A Quilt in Time (A Harriet Turman/Loose Threads Mystery) (5 page)

“Is it the woman pulling away or the abuser keeping her away?” Carla asked.

“Good question.” Robin turned to her. “I’m no expert, but in the cases I’ve dealt with, the abuser usually isolates his victim from all support systems so the only information she’s getting is from him. He can tell her she’s worthless, and there’s no one to contradict him.”

“That’s what my mom’s boyfriend did.” Carla twirled a strand of her long dark hair around her finger. “He used to hit her, too, but it was because she’d argue with him and make him mad.”

“Carla,” Robin said firmly, “let’s be very clear, here. It is never okay for a man to hit a woman. Or any adult to hit another adult, for that matter. It doesn’t matter what your mom did or said. It was
not
okay.”

“Okay,” Carla whispered, her cheeks hot and pink.

“This is important,” Mavis added. “I know you’ve had a rougher life than most of us can imagine, but it’s important you understand this. Violence is never okay as a response to anything in a relationship.”

The group was silent until Jorge came in with a handful of menus.

“Anyone need one of these? Or do you all know what you want?”

“Do you have a special today?” Harriet asked.

“Indeed I do. I have two pork tamales with a chicken enchilada, and I have chicken avocado soup.”

The group ordered one or the other of the specials, except Robin, who stuck with her customary salad. Jorge spoke to his waitress before taking the menus and leaving. A moment later, she returned with three heaping bowls of guacamole.

“Back to Sarah,” Harriet said when the door was closed again and the group was alone. “First, can anyone take Rachel? Second, how can we help Sarah? Anyone?” She looked around the table.

“Curly and I can take her,” Mavis volunteered. “My dog hasn’t met another animal she doesn’t like.”

“Okay, so what are we going to do about Sarah?” Harriet pressed.

“Do we have to do anything?” Lauren leaned forward and scooped dip onto her chip.

“Of course we have to do something,” Mavis said. “How would you like it if you were in trouble, and we just sat around eating chips and ignoring your distress?”

“I think we both know I wouldn’t be in that kind of trouble,” Lauren shot back.

Robin stood up, pacing behind the chairs as if they were a jury.

“You might be surprised to hear that many victims of domestic violence are otherwise independent, intelligent women. It can happen to anyone.” She turned and paced back to the end of the table and faced her seated friends. “I think our first step is to establish that she is, in fact, a battered woman. We’re just assuming she is.” She held up one hand and ticked off her fingers with the other. “Number one, her cat is injured. Number two, we’ve seen bruises. Number three, she’s withdrawn from her social support network. Anything else?”

“I think that covers what we know,” Harriet said. “So, what do we do?”

Mavis looked at Beth.

“Beth and I could talk to her when we talk to her about me taking Rachel.”

“How soon do you think you can do that?” Harriet asked, looking from her aunt to Mavis.

“She should be working,” Mavis said. “We can go after lunch.”

“What if she admits her boyfriend is beating her?” Lauren asked. “What then? She’s not coming to live with me, I can tell you that. Two days with that woman, and I’d probably hit her myself.”

“It’s really sad, but that used to be the standard prosecutors used to determine if they were going to go after abusive men. If fifteen minutes with the defendant made them want to hit her, they wouldn’t take the case to court,” Robin told them. “And that wasn’t that long ago.”

“We can guess she’s not going to agree to leave her boyfriend just because a couple of us tell her she needs to,” Lauren said.

Robin sat down again.

“I could go by and offer her legal advice,” she said.

“She probably doesn’t have anywhere else to go,” Harriet said. “One of my quilt customers is living in her old apartment. Unless she got a new one, she’s probably staying full time at that cabin.”

“I wonder if they have room at the shelter,” Mavis said.

“They were talking about putting some beds in their attic space,” Harriet said. “Plus, I think they have one empty private room. I could call Georgia and ask. I need to take measurements for the bathroom curtains we need to make, so I have to call her in any case.”

Jorge backed into the room, followed by his waitress, both of them laden with plates of steaming food, ending the conversation for the moment.

Harriet took a deep breath.

“This smells so good,” she told him.

“All for the pleasure of the lovely
mujeres
.”

Jorge smiled, set down his armload of plates, and left the room, returning quickly with a large tray of plates and bowls. The waitress set a pitcher of iced tea and a stack of glasses in the middle of the table.

“Do you need anything else right now?” he asked, looking from one end of the table to the other.

“Thank you, I think we’re good,” Harriet said.

Conversation ground to a halt as the women focused on their meals. Eventually, Connie put her fork down and leaned back from the table.

“I can’t eat another bite,” she said.

“Me, either,” Harriet concurred. “Let’s talk about where we are with Sarah. Mavis and Aunt Beth are going to go see her about taking her cat and will try to get her talking about her own situation, maybe suggesting she needs to make a change. Is that correct?”

Mavis and Beth nodded.

“I will check and see if the empty room at the shelter is, indeed, available, and whether, at first glance, they think Sarah qualifies. I’ll tell Robin, and she’ll go see Sarah and ask if she would like her to provide any legal services to help her get away from her abuser. She’ll also talk to Sarah about going into the shelter.”

“I’m taking the bibs we’re making to the seniors at the end of this week,” Connie said. “When I called Sarah’s mother to arrange a time, she invited all of us to the open house. If we haven’t gotten through to her individually by then, maybe we can talk to her as a group.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Lauren said.

Carla cleared her throat then coughed.

“If Jorge
has
seen Sarah’s boyfriend, maybe he can tell us something about him.” She swiped at a lock of hair that had fallen over her eyes.

“Oh, honey, that’s a great idea,” Mavis said.

“I’ll be right in,” Jorge’s disembodied voice said over the intercom.

“It creeps me out when he does that,” Lauren said. “He knows we forget he has that thing.” She pointed at the speaker mounted near the ceiling.

“I heard that,” Jorge said as he came into the room. “Just remember where your favorite guacamole comes from, missy.” He tried to sound mean but burst out laughing at the end. He pulled out a chair and sat down near the middle of the table, then leaned forward before speaking in a quiet voice.

“I have learned some information about the señorita’s boyfriend, and it is very troubling.”

The women waited to hear what came next.

“She is dating her brother.”

“What?” said Lauren loudly.

“Shhh,” warned Jorge, pointing at the intercom speaker again. “Not her
brother
brother. They share no blood, but his father is married to her mother, and they lived under the same roof for a time.”

“That complicates things,” Harriet whispered.

“No joke,” Lauren whispered back.

“We still need to try to reach her,” Connie said. “Even if there’s every probability that she’ll refuse our help and tell us to mind our own business. I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to that girl and we could have prevented it.”

Mavis put her coat on and picked up her purse.

“We’ll just have to make sure it doesn’t come to that.”

“We’ll let you know how it went when we have the cat settled at Mavis’s,” Aunt Beth said as she hurried to gather her own coat and purse and follow her friend out the door.

“Oh, thank you, honey.” Aunt Beth took the cup of tea Harriet offered to her as she sat on the sofa in Harriet’s upstairs TV room.

“So, how did it go?” Lauren asked from her perch in the overstuffed chair.

Harriet reclaimed her seat at the opposite end of the sofa, setting her appliqué project back in her lap and picking up her own teacup. She picked up the TV remote and muted the sound.

“Okay,” she said. “I’m settled. So, how
did
it go?”

Aunt Beth frowned. “It was a total bust.”

“Did you at least get the cat?” Lauren asked.

“We did get the cat, but that was about all. Sarah wouldn’t talk about her boyfriend, her bruises, what really happened to Rachel, or anything else.”

“I guess that’s no real surprise,” Harriet said. “If she’d really wanted our help, she would still be coming to quilting. Or she could have called one of us.”

“I don’t think it works that way,” Aunt Beth said. “If he’s got her brainwashed, she probably doesn’t feel like she can reach out. Having it be her stepbrother makes it even more complicated.”

“It probably doesn’t help that she works for her family, either,” Harriet mused.

“So, we’re on to plan B?” Lauren asked.

Aunt Beth stirred her tea, lost in thought.

“You know, our plan sounded so simple at lunch, but after talking to, or really, talking
at
Sarah, I’m not sure there’s any point in Robin trying.”

“How did she look?” Harriet asked.

“Terrible. She had a scarf wrapped high around her neck, and she was wearing knitted half-gloves so only her fingertips showed. And they keep that place warm for the old people, even in the reception area.”

“Back to plan B,” Lauren prompted.

“I’m not sure there
is
a plan B,” Aunt Beth said. “My sense is we might have better luck if we could get her away from work, so she won’t feel like the family is so close. We’ll have to put our heads together and think about how we can do that.”

“Since we can’t solve the problem tonight,” Harriet said. “Lauren and I were going to watch a British murder mystery DVD. Would you like to join us?”

“Well, I did feed and walk Brownie before I came over to report. I guess I could stay a while.”

Harriet turned the TV’s volume back on and hit play before setting the remote on the table.