Disappearing Nine Patch (A Harriet Truman/Loose Threads Mystery Book 9)

by Arlene Sachitano

  “If we assume the police were right, that gets us back to Josh Phillips as our prime suspect. We haven’t confirmed his whereabouts, but it’s looking possible he’s still in town,” Harriet said.

  Lauren set her plate on the coffee table.

  “Not so fast there, pardner. There’s another suspect. That guy Molly helped put in jail when she first got out of college. He was tried as an adult in an underage prostitution operation run by his older brother. He was let out of jail two months ago.”

  “Where does he live?” Harriet asked.

  “Near Seattle.”

  Beth looked at Lauren, then Harriet.

  “I think you need to go check him out. I mean, you don’t need to meet him in a dark alley—after all, he might be dangerous; but maybe you could go see where he works and find out if anyone saw him on Monday evening. Or can you find that out on the computer? And also, can you find out if he’s on some sort of post-jail supervision?”

  “I think when his conviction was overturned, he was set free. This wasn’t one of those ‘we reserve the right to retry him’ situations. If I understand what I read, he shouldn’t have been put in an adult jail, but he was while awaiting trial and, while there, was assaulted by adult inmates. After several years of litigation, they concluded he shouldn’t have been tried at all. He was a victim of his brother, not an accomplice.”

  “That’s terrible,” Beth said. “That’s all the more reason for him to be angry with Molly, if she was instrumental in putting him in prison in the first place.”

  “I read the court findings, and I think Molly might have been the one who testified that he was a pimp. However, it turned out his brother used him as bait against his will. The brother had assumed custody of him when his mom went to jail on drug charges,” Lauren said. “And I know already he works for the Archdiocese of Seattle—their main office is the employer listed. That means he could actually be anywhere in the western part of the state. And we don’t know what his role is. He could be a janitor or a gardener or anything else. I’m guessing they have some sort of jobs program for people who need a little help rejoining the work force.”

  “All the more reason to go look,” Beth said. “And I mean look. Not speak to, not meet with, just ask for him at headquarters and see what you can find out and see if you can lay eyes on him. We can decide what to do from there, depending on what you find out.”

  “Couldn’t they do that by phone?” Jorge asked. “You know if these two go to Seattle, they aren’t going to just look.”

  Harriet and Lauren stared at each other. He was right. If they went that far, they weren’t coming home until they’d spoken to DeShaun Smith. Harriet wasn’t going to say that in front of her aunt, though, and she was pretty sure Lauren wouldn’t, either.

  Aunt Beth ignored his warning, and Harriet wondered why her aunt was mixing her message. She had to know they were going to interview the guy.

  “They could, but I’m thinking Molly wasn’t a petite girl. If this Mr. Smith is a smaller man, he would drop down the suspect list.”

  “I’ve got to finish the second quilt before I go anywhere,” Harriet said.

  Aunt Beth leaned back in her chair as Jorge took her tray back to the kitchen.

  “What else?”

  Harriet took Lauren’s plate and stacked it with hers.

  “Carla is working on the psychic angle. Molly seems to have gone to more than one. The first was a bust, but she’s got another name, and I was going to go with her to that one.”

  “Are you taking over a task you gave to Carla?” Beth asked.

  Harriet blushed at the rebuke.

  “I am, but hear me out. The first one she went to was clearly a fake. Carla could see that, but if the next fake is a little more subtle, she might fool her. I was thinking if two of us went, we might be able to get a better idea if we’re dealing with the real deal.”

  “If there is such a thing,” Lauren muttered.

  Harriet turned to her.

  “Let’s not forget that someone Molly talked to caused her to at least think she’d remembered what happened.”

  “How about the new boyfriend?” Beth interrupted.

  “Jenny is checking on him,” Harriet looked at Lauren. “Have you heard anything?”

  Lauren shook her head.

  “Since I’m still grounded for another couple of days, why don’t you let me sew the binding on the first quilt? I know the group was going to work on it tomorrow, but you all have a lot of other things you could be doing. The group can work on the second one. Didn’t you say you’re almost done with it?”

  Harriet stood up and took the dishes she was holding to the kitchen.

  “If I go home pretty soon, I can finish the second quilt.” she called. “I can drop it off at the Threads meeting, and if Lauren is free, we could drive to Seattle tomorrow afternoon and see what we can find out about Mr. Smith. That means we’ll have to put off meeting with the second psychic, but I think that’s okay.”

  “I have to do some work with an East Coast client early tomorrow, but if we leave from the Threads meeting, I can do it,” Lauren said.

  “I need to arrange a babysitter for Scooter. I’ll see if Mavis can take him. If that works, then I think we have a plan.”

  Harriet carried the two disappearing nine-patch quilts into the larger class room at the back of Pins and Needles the next morning. Connie was already there, arranging a tray of mugs.

  “Diós mio, are you finished with both quilts already?” She left the tray and helped Harriet spread the quilts out on the large table.

  “Lauren and I are going to Seattle after the meeting, so I stayed up late last night to get number two finished. Aunt Beth volunteered to do the hand stitching on the first quilt’s binding, so I went ahead and applied that, too. I’m hoping someone can drop it off at her place after the meeting. I figured the rest of you could work on the second one at the meeting and then tomorrow I can stitch the third quilt.”

  “I wouldn’t waste too much time doing anything fancy on that one. That man only wanted to get a quilt so he could stay connected to Molly. Now that she’s gone, who knows what he’ll do with the quilt.”

  “I agree with the sentiment, but my name is going to be on the machine quilting, and he may give his quilt to someone who’s a quilter. I don’t want the ultimate recipient to find my stitching lacking.”

  “I can see that. You’re right, we don’t know who will end up with the quilt, and it will have a label, listing us as the makers. It just galls me that we’ve been manipulated into making a quilt for Molly’s abuser.”

  The rest of the Loose Threads trickled into the room, each in turn coming to the table to admire Harriet’s stitching job.

  “This looks really nice,” Robin said as she ran her hand over the stitched surface.

  “I’m just glad they’re done. One more, and my life can hopefully return to normal. I’ve been stitching night and day for a few weeks, now.”

  Connie patted her on the back.

  “We appreciate the work you’ve done on this project. The quilts are beautiful.”

  Harriet smiled.

  “I wasn’t fishing for compliments, but I’ll take it.

  Robin picked a mug off the tray and carried it into the small kitchen to fill it with coffee.

  “We should get started if you and Lauren have to go to Seattle,” she said when she returned.

  Jenny came in as everyone else was getting seated.

  “Sorry I’m late. I had one more cafe that holds an open-mic night to check up on.”

  “Tea or coffee?” Harriet asked her.

  “Coffee, please,” she said.

  Carla went to the kitchen to get her drink, and Harriet pulled out the chair next to hers.

  “Were you able to pin down where he was on Monday?” she asked.

  “Unfortunately, what I discovered is there aren’t any open-mic sessions for poetry on Mondays at any of the cafes or coffee houses in a
forty-mile area from here.” She looked up and smiled as Carla set her coffee in front of her. “He wasn’t on duty at the Penny Mart either. My research was a total bust.”

  Robin made a note on her yellow tablet.

  “That’s useful information. It means we can’t eliminate him from our suspect list.”

  Lauren laughed.

  “That’s great. So far, we’ve eliminated one suspect—Leo Tabor—but we added DeShaun Smith, so we’re even with those two. Now we’ve looked at Molly’s former boyfriend and current boyfriend and can’t tell where either of them was at the critical time.”

  Harriet chuckled and picked up a mug from the tray.

  “Don’t forget, Morse and company pretty much eliminated our only suspect in Aunt Beth’s problems, too.”

  She got up and took her mug to the kitchen.

  Robin tapped her pen on her tablet.

  “I’m not sure this is worth writing down, but I checked out the court records of Gary Alexander, the Price’s neighbor who is also a convicted domestic abuser. He did, indeed, do jail time for battery, but he’s back with the wife, and they live in an apartment on Miller Hill. He may have killed Amber, but frankly, I think it’s a reach. All we have are the suspicions of the neighbors. Like I said before, from what I’ve seen in the courts, criminals tend to stick to type.”

  Lauren tilted back in her chair.

  “So, another non-starter, is what you’re saying.”

  Mavis stared at her teacup.

  “Maybe the time has come for us to hang up our imagined detective badges and let the real police handle this.”

  Robin pressed her lips together.

  “DeAnn is my friend, and I want to find out what happened to her sister. Having said that, I’m with Mavis. We are not equipped to investigate something like this and according to DeAnn, the police are working it hard.”

  Lauren looked around the table.

  “Does everyone else feel that way? Should we cancel our trip to Seattle?”

  “I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Harriet said and sat back down with her cup of tea. “I’d like to go check out DeShaun Smith, because…” She smiled. “…I’ve already got a dog sitter, and I could use a break from my machine.”

  Connie laughed.

  “Oh, honey, have we been working you too hard?”

  “Yes, no…I’m okay. I just was looking forward to a break. I agree with everyone, though. I feel bad for DeAnn—I mean, Molly was her half-sister, but…”

  “I know,” Mavis said. “We all feel bad for DeAnn. I’m just not sure us getting involved in trying to solve Molly’s murder is the right way to honor her memory.”

  Lauren drained her cup and set it on the table.

  “If we’re going to go, we need to get this show on the road.”

  Harriet stood up.

  “Can someone take the first quilt to Aunt Beth so she can bind it?”

  “I’ll go by,” Connie said. “I need to check on her, anyway.”

  “If we’re all going to be working on binding, why don’t we move the meeting to Beth’s house—if she feels like it, of course,” Mavis suggested.

  Robin made the call, and Beth was thrilled. The group had packed their stitching bags before Harriet and Lauren finished clearing their cups and gathering their purses.

  Chapter 18

  Harriet sat opposite Lauren at Greenleaf Vietnamese Restaurant a few blocks from the Catholic Center in downtown Seattle.

  “This pho chin is fabulous,” she said.

  Lauren dipped the salad roll made of fresh vegetables in a soft rice wrapper into peanut sauce. She chewed slowly, a look of sheer bliss on her face.

  “These aren’t half bad, either.”

  Harriet looked around the restaurant.

  “Finding this place made it worth the trip, even if our mission was a bust.”

  “It wasn’t a bust. It’s just like with Leo. Eliminating people as suspects is useful.”

  “I’m not sure either man was really a suspect.” Harriet took another spoonful of her soup. “Now that we’ve decided to drop our efforts to find Molly’s killer, I’ll admit it. I think we were out in left field with all our suspects.”

  “It’s true there isn’t a shred of evidence to suggest anyone on our list could or would have killed her.”

  “The best we’ve got is a few people with a lack of alibi for the time she was murdered.”

  Lauren laughed.

  “And we seem to be going in the wrong direction. I mean, I could believe her abusive boyfriend is a possible, but DeShaun Smith? Working for the archdiocese should have been a hint, along with his complete exoneration from all charges against him, but even I didn’t expect him to be a seminarian.”

  Harriet smiled.

  “I could imagine him holding a grudge against her for testifying against him, although there were many people who were more directly responsible for him going to jail. If he was an angry young man, I’d think the DA or judge or the detectives who arrested him would be riper targets. Him being at Bishop White Seminary in Spokane not only makes it unlikely he’s feeling vengeful but it puts him around four hundred miles from Foggy Point.”

  Lauren, finished eating, crumpled her napkin and put it on the table.

  “I don’t know about you, but I think we’re done with DeShaun. If someone wants to drive to Spokane, more power to them.”

  “I agree. I think it would be a big waste of time.” Harriet picked up her water glass and took a sip. “While we’re in Seattle and finished with our business ahead of time…” She looked at Lauren to gauge her reaction so far. “…I was thinking we should go by Stitches fabric store on Pike Street. One of my customers told me they carry Charley Harper print fabric, and I’d really like to get some to make pillows for my TV room.”

  “Isn’t he a little contemporary for your house?”

  “I know my aunt went with Victorian decor inside and out, but I’m slowly adding in a few pieces of my own style. I’m not changing anything big. Just a few pillows.”

  “It’s a slippery slope, that’s all I’m going to say on that. But, since Charley Harper is my style, too, yeah, I’d like to go look.” She glanced at her phone. “And we do have plenty of time.”

  Harriet picked up the check the server had quietly slid onto the edge of their table while they were talking.

  “Since you drove, lunch is on me,” she said and headed for the cash register.

  It was later than either of them had expected when Lauren guided her car onto the Bainbridge Island Ferry.

  “I don’t care that we had to wait for a second ferry—this beats driving the extra thirty-five minutes it would have been on the freeway.”

  Harriet unlatched her seatbelt, Lauren locked the car when they were both out, and Harriet led the way up to the observation deck. She glanced back at the Seattle skyline as the ferry moved away from the pier then turned her attention to the open water in front of the boat.

  “Don’t forget the part about getting to whale watch on the way back when you’re comparing this route with the all-freeway option,” she commented.

  “It’s not whale season, and it’s almost dark, but okay.”

  Harriet looked at her.

  “It’s always whale season here. The orcas don’t migrate. Only the gray whales migrate, and they’re mainly out in the Pacific.”

  “Aren’t we just Jacques Cousteau Junior?”

  “I brought Steve to meet Aunt Beth when we got engaged, and we went whale watching while we were here.” Her eyes unfocused as she gazed out over the water.”It was the only time he ever came here.”

  “Did you see any whales?”

  Harriet smiled.

  “We did.”

  “Do you realize this is the first time you’ve told me anything about your marriage that wasn’t you being angry or him having lied about something?”

  Harriet turned and looked at her friend.

  “Maybe I’m finally ready to s
top being mad at him for dying.”

  “Wow. I’m glad. Really. I do have to wonder—why now?”

  “I think it’s a combination of things.” Harriet leaned on the deck railing. “During the crazy-quilt retreat, I spent a fair amount of time reminiscing with my roommate about shared times we’d had in the Bay Area. It was all when my husband was still alive. I finally realized that, yes, he lied about his health, and I never became close with his childhood friends; but when you set that aside, we had a lot of great times in the five years we were married.

  “If I’m going to be honest, it also has to do with Aiden’s departure. I’ve had time to reflect, and I keep coming back to the fact that when something happened in my life, Aiden was right there to support me and help me heal, sometimes literally.”

  “That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

  “It would be if he’d let me reciprocate, yes. But whenever anything happened in his life—and we both know he had some whoppers in the last year—he pulled away. His being gone now is a perfect example. He decided to leave without us even talking about it. He didn’t ask me if I wanted to run away with him.”

  “Would you have?”

  “No, but he could have asked. And there was always the chance he could change my mind.”

  “What are you going to do when he comes home?”

  “I’m living my life in the here and now, and if or when he comes home, we’ll see where we both are. Since his calls are few and far between, and the last few were reduced to talk about the weather, I’m not sure it’s going to be an issue.

  “Anyway, it made me realize that, apart from his condition, Steve and I talked about everything. And after giving it a lot of thought, I think he was in such denial about his health that he didn’t think his not telling me was ever going to be a problem. I think he thought he was going to outlive his disease.”

  The two women were silent until the horn sounded, letting everyone know it was time to return to their cars.

  Night had fallen by the time Lauren turned onto Harriet’s hill.

  “Did you see that?” She pointed out the windshield. “Blue flashing lights. Looks like they’re on your street.”