Threaded for Trouble (10 page)

Susannah inspected her crocheted lace. “She volunteered for a children’s charity. Fund-raising, I think.”

Mimi sighed. “The good die young.”

Susannah opened her mouth as if to say something, then clammed up and ripped out the last few stitches she’d made, though they’d looked fine to me. Had she been about to deny that Darlene was good?

Opal touched Susannah’s arm. “Why are you ripping out so much? Your stitches are perfect.”

Susannah’s only response was a small, “Oh.” She jabbed her crochet hook into her work and made more loops, but even I could tell that these new ones were too big and sloppy.

“How old was Darlene?” I asked.

“The obituary said thirty-nine,” Karen said.

That was a surprise. Darlene had appeared to be in her mid to late forties.

Mona must have thought the same thing. “All those children must have aged her. Did she have others besides the ones who came to the ceremony?”

None of us knew.

Susannah ripped out the loose loops.

Opal eyed Susannah’s work, but all she said was, “The older children didn’t seem happy.” Her usually strident voice was soft with sympathy.

“Poor things,” Naomi agreed. “It looked like they were having typical teenager problems with their mother. Now they’ll always be bothered because they’ll never be able to work those problems out with her.”

Haylee cocked an eyebrow and asked Naomi in a teasing voice, “Typical teenager problems?”

Naomi patted Haylee’s arm. “You never had them. You were perfect.”

Opal put down her knitting. “Or we refused to see any problems.”

Haylee giggled. “I
was
perfect.”

Edna bobbed her head up and down. “Perfect for us, and you still are.”

Naomi looked dreamily toward the vase of showy dahlias eclipsing Opal’s fireplace. “What could we do to help Darlene’s children cope?”

Haylee obviously didn’t want them coming up with one of their impulsive schemes. She asked, “What did you all think of the sewing machine company rep, especially her sewing skills?”

Petal, Karen, and Jane hadn’t seen Felicity, but by the time we described her personality and lack of sewing skills, they were laughing as hard as the rest of us.

It felt good to laugh at something, even if it was at Felicity’s expense. With any luck, none of us would ever see the poor woman again, and I had no plans to order more Chandler sewing machines anytime soon. Everyone roared when I told them I’d seen proof that Felicity had interfaced her jacket with corrugated cardboard. Even Susannah smiled, and her stitches looked even again.

When I got home, my scarf had grown by almost another row.

TALLY WOKE ME UP IN THE WEE HOURS WITH a prolonged and mournful howl. I hopped out of bed to comfort him. He snored and twitched as if chasing something.

I went back to bed and the next thing I knew, it was light. None of the three of us had any more sad dreams, and if the seemingly nightly fire siren had sounded, we’d all slept through it.

The day was supposed to be hot. I put on a blue linen top and a matching miniskirt that I’d made and sprinkled with embroidered daisies. I pinned my long hair up off my neck.

Upstairs, feet thumped on the floorboards of the front porch.

Sally and Tally yelped out a warning and dashed up the stairs toward the shop. Heart beating, I charged after them. Still barking, the dogs pawed at the door at the top of the stairs. The minute I unlatched it, they dashed, yipping, into the shop. I ran after them. They put their front feet up on the glass door and barked with even more urgency.

A cardboard carton was on my porch, just beyond the door. I’d last seen it, or one like it, on Wednesday. Big green letters across it said,
Another Fine Chandler Champion
.

W
HO HAD LEFT A CHANDLER CHAMPION carton on my porch? I looked up and down Lake Street. No one was out there.

I maneuvered the two excited dogs into their pen in the back of the store, shut the gate, then ran back to the porch.

A note was taped to the box.
Please look after me.

Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe.

What could be inside? This had to be the carton from Darlene’s prize sewing machine. Who in her household was fond of dangerous mischief?

Her oldest son, Russ.

If I opened the carton, would something explode in my face?

Please look after me.

Me
.

Like something inside the carton was alive? If I
didn’t
open it, would a tiny, helpless animal suffocate?

Pressing my hand against my mouth so hard that it hurt, I shifted from foot to foot. In Stitches was scheduled to open in a half hour. I had to find out what was in this carton.

I could call Elderberry Bay’s one and only police
officer. Chief Smallwood had taken over after our previous chief left. Unfortunately, Smallwood had two personalities. On the phone, she was sometimes friendly and helpful, but in person, she could be cold and accusing. Besides, her previous career as a state trooper might have trained her to blow up the parcel.

Please look after
me.

What if the carton contained a sleeping puppy, kitten, or—I didn’t want to think about another possibility—a baby? I didn’t dare phone Chief Smallwood.

The village was silent except for waves breaking on the beach at the foot of Lake Street.

I clenched my fist and exhaled into it. Unless I failed the written or physical exam, I was about to become a firefighter. I had to think like one. I should call in the experts. Not Plug. I didn’t trust him.

Isaac was deputy chief, and his card was in my apartment with the manual he’d given me.

I left the carton on the porch. As if locks could prevent damage from an explosion, I locked the front door.

I took the dogs downstairs, through my apartment, and outside. I shut them in Blueberry Cottage, far from any possible blast. Back in my apartment, I phoned Isaac and explained that I’d found a mysterious parcel on my front porch and was afraid it might explode.

“We’ll be right there!” He banged the receiver down.

Did he have to sound so enthusiastic?

We?

With visions of fire trucks barricading each end of the block, I ran upstairs and looked out my front windows.

Plug’s SUV rocketed up the street and stopped, lights flashing, in front of my shop.

Plug and Isaac started up my walk. Maybe it was a good sign that Plug wasn’t afraid of the carton. I went out to the porch. What should I say?
Hi, Chief, can you make certain that no one planted a bomb in the carton that once contained your late wife’s sewing machine?
If he had brought me a bomb, he wasn’t likely to tell me.

His face was as red as his truck. He stopped at the base of my steps. “What’s wrong
now
?” As if I called him every day.

I gestured at the carton at my feet. “This parcel showed up outside my door and…aren’t we supposed to report suspicious parcels?”

Isaac nodded encouragingly. His hair stuck out as if my call had gotten him out of bed. Then again, he’d looked like that the only other time I’d seen him, too.

Plug planted his fists at the sides of his more-than-ample waist. “Ma’am, you
sell
sewing machines. Are you planning to call the fire department each time one’s delivered?” In a gesture reminiscent of his son, he flicked a lock of hair out of his eyes.

Up on my porch, I towered over both men. “Not if I expect a delivery. This was a surprise. And I don’t know
what’s
in this box. It could be a bomb.”

My warning didn’t faze Isaac. He jogged up the steps and stared at the box. “Chief!”

The excitement in his voice made me edge back toward my door.

“What?” Plug thundered, the threads of his temper clearly fraying.

Isaac pointed at the note taped to the box. “This looks like your printing.”

Plug folded his arms across his chest and slid his feet farther apart. “All printing looks alike.”

Isaac shook his head. “Yours is different. See, here, the way…”

Swearing, Plug marched up the steps, ripped the tape off the carton, and pushed the flaps back.

The carton contained exactly what it said. A sewing machine.

Not just any sewing machine, either. A Chandler Champion.

Plug swatted at one of the flaps and turned on Isaac. “Listen, dolt. This woman”—he pointed at me—“gave this sewing machine to my wife. My late wife. This woman can
have the machine back. She can give it to someone else. She can sell it. She can bury it in her backyard. I don’t give a flamin’ fireplug
what
she does with it. But
I
don’t want it. I don’t want to see it. I don’t want it in my house. I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to be reminded of it. I don’t want to know it exists. Ya got that, dolt?”

Isaac’s mouth had gaped open the first time Plug called him a dolt, and I wasn’t sure he comprehended anything else until Plug repeated it. Veins in Isaac’s neck bulged like piping. If anything was flamin’, it was his eyes. He stood tall, making it obvious how short Plug was.

Plug stormed down the steps. He called over his shoulder, “Carry the thing into her store for her.” He got into his SUV and roared away.

Muttering, “I guess I’m walking back,” Isaac stooped to pick up the carton.

“I can take it inside,” I said. “I have a dolly.”

He hefted it easily to his shoulder, something I would never, no matter how many bolts of cloth I hauled around, be able to do. “I’m in no hurry to join him at the fire station.” His voice came out flatter than usual, as if he were trying to tamp down his anger, or at least hide it. “Where do you want it?”

I unlocked the storage room. “Here, until I figure out what to do with it.”

He set it on a shelf. “How much do these things cost?” He swallowed. His Adam’s apple bobbed. He was beginning to look genial again.

I told him the list price for a fully loaded Chandler Champion.

“That much? You could buy a used pickup for that.”

I led him out of the storeroom. “Pickup trucks don’t sew.”

He laughed. “True. But they haul more than a sewing machine could.” He pivoted and waved his hand at my tidy row of sewing machines. “The rest of these machines, are they that expensive, too?”

“That’s the most expensive one. They do more than just sew.”
The one we just put away killed someone.
I hoped the thought didn’t show on my face. “They embroider, too.”

He whistled. “Whoa. You’ve got a fortune in here. You got it all properly insured?”

Where was he heading with that? “Of course.” It was true.

He cocked his head and rubbed his chin. “So the chief could’ve sold that sewing machine and made a lot of money.”

“Yes.” I pictured the little girl’s face, tear-streaked from crying about missing her mother. And wanting her dwess back. I could sell the machine and start a fund for Darlene’s kids.

Isaac gazed into the distance beyond my shop’s front porch. “I always thought Plug was missing a gallon from his water tank. Now I know it.” With a grim smile, he shambled out of In Stitches.

I had a feeling that the conflict I’d witnessed between the two men wasn’t their first and wouldn’t be their last.

I ran down the hill to Blueberry Cottage and released Sally-Forth and Tally-Ho from their temporary prison. They were, as always, overjoyed to see me and happy to be taken upstairs to their pen where they could “help” in the shop. I wanted to go tell Haylee about the morning’s surprising events, but the Threadville tour bus had already arrived, and women were marching up my sidewalk.

Georgina, dressed all in shell pink, wanted to embroider a design all over gleaming white satin for her daughter’s wedding gown, but she sensibly didn’t want to start on the satin without practicing first. I gave the class pointers on hooping and rehooping fabric to make a design continuous without gaps or overlaps. Larger hoops and the latest software made it easier, but not everyone owned such luxurious machines, so we practiced with more basic machines, too.

Rosemary had great luck making various sizes of dots appear random. Mimi’s cough must have been bothering her more than she let on. She kept clearing her throat, and no matter how many times she placed her embroidery in the hoop, her stitching ended up off center.

Georgina liked Rosemary’s dots, but her daughter had
requested the sorts of curlicues that might appear in a medieval manuscript.

Rosemary picked up the candlewicking I’d dreamed up while drifting off to sleep. I had fastened thick, soft piping cord to the fabric, then had satin stitched over short sections of it in white, leaving alternate sections puffy. “What about putting this all over a wedding gown?” she asked.

Lucky thing I wasn’t taking a sip of iced tea. I’d have spewed it over everyone. “I don’t think brides want to look poufy. Besides, once it’s washed, it will probably resemble drenched wooly caterpillars.”

Everybody laughed. “I don’t know about you,” Rosemary said, “but I don’t wash my wedding gowns. I take them to the cleaners.”

“Husbands, too?” Georgina teased.

Rosemary smiled happily. “Them, too.” I’d met Rosemary’s husband. They’d been married for almost twenty years and obviously adored each other. If another husband had predated him, she’d been a child bride.

It was Saturday, so Susannah wasn’t in my shop, which was just as well, since I didn’t think she was quite ready to joke about ex-husbands. She was helping Edna in Buttons and Bows all day, except for giving the rest of us our midday breaks. When it was my turn, I enjoyed a quick sandwich in the warm, dappled sunshine in my backyard while the dogs romped around me.

After lunch, we went up to the shop, and the dogs promptly curled up on each other’s beds. Apparently, the monograms I’d embroidered for them had failed to impress them.

Susannah could use overtime pay to help her hang on to her house. Accompanying her to the front door, I told her that Darlene’s machine had returned to In Stitches. “Can you help me check it for damage tonight after the Threadville shops close?” I asked.