Twisted Threads

by Lea Wait

  I wasn’t looking forward to that, but it had to be done.

  We spent the afternoon cleaning up after the crime scene people. They’d been as careful as they could, but they’d emptied the kitchen and bathroom cabinets, and moved all the old cans of paint and turpentine in the barn off Gram’s neat shelves.

  It was logical to take advantage of the mess to sort through the cans and bottles that had found their way into Gram’s house, from cellar to attic, and into her barn. By the time we’d finished, I had more bags and boxes to take to the town dump. And a major headache.

  Gram and I worked silently. The mess that was left reminded both of us that if I wasn’t able to get the money owed the needlepointers, she might have to sell the house. If that happened, we’d have to do a lot of cleanup. The house had been in our family more than two hundred years. I’d never sat and counted how many people had been born, lived, and died here. But I was pretty sure they’d each left something behind: Ghosts? Maybe. For sure, there were old trunks of fabrics saved to be used in quilts. Toys that hadn’t been played with since I’d been a child . . . or even a hundred years before. Garden tools that dated back to at least the 1920s or 1930s. (“They work perfectly well. Why replace them?”) Shelves of empty mason jars that once were filled with tomato sauce and canned vegetables.

  Old houses held stories. And secrets. And although there might be treasures, more likely there was junk. Or, I smiled to myself as I filled cartons for Goodwill with generations of Easter baskets that had been stacked in the barn before the crime scene investigators had thrown them on the ground, Vintage Junque.

  While I loaded cartons for Goodwill into her car, Gram finished going through all her papers. “I’ll have this done today,” she assured me. “Then you can deliver the money. After that, the accounts will be yours to put on your computer, or arrange however you think best. I’ll be here to answer any questions, but I’ll be happy to hand over that part of the business and get back to stitching.”

  I didn’t see any vacations in my near future.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  [Lady Bertram] was a woman who spent her days in sitting nicely dressed on a sofa, doing some long piece of needlework, of little use and no beauty.

  —Jane Austen (1775–1817), Mansfield Park, 1814

  The next morning I picked up the envelopes of cash Gram had divided and marked for each of the needlepointers. But before I made my first delivery, I decided to take care of other unfinished business. I went to the Haven Harbor police station.

  “Could I speak with Sergeant Pete Lambert?”

  I smiled sweetly.

  My charm was not appreciated. “Sergeant Lambert’s out of the office right now.” Stacy, the clerk who’d taken the photo for my permit application a few days before, didn’t even look at me. But she did hand me a minuscule pad of paper and a pencil. “You’re welcome to leave him a note.”

  I wrote, Pete. This is Angie Curtis. Sorry I missed you! Have an idea about my mother’s case. Call me. I added my cell phone number, folded the little paper into something an elf would have been able to carry, and handed it back.

  Stacy unfolded it in front of me, clearly demonstrating that nothing she handled was private.

  “I’ll give it to him when he comes in. But I don’t know when that will be.” Finally she looked at me. “He has a girlfriend, in case you were wondering.” She said it more like a threat than a “between us girls” piece of gossip.

  “Good for him,” I answered. Were so many Haven Harbor women longing for Pete’s attention that she was warning me? Or maybe she was the girlfriend, and hoping to eliminate any potential competition.

  Until that moment I hadn’t thought about Pete Lambert other than he’d done a good job keeping the media away from Gram and me on the day of Mama’s funeral. Now she’d made me curious.

  “Make sure he gets the note. It’s important.”

  I decided to stop at Lauren’s house first. From all accounts she needed the money.

  No one answered the door. A gray-haired woman kneeling on the grass in the next yard called out, “You looking for the Deckers?”

  She wore garden gloves caked with mud and was digging deep holes to plant the bulbs lying next to her on the grass. I knew nothing about gardening except that Gram planted daffodil and crocus bulbs every fall. Thanks to naturalizing, our lawn was a field of purple and white, and then yellow, every spring. I’d missed the flowers this year. Now we had a small field of withering leaves. Our only other gardening attempts I remembered had been a few tomato plants and a row of Black-Seeded Simpson lettuce each year.

  “Looking for Lauren,” I said.

  “She and Caleb left real early this morning. I’d guess they went up to their camp for the weekend,” she said. “They do that pretty regular. Anything I can help with?”

  I shook my head. “I didn’t know they had a camp.” If they were in such bad financial shape, how could they afford a second home?

  “It’s on a lake, north of here. Inherited it from her parents, same way they got this house.” She looked at me. “You’re the daughter of that woman Lauren found in the freezer, right? The one they had the funeral for this past week.”

  “That’s right. Angela Curtis.”

  “Sue Warden. Pleased to meet you.” She started to put her hand out to shake mine; but then she realized she was covered with dirt, so she shrugged. “Sorry about your mother.”

  I nodded in thanks. “What are you planting?”

  “Lilies. They’ll bloom in August, if I’m lucky. This dirt’s rocky, and the season’s short. A lot of lilies don’t make it here. But I keep trying. Daylilies, those big yellow ones, they do fine. But I’m hoping to grow a few of the more exotic Asian ones.”

  She stood up and dusted herself off, which got more dirt on her clothes, as I stared at the house where Lauren and Caleb now lived. I knew it well. I’d visited it many times as a child. Too many times. Brownie meetings had been held there, and I’d often walked home with Lauren when we’d been in the second or third grade. I didn’t remember this neighbor. I turned back to her. “Have you lived here long?”

  “About five years. Seems a good stretch to me, but around here someone who’s only lived in Haven Harbor five years is still considered a newcomer. My husband and I moved up here from Boston after he retired. Beautiful place, the coast of Maine.”

  “It is,” I agreed. “So you were here when Lauren’s parents still owned the house.”

  “Mrs. Greene, her mother, was in pretty bad shape when we got here. Seemed like a nice lady, but you could tell she didn’t have long. After she died, Mr. Greene seemed lost. Guess that happens when a couple has been together for years. He used to come over and talk to me while I was gardening, like you just did. We’d invite him to dinner with us once in a while.”

  “So you’ve known Lauren all this time.”

  “Actually, no. She used to be in and out when her mother was ill. But after that, I didn’t see her. Of course, she had her baby to look after then. Robin was a charmer. And maybe I’m telling tales out of school, but I always thought her dad was lonely and Lauren should have visited him more often. She and Caleb lived in a trailer west of town then, not far away. But maybe she was mourning her mother and her daughter.” She sighed. “That young woman’s had a lot of sadness in her life. But you’d understand that.”

  Lauren had lost a child? I made a mental note to ask Gram about that.

  “I’m surprised Mr. Greene was alone so much. I thought he was active in a lot of town organizations.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe when he was younger. When I knew him, he just puttered around his house. Went to church Sundays, but that was it. Ate down at Harbor Haunts, or picked up fast food at one of those places outside of town. A sad existence, if you ask me. When he told my husband and me he’d taken sick, we wondered if it might have come on because he had nothing left to live for.”

  “Sad,” I said, because that’s what she thought. I
didn’t feel much sympathy for a man who might have shot Mama in the back of her head.

  She looked at me. “After Lauren found your mother’s body—awful for her!—there’s been talk around town that Joe Greene did it. I don’t know how that body got into his freezer, but the Joe Greene I knew wouldn’t have killed anyone. He was a lonely old man.”

  “It was almost twenty years ago,” I pointed out. “People change.”

  “True. Our bodies wear out.” She smiled ruefully. “I won’t be able to garden on my hands and knees many more years. But if we’re lucky, our minds keep going. I think the same way I did twenty years ago, more or less. I suspect Joe Greene was like that. He’d only changed on the outside. And he didn’t seem like a killer to me.”

  “You never know.”

  “Just saying my piece. We’ll probably never know what really happened to your mother. But it’s sad for Lauren that her dad is blamed when he isn’t here to defend himself.”

  I thanked her for her time and headed back to my car. I didn’t feel like hearing good things about Joe Greene, even if I was one of those questioning his guilt. I hadn’t liked the man. But had he been a murderer?

  I glanced at the addresses I’d jotted down at home and then at the time on my cell. It was getting toward lunchtime. I decided to head down to Harbor Haunts for a clam roll and then stop to see Sarah Byrne.

  I was halfway there when my phone rang. It was Pete Lambert.

  “You stopped in today and said you needed to see me?” he asked.

  “Yes. I have an idea you might find helpful,” I answered.

  “I’m in my office now,” he answered.

  “It’s almost time for lunch. I’m on my way to Harbor Haunts. Why don’t you join me there?”

  He was silent for a moment. Then, “Save me a seat.”

  The sought-after Peter Lambert was going to join me. I hoped Stacy, the police department clerk, choked on her words. Politely, of course.

  It wasn’t yet noon, but Harbor Haunts was half full. When you’re the only place in town that serves food year-round, locals love you. And summer people like to eat “where the locals” eat. They didn’t know most of those locals are too busy working at fancier places and at places like the co-op, where I used to work, to eat out during the summer. They didn’t know the menu changed in summer. Just try to find a crabmeat roll or lobster club sandwich from November through April. Locals wanted a good burger, or maybe a haddock sandwich, with fries. If they craved lobster, they got one from a friend who had a license. Or one who didn’t, which was rare. Lobstermen knew whose pots shouldn’t be there. Anyone who tried to drop a few for private use would find their lines cut before the state was notified.

  Not all of Maine is as pretty as the postcards would have people think.

  “Someone’s meeting me,” I said to the very young hostess. I looked in. “Could we have a table near the window?”

  “Sure thing,” she answered, looking me over. She would have been too young to remember me as Jenny Curtis’s daughter who left.

  She handed me a menu. “We’ve got specials. You care?”

  Charming. Charming.

  She looked at my short sleeves and V-necked pale green T-shirt. From her angle she could probably see most of what I’d squeezed into my bra that morning. “Sure you want to sit by the window? There’s a draft there. It’s warmer in the corner.”

  “This will be fine.” I smiled back. I looked around the room. No one else was wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt. Or one that was light green. There were definitely no deep V-necks. People in Haven Harbor dressed differently than those in Mesa, a town caught between downtown Phoenix and Arizona State. Lots of students there; lots of heat. In Mesa my outfit would have fit right in. Today, at home, not so much.

  I ordered a pint of Shipyard and waited.

  My beer arrived before my luncheon date.

  He stood in the door and looked around. I waved.

  “I didn’t recognize you at first,” he said, sliding his long body into the chair across from me. “At the funeral you had on that big hat.”

  I smiled. “I didn’t wear the hat today.”

  “That’s fine. Fine.”

  He was looking at my cleavage, not my head.

  The waitress was back. “Would you like to order now?”

  “I’ll have a clam roll and spicy fries,” I said.

  “Toasted bun, please.”

  “Cheeseburger and fries,” Pete said. “Burger well done. And a cup of coffee.” He looked at my beer apologetically. “I’m on duty.”

  “Luckily, I’m not,” I said.

  “I figured you’d stopped in to ask about your carry permit. I told you, six-month residency.”

  “Couldn’t you talk to someone?”

  “Yeah. I could. But permits are a big deal. It wouldn’t make a difference.” He hesitated. “Is there any reason to think you’re in danger? That you’d need to conceal your weapon?”

  “Some people in town think Joe Greene shot my mother. Some people don’t. I’m in the middle, and I’ve been asking questions. If you ask around, you’ll find I’ve been making a nuisance of myself. Some people might not be happy about that.”

  He shrugged. “So they’re not happy. People in Haven Harbor, though, don’t go around shooting people they’re pissed at.”

  Of course, Mama was that exception.

  So if I wanted to carry my gun, I would. But it would be nice if it were legal.

  “I’ll make a few calls, but don’t count on getting the permit early. Now, what was it you wanted to tell me?”

  “It’s about Joe Greene. I wanted to ask if anyone’d checked whether he’d ever been in legal trouble for any reason.” I reached out and touched Pete’s hand. “I know you weren’t with the department most of the time he was alive. But there might have been talk. Especially after my mother’s body was found.”

  He moved his hand away and straightened up. “I haven’t heard he was ever in any trouble. But I can check it out. Anything in particular?”

  Wide nets caught more fish. “No. I was just wondering if you could check to see if there were any closed files. It would make me feel better.”

  He nodded as the waitress put our food on the table in front of us. “I’ll do that. I will. Maybe it’ll help solve the case.”

  “That’s what I’m hoping for,” I said. “I know murders are officially under the jurisdiction of the state police, but you work with them, right?”

  He nodded.

  “And it would be good for your record if you were to come up with evidence that would help them.”

  He nodded as he chewed. “Couldn’t hurt.” He leaned toward me. “Tell you the truth, I’ve always wanted to be a state trooper. Finding key evidence might be a step in that direction.”

  “Good!” I smiled. “I hope it’ll help.”

  Sergeant Lambert covered his French fries with ketchup.

  My stomach lurched. It looked like blood.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Perhaps there is no single influence which has had more salutary effect in promoting the comforts of home and the respectability of family life throughout the length and breadth of our land than the attention given in our Magazine to illustrations and directions which make needlework and fancyworks in all their varieties known and accessible. Home is the place for such pursuits; by encouraging these, we make women happier and men better.

  —Editorial of Godey’s Magazine and Lady’s Book, January 1864

  After lunch I headed to see the next needlepointer on my list.

  Dave Percy’s house was a small canary yellow Cape, with green shutters and a small dooryard surrounded by a picket fence. If you’d asked me a month ago whether there were any picket fences in Maine, I would have said, “Only in the movies.” Dave proved me wrong.

  I opened the gate, walked up the sea stone walk to his green door, and dropped the brass knocker shaped like a lobster. People really did buy such things.
>
  Dave answered promptly, smiling, with a mug of coffee in hand. “Angie! How nice to see you! Come on in.”

  Dave was about three inches taller than I was. I wondered how old he was. Maybe forty-five? His thick hair and neatly trimmed beard were gray. He walked with a slight limp. I hadn’t noticed that when I’d seen him at the gathering after the funeral.

  He showed me into his living room. I’ll admit, I’d assumed a man living alone would accept a little dust and clutter as part of life. Dave’s house belied that stereotype; it was immaculate. There was a large flat-screen TV in the corner, but the rest of the furniture was comfortable and covered in fabric. Not a leather recliner in sight. A standing embroidery frame, the kind needlepointers used to hold their canvases straight when they’re working on large projects, was next to one of the chairs. Dave was working on a detailed floral design, maybe fifteen by fifteen inches. The background was black, but the shaded pink and red roses and green leaves, which filled the center, incorporated many shades of floss and a bit of gold.

  “This is gorgeous!” I said, walking closer to look at it. “Will it be a framed wall hanging?”

  “No,” he answered. “It’s one of the last commissions Lattimore got for us. It’s a cover for a chair seat cushion.” He pulled out a photograph of a large armchair with a cushion embroidered with the same rose design. “Your grandmother has software than can translate an original design, like the one on this chair, into a pattern. The customer bought a pair of chairs at an auction last summer, and only one still had a cushion. This is for the second chair.”

  “Will it match exactly?” I said, looking from the needlepoint to the photograph.

  “Not absolutely. The earlier embroidery is faded, and has one small worn spot.” He pointed that out in the photo. “But when Jacques stopped in to check the colors for the client, he said the customer planned to put the chairs near windows on opposite sides of the room. He understood they wouldn’t match exactly, but thought the differences wouldn’t be noticed since they wouldn’t be next to each other. Your grandmother and I intentionally chose slightly faded versions of the necessary colors.”