Disappearing Nine Patch (A Harriet Truman/Loose Threads Mystery Book 9) (7 page)

The tea kettle whistled, and Harriet got up to retrieve it. She poured hot water into cups for everyone and carried them to the table, two at a time. When she was finished, she got a small basket of mixed tea bags from the cupboard.

Stewart looked up at her as she handed him the basket.

“I’m a poet. And before you ask, yes, I’m published, and, no, it doesn’t pay the bills. I work as a convenience store clerk at that store down by McDonald’s. Out on the highway.”

Molly sniffled and dabbed at her nose with a crumpled tissue.

“I’ve read his work. It’s really very good.”

Carla passed the plate of cookies across the table to Molly and Stewart, and they busied themselves selecting a couple and passing the plate on to Lauren.

“I’ve started researching Amber’s disappearance,” Lauren told them. “So far, I’m learning a lot of background information. Pretty much all the theories that didn’t pan out.”

Mavis set her cup down.

“So, Stewart, how did you happen to be at the missing children’s place? I mean, Amber’s been gone for a long time.”

He leaned back in his chair.

“You’re right—the Carey Bates Missing and Exploited Children’s Organization was only formed five years ago. Twelve-year-old Carey Bates went missing from Foggy Point, only to be found being sold as a prostitute in Seattle. They brought her home, but she ran away repeatedly until one time she didn’t come home. She had died of a drug overdose in her pimp’s hotel room.

“I heard about them the first week they opened, and I went to let them know about Amber. I’ve checked in with them once a month ever since.”

Harriet leaned forward.

“Have they ever had anything for you?”

He hung his head and closed his eyes briefly before looking back at her.

“They’ve done age progression pictures every year. They post them on missing children sites, but so far, nothing has turned up.”

“I was glad Stewart was there,” Molly said. “My ex, Josh, showed up to deliver his donation to the fundraiser. It was terrible.” Her face turned red as she spoke. “Can you imagine?
He
took out a restraining order against
me
!”

“What?” Harriet asked.

“I know, right?” Molly continued. “He got a judge somewhere to believe that he—all six-foot-three, two hundred-and-sixty pounds of him—was abused by
me
. It’s a nightmare.”

Lauren took a sip of her tea and set her cup down.

“So, what happened?”

“He drove up and parked in front of the office, and then had his attorney, who was conveniently in the car with him, come in and demand I leave so he could safely come inside and make his donation.”

“That takes some nerve,” Mavis said.

“I was lucky Stewart had come in just before that. I was in my office, and I got so upset I couldn’t even speak.” She looked at Stewart. “Stew took me by the hand and led me out the back so I didn’t have to see Josh. We went to the coffee shop and talked for hours. When we went back by the office he was gone.”

Harriet got up to get the box of cookies to refill the empty plate.

“He just conveniently had his attorney with him?” she asked.

Molly took a cookie from the proffered plate and took a bite. Stewart answered for her.

“Supposedly, his attorney is also his AA sponsor.”

“You don’t believe him?” Lauren asked.

“He told the secretaries in the office his whole long sob story about how his life had fallen apart when his girlfriend had become abusive. He told them he’d begun drinking excessively, and one night he’d seen one of those reality shows on TV where families do interventions on their substance-abusing loved ones. He realized he was disappointing his mother, so he stopped drinking cold turkey and called AA the next morning.”

Harriet was twirling her teaspoon between her fingers. Her hand froze.

“Wait. This doesn’t make sense. If Molly was so abusive to him, why is he in Foggy Point donating all this money to her fundraiser?”

Molly took up the story.

“He claimed he was doing it to try to help me. He said he hoped if they found out what had happened to Amber, I could…” She made air quotes with her fingers. “…recover—I guess.”

“That was big of him,” Mavis said. “He was going to help you stop being an abuser? That’s got to be a first.”

Molly’s shoulders pulled up toward her ears, and her jaw tensed. Mavis looked at her.

“Honey, we all know you’re not an abuser. Anyone can see that. Never you mind what your crazy ex says about you. He’s doing all those theatrics to try to get a reaction from you. It’ll be hard, but your best move is to ignore him.”

“That’s what DeAnn said when I called her.”

“She’s right,” Harriet told her.

Mavis stood up.

“I don’t mean to chase you out of here…” She stopped for a moment and smiled. “I guess I do mean to chase you out of here. If we’re going to manage another quilt, we need to get back in the studio and finish the one we’re working on.”

Molly stood up and carried her mug to the sink.

“I’ve got to go back to work, too. Hopefully, Josh left when he realized I was gone.”

Stewart picked up his keys from the table where he’d set them.

“If his car is there again, we’ll drive on by, and I’ll take you home or wherever you want to go.”

Carla cleared the rest of the table while Harriet and Mavis escorted their guests through the studio and out the door. Lauren pulled out her tablet as soon as they were gone.

“What are you doing?” Harriet asked when she returned.

“We have a new player in the mix. I figured I’d take a quick look and see if anything popped.”

Harriet stopped folding the inner bag in the cookie box.

“And?”

Carla came over from the sink, drying her hands on a towel. Lauren spun her tablet around so they could see what she’d found.

“He wasn’t lying about being a poet. He’s got three books published by a small but respected publishing house. He has a schedule of readings listed.” She pointed with her finger to a calendar on the webpage. “Looks like he stays on the West Coast. Mostly the Northwest, it seems.”

She clicked the sleep button on the side of the tablet, and the screen went dark.

“It would appear he’s who he says he is.”

Harriet closed the cookie box and returned it to the cupboard.

“I’m glad, for Molly’s sake.”

Carla folded the kitchen towel and set it on the counter.

“Me, too. Seems like she’s got her hands full with that other guy.”

Mavis popped her head in from the studio.

“Are you three going to do any more quilting today?”

Harriet led the way back to rejoin her.

“We’ve got to hustle if we’re going to make another quilt,” she scolded. “Before we go home, we need to finish the rest of the nine-patch blocks and cut them into fourths. That way we can decide how we want to rearrange them, and each of us can take some home and sew them together. If everything works right, we’ll each have one-quarter of the quilt top finished next time we meet.”

Lauren picked up her ruler and started lining it up over a strip set.

“What are we going to do about the third quilt?”

Mavis looked up from her sewing machine.

“Beth is going to stop by on her way home to give us a progress report for her group. If they’re at the same point we are, we’ll divide the third batch of fabric, and each team will make half a quilt top.”

“Geez,” Lauren grumbled. “Some of us have real jobs, too.”

Harriet looked over at her.

“Hey, stop feeling sorry for yourself. I’ve got to quilt all these as we finish. And
I
have a day job, too.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

Lauren focused on making a precise slice through the fabric, and that was the end of that discussion.

Lauren was taking pictures of the block layout they’d agreed on when Aunt Beth arrived.

“Looks like great minds think alike,” she announced when she saw the arrangement of blocks on the cutting table.

Harriet joined her aunt and studied the layout.

“Is your group at this point, too?”

“We didn’t finish all our nine-patch blocks, but we went ahead and cut what we had into fourths. We only need five or six more parent blocks. Connie is going to do them tonight, and she can catch up to the rest of us in sewing them together. DeAnn’s had a few family obligations with her sister being home.”

“Are you busy Monday?” Harriet asked.

“I have to get my tire fixed first thing, then I’m going to be sorting clothes in the church clothes closet for the rest of the day.”

“Can I borrow your car while you’re working? Mine needs to go in for a brake job. They said they have the parts on hand and can finish it in one day if I bring it in early.”

Mavis gathered the blocks into four stacks after Lauren had finished taking a reference picture. She stopped and looked at her friend.

“What’s wrong with your tire?”

“It appears someone slashed it.”

“
What
?” Harriet said, louder than she’d intended. “When did this happen? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Lauren put her phone in her pocket and bumped Harriet with her elbow.

“We might find out if you’d stop asking questions and let the woman speak.”

Beth glanced at Lauren and then back to Harriet. She sighed.

“We better sit down for this.”

Harriet turned and led the way to the kitchen.

“How about iced tea this time?”

“Works for me,” Lauren said. She went to the cupboard and dug around until she found a box of ginger snaps.

Carla glanced at her watch.

“I have to go pick Wendy up in about twenty minutes.”

“This won’t take that long,” Beth assured her.

“The situation is complicated,” Aunt Beth began when everyone was seated around the table with a glass of tea and a cookie. “Jorge has a customer who has had a major crush on him for a lot of years. He has done nothing to encourage it, but she comes into the restaurant almost every day.”

Lauren leaned forward. “Is she that lady who always wears a fluorescent pink tube top that’s about three sizes too small, even in the dead of winter?”

“Now, honey,” Beth scolded. “We shouldn’t make fun of those less fortunate than us.”

“I’m not making fun, I’m stating fact. I don’t know how she doesn’t end up with frostbite in the winter.”

“Her name is Juana. Juana Lopez-Montoya,” Beth continued. “She has an imaginary romance with Jorge. She tells people in the restaurant that she’s his fiancée, and they’re getting married in the spring. Most people understand the situation, so no one pays her any mind. The problem is, she apparently sees me as a romantic rival and has been telling everyone who will listen that I’m trying to steal ‘her man’.

“Jorge has gone to talk to the people at the group home she lives in, but they haven’t made any headway. They can’t stop her from going out, and they can’t convince her that she’s not marrying Jorge.”

“That’s pretty awful.” Harriet said and sipped her tea.

Beth took a bite of cookie.

“She stepped her game up today. This morning, I found my front tire was slashed. Bernice across the street saw her by my car when she went out to get her paper. She went over to see what was going on. Juana took off on her tricycle, but the damage was already done.”

“Did you call the police?” Carla asked.

“Bernice called before she called me. They said they’d have an officer go have a talk with her and her social worker. They suggested I park my car in the garage instead of the driveway.”

Lauren laughed. “Well, that would have been more helpful advice
before
she slashed your tire.”

Mavis wrapped her napkin around the base of her glass before she picked it up.

“It’s a tough situation. No one wants to see Juana put in jail or the state mental hospital. She doesn’t fit the profile for either place, and most of the time she does well enough. Her mother’s in hospice with lung cancer. I’ve seen her a few times with Pastor Hafer. There don’t seem to be any other relatives. Juana was working at the shelter workshop, but they lost one of their bigger contracts so she’s been laid off until they can get more work in.”

“That’s awful,” Harriet said. “I feel for her, but that doesn’t make it okay for her to go after my aunt.” She clenched her teeth for a second. “What if she’d decided to slash
you
instead of the tires?”

“Beth can get a restraining order, if she hasn’t already.” Lauren drank a swallow of tea.

“Yeah, look how well that worked out for Molly,” Harriet shot back.

“I did fill out the paper work for a restraining order, but I doubt a piece of paper is going to make a difference to a lovesick woman.”

Carla took her glass to the sink.

“We probably should ask Robin. Maybe she can do something legal with Juana’s social worker, so they have to take more responsibility for her.”

Mavis smiled at her with approval.

“That’s a good idea.”

“In the meantime, to answer the original question…” Aunt Beth turned her attention to Harriet. “If you’ll meet me at the tire place first thing Monday morning, they can put my new tire on, and I can follow you to your car place. We can drop your car, and you can drive me to the church. Then, my car is all yours until four o’clock.”

“Works for me.”

Mavis stood up.

“I’ll divide the fabric up for the third quilt tonight, and then I can pass it out to everyone after church. Everybody going to be there?”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Lauren said, and the rest of the group agreed.