Thread and Gone

by Lea Wait

  It seemed the whole town was getting involved.

  Chapter 34

  With Gentle hand your daughters train

  The Housewifes various art to gain

  Or scenes domestic to preside

  The needle wheel and shuttle guide

  On Things of use to Fix the Heart

  And gild with every graceful art

  Teach them with neatest simplest dress

  A neat and Lovely Mind to express.

  —From sampler stitched in 1817

  The door of Mary’s house was open. I stepped inside. “It’s Angie. I’m here. And I brought food for supper.”

  “Com’on in! I’ll be right down.”

  I was already in, so I headed for her kitchen and put the meats, cheeses, and drinks in her refrigerator. The half-empty six-pack of Shipyard Ale inside told me she and Rob did occasionally use the house, no doubt for privacy. And she had said he’d been helping her sort through things recently.

  I hadn’t completely forgotten what it meant to be seventeen-almost-eighteen.

  Mary came down the stairs carefully, carrying a large carton. I reached up to help her with it.

  “Heavy,” I said as together we put it down on the living room floor.

  “Paper’s heavy,” she agreed. “There’s one carton like this over in that corner, this one, and another carton upstairs.”

  “I thought Jude might have come to help,” I said.

  Mary wrinkled her nose. “Jude isn’t interested in helping me clean out. All she’s interested in is Josh and getting out of Haven Harbor.”

  I remembered that feeling.

  “I’ve heard Josh talk like that, too. Are they planning to go together?”

  Mary considered. “I haven’t asked her. She’d like that. I’m not sure what Josh wants, though. He’s not exactly dependable. And right now, since Arvin’s been giving him the sternman job most days, Rob doesn’t want to talk about either of them.”

  “Jude did seem very interested in the needlepoint this afternoon, though,” I said, getting down on the floor next to the carton.

  “She did, didn’t she?” Mary thought for a moment. “Even Josh and Arvin asked me about it the other day.” She shrugged. “Rob bragged about it right after we first took it to you, but he hasn’t mentioned it since it was stolen. I think he blames himself for encouraging me to take it to you. If we’d kept it here, we’d still have it.”

  I winced. “I still hope we can get it back.”

  “I hope so, too,” she said. “So—what are we looking for in all these books and papers?”

  “We need to find the connection between this embroidery, and the Clough family in Haven Harbor, and a cathedral in Reims, France, in the late seventeen hundreds or early eighteen hundreds. I assume most of these papers are connected to your family, so we’ll see the name Clough a lot. That won’t help by itself, unless it also mentions France. Other names to look for are Talleyrand or Tronson du Coudray or Marie Antoinette.”

  “I’d like to try to find the other Marys,” she said, picking up an early Webster’s Speller that was on the top of the pile. “You said there’d been a Mary in almost every generation for two hundred years. I’d like to know about the rest of them.”

  “We’ll add that to our search,” I agreed. “And Sarah and Dave Percy will join us later today.”

  “Mr. Percy, from school?” Mary asked.

  I nodded.

  “They both want to help?”

  “They do,” I assured her. “And I brought sandwich makings so we can eat here and keep working.”

  “Thank you, Angie,” she said. “I appreciate this.”

  “No problem,” I assured her. “Now, let’s get to work.”

  Most of the books in the cartons were old textbooks, although there were a few novels, a book on maritime law, several American Tract Society morality tales, and two old Bibles. We put the Bibles to one side because they contained lists of family members and Mary wanted to look through them more carefully later. One arithmetic book from 1879 had belonged to a Mary Clough. She kept that one out, too.

  We made a pile of ships’ logs from the second half of the nineteenth century—later than those we were looking for.

  We were about to start on the letters, some tied together, when Sarah arrived.

  “Wow! You’ve done a lot already,” she said, seeing Mary and I sitting on the floor surrounded by piles of paper.

  “But so far we haven’t found anything that helps,” I told her. “How did your meeting about carnival glass go?” I felt proud I’d remembered what it was her customer was looking for.

  “She bought one six-inch orange bowl in the rose pattern. Turned out she already had two larger bowls in the same pattern, so she was thrilled that it completed her set. But it was a small sale for me.” Sarah looked around. “I thought you were bringing food!”

  “Food’s in the kitchen,” I assured her. “Dave’s going to join us, too.”

  “Then let’s eat. I’m starved,” said Sarah.

  “Me too,” agreed Mary. “I’m ready to wash my hands and take a break.”

  We were eating our sandwiches and chips when Dave arrived. At first Mary seemed a little intimidated that one of her high school teachers was sitting in her kitchen. But soon she was calling him by his first name with the rest of us.

  We’d almost finished eating when Rob stomped in.

  “Mary, do you know where Josh and Arvin are?” he asked, ignoring the rest of us.

  “I haven’t seen them in days,” she said. “Jude might know. She’s working. Maine Waves is open until nine tonight. I’m pretty sure she talked to Josh earlier today.”

  “Thanks,” Rob said. He slammed the front door in back of him.

  “He’s upset about something,” I said, reaching for another chip or two before we got back to work.

  “He’s been angry a lot recently,” said Mary. “I don’t know why. Arvin seems to be hanging out more with Josh. Even if Rob’s getting married and is excited about setting up his own lobstering business, that shouldn’t make a difference to their friendship. Arvin’s already done both those things, and he still seems to be one of the boys, as they say.”

  A lot of things in Haven Harbor had changed in the past two weeks.

  Chapter 35

  One did commend me to a Wife Fair and Young

  That had French Spanish and Italian tongue

  I thankd him kindly and told him I loved

  none such

  I thought one tongue for a Wife too much

  What love ye not the Larned? Yes, as my Life

  A Learned Schollar, but not a Larned Wife.

  —Stitched by Lydia Kneeland,

  Boston, Massachusetts, 1741

  “Let’s see if we can find what you’re looking for,” said Sarah. “You’ve already gone through a lot.”

  “Books and some of the ships’ log,” I agreed. “And we separated out the family Bibles.”

  “Your grandmother was right. There are Marys in every generation,” said Mary. “I’m beginning to understand what my grandmother said when she told me I was ‘one of the Marys.’”

  “We’re putting aside anything related to a Mary,” I instructed the others. “Even if the reference won’t help us identify how the needlepoint got to Haven Harbor, it’s important to Mary.”

  “That would be great,” said Mary. “I didn’t know what to do with all these papers. Thank you so much for helping.”

  Mary and I had already made a major dent in the two cartons on the first floor.

  Dave and Mary went upstairs to get the last carton, while Sarah and I began sorting the loose papers. Maybe the papers had been organized before—Mary’d said she’d found them in different places in the house, in drawers and desks and in the attic—but they weren’t organized now.

  I found three old deeds for Mary’s house, showing how it had been transferred from one generation to another.

  Sarah found a g
roup of letters addressed to a Mary Clough from her husband, who was fighting in Europe in World War I.

  “I’d love to read these,” she said. “There’s fascinating history here.”

  “Why don’t you take them, then?” offered Mary, coming back into the room. “You’re welcome to read them. But then I’d like them back.”

  “Of course,” Sarah agreed, putting the packet of letters aside.

  History as I remembered it from textbooks was a bore. Stories of people who’d lived a hundred years ago in the town you knew well . . . that was another story. I pulled an empty liquor box from the pile of empty cartons in the corner to hold the “Mary” papers.

  It looked as though we’d all be there for a while.

  Silence reigned. All I heard was the gentle turn of pages; of envelopes from the past being opened and scanned quickly. Occasionally someone would read a sentence out loud or check a date. The number of papers in the “Mary” box grew, but nothing we found was connected with the needlepoint.

  “Here’s something that might help,” Dave said. “It’s a page from a ship’s log written by Captain Stephen Clough that shows his ship was in Le Havre in August of 1793. It doesn’t list the contents of the ship, but that would have been the voyage that carried French furnishings home to Boston and Maine.”

  Mary nodded. “Wow! Now we know the legend of his being there was true.”

  “Although we don’t know for sure what was on that ship,” I cautioned. “Or who Captain Clough was working with.”

  “No. But August 1793 was during the Reign of Terror—when so many aristocrats and wealthy people were seized and guillotined without trials. Marie Antoinette was in the Bastille then. She was executed in October,” Sarah pointed out.

  “Not a good year for the ruling classes. I’d still like us to find an inventory of what was on that ship, and who it belonged to,” I said, half joking. “Like, ‘leather packet containing Mary Stuart embroidery to take home to wife.’”

  “I don’t think we’re going to find anything like that,” said Sarah. “But at least now we have a ship leaving France and coming to the states at the time the clergy in Reims were hiding their valued artifacts. And we know Clough’s friend James Swan knew Talleyrand, the archbishop in Reims, and Talleyrand knew Tronson du Coudray, Marie Antoinette’s lawyer.”

  We kept looking. After a couple of hours Dave got up, stretched, and brought three beers and one soda (for Mary) from the kitchen.

  The search went on.

  Mary was the one who found it. “Here’s a note signed by that Talleyrand person,” she said. “It’s in English, and it’s faded. But—look!” she said, handing the note to me. “It’s thanking Madame Clough for her hospitality, saying he admires her needlepoint, which he saw on his visit, and entrusting her with ‘the enclosed treasure, stitched by a woman in distress.’”

  “You’re right, Mary. I think this is it.” I passed the letter on to Sarah. “The ‘enclosed treasure’ must have been the embroidery. And the note is dated September of 1794. That’s within the time period Ruth said Talleyrand visited Maine.”

  “Yeah!” Mary jumped up. “We have it! Imagine where that needlepoint has been, and who’s touched it!”

  “You have as close to provenance as we’ll ever get,” I said, happy for her, and relieved. “Now we just have to get the needlepoint back.”

  Chapter 36

  May I with innocence and peace,

  My fleeting moments spend;

  And when this vale of life shall cease,

  With calmness meet my end.

  —Stitched by thirteen-year-old Sarah Ann

  Ewalt Patterson, Pittsburgh,

  Pennsylvania, 1819

  We’d done as much as we could to identify Mary’s mysterious embroidery. She’d still have to take it to a place like the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston to have them look at it, but the provenance we’d uncovered—the possible, if not certain, trail back to Mary, Queen of Scots—would mean a lot.

  And now Mary Clough was interested in the history of her family. That was a real plus.

  I thought about scheduling a day with Gram, maybe next winter when Haven Harbor was snowed or iced in, for her to tell me what she knew of our family. I knew a little. Now I’d like to know more.

  When we left Mary last night she’d been bubbling about drawing a family tree, and she also wanted to frame the needlepoint.

  When it was found.

  As I straightened up my house and made toast for breakfast, I thought through what we knew.

  Lenore Pendleton had opened the door of her house/office late at night.

  Who would she open the door to at that time of night? Someone she knew. Most likely a woman. Or someone in distress, looking for help.

  Okay. Whomever she let in convinced or forced her to open her safe. Then he or she hit her several times with a marble bookend that was on her desk, and left, taking with them no files, just jewelry and Mary’s needlepoint.

  Who would have known what she had in her safe? The only people who knew about the jewelry were her secretary, Glenda Pierce, her ex-husband, Charlie, and the sisters who were waiting for their mother’s estate to be settled. They weren’t even in Maine, so they weren’t suspects. And Charlie was accounted for at the time Lenore was killed. That left Glenda.

  Glenda was married and had a child. I could imagine Lenore opening the door to her secretary late at night. Especially if Glenda had a problem.

  But why would Glenda have gone to see Lenore then? If she’d wanted to steal the jewelry she would have had opportunities during the day.

  I couldn’t rule Glenda out. But she was unlikely—and she hadn’t known about the needlepoint. On the other hand, maybe I should talk to her again.

  So, who else had known the needlepoint might be valuable, and that it was in Lenore’s safe?

  Mary Clough, who had no reason to steal her own embroidery. Rob Trask. Uma Patel. But Rob seemed genuinely upset at finding Lenore’s body, and thought of the needlepoint as his and Mary’s to begin with. Uma? She wanted to see the needlepoint. She was ambitious. Was she cold enough to have agreed to go with Rob in the morning to see the needlepoint after she’d killed Lenore?

  It would have made more sense if she’d seen the needlepoint first, and then killed to get it.

  The police had considered her a prime suspect. But then where was the needlepoint? And why weren’t her fingerprints on the bag of jewelry in her luggage?

  And why was she dead?

  Could someone have killed her for the needlepoint and left the jewelry?

  I frowned. Stranger things had happened.

  I put that idea aside.

  Who else knew about the needlepoint? Rob had told Arvin and Josh. Sarah and I had told Nicole Thibodeau. And, of course, Needlepointers Sarah Byrne, Dave Percy, and Ruth Hopkins knew about it; they’d been at my home on the Fourth of July. And me.

  I didn’t take it. I grimaced to myself. One person to cross off my list. And maybe I was being prejudiced in favor of my friends, but I couldn’t imagine Dave or Ruth killing Lenore. Ruth wouldn’t have the physical strength. Dave would, and he did live across the street from Lenore. But no. I couldn’t imagine Dave killing anyone. And if he had, he wouldn’t have used a marble bookend. He had a garden full of poisons.

  That left Nicole, who was exhausted from baking at the patisserie, and who’d told me she went to bed early. She needed money to take care of her mother-in-law. But kill Lenore?

  Okay. That left Arvin and Josh. They were both young and strong. And at least a little drunk by the end of most evenings. Both were looking for money. Josh wanted to leave town, and Arvin wanted to buy a house and pay off the Little Lady. They’d both heard about the needlepoint.

  I added Jude and Cos to my list. Mary lived with the Currans. They would have known all about the needlepoint.

  And of course Ethan, Rob’s big brother and the homicide detective investigating, and his mother, also knew about the ne
edlepoint. I almost laughed. No; I was sure Ethan and his mother were in the clear.

  And then there was Uma’s death. Somehow it was connected to Lenore’s, since Lenore’s jewelry was found in her room.

  I needed to talk to Mrs. Clifford. And Glenda. And Josh and Arvin. I reluctantly added Jude to the list. She knew Josh, Arvin, and even Rob. And she might know where they’d been when Lenore was killed and Uma murdered.

  Too many threads. Most of them leading nowhere.

  I’d come up with a couple of suspects for Lenore’s death. Uma’s death was even more troubling, because I couldn’t think of a reason for it, or a suspect. If someone was trying to make people think Uma’d killed Lenore, why hadn’t that person just planted the jewelry in her room? Why kill her?

  And where was the needlepoint?

  I felt surrounded by solid brick walls.

  I wished Pete and Ethan had figured out who killed Lenore. They’d had the crime scene tested. They’d no doubt talked to everyone I’d talked to, including all her neighbors. But if they had any ideas or suspects, they hadn’t shared them.

  I looked down at the paper I’d been doodling on. I was definitely going to spend the day talking to people. I’d probably get a reputation for being a busybody. But that was better than the reputation I’d had when I was a teenager in town.

  And I had a good reason to ask questions. I was looking for a stolen needlepoint that we now knew was valuable.

  Who first?

  I called Glenda.

  Chapter 37

  Every youth in the state, from the King’s son downward, should learn to do something finely and thoroughly with his hands.