Free 2 The Patchwork Puzzler by Marjory Sorrell Rockwell Page B

Maddy, speaking for the Quilter’s Club.
    “I’ll say,” intoned Bootsie.
    “Hey now, don’t get carried away,” said her policeman husband. “Being Lefty’s cousin isn’t a crime.”
    “Lefty?” said Bill.
    “A nickname from high school,” explained his dad. “Henry’s left-handed. He used to be a great pitcher. Had a winning season senior year.”
    “Don’t feel bad, Cookie,” said Edgar. “Eberhard’s Holly’s married name. If we’d said Holly Lazynski, you would have placed her.”
    “Lydia Lazynski’s daughter?”
    “The same.”
    “Well, I’ll be a ring-tail raccoon.”
    Her husband Ben patted her arm. “You’re my little raccoon,” he said affectionately.
    “Thanks, Big Bear.”
    “Big Bear?” repeated little N’yen.
    “Just a term of endearment,” Cookie said. “But he’s as big and powerful as a bear.”
    “A Teddy Bear?”
    “More like a grizzly,” said Aggie as she assayed the squat brawny man.
    “ Gr-r-r-r-r! ” Ben gave his imitation of a bear, hands raised like giant paws, lumbering toward the wide-eyed children.
    “Oo-o-o,” said N’yen.
    “You’re funny,” said Aggie.
    “We need to take a closer look at Holly Lazynski Eberhard,” conclud ed Maddy Madison as she began to clear away the dishes.
    ≈≈≈
    “How are you adjusting to having a Vietnamese grandson?” Maddy asked her husband as she brushed her hair, preparing for bed. The brown sheen of her hair looked fairly natural, nary a sign of gray strands.
    “Fine.”
    “No, really?”
    “Really. He’s a nice kid. Bright, funny.”
    “And Asian.”
    Beau looked up as his wife from the big double bed. “Just because I served in Nam doesn’t mean I’ve got anything against Asians.”
    “You seemed upset when you first learned that Bill and Kathy had adopted N’yen.”
    “It wasn’t that the kid was Asian. More that the Madisons are a proud bloodline going back to the early 1800s. We’ve never had an adoption in the family before.”

Chapter Sixteen
     
     
     
A Trip to Indianapolis
     
     
    “W hy are we going to Indianapolis?” asked Lizzie. She’d had a dental appointment before Maddy shanghaied her on this idiotic mission.
    “To find Kramer.”
    “Who?”
    “The name on Nan’s list. You know, the one Bootsie and I found in the old shack.”
    “The funny man on Seinfeld,” said N’yen, sitting in the backseat with Aggie. Maddy was babysitting the children today. Little did their parents know they were on a road trip to the state capital, a three-hour drive each way.
    “Can we stop for a milkshake?” pressed Aggie.
    “Yeah, at MacDonald’s,” chimed the boy.
    “How are we going to find this guy Kramer?” said Lizzie, a bit put out by her friend’s cavalier attitude. Expecting her to drop everything and flit off to Indy.
    “I’m not sure. But we know Nan’s planning to meet him.”
    “But where?”
    “Jim thinks the guy might be – what did he call it? – a fence. So we could check out the pawnshops. I’ve heard they sometimes buy stolen goods.”
    “You’ve heard?”
    “Well, I saw it in a movie once.”
    “Great. For a minute there, I was worried you didn’t have a sound plan.”
    ≈≈≈
    Maddy and Lizzie were thumbing through the Yellow Pages at the pay phone back near the restrooms, while the kids sipped on vanilla milkshakes and ate Big Macs – a gourmet lunch, American-style.
    “Here we are, the P’s. Pawnshops. Wai t, wait, I don’t see any Kramer Pawnshops,” said the redhead.
    “Maybe that’s not the name of the shop. He might only work in one.”
    “There must be a dozen listed here. Do you intend to phone every one of them?”
    “Why not?”
    “We could have done that from Caruthers Corners.”
    Maddy glanced up at her friend. “Didn’t have an Indianapolis telephone book,” she said smugly.
    Twenty minutes later they had completed the list of pawnshops, none claiming an employee named Kramer. Maddy and Lizzie were barely speaking. The