A Quilt in Time (A Harriet Turman/Loose Threads Mystery) (9 page)

“Let’s go see what they want,” she said.

Aunt Beth was in the kitchen at Tico’s Tacos deep in conversation with Jorge when Harriet and Lauren entered the restaurant and headed for the back room. She looked up as they passed but kept talking.

Robin and DeAnn were seated at the big table, and Carla was at the server station pouring glasses of water. There was none of the laughter that usually accompanied Loose Threads gatherings. Robin was dressed in her usual yoga pants and pastel stretch top, but her face was all lawyer. DeAnn had on an oversized tie-dyed T-shirt she’d gotten at the previous month’s 1960s festival; her demeanor was no match for its bright colors.

Sarah had irritated everyone in the group at one time or another, but none of them wished the kind of beating she’d taken on her or anyone else.

“So, why exactly are we here?” Harriet asked.

“Lunch, I hope,” Lauren said

“We’re not sure,” Robin offered. “Your aunt said she’d explain when we got here.”

“Which I will,” Aunt Beth told them as she came into the room carrying menus. “Anyone need one of these?”

“Do we know the specials?” DeAnn asked.

Jorge’s disembodied voice came over the intercom.

“We have chiles relleños with a chicken tamale, albondigas mexicanas—that’s meatball soup for you gringas—and
tacos al pastor
, a slow-cooked street-style pork taco.” He paused. “And of course, whatever salad Blondie wants.”

Jorge prided himself on knowing his regular customers’ dietary preferences, and Robin was definitely a salad person.

“I’m torn,” Harriet said. “I love the chiles relleños, but the tacos sound good, too.”

“Say no more,” Jorge said from the intercom.

The rest of the group told him their requests, and Aunt Beth set the menus on the server station and joined them.

“I’d like to wait for Connie to get here,” Beth said. “Mavis can’t come. She’s getting her hair cut in Angel Harbor and was just getting in the chair when she got my message. Here’s Connie now,” she added as her friend came into the room.

“Do you want to begin or should I?” she asked Beth.

“Go ahead.”

Connie stood behind her chair.

“Today I took a few of the completed adult bibs to the senior center, using the excuse that we needed them to try them out and see if they were the right size. Normally, I would have talked to Sarah at the front desk, and she would have taken care of whatever I needed.

“A new young woman was there. I’ve never seen her before, so I took a chance and pretended I didn’t know what had happened to Sarah.”

“Did she buy it?” Lauren interrupted.

Connie straightened her shoulders, drawing herself to her full height of just shy of five feet.

“I think so. She said she usually works in the back office and was filling in for Sarah while she recovered from a recent ‘illness.’ I told her I knew it was a family business and wondered if she was part of the family. She doesn’t look like Sarah, I might add. She’s fine-boned and blond—the opposite of Sarah. She said her dad owns the place. I didn’t let on that I knew Sarah’s step-dad and her mom are the real owners.”

“Wait, does that mean she’s Sarah’s sister? Or half or step? Why have we never heard about her?” Harriet asked.

Lauren looked at her.

“Really? Think about it. When did Sarah ever talk about anything other than herself? She talked about her boyfriend when they were first seeing each other, but even then, it was always in the context of what she was going to wear or where they were going to go. She mentions her parents only when it has to do with their work demands interfering with her social life.”

Aunt Beth cleared her throat.

“Let’s remember who the victim is here.”

“Sorry.” Lauren sat back in her chair.

“Did you see anything else?” Harriet asked Connie.

Connie walked the length of the table then returned to her place before speaking.

“I saw the elusive boyfriend.”

“Whoa,” Carla said. “What was he like?”

“I only spoke to him briefly. He was delivering medication for a patient we were going in to see. He was charming, handsome and very smooth. He’s the resident pharmacist.”

“That seems odd,” Harriet noted. “How can they afford to pay their own pharmacist?”

“Of course, that didn’t come up. Nothing was said about why a licensed pharmacist would be sleeping over at a small-town nursing home, either.”

“That will bear some investigation,” Harriet said.

“On it,” Lauren said and pulled her laptop from her bag.

Connie sat down.

“That’s all from me. They again invited us all to the open house and, of course, thanked us for the bibs.”

Jorge came in carrying three baskets of chips balanced on his arm, a bowl of guacamole in each hand.

“That family has always been a little strange, if you ask me.”

“Strange how?” Harriet asked.

“The stepfather is very active and prominent in the business community—Chamber of Commerce, Small Business Association, the local business association. The señorita’s mother is as invisible as he is visible. I’ve heard it’s the mother who owns the business, but he controls it, along with his son.

“There are other kids attached to the family, too. The man has a daughter with his second wife, and there is a blond boy in there somewhere. I don’t know who is the mother of the dark-haired son that is the señorita’s boyfriend.”

Lauren snapped her laptop shut as the waitress started bringing everyone’s lunch in.

“So far, I found the pharmacist in the family is Seth Pratt. He is, indeed, licensed and in good standing. There have been no complaints against him—at least at first glance. Beyond that, I need to do more digging.”

Jorge’s waitress set a plate with a small chile relleño and two tacos al pastor on it in front of Harriet.

“This looks good,” she said. She glanced at her aunt.

“I’ll wait until we eat to tell you about my morning,” Beth said.

Lauren crumpled her napkin and dropped it onto her plate. Twenty minutes had passed since the food had been put before them.

“I’m glad you ladies have all day to lunch, but I need to get back to work.” She looked at Beth.

“Okay.” Beth pushed her chair back from the table and stood. “As some of you know, I spent the morning at the hospital with Sarah. She came through her surgery with no problem and was released, but not before I was able to make one last plea for her to leave her fiancé and move to the shelter.”

“Did you make any headway?” Robin asked.

“I think I did. Possibly because she was taking pain medication and her resistance was lowered. I think I got through.”

“But?” Harriet prompted when her aunt didn’t continue.

“Her mother showed up. Sarah knows she can’t go back to the cabin by herself right now. I didn’t know if the shelter could take her immediately, so when her mother came in and told her she was going to take her to the senior center and have her stay in the skilled nursing wing for a few days, what could I say?”

“So, she’s going to stay with her abuser?” Lauren said. “I mean, didn’t Sarah say he was the night manager there?”

Beth’s shoulders drooped.

“When her mother showed up, there was nothing I could do.”

“Surely, she’ll be safe while she’s in their nursing wing,” Harriet said. “And that’ll give us time to make arrangements with the shelter, if she’ll let us.”

“I wouldn’t make any assumptions about her safety there,” Robin said. “Abusers can be incredibly persistent.”

“Short of staging a raid on the place, can anyone think of anything else we could do immediately?” Harriet asked.

Carla raised her hand as if she were a child in school.

“Oh, honey, you don’t need to raise your hand,” Beth told her.

“What if we visited her a lot?”

“We can’t be there twenty-four-seven,” Lauren pointed out.

Harriet leaned forward, her elbows on the table.

“That doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea. If we set up an irregular schedule, so people are coming and going several times a day and evening, he’ll never know when we’re going to show up.”

“It would be better if someone could be with her all the time, but I suppose visits would be at least a partial deterrent,” Robin said thoughtfully.

She pulled a yellow lined tablet and a pen from her purse and drew a grid with Loose Threads names in a vertical column and the hours of the day across the top.

“I’m putting myself down from one to three.” She looked at her watch. “I’ll be late today, but starting tomorrow I can go there after yoga class and stay until the kids get out of school.”

“I can go from nine to noon Monday, Wednesday and Friday,” Carla said. “Wendy can go to playgroup at the church.”

“I’ll go at dinnertime, whatever days you need me to,” Connie said.

“Put me down for whatever dinnertimes Connie doesn’t do,” Aunt Beth said.

“Kissa goes to a late-morning playgroup, so fill me in then,” DeAnn said referring to her toddler.

“Put me wherever you need fill-in,” Harriet said. “I’m working on a big quilt I’ll be stitching on for days; I can pretty much take a break anytime.”

Robin noted the times and put the pad and pen back into her bag.