Dire Threads (25 page)

While they sewed, I took the two dogs out into the backyard. I kept them leashed since both gates were open. Planting his work boots carefully, Herb strained to prevent a wheelbarrow full of sandbags from flying down the hill on its own.

Sally and Tally backed away from him. Because of the wheelbarrow? Or because of something that they knew or guessed about him?

No one could maneuver a wheelbarrow full of sandbags down a steep, rutted hill if both of his arms weren’t strong, and Herb was using his right arm just as well as his left.

Odd and potentially suspicious, but Herb had been really helpful during the past eighteen hours. He couldn’t be a murderer. Still, I chewed on my bottom lip as I took the dogs inside and dried them.

At five, Rosemary apologized because she had to round up her passengers and take them home. “We added a second line of sandbags behind the first to shore it up, and both rows are mostly five sandbags high.” She clasped her hands above her head in victory. “That should do it. Three layers of sandbags are still above the water. Someone should take a picture. That’s the most beautiful levee I’ve ever seen.”

If these volunteers hadn’t shown up, the swollen river would be licking at Blueberry Cottage’s foundation. I thanked everyone. There was no way to pay them back.

Rosemary placed a hand reverently over her heart. “That Fraser Construction guy. What a gem. Not only is he about the best-looking creature to ever walk this earth, he worked as hard as anyone out there, and one of his employees is down at the mouth of the river with a backhoe, breaking up the ice jam.”

I felt myself flush. All this for me?

After everyone left, I scrubbed at Naomi’s persistent theatrical makeup.

The phone rang.

“Sorry, Willow, something’s come up.” Clay sounded formal.

I had to be smart-alecky. “The river?”

A smile warmed his voice. “That, too. I’m afraid I may not make it to the dinner dance tonight. You won’t need to save me a dance after all.”

Suddenly, I didn’t want to go, either. I tried to thank him for all he had done to save my cottage.

“No problem. The village hired me to break up the ice at the end of the river. Irv was out there helping, and Uncle Allen even pitched in for a while. But more ice keeps floating downriver.”

Was Clay planning to work all evening on flood control? I picked at a fingernail. “Don’t miss the party tonight just because of my cottage. There’s really nothing else anyone can do.”

“I’m not. The river has supposedly crested, and the temperature’s supposed to stay below freezing for the next few days. We may get a reprieve.”

For now. We couldn’t do this every time we had a thaw, though.

Clay hung up. I was tired and out of sorts, and again considered staying home from the dinner dance.

But I was also hungry. And my friends and I planned to do more sleuthing. Getting ready, I chose a black miniskirt with a V-necked blouse that seemed too dressy for day but would be fine for evening. Especially if I had even the teeniest hope of seeing, as Rosemary had aptly described him, the best-looking creature to have walked this earth.

Haylee was going to the dance with Smythe, and in our flurry of activity, the rest of us hadn’t arranged a carpool. I slithered down icy sidewalks to my car and drove by myself to the community center.

The parking lot wasn’t nearly as crowded as it had been the night before. In his honey-colored pickup truck, Smythe followed me into the lot and parked beside me. Haylee smiled at me from his passenger seat. We all got out, and he offered her one arm and me the other. Laughing, we maneuvered over icy patches to the hall, where we joined Herb and Karen at a table. Two couples and me. Nothing like being the fifth wheel. I glanced around. No Clay.

Edna bounced, birdlike, into the hall and turned to Naomi and Opal, who followed her at a more sedate pace. She pointed at our table, then all three women choose a table across the room. Either they planned to question the people at their table about Mike’s murder, or they decided to let the young folks have some time alone.

I had fun despite my lack of a date. There were no eulogies for Mike or anyone else. The Lake Erie yellow perch and French fries were freshly cooked and delicious, the coleslaw was crunchy, and that delicious vanilla fudge was back. The music wasn’t deafening. I could hear my tablemates, and Smythe kept us laughing.

After everyone had gone back for all the seconds and thirds they could eat, a woman climbed to the stage. Shaking her head like she hoped no one would take her suggestions, she announced a nature hike at six on Tuesday morning, and everybody was welcome whether they belonged to the nature club or not. She was president. “But you’ll need reservations,” she cautioned us.

I sat back, stretched my legs out, and folded my arms. I
had
reservations, many of them, about nature hikes in cold weather, especially at dawn.

She added that we could make our reservations tonight, in the back of the hall.

Across the room, Edna leaned forward, cocked her head, and nodded encouragingly at me. Oh no. She expected us all to go traipsing about at that ungodly hour.

I said to Haylee with as much enthusiasm as I could muster, “Let’s go on the nature hike.”

She looked pained. “Six in the morning?”

“It would be good for us.” Without moving my head, I flicked my gaze toward Edna.

Haylee got the hint. “Okay, let’s go sign up.”

Smythe closed his hand around hers. “Glad you’re coming. The walk is on my farm, and I’m serving toast and honey afterward.”

Karen and Herb decided to go, too. At the table where we could add our names to the list of participants, someone referred to the president of the nature club as Mona. At last night’s roast beef dinner, Pete DeGlazier had mentioned a wife named Mona. How many Monas could there possibly be in a village the size of Elderberry Bay?

The volume of the music rose a few notches, and the dancing began. Herb and Smythe made certain I had a couple of dances with each of them. After seeing Herb handle that unwieldy wheelbarrow, I wasn’t surprised that his right arm was strong enough to hold me so tightly that I kept stepping on his feet. He laughed every time, like I was doing it on purpose to be cute, but I felt inept and clumsy. Being taller than he was didn’t help my mood, either.

I danced with Sam the ironmonger. I danced with men I didn’t know. I danced with Dr. Wrinklesides. “I’m glad to see you’re getting out,” he shouted. “Best thing to help you get over your ailments!”

I tried to convey that I hadn’t suffered any sort of trauma.

“See? Time heals everything.” He looked closely at my hand. “Even that bruise is gone.” Dancers around us stared. He was the best dancer of the evening, and he seemed to make it his business to dance with every woman in the community center. When he passed me with Edna in his arms, he was singing along with the music. No one seemed to mind, since his singing was much better than the recorded musician’s.

I danced and joked and talked and sipped at wine, but the evening passed, and Clay didn’t show up. Firmly telling myself that I didn’t care and therefore couldn’t be the least bit disappointed, I left when Haylee and Smythe did.

Smythe tucked his bare hands into the pockets of his yellow parka and exaggerated a shiver. “It’s even colder than last week.”

Clay had been right. The river should stop rising.

The heater in my car kicked in about the time I turned onto Lake Street.

At the same time, a different sort of heater came on inside my brain.

A red pickup truck with white lettering on the door pulled away from the curb next to In Stitches and sped away into the night.

Clay’s truck.

25

M
Y FIRST INSTINCT WAS TO PRESS down on my gas pedal and follow Clay. Maybe he’d been looking for me. On the other hand, he could be trying to avoid me.

I parked. Remaining in my car, I peered through the windows of In Stitches. The shop looked fine, with a small light in the back casting a warm glow over the tempting array of merchandise.

In Stitches. My home. My dream. Despite my love for it all, the cold night wasn’t the only thing causing my sudden fit of trembling.

What had Clay been doing? He’d known I’d be out. He hadn’t attended last night’s roast beef dinner, either, and during that party, someone had broken into my shop.

As Uncle Allen had pointed out, Clay had renovated my place and might still have a key. After Clay finished replacing my door, I would learn how to change the lock. Haylee would help me, even if she didn’t know how, either.

Smythe’s pickup truck came down Lake Street and parked behind me. If Haylee saw me brooding inside my car, she’d be worried. I got out.

Haylee and Smythe were quick. In seconds, they were beside me on the sidewalk.

“Is anything wrong, Willow?” Smythe asked. Why did the nicest men in town always ask me that question? Haylee looked concerned, too.

I tried to arrange my face into a confident smile. “Nothing, but after last night’s break-in . . .” I trailed off, letting them fill in the rest for themselves.

“We’ll go in with you,” Haylee offered. “And make sure everything’s okay.”

Inside the shop, I did a quick survey. Nothing seemed to have been disturbed.

On the other side of my apartment door, Tally whined and Sally barked. I let them into the shop. Although obviously glad to see us, they pushed past us. Looking for Clay?
Had
he been inside while I was at the dinner dance? The dogs snuffled up and down aisles.

“So, everything’s fine here, Willow?” Smythe asked.

I brushed hair from my eyes. “Yes. It was silly of me to think I’d have break-ins two nights in a row.”

He shook his head. “It wasn’t silly.” He turned to Haylee. “Shall we go?”

“Go ahead,” she said, giving him a sweet smile, taking his arm and leading him toward the door in a way that made it impossible for him to say no. “I have”—she paused for a second—“sewing questions for Willow.”

She was the expert when it came to sewing. But Smythe included me in his sunny good-byes. “See you both Tuesday morning at my place.” Whistling, he strode off toward his truck.

The moment he pulled away, Haylee locked the door and turned to face me, arms folded, eyebrows lowered. “Okay, spill. What happened?”

I walked my fingers across the top of a bolt of homespun linen. “Clay was in his truck outside my store when I arrived. I couldn’t tell if he saw me, but he drove off quickly, and I didn’t get to ask him what he wanted.”

“Maybe he was looking for you.”

I gave her a wan smile. “Maybe. How was your evening? I didn’t mean to cut it short.”

“We had a great time, but . . . sometimes, it’s easiest if there’s no question of inviting him—any date, that is, especially a first date—up to my apartment afterward.” She glanced outside and threw me a grin. “He’s gone. Don’t let Clay worry you, Willow. He’s not a killer.”

I hunched into myself. “That’s what I think, too, mainly because I don’t want him to be one. But that makes my logic and sleuthing ability too much like Uncle Allen’s. I have to be more objective.” I plucked a teensy wisp of thread from the floor. “Something’s been nagging at me since Mike’s murder, since the evening before it, actually. Someone opened my gate and let my dogs out. I suspected Mike.”

“Makes sense,” she said.

“Yes, but Clay brought them back. What if Clay let them out and only pretended to rescue them?”

“That’s silly, Willow. Why would he do that?”

I didn’t have an answer to that, objective or otherwise.

“You can’t distrust everybody in Elderberry Bay,” she said. She must have had a
great
evening with Smythe. Hadn’t she and her mothers and I been warning each other not to trust anyone? “I think your dogs want something.”

They were racing up and down the stairs to and from the apartment.

Haylee came out to the backyard with us. The dogs ran down the hill and barked at the levee of sandbags, which to them must have resembled a huge snake.

I shined my light at the flood. It had threatened the top of the sandbags all day. Surprised and excited, I said, “The water’s gone down, maybe a whole inch.”

“Time to celebrate!”

“You and your mothers were right,” I admitted. “I tried to talk you out of making those sandbags. But they really did keep the flood out of my cottage.”

“I’m right about Clay, too.” I let her out through the front gate.

Despite what Haylee said, though, I was determined to be cautious around Clay.

That determination lasted until the next morning, Monday, the day all Threadville shops were closed. I took the last load of cinnamon cookies out of the oven and went up to the shop to embroider the rest of the cornstalks for my wall hanging. Someone tapped at In Stitches’ front door. Jumping, I turned around.

Holding a tool box in one hand and a level in the other, Clay was looking in through the glass. Did I detect a certain wariness in the set of his shoulders and the thinning of his mouth as I walked toward him, or was he only imitating my expression? Trying to look as if I wasn’t the type to go around murdering men in and around Elderberry Bay, I opened the door.

Clay must have decided I wouldn’t murder all of them, or at least not him. He came inside.

The dogs went wild. He put his tools down, crouched, and let them slobber all over him. “Sorry I didn’t make it last night.”

“I saw you leave here when I was arriving home after the dance.” I meant it as a question, but it came out as an accusation.

Rubbing Sally’s ears, he didn’t look up at me. “After your break-in the night before, I wanted to keep an eye on all the Threadville shops.” He spoke slowly, like maybe he was making it up or had seen my car turn onto Lake Street, memorized an excuse, and then had trouble reciting it. “Threadville has become an important part of the local economy. I sat outside in my truck all evening. Nobody came near any of your shops.” He scratched Tally-Ho’s chest.

I would have preferred to dance with him. Only one dance, the one I’d been promised. All I said was, “Thanks. You didn’t need to.” It came out brusquely. “Like some coffee?”