The Quick and the Thread

by Amanda Lee

  “Gee, thank you for letting me know why my ears were burning last night.” I paid for my latte and strode to the door.

  “Oh, hey, come on. It wasn’t like that.”

  I ignored him.

  I let Angus out of the Jeep and unlocked the shop. I went into the office to store my purse, tote, and jacket. When my cell phone rang, I sat down at my desk and answered it there.

  “Marcy, it’s Lorraine Enright. Are you alone?”

  I looked at Angus, who was busy chasing his tennis ball around the office, and decided he probably wasn’t listening. “Yes. Why do you ask?”

  “I just can’t risk us being overheard, that’s all. I’m assuming you got the message I left on your machine last night.”

  “I got it,” I said. “I didn’t entirely understand it, but I got it.”

  “Things are getting weird. After I got home from your house the other night, someone called and asked me if I knew the identity of Four Square Development’s silent partner.”

  “Let me guess—when you did a star-six-nine, the number the caller had used was unknown.”

  “What?” she asked. “No. I didn’t even think to check that. I was too scared.”

  “If it was the same person who called my house last week, it wouldn’t have mattered.”

  “Then you’ve been getting calls, too?”

  “Only the one night. Was this the first call you’d received?”

  “Yes. Yesterday morning I phoned Riley to ask her about it. She told me about the baby and said she needs to be more careful now.”

  “More careful how?” I asked.

  “She said she can’t be involved with this investigation anymore, and she gave me the private detective’s number.”

  I wondered if Mr. Patrick had warned his daughter away from Lorraine and me. True, Riley had been at the shop on Monday morning, but that was to commission embroidery projects for the baby.

  “You mentioned in your message that the investigator is helping you determine what happened to your husband and to your bank account,” I said. “What did you mean? Was there a freeze put on your account or something?”

  “No, it’s gone. The money is gone. A couple days after Timothy died, I went by the ATM and was told there were insufficient funds in my account. I stormed into the bank and went straight to John Langhorne’s office.”

  I remembered Vera’s version of that episode. So far, it was right on target with Lorraine’s.

  “When I told him to fix whatever problem there was with the account, he told me Timothy came in and closed the account the day he died.”

  “If your husband was planning on the two of you leaving town, I suppose that makes sense,” I said. “Doesn’t it?”

  “That part does. But where did the money go? When the coroner gave me Timothy’s effects, there was no money except for twenty dollars in his wallet.” She expelled a long breath. “Fortunately, I’ve always kept a separate savings account, so I’ve been okay. But I need the rest of our money. And, honestly, I cannot imagine where that money went . . . unless whoever killed Timothy took it.”

  “I’m really sorry,” I said, “about everything. Please keep me posted on whatever your investigator is able to find out.”

  “I will. And if you find out anything you think I should know, you’ve got my number.”

  It wasn’t until after lunchtime that Vera called and asked me to take her to her car. I left Angus napping in the shop. Not everyone with a hangover can stomach warm dog breath panting in her face, and the mess that warm dog breath panting in her face could cause was one I shuddered to think about, much less clean up.

  I was happy to see that Vera didn’t appear to be much the worse for wear after all. Other than dark under-eye circles her concealer had been unable to hide, she looked fine.

  “How do you feel?” I asked.

  “Eh,” she said, making a waffling hand gesture. “I’m a bit queasy and have a dull headache, but I’m pretty good. I plan on enjoying the rest of the day quietly, so it’s no big deal.”

  “Good. Bet you won’t be working on your teapot today, though.”

  She smiled. “No. Tiny stitches and an achy head aren’t a wise combination. Have you and Sadie made up yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Don’t worry. You will.”

  Given my exchange with Blake this morning, I wasn’t too sure about that.

  Later, I was sitting at the counter, working on Riley’s sleepy-teddy-bear bib. Angus was napping in his huge bed, and Jill was staring at the cash register, wondering why we hadn’t had more customers today. Okay, just so you know, I’m only joking about Jill. I don’t believe her to be real person or anything like that. . . . Although if she were, she’d have been staring at the cash register, wondering why we hadn’t had more customers.

  “I imagine it’s the sunshine, Jill,” I said. “People know winter is coming, and they’d better enjoy the nice weather while they can. Besides, it’s the middle of the week. Who—besides us, and maybe Vera—thinks about beginning a new embroidery project in the middle of the week?”

  So I talk to Jill once in a while. But in my defense, this whole Timothy Enright, Bill Trelawney, Four Square Development deal was driving me insane.

  I decided to take stock of the facts I knew. Timothy Enright had come to my open house with the intention of telling me something. According to his estranged wife, he was coming to get her that night and they were leaving town. He’d closed out their joint bank account earlier that day. Either their account had dwindled down to twenty bucks—which wouldn’t take them very far out of town, or somewhere between the bank and my shop, Mr. Enright had lost, been robbed of, or had spent their money. He had then collapsed on my storeroom floor while trying to leave a message about Four Square’s fifth partner. Why was the identity of Four Square Development’s fifth partner so important to Timothy Enright that he was scratching it onto my wall with a tapestry needle and his last ounce of strength? The last piece of information I had about Timothy Enright was that his death had been ruled an accident due to alcohol poisoning.

  Bill Trelawney had known Timothy Enright behaved badly at the open house, but he hadn’t known Mr. Enright had been found dead in the storeroom the next morning. I still thought that one was odd. Mr. Trelawney had freaked when I’d mentioned the message Mr. Enright had scratched onto the wall, and it wasn’t because he was concerned about the marred paint. Mr. Trelawney had been deeply involved with Four Square Development and was supposedly the only person—besides Timothy Enright—who knew the identity of Four Square Development’s fifth partner. After reading the writing on the wall—literally—he hurried off and wound up shot in a remote area of town. He was shot with a .38-caliber pistol, and, apparently, I’m one of the few people in Tallulah Falls who doesn’t own one of those.

  Riley Kendall, who once broke Todd’s heart into forty-eight-and-a-half pieces, hadn’t liked me at all and had basically told me to mind my own business about Four Square Development when I first met her. Later that night, Sadie and I overheard Riley telling Lorraine Enright that she needed to find out what and how Timothy knew about Four Square.

  And why was Riley running hot and cold with Lorraine? I took it that Lorraine had been her client for quite some time and that Timothy had been her father’s client. I could fairly easily understand her fickle attitude toward me, although I did wonder if Mr. Patrick had told her—as she had reported to me—to give me another chance and try to help me out, or if he’d told her to keep an eye on me. After all, I’d said the adage to Sadie only yesterday: Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

  I put the final stitch in the sleepy bear, threaded a needle with a single black strand of embroidery floss to do the backstitching, and wondered how on earth it would all turn out.

  The rest of the week was uneventful. Business was steady if a little slow, though I did sell a few big-ticket items, including an exquisite set of handmade Japanese embroidery needles. I tau
ght the Wednesday and Thursday evening embroidery classes. I didn’t hear from Riley, Lorraine, or Sadie. And I brought my coffee from home, so Sadie didn’t hear from me, either. Nor did I hear from Todd or Detective Nash.

  I did hear from Margaret Trelawney. She sounded sad. She told me she was calling to make sure I was doing all right, but there was more there. There was too much she wasn’t saying. The entire call just didn’t feel right to me, so I offered to come for a visit.

  On Friday at around two o’clock, I closed the shop, took Angus home to play in the backyard, plugged Sylvia Shaw’s address into my GPS, and headed for Portland. It was more than a two-hour drive from Tallulah Falls. Still, by my calculations, I’d get to Portland in time to avoid getting caught in rush hour traffic. I could visit with Mrs. Trelawney and Sylvia, make sure Mrs. Trelawney was okay, and be back here before it got late.

  The closer I got to Portland, the heavier the traffic got. I guess there were lots of people getting a jump on the weekend. Also, the closer I got to Portland, the hungrier I got.

  Not wanting to arrive at Sylvia’s house with my stomach rumbling, I pulled in to a burger joint. I’d intended to use the drive-through window; but as I pulled around the side of the building, one of the customers sitting inside near a window caught my eye and sparked my curiosity. He looked so much like John Langhorne, it was scary. And he was sitting with a woman and two young men who lacked the appearance of fellow bankers.

  I parked the Jeep. Overcome with curiosity that the man inside the restaurant could possibly be Mr. Langhorne, I snagged my Giants baseball cap from the backseat and kept my sunglasses on. I also took my wallet from my oversize yellow purse and placed the purse on the passenger’s-side floor.

  I went inside and walked to the counter. I looked straight ahead, as if I were merely a woman on a quest for a cheeseburger, which is what I actually had been before I saw the creepy John Langhorne look-alike.

  I got my burger and soft drink and found a booth. Fortunately, there was one where I could sit with a row of plants to my left, so I was close enough to hear the group’s conversation and yet remain unobserved.

  “. . . you have to leave tonight, John,” the woman was saying. “The weather is supposed to turn bad.”

  “That’s why I’m leaving while the weather is on my side, sweetheart.”

  That voice gave me goose bumps. That man was John Langhorne.

  “But don’t worry, Mark,” he continued. “I’ll be here for your football game next Saturday.”

  “Cool,” a young man’s voice said.

  “Hey, Dad,” the other young man said, “while you’re in Culver City, could you swing by that gourmet shop I love and get me a box of those hazelnut truffles?”

  The man laughed. “Is it the truffles you love or that cute brunette who works the counter?”

  “She is cute,” the young man replied. “And it wouldn’t hurt if you’d mention that I’m majoring in urban development. . . . You know, in case she likes men with potential and would maybe like to own her own gourmet shop one day.”

  “Or, if you think she prefers real men, Dad, invite her to come see me lead the Vikings to victory next Saturday.”

  “Oh yeah? And what would Jennifer say if she heard you talking like that? Let me think. ‘Give me a D, give me a U, give me an M and a P. What do they spell? Du—’ Ow!”

  “Boys, stop that,” the woman said. “Your dad won’t get to see you for a week. Let’s not send him off with the two of you quarreling.”

  “Aw, he’s used to it, Mom. He knows we’re only fooling around.”

  “That’s right, Emma,” the man said. “Boys will be boys.”

  That can’t possibly be John Langhorne, I told myself. So what if he looks and sounds uncannily like Vera’s husband? He couldn’t possibly be, because that man is obviously married to Emma and those young men are their sons.

  I stood up and took my unwrapped burger to the trash. This time I looked directly at the family. And they looked at me. In fact, one of the young men gave me quite a once-over as I passed.

  And there was no doubt in my mind that his father was John Langhorne.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I arrived at Sylvia’s split-level home, feeling like a James Bond martini—shaken, not stirred. From the restaurant to Sylvia’s house, I’d tried to envision a scenario that made even a modicum of sense.

  The man was John Langhorne’s identical twin. Their mother, unable to tell them apart, had called them both John. It had made her life so much easier. She could call, “John, come eat your dinner!” and both boys would race to the table.

  Okay. That was stupid. But it gets worse. My other theories ran the gamut from clone to parallel universe. So, beyond trying to make myself believe that seeing a man who looked and sounded exactly like John Langhorne and whose first name was John was merely an extraordinary coincidence, all that was left was the knowledge that John Langhorne was leading a double life.

  I parked in Sylvia’s driveway and checked my appearance in the visor mirror. The Giants cap had left my hair flat, and the shock of seeing John Langhorne with a wife who was not Vera—along with two sons—had left me pale. I remembered Vera’s tortured expression when she’d told me she was unable to have children, as I dug through my purse for a lipstick. I found my favorite shade—a rosy mauve—but putting it on didn’t do much to ameliorate my wan complexion.

  I flipped the mirror back up, got out of the Jeep, and walked to Sylvia’s door. Before I could raise my hand to ring the doorbell, Mrs. Trelawney flung open the door and enveloped me in a bear hug. She had surprising strength for a woman her age.

  She then held me at arm’s length so she could examine me. “You don’t look well, dear. Are you feeling all right?”

  “I’m just a little tired from the drive, I guess. How are you?”

  “I’ll do,” she said. “Come on inside. Sylvia has made a tea for the three of us.”

  I thought Mrs. Trelawney had misspoken when she’d said a tea until I saw that Sylvia had, in fact, prepared much more than a pot of tea. On the dining room table, there were blueberry scones, oatmeal-raisin cookies, two fruit platters, and apple-walnut muffins. Although my appetite had deserted me at the restaurant, it now returned with a vengeance.

  Sylvia came from the kitchen with a tea tray. “We were beginning to think you’d gotten lost.” She placed the tea tray on the table.

  “Sorry.” I shrugged. “Friday traffic.”

  “Hmm. You and Maggie have a seat and tell me which type of tea you’d like. I have orange pekoe, green, white, and chamomile.”

  I chose green, Mrs. Trelawney opted for orange pekoe, and Sylvia made herself a cup of chamomile.

  As we filled our plates with Sylvia’s goodies, Mrs. Trelawney asked me if everything appeared to be getting back to normal in Tallulah Falls. I knew she was asking because she wanted to come home. While I couldn’t blame her for that, I still didn’t feel it was safe for her to come back home. I wanted to stress that to both Mrs. Trelawney and Sylvia, but I didn’t want to scare them.

  “Riley Kendall is pregnant,” I said to buy myself some time. “She came in and commissioned me to make some things for the baby.”

  “Oh, how nice,” Mrs. Trelawney said.

  “That’s not what she meant about things getting back to normal,” Sylvia said. “She’s asking if there are any new developments in the case and whether or not you think it’s safe for her to come home.”

  So much for tact and trying to candy-coat my concerns. “No,” I said. “I don’t think it’s safe for Mrs. Trelawney to come home yet.” I looked at Mrs. Trelawney. “The night after your house was broken into, I got an anonymous call from someone asking me what you know.”

  Sylvia returned the scone she’d been holding to her plate and wiped the corners of her mouth with her napkin before answering. “I saw a man skulking about outside the house that night after the break-in. I know this will sound strange, but for some reason, he r
eminded me of that young man who runs the coffee shop.”

  “MacKenzies’ Mochas?” I asked.

  “Yes. That’s the one.”

  “Did you call the police?” I asked.

  “Of course. But by that time, the man was gone.”

  “Did you tell the police who you suspected?” I asked.

  Mrs. Trelawney watched our back-and-forth exchange as if she were at a tennis match.

  “Yes,” Sylvia said. “They found him at some place called the Brew Crew. He said he’d been there during the time of the incident, and the proprietor confirmed it.” She picked up her scone. “I must have been mistaken, but he did resemble that young man very much.” She shook her head and took a bite of the scone.

  I digested this information while eating a strawberry. Based on the phone call I’d received from Blake the night after the Trelawney break-in, I wondered if he had been the man Sylvia saw . . . and if Todd had lied to protect him. That both Sylvia and I would see dead ringers for Tallulah Falls residents was too much of a coincidence for at least one of us not to have seen who we think we saw. See?

  “How much do either of you know about John Langhorne?” I asked.

  “I don’t know the man at all,” Sylvia said. “I met him at Bill’s visitation, but he didn’t leave me with much of an impression.”

  “I know he travels a lot,” Mrs. Trelawney said.

  I nodded. “I think I saw him here in Portland. He was with a woman and two college-age boys. They called him Dad.”

  Mrs. Trelawney frowned. “That’s peculiar. I never knew John had been married before Vera.”

  I smiled. It was the one scenario that hadn’t even crossed my overly dramatic mind. The woman was John’s first wife, and they’d maintained an amicable relationship for the sake of their children.

  “Here I was thinking Mr. Langhorne was leading some sort of double life,” I said with a laugh. “I get it from my mother. She’s a costume designer.”

  “In Hollywood?” Sylvia asked.