Loose Threads Mystery 06-Make Quilts Not War

by Arlene Sachitano

  Jenny was clearly pained having to tell her story and was dragging it out as if rescue were coming, which they all knew wasn’t the case. Harriet’s arm was starting to hurt, but she didn’t want to distract Jenny by asking Lauren to get her pain medication.

  “Bobby was lacking in ambition, beyond his small drug operation, so whenever he could make me do his chores or run errands for the group, he would. At that time, I was in awe of the older kids. They used new names, like Cosmic and Paisley and Tranquillity. They called me Jonquil. It was all very glamorous, in a hippie sort of way.” Her voice took on a faraway quality.

  “As I was saying, Bobby made me run errands for him, and he’d started having me fetch drugs from his stash when the group ran out. A few weeks before the planned robbery, I was walking the two-mile route along a dirt road, having just made a run to Bobby’s stash, on my way back to the ‘clubhouse,’ which was an abandoned tin hay shed on a piece of property Tranquillity’s dad owned. I was stopped by a police car.

  “The police took me in for possession of drugs—I later learned they’d had Bobby and his friends under surveillance for weeks. Someone had tipped them off about the planned break-in at the Selective Service office. I have no idea who. Somebody trusted someone outside the group and that person tipped off the police. Like I said, there were always a few hangers-on at the fringe of the group.

  “I was a minor, and they’d watched us enough to know I was doing errands for my brother and was not part of the planned crime, but they scared me into believing I was going to jail for ten years on the drug possession charge. They let me suffer for an hour or so, and then Officer James Sullivan came in and offered me a way out. If I would become a confidential informant there would be no charges. It would be like I’d never been stopped, and as a bonus, they would pay me when I told them anything useful. He was very convincing—he even tore up the reports with my name on them right in front of me.

  “My life went from the ruin of jail time to the righteousness of being a crime fighter in a few moments time. Until that point, I hadn’t really thought of the break-in as a criminal event. It was a political protest—that couldn’t be a crime, could it?

  “Of course, once I talked to James, it became crystal-clear. Bobby and his friends weren’t the new guard that was going to change our country. They were a bunch of deluded dopers. And my brother was worse. He didn’t believe in their ideals, he only believed that as long as they were excited about the ‘plan’ they would meet more often and need more of his product.”

  “Where were your parents during all this?” Harriet asked.

  “James told me we didn’t need to worry them with all this. They were at their jobs all the time and were distant, at best. They didn’t even notice that my brother had a marijuana patch growing in the woods behind our house.

  “I was young and confused. My brother had played the parental role in my life for years, and now the police had me spying on him and his friends. It never occurred to me to talk to my parents about it.

  “Everyone was too stoned by the time I got back to notice I was gone longer than usual. Over the next weeks, I listened, which was pretty easy, given their drug use. I dutifully told about Cosmic’s uncle coming with his friend to teach them how to execute the break-in. Those two were more savvy, never mentioning word one about the bank or their plan to rob it. James was paying me, and I was starting to think of a career in law enforcement.

  “Break-in day arrived, and based on my information, James and his team were ready to step in when the job was in process. Bobby and his group had given me the role of bagman. I would be the one to take the bag filled with the punch cards to the car parked in a nearby alley.

  “Of course, when the time came, the whole thing went sideways. Cosmic’s uncle and his friend got us inside, and then they blew a hole in the wall between the office and the bank, and the next time I looked, they were stuffing money into one of the duffel bags we’d brought for the cards.

  “All of a sudden, the police started screaming over loudspeakers for everyone to come out with their hands up, which hadn’t been the plan James had explained to me. But then again, neither of us had expected the robbers to blow a hole in the bank wall.

  “Chaos erupted. Everyone had been given a job to do, be it lookout, bag packer, driver, whatever. They all abandoned their posts and went into the bank, where the robbers had poked a hole through the lobby wall with a pry bar and let them into the hair salon on the other side of the bank. They were able to break the glass out of the salon’s back door, and Bobby’s people were crawling one by one through the hole, scattering as they got out. I saw the bag I’d brought in and grabbed it before following the crowd.

  “It turned out there was one more thing Bobby’s group didn’t know about Cosmic’s uncle. He and his friend were both armed. The police breached the bank before everyone got out of the salon and a shootout ensued.”

  “James was the acid thrower’s father, I take it?” Harriet asked.

  “I guess so. We never talked about his family. I mean, why would he talk to a fifteen-year-old about his personal life?

  “Like I told you before, some people, my brother included, were captured and did jail time. Without James to identify the players, they weren’t able to arrest some of the people. A few were wounded, but James was the only fatality.

  “As for me, I hid in the woods with Paisley. We climbed way up into a tree, and they never saw us.

  “I’m not sure who, if anyone, else in the police knew my true identity. James always just called me Jonquil. Without him to back up my story, I was sure I would be arrested along with everyone else, especially since what I had told him wasn’t what had actually happened. I mean, if he’d lived, he could have arrested me for obstruction or something.

  “In any case, Paisley and I hid in the woods until dark and then hitchhiked out of town. We drifted around, doing odd jobs and panhandling for six months, before we ended up in Georgeville at the commune. It was days before I opened the duffel bag—I took it with us assuming it was evidence that could be used against us and our friends.

  “When we did open it, and saw all that money, we figured they could trace us through the serial numbers if we spent any of it. When we got settled in the commune, I hid it, and then when they taught me how to quilt, I put it in the batting. The center square of the quilt was made from the shirt I was wearing.

  “Before we’d left town, I’d gone back to the car, which was still hidden in the alley. I grabbed somebody’s shirt, and Paisley took a jacket and some shorts. We wore the same clothes until we reached the commune. A lot of people were hitchhiking around the country in those days, so we didn’t have any trouble finding rides and places to sleep and things to eat.”

  “The commune had a midwife, and she had a subspecialty of creating new identities. She was older and apparently had been doing this her whole career. Every month or two, she would file a birth certificate using names of people she knew, or sometimes she made names up for the parents. Later, she’d apply for a Social Security card, and even take out a modest insurance policy of the sort grandparents would buy for a grandchild. By the time we arrived, she had a fat file of valid identities just waiting for bodies to bring them to life. I became Jenny and Paisley became Donna.

  “I was immersed in the commune for six years. The war in Vietnam wound down, and the commune’s truck farm became successful—they were on the leading edge of the organic food movement. I realized I wanted more out of life than growing bigger radishes. They were very supportive when I wanted to get my GED and go on to junior college. When I got my associate’s degree, I got a job and an apartment.”

  “So, how did you end up back on the West Coast?” Lauren asked.

  “That was a horrifying coincidence,” Jenny said. “I met my husband in Minnesota. He was in graduate school, and I worked in the registrar’s office. We got married after he graduated, and his first job was in Texas. His company eventually bought a sm
all company in Foggy Point, and he was transferred here. It was a promotion, and how could I possibly argue that?

  “He had no idea I had any connection here. We moved here, and I hoped Lynnwood was far enough away from Foggy Point, and that enough time had passed, that I wouldn’t run into anyone I’d known before. And until now, that’s been the case. Of course, that’s assuming that whoever is causing the problems now is one of the people from my old life.”

  “I’d say that’s a pretty safe assumption,” Lauren said.

  “So, all that stuff you told us about your dad leaving and your mother being in a commune was all a lie?” Harriet asked. “You really had two parents who lost their daughter at the age of fifteen?”

  “I know it sounds awful, but believe me, Bobby was the only one who would have cared, and he had his own problems. If they’d paid any attention to us at all, Bobby wouldn’t have been growing and selling drugs, and I wouldn’t have been his drug mule.”

  “Before, you said the robbers told Bobby’s group about the bank robbery. Now you say he didn’t know,” Lauren said thoughtfully. “Which story are we supposed to believe?”

  “You were all pressuring me, and I was trying to rewrite history on the fly so that my part of it didn’t exist. Cosmic might have known, but believe me, his uncle would never have trusted the rest of the group with that.”

  “And you’ve never told anyone?” Harriet asked.

  “Not a soul,” Jenny said, and for once, Harriet believed her.

  Chapter 30

  Lauren took the teacups downstairs and returned a few minutes with refills of fragrant orange spice tea. Jenny and Harriet sat, each lost in her own thoughts, while she was gone.

  “I thought the spicy tea would go better with the gingersnaps,” she said.

  “Given all that you’ve just told us, you must have some idea who’s been killing people,” Harriet told Jenny.

  “Yeah,” Lauren chimed in. “And you must have some idea if you’re the target.”

  “I think the shooting of Pamela Gilbert leaves no doubt Jenny was the target,” Harriet said.

  “Who did the shirt belong to?” Lauren asked.

  “I don’t know,” Jenny said. “And that’s the truth. All the guys wore shirts that looked vaguely alike. Everyone used that car. It wasn’t like it is today, where most of the kids get late-model cars when they turn sixteen. The back seat of that old car had everything from jackets to bikinis, with bags of granola alongside Twinkies and cans of soda. I grabbed what was handy.”

  “My guess is someone recognized their shirt. Your centerpiece is pretty distinctive,” Harriet said.

  “Why would they wait so long for revenge?” Jenny asked. “All of them that got arrested would have gotten out decades ago.”

  “With your change of identity, they probably didn’t know how to find you,” Lauren suggested.

  “I suppose,” Jenny mused. “Still, if even my brother had cleaned up, surely, everyone else would have grown up and moved on by now.”

  “If they haven’t, and they figured out you were the snitch, it would be a pretty good motive for revenge.” Harriet said.

  “Now you just have to figure out which one of the group it is,” Lauren said. “I can help you with that if you can tell me the names.”

  Jenny clamped her lips shut and furrowed her brow.

  “That could be a problem,” she said.

  “How so?” Harriet asked.

  “Remember I referred to people as Cosmic, Tranquility, and Paisley? There was also a Cedar, a Sunshine and an Einstein. I never knew their real names.”

  Lauren covered her eyes with the palms of her hands, tilting her head downward.

  “You’re not making it easy to help you. I guess I can try to find more newspaper articles and public records regarding the robbery, although if any of them were minors, they wouldn’t print their names.”

  “At least it would be a start,” Harriet said.

  “Thank you so much for being willing to help me after all the lies I’ve told you,” Jenny said.

  “You need to call Detective Morse and come clean,” Harriet told her.

  “I will, but I think I owe it to the rest of the Threads to tell them first.”

  “As long as you tell Morse before anything else has a chance to happen,” Harriet said.

  “Not to sound like your aunt,” Lauren said to Harriet, “but you’re looking a little gray. I know you think you’re superwoman, but I think you need to do what everyone’s been telling you and take a nap.”

  “I need to go get a pain pill, and then I promise, I will take a nap.”

  “Stay put,” Lauren said. Scooter and Fred got up to follow her. “I supposed I have to feed you two little wretches while I’m downstairs, too. I am turning into Beth.”

  “Don’t forget,” Harriet said to Jenny. “This isn’t over yet. You may have shared your past, but someone dangerous is still out there. You and Lauren need to stay together until you can connect with Robin or DeAnn or somebody. And I’m guessing you get it that you can’t go home.”

  “I’ll need to go get some clothes, but I promise—I won’t go alone.”

  “That’s all I ask.”

  “Okay, Sicko,” Lauren said a few minutes later, “here’s your pill, here’s a glass of water. Your cookie plate is reloaded.” She looked around the room and piled the extra throws on the end of the sofa. “Here’s the remote control for your TV, although you are supposed to be sleeping. Your pets have been fed, and I took Scooter out. I’m done being a nursemaid. And yes, I won’t let Jenny go anywhere unless she has an escort.”

  “Thank you,” Harriet said. “I mean it.”

  “Yeah, whatever,” Lauren said, and left.

  Harriet woke to find Mavis sitting in the upholstered chair next to her. She’d pulled a small needlepoint-covered footrest in front of the chair and had her feet up and her eyes closed. She woke with a start when Harriet sat up.

  “Hi, honey,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind I came over. When I saw Lauren she said you were sleeping at home alone, and it worried me. I thought I’d come over and see if I could fix you a snack and keep you company for a while.”

  “Sure, make yourself at home.”

  “Let me go see what I can rustle up in the kitchen,” Mavis said and went downstairs.

  Harriet’s cell phone buzzed, and she picked it up to check caller ID. It was Tom.

  “I appreciate the offer,” she said after they’d exchanged greetings and he had asked her out to dinner. “But I’m housebound.”

  She related the results of her doctor appointment. He suggested takeout.

  “The idea of dinner with you sounds wonderful, but I think I need to follow doctor’s orders this time.”

  She had barely ended the conversation when Mavis called upstairs, “Harriet? There’s someone here to see you. Can you come down?”

  Colm Byrne stood in her kitchen.

  “Oh, my gosh.”

  “Did you forget our date?” he asked with a smile.

  “I guess so. I wasn’t sure you were serious.”

  “I was, but if this isn’t a good time…”

  “When I went to get my bandage changed, the doctor wasn’t happy with my progress, so I’ve been grounded.”

  “Harriet can probably handle a short visit,” Mavis said. “I was just going to fix her a snack. Would you like to stay and have a bite to eat?”

  “I’m never one to turn down a home-cooked meal,” Colm said.

  “You two can go sit in the dining room, and I’ll bring it out when it’s ready.”

  Harriet led him instead to her formal living room and sat in her Victorian rocking chair.

  “This week has been a real trip, as they used to say,” he said. “I hope it did what the planners hoped for.”

  “I haven’t heard a lot of the results because of the other stuff going on, but what I’ve heard has been positive.”

  “We were shocked when that wo
man was killed,” Colm said. “Regardless of what people think about rock singers, we’re just like everyone else. In Ireland, we were raised with violence all around us. My family lived in Belfast. We were raised Catholic. Every day, there were riots or bombings or both.” He shuddered. “The lads and I used music as our way out. For a lot of years, we played clubs and parties, but eventually, we started getting bigger gigs, and finally, we made it out.”

  “I can’t imagine how frightening it must have been to live in a war zone,” Harriet said. “How do the two sides get past their differences after decades of fighting?”

  “You just have to want peace more than war,” Colm said. The lads in the band feel the same way. We swore that, if we ever made it big, we’d use our wealth and influence to support peace projects, and so far, that’s exactly what we’ve done.”

  “Even if it was your friend that was killed?” Harriet asked. “When my friend was killed earlier this year, I couldn’t leave it alone until justice was served.”

  “I didn’t say it was easy,” he said in his lilting brogue. “The peace project helps, but when that woman was killed, Sean had such an anxiety attack we had to take him to the emergency room.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Is he okay now? Murder was the last thing our planning committee imagined they’d be involved in. In fact, they’d rather blame it on an unfortunate case of domestic violence and move on.”

  “Does anyone have any idea what happened?” he asked.

  “Not that I’ve heard. There was originally some idea it was the victim’s husband, but now they think my friend Jenny was the intended target. There were three quilters who were wearing identical costumes that night. It’s awful, but Jenny is hoping it’s the ex-husband, too.”

  “But that’s not what you think?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. With Jenny’s brother being killed, and everything else that’s happened, it’s hard to believe the ex-husband would coincidentally choose the same weekend to kill his wife.”

  “It was a festival weekend, though,” Colm countered. “More than one person may have thought that having a crowd of strangers in town would provide good cover for whatever they wanted to do.”