Threaded for Trouble

by Janet Bolin

  21

  COULD PLUG OR SOMEONE HAVE THROWN out whatever Darlene was working on when her machine went berserk? Maybe Gartener’s investigators had taken Darlene’s project with them. Smallwood wouldn’t be anxious to fill me in on that, but I did have news for her, so first thing in the morning, I called her and told her I had more evidence. It was Monday, the day our Threadville shops were closed

  Smallwood said she’d be at In Stitches in about an hour. She must have been busy. Either that or she was bringing Detective Gartener along again.

  Sure enough, both of them arrived at the shop together. I told them that Jeremy had said a sledgehammer would have been required to break the power switch.

  “Doesn’t sound like he has much regard for the truth,” Smallwood said.

  “Maybe a screwdriver, used as a lever,” Gartener suggested.

  “Did the lab find evidence of that?” I asked him.

  “We don’t know yet,” Smallwood said quickly as if to quell Gartener.

  Gartener stared back at me with his dark, inscrutable eyes. I took it as confirmation that he believed that someone had used a screwdriver to tamper with the machine.

  Attempting to ignore the chills needling their way up my spine, I showed them the stitch sampler stitching. “After that, someone disabled the wing needle override, loosened the needle shaft, damaged the power button, and put sticky stuff in the foot pedal.”

  “We don’t know that someone actually intended to hurt her,” Gartener reminded me.

  Barely hiding a gasp, Smallwood looked up questioningly at him. I could almost hear her asking, We don’t?

  I became more certain than ever that these two knew something I didn’t, some evidence they weren’t making public.

  Outside, a yellow VW drove slowly down Lake Street. Susannah was at the wheel. She peered toward the two cruisers parked in front of In Stitches, then sped away.

  Gartener asked me, “Do you have any idea who might have wanted to hurt the deceased?”

  “Most likely, as I said before, it was someone in Darlene’s household. Her husband, Plug, so he could be with the nanny, Tiffany. Or Tiffany so she could be with Plug.”

  Gartener wrote in his notebook. “People don’t usually go to such lengths to carry on affairs.” He didn’t look at either of us and said it drily, like someone who had been unceremoniously dumped.

  I asked, “Aren’t murders frequently committed by those closest to the victim?”

  Gartener kept writing, so of course I went on talking, as he probably expected me to. “And then there’s their oldest son, Russ. His mother humiliated him in public the morning they were both here, and the night she died, he went roaring around the village in his truck, shouting out the windows.”

  Chief Smallwood shook her head. “You said that was around two. His mother was already dead, but he hadn’t been home all evening. From what you told me about him running you and Edna off the road the next evening, that boy has a habit of reckless driving. I’ll catch him at it one of these days, never fear.”

  Before he hurts someone, I thought. I asked, “How did he find out about his mother’s death?”

  Smallwood looked to Gartener for an answer.

  “His father told him,” Gartener said. “No state troopers were present.”

  “And no one has questioned the boy?” I asked.

  Smallwood glowered at me. “The investigators are looking into everything. Including…” She clammed up.

  Including me? Susannah? I tried a different line of questioning. “When was Darlene found, and who found her?”

  Smallwood didn’t answer.

  Gartener pointed at the pink fabric with the neat lines of white stitching. “May I take that with me?”

  “It’s yours,” I said.

  He placed the scrap into a brown paper bag, then folded the top of the bag as precisely as if he’d first measured and marked it with a ruler. “Could this have been what she was working on when the sewing machine fell on her?” he asked.

  I straightened linen hanging from a bolt beside me. “If that machine was sewing madly like it did here on Saturday, the needle’s shaft would have punched holes in the fabric and probably torn it. When she was found, whatever she was working on should have been in or near the machine.”

  Smallwood lifted one delicate eyebrow and one delicate but bulletproof-vested shoulder. She looked up into Gartener’s face.

  “You were on the scene before I was,” he said to her in that warm voice that contrasted with his usually distant demeanor. “Did you see anything stitched like Willow just described?”

  Smallwood shook her head firmly. “There was no fabric anywhere near that machine. Maybe whatever she was working on slipped out when the machine fell?”

  “Only if someone cut the thread from both the spool and the bobbin,” I said. “Maybe she had a habit of turning her sewing machine on before she collected what she was going to sew, but this time, with the pedal gummed up that way, the machine started stitching crazily and broke the needle. The fragment pierced her arm, and she dove under the table before she had a chance to get out whatever she was about to sew.”

  “Very likely,” Smallwood agreed. Admonishing me to let them know if I found or thought of anything else, she left with Gartener.

  I ran errands, shopped for groceries, prepared meals to freeze for the week, and baked cookies to serve in my store. I kept thinking about Darlene and the people who might have wanted to harm her. Chief Smallwood didn’t seem to want to imagine a sixteen-year-old as a murderer, not even one as fond of dangerous pranks as Russ, and I didn’t either. I suspected that Russ usually spent his time as far from his parents as he could, and wouldn’t willingly venture anywhere near Darlene or her new sewing machine.

  Darlene had humiliated most of her older children in my shop, from Russ to the other brother who hadn’t worn his cowboy shirt but had cooperated enough with his mother to hold it out for everyone in the audience to see, to the twelve-year-old daughter who had been forced to wear a dress that was too tight and made her look silly. The fifteen-year-old girl had obviously been coached to photograph her mother accepting the certificate, and she had done as asked. Parents often angered their kids without the kids taking physical revenge. Darlene’s children must have been used to her bossy ways.

  My hair was in my eyes, and my hands were floury. I brushed at my forehead with the back of my wrist and rolled out more cookie dough. I was certain that neither the eight-year-old girl nor any of the three smallest children would have harmed their mother on purpose. I smiled again at the little girl’s pronunciation. Dwess. She was adorable.

  Tiffany had promised to make her more dresses.

  Was Tiffany offering empty promises, or did she know how to sew? She’d obviously learned enough about the Chandler Champion to program a monogram into it, and she’d learned that very quickly, as if she’d sat in on the lesson Felicity gave Darlene. Tiffany wasn’t a Threadville tour student, which wasn’t surprising. Darlene hadn’t been one, either, and if Tiffany was looking after the younger Coddlefield children, she didn’t have time to come into the village for sewing lessons.

  However, if Tiffany did start coming to our courses, we would be able to learn more about her…

  It was possible that no amount of suggesting that she start attending Threadville classes would make her come, no matter how motivated she was, unless we suggested she bring the children. Could we cope with that? There were enough Threadville tourists in our classes to help look after all the kids.

  Uh-oh. I was thinking too much like Haylee’s mothers. If I was unconsciously imitating them, what else might I do? I was already making most of my own clothes. What would be next? Knitting my own lingerie?

  I eased my sewing-machine-shaped cookie cutter into the rolled-out slab of dough. There was a lot about the Coddlefield family that didn’t quite add up. Like having a nanny. Had Darlene worked outside the home?

  Susannah had said that Darlene
had volunteered as a fund-raiser for charities. Volunteers didn’t get paid, and winning sewing and embroidery contests wouldn’t put much food on the table, either. The Coddlefields needed a nanny now, but how had they justified having one before Darlene died? And how had they afforded it? Was farming that profitable?

  I dug out Thursday’s newspaper and reread Darlene’s obituary. She’d been a “devoted stay-at-home mother.” In lieu of flowers, donations should be made to charities—Koins for Kids, Kompassion for Kids, Kiddies’ Korner, and Cure the Children. I’d never heard of any of them.

  When the first batch of cookies was in the oven and the second batch was waiting on cookie sheets, I searched the Internet. All four charities had similar websites, with lists of donors. The three charities that seemed overly fond of the letter K used the same post office box in Erie. The same telephone number, too, but the exchange was a local one, not in Erie.

  I called it.

  A woman answered on the first ring. Unless I was mistaken, it was Tiffany. I hoped she wouldn’t recognize my voice or do a reverse look-up, but just in case, I didn’t pretend I was someone else, like a reporter. I didn’t give my name, either, but blasted ahead with a question. “Can you tell me what Koins for Kids does?” My voice came out like candlewick rubbing against burlap.

  “We…” There was a pause as if she had to think about the answer. “We provide funds for needy children. Totally.”

  How enlightening. “What do they use the funds for?” Great question, too.

  “Food, clothes, housing.” Another pause. “You name it.”

  “Is this for children all over the world?”

  “All over America.”

  “How do I send a donation?” Having no intention of making one, I crossed my fingers.

  Tiffany rattled off the address.

  I thanked her and hung up. She’d had trouble naming the charity’s goals and mission, but could spiel out the P.O. box number and zip code.

  I was tempted to call the other two charities that shared the Koins for Kids phone number, but Tiffany would undoubtedly answer and figure out who I was.

  The fourth charity, Cure the Children, had a different phone number and post office box, but the phone number was also an Elderberry Bay exchange. I’d heard of people disguising their voices by draping a tissue over the receiver. I tried a lightweight piece of linen instead, and dialed the number.

  “Cure the Children, Miss Quantice speaking.” Tiffany, again, sounding annoyed. I hoped she didn’t have number recognition.

  I pitched my voice higher than believable for anyone larger than a squirrel. “Sorry, wrong number.”

  She slammed her phone down. The nanny Darlene had hired was running children’s charities during the hours I’d have thought she’d be looking after Darlene’s children. Had Darlene been scamming people, obtaining donations for fake charities? And Tiffany had taken over. Strange.

  I phoned Chief Smallwood. “I heard that Darlene volunteered for charities,” I told her.

  “And this is pertinent because…?” Smallwood was always so helpful.

  “I called two of those charities.”

  “Whatever for?” Smallwood exploded.

  “They’re listed in Darlene’s obituary for donations instead of flowers, and I wanted to know more about the charities before I donated.”

  Apparently, I didn’t fool her. “You’re to keep out of this investigation, hear?”

  “Yes, of course.” I crossed my fingers. “But it got interesting. I recognized the voice of the woman who answered the calls. It was Tiffany, Darlene’s nanny.” And then just to be certain that Smallwood knew who I meant, I added. “Darlene’s husband’s girlfriend.”

  “Would it be strange for Darlene’s nanny to take over some of the volunteer jobs that her boss—her late boss—had been doing?”

  “Not if those charities are real. I suspect they aren’t.” It was my turn to put her in the hot seat. “Are they?”

  “We’re looking into everything.” Some hot seat. I had a feeling she knew the answer and was only being difficult. “Do me a favor,” she said.

  I hated it when she spoke to me like I was a slightly amusing child. “Okay.” Smallwood was going to tell me to butt out.

  “Look at the list of donors for Koins for Kids.” She sounded a little too pleased with herself. “Tell me if you recognize any of the names.”

  I stared at my computer screen. One name jumped out at me.

  I skimmed through the list again. There was no point in lying. I admitted in a small voice, “The only name I recognize is Susannah Kessler.”

  “Isn’t that funny?” Smallwood obviously enjoyed being sarcastic. “That’s the only name on any of the lists that I recognize, too.”

  22

  SUSANNAH’S FEAR OF THE POLICE ON SATURDAY night had seemed to stem from something in addition to memories of a childhood fire, and she’d been nervous at Opal’s storytelling on Friday when she’d disclosed that Darlene had raised funds for charities. Had she been afraid that someone might discover she’d been one of the donors? “Susannah would never hurt anyone,” I told Smallwood.

  “Being that certain about others can be dangerous, you know.” Smallwood’s stern personality overcame her usually friendly telephone manners. “Trust me on this. The police know better than you do. And we will do the investigating. All of it.”

  “So you’re checking into all of the charities, and all of the donors? Any of them might have borne a grudge against Darlene if they thought they had donated money to Darlene instead of to a charity.”

  “We’re looking at everything,” she again told me. “You keep out of it.” She hung up.

  I reread donor names on all four sites. I didn’t recognize any other names. Only Susannah’s.

  Baking the rest of the cookies, I thought about Susannah. What did it all mean?

  I could imagine Susannah being sad if she discovered that Darlene’s fund-raising was fraudulent. But angry enough to arrange Darlene’s death? I’d never seen her show the slightest annoyance, even about her ex. Only an overwhelming despair about a husband who didn’t love her, after all. Worse, he was now accusing her of possibly harming Darlene.

  I still suspected Russ, Tiffany, and Plug. And maybe Felicity, too, though I couldn’t figure out why she’d damage one of her employer’s sewing machines.

  When I’d called Smallwood just now, she’d already known about the charities. Grudgingly, I admitted to myself that she was right. I should leave the investigating to the police.

  Besides, if I didn’t concentrate on my IMEC entry on my one day off, I probably wouldn’t finish it in time to display it along with the others at the Harvest Festival. I still hadn’t come up with an easy way of replicating old-fashioned candlewicking embroidery stitches.

  I went up to In Stitches. Across the street, Haylee was rearranging the front windows of The Stash. I loved the natural fabrics I sold in my shop, but sometimes I just had to touch other fabrics.

  Maybe they could be the solution to my candlewicking problem. What about using a nubby fabric, corduroy, for instance, and creating a very narrow appliqué in a winding shape? Wouldn’t that resemble the lumps of knotted candlewick that had been used in place of embroidery floss?

  I ran across the street. Haylee was, as always, happy to have me browse through textiles with her. I chose mid-wale corduroy in a perfect shade of off-white.

  Folding my purchase, she grinned. “You’re copying something made of candle wicks, and my mothers are using quilting, knitting, and weaving ribbons to copy something like fiery embroidery.”

  “Flame stitch,” I supplied. “Otherwise known as bargello.” I held one index finger up. “I could program my embroidery software to create a bargello-type pattern, and then frame it with my meandering white ‘candlewicking’ frame!”

  Eager to begin, I didn’t stay at Haylee’s, even though she offered coffee and cookies.

  I ran to Naomi’s shop. In her front
room, surrounded by handmade quilts and haloed by light from her windows, she sat at a long-armed quilting machine and stitched freehand over her colorful bargello quilt. Calm seemed to radiate from her as she concentrated. Her narrow fingers expertly guided the stitching.

  It took her a while to realize I was there, and when she did, she jumped and apologized in her soft, kind way. “I was in a different world.”

  I asked if I could borrow the colored diagram she’d made for the quilt.

  She sent me to her desk in the back room. I picked up the paper, admired her work, thanked her, then dashed back to In Stitches, where I scanned her drawing into my favorite embroidery software program.

  The rest was easy. I clicked on the icons that told the software to transform the picture into an embroidery design. In only minutes, my screen showed what the flame stitch pattern would look like when “painted” in thread.

  Naturally, I had every shade of embroidery thread I would need to match Naomi’s multihued drawing. The stitching and thread-changing took a while, but the end result was beautiful.

  Flame stitch, candlewicking…I’d been trying to put the next night’s firefighters’ training session out of my mind. Apparently, I wasn’t succeeding.

  I could carry the theme to extremes, too. Another age-old embroidery stitch, fire stitch, resembled flames. Simple curved lines were open at the bottom and closed in points at the top. I saved my bargello design under a new name and superimposed bright orange fire stitch “flames” on it.

  Next was my attempt at candlewicking, actually a very thin appliqué framing the colorful part of the embroidery. Appliquéing was easy with embroidery machines, software, and hoops.

  Ordinarily, the first step in machine embroidery appliqué would be causing the software to stitch the shape of the finished appliqué on the base fabric so I could see where to place the appliqué fabric. For this project, though, the appliqué would frame the entire base fabric, my colorful bargello pattern with the orange “flames” embroidered on top. All I had to do was cover my entire design with a piece of corduroy. If I placed it straight up and down, I’d have short ridges and furrows on the top and bottom of my corduroy frame and long stripes of corduroy on the sides. I turned the corduroy on the diagonal.