Thread End: An Embroidery Mystery (11 page)

“Why hadn’t you introduced me to her before?” I asked.

“As you saw, Mother can be a bit hard to take.” He looked away and scratched Angus’s head. “I didn’t want her to jeopardize our relationship.”

“She won’t. Our relationship is all about you and me—no one else.”

“That’s easy to say, but I’ve seen miserable family relations create stress between more than one couple,” he said. “Add that to existing stresses, and it can tear them apart.”

“Do you and your mom have a miserable relationship?” I asked.

“No. I believe we have a fairly good relationship, but we don’t share the closeness you and Beverly have.” He shrugged. “And Mother can be hypercritical, especially until she gets to know and like a person.”

“I can believe that,” I said, thinking back to her comment about the Marilyn Monroe doll. “When she first came in and I introduced myself, she said she’d heard
mostly
good things about me. What did she mean by that?”

“Beats me. I say only great things when I talk about you,” he said. “When she introduced herself, she didn’t tell you her name?”

“No. Of course, Special Agent Brown came in shortly thereafter. Maybe she just didn’t have time.”

“And maybe she didn’t want to tell you her name until she’d seen the real you,” he said. “She would want you to be yourself . . . not put on airs if you found out she was my mother. Not that you
would
, but she doesn’t know you . . . yet.”

“Yet,” I echoed.

Ted chuckled. “The expression on Brown’s face when I walked in here was priceless. He appeared to have been put in time-out.”

“He
had
been, more or less. All it took for your mom to put him there was a veiled threat.”

Ted laughed again, but I didn’t. I felt uneasy. Was he telling me the truth about why he hadn’t “taken me home to Mother”? Was it that he didn’t want her abrasiveness to scare me off? Or was it that he wasn’t serious about our relationship?

And what about Veronica Nash? Did she want to be my friend or my enemy?

A
ngus and I had just got back to the Seven-Year Stitch after going home for dinner. My crewel class would be starting in thirty minutes, so I was putting hard candy in a bowl to go on the counter and making sure I had enough bottled water in the mini fridge.

I heard the bells jingle and knew someone had arrived. I turned to see Kelly Conrad walk in and greet Angus.

“Hi, Kelly,” I said. “Are you here for class?”

“No, I was walking by and saw that you were here and just wanted to say hey.”

“Well, I’m glad you did. You can come by and say hey anytime.” I smiled.

“I saw Josh at lunchtime today,” she said. “He’s really down.”

“I know. I feel bad for him.”

“Me, too. He’s so afraid he’ll lose his job over everything that has happened.”

“I’m worried about the entire museum,” I said. “I mean, the theft has cast such a pall over it. When I took the muffins by there this morning, there was no one there. Had traffic picked up any when you were there during lunch?”

“There were a couple of people there, but I got the feeling they were more curious about the theft than they were about any of the exhibits.” She sighed. “I don’t particularly
like
Josh, but I hate seeing him hurt.”

“If I’m not being too personal, why don’t you like Josh?” I asked.

She bit her lip. “Right after he dated my older sister, he asked me out. I thought that was a totally inappropriate thing to do.”

“Had he and your sister dated long?”

“No. In fact, they’d only been on two dates,” she said. “But that breaks some sort of etiquette code, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t know. I don’t have any siblings.” I fluffed the pillows on the sofa nearest me. “Had you met Josh first, would you have gone out with him?”

“Oh, sure!”

I glanced up, and she blushed and lowered her eyes.

“I mean . . . probably,” she said. “He was sweet, cute, funny . . .”

“I’m certainly no expert, and I’m not familiar with sibling codes, but why don’t you talk with your sister? If she’s okay with your seeing Josh, I see no reason why you shouldn’t.”

“I’ll think about it,” said Kelly.

Riley Kendall—friend, mom, hotshot attorney—barreled through the door like a woman on a mission. “Freedom!” She noticed Kelly. “Oops. I thought I was the first one here.”

“That’s okay,” Kelly said. “I’d just stopped by to say hi to Marcy. I was just leaving.”

“Don’t go on my account,” said Riley. Her dark hair was piled on top of her head in a messy bun, and she wore shorts and a T-shirt.

“You know, Riley, I’ve never seen you look this . . . free,” I said.

“You mean sloppy?” She grinned, kicked off her sandals, and put her feet up on the ottoman.

Angus went to check out Riley’s toes.

I laughed. “No, I think
free
is the better word.”

“It’s certainly the more tactful word,” she said.

“Riley Kendall, this is Kelly Conrad,” I said.

The women didn’t shake hands but exchanged the typical
nice to meet you
s.

“I wish you’d stay for class,” I told Kelly. “The first one’s on the house.”

“No, thanks,” she said. “I really need to be getting home. I might try a class some other time, though.”

“I hope you will. Take care, Kelly.”

She said good-bye and left the shop.

I turned back to Riley. “So, tell me about this freedom.”

“I feel guilty to put it that way, but honestly, Marce, I’ve been exhausted lately. It’s great to have some time just for me. Mom’s with the baby, Keith is playing softball, and I have no obligations for the next couple hours.”

“You shouldn’t feel guilty about that,” I said. “In fact, I’m flattered that you get a couple hours and choose to spend them here!”

“Well, I
am
going to enjoy a soak in a bubble bath and a nonfat, decaf latte when I leave here.” She frowned. “Decaf. That’s probably one of the reasons I’ve been so tired all the time lately—no caffeine because I’m breast-feeding.”

“Or you
could
be exhausted because you have a bazillion cases and you’re the mother of a five-month-old baby,” I said.

She grinned. “Could be. But lack of caffeine definitely does not help matters.”

“You wouldn’t happen to have a recent photo of Laura, would you?” I asked.

“It just so happens that I do! I took one of her and Mom before I left the house.” She pulled the photo up on her phone, and I smiled at the image of the chubby, grinning baby.

Then I noticed Riley’s mom, Camille Patrick, and my eyes widened. “Your mom got her hair cut!”

“She did,” Riley said. “Just a few days ago. Do you like it?”

“I do.” The long hair Camille had usually worn in a severe updo had been cut and styled into flattering chin-length layers. “It makes her look ten years younger.”

“I think so, too.”

Before we could talk more about Riley’s baby or her mother’s hair, Vera joined us. It seemed as if Vera had come through the door in midsentence. In fact, I initially thought she was speaking into a phone headset, but she wasn’t.

“—can’t believe Anderson Padgett is coming here tomorrow, can you?” Vera was asking.

“I can,” I said. “Ted and I are having lunch with him and Simon Benton.”

“Well, I want to hear all about it when you get back,” she said. “In fact, I’d like to meet Mr. Padgett myself. Do you think you can wrangle an invitation?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

Riley held up her hand. “Hold up. Why’s Anderson Padgett taking you to lunch? I mean, no offense, but it would seem to me that the man would want to come here, meet with the police, offer a reward, and go home. On second thought, why is he coming here at all? He could have taken care of all of his business over the phone.”

“You know, I’ve wondered the same thing,” I said. “He was apparently too ill to travel and sent his friend Simon Benton to Tallulah Falls to make sure his collection was in good hands.”

“Which is another weird thing,” said Riley. “If he was concerned about the collection being in good hands, why did he agree to loan it to the museum in the first place?”

“From what Paul has told me, Padgett was looking to sell off a few of his pieces,” Vera said. “He loaned the collection to the museum for the publicity and to get it seen by art collectors with deep pockets like Chad Cummings.”

“Is Padgett in financial trouble?” I asked.

“Not that I know of,” Vera said. “Paul says Padgett could just be selling off some of his collection to make room for more stuff.”

“Or it could be that he’s very ill and is liquidating his assets,” said Riley. “Some people do that to make it easier to settle their estate.”

“Well, that’s grim,” I said.

Riley laughed. “It’s true!”

“It is,” Vera agreed. “I heard once about a mother dying and her three daughters fighting over everything the poor woman had. The collections she’d gathered over the years were nothing all that valuable, not like Anderson Padgett’s art collections—stamps, decorative teacups, a certain set of figurines—and the daughters divided and sold them. I suppose the mom thought they would each take one of her collections and treasure it, but they just wanted the money.”

“I see that all the time,” Riley said. “That’s why it often makes more sense to liquidate. Then there is a set amount of money to be divided among the heirs.”

“I’ll bet it’s still not that simple,” said Vera.

“Not always.” Riley took her project out of a canvas tote. “I didn’t make much progress this week.”

“It’s coming along great,” I lied. Okay, it wasn’t a lie exactly. The squirrel in the daisy patch Riley was making for Laura’s nursery was going to be beautiful. But Laura might have to put it in her college dorm room rather than in her nursery.

Vera took out her project and thrust it at me. “I can’t get this couching thing down to save my life. My strawberries are looking more like raspberries.”

“No . . . you’re getting it,” I said. “You just need a little more practice. Let’s take this out, and we’ll do it again . . . together.”

“You do the first one, and I’ll watch,” said Vera.

The rest of the class began filtering in, so before I could undo Vera’s raspberry, I greeted everyone and offered them some water. I had a feeling tonight’s class was going to run long.

*   *   *

I’d been right—the class had gone over by half an hour. By the time Angus and I got home, I was dragging. It had been a long day.

I let Angus go out into the backyard to play for a few minutes, and I thought about Riley’s plan to take a bubble bath and sip a latte. That sounded like a winner to me, so I went upstairs to run my bathwater. While the water was running, I came back downstairs and made myself an instant caramel latte. It wasn’t decaf, but I didn’t have any fear that the caffeine would keep me awake tonight.

I let Angus back in and then went upstairs to sink into the tub. I took the latte and the phone with me. Angus followed me and flopped down on the floor outside the bathroom. I think it’s sweet that he feels the need to protect me from whatever might be lurking inside my powder room.

A sudden image of Geoffrey Vandehey wrapped in the kilim outside my shop made me shudder, and the thought of something dangerous being in my bathroom wasn’t so fanciful anymore. I
had
locked both doors, hadn’t I? Yes, I was sure I had.

I eased into the warm water, took a sip of my latte, and called Mom.

She answered on the first ring. “Hello, darling. How are you?”

“I’m tired, Mom. How are you?”

“I’m fabulous! I just got off the phone not ten minutes ago from a producer who’s hiring me to do a television miniseries set in Kansas in the late 1800s.”

“So you’re packing to go to Kansas?” I asked.

“Nope. They’re shooting the entire thing on a soundstage in Los Angeles. I’ll get to practically work from home. Isn’t that wonderful?”

“It is,” I said.

“I’m really excited, even though the miniseries is based on a dreadful true story.”

“How dreadful?”

“The worst,” she said. “The miniseries sets forth the events of the Bender family, also known as the Bloody Benders. Isn’t that gruesome?”

I agreed that it was. “Why were these Benders so bloody?”

“They were serial killers. The mom and dad were real oddballs.”

“Uh, yeah, Mom . . . they were
serial killers
.”

She laughed. “Let me finish. They weren’t very sociable. But from what I understand, the daughter was dynamic and attractive. She also claimed to be a spiritualist and a healer. It was she who lured wealthy travelers to the Benders’ inn. Then, when the guest was having dinner, either the father or the son would bash the traveler’s head in with a hammer.”

“How pleasant! I’m going to change your ringtone to a bloodcurdling scream as soon as we’re finished talking.”

“Well, what about you and your real-life drama? Did you ever find out the name of that man you found in the alley?” she asked.

“Yes. He was Geoffrey Vandehey. He’d been a professor of art history at a university in Canada, but a few years back he stole a painting.”

“Vandehey . . .” She paused. “Was the painting a Cézanne?”

“Yes, it was,” I said. “It was supposed to have been a very early work of Cézanne’s.”

“I remember hearing about that. This Vandehey fellow had gone to appraise the painting, hadn’t he?”

“He had. But, you know, I was talking with the museum curator today, and he mentioned that Cummings—the collector from whom the Cézanne was stolen—should have had the piece appraised before he had it insured,” I said. “But after it was stolen, the insurance company paid Cummings twenty million.”

“That does sound a little fishy,” Mom agreed. “Maybe the collector had come to doubt the painting’s authenticity for some reason.”

“That’s possible. He could’ve thought the original appraiser misled him for some reason.” I took another sip of the latte and then set it back onto the tile floor beside the tub. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“People do strange things for strange reasons.”

“Speaking of that . . .” I told Mom about Ted’s mother’s coming into the shop today. I described her appearance, her demeanor, and the fact that she said she’d heard “mostly” good things about me. “I mentioned that part to Ted, but he said he’d only told her great things about me.”

“You don’t sound so sure.”

“Well, the whole incident made me feel—I don’t know—insecure,” I said. “For one thing, why hadn’t Ted ever taken me to meet her before now? And for another, why did she come into my shop and not even tell me who she was?”

“I imagine she was doing a little reconnaissance,” said Mom. “As for Ted, I believe either he was waiting for a good time or he hadn’t given the matter that much thought.”

“You don’t think it’s because he’s not serious about me?”

“Oh, darling, that man is over the moon for you. He adores you. Did you ask him why he hadn’t introduced you to his mother before now?”

“Yes. He said that he and his mother are on good terms but not as close as you and I,” I said. “He told me that he didn’t want his mother to jeopardize our relationship.”

“Well, there you go.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“How do you know it isn’t that simple?” she asked. “It sounds to me as if it’s extremely simple. The man has a domineering mom with a forceful personality, and he didn’t want the woman to intimidate or try to bully the woman he loves and is considering spending the rest of his life with.”

I was quiet for so long that Mom had to ask if I was still there.

“You think Ted wants to spend the rest of his life with me?”

“I believe that’s a strong possibility,” she said. “So don’t see slights where there were none intended. Ted had a short-lived first marriage, right?”

“Right.”

“How do you know his mother didn’t do something to drive a wedge between him and his first wife?”

“I don’t,” I said. “In fact, he said he’d seen other family members add to existing stresses in people’s relationships before. Maybe that’s what he was talking about.”

“Maybe so.”

“I don’t want her to drive a wedge between Ted and me, Mom.”