“We’re going to go find a band T-shirt for Carla,” Mavis said. “After all, she needs something to commemorate her first-ever rock concert.” She beamed at her.
“I’m going to the bathroom with them,” Lauren said, gesturing toward Harriet and Tom. Mavis glared at her but didn’t say anything.
Tom led Harriet and Lauren out of their row and into the main aisle.
“I presume we aren’t really going to the restrooms,” he said when they were far enough from Mavis and Carla they wouldn’t be heard.
“No, we are not,” Harriet said.
“I knew it,” Lauren said. “Are we going backstage?”
“No. I think with all the extra security Colm has in place, we wouldn’t get very far. We’re going to see if Jenny’s quilt is still at her display. If it is, we’re going to see if we can figure out what’s inside it besides batting.”
“I thought they closed the exhibit during the concert,” Lauren said.
“They did, but only for the general public. Those of us with vendor badges can get in,” Harriet informed her.
“What about those of us without a badge?” Tom asked.
“I’ll wave this,” Harriet lifted her bandaged arm. “I’ll tell them I need you to carry something for me. We can grab something from my booth if we need to.”
“Time’s a-wasting, kids,” Lauren said and then led the way out of the auditorium and toward the exhibit hall.
The attendant opened the exhibit hall door and waved them in, barely glancing at Harriet’s proffered badge. They started down the main aisle, but Harriet stopped, putting a finger to her lips. She waved them down a side aisle then stopped to listen. She could hear muffled voices at the back of the hall.
They made their way slowly toward Jenny’s stage, stopping at every aisle to look and listen before advancing. The quilts hanging in almost every vendor booth limited their visibility.
“Look, Jonquil, we just want our money,” a deep male voice said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jenny said, “and I don’t know who Jonquil is. Is this some sort of joke?”
“Don’t give me that,” the man said. “You and Paisley are the only ones who got away.”
They heard the sound of scuffling, and then a woman screamed.
Harriet rushed down the aisle, followed by Tom, stopping abruptly when they reached Jenny’s stage. Lauren cut down the last side row and disappeared. The two cooks from the buffet were restraining Jenny and Robin.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Harriet yelled at them. “Let them go.”
“I suppose you’re going to make me,” the white-haired guy said.
Tom came up behind Harriet.
“Oh, are you the muscle for the ladies?” White Hair said.
“Let them go,” Harriet repeated.
The smaller man looked at his partner. He was clearly not prepared for an audience.
In that moment both men looked at each other at the same time, Lauren came out from behind the black curtain where Jenny’s quilt had hung. She jumped from the raised stage, kicking the big guy in the back of his knees as she landed. Before the gray-haired man could move, Tom did a sweeping karate kick that knocked him to the floor. Lauren hit White Hair with a punch to the kidney, dropping him to the floor.
Harriet grabbed a roll of pre-made quilt binding from the vendor booth across from Jenny’s display. She tossed it with her good hand to Lauren, who promptly tied her man’s hands behind his back. Tom was sitting on the back of his guy, pinning the man’s wrist in the small of his own back.
“Everyone good?” Harriet asked.
Robin nodded and turned around so they could see she was on her cell phone. Jenny was nowhere to be seen.
Robin finished her call and put her phone down.
“I called nine-one-one,” she announced.
“Where’s Jenny?” Harriet asked.
“I don’t know. I started dialing the police as soon as I was free. Thank you, Lauren and Tom,” she added.
“When did you learn those moves?” Harriet asked them.
“I’ve been taking martial arts classes since I was in grade school. Mom insisted,” Tom said.
“I took a women’s self-defense class when Avanell passed away. My class decided to keep going,” Lauren said.
“It’s a good thing,” Harriet said.
“I called Detective Morse, too,” Robin advised.
“Where do we think Jenny went?” Lauren asked.
“Not far, I hope,” Robin said. “We came here together, and she drove. We intended to get her quilt—she hung it up today with a piece of fabric basted over the damage, and wanted to appliqué a more permanent cover for the burned area.”
“You can ride home with me,” Harriet offered.
“Thanks.”
Detective Morse arrived at the same time as the patrol cars. She directed two officers Harriet had never seen before to cuff the men and take them to the jail on charges of assaulting Robin and Jenny. When the reading of rights was done and the officers and the two cooks were gone, she turned to Harriet, Robin, Lauren and Tom.
“Somebody better start talking before I start arresting people for obstruction of justice,” she said.
“Hey, I called you,” Robin protested.
“That’s a step in the right direction, counselor. Now, how about the rest of you tell me everything you know. And by the way, where is Jenny? If I understand what went on here, she was one of the people being assaulted.”
“She ran out during the scuffle,” Harriet said, “We truly don’t know what’s going on, except that we keep finding ourselves in the middle of whatever this is, and not in a good way.”
“The other thing we know, and I’m thinking this should already be obvious to you, is that Jenny is the connecting thread in all this,” Lauren said.
Harriet glared at her.
“I’m not trying to throw her under the bus, but let’s get real. Pamela Gilbert gets shot standing on Jenny’s stage, Jenny’s tires get slashed, and Harriet gets acid thrown at her while holding Jenny’s quilt. Then Jenny’s brother gets killed. Now, Jenny and Robin get grabbed by a couple of ex-cons, and Jenny doesn’t hang around to report it. Anyone with half a brain can see that Jenny is the common denominator here.”
“How do you know the two men we just arrested are ex-cons?” Morse asked.
“There’s only one place you can get tattoos like those, and it’s in prison. I mean, come on—teardrops? Spider webs on their elbows? They’re classic prison ink.”
“Colm Byrne’s stage manager told us he liked to give a hand up to ex-cons,” Harriet added.
“How does Jenny connect to a pair of ex-cons?” Morse asked.
“We have no idea,” Harriet said. “We’ve been trying to get her to tell us what’s going on, but so far she’s told us very little.”
“So tell me what she’s told you,” Morse said.
“She told us she grew up in a commune,” Lauren said. “Big whoop.”
“I presume you checked it out,” Morse asked.
“I did, but I didn’t find much. The commune exists and is known locally for its truck farming. Oh, and it’s in Minnesota—George-ville, to be exact.”
“We couldn’t see how that mattered,” Harriet said. “Except for the fact she’s been lying to us for years—by omission, but a lie, nonetheless.”
“Someone needs to go tell Mavis and Carla why we didn’t return after intermission, or they’re goin-g to be sending out a search party,” Tom said.
Detective Morse looked at her notepad.
“Do you have anything else to add?” she asked Tom.
“Not really,” he said. “I was just tagging along with Harriet and Lauren when we found the thugs holding Jenny and Robin hostage.”
“Do you have any idea where Jenny went?”
“Not a clue.”
“You can go, but the rest of you stay.” She waited until he was gone. “What
’s the story with Jenny?” she demanded of the Loose Threads. “Why was she here tonight, and where is she now? The hall is closed to the public. And how did she get here?”
“She was spending the evening with me,” Robin explained. “At the last minute, she decided not to go to the concert, so I volunteered to stay home with her. Her husband is off on a hunting trip in Africa, and with everything that’s going on, we all agreed she shouldn’t be home, given what happened at her house. And we can’t be sure she wasn’t the intended target. We really don’t know where she is. You know I’d tell you if I knew.”
“I don’t know, either,” Harriet said. “I didn’t expect to see Jenny here tonight. She was planning to skip the concert.”
“What she said,” Lauren chimed in.
“Any idea where she’d go?” Morse asked the trio.
They all shook their heads no.
“Maybe she’s waiting out front,” Lauren suggested.
“My guess is she’ll show up at one of our houses,” Harriet said.
“I want to hear from you the minute she turns up. And that goes for the rest of the Loose Threads, too,” Morse cautioned. “I’m going to go see what our two ex-cons have to say for themselves. Please, stay out of trouble.” With that, she turned and left.
“What now, chief?” Lauren asked Harriet.
“First we need to see if the quilt is here, and if it is, take it home with us. Then, we need to find Jenny.”
Robin put her fingers in her ears.
“I can’t hear this part,” she said and stepped away from Lauren and Harriet.
“Can your people find Jenny?” Harriet asked Lauren in a quiet voice.
“Probably, let me check.” She tapped out a quick text message and sent it. “Someone should get back to me in a few minutes.”
Harriet stepped up on the small stage and pulled aside the black curtain. Jenny had taken her quilt off display and put another of her on the hanging rod. The damaged quilt was folded up and stowed in a pillowcase.
“It’s here,” she said.
“Get out of the way, cripple,” Lauren said. “You’re not supposed to be using your bad arm.”
“I’ll take the quilt,” Robin said. “I don’t have a ticket for the concert, and I’m pretty sure I don’t have a ride home, either. I’ll wait out in the lobby until the show’s over.”
“We have a spare badge,” Lauren said. She held out her keys. “You can put the quilt in my car and then come back in. We’re in the front row, center. With the lighting effects, you can slip in without being noticed.”
Robin took the keys and pass and left the hall; Harriet and Lauren returned to the auditorium.
It seemed to Harriet they had been in the exhibit hall for hours, but in reality, the concert had barely started again when she and Lauren returned.
“We were beginning to wonder where you’d gotten to,” Mavis said, leaning over Carla “I’ll tell you about it when this is over,” Harriet said loud enough so Mavis could hear over the noise of the music.
The black man Harriet had spoken to in the green room earlier came out in his Stevie Wonder persona to start the second half of the concert. He began with “A Place in the Sun” followed by “Tears of a Clown.” By the third song, Harriet was no longer listening. She’d slipped her phone from her pocket and was silently tapping a group text to the Threads.
Meet at my house after the concert.
Aunt Beth answered immediately, asking if everything was okay. Harriet answered that it was, but that they all needed to talk.
She looked up again, and Colm Byrne had taken the stage. He sang a medley of hits from the era, starting with “Like a Rolling Stone” and on through the “Ballad of the Green Berets” by Sgt. Barry Sadler, whoever he was, and then several Beatles songs.
“Are we done yet?” Lauren texted to Harriet.
Harriet just rolled her eyes then looked back to the stage. Colm had transitioned to some of his own most popular hits. If the truth were told, Harriet was with Lauren—she was ready to be done with the concert and on to talking with the Threads.
Colm sang for another thirty minutes and finally took his bow, and after one encore, the audience let him go. Harriet, Mavis, Lauren and Carla waited politely for the crowd in the aisle to ease then stood up and gathered their purses and coats.
“Would you ladies like to join Colm in the back?” Skeeter asked. He’d been waiting for them to exit their row. He looked at Tom.
“I’ve got to go. Will you ladies be okay?” Tom asked, looking at Harriet.
Harriet and Lauren looked at each other and then at Mavis.
“We can come for a few minutes,” Mavis told Skeeter. “I have a little dog I have to take out, so we can’t stay long.”
“Will I see you tomorrow?” Harriet asked Tom.
“If you wish,” he said with a crooked smile. He leaned in and gave her a quick kiss, then turned and went up the aisle.
Skeeter led them to the door at the base of the stage and once again into the labyrinthine backstage area, guiding them to a room they hadn’t seen in their previous visit. Everything in this room was intended to soothe, from the pastel wall drapes and overstuffed furniture to the table full of soothing drinks and warming oven full of heated towels for the singer to wrap around his neck.
“That was great,” Harriet said, hoping she had conveyed an enthusiasm she didn’t feel. “I especially liked the part at the end where you did your own music.” That part was true anyway, The man could sing.
“I was going to get a CD, but the booth we went to had sold out,” Carla said, her cheeks flaming.
“I’m sorry, that shouldn’t happen. We carry a lot of inventory in the truck, but the sales crew sometimes underestimates what the demand will be. Once the intermission starts, there isn’t time to restock.”
“I can buy it at the store,” Carla said.
“Would you like something to drink?” Colm asked.
Harriet and Lauren accepted tea with honey, but Mavis and Carla declined.
“Is your friend Jerry here tonight?” Harriet asked.
“No, he doesn’t like loud music. I went to his house and played some of my new stuff on my acoustic guitar the other night.”
“Oh, yeah, you were coming from there the other morning when we saw you in the parking lot.”
“Ah, yeah, we were up late, so I spent the night on his couch.”
“Thank you for treating us so special,” Mavis said, “But I really do need to get home to take care of my dog. She’s a recent rescue, so she needs more TLC than the average pet.”
Harriet and Lauren set their cups down in unison and turned toward the door.
“I’m glad to be of service,” Byrne said. “I understand that, in addition to aiding us in our setup tests, you ladies rescued us when our freezer broke.”
“Anyone would have done the same,” Mavis said. “Now, we really do have to leave.”
She led the group out the door and into the now-quiet auditorium.
“Is Curly having problems?” Harriet asked Mavis.
“No, I just couldn’t see the point of wasting time heaping more praise on that man.”
“Didn’t you like the concert?” Carla asked.
“It was fine, as these things go, but I’d rather find out why Harriet is texting us all for a meeting this late at night.”
“We need to find Robin,” Harriet said. “She was supposed to join us.”
“I thought she was home with Jenny,” Mavis said.
“It’s a long story.”
“Jenny and Robin came to get Jenny’s quilt,” Lauren said. “We found them at the quilt stage fighting with those two cooks. We subdued the villains, called Jane Morse, Jenny took off and now we’re all meeting at Harriet house,” she finished with a deep breath.
Harriet tapped on the face of her phone, spoke quickly into it and hung up.
“Robin’s outside. She went out to make some calls and said by the time she
was done, it was too late to come back in unobtrusively,” she reported.
“Let’s get this show on the road,” Mavis said. “I really do have to take Curly out eventually.”
Carla and Lauren were both on their phones.
“Grandpa Rod is okay with keeping Wendy, and Connie said she’d meet us at Harriet’s.” Carla reported.
“Jenny has been located,” Lauren said cryptically. “We can swing by the Steaming Cup and pick her up, if you want,” she told Harriet.
With their meeting plan in place, they went to their cars to carry out their assignments before driving to Harriet’s.
Chapter 23
“Honey, you need to sit down with your arm up on a pillow while you’ve got these few minutes before everyone gets here,” Mavis said. “I’ll get some of those cookies from the freezer and set them to thawing in a warm oven and get the kettles heating; then I can take his nibs there out for a quick walk.” She nodded at Scooter.
Harriet thought about protesting, but the fact was it felt like her blood vessels were trying to make a break for it. Mavis settled her in one of the wing chairs in the studio and disappeared back into the kitchen.
A soft tapping sounded on the outside door.
“Come in,” Harriet called.
The door opened, and Aiden stepped in.
“Hi,” he said softly. “I just stopped by to see how you were doing. I came by earlier, but you weren’t here.” He took his jacket off and sat down on one of the wheeled chairs.
“I was out.”
“With Tom?”
“I think that’s none of your business.”
“Must have been pretty important if you risked letting your burn get infected going out in public.”
“My doctor hasn’t put any restrictions on my activities.”
“He probably assumed you’d use common sense.”
“Does your sister know you came to check up on me?” Harriet asked, changing the subject.
Aiden’s face reddened, but his silence was all the answer she needed.
“Can we not go there,” he said finally.
“I’m just curious as to why you’re here. Your sister’s never going to let you see me. You know that, I know that, so what are we doing?”
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