The Quilt Before the Storm

by Arlene Sachitano

“I’m so sorry,” Harriet repeated. “Is there no way to recover any of your money?”

  Kate shook her head. “We don’t even know who was in charge of the fund. The government white-collar crime people are trying to untangle the mess, and there’s some small hope they’ll be able to find whatever remains of the funds, but even if they do, it will be pennies on the dollar.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” Harriet said. “That’s just awful.”

  “You can imagine how we felt when everything started happening at the homeless camp. Things will never be the same for us, but we’d been starting to achieve some sense of normalcy. Owen’s brother keeps him busy with driving jobs and pays him a decent wage, so with that and the sale of our business and home, we’ve managed to pay the debts we ran up when the housing bubble burst. We were living on credit when the jobs dried up, thinking that either the work slump would end or we could cover our debt with money from our investment fund.

  “I thought we’d finally turned a corner. Then we had the misfortune to have our heater break in Foggy Point, Washington. What seemed like it was going to be a fun adventure has turned into a nightmare. I know it may seem cold, and I’m really sorry those two men died, but frankly, I can’t cope with any more bad news. I just want to get as far away from here as fast as I can.”

  “I can’t say I blame you,” Harriet said.

  “I’m starting to feel like this big black cloud is following us around and we don’t know why. We’re not bad people. We pay our taxes, go to church on Sundays. We both have good relationships with our families…” she trailed off with a sigh.

  Harriet stood with her for a few minutes, neither of them speaking. She hoped it was helping in some small way. She was staring into her own coffee cup, lost in thought, when Aiden came striding up to them.

  “I need to talk to you,” he said in a cold tone, his jaw so tense she could see the muscle jump. He grasped her arm in a rough grip and pulled her toward the door.

  The moment they were out in the hall, he whirled around to face her.

  “Is it true?” he demanded. “Are you involved in not one but two murders? Again?”

  “So what if I am? What business of yours is it? You’ve made it very clear—we’re through. I get it. I don’t like it, and it took me a few tries to hear the message, but I finally did. Aiden and Harriet are no more. So, again, what business is it of yours if I’m involved in two murders or twenty murders or anything else, even?”

  “Just because I said I can’t be with you doesn’t mean I don’t care about you. I don’t want to see you get hurt, by me or anyone else. That’s the whole point of all this.”

  “All what?” Harriet said in a louder voice than she’d intended.

  “Don’t change the subject. What about the dead guys? Why are you involved?”

  “I’m not involved, not that it’s any of your business.”

  “You are involved. I came here to take care of a dog and a cat that got into a fight. The two owners were talking about the people who had arrived from the homeless camp. They mentioned you by name. They said you were there when they found both bodies.”

  “That’s not exactly true, but again—not your business.” Harriet whipped around, pulling her arm from his grip and went back inside the gymnasium.

  “What’s wrong, honey?” Mavis asked when she spotted her leaning with her back against the wall just inside the gym door. Harriet wiped at the tears that streaked her face.

  “Aiden’s here,” she said and took the tissue Mavis pulled from her sweater pocket

  “Come on,” she said and led Harriet out of the gym again. Aiden was no longer in the hallway. “Here.” She guided Harriet into the closet where she and Aunt Beth were sorting through the donated clothing, looking for items that might be useful to the displaced people in the gym.

  Aunt Beth stuck her head out from behind a rack of coats. She started to say something, took one look at Harriet and Mavis and retreated around the rack.

  “I’ll be back here if you need anything,” she said.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” Mavis asked.

  “No,” Harriet said. “Yes. I don’t know.”

  “Take a deep breath,” Mavis said in a soothing voice.

  “I can’t figure out what sort of game Aiden is playing. At the clinic, he told me we are through and offered no explanation. Of course, I couldn’t confront him with what we’ve learned from Carla, so I just had to let it go at that.”

  Mavis handed her a bottle of water from her tote bag on the floor. Harriet opened it and took a long drink.

  “A few minutes ago, he came storming in here and grabbed me by the arm. He dragged me out in the hall and started yelling about my being involved in the two murders. He said just because we can’t be together doesn’t mean he doesn’t care. What am I supposed to do with that? He cares, but we can’t be together?”

  “Sounds like the boy’s confused,” offered Aunt Beth from behind her rack of coats.

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake, if you’re going to horn in on our conversation, you might as well come out in the open and quit hiding.” Mavis told her.

  “I was trying to give you two some privacy, but I can’t believe Aiden is pulling that old saw on you. ‘I love you, but I’m not good enough, so I’m setting you free.’ If I didn’t know the boy better, I’d say he was having an affair. But since I do know him, I have to believe he’s incredibly misguided. We have got to confront him about that nonsense his sister is feeding him.”

  “Hold on a minute,” Harriet said.

  “Yeah,” Mavis added. “Hold your horses. It’s not our job to interfere with Harriet’s relationship with Aiden.”

  “Not that I have one,” Harriet pointed out. “But I agree. Aiden has to figure this out on his own. Otherwise, we’ll be doing this again and again with Michelle.”

  “I think it would help Aiden see the light if we could prove to him that Michelle’s evidence has been fabricated,” Beth said.

  “Maybe,” Mavis agreed. “But we can’t put Carla’s job in jeopardy.”

  “I’m getting a little tired of all the drama,” Harriet muttered.

  “Does that tired have anything to do with a certain out-of-town visitor?” Aunt Beth asked.

  Harriet was quiet for a moment.

  “Would it be terrible if it did?” she said finally.

  “I suppose that would be up to you,” Beth said.

  “Let’s take these bundles of clothes out to the gym. Julie Swendsen is setting up a table for us to put them on,” Mavis said. She handed Harriet a paper shopping bag filled with packages of underwear. “Let’s deliver this stuff and get out of here.”

  They almost made a clean getaway.

  Harriet left her aunt and Mavis under the covered walkway in front of the gym while she dashed across the parking lot through the rain to get her car. Detective Morse was talking to them when she pulled up.

  “Hey,” she said through the open car window.

  Detective Morse pulled the car door open and climbed into the front seat, out of the rain.

  “I talked to Darcy at the fire station. She said several of the folks from the homeless camp have moved to the shelter. Is that true?”

  “Yeah, one older man who has some sort of heart condition and that couple who live in a semi with the broken heater. They got stuck on this side of the slide.”

  “Anything I need to know about them?”

  “What I just told you is pretty much all I know. One is sick, and the other two are stuck here.”

  “Thanks,” Morse said. “I guess I’ll see you at the house later.”

  “Do you need a ride home?”

  “No, I picked up a set of wheels at the temporary fire station.” She pointed to a red Jeep in the parking lot.

  “Lucky you,” Harriet said with a smile.

  Morse got out and trotted to the door as Aunt Beth and Mavis got in.

  “Anyone want to go anywhere else while we�
��re out?” Harriet asked her passengers.

  “Are any of the stores open?” Mavis asked. “We could use another bag of flour if they are.”

  “Let’s go find out.”

  She drove a circuitous route that bypassed the flooded downtown area, eventually pulling into the lot at Vince’s Supermarket.

  The lights were dim, but a handwritten sign proclaimed they were open and a single door was propped open with a wooden box. They could hear the hum of a generator in the background, but the dim lights meant it probably wasn’t big enough to power the whole store.

  “Welcome,” Vince called from the lone open cash register. “Can I make you a deal on some soon to be thawed hamburgers? I’ll throw in some fries,” he added and wiggled his thick dark eyebrows up and down.

  “We’re hoping to get some flour,” Mavis said with a smile.

  “We’ve got that, too, but I’d be happy to give you some pre-made burger patties. My generator can’t power both rows of freezers. I moved all the fresh meat into the one unit, and I had to prioritize stuff. I’ve got some bags of frozen burgers that are going to go to waste. You can have them if you want some for dinner. My son just took off with a carload to take to the church. You’d be doing me a favor.”

  “If they’re going to go to waste, sure, we’ll take some.” Aunt Beth said.

  Vince gave Harriet a bag and told her where the meat was in the back of the store and to go help herself. Mavis and Beth went to get the flour.

  “Help yourself to a package of buns to go with them,” Vince called as Harriet headed to the back. “Aisle five on the right, halfway down.”

  Harriet’s route took her past the powered freezer with its thick yellow cord leading outside to the gas generator. The head of the extension cord could receive three plugs, but only the single freezer line was plugged into it.

  She fingered the charger cord in her pocket. Before she had time to worry about whether the addition of the charger would blow the circuit, she’d plugged Duane’s phone into the outlet. She left it lying on the floor charging while she went into the back room, located the tubes of thawing hamburgers and loaded several into the shopping bag Vince had given her.

  She went back up aisle five and picked up enough buns to sheath the meat she’d taken before she went back and unplugged Duane’s phone, pocketing it and its charger before going to the front of the store.

  “We appreciate the meat, Vince,” Aunt Beth said. “We’d like to pay for it, though.”

  “No, I’ll write it off as a loss. It will be fine. I’m just glad it won’t go to waste.”

  Tom’s pickup was in the driveway beside Jorge’s when Harriet drove into the garage.

  “Where have you been?” Lauren asked when she came into the kitchen.

  “At the church and the grocery store,” Harriet replied. “What difference does it make?”

  “If you had been here, maybe you could have stopped them.”

  “Stopped who?” Aunt Beth asked as she joined them.

  “Jorge and Tom are unclogging the rain gutter…on the attic roof.”

  “What?” Aunt Beth and Harriet said at the same time.

  “I tried to talk them out of it,” Lauren said. She pulled Carter out of her sweatshirt and set him on the kitchen floor in front of his water dish. “A burst of rain hit while they were having a cup of coffee, and they saw the overflow gushing past the window where the downspout is plugged. When the rain slowed again, they went into the garage and dug around for a while. They came out with an armload of ropes and boards and a broken fireplace poker and headed upstairs to the attic.”

  “Please tell me they didn’t go out the attic window,” Harriet said.

  “They rigged some sort of harness and anchored it to the exposed beam where the roofline slopes down to the eave.”

  “I can’t stand it,” Harriet said. “We’ve already lost two men since this storm began. Do we have to lose two more?” She headed for the stairs. “I’m going to lie down for a few minutes.”

  Fred jumped from his perch on top of the hallway bookcase and followed her up.

  “Come on, Fred,” she said when she reached her room. “Your doctor is being a real jerk, and I’m tired of thinking about it.” She patted her hand on the bed, inviting him up onto the down comforter. She unzipped her hoodie and as she took it off, Duane’s phone slid out of the pocket.

  “Ahh, Duane. Let’s see if you’ve left me anything useful here.” She gently pressed the on button. The phone hesitated for a heart-stopping few seconds, and then the screen glowed green as it went through its wake-up cycle.

  Harriet grabbed a tablet and pen from her desk and prepared to scribble notes. She wasn’t sure how long the phone would last, given a five-minute charge. She hit the contacts button first, but Duane had an extensive network. There was no way she could write it all down before the phone died again. She saw the notes icon and pressed it. The first note seemed to be a list of some sort. It was all numbers—what could be phone numbers followed by another number that varied between five and six digits. She frantically wrote the numbers down.

  She selected the second note and opened it. It was also numbers, but they didn’t follow a regular pattern. She wrote them down.

  The third and last note was an ICE notification—In Case of Emergency—followed by a name, address, phone number and e-mail address.

  “Well, that’s something, anyway,” Harriet said to Fred as the green light faded and the phone again went dead. “Arghh,” she yelled and threw the phone down on her bed. “I want my power back.”

  Fred looked at her as if trying to decide whether he needed to dash for cover, but her tantrum was short-lived so he settled down on the bed and closed his eyes.

  “Well, we can worry about what it all means after our nap.”

  Chapter 21

  “Hi, honey,” Aunt Beth said when Harriet came into the kitchen. “Did you have a good rest?”

  “I do feel a little better. I don’t have any idea what to do about Aiden, but my nap did me good.”

  “Why don’t you grab a cup of tea and join us in the living room? Tom brought brownies from the Renfros’. Jane is back, too.”

  Harriet came into the living room a few minutes later, mug in hand.

  “Where are the brownies?” she asked.

  Jorge lifted the embroidered dishtowel that was draped over them, keeping them warm.

  “Oh, my gosh,” she said as she bit into the warm, chewy, chocolaty goodness.

  “Guess who’s coming to dinner,” Lauren announced.

  “Besides Tom?”

  “Hey, I earned my dinner,” he protested. “I was the one dangling out the window, unclogging the downspout.”

  “And I appreciate that,” Jane Morse said. “Although I think a freight train could go through my room tonight, and I could sleep through it. We had to double up at the motel where the task force was meeting when the slide happened and we had to stay longer. The only other female detective was a very nice woman from Bremerton who unfortunately snored like a chainsaw.”

  “So, honey,” Aunt Beth said. “Mavis and I were thinking we should invite Pat and Lisa to dinner.”

  “Why?” Harriet asked.

  “You know why,” Mavis said. “You know Marjory would expect nothing less. She has her differences with her sister, but she would be the first one to console her at the loss of her husband. And since she’s not here, we need to step up in her place.”

  “But Pat’s the reason Marjory isn’t here to do it herself. Don’t you think she’ll feel like we’re betraying her?”

  “Pat is her sister,” Aunt Beth said. “She’d be there for her, no matter what she’s done. Besides, we don’t know if Pat had anything to do with the scheme to try to take Marjory’s money. That could have been all Richard.”

  “Maybe we should ask her, if we have to have her here.” Harriet finished her brownie and took another one.

  “I wouldn’t mind asking her a few qu
estions myself,” Jane Morse said.

  “Let’s see what shape she’s in before we start planning any ambushes,” Mavis said.

  “Would you like me to go pick them up?” Jorge asked.

  “Thanks, but if Harriet doesn’t mind, I think it would be better she drives Beth or I over to invite them,” Mavis said. “Besides, don’t you have cooking to do?”

  “I don’t like you ladies driving around by yourselves in this storm,” he protested.

  “The worst of the storm has passed. We’ll be fine.” Aunt Beth assured him.

  “Jorge is worried about us going out alone after dark with a murderer on the loose,” Lauren said.

  “I’m available,” Tom volunteered.

  “If it’s the killer you’re worried about, I’ll go,” Detective Morse said. “It would make my job easier if the bad guy found us—I could arrest him or her, and we could pick up Pat and her daughter all in one trip.”

  “Enough, everyone,” Aunt Beth said. “Harriet and I will go, we’ll stay on well-traveled roads and go straight to the church and back.”

  “Seems like all you need to do is stay away from Fogg Park and you should be good.” Tom said.

  “I’ll be in the car waiting,” Harriet said. “The sooner we go get them, the sooner we can bring them back.”

  “Good point,” Lauren said.

  “Are you sure this isn’t a recipe for disaster?” Harriet asked as they made their way through the still, dark streets.

  “We’re not going to let it become a disaster. The woman just lost her husband. No matter how bad the relationship is between her and Marjory, she’s grieving her loss, and we need to respect that.”

  Pat and Lisa simply said yes when Aunt Beth asked them to come to dinner. Beth led them back to the car, where they got in then rode in silence until Harriet guided the car back into her garage.

  Once inside, Harriet took their coats and hung them in the kitchen coat closet, and Beth guided them into the living room, offering them chairs in front of the fire.

  “Have you met Jane Morse?” she asked.

  “Nice try,” Pat snapped. “We were grilled by the detective earlier today at the church. My husband is dead, and she’s treating Lisa and me like criminals.”