Threaded for Trouble

by Janet Bolin

  I’d seen that room and the phones, and had guessed that was the office Darlene had used for her charities.

  “While I listened, I hunted up the screwdriver that came with her Chandler Champion. First I loosened the shaft holding the needle. Sooner or later, needles would go in crooked and break. She had put in a wing needle, so I had the great idea of disabling the setting that told the machine it had a wing needle in it—another surefire way of breaking a needle and annoying the seamstress. I loosened the screw on the bobbin carrier, too, so none of the machine’s stitches would work well.”

  I was wrong about Mimi not smoothing the old linens. She had that family tree sampler in her hands and was straightening the lace around it, pressing it between a finger and thumb. She turned toward me and went on, smoothing that lace and making a confession she probably didn’t expect anyone to hear or remember. “To make certain it looked like you goofed up the machine, Willow, I put your name in one of the memory banks. They’re going to blame you for everything, including what happens to you here tonight.”

  Still caressing that sampler, she used a foot to nudge the carton toward the quilts lining one side of our booth. “Meanwhile, Darlene was still gabbing away on the phone, telling her latest victim all about the poor children her charities helped. As if! I was getting tired of chewing my gum, and found a great place to put it—in her foot pedal so her machine would sew whether she pushed the pedal or not. She went on babbling her sales pitch, so I decided to make her next sewing adventure with her new machine even more interesting. The legs on her sewing table were fastened with wing nuts. Appropriate, right, Willow?”

  Yes, for Mimi.

  Not surprisingly, Mimi had given up on hearing answers from me. “I loosened the front two legs, not enough for them to fall off right away. But when that heavy machine started stitching, like it would with the chewing gum in the pedal, the table could shake a leg off. Then I realized that Darlene would be able to turn the machine off, and all the excitement I’d caused would be over too soon.”

  She tossed the sampler she’d been holding into the top of the box. “She was going on and on about helping supposedly needy children, so I opened the sewing machine. With a jab of the screwdriver, I distorted the plastic on-off switch. With any luck, she would hit it too hard when the foot pedal was stuck down, and she wouldn’t be able to turn it off. Or if that didn’t work, the switch might break when she tried to turn on her machine, and it wouldn’t work at all. That would have served her right, too.”

  Mimi’s voice took on dreamy overtones. Or maybe I was the one who was dreaming.

  “I closed up the machine just in time. Darlene came out of the next room and seemed surprised that I hadn’t gone when she first answered the phone. ‘I’ll walk you to the door,’ she said. That’s what she was like. Mean.”

  If I wasn’t having nightmares then, Mimi’s rant would probably give them to me later. “What I did to her machine was only mischief,” she whined. “There’s no way I could have known she’d die. Everyone said it was an accident. But that sly Tiffany—slinking around all the time poking her nose into things. Wheedling another sewing machine for herself. She was the only one besides the little kids who knew I sometimes visited Darlene. Sooner or later she was going to figure out that I had caused Darlene’s death. So I had to get rid of Tiffany. Visiting her so she’d show me her new machine was easy, and so was fiddling around with the new machine. She was always distracted, often by the kids, and sometimes by those phones Darlene had for her charities. When Tiffany went to answer a call, I crossed the wires in the sewing machine, and after that it was simple. All I had to do was wait in my car out on the road at the time of night that Tiffany told me she usually sewed, and if I saw a fire start, I could go inside and make certain Tiffany didn’t survive. I always keep my firefighter’s gear in my trunk, so I put it on. No one would know who I was.”

  Maybe I was waking up. I told myself not to attempt moving, though, unless I could escape.

  Mimi’s tale became even more nightmarish. “And sure enough, I saw a flickering orange glow through the third-floor windows. I put on my mask and went into the house through the back door. No one saw me until I got to the sewing room. Tiffany played right into my hands. Instead of calling for help, she had nearly smothered that fire. She saw me, and I was afraid she recognized me. I grabbed Darlene’s point presser and took care of Tiffany quickly. For some reason, that sewing machine rep showed up again. I dealt with her and was back outside, hiding in the woods, in a flash. Darlene’s older kids came roaring up the driveway, and before I knew it, the siren at the fire station was going off. And I was dressed as a firefighter. After everyone else arrived, you drove right past and didn’t stop,” she crowed. “It was the perfect disguise. It came in handy tonight, too.”

  She crammed the carton against the quilts separating our booth from the firefighters’ booth.

  Something in her hand made a snapping noise.

  Mimi had thought quickly when Felicity had appeared in the sewing room early Thursday morning, and she thought quickly this time, too.

  But just like when she’d entered those mothering, sewing, and embroidering contests, she never did anything as perfectly as she thought. She’d expected the evidence she’d left in the Coddlefields’ house to be reduced to ashes. But it hadn’t been. And she probably hadn’t realized until tonight that she’d left her firefighter’s gloves at the Coddlefields’.

  And minutes ago, she had stunned me, without, thanks to the cowboy hat that Haylee’s mothers had foisted on me, knocking me out completely. So I’d heard her horrific confession. I only hoped I’d be able to remember and repeat it. And make someone believe me. They’d be here soon, wouldn’t they?

  This time, Mimi was taking extra care. She wasn’t messing around with shorting out electrical circuits to cause a fire.

  Mimi had a faster method.

  She had a lighter.

  51

  MIMI WAS PLANNING TO INCINERATE those heritage linens. And also, I suspected, the quilts that Naomi and her students had slaved over for weeks, months, maybe years. The quilts could set the entire tent on fire.

  How could I lie there, semiconscious and silently whimpering?

  I couldn’t. With a roar of outrage, I leaped up off the dirt floor.

  Mimi didn’t seem concerned about what I was doing. She was squatting next to the carton, flicking that lighter. A flame erupted.

  One end of the fabric around me was still tied to a tent pole. Grabbing at my huge sash to loosen it while also twirling to unwind it, I yelled at Mimi to stop.

  I was going to become dizzy and end up on the floor again.

  One flap of the cardboard carton flared up.

  I unwound enough of the batik to throw myself toward the carton. Mimi could burn her antique linens if she wanted to, but I had to move that flaming carton away from Naomi’s quilts.

  Mimi tried to head butt me in the stomach. I put my hands out to stop her, but her momentum drove her shoulder into what was left of my batik padding and knocked me down, with her on top of me. My black Stetson went flying.

  I was younger, stronger, and taller. Barely aware of my injured hand, I flipped her over so that I was straddling her and holding her down by the upper arms. My hair covered my face. Both of us were screaming, but neither of us probably made any sense.

  She managed to scoot out from under me. I steamrollered her and held her arms down again.

  She yelped and tried to twist away from me.

  “Stop or I’ll shoot!” Smallwood commanded from the doorway. She wouldn’t be able see what was going on inside the dark tent.

  “No, don’t,” I shrieked. “I’ve got things under control.”

  Smallwood’s voice was deadly serious. “Put your arms above your heads.”

  Heads, plural. Both of us.

  Strange things went through my mind, like what, exactly, did above my head mean when I was lying on a squirming she-devil?


  “We’re not armed,” I called back.

  Mimi’s knee went into my thigh. She rolled onto me.

  “Stand up and let us see your hands.” Gartener was now giving the orders in his calm, firm, resonant voice.

  “We can’t,” I screeched. I was on top again. “Can you please come over here and grab this woman’s hands so she won’t scratch my eyes out?” I thought it was a reasonable request.

  “Why can’t you stand?” Smallwood asked.

  “We’re tied together.” Our rolling around had wrapped the middle of the bolt of batik around both of us. One end was tied to the tent pole and the other end was tighter than ever around my waist.

  Large, warm hands touched my shoulders. “It’s okay, Willow.” Gartener.

  Mimi lay still and gave him a girlishly innocent and tremulous smile. “Don’t let her go. She attacked me.”

  I slid away from her, levered myself up from my hands and knees, unwound the rest of the bolt of batik from my waist, and piled it onto the yardage that Mimi had inadvertently wrapped around herself while wrestling with me.

  Smallwood stood in the doorway, feet apart, hands hovering over holsters she wore outside her long denim skirt.

  Suddenly, I understood why I could see her. The cardboard box was now blazing, threatening Naomi’s quilts more than ever.

  I darted to the box and kicked it into the tent’s center aisle.

  Mimi managed to get her feet underneath her. Stooping, she ran toward the tent’s entrance.

  But the center section of that bolt of batik was still wrapped a few times around her, with one end tied to a tent pole and the other end, the one that had been around me, loose in the dirt.

  Chasing her, Gartener tripped on the fabric tail and rolled into Smallwood’s feet. She crashed down onto him.

  Unfortunately, the two police officers couldn’t enjoy the moment. Mimi was dragging them behind her in her bid for freedom.

  Clay, Isaac, Plug, and Russ swarmed into the tent and stomped on the blazing carton of linens. I wondered why Isaac was carrying a firefighter’s jacket instead of wearing it. And why he had Gartener’s prize baby doll in his other hand.

  From inside her purple furry teddy bear costume, Naomi yelled at Mimi, “Where do you think you’re going with the quilt fabric I lent Willow?” Calm, sweet Naomi, shouting? I almost felt faint again.

  Mimi didn’t make it very far before she reached the end of her yellow batik tether, the one she’d tied to a tent pole and then had accidentally wrapped around herself. With the help of Haylee, passing as a tall but strangely pear-shaped cowboy, Edna, the short, red-cheeked clown, and Opal, the crick-necked giraffe, Naomi tackled Mimi and threw her to the ground. Naomi was not only salvaging her now unsalable quilt fabric, she was also protecting me, a member of her extended family.

  Clay left the smoldering carton, grasped my elbows in gentle hands, and asked his usual question, “Willow, are you all right?”

  Biting my lip, I nodded.

  Smallwood and Gartener untangled themselves from the fabric. They sprinted to Mimi, but she was covered in costumed Threadville proprietors. Calmly, Detective Gartener helped the rounded cowboy, the giraffe, the teddy bear, and the clown stand up.

  Mimi screamed at the officers to arrest me for killing Darlene and for attempting to kill Tiffany, Felicity, and Mimi herself.

  52

  GARTENER TURNED HER FACEDOWN AND snapped handcuffs on her. “Sorry, ma’am, but we heard the end of your confession.”

  “That was her,” Mimi argued. “Willow confessed how she sabotaged Darlene’s machine and loosened the wing nuts on Darlene’s table, then caused a fire at the Coddlefields’, knocked Tiffany and Felicity out, and tied them to furniture with strips of cotton calico so they’d die in the fire.”

  “Ma’am,” Gartener said in a polite but dangerous voice, “we know Willow’s voice. She didn’t say all that. You did.”

  Actually, Mimi hadn’t said all that, either. In her mutterings to me, she hadn’t mentioned the fabric strips, their fiber content, and the way she’d used them. Only a few of us knew about them. Mimi had just pointed her finger directly at herself.

  “You can’t put me under arrest without reading me my rights,” she snapped.

  Gartener rattled off the Miranda warning, then asked Smallwood to hold Mimi while he went off for his cruiser.

  “We’ll help you hold her.” Edna was, of course, a very enthusiastic clown.

  “I can do it,” Smallwood said, patting a holster. “You civilians stay away.”

  Gartener hopped onto one of two golf carts parked beside the tent’s entrance, turned the cart around, and tore away at its highest speed, probably all of about a half mile an hour.

  “Golf carts?” I asked Clay. “Is that how Smallwood and Gartener got here?”

  “Haylee, Opal, Naomi, and Edna had already commandeered the golf carts. The officers caught a ride with them.”

  “But weren’t you all near the parking lot? That’s where the fire was. Why didn’t the police officers drive here in their cruisers?”

  Mischief flashed in Clay’s grin. “Chief Smallwood and Detective Gartener hid their cruisers near the administration building so no one would recognize them. They’re in plain clothes tonight.”

  I turned my face away from Smallwood so she wouldn’t see my smile. Who was I to carp about insufficient disguises?

  Clay must have guessed what I was thinking. He winked.

  I bit back a laugh. “How did you, Plug, Isaac, and Russ get here?”

  “We ran.”

  Isaac had found a fire extinguisher and was pumping foam onto the carton of linens. Those beautiful heritage linens, including some that Mimi had created, were ruined. Even if they weren’t, they’d be taken as evidence. However, my machines and I could make modern versions. The quilts and the rest of the tent’s contents, including the humans, were okay.

  More than okay. Plug had an arm around Russ and was telling him how worried he’d been about him. Plug was gruff, but if I could hear the love in his voice, Russ should be able to, as well. “Never run away again, son,” Plug said. “If things get bad, just talk to your old man.”

  Russ ducked his head, but I thought I saw tears glimmer near his eyes. “Okay.”

  “And no more setting fields on fire.”

  “We didn’t…”

  “Don’t lie, son. Your mother would be so sad.”

  “We won’t do it again, sir.”

  “Dad.”

  “We won’t do it again, Dad.”

  Isaac finished putting out the fire in the carton of linens. Leaving the baby doll in the dirt, he carried the firefighter’s jacket to Plug. “Chief,” he said, “where did this jacket come from? Inside, it says Emblesford Volunteer Fire Department.”

  “Then it came from Emblesford,” Plug answered.

  “Mimi’s a member of the volunteer fire department there,” I said.

  Mimi mumbled that we’d all be made to pay for our false accusations.

  Smallwood chastised Isaac for disturbing possible evidence.

  He held his hands out. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I didn’t know. Want me to put the jacket back where I found it?”

  “No,” she exploded. “Don’t go back there. Leave everything alone. Later, I’ll get your statement about where you found it.”

  And she’d get my statement, too, about where I saw it and the rest of the gear Mimi had removed. And Haylee’s statement about seeing the firefighter sneak into the tent and, after a loud bang, the power going off and Mimi slipping out of the tent.

  Poor Isaac didn’t seem to know what to do with the jacket. He wadded it between his hands, then let it go, nearly dropped it, and caught it in midair.

  Something white peeked out of one of its pockets. I edged up to Isaac for a closer look. A white cloth hankie trimmed in Mimi’s signature tatting was about to fall out of the Emblesford jacket.

  I took the jacket, hankie and all, from him, showed it t
o Smallwood, and explained.

  “Put it on the ground beside me,” she directed, never taking her eyes off Mimi. “I’ll take it with me when we go.”

  Jeremy Chandler must have tired of bumper cars. He drifted into the tent. “Willow?” he asked. “I almost didn’t recognize you in that black shirt. I like your hair that way.”

  After being crammed underneath the Stetson, my hair probably had a fresh-out-of-bed look. “Thanks,” I faltered, not particularly in the mood for compliments about mussed hair.

  “You’re sure you don’t want to become the Midwest rep for Chandler? You’d get to work for me.”

  “I’m sure,” I said.

  He turned to Haylee, still in her cowboy disguise, including hat and extra padding. “You’re good at sewing, aren’t you?”

  Shaking her head, she backed away from him. “I’m staying in Threadville with my mothers and my friends.”

  “Your rep is expected to get better,” Clay told Jeremy in unyielding tones.

  Jeremy sidestepped toward the tent’s entryway. “That’s good to hear.” He could have tried to sound sincere.

  Naomi was back to being her sweet self, even if she was a bit purple and fuzzy. She pointed out, “She’s been through a lot.”

  In her clown suit and her usual, sturdy way, Edna backed Naomi up. “The least you can do is keep her on.”

  Opal would have towered over Jeremy even without the help of a tall and floppy giraffe neck. “Doing work she loves should help her get over her trauma,” she informed him.

  “Okay, well, see you all later.” Jeremy melted into the night.

  Good riddance. Had I said it aloud?

  Behind the tent, a car door slammed. Jeremy leaving? Or Gartener returning?

  But Gartener, broadcaster’s voice and all, had never, in my hearing, sung opera.

  53

  WHAT WAS DR. WRINKLESIDES DOING here?

  “We could use some light in this tent,” I said to no one in particular.

  “Son?” Plug asked. “You got the Ferris wheel running. Think you can turn on a few lights?”