Bell and Kaczynski. Cashed out my 401K. Put the townhouse up for sale.”
“What? I can’t believe you’d ever do that. So are you going to that firm in New York that was calling you all last year?”
“Nope,” he said with a mischievous grin.
“Where then?”
“Here. I’ve going to work here. Caruthers Corners is the perfect place for a new beginning.”
“Don’t be silly, Mark. What would you do here in Caruthers Corners? Help Dad run the hardware store? You’d be bored in two days.”
“No, I’ve bought Bartholomew Dingley’s law practice. He was planning on retiring. He accepted my offer just this morning.”
“You mean – ?”
“Yes – you, me, and Agnes – together here in Caruthers Corners. And I won’t get bored. Believe it or not, I was getting really tired of those eighty-hour workweeks. Been there, done that. Now I want my life back. I want you and Aggie back.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Evidence Mounts
L ogic prevailed. If Jacob Caruthers stole the ring off Colonel Madison’s body at his wake, it would likely have been passed down through the family to great-great grandson Henry, the current mayor of Caruthers Corners. And he wouldn’t have had to steal it from the quilt.
However, if “The Rightful Owner” stole the ring from Martha Ray Johnson’s quilt, replacing it with the $10 costume jewelry, then the culprit had to be the mayor. No one else would have had access to that particular ring marke d 107 7 inside the band. That meant the real ring had been in the possession of the Jinks family all those years.
Maddy considered this second scenario more likely to be the correct one. No disputing the fact that they’d found the fake ring inside the quilt wrapped in an incriminating note. That mean Ferdinand Jinks did steal the ring, just as the legend suggested!
So far, so good. The mayor had the ruby ring. But knowing who had the real ring did not tell you where it was.
Nor why Mayor Caruthers considered himself the rightful owner.
She explained her reasoning to the members of the Quilter’s Club, waiting for someone to pick a hole in it. But no one did.
“So what do we do next?” asked Bootsie, unwilling to call it quits.
“Let’s divide up the tasks. Bootsie, you see if you can find out how the mayor might have got access to Tall Paul’s quilt. Swapping that fake ring for the real one couldn’t have been easy.”
“And me?” asked Cookie, eager for an assignment.
“You search the Historical Society archives. See if you can find a reason the mayor might consider himself the rightful owner of that ruby ring.”
“How about me?” Lizzie raised her hand.
“Lizzie, I want you to figure out where the mayor might keep something valuable – like a ruby ring.”
“What can I do, Grammy?” asked Agnes. She’d been left in Maddy’s care while her mother and father shopped for a new home somewhere within the town limits.
“You get to assist me. We’re going to light a fire under Mayor Caruthers. See if we can smoke out the truth.”
≈≈≈
Cookie was the first to report back. She’d found a passage in Jacob Caruthers’ journal that shed some light on original ownership of the ruby ring. “Listen to this,” she said, then read the entry for May 12, 1829:
The Red Indians attacked again last night. We sustained heavy losses. I thought myself a goner when my flintlock misfired and I found myself facing a warrior brandishing a tomahawk. The quick thinking of Ferdinand Jinks saved my life. He struck the assailant with the butt of his rifle, even though it too was empty of powder, rendering the bugger unconscious. As a token of thankfulness, I awarded Ferdinand my most valued possession.
“It has to be the ring,” Cookie tapped the page to make the point. “It was originally Caruthers ring, but he gave it to Jinks.”
“And Jinks gave it to his fiancée,” Maddy completed the thought. “But she dumped him for Colonel
“What? I can’t believe you’d ever do that. So are you going to that firm in New York that was calling you all last year?”
“Nope,” he said with a mischievous grin.
“Where then?”
“Here. I’ve going to work here. Caruthers Corners is the perfect place for a new beginning.”
“Don’t be silly, Mark. What would you do here in Caruthers Corners? Help Dad run the hardware store? You’d be bored in two days.”
“No, I’ve bought Bartholomew Dingley’s law practice. He was planning on retiring. He accepted my offer just this morning.”
“You mean – ?”
“Yes – you, me, and Agnes – together here in Caruthers Corners. And I won’t get bored. Believe it or not, I was getting really tired of those eighty-hour workweeks. Been there, done that. Now I want my life back. I want you and Aggie back.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Evidence Mounts
L ogic prevailed. If Jacob Caruthers stole the ring off Colonel Madison’s body at his wake, it would likely have been passed down through the family to great-great grandson Henry, the current mayor of Caruthers Corners. And he wouldn’t have had to steal it from the quilt.
However, if “The Rightful Owner” stole the ring from Martha Ray Johnson’s quilt, replacing it with the $10 costume jewelry, then the culprit had to be the mayor. No one else would have had access to that particular ring marke d 107 7 inside the band. That meant the real ring had been in the possession of the Jinks family all those years.
Maddy considered this second scenario more likely to be the correct one. No disputing the fact that they’d found the fake ring inside the quilt wrapped in an incriminating note. That mean Ferdinand Jinks did steal the ring, just as the legend suggested!
So far, so good. The mayor had the ruby ring. But knowing who had the real ring did not tell you where it was.
Nor why Mayor Caruthers considered himself the rightful owner.
She explained her reasoning to the members of the Quilter’s Club, waiting for someone to pick a hole in it. But no one did.
“So what do we do next?” asked Bootsie, unwilling to call it quits.
“Let’s divide up the tasks. Bootsie, you see if you can find out how the mayor might have got access to Tall Paul’s quilt. Swapping that fake ring for the real one couldn’t have been easy.”
“And me?” asked Cookie, eager for an assignment.
“You search the Historical Society archives. See if you can find a reason the mayor might consider himself the rightful owner of that ruby ring.”
“How about me?” Lizzie raised her hand.
“Lizzie, I want you to figure out where the mayor might keep something valuable – like a ruby ring.”
“What can I do, Grammy?” asked Agnes. She’d been left in Maddy’s care while her mother and father shopped for a new home somewhere within the town limits.
“You get to assist me. We’re going to light a fire under Mayor Caruthers. See if we can smoke out the truth.”
≈≈≈
Cookie was the first to report back. She’d found a passage in Jacob Caruthers’ journal that shed some light on original ownership of the ruby ring. “Listen to this,” she said, then read the entry for May 12, 1829:
The Red Indians attacked again last night. We sustained heavy losses. I thought myself a goner when my flintlock misfired and I found myself facing a warrior brandishing a tomahawk. The quick thinking of Ferdinand Jinks saved my life. He struck the assailant with the butt of his rifle, even though it too was empty of powder, rendering the bugger unconscious. As a token of thankfulness, I awarded Ferdinand my most valued possession.
“It has to be the ring,” Cookie tapped the page to make the point. “It was originally Caruthers ring, but he gave it to Jinks.”
“And Jinks gave it to his fiancée,” Maddy completed the thought. “But she dumped him for Colonel
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