A Quilt in Time (A Harriet Turman/Loose Threads Mystery) (43 page)

Joshua managed a weak smile as he was wheeled out.

Morse punched numbers into her phone then spoke to someone in hushed tones before turning back to Harriet and Lauren.

“He’ll have a police guard at the hospital, and the staff will keep his name off the records for now. Now, tell me everything you know about this woman and her memories.”

Harriet filled Morse in on what Jo and Violet had told them as well as what Aunt Beth had dug up at the library. She ended by relating the memories her aunt, Mavis and Connie had from when the accident had happened.

“We don’t have any evidence whether Howard killed any of his wives. By the way, there’s one more than we knew about, according to Hannah. It’s suspicious that at least two of them have died,” Harriet told her.

“And we saw evidence in Howard’s office to back up the talk about him running some sort of drug-cutting scam,” Lauren added.

Harriet stood up, wobbled a bit, steadied herself and went to the kitchen cabinet. She found glasses and filled them with water from the tap, giving one to Lauren then offering another to Morse before sitting and taking a long drink of her own.

“I don’t know if you can believe anything Hannah says, but apparently, Howard or Elaine tried to poison Sarah while she was in the nursing wing of the senior center, before the shooting. They tampered with her medication.”

“That makes more sense, actually,” Morse said. “I mean, shooting someone is messy. Poisoning someone who is already sick or injured gives you a lot better chance of getting away with it.”

Harriet set her glass down on the end table.

“I guess it’s a good thing Sarah’s paranoid. For once, it paid off.”

“Okay, let’s go to the station and let me talk to my boss. If he’s good with it, we’ll set it up.”

“I’m going to have to tell my aunt and Mavis something. I’m surprised they haven’t come here. I left Aunt Beth a message telling her I was meeting with Joshua.”

“Call her and let her know you’re helping me with some research and that everything’s okay.” Morse looked at Lauren. “Do
you
have anyone who’s likely to pop out of the woodwork at an inopportune moment?”

Lauren shook her head.

“I’m good.”

“Let’s go over the plan one more time,” Morse said.

Harriet and Lauren sat on one side of a table, flanked by two undercover cops and across from Morse and a young male Hispanic detective.

“This is going to be complicated, Martinez,” she told the detective beside her. “Your mother already lives there, so you’re going to be our inside guy. You’ll walk Officer Welke in. She’ll be wearing your wife’s coat and a rain hat, so at a glance, you and your wife are coming to visit just like normal.

“Welke will be made up to look like Janice. Maria, you’re a new temp. The service sends new people on a daily and nightly basis. We’ve already contacted them. Andy and Nate are also coming in as temps. They’ll work in the laundry.

“Martinez is going to get Janice out of her chair and into a laundry cart, and Welke will replace her. Andy and Nate will move Janice to the laundry room. When and if Howard goes to Janice’s room, they will wheel the cart to the back door and out.

“Mickey and Violet will tell everyone they’re going out to dinner. Maria will be in a storeroom with a laptop monitoring the security system using the codes Lauren provided us. She’ll keep eyes on Howard. When he’s away from both the independent living wing and the security monitors, we’ll move Jo, Micky and Violet out through Jo’s patio door.

“At the critical moment, the monitors are going to go black for thirty seconds, long enough to be sure no one accidentally sees the exodus out the patio. When the residents are safe, Andy will put on his wig and Jo’s bathrobe and join Welke for an evening cup of tea.

“Everyone clear so far?”

The police officers nodded. Harriet and Lauren looked at each other.

“What about us?” Harriet asked.

Morse looked at her.

“You’re going to bait the trap. You’re going to call Elaine on the front desk and tell her that Jo says Janice wants to tell you something important tonight. She told you it’s urgent, that Janice has remembered something important. Tell her you can’t be there until eight o’clock. You’re worried about whether the front door will be locked and if there’s an alternate entry for night visitors.”

“Okay,” Harriet said.

“Just for good measure, tell her Jo told you to keep it secret.”

Lauren took a sip from the paper cup of coffee sitting in front of her. She grimaced and set it back on the table.

“Isn’t that laying it on sort of thick?”

“If you’ve ever spoken to Elaine, you know she’s not the brightest bulb in the box. That doesn’t mean she isn’t dangerous, but she is definitely not the brains of the operation.”

“What are we supposed to do in the meantime?” Harriet asked. “I need to take my dog out.”

Morse looked at Lauren.

“What about you?”

“I can call my neighbor girl to take my guy out. Thanks for asking.”

“I’ll have an officer take you both back to Harriet’s in an unmarked car then bring you back here to make the call. There shouldn’t be any issues, but I want you here, with us listening, just in case Elaine has any surprises for us.”

When the operation was over, the Foggy Point Police Department had made it seem simple.

Elaine played her part admirably. She’d clearly reported to Howard after Harriet’s call, and as expected, he’d gone back to his office then on to Janice’s room. In a twist Detective Morse hadn’t revealed during their meeting, Janice’s role was to be played by a blow-up doll duct-taped to the wheelchair while Andy hid in the bathroom, the door cracked enough to allow him to sight his gun on the entry door. They’d turned the lights off. It looked like Jo and Janice were watching TV.

“Imagine his disappointment when he plunged his syringe full of poison into a plastic doll,” Morse told Harriet, Lauren and the rest of the personnel gathered in the conference room, where the two quilters had been told to stay until the operation was over.

“Is attacking a doll enough to charge him with attempted murder?” Harriet asked.

Morse poured a cup of coffee from a carafe that sat on the middle of the table.

“It will be when you combine it with Hannah’s testimony. As soon as we told her things would go easier for her if she told us the truth right from the beginning, she started singing like a bird. She may have been willing to kill for her dad, but now that we’ve assured her he won’t be able to get to her ever again, she’s decided to go the victim route.”

Harriet twirled the red plastic stir-stick from her coffee between her fingers then tossed it into her empty cup.

“The sad part is, she probably
is
a victim. Howard abused all the other women in his life. Why would she be different? Joshua alluded to as much when we were at his shed.”

“She can tell it to the jury,” Morse said. “She still killed a man, and so far she hasn’t shown a bit of remorse. That won’t play well in court.”

Harriet stood up and gathered Lauren’s empty cup along with her own and threw them in the wastebasket.

“Are we free to go? I’m sure my aunt and Mavis and probably the rest of the Loose Threads are beside themselves wondering what’s going on.”

Morse stood up, too.

“I know I’ve warned you ladies not to get involved in police matters, and I still stand by that, but thank you for your help tonight. Your persistence led to the arrest of two people who needed to be off the streets. Thank you, but let’s not do this again, okay?”

Lauren finally got to her feet.

“I’ve learned my lesson. I don’t want to be held at gunpoint by a crazy person ever again.”

Morse looked at Harriet.

“Is she making fun of me?”

“She would never do that,” Harriet said with a smile. She turned to Lauren. “Let’s get out of here before you get us arrested for sassing an officer.”

END

Arlene Sachitano
was born at Camp Pendleton while her father was serving in the US Navy. Her family lived in Newport, Rhode Island, before settling in Oregon, where she still resides.

Arlene worked in the electronics industry for almost thirty years, including stints in solid state research as well as production supervision. She is handy, being both a knitter and a quilter. She puts her quilting knowledge to work writing the Harriet Truman/Loose Threads mystery series, which features a long-arm quilter as the amateur sleuth.

Arlene divides her time between homes in Portland and Tillamook she shares with her husband and their dog Navarre.

April Martinez
was born in the Philippines and raised in San Diego, California, daughter to a US Navy chef and a US postal worker, sibling to one younger sister. For years, she went from job to job, dissatisfied that she couldn’t make use of her creative tendencies, until she started working as an imaging specialist for a big book and magazine publishing house in Irvine and began learning the trade of graphic design.

From that point on, she worked as a graphic designer and webmaster at subsequent day jobs while doing freelance art and illustration at night. April lives with her cat in Orange County, California, as a full-time freelance artist/illustrator and graphic designer.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.

A QUILT IN TIME

© 2014 by Arlene Sachitano

ISBN 978-1-61271-244-4
(Kindle, Multi-format) ISBN 978-1-61271-245-1 (epub)

Cover art and design © April Martinez

All rights reserved. Except for use in review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is prohibited without the written permission of the author or publisher.

“Zumaya Enigma” and the raven logo are trademarks of Zumaya Publications LLC, Austin TX. Look for us online at
http://www.zumayapublications.com/enigma.php

 
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sachitano, Arlene, 1951-

  A quilt in time : a Harriet Truman/Loose Threads mystery / Arlene Sachitano.

       pages ; cm

  ISBN 978-1-61271-243-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-61271-244-4 — ISBN 978-1-61271-245-1 (epub : alk. paper)

 1.  Quiltmakers—Fiction. 2.  Abused women—Fiction.  I. Title.

  PS3619.A277Q8545 2014

  813'.6—dc23

                                                            2014007522