Megan
When it neared noon, I turned my cruiser to the southwest once again. I’d packed a sandwich and planned to eat my lunch on the road, put in some unofficial overtime to spy on the People of Peace.
When we ascended the hilltop this time, my eyes spotted people from all over the compound heading toward the dining hall, including the children from the school, some of whom ran ahead of their friends. I passed the compound, circled through the park, and drove back up the road. Unfortunately, the visit had told me nothing new. My bladder, however, told me I better find a ladies’ room.
I pulled over and consulted my maps app. The image showed a place called Benbrook Burgers, Beer, and Bait a half mile down another road, and I headed back out. Shortly thereafter, we pulled into the lot. The place, which looked like a rustic log cabin, turned out to be a combination gas station, convenience store, bait and tackle shop, diner, and gift boutique. The building was decked out for Halloween, with colorful pumpkins and gourds piled near the doors and a skeleton and witch seated in a pair of rustic outdoor rocking chairs as if engaged in conversation.
I retrieved my partner from the back, clipped her lead onto her collar, and brought her inside with me. After using the facilities, I decided to take a look in the gift shop. After all, I was still officially on my lunch hour and sometimes these out-of-the-way places offered unusual and interesting items.
We wandered through the doorway that separated the convenience store from the gift shop and meandered past a wooden barrel filled with clear bags of candied pecans, their label pronouncing them Proudly Made in Pecan Crossing, Texas, Just for You! An adjacent bin offered classic wooden children’s toys, handcrafted locally according to the sign. A yo-yo. A truck. A boat. A pop gun. Carving in each of the toys noted the name of the toymaker—Craig’s Classic Toys. Several beautiful pottery pieces were displayed on a shelf nearby. A placard identified the potter as someone doing business as Kiln Me Now.
The scent of seasonal pumpkin spice led me to a shelf along the back wall. There I found an assortment of taper candles. The slight imperfections told me they’d been dipped by hand. On the shelf below were metal candleholders that looked like they’d also been forged by hand. Next to them was a unique set of rustic silverware in a sun motif with matching napkin rings. Unlike the other items, the candles and metal pieces had no sign identifying the person who’d crafted them.
A saleslady stepped up next to me. “Can I help you with something?”
“Just browsing.” I held a pumpkin candle up to my nose and inhaled its beautiful scent.
The woman gave me a smile. “Smells great, doesn’t it?”
“They caught my nose the minute I stepped into the store.” I tucked the pumpkin spice candle under my arm and picked up one in a deep green color.
“That’s the piñon pine,” the woman said. “It’s one of our most popular for Christmas.”
I decided to get one of the pine-scented candles for Detective Jackson, a thank-you for trusting me and my instincts. I chose two candleholders, as well, one for me and one for the detective.
As the woman moved on to straighten a display of country-themed cookbooks, Brigit wandered down the aisle and pulled the leash taut. She sniffed the air and looked back at me over her shoulder in her “follow me” expression.
“What is it, girl?” I walked toward her and she hustled ahead, pulling the slack taut again. Whatever she’d scented, she seemed in a hurry to get to it.
She led me to a table at the back. Handmade quilted items in all colors and sizes were stacked on the table. Pot holders. Place mats. Blankets. Brigit proceeded to stick her nose into one of the piles of blankets, as if fixated on one in particular. She nudged the blanket and, when that didn’t free it from the pile, grabbed the white trim with her teeth.
“No!” I put the candles and holders down and gently wrestled the fabric from her fangs. Luckily, the quilt was undamaged. Good thing, because the handwritten price tag attached to the trim read $250. Not exactly the type of thing a person could afford on a cop’s salary.
Brigit sat on her haunches and looked up at me, issuing the passive alert she was trained to give when she detected drugs. But I hadn’t ordered her to search. Surely there weren’t drugs hidden among these quilts. Or was there? Had a customer seen us come in, panicked, and ditched some weed among the blankets?
I turned back to the stack of quilted blankets, examining each one before setting them aside. A red, white, and blue blanket covered in Texas flags. A dark blue blanket adorned with stars and moons. A third in pastel patchwork. One with a magnolia blossom motif and another featuring a prickly-pear cactus complete with the hot-pink fruit. Finally, I reached the one Brigit had tried to pull out.
Oh my gosh! Though this quilt was big enough for a queen-sized bed, it bore beautiful bluebonnets, just like the baby’s blanket.
I looked down at Brigit. Had she smelled familiar scents on the quilt? Is that why she’d alerted on it? I had no idea why she’d dragged me over here to show me the blanket. But I was darn glad she had.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a liver treat. “Good job, Brigit!” I fed her the treat with one hand, while stroking her head with the other. “Good job!”
I pulled up the photo of the baby on my phone and compared the handiwork to the blanket in front of me. It’s identical. Could it be a crazy coincidence? Or had the person who’d crafted this quilt simply used the same pattern as the person who’d made the baby’s blanket? Maybe the person who’d sewn the cry for help into the trim wasn’t the baby’s mother as I’d thought. Maybe the baby’s mother or father had simply bought a quilt here for their child, and the cry for help stitched into it was unrelated to the baby. Still, that would mean someone inside the compound needed help.
I picked up the blanket and thoroughly checked the trim. No words. No symbols. Nothing was stitched into the fabric. I examined a couple of the other quilts. Their trim bore no symbols or words, either.
I carried it over to the sales clerk. “I didn’t see a sign on these quilts. Do you know who made this?”
“I don’t know exactly who made that quilt,” she said, “but I get them from a church group down the road. The women there make the quilts and I sell them on consignment.”
My heart bump-bump-bumped in my chest. “A church?” I repeated. “Are you talking about the People of Peace?”
“If that’s the one by the lake, then yes.”
It took everything in me not to throw a victorious fist in the air and yell “Woo-hoo!” I was right! The symbol hastily stitched on the blanket was a clue!
She continued. “They’re not Amish, but they’re something like that. Quakers, maybe?” She shrugged.
“So you’ve met the women who make the quilts?”
“Only one of them,” she replied. “Older woman, seventy or so.”
Despite the Bible story about Sarah giving birth to Isaac when she was ninety, miracles were rare. Barring a modern-day immaculate conception, there was no chance the woman was the baby’s mother. But could she be her grandmother?
“The woman comes by first thing every Monday morning with a younger man to collect their percentage and drops off new quilts and whatnot.”
“Whatnot?” I repeated. “What’s the whatnot?”
She pointed to the candle display. “The same group makes the candles. The men from the church make the candleholders and the rocking chairs that are on display out front. You might’ve noticed them on your way in. Everything they make is very well crafted.” She looked up, leaned toward me across the counter, and whispered as if to keep God from overhearing her next words. “That church group has made me a small fortune, I tell you what.” She stood up straight again, speaking at normal volume. “They make jams and jellies, too, but I can’t sell those.”
“Why not?”
“Because of the Texas Cottage Food Law. It allows sales of edible, small-batch food products, but only at farm stands, farmer’s markets, or county fairs, that type of thing. To be sold retail, food items have to comply with FDA labeling requirements and other regulations.”
Food regulation was generally handled by the health inspectors rather than the police department, so I wasn’t familiar with the law. But she’d given me some interesting information to ponder. Of course I wanted to know more. “The people who bring you the stuff,” I said, “do you happen to know their names?”
“I’m sure they told me at some point.” She looked up in thought. “I can’t remember the woman’s name, but the guy could be Elijah or Ezra. Or maybe it was Zachariah or Zebediah? All I know for sure is that it was something old-fashioned and biblical sounding like that. But, like I said, the man’s not exactly a talker. Neither is the woman. They’re all business.”
There could be a Zachariah or Zebediah at the property, but I had a sneaking suspicion it might be Jebediah, the guy who’d come to the gate when we’d visited the property yesterday.
The woman cocked her head, her eyes narrowed. “Why are you asking? You’re not going to try to buy direct from them, are you?”
“And cut out your profit? I wouldn’t dream of it.” I offered her a smile. “I’m on the PTA at my kid’s school.” Suddenly I had a child. Looked like there’d been an immaculate conception, after all. Or at least an immaculate deception. “We’ve got a fall festival coming up and we’re looking for vendors. I thought maybe the church would want to buy a booth.” Actually, I’d landed an overtime gig next month working security at a fall festival, but the event made a convenient and easy excuse for my questions.
“I’d give you their contact information if I had it,” the woman said. “But they’ve never given me a phone number or e-mail address. I’m not sure they even have a telephone or computer at their place. They seem to live simply from what I can tell.”
Simple life or not, it was impossible to get by without some source of income. I now knew how the People of Peace earned money to pay for the things they couldn’t produce themselves, like their vehicles and gasoline. Unfortunately, the information didn’t seem to lead anywhere.
“At any rate,” the woman said, “if you want that quilt, you better buy it now. Those bluebonnet ones always sell fast.”
“As much as I like it,” I told her, “I can’t afford it right now. Maybe next payday.”
“Sure.” She took it from me. “I’ll put it back for you.”
I purchased the two candles and candleholders, thanked the woman, and led Brigit back to the cruiser.
“Good girl!” I ruffled her head and gave her three more liver treats for her exceptional performance. Of course I realized that she’d probably alerted on the familiar smell precisely because she’d hoped to earn the treats, and that a K-9 who gave false alerts could become problematic. But at the moment, I was thrilled she’d led me to what could be a very valuable clue.
Once I was seated, I phoned Detective Jackson and told her about the bluebonnet blanket I’d found at the store. “The salesperson confirmed that the blanket was made by a woman belonging to the People of Peace.”
“Nice work, Megan,” she said. “That’s good evidence linking the baby to the church. Unfortunately, it’s not enough. The magistrate won’t issue a search warrant until we have some evidence indicating a crime has been committed.”
“But we can’t get evidence a crime has been committed unless we get into the compound!” If only we could get into the compound, we could talk to the baby’s mother and find out if she’d been abused or threatened, if the cry of help was for herself.
Jackson sighed. “Yep. It’s a vicious circle.”
Vicious circle indeed.
On the drive back to the precinct, I made a stop at one of the flea markets on my route. Figured I might as well check things out. A few of Felicia Bloomquist’s neighbors had found the business cards I’d left at their doors and since given me a call, but none of them had seen anything suspicious. If I was going to find the burglar, it looked like I’d have to be a little more proactive.
Brigit and I strode up and down the rows of vendor booths, looking for any that sold the same makeup, jewelry, and clothing lines pedaled by Felicia Bloomquist.
As we made our way up the third aisle, my eyes spotted a table bearing silver and copper jewelry from the Manhattan Metals line. A woman wearing a half-dozen pieces from the catalog sat behind the table. She treated me and Brigit to a smile. “Hi, there.”
I returned the greeting. “Thought my partner and I would do a little shopping on our lunch hour.”
She stood from her seat. “See something you like?”
“This one’s nice.” I picked up a copper cuff bracelet and slid it onto my wrist.
“That looks great on you!” she gushed. “And it comes with a matching necklace and earrings.”
She didn’t know it, but I was much more interested in her than I was the jewelry.
I returned the bracelet to the table and feigned nonchalance as I picked through several pairs of earrings displayed on a swatch of black velvet. “Been selling jewelry long?”
“Couple of years,” she said. “Got tired of working for the man and decided to be my own boss.”
I picked up a pair of silver earrings engraved with hearts. “These are cute. I have twin sisters who would love them. Got another pair?”
She shook her head. “Not on hand, but I can order you a second set. It only takes two to three days for them to arrive.”
“Darn,” I replied. “Their birthday is tomorrow. I don’t want to be late with a gift.”
The look of disappointment on her face gave me a twinge of guilt.
“I’ll think about them for Christmas. Do you have a card or brochure I can take with me?”
If she had no such cards or brochures, she could be the thief. If she did, she was probably innocent.
She bent down and reached under her table. When she pulled her hand back, it contained a sales catalog with her business card stapled to it. She handed it to me. “You can order online if you like. My link is listed on my card.”
“Thanks.”
Brigit and I ventured up and down the remaining aisles, but saw no one else selling any of Felicia’s brands. We returned to our beat for the remainder of the afternoon. Though we cruised by the People of Peace property again at the end of our shift, nothing unusual caught my eye. Was the baby’s mother inside, missing her child? Was she inside, but relieved that she’d been able to surrender her baby to someone who would be better able to care for it? Or was I off base here and the mother somewhere else entirely?
Would I ever have some answers?