Night of the Living Thread (A Threadville Mystery)

by Janet Bolin

  Isis’s horrific death and Brianna’s incessant music invaded my dreams, and when the phone awakened me shortly before time to get up, I was gritty-eyed and grouchy. It seemed to me that Brianna had played her music most of the night, and had sometimes sung—or shouted—along with it, but now her room was silent. Maybe she’d gone home?

  A state trooper was on the phone. He told me he was on the front porch of In Stitches, ready to fingerprint my patio door.

  Apparently, I was destined to be seen day after day in my pink fuzzy bathrobe and matching slippers. Someone was probably about to create a TV show called Desperate Housecoats and cast me in the starring role. I left my pets shut in my suite.

  Upstairs in my shop with its big front windows, I lost all hope that silence from Brianna’s room meant that she’d packed up and left. Her car was still parked in front of In Stitches.

  The trooper was a big bear of a man, gray-haired and old enough to be my father, so I wasn’t as embarrassed about my garb as I could have been around a younger trooper.

  I ushered him downstairs to my apartment. He dusted for fingerprints, then asked to see my hands. “Yep,” he said, “your fingerprints were on the shoe that was taken for evidence last night, and they’re on the door, the handle, and the locking mechanism, and so are someone else’s. I got good prints of that person’s thumb and forefinger.”

  “Were her fingerprints on the shoes?”

  “I didn’t see any besides some that I’m sure are yours. Couldn’t someone slip in and out of those shoes without touching them with their hands?”

  “Yes. But if she stuck her bare feet into them . . . ?”

  He nodded. “She could have left toe prints. And since this is a murder investigation—”

  “Murder?” I squeaked. “For sure?” Neffting had finally used the word during the night, but I hadn’t been certain that he meant it.

  He hedged, “Since this is potentially a murder investigation, we may have to cut the shoes apart for toe prints. I hope you weren’t in love with those shoes. Even if we don’t take them apart, you won’t have them back for a while.”

  I made my best mournful expression. “I guess I’ll just have to order the cute ones I saw online.”

  I noticed that he very carefully did not allow his gaze to dip toward my pink fuzzy slippers.

  I asked him, “Want to see a drinking glass my guest used?”

  “Yep, might as well rule her out as last night’s alleged intruder, too, the one who supposedly left your door unlocked.”

  That could depend on your definition of “intruder.” I opened the dishwasher and pointed. The trooper applied black dust to a couple of the glasses, and then grunted in satisfaction. “I’ll check the prints I lifted from the door and from these more carefully, but I’m about ninety percent certain that no one else has come into your apartment besides you and your guest.” He opened the door. “I was told we’re supposed to look for footprints outside.”

  He and I searched all of the borders near the patio. We found doggie footprints, but we didn’t see even one print of a human foot or a shoe, and we didn’t see any footprints in the flower gardens near the front porch, either. The trooper left, and I put on jeans and an embroidered sweater for work.

  The kittens would have to use the litter box in my en suite bathroom until we were allowed in our backyard again. I gave them a quick cuddle, shut them into the master suite, and took the dogs out through In Stitches to the street. Naturally, I was curious about the crime scene in the park.

  White-garbed people combed the grass and the switchbacking boardwalk between the bandstand and the boat launch ramp. Sally and Tally were quite happy to bypass those scary-looking aliens and run to the sandy beach instead.

  Wind must have come from the north during the night, pushing the waves high on the strip of sand, but they’d subsided, and the dogs and I were able to jog across a wide strip of hard sand between the water and the curved ridges of foam, sticks, shells, and other flotsam the biggest waves had left behind.

  One piece of flotsam was larger than the rest. Reining in my dogs, I walked carefully to the thing and stooped for a better look.

  It was a boat-shaped basket, crudely woven from willow wands that were still hanging on to a few torn and storm-tossed leaves.

  The boat was small. It could have been held in the palm of one hand.

  A 3-D machine-embroidered lace groom had been tied into it.

  18

  I recognized the lace groom doll in the boat. I’d made it for Edna’s quilt and hadn’t seen it since I’d hung it on my front porch to dry.

  The groom, now unstarched and limp, lounged on a bed of blood-red chrysanthemums, the exact color of the mums that had been in urns beside the doll-sized clothesline.

  I didn’t touch the little willow-wand boat.

  I stood and surveyed the high-water marks farther down the beach.

  At first glance, the spot of white several yards away could have been foam, but it was bigger than the other bits. Leaving the tiny boat and its passenger behind, I ran with the dogs to the white thing.

  The lace bride doll I’d created for Edna’s wedding quilt was in this boat.

  The roaring in my head wasn’t only from the waves and the wind. The small makeshift boat nauseated me.

  Not only did the bride have no bed of flowers matching the groom’s; she was lashed in place with her head down and her feet up.

  Bias tape had been used to fasten the dolls to the boats. The groom’s had been black, matching his 3-D lace tuxedo. The bride’s bias tape had originally been white, but was now, like the bride doll, wet and speckled with sand.

  Isis had been staying in Edna’s apartment. To get to it, she’d had to go through Buttons and Bows, where Edna sold bias tape.

  I had no doubt that these tiny basketlike boats were the objects I’d seen Isis place in the water on Wednesday night. She had called Gord’s name, urged him toward an afterlife where she would meet him, and let something float away from her. But when she’d called Edna’s name, she’d held an object underwater. The symbolism was plain. The groom was supposed to sail on a bed of flowers. The bride was supposed to drown.

  Feeling even sicker, I didn’t touch the thing or let the dogs go near it. They were quite pleased to run back down the beach and up the sidewalk.

  Standing beside the yellow tape defining the crime scene, the dogs and I caught an investigator’s attention. White outfit flapping, Detective Neffting loped to me.

  I babbled that a pair of little boats that Isis had put in the river had washed up on the shore of the lake.

  “Why would the deceased put little boats into the river?”

  “I think it was part of her curses.” I explained about the bride and groom dolls. “I heard her call out Edna’s and Gord’s names as she placed what I think were those boats on the river. She let the one representing Gord float, but when she cursed Edna, she held the object underwater.”

  “Edna?” he repeated.

  “Edna Battersby.” I pointed to her shop. “She owns Buttons and Bows. Isis had been staying with her in the second-story apartment.”

  “Aha. Yes. That Edna. We’ll be questioning her about her recent guest. Do you think Edna knew about these curses?”

  “I told her about them.”

  “How well do you know this Edna?”

  Pulling my inquisitive dogs closer, I stood up tall. “Very well. She’s a wonderful person, very upbeat. She and Gord laughed about the spells. Edna wouldn’t kill anyone, especially over a curse she didn’t believe in.”

  “And the groom is . . . Gord?” He tilted his white-hooded head.

  “Gord Wrinklesides, a local doctor. He assists the county coroner. You probably talked to him last night. He and Edna were at Gord’s house when Isis was pushed into the river.”

  I didn
’t like the knowing look on Neffting’s face.

  I added, “I saw them go off together before the murder, and I saw them come back to the park after the rescuers got here.”

  “Back to the park.” He repeated my tones precisely. “They’d been in the park at the time of the murder?”

  “No. A half hour before, when Gord brought Edna to see the dress we created for her.”

  He let one side of his mouth go up slightly. “The death contraption, yes. Didn’t you tell us that someone else accused the deceased of casting spells against him?”

  “Floyd the zombie.”

  He asked, “And did you actually see the deceased cast spells against this man?”

  “No, but I did see him tell Isis to stop casting spells against everyone—living or undead, I think he put it.”

  “So it’s only hearsay that she cast any spells on the zombie.”

  I guessed it was the job of a detective to be difficult. I pointed out, “I’m not sure it matters, as long as Floyd believed Isis was casting spells on him. Last night it was clear that he did.”

  “And now, this morning, you’re telling me you actually observed the deceased uttering curses against two other people. Why didn’t you tell us about the those two people last night?”

  “Because I know Edna and Gord. Neither of them would hurt anyone. Besides, when I told them about Isis’s curses, they laughed them off. They didn’t care. And both of them are too short to have been the skulker I saw.”

  “Who may not have been the murderer. Did you find any little boats with miniature lace zombies riding around in them?”

  “No. I wouldn’t expect to. Someone stole the little lace bride and groom I made. I didn’t make any 3-D lace zombies.” And although it was a cute idea, I didn’t think I would make any freestanding lace zombies until long after this case was settled.

  Turning, Neffting snapped his fingers at a uniformed trooper. The trooper ran to us. Neffting asked him, “You have evidence bags?”

  The trooper was a hunk with an engaging smile. “Yes, sir.”

  “Go with this lady. She may have found some evidence that washed up on shore.” Looking at me, he tilted his head for confirmation.

  I nodded.

  He turned back to the trooper. “See if we need to extend the search area. If it appears to you that the objects merely washed up from the lake, bring them back. We can’t tape off the whole lake. Take pictures of the site.” Neffting stalked toward the bandstand.

  Giving me the full force of the smile, the trooper let the dogs sniff his hand, then offered to take one leash. “I’ve been standing around half the night,” he explained. “Mind if I run ahead?”

  I handed him Tally’s leash. “He loves to be first, and we’ll be right behind you.”

  The trooper only jogged, and Sally and I had no trouble keeping up with him and Tally.

  At the first boat, the one with the groom and the chrysanthemums, I told the trooper about Isis and her curses—the ones I’d seen her make, and the spells that she’d said a zombie had accused her of casting.

  “Weird,” he said. “But I’m sure you’re right that this washed up. See the curving pattern of dried foam over everything, including this basket with the figure in it?” He gave me Tally’s leash, took photos, and placed the tiny groom and his boat into an evidence bag. We all raced to the second boat, where he took more photos and loaded the boat containing the upside-down bride into another bag. “Did you see anything else unusual, like maybe a boat related to the spells she allegedly cast against the zombie?” He smiled.

  I pulled Tally closer. “Not here, but last night after the victim was pushed into the river, I saw a fistful of willow wands like the ones used to make those boats. They were in the bandstand, arranged as if they’d been placed carefully on the floor. Maybe she planned to make another boat for the zombie.” And when the investigators searched Isis’s room, they’d find a tiny 1930s zombie constructed of bias tape or other trims from Edna’s notions boutique?

  The trooper studied my face, then seemed to decide to trust me. “I saw them, too. The sticks were sort of mashed at the cuts like the ones in these boats, as if someone’s pruning shears were dull.” Widening his stance in the deep sand, he held up his evidence bag. “Did you see the victim make these boats?”

  “No, but shortly before she was killed, she appeared to be pruning a willow tree beside the river.”

  He gazed toward waves lapping the beach. “People do strange things.”

  I couldn’t deny that. After all, I had helped make the bizarre wedding skirt that had ended up killing Isis. I told him I’d be at In Stitches if anyone needed to talk to me, and then the dogs and I left him to continue searching the high-water mark.

  It was almost time to open In Stitches. The dogs and I ran past the investigators in the crime scene, past Brianna’s car, into my shop, and downstairs to my apartment.

  I stroked the kitties, gulped down my breakfast, and signaled to the dogs, who undoubtedly knew it was time to go upstairs and greet our customers. Carrying a carafe of hot coffee up the stairs, I heard absolutely no noises from my guest suite.

  My students and I spent the morning creating and stitching Halloween designs with embroidery software and machines. Laughing and chatting, we incorporated glow-in-the-dark thread in a ghost, the features in jack-o’-lanterns, the faces of zombies, the moon behind a witch on a broomstick, and the web of a scary spider. Everyone’s designs were different and original, and quite spectacular. We were all hyped with success and camaraderie. And caffeine.

  And then Vicki Smallwood walked in.

  She admired our work before drawing me aside and commenting quietly, “Too bad someone wasted so much of that thread by spreading it around on the trail and in the park.”

  I agreed.

  “One of the guys untangled it and measured it, and guess what?” She didn’t wait for me to answer. “It could have gone past your property, as you said it did, and ended just about where we found those two little slashes in the ground.” A smile flickered across her face. “The end of the thread was tied to the thread nippers.”

  “Tied,” I repeated.

  She nodded. “Yep. And the pointed ends of the blades were crusted in dirt. You guessed that someone could have used the nippers like a big staple to anchor one end of the thread to the ground. That guess could have been right.”

  Great. Detective Neffting would think that I had done all of that, and then had “solved” how it was done. I pointed out, “That thread may have nothing to do with the murder.”

  “I would agree with you—except for one thing.”

  19

  I asked Vicki what made her suspect that the thread nippers could have been connected with Isis’s death.

  “Those steel thread nippers should have had fingerprints on them. They didn’t. Not one. Someone had wiped them off.”

  Hadn’t she said that the blades had been crusted with dirt? I suggested, “They wiped the nippers without knocking the dirt off the tips of the blades?”

  “You got it.”

  “They could have been afraid they’d cut themselves.” I tilted my head and raised my eyebrows. “Maybe they did.”

  She wrote in her notebook. “We’ll look for anyone with cuts in their fingers.”

  I held my hands out. As usual, I had a few little nicks and scrapes. Sewing could be dangerous. “I can guess why someone wouldn’t want it known that they went around stringing glow-in-the-dark thread through the grass on dark, foggy nights,” I said. “But I can’t figure out why they’d make a trail of thread in the first place.”

  She didn’t bother checking my hands. “You’re the thread expert.”

  “No, she’s downstairs.”

  “She cause you any trouble?”

  “Not unless you count playing music and shouting alo
ng to it part of the night.”

  Vicki screwed up her face in disgust. “It wasn’t even nice music.”

  “The state trooper who took fingerprints this morning thought he saw hers on my door.”

  “I heard that, too.”

  “Why would she lie about going outside? It looks to me like she set up an alibi before Isis was murdered.”

  Vicki repeated, “Alibi?”

  “She was on the phone. Supposedly.”

  “Oh, that. Neffting thinks she was merely embarrassed because she’d borrowed your shoes without asking.”

  “The fingerprint trooper and I looked for prints in my flower borders that would show where those shoes picked up the mud. We didn’t find any.”

  Vicki thinned her lips and stared beyond me. I recognized that expression. Vicki was trying hard not to tell me something.

  I made a stab at it. “Did they find prints that matched my gardening clogs on the trail down by the river?”

  She managed to avoid exactly confirming my theory. “The prints didn’t follow the trail, which isn’t very muddy, so we couldn’t be certain.”

  I guessed, “They headed down the bank?”

  “Only a little bit, then back toward your gate. So depending on how far your cordless phone service works, she could have been telling the truth about talking on the phone and telling her boyfriend about the weather.”

  “Right beside a river that she claimed she didn’t know existed.” I couldn’t help sounding sarcastic. “Detective Neffting doesn’t want to believe that Brianna Shrevedale murdered Isis.”

  “You heard Brianna on the phone shortly before you went outside around nine thirty last night, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you told us you heard Isis scream about fifteen minutes later.”