The Quilt Before the Storm

by Arlene Sachitano

  “By herself?” Rod asked.

  “We tried to talk her out of it,” Lauren explained, “but the jerk has her brainwashed.”

  “Do you have an address?” Connie asked, pulling a small notepad from her purse. Lauren scratched the address on it.

  “I searched this out on the internet, but I think it’s current.”

  “We’ll see what we can do,” Rod said.

  The phone rang again while everyone was saying goodbye to Rod and Connie.

  “Hello,” Harriet said.

  “I know I said I’d call tomorrow,” Detective Morse told her, “but we have a plan of sorts in place, and I wanted to let you know and ask you a favor.”

  “Sure, what do you need?”

  “I’m coming in by Coast Guard helicopter tomorrow along with another detective and some emergency medical personnel. They’ll be landing us at the grade school. My apartment is on the downtown side of the bridge, so I won’t be able to get home or get a car. Could you give me a ride to the shelter at the church?”

  “Of course, but why don’t you come stay at my house? We’re having a sort of ongoing pajama party. My aunt and Mavis and Lauren are here, along with Jorge.”

  “It sounds like you have a full house already,” Morse said.

  “We still have room. I’ve got several of those blow-up beds, and I have a whole attic that no one is staying in. It may not be the Ritz, but with a down sleeping bag and the airbed I think it will be as comfortable as any of us are without power. And we have a gas water heat and a gas stovetop.”

  “How could I refuse an offer like that?” Morse asked. “Their target landing time is noon, but it could be plus or minus an hour. Come at your convenience—I won’t be going anywhere.”

  “We’ll be there at eleven, just in case.”

  “I did get the fire department to pick up your bodies.”

  “Hey, they aren’t my bodies,” Harriet protested.

  “I know, but you reported them, and we have to call them something. In any case, they’re chilling in the fire station garage. It’s the coolest protected place they could access. We’ve managed to get hold of a few more officers since we talked, too. And the guys downtown requested permission to take a kayak from the mercantile and use it to paddle out.”

  “Have you been able to reach Darcy?” Harriet asked.

  “Yes, she checked in just before I called you. She’ll be heading up to the homeless camp tomorrow to see what, if anything, she can come up with. We don’t expect to find much useful forensic material at either site after all this time, but we have to try.”

  “I’m glad you’re coming back,” Harriet said.

  “See you tomorrow,” Morse said and hung up.

  Harriet turned to her roommates, all of whom were currently standing in front of the fireplace, rears to the heat. They’d probably come into the room more for warmth than a pressing need to hear who had called, but she told them what Detective Morse had said without prompting.

  “Well, I’m glad she’s coming back,” Aunt Beth announced.

  “Me, too,” Harriet agreed.

  “Since when?” Lauren said.

  “Since we aren’t police officers, and it’s their job, not ours, to figure out who killed Duane and Richard—two men we barely knew, I might add.”

  “Did Morse brainwash you?” Lauren asked.

  “Since when did you become the gung-ho private eye?”

  “Are you trying to tell me you’re not the least little bit curious about who killed those two men, practically right under our noses?”

  “Of course I’m curious,” Harriet said. “I just don’t think it’s our place to interfere in a police investigation.”

  “I’m glad you’ve come to your senses,” Aunt Beth said then turned to look Lauren squarely in the face. “You would do well to learn from Harriet.”

  Harriet raised her eyebrows and grinned at Lauren from behind her aunt’s back. Lauren narrowed her eyes, but kept her mouth shut.

  “Anyone interested in a friendly game of cards?” Jorge asked.

  Everyone was, and he offered to take all the dogs out before they started.

  Chapter 19

  Weak light oozed through the kitchen window when Harriet came downstairs the next morning. Day three with no power had begun, and the whole slumber party/campout bit was starting to be not so much fun.

  “I want my power back now,” she complained to Aunt Beth and Mavis, who were sitting side-by-side at the kitchen bar. “I’m not out of clean clothes yet, but my dirties are stacking up, and I don’t want to find out how the pioneers dried their laundry in the winter.”

  “You don’t want to know what the pioneers did,” Mavis agreed.

  “You want some tea?” Aunt Beth asked. She had already filled the thermal carafe with water and set out clean mugs and a basket of assorted teabags.

  “Sure,” Harriet agreed. “Were those waffles?” she asked, pointing at the crumbs on the mostly empty plates in front of the two older women.

  “You should know,” Mavis said. “I found them in your freezer in the garage. I was looking for dinner meat to start thawing, and I found a package of frozen waffles. We heated them in the iron skillet and put the remains in the freezer compartment.”

  “You want some?” Aunt Beth asked.

  Harriet did, and a few minutes later she sat down to hot tea and waffles with warm maple syrup.

  “Yum,” she said when she’d finished eating. “That really hit the spot.”

  “Well, we thought you’d need fortification if you’re going to go see Aiden,” Beth said.

  “Where’s everyone else?” Harriet asked.

  “Lauren is up in the attic sweeping, and then she’s going to set up the air-bed,” Mavis said. “Jorge’s outside with the dogs.”

  “He said he would drive you to the animal hospital when you’re ready,” Aunt Beth added. “He said there are a couple of places where the water is over the road.”

  “You ready to head out?” Jorge asked a few minutes later when he returned with the dogs. “Let me get these girls settled, and I’ll be ready.” He stooped to unhook the leashes.

  Harriet got her coat from the kitchen closet and put her waterproof boots on.

  “Wish me luck,” she said to Beth and Mavis as she followed him out the door.

  “Go easy on the boy,” Jorge recommended when they were in the truck. “If you go at him with both guns blazing, all he’ll do is argue, no matter how right you are.”

  “How can I make him see that Michelle is trying to use him?”

  “The best thing is to try to get him away from her, somehow. He knows how she is. The only reason she’s having success at all is because the storm is keeping him from talking to anyone else.”

  “But this started before the storm. She was here, and he was listening.”

  “He would have come around if he’d had the chance to talk to you and me and your aunt.”

  “We’ll see,” Harriet said. “I’ve at least got to try.”

  She spent the rest of the trip staring out the window at the storm carnage that had yet to be cleaned up. For his part, Jorge was kept busy dodging debris, standing water, and minor mudslides.

  “Here we are,” he said finally as he pulled off the road in front of the vet clinic.

  A large Douglas fir had fallen across the front corner of the parking area, blocking the entrance, so Harriet would have to walk the rest of the way in. The offending tree was large enough it would require commercial equipment to cut it up and remove it.

  “I’ll be back in an hour,” Jorge said as she got out of the truck.

  “Thanks for driving me,” she said and pushed the door shut.

  “Hi, Harriet,” one of the clinic vet technicians said from the front desk when she walked in. “Did you come to spend some time with Scooter?” The young woman was dressed in mismatched scrubs, her blond hair scraped back in a severe ponytail.

  “Yeah, I thought he
might like a little company. Besides, I can’t work without power.”

  “We’re all getting a little tired of this storm. We have a generator going in the back to keep the patients warm and do their laundry, but we’re running it one hour on, one hour off to preserve fuel and it only runs two circuits. You can go on back. I’ll tell Aiden you’re here.”

  Harriet went through the door the tech held open for her then down the short hall to the converted storeroom. The tech brought in a space heater and plugged it into an extension cord that trailed down the hall and out the back door.

  “You’re lucky it’s an ‘on’ hour,” she said as she flicked the heater’s power switch. Aiden came in a few minutes later, Scooter in one hand, a fuzzy lap pad in the other. He deposited both in Harriet’s lap and turned to leave.

  “Wait,” she said. “Can’t you stay and talk a minute?”

  “I’ve got work to do,” he said, opening the door, then hesitating.

  “Please,” she said in a quiet voice.

  “There’s no point,” he told her without turning back around.

  “Can’t you at least tell me what’s going on?”

  “If I talk about it, you’ll try to tell me I’m wrong, and then we’ll argue and I don’t want to remember us that way.”

  Harriet could feel the heat rising up her neck, flushing her face.

  “Remember us?” she snapped, her voice rising. “I have no say in this matter? You’ve just decided we’re done, and I don’t even get to know why?”

  She stood and put Scooter and his pad down in her chair then grabbed Aiden’s arm and spun him around. She started to speak, but hesitated when she saw the pain etched into the lines of his face.

  “Please,” she pleaded. “Talk to me,”

  “It won’t change anything,” he said, letting the door shut.

  “What sort of lies is your sister filling your head with?”

  “My sister is not telling me lies. She’s just helped me see things more clearly.”

  “Are you sure that’s what she’s doing? Helping you? Think about it. When has she ever helped you?”

  “I know my sister is greedy and self-centered, but that doesn’t mean she’s wrong about this. She knows our family, and more important, she knows me.”

  Every fiber of Harriet’s being was screaming out that she knew Michelle was conning him because Carla had heard them, and Aunt Beth and Mavis had told her the truth, and she was certain Michelle had faked her proof, but she couldn’t betray Carla so she kept her mouth shut.

  “Can’t we talk about it,” she pleaded, “and figure out together if we should keep seeing each other?”

  Aiden jerked his arm free.

  “There’s nothing to discuss. I’m sorry things didn’t work out. You tried to tell me all along we shouldn’t be a couple, and now I agree. Just let Shannon know when you’re done with Scooter.”

  “Wait”…

  He opened the door.

  “Good-bye, Harriet.”

  Tear filled her eyes as she picked Scooter up and put him and his blanket in her lap again. The little dog licked her face, his tail wagging his whole body. He did his best to charm her. He tried to chew on her earring; he pawed at her fingers until she petted his head. And he sneezed repeatedly if she stopped talking to him for more than a minute.

  “If you’re trying to distract me, it’s working,” she told her little companion. “Maybe you’re the only man I need in my life—well, besides your feline brother Fred. I bet you’ll never leave me without notice or reason.”

  Scooter licked her face again then began barking at the sound of a knock on the door.

  “Come in,” she called when the door didn’t open immediately.

  It was Shannon.

  “I just wanted to let you know it’s time to turn the generator off again. It’s going to get cold in here. We have microwave heating pads in the animal cages that will retain the heat for an hour, so I’m afraid this little guy needs to go back.”

  Harriet glanced at her watch and was surprised to see her hour was almost up.

  “My ride is going to be here any minute anyway. Thanks for taking such good care of Scooter.”

  “No problem,” Shannon said with a smile. Harriet didn’t know if the young woman had heard any of her discussion with Aiden, but her slightly awkward manner suggested she had.

  She waited until Shannon and Scooter had left the room then put her coat on and walked out through the reception area and into the cold parking lot. Jorge’s pickup was parked at the side of the road, across the street from the clinic.

  “How did it go?” Lauren asked when Harriet got into the truck.

  “Let her be,” Jorge said when he saw Harriet’s face. “Is there anywhere you’d like to go? We’ve got about thirty minutes before we need to pick up the detective.”

  “How’s that going to work?” Harriet asked. “I mean, where’s she going to sit?”

  Lauren answered for him.

  “I had the same question, but it turns out there are two little seats in back that face each other and have seatbelts and everything.”

  “We could swing by the homeless camp,” Harriet said. “According to Morse, the paramedics took the bodies away, and Darcy was supposed to be trying to collect evidence. Maybe she’s still there.”

  “The park it is, then,” Jorge said and turned the truck toward Fogg Park.

  “Aiden is being totally dumb,” Harriet said, answering Lauren’s earlier question. “I can’t believe he’s willing to listen to his sister’s nonsense. I mean, what if his mother was a murderer, and his uncle, too? It doesn’t make sense for him to just give up his life and go hide in Africa, does it? Does that make sense to anyone?”

  “If your family was psychopathic serial killers, wouldn’t that give you just a little pause,” Lauren asked. “I mean, wouldn’t you at least wonder if you were capable of turning into a killer?”

  “But the very fact he would worry enough to want to break up and leave means he couldn’t be a psychopath.”

  “Oh, so now you’re an expert on criminal behavior?” Lauren asked. “You see it on TV all the time—serial killer lived on our street and we never suspected anything, he was married with two-point-four kids.”

  “And of course everything you see on the television is true.”

  “As true as—”

  “Ladies,” Jorge said, cutting Lauren off. “We’re here,”

  He stopped near the restroom building. A red Jeep sat sideways across two parking spots, the back hatch open. Darcy was here.

  Harriet got out of the truck; she zipped her coat as a slow rain started falling.

  “I’m going to see Señora Joyce,” Jorge said and headed for the trail.

  “Darcy?” Harriet called out as she and Lauren headed toward the restroom door.

  “In here,” Darcy answered from the men’s side. “Don’t come all the way in.”

  “How’s it going?” Harriet asked from just outside the door.

  “I’m not getting much done on that quilt I’m making for my niece,” she said. “Hopefully, I can still get it done in time for Christmas.”

  “I’ll hold a spot for you if you want me to quilt it,” Harriet offered.

  “Of course I do,” Darcy said. “I don’t quilt anything bigger than a table runner on my own sewing machine anymore.”

  “When the power comes back, call me with your best guess on timing, and I’ll put you on the schedule.”

  “Thanks, I will.”

  “Are you finding anything?”

  Darcy was in the stall, paper booties covering her feet, a large black camera in her hands. She focused the lens and snapped a rapid succession of pictures.

  “You know I couldn’t tell you if I did. But I can tell you this—the scene was compromised. Not only from people coming in to look at the vic, but a lot of fine debris blows into the bathroom through the vents during this type of storm.” She pointed up at a series of screened
openings above each stall.

  “It doesn’t look like anyone disturbed the body before the paramedics got here, but who knows. I’ll have to compare my pictures with the ones they took and see what story they all tell us.”

  “I didn’t see any footprints when I came in here the first day,” Harriet offered.

  “Whoever did this was careful,” Darcy said. “But with all the mud from people coming in and out before and after the crime and the open environment, he didn’t have to worry too much.”

  “He?” Lauren asked.

  “Or she,” Darcy said. “And that’s all I’m saying.” She started picking up paper bags she’d filled with samples and evidence then closed her camera into its case. “I’ve got to go check these in to the temporary storage area at the fire station,” Darcy said. “Do you all have food and water and batteries and stuff?”

  “Yeah, we’re good. My aunt and Mavis stocked my house before the slide. I think we’re good for another month or so. How about you?”

  “I went to stay with my folks. They’re doing fine, but I wanted to be there, just in case. Besides, they have a woodstove with a flat top, so my mom is cooking all kinds of yummy stuff in her iron pots while it warms the whole house.”

  “Let me know about your quilt,” Harriet said as Darcy went back to her car. “We’re going to go see how the homeless folks are doing.” She headed around to the back of the restroom and the trail into the woods. “I hope Darcy can come up with something.”

  “She didn’t sound very hopeful,” Lauren said.

  The two women walked the rest of the way to the camp’s common area, each lost in her own thoughts. They found Joyce and Jorge laying a quilt from the plastic storage bin onto the table.

  “Well, that’s weird,” Joyce said. “We’re missing a quilt. I was going to send one of the two extra we had left to Ronald at the church. Jorge said he would take it to him.”

  “What happened to the one we gave him?” Lauren asked.

  “I’m sure it’s in his tent, but I don’t feel like I should break in just to get a cover.”

  “Break in?” Harriet asked.