“Apparently not,” Jenny said with a smile.
“Can you take a break?” Harriet asked.
“I’d love one. Let me tell Pamela she’s on.” Jenny walked to the opposite side of her display area and spoke to a slender woman sitting on a chair watching the crowd.
“Can you take over for a few minutes?” she asked.
“Sure, let me get my wig and sunglasses on.” Pamela Gilbert was wearing a tunic that also appeared to be tie-dyed.
“Your costumes are great,” Harriet said with true admiration.
“We found three similar tunics, and then my daughter over-dyed them in rainbow colors,” Pamela said proudly.
“We weren’t sure which one of you was which until Jenny spoke,” Harriet marveled.
“I’m happy to take a turn,” Pamela said brightly.
“I won’t be gone long,” Jenny removed her glasses and pulled her wig off. She’d pinned her own hair into two bun-like curls behind each ear. “I wish I could take these hairpins out,” she complained. “Between the pins and the wig, it feels like bugs are crawling over my scalp.” She pulled a small triangle scarf from her skirt pocket and centered it over her hairdo, tying it at the nape of her neck. “These little scarves were real popular back in the day.”
She patted her head with her hand.
“The food is going to be gone if we don’t get moving,” Lauren prodded.
“I can catch up if you want,” Jenny said. “I need to stop at the restrooms on our way. They’re right by the door out to the courtyard.”
“Okay, we’ll meet you outside the main doors,” Harriet said and headed for the front of the building.
“Jenny seems tense,” Lauren commented when she and Harriet were outside. The scent of frying food floated on the slight breeze. “For whatever reason, she didn’t want her old quilt in the show. They almost bullied her into participating. I don’t know what the problem is or was, but it’s clear there was one.”
“There must be a line in the restroom,” Harriet said and looked at her watch. More than five minutes had passed.
“I told you we should have just gone ourselves,” Lauren shot back and resumed rocking from her toes to her heels.
Someone screamed as the main double doors burst open and a crowd of people pushed out into the courtyard. Another loud shriek followed, then a man’s voice shouting for someone to call 911.
“What’s going on?” Lauren pushed past Harriet, heading for the open doors.
Harriet grabbed her arm.
“Don’t go back inside until we know what’s going on,” she cautioned.
“Jenny’s in there,” Lauren said, dragging Harriet with her as she continued toward the door. “You’re the one who always wants to stick her nose into everything. Don’t you think we should see if she’s okay?”
“I’m trying to mend my ways, since jumping into the middle of things hasn’t worked out so well.”
“What do you mean?” Lauren stopped suddenly, her progress blocked by a crush of people filling the doorway. “The bad people we’ve encountered have ended up in jail—that’s a pretty good result, if you ask me.”
“Easy for you to say—I’m the one who’s been bashed in the head, had a shoulder injured and had to hobble around on crutches for weeks.”
“Oh, wah-wah-wah. Always thinking of yourself, aren’t you?”
“Since when have you wanted to risk anything to help anyone in trouble?”
Lauren turned and stared at her.
“I’ve done more than my share in your little adventures, if that’s what you want to call them.”
“I didn’t say you haven’t been helpful. It’s just that you’re usually the one trying to talk me out of getting involved in other people’s business.”
If Lauren made a biting retort, it was lost when Jenny was forced out the door by a large woman who was determined to leave and was willing to shove anyone who got in her way. She bumped into Lauren, almost knocking them both to the ground; only Harriet’s proximity to a support post prevented them all from falling over. The cement column slammed into her spine with bruising force.
“What’s going on in there?” she asked Jenny when they had all taken a step apart and regained their balance.
“I don’t know. I was in the restroom, and when I came out everyone was screaming and heading for the door. There was nothing to do but go along with the flow.”
“Did you hear anything else, or smell smoke or anything?” Lauren asked.
“No, the restrooms are so close to the front, I couldn’t see anything but the backs of the people surrounding me. And the only noise in there was screaming, and someone calling for anyone with a phone to dial nine-one-one.”
“Maybe someone had a heart attack or something,” Lauren said and turned toward the food booths. The sound of sirens approaching became louder.
“I want to go check on my quilt,” Jenny said.
“I’ll come with you,” Harriet said, “but I think we’re going to have to wait a minute until the crowd clears.”
Lauren gave Harriet a questioning look. Harriet shrugged. Jenny’s behavior seemed a bit insensitive to her, but then, everyone reacts to shock in their own way. Who were they to judge?
“I don’t know if you noticed, but there are life-sized statues of historic figures every so many feet around the outside walls of the main room. There are exit doors between each pair of statues. The one nearest my quilt was propped open to let some air in.”
“Okay,” Harriet said and turned. “Let’s go see if it’s still open.”
It took a few minutes, and they had to scale a thigh-high cement support wall, but the trio found the door Jenny had described, and it was still partially open. Jenny pulled it wider and stepped inside.
“No!” she screamed, over and over again.
Harriet and Lauren hurried through the door, pushing her aside so they could see. Someone was lying on the platform in front of Jenny’s quilt.
Jenny made her way to the small stage, and as a few people recognized her, they stepped aside. Harriet followed and could see Pamela flat on her back, a paramedic kneeling beside her, lifting first one eyelid then the other, shining a pocket penlight in each eye in turn. He pulled away from the body and shook his head from side to side, once.
Pamela was gone.
Chapter 10
It was never a good thing when the first responders stopped moving quickly and started picking up their refuse. That was what was happening as Harriet watched Jenny run her hand over her quilt.
Pamela had been standing beside it when she was shot, but now, as she lay on the stage surrounded by torn packages and discarded tubing, there was at first little evidence that anything out of the ordinary had happened. She could have decided to take a nap, aside from the small dark hole in the middle of her forehead and an expanding halo of blood.
Jenny had neatly sidestepped Pamela’s body when she went up the stairs to the platform. She hadn’t looked at the body since; her eyes had remained fixed on her quilt.
“You ladies need to leave.” Officer Hue Nguyen approached the stage where Harriet and Lauren waited for Jenny to finish her inspection, if that’s what she was doing.
“We were just checking on Jenny’s quilt,” Harriet explained. It sounded strange to her, so she could just imagine how weird it seemed to Officer Nguyen. A woman had been murdered, and they were checking on a quilt.
“We’ll leave now,” Lauren said. “Come on, Jenny, we have to leave so the officer can do his job.”
Jenny didn’t appear to have heard.
“Jenny!” Harriet said in a firm tone. “We have to go now.”
Jenny shivered then turned and came down the steps, rejoining her friends. The trio started to leave, but Nguyen stopped them.
“Are you three involved in this?” he asked without a hint of friendliness in his tone. He had been the responding officer several times in the past when Harriet was involved in misadventures. It
was amazing to her that he treated them as if they were the criminals every time, even though it hadn’t once been true.
“No,” Lauren said and turned toward the door they’d come in through.
A part of Harriet wanted to follow her without saying anything else, but she couldn’t.
“This quilt is Jenny’s. Until a few minutes ago, she was standing on this stage and answering questions about it,” she said. “Lauren and I went outside, and Jenny was in the restroom when this…” She gestured toward Pamela. “…happened.”
Lauren poked her in the arm.
“Don’t volunteer anything,” she whispered.
“I’ve got your names,” Nguyen said, tapping his notebook against his palm. “The detectives will contact you for your statements.”
“We don’t have statements,” Lauren said. “We weren’t here, and we didn’t see anything.”
Nguyen glared at her.
“I know, don’t leave town,” she said with a smirk. “I watch TV.”
It was Harriet’s turn to take Lauren by the arm and pull her to the door. Jenny followed silently, her face blank.
“We better find Aunt Beth and Mavis and tell them what happened,” Harriet said as they circled around the building and on to the courtyard. The crowd was buzzing with talk of the shooting.
“What on earth happened in there?” Aunt Beth asked when they made their way through the line at Jorge’s food cart. “People’ve been talking about someone being shot in the exhibit hall. I didn’t recognize the name they said, and I’m embarrassed to say I was relieved that I didn’t.”
“It was one of Jenny’s substitutes,” Harriet told her.
“I’m so sorry,” Beth said to Jenny, who had still not said anything.
“It’s very sad, I’m sure,” Jenny said in a flat voice. “I didn’t really know her. We only met a few days ago.”
“Well, it’s a shame. I hope it doesn’t scare people off our event.” Aunt Beth made up three snack sampler plates, including the choc-olate-coated Twinkies. “You all probably need a little chocolate after this,” she said and handed them each a plate. “It’s on the house,” she added when Jenny started to dig in her purse. “Go find Mavis and tell her what happened before you go back,” she said as they turned to go.
“Will do,” Harriet said and followed Lauren to a table under one of the open tents that had been set up just beyond the food carts.
“Did Pamela have problems?” Lauren asked Jenny as she popped a slice of Twinkie into her mouth.
Jenny stared into space.
“Jenny?” Harriet asked when she still hadn’t answered after a long moment. “Are you okay?”
“No, I’m not okay. That could have been me…or Sharon. We all three had the same outfit, hair and glasses. Whoever shot Pamela wasn’t close by. Someone would have seen them if they were. How do we know they were after Pamela?”
“How do we know they weren’t” Lauren challenged.
Jenny glared at her but remained silent.
“Jenny,” Harriet said gently, “are you in some kind of trouble?”
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Jenny said and stood up. “They aren’t going to let us near my quilt anymore tonight. I think I need to go home.”
“Do you want me to drive you?” Harriet asked.
“No, I’ll be fine. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” She turned and left the food court.
“Well, that was weird, even for the Loose Threads,” Lauren said.
“We better find the rest of the Threads and let them know what’s going on. Jenny’s going to need support, and I’m not sure we’re the ones who can give it to her.”
“She’s got some explaining to do, if you ask me,” Lauren said. “These Twinkies aren’t bad.” She popped a second slice into her mouth before tossing her empty plate into a garbage bin.
They found Mavis at a booth in the north vendor area, on the opposite side of the exhibit hall from where Harriet had her booth. She was selling raffle tickets for a quilt, which would help fund improvements to the restrooms at Fogg Park that the homeless people who lived in the park had access to. The Methodist Church was organizing the project and had several fundraisers planned. They hoped to add an indoor shower and a coin-operated gas stove and tables in a covered outdoor eating area.
The quilt was composed of a combination of blocks that depicted trees, cabins, mountains, birds and other country-related images, with vines and flowers connecting them into a whole. It reminded Harriet of a block-of-the-month quilt she’d seen at a show in Tacoma.
“How’s it going at your end?” Mavis asked when she saw her friends approach.
“Haven’t you heard?” Lauren asked.
“Heard what?”
“Someone’s been shot in the main exhibit hall,” Harriet explained.
“What? How could someone be shot in a room full of people? Who was it, and did they catch the shooter right away? Was anyone else hurt?”
“Whoa,” Lauren said and held her hands up.
“First, it wasn’t anyone we know,” Harriet said. “It was one of the women attending to Jenny’s quilt. They didn’t catch anyone. Judging by the hole in her forehead, I’m guessing she was shot from across the room.”
“We were outside when it happened,” Lauren added. “Jenny was inside, but in the bathroom.”
“As far as we know,” Harriet said.
“What do you mean?” Lauren turned to look at Harriet to see if she was serious.
“All I’m saying is, we were outside, so we have no way of knowing if Jenny was in the bathroom or not. She told us that’s where she was going, but we were outside before she went in.”
“Oh, honey, you don’t think she had anything to do with this, do you?” Mavis asked. She started to take off the deep-pocketed apron she wore while she was selling tickets. “Where is she? She needs us if she’s involved in some way.”
“No rush,” Lauren said. “She took off already.”
“Does she know the family?”
“She claims she didn’t know the woman until they were teamed up by the committee to show her quilt,” Harriet offered.
“Why would she go running off if she didn’t even know the victim?” Mavis asked. “Her husband is on a hunting trip in Africa, so she’s not going home for comfort.”
“The exhibit hall is closed for the rest of tonight, so she said she wasn’t needed and left,” Harriet said.
“She was acting really weird, even for a Loose Thread,” Lauren told Mavis.
“Yeah,” Harriet agreed. “She told us that since they were all dressed in the same shirt, wig and glasses, the bullet could have been meant for any of them.”
“That sounds like she had some reason to believe it could have been meant for her,” Mavis said thoughtfully. “Did she give any indication as to why she said that?”
“No, but I have to agree with Lauren—she was acting weird. When we went back to see if her quilt had been damaged, she stepped past Pamela like she was a bag of trash on the rug.”
“Yeah,” Lauren jumped in. “Then she was fondling her quilt like it was the one who had been shot.” She finished with a shiver. “It was kinda creepy.”
“Do the rest of the Threads know?” Mavis asked.
“No. I mean, we haven’t told them,” Harriet said. “Aunt Beth had already heard, but Robin and DeAnn are watching my table in the south vendor hall, and we haven’t seen Connie or Carla yet.”
“Connie and Carla are here, two rows over, helping people arrange precut fabric into patterns that other ladies are sewing into blocks for baby quilts for the hospital. I’ll go talk to them while you two go tell Robin and DeAnn. We all need to talk.”
“Where shall we meet?” Harriet asked.
“Do you mind us coming to your place? It’s too cold to sit outside here for very long.”
“Sure,” Harriet agreed.
She and Lauren went back outside. There was a door at the back of t
he room that led into the exhibit hall, but Harriet assumed the police wouldn’t be letting people through that way for the time being.
“What’s going on?” Robin asked as soon as they were in earshot.
“Someone said there’s been a shooting,” DeAnn said.
“Yeah,” Lauren answered, “the woman who took over for Jenny when we took her for break.”
“Is she badly hurt?” Robin asked.
“If you consider dead to be badly hurt, then, yeah.”
“Stop,” Harriet said and glared at Lauren. “Mavis suggested we meet at my house after we finish here. The woman who was shot was one of Jenny’s replacements—they were all dressed alike. And Jenny’s been acting odd since the shooting.”
“I’m sure she’s upset,” DeAnn said. “Did she know the woman very well?”
“She says not,” Harriet answered. “But then as soon as we were outside, she took off. And Mavis says her husband is out of town, so she’s going to an empty house.”
“If she’s going home,” Robin said thoughtfully. “Why would she run off like that if she didn’t know the woman? I mean, I’m sure any of us would be upset if someone we worked with was shot, but we’d want to talk it over with the rest of the group, not run away.”
“Maybe she’s worried that she was the intended victim,” Harriet suggested. “It was her quilt, after all, so most people who had seen the advertising would expect that she’d be the one talking about it, especially on the first night.”
“She’s been acting weird ever since the committee first asked if they could feature her quilt,” Lauren pointed out.
“I agree,” Robin said. “Her reaction to being asked was way off. Think about it. What would you say if they had asked you for one of your first quilts? It might not be comparable to something you’d make now, but would it freak you out?”
“Good point,” Harriet said. “But who knows what memories that particular quilt might hold for her. Maybe her dead mother helped her make it.”
“Or she cried on it when her first boyfriend dumped her,” Lauren added with enthusiasm. Or—”
“We get the idea,” DeAnn said, cutting Lauren off. “But even if that was the case, it’s been—what?—forty, forty-five years since that quilt was made? How upset can you still be over a lost boyfriend?”
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