by Lea Wait
“Elsa put arsenic in the glass?” I said.
“No one can prove that. It’s been forty-five years. Only Millie Gardener suspected, after Elsa told her about our grandfather’s being a taxidermist. Elsa was a smart girl, except when she talked too much. She tried to keep Millie quiet, too, but that time she tried too hard to make death seem natural. She only used a little arsenic.” Miss Fitch shook her head, as though chastising a naughty child. “She was too smart for her age back in 1970. She was jealous of all Jasmine had. She wanted the money and the freedom and the college that Jasmine accepted as her due. Jasmine even accepted Jed as her due. Elsa and I knew Jasmine’s pregnancy could end Jed’s possibilities. He was so dumb sometimes. He was already skipping football practices. He figured if Jasmine had his baby, then her daddy would take care of them both. Would set them up and send him to college. Or maybe he wouldn’t even have to go to college. Jasmine’s family would pay their expenses.” She took a deep breath. “He thought Jasmine was the answer to what he was going to do with his life. He wasn’t willing to work and earn a future, the way I had. The way Elsa wanted to do it.”
“So Elsa poisoned Jasmine.”
Miss Fitch shrugged. “She was only fifteen, and she always had her nose in science books. She had the idea that arsenic would make Jasmine miscarry. Our grandfather had been a taxidermist. He’d told her about some of the traditional uses of arsenic. She’d cut a piece of moose skin out of an old head we had in the attic—our attic was full of junk like that—and soaked it. The day before the party, she’d tried to add the water to Jasmine’s lemonade at our house, but Jasmine hadn’t been thirsty. So the night of the party was Elsa’s last chance. She managed to get a glass of wine, doctored it a little, and then gave it to you, Ob. She knew you were sweet on Jasmine. You’d be happy to deliver it to her.”
“And then when Skye West arrived in town and started asking questions, Elsa got scared. She put arsenic in Skye’s cup at the house sale,” I said, hoping I hadn’t missed anything.
“No,” Miss Fitch said, looking at me. “You were never the brightest student, Angela. I poisoned that cup.”
“And set the fire,” said Ob.
“All these years Elsa’s been paying for what she did. She was stuck in Haven Harbor, taking care of our parents, while I was abroad. Jed missed his chance to escape, but that was his own fault. He didn’t work hard enough to get a scholarship, and Jasmine’s family wasn’t there to bail him out. I have no sympathy for him. But Elsa wanted so much to go to college, to get away from Haven Harbor. Father made her turn down the scholarships she got. He told her it was her responsibility to take care of Mother.” Miss Fitch shook her head. “It wasn’t fair. But I wasn’t around to fight for her, and all Jed was doing was taking a few classes and drinking his way through those. Elsa accepted the responsibility to keep the family together. She paid in her own way for what she did. It wouldn’t be fair for the town to find out what really happened back in 1970. That was forty-five years ago.” She looked at me, and then at Ob. “I couldn’t let that happen. It was time for me to take some responsibility. Elsa had nothing to do with what happened in the past week. She was too scared. She would have messed it up, like she did trying to poison Millie Gardener. This time I took care of everything myself. I had to protect my baby sister.”
Chapter 55
Down in a green’d and shady bed
A modest violet grew
Its stalks was bent, it hung its head
As if to hide from view.
And yet it was a lovely flower
Its colors bright and fair
It might have graced a rosy bower
Instead of hiding there.
—Sampler stitched by Francis Rebecca Cooke, age twelve, Schenectady, New York, 1810
“So Elsa Fitch did kill Jasmine.” Sarah opened the third box of éclairs and stacked them on a platter. Reverend Tom’s house looked amazingly festive, thanks to the blue and the white balloons, the umbrellas, and all the ribbons fastened everywhere Katie could. She’d even hung a CONGRATULATIONS CHARLOTTE & TOM! banner.
She hadn’t been able to cover all the Ouija boards. But if anyone consulted the spirits this afternoon, I was sure they’d say the signs were positive. Gram and Reverend Tom were going to have a wonderful life together.
I touched my gold angel. Mama, Gram and I are all right. Life went on. And, Jasmine, we found the person who poisoned you. Justice has been done. Now you can rest in peace.
I smiled to myself. Talking to the dead. Maybe being near Reverend Tom’s collection of Ouija boards did bring out the spirits. Or opened my mind to them.
Sarah had found a perfect gift for their wine shower: a Victorian silver wine caddy. She and I were giving it from both of us. Gram would love it.
A large box in the corner (it was covered in pink paper—he hadn’t gotten the message that the shower colors were blue and white) was Tom’s gift to Gram. He’d whispered to me Friday night that it was a wine refrigerator, which would hold thirty-six bottles at different temperatures.
This house was getting ready to party!
“I still can’t believe Beth Fitch would try to poison and burn Skye,” said Sarah. Two éclairs toppled, and she started another platter. I may have ordered too much from the patisserie.
I shrugged. “I heard her say it. They’re both in police custody now. Charges like murder and attempted murder and arson aren’t minor.”
“Speaking of arson . . . Patrick called me this morning,” Sarah said.
He hadn’t called me. But, then, I wasn’t supposed to be interested in him, was I? Sarah was.
“He said another two or three weeks in the hospital and he’ll be released. He has to have therapy for his burned hands, but he’s arranging for it to take place here in Maine.” She smiled, clearly pleased. “He and Sky have decided to rebuild the carriage house. He’s excited about designing it exactly the way he’d like. They’re going to stay at Mrs. Chase’s B and B when they get back to Maine. They’ve reserved both her rooms for the summer.”
“That’s good news,” I said. “Then we can talk to Skye about how she wants the needlepoint panels framed. Last time I talked with her, she said she still wanted them, complete with clues and moose hair.” I shook my head. “She said it would be a tribute to both Jasmine and her mother to have those panels in the house.”
Sarah stood back and admired the dining-room table. The blue tablecloth we’d put down half an hour before was now covered with platters of cupcakes, cookies, brownies, and éclairs. There were two punch bowls—one of them was filled with sangria. (“After all, it’s a wine party, and this is June!” Sarah had reminded me. “We need a summer drink.”) For those who wanted a lighter drink, one punch bowl had pink lemonade.
We’d also used blue cloth to cover three card tables in the corner, for people to put gifts on.
Now all we had to do was wait for the guests.
I picked up an éclair to sample it. Mmm.
“So, have you gotten a dress for the wedding yet?” Sarah asked.
“Tomorrow,” I promised. “Tomorrow, after church, I’m heading for South Portland and the mall. If there’s nothing there, I have the names of several boutiques in Portland’s Old Port. I’m not coming home without something to wear.”
“Good plan,” said Sarah, pouring herself a cup of sangria. “And, after all, you have a whole week. Haven Harbor is a quiet place. Nothing could happen here to distract you.”
I grinned back. “‘Summer in Maine. The way life should be.’ Well, at least most of the time.”
Angie Curtis’s Gram, Charlotte, loves to cook; her specialty is classic Maine dishes. In Threads of Evidence she cooks this elegant but comforting bread pudding made from northern New England ingredients. It’s one of Angie’s favorites.
Maple Bread Pudding
2½ cups light cream
4 eggs, separated
¾ cup pure maple syrup
Pinch of salt
5–6 cups day-old French or Italian bread cut into cubes
Whipping cream (optional)
Preheat oven to 350. Heat baking pan (e.g. lasagna pan) half filled with hot water.
Scald cream. Cool.
Beat together egg yolks, maple syrup, and salt.
Stir cream into egg mixture. Beat egg whites to peaks. Fold into custard mixture.
Spread bread cubes in buttered 1½-quart baking dish and pour custard mixture over the cubes, mixing lightly. Sprinkle nutmeg on top.
Place baking dish in the pan of hot water.
Bake in preheated oven 40–45 minutes, or until knife inserted in center comes out clean.
May be served warm or cool. Gram prefers it warm, and often adds a bit of whipped cream to the top.
Serves 6–8
Acknowledgments
With thanks to everyone who’s made my life easier, especially when I’m in “writing mode”.
My wonderful husband, Bob Thomas, who believed in me before anyone else did, and cooks and does errands and takes time to listen to plot problems even when he’s in the middle of painting for his next gallery opening.
My sister, Nancy Cantwell, who, along with Bob, is my first reader. My granddaughters Vanessa and Samantha Childs, who tease me, encourage me . . . and help address postcards to my readers.
My agent, John Talbot, who made this series possible.
All the wonderful people at Kensington Publishing who bring Angie and her friends to readers, especially editor John Scognamiglio who believed in this series, copy editor Stephanie Finnegan, who kept all the details straight, Morgan Elwell, publicist extraordinaire, and Robin Cook, production editor.
My fellow Sisters in Crime and friends at Mystery Writers of America, my wonderful readers, especially those at Malice Domestic, and fellow authors Kathy Lynn Emerson, Kate Flora, Barbara Ross, Vicky Doudera, Paul Doiron, Gerry Boyle, Jim Hayman, and Susan Vaughan, Mainers all.
The librarians and bookstore owners who’ve welcomed me and shared my books with readers.
I invite you to friend me on Facebook and Goodreads, check my website (www.leawait.com)for more about me and my books, including discussion questions for groups reading Threads of Evidence, and read www.MaineCrimeWriters.com, the blog I write with other authors who write mysteries set in the wonderful, and sometimes mysterious, State of Maine.
Lea Wait
Please turn the page for an exciting sneak peek of
Lea Wait’s next Mainely Needlepoint Mystery
THREAD AND GONE
coming in January 2016!
Chapter 1
The world, my dear Mary, is full of deceit
And friendships a jewell we seldome can meet
How strange does it seem that in searching around
The source of content is so rare to be found.
—Poem stitched by Lucy Ripley,
age thirteen, Hartford, Connecticut, 1802
The simple folded leather packet looked old. Old, cracked, and very out of place, as it lay innocently on the bright red Fourth of July tablecloth. A mystery from the past had interrupted my first Haven Harbor dinner party.
Before I’d seen that packet and its contents, I’d been feeling high on more than the Pouilly-Fuissé recommended by the owner of Haven Harbor’s local wine and gourmet treats store. (Buying beer? No problem. Wine? That’s a whole different world.)
I’d gotten up the courage to invite Sarah Byrne, Dave Percy, and Ruth Hopkins, three other Mainely Needlepointers who were going to be alone on the holiday, to join me to celebrate the official start of the tourist season, and my first Maine Fourth of July in ten years. I figured all three of my guests would be understanding if my salmon was a little dry or my peas undercooked.
But until the packet arrived, everything had been perfect.
I’d pulled it off. My guests had made appropriate compliments and serious dents in the baked salmon, fresh green peas, and hot potato salad that made up my close-to-traditional New England Fourth of July menu. And I’d only had to interrupt Gram’s Quebec honeymoon twice to ask for cooking advice and counsel.
As I looked around the table, I couldn’t help smiling. Two months ago I hadn’t known these people. Today I counted them friends as well as colleagues.
Gram had brought us together. She’d managed to gather an eclectic and talented group of Mainers to do custom needlepoint for her business, and as the new director of Mainely Needlepoint I was reaping the benefits of her choices. Not only could everyone in the business do needlepoint, but they’d all brought their own personalities and talents to their work.
Anyone meeting us for the first time would never guess that middle-aged Dave, navy retiree and now a high-school biology teacher, also had an extensive garden of poisonous plants. Or that Sarah, whose pink-and-blue-striped blonde hair and Aussie accent made her very noticeable in a small Maine town, was also a member of the staid Maine Antiques Dealers Association. Or that Ruth Hopkins, a sweet little old lady whose arthritis forced her to depend on her pink wheeling walker, wrote erotica.
And me, Angie Curtis. The most ordinary of the lot. As long as you understood that “ordinary” included ten years working for a private investigator in Arizona. I knew how to use the gun I now kept hidden under Gram’s winter gloves and scarves in the front hall. I was also the youngest of the group—twenty-seven, a born Mainer, and a native of Haven Harbor. Most unusual in this crowd, I was just beginning to learn needlepoint.
I was also learning what it was like to live alone. Gram’s wedding to Reverend Tom last weekend had been pronounced “a smashing success” by Sarah, and as soon as Gram returned from her honeymoon, she’d be moving to the rectory. True, I’d lived alone (nearly all of the time, anyway) in my Arizona apartment, but being alone in two rooms was different from being alone in a large, creaking house built over two hundred years ago.
But I’d grown up here, as my mother and grandmother and great-grandmother had before me. I couldn’t imagine another family in these rooms. I’d get used to living here by myself. In the meantime my only full-time companion was Juno, Gram’s large yellow Maine coon cat.
Juno looked up expectantly when anyone came into the house and then curled up in Gram’s favorite chair, sadly waiting. She didn’t understand about honeymoons. To make up for Gram’s absence, I’d been giving Juno more treats than I’m sure Gram would have approved.
I’ll admit I even slipped a piece of salmon into her dinner dish before I served my guests. And I suspected Dave had been passing her a few tidbits under the table during dinner.
The four of us had comfortably finished off two bottles of wine and were debating the virtues of strawberry-rhubarb pie now, or strawberry-rhubarb pie after the fireworks, when we heard a knock on the front door.
The young people standing there could have been any two Haven Harbor teenagers celebrating the Fourth.
But they weren’t.
BOOKS BY LEA WAIT
Mainely Needlepoint Mysteries
1 – Twisted Threads
2 – Threads of Evidence
3 – Thread and Gone
Shadows Antique Print Mysteries
1 – Shadows at the Fair
2 – Shadows on the Coast of Maine
3 – Shadows on the Ivy
4 – Shadows at the Spring Show
5 – Shadows of a Down East Summer
6 – Shadows on a Cape Cod Wedding
7 – Shadows on a Maine Christmas
Historical Novels for ages 8 and up
Stopping to Home
Seaward Born
Wintering Well
Finest Kind
Uncertain Glory
To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
Kensingt
on Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2015 by Lea Wait
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the Publisher and neither the Author nor the Publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat & TM Off.
ISBN-13: 978-1-61773-006-1
ISBN-10: 1-61773-006-8
First Kensington Mass Market Edition: September 2015
ISBN: 978-1-6177-3006-1
First Kensington Electronic Edition: September 2015
