But why was he so interested in the expensive sports jacket that had been ordered recently for Paul Dotson, a man who had disappeared two years ago, and the golden threads that were found inside the pockets and under the collar of that jacket? What possible connection could there be between Eric Williams and this mystery?
eighteen
The golden threads were on Laura’s mind at lunch.
Golden threads.
Eric Williams had asked about the sports jacket and if anyone had followed up with the clothing designer on the golden threads that had been found inside it. She could have kicked herself, if that were possible, for not checking with Connor on that. Everything else had been asked and inquired about, but not the threads.
She made a sandwich and sat down with her laptop in the kitchenette to do some homework on the designer. Gems by Jem had a simple website with little details other than a few comments on her exclusive designs and restricted clientele. Not much luck there. There was a page that vaguely described the types of patented threads woven into her garment designs, again, nothing that would point to a specific thread or process, presumably so it couldn’t be copied. It made Laura wonder who at the bank would have had the money to purchase anything from Jem’s shop in Minneapolis.
Maybe the person who did the embezzling or moved the funds around to look like embezzling? She may have to rethink her suspicions about what may have happened at the bank because if someone was buying expensive clothing such as the hand-tailored sports jacket or a garment from Gems by Jem, there may actually have been money taken. She just hadn’t figured that part out yet. But if that were the case, why hadn’t the bank pursued the missing funds? And the FBI investigation? Why had it stopped?
She looked more closely at the few designs on the website, most of which were only partially displayed. When she clicked on the “About Jem” page, she learned that Jem designed and sold originals only. That meant there was not one of these expensive garments in a range of sizes on a rack in any store anywhere. Each one was specially made to order. Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian would each have a unique design, and nobody would have the same design anywhere else in the world.
So who had ordered the garment from which the threads in the jacket had come? Logic told Laura that if the jacket was for the missing man from the bank, there had to be a connection with the missing funds. And if there was a woman who was also missing from her job at the bank from which funds were thought to have been embezzled, and if Jem only designed for women, there might also be a connection between the missing man, the missing woman, the sports jacket, the golden threads, and the supposed missing money.
Her head began to throb. There was a heap of clues here, if only she could piece them all together. The dots just weren’t in the right array yet. But there were too many coincidences for her not to know she was on the right trail or that all of these things weren’t connected in some way.
Laura tried a different tack and looked up gold threads and any special processing required. The Internet had way more information about metallic threads and fibers than she ever wanted to know. Once she got into the preparation of the fibers, she read how actual threads could be created from heating metals, such as gold, until they vaporized and were then captured, coating various cores that ranged from polyester to aluminum. Jem had to use one of these processes and one of the cores. It was an expensive manufacture, and that was likely the reason for the high cost of Jem’s designs.
She sat back and tried to imagine real gold covering her body and not just a ring on a finger or a bracelet or necklace. Gold threads and fibers woven into a blouse, a dress, a sweater, a gown. Draped in shimmering gold. Flowing sparkles everywhere. With every step and all eyes on her.
Then she looked down at her machine-washable sweater and noticed chocolate crumbs from her one-half of a brownie dessert. She tried to lightly pick them off the sweater, but one left a tiny smear. So much for wearing golden fibers.
She texted Connor to see if he could stop by after work.
The door opened after lunch to another crowd wanting to partake of the St. Patrick’s Day celebratory items and activities in Second Treasures. Small children lined up for their photos in the leprechaun cutouts and Laura moved her small printer from the back room to the counter where she could take pictures and print them for the children.
“I want to show my granny this picture so she can put it in our fam’ly album,” one small boy said.
His comment reminded Laura that she had her own work to do on both the Keene and Rage family albums, not to mention the family histories she had neglected the past week. But there was no time for her even to think about it other than in passing. Bag after bag of green-colored, caramel-coated popcorn was purchased, Jenna’s tote bags flew off the shelves, and the staple teacups and saucers continued to go, along with boxes of real green teas. Framed Irish proverbs and curses were rung up and bagged over and over, along with green t-shirts until all of a sudden she heard the door bells jangle once more and squeals of delight from the children.
She looked up to see Connor in the doorway. It took her back to that first day her shop had opened last fall and he had come to see her…after eleven years had passed. She blinked and it was the present, and the children swarmed him, many remembering him from tours of the police station and his visits to the pre- and elementary schools.
They tugged at him.
“Sergeant Fitzpatrick! Come take your picture with me!”
More called out to him, and he scooted down behind the leprechaun frame and poked his face through the taller cutout, for every child who asked him. Laura dutifully took all the pictures and printed them. Then she saw the other flashes. Charlie Kovacs had come to see what all the fuss was about and taken his own pictures for the newspaper of the store, its wares and crowds.
When Connor finally straightened and the children were all satisfied with their pictures, some still pulled at his hands and sleeves. He picked up a couple of them, while others clung to his long legs.
“Is that your gun?”
“Can I hold your gun?”
“I want a badge like yours!”
“How come you wear a cowboy hat?”
When the crowd finally thinned in late afternoon, Laura closed up for a break. Both Connor and Charlie were still there.
“Follow me; I’ll make some fresh coffee and sandwiches, if either of you missed lunch, but it’s just a quick break.”
Laura listened to their conversation while she prepared the meal.
“You were a hit, Connor,” Charlie commented.
“I just wish we could have a longer impact as they grow older. Peer pressure’s too great sometimes. I want to do more so they’ll trust us when they’re a little older and see that we’re on their side in times of doubt.”
“You did a lot with the pictures today. They loved it,” Laura said over her shoulder, priming the press with warm water.
Connor shook his head.
“I just wish it would last.”
“It’s the immature brains that growing children have,” she added. “They can’t help but doubt when they see something they want and are told they can’t have.”
“Now you sound like your mother,” Charlie put in.
“It’s true,” she said, pulling out the sandwich fixings. “I want there to be a better way for kids to grow up, but I’m not sure there is. Think about it. We tell a two-year-old who’s walking and running and starting to talk to slow down, don’t touch that, be quieter. We tell middle-schoolers who are ready to explore the world to be careful of strangers, be careful of our own friends, and watch out for danger everywhere. We tell high-schoolers who think they’re adults that they can’t go places and do things because they’re too young—”
Laura realized they were watching her wave around her knife and not put the sandwiches together.
Connor rose, washed his hands, took the knife from her.
“I’ll finish these while you talk.”
“My God,” Charlie repeated. “She really sounds just like her mother. And I wasn’t talking about her voice.”
“There’s nothing you can do, Connor, more than you already are. You will touch a few, and it will stick,” Laura continued, working on the coffee press. She poured them each a mug, then pulled out the plastic tub of fresh brownies from the fridge.
Connor was serving sandwiches on plates and spotted the brownies—or perhaps he smelled them—before she pulled off the lid.
“Think of something else or another activity that will help me bond some more.”
“Do the dunk-tank at the Fourth of July and Founders Day celebration,” Charlie suggested.
Connor’s silence was abrupt but brief.
“No.”
“Oh, Charlie, that’s a great idea!” Laura said. “Yes, Connor. You’d have all the young girls in Raging Ford flocking to watch you, not to mention all those boys who would pitch balls to dunk you. Think of the money!”
“No.”
The conversation continued between Laura and Charlie Kovacs about the dunk tank and Connor’s potential draw and the money the New Library would make on all those tickets while Connor silently ate his lunch until he finished, reached for a brownie, and finally spoke.
“You put the butterscotch chips in these. I like that.”
Then Laura remembered the little boy’s comment about his family’s photo album.
“Oh, Charlie, is that old photography studio still in operation? What was his name—Milkens or Pilkins or something?”
“Michael Pickens. Yes, still in business. Although a younger cousin by a few generations runs the business these days. Denny Something.”
“I was close,” Laura defended herself. “Mom used to say if I ever wanted to see a good picture of Samuel Rage or any of his relatives, they would have the negatives or at least some of the old photos dry mounted. Do you think they still do?”
Charlie nodded.
“I know they do. I use them myself when we do stories around the Fourth of July when we co-celebrate the town’s history. Anything in particular you’re looking for?”
Laura was acutely aware that Connor was hanging on her every word as he devoured another brownie.
“No, just looking for old pictures to plug holes in my Rage family album. That’s good to know. Are they still up on 14th Street?”
“Yep,” Charlie responded, grabbing his camera and rising to leave. “Thanks for the late lunch, Laura—and Connor—and also for the great ideas for this summer’s gala. I’ll leave you for a few minutes together before the crowds come back.”
Laura locked the front door behind him and returned to the kitchen to find Connor cleaning up from their snack. He turned around at her entrance.
“No,” he repeated.
“Okay,” she said, certain she would find a way to change his mind before the summer holiday.
He leaned back against the counter, folded his arms.
“I’m glad you got the message about not mentioning the Rage family cold cases to Charlie. I’m sure he knows about the conspiracy theory. If he finds out you’re working it, you might as well put it in front of an oscillating fan on high speed in the town center blowing it everywhere. And speaking of the Rage family, have you had any time to make progress on tracking people from the original town inhabitants?”
“A little, but I’m running into all the marriages and name changes now. I had to buy a second white board for my work upstairs. Smedley & Smedley’s records have helped me track those who died, including the Munleys and Dowells, but some of them had children. It’s still painstaking and slow-going. We know they’re not all gone.”
“Do we?”
She nodded.
Smedley & Smedley was the name of the funeral parlor in Raging Ford. They had established themselves from the beginning of time as two brothers who were dedicated to the preservation of accurate death records for the town. Over the years, the Smedley children and cousins took over and digitalized all the records which included death certificates with causes of death. Laura had already found a wealth of information regarding the Rage family and the other founding families, but she needed more than just this one source.
“I’m sure. You wanted to talk about something else today? I’m guessing it’s our open case that I can’t talk about. Have you discovered anything more that you would like to share with me?”
“Oh. The gold threads that were in the sports jacket. I did some digging—”
“Laura,” Connor began, scolding in his tone.
“In Google and only about how gold threads are made and the different ways they’re mass manufactured and cloth is woven with them.”
“How is that going to help us?”
“When you call Gems by Jem, you might have more information to ask, and that could be helpful.”
He sighed and held out his hand.
She put the folded up printout from the Internet that described the various processes for creating golden threads and cloths and their uses in his hand.
He closed his fingers over it and shoved it into his pocket.
“You will read that before you call them, won’t you?”
“Open case, Laura.”
“So you haven’t called them yet. Okay.”
He shook his head and reached for his hat but pulled her to him and kissed her.
“You amaze me with what you deduce from my telling you nothing at all.”
“Oh, you tell me plenty. You just don’t know it.”
After their last kiss, he turned to go but held onto her hand, as usual.
“You will share the secret with me one day, won’t you? I mean, how I tell you something without telling you something? I deliberately had my cop face on.”
“I might.”
nineteen
Many of the original shops in Raging Ford were built like little homes with porches out front and space on the second floor for modest living and lofts for sleeping. Small kitchens were behind the front rooms on the first floor for ease of access to fetching well water and tossing vegetable peels and stems into a convenient backyard garden. Outhouses were also in the back, not near the gardens. Around the nineteen-twenties, the trend shifted to move “living” houses farther away from the central portion of the town where small stores were gathered together in what became known as a shopping district. Some folks used the second stories as offices, and others, as living quarters. Plumbing also moved indoors.
The Michael Pickens Photography Studio was one of the original shops. The kitchen in the back had long been modified into a dark room that Denny Eldridge—who was the current Michael Pickens according to a sign on the front window—still used when he restored older or damaged photos.
Laura parked out front and passed a few townspeople on the sidewalk, none of whom she knew or recognized. It was a part of town she had not often frequented.
She was impressed with the awards that dotted one of the walls behind the counter and remembered Denny from back in the day when he was learning to drive and ran into a stop sign. Her father had told her the story when she was ten as a warning that even good people can have car accidents if they’re not careful.
“Well, if it isn’t little Laura Keene, though not so little any more, are you?”
“Hi, Denny. Long time no see, as Erica Rollins would say.”
“What would you say?” he asked, grinning, leaning his elbows on the counter.
“Watch out for stop signs that can jump in front of you.”
He burst into laughter.
“That has followed me my whole life. Everywhere I go, somebody remembers that. You know why, right?”
She tipped her head.
/> “My dad had just paid off the loan on the car.”
“Yikes. Did you get in a lot of trouble?”
“Not really. I didn’t even get a ticket. A little kid’s ball went into the street and the kid ran after it. I ran into the sign to keep from running into the little kid.”
“I never knew that. I’ll straighten everybody out.”
“Actually, I’d rather you didn’t. It’s kind of neat to be remembered for something. Makes me feel famous.”
“Your secret’s safe with me.”
“What can I help you find today, Laura?”
“Old photos from the town. Do you happen to have a good photo of Samuel Rage and some of the other people in the town?”
“Working on a project, are you?”
“Yes,” she answered, nodding. The less he knew about her project, the better off everyone was. “I’m putting together a booklet about the town’s history for the celebration on the Fourth of July and Founders’ Day. We’ll find a cheap way to print and bind it, and sell copies to benefit the brass railing in the police station. It needs to be fixed.”
Laura figured she would now likely have to put together such a booklet as a fund-raising activity. Another project.
“You can say that again. That railing is downright hazardous. I hear they have signs on it now that say ‘caution - don’t touch.’ Sounds like you have your work cut out for you, Laura. But we have loads of materials you can pick from. Let me show you where it all is.”
And she spent the next six hours going through more digital photos than she could have believed possible. She even found her mother’s high school graduation photograph and saw a younger version of the lovely lady she called “Mom.” Her father’s photos would not be here; he had grown up in St. Paul. One day, she would find an old studio there and collect his family pictures to finish up her family album.
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