A Quilt in Time (A Harriet Turman/Loose Threads Mystery)

by Arlene Sachitano

  “Nope. She said she was fine, that she just needed a place for Rachel. I agreed to keep the cat for a couple of days to see if we can find someone, but Rachel is clearly the least of her problems.”

  “She has been pretty withdrawn from the group lately. And now that you mention it, Lauren thought she saw bruises on Sarah’s neck a few months back. We’ve all tried to reach out to her, but she’s not having it.”

  “Do you know her boyfriend?” Aiden set his cup down on the pie-crust table.

  “She’s been very secretive about him. She lives at his cabin most of the time, but several of the Threads have dropped in unannounced and no one has ever caught him there. She’s always alone.”

  “Are you sure he exists?”

  “Jorge has seen him. He says he’s a good-looking smooth talker. Sarah hasn’t talked much about him with any of us, as far as I know. She says general stuff—how smart he is, and how successful—but nothing specific. And it’s been a while since she’s even done that.”

  “I don’t want to be overly dramatic, but I think your friend is in trouble. As part of our continuing education program at the clinic, we’ve had two training sessions put on by the Humane Society on the topic of domestic violence toward pets, and that’s just since I’ve been here.

  “They told us that people who abuse and/or kill people often hone their craft on neighborhood pets. It was kind of creepy. The speaker said the police figure if they vigorously pursue these people while they’re in the animal phase, they may be able to prevent them from escalating. We vets are supposed to be the front-line offense.”

  “I tried to tell Sarah once things wouldn’t get better without her getting help, but I could tell I wasn’t getting through. She would only talk about the cat. Listen, let me talk to my aunt and Mavis and maybe Robin. They’ll have ideas about what we can do.”

  “Thanks.” Aiden set his barely touched cup on the table and stood up. “That’s all I can ask.”

  “How are you doing?” Harriet asked. Before she thought about what she was doing, she stood, too, and slipped her arms around his waist. He put his around her shoulders.

  “No one said therapy would be easy, and it isn’t.” He sighed. “My therapist tells me things will get better. And he keeps telling me to eat, rest and exercise a little.”

  “Sounds like good advice. I’m glad you’re doing it.”

  “If this is what it takes for us to be us, it will be worth it. I never said I was going to enjoy the process. Especially the part where we can’t really be together.”

  Harriet was silent.

  “I know, we can’t talk about it. I better go. I’ve got appointments. I just wanted to get you and the Threads on the job with Sarah.”

  She laughed. “Thanks, I think.”

  “Let me know what you find out and what you decide to do.”

  Robin shook the rain from her jacket and put it on the back of her chair before she sat down at the big table in the back room at Tico’s Tacos.

  “DeAnn said to tell you she got your message and she’ll be late because she’s got playground duty this week at lunch time.”

  “I know it was short notice for everyone,” Harriet said from the doorway, “but Aiden stopped by my place on his way to work this morning, and I didn’t think this could wait.”

  Aunt Beth and Mavis arrived a few minutes later, followed by Connie and then Carla. Jorge brought baskets of warm tortilla chips and bowls of red and green salsa.

  “Are you going to let us in on the mystery?” Aunt Beth asked.

  Harriet pulled the door shut and joined them at the table.

  “Sorry, but this isn’t the sort of problem that can be discussed over the phone. Lauren said she’s coming. I was hoping to wait until everyone got here before I go into it.”

  “Lauren’s present. Are we taking roll call?” She came in and shut the door behind her before sitting down across from Harriet. “I take it from the locked door that we’re telling secrets on someone.”

  Harriet stood up.

  “Aiden stopped by this morning with some disturbing information,” she began. “Sarah brought her cat into the clinic with a broken leg she said was from a fall. Aiden doesn’t believe it—he thinks the cat is a victim of domestic violence.”

  Connie sat straighter in her chair.

  “Sarah would never hurt that cat,” she said.

  “Hold on,” Harriet told her. “He didn’t say he thought Sarah hurt the cat. He thinks Sarah is also a victim. She was trying to get someone to foster Rachel, and when Aiden said he couldn’t take her, she started crying and when her makeup ran, he could see she had a black eye.”

  “Diós mio.”

  “She has been acting weirder than usual for months,” Lauren said and popped a chip into her mouth.

  “And you said you saw bruises on her neck that one time, too,” Harriet reminded her.

  “I did. It looked like someone had choked her. She tried to cover it but her scarf slipped.”

  “How could we have missed this?” Aunt Beth leaned back and massaged her temple with her fingertips.

  “She hasn’t been around for us to miss anything,” Robin reminded everyone. “Pulling away from friends is typical of women who are experiencing domestic violence.”

  “Is it the woman pulling away or the abuser keeping her away?” Carla asked.

  “Good question.” Robin turned to her. “I’m no expert, but in the cases I’ve dealt with, the abuser usually isolates his victim from all support systems so the only information she’s getting is from him. He can tell her she’s worthless, and there’s no one to contradict him.”

  “That’s what my mom’s boyfriend did.” Carla twirled a strand of her long dark hair around her finger. “He used to hit her, too, but it was because she’d argue with him and make him mad.”

  “Carla,” Robin said firmly, “let’s be very clear, here. It is never okay for a man to hit a woman. Or any adult to hit another adult, for that matter. It doesn’t matter what your mom did or said. It was not okay.”

  “Okay,” Carla whispered, her cheeks hot and pink.

  “This is important,” Mavis added. “I know you’ve had a rougher life than most of us can imagine, but it’s important you understand this. Violence is never okay as a response to anything in a relationship.”

  The group was silent until Jorge came in with a handful of menus.

  “Anyone need one of these? Or do you all know what you want?”

  “Do you have a special today?” Harriet asked.

  “Indeed I do. I have two pork tamales with a chicken enchilada, and I have chicken avocado soup.”

  The group ordered one or the other of the specials, except Robin, who stuck with her customary salad. Jorge spoke to his waitress before taking the menus and leaving. A moment later, she returned with three heaping bowls of guacamole.

  “Back to Sarah,” Harriet said when the door was closed again and the group was alone. “First, can anyone take Rachel? Second, how can we help Sarah? Anyone?” She looked around the table.

  “Curly and I can take her,” Mavis volunteered. “My dog hasn’t met another animal she doesn’t like.”

  “Okay, so what are we going to do about Sarah?” Harriet pressed.

  “Do we have to do anything?” Lauren leaned forward and scooped dip onto her chip.

  “Of course we have to do something,” Mavis said. “How would you like it if you were in trouble, and we just sat around eating chips and ignoring your distress?”

  “I think we both know I wouldn’t be in that kind of trouble,” Lauren shot back.

  Robin stood up, pacing behind the chairs as if they were a jury.

  “You might be surprised to hear that many victims of domestic violence are otherwise independent, intelligent women. It can happen to anyone.” She turned and paced back to the end of the table and faced her seated friends. “I think our first step is to establish that she is, in fact, a battered woman. We’re just as
suming she is.” She held up one hand and ticked off her fingers with the other. “Number one, her cat is injured. Number two, we’ve seen bruises. Number three, she’s withdrawn from her social support network. Anything else?”

  “I think that covers what we know,” Harriet said. “So, what do we do?”

  Mavis looked at Beth.

  “Beth and I could talk to her when we talk to her about me taking Rachel.”

  “How soon do you think you can do that?” Harriet asked, looking from her aunt to Mavis.

  “She should be working,” Mavis said. “We can go after lunch.”

  “What if she admits her boyfriend is beating her?” Lauren asked. “What then? She’s not coming to live with me, I can tell you that. Two days with that woman, and I’d probably hit her myself.”

  “It’s really sad, but that used to be the standard prosecutors used to determine if they were going to go after abusive men. If fifteen minutes with the defendant made them want to hit her, they wouldn’t take the case to court,” Robin told them. “And that wasn’t that long ago.”

  “We can guess she’s not going to agree to leave her boyfriend just because a couple of us tell her she needs to,” Lauren said.

  Robin sat down again.

  “I could go by and offer her legal advice,” she said.

  “She probably doesn’t have anywhere else to go,” Harriet said. “One of my quilt customers is living in her old apartment. Unless she got a new one, she’s probably staying full time at that cabin.”

  “I wonder if they have room at the shelter,” Mavis said.

  “They were talking about putting some beds in their attic space,” Harriet said. “Plus, I think they have one empty private room. I could call Georgia and ask. I need to take measurements for the bathroom curtains we need to make, so I have to call her in any case.”

  Jorge backed into the room, followed by his waitress, both of them laden with plates of steaming food, ending the conversation for the moment.

  Harriet took a deep breath.

  “This smells so good,” she told him.

  “All for the pleasure of the lovely mujeres.”

  Jorge smiled, set down his armload of plates, and left the room, returning quickly with a large tray of plates and bowls. The waitress set a pitcher of iced tea and a stack of glasses in the middle of the table.

  “Do you need anything else right now?” he asked, looking from one end of the table to the other.

  “Thank you, I think we’re good,” Harriet said.

  Conversation ground to a halt as the women focused on their meals. Eventually, Connie put her fork down and leaned back from the table.

  “I can’t eat another bite,” she said.

  “Me, either,” Harriet concurred. “Let’s talk about where we are with Sarah. Mavis and Aunt Beth are going to go see her about taking her cat and will try to get her talking about her own situation, maybe suggesting she needs to make a change. Is that correct?”

  Mavis and Beth nodded.

  “I will check and see if the empty room at the shelter is, indeed, available, and whether, at first glance, they think Sarah qualifies. I’ll tell Robin, and she’ll go see Sarah and ask if she would like her to provide any legal services to help her get away from her abuser. She’ll also talk to Sarah about going into the shelter.”

  “I’m taking the bibs we’re making to the seniors at the end of this week,” Connie said. “When I called Sarah’s mother to arrange a time, she invited all of us to the open house. If we haven’t gotten through to her individually by then, maybe we can talk to her as a group.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Lauren said.

  Carla cleared her throat then coughed.

  “If Jorge has seen Sarah’s boyfriend, maybe he can tell us something about him.” She swiped at a lock of hair that had fallen over her eyes.

  “Oh, honey, that’s a great idea,” Mavis said.

  “I’ll be right in,” Jorge’s disembodied voice said over the intercom.

  “It creeps me out when he does that,” Lauren said. “He knows we forget he has that thing.” She pointed at the speaker mounted near the ceiling.

  “I heard that,” Jorge said as he came into the room. “Just remember where your favorite guacamole comes from, missy.” He tried to sound mean but burst out laughing at the end. He pulled out a chair and sat down near the middle of the table, then leaned forward before speaking in a quiet voice.

  “I have learned some information about the señorita’s boyfriend, and it is very troubling.”

  The women waited to hear what came next.

  “She is dating her brother.”

  “What?” said Lauren loudly.

  “Shhh,” warned Jorge, pointing at the intercom speaker again. “Not her brother brother. They share no blood, but his father is married to her mother, and they lived under the same roof for a time.”

  “That complicates things,” Harriet whispered.

  “No joke,” Lauren whispered back.

  “We still need to try to reach her,” Connie said. “Even if there’s every probability that she’ll refuse our help and tell us to mind our own business. I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to that girl and we could have prevented it.”

  Mavis put her coat on and picked up her purse.

  “We’ll just have to make sure it doesn’t come to that.”

  “We’ll let you know how it went when we have the cat settled at Mavis’s,” Aunt Beth said as she hurried to gather her own coat and purse and follow her friend out the door.

  Chapter 4

  “Oh, thank you, honey.” Aunt Beth took the cup of tea Harriet offered to her as she sat on the sofa in Harriet’s upstairs TV room.

  “So, how did it go?” Lauren asked from her perch in the overstuffed chair.

  Harriet reclaimed her seat at the opposite end of the sofa, setting her appliqué project back in her lap and picking up her own teacup. She picked up the TV remote and muted the sound.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’m settled. So, how did it go?”

  Aunt Beth frowned. “It was a total bust.”

  “Did you at least get the cat?” Lauren asked.

  “We did get the cat, but that was about all. Sarah wouldn’t talk about her boyfriend, her bruises, what really happened to Rachel, or anything else.”

  “I guess that’s no real surprise,” Harriet said. “If she’d really wanted our help, she would still be coming to quilting. Or she could have called one of us.”

  “I don’t think it works that way,” Aunt Beth said. “If he’s got her brainwashed, she probably doesn’t feel like she can reach out. Having it be her stepbrother makes it even more complicated.”

  “It probably doesn’t help that she works for her family, either,” Harriet mused.

  “So, we’re on to plan B?” Lauren asked.

  Aunt Beth stirred her tea, lost in thought.

  “You know, our plan sounded so simple at lunch, but after talking to, or really, talking at Sarah, I’m not sure there’s any point in Robin trying.”

  “How did she look?” Harriet asked.

  “Terrible. She had a scarf wrapped high around her neck, and she was wearing knitted half-gloves so only her fingertips showed. And they keep that place warm for the old people, even in the reception area.”

  “Back to plan B,” Lauren prompted.

  “I’m not sure there is a plan B,” Aunt Beth said. “My sense is we might have better luck if we could get her away from work, so she won’t feel like the family is so close. We’ll have to put our heads together and think about how we can do that.”

  “Since we can’t solve the problem tonight,” Harriet said. “Lauren and I were going to watch a British murder mystery DVD. Would you like to join us?”

  “Well, I did feed and walk Brownie before I came over to report. I guess I could stay a while.”

  Harriet turned the TV’s volume back on and hit play before setting the remote on the table.


  “Hit pause,” Harriet told Lauren an hour-and-a-half later when her phone rang. “Hello? Connie, is that you? I can’t hear you very well…Yes, Aunt Beth is here with me. Lauren, too.” She listened a few moments before assuring Connie they would be right there.

  “Where are we going?” Lauren asked.

  “To the hospital,” Harriet said as she turned off the television and gathered the empty tea mugs. “Plan B just presented itself. Connie went to drop off a hot dinner for her daughter-in-law, who is working night shift in the ER, and guess who she ran into in the triage area?”

  She led the way downstairs and grabbed her purse and coat.

  “Let me guess,” Lauren said as she put on her own coat and slung her messenger bag over her head and settled it onto her shoulder.

  “Sarah,” Aunt Beth said and followed them to the garage. “How bad is it?”

  “She was sitting in the triage area as opposed to coming in on a stretcher, so it didn’t sound life-threatening. Connie said there were a few other people there, but said we should hurry anyway.”

  “Have you ever gone to the emergency room and gotten out in less that four hours?” Lauren asked.

  “No, but there’s a first time for everything, and it will take us a good thirty minutes to get there,” Harriet said as she turned on the ignition.

  “Stop talking and get driving, then.”

  “Mavis and I just saw her…” Aunt Beth glanced at her watch. “…not four hours ago.”

  “It probably doesn’t take much time for someone to fly into a rage and inflict a lot of damage,” Harriet suggested, turning onto the street.

  “I think this is a case of ‘be careful what you wish for,’” Lauren said.

  Harriet turned to stare at her.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Eyes on the road, missy,” Lauren shot back. “What I mean is, we couldn’t think of a plan B; now we don’t need to. If this doesn’t convince Sarah to make a change, nothing will.”

  “Unfortunately, this isn’t her first trip to the ER,” Aunt Beth said. “If it didn’t convince her the first time she went, she may not be willing to listen to us now.”