Whispering Pines Mysteries Box Set 3

by Shawn McGuire

  His smile warmed. “That Briar is one smart lady.”

  “How come you never got together with her?” Rosalyn asked.

  “With Briar?” Dad looked shocked. “No. We were too good of friends to risk ruining it with romance. Besides, the Barlow women don’t have romantic relationships.”

  I laughed. “I think that streak has broken. No one was more shocked than Briar when River returned to the village and proclaimed he not only planned to be a part of his child’s life but her daughter’s too.”

  “It’s nice to see that things can change, but I never looked at Briar that way.”

  “Jayne’s right,” Rosalyn declared. “You should talk to Mom.”

  “That’s the other thing I wanted to discuss with you. Being back in the village has made me think a lot about the mistakes I’ve made. I still have time before I go back—”

  “You’re going back?” Rosalyn protested.

  “I have to go back, sweetheart. I’ve got obligations over there. I’ll rearrange some things when I get there, though, so I can be here more often. I’ll also talk to the University about a teaching position in Madison when this job is done in about a year.”

  Rosalyn slumped sadly against me.

  “Before I go back,” he continued, “I will talk with your mother. I’ve been gone for two years. It’s a miracle she hasn’t served me with divorce papers.”

  A spark of hope lit in my chest. “Does this mean you want to work on fixing things?”

  “You’ll have to be here to do that,” Rosalyn chimed in.

  “I do want to fix things, but it’s going to take some time. This fissure first split many years ago. That much hurt doesn’t get fixed with an ‘I’m sorry.’”

  “It’s a really good place to start, though,” I said.

  “I agree. And I’ve been thinking that your mom shouldn’t be alone on Christmas. Since you two are here together, and she refuses to come to the village, I’ve decided to leave early in the morning and get there in time to take her out for brunch.”

  Rosalyn hummed, unsure. “You should probably call her and warn her.”

  I nodded. “You know how she feels about surprises.”

  “I already did. She’s expecting me by ten o’clock.” He laughed softly. “She’s taken control of my idea by making brunch reservations for us.”

  “A match made in heaven,” Rosalyn teased and then looked over her shoulder at me. “Looks like we might get our parents back.”

  I squeezed her ribs with my legs. “Best present ever.”

  After devouring Tripp’s meatloaf, we returned to the great room to exchange gifts now since Dad was leaving so early. Along with flannel lounge pants, I gave Dad and Rosalyn thick fisherman sweaters. An off-white cabled cardigan for Dad and a slouchy silver-gray crewneck for Rosalyn.

  “Handmade by me,” I pronounced and laughed when Tripp elbowed me in the ribs. “Okay, I picked out the patterns and yarn over at the Twisty Skein. Briar made most of them. She taught me along the way, though, and I actually did do some of the stitches.”

  Rosalyn gave us all small baskets filled with bath soaps and chocolates.

  “Careful not to confuse the two,” Dad teased.

  “Everything, the baskets included, were made by women who live in a Madison area women’s home. Some are single moms, others young widows, a few were abused by their partners. They set up a shop out of the home where they can sell their items to support themselves and hopefully start their own businesses.”

  “Beautiful gift, Rozzie.” This actually brought tears to my eyes.

  “I think that’s my path.” She sat tall and smiled. “After helping here with the efforts to find that missing boy during Halloween, I really want to be involved with the community helping people trying to make a fresh start. They need spokespeople out there to spread the word.”

  Dad winked approvingly at her. “An excellent and creative use of a communications degree.”

  Tripp added more food to the gift pile by giving tins filled with different kinds of fudge and bite-size cookies and tea to go with them. “One hundred percent handmade by me. Morgan helped me blend the tea.”

  I bumped my shoulder to his. “Show-off.”

  Dad gave us all amazing gifts from his overseas world. A kitchen knife from Thailand for Tripp that looked like a cleaver with a rounded rather than squared off blade.

  “Excellent.” Tripp’s eyes gleamed. “Can’t imagine anything this couldn’t cut.”

  For Rosalyn, a pendant necklace with a black stone set in silver he found in Yemin.

  “What is this stone?” Roz inspected the pendant closely.

  “It’s a Yemeni Aqeeq, or agate. The stone is said to bring joy as the rays of the sun pass through it and are absorbed into your body.”

  She immediately put it around her neck. “I love it. Thank you, Daddy.”

  He gave Meeka a rawhide bone that was bigger than she was. We laughed ourselves silly watching her try to drag it to a corner.

  Finally, he handed me a small but weighty box. Inside, I found a ten-inch-tall brass statue of what appeared to be an eight-armed goddess riding a tiger.

  “That is Durga,” Dad explained. “She’s the goddess of strength and justice, and is a protector of positivity and harmony. In her eight hands, she carries the tools that help her in her battles.”

  “She needs cargo pants instead,” Rosalyn joked.

  I laughed, but my voice grew thick with emotion. “Eight arms would come in really handy. She’s beautiful, Dad.”

  “I found her while rummaging around in an antique shop in Kathmandu a year ago. I tracked down a sādhvī, a holy woman, and asked her to bless it for you. This was right before you quit the Madison Police Department. For about a minute, I thought of bringing her back or selling her to someone else, but I knew your path to justice wasn’t done. And now, look at you.”

  Restoring justice and harmony to Whispering Pines, Wisconsin.

  “She’s perfect,” I praised, admiring her arsenal. “Absolutely perfect.”

  Much later that night, after drinking Tom and Jerrys and hearing more about Dad’s overseas adventures, we reluctantly went off to our rooms. Dad promised he’d be in the state for at least another month and would try to come back for my birthday in January.

  Rosalyn smacked my arm, hard, when I told her Reed was coming tomorrow afternoon. “And you expect me to sleep now? God! I’m going to have bags under my eyes.”

  Tripp handed her a box of chamomile tea and some lavender incense. “Keep the lights off. No electronics. Just lay there. You’ll fall asleep.”

  I arched an eyebrow at him. “How often do you and Morgan talk? She’s rubbing off on you.”

  After climbing the stairs to our apartment and settling on a place for Durga—on my nightstand where she could watch over us while we slept—I dropped, tired and happy, into bed.

  Tripp glanced at the time on his phone. “It’s after midnight. Officially Christmas. I have something for you but wanted to give it to you in private.”

  “Really?” I asked in a flirty tone as I rolled toward him.

  “Not that.” He paused. “Not yet, at least.”

  I pretended to pout as he pulled a small square box from beneath his pillow.

  I gasped, and he immediately said, “It’s not what you think.”

  We sat up, and I took the tiny box from him, my heart racing. I opened it to find a simple sterling silver band with “I promise to always love you” etched around it.

  “Someday I will ask you to marry me,” he vowed. “From the start, we’ve taken things slow and enjoyed every moment of the journey. The last thing I want to do is rush anything now. But I also want you to know how much I love you and that I’m not going anywhere.”

  In response to his gift and his words, I took the ring from the box and slid it on my finger.

  “You got this from Shoppe Mystique, didn’t you?”

  He tilted his head in surprise. �
�Morgan called me last week and asked me to come into the shop to see something. How’d you know?”

  I rolled away from him and took a matching box from my nightstand drawer. “Because she called me too. Everything you just said, I feel exactly the same.”

  He lifted the lid to find a matching ring. Like mine did, his fit perfectly.

  As I lay in his arms, I thought of how blessed my life was. My father had returned and was going to start down the path of repairing his marriage. My sister had chosen to spend Christmas with me in my home. Even my dog was happy. Best of all, I had the man of my dreams lying next to me.

  I spooned in against Tripp and thought of how perfect everything was. But just as I was falling asleep, I swore I heard Durga whisper, “For now.”

  Chapter 1

  ONE WEEK AFTER

  Raise the heddle and send the yarn-filled shuttle through the warp. Adjust the outside edge so it’s even with the others. Position the yarn to form a V with the weft below and beat the strand into place. Lower the heddle. Send the shuttle through. Repeat.

  I understood why there was a waiting list of villagers to use the weaving looms at The Twisty Skein. Once I’d gotten comfortable with the steps—raise, send, beat, lower—I got into a rhythm, and instead of being repetitive or monotonous, the motion became meditative. It allowed me to clear my mind and disappear into the satisfaction of doing a project. In this case, a table runner. And disappearing was just what I needed and wanted to do after the events of last week.

  Raise heddle.

  I anticipated long nights afterward of lying awake trying to figure out what I could have done differently.

  Send shuttle.

  Everyone insisted nothing would have changed the outcome.

  Beat weft.

  I can’t know that for sure because I didn’t listen to my gut.

  Lower heddle.

  My gut had whispered something was wrong.

  Send shuttle.

  I never could have guessed he’d show up here.

  Beat weft.

  I never once thought he had that gun.

  Raise heddle.

  Or that he’d fire it.

  And never in my wildest dreams had I thought there would be a dead woman in my garage.

  “Good morning, Sheriff.”

  Despite Ruby McLaughlin’s attempt to enter without scaring us, my West Highland White Terrier Meeka jolted awake from a dead sleep in the corner by the spinning wheel. I jumped, sending the shuttle flying five feet and leaving a trail of deep-brown cotton yarn across the floor.

  “Oh, good Goddess,” she exclaimed, “I’m so sorry. Let me get that.”

  Ruby retrieved the oak shuttle from where it had come to rest beneath the loom and wound the yarn back on in a figure eight. She held it out to me but didn’t release it when I took hold. Concern etched her pretty ivory face, her mouth with the signature ruby-red lipstick set in a tight line.

  “How long have you been here, Jayne?”

  I glanced at the clock over the craft shop door. The hands were paintbrushes and Rorschach-like paint splatters in twelve different colors took the place of actual numbers.

  “It’s six-twenty-two. I got here around four thirty.” My words faded, letting Ruby do the calculation. “Thank you for giving me a key.”

  Her smile attempted to mask her pity, but I saw it there behind her eyes. Any of the villagers who knew what had happened gave me the same look. Every single one of them said, “It wasn’t your fault.” Or, “You couldn’t have known.”

  Except it was my job to know. I’d been trained to anticipate, spot, and prevent this exact kind of thing. I just never guessed that . . . I couldn’t even think his name let alone say it. I never guessed he would bring a gun into my home.

  Ruby’s smile dissolved as her shoulders shrugged. “If I can’t trust the sheriff with a key to my shop, I can’t trust anyone. I know you need to wrap your head around this. Or clear your head of it. That’s probably more the case, isn’t it? Sometimes, to understand something, you need to wipe the board clean and start over.”

  That was it exactly. She released the shuttle and watched as I sent it through the warp threads and positioned the yarn.

  Beat.

  “Really good for your first attempt at weaving,” Ruby praised as she inspected my progress. “Your weft is straight and tight. Your transitions from dark brown to dusty blue are seamless. See how your edges are almost perfectly uniform? Nice job, Jayne.”

  Technically, this was my second attempt. Before Ruby would let me try the floor loom, she made me spend a day practicing with a kid’s eight-inch square handloom. First, attach the pre-measured strips of fabric to the top and bottom pegs. Next, weave a long crochet hook over-under-over-under horizontally and pull a pre-measured strip through and attach it to the side pegs. Go under-over-under-over with the next strip. Repeat the weaving until the loom is full. To finish off, use the crochet hook to pull the loop on the first peg through the loop on the second peg, then the second loop through the third. Repeat, repeat, repeat until the loops are all intertwined.

  Three multi-colored hot pads now sat in the kitchen drawer over at Pine Time. The first looked like a child had done it. I’d been eager to get to the floor loom and had rushed. Ruby pointed out where I’d missed an “under” and had two “overs.” I concentrated on the second one, and she declared it perfect. Then she made me do it one more time. To prove my success wasn’t a fluke, I guess.

  Lower.

  That had been my first lesson. My second involved learning the parts of the loom and observing another student. Violet had been making pine-green and bark-brown checked bar towels for Ye Olde Bean Grinder. She was definitely a pro at this weaving thing. It would be another project or two before I was ready to attempt a check pattern. Normally Ruby insisted her new students use only one color on their first projects. I begged her to let me do six-inch chocolate-brown stripes with two-inch dusty-blue stripes between them. My stubbornness paid off. The table runner looked great.

  Send.

  The third lesson was learning how to load the loom with the warp, or vertical strands of yarn. Each individual thread had to be strung between the heddles, or small plastic rods with holes in them that keep the warp separated. One warp went through the hole, the next between the rods, and so on until the width of the project was achieved. That took me almost an hour, and I was only making a sixteen-inch wide runner.

  Position.

  “You’ll be done soon,” Ruby noted. “As in this morning.” She gestured toward her small office behind the checkout counter. “I’ll be in there reviewing new product collections.” Her face lit up with excitement. “I get to place my orders for spring inventory soon. Let me know when you’re ready, and we’ll go over how to take your runner off the loom.”

  Beat.

  “Okay.”

  Then what? There was a lineup of villagers waiting to use this thing. I’d have to go to the end of the queue and wait my turn. Each person got the loom for one week at a time. If a more experienced weaver wanted to make something large, like an intricate area rug, they could use two weeks in a row but would then have to wait until everyone else had used their two weeks. Once I was done with the runner, it could be months before I got time on a loom again. It was only January. There were still four months until the tourist season started. What was I going to do until it was my turn again? Maybe I could buy my own loom and weave by the windows in the great room.

  No. Even if a loom wasn’t ridiculously expensive, part of the reason I did this was to be with other people. To socialize. Tripp and I had decided we wouldn’t stay holed up inside the B&B all winter. We’d get out and be with the villagers. In fact, while I was here being crafty, Tripp was fifty yards away at Hearth & Cauldron taking cooking classes with Reeva Long.

  I scanned the shop, desperate for an answer. Ruby had smaller tabletop looms. Not as impressive as this big beauty, but I could sit by the circular fireplace at the center of
the shop and make smaller projects. We needed some placemats for the dinette.

  You can always sketch, Jayne in my head reminded me.

  True. I’d just started my first ambitious sketch, Gran’s altar table and armoire in the corner of the loft over the garage, when I got the call from Ruby that it was my turn on the loom.

  As I sat there lost in thought, my eyes started to sting. Thinking of the loft made me think of the garage, which brought all the memories back again in one massive, painful wave. I glanced across the shop to the office to make sure Ruby couldn’t see me. Then I burst into tears. Meeka came to my side, standing with her paws on my leg, and rested her chin on my right thigh.

  “It’s probably the winter blues on top of everything else,” I told her through my sniffles. “It feels like it’s dark all the time now.” Was I referring to the amount of daylight or the state inside my head? “Maybe I need to go sit in front of a light box.”

  Ruby had one tucked into the corner. Almost every shop in Whispering Pines did. The villagers warned me that winters were rough secluded so far north in Wisconsin the way we were. Seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, was a real problem for some folks. Exposure to natural outdoor light was best. But the kind reproduced from an electric box helped a great deal with depression.

  “Maybe that’s it.” My voice shook a little as I spoke. “An infusion of light would do me good.”

  Meeka whined as if to say, “Or maybe you need to admit that something awful happened in your home.”

  Chapter 2

  TWO DAYS BEFORE

  Ever since my sister Rosalyn and I had patched up our relationship during Whispering Pines’ Samhain celebration, she had known she wanted to spend her college winter break with us. Break started five days before Christmas and ended January 20th, three days from now. If I was being honest, I’d been a little leery of having her here that long. It turned out great though. The sheriff in a summer tourist town the size of Whispering Pines didn’t have a lot to do in the winter. So not only did she entertain me, it was flat-out nice to have that much time together to strengthen our relationship even more.