Night of the Living Thread (A Threadville Mystery)

by Janet Bolin

  To my surprise, Brianna was up and dressed when the dogs and I returned home, but she grabbed her mug, turned abruptly, and shut herself into her suite as if she feared I might grab the coffee away from her. I had made it for her.

  Ashley and Georgina were working at the Get Ready for Halloween Craft Fair during the morning, leaving me in charge of In Stitches until after lunch, but most of my customers were at the craft fair again.

  Still worrying that Neffting might arrest the wrong person for Isis’s murder, I called Vicki. Her phone went to messages. I quickly rattled off that during the previous night’s Haunted Graveyard, Patricia and Floyd had agreed on an alibi for each other that they’d appeared to be making up, and that Dare had later told us that he’d seen Patricia in Opal’s dining room when Isis was screaming.

  Vicki didn’t call me back, and I had a quiet morning.

  Around one, Rosemary arrived from Naomi’s quilting shop to take over during my lunch hour. A frown creased her forehead. “Naomi wants you to go talk to her at Batty About Quilts.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “She didn’t say, but she was hoping you could come right away.”

  I thanked Rosemary and rushed across the street.

  Haylee was already there. Naomi took us into her back room, where sounds were deadened by huge rolls of quilt batting hanging from rods. She spoke even more softly than usual, as if she didn’t want customers in the front rooms to hear her. “You two know more about police and their investigations than I do. I found something in my wastebasket. That detective said to call if I learned anything, but I’m not sure this is important.” She waved a fistful of paper triangles at us. “Do you understand how quilters do paper piecing?”

  Haylee nodded, and I looked confused.

  Naomi smiled. “Okay, as fascinating as quilting is, I’ll keep my explanation short. Basically, in paper piecing, we sew fabric onto paper to make our quilt blocks. It’s sort of like paint-by-number. We print or photocopy exact replicas of the blocks on paper, one for each block in the quilt. Then, using a piece of fabric that allows at least a quarter-inch seam allowance around the number one shape on the paper, we pin our number one piece of fabric to the paper, wrong sides together, pins on the paper side.” She picked up a piece of paper with shapes drawn and numbered on it, and demonstrated with a scrap of fabric, smoothing the cloth against the paper.

  She picked up another scrap of fabric. “Next, we pin on the number two piece, again larger than the finished result should be, with the right sides of the two fabrics together. We then turn the whole thing over so that the paper is on top, and stitch along the line on the paper, creating a seam connecting the two pieces of fabric. We trim the seam to a quarter inch, press the seam, then flip the fabric so that the wrong side of both pieces of fabric are against the wrong side of the paper, the number one fabric against the wrong side of the number one on the paper, and the number two fabric against the wrong side of the number two, and then we pin the right side of our number three fabric, bigger than the number three shape with a quarter-inch seam allowance around it, to the right side of the number two fabric, stitch that seam, trim it, and fold it back to cover the number three shape.”

  I asked, “Do you mean the pieces aren’t cut to the right size until after they’re stitched?”

  Naomi nodded. “You got it. And we stitch with the paper on top so we can see the lines and stitch exactly on them. Then we do the fourth piece, then the fifth. We keep doing that until the block is complete. Then we tear the paper off—it will be in numbered bits—and throw it out. Some of my quilters won’t quilt any other way, while others prefer to cut the pieces to the exact dimensions first, including the quarter-inch seam allowance, and stitch carefully. Either way, we square up the blocks afterward.”

  I stared at the paper triangles in her hand. “Don’t you waste a lot of paper?”

  Naomi frowned. “I suppose, but it’s a clever way of putting our seams where we want them, over the lines we drew, and if we do it correctly, our squares are exact. If I come upon a sheet of paper that’s good on one side, I pile it near my photocopier, and we recycle it for the blocks. So . . .” She arranged the paper triangles on the shelf beside her. “I found these in the wastebasket. Because of what happened to Isis, the word ‘curse’ jumped out at me.”

  She stood back.

  The words weren’t entirely clear because of the perforations the sewing machine’s needle had made and some random tears, but I made out something like instructions: To break the curse, encircle the intended victim in light.

  Haylee turned to Naomi. “Who wrote this?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t recognize the handwriting, and I don’t remember ever seeing the words before. Someone else must have added it to my pile of scrap paper.” She showed us the number six on the other side of one of the triangles.

  “Could Isis have written this?” I asked Naomi.

  “She could have. She was in my store at least once, fingering fabrics and yelling at me because I sold cottons besides Egyptian cotton.”

  I patted Naomi’s arm. “She was angry at everyone.”

  Naomi smiled, but she still looked sad, as if she couldn’t understand why everyone couldn’t just get along.

  “A circle of light,” I said slowly. “Someone left glow-in-the-dark thread along the riverside trail. Could that have been the beginning of someone’s attempt to place the intended victim—of a curse—inside a circle of light?”

  “That sounds like a big circle,” Haylee commented. “Did it go all around Threadville?”

  Naomi grabbed her arm, obviously excited. “It would have to be a big circle, wouldn’t it? If you didn’t know who the intended victim was, or if you did know who the victim was to be, but didn’t know where he or she was?”

  Haylee nodded. “Or if you didn’t feel quite right about going up to someone and asking, ‘Mind if I tie you up in glow-in-the-dark thread?’”

  Naomi chuckled. “Who would feel quite right about that?”

  I ran my thumb along the bumpy perforations. “The thread went from the bridge, along the trail, and up to the bandstand. I think the person who left the thread got sidetracked then, and found another way to break the curse.” I snapped the piece of paper down onto the shelf and glared at it. “By murdering the person who had uttered the curse.”

  Naomi shuddered. “Horrible. Who would do such a thing? Who was the intended victim of Isis’s curses?”

  I began, “Floyd the zombie claimed he was, but the names I heard Isis call out when she was casting her spells were Gord and Edna.”

  Naomi covered her mouth with one hand, then dropped the hand and stood straighter. “Gord and Edna would never hurt anyone.”

  We agreed with her. But did the police agree with us?

  Naomi gathered the ragged-edged paper triangles. “I think I answered my own question. I’m not giving these paper scraps to that spindly-necked detective to use against Gord or Edna unless he produces a search warrant or a subpoena.”

  I asked, “How long had that sheet of paper been in the stack next to your photocopier?”

  Naomi slid the paper triangles into an envelope. “It could have there for months before any of us ever heard of Isis and her curses.”

  Haylee and I told her not to worry. We returned to our shops.

  Rosemary had everything under control in mine, so I ran downstairs to give my pets a trip outside and myself some lunch. Brianna’s room was quiet. I double-checked that the patio door was locked, ran upstairs, and told Rosemary I’d send Ashley back soon.

  Brianna’s car was not parked on Lake Street, but as soon as I pulled into the community center parking lot, I saw it. I also saw Vicki’s cruiser, off in a corner. Head down as if she were writing in a notebook, she sat in the driver’s seat.

  Floyd was in her passenger seat, chopping at t
he air with his hands as if talking. He must have been mortified at being in his zombie persona in a vehicle produced after 1934.

  Inside the community center, the Threadville Get Ready for Halloween Craft Fair was crowded. Patricia and Juliette stood on one side of the hall and stared at Dare on the other.

  Why was he here again? He wasn’t one of our vendors. He was walking from table to table, picking things up and putting them down again. Listening to others’ conversations? Gathering local color for his Lake Erie thriller?

  Sitting at her table, Brianna glowered at Patricia and Juliette.

  Georgina and Ashley told me we wouldn’t have much left unsold to pack when the fair ended. Georgina drove Ashley back to In Stitches to relieve Rosemary.

  Floyd strode into the hall, changed his stride to a stomp, then seemed to remember to stay in character as a zombie and went into his hobbling, living-dead stagger.

  Patricia scurried away from Juliette, sat down at her table, which was next to my In Stitches table, and bent to peer down toward the foot pedal of one of her sewing machines.

  Floyd shambled to Patricia’s display of treadle sewing machines, manuals, and accessories and slapped one hand on her table. “Thanks for nothing,” he barked.

  37

  Patricia straightened, placed a hand over her heart, and looked timidly back at Floyd. “What? What did I do?”

  Floyd growled, “Reported me to the police. Just what I do not need.”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t.”

  Juliette glided in her long red gown to Patricia’s side.

  “You didn’t?” Floyd repeated. “That’s not how I see it. First, that policewoman came in here a little while ago, and you agreed with me that when that Egyptian goddess babe was murdered, you and I were together on the beach, then this thriller writer went and talked to the policewoman, and she marched you outside, and the next thing I know, you’re back in here, and I’m outside in the front seat of a squad car, and the policewoman is interrogating me because you went and changed your story. Why?”

  Patricia’s eyes widened until she resembled a rabbit caught in the headlights. “I . . . I didn’t. Dare Drayton told her he saw me in Opal’s dining room, reading, when Isis was screaming, and when the police chief told me that, I remembered that’s where I was, not on the beach with you.”

  On the other side of me, a scornful male voice said, “How could you remember being on a beach and then remember not being on a beach?” Dare had managed to insinuate himself into the discussion. “Listen, Pretty Boy, or whoever’s long-dead remains you’re pretending to be, I’m known for my skills at observation. Why wouldn’t the police believe me about when and where I saw this treadle machine woman?”

  Floyd stood straighter. “When given a choice of two possible alibis, this dame chose the famous man to support.” Under the fluorescent lights, the fake blood on his chin gleamed like thick, oozy pudding. “And the police are in awe of the famous thriller writer, too.” He scowled. “This treadle sewing machine woman probably lied about being where you claimed to have seen her, too.”

  Juliette stepped into the argument. “I saw Patricia at the park. Remember, Willow? We saw you, too.”

  I agreed. “You’d both been on the trail along the river. But that was about an hour and a half after Isis . . . fell in.”

  Patricia nodded eagerly. Even her teeth looked rabbity. “Dare must have peeked in at me while I was reading in Opal’s dining room. Later, I went for a walk, and caught up with Juliette on the trail. And then we saw Willow, and we witnessed the whole . . .” She heaved a tremulous breath. “The whole tragedy going on at the park, and then Dare came along. From the trail we’d just been on.”

  Why had she chosen the word “tragedy” so carefully, and emphasized it, also? Was the death of her old foe anything but a tragedy, as far as she was concerned?

  Juliette’s eyes narrowed as if she were wondering something similar, or maybe imagining gazing into the crystal ball she’d left behind on her craft sale table. “Tell this zombie what time you left Opal’s and went for a walk on the trail.”

  “It must have been after eleven . . .” Patricia’s voice diminished. “I wasn’t paying attention, really, and don’t remember.”

  Floyd scoffed, “There’s a lot that you don’t remember.”

  She pushed her thick glasses up her nose. “I do remember that I wasn’t with you on the beach. I was never with you on the beach. I was never with you that night, period.”

  “Then why did you say you were?” he exploded.

  “I thought you wanted me to.”

  If Vicki wasn’t going to arrest Patricia for murder, she might consider arresting her for impersonating a doormat.

  Floyd seemed to stop breathing. Maybe he really was a member of the undead. “Lucky thing I was able to give that policewoman names of people who saw me at the party at the lodge that night. They’ll confirm I was there.”

  “One wonders,” Dare drawled, “why you didn’t use that alibi to start with instead of making this treadle-woman think she needed to lie for you.” He raised one eyebrow.

  Dare was obnoxious, but his point was a good one.

  Floyd glared at him. “And where were you when that Egyptian goddess babe went underwater?”

  “Simple.” I wasn’t sure if Dare was talking about the people around him or about the truth—or about his version of the truth. “I had been waiting for my cousin, who didn’t show up, so I strolled to the beach, then wandered through the parking lot, and I saw this treadle-woman reading. Lucky thing for her I’m so observant and have a good memory, or she could be languishing in a jail cell right this very minute.” He skewered me with an amused look. “One wonders where my esteemed cousin was at that moment. He could be the villain who pushed the woman in.”

  Everyone seemed to know—or think they knew—that Isis had been pushed. I answered hotly, “Clay was sitting in his truck waiting for you. He’d promised to drive you home, but you disappeared.”

  Dare shrugged. “We don’t know if what he said is true, do we? And we probably never will.”

  I retorted, “Clay is a good person—”

  Dare interrupted me. “So I’ve heard, from my mother, all the time I was growing up. ‘Why can’t you be more like Clay?’” he mimicked in a shrill, quavering voice. “‘Clay’s such a good boy.’ Sickening, isn’t it?”

  It was, but Dare didn’t wait for any of us to answer. He marched out of the community center without saying another word to anyone.

  Obviously seething, Brianna watched Dare leave. What was wrong with her? Her fury seemed to center on Dare. A woman scorned?

  Juliette went back to preside over her crystal ball. Neither she nor Patricia seemed to be bringing in much business, though for the rest of the afternoon, Floyd and Lenny had people at their table, where they were selling makeup, slashed and bullet-riddled costumes, and horrendously realistic stick-on wounds with the jagged ends of fake bones poking out of them. Brianna stayed occupied, also, until four, when she closed her display cases and lugged them out. The fair wasn’t officially over for another hour. Maybe she was in a hurry to drive all the way home to South Carolina? I could hope.

  Juliette yawned and beckoned to me. I went over to her table.

  “Do I have to stay until the bitter end?” she asked. “I thought this would be my clientele, but I’ve hardly booked any events. Want me to tell your fortune?”

  “I’d just as soon not know.” I smiled to soften my words, then bent to peer more closely at her crystal ball. “You really can see things in it.”

  She stroked its smooth, gleaming surface. “That’s because it’s made of polished rock—quartz, actually. People expect them to be made of molten glass, and many are, but this one is special. It’s been passed down through my mother’s family, mother to daughter, for generations. We all have what
they call ‘the sight.’”

  “It’s quite an heirloom,” I agreed. “A family treasure.” Actually, up close, the darkness inside the sphere of rock seemed to negate the cheerful reflections of the ceiling lights, and the thing gave me the creeps. I could barely restrain a shudder, as if Juliette had actually foretold a drastic future for me.

  Fortunately, she didn’t seem to notice. She pulled a vinyl bowling bag from underneath her table. It was two-toned, brown and mottled beige, with matching brown piping—a real vintage piece. Juliette smiled with pride and ran a finger along the stitches attaching one of the handles to the body of the bag. “This bag is a family treasure, too,” she told me. “It was my grandfather’s. He bowled all the time. It’s the perfect way to carry my crystal ball.”

  Lovingly, she lowered the crystal ball into the bag, then went around to all the tables and said good-bye to everyone. Except for the long gown, she looked ready for a 1960s bowling tournament.

  By five o’clock, I was nearly out of brochures, course calendars, stabilizer, and CDs of embroidery designs. I did have a fair amount of embroidery thread, even though my thread sales had picked up after Brianna departed.

  Carrying my mostly empty plastic bins outside, I passed Lenny coming in for another load of zombie clothing and accessories. “You’ll need a fur-lined towel when the weather gets colder,” I joked.

  He grinned.

  Floyd stumbled past us with his ever-changing but crooked limp. Although he grunted, he couldn’t quite stay in character while pulling a wheeled trolley full of merchandise. The trolley was definitely post-1934, which undoubtedly bothered him.

  I stowed my bins in my car, then drove home

  Brianna’s car was outside my shop. So much for hoping she had packed up and left town.

  38

  I carried everything into In Stitches, chatted with the day’s last customers, said good night to Ashley, and closed the shop for the night, and for the next day, too. Tonight was the rehearsal dinner and tomorrow was the wedding. I spun around in an impromptu pirouette. We were all going to forget the sordid events from Thursday night, or at least put them in the backs of our minds. Instead, we would celebrate with Edna and Gord, who deserved our best wishes and good cheer.