Threads of Deceit (Vineyard Quilt Mysteries Book 1) (18 page)

D
epressed, frustrated, and annoyed, Julie headed back to the inn. Rather than risk bumping into guests while in a foul mood, she walked around the neatly tended kitchen garden at the back of the inn. The rows of herbs were dying back from the cold nights, but they still reflected the nearly military straight rows they’d grown in.

The vegetables were equally bare, except for a few pumpkins. Julie stared at them and wondered if she should have some kind of pumpkin-carving event at the end of October. She’d seen some amazing pumpkin carvers on television and knew it was becoming an art form. It might be interesting. At the very least, she should look into getting a carver to do a couple quilt-theme pumpkins for the porch.

“I hope you don’t have designs on my pumpkins.”

Julie turned to see Hannah grinning at her from the small back porch and replied, “Not yours, but I might pick some up to be carved when I’m out at the Winkler farm again.” She looked around the garden again. “You have a real knack for gardening.”

Hannah hooted. “Not me! This is Inga’s work. My idea of gardening would involve tossing the seeds on the ground and letting them fend for themselves. I’m surprised you didn’t recognize the perfectly square corners on the garden beds.”

“They’re certainly neat,” Julie said. “But I couldn’t picture Inga getting dirty.”

“The dirt is probably afraid to stick to her. How did the cadaver hunt go?”

Julie shook her head. “It didn’t include any cadavers, but
I did get a warning from the homicide detective. He thinks Daniel is some kind of Jekyll-and-Hyde character.”

“That’s a charming thought. Come on in the kitchen; I have a present for you.”

Julie followed her friend, and Hannah handed her another small pile of papers. “I did some more research on the senators. This is personal stuff including public appearances and campaign rumors. I even printed message board posts. Anywhere gossip lived, I tracked it down.”

Julie shuffled through the stack, acutely aware that she had barely skimmed the last pile of papers Hannah had given her. She’d have to be more diligent this time. “Did you turn up anything interesting?”

“Not on Senator Parson. The man has a record so clean you could eat from it, and that’s astoundingly rare in politics. He had apparently even kept most of his campaign promises. One of them involved help for small farms in danger of bankruptcy. It saved a lot of old family farms and a few vineyards that were hit hard when the economy took a big hit. According to his bio, he has three clergymen in his family tree.”

“So he’s a saint?”

Hannah shrugged. “He’s a politician. Still, he seems like one of the better ones. There’s a rumor that he has his eye on the big leagues in Washington, D.C.”

“Don’t they all? I still find it odd timing that his wife came here,” Julie said. “It’s suspicious.”

“But not out of character for this guy. He’s big on connections with the everyday working man. So if he were going to have a fundraiser, he’d surely pick someplace like this. It fits his past behavior.”

“OK, fine. He’s swell,” Julie said. “Tell me about Senator Lucas North.”

“He’s pretty much everything Parson’s not. He’s a womanizer for sure, and I’m amazed his wife is still with him. One interesting thing, though.”

“What’s that?”

“During his campaign, there was talk that he might have been having a relationship with one of his aides. It was never confirmed. The girl left the campaign when she was hurt badly during a mugging. She almost died.”

Julie quirked an eyebrow. “You think he might have a history of getting rid of people who get in his way?”

“I don’t know. She might simply have been mugged. It does happen. And she didn’t die.”

“Maybe we should talk to her.”

“I’ll see if I can track her down.”

“Did you turn up any connections between these guys and Straussberg?”

Hannah shook her head. “Some of their policy decisions have affected folks in this area, but there’s no clear connection. Since Daniel comes from money, I even looked into a possible connection between his family money and campaign funding. I didn’t find anything, though tracking campaign funding is tricky.”

“Which one of the senators would
you
check out first?”

“Probably North. He’s not a good guy.”

Julie nodded. “I’ll take a run up to Jefferson City tomorrow and see if I can get in to speak to them.”

“I thought you might want to do that, so I got you some credentials. There’s a Constance Platt with
American Farm Family
magazine. Both of these guys are courting farmers hard, though Parson does a better job of it. Pretend you want to do a feature. That should get you in.”

Julie thanked her friend and headed for the front desk.
She began leafing through the papers while she pulled her phone from her pocket to call Daniel. Before she could dial, Shirley bustled out of the tearoom, clutching a book. Julie waited with the phone in her hand.

“How did the search go?” Shirley asked.

“The search?”

“For the dead bodies on Winkler Farm.”

“You knew about that?”

Shirley gave her a pitying look. “Everyone knew about that.”

“No bodies.”

“Oh, that’s too bad.” Shirley plunked down the book on the desk in front of her.

Julie glanced at it. The title read
Horrible Happenings on the Missouri
. “Working on another Stories and Stitches night?”

“No, this one is for you,” Shirley said. “There’s a whole chapter on
The Grand Adventure
with lots of inside stories. Though one of the stories claims that
The Grand Adventure
was smuggling slaves to the free state of Iowa. The slaves were hidden down in the engine room. That theory says the ship was sunk by slave hunters, and the slaves all drowned.”

“If that were true, the dog would have alerted,” Julie countered. “The handler was sure that the dog could detect a body through anything that wasn’t airtight.”

Shirley frowned. “Maybe they were hidden in the boiler. That might have been airtight.”

“Smuggling living, breathing people in an airtight container doesn’t sound terribly practical,” Julie pointed out. “Plus, I’m pretty sure the ship would have needed the boiler to be full of water, not people.”

“It doesn’t matter. There are other stories in there. One of them might have some bearing on this situation. You should read it.”

The little woman was so earnest that Julie didn’t have the heart to resist, even though she wasn’t sure where she’d fit in time to do more reading. “Thanks. I will.”

Shirley beamed. “I’m glad. I’ve been feeling bad about your young man having to leave the inn. I thought maybe my stories might have played a part, so I wanted to do something to help.”

“That’s very nice of you.” Julie waved her phone slightly. “I was about to call Daniel. I’ll tell him about the book.”

“Excellent. Do tell him I wish him well. I’d better get back to the tearoom now. I left two ladies debating over quilt patterns.” She hurried away and Julie dialed the phone.

“Julie!” Daniel’s voice boomed at her. “I have fantastic news.”

“Really?”

“The police have released the scene. I can get back to work tomorrow.”

“I’m so glad.”

They chatted about Daniel’s plans for his workday, and Julie couldn’t imagine trying to pull him away from his work to interview the senators. She’d simply go by herself to see them in the morning. Since she didn’t want to drive to Jefferson City for nothing, she called ahead to each of the senator’s offices with the story Hannah had suggested.

“Senator North won’t be in his office tomorrow,” a harried-sounding woman told her. “He’s speaking at a civic group luncheon, but I believe I can squeeze in a chat for you if you don’t mind meeting him at the venue before it begins.”

“I don’t mind.” Julie took down the address.
One down, one to go
.

Senator Parson was tougher. Apparently his schedule was packed, and no one wanted to make any promises about connecting with him.

“I understand,” Julie said to his assistant. “But I have an interview set with Senator North, and I hoped to include some mention of Senator Parson as well. He’s worked so much harder for farmers.”

“You’re speaking with Senator North?” the man’s voice slipped into a high tenor. “I’m certain we can find some time for Senator Parson to meet with you. Can you be at the State Capitol around one? The senator likes to eat by the fountain on the north side of the building on sunny days. I’m sure he could squeeze in a moment.”

“You want me to interview him while he’s eating?”

“If you don’t catch him then, I’m not sure when you will. You can’t miss the fountain. It’s the one with the squirting fish and the strange horse thing. Honestly, I sometimes think I’ll never understand art, but the senator loves it.”

“I’ll be there.”

After breakfast, Julie twisted her hair into a bun, grabbed her camera, and dressed in her most conservative skirt and blouse. She looked herself over in the mirror and decided she looked sufficiently journalistic.

The drive to Jefferson City was overcast. Julie hoped the clouds would clear so that she could catch Senator Parson at the fountain later. The gray sky softened the autumn colors around her, and she found the change lovely.
I’d like those colors in my room,
she thought.
I really should begin a quilt of my own
. It had been years since she’d quilted, but being surrounded by so many people at the inn who truly loved the craft made her increasingly itchy to pick a project.

In her head, she matched each color around her to a specific fabric she’d seen in the inn’s quilt-and-tea shop. It helped make the drive go more quickly, and soon she was in Jefferson City. Though the city was mostly laid out in neat,
straight lines, she was happy to have the help of electronic navigation.

“How did we get along with nothing but paper maps for so long?” she asked the small device. Not surprisingly, it had no answer.

She finally reached the trendy restaurant downtown about a half hour before her appointment.

The early bird gets the worm
, she thought as she grabbed the camera from the backseat.
And this guy sounds like quite a worm.

When she asked about the senator’s group at the hostess stand, she was directed upstairs to the private dining room. The senator was perched on a stool at the small bar at the end of the room. He was sipping amber liquid that she suspected wasn’t tea. His suit, artfully rumpled hair, casual pose, and glass in his hand made him look like a magazine advertisement for success.

“Senator,” she said offering her best professional smile. “Constance Platt,
American Farm Families
.”

The senator’s face lit up. “Well, you’re certainly not what I was expecting.”

“Oh? How’s that?”

He laughed. “You know. With a name like
American Farm Families
, I was expecting a sturdy country girl, not a hot gal like you.”

At forty, Julie considered herself neither a girl nor a gal, but she didn’t think he’d appreciate the distinction. She tried for a smile, though it felt more like a grimace. “I’m grateful to you for carving out some time to chat with me.”

“I’m just sorry I didn’t carve out more.” He patted the barstool beside him. “What did you want to ask me?”

She skipped the stool he patted and took the next
one. It seemed wise to keep at least one piece of furniture between them. “We want a feature that makes you feel more approachable.”

His smile was positively oily. “I am
very
approachable.”

“I meant to our readers.” Again she offered her tight smile. “It would help if I highlight your ties to our area. We sell especially well in Missouri wine country. Do you have any connections to that area?”

He shrugged. “I like wine. Does that count?”

“That might earn you a few brownie points. But what about family? Do you have any there? Or stories of happy visits or vacations to, say, Straussberg? Perhaps you own land or businesses in the area?”

“Sorry, no.” He took a deep drink from his glass. “My brother owns a winery in Hermann, but I’ve never been out there. I don’t spend a lot of time in the country. But if you think it will help the article, I can drive out to Bill’s vineyard for a photo shoot. Or I can buy apples from a farmer’s market. Something like that.”

“We can probably arrange for something like that,” she agreed. “Maybe we can find a farm stand in Straussberg.”

Senator North laughed. “Is that your hometown? You seem in a big hurry to get me out there.” He leaned forward far enough to lay a hand on her knee. Julie removed it and put it on the empty stool between them.

She narrowed her eyes as she considered what to ask next. “Are you interested in state history? Many of our readers love nostalgia and history pieces. A tie to state history would also help humanize you.”

“History? You mean like the whole Louisiana Purchase thing? No.” He laughed. “In fact, my idea of a
real
museum would be the National Sporting Arms Museum in Springfield.
That’s about the only time I’m out of the city—when I go hunting.”

“Hunting?”

The senator leaned in a little too close again. “I thought that might perk you up. I know how women like men with big guns. I could show you my rifle.”

“No thanks,” she said quickly. “But I am curious. Do you go hunting in any of the areas around the Missouri River?”

He shook his head. “I have a hunting cabin in Alaska. I fly up every year and shoot caribou. Wait, I have a picture.” He pulled out his wallet and showed her a photo of him standing with one booted foot planted on the shoulder of a dead caribou. “Gorgeous, isn’t it?”

“It was.”

“You aren’t one of those Bambi lovers, are you? I’d be really disappointed.”

“Actually I think we’re done here,” Julie said as she slid off the barstool. She needed to get away from the man before she slapped him on general principle. “I’ll call your office about that photo shoot.”

“Hey, what’s your hurry?” The senator stood and grabbed her arm. “I didn’t even get your card in case I want to call you.”