Make Quilts Not War

by Arlene Sachitano

  “We aren’t going to get any answers standing here,” Robin said. “I’m going to swing by home and make sure things are under control. I’ll come by after that.”

  “Me, too,” DeAnn said. “David is with the kids, but I should check in if I’m going to be gone longer than I told him.”

  “I’ve got to wait until they close the vendor hall so my stuff will be secure,” Harriet said. “Let yourself in if you get there before me.” She had changed the locks on her house after it became apparent that Aunt Beth and her friends had given keys to half of Foggy Point when Beth had owned the house. Several of the Loose Threads had keys to the new locks; the rest used a key hidden under the planter box next to the door.

  “So, what do you really think is going on?” Lauren asked Harriet when DeAnn and Robin had left.

  “I don’t know.”

  “But if you had to guess…”

  “If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say Jenny knows something she’s not telling the rest of us.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking. I have no idea what that could be, but there’s something there.”

  “Do you know how long she’s lived in Foggy Point?”

  “Now that you mention it, I don’t. I just assumed she was descended from a serving wench on Cornelius Fogg’s pirate ship, like almost everyone else in town.”

  “She talks about her son and daughter-in-law a lot, and I know her son went to school with Aiden.” Harriet’s stomach spasmed at the mention of Aiden’s name, and she tried to block the flood of emotion that came with it.

  “You’re pathetic,” Lauren said and shook her head.

  “What?” Harriet felt her face coloring as she said it.

  “It’s like junior high with you and He Who Shall Apparently Not Be Named Without You Getting All Weepy. You need to work on shielding your emotions a little better if you don’t want to share all with the Threads.”

  “Thanks for the advice. I suppose you’re an expert?”

  “The fact that you don’t know tells you that I am. At least as far as blocking emotions goes.”

  She had a point, Harriet thought. She had no clue about Lauren’s love life.

  “Back to the topic at hand,” Lauren continued. “I can do some digging on the computer after our meeting. Maybe I can find some-thing.”

  A woman wearing a pink T-shirt with she who dies with the most fabric wins emblazoned across the chest in purple came up and asked about Harriet’s long-arm quilting service, ending the discussion.

  Chapter 11

  There were several cars parked at Harriet’s house when she pulled into her garage, but her aunt’s silver Beetle was not among them.

  “Beth decided to stop by Jenny’s house and try to get her to come here with her,” Mavis explained when Harriet came into the kitchen. “I hope you don’t mind I’m making coffee and tea.”

  “Of course not, you know you don’t need to ask.”

  “Do you have anything we could put out for people to nibble on?”

  “I have hummus and could cut up some veggies.”

  Mavis looked at her over the top of the reading glasses perched on the end of her nose.

  “Or I have some brownies in the freezer. It would only take a minute to thaw them in the microwave.”

  “That would do nicely,” Mavis said and continued putting coffee into the filter basket on the coffee machine.

  “Does anyone know the woman who was shot?” Robin was asking when Harriet entered her studio carrying a plate of warm brownies and a stack of paper napkins.

  Carla and Connie shook their heads no.

  “She used to come in the video store,” DeAnn said, referring to her family’s business. “I haven’t seen her lately, but then again, I haven’t been working much since we got Kissa.”

  DeAnn and her husband had adopted a baby girl the previous fall and that, along with her two sons’ activities, meant she was too busy to help out at the store on a regular basis.

  “I don’t remember anything out of the ordinary. She generally rented from the new-arrivals shelf,” She shrugged. “Not that movie habits tell you anything.”

  No one else knew Pamela, and the group sat, each one lost in her own thoughts, as Harriet carried the brownie plate to each one in turn, handing out a napkin as she went.

  Mavis came in with the coffee carafe a moment later.

  “This is decaf, and there’s hot water in the teapot if anyone prefers that,” Mavis said as she filled cups and handed them around.

  The outside studio door opened, and Aunt Beth came in followed by Jenny. Harriet got up and took their coats, while Mavis handed them cups of hot coffee. Connie pulled two more chairs into the loose circle they had formed in the middle of the studio space.

  “Did Jorge sell a lot of food?” Mavis asked.

  “He did okay,” Beth answered. “Most people left early.”

  The group fell silent again.

  “Jenny,” Aunt Beth began, “can you tell us what’s got you so rattled?”

  “A woman was killed tonight,” Jenny said, her voice tight.

  “Everyone knows how upsetting that is,” Harriet said. “But if I understood you right, you didn’t even know her.”

  “If you had come five minutes later, that could have been me.”

  “Or the killer could have had to wait five more minutes,” Harriet said gently. “If you didn’t know Pamela, how do you know she wasn’t the intended target?”

  “I don’t, I suppose.”

  “Would you like us to contact your husband?” Mavis asked.

  “He and Mark are on a hunting trip in Africa. They’ve been planning it for two years. I’m not going to interrupt them for this. I’m just a little shaken. I’ll be fine after I’ve had time to process this and rest a little.”

  Robin had been silently studying Jenny, Harriet noticed. As a lawyer, she had probably had more experience deciphering whether people were being truthful or not.

  “When I was in law school,” Robin finally said, “we had a class on body language. You know, to help us tell if a witness was being truthful or not.”

  “I am not some kind of criminal,” Jenny snapped and started to rise.

  Mavis stilled her with her hand.

  “I’m sure that’s not what Robin is saying,” she said.

  “Actually, I’m not saying you’re a criminal,” Robin said to Jenny, “But I am saying you’re not being truthful. We’re not the police, and I’m not your attorney—we’re your friends. If you’re in some kind of trouble, maybe we can help you. We can’t do anything if you don’t tell us what’s going on.”

  “I don’t know what’s going on,” Jenny said.

  “That I believe,” Robin said.

  “There must be something that’s got you spooked,” Harriet said.

  “It’s the clothes,” Jenny finally said, a single tear slipping down her cheek.

  “The clothes?” Harriet echoed.

  Aunt Beth got up and crossed to Harriet’s desk, where she picked up a box of tissues and brought it back, plucking out two and pressing them into Jenny’s hand.

  “I had an outfit very like the one I was wearing tonight,” Jenny began. Harriet noticed for the first time that she had changed from her sixties outfit into a silver velour jogging suit.

  “And?” Lauren prompted.

  “And I hope you all will still want to be my friends after I tell you all this.”

  “You know there is nothing you can say that will cause us to not be your friends,” Mavis assured her.

  “I’ve been lying to you all for a very long time.” She paused and took a deep breath. “Not exactly lying, but being dishonest, all the same. I’ve let you believe certain things and not corrected you when you came to the wrong conclusions. In fact, I led you there.”

  “Honey, you’re going to have to tell us a little more than that,” Mavis said.

  “I know, I’m sorry, I–it’s just hard after all this time.” Jenny si
pped her coffee, stalling. “I’m not from Foggy Point.”

  “Well, that’s hardly a crime,” Lauren said.

  “I’ve lived here for some time, but not as long as I’ve let you believe. I didn’t graduate from the University of Wisconsin. In fact, I didn’t graduate from anywhere—not even high school. At least, not in the normal sense.

  “I grew up in a commune in Georgeville, Minnesota. It was started by a couple of assistant professors from Smith College. They’d been fired for their liberal views so they ‘tuned in, turned on and dropped out,’ as the saying went back then. They did value education, so we were educated, but they didn’t believe in ‘the man,’ or ‘the system,’ so we were never tested by the state or given real diplomas.”

  “Who were ‘we?’” Harriet asked.

  “All of us at the commune who were school-aged. I thought I’d put that time of my life behind me years ago. I moved on. I have a wonderful husband and son. I don’t like thinking about those times.” She started crying again. “This whole festival has brought it all back.”

  “Honey,” Mavis said in a soothing voice, “nothing you’ve told us is anything to be ashamed of. That all happened a long time ago; it’s not who you are today. You’re right. You have a wonderful family and a group of friends who care a lot about you.”

  “You still haven’t told us anything about why you would think that bullet had your name on it,” Harriet said.

  “Shush,” Aunt Beth told her. “Jenny is upset enough. We don’t need to hear anything else tonight.”

  Harriet looked at Lauren. She could see there were at least two people in the room who wanted to hear more tonight. But then, maybe that was because they were the two who had seen Jenny step past Pamela’s body as though it didn’t exist.

  “Is there anything about your time living in the commune that would cause you to worry about our festival forty some years later?” Robin asked.

  “No,” Jenny said.

  Harriet looked at Lauren and could tell they were thinking the same thing. You didn’t have to be a lawyer or a body language expert to tell Jenny was still lying.

  “Did you sign up any new customers?” Aunt Beth asked Harriet, ending any further discussion of Jenny’s past.

  Harriet gave a detailed accounting of her time in the booth, complemented by snide observations from Lauren. Robin and DeAnn told them about the customers they’d helped, but it was clear the Loose Threads were only half-listening.

  Harriet was still thinking about Jenny’s commune revelation. She wondered if she’d be more shocked about it if she’d come of age in the sixties. She just couldn’t understand why Jenny was acting like being raised in a commune was such a horrible stigma.

  “I told Jorge I’d help him dip more Twinkies in chocolate in the morning before the festival opens, so I better get going,” Aunt Beth said finally. “Are you ready to leave?” she asked Jenny.

  Harriet was pretty sure Jenny’d been ready to leave since before she arrived.

  The group all assured her they supported her and loved her, and they each gave her a hug before she made her way out the door, followed by Beth.

  “Anyone else think she’s lying through her teeth?” Lauren asked when the door was closed again.

  “Lying might be too strong a word,” Robin said, “but I agree—she’s still holding something back. And I don’t for a second think she’s just embarrassed about her educational background.”

  “I’ll see what I can dig up on the Internet,” Lauren said.

  “Her quilt doesn’t look like the rest of the quilts on display,” Carla said, her cheeks turning red. “I mean, it sort of does, but that big piece in the middle doesn’t.”

  “Quilters have always made use of recycled fabric,” Mavis pointed out. “In pioneer days, people used their worn-out clothes to make quilts because they had limited access to fabric, but after the Depression was past, I think people did it as a way of remembering favorite clothes, often from their childhood. In the sixties, people were just starting to rediscover the idea of recycling. The center of Jenny’s quilt looks like men’s shirts did back then.”

  “I still don’t get why she’s so weird about that quilt,” Lauren said.

  “If Jenny lived on a commune back then, who knows what sort of memories it brings up,” Mavis said.

  “Yeah,” Connie added. “There were communes…and then there were communes, and that’s probably still the case today. I don’t want to talk out of turn, but a lot of them were also cults.”

  “Do they even have communes today?” Harriet asked.

  “People still live in group settings, but I don’t think they call them communes anymore,” Robin answered.

  “They call them senior living,” Lauren added with a smirk.

  “Jenny didn’t say anything about having escaped a cult,” Mavis cautioned, ignoring Lauren. “Let’s not borrow trouble.”

  “But there is something she’d not telling us,” Connie countered. “Maybe she did escape a cult.”

  “I’ll see what I can find out about the commune in Georgeville, Minnesota,” Lauren said. “Assuming she was telling the truth about it.”

  “Anyone want another brownie?” Harriet asked and held up the plate.

  Everyone did.

  Chapter 12

  Harriet could hear the pounding of her heart over the roar of the sandstorm. She was crouched behind a dried clump of sagebrush, watching the shadowy form coming ever closer. He wasn’t large, but the knife in his hand was.

  The chorus of an old song floated on the night air; something about not having seen anything yet. She felt sweat trickle down her back. The sweat felt like sandpaper against her skin…

  And then the desert disappeared, and the sandpaper turned into Fred’s tongue.

  “Get away,” she said and pushed him from her back, pulling her sleep shirt down as she did. Fred slapped Scooter as he slid past, causing the little dog to yelp in protest. She glanced at the clock on her bedside stand.

  “You guys need to learn to sleep in a little,” she complained. “There is no reason for any of us to be up at six-thirty in the morning.”

  Scooter whined, his indication that he wanted to go outside to do his business. Something he probably could have waited another two hours for if it hadn’t been for Fred.

  “Arghhh,” Harriet said and rolled out of bed to start her day.

  “You two behave yourselves,” Harriet instructed her pets an hour later.

  She’d walked Scooter, fed both him and Fred, and taken her shower. Now, she clicked the pet gate across the opening from the kitchen to the hallway that led to the stairs. She shut the door into the dining room; she was thankful her Victorian house was old enough to have doors between almost all of its rooms, making dog management easier.

  “Uncle Rod is going to come by and walk you at lunchtime,” she told the little dog as she laced her black hiking boots over her black tights. She had on a floor-length skirt she’d made from an old crazy quilt that had been irreparably damaged years before. “And I’ll see you later on.”

  Connie’s husband Rod had volunteered to provide dog-walking services for the duration of the festival and quilt show for the rescue dogs several of the Loose Threads had adopted the previous fall.

  Harriet planned to stop by her favorite coffee shop for a cup of hot chocolate and a muffin before continuing on to the quilt show. She needed some time to think, and she wasn’t due at the festival for two hours.

  The Steaming Cup Coffee Shop provided several seating options. Harriet was carrying her cocoa and muffin toward one of the overstuffed chairs in front of a glass-fronted artificial fireplace when she glanced at the long table that had a bookcase with embedded power strips running down its center. She changed her mind and headed for one of the chairs at the computer table.

  Most mornings, Lauren could be found here, her laptop connected to the power. With any luck, she’d show up before Harriet finished her breakfast and have some
results from her background check on Jenny. She had no doubt Lauren had done her search as soon as she’d gotten home the night before.

  Harriet was staring into her nearly empty cup when Tom Bainbridge stopped at the chair opposite hers.

  “This seat taken?”

  “No, sit, please.”

  “You here by yourself?”

  “The kids woke me up early this morning, and with everything that happened yesterday, there was no hope of going back to sleep.”

  “The kids?” He raised his left eyebrow.

  “My cat and dog. They’re running my life these days.”

  Tom sat down, smiling and shaking his head.

  “You laugh, but that’s just because you don’t have any pets.”

  “Not true,” he said. “I have a quite elderly cat, but he’s very independent. As long as his food is in his dish on time, he’s happy. When you come visit me, I’ll introduce you.”

  “I’ll look forward to it,” Harriet said and took a sip of her cocoa.

  “I heard there’s been a shooting. Was it someone you knew?” Tom broke off a piece of his blueberry scone and popped it into his mouth.

  “Not exactly,” Harriet said, and then explained Jenny’s connection to the victim.

  “She must be shaken up,”

  “She’s shocked that the person who replaced her got shot right after she left for her first break, but her reaction was a little weird, and then she revealed she’d been raised in a commune and had been lying about it for all these years. I’m not sure why she felt the need to lie to the group, other than being embarrassed about her lack of traditional education.”

  “Interesting she chose now to come clean. You never know—”

  Harriet never found out what wisdom was to follow.

  “You didn’t let my chair get cold, I see.” Aiden towered over her, his hands on his hips, fire blazing in his ice-blue eyes. “I thought you said you were going to back off,” he said to Tom and then turned back to Harriet. “You didn’t even give me a chance to explain. What? You called him to take my place without any discussion? You’re so insecure you can’t be by yourself for a couple of days while I deal with an emergency?”