by Lea Wait
I suspected she was also questioning my staying with Patrick. But she was Gram. She had a right. “I first thought of staying with you and Tom. But Pete and Ethan felt I shouldn’t be anywhere near my house. And, Gram, he said for you and Tom to be careful, too. At least one of the threats included my family.”
“Your family?”
“And that’s what you are. How are you and Tom doing?”
“Tom spent a lot of time with Clem’s mother and father last night. That fellow she’s been dating was there, too, for a while, but he didn’t stay long. Her parents were, of course, very upset. And the police came to question them.”
“Pete and Ethan told me they were headed there. Steve, Clem’s friend, spent the night with Patrick at the carriage house.”
“Then he wasn’t alone either. That’s good. If you can’t come here, can I do anything else to help?”
“Actually, yes. I left my car near Sarah’s apartment yesterday. It’s parked between her store and the Harbor Haunts. The police don’t want me near it in case anyone recognizes it, but it needs to be out of the street and in my barn. Would you or Tom mind moving it?”
“Of course not. Tom’s over at the church office right now, but, when he takes a break or comes home for lunch, we’ll drive down there and take care of it. Are you sure you want Patrick to get Trixi?”
“Sure. She’s probably lonely.”
“Hope she gets along with her sister,” warned Gram.
“I hope so, too. But she got along with Juno when we stayed with you and Tom at the rectory before Christmas.”
“Because Juno stayed out of sight most of the time,” Gram reminded me. “So it should be interesting. It all depends on how territorial Bette is, and how indignant Trixi is about being taken out of her comfort zone. So Pete and Ethan paid you a visit yesterday?”
“Right. They asked a lot of questions. I told them what I could, but, unfortunately, I didn’t have a lot of answers. I knew someone was upset about the embroidery I bought, but I didn’t know much about Clem’s personal or work life. Ruth is trying to trace the genealogy of families who might be connected to the needlepoint.”
“Captain Ob called last night to see how you were. I told him you were coping as well as anyone could.”
“Thanks, Gram. I’ll let him know when I get to Patrick’s. I’ll be right across the street, so he should know that. Where I’ll be is supposed to be a secret, of course.”
“Of course. But not to your friends and family.”
“I meant not to mention it to a lot of people. I have no idea who sent those messages, or who killed Clem, or even if those things are connected. I don’t know for sure that anyone’s stalking me. But Ethan and Pete seemed to think I need to keep a low profile for a day or two.” I took a sip of my now-cold second cup of coffee. “I hope they figure out who killed Clem, and soon. I’ll go crazy if I have to stay in hiding very long.”
“I’m sure they will, dear. And if you and Patrick need anything, you let me know. I could bring some food over.”
“Thank you, but, no, please don’t do that. I’m beginning to feel paranoid myself. I’m afraid if someone is looking for me, he or she will check your house—which is why you and Tom have to be careful!—and they might follow you. Pretend I’m on a vacation somewhere far away. I’ll check in and let you know how I am. I promise.”
“If you’re sure, Angel,” said Gram. “I feel so helpless.”
Me too. “We’ll all be fine,” I assured her. “Let’s hope this is only for a day or two.”
I hated telling Gram she couldn’t see me, or help, except for moving my car. But I’d never forgive myself if anything happened to her because of me.
I was imprisoned. I couldn’t leave, and I was a possibly lethal package being handed from Sarah to Patrick. I was already restless. I wanted to smell fresh sea air and get snow on my boots. Most important, I wanted to find Clem’s killer.
Chapter 19
“Friendship’s a name to few confirmed
The offspring of a noble mind
A generous warmth which fills the breast
And better felt than e’er exprest.”
—Part of elaborate sampler worked in 1824 by Anna Braddock, who was fourteen. She included many birds, branches of trees, animals, a horse, sheep, two children holding hands, and her school building in Pennsylvania.
Next call was to Ruth.
“Angie, I’m so glad you called. I could hardly sleep last night I was so worried about you. And Clem, dead, so young. Life is full of unfairness, isn’t it?”
“Sometimes it is,” I agreed. “I’m all right, but restless. Sarah doesn’t have much space here, and the police want me out of downtown Haven Harbor, so I’m going to move to Patrick’s house later today.”
“The big house?”
“No. Patrick’s place. The carriage house.”
“I’m sure that will be as nice. Maybe nicer.”
“When Skye isn’t in town they turn down the heat and turn off the water at Aurora.”
“Of course. That makes sense,” said Ruth.
“So, did you find out anything about the families involved with the needlepoint?”
“A few things. But I’m not sure how much help they’ll be. First, I found the Providence family connection.”
“Great! Sarah will appreciate that. The embroideries she bought were done by Providences.”
“In 1788 Jonathan Holgate’s daughter Verity married Joshua Providence in Saco. I couldn’t find more details last night, but that could be the connection.”
“That sounds right. I’m pretty sure Joshua and Verity are listed on the genealogical sampler Sarah has.”
“If the list of people on the sampler is correct, and the Providences daughtered out, there are two possibilities. One is, of course, that the family continued, but hidden, under the married name of one of the daughters. Or, two, that the family dead-ended, and perhaps the possessions—including the embroideries—were taken by a Holgate relative, a cousin, perhaps. Many Maine families stayed in the same geographic areas, often in the same towns. I know of one couple in Damariscotta in the late nineteenth century who had seventeen children. All but one of them married someone else from Damariscotta. The lone holdout married someone from Boothbay. That’s only a few miles down the peninsula, but he rarely saw the family after his marriage. In their eyes, and perhaps in his, he had left them.”
“Incredible,” I said. “And you found something else?”
“It’s not definite yet, but do you remember I said the Goulds seemed to disappear about the time of the American Revolution, and then reappeared later?”
“I remember. Strange.”
“Maybe not so strange. Several Goulds popped up in Nova Scotia about then, and then disappeared.”
“What?”
“My guess is the Goulds were Royalists who got out of Maine during the colonies’ rebellion, and went to Nova Scotia. They must have been wealthy—many Royalists were. The Goulds had enough money to get to Canada, and then after the Revolution they came back to try to reclaim their lands. Men who were Royalist-sympathizers going to Nova Scotia wasn’t unusual during the Revolution. Who would want to stay here and be tarred and feathered? But not many families came back. The Goulds might have been an exception.”
“Interesting,” I said.
“Of course, none of that explains who auctioned off their estates this week, or why anyone would be angry enough about that to threaten you and Clem.”
Or kill Clem, I added to myself. “Maybe some other information will pop up,” I told Ruth. “Patrick had lunch with Sam Gould from Camden yesterday. I asked him to find out if Sam knew anything about the auction, but I don’t know yet if he did. I’m going to see Patrick around noon.”
“We’ll keep in touch,” Ruth promised. “And . . . take care of yourself, Angie. You’re more important than any embroidery.”
She was right, of course. “I’ll check the dates you found
with Sarah’s embroidery,” I promised.
“Good,” said Ruth. “I’m going back to my own writing today for a while; I just got a manuscript in for proofing. But later today I’ll be able to take more time for genealogy. It’s a lot more interesting than reading my own book for the twentieth time. And, who knows? Maybe I’ll set one of my next books during the American Revolution.”
“Is erotica set then?”
Ruth laughed at the other end of the line. “Angie, dear, there’s been erotica since the Greeks, and probably before. I can set a book in any time period I choose.”
I’d been planning to call Dave, but, of course, he’d be at school. This time of year high school teachers were busy. Instead, I called Captain Ob.
His wife, Anna, answered. “Angie! I was wondering how you were. I heard about Clem. Sad. So very sad.”
“It is,” I agreed. “Gram said you and Ob had asked about me. I wanted to let you know that I’d be staying with Patrick starting this afternoon.”
She hesitated. “Temporarily? Or longer?”
“Only for a day or two,” I assured her. “Since the threats were about me as well as Clem, the police want me to be safe, and away from my house.”
“We’ll be neighbors then, for a few days.”
“We will,” I agreed.
“Maybe you and Patrick could come over for dinner,” she said.
“Thanks for asking, but for the moment I’m supposed to stay put. Police orders,” I explained. “But after the police are sure they know what happened to Clem, and that I’m safe, Patrick and I would love to stop in.”
“You do exactly what the police tell you to, dear. I don’t want to hear about any more deaths.”
I understood. She wasn’t just talking about Clem. There’d been a death in Anna’s family not long ago.
“I will, Anna. I promise,” I told her. “I’m being good.” At least for now.
Of course, I hadn‘t asked Ethan whether I could go to Portland to talk to Clem’s coworkers at Channel 7. And I was talking to Ruth, who was checking family history information for me. Several of the threatening messages had said not to talk to anyone about the embroidery, or ask questions.
I went downstairs to Sarah’s store. “Ruth thinks she found the Holgate-Providence connection,” I explained. “Could I see the genealogical sampler you bought?”
“I hung it on the wall,” said Sarah, pointing.
“Ruth’s right,” I said, looking at the names. “The two names at the top of the sampler are Joshua and Verity—the two names she mentioned. It doesn’t say Verity was a Holgate before she married Joshua, but that’s what Ruth found. She said they were married in 1788. Verity would have been fifteen and Joshua sixteen then.”
“Young,” said Sarah, coming over to look.
“From what Ruth saw, the Holgates were wealthy. Maybe Verity’s father was helping them out—buying them land or having Joshua work in a Holgate business.”
“What was their business?” Sarah asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what the Goulds did, either,” I admitted. “Maybe Ruth can find out. Or someone at the Maine Historical Society would know. Ruth does think both families were from England.”
“Where the Foundling Hospital was,” Sarah pointed out.
“Exactly,” I agreed. “But what relation was that foundling to either family? And how can we find out?”
“Maybe we need to start with this end of the search first,” Sarah suggested. “What Ruth’s discovering is fascinating. I’ll write up what she finds out about the Providences and attach that to the back of the samplers. But no one in 1788 killed Clem or threatened you. Someone in a current generation did that.”
My next thought was interrupted by an ear-shattering explosion, followed immediately by a series of a dozen smaller booms, one right after the other. It didn’t sound like gunshots; it sounded as though all of Haven Harbor was exploding. Sarah’s building shook. Her display of teacups rattled in their saucers, and a large gold-framed mirror fell off the back wall, breaking the frame and shattering the mirror. Seven years bad luck. As we looked at each other, fearing what would be next, a long crack spread diagonally across one of Sarah’s storefront windows, dividing it into a spider web of lines and spaces.
“What?” Sarah said. “Is the town blowing up?”
We both headed for the front door of her shop.
“Stay inside,” she said, waving me back from the door. “Between the sea smoke and real smoke I can’t see what’s happening anyway. No one’s supposed to know you’re here. Let me go and check. And stay away from the window. Someone could see you from the street.”
Real smoke? As soon as Sarah said that, I could smell it. Smoke mixed with gasoline. Not a good combination.
I stepped back, clenching my fists in frustration. I wanted to run out into the snowy street. I wanted to know what had happened.
Despite Sarah’s admonition, I moved back a little, but peeked through the cracked front window, hoping I’d see something to explain what was happening. As I watched, as though in slow motion, the glass in the wide window wavered, split, and collapsed. Splinters of glass covered everything in Sarah’s display and the floor near it. Sharp fragments of glass covered my sweater and jeans. Without thinking, I started to brush them off, and splinters cut into my skin.
Trying to keep the blood on my fingers from dripping onto the floor or the antiques or my clothes, I ran back to Sarah’s counter and reached for the box of cloths she used to wrap fragile ornaments.
Outside in the street the commotion continued. The explosions had stopped, but the smoke was thicker, darker now. Was it from a fire? Sea smoke? A mixture of both? I couldn’t tell.
Sirens from the Haven Harbor fire engine and ambulance added to the cacophony. Both vehicles passed Sarah’s store and headed down the smoky street toward the harbor. People somewhere were shouting. Several men ran by Sarah’s open shop door.
I sopped up my blood and brushed the fragments off my clothes. I could feel pieces of glass in my fingers.
Snow started blowing through the broken window into the shop. Melted snow would destroy many of Sarah’s antiques already covered with glass shards.
Despite Sarah’s warning that I should stay away from the window, I had to do something. I covered my hands as best I could so no blood would get on the antique dolls and toys in Sarah’s display and stretched my arm through the broken window glass. I managed to retrieve two nineteenth-century wax dolls and started to lift out a Victorian wicker doll’s carriage.
Before I’d gotten the carriage out of the window Sarah was back. She looked in horror at her store, and at me, dripping blood.
She helped me with the carriage and then said, “Sit down, Angie.”
I moved back from the window, but I didn’t sit. “What happened?”
“Where did you park your car?” she asked, so calmly that I knew something was seriously wrong.
“About a block from here. Two blocks from the Harbor Haunts.”
“It’s hard to see in the smoke and confusion. I may be wrong. But I think it’s your car that’s on fire.”
Chapter 20
“Mrs. E. Folwell, intending to resume her former school of embroidery, takes this method of informing her friends and the public in general she will commence as soon as she has a certain number of Young Ladies engaged. Mr. Folwell, being a Master of Drawing, the Ladies under her tuition will have a double advantage in shading, which is all the merit of the picture.”
—Advertisement in Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser, a Philadelphia newspaper. Ann Elizabeth Folwell (1770–1824) ran a well-known embroidery school for girls in Pennsylvania.
“My car?” I asked. “But . . .” Then it hit me. “Gram and Tom were going to move my car about now. Were they in the street? Were they all right?” I ran toward the shop door.
Sarah was faster than I was. She tried to block me. “No! You can’t go out. What if whoever is looking f
or you is there? Maybe he started the fire to get your attention. It’s just a car.”
“But it’s my car,” I said, in frustration. My little red Honda. I hesitated a fraction of a second. Then I pushed her aside. “I don’t care about the car. Gram or Tom may be there; they may be hurt. Besides, no one can see anything in all this smoke.”
As I left Sarah’s shop a Haven Harbor Hospital ambulance, siren blaring, passed me, heading for the hospital. Someone had been hurt.
The fire engine was stopped close to where I’d parked my car less than twenty-four hours before. Yesterday, when Clem was still alive, and I was looking forward to lunch with a friend.
Sarah followed me, both of us slipping and sliding on the ice under the snow on the street. Neither of us had stopped to put on boots.
Several dozen people had gathered on the sidewalk. Smoke filled the air. I didn’t see any flames. Had the fire already been put out? Flames in this narrow street could set buildings on fire. No wonder the fire department had responded so quickly.
I pushed my way through other people who’d gathered to see what was happening. Where was Gram? Where was Tom? I didn’t see their car. Maybe they hadn’t gotten here yet. Would my car have burst into flames by itself? Without help?
No way.
Sarah’d been right. The smoke was from my car, and it merged with the sea smoke, obscuring everything. When it parted I could see my little Honda being hosed down. Water from the fire engine’s hoses was already turning to ice, covering the car and freezing it to the street. Smoke from the car’s engine was mingling with the water the car was being doused with.
I got as close as I could.
Were Gram and Tom here, too?
I hadn’t seen this many people in downtown Haven Harbor since the Christmas Cheer Festival.
Today no one in the street was celebrating.
“Hey, Angie! Get back! Get away!” Pete Lambert’s voice was close to my ear. He grabbed my arm and pulled me through the crowd into an alleyway between two stores. “What are you doing out here? You should be with Sarah, in hiding.” He glanced at my hands, still covered in a bloody cloth. “Are you hurt?”
