Occupation: photographer, part-time high school teacher, dreamer of what comes next

I’ve had lots of days. . . and lots of life in them in my thirty years. But there’s a recent Saturday that sticks inside my head. It actually started out normal, although looking back, it’s hard to believe any of that day or those that followed were normal.

The most amazing mom in the world—mine—had died earlier in the year, and for the last few weeks I’d given in to her best friend—Po Paltrow. Po had suggested/encouraged/insisted I visit my mom’s long-time quilting group. Just for a few Saturdays, she had said. Just to understand, to get a feeling for what my mom had loved doing for as long as anyone could remember. As a bonus, she had said, I’d meet an amazing group of women. Po was right about the amazing women, quilters and so much more, who would soon became family. But that’s getting away from my day, my story.

On this particular Saturday I was late as usual, riding my bike at high speed toward the neighborhood quilt shop. But when I turned onto Elderberry Road, I braked dead in my tracks. Two police cars, their lights still spinning, were parked far down the street in front of Selma’s store. Cars were stopped in the middle of the street and people stared. And on the opposite side of the street from the shop, kept at bay by a wide yellow tape, stood my quilting group.

“Get your bod down here, Kate,” Phoebe Mellon yelled when she saw me. Tiny and wild (and mother of twins), Phoebe’s arms rotated in the air like windmills.

Maggie Helmers—the town’s best (and only) veterinarian, who quilts with intricate stitches—stood beside Phoebe, her eyes glued to Selma’s front door.

A robbery? I wondered as I maneuvered my bike between the sightseers. Or it could have been a cat on the roof. Crestwood’s policemen were very kind to cats.

As I got closer to the end of the block I could see that the whole quilting group was there—ageless Eleanor—the richest lady on the planet. Leah Sarandon, an awesome professor from Crestood University. And the others, too. Everyone but . . .

The air caught tight in my chest. A reaction, I knew, to the difficult months I’d had. Losing the most important person in my life. Confusion about my future. Sadness.

“Where’s Po?” I managed to say, finally reaching the group.

Before anyone could answer, there she was, walking out of the shop. She was wearing exercise pants and shirt, a baseball hat holding down her silvery streaked hair—unusual attire for quilting, at least for Po. Maybe not for Phoebe, Maggie or myself. Po’s head was high, her eyes scanning the crowd, the neighbors, the students, strangers. She was looking for us, and my heart started beating again. Normally this time.

“A cat on the roof?” Eleanor called out, pulling Po our way. Our eldest quilter followed her words with a smile, the smile urging Po to affirm the innocent reason for the Saturday commotion. A cat.

Of course.

But Po shook her head. She stepped onto the curb as we circled her.

“Let’s take the quilting over to my house today,” Po said. She met our puzzled looks with an attempt at a smile. Her eyes lingered on me.

“Wait. What about the cat?” Maggie asked, her veterinary heart needing to know no animal was in danger, her eyes scanning the shops’ rooftops.

“No cat, Maggie,” Po said. (Although we’d find out later there really was a cat involved.) “But go on to my home. I’ll meet you there in awhile.”

“Why ‘awhile’?” I asked, not really wanting her to tell me. And I could tell from the lines in her face she didn’t want to tell me either.

She turned as if I hadn’t spoken, and started to walk back across the street. But then she stopped and took a step back.

“All right,” she said, her voice oddly unfamiliar. “The police have a few more questions for me. It’s routine.” She forced a smile but still no one moved.

“Po, please say what you mean.” Phoebe spoke to the woman four decades her senior in the same firm voice she used with her toddler twins. Only Phoebe could do that.

Po sighed. And then she explained in rushed words, as if slowing down would stop the explanation midstream. “I don’t mean to be secretive, it’s just hard—the police want to talk to me because I stumbled upon a dead body in the back of Selma’s shop while I was jogging this morning.”

Before questions could blur the image in all our heads, Po urged us again to head to her house where she’d meet us shortly. She’d fill us in then, and let us know that everything was going to be okay.

But it wasn’t. Not at all.

You can read more about Kate in A Patchwork of Clues, the first book in the re-release “Queen Bees Quilt Shop” cozy mystery series, released June 4, 2019.

Small-town quilters look for a killer’s pattern in this delightful new series by the national bestselling author of the Seaside Knitters mysteries . . .

On her morning jog, Portia Paltrow comes upon the dead body of antiques store owner and college professor Owen Hill, sprawled across the back doorstep of Selma Parker’s fabric and quilt shop on Elderberry Road. The site of their Saturday morning quilting bee just became a crime scene. Violent crime is rare in the charming village of Crestwood, Kansas, and rumors are soon circulating of a burglary gone wrong. But who would rob a quilt shop? No, Owen Hill has been murdered.

Selma and her assistant manager Susan are understandably at loose ends over the crime. So while the tightly knit covey of quilters—who range from a new mother to a wise octogenarian—work together on a Crystal Pattern quilt for Selma’s store’s anniversary, they also get busy stitching together a patchwork of clues. But they’d better work fast—before a crafty killer bolts . . .

Previously titled Murders on Elderberry Road

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About the author
Sally Goldenbaum writes the best-selling Seaside Knitters Society Mystery series and the Queen Bees Quilt Shop Mysteries, in addition to thirty plus novels. Her fictional friends help her probe the intricacies of women’s friendship, the mysteries, heartaches and joys of small-town living, and the emotional, intuitive and wise ways to investigate murder.

She and her husband recently followed the seaside knitters to Cape Ann, MA, where they are settling into a new home by the sea.

To learn more about Sally, visit her website at sallygoldenbaum.com.

All comments are welcomed.