Fool's Puzzle Read Free

handyman and full-time goof-off, had been hired by Constance Sinclair, zealous patron of Central California arts and richest lady in the county. The Josiah Sinclair Folk Art Museum, named for her great-grandfather, was currently one of her favorite projects. Eric, the footloose son of some acquaintance of hers, was another.
    She felt all he needed to discover what he should do with his life was the encouragement of an older, wiser person and the structure of a regular job. It was my opinion that at twenty-four he was already doing his life, but maybe that was jealousy talking.
    Until three months ago, my last official employment had been fifteen years before, serving the graveyard shift at Hogie’s Truckstop Cafe out on old Highway One. I’d had to compete with five people for the job as curator, and though low-paying and possessing no benefits except the freedom of flexible hours and dressing as I pleased, I was proud of it. Although my fossilized degree in American History was a rather dubious qualification, it was something.
    Eric, on the other hand, was one of those people who tripped through life letting others clear the path for him, and with his dark, Lord Byron looks and bad-boy smile, he always had someone, usually female, willing to Teflon the way.
    Flipping off the radio, I walked across the red-brick patio in back to the hacienda’s old stables, now the co-op studios and museum offices. In the main studio, the activity of the artists reflected the weather, dark and frenzied.
    “Benni, when is the other kiln going to be fixed?” called one of the potters, a thin, nervous man whose slick, clay-covered hands deftly pulled an elegant vase skyward from a greenish mass of porcelain. “And the other wheel? There’s a lot of people waiting. And what are you going to do if the rain doesn’t stop?”
    “l’ve called three repairmen in Santa Barbara,” I said. “The cheapest wants a hundred bucks just to drive up and look at them. We can’t afford it until we bring in some money.”
    His dark, goateed face frowned. “People are depending on this. Can’t you get Constance to spring for it?”
    “You know the co-op is supposed to be self-supporting. I can’t go running to Constance every time something breaks.”
    He grunted, eyed the vase with a scowl and turned off the wheel.
    “I’ll try again,” I said. “And I’m working on the rain angle. Has anyone seen Eric?”
    “Last I saw, he was heading toward the woodshop or your office,” a woman at one of the quilt frames said.
    “Thanks,” I said and leaned over to inspect the quilt they were working on. “Robbing Peter to Pay Paul?”
    The quilters laughed. “Right again,” one of them said.
    It was a game we had going the three months I’d worked here. I prided myself on my ability to recognize almost any traditional quilt pattern. It was knowledge I’d picked up from the infamous Aunt Garnet on visits with Dove to Arkansas when I was growing up. I walked down the hallway past the rows of workrooms, stopping briefly to peek into the woodshop. Inhaling the sweet, pine-scented air, I smiled at the rows of primary-colored rocking horses lined up and ready for their future owners, and waved at Ray, the only occupant this early. A big-shouldered man with a red walrus mustache, he was a talented carver of duck decoys and one of the most genial members of the co-op. He waved back and gave me a bushy grin.
    Opening the door to my small office, I caught my quarry enthusiastically pounding away on my word processor. His latest venture, a university extension course in writing romance novels, had caused problems between us before.
    “Eric,” I said, “we have to get those quilts hung today. You know the pre-showing is Friday night. Can’t you do that on your own time?”
    He looked up at me with sleepy, thick-lashed, brown eyes even I had to admit were sexy. “Tell me what you think. ‘Dack’s tongue thrust into her ear like a dental probe. Cassandra