Free 4 Hemmed In by Marjorie Sorrell Rockwell Page A

reminds me,” said Bootsie. “Boyd Aitkens wants the Quilters Club to find out who killed his son.”
     

 
    Chapter Fourteen
     
    A Well Digger’s Nightmare
     
     
    “ A re you gals crazy ?” shouted Beauregard Madison IV, not a man accustomed to raising his voice. “You want me to send someone down into the Wilkins well based on some cockamamie translation of the markings on a crazy quilt?”
    “The marking s are inside the well too,” said Maddy. At her perky best. Trying to convince her husband. But Beau Madison was known to be as a stubborn as a mule.
    “No way ,” he shook his head firmly. “I’d get laughed out of office, helping the Quilters Club search for a lost treasure.”
    “Dear, can’t you just say a puppy fell in the well and that you’re sending out the fire department to rescue it?”
    The mayor rolled his eyes. “You’re asking me to lower someone into an eighty-foot well … not retrieve a kitten out of a tree.”
    “Beau Madison, this is an important piece of Caruthers Corners history,” insisted Cookie Bentley. “We have an obligation to check it out.” As secretary of the Historical Society, she wasn’t going to let a major event like Norsemen visiting Indiana go unexplored.
    “Heck, I’ll do it,” said Ben Bentley.
    Cookie turned to her husband. “Do what?”
    “Go down in the well. I’ve helped dig a lot of wells in this county. No big deal.”
    “You could keep this quiet?” asked Beau, showing a crack in his resistance. He had to live with Maddy. And she seemed determined.
    “No biggie,” grinned the bearded man. “I’ll get a buddy to run the winch. We can do it first thing in the morning. By lunch these girls can be counting their Viking silver.”
    “Hm, there may be an ownership problem,” mulled Beau, rubbing his chin. “That well’s on Boyd Aitken’s property. Wish Mark the Shark were here to sort this out.”
    “We have to find some treasure before that becomes an issue,” Edgar Ridenour noted. He remained skeptical about Vikings burying silver in the Midwest. But he didn’t want to say too much, for Lizzie was all a-twitter about the possibility of finding a cache of silver.
    “Good point,” grinned Ben.
    “I’ll call Boyd Aitkens and get his permission,” sighed Beau. “Tell him the Historical Society is trying to recover Mad Matilda’s bones.”
    “Perfect,” said Maddy.
    “Those bones would have a place in our little museum,” Cookie nodded. “We’d create a display around them.”
    They were all seated around the Madisons’ dining-room table – Beau and Maddy, Cookie and Ben, Lizzie and Edgar, Bootsie and Jim. The kids were in bed. Aggie would be irked that she’d missed this late-night powwow.
    “Now that we’ve solved the treasure hunting issue, let’s talk about who stole the quilt and who killed Charlie Aitkens,” said Jim Purdue. “May as well get it out on the table, seeing as Boyd’s trying to drag you gals into this.”
    “We know the same thing as you, dear,” said Bootsie. “That Edgar overheard Boyd’s son telling someone he knew who stole the quilt.”
    “That was probably his friend Spud Bodkin,” nodded Jim. “At least that’s what the state boys tell me.”
    “ Doesn’t that make it simple?” said Maddy. “All we have to do is ask Spud who Charlie was talking about.”
    “Easier said than done,” the police chief replied. “ Spud’s gone missing.”
    “Missing?” said Edgar.
    “That’s right. Nobody has seen him in two whole days. Went to Indy to see a Colts game and never came back.”
    “Maybe he’s dead too,” suggested Maddy as she poured coffee, refilling everyone’s cups. The Madisons liked an inexpensive brand that contained chicory.
    “ You’re saying the thief killed them both to shut them up?”
    “That could explain him being missing,” she replied.
    Lizzie scowled at her coffee cup. She preferred a high-end coffee from Seattle. A Mucho Grande, with two lumps of sugar.