3 Coming Unraveled Read Online Free PDF

the Youth International Party (more commonly known as the Yippies) back in the late ‘60s. Despite settling down to raise a family, she’d never quite come to terms with trusting the police.
    “Myrtle, he’s the one who tried to pull one over on ol’ N.L., not me.”
    “Hmph.” She crossed her arms, a sign of her refusal to listen to reason.
    “Gotta ask you a few questions,” the lawman continued doggedly. His smooth head glistened in the flickering light from the TV set.
    “Go ahead.” Arms still crossed.
    “Did you ever hear from your son after he went missing?”
    “No.”
    “So you didn’t know he was alive till today?”
    She raised her chin as if defying him to doubt her word. “That’s right. I heard it on the morning news. The same station that’s on now.”
    “ The weather forecast is looking good for the remainder of this week ,” a woman standing in front of a large map was saying. Her droning voice was enough to make you wish for a lightning storm to strike her down.
    “Got any idea why he might do this?”
    “Greed, I suspect. That chair factory’s gotta be worth a pretty penny. We Periwinkles have always been dirt poor. I expect he wanted more. Probably why he ran away from home.”
    “Sorry about this, Myrtle. I know it’s been hard for you. Thinking you’ve lost your only child. Then your husband drowning in the well a few years later.”
    “ I was glad he drowned. He was a terrible husband.”
    “Oh,” said Jim, realizing he didn’t know much about the Periwinkle family. Myrtle had been reclusive after her losses, living on a meager pension left by her husband from his job at the chair factory.
    “If you don’t have any more questions, I’d appreciate if you’d run those reporters off my property. I’ve got absolutely nothing to say to them.” Sounding like her son Harry.
     
     

 
    Chapter Eight
     
    Nobody would ever accuse the Quilters Club of being busybodies, but they did have a certain reputation for nosing around. Thinking of themselves as detectives, they had solved a couple of crimes in the past two years. The police chief was none too pleased with them interfering with his job. But given their success rate, he kept his grumbling to himself.
    If asked, the four women were merely “paying their respects” when they showed up on Maud Purdue’s doorstep with an upside down watermelon cake in hand. It was Maud’s favorite, so she invited them in.
    “You didn’t have to do this,” Maud was saying as she put the cake in a glass cake dish on the kitchen counter. She tasted the frosting with a swipe of her finger before putting the glass cover in place.
    “We were worried about you,” said Maddy. “That scam that Harry Periwinkle tried to pull must have been very upsetting.”
    “I knew he wasn’t my son,” she grumbled. “Bobby Ray had blue eyes. But nobody would listen to me.”
    “Everybody’s wonder ing how he fooled that DNA test,” said Liz Ridenour, feeling a little guilty since her husband had helped arrange it.
    “It’s a mystery,” Maud Purdue shook her head, still eyeing the upside down watermelon cake.
    “Funny thing, Harry offering to sign back the chair factory in return for your quilt,” said Bootsie.
    “ Harry Periwinkle is obviously crazy. Pretending to be my son and all. That old quilt ain’t worth anything.”
    “Where is it?” Maddy asked casually. “I’d love to see it again.”
    “Packed away in the attic. In an old cedar trunk to keep the moths away. Ain’t worth anything, but it has sentimental value. My husband’s grandmother made that quilt by hand back in 1899. That was the year of the Big Fire.”
    “Yes,” chimed in Cookie . “Burned down half the town. It started at the bank.” She glanced at Liz as if by being the wife of a retired bank president she was somehow responsible.
    “I’ve heard Edgar speak of it. The fire was set to cover up a robbery, as I recall. Don’t think they ever caught the culprits.