Night of the Living Thread (A Threadville Mystery) (14 page)

M
rs. Battersby seemed to be completely ensconced in her chair, however, and not about to stop her rapid-fire casting-on.

Edna looked at her watch and said with a great show of reluctance. “I guess it’s time to adjourn the meeting.”

“Why?” Mrs. Battersby started her first row. “You said we’d go on until nine or after. I finished the sweater, and planned to make a cap, and I’ve only begun the cap.”

“Everyone left,” Naomi tried.

Mrs. Battersby retorted, “
We’re
still here. Or aren’t we important?”

Opal yawned. “And Willow, weren’t you up very late last night?”

“Yes, but don’t stop on my account.”

“I should think not,” Mrs. Battersby agreed. “Willow can go home if she’s that tired.”

“I’m okay.” I would have been happy to drop into bed, but who was going to guarantee that Brianna wouldn’t play loud music and keep me awake? I asked Naomi, “Did you have something you wanted to show Haylee and me? Maybe we should go do that before I keel over.”

“You might as well run along,” Mrs. Battersby informed me. “You stopped knitting. You’re just wasting time sitting around like that. Life’s too short.”

Haylee stood and patted Mrs. Battersby’s shoulder. “Will you be okay here, or would you like me to take you back to my apartment before I go with Willow and Naomi?”

Mrs. Battersby moved the marker on her knitting. “I’ll be fine as long as my hostess stays here and acts like a real hostess, right, Opal?”

“I’m staying up as long as you are. We have more squares to eat.” Opal didn’t look overjoyed. She undoubtedly wanted to go upstairs and comb through the room where Patricia was staying.

“I’ll stay with you two, too,” Edna said. “It’ll just be the three of us. Very cozy.” She scooted back in her seat and managed to appear to like the idea. “And I’ve got your key, Haylee, if my mother does decide she wants to go back to her room.”

Mrs. Battersby snapped, “I don’t. Why are you all so suddenly anxious for me to go to Haylee’s apartment? It’s not like she’s my real granddaughter.”

Haylee gave her a smile that should fill any grandmother, if she were looking, with pride. “See you later, then.” Carrying her knitting, she started toward the front door. Naomi scooped up the quilt templates she’d been drawing. I grabbed my embroidered bag.

We left sedately, but as soon as Opal’s door closed behind us, we ran past Edna’s Buttons and Bows to Naomi’s quilt shop.

The front room of Batty About Quilts was a gallery of beautiful quilted objects. Without slowing to admire them, we continued through the sales rooms, one chock-f of quilting fabrics plus the latest in long-arm quilters, and the other displaying huge rolls of different types of batting.

At the back of that room, one door led to the parking lot, and another led to the stairs up to Naomi’s apartment. We climbed quietly. At the top, Naomi eased her apartment door open, peeked around the jamb, and gestured for us to follow her.

Nearly everything in Naomi’s apartment was quilted—upholstery, drapes, and sofa pillows. Even the tablecloth in her dining room and the tea towels hanging in the adjoining kitchen had been pieced together from lightweight linen.

Naomi led us down the hall leading to bedrooms and bathrooms. She knocked on a closed door. “Juliette?” No answer. She opened the door and whispered to us, “While you’re in there, I’ll go call Opal and tell her I need information from her apartment. That should allow her to get away from Mrs. Battersby for a few minutes.” She headed back toward her living room.

Haylee seldom looked shocked, but the state of Juliette’s room must have gotten to her. “What a mess!” she said. “How will we find anything? Especially when we have no idea what we should be looking for?”

Stepping over clothes on the floor, we tried to see everything without moving anything.

Haylee stared at the night table. “What’s this?” She pointed down at a sheet of paper that had been cut more or less in half.

Someone—Juliette, I guessed—had printed a series of fortunes on the paper.

One read,
Peace and prosperity will be yours
.

The next one was
You will delight in your many grandchildren
.

I giggled. “That one must be for Mrs. Battersby.”

Haylee groaned. “Isn’t she a stitch?” She pointed at another one. “‘Beauteous happiness.’”

I asked, “Who says ‘beauteous’? Maybe Juliette was copying fortunes from somewhere else.”

“I’ve never heard anyone say it.” She read another fortune aloud. “‘A gift of apples.’” She laughed. “She started getting specific.”

The last fortune read,
Despite everything
, and then the paper had been cut off.

I ran out to the living room. Standing guard at the top of her stairs, Naomi was still on the phone. She placed her hand over the mouthpiece. “I’m listening to Opal rustle around in Patricia’s room. She left Edna and Mrs. Battersby downstairs, so she’ll have to hurry back to them before Mrs. Battersby takes a notion to trot around and find out what Opal’s up to.”

I grinned. “Poor Edna! She loves snooping.”

“Opal said to go over there after you’re done here. She said to look at what’s on Patricia’s computer screen. Meanwhile, she’ll think of some reason why you need to go up into her apartment without her.”

“The whatever-it-is you’re showing us needs to be taken to her apartment?”

Naomi touched my hand. “Good idea. I’ll tell her to go into her shop where she can’t see her back door. Then you and Haylee can smuggle some fabric through the back door. On your way in, whisper to Mrs. Battersby that you have to sneak up to Opal’s living room to see if the fabric matches Opal’s couch because we’re making sofa pillows as a surprise for Opal. You’ll have to tell Mrs. Battersby that it’s up to her to keep Opal from following you or even knowing you’re there. That’ll keep Mrs. Battersby out of the investigations.”

I held up one thumb. “Perfect.” Then I remembered why I’d come barreling out of Juliette’s room. “Do you have a camera? I’d like to photograph some fortunes that Juliette must have written, in case they hold a clue we can figure out later.”

She nodded. “Guard the door.”

A few seconds later, she handed me a small camera. I carried it into Juliette’s room. Kneeling on the floor beside an open suitcase, Haylee was using one of her knitting needles to poke among wrinkled clothing. “I haven’t found anything interesting,” she reported. “Except I don’t think much of her packing methods.”

I photographed the half page of fortunes.

Heaped clothing on the closet floor prevented the door from closing. The heel of one of Juliette’s sequined party shoes stuck out underneath the hem of the long skirt she’d worn the evening before. I lifted the skirt off a pair of black jeans and found a matching black denim blazer.

Haylee commented, “A black denim pantsuit? That doesn’t seem like Juliette’s style.”

I agreed. “It’s similar to the one Patricia was wearing last night, except Patricia’s jacket was a traditional jean jacket. The jacket on the person I saw sneaking toward the park was more like this blazer, and I think it was unbuttoned.”

Haylee frowned down at the jumble of clothing. “Patricia and Juliette are about as tall as Dare and Floyd.”

“And Dare was wearing an unbuttoned blazer, but Floyd had on his suit. Double-breasted and buttoned up. Maybe he unbuttoned his suit jacket while unspooling thread.”

She laughed. “Isn’t that what everyone does? Was Patricia wearing her jacket open or fastened?”

“Open.” I snapped photos, then bent for a better look at the bottom hems of Juliette’s jeans.

A tiny bit of mud smudged one of them.

A
fraid that Juliette might somehow bypass Naomi guarding the door to the apartment and catch me gawking at the mud smeared on her pant leg, I whispered to Haylee, “Let’s get out of here!” Besides, we needed time to search Patricia’s room. “Opal said we were to check out the screen of Patricia’s computer.”

I photographed the mud on the jeans and repositioned the skirt on top of the jeans, jacket, and shoes. The mess of clothes on the floor of the closet looked similar to the way we’d found it—Juliette should never be able to guess that we had tampered with her things. We slipped out of the room.

With a mischievous smile on her face and a bulging quilted drawstring bag in her hands, Naomi waited for us in her living room.

I handed her the camera. “Can you e-mail me the photos I just took?”

“Sure.”

I also asked her, “Do you know where Juliette was and what she was doing last night after we showed Edna her wedding skirt?”

The light went out of Naomi’s eyes. “No, sorry, I don’t. Opal and I were working on our bridesmaid dresses in Haylee’s workroom. So Opal won’t know where Patricia was, either.”

Haylee added to me, “I was going to help Opal and Naomi after I settled Mrs. Battersby and her headache into a nice dark room, but the siren on the roof of the fire station went off and I had to leave.”

Naomi handed me the bag. “Here. Smuggle this into Opal’s apartment.”

“Huh?” Haylee asked.

“I’ll explain on the way,” I told her, gripping Naomi’s bag and my embroidered knitting bag. “You’re sure you don’t want to come along, Naomi?”

She grinned. “I’d better not. Mrs. Battersby would be sure she was invited up into Patricia’s room. You two have a good time.”

“And you be careful,” Haylee said. “I don’t like you staying here alone with Juliette. Come over to my apartment for a sleepover with Edna and her mother. You, too, Willow. Everything you’ve told me about that Brianna person gives me the willies.”

“Patricia could have been the one to murder Isis,” I said, remembering how satisfied the shy sewing machine historian had looked when apparently thinking about Isis’s final fate. “Opal should join us.”

Naomi objected, “They can’t
all
be murderers.”

“Great,” Haylee said, “we’re gambling that
none
of them are. I have only Edna and Mrs. Battersby, but the rest of you could be harboring desperate houseguests!”

I laughed. “I am gambling that none of
our
houseguests are murderers. Good night, Naomi!” Racing down the stairs, I reminded Haylee, “Floyd the zombie scared Isis. And they threatened each other. Most of all, Floyd acted guilty last night. He arrived at the scene almost as soon as I did, but after the fire engine started, he made himself scarce, as if he feared emergency workers and police. And he was definitely wearing a dark suit right after Isis was pushed underwater. His jacket was buttoned, but he could have skulked along the trail with it loose and flapping, and then buttoned it before walking like a zombie again.”

“So Ben may be harboring a dangerous guest at the Elderberry Bay Lodge.” Haylee opened the door to the parking lot. “I should go warn him, right now!”

“I’ll come, too! Clay’s supposed to be at the lodge, listening to Dare read.”

We were both tempted to give up our sleuthing mission and hop into Haylee’s pickup truck—which was almost beside us—to go find Clay and Ben.

But when would we have a chance to search Patricia’s room?

Haylee asked, “What are we going to do if Mrs. Battersby still refuses to go back to my apartment?”

I pulled her to a stop, pointed at the quilted bag Naomi had lent me, and whispered, “Naomi told Opal to go into her shop where she can’t see her back door. You go in first and tell Mrs. Battersby that you and I have to match some fabrics to Opal’s couch because we plan to surprise her with a new pillow, and Mrs. Battersby is not, under any circumstances, to let Opal follow us. I’ll sneak this into Opal’s kitchen, and go upstairs.”

Haylee giggled. “That should be fun! Mrs. Battersby will probably send Opal up to join us!”

“All the better,” I said.

“Unless Mrs. Battersby comes, too. I can just imagine her telling Vicki Smallwood that we’ve been snooping where we shouldn’t be.”

I groaned. “Even though the mud on Juliette’s jeans may not have anything to do with Isis’s death, how are we going to convince Vicki to search Juliette’s room and find the jeans?”

In the flower garden behind Opal’s dining room, I stepped between plants and peeked through the window. Mrs. Battersby had her back to me, but I could see the side of Edna’s face. Opal was nowhere in sight.

Haylee opened the door, tiptoed to Mrs. Battersby, and whispered in her ear. Mrs. Battersby craned her neck around and stared up at Haylee with something like amazement.

Edna glanced toward the window where I stood. Surreptitiously, she gave me a thumbs-up. Opal must have managed to caution her to stay put and keep Mrs. Battersby entertained, which wouldn’t be too difficult as long as Mrs. Battersby had not yet finished the cap she intended to knit that night.

I tiptoed into Opal’s dining room. Finger to lips, I caught Mrs. Battersby’s eye, then scooted into the kitchen and up the stairs to the rest of Opal’s apartment, a huge living room and several bedrooms and bathrooms.

Haylee was right behind me.

We found Patricia’s guest room on the second try. It was much neater than Juliette’s had been. Haylee reached the computer first. “Look at this. Patricia really is writing
The Book of the Treadle
. Here’s the manuscript. ‘
The Book of the Treadle: A Historian’s View of Treadle Sewing Machines
by Patricia Alayna Aiken.’” She scrolled down. “She has a file of pictures she intends to include, too.”

One by one, Haylee highlighted the names of Patricia’s folders. Near the bottom was a folder titled
Isis Crabbe
. Haylee sat up straighter and clicked on it.

I held my breath.

Haylee clicked on a subfolder labeled
Photos
. A bunch of thumbnail images came up. The first one was a woman’s face. Haylee clicked on it, but she didn’t need to enlarge it. I’d recognized the woman from the tiny photo.

Patricia knew Isis’s last name and had been collecting photos of her.

Haylee and I stared at each other in amazement.

I said, “At the fire station, Patricia and Isis seemed to have met each other before, and to already dislike each other.”

Haylee clicked back up the chain. The folder labeled
Isis
Crabbe
had not been revised since a month before either woman arrived in Threadville. “Patricia definitely knew who Isis was before they came here,” Haylee concluded.

Now I needed to see if the hems of Patricia’s jeans were muddy. Her jean jacket was in her closet, but I couldn’t find the jeans. “Was Patricia wearing blue jeans tonight?” I asked Haylee. “With her beautiful white turtleneck?”

“Probably.”

Voices sounded on the stairs. “Those girls are up to something, I tell you!”

Mrs. Battersby.

Leaving Haylee madly clicking the mouse to return Patricia’s computer screen to the way we’d found it, I dashed out to the living room, leaned over Opal’s couch, and pulled a bit of a fabric out of the bag. The bright orange batik was a little startling among Opal’s blue and gray furnishings.

Grinning, Opal came into the room first, followed by a red-faced Mrs. Battersby and a slightly worried-looking Edna.

I made a show of punching the fabric into it the bag.

Opal managed to sound stern. “I didn’t see you come upstairs, Willow.”

I plunked onto the couch and hugged the bag to my chest. “I came with Haylee. We—” I waved my hand vaguely toward the other part of the apartment.

Edna loudly finished the sentence for me. “Wanted to wash their hands before we all tidied up your kitchen.”

Haylee must have heard Edna’s explanation. She came down the hallway rubbing her hands together as if she hadn’t quite finished drying them.

Mrs. Battersby detained me at the foot of the stairs while the others went on into the kitchen. “That neon orange won’t do for Opal’s couch,” she whispered. “If you want a pop of color to go with that grayish blue, try something more subdued, like burgundy or purple. Or maybe pale yellow.”

I thanked her, agreed that the colors she suggested would look much better with Opal’s things, and opened the door to the kitchen. Mrs. Battersby went into the dining room with the others. I was about to follow her, but Edna carried a tray from the dining room into the kitchen.

I quickly asked, “Edna, is it possible that you could have been the intended victim when Isis drowned?”

Grinning, she ran her fingers through her metallic-looking hair. “No way. Isis’s hair was mousy brown. No one could have mistaken that woman for me!” She became serious. “Willow,
you
could be in danger if the killer thinks you could identify him. Come stay at Haylee’s with my mother and me until that thread distributor leaves.”

I laughed. “I’m not keen on letting Brianna roam around my apartment by herself. You might try getting Opal and Naomi to join you at Haylee’s, though. We found things in both of their guest rooms that worried us.”

“What?”

The others came in with loaded trays.

I murmured to Edna, “Ask Haylee when you get a chance.”

I washed Opal’s beautifully gleaming bone china cups and saucers while the others rinsed, dried, and put them away.

Haylee and Mrs. Battersby were the first to leave. Edna and I said good night to Opal and dawdled near tempting yarns and patterns in Tell a Yarn. “I’ve got to try these beaded yarns,” Edna crowed.

I admired skeins of hand-dyed yarns in scrumptious color combinations.

Out on the sidewalk, Haylee was grilling Mrs. Battersby about the needs of preemies. Haylee was an expert tailor. Imagining extra-tiny newborns in tuxedos, I grinned. I guessed that many of us were about to switch from our previous knitting projects to knitting sweaters and caps for preemies. They were a little beyond my ability, but I’d learn.

Edna, Haylee, and Mrs. Battersby headed to The Stash, and I started across the street.

Down toward the lake, the park was no longer lit by temporary lights, and no police vehicles were visible. Yellow tape fluttered, rustling in the wind.

Brianna’s car was parked in front of In Stitches, and music boomed from my apartment.

Grumbling to myself, I strode down the hill and went inside through my patio door. I let my pets out of my room and into the backyard for a few minutes, then shooed them all inside and locked the door.

Shut inside her suite, Brianna laughed and talked over the sound of her music. A light on the phone showed she was on my landline.

My mother’s election, I reminded myself. Considering that I wasn’t very helpful in my mother’s campaigns—wasn’t helpful at all, in fact—and never went back to South Carolina to arrange fund-raisers and dinners as she asked, the least I could do was try to be polite to her supporter’s daughter.

Brianna wouldn’t stay much longer, would she? She hadn’t made her sales pitch to Haylee yet, and I doubted that she’d approached Naomi, but surely she would soon, and in only two days, after the craft fair ended, Brianna would surely move on.

And I would be gracious, no matter how much gritting of teeth would be involved, until I could finally bid Brianna good-bye, except for ordering thread from her. From a distance, preferably.

I wanted to learn more about Patricia Alayna Aiken and the late Isis Crabbe, but I was exhausted. Besides, Haylee and I had found out Isis’s last name rather easily. If we could, detectives from the Pennsylvania State Police could, also, and probably had. If there was a connection between Isis and Patricia, investigators had probably found that, too.

I couldn’t very well tell Vicki about the mud-specked jeans we’d found in Juliette’s room, either. Vicki would scold me for interfering.

Brianna had eaten and left her dirty dishes on the counter. I put them in the dishwasher, turned off the light above the stove, and locked my menagerie into my suite with me. The dogs and I went to bed while the kittens conspired to keep us awake.

I fell asleep anyway, and it wasn’t the kittens who startled me out of sleep. It was one sharp bark from Tally-Ho, a bark that usually meant he’d heard something and wanted Sally-Forth and me to help him investigate.

Shivering in the dark, I listened. Bass notes still pounded from Brianna’s suite, but she wasn’t talking. The piece of music ended, and I detected the sound of my patio door sliding closed.

I had locked that door when I came in.