Twisted Threads

by Lea Wait

  “I didn’t like Mr. Greene,” Cindy said quietly. “Mr. Greene was a pervert.”

  The table was silent. A long-locked door had opened. “He tried to touch you, too?” I asked.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  My heart exults while to the attentive eye

  The curious needle spreads the enameled dye.

  While varying shades the Pleasing task beguile

  My friends applaud me and my Parents smile.

  —From sampler stitched by Dolly Abbot, aged fourteen, most likely at the Pinkerton Academy in Londonderry, New Hampshire, 1817. At the bottom of the sampler is a memorial to one of Dolly’s sisters. Dolly and one of her sisters survived to adulthood. Their six brothers and sisters all died young.

  None of us spoke for a minute or two. We all concentrated on our barbeque. I took a long drink of beer.

  Then Clem said, “What? He never tried anything with me.”

  “You were lucky. I was scared to go into that shop of his. He was always finding an excuse for me to walk in back of the display case.” Cindy’s voice was steady.

  “To choose your favorite cookie?” I said.

  She nodded. “Exactly. I’d go behind the counter with him, and sometimes he’d just touch my rear, like it was by accident. If I had a skirt on, it was worse. His hand would reach under it.... I tried to make up reasons why I wouldn’t go near him. But my mother thought it was cute that I was so shy. She’d push me toward him.”

  “You never told her?”

  She shook her head. “I was too embarrassed. My mother didn’t even want to talk about buying me a bra when my boobs were bouncing all over the kickball field. How about you?”

  “The first time I thought it was an accident. That he was just being a little too friendly, you know? But every time it got worse. I was . . . developed . . . pretty early, and he used to grab my breasts. The counter would cover it all. No one would see. And he’d just keep talking about the price of doughnuts and sliced whole wheat bread to whoever was in the store.” I swallowed. I’d never talked about Mr. Greene before. He was still in my nightmares. “I was too embarrassed. I thought it was just me.” I’d thought he’d done it to me because Mama flirted with him and I’d been singled out. I hated to admit it, but Cindy’s admission was a relief. It hadn’t just been me. I hadn’t done anything to encourage him.

  “Lauren used to ask me to spend the night at her house. I never would go,” Cindy continued.

  “Me either! I came up with excuses every time.” I nodded.

  “No wonder she got angry with us and said nasty things.”

  Clem looked from one of us to the other. “I can’t believe that. How awful! Now I’m wondering why he didn’t do the same to me.”

  “You were lucky,” said Cindy. “And you didn’t come to Haven Harbor until you were older.”

  “I wonder how many other girls he touched?” I asked. “We can’t have been the only two.”

  “He could have been doing it for years,” Clem said. “If no one ever told.”

  “I once started to tell my mother what happened, but she said I must have misunderstood,” Cindy said. “She said that Mr. Greene was a nice man who just liked to tease little girls. That some men were like that. I should smile and move away.”

  “Today they teach that ‘places not to touch’ stuff in school. Back then, nobody warned us.” Clem shook her head.

  “I wonder if he ever did anything to Lauren,” I thought out loud.

  “His own daughter?”

  Clem and Cindy looked at each other.

  “Do you think he would have?” Cindy asked. “That’s even more seriously creepy.”

  “She never hinted that her father was a problem,” Clem said. “And she took care of her mom, and then her dad when they were sick. How could she have done that if . . .”

  Lauren’s neighbor had said Lauren stopped coming to see her dad after her mom had died. Maybe she’d only taken care of her mom.

  “I was so angry and depressed. I had trouble making friends. I never wanted to leave my house because I was afraid I’d see him. Finally I convinced my parents to send me away to private school, but the rest of you were in in town. You couldn’t avoid him all the time. That must have been nightmarish,” Cindy said.

  “It was,” I agreed. “I dreaded when Mama sent me to the bakery on an errand. She thought I should love going there all by myself, because it showed how grown-up I was, and because Mr. Greene always gave me an extra cookie. She didn’t know how I was paying for those cookies.” I shook my head. “I hate sugar cookies. Every time I see one or smell one, I feel sick.”

  “But it’s over. He’s gone. We survived. And, let me tell you, my kids are being taught to tell me if anyone tries that with them,” Cindy declared.

  “Good. And I hope there’s no one like Mr. Greene in your neighborhood,” stated Clem, nodding.

  The three of us finished our lunches and parted, with hugs and promises to stay in touch.

  I drove back to Haven Harbor and set up my new laptop on the old desk in my bedroom.

  First I ran a search on the telephone number Mama had written down.

  Until a few years ago, that had been the number for Greene’s Bakery.

  Why had Joe Greene’s telephone number been in Mama’s pocket?

  And I hadn’t told Clem and Cindy everything. I hadn’t kept silent about Joe Greene. I’d told Mama about him.

  I hadn’t planned it. But when she’d asked me why I was so happy and excited about flying up from being a Brownie to being a Junior Girl Scout, I’d told her it was because when I was a Junior, Mrs. Greene wouldn’t be my leader. I wouldn’t have to go to her house anymore, and I hated Mr. Greene. When she asked me why, I’d told her about the touching. Mama had hugged me and told me that I wouldn’t have to worry about that anymore. I’d thought she meant I wouldn’t have to worry because I wouldn’t be a Brownie much longer.

  Maybe she’d meant something else.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  It may be much, or it may be little, but handwork of some kind must embellish every gown which has any pretention to smartness. The kind of work and its elaborateness being pretty sure indications of the taste and purse of the women who wears it.

  —The Modern Priscilla, November 1905

  Maybe Mama had Joe Greene’s telephone number because she’d called to order a birthday cake or a tray of cookies. True, I didn’t remember her ever doing that, but, despite the fact that I’d felt pretty grown-up then, I’d only been nine when she had left that Sunday afternoon.

  The bakery wouldn’t have been open on a Sunday. That number could have been in her pocket for months.

  I kept thinking about what Cindy had said at lunch. All these years I’d thought it was just me. However awful it had been, Mr. Greene had picked only me. At first I’d thought I was special. Then I thought I must have done something to encourage him—or Mama had.

  Now I knew Joe Greene had been a lecher and a toucher, at minimum—a pedophile, at worst. The more I thought about it the angrier I got.

  How did that fit into the picture? And if he was interested in young girls, why would he have gotten involved with Mama?

  She’d been involved with men, sometimes married men. But she was definitely a grown woman.

  The longer I stayed in Haven Harbor, the more questions I had.

  I looked at my new computer. It had answered my question about the telephone number. Could it help with the murder Gram and I were suspects in?

  I Googled, poison causing vomiting and convulsions.

  No wonder the police were depending on the results of the toxicology reports. Even an overdose of aspirin could cause those symptoms. So could a list of poisonous plants. Too much alcohol. Or the alcohol could have interacted with another substance to cause the vomiting and convulsions. Alcohol combined with antidepressants or amphetamines would have caused reactions stronger than any one of those alone.

  But where to begin,
unless someone left a vial labeled Poison on the coffee table in our living room? So many substances could be poisons.

  I turned off the laptop and got into bed. I lay there, remembering being small, and hearing the lighthouse bell or foghorn. On hot summer days I’d opened my windows to catch sea breezes. The laughing and talking from people walking home from a day at sea or a night at one of the restaurants would drift through my windows. I’d pretended I was floating, safe in my room, away from what was happening in the world.

  Gram’d put me to bed every night and tucked me in. She’d read to me, until I’d said I was too old to be read to.

  Mama was usually out, working or with friends, when I went to bed. But I’d known—for almost ten years I’d known—that she’d be home soon. I would hear the front door open and her footsteps on the stairs. If I were still awake, I’d listen. The ninth step from the bottom creaked. It was a kind of goodnight message.

  When I’d needed socks or underwear or a warm hat, Gram had been the one to see the need and find the money. Mama’d bought me hair ribbons and party dresses and dolls. I’d taken Gram’s gifts for granted. I’d cherished the gifts from Mama, because they were special. They’d come from her.

  Remembering, I looked up at the line of elegant dolls, with immaculately curled hair and old-fashioned dresses that still stood in their stands on the top shelf of my bookcase.

  I’d never played with them. They were too good, too fancy, too special. Instead, I’d collected sea stones and jars of green and blue and orange sea glass. Once I’d found a tiny pocket-sized naked porcelain doll on the beach, smoothed like the pieces of glass. I’d put her carefully in one of Gram’s mason jars, so she could look out, and surrounded her with pieces of sea glass.

  Now I saw I’d trapped her in the jar. The sea glass was pretty, but it kept her from escaping.

  I got out of bed, poured the jar full of glass pieces onto my comforter, and gently picked up the tiny doll. She had a chip on one of her feet and another on the back of her head, but otherwise, amazingly, she was intact. She’d ridden the waves and survived. I stood her up on the shelf and put the sea glass back in the jar.

  Then I took all the fancy dolls down from the top shelf and put them in a carton for Goodwill. Another little girl might love them. I didn’t.

  I couldn’t think about Mama anymore.

  I’d think about Lattimore.

  Somehow the murderer had poisoned Lattimore’s tea. They must have done it by sleight of hand, or in a moment no one noticed. Yes, Gram had made the tea, but she wouldn’t have killed him. I didn’t kill him. So . . . what did I know about the others who’d been in our living room? The other needlepointers, who’d been cheated by the man with whom they were sharing afternoon tea?

  Ruth Hopkins. Gram would call her a “tough old bird.” She was the oldest of the group and partially disabled. But she’d been able-bodied enough to bake the molasses cookies she’d brought, and to get to the meeting. Ruth had gotten very little of Lattimore’s money. She hadn’t been working much recently. Working at needlepoint, that is. S.M. Bond and Chastity Falls had been publishing!

  She didn’t sound like the most logical person to have brought poison, as well as cookies, to the meeting. But, then, it wouldn’t take much strength to grind up her medications and dissolve them, would it? Although her arthritic hands would have made it harder for her to poison a teacup quickly, without anyone’s noticing.

  Dave Percy. He’d been in the navy, but he wasn’t as macho as some ex-military types I’d met. But he was no wimp. To have done needlepoint onboard submarines would have taken strength of character. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t been razzed about that, at minimum. He was working, as a teacher—a steady job, although not highly paid in Haven Harbor—and Lattimore owed him quite a bit. How much had his small house and immaculate furnishings cost him? Did he have any vices I didn’t know about? Traditionally, poison was a woman’s weapon. But Dave Percy’s poison garden put him definitely on my list.

  The other man in the group, Ob Winslow, was a wood-carver—as good with a knife as with a needle. He also was owed a lot by Lattimore, and he’d given up his carving business to do needlepoint. He still did fishing charters in the summer, but this year’s season hadn’t started yet. From what his wife, Anna, had said after church, they were hurting for money. And he had a bad back. Maybe he had prescription pain pills that, mixed with alcohol, could be lethal. Or he’d borrowed some of his son Josh’s Ritalin.

  Ob was still on the list.

  Katie Titicomb. Her husband was a doctor, so she wouldn’t have any serious money worries. But, since he was a doctor, she also might have access to various types of medications. She was able-bodied and, like the others, Lattimore owed her money. She was Cindy’s mom. I hoped she wasn’t the killer. But I couldn’t cross her off the list.

  That left Lauren and Sarah, the two youngest of the group. Lauren, whose husband was rumored to have alcohol, and maybe drug, problems. Caleb definitely had a temper. And he still owed money on his lobster boat. Lobster boats cost more than the small houses or the trailers many young Maine couples started out in. Would Lauren have killed? Or Sarah, who, Gram said, seemed to be coping financially, but who was on her own?

  I couldn’t see the logic in any of them killing Lattimore. True, they were all angry at him. But killing him wouldn’t get them the money they were owed. What other possible reason would they have for killing? I didn’t know. But they’d all had the same opportunity. And most had some means of poisoning.

  I turned off my light. It didn’t make sense. None of it made sense.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Her needlework both plain and ornamental was excellent, and she might have put a sewing machine to shame.... She was considered especially great in satin stitch.

  —James Edward Austen-Leigh, writing about his aunt, Jane Austen, in his 1869 biography (published in 1870)

  Ethan took Gram in for questioning early the next morning. When I objected, he frowned. “We’re not arresting her. Yet.” He wouldn’t share any details, but he did say he hadn’t heard the results from the toxicology tests.

  I suspected he’d come to the same conclusion I had. Whatever killed Lattimore had been in the tea. And, of course, Gram had made the tea.

  Ethan didn’t seem to wonder why, if the tea’d been poisoned, no one but Lattimore was affected. I was convinced whatever killed Lattimore hadn’t been in the teapot.

  I called Pete Lambert again. “Pete, I’ve got new information for you about my mother’s case.” Talking to him reminded me I still didn’t have that carry permit. I felt vulnerable without it.

  “Wasn’t Ethan Trask just at your house, to pick up your grandmother?” Pete didn’t sound thrilled to speak to me.

  “They’ve left.”

  “So, why didn’t you tell him whatever information you have?”

  “Because you’re helping me get my carry permit.” I stopped. “And because we had lunch together the other day.”

  “What’s the information?”

  “Did you look to see if Joe Greene had a record of any kind?”

  “I looked. No record that I could find. Why?”

  “Because he was a sexual predator. I know two grown women who’ll swear that he touched them when they were about seven, eight, nine years old.”

  Long pause.

  I tried again. “He touched little girls, Pete. And tried to do more. Are you sure there weren’t any reports of that over the years? Complaints the local department might have hushed up?”

  “Angie, even if there were reports, what would they have to do with your mother’s death?”

  “I’m not sure. But it’s important.” I tried again. “It would have been before you were with the department. But maybe you heard talk. Rumors. Especially after my mother’s body was found.”

  “I’ll check it out. Ask around. But, Angie, Joe Greene’s dead. Nothing could be done about it now, even if you could prove he was a ch
ild molester.”

  “I know,” I said. “But I keep thinking it might have had something to do with my mother’s murder. She wasn’t a little girl when she was killed, but he’d known her all her life. Maybe he expected more from her than . . . from other women.”

  Could he have touched Mama when she was a child? I suddenly wondered. It was possible.

  “Even if that’s true, Angie, it’s not a motive for murder.”

  “People around town said nasty things about my mother after she disappeared.”

  “I’ve heard that, Angie. I’d be plenty angry if people talked that way about my mother.”

  “Please check. And let me know what you find out.” I hung up. Maybe he wouldn’t find anything. Few little girls might have talked, if they were like Cindy and me. But maybe sometime, somewhere, an adult had seen or heard something suspicious. And been listened to.

  Gram was being questioned by the state police. So far as I knew, her only secret was her engagement to Reverend Tom. Nothing to be condemned for, although some might find it worthy of gossip.

  I glanced through Gram’s collection of books on early-American and European needlepoint and picked out a few to read, but I couldn’t concentrate. The words blurred.

  Our house was silent except when every so often Juno jumped up and streaked through, as though pursued by an invisible force. Some people in Haven Harbor, with a strange pride, talked of sharing their homes with its former inhabitants. Souls that hadn’t moved on, and only begrudgingly shared the spaces their bodies once inhabited.

  My ancestors must have been accepting of their fates. They didn’t come back to relive their own lives, or concern themselves with those who’d come after them. Unless Juno saw or heard things I didn’t.

  Today I could have used their company. I understood why Ruth Hopkins and Reverend Tom, two people who lived alone, found comfort in talking with spirits. Real or imaginary.