Cathedral Windows (5 page)

Chapter 10

“The woman at the coffee shop” Mrs. Davis had mentioned, the one who dropped the charges, was Carrie Brown, a member of my quilt group. Carrie had never talked about any thefts at Jitters, but then she probably wouldn't want to embarrass the kindergarten teacher.

“It was nothing,” Carrie told me as she handed me a hot chocolate and a snowman sugar cookie. “She pocketed one of the mugs we sell.” She pointed to a shelf of mugs, each featuring a logo of the shop on one side and a depiction of a mural I'd painted on the other. “Jesse was here, caught her red-handed as she walked out the door. I didn't think there was any point in pressing charges.” She grabbed a gingerbread man for herself and bit into his head. “What are you getting Jesse for Christmas, anyway? Have you decided?”

“No.” I'd forgotten about it actually.

“Why don't you make him something?'

“There's no time.” I'd figure out something, but that wasn't on today's agenda. “If you didn't press charges, why did Jesse write up a report on it?”

“After what happened at the school, I guess he figured he'd have to.”

“What happened at the school?”

“Some things went missing. A laptop and a teacher's cell phone. Mrs. Davis said Charlie had taken it. But then they reappeared a day later and the whole matter was dropped.”

“How do you know this and I don't?”

“I have two kids at the school and you don't,” she said. “So you and Jesse better get to it.”

That was another item that didn't make the day's agenda.

Laptops and cell phones seemed a jump for a woman who had only been caught with stolen thread and a mug. It was almost as if she were trying to get Charlie fired, clearing out two problems at once. Charlie wouldn't be the new baseball coach, and the school would need a third grade teacher. She must have lost her nerve, though, and brought the items back. Of course, if she couldn't go through with framing him, how could she burn his house down? The obvious answer was that she couldn't, but Mr. Davis just might have.

I finished my hot chocolate and walked out into the cold chill of winter. All around me streetlamps were dressed with red bows, and white lights were strung around trees. It should have put me in the holiday mood, but instead it was a vivid reminder that Christmas Eve was two days away, and all I had was a theory. That, and the absolute certainty that Charlie was an innocent man.

Chapter 11

That afternoon, ten minutes after the school bell had rung, Charlie's entire class came to the shop. With Eleanor supervising, the kids each began making their own cathedral windows blocks, hand-sewing the muslin over the colorful square to make a four-inch block. Natalie, Carrie, and a dozen other women in town joined them. My fears that Archers Rest would be put off by Charlie's possible motive turned out to be unfounded. We barely had room at the table.

“He was my paperboy,” one woman told me, “and when it rained he always got off his bike and put the newspaper between my front door and the screen. No one who would care that much about a paper would burn down his parents' house for money.”

Of course, she still believed he did burn down the house, but she explained it away as stress and grief. It was a start, but that kind of thinking wouldn't get Charlie out of jail.

As the day wore on, and customers joined in, more and more blocks were completed. Dru Ann took a pile back to the library and formed a second group of sewers there under the supervision of my grandmother's best friend, Maggie, the former librarian and the best hand-piecer in town.

With the shop hop still keeping the store crowded, Eleanor and I should have been thrilled with the potential sales. But to each of us, every quilter who came in the store was simply one more person to sew a square. Whether they bought anything hardly seemed to matter.

A woman I'd seen a few times before came into the shop near closing and piled several different bolts of fabric, all 1930s reproductions, on the cutting table. “What's going on back there in your classroom?”

“A group quilt,” I suggested. “Cathedral windows.”

“How big?”

“We have enough fabric to make it seven feet square.”

The woman's eyes widened. “The Mount Everest of quilting. I wouldn't even attempt one. It will take forever.”

“We need to be done by Christmas Eve.”

As she was about to comment on the foolishness of our efforts, one of our volunteers explained why we were working so hard. Within minutes the woman was on the phone to her guild in Morristown, with promises from the whole group to be at the shop when we opened in the morning. And people think we love quilting just because of the pretty fabric.

As we got ready to close the store that night, Jesse came, sat down at the table, and stabbed at a square of muslin, awkwardly stitching the piece but not stopping until it was finished. “It's the first constructive thing I've done all day,” he said.

“I think it's Bill Davis. If he gets rid of Charlie, his wife takes over his slot in the third grade, and he saves his coaching job,” I said. “I just can't prove it.”

“There are easier ways to get a man fired than arson.”

“Maybe. But someone did burn down that house and they're the only ones with a motive.”

Jesse shook his head. “Not the only ones.”

“It isn't Charlie.”

Eleanor dropped her finished square into the growing pile. “How is he doing?”

“He's sad and a bit confused,” Jesse said, “and he doesn't want to stay in jail.”

“So let's bail him out,” Eleanor suggested.

“Judge won't set bail until December twenty-sixth. If you want him out, you have to prove he didn't do it.”

I looked up at the clock. In an hour it would be midnight. And forty-two hours after that, the party would be set to start. I was running out of time.

* * *

It was dumb and pointless; I conceded that right from the start, but I wanted to look at Charlie's house again.

The next morning I got up early and walked into town. There was no snow, but it was cold. The sting against my cheeks made me feel more awake, so I didn't mind. I got to Charlie's block just as the kids were headed to school, and the parents to work. Jacob's dad waved to me from across the street, and Emily ran over to ask about Charlie before getting on the school bus.

“He misses you guys,” I told her. “But he'll be back soon, I hope.”

“We're coming after school, and we have a surprise that will make Mr. Lofton really happy.” She ran back to the bus, skipping. I hoped she was right.

I went around to the back of Charlie's house. I had no equipment and no way to determine if someone had left fingerprints or other evidence. I was just looking and hoping that something would leap out and give me the answer I needed.

In daylight, it was easy to see what had happened. There were remnants of what Charlie had thrown out back: old furniture, drapes, a few boxes from the attic. Everything was burned, but the darkest spot was near the bottom of the pile and on the side farthest from the kitchen. It seemed a waste of time to start the fire there if the intention was to torch the house. Maybe Bill Davis had only meant to warn Charlie and it got out of hand. If that was the case, then perhaps if I talked to him he would admit his error.

Starting a fire was bad enough, but letting an innocent man go to prison was something I hoped even someone as ill-tempered as Bill Davis wouldn't do.

* * *

“You think I have something to do with what happened to Charlie's house?” Davis looked about to explode when I'd stopped by his classroom at lunchtime.

“I'm asking, since you obviously don't like him.”

Davis stood up from his chair and rolled up his shirtsleeves, making the task menacing with each movement. He was trying to intimidate me. And it was working. “You think I would do that?”

“I think you want your wife to get Charlie's job when the kindergarten class joins up with Morristown. I think you know she tried to frame Charlie with the stolen laptop and cell phone. Mr. Bell was about to make Charlie the new baseball coach . . .”

“So I burn his house down?” Bill Davis took a step toward me. I took a step back. I was up against the whiteboard and feeling nervous, but I intended to stand my ground.

“If you didn't intend for it to go this far, then you tell Jesse. There'll be consequences, but it's better than living with the idea that Charlie's life has been ruined. Isn't it?'

“It's one thing to do your little quilt project, but to accuse a man of my standing.” He was red and growing redder with each second. “Charlie burned his own house down for the insurance money. The whole town knows that.”

“No, he didn't. And what the whole town knows is that Charlie is a good man who needs help. And that's what a town like Archers Rest is supposed to do, help each other. It's why Carrie and my grandmother let your wife quietly walk away after she shoplifted. It's why Jesse kept the file in his desk instead of putting it in the cabinet where the other officers could see it. We help each other, Mr. Davis, and we forgive each other. We'll forgive you if you started the fire as a warning and it got out of hand. Just tell the truth.”

He didn't blink, but it seemed tears were starting behind his eyes. “Get out of my classroom,” he said.

I stood still for a minute, but it was clear I was wasting my time. I'd tried, and failed. I left the classroom with no other ideas. The town's Christmas Eve fund-raiser, the party for Charlie, was in less than twenty-four hours and we would be without a guest of honor.

Chapter 12

Someday Quilts had become Santa's workshop, with only one gift—a large, handmade quilt. Charlie's class showed up with the students from the fourth and fifth grades. The Morristown woman from the night before brought her entire quilt group. The mayor, most of the Archers Rest Police Department, and at least a dozen strangers were sewing squares in every available space we had.

By seven o'clock we were only nineteen squares short of the 441 we needed. Half of the quilt had been assembled, and there were enough coffee and donuts supplied by Jitters to keep us all awake until the last piece had been sewn. Natalie took photos of the whole thing, explaining that perhaps these new photographs would help Charlie feel less bad about the ones he had lost in the fire. That got the mayor and several others talking about other ways to help Charlie once the quilt was done. Everyone was excited about seeing his face when we presented him with his grandmother's quilt, completed with the love of a whole town.

I didn't have the heart to tell them we might have to give it to him in jail.

* * *

Just when it seemed that all of Archers Rest was in the shop, the door opened and Bill and Julie Davis walked in.

“I can only sew a straight stitch,” Mrs. Davis said.

“And I can't sew at all,” Bill Davis added. “But we're here, and we'll help. You're wrong, Nell, what you said this afternoon. Completely wrong. But you were right about helping neighbors, and Charlie is that.” He stammered a little, then found his way again, “Maybe I was a little upset that there was talk of letting him coach, and maybe Julie did think that she was the better person to take over the third grade, but we didn't hurt him. And we don't want to see him ruined. So we're here to help.”

I didn't say anything. I was afraid I might cry if I did. So I just nodded and let Eleanor bring them fabric and explain what needed to be done. When we were nearing the last of the squares, a gasp went up.

“We're out of colored pieces,” Carrie said, “and we need one more to finish it.”

I looked at the kids working hard at their blocks; their parents who had come to pick them up had instead joined them.

Eleanor laughed. “I think we can find something.”

“It has to be special,” Jacob told her.

I went to my purse and got the small blue square I'd taken away from Emily and Jacob on the day I'd taught them to quilt. “What if we use this?” I asked. “Would that be okay?'

“Perfect,” Emily said.

Jacob nodded his agreement, so I gave him the square to sew into block. “Do you think he's okay?” Jacob asked.

“I hope so.”

“Why doesn't he just bust out? He's a superhero, that's what you said.”

“Not a superhero, a regular hero. Someone who does the right thing.”

“Oh.” Jacob's face fell.

“What do you think Mr. Lofton can do, Jacob?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I thought, maybe he could just make everything okay.” Jacob reached deep into the pocket of his jeans, pulling out a few coins, a blue glass ball, and a tissue, until he found a button with a Superman logo on it. “Maybe this will make him a superhero.”

I took the button, wishing that at least for a while we could all live in the world of a nine-year-old, but as Jacob reached for the rest of his things, I stopped him. I took the small glass ball and held it up. It wasn't a ball; it was a top, cobalt blue, a perfect match for the missing needle holder. I crouched down and gently asked him, “Jacob, where did you get this?”

Jacob's eyes widened. “I found it.”

“I know blue is your favorite color, so when you saw this, you picked it up, right?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

The little boy burst into tears.

* * *

The next night, we opened the doors to the library at six, with most of the town, and some new friends—out-of-town shop hoppers turned square makers—crowding inside. At six-thirty, Jesse brought Charlie over from the police station. The men's store in town had sent some new clothes to the jail, and Charlie's shoes squeaked a little as he walked in. He was expecting a fund-raiser for the Morristown Fire Department, and as much as he didn't want to be around a lot of people, he'd agreed to go to offer his thanks for the work they'd done trying to save his house.

What he got was a giant surprise party.

The Christmas tree was filled with prettily wrapped gifts, all with his name on them—there were clothes, household items, gently used furniture, even a television set donated by the police department. Bernie had offered the empty apartment above her shop, rent free, until he was back on his feet.

The woman who had once been on Charlie's paper route gave him a toaster. “I thought you had done it,” she confessed, “but I didn't care because I knew you were a good man. I thought you were just confused.” Behind her the rest of the town nodded in agreement.

Charlie didn't seem to mind what people had thought. In fact, it was all the more touching to him that they stuck by him regardless. As the evening wore on, and more gifts were opened, I could see he was trying to hold back the tears, but he was the only one. Everyone was crying a little, including me. Folks who had known Charlie's parents brought copies of photos they had from the years they'd spent as friends and neighbors, reassembling a lifetime of lost memories. Richard Bell, the school's vice principal, not only offered Charlie his job back but promised to find the funds to expand his science club and recommended Charlie as Bill's assistant coach. I wondered how Bill would take to that idea, but he shook Charlie's hand and said he'd be grateful for the help, which seemed to mean as much to Charlie as the sheets and towels Bill and Judy brought as a gift.

The third grade class presented their nine-patch quilt as their Christmas present. Jacob didn't want to come, but when Charlie had heard what had happened the night of the fire, he'd insisted.

Jacob, we'd learned through his sobs the night before, had started the fire with the lighter he'd pinched off Charlie's desk when we weren't looking. The pile of junk meant nothing to him, and he hoped that it would prove to the town that we needed our own fire department. He'd chosen Charlie's house to set the fire instead of his own because Charlie was a superhero, and Jacob thought Charlie could put out the fire before any damage had been done. He had no idea the dry wood and old drapes would so quickly catch to the back of the house. He'd been waiting in vain for Charlie to don his uniform and make everything okay again.

“Mistakes happen,” Charlie told the little boy. “And friends share the good times and the bad.”

“And we share something else.” I took out one last box, quite large, with an envelope attached, reading, “To Charlie, from the people who love you.” Inside the envelope were Natalie's photographs of the dozens of people who had sewn squares for Charlie.

Puzzled by the photos, he opened the box and pulled out the cathedral windows quilt. He stared at it for a long time. “It's beautiful,” he said. “I can see why my grandmother wanted to make a quilt like this.”

Jacob pointed out the blue square. “This is my fabric, mine and Emily's. We wanted you to have it.”

Charlie stroked the small square. “It's my favorite one.” As he spoke, tears began to stream from his eyes. “I feel like I just came home tonight.”

“Home to stay, I hope,” my grandmother said.

He nodded and hugged the quilt tight to him.

I had to take a step back and catch my breath. As I did I felt Jesse's arm around me.

“You did a good thing,” he said.

I wrapped my arms around his waist. “In all the excitement, I forgot to get you a Christmas present.”

He looked back at Charlie, and at his whole town gathered in one place. “No, you didn't.”