Larcency and Lace

by Annette Blair

  Bottom lip between her teeth, she gave me an imperceptible nod.

  I picked up my cat, sighed, and rubbed my chin against her fur. “I’d like to know what the guy took, though.” I looked around the storage room and noticed for the first time the glass-fronted top of a cabinet with stainless-steel instruments lined up on its glass shelves. Embalming instruments? I shuddered. Oy.

  Dante appeared beside me, and Chakra howled my name, though perhaps not as loud as she had the first time she saw him. I opened the single cabinet drawer, between the top and base of the cabinet, and shuffled through the papers inside.

  “Good,” Dante said. “You need to go through them. There’s an important packet in there for Dolly.”

  I sorted through until he pointed to Dolly’s. I took the large envelope and put it in my purse. Then I rummaged through a closet full of vintage clothes, dresses, suits, tuxedos, and big black ostrich feathers. “Huh?”

  “To dress the dead and outfit the undertakers,” Dante said. “The black plumes were for the horses pulling the hearse.”

  I nodded. Of course; I’d seen pictures. Elsewhere in the room, I found trunks, urns, vases, spittoons, junk, beautiful and ugly, and some valuable antiques, too many things to identify. But I kept turning back to the body drawers. At fifth, or tenth, glance, I noticed a new imperfection in their alignment.

  “Eve, the bottom right body drawer is crooked, and there’s something bright sticking out the side that wasn’t there before the fire.”

  “You’re right,” she said. “The drawers were even before. Should we call the police now?”

  “The Wiener didn’t exactly welcome our presence across the street a little while ago. And if we call, we’ll have to spill about the earlier break-in.”

  “Right.”

  Besides, I wanted to talk to Dante first. He must have seen what happened in here while we were gone, and he might know who did it. But I couldn’t talk to him until he and I were alone.

  I held Chakra closer and began to tremble against a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature. “Why would someone rob a body drawer?”

  Ten

  The beggar wears all colors fearing none.

  —CHARLES LAMB

  Clear as day, or should I say, clear as night, I saw my recurring dream. Me as a toddler, in my mother’s arms, with Aunt Fiona by the river, dancing beneath the light of a full moon. Something, and I didn’t know what, was about to turn my life in another direction.

  As if tonight hadn’t already been lively enough.

  When my mother shivered for no reason, she used to say that someone had just walked over her grave, and for the first time, I understood what she meant.

  Eve went to the body drawer, tugged on the silver handle, and broke it right off. “Drawer’s jammed.”

  I scoffed. “No kidding.”

  She pulled on the front panel and I tried to help, but the drawer wouldn’t budge.

  I straightened, stepped away, and searched the room. “We need something to pry it open.”

  When nothing seemed appropriate, I knelt to see what was sticking out the side. “It’s fabric, two kinds sewn together that I can see. Looks like it’s jammed in the track on this side. Our only hope is to pull the drawer toward the opposite side to knock the drawer off its tracks, which I’d like to do without tearing the fabric.”

  “Easier said than done,” my father griped, Aunt Fiona beside him.

  Either they’d fought it out or stopped trying. Their poker faces revealed nothing. Nevertheless, they poised themselves beside Eve and grabbed the drawer to pull to the right.

  “On three,” I said. “I’ve got the fabric, and as soon as you give me room on this side, I’m going to try and slide it from the track and into the drawer.”

  “We understand,” my father said.

  I nodded. “One, two . . . three!”

  I freed a bit of the fabric and shoved it in the drawer before the left side bounced back.

  I yelped when the drawer caught my hand and took a chunk of skin with it.

  Fiona checked my wound. “Mad. Are you okay?”

  “Nothing an antibiotic cream won’t fix. Warn me next time.”

  “That was my fault,” my father said.

  Fiona wrapped her scarf around my hand. “It was both of us.”

  Dad looked dumbfounded. He didn’t know how to share blame, or anything else, with Fiona.

  “Ready to try again?” I asked. “I think one more tug will clear the track so we can pull the drawer out.”

  Eve lay on her stomach on the faded old linoleum on my side, beneath my crouch, and when Dad and Fiona pulled, she helped by pushing.

  I reached over her to slide the rest of the thick fabric from the track and shove it into the drawer. “Done!”

  Everybody let go and Fiona and Dad fell to the floor, they’d been pulling on the drawer with so much effort.

  As we watched, the drawer rolled open like a fine piece of machinery. “A quilt,” I said. “That’s what I suspected from the look of the fabric in the tracks.”

  Eve frowned. “I can’t imagine why a guy would try to steal a quilt.”

  “I’m guessing he had what he came for in the sack,” I said. “Notice that he left the quilt behind. What could you put in a sack that had been wrapped in a quilt?”

  Aunt Fiona shrugged. “A million things.”

  The quilt was made of flannel, cotton sateen, gingham, duck, linen, some squares printed in chintz and calico, some in plain but faded primary colors. One of the squares had a button in a buttonhole. One, a pocket. Another, a piece of a collar. Some of the solid squares had been embroidered. Others were needleworked with nursery rhymes.

  “I suspect that this was made from women’s clothes, because of the colors and designs. The clothes belonged to a woman who didn’t have wealth but joy of spirit. I can tell because the colors are so vibrant.” The quilt gave up some of its secrets and I hadn’t unfolded it yet. “Someone with time on her hands made it with love.”

  “I’m impressed by what you’re getting just from looking at it,” Aunt Fiona said.

  “You must remember when people used to make quilts from old clothes,” I said. “Waste not, want not? The clothes these squares came from must be about forty-five to fifty years old, but the quilt is closer to thirty years old.”

  “How can you tell?” Eve asked.

  “Oh, the thread. It’s polyester, or the squares would be falling away from each other.”

  “It’s been here for about twenty-eight years,” Dante said, “give or take a year.”

  Aunt Fiona and I exchanged glances.

  “It’s made of vintage clothes,” I stressed, eyeing Aunt Fiona, because I was afraid to touch it and get a psychometric vibe/reading/vision—or whatever you wanted to call my gift of seeing the past in some of the vintage clothes I touched. Whatever its name, it was a psychic surprise from the universe, still too new for me to fully understand. Or take chances with.

  Eve and Fiona knew about my gift, but my dad didn’t. And I did not want to zone out in front of him.

  “Sweetie,” Aunt Fiona said, “why don’t I take it out for you so you can look at the whole thing?” But when she started to move it, I heard a click.

  “What?” my father said, stopping her. “Did we really hurt your hand so badly, Madeira, that you can’t take it out yourself? If so, we should take you to a doctor.”

  “She’s stressed,” Fiona said. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “She’s my daughter. Not yours.”

  “Oh, for goodness sakes,” I snapped. “Stop arguing. Don’t worry about it, Aunt Fiona. I can see it from here.”

  I looked more closely at the quilt edge against the drawer bottom—what I could see of it inside the drawer—to figure out what, from a quilt, could have clicked against the enamel. Buttons, maybe?

  But that’s not what I saw.

  Nobody else was looking at it from the same angle as I was, becau
se they were all on the opposite side of the drawer, so I shut it.

  Now I had to see if the quilt would talk to me. “Dad, Fiona’s had a hard night. Why don’t you follow her home?”

  My father had been caught unaware by the suggestion and said nothing.

  “Aunt Fiona, if you’re not up to driving, and Dad takes you home, I’ll leave my rental here and take your car home, later, where it’ll be safe.”

  “I can drive,” she said. Then she wilted, almost theatri cally. “No, I can’t. Harry? Do you mind?”

  “Of course not. Eve and Mad?” my dad asked. “Why don’t you follow us? It’s been a long day.”

  “In a while. Eve might need a stiff drink on the way home. That’s how I felt after I found my first, and last, dead body.”

  Eve turned to look at me, and she knew, she knew, that I was up to something.

  We listened for Dad and Fiona on the stairs, heard them going out the door. When a car started, I went to a front window in the big room to look out. My amusement worked like a release valve. “My dad decided to drive Fiona’s car,” I told Eve. “I wonder why.”

  But Eve wasn’t about to be diverted. “What are you up to, Cutler?” she asked, following me back to the storage room. “Why did you get rid of them?”

  I opened the drawer to reveal the quilt. “Don’t scream,” I said.

  Eleven

  I’m crazy, and I don’t pretend to be anything else.

  —CALVIN KLEIN

  I went to the closet and took out a pair of sturdy black feathers, and I used them to manipulate the tangled quilt until I revealed what I feared . . . bones.

  Eve slapped a hand over her mouth and screamed behind it, then she slowly raised her head to face me.

  “Someone,” I said, “possibly Vinney, took something out of this drawer, or the drawer wouldn’t have been disturbed, right?”

  She nodded, hand still over her mouth. Then she sobered, lowered her hand, and released her breath. “Vinney might have kicked the drawer in frustration.”

  “And left the quilt stuck in the track where it wasn’t before?” I pulled my gaze from the grisly sight, enough bones strung together to form the better part of a foot. “They might not be human.”

  Eve’s shoulders relaxed. “Old Underhill might have had a dog that dragged the bones home.”

  “No dog,” Dante said. “I’m allergic.”

  “He’s allergic,” I repeated.

  “What?” Eve said. “Who?”

  I gave her a bland look. “What?”

  “How did you know that?”

  “Did Vinney know that there wouldn’t be a night watchman here tonight?”

  Eve’s shoulders went back. “What?”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “Last night.”

  I sat back on my heels and Chakra crawled into my lap. “Did Vinney know what time I was getting home today?”

  “I might have mentioned being glad that you were coming home for good.”

  “Did you mention meeting me here at nine?”

  “I don’t know. Why?” She was getting defensive and I didn’t blame her.

  “If he knew what time I was planning to be here, he might have been watching for the construction crew to leave, and when they did, he figured he had a one-hour window of opportunity.”

  “Vinney and I did talk, Madeira. But I don’t remember precisely what I said. Whatever it was, it didn’t feel like a state secret or anything.”

  “Sweetie, I just want to know. I’m not accusing you of anything. Just fitting puzzle pieces together. You’ve gotten me out of more scrapes than you’ve gotten me into, mostly.”

  Somehow, that struck us both as funny, and we laughed . . . hysterically . . . because that’s what we were—hysterical. Eve sobered quicker than I did. “Honestly, now that we’ve found someone or something’s remains, shouldn’t we call the police, or something?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure they’d be thrilled to come out this late for dog bones.”

  “Big bizarro dog,” Eve said.

  “Why don’t you try calling Vinney again? See what he’s up to.”

  She shook her head. “Wait. I remember now. I didn’t need to tell him you bought the place. That nosey gossip columnist, Lolique, or whatever her name is, outed you.”

  “I guess I lived in New York for too long,” I said with no clue as to who she meant.

  “You know her,” Eve said. “The councilman’s flamboyant trophy wife. She likes animal prints, smokes like a chimney, and takes a perverse pleasure in revealing personal secrets in snarky ways in the newspaper?”

  “We have a councilman who’s married to a columnist?”

  “McDowell. Wears a rug, is always in the news, though not the gossip column, and annoys the hell out of you.”

  “Oh,” I said. “That councilman. The publicity hound.”

  “Right. His wife wrote about you buying the place and what you were going to do with it, adding an unfortunate amount of speculation as to how soon you’d fail. She’s kind of a local personality.”

  “She sounds nice,” I said, brow raised.

  “Not. But the column about you opening Vintage Magic appeared about two weeks ago.”

  “So when did you meet Vinney for the first time?”

  Eve thought about that for a minute. “I believe I might have met him the night the article came out.” She sighed. “Nah. Our meeting was a coincidence. We were eating at Mystic Pizza, at separate tables, with separate pizzas, and he smooth-talked his way over to my table. He paid for both pizzas.”

  “How gallant. Did he seem immediately interested in what was happening here? Did he know that we were friends?”

  Eve sighed and sat back on her heels. “Yes. He was interested, said he had a thing for local history, and could I take him to see the place? I mean we could see it out the window from across the street as clear as day. But how did he know that I knew you well enough to show him the place, the rat? I’m usually smarter than to fall for a line.”

  “You were smitten. Forgive yourself. I do. He probably knew we were friends from the Mystick Falls gossip mill. Tunney or Oscar from the hardware store probably told him.”

  Eve huffed. “I’m going right over to Vinney’s to give him a piece of my mind.”

  Her destination caught me off guard. “That’s not a bad idea, but you’re not going without me. First, however, since the quilt is made of vintage clothes, I’d like to take a minute to see if I can get any vibes like I did when I was working on Sherry’s vintage wedding gown. However, I don’t want to touch it any more than I have to, because I suspect that the rest of Big Foot here was wrapped in it. Under no circumstances do I want to see what the other side of it looks like, nor do I want to touch it.”

  “Eeeyeww.”

  When I nudged the quilt from the drawer to the floor with the feathers, the connected bones jiggled, so Chakra tackled them and batted them off the quilt quicker than I could stop her, not that I wanted to touch them. Didn’t matter; she sent the foot—if that’s what it was—flying beneath the body drawers.

  “Out of sight, out of panic?” I suggested.

  Eve scoffed and wiped her brow with the back of a hand. “You wish.”

  Chakra, who I was beginning to think understood my needs better than I did, returned to my lap.

  “Thanks, sweetie cat. That was really skeeving me out.”

  “I can’t believe you’re going to touch that quilt,” Eve said. “At least I’ll know enough not to go bonkers when your mind disappears and your body stays behind. Mad? Could any of this be construed as tampering with evidence? Like at a crime scene?”

  “What crime?” I asked, manipulating the quilt with the feathers to find the pocket. “Think animal foot.”

  “What kind of animal? And don’t say a dog.”

  “A dinosaur or a bear?”

  “Okay, I get your drift and I’m trying to work with it.”

  “Good. Let me t
ry to read the quilt, then we’ll go see Vinney, and after that, I’ll call the police.”

  “You will?”

  “Tomorrow at the latest.”

  “Madeira,” she said, sounding very much like my conscience.

  A scold, I didn’t need. “Shh. I’m concentrating.”

  I slipped my hand into a pocket on one of the quilt squares, closed my eyes, got nauseous and dizzy, and found myself staring at an old wishing well made of round stones. I did not want to look inside the well, but I went closer, despite myself, and started to peek over the edge, when the air turned to ice.

  “She’s going to faint,” Dante whispered.

  I opened my eyes. “Eve!” I caught her before she fell.

  Her eyes opened, and as I cradled her, Chakra licked her hand. Slowly, Eve’s color returned. “I’m sorry,” she said, sitting up. “But you didn’t talk the last time you zoned in front of me.”

  “I talked? What did I say?”

  “You wailed a soft and eerie ‘Isobel’ twice. What did you see?”

  “An old wishing well.”

  “That’s all?” Eve fanned her face. “That doesn’t sound too frightening.”

  That’s why I’d described it that way. She’d found a dead body. She’d had enough trauma for one night.

  “Where did Isobel come into the picture then?” Eve asked.

  I shrugged and hugged Chakra. “What say we go home and wait until tomorrow to visit Vinney? Better still, we go to the Sweets. I found something with Dolly’s name on it earlier.”

  “Vinney probably won’t be at home tonight. He works the late shift sometimes.”

  “Doing what?”

  Eve tilted her head. “I never got that quite straight.”

  He’s a third-shift burglar, I thought. “If he’s not there,” I said, “I guess it wouldn’t be too smart to break in and look around, see if we can find a bag of something suspicious or . . . bony?” I looked straight at her. “Unless you have a key?”

  Her color returned in spades, as did her smile. “I have a key.”

  Twelve

  It always depends on how it’s done—it mustn’t be overtly exhibitionist.