by Janet Bolin
“That’s okay. Your dogs are sweet.” She sipped a little water, then let her head loll back. “I’d like more, but let’s just see . . .”
“Do you mind if I leave your door ajar so I can hear if you call? The dogs may come in.”
She rubbed Sally’s ears. “That’s fine.”
I went to bed and set my phone to wake me up in half an hour. Before its alarm went off, however, Sally came whimpering to me. She and I gave Vicki another sip of water.
In the kitchen, I poured ginger ale into a glass, then I went back to bed. I forgot to reset the alarm, but I didn’t need it. Sally got me up and led me to our patient. I started Vicki on flat ginger ale.
The next time Sally woke me up, she went and looked out the patio door. The poor doggie had been inside with her patient for so long that she probably needed exercise. Without turning on lights, I let her out and crossed my fingers that she wouldn’t encounter a skunk.
In his machine-embroidered doggie bed, Tally muttered in his sleep.
A few minutes later, Sally-Forth pawed to be let in. Everything, both inside and out, was dark and silent. I stumbled to the door and slid it open. Sally trotted into Vicki’s room. I snuggled underneath my duvet.
With more whimpering, Sally came out of Vicki’s room and batted the patio door with a front paw. She had to be suffering. Usually, she didn’t need to go out at night even once. Yawning and blinking in the darkness, I let her out, and then back in a few minutes later. Once again, she headed straight for the guest room. At least Vicki was sleeping. Tally-Ho, too. This time, he didn’t stir.
But it turned out that Vicki wasn’t sleeping, after all. She was . . . sobbing?
11
WAS VICKI SICKER? WHAT WAS MAKING her cry?
I leaped out of bed and skidded into furniture in the darkness. In addition to the gasping noises, I heard strange squeaks and a raspy sort of rumbling. What could possibly have gone wrong? I’d thought that Vicki was improving, yet she sounded like she’d gone downhill. Bumping into corners, I dashed into her room.
“W-W-Willow,” she managed. She wasn’t crying. She was laughing. “Turn on a light and see what your dog brought me.”
I switched on the nightstand lamp.
Vicki lay on her back, under the duvet except for her arms, which were wrapped around two kittens. The kittens were black and white, and marked a lot like Sally, except that Sally didn’t have a black mustache like one or a black bow tie like the other.
I checked again. Yes, they were kittens, not baby skunks.
The kittens purred madly, Vicki had a giggling fit, and Sally-Forth stood proudly beside the bed, wagging her tail and gazing up at me for the praise she expected.
“Good doggie,” I said. “Where did you get these little darlings?”
Sally wagged her tail harder and stared toward the patio door, which she couldn’t see from the guest room.
“You asked me to let you outside so you could bring home kittens?” I asked her.
The tail flew faster.
“Outside?” Vicki asked. “Did you let your dogs out into your backyard?”
I clapped my hand over my mouth. “I’m sorry. I was half asleep and forgot about the crime scene. The crime was thirty years ago. And it was only Sally. And she came right back in.”
I asked my attentive dog, “Were there any more kittens out there?”
Sally was very good at looking sad. Silly me. Of course there weren’t more, or she would have insisted on bringing every one of them home.
“Did you take them from their mother?” I asked.
Sally gave the closest kitten a kiss with her tongue. I had a better look at the kittens. They seemed old enough to be away from their mother, but Sally apparently didn’t think so, and had appointed herself—and, apparently, Vicki Smallwood—the job of looking after them. They were still damp from being carried in Sally’s gentle mouth.
I put my hands on my hips and asked the kittens, “What are we going to do with you two?”
They closed their eyes and purred more loudly.
“They can stay where they are,” Vicki said. “They won’t keep me awake.”
“They might be hungry. They need a litter box. They might have fleas.” Oops, I was nearly as bad as Gartener with his threats of maggots.
Vicki closed her eyes. “I believe your dog will look after them.”
That wasn’t exactly true. Sally wouldn’t bring them food. At least, I hoped she wouldn’t.
However, the kittens seemed perfectly content, and I was tired. I went back to bed.
When I got up in the morning, Sally-Forth was cuddling the kittens in her embroidered doggie bed. I heard the shower running in the guest bathroom. If I had designed my apartment myself, I might have made do with only one bathroom, but Haylee and Clay had planned the building’s renovations while I still lived and worked in New York City, and had given both bedrooms their own bathrooms. That morning, with two of us needing to get ready for work at the same time, I appreciated Haylee’s and Clay’s foresight.
Clay. A little shiver rippled through me. Thanks to a lucky set of circumstances, and Haylee’s maneuvering, I’d met him.
The first I’d ever heard of the building that was eventually to become my shop and home was when Haylee called me in New York and told me to come see this property that had just “happened” to come on the market. I’d fallen in love with the shop, the apartment underneath it, Blueberry Cottage, and the long, sloping yard leading to the trail and the river. I’d also fallen in love with the idea of opening the embroidery boutique I’d been dreaming of owning. I had never regretted the decision I’d made that day to move to Threadville.
Now I also had two dogs and, until I found their rightful owner, two kittens. I opened a can of tuna, plopped a spoonful of it onto each of two bread plates, and set the plates on the floor. Sally-Forth stood back and watched her small charges eat. Tally seemed interested in both the kittens and their food, but with a little growl, Sally warned him away. Looking perplexed, Tally sat down and watched.
The kittens gobbled the tuna, and then used their paws to wash their whiskers. Unsatisfied with their hygiene, Sally gave both little faces thorough baths.
I showered and put on a khaki skirt and top I’d made and decorated with embroidery around the hems. I slipped my feet into sandals, and then padded out to the great room with its wall of windows overlooking the backyard.
Vicki was outside in her fresh uniform. A kitten in each arm, her ponytail wet and flying behind her, and her face still so pale she looked panicky, she charged up the hill, away from the yellow police tape, and past Blueberry Cottage. The dogs galumphed toward my apartment, too.
I went outside and called to Vicki, “Sorry the animals got out.”
“My fault,” Vicki yelled back. “I didn’t realize I had to slide the door all the way closed.” She was probably usually in good shape, but this morning she seemed to be panting from the exertion of running uphill.
She’d probably also been chasing the animals. I should have warned her about that door. If I ever left the tiniest gap, my naughty dogs slid it open and sauntered off. This time, they’d apparently encouraged the kittens to help them invade a crime scene.
And that wasn’t all they’d done. Sally-Forth had a stick in her mouth. Tally-Ho ran toward her, but she spun away from him and collided with Vicki, who, still clutching those kittens, tried to grab her. Sally-Forth dashed out of reach. Wagging her tail, she turned to face Vicki. Was she trying to teach the kittens a new game? Or, now that Vicki had recovered, had Sally merely reverted to being her usual self, a young dog with plenty of energy and enthusiasm?
Vicki ran toward Sally-Forth, which was exactly the wrong thing to do if she wanted Sally to halt or come to her.
Turning her head and watching Vicki out of the sides of her eyes, Sally dodged. The stick glinted in sunlight. It was very straight and smooth, and strangely shiny. Purple, too.
I hollered, “My dog
s are not really good at fetching.”
Vicki shouted back. “Oh, yes, they are. Look at what they fetched.”
I beckoned to Sally-Forth. Tail wagging, she came.
“Don’t touch it!” Vicki’s command had an odd quaver.
I gaped at her.
She thinned her lips. “It will have to be fingerprinted.”
12
“DROP IT,” I TOLD SALLY.
My clever dog placed the “stick” neatly at my feet.
It was a purple aluminum knitting needle, a much finer gauge than had been used to make the yarnbomb that had been on Vicki’s cruiser.
“Your other dog has one, too.” Vicki had regained some of her usual, crisp speaking manner, but she was out of breath and looking everywhere at once, as if she expected an entire posse of crafty pets to leap out of the shrubbery.
Nose high, tail wagging, a purple knitting needle in his mouth, Tally-Ho pranced to me. He obeyed me and let it go. I praised the dogs and then shut them and the kittens into the apartment. Although afraid to find out why Vicki wanted to fingerprint knitting needles, I slipped outside and joined her.
Standing with her back to my patio door, she spoke into her radio. “Tell Toby Gartener I need to talk to him.”
So he could drive her home, I hoped, but unease crowded into my stomach.
“I know he’s a detective,” Vicki said crossly into the radio. “I’ve got something here that I want him to see. ASAP.”
The unease grew. I wanted to sit down, inside. Maybe go to bed and pull the covers over my head.
Vicki gave my address and added, “Trooper Jeffers should be nearby. Tell her I need her here right now, also.” Head turning right and left like she was scanning my hedges for more rogue craft supplies, Vicki walked away from me, down the hill.
Curiosity conquered the queasies. I followed her as far as the yellow police tape surrounding the excavations in my yard.
Last night around eight thirty when Haylee and I had walked Vicki to my apartment, the orange plastic mesh fencing beside the riverside trail had been upright.
Since then, something had flattened it.
In the pit that used to be underneath Blueberry Cottage, there was a . . . a what?
A huge white cocoon, like a monster grub that had just emerged from the depths of the earth?
I gasped.
Vicki turned around. “Sorry, Willow.” And she actually did look sorry. “It looks like we’ve found a body in your yard.”
A body? Against my will, I looked at the “cocoon” again. Someone had wrapped a humanlike shape in quilt batting, pinned the batting shut with knitting needles like oversized purple straight pins, dumped the thing into the pit, and then had tossed a few shovelfuls of dirt over it.
“How do you know there’s a body in all that?” I asked.
“I ducked under the tape and went down into that hole to find out what your dogs were finding so interesting.”
“Are you sure the person is dead?” It was a dumb question, but someone could have been playing a prank, sort of like yarnbombing, but gruesome.
“Are you kidding? That was the first thing I checked. It’s a corpse, all right, and it’s been dead awhile. It’s cold. Did you see or hear anything unusual out here in the night? Or more recently?” Again she eyed my hedges.
No one committed suicide and then wrapped himself or herself in quilt batting. This person must have been murdered, and the killer might be hiding in those thick hedges. My heart outdid itself with scared, nervous beating. “Only Sally,” I managed. “Wanting to bring in those kittens. One at a time.” Had the kittens and the dog startled the killer? Was that why he hadn’t finished burying the victim? He must have hoped to cover the wrapped-up body completely, and also planned that no one would notice that the pit had become slightly shallower during the night. And maybe no one would have.
My hand shook as I pointed at dirt heaped up around the excavation. The victim’s feet must have dragged, plowing a pair of wavering furrows in the sand. Doggie footprints were all over the place, but I thought I could see partial prints from shoes—sneakers, maybe—and boots, too. Police had swarmed this area yesterday, and some of the prints must have been Vicki’s from a few minutes ago.
I asked her, “Do you know who the victim is?”
She stared off toward the river. “We’ll have to get a positive ID and notify next of kin before we go blabbing names around.” She looked at me. My anxiety must have shown on my face. “Don’t worry. It’s not one of your close friends. It’s a male.”
The gate leading to Lake Street from my side yard clanged. I jumped about a mile, and Vicki whirled to face uphill. She placed her right hand on her holster.
Whistling, Clay strode down the hill toward us. I was so glad to see him alive and healthy that I had an urge to run to him and hug him, but my leg muscles felt like they’d been knit from cotton thread.
Vicki challenged him, “What do you think you’re doing here?”
Clay stopped and raised one eyebrow. “Checking to see if I can work here today, but I see you still have the yellow tape up.” He must have noticed the expression on my face. “Is something wrong?”
“Don’t go near your excavation,” Vicki told him. “This is a crime scene again. I mean still. I mean an even worse crime scene than before.” She didn’t usually get this flustered.
“What is it?” he asked.
“It’s not a what, it’s a who,” Vicki said. “Except now, it’s become sort of a what.”
“She’s been sick,” I explained.
Vicki brushed that aside. “I’m not sure how the who and the what got here, but it looks like they came from the trail. Did you see or hear anything unusual around here last night or this morning, Clay?”
He shook his head. “Until now, the closest I’ve been since Friday afternoon when we inventoried the jewelry was the bandstand, last night.” He glanced toward me as if about to ask a question.
I mumbled, “Sorry I didn’t stay.”
Vicki asked him, “Do you have any idea what that employee of yours, Fred Zongassi, is doing today?”
I gave her a sharp look. Last night, when she’d been about to collapse, she had pointed out Fred and his high-top sneakers. Did she suspect that Fred had something to do with the corpse in the odd shroud? I controlled an involuntary shudder. Perhaps she knew that Fred was the corpse in the shroud.
“We’re digging the foundations for some new cottages beyond the state forest,” Clay told her. “Fred should be out there. I’ll go check.” He patted his shirt pocket. “Or I could try his cell.”
“Don’t. Detective Gartener will likely send someone from the state police to talk to him.”
So the corpse wasn’t Fred. Who was it, anyone I knew?
She again assessed the lower part of my yard as if expecting someone to jump out at us. “You two can go. Keep the kittens and dogs out of the yard, Willow, and open your shop. Business as usual.”
I glanced toward the hazy blue sky, but all I could think of was the batting and what it concealed. “Usual. Right.”
Clay walked up the hill with me. “Kittens?” he asked.
I kept my answer short since we both had things we needed to do. “Strays. Sally-Forth rescued them during the night.”
“Your dogs are really something. Let me know when we can work in your yard again, okay?”
“If ever.”
He squeezed my shoulder. “Don’t worry. See you Friday, if not before.” He loped toward my gate.
Glad that Clay wasn’t annoyed at me for leaving while his band played, I opened the patio door only enough to sidle through and greet my excited dogs. They were undoubtedly proud of themselves for discovering a body and helping unpin its weird wrapping. Sally’s little charges, however, had gone to sleep in her bed. They yawned, opened their eyes, and blinked at me, but they must have been too drowsy to get up. I locked the patio door to prevent any of the pets from squeezing out again.
> I felt sad about the person who must have met an untimely end and would surely be missed. Again, I thought back over the night. I hadn’t heard anything unusual besides Sally’s insistence on being let out and in twice, Vicki’s giggling fit, and the kittens’ mewing and purring.
Who was rolled up in that quilt batting?
And where had the batting—and the knitting needles—come from? Vicki was probably asking herself the same questions, but Vicki was guarding the crime scene. She wouldn’t want me endangering myself or giving the murderer any hint that we, I meant she, was on their trail, but she should allow me to ask trusted friends a few questions.
I didn’t need to open In Stitches for at least a half hour. I sprinted across the street.
Edna was already switching her sequined sign from Come Back Later to Welcome. She opened the door and poked her head out. She’d washed most of the red and blue from her hair, leaving only a few purplish streaks running through the blond.
I ran to her. “How are you feeling?”
“A million times better. I couldn’t stand the thought of hiding upstairs and missing the fun of selling all these great notions.”
She’d feel worse if I told her what Vicki had found in my backyard. I trotted to Batty About Quilts.
The small front room of Naomi’s shop was a gallery of finished quilts and everything one could possibly quilt, including multi-pocketed tote bags and adorable little dresses. Wearing another of her summery pieced dresses, Naomi was in the sales area immediately behind her art gallery. She hummed as she slotted a new bolt of batik between others already on her shelves, and smiled at me like I was a long-lost daughter. “Willow, I’m glad you didn’t catch the flu that’s been going around.”
“Not yet. Have you recently sold quilt batting to anyone?”
She was too polite to comment on my abrupt change of subject. “Lots of people, but Duncan was probably the most recent. He said his dad wanted it to pad a dinosaur costume. That boy’s so shy he could barely whisper his request. Why do you ask?”