Dire Threads (22 page)

“The river may not flood,” I tried.

Opal slowed through a puddle covering most of the road. “That’s optimistic.”

My next ploy was changing the subject. I told them about my experience in the ladies’ room and the threats that Rhonda and her friend had aimed at my stall door.

Haylee said, “After you went in there, Rhonda and an equally mean-looking woman talked and gestured for a long time outside the room before they followed you in.”

Edna chirped, “They must have been plotting what to say for your benefit. Uttering threats is against the law. You should report them.”

Haylee gurgled with laughter. “How are we going to explain to Uncle Allen about snooping on other women in the john?”

Edna got all huffy. “We wouldn’t need to. It’s none of his business. Or the state police’s, either.”

After Opal parked behind Tell a Yarn, the other four women insisted on coming to my yard to assess the river. They didn’t want to track through my store, so I unlocked the gate, and we slipped and slid down the mud-slicked hill.

Uncle Allen hadn’t lied. The river looked to be about two feet above its normal level, and mini icebergs battered against one another in the rushing water.

I wanted my friends to get some sleep. “It’s not that bad,” I said. “The river’s still almost a foot below the trail.”
But at this rate . . .

Opal clucked with disapproval. “It’s best to be prepared. Now, how shall we do this? We’ll want to be together while we sew.”

Haylee wiped wet hair out of her eyes. “I have the biggest shop, and lots of unsold fabrics that I need to get rid of. Plus my classroom has enough sewing machines, so you won’t have to bring your own. Or scissors or thread. Just come as soon as you’re ready.”

“It’s after nine,” I pointed out.

Naomi patted my arm. “We can get lots done and still have time to sleep.”

Make, fill, and pile sandbags in only a few hours?

But Haylee was right. There was no arguing with The Three Weird Mothers. Totally determined, they marched up the hill and out through my gate. I locked it behind them, then supervised the dogs’ outing, as short and mudless as possible. When they were inside and reasonably clean and dry, I hauled a surprisingly large number of remnants from my stash.

I kissed the dogs good night, then carried the fabrics up to my shop, where I turned on lights and collected the partially used spools of embroidery thread I’d been accumulating, all different colors. Embroidery thread wasn’t as strong as sewing thread, but the stitching had to hold for only a couple of days. And I’d be contributing something to the enterprise besides labor.

Through a blur of rain pattering on my front windows, I made out brightly lit windows across the street in The Stash. The sandbag seamstresses must be gathering.

A gust of wind blew the front door open.

Last I knew, that door had been shut.

And locked.

22

M
Y HEART RATE DOUBLED. I KNEW I had locked the front door when I’d left for the roast beef dinner.

Glancing nervously outside in case someone was on my porch, I made my way to the open door. The glass section of the door was unbroken, but the metal framing it and the jamb were both dented near the latch. The deadbolt wouldn’t keep the door closed, let alone locked.

Quickly, I checked my display of sewing and embroidery machines. None were missing. The storeroom where I kept new machines was locked. I looked inside, anyway. Everything seemed fine.

I dialed Uncle Allen. He was probably in the community hall again, contributing to Mike’s favorite causes. I left him a message, adding, “I’ll be across the street at The Stash.”

I phoned Clay. He answered on the first ring. “Willow!” He sounded glad to hear my voice, and despite being stressed, I smiled.

I told him about my door and asked him if he could fix it. My breathless request sounded needy. I backtracked. “I’m not sure when Uncle Allen will get here, and he should see the damage first.”

“I’ll come over now, anyway. Are Sally and Tally okay?”

“They were shut in the apartment while I was gone and were their usual selves when I returned, like they hadn’t noticed anything unusual. As far as I can tell, nothing’s missing. I’m going to close the front door as best I can and go over to Haylee’s to work on a . . .” I didn’t want to tell him about the sandbags. He might think I was asking him for yet more help. “A sewing project.”

Clay promised to meet me at Haylee’s.

I went outside, pulled the door shut, and wedged a fold of cardboard into it to keep it in place. Hugging my armload of sewing things, I dashed through pouring rain to The Stash. For once ignoring all the beautiful spring fabrics Haylee had for sale, I jogged toward her classroom, only to be stopped by a horrible ripping sound and an evil cackle.

I almost dropped all my remnants and spools in the doorway. Haylee, Opal, Naomi, and Edna all wore wigs. Long, straight black hair. Witches’ wigs.

“I love this,” Edna crowed, ripping about eighteen inches of yellow calico from its bolt. She and her two best friends cackled. Haylee merely rolled her eyes and shook her head.

I couldn’t help giggling. “Double, double, toil and trouble?”

Edna let out another huge cackle. “Take this strip and fold it double.” She tossed the folded fabric onto a table with others like it, except that some were purple gingham and some were garish Halloween prints.

I envied Haylee that big classroom. Four tables faced each other in a square, with at least one sewing machine or serger on each table, and room for more. Haylee was at a serger, while Naomi and Opal sat at sewing machines. They quickly stitched down the open side of the folded fabrics, then across the bottom. They didn’t turn the bags, since it wouldn’t matter if the seam allowances showed. They did, however, make certain that the brightest colors would be on the outside.

“Sewing machine or serger?” Haylee asked me. Her black wig was slightly askew.

“Sewing machine. I wouldn’t know what to do if a serger needed new thread.”

Haylee laughed triumphantly. “You need to come to my classes.”

“And maybe buy a serger from you, too,” I said.

Haylee finished another bag. “That’d be nice.”

I let go of my multihued embroidery threads. “I brought these. Help yourselves.”

Everyone oohed.

I sat down and began stitching. Someone stomped into Haylee’s front room and hollered, “Miss Vanderling!” Uncle Allen. The other four women gasped and whipped off their wigs. Since when did their clowning embarrass them? Haylee, Opal, and Naomi sat on their wigs. Edna looked wildly around, then dropped hers behind long rolls of fabric leaning into a corner. “Miss?” she repeated in a loud and quivering whisper. “Is he here to arrest you?” Her pale green curls had been smashed by the wig.

I held up a placating palm. “It’s okay. Someone broke into In Stitches while we were at dinner. I’ll explain later.” I dashed away from sympathetic groans and startled questions.

I joined a very soggy Uncle Allen beside Haylee’s door. From behind us came a loud
riiiiiiip
. Uncle Allen swiveled to gaze suspiciously toward Haylee’s classroom. “What was that?”

Fortunately, no one cackled. “Fabric ripping.”

“I thought they were sewing.”

“They are.”

“First they sew, then they tear it apart?”

“No, first we rip, then we sew.”

He opened the door. “I’ll never understand women. Show me this supposed break-in.”

Supposed? It was very real.
Stay calm, Willow,
I reminded myself,
don’t let him push your buttons.

The pouring rain seemed to push his. He cursed when we crossed the street. On my front porch, he demanded peevishly, “You went off and left your door hanging open like this?”

“No.” I picked up the fold of cardboard. “I wedged it shut, but the wind must have blown it open again.” Water dripped down the back of my neck. “Somebody broke in.” I led him inside and turned on the lights.

“How’d you know that?

“See the pry marks?”

“You didn’t forget your key and have to break in to your own place?”

“Of course not. All of my doors have deadbolts. I can’t lock them without keys.” I held them up and jingled them to show that I hadn’t lost them, either.

“Anything missing?”

It was hard to spot something that should be in a well-stocked store but wasn’t. Scissors? Gold embroidery thread? “Not that I know of.”

Clay’s truck eased into a puddle beside the curb.

Uncle Allen looked outside. “There’s your culprit. He was in and out of this store all the time it was being renovated.”

That was hardly surprising, since he’d been the one doing the renovating. Still, I knew not to rule out potential suspects without proof, a lesson Uncle Allen did not seem to have learned.

He persisted. “He may have kept a key to your place. He wasn’t at that dinner, was he?”

“I didn’t see him. If he had a key, he wouldn’t have had to break in.”

Ignoring my extremely valid point, Uncle Allen blustered on. “Well, what’s he doing here at this hour?”

“I asked him to come fix this after you have a look at it.”

“Hmmmph. I thought he was hoping to be clobbered with a canoe paddle.”

If I’d had a canoe paddle right then, Uncle Allen might have gotten the brunt of it.

Clay bounded up onto my porch. “Are you okay, Willow?”

Oh no, not his usual question again. What must he think of me, that I was always in one form of distress or another? “I’m fine.”

Uncle Allen pointed at my front door. “I say it was like that.”

“It was
not
like that,” Clay ground out. “I installed it. And last time I was here, it was intact.” He gave Uncle Allen a challenging look. “Have you photographed the damage?”

Grudgingly, Uncle Allen dug a notebook from a pocket. He circled his pen over it, then began writing.

Clay snapped photos with his digital camera. He glanced at me over Uncle Allen’s bent head. “For your insurance company.”

Pictures. Good idea. I had left my camera in its docking station next to my computer. I ran to the back of the shop.

My camera wasn’t there. It wasn’t anywhere.

Searching for other newly emptied spaces, I walked back to the men. “They took my camera.”

Uncle Allen slipped a new page of his notebook out from the rubber band he kept around the unused part. “Was it expensive?”

“Not very.”

“Had to be kids.” Uncle Allen peered toward the back of the store. “You’ve got ridiculously expensive sewing machines, here, right?”

“They are expensive.” And worth every penny.

“So a real thief would take those, not a cheap camera.”

I wanted to stamp my foot. “Maybe Mike’s murderer broke in.”

Apparently, it didn’t sound quite believable to Uncle Allen. “For a camera? Besides, you went off across the street and left your store unlocked after you called me. Anyone could have wandered in and lifted that camera.”

Clay glowered at him. “The reason someone broke in, or whether the camera was taken by that person or by one of those hundreds of pedestrians out there in the rain”—he gestured at the desolately empty streets, then continued—“doesn’t matter. What matters is that Willow could be in danger.”

I appreciated his empathy but was less sure about the chills the idea gave me. A stranger had broken in and snooped through my possessions. A stranger had broken into Blueberry Cottage, too. And probably into Mike’s house. And someone had hidden in Tell a Yarn last night, listening to everything we said. And the person who had done all this could be a murderer, biding his time until he caught one of us alone.

Uncle Allen waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “Just kids. Making mischief. We’ll catch ’em, give ’em a good talking to.”

“And get my camera back.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He headed out onto the porch. “If we can.” He didn’t sound very optimistic about it.

Leaving Clay to figure out how to repair my door, I accompanied Uncle Allen to his cruiser. I asked, “Does Elderberry Bay have sandbags I can use to keep my cottage from flooding?”

He made a call on his cell phone. “Irv, we got any sandbags to put along the river?” He shook his head as if Irv could see him. “Pete’s place?” He sounded as amazed as I’d ever heard him sound. “Whatever for?” He listened, then said, “We got places downriver, lower elevations, that’re gonna flood long before that.” Then he said, “Yeah” about a dozen times, interspersed with “I know,” and “You’re tellin’ me.” He pocketed the phone. “The village doesn’t have many sandbags, and they’re already in use where they’re needed more.”

To protect a gazebo, I suspected. Upriver, at a higher elevation.

He opened his cruiser door. “Now, you scoot inside outta this rain.”

I was drenched, anyway. Muttering, “I didn’t know you cared,” I splashed back to my porch.

Clay ran his fingers over dents in the door jamb. “Someone used a crowbar.”

“Great. All Uncle Allen has to do is drive around looking for a gang of kids carrying crowbars.”

Clay brushed a lock of damp hair from his forehead. “I’ll see what I can do to force the metal back into place so it will lock until I can bring a replacement.”

“Do you mind if I go back to Haylee’s while you work on it?” I twisted my hands behind my back. “Those women are helping me with something, and I should be there.”

“I don’t mind, as long as you trust me alone in your store.”

“Of course I do.” I didn’t tell him Uncle Allen’s suspicions about him and my break-in.

Clay probably guessed, but all he said was, “There’s a dinner dance tomorrow at the community hall.”

I stepped away from him. “A fish fry. In the middle of winter! Haylee, Opal, Naomi, and Edna and I are all going. Elderberry Bay seems to have lots of dinners.” I was babbling, and my fingers were still behind my back, pinching each other. “Tonight’s roast beef dinner included a memorial service for Mike Krawbach.”

That didn’t seem to surprise Clay. Maybe he’d known, and that’s why he hadn’t attended. “Save me a dance tomorrow night?” he asked.