by Janet Bolin
My students paid rapt attention to the rest of my lesson, then trooped out for lunch at Pier 42.
Shortly after one, Susannah came back so I could have my break, and the dogs and I went downstairs to our apartment. The building was on a steep slope, one story in the front, but two full stories in the back, so most of the apartment was above grade, and very bright and airy. Side yards let light into the bedroom windows.
I hadn’t entertained any guests in my second bedroom yet. Maybe, eventually, my parents would make the trek from South Carolina, but my mother, who had given up her practice as a physician to go into politics when I was a teenager, was now a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives, and claimed she needed to stay near her constituents. My father was content with his puttering and inventions. They hadn’t visited me when I’d lived in New York City, and the northwestern corner of Pennsylvania was even farther away.
My guest room was ready, though, just in case, and decorated in embroidered white-on-white linens. Each bedroom had its own bathroom and walk-in closet sandwiched between the bedrooms. A small laundry room faced the other half of the apartment—one large room with kitchen, dining, and living areas. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the sloping backyard and the quaint little house known as Blueberry Cottage. Someday, I would renovate the cottage. I hoped that Clay would keep his promise to be my contractor.
I ate my lunch outside while the dogs played in carefree joy. Tall cedars hedged both sides of the yard. The entire area, including Blueberry Cottage, was fenced for the safety of the dogs. At the top of the hill, a gate led to my front yard. At the bottom of the hill, another gate led to a hiking trail on the banks of the Elderberry River. Leaves on trees prevented a good view of the river and the state forest on the far bank.
The dogs and I returned to In Stitches. The afternoon class went well, too, and then I was free to spend the evening romping with the dogs and fiddling with embroidery.
Like many of my students, I wanted to enter a contest for machine embroidery, the International Machine Embroidery Competition, known fondly as IMEC, which we all pronounced “I make.” Recently, I’d won an honorable mention with my machine-made version of a centuries-old method of embroidery known as stumpwork.
Next, I wanted to emulate another type of antique embroidery, candlewicking, named for the candlewick cord substituted for embroidery floss to add texture. Often, the wicks were knotted, creating largish bumps. Several sewing machine manufacturers provided “candlewicking” stitches, but they were almost flat. I wanted to create something thicker and more authentic. The contest deadline was looming.
And before that, I wanted to display my students’ and my entries at the Harvest Festival. The Threadville proprietors were going to rent a corner of the handcrafts tent. We were to set up our booth in only eight days. I needed to get to work.
First, though, I had to buy some supplies.
5
I PHONED EDNA AND ASKED IF I COULD JOIN her in Buttons and Bows for a little after-hours shopping. Of course she said yes. I grabbed my wallet, locked In Stitches, and ran across the street.
Edna opened her door, setting off a jaunty tune that she claimed was “Buttons and Bows,” but supposedly was actually “Buttons and Beaux,” an old Vaudeville favorite that should have been called “Unbuttons and Beaux,” and couldn’t be sung in polite company. Clay had renovated her store, too. Pot lights in the ceiling lit shelves of buttons to the left and a wall of trims to the right. They dazzled.
Edna opened her hand to show me gleaming amethyst beads. “I’m trying to get these to stick in my hair and hide the shaggy ends, but they’re not staying.”
“Edna,” I said gently, “that pixie look suits you.”
“Pixie haircuts went out when I was a baby. Besides, this is more like a haystack. You tall women keep finding a way to point out my lack of stature.” It wasn’t a real complaint. She loved to tease and be teased.
“Maybe you should let your hair rejuvenate before you mess around with it, or it will keep breaking.”
“I suppose you’re right.” She brightened. “Maybe I’ll try glitter glue instead. You know what this village needs?”
“I can think of a few things…” Another policeman or two. A paid fire department.
“A hairdresser.”
“Maybe one will come. But she probably won’t tell you to stick your hair together with glue.”
“You’re no fun.”
I told her I needed trims and cords that could be made to look like candle wicks, and she helped me find several widths of rayon- and polyester-covered cord, some puffy cording for insertion into wide piping, and a couple of different types of braid. She led me into her back room with its gadgets and packaged trims and offered me white rickrack. I bought that in several widths, too.
“You have to see the projects Naomi and Opal have begun,” she said. First, she took me to Naomi’s shop, Batty About Quilts. Naomi’s front room was an art gallery. White walls showed off work that she and her students had done. This week, in addition to two king-sized quilts, she displayed potholders, placemats, tea cozies, and other kitchen linens, all of them quilted in fall colors, and all of them fabulous.
Naomi was leaning over a large cutting mat in her back room. She wore a pretty sun dress she had pieced together using quilting methods and summery pastel cotton batiks, with no backing or actual quilting. All around her were bolts of quilting fabric in zillions of shades and prints, but the strips she was cutting out with her sharp roller were all in pure, bright colors, as if conjured from a rainbow. She was using more colors than the red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple that often represented a rainbow, though. She’d stacked up bolts of several of the hues between each of those colors, so that the transition from red to purple was gradual.
“Show Willow what you’re doing,” Edna demanded.
With one of her generous smiles, Naomi handed me a sheet of graph paper. She’d used colored pencils matching the fabrics to map out a quilt on the paper. The rectangles of color would be placed in rainbow order, but they’d be different heights, stepped up and down to create a sort of wavy rainbow effect.
“Bargello,” I said. “I’ve seen it in needlepoint, but not in quilts.”
Edna looked at me expectantly. “What’s another name for this type of stitching in needlepoint?”
I clutched my purchases tightly as if she might take them away if I didn’t answer correctly. Finally, I had to admit that I didn’t know.
“Flame stitch!” she crowed. She pointed at the bag in my hands. “You’re working on candlewicking, and Naomi’s working on a flame stitch quilt.”
“And Opal is—” Naomi began.
Edna interrupted her. “We’re going there, next. Bring your grid and come along, Naomi.”
All three of us charged out of Batty About Quilts, past Buttons and Bows, and into Tell a Yarn. The walls of Opal’s shop were lined with diamond-shaped niches that Clay had constructed from light pine, the perfect background for Opal’s yarns.
Lucy, Opal’s gray tabby with the Siamese voice, met us near the door. The cat’s welcoming speech outdid Opal’s. I picked Lucy up and cuddled her. The yowling stopped and the purring began.
Edna’s eyes gleamed with excitement. “Opal, show Willow the afghan you’re making!”
Opal brought out the beginnings of a perfectly crocheted afghan in the same shades and grid that Naomi was using.
Edna nearly danced in her excitement. “Opal’s afghan and Naomi’s quilt will match! They’re going to hang them in our booth at the Harvest Festival and raffle them for charity. Aren’t they wonderful?”
I agreed that they were. “And you’re doing something similar in ribbons, buttons, and beads, Edna?”
“Just ribbons and beads. A sofa pillow.”
With a devilish grin, Opal teased her. “No one would rest on it. All those beads—ouch.”
Edna looked shocked. “Of course not. It will be a work of
art.” She winked. “But isn’t it an odd coincidence that Willow is working on candlewicking? Flames, candles…”
“What’s Haylee making?” I asked. “A banner for our Harvest Festival booth that says ‘Fanning the Flames of Needlecraft’?”
Lucy’s fur was softer against my cheek than Edna’s proposed pillow would be.
Opal reached out and scratched Lucy’s chin. “There’s an idea.”
Wrinkles appeared between Naomi’s eyebrows. “Flames and candles. Why does the fire siren go off every night?”
“We’ve had such a dry summer,” Edna said. “It’s no wonder.”
“But it’s very worrisome,” Naomi persisted. “Think of those wildfires in Texas last summer.”
We tried to convince ourselves that it couldn’t happen in this part of Pennsylvania.
Guessing that Opal, Edna, and Naomi would soon be having supper, I gave Lucy back to Opal, who cuddled and murmured to her. I ran back to my apartment.
The dogs and I ate outside, then I played with embroidery software—there were always new things to learn—until nearly bedtime. I took the pups outside for their last exercise, which involved a lot of charging up and down the hill, ears and tails up, mouths open in tongue-lolling grins. Sally acted like she might grab my hand, but, in her gentle way, she didn’t let her teeth touch me. When I figured the dogs were tired enough to sleep, we all went inside to bed.
My bedroom was tucked mostly into the hillside. I seldom heard street noises at night.
But I couldn’t sleep through the sounds of tires squealing and people yelling.
Sally-Forth and Tally-Ho set up a frenzy of barking.
With that frightened, muzzy, heart-racing alert of being awakened from a deep sleep, I sat up, pushed my embroidered summer-weight duvet off, fiddled my feet into my slippers, threw on a robe, and rushed to the steps leading up to the shop, the only part of my building that looked out on Lake Street. The dogs went with me. None of us made it upstairs quickly or efficiently.
Without turning on lights, I ran to the big shop windows. No one was out there.
Tires screeched again. A pickup truck roared up Lake Street from the beach. I couldn’t be certain of the truck’s main color because the streetlights weren’t bright enough, but the wide band around it was white, and I was fairly certain the rest of it was maroon. Russ Coddlefield’s truck? Barking, Sally and Tally stood up with their front paws on the glass door.
I caught only a glance of the driver. Russ, I thought. He let out a yell. Passengers shouted with laughter. The truck bounced away.
With any luck, those kids were on their way home and wouldn’t harm themselves or others. Listening for noises, I took the dogs back downstairs.
I’d barely drifted off to sleep when another noise awakened me, a siren, the one attached to Elderberry Bay’s fire station. Its wail was distinct and very loud, and should call volunteer firefighters no matter how deeply they were sleeping. If I’d been one of the volunteers like Mona had suggested, I could have jumped out of bed again. Glad that I didn’t have to, I snuggled deeper underneath my duvet and slept until warm sunshine awakened me again.
I dressed in a tank top and miniskirt, both featuring tiny, tasteful sprigs of embroidered leaves. While the dogs played outside, I enjoyed an alfresco breakfast under a cloudless blue sky. When I’d lived in New York City, a lack of rain seemed inconsequential, but in this small village surrounded by farmland, I’d learned to thirst for rain.
We went upstairs to open In Stitches. More classes today, more fun with embroidery…
More fun with Felicity Ranquels, as it turned out. The phone rang.
Felicity growled, “You killed that woman.”
6
I KILLED A WOMAN? I STARED AT MY PHONE with the same amazement I’d have turned on Felicity if she’d been with me, instead of on a long-distance call. I finally managed to ask, “What woman?”
“Darlene Coddlefield. The winner of the Chandler Challenge. They’re saying her Chandler Champion killed her.” Between words, Felicity exhaled frantic bursts of air. “A Chandler machine would never do that.”
“How,” I asked sensibly, “could a sewing machine kill someone?”
“You should know. You’re the one who played around with it all week, chalking up hours. You ruined the machine, and you killed Darlene. I will not let anyone shred Chandler’s reputation.” She banged the phone down.
Dr. Wrinklesides, the village’s popular elder statesman of a doctor, sometimes assisted the coroner’s office. He should know if anyone had died of mysterious causes during the night.
His receptionist answered. I asked her to have him phone me.
“What’s this about?”
I didn’t want to explain the whole thing. “Darlene Coddlefield.”
She put me on hold, and to my surprise, Dr. Wrinklesides came on the line and boomed, “Willow!” He was a tad hard of hearing. “What seems to be the problem?”
Hoping no one out on the street could hear me, I hollered, “I’ve just been accused of tampering with a sewing machine and causing a death. Did you…Were you…I mean, you often help the coroner’s office investigate local deaths, right?”
“Listen, Willow, don’t you worry about a thing. It looked like an accident. The police are still investigating. Meanwhile, don’t you be afraid of your sewing machines. I heard that she won that sewing machine from you.”
So it was true. Darlene Coddlefield had died, and the sewing machine I’d presented to her yesterday was involved. The breakfast I’d eaten began to feel as heavy as that Chandler Champion.
“Your machines won’t hurt you, Willow,” Dr. Wrinklesides shouted. “You’ll be safe.”
Safe from my machines, yes, but safe from being accused of murder by people like Felicity Ranquels? My breakfast weighed even more. Hoping that my anxiety wouldn’t force me to his office for treatment, I thanked Dr. Wrinklesides and let him get back to his patients.
A thread holding one of the banners celebrating Darlene’s win had snapped, leaving the banner dangling by one corner in my front window. How could the poor woman have died, and what, if anything, had her sewing machine done to harm her? I put the banners away. Would I ever need them again, and if I did, would they bring back this sense of uncomprehending loss and grief?
I didn’t want to be alone. Although it was almost time to open In Stitches, I ran across the street to The Stash.
Haylee’s door was open. “Haylee!” I called.
She peered around a display of fabrics. “Hey, Willow, look at this shipment of tartans that just arrived from Scotland.” She must have noticed the goose bumps on my bare arms, like zillions of tiny needles trying to work themselves out through my skin. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Darlene Coddlefield is dead, and the sewing machine she collected from In Stitches yesterday is being blamed.” I couldn’t help sounding hysterical.
“That’s impossible.” She ran a hand through her long blond hair. “I mean not impossible that someone would blame a machine, only that a sewing machine could kill someone.”
I thought about Darlene’s son’s joyriding through the streets last night. “Unless someone clobbered her with it. It weighed a ton, but her oldest son, Russ, managed to lift it.”
Haylee closed her eyes as if looking into the future. She opened her eyes wide. The future must have been shocking. “My mothers were already worried because some of the Coddlefield children seemed miserable yesterday. If those children have lost their mother, my mothers will end up raising the little terrors in their apartments.”
“They wouldn’t go that far,” I protested.
“You know them.”
“Yes, but Darlene’s children still have a father.”
“They’re going to want to do something, probably inappropriate.” As if to distract us both from the death of a woman we’d met the day before, Haylee stroked the bolt of wool beside her. “Check out the gorgeous winter fabrics I’m unpacking
.”
The tartans were tightly woven, the plaids precise, in colors that would make anyone claim Scottish heritage. I touched luminous corduroys, too. Unlike cords from only a few years ago, these were soft and would drape beautifully. Many of them had a little stretch woven in, making them easy to wear. And fleece seemed to improve every autumn. I couldn’t stick around to admire it all, though. The Threadville tour bus rumbled into the village.
I rushed across the street to In Stitches. I was incredibly lucky to own this dream of a shop and live where every needlework supply I might need was either right here or across the street. I reminded myself that Darlene Coddlefield had been lucky, too, but her good fortune had ended suddenly and tragically.
Saddened, I ran inside to the dog pen. Sally and Tally stretched, wagged their tails, and looked up at me adoringly. I knelt and buried my face in their fur.
Most mornings, Threadville tourists dashed inside, chattered about their homework, and thrust it at me. This morning, they dragged in behind Rosemary, two by two, almost as if they were mimicking yesterday’s procession of Coddlefield offspring. I’d never seen Rosemary so solemn. Her mouth was one thin line, and her smile wrinkles were shadows. She held her bag close to her side and walked hesitantly. “Willow,” she said, “we heard something terrible about that woman who won the sewing machine. It was on the radio. They said her new machine killed her.”
I reassured them with what Dr. Wrinklesides had told me. “She probably died from an accident.”
Georgina and Mimi had followed the tourists in. Georgina shook her head as if to dispel grim horror. “She died doing what she loved.”
Mimi cried, “But she had such young children!”
Rosemary suggested that some of the big siblings could help their father look after the little ones. Imagining Darlene’s rambunctious teenagers taking charge of the little ones, I shuddered.
Had Russ gone on his wild ride after his mother died? Grief could do strange things. He was, his mother had said, sixteen. Hardly more than a child.
