Threaded for Trouble (35 page)

“Golf carts?” I asked Clay. “Is that how Smallwood and Gartener got here?”

“Haylee, Opal, Naomi, and Edna had already commandeered the golf carts. The officers caught a ride with them.”

“But weren’t you all near the parking lot? That’s where the fire was. Why didn’t the police officers drive here in their cruisers?”

Mischief flashed in Clay’s grin. “Chief Smallwood and Detective Gartener hid their cruisers near the administration building so no one would recognize them. They’re in plain clothes tonight.”

I turned my face away from Smallwood so she wouldn’t see my smile. Who was I to carp about insufficient disguises?

Clay must have guessed what I was thinking. He winked.

I bit back a laugh. “How did you, Plug, Isaac, and Russ get here?”

“We ran.”

Isaac had found a fire extinguisher and was pumping foam onto the carton of linens. Those beautiful heritage linens, including some that Mimi had created, were ruined. Even if they weren’t, they’d be taken as evidence. However, my machines and I could make modern versions. The quilts and the rest of the tent’s contents, including the humans, were okay.

More than okay. Plug had an arm around Russ and was telling him how worried he’d been about him. Plug was gruff, but if I could hear the love in his voice, Russ should be able to, as well. “Never run away again, son,” Plug said. “If things get bad, just talk to your old man.”

Russ ducked his head, but I thought I saw tears glimmer near his eyes. “Okay.”

“And no more setting fields on fire.”

“We didn’t…”

“Don’t lie, son. Your mother would be so sad.”

“We won’t do it again, sir.”

“Dad.”

“We won’t do it again, Dad.”

Isaac finished putting out the fire in the carton of linens. Leaving the baby doll in the dirt, he carried the firefighter’s jacket to Plug. “Chief,” he said, “where did this jacket come from? Inside, it says
Emblesford Volunteer Fire Department
.”

“Then it came from Emblesford,” Plug answered.

“Mimi’s a member of the volunteer fire department there,” I said.

Mimi mumbled that we’d all be made to pay for our false accusations.

Smallwood chastised Isaac for disturbing possible evidence.

He held his hands out. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I didn’t know. Want me to put the jacket back where I found it?”

“No,” she exploded. “Don’t go back there. Leave everything alone. Later, I’ll get your statement about where you found it.”

And she’d get my statement, too, about where I saw it and the rest of the gear Mimi had removed. And Haylee’s statement about seeing the firefighter sneak into the tent and, after a loud bang, the power going off and Mimi slipping out of the tent.

Poor Isaac didn’t seem to know what to do with the jacket. He wadded it between his hands, then let it go, nearly dropped it, and caught it in midair.

Something white peeked out of one of its pockets. I edged up to Isaac for a closer look. A white cloth hankie trimmed in Mimi’s signature tatting was about to fall out of the Emblesford jacket.

I took the jacket, hankie and all, from him, showed it to Smallwood, and explained.

“Put it on the ground beside me,” she directed, never taking her eyes off Mimi. “I’ll take it with me when we go.”

Jeremy Chandler must have tired of bumper cars. He drifted into the tent. “Willow?” he asked. “I almost didn’t recognize you in that black shirt. I like your hair that way.”

After being crammed underneath the Stetson, my hair probably had a fresh-out-of-bed look. “Thanks,” I faltered, not particularly in the mood for compliments about mussed hair.

“You’re sure you don’t want to become the Midwest rep for Chandler? You’d get to work for
me
.”

“I’m sure,” I said.

He turned to Haylee, still in her cowboy disguise, including hat and extra padding. “You’re good at sewing, aren’t you?”

Shaking her head, she backed away from him. “I’m staying in Threadville with my mothers and my friends.”

“Your rep is expected to get better,” Clay told Jeremy in unyielding tones.

Jeremy sidestepped toward the tent’s entryway. “That’s good to hear.” He could have
tried
to sound sincere.

Naomi was back to being her sweet self, even if she was a bit purple and fuzzy. She pointed out, “She’s been through a lot.”

In her clown suit and her usual, sturdy way, Edna backed Naomi up. “The least you can do is keep her on.”

Opal would have towered over Jeremy even without the help of a tall and floppy giraffe neck. “Doing work she loves should help her get over her trauma,” she informed him.

“Okay, well, see you all later.” Jeremy melted into the night.

Good riddance.
Had I said it aloud?

Behind the tent, a car door slammed. Jeremy leaving? Or Gartener returning?

But Gartener, broadcaster’s voice and all, had never, in my hearing, sung opera.

W
HAT WAS DR. WRINKLESIDES DOING here?

“We could use some light in this tent,” I said to no one in particular.

“Son?” Plug asked. “You got the Ferris wheel running. Think you can turn on a few lights?”

“Sure.” The boy strode away.

Edna, her smile so wide it went with the clown costume, trotted to Dr. Wrinklesides. “Thanks for coming, Gord. I called you because Willow hurt her hand.”

He gave her a peck on one red-painted cheek and sang something like, “I always answer your call, my little chickadee.” He strode to me. “Let me see that hand, young lady.”

“It’s fine,” I said.

Nevertheless, he took my hand gently in his, examined the bandages, and boomed out his hearty laugh. “Nice bandages. Cartoons. Who bandaged you?”

“Haylee.”

He cast her an admiring grin. “She did a slick job of it.” He peered at the side of my head. “Who hit you?” Without waiting for an answer, he ran gentle fingers over a very
tender lump. “I’m calling an ambulance. That needs to be checked out in a hospital.”

“No.”

“Yes.” He got out his cell and punched in three numbers.

Smallwood continued to stand over Mimi, who would have trouble fleeing, anyway. Lying on her stomach with her hands cuffed behind her, she would have lots of trouble disengaging herself from the confining bolt of batik.

Lights came on in the tent. Grinning, Russ returned to his father.

Another car door slammed in the parking lot behind the tent. Susannah ran toward me, but Smallwood stopped her. “Thanks for the evidence you gave us.”

Susannah looked down and mumbled, “You’re welcome.”

“Evidence?” Mimi squawked.

Smallwood stared at her as if she were a particularly repulsive beetle on the ground. “Something about Darlene’s charities not being legitimate.”

“They weren’t,” Mimi said. “I could tell you—” She clammed up.

Susannah sidled to me. “Willow, while I was wandering around the carnival after the fireworks—”

“There was a fire!”

She pushed the mane of hair from her face. “I know, and it hardly scared me. So those fireworks were good for something besides looking pretty. Anyway, I thought of something, and it could be important.” She glanced at Mimi. “But maybe it’s already taken care of.” She gave me an earnest look. “Mimi’s entry in the IMEC contest was thicker on one side than the others, with some odd stitches. Let’s get it out and look at it.”

With Dr. Wrinklesides watching my every move, I unlocked the display case and Susannah took out Mimi’s entry. I’d already noticed the bulge on one side of the doily, and Susannah pointed at a line of hand-sewn stitches near the seam. We turned the doily over, unpicked the seam, and peeked inside.

Candy pink piping had been stitched to the fabric, too close to the embroidered design to be cut off. Instead, Mimi had tucked it inside and pulled too hard at the fabric, puckering it, when she closed the seam with hand stitches. Another of her mistakes.

Luckily, Threadville’s assistant, Susannah, had questioned the shoddy work.

Isaac strode to Susannah and placed his bony hands on her shoulders. “Good job, Susannah. You really should join the fire department.”

She looked up into his face. “You know I’m too afraid of fire.” It was a good thing she didn’t appear to know about the sparks twinkling from her eyes.

Isaac put both arms around her. “Even after tonight?”

“I’m no longer terrified of it, just scared.”

He pulled her closer. “I’ll protect you.”

She let out a long, heartfelt sigh. “Fine, but I’m not going near any fires.”

“Okay,” he agreed, his voice muffled in her hair.

So that’s why Susannah had been hanging around the firefighters’ training? Had she dropped Isaac off at the Coddlefields’ the night of the fire, and she’d been too shy to tell me he’d been at her place, possibly without his pickup truck, in the middle of the night?

Isaac peered at Haylee and me over her head. “You two are staying on the force, right? Elderberry Bay needs you.”

“Sure,” Haylee said.

He tightened his arms around Susannah. “Good, because I’ve accepted the job of fire chief down near Butler. And Susannah’s coming with me.”

Haylee, her three mothers, and I gazed at each other in dismay. We were losing our assistant already?

Finally, Naomi broke the silence. “We hope you’ll both be very happy.”

All of us agreed.

Although still goggle-eyed about the romance that must have been going on almost in front of my nose the whole time, I realized that something about the embroidery
design in my hand was familiar. I turned it over. “I should have recognized this embroidery motif!” I started to clap my good hand to my forehead, but immediately rethought giving myself another blow to the head. “It’s stitched white on white, but it’s identical to the designs that Darlene sewed on her children’s outfits. Darlene must have been practicing, with the piping and everything, and then decided to use pastel embroidery thread instead of white. Mimi stole her work to enter in IMEC.”

“Ridiculous,” Mimi snapped.

My thoughts, exactly. How desperately could one want to win a contest?

I added the embroidery to the growing pile of evidence at Smallwood’s feet. “When you’re not so busy, you’ll want this for evidence. Also Darlene Coddlefield’s computer and Mimi’s computer. You’re likely to find this design in Darlene’s software, not in Mimi’s. I can help you look.”

“I could have deleted it,” Mimi said. “I don’t keep everything I make.”

She lay with her cheek in the dirt, her hands cuffed behind her, and bits of straw poking out of her flattened platinum hair. Despite the pity I couldn’t help feeling, I had to point out, “Most people would keep a copy of the embroidery design they enter in a contest, in case there are questions.”

She shrugged. “I’m not ‘most people.’”

Smallwood echoed my thoughts. “Thank goodness.”

Gartener pulled up in an unmarked cruiser and got out. Smallwood’s police radio made a noise. Somebody started talking. I heard the name Tiffany. Smallwood smiled, asked the person on the other end to repeat what he’d just said, and turned the radio up. “Listen, everyone,” she whispered.

The voice said, “Tiffany Quantice became conscious and was able to tell us the name of her attacker. It was a friend of her late boss’s, someone named Mimi Anderson. Anderson is renting a cottage in Elderberry Bay for a couple of months. We’re sending a team there now.”

“You can search the cottage if you want to,” Smallwood told her radio. “In fact, that would be great. However, with
the help of some good citizens, we have already apprehended Mimi Anderson.”

She and Gartener lifted Mimi to her feet, unwrapped the batik, and guided her into the cruiser’s backseat. I rescued the baby doll from the dirt floor and wrapped its blanket more tightly around it. Gartener headed toward the driver’s door.

Silently, I offered him his baby doll. He stared at it for a second, then burst into a deep, warm laugh.

Gartener, laughing?
Wonders never ceased.

Leaving me holding the doll, he folded himself into the driver’s seat.

Smallwood told us she’d be around to talk with each of us in the morning. She pointed her finger at me. “Especially you. You did a great job.” I thrust Gartener’s baby doll at her. Wearing her cowgirl skirt, shirt, and hat, she cradled the doll. The goofiest maternal look flitted across her face.

But she quickly regained her stern solemnity and clambered into Gartener’s passenger seat. With Mimi scowling behind them, they bumped away over the former field’s ancient furrows.

A laugh from Gartener and a compliment from Chief Smallwood. I nearly fell over. But I couldn’t have.

Not only was I standing right beside Clay, I was leaning into him, and he had an arm around my shoulders. Although I hated feeling or acting needy, just this once I deserved a little comfort.

“I’m coming with you to the hospital,” he said.

“I’m fine.”

“I’m coming with you.” He tightened his arm around me and brushed a gentle kiss across the good side of my forehead. “I went in the ambulance with someone I didn’t know at all, why wouldn’t I go with someone I—” He broke off and buried his face in my hair.

Obviously there was no arguing with him, even if I could have spoken at that moment.

And there was no arguing with Haylee and her mothers, either. Opal removed her giraffe head, and Naomi took off
the purple furry teddy bear face. Edna, her red wig with its attached hat still crooked, snuggled against Dr. Wrinklesides.

They all beamed proudly at Clay and me.

Dr. Wrinklesides began to sing an operatic aria. No doubt it was about undying love.

You will need:

Water-soluble stabilizer

Water-soluble adhesive spray

Bits of thread, lace, ribbons, yarn, and/or fabric in fiery colors

Straight pins

Embroidery thread in fiery colors

You don’t need an embroidery machine for this project. You don’t even need a sewing machine—you can do all the stitching by hand, and it still won’t take you very long!