Authors: Earlene Fowler
Spider Web
| Spider Web |
| Fowler, Earlene |
| Penguin (2011) |
SUMMARY:
Benni Harper is back in an unforgettable new mystery from national bestselling author Earlene Fowler. The Memory Festival is a celebration of recollections and loved ones through crafts. But when a local cop is wounded by a mysterious sharpshooter who seems to have a vendetta against the police, Benni fears for her loved ones, especially her police chief husband. Benni is determined to make her hometown safe-before their peaceful street fair becomes a day to remember in the worst way.
| Spider Web |
| Fowler, Earlene |
| Penguin (2011) |
SUMMARY:
Benni Harper is back in an unforgettable new mystery from national bestselling author Earlene Fowler. The Memory Festival is a celebration of recollections and loved ones through crafts. But when a local cop is wounded by a mysterious sharpshooter who seems to have a vendetta against the police, Benni fears for her loved ones, especially her police chief husband. Benni is determined to make her hometown safe-before their peaceful street fair becomes a day to remember in the worst way.
Table of Contents
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
STATE FAIR
SPIDER WEB
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.
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.
Copyright © 2011 by Earlene Fowler.
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.
BERKLEY
®
PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fowler, Earlene.
p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-101-51468-9
1. Harper, Benni (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Women museum curators—Fiction. 3. Quiltmakers—Fiction. 4. Folk festivals—Fiction. 5. Police—Crimes against—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3556.O828S65 2011
813′.54—dc22 2010047541
To Lela Satterfield and Laura Ross Wingfield,
Beloved Sisters and
Prayer Warriors of the highest order
and
To the brave and selfless men and women
of our military
Thank you for your loyalty,
your devotion and your sacrifice
Acknowledgments
Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
Luke 6:36
Thank you Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Please, help me to always err on the side of mercy.
With a humble heart, I also thank:
Steve Crawford—Deputy Coroner, San Luis Obispo County—for patiently helping me find the perfect gunshot wound.
Ellen Geiger—friend, agent, advocate—I appreciate your hard work, your dedication and your unmatched sense of humor about life and this crazy publishing business.
Karen Gray—Deputy District Attorney, San Luis Obispo County and part-time Red Cross nurse (you rock!)—for always being there to answer my questions and make introductions and for being my dear friend.
Pam Munns—California Highway Patrol (retired) and dynamite quilter—girl, what can I say? You have helped me with your knowledge, your suggestions and by introducing me to other people who have helped me. I treasure your friendship.
John O’Connell—Captain, LAPD (retired) and Marine Corps combat veteran—for openly sharing your knowledge and feelings about your time in Vietnam. Thank you for your help and your service to our country. Semper fi!
Kate Seaver—my beloved editor—you are enthusiastic, dedicated and smart. I appreciate your insights and suggestions. Thanks for never being cranky (even when I am). The publishing world is a kinder, better place for your being in it.
A special thanks to my friends, without whose support and love I fear I would perish in a cloud of despair—Charlotte “Bunny” Brown, Tina Davis, Janice Dischner, Jo Ellen Heil, Christine Hill, Jo-Ann Mapson, JoBeth McDaniel, Carolyn Miller, Sally Parker, Kathy Vieira.
My husband, Allen, whom I love. Your resilience amazes me and your courage inspires me.
A Note from the Author
Spider Web
takes place in March 1998. It has been a little over five years in Benni Harper’s life (
Fool’s Puzzle
took place in November 1992), but almost eighteen years in my life. I am doing my best to remember how things were back in the nineties, but even consulting books and the Internet, it’s difficult! So many changes have happened so fast in the last fifteen years. So, please, don’t be too hard on me if I miss a thing or two.
There are readers who have expressed dismay with the fact that I showed readers what happened in Benni and Gabe’s life a decade in the future in the book
Love Mercy.
I did that for the simple reason that there is nothing certain in this world.
I wanted to let my readers know (as with the prologue of
Mariner’s Compass
) that Benni and Gabe end up okay. That seems to be the biggest worry people express to me. There was a method to my madness. I hope the Benni Harper books go on forever, but I cannot promise they will because it is not totally in my control.
I found this quote while doing research for this book and was amazed at how much it applied to all good novels.
Fiction is like a spider’s web, attached ever so lightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners. Often the attachment is scarcely perceptible.
Virginia Woolf
Spider Web
The Spider Web quilt design, like many old patterns, probably originated with a quilter’s love for her flower or vegetable garden. Very similar to the Kaleidoscope pattern, it is often made up of a variety of symmetrical multicolored fabric pieces, triangular in shape, put together to resemble a spider’s web. Some variations of the pattern are made with only two colors of fabric. It is a great way to use up extra fabric, something that was important during the 1930s Depression when this pattern was popular. Like its real-life counterpart, the Spider Web pattern has innumerable variations. Unlike many patterns where there are many names for one pattern, with the Spider Web quilt pattern, there are dozens of patterns for one name. The pattern can be traced back to the early nineteenth century. The pattern has been found in the Kansas City Star patterns of 1929 as well as the quilts of the Hmong, an ancient tribe of mountain people who migrated from China in the mid-nineteenth century. Some of the patterns called Spider Web do have other names such as Farmer’s Wife, Merry-Go-Round, Mystic Maze, Amazing Windmill, Autumn Leaves and Job’s Tears.
CHAPTER 1
M
USIC FLOWED OUT OF THE OLD RANCH HOUSE’S OPEN FRONT door like a wash of honey water—“Are You Lonesome Tonight?”
Elvis Presley’s unmistakable voice rose and surrounded me as I watched from a small rise a hundred yards away. The damp, drooping branches of a pepper-scented valley oak camouflaged me and my horse from whomever was inspecting my former home. Trixie, a new mare my father bought last week, shifted beneath me.
The song’s melody was as familiar to me as the creak of saddle leather. It was a favorite tune of my gramma Dove, who often serenaded her fancy chickens. Dinner and a show, she would say, tossing handfuls of powdery feed. She claimed they favored Top 40 tunes, Tennessee Ernie Ford and on stormy days, the heartbreak songs of Patsy Cline.
“Back in the twenties, Vaughn De Leath sang it,” she always told me. “Long before Elvis was a gleam in his daddy’s eyes. Henry Burr sang it too. And Al Jolson.” I loved knowing that little bit of trivia, though I’d never had a reason to use it.
Air fluttered from Trixie’s nostrils and she tossed her head. She was not a horse, I was learning, who liked to wait. She preferred to keep moving.
On the ground behind us, something rustled in the brush. Trixie tensed, mouthed her bit, teeth chinking against metal, then calmed herself. I stroked her warm neck and softly crooned,
Good girl.
Daddy would be pleased. Fortitude was important in a horse who worked cattle. Scout, my chocolate Lab–shepherd mix, sat a few feet away, his shiny eyes glued to my face, a foot soldier poised for instructions.