by Janet Bolin
During another lesson, she’d been doing an expert job with her embroidering, then had made a show of threading a machine wrong and throwing out embroidery that she could have easily fixed.
She had turned in excellent embroidery as her IMEC entry. What her hummingbird and flower design lacked in originality, it made up for in perfect tension and stitching. She hadn’t clipped her seams well when she attached the backing, though, and the resulting doily was bunchier than it could have been.
Maybe some of her intermittent incompetence had been an act. Maybe she had tried, when she remembered, to hide her skills from the rest of us. So we wouldn’t guess she’d held a grudge against Darlene for beating her in contests?
Mimi crossed Brussels Sprouts Boulevard, turned left, and disappeared, either into the handcrafts tent or behind it.
I texted Haylee, but she couldn’t see the entrance to the handcrafts tent and wasn’t sure where Mimi had gone, either.
Beyond the tent, a car started.
If Mimi drove off, I had no hope of catching her unless I hopped into my car and chased down country roads after her. And then what would I do, follow at a discreet distance until the police caught her? With a bolt of fabric wrapped around my waist, I wouldn’t fit behind my steering wheel.
Maybe I was letting Mimi get away, but as various people, including Clay, had told me, I was supposed to leave the investigating, chasing, and catching of suspects to the police.
Well, maybe not the investigating.
There were methods that wouldn’t involve confronting suspects.
The Internet. And I had my phone.
I slunk to the doorway of the handcrafts tent. It was dark inside. Nothing stirred, and there were no sounds except a car bumping away from the parking lot behind the tent.
48
HAYLEE TEXTED ME THAT A DARK SEDAN had left the parking area behind the handcrafts tent. On Wednesday night, the mystery firefighter, who could have been Mimi, had been near a dark sedan.
I eased into the handcrafts tent, tiptoed to the back of the Threadville booth, and sat down in a low folding chair.
Haylee texted that the Ferris wheel still wasn’t lit or moving, but she had seen Clay, Russ, and the amusement ride manager enter the tent beside it.
That was a relief. Russ was found again, and I was certain that Clay would stay with him and help him talk to the police and to Plug, if necessary. Haylee’s mothers could stop following the boy around the festival. Knowing them, they wouldn’t be in a hurry to chuck their disguises. They loved costumes. I asked Haylee to come to the handcrafts tent as soon as she got off the Ferris wheel.
The jacket I’d found had belonged to the Emblesford Volunteer Fire Department, and the chances were excellent that the gloves that Gartener and Smallwood had removed from Tiffany’s bedroom were also Emblesford’s.
I logged on to the Internet and found several Emblesfords. One was in Pennsylvania, near Erie. Mimi had said that after she began renting a cottage in Elderberry Bay, she learned she could have commuted from Erie on the Threadville tour bus.
I looked up Emblesford’s volunteer fire department. The first name on the list of members was Anderson, Mimi. When Georgina had introduced Mimi to me, she’d told me Mimi’s last name. If I recalled correctly, she’d said it was Anderson.
Mimi could have crossed the wires in the second Chandler Champion anytime after Edna and I took it to Tiffany on Tuesday. But how had she gotten into the house?
At the presentation in my shop, Darlene’s malignant glance could have been directed at Mimi. If the two women had known each other, possibly other people in the Coddlefield household knew Mimi, too, and might have welcomed her into their home.
Outside the tent, something scraped against bare dirt. Furtive footsteps? I turned my phone over in my lap to smother its light and bowed my head so that the brim of my black hat would conceal the pale glimmer of my face. I didn’t move. I was not about to reveal my hiding place unless I knew for certain that the newcomer was a friend.
Someone crept through the tent’s doorway and went into the firefighters’ booth next door. Light from his or her flashlight reflected off the white vinyl tent ceiling.
There was the sound of a carton being moved, then another, and then the cautious clearing of a throat.
It was a sound I’d often heard Mimi make. Somebody had driven a dark car away from the lot behind the handcrafts tent, but it must have been the scrapbooker or another handcrafter. It hadn’t been Mimi. She was in the tent with me.
I slumped down lower in my seat. I’d been standing when Opal and Edna wound the bolt of fabric around my waist, but now the fabric cut into me, and I couldn’t have taken a deep breath or gasped even if I’d dared.
I heard a distant, almost metallic, “Hello?”
“Mona?” Mimi’s voice.
Only a few quilts and fabrics separated her from me. My heart pounded.
She went on, “Do you have any idea where that box of linens I donated to the firefighters is? I must have goofed and given away a family tree sampler I embroidered for my mother. She needs it.”
Mimi didn’t tell Mona she was rooting around in a booth at the Harvest Festival in the dark when no one else should have been around. Mimi obviously wanted that family tree sampler very badly. Why?
That box of linens was locked securely in my car. I closed my eyes and pictured the sampler. It had been signed “Marian.” Mimi’s mother? Not likely, since Marian was also shown on the branch below the triplets as their mother, and they’d been born only eighteen years ago.
Mimi had mentioned that she had three children who had all left the nest and gone off to college orientation this year. I didn’t think she’d used the word triplets or freshmen, but all of them, orientation the same year? One of the triplets on the family tree sampler had been named Anderson. The triplets’ last name had been Hartley.
That sampler had been trimmed in tatted lace. I would need to examine the lace more closely to be certain, but I suspected that it was the pattern that Mimi had been tatting at Opal’s storytelling night. Mimi had said it was the only lace pattern she knew. She’d learned it from her grandmother, though, so other family members might tat identical lace.
The lace wasn’t conclusive proof that Mimi Anderson and Marian Hartley were the same person, but for my own safety, I needed to assume that Mimi was dangerous. I measured the distance between me and the longest knitting needles in Opal’s part of the booth.
“Willow put it in her car? You’re sure?” Mimi asked into her phone. “Thanks.”
Thanks, Mona, I echoed silently, wanting to shake my head like she always shook hers.
Mimi said good-bye to Mona and tore out of the tent.
Why was she so determined to get that sampler back? The telltale lace around it and the names Anderson and Hartley on the same piece?
If Mimi had attempted to murder Tiffany and Felicity, she would be desperate to keep her secrets. I was going to stay put, out of her way, hidden in a dark corner of a tent.
I sent a quick text to Haylee to call 911 and have them radio Smallwood and Gartener to come to the handcrafts tent immediately.
Meanwhile, I would be able to continue my silent Internet investigation. I searched for sites combining Mimi Anderson, Darlene Coddlefield, Marian Hartley, IMEC, and names of other well-known contests.
Outside, metal clanked against metal. Glass broke. Great. Mimi was armed with something that could shatter a car window.
I had to fight the desire to go out and protect my car. However, a knitting needle, or even a pair of them, would not be a great defense against a rock or a tire iron.
Hoping that Smallwood and Gartener would be here soon and catch Mimi rifling through my car, I focused on my phone’s little screen.
Mimi Anderson had come in behind Darlene in many sewing competitions. In one of them, there had been a scandal. Mimi Anderson had won a first-time contestant’s prize, and then had been disqualified because she’d
entered the contest other years under a different name—Marian Hartley.
The prize had been taken away from Mimi/Marian and awarded to Darlene Coddlefield.
According to the date on the sampler, Mimi’s children would have been about four the year that Darlene won Mother of the Year. Someone with triplets that age might have also entered that contest.
She had.
Marian Hartley had come in second as Mother of the Year, right behind Darlene.
And there was a picture.
Mimi/Marian hadn’t changed much in fourteen years. The fluffed-up platinum hair was the same. Darlene, holding her trophy, beamed into the camera. Mimi’s mouth and chin were tight with disappointment. For at least fourteen years, Darlene had beaten Mimi at contests.
Mimi—as Marian Hartley—had also donated to at least one fund that, if Susannah was right, went straight to Darlene’s personal bank account.
For fourteen years, Darlene had won, every time.
Mimi had gotten even.
Outside, a car door slammed. Maybe Mimi was driving off with the box of linens. With any luck, Gartener could mobilize state troopers to catch her before she destroyed that family tree wall hanging.
But she wasn’t driving away.
Clearing her throat, carrying a carton, Mimi came into the tent.
She tripped and landed on her face.
Spewing linens, the carton went flying.
49
MIMI, A POSSIBLE MURDERER, WAS sprawled on the dirt floor of the tent only a dozen feet from me. She must have tripped over a tent stake and knocked herself out.
Smallwood and Gartener would find her there. I was safe. I allowed myself to breathe again, cautiously and silently.
Mimi cursed.
I peeked under the edge of my hat brim. Her feet were tangled in something. A rope?
She got up on her hands and knees. Something brushed against the leg of my jeans, the faintest of touches, similar to one I’d felt and ignored only moments ago when Mimi tripped. I’d also felt a tug at my waist, and had ignored that, too.
Now I had to face the awful truth. The fabric wrapped around my waist must have been coming undone when I slipped into the tent. I’d left a tail of pastel yellow batik that crossed part of the doorway, and it had thrown Mimi.
Maybe she wouldn’t see the fabric. She had come in from outside, where the wan light that helped her break into my car could have blinded her to the gloom inside the tent.
I’d been in denial when I ignored the touch on my pant leg and when I ignored the tug at my waist, and I was obviously still in denial.
Of course Mimi noticed the fabric around her ankles.
I couldn’t continue watching her, though. She might see my face, which by now must be so pale it would almost glow in the dark. I lowered my head farther.
Why hadn’t she simply packed the carton into her car and driven away? Why had she come back in here with her loot?
Maybe she’d still go away.
Denial.
Clothing rustled. Suddenly, the fabric around my waist tightened and I was yanked up out of my seat. My phone slithered off my lap and landed at my feet.
Struggling to catch my balance, I pretended to have been awakened. “Mimi?” I tried to sound groggy, but couldn’t completely keep fear out of my voice. “Where are we?”
“What are you doing here?” she snapped. “Why are you sitting in the dark?”
I yawned. “Napping. Waiting for Haylee.”
“How did you get here so fast? You were…” She clamped her lips shut.
Haylee and I were dressed identically. You thought I was stuck on the Ferris wheel, didn’t you? I didn’t say it.
In the distance, music played, discordant and with odd rhythms. The Ferris wheel had started again, and its tune clashed with the merry-go-round’s. Haylee and the others would be here soon. Mimi would leave. Smallwood and Gartener could find her, and I could stay here, completely safe.
Denial.
With one fist gripping the fabric attached to my waist, she looked down at my phone. I followed her glance. Oh, no.
My phone had landed with its screen up.
Maybe she wouldn’t see the photo on the tiny screen, the one of her and Darlene Coddlefield fourteen years ago, minutes after Darlene was named Mother of the Year.
I’d become really good at denial.
Mimi swooped down, dropped something that landed with a heavy thunk, and picked up my phone. Mouth screwed into a knot, she studied the screen. She hadn’t let go of the batik. Maybe I would be able to twirl my way out of it, but the back corner of the Threadville booth didn’t have space for pirouettes.
“What are you doing with this?” Mimi asked.
I didn’t think it would help my case if I pretended she was talking about my phone. “I was looking up Darlene Coddlefield for something to do while I waited for my friends”—hint, hint, leave before they get here, Mimi—“and I guess I fell asleep before the picture came up.” Maybe she’d believe I hadn’t seen the picture, hadn’t connected Marian Hartley from fourteen years ago to this wrathful—and patently dangerous—woman in front of me.
“You think you’re smart, don’t you.”
Yes, actually, I did.
“You think you can solve mysteries, don’t you. Solve murders.”
“No.” Carefully, I did not look toward the knitting needles hanging near me. I’d have to brush past her to get them, not something I wanted to try.
She shook my phone in my face. “This means nothing. Has nothing to do with me.” She threw the phone into the corner. It bounced off a tent wall and landed underneath my display case of IMEC entries.
She might as well have admitted she was the woman in the photo with Darlene.
Where were Haylee and her mothers? More importantly, where were Smallwood and Gartener? Didn’t Haylee tell the 911 dispatcher my call was urgent?
Tugging at the batik with her right fist, Mimi stooped for the object she’d dropped near my feet. She stood again. Her eyes became mean slits. She raised her left hand in the air.
“Don’t,” I managed, ducking, which was exactly the wrong reflex near a shorter assailant, but the tight quarters gave me no choice.
Something hard hit my head. My Stetson protected me a little, but the blow knocked me off my feet. I tumbled down in a boneless heap.
50
BOTH TIFFANY AND FELICITY HAD BEEN knocked out and then tied to furniture and left to die. If I had to, I would jump up and defend myself, but my head hurt, and I felt like I was stuck in translucent sludge and unable to do much besides watch this strangely surreal movie unwinding in front of my eyes.
The others would be along soon, anyway.
If Mimi hit me again, I would be even less capable of moving.
She didn’t. She sneaked to the door of the tent.
I peeked at her between too-heavy eyelids. She picked up the tail of fabric that had tripped her and knotted it around a tent pole. Most of the bolt was still around me, so tight that it might as well have been tied.
She returned to the carton she’d brought into the tent. She tossed the beautiful heritage linens into the box as if they were garbage, without smoothing them, folding them, or brushing off the dirt.
As if that weren’t villainous enough, she asked me, “You saw me outside the Coddlefields’, didn’t you, when you were driving to the fire? I hid my face, but you figured out who was inside that firefighter’s outfit, didn’t you?” She waited as if expecting me to answer.
I would. Later, maybe, when the sludge cleared from my brain.
She muttered, “That Darlene. Always throwing her weight around. Mother of the Year when she only had two children, singles, and I’d been raising triplets on my own. Then asking me what other contests I was entering, and she entered them, too, and beat me, every time, even taking that first-time contestant prize from me after she told the judges I’d gone back to using my maiden name. So I rented a beach house in Threadvill
e and pretended I was her friend, just like she acted like she was my friend all those years.” Mimi raised her voice to a whine and parroted what Darlene must have said to her. “‘What contest are you entering now, Mimi? Let’s enter together.’” She lowered her voice again. “And then she won, every time. She had no right to act like she deserved to win that Chandler Champion. That’s what really got me. I wanted that machine.”
Mimi stood and felt around her pants pockets. “While I was staying near Darlene, I visited her often, including the afternoon she brought home that Chandler Champion. I timed it wrong that day and arrived a little too soon. That sewing machine rep, Felicity somebody or other, was driving out of Darlene’s driveway. I was on the road with my turn signal on. I waited to turn into the driveway until Felicity left, but obviously, she saw me.”
Mimi kept talking, and I kept lying there, watching and listening but uninterested in moving.
“Darlene took me up to her sewing room. She was gloating over her new machine and ignoring her other expensive machine. Some people have it all and don’t deserve it, right, Willow?”
I didn’t answer, and wasn’t sure I could.
“No one else was home. Plug and his older kids were out in the fields and the nanny had taken all the younger kids to the library. Darlene started saying it was time for her to fix dinner. Between hinting for me to leave and the nasty look she’d given me when she collected her award certificate, it was easy to tell that she didn’t like me. She must have hated me for years. Pretending to be my friend, she’d stolen prizes that should have gone to me.
“Then she got a phone call. Yelling good-bye to me, as if she expected me to go home, she went to the next room to answer the phone. I eavesdropped. She gave a fake name, pretending to be someone else.”
