Hanging by a Thread

by Margaret Evans

  She backed out of the account on which she had been working and looked through the stack of work. And nearly jumped out of her skin when her supervisor tapped on her cubicle.

  “Sorry, Jess. Just checking on whether you’ve finished with those accounts yet. Find anything?”

  “Not yet,” she responded, pointing to the stack. “You can’t do this in fifteen minutes. You’re talking search and analysis that takes time. Don’t worry; I’ll find it.”

  “The boss asked. I’ll let him know you’re hot on the trail.”

  Wright nodded her thanks and waited for the supervisor to leave. Then she returned to the task of covering the tracks that were in her name and making it look as if someone else had done this, and not her. An hour later, she flipped through the stack of work again and found two she could easily analyze and resolve.

  So went the day, and as she thought, she worked unnoticed.

  But one person noticed the attitude change and wondered about it. Wondered why the woman was on pins and needles. Wondered why she waited before logging back into the accounts. Wondered why the stack of accounts sitting on Wright’s desk from yesterday sat uncompleted. And decided to check where Jessica Wright had been in the system over the past twenty-four hours.

  After Jessica Wright left for the day, her supervisor checked the digital log of where Wright had been working beyond the previous day and into the past week. To her surprise and dismay, the girl had been working in the very accounts where fraud was suspected and from which funds had disappeared. As she continued to check what had been done to the accounts, her skin crawled. Money had been moved into and out of several other accounts, in what looked to be a cover-up. But was it a cover-up? Or was it a discovery?

  And if a suspicion of discovery, why was Wright keeping her cards so close to her chest? Why not tell her supervisor what she was finding?

  Sabina Morello, fiancée of Jack Flynn, sat silently looking at Wright’s log and decided to say nothing at this time.

  four

  Laura came downstairs extra early the next morning to get a start on stocking her shelves with Irish and St. Patrick’s Day items. She stopped short, eyes wide, at the bottom of the stairs.

  “No! No! No!” she cried, hurrying over to the heaping mess she saw in the back room, her cat pawing at it. “Bad kitty! Bad Isabella!” she continued her rant, but the feline paid no heed and kept pulling at the pockets and sleeves of the expensive sports jacket that had appeared at her door the previous day.

  The cat finally looked up at the gentle shove Laura gave her and sat next to the jacket, washing her paws as if nothing were amiss.

  Laura picked the jacket up in dismay.

  “Now it’s going to be covered in cat hair as well as those golden threads—”

  But she saw no cat hairs on the jacket, and, to her amazement, the golden threads throughout the jacket had been gathered together by the cat’s pawing. When she picked up the pile, they looked less like loose threads from a spool and more like threads that belonged together in a fabric, as her friend Jenna had described. She wondered what the garment had looked like, but her wondering stopped when she heard a familiar knock on the shop’s front door. She hurried to unlock and open the door, pulling the latch as it closed.

  “I know it’s early, but I also knew you’d be up to get all your green stuff on the shelves. I have about seven minutes to look at the sports jacket.”

  Laura noticed Sgt. Connor Fitzpatrick was all business today, cop face and all, and she led him back to the work room where she’d just picked up the jacket from the floor.

  He put on blue gloves and examined it carefully, noted the owner’s name and the tailor’s, and looked at Laura questioningly.

  “How many people have handled this?”

  “Uh, I don’t know. The person who put it in the bag of clothing left at my front door, Eric Williams, Jenna, and me.” She left off her pretend cat-friend; he wouldn’t understand that.

  “What’s this clump of threads? Was that on the jacket when you found it?”

  “Yes. Threads were on and inside the jacket. I left a lot of the clothing on this work table last night. Found the jacket on the floor this morning. Must have fallen from the pile. Here are pictures I took of the jacket yesterday when Jenna and I were looking at it,” she said holding up her phone. “One of us may have messed this up a bit. Maybe I did this morning, when it fell. The threads were there, just more scattered throughout the jacket, in the sleeves, pocket, under the collar and lapels. Sorry. Jenna tells me there’s a designer in Minneapolis who makes garments out of these particular gold threads. ‘Gems by Jem’ she called them.”

  The cat’s part in gathering the threads was left out.

  He studied the pictures on her iPhone then dashed out to his vehicle to get a large evidence bag. The jacket was folded carefully, placed in the bag and labeled, along with its coating of golden threads, and Connor removed his gloves, turned to leave, bag in arms.

  “You and Jenna should have been more careful and not moved the threads around. Forward me these shots you took on your phone, will you?”

  She nodded.

  He gave her a kiss on the cheek.

  “Sorry, gotta run. Thanks for calling me so quickly about the jacket. I’ll tell you more about the missing man soon. But remember, it’s an open case.”

  She walked him to the front door.

  He turned to give her one last look, and she responded.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. Don’t do anything about this new mystery.”

  He grinned, shook his head, and was off in a flash.

  •••

  “Yeah, yeah,” she repeated to the cat still sitting on the work table next to the spot where the jacket had been.

  The cat murrowed at her, shook its tail.

  “Oh, stop,” she answered, giving her head a shake to mirror the cat’s tail. “I’ll be careful; I just want to look up the news story on the missing man, whatever his name was—what was his name, anyway?” She checked one of her photos. “Paul Dotson. Okay. That’s all. Anyway, it’s public information and I’m not breaking any promises. I’m not getting involved in this one. And if anything does happen, it’s your fault for dragging me further into this thing. You’re the one who pulled the jacket off the table and messed up the gold threads. I tried to cover that up by blaming Eric, Jenna or me. You’re just lucky I didn’t blame you.”

  When the cat stared at her, she continued.

  “Well, okay. I couldn’t tell him about you. But you just better watch your step, Isabella, and don’t get me in any more trouble than I usually am.”

  At that, the cat jumped to the floor and stalked up the stairs to Laura’s apartment, voicing disapproval on every step.

  Laura sighed. She could never win with that cat but had learned to pay attention to its various hints and warnings.

  Then a thought struck her.

  Why hadn’t Connor been concerned about Eric Williams handling the jacket? True that Williams had barely touched it, in fact, had used his pen to poke into the cavities holding the embroidered name and the golden threads. But Connor didn’t know that. He was usually very particular about people touching things that could be evidence or part of a crime scene. He had only mentioned Jenna and her. Hmm…something else to think about now.

  The focus for now, though, was pulling open the boxes on the work table that were filled with St. Patrick’s Day goodies for the shop. She’d ordered the items a couple of weeks ago and the first batches had arrived. She organized them on the table.

  The bone china cup and saucer sets that everyone in the county craved from her shop would not be removed but would be flanked by the green-tinted and shamrock-printed sets. She’d not been able to get any of these locally at estate sales, but she was able to find a reliable source online. They might not be bone china, but they we
re porcelain and very pretty. Thankfully, they’d shipped them quickly, and here they were. Priced well, she would be able to sell them for a decent price and still make a small profit.

  As she stocked the shelves with the teacup sets, she also added some boxes of a variety of different green teas next to them. After adding some green hand towels on either side, she took a moment to stand back and look at the store again, got lost imagining the green ribbons waving across the ceiling and looked up at the new knocking on her front door. She saw it was Jenna through the glass and rushed to open it for her friend.

  Today, Jenna had a big smile on her face, and she held up a canvas tote bag with a big green four-leaf clover appliquéd on the front. Then, with the other hand, she pulled four more from behind her and offered the lot to Laura. The appliqué fabrics were varied, solid green, green gingham, and stripes and patterns.

  “I did the appliqués on my sewing machine, so wipe off that look of sheer amazement, girl. It took very little effort. Just tell me if you want some more.”

  Laura looked them over. She could sew, but she’d never tried embroidery or appliquéing. The heart-embroidered hand towels Jenna had given her for Valentine’s Day had sold like hotcakes.

  “What do you want for them? Please don’t say no again.”

  “No, again. Nothing. First, I don’t need the money. Second, you are my best friend in the world, and you’ve always stuck by me and helped me out of…mix-ups and problems. And third, and most importantly, it’s fun for me to do this.”

  So the Irish tote bags were priced, and Jenna arranged where they should go in the shop.

  “Oh, and I have something else for you. It’s in the car.”

  Jenna dashed back to her Lexus SUV, parked askew in front of the shop, almost parallel to the curb, as if no thought had been given to a possible parking ticket. She came back with her arms wrapped part-way around the biggest glass bowl Laura had ever seen.

  Laura held the door open for her and helped carry the bowl to the back room.

  “For the contest,” Jenna said. “It was sitting around with nothing to do, so I cleaned it up and gave it a new purpose, even if only for a few weeks.”

  “It’s perfect, but I think I better order some more chocolate coins.”

  “You are ordering from several different suppliers, aren’t you? That way no one can cheat by contacting one of them to find out what the total is.”

  Laura nodded. That was exactly what she had done, but now she had to order more. How many would the enormous bowl take? She might have to use math.

  “I wasn’t imagining such a big scale, but now that I see your bowl, I wouldn’t want it any smaller. Think I should contact one of the math teachers at the high school? I’m not sure I remember enough of this kind of math on my own to do the estimate.”

  “Not a bad idea.”

  “Okay, so I think I better put up a sign about the coming contest since it may take a few more days to get the rest of the chocolate and get this thing in gear. And I want to stir up some noise.”

  “Can I help with the sign?” Jenna asked.

  “Absolutely, and maybe then, if you have a few minutes, you can look over some of the old Irish proverbs I printed out and help me figure out which ones can go in these little greenish-silver frames I picked up for a song. All of these things won’t bring in a lot of cash, but added up, I should do okay.”

  “Where are they?” her friend asked, and Laura pointed to the back room.

  A medium-sized box filled with little three-by-three and four-by-four inch frames in an assortment of oval, round, and heart shapes and varying shades of pale-green and silvery-greenish metal were obscured by their bubble-wrap. The pair removed their packing, one at a time, and stood the frames on the work table.

  “These are adorable!” Jenna said. “Where are your Irish sayings?”

  Laura unwrapped the rest of the frames while her friend read through all the printed proverbs. There were Irish proverbs and blessings, as well as curses. Jenna read some of them out loud, trying them out, and the pair laughed at many of them.

  Then they made the window sign on two pieces of cardstock and taped them onto the glass in front of the butcher paper that was blocking the inside view.

  It was nearing ten o’clock before they realized it was time to open the shop for the day, and Jenna left, taking the Irish sayings with her in a bag and promising to bring the “winners” back later in time for them to go into frames and onto the shelves for sale in the next day or two. She also reminded Laura to put news of the contest on her website, Facebook page, and tweet it to the world.

  As Laura turned the sign to Open and unlocked the shop’s front door for business, her mind was on gold.

  Gold coins.

  Gold threads.

  And the missing man and his brand-new sports jacket.

  five

  The signs were up in the front window. Jenna had drawn little green four-leaf clovers in each corner of the two cardstock pages and as dots for every letter “i.” The top sign said, “St. Patrick’s Day Contest” and the lower sign said, “Coming Any Day Now. Watch For It and Like Second Treasures on Facebook.”

  Everything else was blocked out by the butcher paper until Laura could finish her designs for the window. Nobody could see anything from the inside of the store, either, because of the backdrop board which was latched against the wall. News of the contest was already drawing a crowd, and questions flew at her as everyone had to stop in the store and ask about it. There was lots of buzz about both the contest and the upcoming St. Patrick’s Day Parade and Gala.

  “I hope it doesn’t snow or rain for the parade. We’ve gotten snow late in the year many times. And rain would simply ruin everything.”

  “Oh, Patty, you’re always doom and gloom. Who cares if it snows?”

  “Well, nobody wants to catch pneumonia having fun.”

  “Can’t get cold if you drink enough green beer, I hear.”

  “These shamrock teacups are adorable! I must have two sets. By the way, who’s serving the green beer this year? Are you, Laura?”

  She’d given them all half an ear, but this time she responded.

  “No, I’m selling other kinds of treats. Nothing alcoholic. I don’t know who’s sponsoring the green beer at the Gala yet.”

  “What’s ‘Gunpowder’ green tea? I’ve not heard of that brand.”

  “That’s from China,” another customer said. “It’s not a brand; it’s a type of green tea. You’ll want to try it.”

  Laura sold the five shamrock tote bags in under two hours and texted Jenna that she’d need at least a dozen more, but she insisted that Jenna allow her to pay for the tote bags. Jenna could then appliqué them for free, if she wanted. Jenna texted a sad face next to an “OK” and said she’d do twenty more and give Laura the bill.

  When the day was done, Laura thought she’d had good business so far and attributed it all to the idea of a contest that no one knew anything about. Half of the shamrock-painted teacup sets on the shelf were sold, so she put out more from her supply. More solid green and some green-striped and green-dotted hand towels were put out for sale. Next, she spread out the standard white and green tees on the work table in the storage room, so she and her friend, Kelly Rogers, could iron on Irish pictures and themes tomorrow evening. The big day was coming soon and most of the fun would be the build-up beforehand.

  A quick dinner and she was off to the Raging Ford Bulletin, the town’s newspaper, owned by Charlie Kovacs, one of the Kovacs triplets who made up the unofficial Town Council. She brought a small notebook to jot down information about the missing man, Paul Dotson. According to the newspaper stories at the time, he was originally from Eagle Junction and had worked at the bank in Raging Ford until he suddenly didn’t show up for work one day. The police were called in to investigate but found nothing and
no leads. The case had gone cold, and after two years, the conclusion remained that the man had met with foul play and ended up dead somewhere. His body might never be found.

  Which fact prompted Laura to make a call from the Bulletin’s office to the Ben Dorfman tailor’s shop in Minneapolis. It was still early evening. She didn’t realize until too late that the man who answered the phone saw the newspaper’s name on the caller ID.

  “Charlie?”

  “No, I’m just calling from the Bulletin’s office.”

  “Oh, what did you want?”

  “I just wondered if you remember a customer named Paul Dotson. I’m following up on some questions I have.”

  “He was one of our best customers until about two years ago. Funny you should ask. About four months ago, I got an online order for a sports jacket for him.”

  Laura could barely contain her excitement at hearing this. If he were dead, how could he have ordered a new sports jacket? She tried to keep her voice calm and flat.

  “How was it paid for, do you know?”

  “His usual credit card.”

  “Did he pick it up himself?”

  “No, sent to his post office box, all as usual. Why?”

  “Oh, nothing. I was just curious. Thank you so much. This is helpful. Good-bye,” she finished abruptly and hung up before he could ask her anything further. Thank goodness she hadn’t given him her name. Connor would really freak out, which he would anyway because she’d made the phone call. It just wouldn’t be as big a freak-out.

  Usual credit card.

  She’d have to give this information to Connor, as well, and quickly because it would mean that one of the man’s credit cards had not been left behind in his apartment. Maybe the police already knew? She’d have to think about how she would explain the call to Connor.

  Laura returned to the newspaper archives and found another story that ran about the time Dotson disappeared. Apparently, he worked at the Raging Ford Bank and Trust Company at the same time a large amount of money disappeared from various customer accounts. The FBI was called in to investigate the rumors. Could Dotson have run into the person or persons responsible for the fraud? Or was he the one who had committed the fraud and pretended to disappear just to cover his tracks and avoid capture?