Night of the Living Thread (A Threadville Mystery) Page 18

  “So even if she comes out here all contrite and retracts her accusation, and I have no real reason to drive her to the hospital, you’d still like her to leave?”

  “I would, but my mother would disown me, so no, I guess I’d have to say she could stay here until the end of the craft fair. But after that, she’s going.”

  “I’d feel better if she left now,” Vicki said.

  “Yes, well . . .” Sipping at my tea, I glanced at the phone. “Look at that little light. She’s on the phone again.”

  “She must need to talk to that boyfriend in Australia.”

  Why did people keep saying outrageous or funny things when I was drinking my tea? I nearly snorted tea out my nose. As soon as I could speak, I said, “It’s going to take her hours to pack. You wouldn’t believe the mess.”

  With a strange look on her face, Vicki slipped off her stool. “I’d better go help.” She tried the door to my guest suite.

  Brianna had locked it.

  Vicki sorted through the gadgets hanging from her belt, stuck one of them into the hole in the doorknob, opened the door, and walked into my guest suite.

  I stayed in the kitchen, which didn’t prevent me from hearing Brianna’s startled protest. “You can’t come in here without a search warrant.” The light on my phone turned off.

  Vicki hollered, “Willow, do I have permission to go into your guest suite?”

  “Be my guest!” I yelled.

  My phone rang. Maybe it was the weather station in Australia.

  Of course it wasn’t.

  “Willow . . .” I cringed at the honeyed-over disappointment in my mother’s voice. “What are you doing now?”

  28

  Not sure I wanted to answer my mother’s restrained question, I managed, “It’s the middle of the night.”

  “Exactly. Why are you kicking Todd Shrevedale’s daughter out at this hour?” The disappointment turned to hurt empathy. For me or for Brianna?

  “I’m not.” I squeezed my hand around the receiver so tightly that my fingernails stabbed into the heel of my hand.

  “That’s not what I heard.”

  “What did you hear?” I might as well find out what lies Brianna was spreading. She’d certainly lost no time.

  “That you called the police to kick her out of your apartment. In the middle of the night.”

  “Um, that’s not how it happened. She went to the police with some ugly allegations, and the police brought her here to confront me. Her story didn’t hold water.” Uh-oh. Bad choice of words.

  “Why kick her out? It’s nearly two. She needs a place to stay.” There it was again—the sugar, the warmth, the compassion for Brianna, and the pain-inducing disappointment in me.

  I repressed a sigh. “The police are taking her to the hospital so she can be checked for evidence of the assault she claims took place.”

  “Assault?” There was silence on the other end of the line, then a cautious, “Willow? What have you done?”

  Her tone made me feel about five years old, but I defended myself. “Nothing. I was asleep. Brianna went for a walk on the beach in the middle of the night. She accused me of pushing her into the lake. She keeps changing her story. When she resisted being taken to the hospital, it was clear to me and to the police that she was making it all up, and the police don’t think it’s appropriate for her to continue staying here.”

  “The police.” My mother managed to sound like she was weighing the evidence and managing to remain objective. “I hear it’s one policewoman and she’s your friend. When are you going to learn to stay out of trouble?”

  “I do.” Especially when my mother didn’t send me unwanted houseguests. But I didn’t dare say that or my mother would be positive I was taking out my frustrations on the unwanted houseguest. “And our chief of police would arrest me or anyone else she thought she should.”

  “I’ve told you before not to get involved in murders. Doesn’t my career matter to you, if only for the sake of your father, who is as sweet as he can be, but will never earn a penny with those inventions of his?”

  I bit back a reminder that my father, her husband, was brilliant. Yes, he might be a bit obsessed with his inventions, and yes, he might never earn anything, and yes, my mother had been supporting him for years. And she’d also supported me and put me through school. She was basically a good person and she loved both my father and me. I said evenly, “I have not been involved in any murders.”

  “Investigations, then. Can’t you at least stay out of the newspapers? Unless you’re running a fund-raiser or something that could attract voters.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “So, that’s settled.” Her voice became crisp and optimistic. “Brianna can continue to stay with you.”

  “That’s not up to me. Isn’t it against the law to make false accusations?”

  “Only if it’s knowingly done. I’m sure she just made a little mistake. Everyone does. Including you. And you would want to be forgiven.”

  “Mother, she’s been using my phone to make long-distance calls to Australia that go on for hours.”

  “I’m sure she has a good reason.”

  Right. She wanted to hear the weather report for Sydney repeated umpteen times. “She’s using it as an alibi, pretending she’s inside when she’s really outside. She did it Thursday evening while a woman was being murdered nearby.”

  I heard my mother’s sharp intake of breath. “Now who’s making wild accusations?” I could almost see her smoothing her forehead with one long and elegant finger. When she finally broke her silence, I again heard her sorrow over my shortcomings. “Try to give that child a break, honey. Todd Shrevedale is an honest, upright man. He’s not paving the way for his children with gold. He expects each of them to start a company and make their own way. Don’t even think of charging her for those phone calls, honey, or charging her rent, or anything else. She’s only just finished college with lots of debt and has only just started out in this thread business. She’ll have barely a cent until she gets established.”

  Only two hundred dollars to pay for a curse against me or you . . .

  My mother urged, “I hope you’re buying lots of thread from her.”

  Finally, we were in territory where I should be able to please my mother. “I have. She’s representing some wonderful lines. I’ll continue to order from her.” If she keeps herself out of trouble. “But I can’t force our police chief to let her stay here.”

  “Willow, honey, I hope you’ll do what you can to help that girl. There’s no telling what the police might to do a young and impressionable child once they get her into their clutches. They may say they’re only taking her to the hospital, but believe me, honey, I’ve seen some pretty bad abuses of trust. Totally innocent people do their best to cooperate with the police and end up being accused themselves. I’m heading a committee studying such abuses right now. Don’t let that happen to our little Brianna. It would be such a travesty.”

  Our little Brianna? “Okay, Mother, I’ll try.” Now what was I getting myself into? Next thing I knew, Brianna would be a permanent resident in my guest suite.

  My mother ended the call with her usual candied grace.

  Brianna hadn’t touched her tea. I left her mug where it was and went into my guest suite.

  Vicki stood, arms folded, watching Brianna heave things toward a suitcase lying open on the floor. At this rate, Brianna wouldn’t leave for at least another two weeks.

  I beckoned to Vicki. She followed me back to the kitchen.

  “Brianna called someone—her father, I guess—and my mother called me. Do you think you can get Brianna to retract her accusation? Then you wouldn’t have to take her to the hospital, and I would let her stay for the rest of the weekend so she could attend the craft fair where I promised her she could have a table to sell thread
, and you and I can go back to what we were doing.”

  “Are you sure?” Vicki asked me.

  I made a rueful face. “I’m sure I don’t want to be disowned.”

  As if she didn’t believe me, Vicki gave me an assessing look. Then she returned to Brianna’s suite.

  A few minutes later, Vicki was back. “Okay, now she only ‘tripped’ and fell into the lake, and she agrees that she was mistaken that someone pushed her.” Frowning, she tapped her fingernails on my countertop. “I’m overdue to go off duty, but if you’d like, I’ll sleep on your couch tonight.”

  “I could give you my guest room and she could sleep on the couch.”

  “Nah. Your guest room is much too messy. You’d have to spend the rest of the night cleaning it up. I’ll be fine on your couch.”

  “Thanks, but you need your rest, too, which is not something you’d get here with weird music and noisy pets and odd comings and goings. I’ll be okay. I’ve got guard dogs and guard cats. And Brianna wouldn’t dare do anything to me now that you’ve been alerted.”

  “And she’d better hope that no else does anything to you, either, or she might be blamed,” Vicki said darkly, settling her hat onto her head. “Lock your apartment door and your room door.”

  I grinned. “If she didn’t already know how easy it is to open those doors, she knows now.”

  Vicki pulled her business card out of a pocket, scribbled on it, and handed it to me. “That’s my home number. Do not hesitate to call me or 911 if you need any help tonight. And I mean it.”

  I thanked her, let her out, and locked the patio door behind her. I stared at my own reflection. My hair was a tangled fright and my eyes looked even more tired than Brianna’s.

  She had friends in high places, but I did also. My mother. But far from protecting me like Todd Shrevedale protected his daughter, my mother could be making certain that I was in danger. From Todd Shrevedale’s daughter.

  And what about Vicki? After threatening to cart Brianna away, Vicki could be in Todd Shrevedale’s bad books, also. The man’s empire stretched through most of the world. Would he cause trouble for Vicki? Could he?

  I locked myself into my room, put on my jammies, and climbed back into bed.

  All I could hear was Brianna’s music, once again booming from her room. I must have fallen asleep, though. I woke up to silence except for Sally-Forth’s rhythmic snoring. That sweet and motherly dog could be comforting even in her sleep. It was still dark outside. I closed my eyes and didn’t awaken again until my alarm went off.

  No music or other sounds came from the guest suite. I knew it was too much to hope that Brianna had rethought everything and departed, but I made no attempt to be quiet when I took my pets outside for their pre-breakfast tour of my flower beds. If Brianna wanted to make use of the table we were giving her at the craft fair, she needed to be up soon. The Threadville Get Ready for Halloween Craft Fair was scheduled to open at ten.

  I fed the animals, ate breakfast, shut the kittens into my bedroom, and took the dogs upstairs. Usually, Ashley, a high school student, helped me in the store on weekends, but I had let her choose between working at In Stitches or at the craft fair, so she was at the fair and I was at In Stitches.

  Shortly after I opened the shop, music from downstairs began vibrating my floor. It continued long after Brianna should have left if she was going to join the other crafty salespeople at the fair.

  I went out to the front porch. Brianna’s car was gone. Maybe she had actually gone to the craft fair.

  My regular customers were probably there, also, planning Halloween costumes and decorations and scooping up bargains. Leaving the dogs in the shop to announce any customers’ arrival, I ran downstairs to my apartment.

  A quick knock on my guest room door got no response. I marched into the suite. It was marginally neater than before Vicki had attempted to help Brianna pack. I had to step over suitcases overflowing with wrinkled garments, but I managed to turn off the music. The sudden silence almost hurt my ears.

  I was about halfway up the stairs when the dogs barked and the beach glass chimes on my door jangled. I ran the rest of the way.

  Detective Neffting stood just inside the door with his notebook in his hand. “I have a few questions for you,” he said. “Ms.—er—Vanderling.”

  The way he added my last name to his statement didn’t make me comfortable, and neither did his cold, bulging eyes.

  I made an attempt at a smile. “Okay.” Maybe he was going to ask more about Brianna and where she’d been the past couple of nights. Maybe he was about to arrest her for murdering Isis.

  He asked, “Why were your fingerprints on the plug of the electrical cord attached to that death contraption?”

  29

  “Many people’s fingerprints were on that plug.” It probably wasn’t the answer Neffting wanted from me.

  “I get that.” He sounded miffed. “But why yours, specifically?”

  “I unplugged it.”

  “When?”

  Hadn’t I already told him? “After I saw the skirt under the water, I ran up to the bandstand to see if anyone was there. No one was, and the skirt was plugged in, so I unplugged it.”

  “Why?”

  “In case the line was still live. I didn’t want anyone jumping into the river and electrocuting themselves.”

  He looked skeptical, so I explained, “I guessed the line would have shorted itself out when the lightbulbs popped, but I needed to be sure.”

  He said drily, “Electricity doesn’t usually wander around loose. You said lots of people’s prints would be on that plug. Who else’s?”

  “Clay’s, because it’s his extension cord. And Opal plugged the cord in when we were in the fire station earlier Thursday evening. Naomi and Haylee, too, other nights. We had fun with the music and light display on that thing.”

  “Death contraption,” he repeated. “Fun for everyone. Who plugged the skirt in before the deceased rolled down the ramp?”

  “No one. I mean, when we left the skirt in the bandstand about a half hour earlier, the skirt was plugged in. Clay had plugged it in.”

  Detective Neffting’s hair was brown, with a comb-over that started on both sides of his head above his ears and met at the top, where it had been glued to the middle of his head in a straight line imitating a part. He scratched at the fake part and dislodged the glue from his skin, but the glue still connected those two upward sweeps of hair, and the thing that had resembled a part now looked more like a millipede teetering on thousands—well, maybe hundreds—of hairy legs. “You told me you heard the deceased uttering threats the night before she died. Who were the people she threatened again?”

  I tore my attention away from the fascinating “millipede.” “Not threats. She appeared to be reciting curses. One was for Gord Wrinklesides to spend his afterlife with her. With Isis, that is. The other seemed to be a spell designed to condemn Edna Battersby to—I’m not sure what—no afterlife at all, I think. And Floyd the zombie accused her of casting spells on him, but I don’t know if she did, or if he merely thought the curses I saw her call down on Gord and Edna were actually for him. You can probably learn more about the curses and the afterlives by reading one of Isis’s handmade books. Isis brought some of them with her and kept them in Edna’s apartment.”

  Afraid he’d question me about how I knew what was in those books, I held my breath. Had Opal offered her copy to the police yet?

  But Detective Neffting had a different agenda. “When did Edna Battersby touch that extension cord’s plug?”

  I felt the blood drain from my face. I was certain he was bluffing, acting like he had incriminating evidence against Edna in hopes that I would give him more. But he didn’t have any, and neither did I. All he had against Edna was a weak motive—jealousy that she didn’t even feel—and an alibi that was only from her adoring
fiancé. “She didn’t. She didn’t have a reason to. She first saw the skirt around nine that night, and it was already plugged in. Then she and Gord went to his place.”

  “How do you know where they went? Did you follow them?”

  “No. That’s where they said they were going.”

  “Did you see Gord Wrinklesides touch that plug?”

  “No.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “About what time did you see Edna and Gord leave the park?”

  “Around nine twenty, but I’m not sure. I left shortly after, and took more than the usual time getting home because the trail was dark and foggy. I got home around nine thirty.”

  “And when did you hear the first scream on Thursday evening?”

  “Around nine forty-five. Again, that’s a guess.”

  He closed his notebook. “Okay, that’s all I wanted to know. Call if you think of something you haven’t told us about that night.” After giving me a piercing look from those oversized eyes, he headed for the door. With each step he took, the millipede-like line of glue bobbed up and down on its little hairy legs.

  How could he think that either Edna or Gord could be a killer?

  I should have stayed up late and researched Patricia. I could do that now, before customers arrived.

  My dogs showed their wriggly appreciation when I joined them in their pen and sat at my computer. Soon after we’d left her apartment, Naomi had sent me the photos I’d taken with her camera. I saved those to my computer and then, faster than I’d have thought possible, I found the names “Isis Crabbe” and “Patricia Alayna Aiken” together on the website of a high school on the outskirts of Chicago. Isis Crabbe had been a history teacher at that school for many years, including the four when Patricia had been a student there. There were many mentions of them at school plays, debates, and even dances.

  And then, in the archive of their community’s local newspaper, I read a headline that made my hair stand up almost as much as Detective Neffting’s glued-together comb-over had.