The Long Stitch Good Night: An Embroidery Mystery (16 page)

Who could blame him for holding hands with Keira? Or with anyone else, for that matter?
He and I had hardly dipped our toes into the dating pond, and I’d also been out with Ted. Maybe Todd was simply being as cautious as I was.

I unlocked the front door and then settled into my favorite chair with the Mountmellick embroidery project. I hadn’t had as much time to work on it as I would have liked. Still, it was coming along nicely, albeit slowly. Somewhere in the midst of my daisy-petal stitching, Andy called. He said he wanted to apologize for being rude during dinner Sunday evening.

“There you were, kind enough to buy me a meal, and I behaved like a jerk,” he said.

“Oh, no, you didn’t,” I said. “I’m the one who was asking inappropriate questions.”

“You were only trying to help your friends, Marcy. It’s just that I’m touchy whenever the subject of Tawny Milligan comes up.”

“It appeared to me that she’d been more to you than merely the cleaning lady…at least, at some point.”

“I loved her,” he said simply. “She was the first girl I ever fell for. But it was embarrassing to me because…well, I don’t think she felt the same way. Anyway, the reason I’m calling is to ask you to let me make it up to you.”

“There’s no need to do that,” I said.

“Please,” he said. “I’d like to. May I take you out tomorrow night?”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t. I have embroidery classes on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings.”

“Oh. Yeah. Okay…maybe some other time, then.”

I could hear the dejection in his voice and quickly said, “I’m free on Friday.”

“Really? That’s super,” he said. “We can have dinner on Friday night, then?”

“That would be nice.” Sure it would. Like I needed any more drama in my life. But he’d sounded so sad…and I
had
deceived him initially…and I
had
struck a nerve with him about Tawny Milligan and brought up hurt feelings. Besides, he may be able to give me more information on what happened at the Brew Crew on the night of the murder as long as I avoided bringing up Tawny ever again.

Shortly after I’d talked with Andy, a couple of women came into the shop to browse. I greeted them, told them to let me know if they needed help with anything, and then allowed them to look around as they pleased.

One noticed the Mountmellick piece I was working on. She was a tall, pencil-thin redhead with dark green eyes.

“That’s lovely,” she said. “Brenda, come look at this!”

Brenda, a brunette with her hair in a messy updo, hurried over from the other side of the shop to see what her friend had discovered. “Ooh! That
is
pretty. Is it hard to do?”

“Not really. This is my first Mountmellick project,” I said. “I got the books in because I wanted to have some Irish embroidery patterns on hand in honor of Saint Patrick’s Day. When I began looking through one of the books, I fell in love with the style and had to try it myself.”

“Wow. That’s cool,” the redhead said. “Where are the books?”

I stood and led them over to the rack holding the Mountmellick books. They sat down in the sit-and-stitch square and within minutes were ready to buy the materials needed to make their own pieces. Luckily, I’d had the foresight to stock several yards of white denim, and varying weights of white floss for the various Mountmellick stitches.

As the women checked out, I asked if they’d be interested in taking embroidery classes.

“I might be,” Brenda said.

I placed a flyer in her bag and asked her to call me if she had any questions.

They were leaving the Seven-Year Stitch as Mark, the personal trainer, was coming in. I noticed them both giving him admiring glances. He didn’t seem to pay attention to them other than to politely hold the door open for them to pass through. The women thanked him, stepped out onto the sidewalk, and then turned to look at Mark again. They were whispering and giggling as they walked away.

“I believe you made their day,” I said.

“Now they know chivalry isn’t dead, I guess.” He smiled. “Do you have your weights?”

“I do. They’re in my office, if you’d like to come on back.”

“You have a nice place here,” Mark said, looking around the shop appreciatively as he followed me to the office. “I like how you’ve set the seating area apart. It’s almost as if it’s another room, and yet it’s inclusive.”

“Thank you. You have a keen eye for detail. I liked how you had your gym set up too.” I laughed. “I’d have hated to have had to work on my exercises in front of guys who so obviously knew what they were doing when I just as obviously didn’t.”

“Yeah, well, when people pay for private instruction, it should be private,” he said.

“I agree wholeheartedly.” I remembered
Todd telling me that Graham had criticized Mark for making his living off his muscles rather than his brain. “People who don’t own their own businesses have no idea how hard it can be.”

“Ain’t that the truth?”

We reached my office, and Mark spotted my dumbbells on the floor by my desk. He grinned. “I didn’t realize someone had designed a line of fairy-tale princess sporting goods.”

“Oh, sure. They had pink ones, too, but I thought those were a tad over the top.”

“Unlike these,” he said, picking both up in one large hand and holding them out toward me. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

I began doing the biceps curls.

Mark straightened my wrists. “Like this.…There you go.”

The shop’s doorbells jingled.

“Would you please excuse me for just one second?” I handed Mark the dumbbells. I stepped into the shop and saw that it was Todd and Angus who’d come in.

“Come say hi to Mark,” I said, mainly to let Todd know we weren’t alone. I wouldn’t want him to blurt out anything—especially about the case or Blake—that he wouldn’t want Mark or anyone else to hear.

“Mark’s here?” Todd asked with a frown.

I nodded. “He’s checking out my form.”

Angus had already bounded into the office to see who was there. When Todd and I walked into the room, Mark was rubbing the dog’s tummy.

Mark and Todd shook hands.

“How’s everything going, man?” Mark asked.

“It’s going.” Todd gave a weak smile. “I’m trying to have faith that everything will be all right.”

“If there’s anything I can do, let me know,” Mark said. He handed me the dumbbells. “Marcy, let’s see your overhead triceps extensions.”

“Sorry for interrupting,” Todd said. “You guys get back to work, and I’ll talk with you later, Marce. Thanks for letting me borrow Angus.”

“Anytime,” I said.

Angus followed Todd back into the shop—probably thinking they were going to return to the beach—as I demonstrated my triceps extensions to Mark. I had very good form on that one, by the way.

I tried to engage Mark in conversation about entrepreneurship, self-employment critics, Todd…
Nothing. The guy was singularly focused on the task at hand. After checking—and often adjusting—my form on each of the exercises he’d given me to do, he told me he’d check back on me in a couple of weeks to see how I was progressing. And then he left. Mark was the epitome of the “strong, silent type.”

By the time Mark left, it was around three o’clock. Since I usually had a slump about that time—I guessed it was due to school being dismissed around then—I took a bottle of water and my phone to the sit-and-stitch square and called Riley.

“Hi,” I said quietly when she answered the phone. “Is this a bad time?”

“No. Why are you whispering?” she asked. “Is anything wrong?”

“No. And now I feel utterly stupid. I was whispering because I thought the baby might be sleeping.”

We both laughed.

“Actually, she
is
sleeping,” Riley said. “But how are
you
doing? Suddenly, it’s you I’m worried about.”

“I’m all right…just a little loopy. How are you holding up?”

“I’m doing great. Laura is only waking up about once during the night,” she said. “I’m
hoping she’ll start sleeping all the way through by the time I have to head back to work in a couple weeks. Mom says I’m being overly optimistic, but I think Laura and I will have worked out an agreeable schedule by then.”

“I hope so,” I said. “How’s Keith?”

“He still has his head in the clouds,” she said with a giggle in her voice. “However, he does come back to earth for diaper duty, feedings, and snuggle time—with Laura and with me.”

“That’s sweet.”

“Yeah…So tell me what’s going on with the murder investigation,” she said.

“I imagine you’ve heard about the arraignment,” I said.

“I have. I’m a little surprised at Judge Street granting bail. Cam must’ve been fairly convincing on the ‘strong community ties’ argument.”

“He was,” I said. “And Blake’s attorney pretty much said ‘Ditto.’”

Riley groaned. “I don’t know why in the world Blake went with McQuiston. He’s competent in other areas, but he has almost no criminal law experience.”

“I believe he’s a friend of Sadie’s parents,” I told her.

“Well, there are friends of the family, and
then there’s somebody like Cam Whitting who can keep your butt out of prison for life.” She expelled a long breath. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. But that sort of thing really strikes a nerve with me. I’ve seen so many—” She stopped herself from finishing the thought. “So, what else is new?”

“Not a lot,” I said. “I’ve been doing what I can to help, which isn’t much. I’d hoped to talk with some of the fraternity brothers and their friends to see if anyone had any long-standing grudges with Graham.”

“And what did you dig up?”

“Well, one name that keeps popping up is that of Tawny Milligan. I tried to get in touch with her, but I can’t find her. Were you and Todd dating while he was in college?” I asked. “I thought that, if so, you might’ve known Tawny, since she was friends with so many of the Alpha Sigs.”

“Todd and I were together his last year at OSU, so, yeah, I did know Tawny. She was standoffish toward me, and I chalked that up to her being jealous because she was a little infatuated with Todd.”

“Had she and Todd dated before?”

“No. Blake had dated Tawny briefly,” Riley said. “Even if Todd had been interested in
Tawny, he’d have adhered to the unwritten guy rule that says you don’t date the girl who dumped your best friend.”

“Are you telling me Sadie was Blake’s rebound?” I asked incredulously.

“Well, she was obviously more than that. I mean, look how long the two of them have been together. Right?”

“Yeah.” I tried to dispel the doubt nagging in my noggin. “Who else did Tawny date?”

“She ultimately wound up with Graham—who broke her heart, by the way, and might be why she left OSU, never to be heard from again,” she said. “But in addition to her dating Graham, it was rumored that she’d also had flings—or more like one-night stands—with Roberto and Andy.”

“How about Mark or Charles?” I asked. “Did she have any sort of relationship with them?”

“She was friends with both of them. That was the extent of it, as far as I know.”

“She must have been very beautiful,” I said. “Roberto’s wife said she had violet eyes like Elizabeth Taylor’s.”

Riley laughed softly. “Carla would’ve clawed those violet eyes out of Tawny’s head if she’d known about Tawny and Roberto. But,
yeah, Tawny was pretty enough. Not Elizabeth Taylor stunning but certainly not ugly.”

“I’m just dying to see what this seductress looks like. Don’t forget, Sadie and I didn’t go to OSU. And Sadie never even met Tawny.”

“That’s not surprising,” she said. “I can’t imagine Tawny would want to meet the woman that Graham was so enamored of.”

“Sadie’s relationship with Graham confuses me too. She and I were roommates in college, but I’d never met Graham until Friday night at the party,” I said. “I did notice that Sadie wasn’t with Blake and the group of fraternity guys when I went by to pick her up, but I supposed she just didn’t want to hang out with a group of guys. Sadie didn’t mention that she and Graham had dated.”

“She and Graham only went out for a couple of months. Sadie was a freshman then.…”

“That explains it. Sadie was at the school for a year and had already changed majors by the time I got there. I am surprised, though, that Sadie never mentioned their relationship,” I said. “Especially after Friday.”

“Maybe she was just too caught up in worrying about Blake’s predicament…and her own, for that matter. I mean, if Blake goes to prison, what will that mean for her and for the
coffeehouse?” asked Riley. “Besides, I don’t think her relationship with Graham was all that serious as far as Sadie was concerned. Like I told you, Graham was head over heels for her. But after he introduced Sadie to Blake, those two only had eyes for each other. I’m not sure Graham ever forgave Blake for that.”

“What was to forgive?” I asked. “They couldn’t help the way they felt about each other.”

“True. But you have to admit, if you introduced the guy you loved to one of your best friends, and they hooked up, you’d be pretty ticked at both of them,” she said. “And Graham was definitely ticked. He’d still try to act like he was Blake’s buddy, but he’d undermine him every chance he got.”

I could hear Laura beginning to fuss in the background. “It sounds like duty calls.”

“More like
doody
calls,” Riley said with a bark of laughter.

“Give her a kiss for me…you know…after the cleanup. I’ll be by to see you guys soon.”

S
adie came into the Seven-Year Stitch just as I was getting ready to lock up and take Angus home. I always took him home, fed him, and let him out into the backyard before returning for class.

Sadie was carrying a MacKenzies’ Mochas takeout bag. “I brought that chicken salad croissant I promised you yesterday. In fact, I’ve got us both one. Would you mind if I went with you to take Angus home?”

“Not at all,” I said. “I’m happy for the company—the
extra
company, I mean.” I patted Angus on the head.

I put my clock sign on the door indicating I’d be back by six p.m. for class. Then I locked the door, and Sadie, Angus, and I went out to
the Jeep. I opened the back door on the driver’s side, and Angus hopped in. I put up the pet barrier to keep him out of the front seat, but he could still hang his head over the front to be petted by Sadie during the drive home.