Dire Threads (11 page)

“No. The other one.”

“Oh!” he shouted. “Mike Krawbach!”

The printer remained stubbornly silent.

I enunciated carefully, “What did he say?”

“Something about a woman doing something?” Dr. Wrinklesides’s eyes shined with cheer.

“Do you remember his exact words?” Having given up on both the printer and any sort of discretion, I was now yelling, too.

“Uncle Allen’s?”

“No! The other man’s.”

“Mike’s? Nah. He mumbled something, but I couldn’t make heads nor tails of it. My hearing’s not what it used to be.” Benevolence beamed from his faded blue eyes.

His revelation stunned me into silence. Maybe if I’d gotten enough sleep last night, I’d have figured out that Dr. Wrinklesides shouted so much because he didn’t hear well.

The implications hit me.

Only Uncle Allen and Dr. Wrinklesides had been close enough to make sense of Mike’s mumbling. Uncle Allen had to know about the doctor’s hearing problems and could have invented Mike’s last words.

He would have done that for only one reason—to hide the real murderer by throwing suspicion on someone else. Unfortunately, I happened to be the most convenient scapegoat. Was Uncle Allen protecting himself? Or someone else?

While all this flitted through my mind, Dr. Wrinklesides watched me as if he were considering which vile medications to prescribe for me. I squirmed out of my chair. He grabbed my hands and turned them over as if he couldn’t help checking for diseases. “How’d you get that bruise?” he hollered.

Bruise? The slight, purplish stain on the heel of my hand looked more like a smudge. Rubbing at it only made it more noticeable. “I fell.” I didn’t want to admit that I’d hit the pavement after being frightened by ice cracking on Lake Erie. Dr. Wrinklesides would decide I was undergoing several types of trauma.

He peered into my eyes for long, uncomfortable moments, and I couldn’t help worrying that he was planning to report the bruise, maybe exaggerating it in the process, to Uncle Allen.

I must have appeared as distressed as Dr. Wrinklesides believed I was. He gave me an encouraging smile. “Time heals,” he boomed.

I wanted to skulk away with my face hidden, but I had to see who might have been eavesdropping on my conversation with Dr. Wrinklesides.

Three men sat in the waiting room. They could have been among the group who had witnessed my argument with Mike the day before, but they were unrecognizable, bundled in dark winter clothes with baseball caps pulled low over their eyes.

I fled out onto the streets of Elderberry Bay. In homes on both sides of the street, drapes had been pulled, keeping family warmth and light inside.

Behind me, a door slammed. Footsteps resounded on concrete. Someone was running from the doctor’s office.

Toward me.

10

F
OR WHAT SEEMED LIKE A LIFETIME, BUT couldn’t have been more than a second, I froze. Maybe I could beat my pursuer to the nearest house, but I wouldn’t blame the homeowners if they kept their doors closed against impetuous strangers in the dark. I’d seen Susannah in a home down the block, too far away to reach before the person chasing me caught up.

Maybe I could dodge whoever it was and return to Dr. Wrinklesides’s office. Fists clenched inside my mittens, I whirled to face my pursuer.

It was Dr. Eaversleigh.

I must have looked very fierce. She stopped running, well beyond my reach. I casually stuck my hands in my pockets.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

I caught my breath. “Sure.”

Despite her wild sprint, she didn’t seem the least bit winded. “You looked unhappy when you left,” she hinted. “And you’re not registered with us as a patient. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

I couldn’t help smiling. “If this is the way you’re going to run your practice, you won’t be able to spend much time in your office.”

She grinned. “Run would be the word for it, wouldn’t it? Listen, don’t be worried. Dr. Wrinklesides might not seem like any doctor you’ve ever met, but he’s a legend, always high on lists of the best doctors in Pennsylvania. Everyone sang his praises in med school. He knows what he’s doing. I’m really excited about being the first doctor ever invited into his practice.”

“How long have you worked with him?”

“Since Monday. I’ll be here whenever you need me. Dr. Wrinklesides will be, too.

“Isn’t he a little . . . past retirement age?”

She hugged her coat around her. “Retirement is not in his vocabulary. Being a doctor is his whole life. That and opera.” She cocked her head as if she could hear him singing. “I’d better get back.” With a cheery wave, she ran toward the clinic.

On Cayuga Avenue, Pier 42 was filled with light and laughter. At the foot of Lake Street, lake and sky merged at the horizon, a vast and awesome space that rested my eyes and calmed some of my anxieties. I turned toward home. The new restaurant and the papered-over store beside it were dark. Lights were still on in Naomi’s apartment above Batty About Quilts.

A couple of black pickup trucks were parked in front of The Ironmonger. Could one of them have been the one Uncle Allen and I had seen last night? Between advertisements in Sam’s windows, I made out old-timers clustered around the stove.

Had Sam heard anything that had gone on in my backyard last night or early this morning? As far as I could tell, he lived above the hardware store. When I first moved in, I had peeked through my cedar hedges into his backyard and had not seen a door to his basement, so I didn’t think his apartment was below his shop like mine was, and Mike’s attacker could not have come from or fled to Sam’s basement.

Beyond In Stitches, the General Store was similar to The Ironmonger, with an apartment above it, and as far as I’d seen through my hedges, no basement apartment or exit, either. I didn’t know anything about the store’s young owners except their names, Luther and Jacoba, and that they had opened their store only days before I moved to Elderberry Bay. I still had the big-city habit of shopping for groceries in larger municipalities, a habit I had to change.

Immediately.

The store was still open. I went in.

Jacoba wore a long, old-fashioned dress in a pale blue geometric print. With her straight blond hair and clear complexion, she looked about sixteen. Someone was hammering in the apartment upstairs.

I plunked a newspaper on the counter. “I hope my dogs don’t make too much noise.”

Her smile was shy but sweet. “I hardly ever hear them.”

“Did you hear anything unusual early this morning, before the police siren? If I can call it a siren . . .”

I detected a hint of amusement on her solemn face. “I don’t think so.”

“Did you hear the ATV?”

She tilted her head. “Was that what woke us up? Then I heard Uncle Allen’s siren and figured he was looking after everything. I went back to sleep.”

I handed her a bill. “Are ATV’s a frequent problem down there on the trail?”

“I’ve never seen or heard them.” She gave me my change. “We have no complaints. We like it here in Elderberry Bay.” She gestured at the newspaper in my hand. “Whenever you need anything, come back. We’re renovating, so excuse the mess.”

The store was neat and clean, and the fruits and vegetables looked fresh and unblemished for mid-February. Promising that I’d shop there again, I said good-bye and went outside.

The pickup trucks were gone from the street in front of The Ironmonger. Sam’s buddies must have driven off. I deposited the newspaper on my front porch and went on to The Ironmonger, which was even dimmer than it had been a few minutes before. Sam appeared to be alone inside. He was probably about to turn out the last light for the evening.

It would be rude to barge in on him now.

If I found out that anyone had asked for a padlock like mine, I’d be able to give Uncle Allen the name of someone who could have unlocked my gate, someone who could have let Mike into my yard, someone who could have murdered him . . .

Sam’s door wasn’t locked.

Ever the gracious shopkeeper, Sam welcomed me. “What can I do ya for?” His teasing tone showed that he knew he’d skewed his syntax. “Those padlocks still working for you?”

Thank you for the opening, Sam.
“Do you have any more sets that match those two, so I can buy another padlock without having to carry another key?” Weak, but it might do. I held my breath, watching him.

“Did you throw away your packages?”

“I’m afraid so. Do you remember the four digit number that was on those packages?” What I actually wanted to know was who might have memorized the four digits and bought a padlock like mine.

He frowned, tapped his fingers on the counter, rubbed his eyes, and came up with, “I think it had threes and sixes in it. And maybe sevens and twos.”

That left a few possibilities. And didn’t answer the questions in my hidden agenda. “Do you think anyone who helped you sort through those packages would remember?”

He opened a drawer, placed packaged padlocks on the counter, and conveniently asked me one of the questions I wanted to ask him. “Do you remember who all was here last evening?”

“The mailman and the mayor. I didn’t know the other men.”

Sam didn’t take that hint, just kept hauling out those packages.

I prompted, “Your regulars, maybe? Are the same men here every evening?”

“Pretty much.” In the semidarkness, his eyes seemed to twinkle, but maybe I only saw reflections from his stove’s dying fire. “I’m not sure those guys remember their own names from one day to the next.” He pushed plastic-wrapped packages around on his counter like toy cars. “They wouldn’t remember sorting through these, never mind a number.” He scratched his head. “Sometimes they don’t remember when to go home.”

Was he saying I should leave, too? I took another stab at my ill-planned interrogation. “Did anyone else buy padlocks after I did?” I felt myself blush. Padlocks, maybe he’d focus on padlocks, not keys, and wouldn’t guess where I was heading with my questions—who else could have a key to my padlocks?

No such luck. “Your gates were locked when Mike was found, weren’t they.” It wasn’t a question, and he said it gently. Just the same, I became acutely aware of the distance to the front door. A hardware store was, by definition, full of potential weapons that Sam the ironmonger would undoubtedly be skilled at wielding.

Courage, I told myself. Sam was at least eighty, and always kind and polite. He grabbed an armload of packages, carried them to the table where his friends had sorted through them, and dumped them on it.

I answered, “Yes, my gates were locked, so of course Uncle Allen thinks I let Mike into my yard. I didn’t, and I didn’t know Mike was there until the dogs barked and we went outside to investigate. Somebody besides me has a key.”

“And Uncle Allen suspects you of murder.” Again, it wasn’t a question. He came back to the counter for another load of padlocks.

I nodded, probably looking as wretched as I felt. I picked up the remaining packages and added them to the pile on the table beside the potbellied stove.

Sam frowned at the jumble of packaged locks as if something puzzled him. “Don’t you worry. No one could possibly believe that of you. Uncle Allen should be sitting around the stove here with the other old fogies instead of running around in that silly car of his playing cops and robbers, and I don’t mind if you tell him I said so. I’ve told him myself, often enough.” He spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “I wish I could say someone came in here wanting a padlock to match yours, but no one has. Still—” He broke off and walked back to his cash register. Tilting his head, he squinted at the table in front of the potbellied stove. “Weren’t there more packages of those things last evening?”

“I bought two.”

“Even so.” Fingers tight together, he polished his counter with the flat of his hand. “I wish I could remember for sure.”

So did I. “Did you hear or see anyone last night, like after midnight?”

“Nope. I wear earplugs to bed so my snoring won’t wake me up.”

Thanking him for his help, I started toward the door.

Sam called me back. “There were other people in the store besides you and my regulars, and any of them could have memorized that number and bought a matching set somewhere else.”

“How close are other hardware stores?”

“Nearly every small village has one. Bigger ones, too.”

Not exactly the helpful reply I’d been hoping for.

“Clay Fraser was here,” he said. “Betcha he’s in and out of hardware stores and the like all the time, being a contractor and all.”

Betcha he was. And betcha I didn’t want Clay to turn out to be a murderer. I needed him to build a dog pen and renovate Blueberry Cottage, and . . . maybe . . . No. I’d already decided that love at first sight should apply only to my wonderful store and delightful dogs. Not to a man.

“And those three girls, you know, the ones with the fabric stores and whatnot.” He nodded toward the shops across the street. “Not the young blonde. I don’t think she was here.”

No, Haylee hadn’t followed Clay and me into The Ironmonger last evening, but Edna, Opal, and Naomi, who would be girls to Sam, had. They weren’t murderers, either. None of them would let the others do anything outrageous.

“Mike’s cousin was here,” I said. “The guy in the bee-stinger stocking cap.”

Sam laughed. “Smythe Castor. He’s too much, that one. Always marched to a different beat, you know what I mean? Ever since he was a boy, everybody teased him, but did he care? Nope, it’s like he flaunts being unique, wearing funny hats and the like. No one can get a rise out of that guy. Betcha when his bees sting he doesn’t feel it. Not him. Not that guy.”

Wasn’t that the kind of person who could snap when least expected? My heart rate quickened. Maybe I’d found my villain.

“He’s coming back from Erie on Friday,” Sam said. “You can talk to him then. He’ll likely drop in here.”

“Erie?” Maybe I’d lost my villain.

“Yep. When he left here, he was headed straight for some conference. What was it called, now?”

“The Honey Makers’ Conference?”