A Crafty Christmas (3 page)

Croppin' with Cathy was about to start. Sheila had talked the doctor into letting her try to attend. After all, Eric was there and could watch over her, if need be, as Vera's new man was a doctor. The ship's physician had entrusted him to watch over her while she cropped. Eric was a pain in the ass, always hanging around with them, so much so that Sheila found herself biting her tongue a lot. She was happy if Vera was happy. But damn, he was smothering their friendship.

She still felt a bit woozy, but the pain medicine helped. “Jingle Bells” sounded over the intercom and the room was lavishly decorated with holiday greenery and lighting. As beautiful as it was, Christmas was the last thing Sheila wanted to think about. All she really wanted was home and her own warm bed, preferably with her husband in it so she could cry on his shoulder.

She knew that wasn't the “modern woman's” way of thinking. She should be grateful for this opportunity—and she was. But tripping and groping around a dead body, and then bumping her head hard when she passed out, had her feeling glum about the cruise. A few days ago, it was like a dream come true: two thousand scrapbookers all in one place. So many of the big names were gathered here.

Surely she'd get over her malaise. But, right now, she missed her sleepy little town of Cumberland Creek and she missed her family.

She took a deep breath and motioned for the beautiful young man who was dishing out glasses of wine. Surely one glass of wine wouldn't hurt. They were lucky the cropping events on board all offered free drinks, which included alcohol. And the Cumberland Creek contingent took advantage of it, since outside the scrapbooking events the drinks were extremely expensive.

Cathy was one of the big names on board. Sheila had a dinner scheduled with her this evening, so she was happy to be able to participate in this event today.

Sheila dug around in her scrapbooking cart and pulled out the photos she wanted to use for this crop, from her son's violin recital. She was working on a music-themed scrapbook for him. Of all things she would have chosen for her son Jonathon to be good at, violin was not one. But he loved it and excelled at it.

“What are you thinking about?” Vera said. “You thinking about that dead body?”

Sheila nodded. “Sort of.”

“What did it feel like?” Vera asked, eyes wide.

“Vera, honestly,” said Paige.

“Seriously,” Eric said. “Leave it alone for now.” He wrapped his arm around Vera and pulled her close to him.

“
Thank you,” Sheila said to the server as she reached for the wine.

“You know, I don't think I've ever seen so much booze in my life,” Paige said. “It's everywhere. All the time.”

“Thank God,” said Sheila as she drank from her glass. It was sweet, good, and she wanted more. But she put the glass down. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a man looking at her. He turned the minute her eyes met his. Strange. Was he really looking at her? Did he know what she knew? Or worse, was he the murderer?

“Mrs. Rogers?” someone said from behind her, causing her to gasp and jump.

“Oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to startle you,” the young woman said. “I'm Sherry. I'm a big a fan of your designs. I was wondering if I could get you to sign my program?”

Sheila's eyes widened and she felt a blush creeping on to her face. She smiled. “Of course,” she said. “Thanks so much.”

Sherry held the program book up to her; it was open to the section that featured her work. It was then Sheila remembered Allie Monroe had borrowed her winning scrapbook two nights ago and was supposed to return it this morning at breakfast. Oh bother, that's exactly when she had been in the infirmary.

She signed the book and handed it back to Sherry. “My first autograph,” Sheila said. “And probably my last.”

“Oh no.” Sherry became serious. “My money is on you to become very famous. What are you going to do? Develop your own line? Work in digital?”

“Well, um, er . . .” she said, trying to find her words.

“She's entertaining offers,” Vera spoke up. And thank goodness for that.

Sheila's head was swimming; she wasn't used to complete strangers wanting her signature and she was a bit flummoxed.

“Why, thank you so much,” said the young woman, and then she walked away.

“Oh my, my, my, my,” Paige said, and whistled. “I didn't know we were in the company of a star.”

“Stop it.” Sheila waved her off.

“You better get used to it, dear,” Vera said, cutting some paper with her paper cutter before she stacked it in a neat pile next to her page.

“What do you have on that page?” Paige asked.

“It's a doily. They handed them out at yesterday's altered book workshop. Didn't you get any?”

“I didn't see them,” Paige responded.

“Here, have a few.” Vera reached into her bag. “I never would have thought to use a doily in my scrapbooking. I'm getting so many ideas and this is only the third day. You can use them plain, paste a photo on them, or whatever. Or you can paint them. One woman at the workshop put together a page with painted doilies. It was gorgeous. Another woman—I think it was Allie Monroe—used doilies as a kind of template. She painted over them and when she took the doilies off it left behind this intricate design.”

“That reminds me; I need to find Allie,” Sheila said. “She has my scrapbook. Have you seen her?”

“No, thank God. What a snob,” Paige said.

“She's got a lot to be snobby about, I suppose,” said Vera.

Allie Monroe was one of the most successful scrapbooking designers in the world. She and Sheila had hit it off immediately and had sat together at dinner a few nights ago.

“Very talented woman,” Sheila said. “She was supposed to meet me this morning. I'm afraid she might think I stood her up. She borrowed my scrapbook before I even got the chance to take it out of the plastic.”

“Why?” Paige asked.

“She wanted to look it over one more time,” Sheila said, noticing the man looking at her again. She ignored him. It was that or hit him over the head with her scrapbook. She could not abide rudeness.

Soon, young fresh-faced servers placed themselves at the end of their aisles, handing out bags of scrapbooking swag.

“Good afternoon,” Cathy said into her microphone. “Welcome. I hope you enjoy a sample of my new line of scrapbooking paper, called Cherry Blossom. I was in China last year and was so inspired by the blossoms.”

“I love this paper,” Vera said, eyes wide.

“Nice freebie,” Paige said, as she opened her bag of scrapbooking paper, stickers, and embellishments.

“Must be costing her a fortune to give all this away,” Vera said.

“It's good marketing,” Sheila said. “We're her market. If we like it, we'll buy more. Besides, she's not hurting for money.”

She loved the black and white paper with the silver cherry blossoms. She changed her cropping plans and decided to use the photo of her son and his violin on this paper. But first she needed to get a message to Allie. She wanted that scrapbook back.

“I'll be right back,” she said. “I'm going to the message center to try to contact Allie.”

“Maybe you'll find her along the way. This place is packed,” Vera said.

“I'll come with you,” Paige said. “I need to stretch my legs before I settle in here for the afternoon.”

The message board set up by the conference organizers was jammed with messages. It was a confusing mess.

“Shoot,” Sheila said. “You know what? I'll just go up to her room and slide this under the door. I think she said her room number was one hundred thirteen. Yes, that's right. I remember it because of the thirteen and bad luck and all that. We joked about it.”

“I'll walk with you,” Paige said. “How are you feeling? You still look a little dazed. Well, a little more dazed than usual.”

Sheila chuckled. “I'm fine. That wine took the edge off a bit. Now, let's see here.” They walked over to the elevator, went inside, and pushed the button to the first level of suites.

They exited the elevator and walked along the deck. The sky was a beautiful robin's egg blue, with no clouds in sight. The water and the sky sometimes looked like they were one. This was a different ocean than either one of these born and bred Virginians had ever seen. Theirs had a hard sand and rocky beach and was barely blue. This water was smooth as glass or silk. It was hard to take their eyes from it at times.

They walked around the corner, looking at the numbers on the doors.

“There it is,” Paige said.

But something was very wrong. Part of the hallway was blocked off with people and there was a flurry of activity both inside and right outside Allie's room.

Matthew Kirtley walked out of the room. “Mrs. Rogers, can I help you?”

“I'm not sure,” Sheila said. “I came to see Allie. But is she here? Is she okay?” Her stomach flip-flopped as she realized something must be wrong if the security team was here.

“I'm sorry, Mrs. Rogers. She's not here. Can I help you?”

That was the second time he'd asked her the same question, yet he was being no help at all.

“I stood her up this morning. We were supposed to have breakfast. She borrowed my scrapbook. I came to get it back from her. May I?” She motioned to the door.

“I'm sorry, no,” he said. “Look, you're going to find this out at dinner tonight. That's when the announcement will be made.”

“Announcement?” Sheila said.

“Everything in Allie's room is evidence right now. I'm surprised to hear that you knew her.... You didn't recognize her this morning?”

“What? This morning?” Sheila's hand went to her cheek.
Oh, this is very confusing. What is he getting at?

“She was the victim on deck this morning,” he said.

Sheila blinked and thought she might pass out again. She took several deep breaths as Paige's arms slipped around her.

She shook her head no. “It didn't look anything like her. I mean, I didn't get that close of a look. . . .”

“No,” he said, his voice lowered. “Her face was contorted. She must have been in great pain. The poison . . .”

“Poison?” Paige said.

“Yes, normally we have to send out to labs to confirm. But this time it was pretty clear. Cause of death: poison. Details to come. Excuse me, ladies.”

“But wait—my scrapbook . . .”

But Matthew kept moving, and shut the door behind him.

Annie's new dishwasher barely made a sound. Was it possible to love an appliance?

She straightened the kitchen table, where the boys had just been doing their homework. A pile for Ben. A pile for Sam. It was a half day of school today, which meant they'd gotten home around eleven o'clock. Mike was overseeing the baths—the boys had decided on early baths, since they didn't get them last night.

She sat down at the table and started to sift through the stack of mail. The mail carrier didn't seem to have a set schedule, which drove Annie crazy. In Washington, she could set her watch by the efficiency and timeliness of the mail carriers. Nothing exciting here: bills, junk mail, and—Oh, wait. A pretty blue envelope addressed to her.

She opened it and saw it was a lovely handmade Hanukkah card. Who could this be from? Her family had never even sent cards. Most of them didn't practice at all anymore, let alone celebrate Hanukkah. But she did; now that she was a mother living in the Bible Belt she wanted her boys to know about their family traditions.

She opened the card and was surprised to see it was from Hannah, a young woman she'd met during the New Mountain Order murder cases from a few years ago.

“Honey, do we have any clean washcloths?” Mike yelled in from the bathroom.

“In the closet, Mike,” she yelled back.

“I don't think so, honey,” he said, in a sing-song tone. He was trying not to lose patience with her. She was probably the world's worst housekeeper.

She set the card on the table and went in to help Mike. Okay, so the washcloths weren't where she said. But they were folded in a nice stack on the dryer.

“There ya go,” she said, handing the cloth to him. “Sorry. I guess I forgot to put them away.”
But at the same time, he could have put them away himself.
She stacked them neatly inside the bathroom closet before going back to the kitchen table and card.

That might be a good idea. Maybe she could pick up some baked goods for Hanukkah tomorrow.

Her mind sorted through memories of Hannah, how she'd befriended her during the investigation and had kept in touch. Hannah and her family were Old Order Mennonites, which meant they dressed in plain clothes, didn't have cars, and didn't use modern conveniences, like electricity. Hannah had been a good friend of the two women who had been murdered two years ago, one of whom was also a Mennonite.

A naked boy zoomed past her through the kitchen, giggling, as Mike followed with a towel.

“Ben, please,” Mike said.

“Why can't we just all be naked?” Ben wondered, his curly hair wet and dripping.

“Silly boy,” Mike said, and grabbed him, toweled him off, then set him free. “Now go and get your pajamas on.”

Mike sat down on the chair next to Annie. “That boy,” he said, and grinned.

“Where's his brother?” Annie asked.

“In bed, reading. You know, I miss reading to him, but I guess it's a good thing that he wants to read himself.”

“I know. I miss it, too.”

“What's that?” he said, pointing to her card.

“A Hanukkah card from Hannah. Remember her?”

“Oh boy, do I. How is she?”

Hannah had been next on the killer's list; he had actually managed to kidnap and drug her before Detective Adam Bryant and his team found her. It took many months for the young woman to get over that.

“I think she's fine,” Annie said. “She invited me to come to the bakery. Think I'll go and pick up something for the first night of Hanukkah.”

“I have their whistles wrapped,” he told her.

“Oh good. The boys will love them, but I'm certain we'll be sorry we bought them,” she said with a laugh.