Thread the Halls

by Lea Wait

  She held her crossed fingers up in front of me.

  “Thank you, yes. That’s good news. I appreciate it. And see you tonight, too, Marian!” Gram put down her phone. “He was released late last night. Wasn’t even admitted—was in the emergency room until he was well enough to go home.”

  “Fantastic! Thank you for doing that, Gram. I forgot you were a miracle worker.”

  “Not me, Angel. But I’m learning being the wife of a minister can sometimes come in handy. So now you know where he is. Or at least that he’s either at his house or at Aurora.”

  “With no way to reach him,” I added glumly, pointing at my phone. “Or, even more important, knowing whether he’d want to talk to me.”

  “So call Bev Clifford.”

  “What?”

  “You said the police took the phones at Aurora. Did they take Bev’s?”

  “Gram, you’re a genius! They didn’t. And I’m guessing you have her number.”

  “Sure do,” Gram said. “Here. Even if someone else sees her phone, they’ll think I was the one calling.”

  What if she said Skye was still furious? What if Patrick now hated me? I steeled myself for the worst. But I had to know. I pressed the button.

  “Charlotte! Merry Christmas. I didn’t expect to hear from you today!”

  “Bev, it’s not Charlotte. It’s Angie. I’m using her phone. My house lost power, so I stayed at the rectory last night. Does Aurora have power?”

  “All we need. Angie, girl, how’re you doing, after all that happened yesterday?”

  I could hear Bev moving, maybe to the solarium, so no one would walk into the kitchen and hear her talking. “I’m fine, Bev. But I want to know how Patrick is. I heard he was released from the hospital last night.”

  “He was. I warmed up dinner for he and his mom at close to midnight. His mother couldn’t bear for him to be alone at the carriage house, so he slept in one of the extra rooms on the third floor.”

  “He’s all right?”

  “Looks a bit peaked this morning, but seems all right to me. Ate a stack of blueberry pancakes, so there’s nothing wrong with his appetite, I can tell you.”

  I smiled. At Bev, for making blueberry pancakes on December 24, and for Patrick, for eating them. He was a pretty good cook, but I suspected he’d never made blueberry pancakes for himself. I should learn to make them.

  If we were still a couple.

  “Does Skye still think I poisoned him? What does he think?”

  “That I don’t know. Neither of them mentioned you to me,” she said. “But it might interest you to know that Sergeant Pete Lambert is here, talking to them both right now.”

  “Would you let me know when they’re finished?”

  “I’ll call the minute they are,” she said. “I’ll be stirring and mixing and such all day, for the big party tonight.”

  “I’ll let you go. But thank you, Bev!”

  I handed the telephone back to Gram. “Patrick spent the night at Aurora. Bev says he looks fine. Pete Lambert’s talking with Patrick and Skye right now. Bev promised to call when they finish.”

  “You go get dressed now, Angel. If she calls on my phone, I’ll bring it to you. And how about oatmeal and maple syrup for breakfast?”

  “That would be great.” I hugged Gram. “Thank you, as always.”

  “No thanks necessary, but always appreciated. Now, go get some warm clothes on. Snow may be stopping, but it’s still bitter out there.”

  Chapter 50

  “We, Hermia, like two artificial Gods,

  Have with our needles created both one flower,

  Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion.”

  —Helena, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream by English poet and playwright William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616), Act 3, Scene 2.

  Bev didn’t call back immediately. By the time I’d gotten myself cleaned up and dressed, Gram had put steaming bowls of oatmeal on the table.

  I hadn’t had oatmeal made with maple syrup in years. Another reminder that I needed to spend some time with Gram finding out how she’d made all the comfort food I remembered from my childhood. Someday soon.

  What was happening at Aurora? What was Pete talking to Skye and Patrick about? If it had been about Paul’s death, Ethan would have been there with him. So was it about those cookies?

  I tried to focus on breakfast, and chat with Gram about the church pageant that night, but my mind wasn’t in the rectory.

  My phone was the one to ring. Caller ID said it was Bev. “What’s happening, Bev? I thought you’d never call.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you,” said Patrick’s voice. “But Mrs. Clifford is very involved with oyster shucking just now. I volunteered to help, but she said I have enough problems with my hands. I don’t need to mess with knives and oysters.”

  “Patrick!” I said.

  “So she suggested instead of shucking, I could return a call she’d gotten a while back from a mutual friend of ours.”

  “It’s so good to hear your voice! How are you?”

  “Alive. Very much so. And looking forward to seeing you a little later today.”

  “Wait. Your mother said she never wanted to see me again. She was sure I’d poisoned those cookies you ate.”

  “Sorry I missed that scene. Pete Lambert was just here, and he implied it must have been uncomfortable.”

  “Uncomfortable! Your mother called the cops and asked them to arrest me!”

  “And she’ll be apologizing to you later, I’m sure. She was upset, Angie. You know how mothers get.”

  No. But I did know how grandmothers got.

  “Has Pete figured out where the cookies came from?”

  “No, but he was able to check fingerprints on that tin they were in. He has yours on record, Angie—from when you applied for a conceal carry license last May.”

  “I remember. After that they changed the law so I didn’t have to file any paperwork.”

  “Whatever. Anyway, Pete said there were several sets of prints on the tin box, but none were yours. So chances are you weren’t the one trying to kill me.”

  I felt as though I could breathe for the first time in hours. “No, the cookies weren’t from me.” Which was what I’d said, over and over, yesterday. “He’s running the other prints?”

  “So he says. In the meantime, I’ve sworn only to eat food I know was prepared by Mrs. Beverly Clifford.”

  I heard Bev chortle in the distance.

  “So when are you coming to Aurora?” he asked.

  “Is everyone there?”

  “In person,” he assured me.

  “Because I do need to talk to them about their plans for a screenplay set in Haven Harbor. I’d like to do that before the party tonight.”

  “Why don’t you come in about an hour? Everyone should be around then. We’re not going to have lunch. Mrs. Clifford cooked an enormous brunch and we all pigged out, even Blaze. We’ve promised not to raid the kitchen again until dinner tonight. Later on I suspect naps will be taken and primping will take place. But late this morning everyone will probably be working on that screenplay.”

  “I’m at the rectory—my house has no power—but the streets and driveways are plowed. I’ll have to clean where the plows have been by and blocked the driveway, but I can be there about eleven.”

  “Oh—and Mrs. Clifford wants to know if your stepgrandfather needs extra food for his warming center?” Patrick sounded confused.

  “Warming centers are places that welcome people without heat or light in the winter. Reverend Tom has one at his church. Tell her they’re fine now, but if the power’s still out tonight, anything she could contribute would be great.”

  “I’ll pass that message along. Angie, sorry for what Mom said and did yesterday afternoon. She got overexcited and worried.”

  “I understand.” I didn’t, actually. She hadn’t trusted me. And where had those cookies come from? The situation wasn’t funny. I suspected Skye didn’t th
ink it was, either.

  Chapter 51

  “Favour Is Deceitful

  And Beauty is Vaine

  But A Woman That Feareth The Lord

  She Shall Be Praised.”

  —Ten-year old Abigail Williams of Deerfield, Massachusetts, stitched this cross-stitched Bible verse (Proverbs 31:30), two alphabets, baskets of fruit, a tree, and two crowned lions, within an elaborate border of carnations and squares, in 1740.

  I left Trixi safe and warm at the rectory. No one had attempted to clear their sidewalk yet, and I knew I wouldn’t be doing mine today. I wasn’t the only one walking in the street that now was covered with frozen snow speckled with salt and sand. Black and white. A winter walk into a black and white photograph.

  Today was chilly, but the air smelled fresh. Walking to the rectory through the storm yesterday, carrying heavy bags, had seemed to take forever. Today walking home took only a few minutes. I checked my house. It was cold, but fine. In case power wasn’t restored today, I tossed some makeup and a couple of extra changes of underwear in a bag and changed into clean jeans and a heavy wool sweater.

  I didn’t linger. The house’s temperature had fallen to forty-eight degrees, according to a thermometer in the upstairs hall. Not a time to lounge about in my underwear.

  I pushed my way through the lowest drifts to the barn. Inside, my car was as dirty as it usually was in winter, but it was clear of snow. Driving on sanded, salted roads is rough on cars. People joked that you could tell a true Mainers’ car by the amount of rust on the parts of its body and frame closest to the road.

  I tossed my bag in the car and shoveled out the door of the barn, where the wind and plows had deposited about two feet of snow, and the end of the driveway, which was blocked by a little less.

  By the time I got into the car, I was sweating and ready for a nap.

  Instead, I headed toward Aurora.

  The driveway there was not only plowed out, but the front steps had been shoveled, and the pathway between Aurora and the carriage house cleared. Patrick and Skye paid Jed Fitch more than I did to keep their homes accessible.

  Patrick answered the door. He was paler than usual, I noticed in the second before he opened his arms and hugged me. “I’m so sorry about yesterday,” he said quietly in my ear. “I wish I’d been awake so I could have stopped Mom.”

  “I hope you’re not apologizing for being poisoned?” I said. “Because that would be really stupid.”

  Patrick helped me remove my jacket, as Skye came over. She also hugged me, although not with the same exuberance as her son. “I’m sorry for what I said yesterday, Angie. Truly I am. Sergeant Lambert assured us you had nothing to do with those poisoned cookies. He’s been such a help, I invited him to come to the dinner tonight. The more the merrier!” She lowered her voice. “And thank you for the pillows you dropped off yesterday. Mrs. Clifford gave them to me. They’re perfect! I’ve already wrapped them and put them under the tree. You’ll be here tonight, right? Because we open our gifts Christmas Eve, and I’d love you to see how delighted my guests will be.”

  Tonight? I’d have to bring Patrick’s gift with me to the party. Good thing Skye warned me. “I’m looking forward to tonight,” I assured her.

  She took a folded check out of a pocket in her slacks and handed it to me. “Here’s the money for all the work your group did. I added a little extra because they did those pillows so quickly.”

  “Thank you. They’ll appreciate that,” I assured her.

  “Now, Patrick tells me you have some concerns about this screenplay Thomas and Marie are outlining.” She raised her eyebrows. “I don’t know if you can convince them about anything they’ve set their hearts on, but I’m on your side. I didn’t invite them here to see a possible setting for a film. Although I’ll admit Haven Harbor is a beautiful iconic town, and it would be convenient for me to do a film here.”

  Patrick stood in back of her, making faces and looking at the ceiling.

  Whose side was Skye on?

  “What I’m concerned about is their filming any of the stories in Ruth Hopkins’s books,” I explained. “Thomas called her yesterday asking for contact information for her agent.” I turned to Patrick. “As far as Haven Harbor is concerned, Ruth’s books don’t exist. Very few people know she’s an author, and she wants it to stay that way. She was hurt you’d told people about them.”

  “I’m sorry, Angie. After you told me about the Chastity Falls books I read several. I liked them, and told Thomas and Marie about them.”

  It was Skye’s turn to look toward the ceiling. “I read one yesterday. They’re erotica, Patrick.”

  “True. Good erotica. And I loved the stories she told about traditional Mainers—people the world imagines as puritanical and stodgy—getting involved in sordid circumstances. Ruth has a great imagination.”

  “That’s one of the problems,” I said, being careful about how I phrased Ruth’s issue. “You see, Ruth didn’t entirely make up those stories.”

  “What do you mean? She’s the author, isn’t she?”

  “She is. But, as she explained it to me, plotting is a challenge for her, so she uses local gossip or situations involving people she knows as background for her erotica.”

  “You mean, those stories are true?” asked Skye.

  “Some of them, anyway. I’ve only read one of her books, and I don’t know the history of everyone in town, so I didn’t recognize anyone. But Ruth’s afraid that if a film is made including any of her stories, people would be embarrassed, and angry, and . . . you see the problem.”

  Patrick and Skye looked at each other and burst out laughing. “I can’t believe it,” said Patrick. “The teenaged son who finds his father in bed with his girlfriend and kills them both with a knife from his mother’s kitchen? The waitress who’s sleeping with every lobsterman in town? The baker who feels up all his daughter’s little friends? They’re all real?”

  I flinched. Patrick’s summary was already scaring me. I recognized myself in one of those summaries. Who knew what plots Ruth had used? How many people would be hurt by them?

  I looked away from Patrick and Skye and saw Bev in the hallway, outside the kitchen. I waved, and she nodded in response, but went back into the kitchen.

  “Ruth will be here tonight,” I reminded them both. “I want someone to assure her that none of her plots are going to turn up in movies.”

  “I’ll talk to Marv. I know him best, and he’ll talk with Thomas and Marie,” Skye promised. “But I have to tell you that if they change the names and the location and some of the details . . . If they’ve heard a story they like, they might use it. You can’t copyright a plot unless it’s an exact steal.”

  “Ruth never used the real names of the people involved in her stories,” I said. “And she’s already changed some of the details.”

  “I don’t think she has any cause to worry.” Skye patted my arm. “Don’t worry, dear. I’ll put her mind at ease. After all—it’s Christmas Eve! We should be celebrating, and enjoying a white Christmas in Maine.”

  I hoped Ruth would agree with her.

  Chapter 52

  “Honour and renown

  Will the ingenious crown.”

  —Stitched by Polly Turner, born February 15, 1775, in Warren, Rhode Island. Polly’s elaborate sampler was done in many stitches, had a floral border rising out of vases in the corners, birds flying at the top, sheep and a shepherdess, and, in the center, the President’s House at Brown University and ladies and gentlemen attending a reception there. Done at Miss Polly Balch’s School in 1799.

  I checked my house again before I went back to Gram’s. The power was still out, so I headed to the rectory.

  Gram had left me a note. She and Tom were over at the church supervising the final rehearsal of the pageant that would be part of the early Christmas Eve service.

  I felt guilty I wouldn’t be there. But Gram had known since Patrick invited us all to Aurora for Christmas Eve that my
life was conflicted.

  I hoped I’d made Ruth’s situation plain. Then I thought of her trying to get to Aurora tonight. Had she shoveled out her car? How would her rolling walker work in the snow?

  She answered my call right away. “Ruth, I’ve talked with Skye and Patrick. Skye said she’d talk to you tonight and assure you no one would know they’d gotten story ideas from your books.”

  “I don’t want them to use my books at all,” said Ruth. “Besides, I’m not sure I want to try to go to her party tonight. At my age I’m cautious about going out at night, and with all this snow, I’m not sure I’m up to it. You tell Skye I’d be happy to talk with her some other time.”

  “You should go tonight, Ruth! You found a dress to wear, right?”

  “Nothing like those glittery dresses you see on awards shows on the television. But it’ll do.”

  “Why don’t you get yourself fancied up, and I come to your house and help you and your walker get to my car?”

  “That’s a sweet idea, Angie. I’ll admit, I’m tempted. I’d been wanting to see what the inside of that place looks like now.”

  “I’ll call Sarah. I bet she’d come with us, too. It would be more fun than going alone. And I could drop you right at the door, and Sarah could help you inside while I park.”

  “You’ve convinced me, Angie. How lovely that you young people would help me like that. I sometimes feel like a stick-in-the-mud, staying to home in winter. But if these old bones fell down, I’d be in a real mess.”

  “Don’t worry about that. I’ll pick you up at about five-thirty.”

  “I’ll be ready. And, Angie . . . what food are you taking?”

  In Maine, no one ever went to someone’s home for dinner without contributing something. But I was sure Skye wasn’t expecting her guests to bring baked bean casseroles or plates of brownies to tonight’s gathering.

  On the other hand, maybe I should have gotten a Christmas gift for Skye. Would she give me one? “Just bring yourself, Ruth. No one’s taking anything. Bev Clifford is cooking, and you know how good she is.”