3 Revenge of the Crafty Corpse Read Free Page B

agreement from me, she wasn’t getting one. I’d suffered my share of bullies over the years, first as a child and later in the workplace. Reggie Koltzner had my sympathies. “Maybe she needs a mentor,” I suggested.
    “A mentor? The last thing I need is tying up one of my nurses to hand-hold an incompetent aide. That girl’s already on probation after the stunt she pulled last week. One more strike and she’s out of here.”
    “Stunt?”
    Shirley waved my question away. “Sorry. Patient confidentiality. But nothing you need to worry about as far as your mother-in-law is concerned.”
    Her assurance aside, I wondered about the wisdom of leaving Lucille in Reggie’s obviously less-than-competent hands but reasoned Shirley wouldn’t risk Lucille’s well-being. She’d be crazy to set herself up for a lawsuit. Whatever the stunt , I doubted it had anything to do with patient safety.
    I took my leave of Shirley Hallstead with the excuse of having to get to work. We walked out of Lucille’s room together; Shirley turned left toward her office, and I headed right for the exit. As I passed the front desk, though, I stopped. “Which way to the needlecraft class?” I asked the receptionist.
    “Down that hall, through the double doors,” she said, indicating the direction with a wave of her pen. “It’s the second room on your left.”
    “Thanks.” Shirley’s objections aside, if I checked out the class for an article, I was on Trimedia’s dime. All in the name of research. I wouldn’t have to give up half a day’s pay for picking up Lucille at the hospital and transporting her to Sunnyside this morning. I’d used up my few personal and sick days for the calendar year way back in February when my not-so-dearly departed husband left Las Vegas in a pine box.
    The door was propped open, so I stood in the hall and surveyed the room, a space at least three times the size of a normal classroom and divided up for different purposes. One corner was dedicated to drawing and painting, another to sculpture and pottery. Four large worktables with chairs filled the center of the room.
    At the opposite end of the room two dozen elderly women, ranging in age between early retirement all the way up to ancient, congregated around four more tables and worked on a variety of needlework projects. Three women hunched over whirring sewing machines positioned along the far wall.
    I spied Lyndella Wegner holding court amid a group of three other women. Both her mouth and her hands worked at warp speed. I don’t think I could crochet that fast if my life depended on it, and I was more than half her age.
    “May I help you?” A very pregnant woman with a riot of strawberry blonde curls and a face full of freckles waddled toward me from the side of the room. When she stood about three feet away, she stopped and stared. Her jaw dropped; her eyes grew wide. “Anastasia Periwinkle?”
    I stared back, wondering how this woman knew me.
    “You don’t recognize me, do you?”
    I shook my head. “Afraid not.”
    She spread her arms wide. “It’s me. Kara Kennedy.”
    Kara Kennedy ? I knew that name. Then it hit me. Kara Kennedy. Oh. My. God.
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    fabric yo-yos
    Did you have visions of a colorful rounded plastic spool, a piece of twisted string, and tricks like Around the World and Walk the Dog when Anastasia mentioned Lyndella’s yo-yo cardigan sweater? Rest assured, Lyndella wasn’t wearing dozens of toys hot glued to her sweater. Instead, her cardigan was embellished with fabric yo-yos.
    These yo-yos are circles of fabric gathered into rosettes. They’re an ideal way to use up scraps of fabric left over from other projects. The fabric yo-yo is incredibly versatile and can be used as either a decorative embellishment or sewn together to create both wearables and home décor accents. Anastasia will share a variety of yo-yo projects throughout the pages of this book. For now, here’s how to make a basic