Irish Chain Read online

  Irish Chain

  Fowler, Earlene

  Berkley Prime Crime (1996)

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  SUMMARY:

  Probing the death of the San Celina Senior Citizen Prom king, museum curator Benni Harper goes against the wishes of her police chief boyfriend and uncovers the victim's fifty-year-old affiliation with a World War II Japanese blackmailing ring. Reprint. PW. LJ.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  More praise for FOOL’S PUZZLE and Earlene Fowler . . .

  “BREEZY, HUMOROUS DIALOGUE OF THE FIRST ORDER.”

  —Chicago Sun-Times

  “A CRACKERJACK DEBUT.”

  —I Love a Mystery

  “A RIPPING READ. It’s smart, vigorous, and more than funny: Within its humor is wrenching insight.”

  —Noreen Ayres, author of A World the Color of Salt

  “THE START OF A PROMISING NEW SERIES.”

  —Library Journal

  “I THOROUGHLY ENJOYED FOOL’S PUZZLE ... Fowler’s characters are terrific . . . A superb job.”

  —Eve K. Sandstorm, author of The Devil Down Home

  “A NEAT LITTLE MYSTERY . . . her plot is compelling.”

  —Booklist

  “LIVELY . . . More Benni mysteries are in the works, and will be welcomed.”

  —The Drood Review of Mystery

  “A Quadruple Irish Chain” is a quilt pattern consisting of one-inch squares set in a stair-step design. Its traditional colors of green, white, black, and gray make a striking finished quilt . . . if one has the perseverance to stitch together the numerous pieces of the whole.

  Berkley Prime Crime titles by Earlene Fowler

  THE SADDLEMAKER’S WIFE

  LOVE MERCY

  The Benni Harper Mysteries

  FOOL’S PUZZLE

  IRISH CHAIN

  KANSAS TROUBLES

  GOOSE IN THE POND

  DOVE IN THE WINDOW

  MARINER’S COMPASS

  SEVEN SISTERS

  ARKANSAS TRAVELER

  STEPS TO THE ALTAR

  SUNSHINE AND SHADOW

  BROKEN DISHES

  DELECTABLE MOUNTAINS

  TUMBLING BLOCKS

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England

  Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

  Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), Cnr. Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196,

  South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England

  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, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  IRISH CHAIN

  A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

  Copyright © 1995 by Earlene Fowler.

  The Edgar® name is a registered service mark of the Mystery Writers of America, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-50025-5

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME

  Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  The name BERKLEY PRIME CRIME and the BERKLEY PRIME CRIME design

  are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  To Mama and Daddy,

  who gave me

  Southern roots and Western wings

  and

  To my Grammas,

  Edith Bennett Worley and Muriel Webb Phillips,

  who taught me what being a “tough old broad”

  was all about

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My deepest thanks to:

  The Lord God—Your grace is always sufficient

  Mary Atkinson and Ann Lee for their attention to detail and moral support

  My agent, Deborah Schneider, who continues to support and believe in my work; and my editor, Melinda Metz, for her generous efficiency and cheerful spirit

  Jose Padilla and Veronica Carillo, muchas gracias for their good-natured answers to all my crazy questions

  Farideh Naeim-Ebadolahi for her help and for introducing me to the joys of Persian food

  Helen May and the rest of the ladies at Oakview Convalescent Home. You all taught me much more than I could ever teach you

  And, with love, to my husband, Allen. If I could save time in a bottle . . .

  IRISH CHAIN:

  The origin of the Irish Chain quilt pattern is unknown, but it is very old, rumored to go back as far as Colonial times. The color arrangement of the fabric pieces creates the “chain” effect. The single chain is made with two contrasting colors or prints, but can also be expanded to make a double, triple, or quadruple chain. The color combinations become more varied and the pattern more complex as chains are added. The chain can go on and on, making a quilt as large as desired. It is only stopped when the quilter decides to end it.

  1

  “I’M GOING TO snatch you baldheaded, Benni Harper, if you don’t haul your butt over here right now,” Gramma Dove said, her voice as raspy as the old Hank Williams records she loves. All the orphan calves on the Ramsey Ranch had been milk-fed and soothed to sleep by her gritty-voiced renditions of “I Saw The Light,” and “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.” For that matter, so had I.

  “I was just walking out the door,” I lied amicably, sitting behind the counter of the small gift shop in the empty folk art museum. An earsplitting click answered me when she hung up the phone. She hadn�
��t called me “young lady” yet. That meant I still had time. My stomach rumbled, reminding me I’d forgotten to eat breakfast again. I knew Dove though, and she never came down from the ranch without bringing something to eat, determined to bring me back up to what she called “fighting hen weight.” I’d lost ten pounds when my husband, Jack, was killed a year ago when his Jeep flipped over on a lonely stretch of old Highway One, and I’d never regained it. Dove worries about that as she does every minuscule detail of my life. A born “heel snapper,” she is a determined cattle dog of a woman and, according to her, I remain her most unmanageable calf. Her constant interference in my life is a good-natured but continual bone of contention between us. Hope and anticipation for her heart-melting sweet potato biscuits caused my stomach to growl again.

  Ignoring my hunger, I turned back to the oak-framed cross-stitch sampler I was logging into the inventory book. “The Best Things Come But Once in a Lifetime.”

  Stitched in a dashing sweep of blues ranging from robin’s egg to deep, lustrous navy, each letter was outlined in black, causing the sentiment to almost jump out at me. It was one of the over two hundred samplers we’d received at the museum in response to our newspaper ad requesting cross-stitched and embroidered samplers for our newest exhibit. As curator of the Josiah Sinclair Folk Art Museum, I was responsible for choosing the hundred or so we actually had room to display. To be fair, I had tried to select a wide variety of styles, ages and degrees of craftsmanship but especially ones with heart, ones that appeared to mean something special to each artist when they created it. What I had in mind was for the exhibit to tell its own story, about the individual artists, about our town and about the wider community of man. The success of the show was important to me. Though proud of my last exhibit of antique quilts and of the five newspaper articles written about the museum, I couldn’t overlook the fact that the publicity had more to do with the murders that took place on the premises rather than my expertise as a curator. A reporter for the travel section of the L.A. Times had contacted me two weeks ago wanting to do a small piece on our new museum and she didn’t even mention the murders. That made it essential for this exhibit to shine.

  “The Best Things Come But Once in a Lifetime.” I studied the daisy and lily-of-the-valley border, the fancy script, the blue and purple peacocks gracing each corner before writing down the name and address of the sampler’s owner. The age-faded embroidered words stitched by K. G. Drusell in 1924 struck a melancholy chord in me. At thirty-four and, in less than a week, widowed a year, I was beginning to wonder if this lady might be right. My relationship with Jack had definitely been the best thing I ever had—though being married to him since the age of nineteen, I didn’t have much to compare it with. Until now, that is.

  Gabriel Ortiz. I’d met him, sparred with him and grudgingly allowed him to weasel his way into my life when murder was a major contributor to the museum’s exhibit of antique quilts almost three months ago. His qualifications were listed in my head in a permanent resumé. San Celina’s temporary chief of police. Olive-skinned Hispanic-Anglo native of Derby, Kansas with a twenty-some-odd-year stop-over in Los Angeles. Long, sinewy, half-miler’s legs. A thick black mustache with touches of silver hiding a sensuously full lower lip that disappeared when he was tense or angry. Blue-gray eyes the color of the Pacific Ocean in January. And, for want of a better description, my steady companion these last few months. Was it love, loneliness or just an incredible physical attraction? That was the question of the hour. One I didn’t have an answer for on an empty stomach so early on a Saturday morning. I glanced at the Daffy Duck watch on my wrist—a present from Gabe, who declared, in his husky, sardonic voice, that Daffy and I shared similar characteristics. I’m still trying to decide how to take that one.

  I closed and locked the heavy Spanish door of the old Sinclair Hacienda, now the Josiah Sinclair Folk Art Museum and Artists’ Co-op, thanks to the generosity of our rich benefactress, Constance Sinclair. When I reached my old red Chevy pickup with “Harper’s Herefords” still stenciled on the doors, I turned and surveyed the newly painted two-story adobe house and stables with a bit of a proprietary air. Two weekends ago the entire co-op had banded together and whitewashed the outside walls, restained the rough wood posts supporting the front porch and planted the huge brick-colored clay pots in front with flowers native to San Celina County—tiny purple Shooting Stars, yellow Bermuda Buttercups, and exotic Leopard Lilies with their long stamens and polka-dotted petals. The building positively gleamed in the muted sunlight of the February morning. A crisp breeze whipped at the eucalyptus trees circling the gravel parking lot in a silvery-green windbreak. Tilting my head back, I took deep breaths of the spicy air, reveling in the unaccustomed warmth of the sun on my face. It was the first morning in over a week that the Central Coast hadn’t been startled awake by one of the violent rain and wind storms that had ended California’s drought this winter with a fervor not usually seen on the West Coast.

  I’d grown to love the museum and co-op almost as much as the ranches I’d lived on all my life. After Jack died and I moved off the Harper Ranch, which he’d owned with his brother, this job had been my lifesaver. I threw myself into the daily rhythms of the museum and co-op, and with time, forged a new life. Though not one I would have necessarily chosen, I’d come to the point where waking up every morning was something I actually anticipated. Losing Jack taught me one important lesson. You had to enjoy each day given you, because it just might be your last. Something so simple to know, so hard to do.

  Within a half hour, I was in the bedroom of my rented Spanish-style bungalow, jeans and pink flannel shirt on the floor, balanced on a makeshift dressmaker’s platform of three old San Celina telephone books, doing what comes naturally to me when I’m around Dove—whining.

  “I can’t believe I’m going to wear this.” Frowning at my image in the long brass mirror in the comer of my bedroom, I tugged at the tight bodice of the banana-yellow, hoop-skirted formal that was squeezing my midsection into jelly. From the waist down, I resembled a dime-store boudoir lamp shade.

  “Quit wiggling,” Dove said. “You’re worse than a two-year-old.” She gave my butt a whack with the back of her hand. I barely felt it under the layers of netting and filmy chiffon.

  When I acquired the job as curator, I’d anticipated, between eccentric artists, rich patrons and the dependably crazy public, having to deal with a variety of unusual circumstances. Nothing in my imagination ever included hoop skirts. Except when Constance brought around the occasional dignitary in hopes of finagling a donation and I wore my calf-length black skirt with a silk cowboy shirt and my good Tony Lama deerskin boots, my work attire consisted of the same uniform I’ve worn most of my life—brown Justin Ropers and Wrangler jeans laundered soft enough to sleep in.

  “Turn around so I can get the other side done up,” Dove said. With tiny steps, I shifted position, trying not to topple off the slick phone books.

  “Do I look as ridiculous as I feel?” I asked my best friend, Elvia Aragon. She lounged across my brass bed in a three-hundred-dollar Tabasco-red silk jogging suit, looking beautiful enough to grace a cover of Elle magazine.

  “I don’t know,” Elvia answered. “How ridiculous do you feel?”

  “On a scale of one to ten, I’d say nine and a half.”

  “Oh, no. Eight, tops.” She laughed and crossed her dainty size five feet. They were clad in sparkling white Nikes that no doubt cost half my weekly salary at the museum and probably had only jogged the distance from the front door of her new lakefront condo to her perfectly restored 1959 British Racing Green Austin-Healy. That she was wearing American-made tennis shoes was a reluctant concession to the rabid second-generation patriotic sensibilities of her six younger brothers. As proud as she was of her Mexican heritage, in her heart, Elvia was a European, preferably French. She eyed me critically. “It is a sort of a Glinda the Good Witch look, isn’t it? Being from Kansas, that should light Gabe’s pilot, so to speak
.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Blackwell, for that insightful fashion review.” I hiked up the low-cut, sweetheart neckline and adjusted one tiny puffed sleeve. “What was your sister-in-law thinking when she picked out these bridesmaid dresses?”

  “I have no idea. Menudo had more taste than Gilberto’s wife. She’s from Mississippi.”

  “Watch it, girlie,” Dove mumbled, her mouth full of pins.

  “I said Mississippi, not Arkansas,” Elvia said. “Big difference.” Her smooth milk-chocolate cheeks dimpled with a held-back smile.

  “And don’t you forget it,” Dove said.

  I ran my hands up and down my bare arms. “Are you positive you don’t have something else in your closet? I feel so . . . exposed.”

  “That dress was made for a July wedding, not the end of February,” Elvia answered. “And we dug through every piece of clothing I own. This is the closest thing I have to anything that remotely suggests the Civil War. Why in the world didn’t you pick an easier theme for this Senior Citizen Prom than Gone With the Wind?”

  “That was your little brother’s doing. Ramon and his Adult Recreation 101 Class at the university. I’d have chosen a shuffleboard tournament.”

  “I think it’s real sweet of those kids to go to all that trouble for a bunch of old folks,” Dove said.

  “Well,” I countered, “they do get out of writing a twenty-page term paper for it. That’s pretty strong motivation.”

  Elvia picked up her cup of Raspberry Delight herbal tea sitting on my nightstand and took a sip. “I’m still vague on how you became involved. I thought your teacher assistant days were over.”