Dire Threads (8 page)

Unlike Haylee, I knew my father. He was an inventor, seldom seen outside the carriage house behind my parents’ home, where he tinkered and invented. I’d lost count of the number of patents he had, but I wouldn’t categorize him as either strong or tough like our mothers were. My parents had never come to visit me in Manhattan and were even less likely to stir from South Carolina to the northwestern corner of Pennsylvania.

We finished breakfast. Haylee put our dishes into the dishwasher. “Any time you need to, call or come see me,” she offered. “Or my mothers.” She gave me a big hug.

Feeling less anxious and alone, I left her bright apartment. I couldn’t help touching fabrics as I passed them on my way out of The Stash. As always, the feel of cotton calmed and comforted.

I expected to see several law enforcement vehicles outside In Stitches when I returned, but the only cars and trucks seemed to belong to early-morning shoppers. I gave the dogs another short outing, started a fire in my woodstove, and put a pot of cider on its top.

Turning the cross-stitched sign in my door to
Welcome
may have been a mistake. Uncle Allen tromped in. “Your front gate’s locked,” he complained. “Give me the key.”

That didn’t seem like a good idea, so I went outside and unlocked it for him. “Are you going to need to get into my cottage?” I asked. “Somebody took my canoe paddle out of the lean-to and left the door open.”

“Is there a way from that lean-to into your cottage?”

“No.”

“And the cottage is locked?”

“Yes. The door facing the river bolts from the inside.” I pointed down toward the cottage. “I have a key for the door we can see from here.” I hadn’t decided whether that door or the one facing the river should be called the front door.

“Well, you can’t come into the crime scene to unlock it for me, now can you?”

Not as long as he told me I couldn’t.

“What’s in your cottage?”

“Nothing. It’s vacant.”

“Okay, you can either give me the key now or wait until I get a search warrant and give it to me then.”

“I have nothing to hide, and I’d like you to find Mike’s murderer and arrest him as soon as possible.” A good citizen, I gave him the key. “When are the other investigators coming?”

He turned his back to me, flapped a hand in dismissal, and marched down toward where I’d found Mike early this morning.

Back inside the shop, the fragrance of cider, orange zest, cinnamon, and cloves warmed me. I’d be safe from Mike’s attacker now that a policeman was in my backyard, wouldn’t I?

Tally, a dreamy sort, whimpered on the other side of the apartment door. Sally, the practical, heavy-footed one, clumped down the stairs, probably to claim the choicest napping spot on Tally’s bed. Or on mine.

Cooing at Tally through the closed door, I downloaded pictures from my camera to the computer. I cropped the photo of the man disappearing into the woods beyond the field of dead cornstalks, then launched my embroidery software, loaded the photo into it, and clicked on the appropriate icon. The software began generating stitches that mimicked the photo.

Suddenly, everything glowed red.

The ancient red car that Mike had attempted to railroad into a ditch came to a halt outside in the bright morning sunshine. The quiet woman inched her driver’s door open, looked left and right, then scurried toward In Stitches like she was hoping no one would see her.

She slipped sideways into In Stitches. Her bulging cloth bag was almost bigger than she was.

“Help yourself to cider,” I called.

She shook her head. I left her to browse.

The next thing I knew, she was peeking over my shoulder. “How do you do that?” she asked.

I showed her the photo I’d started with, and the embroidery software’s amazingly true-to-life depiction of how the design would look when stitched on cloth. “I need to adjust it here and there to force it into my vision.” I would also need to add varying thicknesses of foam to some of the trees, and maybe to the man, too. Seventeenth-century embroiderers often ignored things like scale, and a man could be bigger than a horse or a castle. Or a tree. Creating that stumpwork look was going to be fun.

“That’s what you’ll be teaching?” Her voice was reedy, her question tentative.

“We’ll work up to it, get used to the machines and the software in small steps.” I smiled. “I don’t want to give away all my tricks in the second lesson.”

My attempt to put her at ease failed. She stared at my gleaming walnut floor. “No, of course not.” She turned back toward the front windows. “Your boutique is lovely.” Tapping her index finger against her lips, she frowned toward the woodstove. Finally, she tiptoed to the fabric cutting table. “May I show you something?”

“Of course.” I followed her.

She turned her bag upside down and shook placemats and napkins out of it. Like any true fabriholic, I couldn’t help touching them. They were obviously hand woven, of natural fabrics, in beautiful shades. “These are gorgeous,” I burst out. Her purple hat was also hand woven, as were her black coat and emptied bag. “Did you do the weaving?”

“Yes. Do you really like them?” Gazing down as if saying a reluctant farewell, she ran quivering fingers across the placemats and napkins.

“They’re fabulous.” I wasn’t gushing. They were.

“Do you think you could sell them in your store?” She didn’t look up at me.

“They’d sell anywhere, but I’d be afraid to sell them here for fear someone would take a notion to embroider things on them. They’re beautiful the way they are.”

“That wouldn’t matter.” Even her voice trembled.

Was she desperate for funds? I shouldn’t have problems selling these gorgeous hand-woven linens, but I’d have to prevent myself from buying them, because no matter how many times I told myself they didn’t need embellishment, sooner or later I’d stretch them into hoops and let my machines have their way with them. “Okay,” I agreed. “Let’s talk about prices and my markup and how I’ll display . . .”

“I’m sure you’ll do it all just right.”

How could she be so trusting? “No,” I said firmly. “Let’s sit down and discuss this.”

She sat, but she wouldn’t take off her coat.

I suggested prices.

Gasping, she clapped both hands to her cheeks.

“Not enough?” I asked.

She quavered, “Too much?”

I shook my head. “Definitely not.”

She pulled a scrap of paper from a pocket. “Here’s my address. If you sell anything, send me the check? And . . .” She fiddled with the paper. “Would you mind coming out to my studio to pick up new pieces? That is, if you ever want more.”

“I’d love to see your studio and your work.” Once a fabriholic, always a fabriholic. Besides, looms fascinated me.

“I hate coming to town.” She appeared to hold her breath in hopes I wouldn’t question her about it.

Not that I could have. My sea glass chimes jangled. She shoved the paper at me.
Dawn Langford, Weaver
, I read.

Sam came halfway in. “Hey, Willow, how’d those padlocks work out for you?”

“Fine,” I answered over Dawn’s lowered head. “Thanks for thinking of matching ones.”

Dawn bent farther forward. Her face was inches from her knees.

“Y’know,” he called out, “the guys who hang out in The Ironmonger and I were talking, and we all thought what you did to Mike Krawbach was perfect.”

My hair was too long to stand on end all over my head, but that’s what it felt like it was doing. “What
I
did to Mike Krawbach?” Did everyone in town think I’d murdered Mike? And they were applauding me for it?

Sam nodded several times. “Stood up to him, you did. Yesterday afternoon in the street. Throws his weight around too much, that boy. Always has.”

Dawn seemed to crumble into herself. Sam didn’t seem to know that Mike was dead. Did Dawn?

Uncle Allen pushed his way into the store past Sam. “Stood up to Mike, my foot. Murdered him, more likely.”

Pot lights in my ceiling reflected onto Sam’s bald head, giving it a jaunty look, like he’d pasted fat white sequins on it. Sam examined Uncle Allen’s truculent expression. Sam’s smile disintegrated. “Uncle Allen, my boy, you’re not serious, now, are you?”

“Serious as all get-out. We found Mike beaten up at the foot of
her
backyard last night.” He jabbed a thumb toward me. “He died there.”

Dawn Langford tumbled off her chair and onto the floor.

7

S
TRANGELY, IT WAS THE HARDWARE store owner, not the policeman, who ran to the fallen woman. He hollered, “Uncle Allen, get on your radio and call for help!”

If Uncle Allen had a radio, would it work?

We weren’t about to find out. Uncle Allen shaped his hand like a revolver and pointed the barrel at me. “Now she’s gone and killed another one.”

His accusations were becoming tedious. Besides, Dawn didn’t appear to be dead, much less murdered. Her color was returning. I knelt beside her. Her lips moved.

Uncle Allen shuffled to us. Dawn’s lids fluttered open, revealing dazed and wobbly pale gray eyes. She focused on the two men above her, then scuttled crabwise away from them. I was probably the only one to hear her whisper, “Don’t let them touch me.”

I murmured, paying no attention to what I was saying, trying to calm and soothe.

I took her hand in mine. Her skin felt dry and calloused. Her muscles, presumably from all that weaving, were like steel cables. She nearly crushed my hand.

As if sensing her unusual strength, Sam backed away, taking Uncle Allen with him.

The door opened, admitting a blast of cold air. And Naomi, who apparently had invisible, trouble-seeking antennae. “What’s wrong?” she shouted.

“Nothing,” I said.

“Nothing,” Dawn repeated. She whispered, “Don’t let her near me, either.”

My mouth dropped open. Naomi was one of the sweetest people on earth. “It’s okay,” I told Dawn, extricating my hand and flexing my fingers. They seemed to work.

Naomi asked, “Should we call Dr. Wrinklesides?”

Dawn sat up. “No!” Her face was a healthy pink.

“She’s fine,” I said. “She slipped off her chair.”

“Bring that chair over to The Ironmonger,” Sam offered. “I’ll have a look at it.”

I flashed him an appreciative smile. He probably knew as well as I did that the chair was fine.

Naomi tiptoed closer. “Oh, the poor dear.” She had removed the green goo from her face, but Dawn shrank from her anyway.

Naomi turned toward the window. “Our local students, Georgina and Susannah, are going into my store.” She left.

I supposed that, under the circumstances, I should be glad I didn’t have customers, only a thin wraith of a woman given to swooning, an angry cop given to accusing me of murder, and a kindly ironmonger given to tripping over his feet in his rush to return to his hardware store so he could tell his cronies about Uncle Allen accusing me of murder.

Maybe instead of running a business, I should take my cue from Dawn and hide under chairs.

Uncle Allen marched outside and turned toward The Ironmonger as if he wanted to deliver his version of the news to the old-timers hanging around the potbellied stove.

I couldn’t help picturing all those retired farmers sitting in a jury and weighing evidence against me, putting me in jail where I would . . . design and embroider gorgeous motifs all over everyone’s orange jumpsuits?

I shook myself back to reality. It wouldn’t happen. Uncle Allen would call in reinforcements, and they’d find out who attacked Mike.

I helped Dawn stand. “Maybe you should see a doctor.” During my short time in Threadville, I’d picked up some questionable hinting skills from Haylee’s mothers.

Dawn looked about as energetic as the bag she’d brought her weavings in. “I’d rather die.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say. Besides, if I pressed her about visiting a doctor she was obviously afraid of, she might swoon again, and I would never get her off my floor.

She leaned toward me. “Don’t you let them be accusing you of murdering that Mike Krawbach. Lots of people wanted to murder him.”

Including her?

“The first place to look is his friends,” she said. “When they were boys, they were a nasty bunch. Uncle Allen called what they did mischief, but it was downright vandalism. They came around my place at night knocking on my doors and windows and hollering for me to come out and stop them. They threw paint over my porch furniture. Wicker. I had to repaint it.”

And someone threw paint on my porch.

“And that wasn’t all,” she confided in whispers. “Somebody burned down my outbuildings. Three Halloweens in a row. Chicken coop, smokehouse, corncrib, all burned to the ground. No one believed me that the culprits were Mike and his gang, and their parents claimed their kids were home watching TV.”

How many years had she waited to tell this to someone? I had to keep her talking. “Do the other members of Mike’s gang still live around Elderberry Bay?”

“Most of them. One’s none other than our sainted mayor, Irv Oslington. Who would vote for him? And Herb Gunthrie, the postman everyone loves so much. I don’t trust that guy to deliver the mail without checking the envelope for things he might want.”

“Did Smythe Castor run around with Mike and his buddies?” I asked.

“I may have seen him with them once or twice. I think he’s younger than the ringleaders.”

“What about Clay Fraser? Was he one of Mike’s gang?”

“I can’t remember. There were so many of them. Different ones at different times. But always Mike spurring them on.” She seemed to fold in on herself. “You be careful around all of them, and don’t let them blame you for things they did. And that includes Uncle Allen DeGlazier. He’s wilier than he looks.”

“You be careful, too.” I tried to keep doubt from my face. Was she warning me against Mike’s friends for my sake or to deflect suspicion from herself?

Looking satisfied at accomplishing her mission, whatever it was, she sidled out. Was agreeing to sell her weavings a mistake? If fear was contagious, I might catch it. But the linens were beautiful. I didn’t want to display them near the front windows where they might fade. I moved the bistro table farther back. Dawn’s colorful work contrasted nicely with the heritage designs I’d stitched on the white tablecloth.