Threaded for Trouble

by Janet Bolin

  “Bingo,” Smallwood said.

  “So the point presser you found was hers?”

  “Two for two,” she said.

  “Did you find her point presser in this room?”

  “Three for three,” Smallwood said.

  “Ever think of joining the state police?” Gartener asked in that voice that might have made me consider doing all sorts of uncharacteristic things.

  But maybe not becoming a cop. “I’ll leave investigating to you experts.”

  “Good,” Smallwood snapped. “It’s about time you learned that. We’re done here.” She started down the soggy, carpeted stairs.

  Following her, I asked, “How are Felicity and Tiffany?”

  “Still being kept unconscious,” Smallwood said.

  “Is anyone with them?” I asked.

  Behind me, Gartener answered, “State troopers.”

  “Is Clay Fraser still with Tiffany?” I asked.

  I couldn’t see Gartener’s face, but he sounded surprised or amused. “No.”

  Where was Clay, and why hadn’t he returned my call or text?

  Smallwood led us out the back door and locked it, and we walked around the side of the house beside zinnias and petunias, still blooming and mostly, except for a few trampled ones, undamaged by firefighters.

  At our cars, I asked, “Have you found Russ Coddlefield yet? The sixteen-year-old?”

  Smallwood and Gartener exchanged looks that I couldn’t read. “No,” Gartener answered.

  “If you find out where he is, or think of anything you haven’t told us, let us know,” Smallwood added.

  I drove home and let the dogs have an extra-long romp in the backyard. Clay didn’t return my call. He’d been up most of the night, then could have worked all day.

  Maybe he knew where Russ was and didn’t want to be put on the spot about it.

  I would have to leave Clay alone.

  39

  THE NEXT DAY WAS FRIDAY, SUSANNAH’S day to help in my shop. She came in early with a spring in her step, and smiled with obvious relief. “I don’t have to tell Chief Smallwood about the letter.”

  “She knew?”

  “She has a suspect.” Susannah lowered her voice as if we already had customers in the store. “Not me. Russ Coddlefield, Darlene’s son. He ran away from home, and the police are looking for him.”

  The morning’s students bounded into the store, so we couldn’t continue the discussion.

  Watching Susannah patiently explain why the correct stabilizer and tension were crucial to machine embroidery, I couldn’t believe that anyone ever could have suspected her of harming Darlene. I still worried that her refusal to confess about the letter would come back to bite her.

  It was hard to concentrate on anything for very long. All day, our customers were excited about the Harvest Festival, which would begin later that night. Susannah confessed that she was a fall fair junkie and could hardly wait for lights, music, and rides. “And the fireworks,” she crowed. “Tonight at nine.” It was great to see her acting like herself again.

  I tilted my head. “You like fireworks?”

  She pushed her hair back. “I know. It makes no sense. Fire scares me, but fireworks don’t. Maybe because they’re more controlled.”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  She laughed. “Well, they’re pretty, anyway.”

  I had to agree with that.

  Opal had canceled her usual Friday storytelling so we could all set up the Threadville booth. The Harvest Festival would be a mini-holiday for all of us, complete with yummy food, games, shows, and other booths to tour. Haylee, her mothers, and I planned to work in our own stores on Saturday and Sunday, but we had notified everyone that we would close early so we could spend evenings at the festival. We had hired Susannah and Georgina to assist visitors in the Threadville booth during the days we couldn’t be there.

  As soon as our last customer left In Stitches at a quarter past five, I badgered Susannah again about confessing to the police about the letter she’d written to Darlene. She said she would after supper if she had time before the fireworks.

  “Make time.”

  Promising she would, she left.

  I loaded my car with IMEC entries and embroidery supplies, then took off for the festival.

  A few miles south of Elderberry Bay, I came upon fences surrounding acres of recently mown hayfields where dozens of white vinyl tents and several ovals of bleachers had sprouted up. A tall Ferris wheel, its colorful lights glittering even in the daylight, dominated the fairgrounds.

  I smelled popcorn. Suddenly hungry, I pulled up at the festival’s entry gate. A smiling teenager wearing a bright red vest with the words Harvest Festival Volunteer on it—silk-screened, not embroidered—handed me a map. “The Threadville booth is in the handcrafts tent, right here on the corner of Brussels Sprouts Boulevard and Cabbage Court.”

  I thanked her and drove off, bumping over furrows until I found Brussels Sprouts Boulevard. Haylee’s pickup truck, Naomi’s SUV, and Opal’s and Edna’s sedans were parked behind the tent. Clay’s truck wasn’t there, but one of Elderberry Bay’s fire tankers was. An ambulance crew and state trooper were supposed to be on the grounds, too, on standby, at least when the festival was actually open.

  I wondered if Tiffany and Felicity were conscious yet and able to give the investigators new details. If so, maybe the state police had already arrested a suspect. Determined to enjoy the festival no matter what, I parked and got out.

  The handcrafts tent was big, probably about forty by eighty feet, with entrances at both ends.

  Snickering, two teenaged boys galumphed away from the nearest entryway. I recognized them. Russ’s friends. I called, “Do you two know where Russ is?”

  “No!” They laughed harder and ran faster.

  I didn’t believe them and was tempted to chase them, but if I caught up, would they tell me the truth about Russ? Did they know who had attacked Tiffany and Felicity?

  Inside the vast tent, a wide walkway separated the two long rows of booths. Booth was not quite the right word, since the only walls, except for barriers that exhibitors brought with them, were the tent walls around the perimeter.

  Threadville’s booth was the first one on our right, in a corner formed by the tent walls. I couldn’t see beyond Naomi’s quilts into the next booth, which should be the firefighters’ flea market.

  The second she saw me, Opal wanted to know why I’d asked the two boys where Russ was.

  Edna stepped in front of her taller friend. “We overheard those boys talking in the booth next door. They said Russ was hiding, and it had something to do with the fire at his place. They said his father told them he’s going to kill Russ if he ever finds him!”

  I nodded. “I heard that, too.”

  Naomi shook her head and looked about to cry. “Imagine saying that to your kid’s friends. No wonder Russ doesn’t want to go home.”

  I asked, “Did the boys say where Russ is? The police want to talk to him.”

  Edna clapped her hands to her cheeks. “The police! What has he done?”

  “Nothing, as far as I know,” I answered, “besides leaving the scene of the fire before they told him he could.”

  “The boys didn’t let on where Russ is,” Naomi said. Her kind and caring voice always calmed the situation. “But I got the impression that they know.”

  Opal straightened a package of knitting needles hanging on a display rack. “That’s what I thought, too.”

  “Me, too,” Edna said. “Let’s help Willow get organized.”

  Haylee and her mothers had already arranged their sections of our booth. They all went with me to unload my car. We quickly carried everything inside.

  Setting up the glass-fronted case displaying the IMEC entries, I couldn’t help admiring the gorgeous embroidery my students had created. Georgina had drawn, all in thread, a simple yet elegant vase. Susannah had created a dreamy girl with metallic stars glimmering in her flowin
g hair. Mimi had surrounded a hummingbird in flight with intricate vines and flowers and had backed the piece—meant to be a doily, I guessed—with canvas, which made the doily bulky, and even a bit lumpy in places. Rosemary had embroidered a pair of kittens tangling each other in a ball of yarn. My favorite was Ashley’s wistful unicorn. That girl would go far with her thread art. I locked the case.

  “Done?” Edna asked.

  I nodded. Edna, Opal, Naomi, Haylee, and I trooped into the center aisle and turned around to see how the Threadville booth might look to strangers.

  We all agreed that it was lovely, with Naomi’s quilts guarding us from the firefighters’ booth, Haylee’s fabrics lining the wall of the tent nearest the doorway, Opal’s knitted and crocheted clothing and blankets sharing the front with Edna’s bling-bedecked garments. And finally, samples of embroidery across the back. The glowing rainbow hues in the matching flame stitch quilt, afghan, sofa pillow, and my embroidered wall hanging unified the display. Haylee had used the same color palette in the garments she’d tailored for the show.

  We weren’t planning to sell anything at the festival. Instead, we would hand out brochures and schedules for our fall classes. We would also show potential customers and students what could be done with a little imagination, creativity, determination, and supplies—many of them displayed here in our booth—that could be purchased at the Threadville boutiques.

  It was nearly seven. The opening ceremonies were due to start in less than two hours. Opal, Edna, and Naomi wandered off to explore the fair and pick up something to eat.

  Haylee and I hoped to finish setting up the firefighters’ booth before the fireworks at nine. We peeked around Naomi’s wall of quilts. Books, glassware, dishes, kitchen gadgets, and toys covered every flat surface in the firefighters’ booth.

  “Someone has already done a lot,” I said, surprised and pleased.

  “Isaac was here, working with Russ’s friends,” Haylee told me. “But he had to check on the fireworks and left the boys to work alone.”

  “Isaac’s setting off the fireworks?” I asked.

  “No. They brought in professional pyrotechnic artists.”

  Just as well. Our sweet but cautious deputy fire chief would probably feel he had to douse the fireworks with water before lighting them.

  Apparently, the boys had given up before unpacking all the cardboard cartons. They had piled obviously full ones in one tall stack next to a tarpaulin hanging in the corner farthest from the Threadville booth. I could hear Mona muttering to herself on the other side of the tarpaulin.

  Haylee frowned at the precariously balanced cartons. “I’ll have to get the ladder out of my truck again so we can finish unpacking and pricing.”

  Before we could take one step, Mona raced in from her booth next door and stuck a round red sticker on a love seat. “I’m buying this for Country Chic!”

  Haylee pointed out, “The upholstery’s torn.”

  Mona shook her head. “I’ll have…I’ll refinish and reupholster it.”

  To keep from laughing, I carefully did not look at Haylee. Mona always expected us to believe, against all evidence to the contrary, that she could sew, refinish, and upholster.

  Mona slapped a sticker on a scratched-up bookcase. “Just tell me the prices.” She claimed a lamp, a set of dishes, and a copper pot. “How much? How much?” Shaking her head in her usual way, she never stopped talking long enough for us to answer.

  Eventually, Haylee managed to show her the price tags and stickers. Mona wanted to haggle. Haylee and I refused to sell anything for less than what we thought the fire department might get after the handcrafts tent opened for business in the morning. Deciding that some of the pieces couldn’t be worth as much as we were asking, Mona removed many of her red stickers. She did, however, pay for the love seat, several lamps, a wing chair, and an urn that looked like it might contain Uncle Herbert’s or Great-Aunt Alicia’s remains. Glad to make space so we could unpack more cartons, Haylee and I helped Mona cart her loot into the Country Chic booth.

  Finally, Haylee and I went out, retrieved her ladder, and set it up next to the leaning tower of cartons.

  Mona huffed and puffed as she arranged her purchases in the next booth. The tarpaulin between the two booths bulged, increasing the size of her booth and decreasing the size of the firefighters’ booth.

  The stack of cardboard cartons swayed.

  Mona screamed.

  40

  THE TOP CARTON TUMBLED OVER THE makeshift barricade into Mona’s booth.

  She shrieked louder.

  Haylee leaped over a stool and grabbed the ladder. I squeezed between a table and the bulging tarpaulin separating the firefighters’ booth from Mona’s, but I was too late to steady the tower, even if I could have.

  The second carton tilted toward Mona’s booth, then fell. It bounced off the frame holding the tarpaulin and came straight at me. I fended it off. It crashed onto the table beside me. China and glass flew everywhere.

  More cartons cascaded over the table, the ladder, and me. They knocked Haylee down. I couldn’t see her. She had to be somewhere behind furniture and the remains of what had once been sets of dishes.

  “Haylee, are you okay?” I yelled.

  Haylee shoved cartons away and rose, somewhat disheveled, from among them. “I’m fine. That was exciting.” Boxes settled onto the packed earth around her. She pushed hair out of her eyes. Her smile turned to shock. “Willow, you’re bleeding.”

  Blood welled out of a cut on my right hand. I put my hand behind my back. “It’s nothing.”

  She scrambled toward me between upended boxes, furniture, and broken dishes. “Let me see,” she ordered.

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Help!” Mona shouted. “Come help me!” At least I thought that was what she yelled, but her voice came out oddly muffled.

  Haylee and I raced around the tarpaulin hanging between the firefighters’ booth and Mona’s.

  Mona sat on the ground in the back corner of her booth. A cardboard box was upside down on her head. About a zillion men’s ties covered the rest of her.

  The box wasn’t stuck. We lifted it off easily. Ties poured out of it.

  “I could have suffocated,” Mona gasped, looking daggers at us.

  I opened my mouth to tell her that we’d also been attacked by falling boxes, and that she could have removed the box from her head by herself.

  And then I saw Haylee’s face. She’d stopped plucking ties off Mona, and was gazing in apparent rapture at the ties in her hands. “One hundred percent silk,” she breathed, “every one of them. I’ll take the whole lot.”

  Mona struggled to rise. “Whatever for?”

  I tried to help Mona stand, but she saw blood on my hand, avoided touching me, and levered herself up by leaning on the love seat she’d crammed into the corner. Silk ties slithered from her to the love seat to the ground.

  I was afraid that Haylee might ruin one of the ties by using it as a tourniquet on my arm. My hand wasn’t bleeding heavily, but the cut stung.

  Haylee, however, seemed to have forgotten my wound. She murmured, “Beautiful silks, cut on the bias. I can turn them into seam binding and piping.”

  “But they fell into my booth,” Mona whined. “Finders, keepers.”

  “What would you do with all these men’s ties, Mona?” I asked. Put an ad in a singles’ column—forty-something woman, complete with a box of expensive silk ties?

  Mona shrugged, sending even more ties onto the floor. “If Haylee can use them for piping, I can, too.”

  Haylee lost some of her dreamy expression. “You’re going to start making your own clothes?”

  “For upholstery.”

  Haylee raised her eyebrows. “Silk won’t last a month as piping on upholstery. Besides, there’s only enough fabric in one tie to embellish a few short seams. It would work for clothing, not love seats.”

  Mona didn’t seem to know that a bright red and green striped tie
was looped over her chignon. “Sofa pillows, then.” With both hands, she sketched out a large pillow.

  “Smaller,” Haylee corrected her.

  She wrinkled her nose. “Ugh. Not trendy. I guess they won’t be much use to me. You buy them. If I need one, I’ll come over to your place for it.”

  Haylee asked me, “How much should I pay the firefighters for the entire box?”

  “Let’s ask Isaac when he comes back,” I suggested.

  One end of the tie on Mona’s head must have touched her ear. She brushed at it and missed. “Hundreds of dollars’ worth of ties.” She looked like she expected to benefit from the proceeds herself.

  Haylee and I put the ties into the carton. By unspoken agreement, we did not tell Mona about the one dangling from her head. She would dislodge it soon enough with her usual head-shaking,

  As a respite from trying to control my Mona-induced giggles, I went with Haylee when she carried the carton to her truck. She remembered my injury. “Willow, raise your hand over your head. I have a first-aid kit in my glove compartment.”

  A few minutes later, we’d both indulged in a fit of laughter, my hand had been thoroughly disinfected and bundled in gauze and covered in extra-large adhesive bandages.

  “I hate to complain,” I said, “after your first-rate care, but didn’t you have any plain Band-Aids?” Haylee’s were covered in cartoon characters.

  “Afraid not,” Haylee said. “You needed a bit of whimsy in your outfit.”

  I was dressed the same way she was, in jeans and a black T-shirt. Suddenly, I remembered what had been odd about Opal, Naomi, and Edna. “Your mothers aren’t wearing handmade clothes tonight,” I said to Haylee. “I’ve never seen them in jeans before.”

  Haylee groaned. “Cowboy boots, too. They figured that a Harvest Festival called for Western dress.”

  “It could have been worse,” I said. “They could have worn bandanas over their faces.”

  “Don’t even think it.”

  Not many people were in our tent, but we did manage to borrow a broom and a dustpan from a woman in the scrapbooking guild’s booth and were able to sweep up shards of china and glass. After we took the broom back to the scrapbooker, I unpacked a box of mismatched teaspoons and banged-up colanders.