Twisted Threads

by Lea Wait

  Ethan answered on the first ring. “Trask. Maine State Police.”

  “Ethan? It’s Angie Curtis. I wondered if you had any new leads about my mother’s murder.”

  “I haven’t. No. Although I do have a few things I’d like to talk over with you.” He paused. “And I’d like to ask your grandmother about Jacques Lattimore.”

  “Lattimore? Why do you need to know about him?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “I know. And he was a thief. He cheated Gram’s business out of thousands of dollars. That’s all you need to know about him.”

  “He was at your home yesterday afternoon.”

  “He was. He collapsed here and we followed the ambulance to the hospital. We were there when he died.”

  “Then I need to talk with you both. Will you be at home in about an hour?”

  “We could be.” When state police called, it was good to be available. Plus, I wouldn’t mind seeing Ethan again.

  “Make sure you are. I’ll see you then.”

  I walked back to the living room. “Ethan Trask is coming here. He wants to talk to both of us, Gram.”

  She sighed. “I wish he’d close that investigation into your mother’s death. It was nineteen years ago. We may never know why, but Joe Greene certainly looks like the guilty party.”

  “Ethan doesn’t just want to talk to us about Mama. He wants to talk about Jacques Lattimore.”

  “Jacques? Why would the Maine State Police care about Jacques?”

  “Ethan didn’t say. Maybe they have information about him,” I said. “If he cheated Mainely Needlepoint, chances are he cheated other small crafting companies, too.”

  Sarah got up. “I’ll leave you two, then. I need to open my store. I actually came to find out if you’d agreed to stay and help us, Angie. And to tell you both I’ve been doing investigating of my own.” She glanced from one of us to the other. “Oh, no. Not about a murder or anything like that. Sorry! I’ve been checking into cleaning that sampler I brought over the other day. Finding out whether or not it should be repaired. After I removed it from its frame, I looked at it carefully, and talked to several people knowledgeable about such things. I think I’ll be able to clean the fabric if I do it carefully, but I won’t touch the stitching. Then I’ll line the back with a thin support fabric to stabilize it and keep it from deteriorating anymore.”

  “You know,” I thought out loud. “Helping people identify and protect old needlepoint might be a sideline for Mainely Needlepoint. I suspect a lot of old samplers are in Maine homes. Probably other types of needlework, too, that people inherited and have treasured, but don’t know how to conserve.”

  “‘Conserving.’ That’s exactly the right word,” Sarah agreed. “And if we could provide any information about the piece—provenance, if possible—the needlework would be a lot more valuable. We might even be able to learn a little about the person who stitched it. I’ve been reading about the schools that wealthy New England girls went to, where they learned needlepoint, in the first half of the nineteenth century. Samplers done by students at the same school have similarities. I found books that picture many of them and include information about the schools.”

  “So there’s source information available?” I said. “That’s good news.”

  “See, Charlotte?” said Sarah. “Your clever granddaughter is already coming up with new angles for Mainely Needlepoint. I knew she’d be perfect for the job!” She turned toward the door. “In the meantime I should get back to my store, and my stitching. ‘Till then—dreaming I am sewing.’” She winked at me. “Emily wrote that.”

  “Wait and see,” I put in. “I haven’t even been on the job twenty-four hours. It’s a little early to rush to judgment.” But the idea of researching—investigating—the heritage of old needlepoint pieces and conserving them appealed to me. I doubted I’d ever become a master needlepointer myself. But I knew how to do research. Investigating the history of a piece of needlepoint couldn’t be as complicated as finding a missing person.

  And it shouldn’t require a gun. . . .

  Which I needed to get a Maine permit for. It looked as though, at least for the next six months, I’d be a Maine resident.

  Was I really ready to come back to, literally, the scene of the crime?

  I looked up at a framed picture Gram had stood on the mantelpiece. A photograph of Mama and me taken a few months before she’d disappeared.

  People who’d stopped me at the funeral were right. We did look alike. And we had those identical birthmarks few people had known about.

  Were we alike in other ways? I shook my head, chasing the thought away.

  I wasn’t like Mama. Not in the important ways.

  A friend of Mama’s had taken that picture, down on Pocket Cove Beach.

  Mama had woken me up early and announced it was too beautiful a spring day for me to go to school. She was declaring a holiday.

  We’d spent the whole day together, climbing on the rocks by the lighthouse. Searching for starfish and baby sea urchins in tide pools. Making patterns in the sand with our toes. The water had been frigid, but Mama hadn’t cared. She’d waded out with my pail to bring back clear water for the turreted sand castle we’d built and decorated with tiny mussel shells and salty rockweed and sparkling sea glass. I’d cried when the tide turned and the waves lapped at our walls, but she’d helped me collect the shells and glass we’d used so we could take them home. “They’re all memories, Angie. You don’t lose memories.”

  I smiled, remembering. I hadn’t lost them. That day seemed as clear to me now as it had then. By lunchtime we’d both been wet and sandy. We’d sat in the sun on benches overlooking the harbor and shared a pint of fried clams. We’d been happy.

  I’d begged for a strawberry ice-cream cone, my favorite flavor. She’d ordered one with chocolate chips for herself. We were eating our ice-cream cones and laughing, ice cream dripping down our hands, when a friend of hers I hadn’t known stopped to talk. He’d taken that picture before we’d headed home, where Gram had shaken her head, and headed me toward the bathtub. Mama had stayed on the porch, sitting in our hammock, swinging her bare sandy feet, talking to her friend.

  That day we were like two children, playing together. I grew up, Mama, I said silently to her. And I promise I’m going to find out what happened to you.

  Sure, Mama’d been in a lot of relationships. Some good, I hoped. Some probably not. The question was: Did she slam the door behind her when they were over, or did she leave the door ajar? Had someone from her past walked back in?

  I wished I could ask her.

  Meanwhile, Gram was calling the other needlepointers to tell them Jacques Lattimore had died. And I’d agreed to be the director of Mainely Needlepoint.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Useful and ornamental needlework, knitting, and netting are capable of being made not only sources of personal gratification, but of high moral benefit, and the means of developing in surpassing loveliness and grace some of the highest and noblest feelings of the soul.

  —The Ladies’ Work-Table Book, 1845

  Ethan Trask sat at the head of our kitchen table. He looked serious, even for a Maine State Trooper.

  “Coffee?” The new electric coffeemaker I’d bought was now plugged in on the kitchen counter. It was the shiniest appliance in the room.

  He shook his head. “I had an early lunch. With caffeine.”

  “You wanted to talk with us,” I said. “With both of us.” Gram reached down to scratch Juno behind her left ear.

  “That’s right.” Ethan looked from one of us to the other. “I’m sorry, ladies. I realize this has been a rough week for you.”

  “Life’s hard, young man. Whatever you’ve got to say, get on with it.” Gram and I both sensed that whatever Ethan had to say wouldn’t be good.

  His eyes were sea blue. But today they were shrouded. Looking at them was like looking into cold, dark waters. He wasn’t smiling as he checked his no
tes. “According to Haven Harbor Hospital, Jacques Lattimore was brought by ambulance to their emergency room last night from your home.”

  “That’s no secret. The man was sick. He started throwing up and then he had a seizure. We weren’t going to let him lie on the floor of our bathroom. Of course, we called for help,” Gram said.

  “I understand that, ma’am. You did the right thing. And you know Mr. Lattimore is now deceased?”

  “He’s dead. Yes. We went to the hospital last night and finally one of the doctors there told us.”

  Ethan nodded, referring to his notes. “And you don’t know who his next of kin might be.”

  “No clue. That scoundrel was no relative of ours.” Gram was playing this a little heavy. I wondered if she’d acted this way with the police after Mama had disappeared.

  “How had you known him?”

  “He was the agent for Mainely Needlepoint. But he hadn’t been paying up the money he owed us. Last night he paid us some, and we fired him.” Gram looked over at me and nodded.

  “That’s why he was here yesterday afternoon? To pay you money he owed?”

  “That’s right.” Gram didn’t mention how he’d gotten here. I had the feeling that question was coming next.

  Sure enough: “Did Mr. Lattimore have a car? How did he get here?”

  My turn. I smiled sweetly, hoping to get Ethan to lighten up a bit. “I drove him here.”

  “From his home?”

  “No. I heard he might be at the Cambridge Casino, so that’s where I went. I found him there. A little the worse for scotch, but at the blackjack table. I drove him to a room he’d rented, so he could pick up his records of Mainely Needlepoint accounts, and then I brought him back here.” I thought for a moment. “He left his car at the casino.”

  “Can you give me his address?” He passed me a small notebook and I wrote it down. “I’ll check with the casino about his car. And I’ll try to find any relatives he might have, to let them know of his death.”

  “All I know was, once he told me he was born in Waterville,” said Gram.

  Ethan wrote that down. “Waterville. That might be helpful.”

  “If you don’t mind my asking, why is a Maine State Trooper concerned with the death of a needlepoint business agent? Seems to me you should be working on cases a little more serious. Like my daughter’s murder.” Gram had laid out what I’d been thinking.

  “Well, it appears we have a couple of issues with Mr. Lattimore. First, as I’ve mentioned, we need to find his next of kin to notify them of his death. And, then, there’s the possibility he didn’t die of natural causes.”

  Ethan was sitting as though he was at attention, showing no emotion. What had happened to the friendly Ethan I’d talked to on my first day home?

  “What?” I said, practically jumping out of my chair. “The man wasn’t young. He looked almost emaciated. He drank, and he hung out at a casino. All that happened was he started throwing up, like he had the flu. Anyone could have the flu. Then he had a seizure. I don’t know what you’re thinking, but just because a man gets sick in this house doesn’t mean we had anything to do with it!”

  “I didn’t say you did,” Ethan said, still not smiling. “And until we get the autopsy results, we won’t know more. But the doctor at the hospital said vomiting and seizures don’t usually come together. And Lattimore’s pupils were dilated. You said he’d been drinking. He also could have been using drugs—maybe amphetamines.” Ethan looked from one of us to the other. “Or he could have been poisoned.”

  I’d had enough. “You’re accusing my grandmother of poisoning him?”

  “You told me he cheated her and her friends. That’s motive. But”—he raised his eyebrows and looked at me—“you were the one who brought him here to Haven Harbor. You were with him the longest period of time. Did he eat or drink anything while he was with you?”

  I shook my head. “He drank scotch at the casino. After that, nothing, until he got here.”

  “And what did he have to eat or drink here?”

  You got me there.

  “I don’t know. I was in the kitchen.”

  “Where was Lattimore?”

  “He was in the living room with me, and with the others who do needlepoint for hire. He seemed perfectly fine. I remember he had at least two cups of tea. He may have had a cookie or two, or a scone. We were all eating,” Gram said.

  “Who else was here?”

  “Lauren Decker, Dave Percy, Ob Winslow, Ruth Hopkins, Katie Titicomb, and Sarah Byrne. All fine people,” Gram said decisively. “Not a murderer among ’em.”

  “And all people he cheated.”

  “True enough. But he’d come to apologize and pay back part of the money he owed. Heavens, Ethan, none of us would have killed him!”

  He nodded. “Maybe not. We’ll wait to see what the autopsy says. In the meantime I’ll find out what I can about the man. Maybe he had a seizure disorder, and the combination of the liquor and his own meds interacted. I hope that’s what they find. Neither of us wants another murder connected to your family. But that’s up to the medical examiner to decide.”

  “You’re still working on my mother’s case,” I reminded him.

  “I am,” said Ethan. “So no one will be surprised to see me in Haven Harbor if I stick around for a few more days. I shouldn’t even have told you ladies Lattimore’s cause of death is being questioned. But I thought maybe you’d have seen or heard something that would help explain what happened.”

  Gram’s tone was calm, but she was clearly furious. “The man was here. The man died. Not every death has to be someone’s fault. People do up and die sometimes. No one else who was here yesterday got sick or died. He wasn’t a young man, you know.”

  “According to the driver’s license in his wallet, he was seventy-one. And people do die of natural causes. That may be what happened. But in the meantime, until we’re sure about that, would you make a list of any food he might have eaten while he was here? And who prepared it. And served it.”

  Gram grudgingly took the pencil he handed her and started writing. When she’d finished, she handed the pad back to him. “So, Ethan Trask, you’re going to spend more time with us in Haven Harbor.”

  “I’ll bunk in with my mom and dad. They keep a bed made for me.” He finally smiled.

  “Won’t your wife miss you?” I said, looking at the gold ring on his left hand.

  “My wife’s serving in Afghanistan,” he answered. “My little girl, Emmie, and I—we’re living with her parents for the time being. They help out with her when I’m on duty. If I work down here, I bring Emmie along and my parents have a turn making a fuss over her. That little girl has four devoted grandparents, for sure.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know about your wife,” I said, embarrassed. He was not only married, but he was a father. Why did he have to be so darn good-looking? Probably honest and trustworthy, too. What people always say about all the good men being taken . . .

  “You’ve been away, like you told me last time we talked. There’s a lot you don’t know about Haven Harbor today,” he pointed out.

  And a lot none of us knew about in Haven Harbor’s past. And now Lattimore might have been murdered.

  It was time to revisit what was happening in Haven Harbor nineteen years ago.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Methinks it is a token of healthy and gentle characteristics when women of high thoughts and accomplishments love to sew; especially as they are never more at home with their own hearts while so occupied.

  —Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864), The Marble Faun, 1860

  Ethan opened another file and turned to Gram. “Mrs. Curtis, you reported your daughter missing on a Wednesday morning. You told the police officer you hadn’t seen her since Sunday afternoon.”

  “That’s right,” Gram said.

  “That was two and a half days later. Why did you wait to go to the police?”

  “I’ve been over this so
many times, Ethan. Isn’t that in your records?”

  “It is. But a lot of time has passed since this case was active. I’d like to hear what you think now.” When talking about his little girl, he’d relaxed some. Now he was definitely back in law enforcement mode.

  “I think exactly what I thought then. You’ve heard my daughter wasn’t the most reliable person. She sometimes stayed out all night, or even left for a couple of days, without letting me know.” Gram’s lips tightened. “I loved my daughter, but she wasn’t an easy person to live with.”

  “Knowing that, what made you call the police Wednesday to report her missing? Why not wait another day or two?”

  “Because for all her faults, and I’m sure you have pages of notes on those, my daughter loved Angie, here, very much. Jenny might be late to a job, or call in sick when she’d partied too much, but she kept her commitments to her daughter.”

  “Is that so, Angie?”

  I’d never thought about it that way, but Gram was right. Mama didn’t tell us where she was going or with whom. But if I were in a school play or she’d promised to take me fishing, she’d be there. Not always dressed like the other parents, and sometimes with an attitude that annoyed other adults, especially other women, but always there for me.

  “Yes. Mama kept her promises to me. Always.”

  “And she’d made a promise to you that week?”

  “Before she left Sunday afternoon, she’d said she was looking forward to seeing me fly up. I told you that the other day.”

  Ethan frowned. “‘Fly up’?”

  “It’s a Girl Scout tradition. A ceremony when you graduate from being a Brownie and become a Junior Scout.” I smiled, remembering. “I was really excited about it. We had to recite the Girl Scout Laws and Promise. Mama had been helping me memorize them.”

  “I guess I have to look forward to that with Emmie.” Evan’s soft spot was clearly his little girl.

  I nodded. “Our troop made a big deal of it. A junior troop was going to be there to greet us as we crossed over a little bridge we’d built. We’d each make a wish and then get our Girl Scout pins and sash. Our parents were invited. Mama hadn’t usually helped with our Brownie troop, but she’d promised to come to the ceremony and bring a contribution for the refreshment table.”