Threads of Deceit (Vineyard Quilt Mysteries Book 1) (14 page)

His voice rose to a shriek as he called her a very rude name. Julie gave a little hiccup and looked as hurt as she could manage.

“Hey, leave that poor girl alone!”

Julie turned to look for her new ally. An older man in a long trench coat waved his cane at the lawyer. “I saw everything. You tripped over your own big fat feet.”

Cantor pointed an angry finger at the spectator. “You stay out of this, old man!”

At that, more catcalls came from the small crowd beginning to form on the sidewalk. Clearly no one was going to side with the lawyer over Julie.

Seeing he was outnumbered, Cantor snarled and stomped over to his car. He hauled open the driver’s-side door, then turned to glare at Julie. “You’ll be hearing from me.”

The crowd shouted him down, and the lawyer gave up and drove away. Julie stood still, gazing after his car and slowly shaking her head. A tall elderly woman whose pewter curls contrasted sharply with her warm brown skin stepped off the curb and marched up to Julie. She put an arm around her and said, “It’s all right, dear. Pull yourself together and hold your head high. People like that just like picking on the small folks.”

Julie nodded and sniffled. “I don’t know why he said those dreadful things.”

“He was embarrassed, I expect. Men can be such babies.” The woman herded her onto the sidewalk, then insisted on walking with Julie to her car. “You go on home and get a nice cup of tea.”

“I will. Thank you.”

Once back at the inn, Julie patiently sat through Hannah’s scolding, waiting for her to run out of steam.

“You worry too much,” she said as soon as her friend wound down. “Cantor didn’t even come close to figuring out what happened.”

“You’re right.” Hannah peered at the face of the phone. “I should be more worried about how good you are at this kind of behavior.”

The door to the kitchen swung open, and Shirley poked her head in. “Someone’s at the front desk for you, Julie.”

“I’m coming.” Julie turned to Hannah. “Get what you can from this?”

Hannah nodded without looking up, so Julie followed Shirley out to the front desk. A middle-aged woman in the typical tourist uniform of comfortable slacks and good walking shoes stood clutching a big shopping bag from the quirky home decor store across the road. Her face brightened when she saw Julie approach.

“I was shopping across the street, and the owner told me about this inn.” The woman’s voice was soft and tentative, going up at the end of each sentence as if questioning her own statements. “You hold quilt retreats here?”

“We do, but we only have a handful of big scheduled retreat events each year,” Julie said.

“But a quilting group could have their own mini retreat here anytime? I am part of a quilt club in Kentucky. I think they’d love it here.”

“We would be happy to host a retreat for your group. We do mini-retreats all the time,” Julie said. “How many quilters are in your group?”

The woman continued to offer hesitant answers to Julie’s questions, though her volume did increase slightly as she grew more excited about the idea. Julie took the woman on a tour of the inn and enjoyed seeing her face light up with each new room.

“I can’t actually book anything now,” the woman said. “But I’ll tell my group as soon as I get home. I know they’ll love the idea!”

“I hope so,” Julie said. “Do remember that for a large group, we’ll need to book at least a month ahead.”

“I’ll remember.”

Then Shirley scooped the quiet woman up and swept her off to the tearoom. Julie hoped she still wanted to have a quilt retreat at the inn after a visit with Shirley. She looked toward the breakfast room, wondering if she dared dash in to see what Hannah might have learned from the phone. Then she shook her head; better to wait until suppertime.

She picked through the stack of mail she still hadn’t opened. The bills she slipped into the box for dealing with right away. The circulars for various deals she dropped into the trash behind the desk. Then she frowned at the last item. It was a small envelope with her name and the inn’s address hand-printed in precise block letters. It bore no return address.

Inside she found a collection of torn bits of paper. She shook them out onto the desk and pieced them back together. It was a photo of her at the front desk. Someone had drawn a red
X
over her face, then had torn up the photo and shoved it into the envelope. There was no actual written threat attached, but she felt decidedly unsettled. This message was definitely for her, and it wasn’t friendly.

She decided not to share it with either Hannah or Daniel. They were both worked up enough already. She considered dropping the torn pieces in the trash but decided instead to slip them back into the envelope. She might want them later.

To take her mind off the note, Julie threw herself into bill paying and managed to lose track of time as she wrestled with the numbers. When she did make it back to the kitchen, the cozy smell of soup wrapped around her. “That smells fantastic.”

“Vegetable barley soup,” Hannah said. “I’m testing some soup recipes. I wonder if we might consider adding soup and
sandwiches to the tearoom menu at lunchtime.”

“Lovely idea. Are you going to tell me what you found on the phone or just torture me with soup?”

Hannah turned to stir the pot of soup, then heaved it onto a large trivet on the counter, where she added some browned, crumbled sausage. Julie looked at the huge pot with a frown. “Isn’t that a lot of soup for the two of us?”

“I’m freezing the leftovers.” Hannah wiped her hands on a dish towel. “I didn’t find any mysterious text messages related to the dig at Winkler Farm. So whatever communication he’s had by phone has either been verbal, or he’s been careful to delete it.”

“Not surprising. Lawyers are paranoid creatures,” Julie said.

Hannah raised an eyebrow. “Not like you’ve given this guy any reason to be paranoid. At any rate, I went through his contacts list. I found five possible connections to S-E-N.” She fished in the pocket of her apron, pulled out an index card, and handed it to Julie.

“Fantastic!” Julie looked over the list as Hannah pointed at each item.

“This one is probably a stretch,” Hannah said. “Maxwell Cantor Sr. I checked online. He’s the lawyer’s uncle. I know ‘senior’ is normally abbreviated as ‘S-R,’ but I thought maybe the lawyer was using an unusual form to make it harder to guess who he was referencing.”

Julie wrinkled her nose. “That does seem like a stretch.”

Hannah pointed farther down the list. “These two are Missouri state senators: Walter Parson and Lucas North. And this one, Steven E. Needlemeyer, he might be identified by the initials S-E-N. I only found one woman: Lila Huff Seneca.”

Julie tapped the paper. “That’s interesting. I met Walter Parson’s wife recently. She came to talk about having a
fundraiser at the inn. Now his name turns up on the list.”

“Life does have coincidences.”

“But they’re always worth noticing.”

Hannah shrugged. “Did she seem weird?”

“No. Actually she was very nice. Inga even liked her.”

“Now that
is
weird.” Hannah turned back to the pot and dipped out a crock of soup. She set it in front of Julie. “Eat. Tell me what you think.”

Julie continued to study the list as she took a sip of the soup. She felt certain someone on the list had something to do with George’s death. Now the only question was, which one of the names was the mysterious “SEN”?

W
hen she finally headed upstairs for the night, she tapped on Daniel’s door. As soon as the door cracked, she held up the list. “We have suspects.”

He looked at the list suspiciously, then opened the door. “Are we going to break into their homes?”

“For the record, breaking and entering isn’t usually my first contact choice.” The tower room didn’t have a separate sitting room, only a small alcove with a love seat and chair. Julie felt a bit awkward with the bed in view after their recent close encounter, but she perched on the arm of the small love seat. Daniel sank into the other end of the love seat and read the list. She gave him a moment, then asked, “Do any of the names sound familiar from your research?”

He shook his head. “None of the last names match the captain or anyone on the crew list of
The Grand Adventure
.”

Julie thought about mentioning Senator Parson’s wife but decided not to muddy the waters. She’d keep it in mind when they talked to the senator, but it would be good for one of them to be completely impartial. And she honestly couldn’t picture the pleasant woman she’d met attacking a grown man like George.

He looked up from the list. “So, what’s the plan? Do we stake out each of them?”

“I thought we might talk to them and see what happens. After all, just the sight of you might provoke a reaction.”

“If the reaction is to try to kill me, I’m not a fan of this idea.”

“I suspect we won’t be attacked on anyone’s doorstep.” Julie looked around the room and spotted Daniel’s laptop at the small writing desk tucked next to the bed. “We can probably look them up online and get addresses.”

Though the Wi-Fi on the third floor was a little slow, they managed to find each of the people on the list. Lila Huff Seneca proved to be the toughest, until they realized that her last name wasn’t “Seneca.” Her name was Lila Huff, and she was a member of the Seneca nation of Native Americans.

Daniel tapped the paper. “We should start with Lila Huff.”

“Because she took the longest to find?”

“Because she’s the only woman on the list.”

Julie frowned. “And?”

He shrugged. “I could probably take her in a fight.”

That made Julie laugh. “Great. I’ll get Hannah to cover for me after we finish breakfast tomorrow, and we’ll see what we can learn about Ms. Huff.”

The next morning, Julie accepted a ride in Daniel’s truck and enjoyed the chance to sightsee a little. They passed acres of cultivated land that rolled and dipped gently like a brown-and-gold sea. Clouds hung low in the sky, their bellies a pale gray. They passed a pond whose waters were so still they reflected the clouds and trees like glass.

Some of the places Julie had visited in her antiquities recovery work would sound exotic to the inhabitants of the homes they drove past—places like Paris and Rome and Beijing. But to Julie, the rolling countryside and its peacefulness were a better kind of exotic and enticing. She was definitely coming to appreciate her new home—aside from the murder and the cryptic threats.

When they reached Washington’s downtown, Julie was struck by how similar the river town looked to Straussberg, with the same tall, narrow brick buildings and mix of architectural styles including stately Victorians, Greek Revival, and Georgian. They passed through the downtown and continued into the residential area, finally pulling up in front of an older home with a rock-clad first floor and clapboard second story. Above a small door leading into the first floor hung a sign that read “Basket Shop.”

“She lives over her shop,” Julie observed.

“So it seems. How are we going to explain showing up at her door?”

“Just follow my lead. The fact that her door is public will make this much easier than I’d anticipated.”

Julie hopped out of the truck and headed into the shop. The interior walls were rock like the outside, and the place had a warm, dark-honey–colored wood floor. Rough shelves covered the walls, and freestanding display racks dotted the room. Every surface was covered with baskets in different styles and shapes and materials.

Julie caught the eye of the attractive woman behind the counter and asked, “Do you make all these?”

The woman laughed. “You give me far more credit than I deserve.” Her smile warmed her dark eyes as she gestured around the room. “These baskets come from all over the United States. I make a few, but I also get pieces from other artisans.”

“But they’re all handmade?”

The woman nodded.

Julie drifted closer to the counter. She saw a pile of business cards and picked one up. “You’re Lila Huff?”

“I am.”

“What got you started in this craft?”

“Basket making is a reflection of the history and culture of the person making it, as well as the ingenuity of the basket maker’s use of materials. I have many baskets that reflect a wealth of Native American traditions.”

Daniel walked up beside Julie carrying a small round basket. He held it up. “This is impressive. I’ve always enjoyed the use of pine needles in coiled baskets. Did you make it?”

“No. I work in traditional Seneca ash splint basketry.”

“Can you show me one?” Julie asked.

The basket Lila showed her was tightly woven from narrow ash splints. Julie decided to buy one for Hannah. As she paid, she said, “Washington is a charming town. I’ve recently moved to Straussberg; have you ever been there?”

Lila shook her head. “I’m afraid I’m a recent transplant myself. I’m originally from upstate New York, but my husband loves this area.”

“There’s certainly a lot of rich history here,” Julie said as she watched the other woman closely. “Daniel here is a historian. He’s excavating an old steamboat that was sunk on the Missouri River.”