Hanging by a Thread

by Margaret Evans

  How could she possibly wait until Connor had time to discuss the man’s disappearance and the new sports jacket?

  And what about the credit card purchase in his name just four months ago?

  •••

  Laura set up a business lunch with Connor in her kitchenette the next day, spraying a few green streaks of colored, sparkling hair spray into her hair. Green sweater and shoes completed her Irish festivity for the shop.

  “Okay, so what did you find out and how did you find out what you found out?” he began before taking a bite of the meatloaf sandwich.

  She opened her mouth and he stopped her with a hand.

  “No, stop. Tell me first what you did,” he said, his hand covering his full mouth.

  “I know you’re very busy so I went to Charlie’s newspaper archives and looked up the story about that man, Paul Dotson, who disappeared two years ago. I found out something I have to tell you.”

  “From Charlie’s newspaper? You know better than to believe everything in print, especially from that newspaper. He’s a bit of a sensationalist.”

  She put her hands in her lap in front of the sandwich she hadn’t touched.

  “I called the tailor shop from there, and he thought I was calling for Charlie.”

  When Connor looked like he was about to throw the rest of the sandwich at her, she continued.

  “I set him straight and said I just had a couple of questions I wanted to follow up on about the missing man. Asked if he remembered Paul Dotson. That’s all I said. He told me Dotson had been a big customer until about two years ago, but that he’d just gotten an online order from Dotson four months ago for a sports jacket. I did ask him how it was paid for, and he said it was on Dotson’s usual credit card and sent to the usual P.O. Box. Then I hung up.”

  Fitzpatrick’s silence was long.

  “I’m not asking you to talk about an open case, Connor. I’m just telling you what I found out.”

  “You shouldn’t have called the tailor. You should have waited to talk with me first.”

  “I know, but—”

  “But you couldn’t wait. I understand. And what you read in the paper is pretty much all we released to the public. There are more details that can’t be released and I can’t tell you about them. So please, Laura, please, don’t talk to anyone else about this. Don’t ask anyone else about it. You have no idea what you might stir up.”

  “Did you know about this order from four months ago?”

  “No, we didn’t. And I’ll have someone follow up with the tailor. You are not the person I will ask to do that.”

  She finally picked up her sandwich for a bite.

  “Okay. That’s all. You can go back to work now.”

  “Not until I finish this sandwich. The new Star Trek movie just came out; it’s playing in Duluth. Want to go Saturday after work? I’ll get us tickets online in advance.”

  “Another date?” she asked, sitting forward in her chair. “Of course, I do!”

  “Yeah. I think we’re up to six dates now. Progress, though not a lot. Still, progress.”

  “St. Patrick’s Day is coming up shortly,” Laura announced, thinking it was also Connor’s birthday.

  “Yeah, I saw the contest notice in your window. I’ll send you the ordinances on holding contests so I don’t have to cite you for failure to comply, and that way no one can sue you or the town when they don’t win.”

  “There are rules about a simple counting contest?”

  He nodded, stuffing the last bite in his mouth and washing it all down with the last of his coffee.

  “You’re not even really Irish, so I guess I better check if you can even hold a St. Patrick’s Day contest or dress in green.”

  “I am, too!” she protested.

  “Three quarters of my family is Irish. Can you beat that?”

  “Well, I know of at least one Irish ancestor. I think she was a great-great grandmother. Her last name was Kelty, sometimes spelled Kilty or Keelty, but she was definitely Irish.”

  “Yes, I think you did try to tell me that more than once when we were kids.”

  “It’s true. So I qualify, regardless of what town ordinance you think you can dig up to prevent my participating in fun events for St. Patrick’s Day. Don’t you remember, by the way, Sister Mary Angele making everyone write O’ in front of their last names on March 17? She declared everyone was Irish on St. Paddy’s Day.”

  “She felt sorry for you folks of non-Irish descent. That’s why we have two floats in the parade every year—one for the Irish and one for those who want to be or claim to be without proof.”

  “Sister also thought Keene was Irish. I tried to tell her once that it was German and the original spelling was Kühn, but when my ancestors were registered at Ellis Island, it was misspelled and written phonetically. I don’t think she believed me. She just laughed.”

  Connor laughed, too, and looked at the sparkly green streaks in Laura’s hair. The girl was partying without a party, but he recalled she’d always done that.

  “Does that wash out?”

  “Why, don’t you like it?”

  “I like your hair the way it is. Or was.” He rose to leave.

  “If you’re not nice, I may decide not to give you one of the special Irish-themed treats I’m putting out in the shop tomorrow.”

  He turned back, his hand on the front door knob.

  “Will I like them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are they free?”

  “No.”

  “I may not like them, then.”

  “That’s totally up to you, Sergeant.”

  “Oh, and if you sell food in the store—”

  “I know the regulations on that one, and I’m in full compliance.”

  “The health department has to inspect—”

  She ran back to the kitchen and brought back her health department approval certificate, shoving it in his face.

  He grinned as he walked through the door, flipping the Closed sign to Open as he did so.

  “Thanks for the lunch. I’ll text you about Saturday. See you then. And remember what I told you about not talking about the case we talked about today.”

  “I’m a grown-up, Connor.”

  He just shook his head as he drove back to the station.

  six

  Laura got up at five the next morning, popping fresh popcorn, and drizzling it with warmed, buttered caramel tinted green with food coloring, which she spread out on waxed paper in two jelly roll pans. Once they were cooled, she loaded the popcorn into clear plastic cone bags tied tightly with wire twists and green ribbons. She priced the bags at Five Dollars each with a big sign that One Dollar and Fifty Cents of every bag sold would be donated to the for renovation of the brass railing at the police station. She knew Connor was worried about the safety of that railing and would appreciate every penny given to the cause. She had also decided that she would conduct some type of charitable donation from goods sold in her shop for every holiday. It might not always be the police that benefited from the donations, but the station would often be the recipient.

  She put the mountain of bags in a big basket next to the counter in the shop, so nobody could miss it, then folded up the tees that she and her friend Kelly Rogers had decorated with iron-on St. Patrick’s Day theme images and slogans last evening. There was a rearranging of the shelf items so the tees were on prominent display near Jenna’s canvas tote bags and green shoelaces and hair ribbons, and green wax teeth in their original sealed bags, all of which were nowhere near the teacups or other breakables. She had added more teacups and some green glass serving dishes, sets of green glasses and green glass mugs for all that green beer that was expected to flow on St. Paddy’s Day. And more boxes of green teas.

  Then she opened the shop to throngs of St
. Patrick’s Day purchasers. The popcorn and tees were a big hit. So were the tote bags and wax green teeth. Another text went from Laura to Jenna for more plus a reminder to bring back the Irish proverbs so they could put them into the various frames and out for sale.

  At lunch, Laura headed out to the second meeting of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade and Gala committee, otherwise known as SPDP&G, over lunch at the Valencia Café across the street from her shop. But their cussing and fussing over all the details of the upcoming events was not what took so much of Laura’s head. It was the man who had disappeared two years ago whose almost-new and recently purchased, very expensive sports jacket with the mysterious golden threads that had found its way into her thrift shop and whatever his story was, that took up her brain.

  At the noontime meeting, Laura was seated at an arrangement of four tables pulled together with the other members of the committee draped around it. A small white board on a desktop tripod was set up at one end. She was happy that her friends, Jenna, Erica, and Kelly were also on the committee, but she didn’t really know many of the other members very well.

  Miles Gunnarsson was a friend of Connor’s older brother, Ian Fitzpatrick, and managed a consulting business in Duluth. He preferred to spend his time on his smart phone rather than interact with the other committee members and looked up now and then to make sure he didn’t miss anything. He also considered himself the committee chair.

  Rina Holm was a paralegal, and it appeared she had been tasked with note-taking and keeping everyone on task. But to Laura, it looked as if the woman simply had an obsessive-compulsive disorder as she continuously bustled about to straighten salt shakers and everyone else’s flatware on the tables, and everything else within her reach. She would get up from time to time and erase and rewrite items on the portable white board, spot someone’s napkin out of alignment and walk around the table to fix it. Rewriting on the white board continued throughout their meal, whenever letters didn’t look properly formed. But she seemed nice enough.

  Bryce Preshka was an accountant, like Laura, but his specialty was estates and trusts, and he had worked for years with several of the smaller law firms in St. Louis County. He acted as if he were the most important committee member. His smart phone was on buzz, but its buzzing and vibrating were distracting, and everyone at the table could hear the phone that he never answered.

  Aaron Nilsson, manager of the Raging Ford Bank and Trust Company, was also on the committee. Whether Miles knew it or not, or cared or not, it appeared that Nilsson considered himself the final word on every direction and decision the committee made.

  The last member of the committee was someone Laura had actually known from middle school. Jade Olson Wilkin was married with a small baby, but Laura could tell that her attitude from school hadn’t changed. She was unpleasant and loud, cut off people who were trying to make points and ask questions, and her interruptions were frequently connected with what she wanted to say about her meal, her baby’s latest trick, or her life at the moment and almost always unrelated to the conversations at hand.

  Laura did much listening, but her mind wandered to her concerns about the missing Dotson and wondered what the details of his disappearance were that Connor could not share with her. What could they be? What kind of clues and leads did they have? She would love to help, if they would only let her. She just wanted a peek at the file!

  When Gunnarsson stopped reading his phone and asked for the check, Laura’s attention was drawn to a number of things happening at the same moment. Two of her friends had gone to the rest room, and Rina stood to write something that seemed important to everyone on the white board. When Rina reseated herself, Laura saw in surprise that she had been tasked with creating, buying, or sewing the committee’s costumes for the parade.

  From her childhood memories, Laura recalled seeing a group of adults, including her mother, dressed as leprechauns or Irish faeries, guiding the parade floats and gala celebration, which consisted of mostly eating and drinking at the community center near the police station, where the Christmas party had been held. Everything was green, no matter which way she looked, and she remembered it being fun.

  But making costumes?

  It reminded her of a recent dinner with the Fab Four at which Jenna had suggested Laura make everyone’s Fall Fairy costumes as they’d all grown up since the last time they’d helped out with the small children in the Halloween Haunted Forest, next door to Connor Fitzpatrick’s parents’ house. They needed new fairy costumes.

  Had she agreed to that, too? She didn’t think so, but she did recall that Jenna thought Laura knew how to sew as her mother had.

  After the others left, Erica stayed behind with Laura for a private chat about the meeting.

  “Did I really agree to make costumes for all these people?”

  “No, actually, Jade volunteered you as the new person on the committee. You looked like you were in dreamland when everyone agreed. Jenna abstained from voting, but Kelly and I thought you would be great with your imagination and creativity.”

  “I’m touched by your confidence in my abilities,” Laura responded, a tinge of sarcasm on her lips. “Do we all need to wear costumes? Maybe just a couple of us?”

  “We’re the folks who will guide everyone along, help if someone has a question or problem, look for lost kids, keep things in general good order. So, yes, we all need to be clearly identified. How did you miss that?”

  “Sorry. I’ve gotten caught up in something that’s bothering me.”

  “Not another mystery, is it? Hopefully, not a murder again! Remember where that got you last time and how you thought my boyfriend Torrey was involved?”

  Laura recalled what had happened as a result of her working on a cold case with Connor recently, and the danger into which the pair had fallen. It struck her that a seemingly innocent conversation about a concern or a mystery could be overheard and misconstrued, as it had the last time, with terrifying consequences. She chose her response carefully.

  “It’s that guy Paul Dotson who disappeared a couple of years ago,” Laura said, dropping her voice to what she believed was a safe level.

  Erica polished off her wine with no concern about driving. She could walk across the street back to work after lunch at her father’s florist shop next door to Laura’s thrift shop.

  “I remember the story about this guy. It was kinda weird how they said he was there one day and not the next. Everybody thinks he’s dead. Why are you concerned? I don’t think you even knew him.”

  “Don’t tell anyone, but a brand-new sports coat that belongs to him and was bought very recently just showed up in my shop in a bag of giveaway clothes. I need you not to share that with anyone.”

  Erica stared at her.

  “You’re kidding. Did you tell Connor?”

  Laura nodded.

  Both ladies were startled when Marie Vandergard, the café owner, bent over the table.

  “It was more than weird when Paul went missing, but my niece Sabina Morello works at the same bank. I can ask her if she’s heard anything.”

  Laura’s heart stopped, realizing it was likely their entire conversation, or at least part of it, had been overheard. She glanced about and saw all the empty tables in relief. Just Marie. But thinking “just Marie” might not be enough.

  “No, let’s not do that. Don’t talk to her or anybody else, Marie. I’m sure I’m just imagining things. Thanks, anyway.”

  Erica’s eyes met Laura’s.

  Sabina Morello was Jack Flynn’s fiancée. What connection could there possibly be between her and the missing man thought dead who may not be dead at all?

  seven

  The afternoon passed quickly, but St. Patrick’s Day was nearing, faster than Laura had planned. Her Irish-themed shop goods were selling fast, and tonight was the night she planned to finish up the window decorations and put out the bi
g bowl of gold foil-covered chocolate coins to open the contest.

  Jenna Buckley stopped by mid-afternoon with the Irish proverbs.

  “I’ll just go into the back room and cut these out to fit into the frames. Took me longer than I thought with all the tote bags you’re selling! You keep doing what you’re doing. I’ll take care of it.”

  After a couple of hours had passed, Jenna poked her head out into the shop and caught Laura’s eye.

  “How much do you want to price these at? I found your little price tag thingies.”

  Laura had rung up her last customer for the day and locked the front door, turning the Closed sign outwards. She joined her friend in the back room.

  “I think I was going to price them at Five Dollars, just like the popcorn bags, with $1.50 donated toward the fire house’s new microwave. I heard by the grapevine that their old one just gave up its ghost.”

  Jenna thought about it. “Does the school need anything?”

  “Everyone donates and raises funds for the school and the kids’ clubs. People forget about the service industries that help us all out, too. We can do the school at another holiday. Maybe Easter. I promise.”

  “Okay, then. Good price. Let’s get these tagged and out there.”

  Laura was awed by how many there were.

  Jenna had made copies of the best ones and filled up all the frames. She divided them into categories of proverbs, well wishes, and curses, and then organized by each individual saying so Laura could see which ones had duplicates and triplicates. It would be easy for her to replace one on the shelf with an exact duplicate, once it sold.

  Then Jenna waved to her friend.

  “I’ve got some shopping to get done before coming back later this evening to help you decorate the store once the chocolate coins are in the window. See you then.”