense of humor too.
    “A what?” asked little N’yen.
    “It’s Latin for ‘ You must have the body,’” explained Cookie. She’d been perusing her dictionary again.
    “A body! Is somebody dead?” Aggie wanted to know.
    “No, no,” laughed her father. “It’s just lawyer talk, saying ‘You can’t hold someone in jail without a body of evidence justifying their arrest.’”
    “Henry Caruthers is going to wish he was dead if I get my hands on him,” growled Cookie. “Tomorrow I’m going to have to call the Smithsonian and tell them one of their valuable quilts is missing.”
    “Honey, calm down,” soothed Ben Bentley, patting his wife’s hand. A bearded behemoth, he reminded you of Hagrid from the Harry Potter movies. “Don’t get so upset over this. It’s just a patchwork quilt.”
    That’s when all four members of the Quilter’s Club – five counting Aggie – went berserk.
    “Just a quilt,” huffed Lizzie. “That’s like saying the Mona Lisa is just a painting.”
    “Don’t you realize these quilts have been valued at forty grand each?” asked Bootsie.
    “They’re irreplaceable,” declared Maddy. “Sarah Connors Pennington was a master craftsman, perhaps the best quilt designer ever!”
    “What’d I say?” moaned Ben, cowering at this onslaught by his wife’s friends.
    “Dear, you’ve put your foot in it now,” said Cookie, amused at her new husband’s