by Janet Bolin
“That’s strange,” she said. “Both doors were fine when we were there.”
“They looked fine to me, at first. But that one was only sort of wedged shut, not bolted, and wood near the latch was splintered. Also, someone tracked paint into that cottage, from the porch to the sink where I found the button.”
“Tracked paint? In winter?”
“It was very thick.” I repeated what Clay said about oil-based paints not curing in cold temperatures. “The paint’s not dry yet.”
“Could you have been the one who tracked it around?”
“I was careful to step over it.”
I could hear nails clicking on her receiver. “Tell you what—call Detective DeGlazier. He’s the lead investigator, he lives close to you, and he can go to your place and see all this. I’ll check with him to make sure he keeps the button in a safe place, and we’ll swing by tomorrow to collect it and see this paint you say was tracked around.”
After we said our good-byes, I frowned at the phone. When I’d talked to her before, she’d seemed more willing to help. What had happened? Did it have anything to do with the additional evidence that Trooper Gartener had said they’d found against me? How could I get her—or any of them, but she seemed the most reasonable—to tell me what the evidence was so I could refute it?
I phoned Uncle Allen.
A child answered.
I stammered out, “Unc . . . er . . . Detective DeGlazier?”
The child pelted away, shouting “Granddad! Some lady wants to talk to you!”
Several minutes passed before I heard the phone being manhandled again. I half expected the prattle of a three-year-old. Instead, a woman demanded, “Who’s this?”
“I need to speak to Detective DeGlazier—”
“Who’s this?” she repeated. Her caustic voice was familiar.
“Willow Vanderling.”
She must have dropped the phone. The crash it made as it fell on a table, or more likely from the sound of it, on a snare drum, nearly deafened me. It could not have benefited the phone, either. “Aaaaaallen!” she shrieked. “It’s that murderer!”
Great. He’d indoctrinated his entire family to believe in my guilt. He had probably spread his suspicions to the entire village and surrounding countryside, too. It was all I could do not to growl into the phone.
But as I replayed her voice, I began to wonder if she could be Aunt Betty, who had come to In Stitches with her friends and accusations.
Finally, Uncle Allen came to the phone. “What d’ya want?” I must have caught him during dinner. Dishes clattered. I could hear him chewing. Maybe I should be glad, after all, that the phone crashing down onto the snare drum had temporarily impaired my hearing.
I said carefully, “The investigators missed some evidence in my cottage.”
Uncle Allen spoke around food in his mouth. “That’s impossible. What evidence?”
“Somebody tracked through wet paint on my porch, left a trace of paint on my door when he kicked it open—”
“Who’d have done that?”
“Whoever beat Mike up.”
A woman shouted, “Aaaaaallen, your dinner’s getting cold!”
“I’ve got to go,” he said.
“Wait,” I commanded. “Somebody lost a button. It fell into the cottage sink. The killer’s fingerprints may be on it. I called the state police. Trooper Smallwood said you should get it and save it for her.”
“We should get your prints, too.” He said it in his gotcha voice, like he was tricking me into something, like confessing to murder.
“Of course, since they’ll be on most of my things.”
“Aaaaaallen!”
Uncle Allen grunted, “Button’s probably been there for years.”
“It wasn’t there on Monday. We’re not talking about a minor crime.” I was getting as hot under the collar as the woman who had cooked his dinner. “And Trooper Smallwood said—”
“If she wants it that badly, tell her to go get it herself.”
Oh, great, now I was going to be in the middle of an argument between two different police forces. “Come get the key from me again, anytime.”
“Aaaaaallen!”
“Yeah, yeah.” I couldn’t tell if he was dismissing me or his wife. He hung up.
The button might have to stay where it was until Trooper Smallwood came.
Maybe Edna would remember if anyone had bought black walnut buttons, either for a new garment or to replace lost buttons. The one in my sink was distinctive, very likely handmade, and should be easily recognizable.
I went upstairs. The boutiques and apartments belonging to Haylee, Opal, and Naomi were dark, but Buttons and Bows was brightly lit. I shut the dogs into the apartment, threw on a coat, and ran outside.
Clay had been right. The night had warmed, marginally, and fine snowflakes haloed streetlights.
“Willow!” A man’s voice. Stores were closed and no pedestrians were in sight. Who was calling me?
14
SAM LEANED OUT HIS FRONT DOOR AND beckoned with his whole arm, as if he needed help. “Willow!”
I ran to his front porch.
“I checked my inventory against my records,” he said. “A padlock has gone missing, package and all.”
Although Sam and I were sheltered by the porch roof, snow billowed like chiffon between us. “Who bought it?” A murderer, most likely.
Sam shook his head. “No one bought it, that’s the thing. I keep records of what comes in and what goes out, and I should have one more padlock.”
He trusted his bookkeeping more than I did. “Do you know when it went missing?”
“Had to be Tuesday. When you and I looked at the heap of packages last evening, it looked too small to me. We’d had them all out the night before, you know. I do remember how heavy things are, and how much space they take.” He tightened his lips around his teeth as if to hold in a secret. “I asked around this evening, and Herb reminded me that Mike Krawbach was in The Ironmonger Tuesday evening while you were.”
“No, he wasn’t.” Mike would have complained when Smythe Castor apologized on his behalf.
“Well, now, not in the store, exactly. He was in my basement, inspecting my electrical panel to see if I could upgrade.”
I admitted, “I did see Mike walk past my store shortly after I left yours. I guessed he’d been snooping around my yard, but maybe he was coming from here.” While in Sam’s basement, had Mike heard and memorized the unique number matching my padlocks? “Did he buy a padlock?”
Sam brushed the toe of one shoe at the snow blowing onto his porch. “Mike came upstairs the moment you all left and was talking to the geezers, right where those packages of padlocks were, and he was playing with the packages, and . . .” Sam heaved a careworn sigh. “One of the fellows thinks Mike might have picked up one of those packages and . . .” He met my gaze. “Just sort of neglected to put it back. But I don’t know . . .”
Sam didn’t want to accuse Mike of stealing, but it seemed exactly like something Mike would do. Mike must have been near the top of the basement stairs when the men were calling out the numbers, and heard them find two alike. He must have seen another package with that number printed on it, and pocketed the package. He could have let himself into my yard.
It still didn’t explain why he’d been beaten with my canoe paddle. Or who had done it.
It also blew apart my theory that his killer had to have been one of the people I’d seen in Sam’s store when I bought my padlocks. If Mike opened the gate, anyone could have followed him into my yard. And he or she wouldn’t have needed a key to snap the padlock shut afterward.
Sam flicked snow from his shoulders. “Mike told me he would issue me a permit to upgrade my electrical service, and he seemed quite proud of himself, y’know, that way he had.”
I did know. Mike had probably been congratulating himself for obtaining a key that would let him come and go from my yard. Had he been planning something in par
ticular, or had he merely enjoyed owning keys to other folk’s places? “You’d better go inside,” I suggested.
“Yep, the snow’s blowin’ all over the place, isn’t it now? Weather’s warming up. Hope the river doesn’t rise too much, but . . .” Shaking his head as if to ward off the future, he backed into his store and closed the door.
I crossed the street. Opening Edna’s door set off a jaunty little tune.
Edna straightened from bending over an open carton. “Like my new doorbell? That’s an old Vaudeville tune, about buttons and bows. You should update those boring chimes you have.”
I should? “I like the frosted sea glass.” The irregularly shaped glass pieces were pastel greens, blues, and turquoises.
Haylee waved at me from the top of a ladder propped against shelves of trims. “Clay made Willow’s chimes, from driftwood and glass he found on the beach.”
I pictured Clay, tan and barefoot on a beach at sunset, picking up pebbles and chunks of glass smoothed by water and sand . . .
An intriguing image, but the sights around me were intriguing, too. To my left, one wall featured buttons in a breathtaking array of color. The opposite wall displayed as large an assortment of ribbons, fringes, and braids as I’d seen anywhere, including those wonderful stores that Haylee and I used to browse through in Manhattan’s Fashion District.
Opal smothered me in a hug. She had crocheted her voluminous poncho in diagonal stripes of navy blue and hunter green. “That Vaudeville tune was actually ‘Buttons and Beaux,’ ” she corrected Edna, spelling it to make sure I understood. “It was rather risqué, more about unbuttoning than buttoning.” She helped me disengage myself from her poncho.
Haylee grinned down at us. “Think about all those tiny buttons and the clumsy hands of the beaux. You can imagine the lyrics.” Her black wool slacks and burgundy Chanel-style jacket were perfectly tailored. She had to have made them herself.
With a sniff, Edna lifted her chin. “I prefer to think it’s B-O-W-S.” She pointed at the carton at her feet. “We’re rearranging my shelves to add my latest shipment. There’s so much!”
Who wouldn’t be thrilled after receiving several cartons of notions? Colorful lace, fringes, and ribbons spilled out. I wanted to sink my hands into the boxes, fling decorations all over Buttons and Bows, then grab my favorites, which would be most of them, and dash home to start creating . . . I wasn’t sure what, but simply owning the trims while I designed the whatevers would be satisfying. On the other hand, after Edna added them to her color-coded shelves, it would be easy to saunter over here anytime and buy whatever I needed.
Yes, needed. Threadville was a great place to live and work.
Edna smoothed her vest. “I finished this today.” She had woven the vest from lime, lemon, and pale orange grosgrain ribbons embellished with matching ribbon rosettes and tiny, sparkly buttons. A yellow turtleneck and slacks completed the outfit.
“It’s beautiful,” I said. “You look like a dish of swirly citrus sherbet.”
Edna’s dark brown eyes glowed.
“Complete with a cherry on top,” Haylee teased.
Edna patted her curls. “I just love this shade of red. So cheery in the middle of winter.”
It was that. And exactly the color of maraschino cherries.
Naomi wore a navy and burgundy quilted vest with flower-bedecked unicorns appliquéd over it. “You looked worried when you came in, Willow.”
“Mainly puzzled. A wooden button appeared in the sink at Blueberry Cottage about the time Mike was beaten up.” I described it and asked Edna if she remembered selling any like it.
She led me to one end of her floor-to-ceiling button display. “Did it match any of these?”
None of her many wooden buttons were quite like the one I’d found.
She suggested, “Maybe seeing it would jog my memory.”
I agreed to take her to it when we finished restocking Buttons and Bows. Although Haylee already knew most of what I’d discovered in the past two days, I related Dawn’s allegations about Mike’s friends and fellow gang-members, Irv, Herb, and possibly Smythe and Clay. I told them about the trail of paint and yesterday’s interview with Dr. Wrinklesides. “Everyone around here except us probably knows about his hearing. Uncle Allen could have made up Mike’s so-called last words.”
Haylee frowned down at me from the top of her ladder.
I gave her a reassuring smile. Telling her mothers about our midnight jaunt last night would only worry them, and we hadn’t found much besides evidence that someone had searched Mike’s house.
Lovingly, Edna unfolded tissue paper to reveal ecru lace. “Uncle Allen is giving himself poetic license with Mike’s last words.”
Haylee’s ladder shook.
Rushing to the ladder, Opal stumbled over the hems of her trousers.
I steadied her. Either she hadn’t measured the pants she’d crocheted, navy blue to match half the stripes in her poncho, or the pants had an unfortunate tendency to grow. The scallops around the hems tangled with her crocheted slippers.
Edna dove behind her sales counter. “We should write this down.” She emerged with a pen and a small black notebook. “We’ll be scientific about suspects in Mike’s murder. Who are they?”
“Besides us,” Naomi said quickly, “since we know that none of us did it.”
Opal moaned. “None of us has an alibi. We were all home alone, sleeping.”
“I seem to be Uncle Allen’s favorite suspect,” I reminded them. “And the state trooper who came today seemed to agree with him.”
Naomi clapped her hands over her mouth. “Oh, Willow, how could they?”
Haylee cast me a worried look. “Everyone in town knows I hated Mike.”
Naomi reproved her. “Hate is a strong word, dear.”
Haylee shrugged. “Not when applied to Mike Krawbach.”
Maybe I’d been wrong about being the prime suspect. Maybe Uncle Allen and the state police were stewing about whether to arrest Haylee or me, while letting the real murderer remain free. I couldn’t let Haylee go to prison, either.
I told them about my original theory about the padlocks, and that Sam had dispelled it. Edna insisted that we still had to suspect all the younger men who were in the store at the time, since they may have been members of Mike’s gang. She handed the notebook to me. She had written Clay Fraser at the top of her notebook’s first page “You jot down our notes about our suspects, Willow. The rest of us know where all these trims go.”
We didn’t have any evidence against Clay, Herb, Irv, or Smythe, but I gave them each a page and wrote that they been members of Mike’s gang of kids.
They clucked in dismay about Rhonda, Aunt Betty, and their friends snooping in my store. I started pages for Rhonda and Aunt Betty. I had no evidence that they had attacked Mike, either, except for their strange behavior earlier that day.
“And this Rhonda?” Haylee asked. “You said she acted like she could have been one of Mike’s girlfriends. Maybe it was wishful thinking. Maybe she chased him to your backyard and lost her temper.”
Edna arranged satin ribbon in rainbow order. “Willow said Rhonda looked mean.” Edna wasn’t done fingering suspects. “Dr. Wrinklesides was closest to Mike when he died. Maybe the good doctor slipped a syringe into Mike’s veins. Something that shut down his heart.”
Haylee asked, “Why would Dr. Wrinklesides beat Mike up, lock him in Willow’s yard, and then murder him? That doesn’t make sense.”
Edna fixed Haylee with a stern glare. “The one life lesson we’ve tried to instill in you, Haylee, is that men often do not make sense.”
“And Uncle Allen makes the least sense of all,” I said. I told them about his reluctance to investigate the button and the trail of paint.
Edna crowed, “Aha! Uncle Allen was the attacker who tracked paint into your cottage and lost a button.”
“I never noticed buttons like that on him,” I said.
“Of course not,” Edna s
aid. “He lost it. Next time you see him, check to see if he’s missing a button.”
Haylee giggled. “He’s missing lots of things.”
Naomi defended him. “Don’t underestimate him. That bumbling could be an act.”
Edna’s eyes sparked with excitement. “Aha! He’s trying to fool us into thinking he couldn’t plan and carry out a murder. Start a page for him, Willow.”
I already had. She dictated, “May have made up Mike’s last words to throw suspicion from himself to us . . .”
Someone pounded on the door. I jumped. Edna’s little “Buttons and Beaux” tune jingled.
15
UNCLE ALLEN STOMPED INTO BUTTONS and Bows. Snow covered his coat as if he’d sewn it himself from white fleece.
I was about to drop Edna’s notebook casually into the carton of satin ribbons. In one fluid movement, she grabbed the notebook from me, stretched the neck of her sweater, and shoved the notebook down her front. Her lack of subtlety, Opal’s and Naomi’s horrified expressions, and Haylee’s stifled giggle should have been enough to make Uncle Allen subpoena the notebook.
Instead, he came toward me. “You said you would let me have the key of your cottage again. You weren’t in your store. I can’t get into your yard, either, unless I climb fences. Your gates are locked.”
“Come on in out of the storm and warm up,” Edna offered, staring pointedly at his coat bulging over his belly. The middle buttonhole showed through the snow. Was he missing a button, or had he simply not buttoned it? His other coat buttons were navy blue plastic, which didn’t rule out the middle one having been wooden. I thought back to Tuesday afternoon, when Mike called Uncle Allen to my shop. If he’d sported a mismatched button, one of us or the Threadville tourists would have noticed.
Edna wiggled and pushed at the top of the notebook until her hand-woven vest helped hide the notebook’s sharp corners and spiral binding.
Probably hoping to distract Uncle Allen from Edna’s gyrations, Opal launched into an interrogation. “What’s going on with that vacant store between The Ironmonger and the new restaurant?”