Threaded for Trouble Read online

  Smallwood must have wanted to distract Russ from the images he must have been seeing of his mother. She asked, “Are you the one who loosened the front legs of the sewing table?”

  Russ tilted his head. Lines appeared between his eyebrows. “What are you talking about? I made that table. I put those legs on nice and tight.”

  “How were they fastened?” Gartener asked.

  Russ shrugged. “Bolts. And this’ll sound dumb, but it worked. The bolts were held on with wing nuts.”

  Red fireballs exploded like crazed popcorn.

  Gartener moved closer to Russ. “Could the wing nuts have come loose if the table was jiggled a lot, say by sewing?”

  “No way! I do good work. I tightened them really, really tight.”

  Clay reached out and squeezed the boy’s shoulder as if agreeing that Russ’s carpentry was good.

  “With your hands, or a tool?” Gartener asked. “Pliers?”

  Russ stared at his palms. “With my fingers. But I’m strong.”

  Gartener suggested, “So someone strong came along and loosened them.”

  “Guess so.”

  “Who is that strong, besides you?” Gartener asked.

  “I don’t know,” the boy said wretchedly. Tears glistened in the corners of his eyes. “My…my dad’s girlfriend didn’t like my mom.”

  Gartener waited for a quiet moment between fireworks. “Do you think she did all those things that caused your mother to die? On purpose?”

  Russ went back to shaking his head. “I don’t know.”

  Smallwood apparently couldn’t let Gartener do all the questioning. “And who tampered with the second sewing machine so that it shorted out and caused a fire and nearly killed your dad’s…er…your family’s nanny?”

  Russ shook Clay’s hand off his shoulder and yelled, “I didn’t do it! And I don’t know who did! Just because I ran away doesn’t mean I did anything! Whoever killed my mother and tried to kill Tiffany and that other woman could have been after me.”

  I knew Russ was good with electricity and could have figured out how to reconnect wires in a sewing machine to make it catch fire. I wanted to ask him if he ever used sewing machines, but I didn’t want Gartener and Smallwood to realize we were there. They might send us away and we’d never know what really went on.

  Bang! A spangled white sphere bloomed above us.

  When all was quiet again, Smallwood tapped the ground with the toe of one of her police boots. “And you don’t know anything about other fires that have been mysteriously cropping up on farms all around yours?”

  Russ looked off to his right. “No. The fields are dry. And there’s been lightning.”

  “And arson,” Smallwood said firmly. “And you and some of your friends have shown up at nearly every fire. Very quickly.”

  “We’re firefighters, dude!”

  “This goes back to last summer, before any of you joined the force,” she told him.

  Russ again remembered how to sneer. “Well, don’t ask me. We didn’t set those fires. And don’t think I ran away because I was afraid you would accuse me of that, either. Someone killed my mom and almost killed Tiffany and that old broad who tried to show my mother how to use her new sewing machine. How do you know they weren’t trying to kill me, too?”

  Behind me, Edna’s voice rang out, “Who would want to kill you?”

  Smallwood jumped and whirled around, smashing her candy floss into Haylee’s black cowboy shirt. “Hold that for me,” she ordered.

  Haylee complied, though she didn’t need her hands. The candy was stuck to her shirt.

  Flares lit the sky with painful white light.

  With Smallwood no longer blocking his escape, Russ slipped behind his truck and dashed away.

  Smallwood chased him.

  Detective Gartener thrust a blanket-swaddled baby doll into my arms and took off after both of them. Obviously anticipating that Russ might turn the other way, Clay ran around the front of Russ’s truck.

  Haylee peeled the candy floss off her shirt. Hanging on to its paper cone and pointing the gooey ball like a weapon, she sprinted after the officers and Russ. Not knowing what else to do with Gartener’s baby doll, I cradled it in my good arm and ran after Clay.

  Behind us, Edna exclaimed while Opal and Naomi mumbled into their fur masks.

  Then all I could hear were fireworks, bursting forth in a noisy and brilliant grand finale.

  Smoke, sharp with the tang of gunpowder, blurred everything. I kept Clay’s head in sight as I skidded around cars and trucks.

  Echoes of the last fireworks died away. Far behind me, the merry-go-round played its hurdy-gurdy music and the Ferris wheel tinkled out its bell-like tones. I kept running.

  Shouts erupted in front of me. Had someone caught up with Russ?

  The smoke became thicker.

  I could no longer see Clay. I ran toward the shouts.

  The fire truck blasted noise through the night. The smoke in front of me turned a ghastly yellow, and I understood what people were shouting.

  Fire.

  45

  THE FIREWORKS MUST HAVE IGNITED THE hay stubble beyond the parking lot. I kept running, searching for Russ.

  Clay was near the tanker truck, pulling on boots. Another tall man was already suited up. That had to be Isaac. With the help of a couple of shorter firemen, he aimed a hose at burning grasses. The wind was blowing toward the parking lot. If any of the vehicles caught fire, the firefighters would have a huge problem. They? We. I was a firefighter, too.

  Maybe this was the time for me to don the outfit and help. One of my hands was fine.

  A third short firefighter joined the others. Russ? With only one tanker truck, they’d soon run out of water.

  Clumsily balancing my cell phone in my bandaged palm, I dialed 911 and was told that the other tanker was on its way.

  To my left, Chief Smallwood was keeping rubberneckers at bay. Purple furry teddy bear ears, a black cowboy hat, the angle of a broken giraffe neck, and the lime green pom-pom at the peak of Edna’s conical hat showed up above heads in the crowd milling around the chief.

  To my right, two more short firefighters had joined the crew. Russ’s friends? It must have been more than an hour since Isaac had sent them to their pickup truck. I hoped they were sober enough to help the firefighters, not hinder or endanger them.

  Wind blew flaming wisps toward me, cutting me off from the fire truck and gear. Gartener didn’t seem to be anywhere around, and Smallwood needed help with crowd control. That was something I could do despite wearing a bandage around my hand and a bolt of batik around my middle.

  I dashed around vehicles toward Chief Smallwood.

  Its siren howling and horn blasting, Elderberry Bay’s other tanker truck, with an enraged-looking Plug at the wheel, made its way toward the fire. People scurried out of the way. A floppy-headed giraffe, a short clown, and a purple furry bear toddled away from the group around Smallwood. In her clown suit, Edna pointed ahead and up, at the Ferris wheel. Its lights twinkled against the night sky.

  I texted Haylee and asked what her mothers where doing.

  She answered that they were planning to search for Russ by riding the Ferris wheel. Haylee was following them to keep them out of trouble.

  I looked back at the fire. The evening’s breeze fanned it toward the parking lot, not toward the Ferris wheel, but I didn’t blame Haylee for her caution.

  Keeping an eye on the fire’s spread, I hurried toward Chief Smallwood.

  A firefighter skulked away from the fire.

  He was about Russ’s height. His hands were bare, but he was wearing the rest of his uniform, including mask and respirator.

  That was odd. Was Russ so afraid of his father that he wouldn’t take time to remove the unwieldy gear before fleeing? The outfit had to be slowing him down, and it certainly made him stand out in a crowd.

  But most people were too busy gawking at the fire to notice him.

  He didn�
��t head toward his pickup truck, which made sense considering the way the fire was going.

  My breath caught in my throat. Unless I was mistaken, he was following Haylee.

  Furiously, I sent her a warning text. I turned my phone to vibrate, and stalked after him. I stayed in shadows, but probably didn’t need to. He was obviously concentrating on Haylee.

  He’d seen Haylee and me a few minutes before. We were dressed alike, with our hair hidden under our hats, and our waistlines curving in the wrong direction. Did he know which one of us he was following? Not that it mattered. I couldn’t let him harm her.

  Finally, I was close to the Ferris wheel. Its calliope music blared above the merry-go-round’s organ ditties. The giraffe, clown, and the fuzzy purple bear, crammed together in one swaying seat and facing forward, ascended.

  Russ disappeared into a tent at the base of the Ferris wheel.

  An empty seat rose above the tent, and then Haylee, alone in her seat, moved upward. At the top of the wheel, her mothers waved at the world in general, three peculiar creatures having a great time. Haylee looked down as if scanning the grounds below her. The Ferris wheel carried her up to the top.

  A blue flash and a loud pop came from inside the tent where Russ had gone.

  I froze. A gunshot?

  I no longer heard music from the Ferris wheel, and the merry-go-round was blaring again. The Ferris wheel’s passengers shrieked. Silhouetted against the sky, Haylee and her mothers waved at each other. The great wheel had stopped turning, and its lights had gone dark.

  That “shot” I’d heard must have been Russ shutting off the power to the Ferris wheel. I was sure he’d seen Haylee board it. Maybe he didn’t want her to disembark until after he made his getaway.

  Now, would he take off for his truck?

  I flattened myself next to the tent flap. Haylee and her mothers were immobilized on the Ferris wheel. Clay and Isaac must be hosing down the smoldering remains of a hayfield. It wasn’t a life-or-death situation, so there was no point in phoning 911, and I hadn’t programmed Smallwood’s non-emergency number into my phone.

  I would stay put. When Russ came outside, I would watch where he went, then go find Chief Smallwood and tell her.

  Where was Russ?

  I heard no sounds inside the tent, which wasn’t surprising, since people on the Ferris wheel were yelling and the ride’s operator was shouting at them to sit still.

  Haylee texted that she had seen someone creep out the other side of the tent and head west along Cabbage Court. That would be away from the fire and toward the handcrafts tent.

  Was it Russ?

  She didn’t think so.

  Was he wearing a firefighter’s uniform?

  He wasn’t. Be careful, she added. Acting sneaky. Like staying out of sight of people on ground.

  So who had just left the tent? Could someone else have been in the tent when Russ entered? Had this other person found a way of silencing the boy in the fireman suit? Cautiously, I peeked into the tent. I caught a whiff of ozone. Shadows moved when I pushed at the flap, allowing light from beyond the Ferris wheel to seep in.

  A fireman was lying, all jumbled up, in the middle of the tent.

  46

  I MANAGED NOT TO SCREAM. THE FALLEN firefighter lay beside thick electrical cables running along the ground from the tent wall nearest the Ferris wheel to a large electrical panel mounted on a pole.

  Schooling myself not to go anywhere near those cables, I tiptoed to the firefighter and nearly wept in relief.

  The “firefighter” was only a pile of firefighter’s gear, apparently dumped in haste. No one else had been in here with Russ. In fact, Russ probably hadn’t been in here at all, and I’d been following someone else. Who?

  Wednesday night, someone wearing a firefighter’s outfit had left a fire while it was still going. Could the same person have done something similar just now?

  I set down the baby doll that Detective Gartener must have won with his sharpshooting and picked up the firefighter’s jacket. EVFD was stenciled across the back of the jacket. Hadn’t I seen those same initials on the gloves we’d found where Felicity had been attacked? I’d been too rattled to question it then, but the gloves and the jacket were missing a letter. They should have been stenciled EBVFD for Elderberry Bay Volunteer Fire Department. I shined my cell phone at the label inside the jacket. Property of Emblesford Volunteer Fire Department.

  Maybe Elderberry Bay had bought used equipment. The person who had left this gear here had been wearing a full firefighter’s ensemble except for gloves.

  Because he’d accidentally left the gloves behind after he clobbered Felicity?

  I texted Haylee that I was going to follow—very carefully, I added to myself—the person she’d seen creeping away.

  I rushed outside. Only the tent I’d left, the Ferris wheel, and a few of the games and rides near them were dark. The rest of the Harvest Festival continued as if nothing had happened. Smoke lingered from the grass fire, but no flames licked up toward the cloudy night sky. The merry-go-round played its organ-grinder tune. Bumper cars bumped. People laughed and shouted. Carnies delivered their spiels.

  I turned west on Cabbage Court.

  Far ahead, near Brussels Sprouts Boulevard, a figure edged along, staying close to tent walls.

  He wore jeans and a light shirt. Russ had been dressed that way. So had Jeremy Chandler.

  There was something feminine about the way the person moved.

  I couldn’t imagine either Jeremy or Russ masquerading as a woman, especially in a poufy blond wig.

  The person’s furtiveness slowed him down, and I gained on him. That was no wig, and the person wasn’t a man. I recognized that fluff of platinum hair.

  Mimi.

  47

  MIMI?

  Was I following the wrong person?

  I turned around and scanned Cabbage Court and the tents lining it. No one was behind me. Most of the people attending the fair were either watching the firefighting or enjoying the rides, games, and food.

  Quickly, I texted Haylee. She confirmed that I was following the person who had dodged out of the tent near the Ferris wheel. She agreed that the person was blond and did resemble Mimi.

  Mimi had been fighting the fire but stopped to follow Haylee? When Haylee boarded the Ferris wheel, Mimi had ducked into the tent and disconnected the ride’s electrical power?

  Mimi, not Russ?

  Russ might have had a good reason to flee Plug, and I could have understood if he had gone after Haylee in hopes of keeping her from turning him over to the police. Slowing her progress by stranding her on the Ferris wheel would have worked for a while, especially if she hadn’t ended up at the top with her cell and a clear view of most of the fairgrounds.

  Why had Mimi been wearing a firefighter’s outfit and apparently helping fight the fire? She didn’t belong to the Elderberry Bay Volunteer Fire Department.

  Where was Emblesford?

  Why had Mimi fled when Plug arrived? Other firefighters besides Plug could have recognized that she was an intruder. Maybe she simply didn’t want to be around when the firefighters started taking off their outfits.

  Mimi couldn’t have known where Haylee was heading, so she couldn’t have preplanned turning off the Ferris wheel and marooning Haylee on it. That must have been pure luck.

  What did she hope to accomplish while the power was out?

  Haylee would keep close track of me from her perch on the Ferris wheel and she’d phone for help if I got into trouble. I tiptoed after Mimi, who was several tents ahead of me

  When I had dragged Felicity outside, she had yelled for help, saying that I was trying to kill her. And she’d thought I was a man, probably because of the firefighter’s equipment and mask hiding my identity. I was about six inches taller than Mimi, but that might not have been obvious to Felicity, lying half conscious on the floorboards of the porch.

  A few minutes ago, I had mistaken Mimi for Russ.

>   In her gear, Mimi had been close to the size of the firefighter I’d seen ducking into a car as I’d arrived at the fire at the Coddlefields’. I already suspected that person of having attacked Felicity and Tiffany.

  Mimi would know that cotton fabric would burn away to ash.

  But why would she have wanted to murder Tiffany and Felicity?

  Because they knew or might figure out something about her, something worth killing over. Like that she had been responsible for Darlene Coddlefield’s death.

  Mimi could have expected to ambush Tiffany at the Coddlefields’. If Felicity had remembered correctly, Felicity had surprised Mimi attacking Tiffany and encouraging the Chandler Champion to flare up. Mimi might have thought she had no choice besides putting Felicity out of commission, too.

  Ahead of me, Mimi edged along tent walls. I stayed near the tents, too, clambering over ropes and stakes, but the tents were white and my outfit was black. If Mimi turned around, she would see me.

  But she didn’t, and with my longer legs, I closed more of the gap between us.

  When Darlene had received the certificate announcing her as the winner of the Chandler Challenge, she had cast a look of malicious triumph toward people in the back the audience.

  Lots of us had been in that vicinity, including Mimi.

  Mimi knew enough about sewing machines to disable the first Chandler Champion. And she’d helped Georgina figure out that an outlet in my shop had a loose connection, so she probably understood wiring well enough to cause the second Chandler Champion to short out and start a fire.

  And I was positive that, a few moments ago, she had shut off the Ferris wheel’s power.

  In the clue on her cardboard interfacing, Felicity had accused me of tampering with the first Chandler Champion. She had also mentioned “that woman who wins all the embroidery contests.” Smallwood and I had assumed that Felicity had been referring to me, even though I hadn’t won any major ones. Jeremy had said that he hired Felicity because of her encyclopedic knowledge of embroidery competitions. Maybe Felicity had suspected both me and Mimi.

  Mimi’s machine embroidery ability had been inconsistent. The day after Darlene died, Mimi had been the only student in my classes besides Georgina and Rosemary to have no problem transforming a photo to an embroidery design, but later in the week, when we were practicing hooping and rehooping to create allover embroidery designs, Mimi hadn’t been able to line up her work, though other students had managed the feat easily.