Thread and Gone

by Lea Wait

  Josh veered from one side of his lane to the other, passing cars to his right and his left.

  My hands clutched my steering wheel. Why was I following them both? But I’d gotten this far. I needed to know how it would end.

  I drove faster than I ever had before. But I couldn’t keep up with the others. Every moment, I imagined one or all three of us crashing.

  My stomach muscles lurched as trucks and cars going both north and south pulled over onto the shoulder, trying to get out of our way.

  One car hit a ditch. It teetered precariously on its side before falling back onto its wheels.

  Josh put his hand on his horn and held it there.

  One pickup he narrowly missed ended up in a ditch, trying to get out of his way. As I passed it I hoped no one inside had been hurt.

  I hoped Ethan had somehow called the guys at the local police station.

  As our speed increased, and the road became curvier, the chances of the chase ending well dropped.

  I almost pulled over, following the lead of other cars on the road. But my foot stayed on the accelerator.

  The sun was going down. It was harder to see in the dark. I switched on my lights, focused on the road, and accelerated again.

  Neither Josh nor Ethan had turned on their lights. They were driving close to ninety. Maybe faster. I didn’t take my eyes off the road to look at the speedometer.

  Even on this relatively straight stretch of Route 1, we were going way past the speed limit.

  Way too fast

  Suddenly Josh braked. His car fishtailed into the southbound lane where an RV was trying to get to the side of the road, out of his way.

  That driver wasn’t fast enough. The RV was wide and long. Josh and Jude crashed against its side, leaving the RV on its side off the road, caught between two trees.

  Ethan braked in response. His car skidded sideways, coming to a halt across both lanes of traffic. I stomped on my brakes and barely missed hitting Ethan’s car as my tires screeched in protest.

  I sat, frozen, my car still shaking, as I tried to figure out what had happened.

  I turned off my engine.

  Ahead of us my headlights showed a small brown and white dog barking loudly and running back and forth from one side of the road to the other.

  That’s why Josh put on his brakes. To avoid hitting the dog.

  I got out and ran to the other vehicles. Ethan was standing near where Josh’s car had smashed into the RV. He was calling the scene in.

  The driver of the RV was carefully crawling out of his vehicle. He looked shaken but intact. His RV wasn’t.

  The front of Josh’s car was smashed in.

  Josh and Jude were both trapped in the car.

  I couldn’t see either of them behind the torn, crumpled metal that had been their car.

  Slivers of glass shone in the long grasses by the side of the road, caught by the RV’s headlights.

  Chapter 43

  When I am dead and in my grave

  And all my bones are rotten,

  When this you see, remember me

  That I may not be forgotten.

  —Stitched by Polly Young, age eleven, 1801

  The next half hour was a blur.

  The fire and police departments and ambulance arrived. They had to cut Josh and Jude out of their car. By some miracle, both of them were alive, but unconscious and covered with blood. They were airlifted to Maine Medical in Portland.

  I heard later that Jude’s back was badly bruised, her face was cut, she’d lost several teeth, one of her arms was shattered, and both her ankles were broken.

  Josh wasn’t as lucky. He hadn’t made it.

  Ethan said he was fine. My chest was bruised by my seat belt, but that was minor.

  In the luggage compartment of Josh’s car the police found a duffel bag containing twenty-five thousand dollars and Josh’s clothing.

  He and Jude had been planning to leave Maine that night and head south.

  Lenore Pendleton’s emerald ring was in Jude’s backpack, along with all her savings. She’d withdrawn it from the bank earlier that day.

  No one knew the whole story until Jude was well enough to answer questions and her parents convinced her to cooperate.

  It seemed she and Josh had heard from Rob and Mary how valuable Mary’s needlepoint might be. After a few too many beers, Jude and Josh had gone to Lenore’s house Wednesday night to convince her to open her safe. When Lenore hadn’t agreed at once, they’d threatened her.

  Then, after she’d opened the safe, Josh had killed her out of fear she’d identify them. It had been on impulse. Killing hadn’t been in their plan.

  They’d taken the needlepoint and the jewelry.

  Then they’d panicked. What should they do? Who would buy stolen goods?

  Neither of them had planned their next steps.

  But they’d remembered Rob talking to Uma, and then to the Nolins, about the needlepoint.

  Their goal was to make enough money to leave Haven Harbor. Jude called Mrs. Nolin, whose hair she’d cut at Maine Waves. She agreed to sell the Nolins the needlepoint if they’d get rid of the jewelry by putting it in Uma’s room at the inn.

  They kept out the sapphire necklace, to tie Uma to the crime, and the emerald ring, because Jude wanted it.

  After Uma was back from lobstering with Arvin, Josh had followed her to the ledges by the lighthouse and hit her with a rock. Before he pushed her body into the water he’d fastened the sapphire necklace around her neck. He and Jude assumed Uma would be blamed for Lenore’s death, especially since the Nolins agreed to plant the jewelry in Uma’s room using her key, which Josh had taken.

  They’d paid Josh and Jude twenty-five thousand dollars for the needlepoint and headed home to Quebec.

  The needlepoint might have been worth more if they’d had the provenance we’d been working so hard to provide, but under the circumstances, they weren’t picky.

  The Canadian police had no trouble finding them. Or the stolen embroidery.

  Mary would be getting her needlepoint back—after Jude’s trial.

  Chapter 44

  Teach me to feel another’s woe

  To hide the fault I see

  That mercy I to others shew

  That mercy shew to me.

  —Stitched by Susanna Magarge

  at the Quaker School,

  Bristol, Pennsylvania, 1827

  Rev. Tom’s sermon on the Sunday after that was on forgiveness.

  I wondered how Uma’s family felt. They weren’t in church, of course. They’d taken their daughter’s body back to Connecticut.

  I wasn’t as worried about Lenore’s ex. Although I was surprised to see Charlie slide into a back pew after the first hymn.

  Maybe he had things to think about. And maybe he’d even get his jewelry back. I didn’t know what Lenore’s will had said.

  It didn’t seem important anymore.

  Mary and Rob were there, holding hands. I hoped the events of the past week would pull them closer together.

  I was most worried about two people who weren’t in church: Ob and Anna Winslow. They’d spent the past week sequestered at home, trying to deal with the loss of their son.

  I hoped they’d be ready to talk soon. Josh’s funeral was scheduled for Tuesday.

  What Josh had done wasn’t his parents’ fault, but I knew how Haven Harbor reacted when one of their own made a mistake. Forgiveness might sound good on Sunday morning, but it would take a while for the community to absorb what had happened.

  Jude’s family wasn’t in church either.

  But the town would heal. I knew that, too, from personal experience.

  After all, I was here.

  Haven Harbor had accepted me back. I was settling in, making myself at home.

  I even had plans. I’d started making new lists.

  First, I’d contact interior decorators in Portsmouth and Boston about Mainely Needlepoint’s services.

  Se
cond, the kitchen could use a coat of paint.

  After that, I vowed to ask Gram to teach me to make blueberry muffins.

  And to show me how to do more needlepoint stitches.

  I might even get a cat.

  I was going to be all right.

  And Haven Harbor would go on.

  Angie Curtis’s Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie

  Classic June/July Maine Dessert

  Ingredients

  2 frozen 9-inch deep-dish pie shells (Angie’s never learned to make pie crust; if you have, make your own!)

  2½ cups fresh rhubarb, cut in ½- to 1-inch pieces

  2½ cups fresh strawberries, stems removed and cut in half

  cup flour

  1 cups granulated sugar plus a little to sprinkle on top

  2 tablespoons cinnamon

  1 tablespoon lemon juice

  3 tablespoons salted butter, cut in small pieces

  Heat oven to 425 degrees. Remove pie shells from freezer.

  Mix flour, sugar, and cinnamon in large bowl.

  Add lemon juice and cut-up rhubarb and strawberries. Mix together lightly—with hands is usually best.

  Put everything inside one of the pie shells. Dot top of fruit with small pieces of butter.

  Cover with second pie shell, squeezing edges together. Cut several slits in the top shell and sprinkle with sugar.

  Place on rimmed baking sheet (to catch juices that will escape from the pie while it is cooking) and place in center of oven about 45 minutes, or until juices bubble and crust is browned.

  May be served warm or cold. Top with vanilla ice cream for an extra treat.

  Variations

  Use blueberries instead of strawberries. Use both blueberries and strawberries. Use small pieces of pear or apple instead of berries.

  Author’s Notes

  Of course, Thread and Gone is fiction. So far as I know no pieces of embroidery stitched by Mary, Queen of Scots, have been found in Maine attics. Although you never know what might turn up in the future!

  It is true that Mary Stuart, her cousin Elizabeth I of England, and two hundred years later, Marie Antoinette, were all needlepointers.

  And although this story is fictional, certainly Mary’s life, and those of the “four Marys” who attended her, including Mary Seton, were real, as is the strange connection between Mary Seton and the lawyer who defended Marie Antoinette in 1793. And Talleyrand did visit Maine in 1794.

  Mary Clough is fictional. But Captain Stephen Clough and his ship Sally were real, and they were in Le Havre during the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror, when many royalists were arrested and executed. And a prominent Bostonian, James Swan, who’d fought in the American Revolution with Clough and lived in Paris for several years, was a friend of Lafayette and Talleyrand—and had a financial interest in the Sally.

  Was Stephen Clough part of one of the attempts to free Queen Marie Antoinette?

  We’ll probably never know. In the early twentieth century, weary of answering questions about Marie Antoinette, the wife of one of Clough’s descendants instructed her grandson to dump all the family’s papers and ships’ logs into the river. He filled his skiff twice. The papers were lost forever.

  I believe Captain Clough, perhaps after failing to free the queen, was trying to help other royalist friends of James Swan’s to escape from France. They filled his ship with their belongings in preparation for their journey, but were seized and executed before they could sail.

  About forty thousand people were arrested and guillotined during the Reign of Terror that began in 1793.

  Captain Clough left Le Havre and sailed to Boston, where James Swan’s family claimed his ship’s contents.

  Today a room at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston is filled with eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century French furnishings from James Swan’s estate. His portrait, painted by John Singleton Copley (1738–1815), looks over furniture and porcelains and tapestries, some of which may have come from Captain Clough’s ship, Sally.

  And although there are few, if any, Marys in the Clough family, Captain Stephen Clough named his youngest daughter, born after his most famous voyage, Hannah Antoinette. To this day there’s an Antoinette in every generation of his family.

  History or legend? You decide.

  I know the story well because in the 1950s my family purchased the old Clough home. It’s where I live and write today. I often think of the people who lived here in the past. Perhaps their spirits remain. But their ghosts must be content. They don’t disturb me.

  Thank you to Pamela Parmal and Meredith Montague of the Textile and Fashion Arts division of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and to Kathy Lynn Emerson, author and expert on Elizabethan England, for their help.

  If you’re interested in learning more about Mary, Queen of Scots’, embroidery I suggest consulting Margaret Swain’s The Needlework of Mary Queen of Scots, Michael Bath’s Emblems For a Queen: The Needlework of Mary Queen of Scots, Santina M. Levey’s An Elizabethan Inheritance: The Hardwick Hall Textiles, Lanto Synge’s Antique Needlework, George Wingfield Digby’s Elizabethan Embroidery, and the National Trust’s Hardwick Hall.

  Many books are available on the life and times of Queen Mary and her cousin Elizabeth, and of Marie Antoinette.

  If you’re interested in stitching Elizabethan embroidery patterns, see Dorothy Clarke’s Exploring Elizabethan Embroidery, which includes a number of designs by Stephanie Powell based on Elizabethan motifs. And if you’d like to know more about the various gadgets and devices used by needlepointers in the past, see Bridget McConnel’s The Story of Antique Needlework Tools.

  I thank the real Cos Curran, whose grandmother, Kate, won a character naming in a benefit for the Wiscasset Library, for the use of her name, and the real Sarah Byrne, who is from Australia, for the use of hers. As always, I thank my caring and patient husband, artist Bob Thomas, for living with a wife immersed in her writing. My sister Nancy Cantwell for being a “first reader.” My writing friends, especially Kathy Lynn Emerson, Kate Flora, and Barbara Ross, for their encouragement and support. And thank you to all the readers of Twisted Threads, the first in the Mainely Needlepoint series, who reviewed the book, needled me about minor errors (I’m still learning the fascinating craft of needlepoint), and encouraged me to continue Angie’s story.

  I thank my agent, John Talbot, my editor, John Scognamiglio, and all the hardworking people at Kensington Publishing, especially publicist extraordinaire Morgan Elwell, who brought Angie and Charlotte and the Mainely Needlepointers to so many readers.

  As always, any errors in Thread and Gone are mine.

  I invite you to friend me on Facebook and Goodreads, check my Web site at www.leawait.com for more about me and my books, including discussion questions for groups reading Thread and Gone, and read www.MaineCrimeWriters.com, the blog I write with other authors who write mysteries set in the wonderful, and sometimes mysterious, state of Maine.

  Lea Wait

  Please turn the page for an exciting

  sneak peek of the next

  Mainely Needlepoint Mystery

  DANGLING BY A THREAD

  coming in November 2016!

  Chapter 1

  “Time has wings and swiftly flies

  Youth and Beauty Fade away

  Virtue is the only Prize

  Whose Joys never will decay.”

  —Sampler stitched by Chloe Trask in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, about 1800. Originally dated with four digits, in later years someone (probably Chloe herself) removed the stitching on the final two numbers to conceal her age.

  The August fog was damp and soft on my face. I sat on a bench on Wharf Street, watched anchored boats in Haven Harbor appear and disappear in the mists, and sipped my coffee.

  A man in a small gray skiff rowed smoothly toward shore, out of the morning fog. Whoever he was, he knew the waters and was at home with them. I watched as he tied his skiff to the town pier and pulled himself onto the dock. That’s wh
en I realized something was wrong with his left leg.

  I knew Haven Harbor’s boats and their owners. I didn’t remember ever seeing that skiff or its occupant.

  I’d been back in Haven Harbor over three months now, and was beginning to feel comfortable again in the house that had seen both the joys and pains of my growing up. I’d agreed to stay six months; settle in, manage Mainely Needlepoint, the business Gram had started, and come to terms with the past.

  I was already thinking six months wasn’t long enough. I’d be staying longer.

  Still, some mornings, like today, I was restless.

  When I felt like that nothing but the sights and sounds of the sea would soothe me. Those ten years I’d spent in Arizona, far from the consistent tides I’d depended on to bring order to my life, had left a hole that only closeness to the water could fill.

  Too often in the past weeks I’d woken to the motors of lobster boats leaving the docks and the screeching of the gulls who followed them.

  I’d fill a travel mug with coffee and head for the wharves, where I could be close to the sea; could smell the salt air and dried rockweed.

  This morning heavy gray fog covered the harbor, hiding the three islands that protected it from the ocean’s strength. In the distance I heard the motor of a lobster boat making early morning stops to check traps just outside the harbor.

  The man tied his skiff to the end of the town pier. He was tall and thin, with skin almost the color of his straggly gray beard. He might have been forty, or sixty. His flannel shirt hung on him as though it was intended for someone heavier; someone stronger. His jeans were tied with a rope.

  He walked up the ramp toward where I was sitting, limping, but not hesitating. Not looking at me or at Arvin Fraser, who’d finished hoisting his bait barrels on board the Little Lady and was preparing to leave the dock with Rob Trask, his sternman.