Dyeing Season

by Karen MacInerney

  "Lucy," Jennifer said calmly, holding out her cell phone. "Would you be so kind as to call the authorities?"

  "With pleasure," I said, scrambling to my feet and giving Faith a wide berth as I took Jennifer's phone and dialed 911.

  Molly and Edward arrived at the same time, both frantic to see Ethan and June. Deputy Shames was in the living room, with Faith in handcuffs; I had rescued the two teenagers, who had been trying to bash their way out of the back of the barn with an old shovel. They were both in Dottie's kitchen now, drinking hot chocolate and looking both embarrassed and relieved.

  Molly, still pale, burst out with "What were you thinking?" then immediately threw her arms around Ethan, holding him tight. "I'm so glad you're okay... but I still want to kill you!"

  Edward, likewise, pulled his daughter June into a fierce hug. "Thank God you're okay," he murmured, then, after a long embrace, held her at arm's length and looked at her. "We're going to have to have a talk, though."

  "As are we," Molly said, eyeing Ethan. "In fact, I think all four of us should discuss this together."

  "Don't tell Dad!" Ethan blurted out.

  Molly bit her lip and looked at me. I knew Alfie had been talking about sending Ethan to military school. This could be another big point in his favor. Molly turned to her son. "Dad and I are going to have to talk about this, but we want to hear what's going on with you. Why the vandalism?"

  "It was my idea, Mrs. Kramer," June volunteered, chin out. "I wanted to do something meaningful. I talked him into it."

  "Even if that's true," Molly said, "no one was holding a gun to his head." She paused. "Until today, anyway." At the thought, she pulled Ethan into a hug again.

  When she released him, Ethan pushed a lock of floppy brown hair behind his ear and took a deep breath. "Mom... I know I'm in big trouble, and this probably isn't the best time to bring it up, but... I don't think I'm cut out for a normal job." He took another deep breath, then announced, "I want to be an artist."

  Molly was quiet for a moment, absorbing the new information, then gave a short nod. "That's fine," she told him, and Ethan sagged in relief. "And I'm happy to support you in pursuing that, as long as you're not using other people's property as your canvases. But in the meantime, you've got some apologizing to do... and going forward, you're going to have to hold up your end of the bargain."

  He slumped. "Apologizing?"

  "And a lot more than that, to be honest. As for art? We'll talk about it more, but you can't cut out Dad and me. You have to talk to us, tell us what's going on."

  "Dad'll kill me."

  "Dad loves you. And we'll figure it out," Molly reassured him. Then she turned to June with a smile. "Nice to finally meet you, despite the circumstances. I don't approve of vandalism, but I'm glad at least the two of you were trying to work for good."

  "You're not mad?" she asked.

  "Oh, I'm mad," Molly said. "Don't get me wrong. But we'll all talk about it and figure out what the consequences will be and move on."

  "I'm thinking repainting some barns would be a start," Edward said.

  "Repainting barns? But the people who own them are horrible to animals!" June protested.

  "Vandalism is still a crime," Edward said firmly. "I'm just hoping you won't be prosecuted."

  Both teenagers paled. "What?" June said.

  "There are ways to raise awareness," Edward said. "We can talk about them. But you can't destroy other people's property."

  "But enough about that for now," Molly said. "Why the heck did Faith lock you two up in a smokehouse?" She sniffed. "You still smell like sausage."

  June was the one to answer. She looked very young and small in her loose jeans and oversized PETA T-shirt. She was twisting a strand of hair nervously between two fingers. "We were scoping out the Smolak ranch—he sends his cattle to a feedlot—and we overheard her talking to some woman about paying someone to sign some paperwork so they could get access to a property?" She looked puzzled.

  "The racket they're running with Sunset Home," I said. "They get a doctor to sign a form saying that older folks are incompetent, then send in a 'guardian' to deposit them in the home and take over all the finances. Then they cash out the property. The family has no say once the guardianship is set up; they're powerless."

  "That's horrible!" June said.

  "It is," I said.

  Jennifer, who had been sitting at the end of the table hugging herself, looked up at me. "Did Faith Zapalac really kill my brother?"

  "She did," I said.

  "Why?"

  "Let's go take a walk," I suggested. I didn't want to tell her everything I knew in front of the kids.

  Leaving the two parents with their kids, we stepped out of the kitchen door into Dottie's backyard. The barn doors were open, with Faith's Escalade parked inside; I was so grateful that the kids were okay.

  And that I was still alive.

  "Let's walk down the path to the creek," I suggested, and we wound through the pasture, past the restored patch of grassland that Dottie had spent so many years nursing. A cool breeze came up from the creek, and I found myself thinking of poor Eva, and how her desire to do good had backfired.

  "I still can't believe my brother's gone," she said dully. "We never got along, but I still loved him. I just..." She stopped talking and a sob escaped her.

  "I'm sorry," I said, reaching out and putting an arm around her shoulders.

  "Thanks," she said, swiping at her eyes and taking a deep breath. "I'm afraid to ask, but I guess I need to know. What happened?" Jennifer asked.

  "Eva was going to whistle-blow on a scheme between the nursing home, a doctor, and Faith to take over the assets of elderly folks," I said. "Faith killed her before she could tell the police what was going on."

  "But what about my brother?" she asked.

  "Apparently he figured out Faith had done in Eva and tried to blackmail her. So she lured him down to the wool shop and killed him, figuring she'd frame Edward; after all, Edward made no secret of the fact that he thought your brother killed Eva, at least with me."

  "So my brother would take the fall for Eva and Edward would go to jail for murdering Jessie," she said. "And in the meantime, Faith gets to continue her money-making scheme untouched."

  "Exactly," I said.

  "And she was going to kill the kids, too. And you."

  "Thank goodness you showed up when you did," I said. "What made you decide to stop by?"

  "After I dropped the kids off at daycare, I decided to come up and visit Mom—she's not doing so hot at the moment. I was about to drive home when I had an urge to come by and check on things. I just... had a feeling."

  I thought of the whiff of lavender, and the fallen mirror, and the jangling wind chimes. I'd felt my grandmother at Dewberry Farm before, but never anywhere else. Had she called the person she'd mentioned in my dream, Liesl, too? I sent a brief prayer of thanks to her, grateful to have her as a guardian angel of sorts.

  "This sounds like a ridiculous time to be asking this question," she said, "considering everything that's gone on, but do you think this might help in stopping the sale of the house?"

  "I should hope so," I said. "Is your mom thinking of moving back home?"

  "I was kind of thinking I might float the idea of the kids and me moving in with her," she said. "I'd like them to know their grandma, and I want my mom to be able to stay in her home as long as possible. I'm going to see if I can do some freelance writing from home, and maybe get a little bit of outside help for when I'm not at home."

  "That would be terrific," I said. "Although I know you and your mother haven't always gotten along."

  "We're working on it," she said. "And I'd like my kids to be able to grow up in a small town, like I did, with family. Now that their dad and I aren't together... well, family is more important than ever."

  "I get that," I said. "I think it sounds like a terrific idea. I hope you can work it out."

  "Me too," she said. "It's going to be
weird being here without Jessie, though. We had our differences... but he was still my brother."

  "I know," I said, and pulled her into a big hug.

  Once the police were through and everyone was gone, I walked into Dottie's living room, looking at the scattered photographs and the upended mirror on the floor. Had it been my grandmother who had caused the ruckus?

  Several of the photos had come loose from their frames. I carefully picked up the backings, and slowly reassembled them. I recognized a younger Dottie, with her two kids, along with several people I didn't recognize, wearing stiff, starched-looking clothes and severe expressions. There was a slightly blurry picture of what looked like Dottie as a girl, tucked in next to a smiling older woman in an apron; her grandmother? I wondered.

  There were a few earlier ones, too, in black-and-white, that looked like they were from the '30s. One in particular drew my eye; it was a young woman with a look of sadness to her, despite the neat, collared dress and the hands folded in her lap. As I picked it up, something fell out of the back of the photo: a smaller black-and-white photograph of a baby swaddled in a blanket, face scrunched up, obviously newborn. Something else fluttered to the floor, too... a scrap of fabric.

  When I picked it up, a jolt of recognition shot through me. The fabric was a small, square piece of felt in mustard and gray. I peered at the photo; unless I was mistaken, it was the same blanket Quinn had found in the box in her closet.

  I pulled my phone from my pocket and dialed Quinn.

  "Are you okay?" she asked. "I heard you were in trouble... I've been calling and calling!"

  "I must have had my ringer off," I said. "I'm at Dottie's... I found something you might be interested in. Will you come?"

  "Is everything all right?"

  "Yes. It is now, anyway," I said. "But bring your fabric."

  "What? The one from the box? Why?"

  "I'll explain when you get here," I said, and hung up a moment later.

  "What's going on?" Quinn asked when I let her into the front door of Dottie's house fifteen minutes later.

  "All kinds of excitement," I said, giving her a quick rundown of the day. "But this is what I wanted to show you. Do you have the blanket?"

  "Right here," she said, digging in her handbag and pulling it out.

  "I think I found your missing piece."

  Quinn blinked at me. "What?"

  "Look," I said. "The mirror fell off the wall, and all these photos scattered on the floor. I was putting this one back together, and this baby picture and a scrap of fabric fell out." I handed her the photo of the young woman, with the smaller picture of the infant and the scrap of fabric on top of the frame.

  "I don't understand," Quinn said, staring at the tiny blanket square. "How did it end up here?"

  "I don't know," I said. "Is it a match?"

  She picked up the square and held it up to the missing corner. "It is," she breathed.

  "Look at the photo of the baby," I said.

  Quinn peered at it. "It's the blanket," she breathed. She looked at me. "What does this mean?"

  "I'm hoping Dottie will be able to help us," I said. "But I'm wondering if you and Dottie might not be related."

  "You mean... maybe my grandmother was one of her relatives?"

  "It was the thirties," I said. "Maybe someone got pregnant who wasn't supposed to."

  "So they gave my grandmother up for adoption," Quinn said, gazing at the photo of the sad woman. "This could be my great-grandmother, then."

  "It could be," I said.

  "I might see a slight resemblance in the eyes," she said. "But I might be grasping at straws."

  I looked at the photo. "You might be right," I said, then pointed to a ringlet escaping from her neat hairstyle. "Looks like she might have had naturally curly hair, too."

  Quinn touched one of her corkscrew curls. "Wouldn't that be something, to discover that I'm part of the Kreische family, after knowing them all these years?"

  "Let's go see Dottie and talk to her," I said.

  "Now?"

  I shrugged. "Why not?"

  "Okay," she said. "But you're driving. I'm not sure I trust myself right now."

  As we stepped through the front door, I glanced back at the mirror I had righted on the mantel. Who had made it fall? I wondered. My guess had been my grandmother... but what if it was Liesl, the woman my grandmother had talked about in my dream?

  And who was the woman in the photograph?

  23

  Dottie was staring out the window when we got to her room in Sunset Home a half hour later. We'd walked right past the front desk, not paying any attention to the protests of the young woman, and headed down the hall to see my neighbor.

  "Dottie," I said. "Are you doing okay?"

  "A little better," she said, her face wan. "It's just... it's hard to lose a child. A mother should never have to bury her child."

  "No," I agreed, reaching for her hand. "It's the wrong order of things. I'm so sorry you're suffering."

  She squeezed my hand and gave me a haunted look, then glanced over at Quinn. "This is your friend from the cafe, isn't it?"

  "It is," Quinn confirmed, and reminded her of her name.

  "Quinn. I remember now," Dottie said with a small smile.

  I squeezed her hand again. "Did the police come by?"

  "They did," she said, and the smile faded. "I can't believe it."

  "I know," I said. Faith had finally confessed to Deputy Shames that she'd cracked Jessie over the head with a rock before drowning him in the dye. I'd also found out who had vandalized my chicken coop and put up the scarecrow; it had been Jessie, trying to keep me from poking around in his business. I filled in the rest of the details for Dottie, but skimped on the details regarding the manner of Jessie's death.

  "She was going to kill those children, too?" Dottie breathed. "That's monstrous!"

  "I know," I said, and took a deep breath. "I have an odd question... have you ever noticed anything unusual around your house? Things moving unexpectedly?"

  "You mean a ghost," Dottie said flatly.

  "I guess so."

  She nodded. "We don't like to talk about it, but there's always been one."

  "We found this in one of the photos that tumbled to the floor when the mirror fell," I said, and showed her the scrap of fabric and the baby picture.

  "You think our ghost dropped the mirror?"

  "I'm thinking it's possible," I said. "I'm also wondering if maybe your ghost wanted us to find this."

  "What is it?" she asked, peering at it. "I've never seen this before in my life."

  "It was behind this photo," I said, showing it to her.

  "That was my grandmother, Elisabeth Kreische," she said. "She's the one who taught me all about plants, and how to use them to make dyes. We had a wonderful relationship. I miss her."

  "This may seem like an odd question," I said, "but do you know if she had a child she put up for adoption? Around the mid-thirties?"

  Dottie shook her head. "Not that we ever heard," she said. Then her face got still. "Wait. There was a family story that she got sick and had to go to Houston for treatments for almost a year. When she got back, she wasn't quite the same for a while. That would have been about the right time period." She looked up at me. "You don't think... did she go because she was pregnant and had to have the baby out of town?"

  Quinn and I exchanged glances. "The timing lines up," Quinn said.

  "So she took a picture of her little one and kept it, along with a piece of the baby blanket she made for it. For your grandmother," Dottie said, looking at Quinn and reaching for her hand. "That would mean we're kin."

  Quinn's eyes teared up. "I just did a DNA test, and it turns out I'm part German.

  "Elisabeth was German," she said. "Her nickname was Liesl."

  "What?" I said, feeling the hairs rise on my arms.

  "Liesl," Dottie repeated. "Why?"

  "I... I had a dream," I said. "It sounds ridiculous, but
my grandmother was in it. She and I were baking, and someone came to the door. She brought me a big basket, like a bassinet, with a needle and some dyed wool yarn in it, and told me I was supposed to patch things up."

  "We've had a basket bassinet in the family for ages," Dottie said. "When we get home, I'll show it to you." Then her face fell. "If I get home."

  "I'm working on it," I said. "I can't imagine the sale will go through now that all of this has come to light."

  "You think?"

  "I'll do everything I can," I said.

  "Liesl," Quinn said quietly, staring at the photo of the sad young woman. "She wanted me to know who my family was."

  "It sure looks like it," I said. "I can't wait to see what happens when you put your name into Ancestry.com.

  "That may be the only way I find out for sure," she said.

  "And maybe you'll even find out who your grandfather was," I said.

  "We're putting the cart before the horse, though," Quinn said. "We don't know for sure, do we?"

  "Her eyes look like yours," Dottie said. "And she had corkscrew curls. You can't see it in this picture, of course, but it was red and curly. Just like yours."

  At that, Quinn burst into tears. Dottie held out her arms, and the two hugged for a long, long time while I wiped a tear away from my own eye.

  There had been a lot of losses in Buttercup lately. It was so nice to see something precious found.

  I'd just pulled into my own driveway when my phone buzzed. It was Tobias.

  "I've got good news," he said.

  "So do I," I told him. "Sort of, anyway. But yours first."

  "I think I found Cinnamon!"

  "What? Where?"

  "I went out on a visit this morning to an older couple out near Giddings. They found her after the storm, wobbling around next to their driveway, and they took her in."

  "How did she get there? Is she okay?"