Valise in the Attic
Table of Contents
The Valise in the Attic
Copyright © 2011 DRG.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews. For information address DRG, 306 East Parr Road, Berne, Indiana 46711-1138.
The characters and events in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.
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Library of Congress-in-Publication Data
The Valise in the Attic / by Jan Fields
p. cm.
I. Title
2011937346
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800-282-6643
Annie’s Attic Mysteries
Series Creator: Stenhouse & Associates, Ridgefield, Connecticut
Series Editors: Ken and Janice Tate
1
Annie Dawson drove slowly down Main Street. She still tended to creep along on snowy days. Though the plows had cleared the Stony Point roads well, snow still felt a little alien and dangerous after twenty-eight years in Texas. In many ways, Annie was feeling more and more at home in Maine, but snow was still her weakness.
Annie risked a glance at her watch as she turned onto Main Street. She was at least fifteen minutes early for the Hook and Needle Club meeting. Her friends had teased her ever since the first snow about being late for meetings because of her snow phobia. But they wouldn’t be able to tease her today!
It was a good thing she’d planned to leave forty-five minutes early for the short drive to A Stitch in Time. LeeAnn had called just as she’d scooped Boots from a languid sprawl across Annie’s project bag. Her daughter had her hands full with Christmas preparations, but the twins had insisted on calling Annie right away.
“We’re on Christmas break,” John had announced.
“Winter break,” Joanna corrected from her extension. “Our teacher says we should be inclusive.”
“Do you know what ‘inclusive’ means?” Annie asked.
“It means you call it winter break,” Joanna said in her most long-suffering tone. “But we’re making Christmas cookies.”
“Mommy said we can make gingerbread monsters,” John chimed in.
“Monsters?” Annie asked. “Why not nice happy gingerbread men?”
“Monsters are cooler,” John explained. “I’m making sea monsters.”
Annie smiled. Her grandson loved everything about the sea ever since their first visit to Stony Point. He could already name more kinds of sharks than Annie even knew existed.
“Gramma, we’re working on a project,” Joanna said, her voice serious. She was often the more solemn of the twins as she seemed to think deeply about things. “You have to do it too.”
“What project is that?” Annie asked.
“We’re going to be green for the whole winter break.”
“Green?” Annie said, bewildered. “Like with face paint?”
“No, with recycling and not wasting water,” Joanna said. “We’re putting our supper scraps in a compost bin too.”
“With worms!” John added.
“And we changed all our lightbulbs for the twisty ones.”
Again John cut in. “Daddy says you still have to turn them off when you’re not in a room, just like regular lights.”
Joanna firmly tried to take the conversation back in hand. “Do you have cloth shopping bags, Gramma?”
“Around here somewhere,” Annie said, knowing she also had a kitchen drawer stuffed with plastic bags from the grocery in town. “And I always put out my recycling bin.”
“You have to use the cloth bags,” Joanna insisted. “Please, Gramma, it’s important to our planet.”
“OK, I’ll be extra careful,” Annie assured her.
Then John chimed in that he had tried to do his part by taking fewer baths. “Mom wouldn’t let me though,” he grumbled.
Annie laughed at his disappointed tone. Chatting with her grandchildren was always the highlight of her day. She was so glad that LeeAnn had been able to bring the kids to see her now that she was living at Grey Gables, and that she’d been able to go back to see them in Texas. She wanted John and Joanna to have the kind of happy memories of Stony Point that she had from her own childhood and to always share their lives with her.
The whole phone conversation had gone so nicely, Annie thought to herself as she pulled into a space in front of A Stitch in Time. LeeAnn had finally accepted that Annie wasn’t moving back to Texas, and now LeeAnn just liked being filled in on what Annie and her friends were doing.
“Any new mysteries, Mom?” LeeAnn had asked Annie when she had finally got the phone back from the twins.
“Only the mystery of how I’m going to get my last few Christmas gifts collected and mailed in time,” Annie replied. “How would you feel about celebrating a gift-giving New Year?”
LeeAnn laughed into the phone. “You can’t fool me, Mom. You always fret and insist you’re not going to get done in time for the holidays. And then you always do.”
Annie had to admit that was true. “It’s a habit I got from your great-grandmother,” Annie said. “But at least she had an excuse. Gram always had such huge Christmas parties.”
“I remember a few of them,” LeeAnn said.
The reminiscing left Annie with a warm glow that even the icy chill of a Maine winter couldn’t blow away. Then a sudden movement next to her window caused Annie to jump. Alice MacFarlane was standing beside the car, waving. Annie opened the door and her best friend grinned at her. “Are you coming inside?”
Annie laughed. “Yes, sorry. I was woolgathering.”
“It’s a good day for it,” Alice said with a gasp as an icy wind rushed by them both. “The more wool the better. I’m already having spring fantasies.”
“I don’t know,” Annie said as they walked through the half-frozen slush to the sidewalk. “As long as I’m not out in it, I love looking at it. Snow is so beautiful and makes the world look more peaceful. Besides, I think my blood is finally thickening. The first winter here almost froze me to death.”
Warmth rushed out to greet them as they pulled open the door to A Stitch in Time. Annie stomped her boots on the threshold, and then walked in. The smiling faces of her friends Mary Beth Brock and Kate Stevens warmed her almost as much as the cozy temperature Mary Beth kept the little shop at. Even in the off-season, A Stitch in Time was so popular that she had to keep the heat turned up to offset the arctic blasts coming in whenever the door opened.
“You didn’t spill the secret?” Mary Beth asked. “You know Peggy will be disappointed if you did.”
“Mum’s the word.” Alice mimed turning a lock over her lips.
“What secret?” Annie asked.
“Mmmm … mmmm … mmmm,” Alice said, her lips firmly shut.
“You’re just too funny,” Annie scolded, but she laughed. “So will I find out when Peggy gets here?”
“You will,” Mary Beth said. “Probably that very second.”
“Then I can wait,” Annie said.
“You’re very brave,” her friend said, her eyes sparkling. Each time Mary Beth moved, Annie heard the tinkling of tiny bells. Mary Beth wore a red crocheted vest that Annie had thought was decorated with red studs; now she realized they were actually tiny jingle bells.
“Your vest is darling,” Annie said. “Very festive.”
“Thank you. Kate made it,” Mary Beth said. “I told her people would love it. You wouldn’t believe the compliments I’ve gotten.”
“I thought people might think it was tacky with all those bells,” Kate said.
“No, it’s almost magical. You should make one to sell in the shop,” Annie suggested. She knew Kate often sold her beautifully designed clothing in the shop. In fact, Annie had purchased a few pieces herself. Though the vest was probably a little too showy for her, she had to admit it was lovely and unexpected. “I am sure they’d sell easily.”
“See? Annie agrees with me,” Mary Beth told her blushing assistant. Then Mary Beth turned back to Annie. “As a reward for your support, I’ll give you twenty percent off any last-minute gift kit.” She gestured to a basket filled with small needlework kits that could be done in about an hour.
“Really?” Annie said in surprise. Mary Beth was a great friend but a shrewd shopkeeper.
“Oh, don’t let her fool you,” Kate said. She held up a white cardboard sign she’d been carefully lettering. It said, “Last-Minute Gift Kits—Now 20% Off!”
“You still can have the first discount,” Mary Beth said grinning.
Annie poked through the basket. She picked up a cute kit for a plastic canvas shark with big googly eyes. When the cheeks of the shark were pinched, he opened his mouth. “Oh, John would love one of these,” she said, imagining it tied on his Christmas package. “But I have no idea how to do this kind of embroidery.”
“It’s super easy,” Mary Beth said. “I’ll show you. You could learn it in minutes.”
“OK then, you’ve made a sale!”
“I’ll walk you through the steps for the embroidery right after the meeting,” Mary Beth promised.
As Mary Beth rang up the little kit, the door opened with a rush of cold air that made Annie shiver. Gwendolyn Palmer and Stella Brickson came through the door together.
Always stylish, Gwen wore a gorgeous pair of chocolate brown wool slacks with a wool cape the color of cappuccino. The cape hung low in the front and back, and higher on the sides with a hem that reminded Annie of a man’s dress shirt. It also had a two wool scarves attached—one scarf in the cappuccino color and the other in vanilla. Annie did notice that Gwen had traded in her normal pumps for low-heeled leather boots.
Looking at the perfectly put together outfit, Annie felt a little like a lumberjack in her long flannel tunic and fleecy knit pants with her snow boots. At least her heavy wool coat had a row of cute toggle fasteners.
“Now I know I’m late,” Stella said when she caught sight of Annie. Normally Stella beat everyone to the club meetings. When Annie had first moved to Stony Point, she almost suspected Stella lived in the comfy chair at the shop. “We were held up. Some out-of-towner in a ridiculous rolling box had slid into a ditch.”
“Oh, I hope no one was hurt,” Annie said.
“It didn’t appear so,” Stella said. “When the officers finally waved us on, I saw the driver. She seemed fine, though dressed ridiculously for this weather.”
“Not everyone can handle New England winters,” Alice said gently.
Stella sniffed and Annie could practically hear the older woman’s thoughts. Stella was very critical of tourists and newcomers to Stony Point. She was the self-appointed matriarch of the town, and so far, no one had the nerve to remind her that she’d only come back to Stony Point five years earlier than Annie. Stella had lived an elegant life in New York City until her husband died, and she returned to the town she considered her own, Stony Point.
“Peggy should be along in a minute,” Gwen said as she pulled off a lovely pair of soft leather gloves. “I just came from the diner, and she was finishing up with a few customers. They’ve gotten really busy with all the …”
“Shhhhhh!” Mary Beth interrupted. “Don’t spill Peggy’s secret. She’ll never forgive you!”
“You’ve really got my curiosity going now,” Annie said.
Stella pulled out a gorgeous piece of knitted fabric in an icy blue. Immediately her needles began the regular clicking that signified Stella was in the building. Annie suspected Stella could knit through a hurricane.
The other women began drifting toward their seats just as the front door burst open with a bang. “Oh, sorry!” Peggy exclaimed as she hurried through and hauled the door shut behind her. “The wind caught it.”
“That’s all right,” Mary Beth said. “It happens a lot this time of year. I’m just happy when the glass doesn’t shatter.”
“You mean it does sometimes?” Annie asked in surprise.
“Once,” Mary Beth said. “But I’m always nervous of a repeat. The yarn gets very mobile when there’s no glass in the door to keep out the wind.”
Annie settled into her chair, her mind still on the amazing force nature seemed fond of displaying during the Maine winters. Her door at Grey Gables had blown open once or twice, scaring her half to death every time. She pulled the half-finished scarf from her project bag but didn’t begin crocheting, she just stroked the soft yarn while she thought.
“So, is she going to do it?” Peggy Carson asked as she pulled her own project from her purse and laid it down in her lap. The earth tones of the beautifully pieced quilt block contrasted sharply with Peggy’s pink waitress uniform.
“I haven’t told her a thing about it,” Alice said as she walked back to her seat. “You’re the one who knows the most about it.” Alice pulled her cross-stitch canvas out of her bag.
Stella Brickson glanced up at them, her knitting needles clicking softly. “I can’t believe any of you are considering spending extra time outside in this weather.”
Annie looked around, puzzled. “What exactly are we considering?”
“Being movie stars,” Peggy said, her eyes dreamy. “A movie crew is coming to Stony Point this week!”
“This week?” Annie looked from one excited face to another. Only Mary Beth and Stella seemed their normal selves in the face of the news. “Isn’t that kind of sudden?”
“They were going to film in Storm Harbor, but that last winter storm did some damage that would have ruined the shots,” Peggy said. “Apparently they were in a panic to find a new location and our own Mayor Butler saved the day by offering the use of our waterfront.”
Annie didn’t bother to ask Peggy how she knew all this. As Peggy waited on tables at The Cup & Saucer, she sucked up information like a vacuum. There weren’t many secrets in Stony Point that didn’t get talked about in the diner. “OK, what does that have to do with becoming movie stars?”
“They’re going to need extras,” Peggy said. “They’re having a casting call this afternoon for a scene down at the waterfront.”
“Sounds cold,” Stella said.
Annie had to agree. She got enough icy ocean breezes right in the front yard at Grey Gables. She had no interest in going any closer to the water. “I think I’ll pass.”
“You should come,” Alice said. “I’m going, and so is Peggy.”
“So am I!” A cheery voice called out as a long-legged teenage girl walked out of the back room and leaned on the front counter. Annie turned to smile at Kate Stevens’s daughter, Vanessa.
“As long as it doesn’t interfere with school,” Kate reminded her.
“It won’t. I’m sure they’ll be long gone before break is over,” Vanessa said. “Besides, I could always count it toward my career-planning days.”
“What career would that be?” Kate asked, frowning.
“Acting, of course,” Vanessa said, tossing her hair. “Don’t you think I’d be a great actress?”
“I think you’ll be great at whatever you decide to do,” Mary Beth said fondly. It was clear the owner of A Stitch in Time doted on Vanessa like an affectionate aunt. Mary Beth had never married and had no children of her own, so she often mothered both Kate and Vanessa a bit.
“It still sounds cold,” Annie said. “I’m going to sit this one out. You guys can shiver without me.”
Naturally, Annie’s friends couldn’t just let her bow out. Annie could see the determination to talk her into it on several faces.