Free The Quilter's Legacy by Jennifer Chiaverini Page B

departed.
    Andrew pocketed the keys, and he and Sylvia returned inside, where Sylvia put on a fresh pot of coffee. Agnes usually sought rides from Diane, who would likely crave a cup or two this early in the morning.
    Sure enough, when Agnes and Diane arrived, Diane barely mumbled a greeting on her way to the coffeepot. Agnes, on the other hand, was bright-eyed and pink-cheeked with excitement. “I found it,” she said, waving a thick, battered notebook in triumph. “It was with my old tax returns. Thank goodness I remembered the year.”
    “Found what?” asked Andrew.
    “Nothing that couldn't have waited an hour,” groused Diane, heaping sugar into her cup. “Even if it does mention your mother's quilt.”
    “What?” exclaimed Sylvia.
    Agnes beckoned Sylvia and Andrew to the table. “I had forgotten all about this notebook. I started it when Richard went off to war, to keep track of news from home to include in my letters. After he was killed, I continued it for myself, as a place to put down reminders, appointments, and so forth.”
    Agnes opened the notebook to a page marked with a scrap of blue gingham fabric. “The entry for Thursday, March twentieth, 1947, includes my mother's birthday, reminders to write letters to two creditors, and the name and address of a caller who had come to buy a certain quilt,” she said. “Claudia was out, and when I told the woman I had no idea which quilt she meant, she left in a huff and ordered me to have Claudia contact her promptly if she didn't want to lose a sale. I assumed Claudia planned to sell her own quilts. If I'd had any idea she meant to sell your mother's, I never would have given her the message.”
    “I know you wouldn't have,” Sylvia reassured her.
    “Wait just a second,” said Diane, reading over Agnes's shoulder. “Is that who bought the quilts? Esther Thorpe? From right here in Waterford?”
    “Not all of the quilts,” said Agnes. “Just the appliqué quilt.”
    “The Elms and Lilacs quilt?” gasped Sylvia. It was impossible to believe she would ever see any of the missing quilts again, but if Agnes's recollection of her notes was correct, the Elms and Lilacs quilt had been sold to a neighbor.
    Then Sylvia noticed Diane shaking her head in dismay, or maybe disgust. “Just my luck. It had to be Esther Thorpe.”
    “What's wrong with Esther Thorpe?” asked Andrew.
    “Nothing's wrong with her, not anymore. It's her family I'm worried about, the people who would have inherited her quilts after her death. Esther had a daughter named Nancy Thorpe Miles, and Nancy had a daughter—”
    “Oh, dear,” said Agnes. “I see.”
    “I don't,” said Sylvia. “Would someone care to enlighten me?”
    “Esther Thorpe was the grandmother of Mary Beth Callahan.”
    Andrew looked around the table, baffled. “And Mary Beth Callahan is …?”
    “My next-door neighbor,” said Diane. “And my nemesis.”
    “Oh yes, of course,” said Sylvia. “The one who turned you in to the Waterford Zoning Commission when you built that skateboard ramp in your backyard.”
    “I didn't build it; my husband did,” Diane shot back, then nodded, chagrined. “Yes, that's Mary Beth. The one who has been president of the Waterford Quilting Guild for going on fifteen years now.”
    “She must be doing a fine job, or the guild members wouldn't elect her each year,” Agnes pointed out.
    “No, they're just intimidated. She has an incumbent's power plus the grace and subtlety of a bulldozer. If she has your mother's quilt, you'll be lucky if she lets you look at it through the window.”
    The others laughed. Sylvia knew Diane had her own personal grudges against Mary Beth, and she couldn't deny that Mary Beth might have earned every bit of Diane's enmity, but she did not see any cause for alarm. “We'll stop by and see her on our way out of town,” she said. “It's our only lead, and I won't pass it up simply because you two don't get along.”
    “Don't say I didn't