Threaded for Trouble (26 page)

Malicious intent
. Why would anyone do such a thing? Feeling sick, I knelt and lifted the lid off the box that, according to my labeling system, held my point presser. I pulled out a tailor’s ham, some pressing cloths, and a box of small pressing aids. And finally, my point presser. I hauled it out. “Is this like the weapon you found?”

“Y
ES,” SMALLWOOD SAID. “TIFFANY AND Felicity were hit with something just like that. You seamstresses own a lot of lethal tools.”

I nestled the point presser back in its place. “Using a wooden weapon before setting a fire shows premeditation, doesn’t it?”

“It could. And many killers expect a fire to burn up all the evidence. Fires don’t, and this one didn’t come close. The good thing about amateur criminals, if there is a good thing, is that they make mistakes and are easier to catch.”

I tried to keep a neutral expression on my face, but she shook her pen at me. “You were
lucky
that other time. Don’t think of yourself as a detective, amateur or professional. Let us do the investigating.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I nearly saluted.

She glared at me.

Maybe she didn’t want me investigating, but even she might admit that I could come up with plausible theories. They might not be the right theories, but they could lead her and other investigators down paths that would yield results, couldn’t they? “Did you ever find Felicity’s car?” I asked.

“Yep. It was where she said she’d left it, in a farm lane south of the house, tucked among the trees. Tell me this, Willow—Felicity reported that she saw the firefighter attack Tiffany on the third floor, and then Felicity went to the second floor, where we know she was attacked. You said that the little girl told you she saw the nasty lady sleeping in Tiffany’s room when her daddy was carrying her and her blankie outside, right?”

I nodded.

“Okay, here’s the thing—Plug had his fourteen-year-old son report the fire while Plug and his two oldest teenagers evacuated the little kids. Which means that Felicity saw a firefighter inside the Coddlefields’ house
before
the fire was reported. How could that be?”

“Maybe Tiffany had already called it in?”

Smallwood shook her head decisively. “Nope. We checked with 911. No one had.”

I shoved the plastic box containing the point presser back into my closet. “If one was going to set a fire, wouldn’t wearing a firefighter’s uniform, complete with respirator and mask, be a sensible precaution?”

“I suppose.”

“Maybe the actual attacker wasn’t wearing a firefighting outfit. Felicity was stunned and could have been confused about what happened before she was hit. I didn’t clobber her, anyway.” I only dragged her down a flight of stairs. “And there was that mystery fireman who must have left early, while smoke was still coming out of that house and the others were spraying water on the roof. Maybe he arrived early, too.” To attack people and start a fire? Why would someone do that?

And had Susannah been at the Coddlefields’? The mailbox door hadn’t been closed, but it wouldn’t have made sense for her to rifle through people’s mailboxes hours after the mail should have been delivered. Unsure who had been driving the car that resembled Susannah’s, I didn’t mention it.

Smallwood had kept track of the boxes. She handed
them to me in order so they’d end up where they’d been before. Her thoroughness and helpfulness despite her lack of sleep impressed me. I thanked her, shut the closet door, and added, “Maybe the mystery fireman wore a firefighter’s outfit as a disguise.”

“It could be difficult to clomp around in someone else’s house and not be noticed,” she said. “Especially dressed as a fireman.”

She had a dry sense of humor that I was only beginning to recognize and appreciate. “Unless it was a common occurrence,” I contributed. “Maybe Plug and his sons strut around in those uniforms frequently.” At the look on her face, I quickly added, “Maybe they do fire drills, teach the little kids about fire safety, or something.”

“Or something,” she repeated drily. “Whatever it is, I don’t think I want to know about it.”

“It’s your job.”

“Thanks for reminding me, Willow.”

Yes, she definitely had a sense of humor.

“No problem. And anyway,” I said, “someone besides Felicity did see that fireman. Tiffany. Where was Plug when Felicity saw Tiffany and the fireman having their encounter?”

“He claims he fell asleep in the basement watching a baseball game.”

“I did hear a TV or radio in the basement when I ran inside. Presumably, the smaller children were sleeping in their bedrooms on the second floor when the fireman, or whoever, crept in. Where were Plug’s older kids?”

“Russ and his two teenaged siblings, a boy and a girl, had been out driving around. They came home and saw flames shooting from the sewing room window on the third floor.”

Or at least they
said
they’d been out. “So Tiffany’s attacker was able to creep up to the sewing room without anyone noticing, except Tiffany, who could have been up there working on a project. And Felicity’s entry went unnoticed, too. Even if Plug heard someone walking around upstairs, he
might have figured it was Tiffany or one of his kids. But you’d think he’d have heard his smoke detectors. Not that they were making any noise when I arrived.” With all that smoke still billowing, shouldn’t they have been beeping?

“They were out of batteries.”

I clapped my hand over my mouth and squeaked through my fingers, “The fire chief? Neglected to replace his batteries?”

She waved her hand in front of her face as if trying to blow smoke away. “Someone in that household—Plug says it wasn’t him—took batteries out whenever the detectors warned that the batteries were low. They probably
intended
to put new ones in.”

Maybe as volunteer firefighters, Haylee and I could go around reminding people to replace batteries in smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. We could even help them do it, and no one would accuse us of being snoopy.

My stomach growled. I asked Smallwood, “When did you last eat?”

“Supper last night.”

“Come on, then.” I led her to the kitchen and set out bread, peanut butter, grape jelly, knives, spoons, and plates. We dug in and made thick, gooey sandwiches. Grapes weren’t good for dogs, so I left the jelly out of theirs.

Smallwood asked me to give her a more detailed description of the firefighter I’d seen out on the road.

“He was wearing full regalia, including a mask, I think, which would have been odd, since those things aren’t comfortable and he was so far from the fire. I couldn’t see all of his face. He was about Plug’s height.”

“Why are you making that face?”

I had squeezed my eyes and mouth closed as if someone were blowing smoke at me. “I wouldn’t want to rule Plug Coddlefield out of any of this. But I don’t think that firefighter was as heavy as he is.”

“Why don’t you want to rule him out?”

“He seems mean enough to hurt his wife. And he may have had a girlfriend while Darlene was still alive.”

“The girlfriend was also attacked.” Smallwood cut her sandwiches into cute triangles. “And according to Felicity, the mystery firefighter encouraged the fire in the sewing machine. Would a father do that when his children were asleep on the next floor down?”

“I hope not! But Felicity was wandering around inside his house in the middle of the night. I’m not sure I’d blame him for attacking an intruder he found near his children’s bedrooms.”

“His teenagers—except for Russ, whom I haven’t yet managed to interview—have separately corroborated that he was asleep when they got home and saw smoke and flames. If Felicity’s story is correct, the fire began
before
she was attacked.” She shook a forefinger at me. “And don’t tell me the teenagers started a fire in the house where their younger sisters and brothers were sleeping, either.”

She was probably right. The mystery fireman must have started the fire and attacked both Tiffany and Felicity. As far as we knew, the Coddlefield teenagers had behaved well. The boys had fought the fire while the girls had looked after the small children. It was possible that none of them, except Darla, had known that Felicity was there.

We took the dogs and our lunches outside. I patted one of the Adirondack chairs. “You can sit here. It’s washable, so leave all the smudges you want.”

“Thanks.” Smallwood sat, grunting as if she’d been on her feet for hours. She probably had. “This is great.”

“Peanut butter and jelly is comfort food, sometimes.”

“Nearly always,” she agreed.

The dogs charged to the bottom of the hill, then raced back up. I gave them each a piece of their special, peanut-butter-only sandwiches, then turned to Smallwood. “You know, the would-be murderer last night probably expected other evidence besides the wooden point presser to burn up completely. Felicity said he tore two strips off a piece of an unmade little dress. The fabric on Felicity’s wrist was cotton, so I’m guessing that Tiffany was tied up with cotton, too. Cotton burns into fine ash hardly distinguishable from
other types of ash, but artificial fabrics melt, leaving telltale beads.”

“How do you know all that? And how would someone intent on harming Tiffany and Felicity know?”

I rubbed my fingers against my thumb as if touching fabric. “I can usually recognize cotton by the way it feels. If I’m not sure, I light a match to a scrap. Cotton burns. Polyester melts.”

Smallwood looked about to accuse me of lighting matches to fields of soybeans and empty barns.

I defended myself. “Most people who sew know the flame test. A chemist would know. An arsonist might know. The husband or children of a seamstress might have heard about it. All of my boutique-owning colleagues should know.”

“If you Threadville ladies are lighting up your fabrics all the time, it’s no wonder we have so many fires around this village.”

I blustered, “We don’t!”

“JK,” she said with a grin. “Just kidding. Does
any
of this make sense to you?”

I had to admit that it didn’t. “Felicity was wearing polyester, so the cloth used to tether her wouldn’t have mattered, and maybe her attacker didn’t know about the flame test. The fireman I saw beside the dark car could have been a teen, maybe a friend of the oldest Coddlefield son, Russ. He couldn’t have been Russ, though,” I reminded her. “I saw Russ driving a tanker truck seconds after I saw that other fireman.”

Smallwood shook her head. “But later, that kid tore away last night after we said no one was to leave.”

“We tried.”

“I know, and we didn’t want you endangering yourselves. You were right to dodge out of his way. I radioed the state police and they went after him but didn’t find him. They will. We have a few questions for that young man.” She polished off her second sandwich. “Fleeing the scene. If there’s a way to make oneself look suspicious…”

“He’s only sixteen,” I reminded her.

“Huh,” she said as if nothing could surprise her, though she wasn’t old enough to have worked in law enforcement, or anything else, for more than about six years.

I
ASKED SMALLWOOD, “HAVE THEY FIGURED out why Tiffany was trying to use a heap of fabrics to put out a fire in a sewing machine?”

She bit into her apple. “What did you want her to do, blow on it?”

“I mean, why was the sewing machine on fire?” Felicity had said it was the Chandler Champion, and she would have known.

“Why do you think?” Smallwood asked.

I gripped my apple tightly. “Please tell me this Chandler Champion didn’t malfunction and start a fire.”

“Sure, I’ll tell you that if you like.”

I would have to accept the inevitable. “Tell me the truth,” I said. “Go ahead. Tell me my shop gave away two killer sewing machines in a little over a week.”

“Okay,” she agreed. “Here it is, unsugared and unembroidered. Yes. No one, not your mystery fireman or anyone else, set that fire. The second killer sewing machine shorted out and caused a fire.”

I still wanted to blame something besides a sewing machine that had come from In Stitches. “But if Felicity’s
memory was right, a mysterious fireman was conveniently on the scene.”

Smallwood leaned back in her Adirondack chair and closed her eyes against sunlight filtering down through leaves. “And he very nicely restarted the fire after Tiffany almost managed to smother it.”

“That was considerate.” I was punchy from lack of sleep.

“Very. If you think of anything that could help us identify the firefighter you saw beside the car, please call me.” She yawned. “I’d better go or I’ll fall asleep right here listening to those birds.”

We went inside and took the dogs upstairs to In Stitches. Smallwood and I went through the dogs’ pen, then I shut the gate so the dogs wouldn’t make nuisances of themselves or escape through the front door.

Women sewed, embroidered, chattered, and laughed. It was still my break. Susannah was busy with customers.

On the way to the front door, we passed my row of bright new sewing machines. Smallwood gave them a grim look. “Maybe I should take up sewing,” she muttered.

“We have classes Tuesdays through Fridays. If you miss a morning session, attend an afternoon one.”

She frowned at me like I had no clue, which was close to the truth.

It seemed that every woman in the store was watching us with keen interest. “Step outside with me,” Smallwood muttered. The door closed behind us. Smallwood asked, “That sewing machine you gave Tiffany, the one that shorted out. Had you tested it?”

“No, but I’d been using it in some of my classes. Lots of other people saw it working perfectly.”

“How can they know one sewing machine from another, especially if they’re the same model?”

“That was the only other Chandler Champion I had here. You can check that with the Chandler company.”

“Have any of your machines besides the Chandlers ever harmed anyone?”

“Other than people sticking their fingers under needles at the wrong time, no.”

She glanced through my huge front windows at cheerful women buying embroidery supplies. “Maybe you shouldn’t use, sell, or give away any more Chandlers until they’re inspected.”