EQ Mystery Quilt - Episode 6
THE MYSTERY OF THE MISSING QUILT (6)
A Mystery by Megan McMorris
EPISODE SIX: IS THIS APARTMENT BUGGED?
An exterminator on the Trade Winds Museum Board? This investigation must be driving Mitzi buggy!
Now she's actually inviting suspects into her apartment... Read on...
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Yes, mystery lovers, read on! Our mystery unfolds all during the year in a continuing series posted monthly here
on our Home Page...
In February we introduced our mystery. You met our narrator,
young Brooklyn-based "Quilt Detective," Mitzi McDruben, along with her faithful receptionist Ruthie, and able assistant, Raoul.
Mitzi took on her first quilt case: The Mystery of the Missing Quilt.
Her mission? To find a missing quilt. Her time frame? Exactly eleven days.
Her problem? No
one knows what the missing quilt looks like! In this month's episode, Mitzi
poses as an apartment dweller in need of pest control, in order to investigate
Donnie Delgado, the fifth of eleven suspects on the Trade Winds Museum Board.
Read a new mystery episode each month as Mitzi searches for clues leading
to the missing quilt.
Following each episode, take the Secret Passage to
receive your instructions for making or finding eleven different quilt
blocks in EQ5 or EQ6.
During the final episode, Mitzi solves the mystery, and YOU discover how to put your blocks together in EQ5 or EQ6 to form a secret "Sky Lights" mystery quilt.
Our "Sky Lights" quilt
was designed especially for EQ learning fun by Fran Iverson
Gonzalez from
Edmond, Oklahoma.
Our mystery series was written by Megan McMorris,
a Free-lance author from Portland, Oregon.
And now, grab your gumshoes. Tilt back your chair. But keep one eye on the door as you get ready to solve...The
Mystery of the Missing Quilt!
Episode Six: Is this Apartment Bugged?
The harsh buzzer nearly JOLTED me out of my seat. Even after
two years of living in this apartment, I still can't
get used to the sudden assault of noise that some would call a buzzer. Whatever
happened to the pleasant "ding
dong's" of my youth? I wondered as I rose from my futon.
"Ouch! Mitzi!!," Raoul exclaimed from the neighboring futon (I like to keep my furniture simple--no overstuffed floral couches for me, thanks). "That's your buzzer?! It sounds like a burglar alarm or something!"
I shot him a slit-eyed look as I opened my door. "Watch it, buddy. You're in my 'hood now."
Raoul finds it humorous that I affectionately call my neighborhood a 'hood (even though I do live in a decidedly 'hood-ey part of Brooklyn, I proudly admit).
He held his hands up in a surrender. "Wouldn't want to mess
with your 'hood,
now would I?" We like to joke around before a big case--it
keeps us alert. You
never know when alertness will come in handy.
After all, I was officially letting Suspect
Number Five into my apartment--namely,
Donnie Delgado of Acme Exterminators.
"Acme Exterminators ...you got bugs, we're on the
job....roaches, water bugs, you name it, we take care of
it...would you like to take advantage of our free
consultation this month?" A voice answered the phone the day
before,
sounding suspiciously like Miss DePesto from the Moonlighting television
series.
So that's what happened to her when the show got cancelled,
I thought to
myself. Can you imagine having to answer the phone like that every
time the
phone rang? It would certainly serve as quite the appetite suppressant,
if you
know what I mean.
Aloud, I rustled up my best helpless female impression as I informed
her that
yes, I'd love to take advantage of the consultation because
gosh, I just can't seem to get rid of those pesky buggies. And
while we were at it, might I request the services of a specific
de-bugger who had proven oh-so-helpful to my friend?
That's how Donnie Delgado came to stand on my front stoop,
looking
somehow un-exterminator like. (I don't know what I expected--perhaps
a
Ghostbuster-type contraption strapped across the gentleman's back?)
Delgado looked like your average accountant on a Casual Friday:
jeans and
t-shirt, short brown hair with wire-rimmed glasses. At his feet
sat a shiny red
toolbox (I could only imagine what goodies were in that one). He
held a
clipboard, which he peered at now.
"Miss... Miller?" He looked up shyly.
"That's me," I confirmed my alias, stepping aside to
let him into the hallway. "You're on time!"
I tried not to sound too surprised (although I was--usually
when servicey-type
people say the standard "I'll be there between 2 and 6" that
generally means you
can count on them to show up at 7, if you're lucky! Guess they
figure a bug
problem in New York City is more urgent than getting cable or an
extra phone
jack.)
He laughed. "Everyone always sounds so surprised," he
said, smiling.
I let him in to the apartment, closing the door behind me. Raoul
and I had
decided that it would be better if both of us were around. (The
last time I was in an apartment alone with a suspect, things got
a little shady for a second. I can certainly hold my own, but I've
learned not to argue with a little backup. This quilt business
could be a little more serious than we bargained for).
As I let Delgado in, though, I felt a little silly as I introduced
Raoul as my
friend---Delgado certainly didn't appear to be much of a threat
with his toolbox
and wire-rimmed glasses.
Between the three of us (Ruthie, Raoul and I), my apartment had
seemed like
the best candidate for an exterminator's services. My apartment
building is
hardly a shiny new highrise, and Ruthie still lives in Queens with
her parents
(who I didn't want to endanger). Raoul lives in The Bronx (which
I personally
thought qualified for a thorough bug check, if you ask me. No one
did, so I
offered my place).
Delgado set down his toolbox, which my cat Maxine immediately
spotted as a
good candidate for intense sniffing.
"Go get 'em, Maxine!" I thought. "Sniff 'em
out. Tell us if he's got the Mystery Quilt."
"Heh, heh," Delgado crouched down briefly for an obligatory
pat---he'd
obviously learned that a quick way to a client's heart is by appreciating
their
pet. Although if he decided to surrender the Mystery Quilt, that
wouldn't be too
bad, either.
Instead, he stood at attention, eyes flicking across the ceiling.
(I hate it when people do that--makes me nervous, kinda like when
Maxine stares at the wall
and you wonder if cats really can see ghosts.)
"What I'm going to do is check out your structure, see where the
bugs are
coming from, then I'll ask you a few questions and together we'll
put together a plan of action," he said, looking at me to give him approval.
You'd think the guy was planning a war or something!
"No problem, I'll be right here," I plopped down on
the futon next to Raoul,
turning on the t.v. with the remote. I wanted it to seem like we
were actually
doing something other than observing him.
With my go-ahead, Delgado took his clipboard and promptly disappeared
into
my bathroom. I tried to remember when I'd last replaced my Combat
traps, and
felt guilty when I realized it had probably been two months ago
(which is "the
limit" in Combat-ese).
Delgado appeared again, scribbling notes and nodding to himself
before
continuing in the kitchen.
If I'd realized my apartment would have been subject to such scrutiny,
I
would've bought some new traps to win points with the guy. (Kinda
like when
you do some last-minute cleaning before the housekeeper arrives
so he/she
won't think you're such a slob?) Clearly this was a man who took
his job
seriously.
But this was no time for vanity. "So, how long have you been
an
exterminator?" I called out to him over the MTV video which
Raoul had turned
to. Raoul raised his eyebrows at me and I shrugged. Hey, anything
to get the
guy talking. My previous suspects had been quite the chatterboxes.
I was beginning to wonder if silence wasn't
the language of the guilty.
"Going on 10 years now," he answered as he emerged from the
kitchen holding
my kitchen plug. "Do you use this?"
"Ah, yes! But of course!" In truth, this was a rare day when
I didn't have dishes piled in the sink. To even see the bottom
of the sink, let alone put the plug in place, wasn't an everyday
occurrence.
"I ask because it doesn't properly fit in the drain. It looks like
a bathtub plug. That could be one problem."
He disappeared again. Raoul snickered as I firmly placed an elbow
in his side. I
wanted more question-and-answer period, less examining Mitzi's
household
skills, if you don't mind.
I was just beginning to get up and ask Delgado some pertinent
questions of my
own when he appeared from my kitchen. He went to his red toolbox
then,
taking out a red pen. Making a few notes on his clipboard, he turned
it around
so I could see. The guy had practically drawn up a floorplan of
my apartment,
complete with red markings which noted bug havens.
Unbelievable! I felt like I should get him a pointer and a chalkboard
as he
launched into his speech ... with me sitting on one of those plastic-backed
chairs of schoolrooms.
"As you can see here, the red dots indicate potential problems." He
used his pen
as his pointer. "I only investigated the kitchen and bathroom,
because if you get those under control, you're all set. Now, just
because you may not see bugs
doesn't mean you don't have them. The key is to block any holes
you have, this
includes drains, crevices, what have you."
I shivered visibly. This was a little more information than I'd
bargained for.
"By leaving holes open, you're practically inviting the bugs
in. Now it helps
that you have a cat, but don't think that alone will stop them.
These little
fellows are shameless. I could tell you stories," he started
gesturing with his
clipboard.
"That's quite all right," I intervened. No need to get
carried away.
He reached into his toolbox and got out some wire mesh. "I
highly recommend
this for plugging up any holes you have in the walls and baseboards," he
said,
shaking a little square of mesh in the air. "You can get this
at any store. Put
some boric acid in the hole, fill 'er up with wire mesh and end
it with some
caulk so you can paint over it. This is an old building, lots of
holes. But you can fight back!"
So we were going to war after all. War against the scuttly creatures
of the
world. I felt a need to grab a flag of some sort and start marching
as he
continued his speech.
"Now, you can do two things at this point. I can do the work
myself now, or I
can come back at a later time. Acme is really starting to branch
into the
prevention area, which includes blocking up holes like we discussed,
because
they realize that most of the problem is that people are inviting
bugs into their home."
"I think you'll find that Acme really has a different approach
than your standard exterminator," he continued. "In fact," again,
he reached into his shiny red toolbox, "Acme has even gone
so far as to trademark a special type of wire mesh. If you look
closely," he held up a square and separated it slowly, "you
can see that the structure of mesh is completely revolutionary.
Now, I don't know how much experience you have with mesh, but everyday
mesh is very
simple in structure, made up of little squares. Acme Mesh, however,
is made up
of what we call square chains, because they actually twist around
like a chain
does. You watch a bug try getting through this mesh," he nodded
knowingly, as
if the sight wasn't pretty. "We like to call it the bane of
a bug's existence."
You couldn't mistake the look on Raoul's face, which matched my
confusion.
The kid had memorized the major quilt blocks by now, and we had
Ruthie
standing by at the office in case we were stuck. But we'd covered
the square
chain territory before.
Could this be the clue--could there be a Square Chain, Part Deux?--or was it just a
strange coincidence?
Or was it a setup?
"I'd like to think about it for a little bit," I said. "Do
you have a card?"
Delgado reached in his jeans pocket and pulled out a card, complete
with a bug
being squashed underfoot a huge man sporting an Acme t-shirt. Pleasant
image. "Ask about our wire mesh," said a balloon on the card.
"Remember, you've got to let them know they're not welcome.
Bugs don't take
a hint too easily--subtlety isn't their strong point. So give me
a call when you've decided."
I shook hands with him, and with that, Donnie Delgado took his
shiny red
toolbox and left the vicinity. I shut the door behind me as Raoul
struggled to
get out of the futon (those things kind of suck you in when you
sit in them
sometimes).
"Is it just me, or did you feel like we got basically no
information about the
guy?" Raoul asked.
"No, kid, it's not just you. Delgado was a closed book. I
got no sense of who he
is, except for his handy talent for de-bugging the place."
"Yeah, just remember this--you might not see the bugs, but
that doesn't mean
they're not there, Mitzi," Raoul laughed as he went into the
hall before me.
"Thanks for reminding me, buddy," I shut the door behind
me, joining him in
the hall. We left my apartment, en route to the office and Ruthie,
who was no
doubt waiting eagerly to hear how our case went. I wasn't feeling
so eager,
though-- even though we'd discovered another block, and the quilt
was filling
in nicely, I still had too many questions...
Just who was this mystery man? What was
his connection to quilts? And why on earth
was
he on the the Trade Winds Museum
Board? I had no idea, and it really bugged
me...
To be continued...
Will Mitzi ever discover Delgado's reason for being on the
Trade Winds Museum Board? Will she and Raoul still
celebrate with a pizza after all this talk of bugs? And
speaking of bugs, does Mitzi's apartment have them?
Mitzi puts another quilt block into her clue list next month
when she continues her search in the Mystery of the
Missing Quilt.
Now YOU help Mitzi out by finding and coloring the
Squared Chain and Nine-Patch variation block in EQ5 or EQ6.
You'll find step-by-step instructions in Mystery Quilt
Lesson #6.
Skip to Lesson 6 (for EQ5/EQ6). -->
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