Thread and Buried

by Janet Bolin

  Ben was waiting for us beside his open office door. This time, he didn’t lock us in.

  We donned the gloves, pulled up the chairs, and delved into the next box in the series. Admiring slinky, bias-cut satin gowns, we worked our way through the thirties and forties. By the fifties, dresses and gowns hardly showed up in the pictures except at banquets and dances. At a beatnik party, the women wore black tights and bulky, tunic-length sweaters while the men wore high-waisted black jeans with tucked-in T-shirts, their short sleeves rolled up to show off their biceps, and, in a couple of instances, their cigarette packs.

  I found photos from annual jewelers’ conferences. I sat up straighter in the comfy overstuffed chair. “Some of these gems may be the very ones that were stolen, and that Clay and I found.”

  Haylee leaned close to Ben so she could see. “Recognize any of them?”

  “No,” I answered, “but the jewelers could have reset the same stones year after year, or simply borrowed different jewelry from their stores when the time came for the ladies’ maids to pack for the conference.” I pitched my voice low in imitation of a suave male voice. “What gems would you like to wear this year, my dear?”

  Haylee fluttered her white-gloved hands near her heart and mimicked in a high voice, “Oh, dahling, you know that diamonds go with simply everything!”

  Ben’s deep, appreciative laughter made our goofing around worthwhile, and we might have continued if someone hadn’t tapped at the door.

  Clay? My heart danced a little jig.

  42

  BUT IT WASN’T CLAY AT BEN’S OFFICE door.

  Without waiting for an answer, Zara threw the door open and sashayed in. She wore black leggings covered by a voluminous sweater that had been hand knit, complete with a kangaroo pocket, from chunky black yarn. Not her usual svelte look, though she did have her hair pinned back in a sleek hairstyle that went with her black ballerina flats, each embellished with a black satin bow. Maybe she’d gotten cold in the shorts and halter top she’d been wearing earlier, or maybe she’d been looking through the beatnik party photos. “Ben, did Max say when he was coming back?” she asked.

  Ben stood. “Late tonight or early in the morning.” His voice was warm and friendly, but he didn’t move toward her. “He had to go to Pittsburgh on business, but didn’t want to take more than a day from his vacation.”

  A vacation that seemed to be lasting forever, especially to Haylee, suddenly thin-lipped and silent on the other side of Ben’s vacated chair. And how interesting that Max had told Ben his plans, but not his sister. His supposed sister. Or maybe he had told her, and she’d devised an excuse to come into Ben’s office and find out what we were doing.

  Zara pouted. “But I need Max’s car.” She rubbed a forefinger along the carved edge of Ben’s desk. “May I borrow the lodge’s truck? You can drive me if you’re afraid of my driving.”

  Ben pulled off his white gloves. “I don’t think anyone else needs it tonight.” He walked across the office to the other side of his vast desk from her. “Here, catch.” He slid a ring of keys across the shiny mahogany to her.

  She grabbed it. “Another thing—I’d like my trunk brought downstairs so when Max does arrive, I can put it right into his car. Can you help me carry it?”

  “Give me a couple of seconds. I’ll be right up. Which room is yours?”

  She pursed her lips in a coy smile, but looked at Haylee instead of Ben when she answered. “Edelweiss. As if you didn’t know. Coming?”

  His face darkened in a flush that could be embarrassment, but looked more like controlled anger, as if he didn’t appreciate the innuendo. “In a minute. I have a couple of things to finish here, first.”

  Zara peered toward the table where Haylee and I were not paying much attention to the photos in our gloved hands. “What are you folks doing, anyway?” She wrinkled her nose. “Why were you talking about diamonds?”

  How long had she been listening at the door, and did she think Haylee had been talking to Ben in that exaggeratedly flirtatious voice? And calling him “dahling”?

  Luckily, Zara didn’t notice me trying to control a snicker. She gazed at Ben. “Why were you wearing those weird gloves, Ben?”

  “Just going through some old stuff.” The way he tried to make it sound unbearably dull almost brought on another involuntary snicker.

  Haylee sneezed. I knew her well enough to know it was a fake sneeze, but it sounded real.

  Ben returned to the table, grabbed his discarded white cotton gloves, and frowned at some rather obvious dark smudges. “It’s dirty work,” he said.

  Zara brushed a white fleck off her sweater. “Okay. Meet you upstairs, Ben.” Singing, she flitted away. I had to say one thing for her—she had a really good voice.

  Ben stood perfectly still, watching her go. When her song reached the foot of the stairs, he muttered, “You would never believe the amount of luggage that woman brought with her. Would either of you take a steamer trunk on a two-week vacation?”

  “I didn’t know they still made them,” I said.

  He waved the gloves past his face. “Maybe it’s a foot locker. It wasn’t very heavy when I carried it upstairs for her. But she could almost hide a body inside it.”

  I defended the need for luggage. “We’ve been known to take sewing machines on sewing, quilting, or embroidering retreats. And bunches of fabric. It can add up really fast.”

  Ben leaned back against his desk. “Good point. I’m forgetting. Zara also brought an easel, canvases, and paints. She’s been wandering around, painting pictures.”

  I asked, “Is she good?”

  He nodded slowly. “I think she is. And Max says she’s had several exhibitions.”

  Upstairs, something crashed.

  Ben winced. “She could also be good at gouging woodwork with that trunk’s sharp metal corners. I’d better go. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Leaving the door standing open, he dashed out of his office. I heard his feet pound up the stairs, then his voice. “Here, Zara, let me take that.”

  “See? What did I tell you?” I whispered to Haylee.

  “Are there no limits to that woman’s talents? Alluring men, singing . . . and painting, too?”

  “No, didn’t you notice? He doesn’t like her.”

  She tried to prick holes in my theory. “Or he’s putting on a show of not being interested, for our benefit.”

  “No! He got the message when you faked that sneeze! He started talking about dirt.” I clasped my white-gloved hands over my heart in phony awe. “You two belong together.”

  “Would you stop?” But she was laughing. She grabbed another photo. “Look at these mod mini-dresses from the sixties. Aren’t they amazing?”

  They were. “What’s even more astonishing,” I commented, “is the outfit Zara was wearing. That bulky sweater didn’t exactly flatter her, and she’s dressed all in black, like we often do when we’re—”

  “—not wanting to be seen at night,” Haylee finished for me.

  For once, she and I were out after dark in light colors. She’d put on khaki shorts and a neatly tailored pale blue linen blouse. When I’d closed In Stitches for the evening, I’d left my aqua tank top on, but had switched my skirt to cutoffs. We both had on sandals, not the running shoes we sometimes wore if we thought we might have to . . . well, maybe not run, exactly, but hurry.

  Listening for Ben to return and hoping that he wouldn’t abandon us for Zara, I continued sorting through photos. Color photos from the seventies showed a preponderance of brown, avocado, orange, and gold clothing, color combinations that had probably looked crisper in real life than in these slightly pinkish, faded photos.

  Outside, a vehicle honked a couple of little toots.

  Seconds later, Ben returned to the office and pulled on his dust-specked white gloves. “Didn’t she say she only wanted help bringing that trunk downstairs?” he asked us. “So she could put it into Max’s car later?”

  We agreed.

>   “She had me carry it outside, then she stayed with it while I got the pickup for her, then she had me help her lift it into the truck bed. And she drove away. But I could have sworn that foot locker was empty just now. It barely weighed a thing.”

  I looked at Haylee. Gazing back at me, she plucked at an invisible bulky sweater.

  “The yarn in Zara’s sweater looked familiar,” I said slowly, gauging Haylee’s reaction. “But I’m sure it’s not like anything Opal carries in Tell a Yarn.”

  “It looked like craft yarn to me,” Haylee agreed.

  I jumped out of my chair, knelt on Ben’s silk oriental rug, and picked up the white fleck that Zara had brushed off her sweater. “And so’s this.” I rolled the short piece of yarn between my gloved fingers. “Super bulky.”

  It was time to take off the gloves. I threw my dusty white cotton pair onto the table, grabbed my bag, excused myself, and headed outside.

  No one was anywhere near the porte cochere. I took out my phone and dialed Chief Smallwood’s number.

  She answered right away. “Hi, Willow, what’s up?”

  “I know who your yarnbomber is,” I said.

  43

  NATURALLY, VICKI FIRED BACK, “STAY OUT of police business, Willow.”

  I bristled. “I am. That’s why I’m telling you. Zara Brubaugh just borrowed the Elderberry Bay Lodge pickup truck and loaded a lightweight foot locker onto it and drove away. If anything gets yarnbombed tonight—”

  “Know which way she headed?”

  “No, sorry.”

  “I’ll have a look around. I know the truck—dark green with a logo of a stylized sprig of elderberries in a circle. Thanks, Willow.”

  Convinced that she’d never catch up with Zara, or that I was wrong about Zara being the yarnbomber and Vicki would scold me the next time I saw her, I trudged inside.

  I cheered up as I approached the office. Haylee and Ben stood close together with their backs to the door. They were so interested in what Haylee was holding that at first they didn’t hear me coming.

  When they did, Haylee whirled around. Excitement turned her eyes a more brilliant blue than ever.

  Ben faced me, too. His smile was wide and proud. “Look at what Haylee found in the last batch of photos.” He held up a snapshot. “The date scribbled in the margin at the bottom is only about a week before Snoozy Gallagher disappeared. We definitely have to display this one.”

  We. Wondering if he could be thinking, perhaps unconsciously, of running the lodge with Haylee’s help, I leaned forward to study the photo.

  I’d hoped for a glimpse of the gowned but not bejeweled women at that final banquet at the jewelers’ convention, but this was a simple snapshot taken on the grassy slope between the lodge’s porch and the beach. A short, bald man was with four teenagers. The two boys and one of the girls faced him. Standing to one side, the other girl smirked toward the camera.

  And then I saw the belt buckle the man wore. Silver, with three Zs embossed on it.

  “That can’t be Snoozy Gallagher,” I exclaimed.

  “That’s what I’d have thought, too,” Ben said. “Supposedly, he never let anyone take his picture. But he was looking at the boys, so he probably didn’t notice that someone was sneaking up on him.”

  I shuddered. Had his death the next week occurred because he didn’t notice someone creeping up on him one last time?

  Snoozy appeared to be in his mid-sixties. Because his head was turned, I could see only part of one of his eyes. It was heavily lidded and drooped down at the outer corner in a way that made him look, from the side, both wily and half asleep. His wide belt cinched his paunch with limited success. He had tucked his orange checked shirt into his brown slacks, but it bloused out in irregular pleats, making his upper body resemble a pudgy pumpkin.

  The boys wore tight jeans and baggy T-shirts advertising rock bands. Their mouths were open wide, as if they were shouting at Snoozy, and their hands hacked at the air. The boy next to Snoozy was the tallest in the picture. His brown hair was wiry and he’d grown a wispy attempt at a beard. The other boy was smaller, with enviably curly hair. The girl next to him wore turquoise capris and a gray off-the-shoulder sweatshirt. She glared at Snoozy, and her mouth was open, also.

  It looked like those three teens were yelling at Snoozy, who found them slightly amusing, while the other girl flirted with the photographer.

  Careful not to touch the rare snapshot of Snoozy Gallagher, I pointed to the girl who seemed to be yelling. Except for the long frizzy hair and bangs, prominent cheekbones, and apparent anger, she could have passed for a younger version of Cassie.

  “Could that be Cassie’s mom, Yolanda? It looks like her.”

  Haylee answered, “Could be. When we last saw Yolanda, her hair was an odd shade of purplish red, like she was trying to replicate the auburn of her youth, and this girl’s hair was reddish brown.” She adjusted the photo in Ben’s hand so that the light fell on it differently. “And this guy next to Yolanda—I think it’s Neil.”

  I bent for a closer look. “I think you’re right. He looks like Neil, only younger, and he also resembles Cassie, with the freckles and light brown curls.”

  After we all agreed about Neil, it didn’t take us long to recognize the taller boy. His height, wiry hair, and pale eyes gave him away. He was a younger version of Tom Umshaw, the fisherman.

  The flirty girl wore a pink and gray striped cropped top with big shoulders and a short, ruffled pink skirt that showed off long, coltish legs. Her hair was brown, long, and tied in a ponytail over her left ear. “That’s Bitsy,” I said, “before she was blond.”

  After this picture had been taken, Tom and Neil had stayed friends through the years. Neil and Yolanda had eventually married and had a daughter, but the marriage hadn’t lasted. At some point after Yolanda left Neil and took baby Cassie with her, Neil and Bitsy had become a couple, but, according to the lady in the RV at the campground, they’d broken up.

  Ben summarized what I was thinking, “Tom, Neil, and Yolanda were all yelling at Snoozy Gallagher shortly before he died, and Bitsy witnessed the argument. Chief Smallwood might like to know about the disagreement, if there was one, and also that Tom, Bitsy, and Yolanda might be able to tell her who else was around the lodge the week that Snoozy died.”

  “Supposedly, Fred Zongassi was,” I said. “Mona said that he had a fight with Snoozy and took off around the time Snoozy disappeared.”

  Haylee turned the photo over. On the back, someone had printed, Found in wastebasket in Zongassi’s room in staff cottage. If anything happens, look for Z. No one else ever got past my guard. Three Zs were scrawled beneath the note.

  I asked, “Did Snoozy mean if anything happened to him, like if he was injured or killed, or did he mean if anything happened to the jewelry stored in his safe? Maybe Snoozy planted this picture among Fred’s things in the hope that the heist he was planning would be blamed on Fred, except I guess that no one read the back of the photo until now, or everyone would have suspected Fred of the robbery at least as much as they suspected Snoozy.”

  I still couldn’t picture Fred as a murderer, but I didn’t know what he’d been like in his late twenties and early thirties. However, if Snoozy’s and Neil’s murders were connected, Fred was a much more likely villain than Cassie, who hadn’t been born yet when Snoozy died. Tom, Neil, Yolanda, and Bitsy had been in their teens, old enough to kill.

  Ben took off his gloves and went to the phone on his desk. “Do either of you know Chief Smallwood’s number?”

  I had it programmed into my cell, but maybe Vicki would be more receptive to a call from Ben’s landline. I read her number aloud. While Ben dialed and stood listening to a recorded message, Haylee said to me, “We know that Snoozy was killed shortly before Fred left town, and that Neil was killed shortly after Fred came back.”

  I murmured, “But they took Cassie away for questioning, not Fred.”

  Ben covered the mouthpiece with his hand. “As far
as we know. I haven’t seen Fred since last night, but I didn’t expect to.”

  “Chief Smallwood doesn’t want me investigating people based on hunches—” I started.

  Haylee let out a burble of laugher. “She doesn’t want you investigating people, period.”

  I lowered my eyebrows in a fake glower. She was as willing to snoop around as I was. Had been. I suddenly remembered that I was leaving snooping to the experts. But all I said was, “Neither Cassie nor Fred seem like murderers. But Yolanda and Bitsy do.”

  Ben raised an eyebrow. Still covering the mouthpiece, he asked, “What about Tom? He was around at the time of both murders, also.”

  Haylee and I shook our heads, and I told them about Tom and Neil joking together during the sidewalk sale, a pair of buddies, totally comfortable teasing and being teased by each other.

  “I’ve seen them together, too,” Haylee said. “They were friends. Bitsy and Yolanda fought with each other at the sidewalk sale, and Yolanda had no qualms about feeding questionable food to people. Poisoning people.”

  “Including Tom,” I said. “He told Haylee and me he’d been sick, too. And he looked it.” I counted on the fingers of one of my gloves. “Bitsy seems mean and irrational, but Yolanda fled Elderberry Bay about the time Neil was murdered. Worse, she was willing to see her daughter go to jail for Neil’s murder.” And Cassie was going along with her mother’s lies, to save a mother who maybe didn’t deserve saving. “And Yolanda may have dumped helpless kittens in my yard about the time Neil’s body appeared.”

  Ben left a message asking Chief Smallwood to call or come see him next time she was free.

  Originally, I had hoped that sorting through the photos would take a long time and that Clay would join us, but it was almost midnight, and we’d all been up late the previous night. Clay might reasonably assume that Haylee and I had left hours ago, and he might drive past on Shore Road without checking the lodge’s parking lot.

  Besides, now I wanted to get into the car and drive around. If Haylee and I found Vicki, we could tell her to go see Ben. He could show her the photograph of Bitsy witnessing what appeared to be Neil, Tom, and Yolanda yelling at Snoozy Gallagher. And supposedly, the picture had been taken by Fred Zongassi who, if he was the photographer, had been able to sneak up on Snoozy at least once. And he had also brawled with Snoozy, and then had left town around the time Snoozy had disappeared.