Tapestry of Lies: A Weaving Mystery (25 page)

One week later

Y
es, life is full of surprises. After coming up with all those suspects and all those scenarios, the murderer was somebody nobody had ever questioned. Bernard Whitby himself.

After the police searched his house and found the missing gun, Whitby admitted that it had never been stolen. He had taken it himself. The night of the party, after everyone left, he and Bunny returned to the Longview “to give the Sweenys a chance to clean up,” he’d claimed. The next morning, he’d kissed Bunny good-bye, making some excuse for having to leave early, and then he waited in his car with his eyes on the Coffee Break. At a quarter to eight, when Philip McDermott came down to unlock the door, Whitby sprang into action.

It was easy as pie for him. He was a good shooter and he knew that gun well. He’d shot it dozens of times. It didn’t take him more than a few seconds to pump four bullets into McDermott’s heart inside a three-inch group. Another few seconds and he was back in his car and driving off.

Lucky for me, I was a few minutes late that morning, or God knows, I might have been killed too.

The person who had sneaked into McDermott’s studio that night was none other than Whitby. He went there to retrieve Bunny’s pictures, and as I’d guessed, in his rush, he’d left one behind. While he was there, he’d come across the pictures of Julia Anderson and him and snatched them at the same time.

Rhonda McDermott didn’t have to die. She probably never knew that her husband had tried to blackmail Whitby.

After killing her husband, Whitby began obsessing about Mrs. McDermott and about how much she knew. Rhonda was indeed blackmailing someone—Mrs. Anderson. She had always known about the pictures of Julia Anderson and Bernard Whitby. Her husband had never felt the need to hide those and had kept copies in their home. Those were the copies I’d found in the front closet.

Nobody will ever know for certain what Rhonda’s motivation was. What we do know is that after her husband’s death, the life insurance company refused to pay until they had proof of her innocence. With the coffee shop closed, Rhonda was short of cash. In my opinion, the woman resorted to blackmail out of desperation. She probably wasn’t planning on making a career of it—just a short-term solution for a short-term problem.

As for Whitby, he obsessed about Mrs. McDermott until he convinced himself that she knew all about her husband blackmailing him. He must have decided that getting rid of her was the only way Bunny’s secret would remain buried.

Yes, life is full of surprises. Everybody was sure that Bunny Boyd had wormed her way into Whitby’s affections, but it turned out that he was madly in love with Bunny and had been since high school. He was the one who’d pursued her until she’d agreed to be his wife. But, as I’d guessed, the governorship was just as important to him as she was. And when he got the first blackmail demand from Philip McDermott, Bernard Whitby decided on a simpler solution.

“So it was Whitby himself who told Bunny that her daughter had recently moved to Belmont?” Matthew asked.

It was early evening, and we were sitting in my living room, basking in the glow of a good meal and good wine. I’d made coq au vin all by myself. And it was delicious.

“That’s right. Philip McDermott sent him the information as proof. And Whitby went to Bunny to find out if it was all true. She admitted everything immediately. She had never tried to hide it. When she’d gotten pregnant at such a young age, her mother had bundled her off to an aunt in New York, so nobody in Briar Hollow had any idea she’d had a child. But when Whitby told her that her daughter was living only fifteen minutes away, she was overjoyed. She had been looking for her for years.”

“I take it Whitby wasn’t thrilled by that,” Matthew said.

“You can say that again. As much as Bunny didn’t care who found out, he didn’t want a soul to know. He was the one who sent the fake lawyer’s letter with the confidentiality agreement to Margaret, and he sent a fake personal letter to Bunny, along with the check he’d made Margaret return.”

“Ingenious, really. He might have gotten away with it if it weren’t for you.”

I beamed at the compliment. “Does that mean you forgive me for all the investigating I did?”

“You mean snooping, don’t you?” He gave me a reproachful look. “You could have gotten killed. Honestly, what were you thinking? First you break into McDermott’s studio and almost get knocked out . . .”

“That was Ricky, Emma’s boyfriend. It turns out he had been following her for a long time, and when he heard that McDermott had been killed, he broke into the studio to steal her pictures so no one else ever would see them.”

“That guy was trouble. She’s better off without him. Speaking of better off without him, how’s Bunny doing?”

“She is still reeling from the shock of Bernie being a murderer, but she’s spending a lot of time with Margaret. I think they’re building a nice relationship.”

I still hadn’t mentioned a word to Matthew about my threatening phone call, so there was no point in telling him that Ricky had admitted to it. As I’d guessed, Ricky blamed me for Emma’s decision to move to New York, and that call was just his way of getting back at me.

I closed my eyes.

“What are you smiling about?”

“I was thinking about Bunny and how nice she’s turned out to be,” I said.

After Whitby was arrested, Bunny had surprised everyone by offering to purchase the mansion for herself. Whitby, as it turned out, was not nearly as rich as we all thought since he was desperate for money to fund his defense. He and Bunny had reached an agreement the same day, and now it was only a matter of time before the sale went through. She had then promised me
and
Margaret the contract.

Sure, she admitted, the house was too big for her, but she pointed out that Margaret would get married someday and hopefully give her grandchildren. (At that point I had promised myself to never, ever allow Bunny and my mother to meet.)

Margaret and I were thrilled, especially when Bunny promised to feature our work on one of her shows.

“You’re talking about the contract.”

I nodded.

“All’s well that ends well,” he said.

“All’s well that ends well,” I repeated, looking across the room at Winston, who was nuzzling with Clementine—lucky dog. Why couldn’t Matthew be nuzzling with me that way?

As if he had read my mind, Winston seemed to wink at me. “Ruff,” he barked.

Weaving Tips

Early Looms

The first looms were crude designs. They usually involved hanging the warp (the vertical thread) over the branch of a tree and holding them tautly down with another branch or some other heavy object. As unsophisticated as those early looms were, the types of weaving produced were not entirely different from the weavings of today, albeit much coarser.

The basic loom had been used in almost every continent before developing into frame looms. Some two thousand years later, complex floor looms were first developed in Egypt.

But what really revolutionized weaving was the discovery of the weaving shed. The shed is the temporary tunnel created by the treadle, which makes it possible to pass a thread through the warp yarns in one go rather than weaving in and out. This made it possible to produce fabric at a much faster rate, which made it less expensive.

Tips for Choosing a Yarn

Apart from the more sophisticated looms of today, the other main difference between the rough weaves of yesteryear and today’s finer product is in the yarns we now have available.

Choosing a yarn for your project may sound simple enough, but before you head out to the yarn store, here are some simple rules to remember.

1) Determine how strong your finished product must be and select a yarn with the appropriate strength. For example, if you are weaving a fine scarf, you won’t choose the same yarn you would for a strong place mat.

2) Keep in mind how often you will wash your finished item. Wearable items, such as clothing, and utility items, such as place mats and towels, will need frequent washing. On the other hand, if you plan to use your piece for display purposes only, you won’t need to wash it nearly as frequently—if at all.

3) Remember that your weft and your warp need not be the same thickness, and playing with textures will result in different styles. A thin warp with a thick weft will produce a finished garment where the weft will be more visible than the warp, and vice versa. If you choose threads of equal thickness for both the weft and the warp, the weave itself will be more apparent.

4) Calculate how much yarn you will need to complete your project and select your color scheme. These two exercises go hand in hand because it is important to purchase all of your same-colored yarns at one time. Nothing is as frustrating as realizing halfway through a project that you are running out of yarn only to find out that the store is out of the same dye lot!

5) Experiment with variety. Thin, cotton yarns will make a lightweight yet sturdy piece of weaving. Textured, handspun yarns will bring color and depth into your project. Mass-produced commercial yarns are both inexpensive and easy to find.

An Easy Beginner Project: Weaving with Recycled Fabrics

For an easy and inexpensive project, use recycled fabric instead of yarn. You can use discarded curtains or colorful bedsheets that no longer suit a new decor. You can even use outgrown dresses or shirts. Your favorite old items can find new lives as place mats.

My all-time nicest place mats are a set I once made of blue toile draperies that didn’t suit my new home when I moved. However, they look wonderful under my Blue Willow dishes.

To weave with recycled fabrics, cut the fabric in thin strips and then sew all the strips together, end to end. The next step is to fold the side edges in and steam press and then fold again down the middle and press one last time. This will give you clean strips of fabric that won’t unravel along the edges and can be used as weft to weave your place mats.

Happy weaving.

Carol Ann Martin
is an author and former television personality who divides her time between San Diego and the Canadian west coast. She lives with her husband and an ever-expanding collection of dogs. When she is not writing, Carol Ann enjoys baking and beekeeping.