Threaded for Trouble

by Janet Bolin

  “His teenagers—except for Russ, whom I haven’t yet managed to interview—have separately corroborated that he was asleep when they got home and saw smoke and flames. If Felicity’s story is correct, the fire began before she was attacked.” She shook a forefinger at me. “And don’t tell me the teenagers started a fire in the house where their younger sisters and brothers were sleeping, either.”

  She was probably right. The mystery fireman must have started the fire and attacked both Tiffany and Felicity. As far as we knew, the Coddlefield teenagers had behaved well. The boys had fought the fire while the girls had looked after the small children. It was possible that none of them, except Darla, had known that Felicity was there.

  We took the dogs and our lunches outside. I patted one of the Adirondack chairs. “You can sit here. It’s washable, so leave all the smudges you want.”

  “Thanks.” Smallwood sat, grunting as if she’d been on her feet for hours. She probably had. “This is great.”

  “Peanut butter and jelly is comfort food, sometimes.”

  “Nearly always,” she agreed.

  The dogs charged to the bottom of the hill, then raced back up. I gave them each a piece of their special, peanut-butter-only sandwiches, then turned to Smallwood. “You know, the would-be murderer last night probably expected other evidence besides the wooden point presser to burn up completely. Felicity said he tore two strips off a piece of an unmade little dress. The fabric on Felicity’s wrist was cotton, so I’m guessing that Tiffany was tied up with cotton, too. Cotton burns into fine ash hardly distinguishable from other types of ash, but artificial fabrics melt, leaving telltale beads.”

  “How do you know all that? And how would someone intent on harming Tiffany and Felicity know?”

  I rubbed my fingers against my thumb as if touching fabric. “I can usually recognize cotton by the way it feels. If I’m not sure, I light a match to a scrap. Cotton burns. Polyester melts.”

  Smallwood looked about to accuse me of lighting matches to fields of soybeans and empty barns.

  I defended myself. “Most people who sew know the flame test. A chemist would know. An arsonist might know. The husband or children of a seamstress might have heard about it. All of my boutique-owning colleagues should know.”

  “If you Threadville ladies are lighting up your fabrics all the time, it’s no wonder we have so many fires around this village.”

  I blustered, “We don’t!”

  “JK,” she said with a grin. “Just kidding. Does any of this make sense to you?”

  I had to admit that it didn’t. “Felicity was wearing polyester, so the cloth used to tether her wouldn’t have mattered, and maybe her attacker didn’t know about the flame test. The fireman I saw beside the dark car could have been a teen, maybe a friend of the oldest Coddlefield son, Russ. He couldn’t have been Russ, though,” I reminded her. “I saw Russ driving a tanker truck seconds after I saw that other fireman.”

  Smallwood shook her head. “But later, that kid tore away last night after we said no one was to leave.”

  “We tried.”

  “I know, and we didn’t want you endangering yourselves. You were right to dodge out of his way. I radioed the state police and they went after him but didn’t find him. They will. We have a few questions for that young man.” She polished off her second sandwich. “Fleeing the scene. If there’s a way to make oneself look suspicious…”

  “He’s only sixteen,” I reminded her.

  “Huh,” she said as if nothing could surprise her, though she wasn’t old enough to have worked in law enforcement, or anything else, for more than about six years.

  37

  I ASKED SMALLWOOD, “HAVE THEY FIGURED out why Tiffany was trying to use a heap of fabrics to put out a fire in a sewing machine?”

  She bit into her apple. “What did you want her to do, blow on it?”

  “I mean, why was the sewing machine on fire?” Felicity had said it was the Chandler Champion, and she would have known.

  “Why do you think?” Smallwood asked.

  I gripped my apple tightly. “Please tell me this Chandler Champion didn’t malfunction and start a fire.”

  “Sure, I’ll tell you that if you like.”

  I would have to accept the inevitable. “Tell me the truth,” I said. “Go ahead. Tell me my shop gave away two killer sewing machines in a little over a week.”

  “Okay,” she agreed. “Here it is, unsugared and unembroidered. Yes. No one, not your mystery fireman or anyone else, set that fire. The second killer sewing machine shorted out and caused a fire.”

  I still wanted to blame something besides a sewing machine that had come from In Stitches. “But if Felicity’s memory was right, a mysterious fireman was conveniently on the scene.”

  Smallwood leaned back in her Adirondack chair and closed her eyes against sunlight filtering down through leaves. “And he very nicely restarted the fire after Tiffany almost managed to smother it.”

  “That was considerate.” I was punchy from lack of sleep.

  “Very. If you think of anything that could help us identify the firefighter you saw beside the car, please call me.” She yawned. “I’d better go or I’ll fall asleep right here listening to those birds.”

  We went inside and took the dogs upstairs to In Stitches. Smallwood and I went through the dogs’ pen, then I shut the gate so the dogs wouldn’t make nuisances of themselves or escape through the front door.

  Women sewed, embroidered, chattered, and laughed. It was still my break. Susannah was busy with customers.

  On the way to the front door, we passed my row of bright new sewing machines. Smallwood gave them a grim look. “Maybe I should take up sewing,” she muttered.

  “We have classes Tuesdays through Fridays. If you miss a morning session, attend an afternoon one.”

  She frowned at me like I had no clue, which was close to the truth.

  It seemed that every woman in the store was watching us with keen interest. “Step outside with me,” Smallwood muttered. The door closed behind us. Smallwood asked, “That sewing machine you gave Tiffany, the one that shorted out. Had you tested it?”

  “No, but I’d been using it in some of my classes. Lots of other people saw it working perfectly.”

  “How can they know one sewing machine from another, especially if they’re the same model?”

  “That was the only other Chandler Champion I had here. You can check that with the Chandler company.”

  “Have any of your machines besides the Chandlers ever harmed anyone?”

  “Other than people sticking their fingers under needles at the wrong time, no.”

  She glanced through my huge front windows at cheerful women buying embroidery supplies. “Maybe you shouldn’t use, sell, or give away any more Chandlers until they’re inspected.”

  “Please, take my other Chandler models and have them tested.”

  Smallwood nodded. “We may do that.”

  Two customers ran up to my porch and greeted me. Any minute now, a crowd would gather in and around my rocking chairs and I’d never pry more information out of Chief Smallwood.

  Maybe she wanted to learn more from me, too. When I suggested a walk down the street, she agreed. We passed her cruiser. Waving at Sam inside his hardware store, The Ironmonger, I asked Smallwood, “Did you learn anything more from Felicity?”

  “No, unfortunately. She’s still unconscious. They had to operate right away to relieve pressure on her brain from internal bleeding. She’s being kept in an artificial coma.” Smallwood was still carrying the evidence bag. She raised it to eye level. “All we have until she wakes up is what she wrote on this cardboard and what she said early this morning—a fireman attacked Tiffany, then pushed Felicity down and dragged her out of the house. Apparently she doesn’t remember someone breaking her skull and tying her to a bed.”

  Mona peered out Country Chic’s door as if hoping to lure customers to visit her home decorating boutique. We w
aved at her, then strolled silently past The Sunroom.

  Bashing Tiffany and Felicity with a point presser hadn’t been enough for their attacker. He had been determined that neither of them would escape before the smoke or fire finished them off. What did the two women have in common, other than that they both had some experience, maybe, with sewing, and both had known Darlene? Presumably Tiffany hadn’t harmed herself, so maybe she hadn’t engineered Darlene’s death, but the culprit almost had to be another member of the Coddlefield household.

  I didn’t like Plug and wasn’t about to absolve him of fatally harming his wife, but I could not believe he would allow a fire to rage in a home where his children were sleeping. His daughters had said he’d found Tiffany and carried her out of the house. Maybe he did that to make himself look like a hero, but why tie her up, and why leave the fabric evidence on her wrist when he carried her out?

  We climbed the stairs to the bandstand in the park where the river met the lake. The bandstand’s recent coat of white paint nearly blinded me in the afternoon sunshine. “Did Tiffany see anyone?” I asked Smallwood. “Hear anyone creep up behind her?”

  “Tiffany’s concussion was worse than Felicity’s. She needed the same emergency operation. She’s still unconscious, too.” She squinted at me. “Could Felicity have attacked Tiffany, then blamed a fireman?”

  I bit my lip. “It’s possible, but she wouldn’t have tied herself to the leg of a bed, unless she wanted to commit suicide and make it look like murder, but why drive all the way here to do that? She could have stayed in Cleveland. And how did she bash herself in the back of the head with a point presser, by falling on it? Did you find it on the second floor, or upstairs in the sewing room?”

  “Second floor.”

  “That fits with what she told us about the fireman following her down there,” I said. “How do you police officers manage to keep this all straight?”

  She waved her notebook at me. “Notes. I’ll meet with Gartener and the others and go over all this. Thanks for your help.”

  I couldn’t remember her ever being this grateful before.

  She quickly undid the goodwill by adding, “Don’t leave the county without telling me first.” Head high, she trotted down the bandstand steps and strode toward her cruiser, leaving me gaping after her.

  38

  I REMINDED MYSELF THAT CHIEF SMALL-WOOD hadn’t said I needed her permission to leave the county, only that I had to tell her if I was going. It was a small distinction, and an even smaller consolation.

  I returned to In Stitches only seconds before Susannah was supposed to be back at Tell a Yarn. I walked out to my front porch with her and asked, “Did I see you driving around early this morning about the time of the Coddlefield fire?”

  “What were you doing out then?”

  Not really an answer…I said, “I went for on-the-job firefighting training.”

  She shuddered. “I wish you wouldn’t do that.”

  I asked boldly, “Why were you there?”

  “I wasn’t sleeping. But I didn’t go to the fire.” She pleated the hem of her shirt between her fingers. “I didn’t set it, either.”

  “Have you told Smallwood about that letter yet?”

  “It’s too late. She must already know about it. Or it was destroyed in the fire.” She put on a faked hopeful smile.

  “Not much was destroyed in that fire. Tell her, anyway.”

  “Okay, okay!” She stormed off my porch and across the street.

  The Threadville shops closed at six on Thursdays. When my last customer left, I let my dogs out in the backyard. I couldn’t help smiling at the way they attacked each other, gnashing their teeth in play, but neither of them ever got hurt.

  Had the police found Russ yet?

  Maybe Clay would know. I called his cell, but he didn’t answer. Was he still at the hospital with Tiffany? I texted him to call me.

  I phoned Isaac. He didn’t know where Russ was, either. His voice took on foreboding overtones. “Plug’s looking for him.”

  “Why?”

  “He said he was going to kill him. But you know how fathers can be.”

  Mine had not said anything remotely like that, even in teasing, when I was a teen. On the other hand, as an adult, I had gotten into a lot of trouble for making a threat like Plug’s. I hadn’t meant it, though. Had Plug?

  I called Smallwood and told her what Isaac had said.

  “That could explain why the boy hasn’t shown up,” she said. “Some parents! We’d like you to show us where you found Felicity, now, Willow. Meet you at the Coddlefields’ in fifteen minutes?”

  I agreed, though I really didn’t want to return to that smoke- and water-damaged house, didn’t want to be involved in anything to do with the Coddlefields’ life or the investigation into Darlene’s death.

  It was a little late to stay out of it, however.

  Maybe, I told myself as I shut the dogs into my apartment, the police were on the verge of solving the crimes and would soon tell me they’d arrested a culprit, and I would be able to leave the county if I wanted to without telling Chief Smallwood first. Not that I particularly wanted to. I loved Threadville.

  I drove south into the countryside. The golden haze hovering over fields would have been lovelier if I hadn’t been on my way back to the Coddlefields’. I slowed to turn into their driveway. A car coming from the opposite direction stopped to let me go first. Detective Gartener lifted one finger from the steering wheel in greeting.

  He followed me down the driveway and parked behind me. The Coddlefields’ farmhouse looked empty and forlorn with that gaping black hole in the roof and glass missing from the third-floor windows. Yellow police tape was draped from tree to tree. Everything reeked of smoke.

  Chief Smallwood’s cruiser was near Tiffany’s car, but Plug’s SUV and Russ’s pickup were nowhere in sight.

  Smallwood, Gartener, and I got out of our vehicles. Gartener wore a T-shirt and jeans, so it was easy to tell he wasn’t wearing a Kevlar vest, but he walked with his usual take-no-nonsense bearing.

  Smallwood had found time for a shower and a fresh uniform. Maybe a nap, too, but she always glowed when Gartener was around. She greeted him first, then me. “Willow, we want to see where you found Felicity Ranquels tied to a bed…”

  One of Gartener’s eyebrows rose.

  “The leg of a bed,” I corrected her. “She was on the floor.”

  Smallwood waved her hand in front of her face. “Wherever.”

  “Retrace your steps for us,” Gartener said in that warm voice that didn’t go with his wary eyes. “From the moment you arrived here last night.”

  “I parked out on the road, then ran up the driveway.” I showed them where the children had been sitting when I talked to them, and where I’d collected firefighter’s garb from the fire truck. They had me lead them through the woods the way I’d gone to the back of house. We ducked under the yellow tape. Unlike the night before, the kitchen door was closed. Smallwood had a key.

  The smell of smoke was worse inside. They wanted to know how I knew my way around the house, and I felt like a museum guide. Here was where the children were crying instead of eating their snack. Here was where Edna and I saw Plug kissing Tiffany. Here was the late Darlene Coddlefield’s collection of framed antique linens, now stained by smoke and water.

  And…I balked. There were the stairs that Tiffany and I had climbed, huffing and puffing under the weight of the second killer sewing machine, the same stairs I’d dragged Felicity down in the dark of night, with smoke billowing and water dripping. I asked, “Are these stairs safe?”

  “You weren’t worried about that last night,” Smallwood scolded.

  “The local fire officials”—Plug and Isaac?—“have said they are,” Gartener assured me. “And state fire investigators concurred.”

  “Lead on,” Smallwood ordered, a little too cheerfully.

  Bracing my shoulders, I trudged to the second floor. I pointed through
open doorways to bedrooms, the pink frilly one and the blue cars-and-trucks one, with quilts missing from bunk beds and blankets pulled onto the floor. The quilt was still on the bed in the master bedroom. Everything was wet. “I checked these rooms, first.”

  I didn’t have to touch the tiny bedroom’s door. It was open, the way I’d left it. “Did you fingerprint this door?” I asked. “Felicity was lying there, on the floor, early this morning.”

  “Everything was checked for prints, right, Toby?” Smallwood asked the tall detective.

  He looked down at me. “Did you touch the door last night?”

  I thought back. “I was wearing firefighter’s gloves.”

  Smallwood pointed behind the door. “Those?”

  Two firefighter’s gloves, with the letters EVFD stenciled on them in red, were almost out of sight under the bed. I stared at the gloves in bewilderment, and then at my bare hands. “I don’t think so. I’m sure I left them on, even when I was dragging Felicity out. I put mine away where they belonged on the fire truck. Those must be—”

  Gartener was one step ahead of me. He scooped up the gloves and dropped them into an evidence bag. “Felicity said her attacker was dressed as a fireman.”

  But I’d discovered a new horror. Thickened blood. I backed away. “Felicity’s head was just about there,” I managed.

  “We figured,” Gartener said.

  “The loop around her wrist was under this leg,” I said.

  Smallwood took photos and made notes.

  Except for the bloodstain and a tiny, yellowed scrap of paper on the floor near where the gloves had been, Tiffany’s room was sparse and neat.

  “What’s that piece of paper?” I asked Gartener.

  He picked it up. “A return address label for Darlene Coddlefield.”

  “Think it matches that small rectangle of glue on the weapon?” Smallwood asked him.

  “We’ll find out.” He placed the sticker in an envelope.

  “Let me guess,” I said. “Darlene Coddlefield put return address labels on her sewing things.”