Quilt By Association

'The longer this goes on, the more I worry about it. We can plead ignorance for a few days, but eventually, that won't cut it. It's obvious we have a baby here who doesn't belong to any of us. If anything happened to Kissa, and she had to go to the hospital, and you gave permission to treat her, that would be another whole set of problems.'

'I'll call Phyllis when our meeting is over and see what she thinks,” Connie said. “Maybe she can help me get certified as a temporary foster home. Besides, she must have experience dealing with children who don't have normal documentation.'

'I'm not sure I'd call Phyllis today,” Harriet offered, and then explained their encounter that morning.

'That's strange that Joseph pulled a no-show,” Robin said. “Delivering a child to adoptive parents isn't the kind of thing a social worker flakes on without a real good excuse.'

The doorbell rang, ending the discussion as Carla and Lauren both arrived. Connie took drink orders from everyone then handed Kissa off to her husband.

'Let's go into the family room and get started,” she said when Mavis had arrived and the drinks had been made and distributed. Jenny pulled a plastic bag from her quilting tote that turned out to be chocolate chip cookies.

'I thought a little chocolate might help us think,” she said with a smile as she handed the bag around.

Connie brought a large flannel-covered foam-core panel from her sewing room and set it in front of the fireplace, leaning it back against the mantle-her version of a portable design wall. One by one, the assembled women put their block or blocks on the board.

'Things are starting to look up,” Aunt Beth said.

Carla and Robin had taken Beth's and Mavis's idea of fussy-cutting the dog image from a print fabric and surrounding it with solid fabric of the same color as its original background, and then using the resulting isolated image to make the center of their star blocks.

'That technique looks better in the stars then in our snowballs, don't you think?” Beth said to Mavis.

'I agree,” Mavis concurred. “I think the snowballs with the smaller-scale print and the solid corners are the best of our lot.'

'They'll make a serviceable quilt, but they aren't going to win any prizes,” Beth said. She stuck her print snowball block next to Mavis's on the board.

'I like Lauren's doghouse,” Carla said in a quiet voice. “Connie's, too,” she added. “It looks hard to do, though.'

Lauren and Connie had worked with their landscape and dog prints, carefully cutting out dog faces and raw- edge appliqueing them into the door opening of the doghouses.

'It was easy,” Connie told Carla. “I cut out the dog face with my embroidery scissors then glued it to the doghouse door with a glue stick. I used clear nylon thread in my machine and ran a narrow zigzag stitch around the face and, voila!” She pointed at her block.

'I can't help but notice a big blank spot where Harriet's blocks should to be,” Lauren said and looked straight at her. “Aren't you supposed to be working on the super-secret design that is going to guarantee a win?'

Harriet pulled the paper mock-ups of her block from her bag and pinned them to the design wall. One was a basic tumbling block using medium-scale dog prints; the other included one side that had been cut to position a dog image on the block face.

'The color scheme isn't quite right yet, but I think you guys can see the general idea.'

'I think this has real potential,” Jenny said thoughtfully.

'Did everyone bring patterns and instructions for their blocks?” Mavis asked.

The group nodded and murmured their assent. Each person would do two blocks from each pattern, and then the original pair who had designed the block would assemble the quilt top.

'What shall we do about the dog bones?” Jenny asked, referring to her complicated applique block.

'I'm game,” Harriet said.

Connie, Mavis, Robin and Beth also volunteered to make the difficult blocks.

'I'd be willing to try,” Carla said. “I'm not sure the result would be usable, though. I'm still getting the hang of inside curves.'

Her face turned pink as she finished speaking.

'That's okay, honey,” Mavis said. “I had trouble with that myself when I was a beginner.'

'If we made them larger, we could do six blocks, each one with a different dog breed in the middle of the bone wreath, and it would make a nice wall hanging,” Jenny said.

'That sounds good,” Aunt Beth said. “Harriet, are you ready to hand out patterns for your tumbling blocks?'

'Not yet, but I'll make sure everyone has them by tomorrow night.'

'So, how are we going to handle Sarah?” Robin asked.

'I can check up on the Small Stitches,” Lauren volunteered. “The senior center staff is still having trouble with the new software. It's totally simple, but their employees don't want to use it. One of them is sabotaging the system. I'll probably still be going there this time next year.'

'We still have to tell Sarah something,” Robin said. “She's going to start wondering if we suddenly aren't having meetings, which is how it's going to seem to her if we keep meeting without her.'

'I think we should let her run with her dog-bone design,” Lauren said with a wicked smile.

'No one would believe we were really making a quilt from that block,” Mavis said.

'If the Small Stitches are willing to steal to try to win, they might bite,” Lauren argued. “And we know Sarah thinks it's a great design. She won't be able to keep quiet about it.'

'So what, exactly, are you proposing?” Aunt Beth asked.

'I think we should ask Sarah to make several variations of her block with different backgrounds. If the Stitches are stealing our ideas, they should show up with Sarah's very distinctive bone design.'

'But what about Sarah?” Carla asked. “What's going to happen when we don't make her quilt?'

'If Lauren verifies the Small Stitches are making the same quilt, we'll tell Sarah they copied her work and we therefore aren't going to do the same quilt.'

'What if they don't copy her block?” Harriet asked. “What do we do about Sarah?'

'That won't happen,” Lauren said. “If it does, just leave her to me.'

Right, Harriet thought. That wouldn't be pretty, but frankly, she had bigger fish to fry at the moment-like who had killed Neelie, and who might be next.

'Are you ever going to tell Sarah's dad they have a saboteur?'

'Oh, right, Harriet, I'm just some mercenary computer hacker who is collecting beaucoup bucks from Sarah's simple, unsuspecting parents.'

'I didn't say that,” Harriet said, trying hard to keep her voice neutral.

'It's what you meant, though. For your information, I've told them every way I can, including in writing both on paper and in an e-mail, which, by the way, they didn't read since they are among the worst when it comes to not using the computer system. They want the employees to use it, but not themselves.

'They refuse to consider the possibility one of their slavishly devoted work crew could do such a thing. So, I go each week and undo the mischief and collect my customary fee each and every time. And no, I don't feel a bit guilty about it.'

Harriet didn't know what to say. She'd didn't think she'd ever met Sarah's parents, but if they were anything like Sarah, she could see how Lauren's situation might have developed.

Lauren shook her head in disgust and turned away.

The meeting went on for another thirty minutes as the women exchanged the details that would insure each quilter would produce blocks that were all the same size and shape.

'We should get going,” Aunt Beth said when the discussion finally ebbed. “I'd like to stop at the police station on our way home.'

'Something I should know about?” Harriet asked, her curiosity piqued.

'Detective Morse called and asked me if I had the pattern for a slash-and-stitch baby quilt I showed her the other day. I told her I could drop it by today. Is that okay with you?'

'In principle, its fine, I just don't like the idea of you cozying up to a police detective, given what's going on.'