Night of the Living Thread (A Threadville Mystery) (12 page)

I
asked Vicki what made her suspect that the thread nippers could have been connected with Isis’s death.

“Those steel thread nippers should have had fingerprints on them. They didn’t. Not one. Someone had wiped them off.”

Hadn’t she said that the blades had been crusted with dirt? I suggested, “They wiped the nippers without knocking the dirt off the tips of the blades?”

“You got it.”

“They could have been afraid they’d cut themselves.” I tilted my head and raised my eyebrows. “Maybe they did.”

She wrote in her notebook. “We’ll look for anyone with cuts in their fingers.”

I held my hands out. As usual, I had a few little nicks and scrapes. Sewing could be dangerous. “I can guess why someone wouldn’t want it known that they went around stringing glow-in-the-dark thread through the grass on dark, foggy nights,” I said. “But I can’t figure out why they’d make a trail of thread in the first place.”

She didn’t bother checking my hands. “You’re the thread expert.”

“No, she’s downstairs.”

“She cause you any trouble?”

“Not unless you count playing music and shouting along to it part of the night.”

Vicki screwed up her face in disgust. “It wasn’t even nice music.”

“The state trooper who took fingerprints this morning thought he saw hers on my door.”

“I heard that, too.”

“Why would she lie about going outside? It looks to me like she set up an alibi
before
Isis was murdered.”

Vicki repeated, “Alibi?”

“She was on the phone. Supposedly.”

“Oh, that. Neffting thinks she was merely embarrassed because she’d borrowed your shoes without asking.”

“The fingerprint trooper and I looked for prints in my flower borders that would show where those shoes picked up the mud. We didn’t find any.”

Vicki thinned her lips and stared beyond me. I recognized that expression. Vicki was trying hard not to tell me something.

I made a stab at it. “Did they find prints that matched my gardening clogs on the trail down by the river?”

She managed to avoid exactly confirming my theory. “The prints didn’t follow the trail, which isn’t very muddy, so we couldn’t be certain.”

I guessed, “They headed down the bank?”

“Only a little bit, then back toward your gate. So depending on how far your cordless phone service works, she could have been telling the truth about talking on the phone and telling her boyfriend about the weather.”

“Right beside a river that she claimed she didn’t know existed.” I couldn’t help sounding sarcastic. “Detective Neffting doesn’t want to believe that Brianna
Shrevedale
murdered Isis.”

“You heard Brianna on the phone shortly before you went outside around nine thirty last night, right?”

“Yes.”

“And you told us you heard Isis scream about fifteen minutes later.”

“Give or take a few. But it was enough time for Brianna to put on my clogs, run up through my side yard, dash to the park, and start pushing Isis toward the river.”

“How would she have known Isis would be at the park trying on someone else’s overskirt?”

“When Clay, Naomi, Opal, and I left the fire station with that skirt, Brianna and Isis were on the sidewalk, talking to each other. Maybe Isis told Brianna she was going to try on that skirt after all of us were gone.”

“How would Isis know that the skirt was on its way to the park?”

“We asked Isis and Brianna if they wanted to help take it there. They declined. But then Brianna tore a page out of something that looked like a checkbook and handed it to Isis.”

“Interesting,” Vicki mumbled, writing in her notebook. She raised her head. “When you and your dogs were in your backyard after you heard Brianna on the phone, wouldn’t you or the dogs have noticed her coming out your patio door and running up through your side yard?”

“Probably. But she could have run through my shop instead. Or waited until we were on the trail, following that skulker.”

“Which would have given her even less time to commit the murder. You told us you heard someone running away after the skirt was pushed into the river. Did you hear anyone running on Lake Street toward the park
before
you heard the first scream? Like from your shop down the street?”

“No, and I was extra alert because of that skulker, so I probably would have heard those shoes slapping on concrete. I also didn’t notice hearing any vehicles, by the way.”

“Neffting has already theorized that the murderer could have arrived at the scene—and fled it—by car. Or pickup truck. However, your skulker headed toward the park right before the screams, didn’t stick around to rescue the victim, and didn’t come back after you yelled for help, so who would you focus on, a vehicle that no one heard or saw, Brianna and her phone call, or the person you saw heading toward what turned out to be a homicide?”

I gave her a lopsided grin. “At this point, all of the above. Maybe the person I heard running away was racing toward a phone to call 911.”

“But no one called besides you.” Her eyes became serious. “Detective Neffting picked up a hint that you don’t like Brianna Shrevedale.”

“She’s not the most likable person I’ve ever met. But she does sell nice thread.”

“Brianna’s about the same size as Edna, wouldn’t you say?”

“Close.” I stared helplessly at her. “Oh, no, don’t tell me Detective Neffting suspects that Edna killed Isis, and that I’m trying to divert suspicion from Edna by accusing someone who Edna could have passed for in the dark and the fog?”

Vicki didn’t say anything.

“No one could seriously suspect Edna! She was with Gord at the time.”

Vicki tapped her notebook with her pen. “Neffting might say it wouldn’t be the first time a man has lied for his woman.”

“Not Gord. Not Edna. He wouldn’t lie, and she wouldn’t murder, especially over something as silly as a curse.”

“Neffting might ask, ‘But what if she truly believed that Isis could steal Gord from her?’”

I guessed that Neffting had already proposed these theories in Vicki’s presence. “Edna wouldn’t believe that. Didn’t believe it. She laughed at me when I told her about it. Is Neffting really considering that Edna could have murdered Isis?”

“He’s not ruling anyone out. Including, I might add, the first person on the scene.”

“Me? What motive would I have had? I barely knew the woman.”

“Maybe you wanted to protect Edna? Especially since Edna didn’t believe you that the victim might steal Gord?”

“I was one of the few people that Isis
didn’t
yell at when we were all in the fire station.”

“Who did she yell at?”

“She ran toward Dare Drayton with her hands curled like claws, like she was about to scratch his eyes out.”

“That sounds extreme.”

I didn’t blame Vicki for doubting it. “I’m not exaggerating. Then she told him he couldn’t call his latest book
The Book of the Dead
.”

“Did he seem angry or upset about it?”

“He seemed amused.”

“Exactly.”

“He always seems amused. But with a cruel streak.”

“Hunches, hunches.”

“I know,” I admitted. “Dare threatened to kill Isis.”

“What?”

“In one of his books.”

She gave me an overly dramatic scowl. “No wonder you didn’t report that to me before.”

“He could have been semi-serious,” I pointed out.

“But you said that Isis yelled at lots of people. Who else?”

“She called Patricia, the sewing machine historian who’s staying with Opal, a copycat. Said it in a mean way. She claimed that the fortune-teller, Madame Juliette, who is Naomi’s houseguest, ‘made things up.’”

“Did anyone besides Dare threaten her?”

“Floyd said he would—I don’t know what—bite her and turn her into a zombie?”

Vicki snickered.

I added, “Brianna also irritated Isis, for the fun of it, I thought. As I told you and Detective Neffting before, when Isis left the room where we were putting the skirt together, she appeared to threaten that she would cast spells on all of them.”

Vicki turned pages back in her notebook. “Didn’t Isis scold you, too?”

I couldn’t think of anything. “No.” I lengthened the word, showing my uncertainty. Vicki read aloud from her notebook, “‘Isis told Willow she couldn’t wear someone else’s wedding gown.’”

“Oh, that. She yelled at the other people, but she didn’t raise her voice at me. And she didn’t word it quite like that. She said something weird, like it wasn’t ‘ordained’ for me to wear someone else’s wedding gown. I thought maybe she meant it was bad luck. Ironic, isn’t it? Maybe she thought it was ‘ordained’ that she should wear it, but that turned into truly bad luck for her.”

Vicki removed her hat and placed it on the cutting table. “So you see why you’re not in the clear? You were the first on the scene after she was killed, and for all Detective Neffting knows, you may have tried to turn the tables on Isis, to show her who would have bad luck wearing that skirt . . .”

“You don’t believe I would do such a thing, do you?” I asked.

She plunked her hat on her head. “No, but you’re definitely more hotheaded than your friend Edna.”

I opened and closed my mouth.

“Don’t worry,” she consoled me. “I’m going to keep poking my nose into Neffting’s investigation.”

I tried a smile. “Thank you. Do you know where Dare Drayton was at the time of the murder?”

“Just walking around, he said, waiting for Clay to take him home. So where was Clay?” she asked.

“Sitting in his truck outside the fire station, waiting for Dare.”

“You said you were in your yard and on your trail. You couldn’t have seen Clay sitting in his truck.”

“He said he was. I believe him.”

“How do you know that Clay wasn’t your skulker?”

I nearly choked. “Clay wouldn’t skulk past my yard when the dogs were out. He’d have joined us.” I twirled a pair of scissors on the cutting table. They spun like a top, balancing on the bolt holding the blades together.

Vicki bit her lip.

I demanded, “You were pushing my buttons, weren’t you?”

“It can be easy. But you have to see everything the way Detective Neffting might. All of you in this village could be suspects. Detective Neffting didn’t actually see Clay’s concern last night before and after the body was brought ashore, like I did. That guy’s a catch, you know.”

I pretended shock. “Detective Neffting?”

“Clay.”

I spun the scissors. “I know.”

“So catch him.”

“Easier said than done, when neither of us has time outside of work.”

She groaned. “Tell me about it. Never be a police officer dating another one. We’re nearly always on different shifts.” She put her hand down flat on the scissors, ending their mad whirl. “Didn’t your parents tell you not to play with scissors?”

“No. They encouraged me. My mother wanted me to be a surgeon. My father uses sharp blades, and everything else, to invent things. Speaking of scissors, did you find whatever was used to cut that frill off the skirt?”

“You guessed right. Scissors. We found them in the grass near the bandstand.”

“Whose?”

Vicki stared up into my eyes. “Are you sure you want to know?”

U
h-oh. Maybe I didn’t want to know whose scissors had been found in the grass near the bandstand. One of my pairs? Last Christmas, Naomi had given us all scissors engraved with our names. I kept mine downstairs with my personal sewing things, in the closet in my guest room. Had Brianna “borrowed” them and left them in the park?

Around us, sewing machines whirred. People talked and laughed. Threadville tourists always helped each other with their projects.

Holding the scissors on the cutting table still as if they were about to run off by themselves, I asked in a small voice, “Whose scissors did they find?”

“Edna’s,” Vicki told me. “Her name is engraved on one of the blades. Not the sharp part.”

“So, let me guess.” My mouth tasted bitter. “Between the curses against Edna and the scissors found at the scene, Detective Neffting is
sure
that Edna murdered Isis?”

“He’s a good detective. He’s keeping an open mind.”

I didn’t remind her that he’d already closed his mind to suspecting either Brianna or Dare. “Isis must have taken Edna’s scissors to the park. What was she planning to do, try on the skirt, and then cut it into tiny pieces?”

Vicki searched through her notes. “Maybe. A snipped-off piece of that frill was tucked down inside one of her gown’s pockets.”

“Why?”

“Good question. It does make Detective Neffting wonder if one of the skirt’s creators saw the deceased hacking at the skirt and, as he put it, ‘overreacted.’”

“Great. Now he suspects Haylee, Opal, and Naomi.”

“And who else?”

“Me.” I frowned at her. “Remind me never to be first on the scene. If I hear anyone scream, I’ll run the other way.”

She laughed. “That would make you look suspicious for sure. But you could try a little harder not to snoop around things that don’t concern you.”

My frown turned into a glower. “Even if I weren’t a volunteer firefighter and trained to rescue people, I couldn’t ignore screams. Or screams followed by splashes.”

My outrage only seemed to amuse Vicki.

I thought about the curses and the little boats. And Isis had cut off a piece of the wedding skirt and pocketed it? What other strange things had she done? I asked, “Could Isis have committed suicide? Maybe she yelled at someone to stop pushing her
away
from the water?” I drew invisible circles with my fingernails on the table’s smooth surface. “Clay said one of the frills had been around her neck. Do people who want to kill themselves often try hanging and drowning at the same time?”

“Self-strangulation isn’t a sure bet, so maybe drowning was her back-up plan. We’ll know more after the autopsy, but Gord thought a ribbon had been tied around her neck and held there, which would have been hard for her to do by herself.”

“I thought Clay said a frill was around her neck, and you’re saying it was a ribbon.”

“The frill hid the ribbon.”

“Let me guess,” I said. “The ribbon was white satin, and about an inch wide.”

“How come I’m not surprised you knew that?”

“I mentioned it to you last night. Naomi had hung a label from it, the one I showed you that was on the bandstand floor.”

Nodding, Vicki scribbled.

“So Isis didn’t drown?”

Vicki closed her notebook and spoke softly. “We don’t know for sure, but Gord thought she was dead before she went into the water.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “So she didn’t suffer as long as I keep imagining.”

“She couldn’t have been conscious for very long after someone looped that ribbon around her neck.”

I stared down at the end of a bolt of linen. When had I clutched the cloth, and why was I gripping it tightly enough to crease it? “I guess I’ll still always feel terrible that I didn’t get there soon enough to prevent it. Or to at least see who the culprit was.”

“You’re safer not knowing,” she reminded me. “Unless the culprit
thinks
you saw him or her.” She gave me a piercing look. “Be extra vigilant. Call if you need help. If you think that
any
thing, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, should be checked out, call us and let us do it.”

I asked when I would be allowed in my backyard again.

“Now. We’re done with it. We’re sure the thread only went past it, except for right inside your gate, but they’ve searched that area and didn’t find a thing. We’re not done with the trail behind your place, though, so don’t go out there. There are footprints on it in addition to the ones your gardening clogs made to the river bank and back to your gate. You were wearing sneakers last night, right?”

“Yes. And Juliette, Patricia, and Dare all walked on that trail after I did. Dare had on loafers, Patricia wore sneakers, and Juliette was in party flats.”

“Most of the trail wasn’t muddy, though, so the investigators only got a few smidges of their footprints and the prints of everyone else who’s been on the trail since Monday’s rain. I suspect that they found your prints, and Sally’s and Tally’s, too, where your dogs pulled you down toward the river a couple of times.” After again telling me to be careful, she left In Stitches.

I returned to our glow-in-the-dark ghosts and goblins.
Footprints,
I thought. If they had found some that matched my gardening clogs near the boat launch where Isis and the skirt had rolled into the river, would Vicki have told me? Maybe Brianna really had put on my gardening clogs, walked quickly but quietly down Lake Street to the park, pushed Isis into the river, and then run back. It wasn’t entirely believable, but neither were my other theories, including a skulker carefully laying down a trail of glow-in-the-dark thread on his way to murder Isis.

Rosemary took over for my lunch hour, and the dogs and I went downstairs to our apartment. While I was foraging for bread, peanut butter, and jelly, Brianna came out of her room. She wore her wrinkled, faded pink sweat suit. The long braid down her back was coming apart. Yawning, she padded to the patio door. “Ugh, what’s all this dirt on the handle?”

“Fingerprint powder.”

“Whose prints did they find?”

I didn’t know for certain whose the other person’s were, so I answered only, “Mine.”

Looking smug, she returned to the eat-in counter. “What’s for breakfast?”

“Whatever you’d like and can find. I’m grabbing a quick sandwich for lunch, then I’ll take the dogs out. We’re allowed in my backyard again, by the way.”

“Why would I want to go out there?” It was one of the longest and most animated responses I’d yet received from her. Maybe we were making progress in the bonding my mother hoped we’d do. She added, “No, thanks.”

It wasn’t the most polite use of the word “thanks” that I’d ever heard, but I got the point. She had no interest in my backyard, and therefore, had never gone out there.

I didn’t believe her.

In addition to the supposed bonding, my mother had told me to let Brianna sell her threads at our craft fair.

I took a deep breath and plunged in. “The Threadville Get Ready for Halloween Craft Fair starts tomorrow morning—”

Looking bored, she shook her head.

I went on anyway. “If you’d like to show and sell your threads, you can have a table. The fair’s in the community center.”

She clamped her lips together in the middle of a yawn. “A table? How much will that cost?”

I told her it was a small percentage of her sales.

“Who’s keeping track?”

“You.”

She shrugged, went into her room, and closed the door. What a definitive answer. What a fun houseguest, too.

I took all four animals outside. After their incarceration in my bedroom, the kittens wanted to frisk toward tree trunks, and I had to help Sally herd them to the door, something she could usually do by herself.

Carrying the roguish kitties inside and shutting them into my room again, I mentally designed zippered vests for them, with loops where I could attach leashes, all of it embroidered.

Outside again, I ate while the dogs played. When my lunch hour was about over, we all trooped inside. The door to Brianna’s room was still closed, and everything was quiet.

We went upstairs. I shut the dogs into their pen and started the afternoon workshoppers on glow-in-the-dark Halloween characters. We settled into our usual routine of designing, creating, and enjoying each other’s company. Rosemary called to me and I went to her machine.

Suddenly, the door to my apartment stairway banged back against the wall. The dogs barked. Brianna threw herself across their pen and did a scissors-style high jump over the railing.

Everyone’s heads popped up to watch her. She was still in the sweat suit, and most of her hair had finished tumbling out of the braid.

She marched to me and slammed one of my drinking glasses onto the table next to Rosemary’s sewing machine.

“Explain this,” Brianna demanded. Her eyes were bloodshot with anger or lack of sleep or both.