3 Revenge of the Crafty Corpse by Lois Winston Page B

books, placing the craft titles on the shelves and stacking the fiction and the loose-leaf binders on a table.
    After sorting the books, I picked up one of the binders and began flipping through the pages, which turned out to be a crafts journal. The pages contained notes, drawings, and photos for many of Lyndella’s craft projects. What a treasure trove for a crafts editor! I placed all the binders back into cartons and moved the cartons to the floor near my desk to study them more at length later.
    Lyndella’s taste in fiction matched her taste in artwork. I suppose her collection of erotic novels shouldn’t have surprised me, but I still had difficulty wrapping my head around a ruffles and lace-bedecked, ninety-eight-year-old woman reading the Marquis de Sade.
    I wondered if I should bring the novels to the library but quickly decided against doing so. What if some resident’s grandchild pulled Anne Rice’s The Sleeping Beauty Trilogy off a shelf and began reading? I didn’t want to be responsible for introducing a ten year old to the world of BDSM. So I began placing the novels back into one of the cartons. Although I hated to trash any books, Lyndella’s fiction collection probably belonged in the Dumpster.
    The question remained what to do with Lyndella’s various craft projects. I decided to discuss the subject with my next class of crafters—after I told them about my gallery idea. First, though, I quickly cut up squares of colored construction paper.
    “For those of you who haven’t met me yet,” I said after they’d all entered the room and seated themselves at various tables, “my name is Anastasia Pollack. I’m the craft editor at American Woman magazine, and I’ll be filling in on weekends for the next few months while Kara Kennedy is out on maternity leave.”
    I then passed around the colored paper, markers, and safety pins I’d found in the supply closet. “Unfortunately, I’m really terrible with names,” I continued. “So I’d appreciate it if you’d make yourselves name tags until I get to know all of you better.”
    “Getting old like us, huh?” said a tall, thin woman with ginger- colored hair pulled back into a low ponytail. She laughed. “Hate to tell you, dearie, but it only gets worse the older you get.”
    The others chuckled and nodded in agreement. I laughed along with them, although on the inside I worried. With all I juggled and all the stress, my brain had already begun to turn to mush. I hated to think what it might be like fifteen or twenty years from now.
    “Construction paper?” said a woman with red-framed glasses and a thick head of obviously dyed, midnight-black hair that hugged her head like a helmet. When she turned up her nose and pushed aside the supplies I’d passed out, not a hair moved, thanks to a thick coating of hairspray. “We’re not in kindergarten. You want name tags? We’ll make name tags we’ll be proud to wear. Right, girls?”
    Everyone agreed. I should have known. These were my paper crafters and scrapbookers. Much like their younger counterparts I’d come across over the years, they had a near obsessive love for their particular craft of choice. They set about pulling supplies off shelves and from the closets—rubber stamps and pads, decorative papers, paper punches, specialty scissors, stickers, and assorted trims.
    Like the classes before them, they needed no help from me, so as they worked, I told them about my gallery idea. Everyone loved the idea, but once again someone brought up Shirley Hallstead.
    “You’ll have to clear it with her,” said a woman I assumed was named Barbara from the BAR she’d so far rubber stamped onto her name tag.
    “So I’ve been told,” I said. Then I brought up the subject of Lyn della’s crafts. “Shirley told Reggie to throw them out. That seems like such a waste. Anyone have a suggestion as to what to do with them?”
    “Do as Shirley said.”
    “Use them for target practice.”
    “Burn