Seven Threadly Sins

by Janet Bolin

  27

  Yipping, the dogs pulled us toward the back of the carriage house.

  I couldn’t hear anything besides barking.

  Afraid we might interrupt a lovers’ rendezvous, I pulled Tally back toward the street. Sally always wanted to go wherever her brother went, so she and Haylee came along.

  When we were far enough away to be inaudible to anyone in the carriage house, I stopped and asked Haylee, “What was thumping and grunting inside the carriage house?”

  “An animal?” She didn’t sound convinced.

  “Sally and Tally bark like that when Clay is near . . .”

  “And you think he could have been back there with Loretta? In a moldering old carriage house? Give me a break. Give him a break. Even if he liked her, and I’m sure he doesn’t, at least not that way, give him credit for having some class.”

  She could always make me laugh. “I guess you’re right. We probably heard raccoons or cats or dogs.”

  “Maybe we should go back and try to figure out what was going on inside the carriage house.”

  Knowing we would never hear other noises around the dogs, we took them back to my apartment and shut them inside. Then we pulled our black hoods over our hair again and strolled toward TADAM.

  I whispered, “Maybe the raccoons or possums will have left by now.”

  From near the yellow-taped conservatory onward, though, we said nothing. We stopped near the back of the carriage house, held our breath, and listened.

  The moon had set several hours ago, and only a few stars glimmered through the haze. Lights above the pathways behind us cast a feeble glow on the rear of the TADAM mansion, its grounds, and its carriage house.

  Something moved near the mansion’s back porch.

  Haylee grabbed my wrist and pointed.

  First, I thought the small black-and-white animal was a cat. Then I did a double take and was very, very glad we had taken the dogs home.

  “Back away slowly,” I said. “Skunks don’t see well. We’re far enough away that it may not feel threatened.”

  We started to edge backward, but thumps and grunts came from inside the carriage house again, and one of the grunts sounded like a muffled call for help.

  Haylee and I stopped in our tracks. The skunk sniffed the base of a trash can and waddled slowly away, toward the next house and, fortunately, farther from us.

  Were skunks inside the carriage house, too, possibly surrounding someone? Whoever it was had taken up frantic thumping again.

  I called out, “Hello?”

  Again a muffled cry. This time, it sounded like “Help me!”

  Haylee made her hands into a megaphone. “Don’t move! There’s a skunk.”

  The pounding only became louder and faster.

  “Bang twice if you need help,” I yelled.

  The pounding stopped. There was one loud and decisive thump, and then a second one. Then nothing.

  “We’re coming,” I shouted.

  No more thumps and no more bumps.

  We were no more interested in scaling the chain-link fence than we had been on Monday evening. Lengthening our tiptoeing stride until we were almost at the street, and more importantly, far from that skunk, we began running.

  Haylee sniffed. “What’s that smell?”

  At first, it resembled bruised greenery. Then it resembled bruised greenery mixed with a particularly smelly petroleum product. And then . . . we both recognized it.

  “Skunk,” we said together.

  Although it smelled atrocious, the spray had not hit us directly. We turned right, then right again at the next block. The closer we got to TADAM, the more the skunk spray reeked.

  I wanted to go home and take a shower, but I suspected the smell was going to cling to the insides of my nostrils for quite a while, shower or not.

  It was after one. The TADAM mansion was totally dark, and there were no trash or recycling bins beside the curb. If Paula was upstairs in her apartment, she’d turned out the lights.

  A ghostly, creaking noise made us grab for each other. The mansion’s front door opened slowly, a few inches, then just as slowly, creaked shut again. We didn’t hear it latch.

  Using our phones as flashlights and keeping our eyes open for the skunk and any of its friends and family that might still be fully armed, we tiptoed past one side of the mansion on one of three narrow concrete tracks that must have originally been poured for a horse and carriage. The wider central track would have been for the horse. The outer ones, spaced more or less correctly for more modern vehicles, could still serve as the mansion’s driveway. When the concrete had been fresh and damp, grooves had been gouged across it, presumably to give the horse and the carriage wheels traction, but over the years, all three tracks had cracked and heaved. They threatened to trip us or turn our ankles.

  With great care, we approached the mansion’s back porch and flashed our lights on garbage cans beside it. No skunks, cats, dogs, raccoons, or possums. Except for the stink that burned our eyes and throats, everything was serene. No noises came from the carriage house, either.

  Years ago, two large wooden doors would have swung open to let horses and carriages into and out of the carriage house. A hefty wooden plank spanning the width of both doors kept them closed. Beside them was a smaller door, the one I’d seen Loretta and Clay use.

  My heart seeming to beat inside my bitter-tasting mouth, I tried that door. It opened. No thumps or crashes or muffled calls for help, only a few skitterings like mice or squirrels.

  Skunks would not move that quickly, would they?

  The stench of skunk was worse than it had been outside.

  Streetlights from the park provided the only light, and it was filtered through dirt and cobwebs covering the building’s windows. As far as I could tell, there were only two of them, one on each of the side walls.

  I felt around for the switch I’d seen Loretta use. It was old-fashioned, with two round buttons. I pushed the top one.

  With a snap, it hit home and three bulbs on cords dangling from rafters came on. Although the bulbs were dim, I had to shield my eyes.

  It was no wonder that Loretta wanted to renovate the structure. It was large, solid, and there was a loft above our heads, over the front half. It could become a cute cottage after the stink of skunk wore off.

  And I understood why Kent thought it could be turned into a theater, also, though it was small. The hayloft could be a balcony for some of the audience.

  Thump.

  Beside me, Haylee gasped and rushed forward. “Are you all right?”

  Obviously, the woman beyond the stall near one back corner of the carriage house was far from all right. Gagged and bound with strips of what looked like extra-wide white adhesive tape, she sat against the wall. The thumps we’d heard had been caused by the back of her head banging against the structure’s interior tongue-and-groove paneling.

  She bopped the wall with her head again, which seemed to cause her eyes to go expressionless, then she focused on us and her eyes widened in apparent terror, and she shook her head violently.

  It took me a second to recognize the wan brown hair and sloping shoulders.

  Paula.

  28

  Haylee and I both knew not to touch anything, including Paula, unless we needed to rescue her or protect her from injury. I dialed 911 and described what we’d discovered.

  “Are you hurt?” Haylee asked.

  Paula’s slim shoulders lifted in a shrug.

  “Can you breathe all right?” Haylee asked.

  There was a pause, another little shrug, and then the slightest of nods. Her mouth was covered, but her nose was free.

  The emergency dispatcher said that an ambulance and police officer would be there soon and asked me to stay on the line.

  I told Paula, “I know you�
��re uncomfortable. We could try to free you, but it would be best if the police could see you as you are.” I hoped Vicki was on duty, or if she wasn’t, that her backup was nearby.

  About the only thing we could do while we waited with Paula was take pictures with our phones. So we did, of Paula and of the interior of the carriage house, including the door that hadn’t been locked when we arrived.

  Beside Paula, a strip of the strangely wide white tape was stuck to the rusting handle of a lawn mower. The strip was about twelve inches wide and about two feet long. What was it, something to do with fashion design? Or maybe a theatrical prop used to resemble bandages? Duct tape could be bought in normal paper-sized sheets in all sorts of colors, for creating fashions and accessories, so maybe it came in larger sizes, also, like foot-wide rolls.

  We’d left the door open. Stray breezes didn’t seem to dissipate the skunky odors much, but they could possibly blow the tape onto me and stick me to the lawn mower. Edging between it and Paula, I carefully bent closer.

  Pieces of scrunched-up paper lay behind the lawn mower. A checked design on the paper looked familiar. A grid for measuring? Maybe the strange white stuff really was duct tape.

  And then I saw a label on plastic packaging, and I knew what was covering Paula’s mouth, hands, wrists, the hems of her jeans, and her ankles.

  Stabilizer, the new super-sticky stabilizer, exactly like what I sold at In Stitches.

  The crumpled packaging partially hid a pair of dressmaker’s shears. I had a pair like that, and so did Haylee, Opal, and Edna. Naomi had given them to us. She’d thought that having our names engraved on the outside of one of the blades would make it easier for us to keep track of our own pairs, but obviously, someone’s had gone missing and had ended up beside Paula. It wasn’t the first time that a pair of them had been left at a crime scene. Unless I moved the packaging, I wouldn’t be able to tell whose shears they were, but I wasn’t about to touch anything.

  Maybe the scissors didn’t belong to one of us, and maybe the super-sticky stabilizer hadn’t come from my shop, either. We were on the property of a fashion design school, after all, where things like stabilizer and dressmaker’s shears should easily be found. I’d seen Kent wielding a similar pair, with longer blades than any of us owned. Maybe these were his.

  He’d been obvious in his scorn for Paula. But why would he do this to her? Had he murdered Antonio, and now he feared that Paula had figured it out and was about to tell the police? If so, merely immobilizing her didn’t make sense. Maybe he’d planned to return later and . . . what? Load her into a vehicle and take her away?

  Had something interrupted him?

  Maybe the skunk had made a direct hit and forced Kent to delay his murderous plan. Maybe he was attempting to scrub the stink off himself and his clothes.

  Worse, he could be hanging around outside, and we wouldn’t know it. He might smell like a skunk, but so did the carriage house and everything in it, including us.

  I snapped photos, then straightened and turned to Haylee, who was looking worried, as if she’d been thinking similar things about Antonio’s murderer and Paula’s attacker. “Have a look at this,” I said. “Maybe you’ll know whose scissors these are.”

  She couldn’t tell, either, and agreed with me that the “tape” was actually stabilizer with the paper backing removed from its strong adhesive.

  A siren became louder and louder. I ran outside and around the mansion to the street in time to meet Vicki leaving her cruiser. The emergency dispatcher let me go. I gasped to Vicki, “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “I’m not. You stink. What did you do, run over a skunk?”

  “No, but Paula’s bound and gagged in the carriage house, and a skunk may have sprayed her. We didn’t touch anything.”

  “We?”

  “Haylee’s keeping Paula company.”

  “Paula?”

  “Antonio’s wife. Widow. His murderer may have come back for her. We’d better get back to Haylee. She could be in danger.” Something like hysteria fluttered through my voice.

  Frowning, Vicki strode to the carriage house. I was right behind her, but afraid that a murderer—Kent, Loretta, or even Macey—might leap out at us from the overgrown privet overhanging the trio of crumbling concrete tracks that served as a driveway.

  Vicki seldom swore, at least in my hearing, but when she caught sight of Paula, she let out a streak of words that made the insides of my ears burn.

  She bent and peered at Paula’s lower face. “What kind of tape is this?” she asked no one in particular.

  I explained, “It’s stabilizer. We use it in embroidery.” I pointed behind the lawn mower. “Her assailant tore off the backing paper and threw it down. That exposed the sticky side, and it is very sticky.”

  “So the adhesive is strong?” Vicki asked.

  “Yes, and so is the stabilizer.”

  “Do you know how to get it off skin?”

  “I’ve only pulled it off my fingers, which wasn’t easy and hurt a lot, but I’ve never had that much skin covered with it, so no.”

  Vicki turned back to Paula and said in a gentle voice, “We’d better let the emergency technicians remove that stuff when they get here. They’ll have a better idea how to do it without tearing your skin.” Then she took out her notebook. Writing, she didn’t look up at Haylee and me. “You two can get out of this stinking building, but don’t go far. I’ll want your statements later, after I make notes and take pictures.”

  “We took some ourselves,” I volunteered.

  “Print them for me when you get a chance.” She peered past us toward the mansion. “Meanwhile, how about sitting on the back porch steps there, until I can get to you? Don’t discuss this with each other or with anyone else.”

  Obviously, she didn’t want us comparing our stories and making things up. Not that we needed to. Very likely, we would both tell her the same things, anyway.

  We went outside and sat on the second step of the porch with our feet on the concrete path leading to the carriage house.

  I didn’t know what to fear most, Kent or Loretta bursting out of the mansion’s back door with another roll of super-sticky stabilizer, or a super-stinky skunk coming along and using us for target practice. I murmured to Haylee, “Maybe if another skunk wants to investigate the trash cans, it won’t bother spraying us because we already reek.”

  Haylee covered her mouth, but her laugh was probably still audible to Paula, who would not be amused by our having a grand old time on “her” back porch while she sat in possible pain.

  Another siren blared its way to us, and I jumped up and dashed to the street. Bright lights shined down the driveway. Carrying tool kits, the two technicians, a man and woman, ran from their ambulance.

  The woman held her nose. “They didn’t tell us we needed to wear gas masks.”

  “Skunk,” I said. “It didn’t get me, but it might have sprayed the victim.” I pointed. “She’s in the carriage house with Chief Smallwood.” The technicians sprinted away from me and into the carriage house.

  I rejoined Haylee on the porch stairs.

  A few minutes later, the female technician came out, rested a foot on the bottom step, leaned an arm on her raised knee, and bent forward to talk to me. “Chief Smallwood said to ask you if that sticky stuff is water soluble.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  The tech yelled toward the carriage house, “Dunking her in the lake is not an option, Chief.” Then she ran in the opposite direction, toward the front of the mansion.

  Haylee restrained another giggle. “That must have reassured Paula!”

  The technician returned, bumping a gurney along the uneven concrete driveway.

  Less than a minute later, Paula, sticky stabilizer, stinky skunk, and all, was on the gurney and being wheeled to the ambulance.

  Vick
i darted over to Haylee and me. “They can honestly say the patient is stabilized.”

  Haylee and I tried, without great success, to stifle our laughter. I started to stand, but Vicki, who had somehow managed to keep a straight face, said, “Stay there.” Equipment jingling, she trotted around the side of the porch and disappeared toward the front of the mansion.

  Haylee whispered to me, “I hope Vicki doesn’t expect us to wait here until she goes all the way to the hospital in Erie with Paula.”

  I muttered, “Me, too.” For one thing, it was nearly two. For another, the entire vicinity stunk, though maybe not as much as it had before Paula was wheeled away. Maybe I was becoming used to the smell.

  Worse, though, was the creepy feeling that a murderer might lunge out of the mansion behind us.

  Vicki returned with a state trooper who carried a big roll of police tape in one hand and covered his nose with the other.

  Vicki turned to us. “Come on, you two, let’s leave this to the staties and get out of here, for all the good it will do. We’re probably going to carry this stink around with us for a few weeks.”

  We followed her to the front of the mansion, where her cruiser had been joined by the state trooper’s. I told her, “When we first arrived after hearing the thumps that turned out to be Paula banging her head against a wall, the mansion’s front door was ajar and creaking in the breezes.”

  Vicki stared up at the porch. The door opened slightly.

  I joked, “Maybe a skunk wandered in and is peeking out at us.”

  Vicki made a disgusted face. “I see why you’re obsessed by skunks tonight. I mean I smell why.”

  “The aroma is dissipating,” Haylee said. “It was worst inside the carriage house.”

  “Yes,” Vicki agreed. “So I was the one who had to stay in there while you two were lounging around on a back porch.”

  I retorted, “Where a murderer might have been ready to leap out at us.”

  She cocked her head. “Why do you say that?”

  I sputtered, “It’s obvious, isn’t it? Antonio was given almonds in the hope that he would die, and now his widow has been attacked.”