"Later,” he said and leaned in for a quick kiss before going out the door.
Harriet returned to the table and sat down again.
"I should get going, too,” she said. “As soon as I finish this.” She picked up her half-eaten piece of pizza.
"We all need to get going,” Mavis said. “We've spent so much time trying to outwit the Small Stitches that, if we're not careful, we won't have anything finished in time for the auction, prize-winning or otherwise."
"I hear you,” Beth said. “Let me get a box for our leftovers."
[Back to Table of Contents]
Chapter 28
Harriet zipped her hoodie as she walked to her car. A cold gust of wind slammed into her from the side, sending a shiver down her spine. There was a definite nip of fall in the air.
She had moved back to Foggy Point from California in the early spring and had so far been able to avoid shopping for cold-weather clothes; she could tell her hoodie wasn't going to cut it much longer, and she would have to make the drive to Seattle to buy some real winter wear.
Joseph's house was dark when she passed it, save for a pale-yellow glow in one downstairs window. She slowed and tried to look down the driveway to see if his car was there, but the drive curved around behind the house where it most likely ended in a detached garage that had been a carriage house in former times. It was an arrangement common to most of the Victorian houses in the area.
She toyed with the idea of stopping but looked at the time and decided she'd better go on to DeAnn's and deliver the now slightly less tattered quilt.
She pulled up to the curb in front of DeAnn's house and couldn't help but notice a familiar car parked in front of hers.
"Are you just now delivering Iloai's quilt?” Lauren asked. “DeAnn's already getting the girl ready for bed. It's hard to tell without speaking her language, but I think she's missing that quilt."
Harriet sighed. “Yes, I'm delivering the quilt. What are you doing here?"
"You don't have to get your knickers in a twist. I was only stating the obvious. And if you must know, I downloaded a list of basic words from all the major South Pacific languages and gave them to DeAnn so she can try some of them."
So much for taking it slow, Harriet thought.
"Mavis and my aunt were hoping to not bother DeAnn with our idle speculation until we'd been able to verify the facts."
"I wouldn't want to contradict the Delphic Oracle and her sidekick, but DeAnn was grateful for the help, and for your information, she's tried out the languages and Iloai responds to Samoan."
"That's great,” Harriet said in a tone that didn't sound sincere to either one of them.
"Gotta go,” Lauren said with a smirk. “I've got quilt blocks to make."
"Two steps forward, one step back,” Harriet muttered. “See you,” she said louder and headed for the front door.
DeAnn greeted her on the porch.
"Did Lauren tell you?” she asked. “She figured out Iloai is Samoan."
"That's great,” Harriet said, with feigned enthusiasm.
"She narrowed it to somewhere in the South Pacific and brought us lists of words from each of the local languages. We hit the jackpot on the third try. I said ina, which means drink, and her face lit up like we'd never seen. She started babbling and clapping her hands. David is on his way to the bookstore in Port Angeles—they have a Samoan/English dictionary. The owner is going to keep the store open until he gets there.
"What am I thinking, leaving you standing out here in the cold on the porch?” She stood aside so Harriet could enter. “Come in. Would you like some tea?"
"No, thank you,” Harriet said. “I have the quilt.” She pulled it from her canvas bag and held it up.
"This looks wonderful. Let's go give it to her. She's in the family room with the boys. They're trying to learn how to pronounce the list of words by getting her to say them."
Iloai was sitting on the edge of the overstuffed sofa between DeAnn's sons. She slid to the floor at the sight of her quilt, and ran over to grab it from DeAnn as soon as they came into the room.
"You sure you don't want some tea?” DeAnn asked again.
"Okay, I guess I could drink a small cup. I need to go back and work on my blocks for the auction. We've wasted a lot of time deciding on our designs, so we're going to have to hustle to get the quilts done."
"I'm sure it's not helping that I'm not contributing anything,” DeAnn said as she led the way to the kitchen.
"That's not the problem,” Harriet assured her. “Really. Our trouble has been the Small Stitches copying our designs. Plus, none of us has had a great inspiration. I guess too many of us are cat people,” she finished with a laugh. “We have a plan, of sorts, finally. Now we all have to make our blocks and get the quilts put together."
"I wish I could contribute something. This...” She spread her arms to indicate her house and the people in it. “...has been pretty all-consuming, though."
"Don't worry,” Harriet said, and took the cup of steaming tea DeAnn offered her. “You just focus on your new daughter."
"I wonder why Joseph thought she was from Africa,” DeAnn said. “It seems like a big thing to get confused about."
"Mavis and Aunt Beth and I were wondering the same thing at dinner tonight."
"You knew?"
"Not for sure, but we were just figuring it out when Lauren came by and told us what she'd figured out."
"She forgot to mention that part,” DeAnn said with a knowing smile.
"Well, like we were saying, it seems strange that, with all the work involved in setting up an adoption, you could mistake the location of the orphanage you were getting a child from."
"You could maybe understand it if they had just confused one African country with another, but Samoa is half a world away, isn't it?"
"We came up with a few scenarios that could explain it, but if you ask me, they were pretty far-fetched. There's something else going on here. We just have to figure out what."
"There's one more thing that's been bothering me,” DeAnn said, looking down at her hands as she spoke. “If Iloai has been living in an overcrowded orphanage most of her life, why is she so anxious to be anywhere but here? Are we that terrible by comparison?"
A tear fell onto her napkin, and she wiped her cheek with the back of her hand.
"No, that's not possible.” Harriet reached across the table and squeezed her hand. “There are things we don't know yet, that's all. We'll get to the bottom of this, and in the meantime, you're not alone. The Threads are all here for you—whatever you need, whenever you need it, let one of us know. And just in case, one of us will be checking on you every day."
Mavis and Aunt Beth would have been proud if they'd heard her, Harriet thought.
The two women sipped their tea while DeAnn dabbed at her tears with her napkin.
"I can tell you one thing,” she said when she'd regained her composure. “I'll be at the door to Little Lamb Adoption Agency tomorrow morning, and I will have some answers."
"You better call before you go if you're hoping to talk to Joseph. My aunt and I stopped by there this morning, and he hadn't showed up. Phyllis was pretty worried."
"Great,” DeAnn said and leaned back in her chair, her face tilted up at the ceiling.
"I better get going,” Harriet said. “I've got blocks to work on."
"Thanks for fixing Iloai's blanket and...and for everything."
Harriet got up and carried her teacup to the sink. She rinsed it, then picked up her bag and purse and headed to the front door. DeAnn followed.
"I'll let you know if we hear anything about Joseph,” Harriet said, and went out into the chilly air.
She slowed once again as she drove by Joseph's house on her way home. The same downstairs window glowed yellow. She had almost passed the stately Victorian when she thought she saw a shadow move across the illuminated space, blocking the light for a second. She pulled into the next driveway she came to
and turned around, parking at the curb in front of Joseph's house.
No more shadowy movement interrupted the light, so Harriet got out of her car and went up to the front door. Joseph's house was not the common style people think of as Victorian; his didn't have the broad porch or steep roofs with gingerbread trim. Only the fact Harriet had spent several of her boarding school years in France allowed her to identify the squared-off roof lines and tall narrow construction as the mansard style of Victorian. That particular design put the window Harriet was looking for directly above a large rhododendron shrub, just beyond reach from the porch.
She knocked on the door, waited then knocked again, but no one answered. She knocked a third time and listened for any sound that might indicate Joseph was inside. Nothing.
She stood for a moment trying to decide what to do next. She put her hands in the pockets of her sweatshirt and felt the smooth surface of her new cell phone. She pulled it out and pressed the wake-up button then dialed information and asked the operator for Joseph Marston's home phone number. She was connected, and a moment later could hear the distant sound of a phone ringing somewhere inside the house. She hung up when the voice mail came on. If Joseph was inside, he wasn't interested in having company.
Harriet stepped back off the porch and pushed between the bushes to the window. Concealed by the shrubbery was a cement window well that provided access to a lower floor window protected by an ornate wrought iron grill. She had stepped onto the cement surround, preparing to look in the lighted window, when she thought she saw a flicker of movement through the lower window in her peripheral vision. She wasn't sure if she'd really seen anything, but decided she'd better check it out, just in case.
The blow to her back, when it came, did two things. It knocked the wind out of her, and it forced her down into the window well, twisting her ankle. Pain shot up her leg, and she tried to cry out, but without air in her lungs, no sound came out.
Tears streamed down her cheeks as she struggled to breathe and, at the same time, move her body to relieve the pressure on her ankle. In her shock and pain, she couldn't hear anything but her own wheezing attempts to make her diaphragm work again.
She'd just managed a partial breath and was struggling to lift herself out of her cement prison when a heavy weight hit her from above and crushed her back into the window well. She sucked in a ragged breath, thankful she was finally able to breathe again.
Something large had been thrown into the window well on top of her, and the space wasn't big enough for both. She wriggled around until she could get her arms in front of her and her knees under her, then she pushed with all her strength. She managed to heave whatever had been thrown on top of her off to the side and squeeze past it and out of the confined space.
A sharp pain shot across her low back where she'd been hit the first time. It was dark behind the shrubs, but she could see well enough to determine the “something” that had been shoved on top of her was most probably a person.
A wave of nausea hit as she tried to stand and put weight on her ankle. She immediately crouched down, taking the weight off her damaged leg. Whoever was lying in a heap at her feet was dressed in dark clothes. It was a man.
She carefully scooted around the body then reached into her sweatshirt pocket and, miraculously, found her cell phone still there. She pulled it out and pressed the wake-up button, which lit up the screen, illuminating the immediate area. She held the phone next to the man's face to see if she could detect signs of breathing and almost dropped it. She'd been assuming it was Joseph, but it wasn't—it was Rodney Miller. And he wasn't breathing.
Harriet staggered to her feet and, with great effort, turned Rodney onto his back. She knelt beside him, carefully positioning her damaged ankle, then tilted his head back and began chest compressions, but nothing happened. His skin felt cool to her touch; eventually, that fact seeped into her brain, and she realized he probably hadn't been breathing for a while.
She pulled her cell phone from her pocket one more time and dialed 911.
"Police,” she said into the phone in response to the operator's question. “There's a man here, and he's not breathing...Harriet. Harriet Truman...It doesn't matter where I live. I'm at Joseph Marston's house with a dead man,” she screamed.
Shortly thereafter, she heard the sound of sirens, distant at first but drawing closer. She reached out toward Rodney then snatched her hand back before taking a deep breath and making herself reach out again.
"What secrets have you been keeping, Rodney?” she asked his supine form as she patted the outside pockets of his leather jacket, but all she found was a half-empty pack of sugar-free gum.
"I want you to know, I'm really sorry someone did this to you, and I'll do my best to figure out who did it and bring them to justice.” She continued talking, more to calm herself than anything else. “Help me out here. You must have something that can help me."
She pulled the right sleeve of her sweatshirt over her hand and carefully opened the front of Rodney's jacket. She tugged the left side up, revealing the inside breast pocket. She tried to reach into it with her fingers covered by the sweatshirt, but it became clear the shirt and her fingers weren't both going to fit. The sound of sirens was so loud the trucks had to be on Joseph's street already. She gave up and used her bare fingertips to extract a small black notebook and stuffed it into the pocket of her sweatshirt, zipping the pocket shut.
The fire engine and its companion paramedic truck were the first to arrive. Harriet forced herself to her feet and pushed through the rhododendron branches, waving to the First Responders. The chubby blond paramedic who had come to Aiden's when they'd found Neelie came straight to her and began assessing her injuries. An older man went through the branches and knelt next to Rodney. Harriet could see his feet below the leaf line as he rose a moment later and came through the bushes again, shaking his head as he came toward her and her attendant.
"Can you tell me what happened?” her paramedic asked her.
She described the hit to her back and the resulting fall into the window well.
"Let's have a look at your back,” he said, pulling a pair of bandage scissors from the leg pocket of his navy blue cargo pants. He slipped a penlight from his shirt pocket, turned it on and held it in his teeth.
"Whoa, there,” Harriet said and blocked his hand. “I can take my shirt off—you don't need to cut it."
"Actually, I do,” the blond guy said. “I don't want you moving around that much until we see what we're dealing with."
"I don't have that many clothes,” she protested. It was a weak argument, and it was her own fault that she hadn't attended to her fall clothes shopping yet.
"How about we slip off the hoodie, and I can cut your shirt close to the seam so you can sew it back up if you want to."
Harriet agreed with a sigh and shrugged to help him slide her hoodie off. True to his word, he cut her shirt along the seam line from waist to armpit and then along the sleeve seam.
The paramedic gently probed her lower back where she'd taken the blow. She winced and reflexively pulled away from the pain of his touch.
"I think the doctors are going to want to get an ultrasound and probably an MRI of your kidney area,” he said. “Let me get your blood pressure.” He took her blood pressure, listened to her heart and lungs and probed her back, more gently this time. He called to the other paramedic, “We're going to need the gurney here,” he said. He turned back to Harriet. “Let's have a look at that ankle,"
He unlaced her shoe and carefully peeled it off her foot. He pulled his scissors out again and cut her sock off. Harriet's foot hurt so much she didn't protest.
"Looks like a nasty sprain,” the blond said, shining his penlight on her ankle.
She looked down, but he had already flicked the light off.
"I don't think it's broken,” he offered. “I saw you stepping on it when you came through the bushes when we first arrived. I don't think you could have done that if it w
as broken, but I'm sure the docs will want an x-ray to make sure."
"Can I make a phone call?"
"Sure. Let's get you on the gurney first."
Harriet wasn't sure which call she dreaded the most—Aunt Beth or Aiden. Both were going to involve long lectures.
"What happened to Rodney?” she asked, finally thinking beyond her own immediately pain.
"It that the man we found on the ground?"
"Yes,” she said impatiently. “He's dead, right? What happened to him?"
"He is dead, but that's all I know."
Of course he didn't know, she realized, he'd been with her since arriving.
"Can you find out?"
"Not really,” he said. “Once we determine a person has died of unknown causes, our job is to preserve the evidence. We can't go near the body until after the police are through. And by the way, when you make your calls, have your people meet you at the emergency room. The police aren't going to want anyone else contaminating the scene."
The other paramedic had wheeled the gurney next to where Harriet sat on the ground. He came around to her side opposite the blond.
"Be careful,” the blond told him, “she's got a big bruise on her back. She might have internal injuries."
The second paramedic rolled his eyes, obviously annoyed at the suggestion he would be less than careful with any patient. Harriet got the sense this was an ongoing conflict.
She struggled upright and was attempting to balance on her good foot when the two men in blue broke their staring contest and remembered there was a third person present.
"Here, let us help you,” the blond said.
Both paramedics put an arm under hers and supported her weight, grasped her under her thighs and lifted her onto the gurney when they had her positioned close to its padded surface. The blond then released the brake and began pushing her across the grass to the driveway where they had parked their emergency response truck.
Quilt by Association Page 16
