Night of the Living Thread (A Threadville Mystery)

by Janet Bolin

  Thanks to the portable lights, the bandstand in the park was even more brightly lit than when the skirt had been flashing its lights and playing the “Wedding March.”

  It was all tragic and unnecessary. Why had Isis clambered into that skirt? Had someone known she was going to wear it? Had that person come along to “help”? Or had the person arrived from the trail, found Isis wearing the skirt, and taken advantage of the situation?

  Floyd, so afraid of Isis’s curses that he put a permanent end to them?

  I expected Neffting and Vicki to join the investigators in the park, but they continued up the street with the dogs and me.

  16

  Maybe Vicki was merely enjoying walking the dogs, but why did Neffting accompany us up Lake Street instead of joining the investigation in the park? He made me nervous.

  He stayed with us all the way to the sidewalk in front of In Stitches, then asked me, “This Brianna that you said is playing the music that we can hear all the way out here—didn’t you tell us she sold you thread like we found under your gate? And you sold it to others? Did she still have some after you bought it?”

  I nodded.

  Vicki asked, “Could she have left thread along the trail before you saw the skulker?”

  And the thread had nothing to do with Isis’s murder? Proving that my sewing supplies were not connected to a murder might be a good thing.

  “Anyone could have,” I answered. “I didn’t notice that spool on the floor of the bandstand when we took that skirt there, but I could have missed it.” And the willow wands, too? “About a half hour later, when I went home for the dogs, the night was so foggy I could barely see where I was going, and someone could have been unwinding thread or doing nearly anything else on the trail ahead of me. I doubt that it would have been Brianna, though. I heard her voice as soon as I went into my apartment.”

  Neffting stood with his head tilted to one side, as if waiting for something.

  “Want to come inside?” I offered. “If Brianna’s still awake, you can talk to her.”

  Vicki laughed. “How could she sleep with all that noise?”

  I groaned. “She had it on all day while she napped.”

  Vicki asked, “As loud as that?”

  “Almost. It’s a shock. The only other guest I’ve ever hosted was perfect.”

  Neffting wasn’t looking at Vicki. She shot me a scowl.

  Grinning at her, I amended my praise to, “Nearly perfect. I didn’t expect her, either.”

  Vicki looked pained. Maybe it wasn’t fair to remind her of the rough time she’d had that night.

  Ordinarily, I would have unleashed the dogs the moment the door of In Stitches closed behind us, but we were heading for my apartment, where Brianna, who seemed frightened of the little darlings, could be wandering around. As always, Vicki was observant. Taking her cue from the way I hung on to Tally’s leash, she didn’t let go of Sally’s.

  I turned on enough lights for us to negotiate the aisles of In Stitches. Neffting seemed to memorize everything. He even managed to zero in on my quickly arranged display of glow-in-the-dark thread. “Any spools missing?” he asked.

  I did a quick count. Nineteen. “No.”

  He demanded, “How can you be sure?”

  I dragged Tally to my desk in the dogs’ pen, fished out my records, and showed that I’d bought thirty-six spools and had sold seventeen, including the one I’d sold to myself and taken to the fire station, which left nineteen in my inventory.

  Neffting thanked me and wrote in his notebook.

  What did he write? “Willow told the truth about at least one thing”?

  “Okay,” he said, “let’s go talk to this Brianna person.”

  I opened the apartment door. We went downstairs, which wasn’t easy with two dogs, one police chief, and one state police detective all vying to be first.

  We stopped at the foot of the stairs. I tightened my hand on Tally’s leash. Vicki handed me Sally’s. Both dogs wagged their tails happily.

  Looking half awake and wearing a rumpled pink sweat suit, Brianna sat slumped on my couch with the cordless phone that was usually in the guest room next to her ear. The guest suite door was open, and music blasted from her room. “Oops, gotta go,” she hollered into the phone. “Miss you.” She made kissy noises, clicked the phone off, set it on an end table, rose slowly, and folded her arms. Her expression was stony and closed.

  I shut the guest suite door so we could hear each other over her music, then introduced her to Detective Neffting and Chief Smallwood. Was it my imagination, or did Neffting become still and watchful when I said Brianna’s last name was Shrevedale?

  Brianna challenged, “You officers are here without a search warrant?”

  I answered for them. “They’re here with my permission, and they’re not searching for anything. Can you tell them who all we sold your glow-in-the-dark thread to?”

  “Why?”

  I said in a mild voice. “Long story.” Maybe I was a little abrupt.

  “I sold a bunch of it to you.” Her tone was as flat as usual, but her mouth twisted scornfully, undoubtedly showing the officers what she thought of me. “You sold it to the others.”

  Neffting asked, “Do you remember who she sold it to?”

  “Two guys made up like zombies.”

  “Floyd and Lenny,” I translated for the officers. I asked Brianna, “Anyone else?”

  “A bunch of women. How would I know who they were? That’s your job.”

  I listed the women I could remember and added, “I’ll get their last names for you tomorrow.”

  Neffting cleared his throat. “We can find that out.” He turned back to Brianna. “Did you see or hear anything unusual tonight?”

  Brianna lifted one shoulder in a gesture of dismissal. “No. Only . . .” She pointed at me. “. . . she wasn’t here, but maybe that’s common. I don’t know when and where she goes.”

  Vicki asked her, “Did you see anyone in Willow’s backyard or down on the trail?”

  “No. I was in my room until a few minutes ago. I was on the phone.”

  Neffting asked her mildly, “Did you go outside at all?”

  She gave him the look that bullies give kids on playgrounds. “No. Didn’t you hear what I said? I was in that room.” She made a speedy backhand gesture toward the door I’d shut.

  Vicki and Detective Neffting studied her as if wondering why she was showing so much attitude.

  I pointed to the dishes on the kitchen counter, which I’d left tidy after our supper. “You must have come out of your room long enough to fix yourself a snack.”

  “So? Is eating a crime? It was dark outside. How would I see anyone out there?”

  Vicki pointed out, “You said you’d been in your room the whole time until a few minutes ago.”

  Brianna let out an exasperated sigh. “All but what, five minutes? And I’ve been on the phone ever since I came back from helping her at the fire station.” She stared boldly at Detective Neffting. “You can check her phone records.”

  What a convenient alibi, I thought. And glib, too, as if she’d rehearsed it. And would it hurt her to call me “Willow” instead of “she”?

  My phone records might show that the phone had been in constant use, but that wouldn’t prove that Brianna had actually been inside or on the phone.

  Vicki must have been thinking similar things. “Some people take cordless phones outside while they’re talking.”

  Brianna said, “Well, I’m not some people, and I didn’t. I never stepped foot outside. You got that?”

  Neffting took out his notebook and wrote.

  Brianna glared at him. “Listen here, you. I know my rights. You can’t come barging in here asking me questions.”

  I held up both hands in a “halt” gesture. The loops on the do
gs’ leashes slid down toward my elbow. “Brianna, I invited them in, and you’re right that you don’t have to answer their questions, but someone drowned tonight, and they’d like to know if you saw anyone outside. That’s all. No need to get on the defens—”

  Brianna stared boldly at me. “Did you get yourself involved in another murder?”

  Vicki began, “‘Involved’ isn’t quite the right word—”

  A smirk played around Brianna’s mouth. “Yeah, well, lots of people might like to know what the right word is.”

  Vicki asked Brianna, “Are you sure you didn’t go outside and . . . maybe move some thread around?”

  Brianna made an outraged face. “Why would I do that? And why are you asking me all these stupid questions? I was on the phone. Got that? On the phone.”

  What I got was that her repetition about being on the phone sounded more and more like a preplanned alibi. And I’d only said that someone had drowned. Why had Brianna immediately labeled the death a murder? Neffting and Vicki had avoided calling it that in my hearing.

  Vicki stared at the sliding glass door to the patio. “Willow, I thought you always kept that door closed so your animals wouldn’t get out.”

  As Vicki had learned, the dogs could wedge the door open with their noses. “I do.” I frowned at the teeny gap between the door and the jamb. “I’m sure I closed it and locked it when I went out around nine forty.” I started toward the door for a closer look.

  Vicki yelped, “Don’t touch that, Willow. We’ll have to fingerprint it.”

  Brianna paled. “Well, maybe I did open it, but I just stuck my head out to see if it was raining. My boyfriend asked me what the weather was like. I didn’t go out.” She flicked a challenging glance at me. “That door was already unlocked.”

  Vicki asked me, “You say you locked it?”

  I nodded.

  Brianna sneered. “If she locked it, then maybe someone else came in after she went out. One of her friends. Or an intruder.”

  She embellished the last word with sarcasm. Trying to make Neffting and Vicki doubt me and suspect me of anything and everything, including murder?

  Vicki persisted. “Who else has a key, Willow?”

  “No one, as far as I know, besides Brianna. I lent one to her.” I hoped Brianna heard my tiny emphasis on the word “lent.”

  Neffting asked me, “May I borrow a knife?”

  What a strange request from a detective. I opened my mouth, closed it, and finally managed, “What kind of knife?”

  “A dinner knife. Or a fork.” He gestured at my patio door. “I don’t want anyone touching that door, but I also don’t want to leave it open tonight.”

  I quickly got him a knife and a fork. With the knife barely touching the door and the lever, he closed the door and locked it. “I’ll get a fingerprint guy to have a look at that first thing in the morning to check for any intruders. Meanwhile, keep everyone out of your backyard tonight.”

  Turning to put the knife and fork away, I kicked one of the clogs I kept underneath a bench by the door. My animals had been known to move those clogs, but Sally and Tally had been on leashes ever since we came inside, and the kittens were still shut inside the master suite.

  I squatted and picked up one of the clogs. Damp earth filled part of the treads.

  I hadn’t worn those shoes for at least a week.

  17

  Maybe I shouldn’t have touched the clog. I might have obliterated someone’s fingerprints. I nudged it and its mate underneath the bench where I usually kept them, then stood and stared at Brianna. “Someone borrowed my gardening clogs.”

  Vicki and Detective Neffting didn’t say a thing.

  Brianna challenged, “How would you know that?”

  “The dirt on the soles is damp,” I answered, “and I haven’t worn those for a week.”

  “Or you don’t remember,” Brianna accused.

  “I remember.” I sounded almost as menacing as I felt.

  Vicki put on plastic gloves. “I’ll remove these for fingerprinting.”

  Neffting handed her a large paper bag.

  Brianna picked up one of my embroidered pillows from the couch and threw it, hard, back where it had been. “Maybe I did borrow your shoes without asking,” she admitted. “Is that a crime? You weren’t here to ask. I put them back.”

  I reminded her, “You said you only stuck your nose out the door.”

  “I did.” She pointed at her bare feet. She probably didn’t mean to call attention to her chipped black toenail polish. “I didn’t want to get my feet all muddy and track on your pristine white floors.”

  They were tile, easy to clean. When Haylee had designed the place with me in mind, and without telling me what she was up to, she’d foreseen that I would want to adopt dogs within days of moving in.

  Our police chief glanced toward the glass doors, but it was dark outside, so she wouldn’t be able to see anything besides our pallid reflections. But she’d spent more time than she probably wanted to remember in my backyard and knew what it was like. “Willow has a stone patio. Where did the mud on the shoes come from?”

  Brianna turned the corners of her mouth down in a surly way. “Her patio must not be as pristine as her floors.”

  “My patio is not muddy, and neither is my yard.” Ignoring Vicki’s warning glance, I went on, “The first place you’d get into mud would be the trail beside the riverbank.”

  Brianna came back with a swift, “Well, in that case, you’re the one who got mud on your shoes. I didn’t even know there was a river. Don’t you have flower beds out there? Like, right beside the patio? I must have stepped in one.” She made a grimace that verged on a gloat.

  Vicki looked at Neffting. “Can the fingerprint guy look for shoe prints out there in the morning?”

  Neffting nodded, putting that top-heavy head and his thin neck at risk. “He sure can.”

  Brianna lost the rest of her smug expression and indicated me with a slight tilt of her head. “I don’t know why you’re making such a fuss about me setting one foot outside, when she’s the one who was probably out murdering people.”

  There it was again—“murder.” What did Brianna know that we didn’t?

  Vicki stood up tall and said in a louder-than-usual voice, “Ms. Shrevedale—”

  She couldn’t finish whatever she was about to say. Mustache and Bow-Tie yowled in unison from my bedroom. They were particularly fond of our police chief.

  Vicki gazed at my bedroom door. “Those kittens of yours seem to have gained adult voices, Willow.”

  Brianna griped, “They never shut up.”

  So she drowned out their voices with her music? I told Vicki, “They’ve grown a lot. Want to see them?”

  Detective Neffting sneezed.

  “Allergic to cats?” she asked him.

  His eyes were watering, but he didn’t answer her question. “I think we’re done here. Let’s head back to the park.”

  I put the dogs in my bedroom with the kittens, then escorted Neffting and Vicki upstairs, through In Stitches, and out the front door.

  On the porch, Vicki asked me quietly, “What’s with that girl?”

  I shrugged. “I guess she doesn’t like the law.”

  Vicki moved her hat back and blew at strands of hair on her forehead. “I don’t think she likes you much, either. Maybe you should boot her out.”

  “I can’t. My mother would disown me. She told Brianna to come stay with me. Brianna’s father is one of my mother’s most important financial backers.”

  Neffting peered at me. “You said her name is Shrevedale—is she one of Todd Shrevedale’s family?”

  “His daughter.”

  Neffting glanced at Vicki. “That guy wields a lot of power.” He raised an eyebrow, as if telling Vicki they’d have to tread carefully
around Brianna Shrevedale. He handed me his business card. “Don’t hesitate to call one of us if you think of anything else.” He turned to Vicki. “Do you have a card you can give Willow?”

  I admitted, “I have her number on speed dial.”

  That startled him. “What? Oh, I get it. I should have figured it out when that Shrevedale kid said Willow kept getting involved in murders. Willow’s the one who—”

  Vicki nodded. “Keeps solving murders. Yes.”

  I backed away. “Not by myself. Chief Smallwood and detectives did most of it. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.”

  Vicki corrected me. “Or the wrong time.”

  I asked both of them, “How does Brianna know that Isis was murdered?”

  Neffting answered, “I don’t think she did. She was jumping to a conclusion based on your reputation.”

  “For solving murders,” Vicki reminded him. “Don’t forget to lock up, Willow. And call us if you need us.”

  “I will. Meanwhile, feel free to check my phone records, although she probably was on my line for hours. But that doesn’t prove she was inside the entire time.”

  Neffting only shook his head. “Kids are always on the phone or texting. Don’t let it worry you. My instincts are good. That girl’s not a murderer.”

  So he was calling it murder now, too? Hoping that his good instincts would lead him to the actual murderer and not to an innocent person, I went inside. Vicki watched through the glass until I locked the door, then she trotted down the porch steps after Detective Neffting.

  So far, Neffting seemed to have ruled out Dare Drayton as a possible murderer because Dare was a celebrity. And now he was excluding Brianna because her father was powerful and wealthy.

  I supposed it was natural to ignore certain people as suspects because we didn’t want to believe they could be murderers. I did it, too. But I wasn’t a detective. I plodded grumpily down to my apartment.

  Brianna and the phone from her room were nowhere to be seen, but music boomed behind her closed door. I put her dishes into the dishwasher, then joined my animals in my bedroom. A few years before, when I was working in New York, Haylee had decided to tempt me to move to Threadville and open the shop I’d always dreamed of owning. She had enlisted Clay to renovate the building in a way she knew I’d love. A practical and thinking man, he’d been very thorough, and had put locking doorknobs on each of the suites. I locked my door and fell into bed.