Make Quilts Not War

by Arlene Sachitano

  The nurse—Mary Gonzales, according to her name tag—pulled a bundle wrapped in blue cloth from a cabinet and unfolded it next to her arm. It contained a pair of bandage scissors and several pairs of tweezers, along with a plastic tray. Mary removed the ice packs, and Dr. Mitchell moved Harriet’s arm onto the cloth and began cutting away the glove. Harriet turned her face away and studied the curtain on the opposite side of her cubicle. Whatever else they were going to do to her arm wasn’t anything she wanted to see. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

  Someone must have slipped pain medication into her IV while her eyes were closed, because when she opened them again, her arm was wrapped in a new dressing, and Lauren was sitting in a chair at her bedside.

  “How long have I been asleep?” she asked, her voice hoarse.

  “Shhh.” Lauren held her forefinger to her lips. “Listen,” she whispered.

  Harriet could hear two voices coming from one of the cubicles farther down her row.

  “That was one of the strangest cases of food poisoning I’ve ever seen,” a woman said.

  Harriet looked at Lauren.

  “She sure recovered quickly,” a deeper female voice commented.

  “Yeah, just in time to avoid the stomach pump.”

  “She made a real point of the fact that Dr. Jalbert’s housekeeper made the soup she’d eaten.”

  “Funny how no one else got sick.”

  “Hard to imagine how vegetable beef soup poisoned even one person. Especially since it was served hot, according to the patient.”

  “If you ask me, she was faking,” deep voice replied. “It’s a shame people like that are willing to waste our time and resources when there’s a waiting room full of sick or hurt people who really do need care.”

  “It takes all kinds, I guess,” the first woman said.

  Harriet and Lauren heard the crinkling of paper and the sound of a broom. Michelle and Aiden must have gone.

  “You’ve been out at least an hour. I passed Aiden and that witch he calls a sister as I came in. I assume that conversation was about her,” Lauren said. “She was screeching about Carla trying to kill her.”

  “Oh, my gosh! Michelle is trying to get Carla fired,” Harriet said.

  “Seems like,” Lauren replied. “I think we need to call your aunt now. I mean, it’s great to let her and Jorge have their moment at the prom and all, but she needs to be here with you. Your nurse was just in here a while ago asking if you’d had a tetanus shot recently. I told her I didn’t have a clue. If your aunt was here, she’d know.”

  “She doesn’t have her cell phone with her.”

  “Robin has hers—she never goes anywhere without it. Connie, too. She’ll have hers in Rod’s coat pocket.”

  “Let’s wait until you take me home. As soon as they figure out that I don’t need a tetanus shot, I should be good to go. My arm is bandaged, so I assume they’re through with it.”

  “I asked while you were napping. They want to wait until the test results from the liquid in the bottle are back. They want to be sure the crazy lady didn’t add anything poisonous besides the acids.”

  “Did they give any idea how long that would take?”

  “Not really,” Lauren told her. “If you’re going to lay there and whine, I’ll go see if I can find anyone who can tell us anything. If they don’t say you’re leaving in the next thirty minutes, I’m calling Robin. The prom is going to be ending in an hour or so, and your aunt is going to be looking for you. She knew you were going to be protesting, right?”

  Harriet nodded and closed her eyes. The next thing she knew, Dr. Mitchell was at her bedside holding a clipboard full of papers.

  “Your blood test looks okay so far. You should see your regular doctor tomorrow and have your dressing changed. Have you had a tetanus shot recently?”

  “Sadly, yes,” Harriet replied. The nurse was looking it up on a tablet. “I was hit on the head and had to have a couple of stitches. They gave me one then.”

  “The nurses told me you’re a bit of a regular here,” Dr. Mitchell said. “Anything you can do about that?”

  “I was an innocent bystander tonight. My friend may have been the target, but I was just watching her station while she took a break.”

  “Maybe you need new friends.”

  He proceeded to recite a litany of cautions, care instructions and medication instructions and finished by handing her a printout of prescriptions for pain pills and burn ointment for some smaller splash spots away from the main injury.

  “You get to leave,” Lauren said as she came through the curtained doorway. She stopped when she saw the doctor. “Oh, sorry,” she said and moved to the other side of Harriet’s bed.

  “As your friend said, you get to leave,” Dr. Mitchell said with a smile. “Since you’re a frequent flyer, I’m sure they have your insurance information, but if anything has changed, take care of it on your way out. Don’t get up until someone comes and gets you with a wheelchair.”

  “Now can we call your aunt?” Lauren asked as soon as the doctor was gone.

  “I guess I can’t avoid it any longer.”

  Lauren had her cell phone out and was dialing Robin before Harriet had stopped speaking.

  Chapter 19

  Lauren pulled into Harriet’s driveway and parked as close to the studio door as she could. Harriet recognized Connie’s car along with her aunt’s silver Beetle, Robin’s minivan and the older model Mercedes Aiden let Carla drive.

  “How was the prom?” she asked as she came through the door, a sheepish smile on her face.

  “What were you thinking, not letting anyone call us?” Aunt Beth demanded.

  “Let the girl sit down,” Mavis scolded. She must have come with Aunt Beth, Harriet thought. Likewise, DeAnn was sitting beside Robin. With the exception of Jenny—and Sarah, whom they hadn’t seen in weeks—all of the Loose Threads were present. Harriet assumed the monitor receiver in Carla’s left hand meant Wendy was asleep somewhere out of earshot.

  She sat down in one of the swivel chairs that had been pushed up to her cutting table. Lauren went through the kitchen door, returning a minute later with a throw pillow from the living room sofa. She put it on the table beside Harriet.

  “Elevate,” she said.

  Harriet put her arm on the pillow and settled herself.

  “So, what happened?” Aunt Beth asked, unable to keep the stern look off her face.

  “I was an innocent bystander,” Harriet protested, and then related the whole story one more time.

  “No one seems to know who the crazy lady is,” Lauren added when Harriet was finished. “They actually brought her to the hospital instead of the jail because she was acting so crazy. I heard one of the nurses say they had to sedate her and would be sending her to the psych ward.”

  “We need to talk to Jenny,” Harriet said. “Not only about why the acid thrower would want to attack her, if, indeed, that was the intention but also, I didn’t get a chance to tell her that her brother wanted to talk to her. He came to me and claimed he isn’t using drugs anymore, and that he needed to warn Jenny about something. He said she was in danger.”

  “Do you think he was talking about the woman who threw the acid?” Mavis asked.

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” Harriet said thoughtfully. “He was lurking around waiting for me to convince Jenny to talk to him. The woman was also wandering the aisles. If I saw her, he must have, and if he knew she was the danger, why wouldn’t he have stopped her?”

  “Maybe he was afraid of what she was going to do,” Aunt Beth suggested.

  “But he was the one who tackled the woman and threw her bottle of acid out of reach. Then he just disappeared. If he knew she was the danger, why did he wait until she threw the liquid?”

  “Maybe he misjudged the level of danger,” Robin suggested.

  “But he said Jenny was in danger. He said he’d laid low, but they’d found her anyway. Somehow, that doesn’t seem to
match with one crazy woman.”

  “What did the doctor say about your arm?” Connie asked. “Is it terribly painful?”

  “They didn’t really tell me much,” Harriet said.

  “Actually, they had a lot to say,” Lauren told them. “Harriet’s too drugged with pain medicine to remember it all.” She pulled a piece of paper from her pocket, unfolded it and handed it to Aunt Beth. “She’s supposed to keep it level or slightly elevated, and she’s supposed to call her doctor tomorrow and have the dressing changed. And she’s supposed to take antibiotics just in case, and pain meds, and they said her own doctor could tell her about plastic surgery in the future.

  “The police are testing the brew from the bottle to see what-all was in it. They’re pretty sure it was both hydrofluoric acid and something like sulfuric acid. They want to be sure they got the hydrofluoric stopped. I guess it heads for your bones when it can.”

  “So, there you go,” Harriet said. “To answer your other question, it is tender but the pain meds are keeping it in check. Can we talk about Jenny, please?”

  “I’m not sure what else there is to say about Jenny until she comes and tells us what’s going on,” Robin said. “Then we can find out what, if any, trouble she’s in.”

  Robin hadn’t actively practiced law since her children had started school, but she kept her license current just for these occasions.

  “I bet acid lady will turn out to be our tire slasher,” Lauren said.

  “We need to find Jenny’s brother,” Harriet said. “Not to minimize the damage of the tire-slashing or the acid-throwing, but Bobby seemed way more worried than one crazy person would warrant.”

  “Honey, you’re starting to repeat yourself,” Mavis said.

  “Sorry,” Harriet said. “Here’s a new topic for you. Aiden was in the ER. Any guesses as to why he was there? And, Carla, you don’t get to play.”

  “Michelle is trying to get Aiden to fire me,” Carla blurted out before anyone could make a guess. “She said my soup poisoned her, and she made Aiden take her to the emergency room. Aiden left me a message on my phone, and Terry brought me home but they’d already left for the hospital.”

  “Oh, honey, that’s terrible,” Connie said.

  “You can’t get food poisoning from hot soup,” Mavis stated. “Not if you brought it to a boil.”

  “Terry searched Michelle’s room, and he found two empty bottles of syrup of ipecac,” Carla said.

  “So, she poisoned herself?” DeAnn asked, frowning.

  “No one else had any of the soup, because Aiden worked late, and Terry took Wendy and I out to dinner, but Terry thinks she waited until Aiden was home and then drank a dose to make sure she produced the right effect at the right time.”

  “And she blamed Carla,” Robin said in a clipped tone.

  “Apparently,” Harriet said.

  “That’s really bad,” DeAnn said.

  “What a psycho,” Lauren said.

  Mavis looked at Beth and then Connie.

  “We may need to stage an intervention here,” she said. “Interfering with Harriet and Aiden is bad enough, but trying to get Carla fired and ruining her reputation in the process is not acceptable.”

  “First things first,” Beth said. “We need to get Jenny out of trouble before something worse happens. Then we can worry about Aiden and his sister.”

  “Honey, if it’s getting too uncomfortable, you and Wendy can stay with Rod and me,” Connie said. “You know we have plenty of room, and everything is baby-proofed.”

  Carla rolled the baby monitor receiver back and forth from one hand to the other, indecision etched on her face.

  “I’ll go back tonight and see how things are,” she said and blushed. “Terry offered to talk to Aiden, but I want to give Aiden a chance to do the right thing.”

  “If Michelle is that out-of-control, maybe you should consider Connie’s offer,” Harriet said.

  “My two rooms have locks on the doors. I’ll keep Wendy in my rooms instead of the nursery. And Terry gave me a can of pepper spray if all else fails.”

  “Keep your cell phone on and with you at all times,” Aunt Beth instructed.

  The sound of a car pulling into the driveway silenced everyone. A moment later, there was a knock on the door and Jenny entered.

  “Hi,” she said with a wan smile.

  “Here, sit down,” Mavis said and brought her a wheeled workroom chair.

  “Can I get you some tea?” Connie asked.

  “That sounds wonderful,” Jenny answered as she took off her coat and sat down. She turned to Harriet. “I’m so sorry. I know that woman thought it was me standing there by my quilt. I have no idea why she wanted to hurt me, but I was her target.”

  “You didn’t throw the acid,” Harriet said. “And you couldn’t have guessed it was going to happen.”

  “What did the police say?” Robin asked.

  “They wanted to know if I know who she is—I don’t—and told me her name is Patty. They weren’t able to get a last name or any other information from her. She was avenging something, they think, but they can’t be sure because she was ranting so much. They had to sedate her just to remove her from the exhibit hall.”

  “That’s very strange,” Aunt Beth said. “Have you ever known a Patty? Maybe when you were in school?”

  “Of course I’ve known people named Pat or Patty through the years, but no one who bore me any ill will, and I would recognize them on sight. There was a Patty in the commune, but she was African American, so it couldn’t possibly be her.”

  “I wonder what her last name is.” Connie mused. “That might tell us something.”

  “It was hard to tell how old she was,” Harriet said. “She was definitely older than me, but I don’t think she was fifty yet.”

  “So, we can rule out her being a classmate,” Mavis said.

  “Can I get anyone some tea?” DeAnn asked. Several people agreed, and she disappeared into the kitchen.

  “I’m going to go check Wendy,” Carla said, even though the baby monitor indicated the toddler was asleep and breathing evenly.

  “Can I get you anything?” Aunt Beth asked Harriet.

  “No, I’m as good as I’m going to get for right now.”

  The remaining Loose Threads looked at each other as the crunch of gravel indicated another car had driven into Harriet’s driveway.

  “Who could that be?” Mavis wondered. “We’re all here.”

  A light knock sounded on the door, and Robin got up to see who was on the porch; her facial expression indicated it was someone she knew.

  “Come in, Detective,” she said and stood aside so Jane Morse could come into the room. “What brings you out this late on such a cold night?”

  “Let’s not be coy, Ms. McLeod.”

  “Which of my clients are you here to question, then.”

  “Can we drop the formalities?” Morse asked.

  “Are we off the record?” Robin countered.

  “For now.”

  Robin looked at the ladies sitting in a circle.

  “My advice to everyone is that ‘off the record’ only exists on television, and therefore, you shouldn’t say anything without counsel present. I’m available to anyone who feels the need to unburden themselves in the presence of our esteemed colleague. Hand me a dollar before you speak so we’re covered.”

  “I’m not here to accuse anyone of anything,” Jane Morse said. “I wanted to see how Harriet was doing, and I took a chance and drove by. I saw all the cars and figured you wouldn’t mind if I stopped.”

  “Thank you,” Harriet said.

  “I’m guessing you’ve all been doing what the police are doing—trying to figure out who the real target was,” Morse said.

  DeAnn and Carla returned with a tray of steaming teacups with containers of milk, lemon, and honey and other sweeteners, passing them around then offering a cup to Jane.

  “None of us who saw the woman recognized her,” H
arriet said. “And both Jenny and I have known Pattys in the past, but we would recognize them, so we’re drawing a blank.”

  “What if I tell you her full name is Patty Sullivan?” Morse asked.

  Harriet shook her head.

  “Doesn’t help.” She looked at Jenny.

  The blood had left Jenny’s face, and she looked like she might faint.

  “Put your head between your knees,” Connie ordered.

  Lauren quietly slipped the laptop from her messenger bag and turned it on.

  “I’d like to speak to my client alone before you question her,” Robin said.

  “It’s okay,” Jenny said as she slowly sat up again. She looked at Robin and took a deep breath. “I know—or knew—someone named Sullivan. I mean, I didn’t know him, I knew of him. He was a policeman who was killed a long time ago during the commission of a robbery. My brother Bobby was involved in the incident, although he was not the shooter nor was he a bank robber; he spent two years in jail for it.”

  “How long ago are we talking?” Morse asked in a quiet voice.

  “Oh, gosh,” Jenny said and looked at the ceiling. “Bobby wasn’t quite twenty, so that would have been…nineteen sixty-eight. Forty-four years ago, maybe.”

  Lauren’s fingers flew over the keys as they talked.

  “A James Sullivan was killed in the line of duty during a robbery of the Bank of Washington in Lynnwood, Washington. He left behind three small children, including a one-year-old named Patty Sue,” she reported.

  “I thought you grew up in a commune,” Harriet said.

  “I did,” Jenny said. “We did, but Bobby left when he was eighteen. He got involved in drugs while he was still in Minnesota, and they asked him to leave.”

  “I thought everyone used drugs in the sixties,” Lauren said.

  “They did,” Jenny said. “And it was the professors’ fault Bobby got into it. They all smoked pot and let the kids over eighteen join them. Bobby began dealing and was good at it—too good. He was attracting too much attention; and not only from the police. He was climbing the ranks of the local drug organization. That didn’t fit with the peace-and-love message of the commune, although I’m not sure where they thought their own illegal drugs were coming from. At any rate, they told Bobby he had to find a new job or move, and so he left.”