Bashia looking puzzled, and asked, “What’s that?”
“What shall we do with the apartment in the kennel? Except now I’ve got to stop calling it a kennel and call it a studio. The rep who visited me last week was encouraging, but aren’t they all? They just want to sell you their line. At any rate, I was able to buy some equipment from him for a good price. I showed him some of my old work and he made some good recommendations and gave me names of some people who own gift shops in Sturbridge and suggested I call them.
“I’d like to get started making ceramics before Christmas. And I’d like to redo the apartment into a lounge, as you suggested a while back. It’ll be a good place to relax and I can set up a small office there as well. Let’s go see what we–you–can do.” They headed off to the kennel, coffee cups in hand and clutching sweaters draped over their shoulders.
Dottie pushed open the door and they hurried into the apartment. It was chilly inside, but snug from the wind. “A fresh coat of paint on the walls will do wonders. I could use a bulletin board somewhere for scheduling classes, and shelves over there. I’ll need a place to display some of my samples,” she said, full of excitement.
“Right.” Bashia agreed, walking about the room. “The kitchenette could use a new sink, do you want to do that now or later?” Dottie shrugged her shoulders.
“The only other thing you’ll need is more electrical outlets and a microwave oven. What did we ever do without a microwave? How about a coffee pot? But those are all incidentals, the largest redo will be the bathroom, I think. The shower looks pretty bad, but the sink and toilet just need a good scouring. Do you really want a shower out here?”
“No, I guess not. I don’t intend to get so plastered that I’d need to take a shower, but you should see how some of the students looked when I was taking classes in New Jersey. They would have clay or paint all over their clothes, arms and hair!”
Bashia wondered about the water supply. “I suppose the water pipes are buried deep enough and well insulated. Surely the contractors had enough sense for that. I hope so. We have some pretty hard freezes here, you know. It’s not like New Jersey. Were the pipes checked when you bought the place? Maybe you’d better get someone out to check them; after all, they haven’t been used for several years.”
“I hadn’t thought about that. The water in the house is fine, and I was shown where the well is, but no one mentioned the water to the kennel. Oh, dear! I probably should have checked that before I bought the place, huh? Can’t we just turn the water on and check?”
“Sure, why not? Let’s be brave! The worst that could happen is no water at all or water spraying all over from a broken pipe. Go ahead, turn the faucet on.”
They stood at the sink and apprehensively watched the water first sputter erratically, then develop into a smooth flow. Several minutes later Dottie gave a sigh of relief. “It seems to be all right. Let’s assume that the pipes are fine and get on with our decorating!”
“You may need water for your ‘slip’, but I’m sure you don’t want to slip in the water!” Bashia laughed. “O.K., let’s get started on the furniture. Do you want to put a small dinette set in here? This chair is awful. Would you want to look for some things at Brim’s Flea Market? I think it’s scheduled for the end of this month. It’s in a humongous field with hundreds of dealers, a big-time flea market. Stuff from all over.” Bashia didn’t mention the field was either dusty or muddy, depending on the weather. But the bargains and unusual items were worth the inconvenience.
“That sounds great, I haven’t been to a country flea market in ages. There must still be some pretty neat things in New England. Let’s plan on going. Perhaps Alice will be back by that time.” Dottie visualized an orderly affair with tables and booths under cover in a large building.
Dottie turned to the sofa. “Do you think this piece will be all right? It seems to be in pretty good shape, and besides, it’s a sofa-bed. That will come in handy if I have guests–if I ever have so many that they overflow into the studio, it will be just like a guesthouse! Do you have anything in mind for slipcovers?”
“Well, I think you would want something very durable. If you have students coming in here, it’ll get lots of wear. An overall print would be good, won’t show the paint and clay as easily. Something cheery and bright. There isn’t much light coming in here, but a new cover and freshly painted walls will do a lot to brighten the room. We could run up to the Waverly mill outlet in Bondsville right now. It’s about an hour away, or we could go to the mall in Rhode Island. We could go there tomorrow, I’m not busy.”
* * *
The Waverly mill outlet was in a section of an old brick building where fabrics were stored or readied for shipping. They headed for the old wooden door under the OUTLET sign. End rolls of fabric or discontinued lines were always on sale and it was a favorite place for seamstresses. Although the mill had long ceased making cloth, the smell of oil still lingered in the building, impregnated in the oak floors.
Bashia was reminded of the mills where many of her relatives had worked. She could visualize it in her mind–rows and rows of power looms in perpetual motion. At eye level, dozens of spools of thread fed vertically into the wide machines, weaving the threads into fabric. The rhythmic click-clack of harnesses and shuttles flying back and forth caused a deafening roar. Workers kept watch, tying broken ends, oiling the gears, changing the colored bobbins in the shuttles as the yards of material developed. Airy, gray dust bunnies flew off the machines and settled on everything and everybody.
The two friends walked past endless racks and bins of fabric rolls; finding the right fabric seemed a daunting task. The multitude of colors and patterns assaulted their eyes and boggled their minds. At last Dottie’s eyes lit up when she saw a decorative floral print with a tan background. Bashia took the roll off the rack and spread out a length on a cutting table, where they admired the overall pattern of large yellow chrysanthemums. They agreed it would work well, if they painted the walls pale green to blend with the leaves.
“This fabric will be great, it’s sturdy, almost like a chino cloth. I can’t wait to see how it will look. Are you satisfied, or should we look at more fabrics?” Bashia asked.
“No, I think I really will like this. Any more looking and I’ll go bananas. Let’s buy it and go get a quick bite to eat,” Dottie replied.
McDonald’s, in the center of the small town, was crowded with elderly people who seemed to be having a luncheon club meeting. Good-humored banter flew back and forth between the booths. Bashia watched as they took bites of their hamburgers between their talk and laughter. The men were dressed in old work clothes–plaid woolen jackets, faded jeans and baseball caps on their graying heads. The women, too, wore jackets, some more decorative than others. Some wore their hair in tightly permed curls, a fashionable wig or short masculine haircuts. The older women wore their hair braided and wound in a bun at the base of their neck. Bashia had seen similar people in other old New England mill towns–Russians, Italians, Poles, Greeks–a gentle melding of ethnic identities. Now in their retirement, no longer tied to the mill whistle and long hours before looms, no longer smelling machine oil and grease, no longer snorting the lint from their noses, they whiled away their time at the fast food restaurant, talking about their grandchildren or expressing opinions on politics, religion and the world in general.
* * *
The following week Bashia took the roll of fabric into the kennel apartment, ready to cut the slipcover. She laid out all her equipment, twelve-inch scissors, pins, tape measure, chalk and her notebook. She dropped the roll of fabric on the floor, unrolled a length of material, cut off one large pattern repeat and laid it across the back of the sofa.
Dottie, standing on a drop-cloth spread on the floor, put down her paint roller, looking pleased. “That looks super! It will be so nice to have that old couch looking as good as new.” Once she was firmly situated on the ladder, she added, “I’ll finish this wall while you’re
cutting and I promise not to get in your way. This new type of paint doesn’t smell, so we shouldn’t have any problems. Shall I turn on the radio?”
“See if you can get that new jazz station. It’s really good. Now don’t bother me so I can concentrate. You want a good fit, don’t you?” Bashia measured a section of the sofa then knelt and cut a length of fabric. She repeated this process until there were several pieces of fabric thrown over various sections of the sofa. Rising from her knees, she began pinning and fitting the pieces in place, snugging the fabric to the sofa as she went along. She allowed for a deep tuck-in to go between the frame and mattress. But something stopped her from tucking the fabric in at one end.
“Can you help me?” she asked. “I think something’s stuck here or else the frame is bent. See, I can’t get the fabric to tuck in here at this corner.”
Dottie put down her paint roller and climbed down from the ladder. “I’ll be with you in a minute,” she said as she washed her hands. After several unsuccessful attempts to tuck in the fabric, they decided to open the sofa. It took all their strength to open up the heavy frame and mattress into a bed; it squeaked and groaned along with the women. Suddenly they heard a plop on the floor.
“What’s that?” Dottie asked, almost afraid of what she might find in a sofa-bed that hadn’t been opened for several years.
They opened the bed fully and lifted the mattress up at the back corner. On the floor they could see a blue denim book.
“It’s some kind of a book, maybe a datebook or journal,” Bashia said. “Can you get it or do we have to move the sofa?”
Dottie reached into the frame with her thin arm, but was unable to grasp it and pushed it to the rear of the sofa instead. “We’ll have to move it,” she said. They tucked the mattress back in place, closed the bed and grunted in unison as they swung the heavy sofa away from the wall until they could reach the blue book.
“Here is it,” Bashia said, brushing her hand across the dusty, musty-smelling cover. One corner was bent where it had been crushed in the frame. She blew the dust off and sneezed as she opened it. “Why, it’s a diary.”
“God bless you! Whose is it? Does it say?”
Bashia turned the book over in her hands and said, “I think it’s Terry Vaselekos’s diary! She’s the one who lived here. I wonder what it says–should we look? Did you ever look in someone’s diary without feeling guilty? But if it’s Terry’s, she’s dead, so I guess it’s all right.” They grinned at the idea of reading someone else’s thoughts and quickly plopped down on the sofa and began thumbing through the pages.
“Look at the date on the inside cover, ‘August, 1993’! It’s a journal all right and by the looks of it, it’s been here a long time. This must be Terry’s. Well, you read it to me while I finish working on the slipcover,” Bashia handed the book to Dottie, rose and looked about for her scissors.
Dottie covered her paint roller and tray with Saran plastic wrap then moved to the only chair, while Bashia concentrated on her work. She flipped through the first part, noting bits and pieces of Terry’s summer activities–her involvement in training the younger dogs in obedience, agility, and control. Danielle was so determined to raise exceptional dogs and she sometimes lost her temper when Terry failed to grasp a technique. Terry had written she would consider becoming a professional handler if, for some reason, she wasn’t able to attend veterinarian college. She had noticed that professional handlers were well respected and made good money.
“Listen to this,” Dottie said, and she began to read:
“August 16, 1993. Danielle asked me to go with her to the New Jersey Competitions in Trenton! She even said I could show Baron! He’s my favorite dog and I know we’ll do well. Oh, I feel real good about this and I’ll wear the new pants suit Danielle bought for me.”
The color of ink changed with a new paragraph.
“Thompson came over and helped us load the van with all the stuff. We’ll be gone for three days, and he’ll take care of the other dogs while we’re gone. There sure is a lot of stuff to take, the dog’s equipment and our suitcases. Good thing the dogs ride well, the trip takes five hours.”
The next page seemed to have been hurriedly scribbled.
“September 1, 1993. The show was overwhelming! Even better than the first show Danielle took me to. There were so many people and animals. I wandered around when I had free time. There were all kinds of rigs in the parking lot, pickups, vans, small RVs and huge live-in trailers. Some people had attached an awning to their van for shade while they bathed, trimmed and blow-dried their dog’s coat. Other owners wandered about in the dining tent all dressed up, sipping drinks and talking about their dogs. Parking attendants shouted orders and gave directions for parking cars and rigs. It was really exciting.
“We did fantastic! Baron won the Best of Breed again and Danielle was pleased. On the way home we stopped to have dinner and it was really late before we got back. I was dead tired by the time we unloaded the dog and equipment and just fell into bed. Well, tomorrow its back to the usual.”
The next entry, in a shaky hand, was almost indecipherable. Dottie frowned, studying the page, then suddenly gave a yell, “Ohmigod, Bashia, look at this!”
Bashia coughed the pins out of her mouth, “What? What is it? Does she have a secret treasure hidden somewhere?”
“No! Come read it for yourself!” Dottie put her hand over her mouth, wide-eyed. Bashia poked a pin into the fabric to hold it in place on the arm of the sofa, sat down on the floor, and reached for the book. “Let’s see that!” Bashia began to read out loud–
“September 14, 1993. Something terrible has happened! I don’t know if I can write. It’s midnite and I don’t know what to do.
“This a.m. I’m getting ready to take the dogs out for exercise when Thompson drives up in his fancy Jeep. He gave me my check and asked me to come to the house and confirm everything with Danielle for next week’s show. I said we already did that, but he insisted. He says Danielle might not be in a good mood. Last night she called him and blew a fit over the phone. She was furious–an entry and check he had mailed had been returned. Something wrong with the application. He thought she might still be mad.
“When we went in the house she was still angry and didn’t want to talk to him. He talked real fast–had a new application form and would have me take it to town and FedEx it right away. Danielle said she didn’t care. She was tired of his mistakes and was going to look for someone else to take care of things.
“He gets real upset, says, let’s have a drink and talk this over. Let me get you something–you got some juice? She glared and began to pace the floor. Two minutes later he calls me from the kitchen, needs my help, can’t find the glasses.
“I went into the kitchen, he’s pouring some orange juice and stirring it. He says take this to her while I pour ours. I looked at him–thought he said he couldn’t find glasses, but he gave me the drink and shooed me away.”
Bashia stopped, flushed with excitement. “Wow! I bet Mark will be interested in this! Do you know what this means?”
“Thompson and Terry weren’t telling the truth,” Dottie whispered. “What else does it say? Don’t stop now!”
“I gave the glass to Danielle and said he’s bringing our drinks. She’s still pacing up and down, but when I gave her the glass she gave me a little smile, took a sip and sat down. I don’t think she was mad at me. When Thompson comes back in the room we–they–started to talk. After a while he tried to reason with her, saying it was a small mistake and could easily be fixed. She called him a bumbling idiot. I never saw her so mad. I thought she was going to burst, but after a while, she started to calm down. She said her mouth was dry and finished her drink. All right, she says, let’s get this right this time and they went over the application. Thompson says, if you sign the form, I can have Terry run to town right now and we’ll be all set. Danielle grumbled, signed the paper and says, this is giving me a splitting headache. She held her head
in her hands, her face had got real flushed and she’s breathing hard. She says her heart was beating too fast and she felt nervous and jittery. She started to get up and collapsed on the sofa, starting to shake. It looked like convulsions. Is she having a heart attack I asked? But Thompson just sits there, cool and calm.”
Terry’s handwriting became more difficult to decipher here. She had written something, heavily crossed it out, then restarted.
“I jumped up to help her, but he pushed me away saying let me see what’s wrong. He felt for a pulse. Danielle looked like she was unconscious. None, he says, then tried to listen for a heartbeat. None. He looked straight at me and says Danielle is dead!
“I thought I was going to faint.
“That drink you gave her–
“What? I screamed! I just gave her the juice you gave me.
“Yes, you did. I had some of the medicine we give to the dogs before the show, you know, the ones that makes them hyper. But too much will kill them. She’s dead and you gave her the drink. But don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything. She’ll be gone by morning–one of her trips. Now go mail that thing and go to the movies or something and forget all about this. I’ll talk to you in the morning!
“I was so scared, I did what he said. I felt like we were in some movie, it was unreal! I stayed away til it was dark and came straight home. I was afraid to go to the house.”
There were smudges and crossed-out writing on the rest of the page. It was crinkled, appeared to have been wet.
Bashia turned to the next page, eager to continue, and looked at Dottie who was holding her hand over her mouth, wide-eyed. “Holy cow! She’s saying Thompson poisoned Danielle!”
“Thompson came this morning. He shook me by my shoulders like a kid. Remember what happened yesterday? Now get this straight–we went to see Danielle and she wasn’t there, the place was a mess, furniture turned over, the phone cord pulled out. Some of her clothes had been thrown out of the closet and her jewelry box empty. She wasn’t around, the Dodge gone, we thought she just took off. Got that? I’m trying to save your neck, after all you’re the one who gave her that drink. If anyone asks, that’s what happened!
Bones in the Backyard Page 19