by Janet Bolin
“When is Uncle Allen going to arrest his murderers?”
“It can’t be too soon for me.”
“I know someone whose brother’s girlfriend works for the FBI or something.”
The woman’s voice got louder, as if she had turned away from the sinks and mirrors and was talking at the door of my stall. I wished I’d pulled my boots up where no one could see them. Now that I had something to take notes about, I didn’t want to write for fear Rhonda and her friend would hear my scratchings and guess I was jotting down what they said. I should have chosen a stall with a complete latch, if one existed. Any moment, an eye would press itself against the hole in the door.
“If Uncle Allen and the state police don’t arrest them soon,” the woman continued, “I’ll call my friend. The FBI will put them behind bars right away.”
Rhonda’s friend’s voice became venomous. “If I could get my hands on Mike’s murderer, like if she was in here, I’d make her sorry she ever laid eyes on him.”
Did they hope to frighten me with their threats?
They were succeeding.
Had Rhonda or her friend been last night’s intruder in Tell a Yarn?
“They’re not getting away with it,” Rhonda said. “Not if the respectable people in this village have anything to do with it.”
The mothball fumes were going to make me sneeze. Pressing my index finger hard against my upper lip, I dropped my pen. It landed with a click that sounded like thunder, rolled under the door and into the main room, probably to Rhonda’s feet.
Stiletto heels hammered into floor tiles again. The ladies’ room door opened. The music reached new heights of throbbing. My head did, too. The door closed, shutting out the din from the main hall.
Listening to lights buzzing and faucets dripping, I waited for about half a minute, then fled.
When I returned to our table, Opal stood up. I shook my head at her. She firmed her lips and marched off, duty-bound to take her turn at sleuthing. I moved my chair so I could watch the ladies’ room. I didn’t recognize any of the women who went in and out.
I was about to fly to Opal’s rescue when she emerged. Edna, Naomi, and Haylee gave her questioning looks. She shook her head, pointed toward the front door, and imitated someone shrugging into a coat. I was getting really good at understanding these women. Time to leave.
As we donned our coats, I eyed the hundreds of coats still in the coat rack. Was one of them missing one handmade wooden button? Checking all of them would be both time-consuming and extremely obvious. I followed the others outside.
Rain poured down. A cell phone pressed to his ear, Uncle Allen huddled against the wall underneath a porch light.
“You folks stay here,” Opal offered. “I’ll bring the car around.”
“That’s okay—” I started.
Edna held me back, rolling her eyes toward Uncle Allen. I nodded my understanding. While Opal fetched her car, the rest of us were to spy on him. Opal tore off into the rain. Standing very still, I tried to hear over rain pounding on the metal porch roof. Uncle Allen didn’t appear to be speaking. Listening, maybe. His coat had a new button where one had been missing. The new one was plastic, not wood, and almost matched the other buttons. He beckoned to us.
Uh-oh. Rhonda’s friend’s brother’s girlfriend had arranged for the FBI to arrest us already?
He spoke directly to me. “Ice on the river’s breaking up. That cottage of yours is likely to flood.” His eyes brightened. “Or get washed away. And you won’t get permission to build a new one on a flood plain.” He raised his forefinger toward the porch roof, and, presumably, toward the sky spewing water over everything. “Couldn’t be a better tribute to Mike.”
I opened my mouth to retort that no one could steal the land beneath the cottage from me.
Edna forced herself between Uncle Allen and me. “Did you get fingerprints from that button?”
He frowned. “They couldn’t find even a partial. But they did discover that the button matched the buttons on Mike’s coat. Two of them were missing, not just one.” He eyed us suspiciously.
“Aha!” Edna said. “You find Mike’s other missing button, and you’ll find a killer.”
Uncle Allen said what I was thinking. “Not necessarily.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “You have more buttons than anyone else for miles around.”
I was going to have to keep Edna out of jail, too?
Opal’s car pulled up beside the porch steps. Naomi grabbed Edna’s arm. “C’mon. We’re late.”
“For what?” Edna asked, for once not cluing in to hints from her friends.
Haylee answered, “Beauty sleep.”
Edna made a rude snorting noise, but she came along.
The puddles in the parking lot had grown and deepened. Was Blueberry Cottage really in danger?
Edna hadn’t missed everything. As soon as we were all in the car, she asked, “What’s up?”
Naomi leaned forward on her tenuous perch between Haylee and me. “Sandbags. We all have fabrics we can spare. And more than enough sewing machines to go around. We’ll make sandbags, fill them at the beach, and place them around Willow’s cottage.”
“Don’t be silly,” I said. “The river must have flooded lots of times during the past eighty years. That cottage stood its ground.”
Haylee peeked around Naomi at me. “Never argue with The Three Weird Mothers. It would be like arguing with the river. If they decide to do something, they’re going to do it, no matter what.”
“They haven’t decided,” I countered. “And they’re not about to. We’d be up all night, and Sundays are busy in Threadville.”
“Yes, we have decided,” Edna declared. “Haven’t we, girls.”
Opal’s windshield wipers zipped back and forth, with limited success. She strained forward. “We can sew all night.”
“We’ve done it lots of times,” Naomi agreed. “We love sewing.”
“Not sandbags,” I scoffed. “Where’s the fun in that?”
“Where’s the fun in watching your darling little cottage drift down the river?” Edna asked sweetly. “I’m sure we all have fabrics in our stashes that we’d be glad to donate. These will be the prettiest sandbags ever.”
“The river may not flood,” I tried.
Opal slowed through a puddle covering most of the road. “That’s optimistic.”
My next ploy was changing the subject. I told them about my experience in the ladies’ room and the threats that Rhonda and her friend had aimed at my stall door.
Haylee said, “After you went in there, Rhonda and an equally mean-looking woman talked and gestured for a long time outside the room before they followed you in.”
Edna chirped, “They must have been plotting what to say for your benefit. Uttering threats is against the law. You should report them.”
Haylee gurgled with laughter. “How are we going to explain to Uncle Allen about snooping on other women in the john?”
Edna got all huffy. “We wouldn’t need to. It’s none of his business. Or the state police’s, either.”
After Opal parked behind Tell a Yarn, the other four women insisted on coming to my yard to assess the river. They didn’t want to track through my store, so I unlocked the gate, and we slipped and slid down the mud-slicked hill.
Uncle Allen hadn’t lied. The river looked to be about two feet above its normal level, and mini icebergs battered against one another in the rushing water.
I wanted my friends to get some sleep. “It’s not that bad,” I said. “The river’s still almost a foot below the trail.” But at this rate . . .
Opal clucked with disapproval. “It’s best to be prepared. Now, how shall we do this? We’ll want to be together while we sew.”
Haylee wiped wet hair out of her eyes. “I have the biggest shop, and lots of unsold fabrics that I need to get rid of. Plus my classroom has enough sewing machines, so you won’t have to bring your own. Or scissors or thread. Just come as soon as yo
u’re ready.”
“It’s after nine,” I pointed out.
Naomi patted my arm. “We can get lots done and still have time to sleep.”
Make, fill, and pile sandbags in only a few hours?
But Haylee was right. There was no arguing with The Three Weird Mothers. Totally determined, they marched up the hill and out through my gate. I locked it behind them, then supervised the dogs’ outing, as short and mudless as possible. When they were inside and reasonably clean and dry, I hauled a surprisingly large number of remnants from my stash.
I kissed the dogs good night, then carried the fabrics up to my shop, where I turned on lights and collected the partially used spools of embroidery thread I’d been accumulating, all different colors. Embroidery thread wasn’t as strong as sewing thread, but the stitching had to hold for only a couple of days. And I’d be contributing something to the enterprise besides labor.
Through a blur of rain pattering on my front windows, I made out brightly lit windows across the street in The Stash. The sandbag seamstresses must be gathering.
A gust of wind blew the front door open.
Last I knew, that door had been shut.
And locked.
22
MY HEART RATE DOUBLED. I KNEW I had locked the front door when I’d left for the roast beef dinner.
Glancing nervously outside in case someone was on my porch, I made my way to the open door. The glass section of the door was unbroken, but the metal framing it and the jamb were both dented near the latch. The deadbolt wouldn’t keep the door closed, let alone locked.
Quickly, I checked my display of sewing and embroidery machines. None were missing. The storeroom where I kept new machines was locked. I looked inside, anyway. Everything seemed fine.
I dialed Uncle Allen. He was probably in the community hall again, contributing to Mike’s favorite causes. I left him a message, adding, “I’ll be across the street at The Stash.”
I phoned Clay. He answered on the first ring. “Willow!” He sounded glad to hear my voice, and despite being stressed, I smiled.
I told him about my door and asked him if he could fix it. My breathless request sounded needy. I backtracked. “I’m not sure when Uncle Allen will get here, and he should see the damage first.”
“I’ll come over now, anyway. Are Sally and Tally okay?”
“They were shut in the apartment while I was gone and were their usual selves when I returned, like they hadn’t noticed anything unusual. As far as I can tell, nothing’s missing. I’m going to close the front door as best I can and go over to Haylee’s to work on a . . .” I didn’t want to tell him about the sandbags. He might think I was asking him for yet more help. “A sewing project.”
Clay promised to meet me at Haylee’s.
I went outside, pulled the door shut, and wedged a fold of cardboard into it to keep it in place. Hugging my armload of sewing things, I dashed through pouring rain to The Stash. For once ignoring all the beautiful spring fabrics Haylee had for sale, I jogged toward her classroom, only to be stopped by a horrible ripping sound and an evil cackle.
I almost dropped all my remnants and spools in the doorway. Haylee, Opal, Naomi, and Edna all wore wigs. Long, straight black hair. Witches’ wigs.
“I love this,” Edna crowed, ripping about eighteen inches of yellow calico from its bolt. She and her two best friends cackled. Haylee merely rolled her eyes and shook her head.
I couldn’t help giggling. “Double, double, toil and trouble?”
Edna let out another huge cackle. “Take this strip and fold it double.” She tossed the folded fabric onto a table with others like it, except that some were purple gingham and some were garish Halloween prints.
I envied Haylee that big classroom. Four tables faced each other in a square, with at least one sewing machine or serger on each table, and room for more. Haylee was at a serger, while Naomi and Opal sat at sewing machines. They quickly stitched down the open side of the folded fabrics, then across the bottom. They didn’t turn the bags, since it wouldn’t matter if the seam allowances showed. They did, however, make certain that the brightest colors would be on the outside.
“Sewing machine or serger?” Haylee asked me. Her black wig was slightly askew.
“Sewing machine. I wouldn’t know what to do if a serger needed new thread.”
Haylee laughed triumphantly. “You need to come to my classes.”
“And maybe buy a serger from you, too,” I said.
Haylee finished another bag. “That’d be nice.”
I let go of my multihued embroidery threads. “I brought these. Help yourselves.”
Everyone oohed.
I sat down and began stitching. Someone stomped into Haylee’s front room and hollered, “Miss Vanderling!” Uncle Allen. The other four women gasped and whipped off their wigs. Since when did their clowning embarrass them? Haylee, Opal, and Naomi sat on their wigs. Edna looked wildly around, then dropped hers behind long rolls of fabric leaning into a corner. “Miss?” she repeated in a loud and quivering whisper. “Is he here to arrest you?” Her pale green curls had been smashed by the wig.
I held up a placating palm. “It’s okay. Someone broke into In Stitches while we were at dinner. I’ll explain later.” I dashed away from sympathetic groans and startled questions.
I joined a very soggy Uncle Allen beside Haylee’s door. From behind us came a loud riiiiiiip. Uncle Allen swiveled to gaze suspiciously toward Haylee’s classroom. “What was that?”
Fortunately, no one cackled. “Fabric ripping.”
“I thought they were sewing.”
“They are.”
“First they sew, then they tear it apart?”
“No, first we rip, then we sew.”
He opened the door. “I’ll never understand women. Show me this supposed break-in.”
Supposed? It was very real. Stay calm, Willow, I reminded myself, don’t let him push your buttons.
The pouring rain seemed to push his. He cursed when we crossed the street. On my front porch, he demanded peevishly, “You went off and left your door hanging open like this?”
“No.” I picked up the fold of cardboard. “I wedged it shut, but the wind must have blown it open again.” Water dripped down the back of my neck. “Somebody broke in.” I led him inside and turned on the lights.
“How’d you know that?
“See the pry marks?”
“You didn’t forget your key and have to break in to your own place?”
“Of course not. All of my doors have deadbolts. I can’t lock them without keys.” I held them up and jingled them to show that I hadn’t lost them, either.
“Anything missing?”
It was hard to spot something that should be in a well-stocked store but wasn’t. Scissors? Gold embroidery thread? “Not that I know of.”
Clay’s truck eased into a puddle beside the curb.
Uncle Allen looked outside. “There’s your culprit. He was in and out of this store all the time it was being renovated.”
That was hardly surprising, since he’d been the one doing the renovating. Still, I knew not to rule out potential suspects without proof, a lesson Uncle Allen did not seem to have learned.
He persisted. “He may have kept a key to your place. He wasn’t at that dinner, was he?”
“I didn’t see him. If he had a key, he wouldn’t have had to break in.”
Ignoring my extremely valid point, Uncle Allen blustered on. “Well, what’s he doing here at this hour?”
“I asked him to come fix this after you have a look at it.”
“Hmmmph. I thought he was hoping to be clobbered with a canoe paddle.”
If I’d had a canoe paddle right then, Uncle Allen might have gotten the brunt of it.
Clay bounded up onto my porch. “Are you okay, Willow?”
Oh no, not his usual question again. What must he think of me, that I was always in one form of distress or another? “I’m fine.”
> Uncle Allen pointed at my front door. “I say it was like that.”
“It was not like that,” Clay ground out. “I installed it. And last time I was here, it was intact.” He gave Uncle Allen a challenging look. “Have you photographed the damage?”
Grudgingly, Uncle Allen dug a notebook from a pocket. He circled his pen over it, then began writing.
Clay snapped photos with his digital camera. He glanced at me over Uncle Allen’s bent head. “For your insurance company.”
Pictures. Good idea. I had left my camera in its docking station next to my computer. I ran to the back of the shop.
My camera wasn’t there. It wasn’t anywhere.
Searching for other newly emptied spaces, I walked back to the men. “They took my camera.”
Uncle Allen slipped a new page of his notebook out from the rubber band he kept around the unused part. “Was it expensive?”
“Not very.”
“Had to be kids.” Uncle Allen peered toward the back of the store. “You’ve got ridiculously expensive sewing machines, here, right?”
“They are expensive.” And worth every penny.
“So a real thief would take those, not a cheap camera.”
I wanted to stamp my foot. “Maybe Mike’s murderer broke in.”
Apparently, it didn’t sound quite believable to Uncle Allen. “For a camera? Besides, you went off across the street and left your store unlocked after you called me. Anyone could have wandered in and lifted that camera.”
Clay glowered at him. “The reason someone broke in, or whether the camera was taken by that person or by one of those hundreds of pedestrians out there in the rain”—he gestured at the desolately empty streets, then continued—“doesn’t matter. What matters is that Willow could be in danger.”
I appreciated his empathy but was less sure about the chills the idea gave me. A stranger had broken in and snooped through my possessions. A stranger had broken into Blueberry Cottage, too. And probably into Mike’s house. And someone had hidden in Tell a Yarn last night, listening to everything we said. And the person who had done all this could be a murderer, biding his time until he caught one of us alone.
Uncle Allen waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “Just kids. Making mischief. We’ll catch ’em, give ’em a good talking to.”