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

by Arlene Sachitano

  “We’re finally done and headed home. The police helped James tape plastic over his window; we should get there in about an hour and a half.”

  “Don’t worry, honey, I went to your house when you called before, and I’ll go again on my way to meet Mavis for dinner. Tell James to drive carefully.”

  Harriet assured her James was an excellent driver and promised to call when she got home.

  “I guess I better make the most of the trip home,” James said when the car was ready to drive and they’d been cleared to leave. “You’re never going to want to go anywhere with me again.” A wry smile crossed his lips before he became serious again. “I had really hoped this was going to be a fun day for you.”

  She reached out and put her hand on his arm. “Hey, this was fun. I’ve never been to a wiener dog race before, much less gotten to hold the star athlete in his starting gate. You had no control over someone breaking into your car.”

  “If you say so.”

  The drive back was a quiet one, and it was full dark by the time James dropped her outside her studio door.

  “Don’t worry,” she said one last time before getting out of the car.

  James rolled down the passenger window.

  “I’ll make this up to you,” he said.

  Harriet waved at him, and he closed the window and drove away .

  Chapter 9

  “Where have you been?” Lauren asked when Harriet opened her studio door. “I’ve been calling you all afternoon. I finally called your aunt, and she told me you went to Bainbridge Island with that cook.”

  “Did she tell you what we were doing?”

  “Ewwweee, too much information.”

  “Don’t be silly. I was holding his wiener…”

  Lauren covered her ears with her hands.

  “La la la la—don’t tell me anymore, I can’t take it.”

  “Oh, stop it. I was helping him race his dog. There was a wiener dog national qualifying race on Bainbridge Island, and his sister was supposed to help, and her kid got sick, and so he asked me to stand in.”

  “Your aunt didn’t say anything about dogs, except Scooter. She mostly said she thought you needed to settle your business with the two men you already have before you added another.”

  “She’s imagining things. Besides, Aiden was at the races, too.”

  “Did you know he was going to be there?”

  “No, and he wasn’t alone. Sarah’s stepsister is interning with him, and she was there helping him.”

  “Did you ask her where Sarah is?”

  “Of course. She made it a point that Sarah isn’t her blood sister and said she had no idea where she is.”

  “Connie checked at the senior center, and she still hasn’t shown up there.”

  “Aiden said he would help us get into the shelter if our curtain ruse doesn’t work.”

  Lauren took her fleece jacket off and threw it onto one of the chairs in the reception area.

  “Are you going to ask me to stay for tea?”

  “Where are my manners?” Harriet led the way into the kitchen and started getting out mugs and tea. “Did you come over for a reason? I mean, I’m happy to have the company, but you don’t usually drop by unannounced for tea at seven-thirty on a Sunday night.”

  “Really? I need an invitation? Or now that you’re juggling three men, I need to call first. Is that it?”

  Harriet put her hands on her hips and stared at her.

  “It’s only two, and I’m not even juggling them at the moment.”

  Lauren laughed. “Okay, you got me. I do have an ulterior motive.” She paused.

  “Hmmm, I’m getting the feeling I’m not going to like this plan, whatever it is.”

  “Give it a chance.” Lauren paced across the kitchen and back.

  “Spit it out. The tension is killing me.”

  “Okay, I say after we have our tea and whatever treat you’re going to dig out of that cabinet, we go to Sarah’s cabin.”

  “I knew I wasn’t going to like it.”

  Lauren took the mug Harriet handed her and dipped the tea bag up and down.

  “Do you still have the key from the other night?”

  “No, I gave it back to her while she was at the senior center.”

  “We could go have a look anyway. If she’s there, she’ll let us in. If not, we could poke around a little.”

  “I’m not going to break into Sarah’s house. She’s just the sort that would press charges against us, even though we were trying to help her.”

  “You think?”

  “I know. Besides, what if Seth is there with her? He’s not dumb enough to fall for our lame excuses. He already knows we don’t like him. What if he takes it out on her? We could be making things worse.”

  “I guess.” She took a sip of her tea. “Don’t you have anything tasty in your snack cupboard?”

  “I haven’t had time to snack shop.” Harriet pulled out her nearly empty box of ginger snaps. “This is as good as it gets.” She rattled the box.

  Lauren reached out for it.

  “Better than nothing.”

  She took the box and her cup of tea to the kitchen table and sat down. Harriet joined her.

  “I wish I could think of something we could do for Sarah that didn’t involve kidnapping or breaking-and-entering, but with her family so firmly in place, it’s going to be hard.”

  “I got nothing, if we can’t bend the law a little.”

  “Are you making any progress on your Pratt family background checks?”

  “Howard seems to have had several ex-wives who are curiously dead before their time. I’m still digging on Seth, but I think he’s running an internet discount prescription drug business. Based on Connie’s suspicions, he may be getting his drugs from illicit sources, but I can’t make a direct connection on that yet. I’ll keep digging until I can prove it one way or the other.”

  Fred came into the kitchen and meowed loudly.

  “Don’t even try it. Aunt Beth told me she fed you at five o’clock. And she gave you some bites of sliced chicken as a treat, since you had to spend the day alone.”

  Fred poked his nose in the air, swished his tail forcefully and left the room.

  “He’s got an attitude prob—” Lauren was cut off by the kitchen phone ringing.

  “Hello?” Harriet said. “Hello” She flicked the speaker phone button so Lauren could hear the conversation and looked at the caller ID. “Sarah? What’s wrong?”

  “Help me,” said a rasping voice. “Help me.”

  The phone went dead.

  “Come on.”

  Harriet grabbed her fleece, purse and keys from the kitchen closet. Lauren jumped up and pulled her jacket on, slinging her messenger bag over her shoulder.

  “Did she say where she is?”

  “According to caller ID, she’s at the cabin.

  Lauren veered toward her car. “I’ll drive.”

  Harriet got in the passenger seat, and Lauren tore out of the driveway like her hair was on fire.

  “It won’t help Sarah if we end up in the river,” Harriet protested.

  “Oh, hush. I took the adult race-driving course at the speedway in Monroe. I’m certified.”

  “If you say so,” Harriet said, grabbing onto the edges of her seat.

  “Do you think we should call nine-one-one?”

  “Let’s wait until we get there and see what’s going on. If Sarah’s been attacked but was able to call me, she’d be able to call the police or an ambulance.”

  “Do you think she would, though? She seems weirdly protective of that creep.”

  Cloud cover meant the night was dark, and as they sped away from neighborhoods with porch and street lights, it got even darker. Lauren slowed to a crawl as she approached the road that led up to the cabin.

  “I’m going to pull off at the bottom of the drive,” she whispered.

  “I don’t think they can hear us in the car,” Harriet whispered
back.

  “I’m getting ready. We don’t know what we’re going to face.”

  “Sarah sounded really desperate. I hope Seth took off.”

  “People like him are usually cowards. They never pick on someone their own size.”

  Harriet opened her door as Lauren stopped the car. She pulled a penlight from her purse and flicked it on. Its weak light did little to illuminate the night.

  Lauren came around to stand by her.

  “Do you think we should we go around the back and look in the windows first?”

  “No, she called us asking for help. We’re going in the front door.”

  With that, she led the way up the drive and onto the cabin’s porch. A dark-colored cat jumped from the bench and slithered away into the night.

  “I hope that was a cat and not a skunk or possum,” Lauren whispered.

  Harriet tapped on the door; when no one answered, she knocked again, harder.

  “Sarah?” she called then listened. “Did you hear that?”

  Lauren leaned past her and pounded on the door. They listened.

  “Help,” cried a weak voice.

  Harriet opened the unlocked door and went in.

  “Sarah?”

  No one was in the living room. Lauren stepped toward the kitchen then shook her head.

  Bedroom, Harriet mouthed.

  An unearthly wail came from that direction, and Harriet dropped all pretense of stealth and ran the last few steps to the room. Lauren slammed into Harriet’s back as she followed; Harriet stood frozen in the doorway.

  “Sarah, what happened? Are you okay?”

  “What’s wrong?” Lauren asked. “Why aren’t we going in?”

  Harriet leaned to one side, and Lauren gasped.

  “I think we better call the police.” Harriet finally moved into the room, stepping carefully to the end of the bed.

  Sarah bent over Seth’s lifeless body; where she lay beside him, tears falling onto his limp form. He lay on his back with his arms flung wide; not a position someone would ordinarily choose for sleeping, but with the amount of blood soaked into the Baltimore album quilt underneath him there was no possibility of his being asleep—or alive.

  “Sarah,” Harriet said softly. She reached out and put her hands on Sarah’s shoulders, examining her for evidence of further injuries. “Come on,” she said and pulled, trying to get her away from the lifeless body beside her.

  “What happened, Sarah?” Lauren asked in a surprisingly gentle voice. She moved to the other side of the bed, carefully avoiding the body, and helped push Sarah toward Harriet. “I’ve called the police, so you need to tell us before they get here.”

  “You called the police?” Sarah cried. “They’ll arrest me!”

  Harriet eased her into sitting on the edge of the bed—she couldn’t tell if Sarah was able to stand on her own. She looked at the nearby chair and gauged the distance but wasn’t sure she could get Sarah that far away from her fiancé’s body.

  “Did Seth hit you again?” A purple bruise was blossoming across Sarah’s left temple, a large lump forming under the bruise. The hardware sticking out of her cast was twisted at an unlikely angle. Sarah nodded and cried out in pain at the movement.

  “I didn’t kill him,” she whispered.

  “Can you tell us what did happen?” Harriet asked her.

  Sarah shuddered.

  “Lauren, see if there’s ice in the refrigerator.”

  Lauren returned a moment later with a blue ice pack wrapped in a kitchen towel.

  “Here.” Harriet held it gently against Sarah’s temple. “Now, can you tell us what happened?” She tried to keep her focus on Sarah so she didn’t have to look at Seth.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know, Sarah? If we’re going to help you, you need to tell us exactly what happened. And if I’m not mistaken, that’s a police siren we’re hearing.”

  Sarah sighed and began to cry. Harriet rubbed a hand in circles on her back.

  “I was going to go to the shelter, but I needed to get a few things from here, in case I didn’t get to come back. I called a cab to bring me here. I had some pain pills from before, so I took two—my hand hurt so bad. I got sleepy, and the next thing I knew, Seth was waking me up. I’d slept for hours.

  “He made me a smoothie, and then he brushed my hair.” She glanced at his supine body. “Seth could be really sweet. He said we could start over, forget about all this.” Sarah looked down at her damaged arm.

  Lauren rolled her eyes skyward but kept quiet.

  “Go on,” Harriet encouraged.

  “I need a lot of help right now. It’s hard to take a shower or button a blouse or open food containers. And it was impossible to cook.”

  “He expected you to cook?” Lauren blurted.

  Harriet held her hand up.

  “Go on.”

  “Tonight, he was tired. My injury, his job, everything. He came home in a bad mood. Nothing made him happy. He said he couldn’t sleep here. He said I cried in the night. He said he was going somewhere else, and he wouldn’t tell me where. He told me I better not try to call him.

  “I just asked him if he could help me wrap my arm in plastic before he left so I could shower. He said that was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and then he…he…he must have hit me. He was yelling, and then the next thing I knew, I woke up, and he was…” She looked back at his body.

  The sirens were getting louder. The police had to be climbing the last part of the hill.

  Harriet stood up. “Do you own a gun?”

  “Or does Seth?” Lauren added.

  “No,” Sarah said with a sob. “Why would you even think that?”

  The dead body lying beside you, Harriet thought, but she didn’t say it out loud.

  “Was anyone else here? Or did anyone else ever come here while you lived here with Seth?”

  Sarah shook her head slightly as she cried.

  “He wasn’t big on friends. He said we didn’t need anyone but each other.”

  “If you didn’t kill him, someone else must have been here,” Harriet pressed, but Sarah was spared having to reply by the arrival of the police.

  She stood up and walked around the bed to the spot where Seth must have been standing before he’d fallen on the bed. She looked around while Lauren sat beside Sarah.

  She pulled the curtain aside with her flashlight, being careful not to touch anything, and exposed a broken windowpane. Glass littered the floor. She coughed, and Lauren made eye contact then looked at the window.

  “Sarah, honey.” Lauren gently rubbed Sarah’s uninjured hand. “How did your hardware get so mangled? Did Seth push you into the window?”

  “No…yes…I don’t know what happened.” Sarah started crying again.

  Harriet came back around to Sarah’s side as someone came in the front door.

  “We’re back here,” she called out, and two paramedics she didn’t recognize came into the bedroom. She moved out of the way so they could verify Seth’s demise and tend to Sarah.

  Lauren had called nine-one-one, but she’d also called Jane Morse. Detective Morse arrived at the same time as the uniformed officers.

  “You two, outside,” she ordered. “Wait for me on the porch. Don’t touch anything or go anywhere. And please tell me you didn’t touch anything in the house.”

  “We touched Sarah,” Harriet said.

  “I got an ice pack from the kitchen for the bump on Sarah’s head.”

  One of the paramedics hustled out, returning with the gurney from their ambulance.

  “We need to transport the woman,” he said to Morse in passing; and, true to his word, a few minutes later, he and his partner wheeled Sarah out the front door.

  Lauren zipped her fleece and sat down on the porch bench.

  “What do you think happened?”

  Harriet joined her, sitting on the other end of the bench.

  “That is the sixty-
four thousand dollar question, isn’t it? We better tell the rest of the Threads what’s happened.” She pulled her cell phone from her pocket. “I’ve got a couple of bars. I’ll call Aunt Beth and Mavis. You start with Robin and Connie. They can all spread the word.”

  She touched the phone icon and started dialing.

  Chapter 10

  “So, where has Sarah been all this time?” Mavis asked when the majority of the Threads were assembled around the table in Harriet’s dining room. Jorge came from the kitchen, a coffee pot in one hand and a teapot in the other, followed by Aunt Beth carrying a tray of mugs.

  Lauren leaned toward Harriet, who was sitting beside her at the table.

  “Did Jorge become a Loose Thread while we were gone?”

  “I heard that, señorita,” Jorge said and poured tea into the mug Beth set on the table in front of Robin. “If you must know, Beth was helping me laminate the pages of my new menu. The pages lace into the covers and some of the laces were broken. She found some gold cord to replace them, and we were at the restaurant putting them back together when Harriet called, so tonight you get the two for the price of one special.”

  “You should be happy he’s here,” Beth told them. “He’s been experimenting all day with a new tres leches cake recipe, and he brought three of the test cakes with him.”

  Lauren leaned forward. “Welcome to the Loose Threads, Jorge. You need me to get plates?”

  “That would be very helpful,” he said with a smile.

  “I’m going to have a heart attack right here at this table if somebody doesn’t tell us something right now,” Mavis said when everyone had a piece of cake and a mug of their chosen drink in front of them. Harriet noted that even the diet-conscious Robin had accepted a sliver of cake.

  She stood up behind her chair.

  “We found Sarah, and it’s not good. She was at her cabin—with a very dead Seth.”

  Connie gasped, “Diós mio.”

  Carla put her hand over her mouth.

  DeAnn set her mug down on the table after taking a sip.

  “What happened?”

  “We’re not sure,” Harriet said. “Sarah was a mess, as you might expect. She says she doesn’t know what happened. She has a big knot on her temple and that hardware in her hand was all mangled. Seth was mad at her, he probably hit her hard enough to knock her unconscious, then she woke up with him bleeding out.”