Twisted Threads (7 page)

I couldn’t slow my mind down that night. Sleep finally came, but it brought confused images so real they might not have been dreams. Each time I woke, trying to escape them, I thought about what I should do. What was most important? And I made some decisions.

As soon as the sun was up in Arizona, I called Wally, my boss in Mesa. I was relieved when he didn’t pick up and I could leave a message. I knew he wouldn’t be happy with me, and I didn’t want to argue. I told him I wouldn’t be back for a while. A couple of months, at least. I had family issues to deal with. (A murder and a wedding? They certainly counted as issues.) I rummaged through Gram’s kitchen to find her ancient jar of instant coffee and made myself a strong cup. Tea was all well and good, but I couldn’t sit around being cozy anymore. I had to get to work. I added to my mental list,
Buy coffeepot.

Despite the lack of sleep I felt good. I knew what I had to do. Gram had taken care of me for years. Now she needed me to help her. I owed her at least the time it would take to do that.

And I’d keep my eyes open about Mama’s murder. That was important to me, even if Gram had put it behind her. She wanted to focus on her future.

I’d worry about mine later.

The coffee was stale, but strong; and for the first time since I’d been back in Haven Harbor, I began to feel in control of my life.

A knock on the front door interrupted my self-congratulations. “Yes?” I said to the young blond woman with pink-and-blue-streaked hair who was standing on the porch holding a large bag. “May I help you?”

She hesitated a moment. “You’re Angel, right? I saw you at the church yesterday.”

I hadn’t remembered anyone as distinctive. But her accent gave me a clue. “You’re . . . Sarah? Sarah Byrne?”

“Right. That would be me. Only Australian in town, and likely to remain so.”

I couldn’t help smiling. “Gram—Charlotte—isn’t home right now, but she’ll be back anytime. Come on in.”

She headed for the kitchen, not the Mainely Needlepoint office.

“Can I offer you a cup of tea? Or, I found stale instant coffee in the cabinet. You could have some of that.”

“Tea would be lovely. Thank you.”

I put the kettle on to boil. Maybe I could get Gram a microwave, too.

“Thank you for coming to the service yesterday. Although I’m afraid I don’t remember meeting you.” I wouldn’t have forgotten that hair.

“I didn’t go to the little gathering afterward. I had to get back to my shop. I’ve just opened it for the summer, and I didn’t want to miss any customers. I slipped into the back of the church for the service and then slipped out. I hope the press left you alone. They can be so horrible. ‘How dreary—to be—Somebody! How public—like a Frog—’ And so forth.”

“What?” The woman wasn’t making sense.

“A line from one of my favorite Emily Dickinson poems. I’ve loved her work since I was little. They’re one of the reasons I came to New England.”

“I don’t know much about poetry,” I admitted. I gave Sarah a selection of tea bags to choose from. Did Australians drink a lot of tea? Would she have expected a teapot and loose tea? I had no idea.

“This is lovely,” she said, selecting a bag of English Breakfast. “I don’t know if your grandmother told you, but I’ve been doing needlepoint for her. For that Jacques Lattimore, I guess would be more correct. That’s how I’ve come to know her.”

“She did tell me about you. She said you were really talented. And that you had the antique shop down on Main Street.”

“That’s me. I’m glad she likes my work. It’s relaxing, and reminds me of home. I learned the stitches from my grandmum when I was little. Working with floss takes me out of where I am, back to a place I was happy.”

“If you were happy there, why did you leave?”

She shrugged. “I grew up. Wanted to see the world. Had questions to answer. You left here, didn’t you?”

“Yes.” I looked at her. She was about my age, maybe a year or two older. It was hard to tell. “Why Haven Harbor? Of all the places from here to Australia?”

“I like it here. People are friendly, but not all over you, if you know what I mean. And I love the sea. I lived near the sea in Australia, and I’d missed it. I’d seen your West Coast, and wanted to see New England. Went to visit Emily Dickinson’s home first, of course, but then drove up Route 1 on holiday. Stayed in Merry Chase’s bed-and-breakfast, up on the hill. And the next morning I went walking and saw the Harbor and the Three Sisters and the lighthouse. I thought I’d woken up inside a picture postcard. There was a ‘for rent’ sign posted on that little store, and I decided it was for me. This was where I should be. Have you ever felt that way? ‘I learned—at least—what Home could be—How ignorant I had been.’”

I shook my head, assuming she was quoting Emily Dickinson again. Haven Harbor was home. But was it where I was supposed to be? I didn’t know.

“Well, it’s a great feeling. I signed the lease that day, and then had to figure out what I’d do with the store! I ended up with antiques. Life in Haven Harbor has been good. The building came with a small apartment on the second floor, so I don’t have far to go for work. And my bedroom window looks out to the sea.” I poured hot water over Sarah’s tea bag. “I can keep the store open even in bad weather and don’t even have to think about putting my boots or heavy coat on, although for now I’m only open from the middle of April through Christmas.” She dunked her tea bag a few times. “It suits me.”

Gram pushed the back door open. “Oh, hi, Sarah! Let me put these groceries down.”

I took the bags from her and put them on the counter. “Are there more in the car?”

“No. That’s it.”

“Shall I pour you a cup of tea? Water’s hot.”

“Sounds wonderful.” She took off her jacket and sat at the table opposite Sarah while I got out another mug and tea bag. “How have you been, Sarah? I got a peek of you at the back of the church yesterday. Thank you for coming.”

“I wanted to be there. I couldn’t leave the store for longer. And I’m not much for churchgoing. ‘Some keep the Sabbath going to church—I keep it, staying at Home—’ I didn’t have a chance to say how sorry I was about your daughter. Jenny, it was, right?”

“Yes. Jenny.” Gram hesitated. “I’m afraid I haven’t got any new information about the business. I haven’t been able to get in touch with Jacques, so I have no money for you, and no new orders.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ve cut back on my expenses—and while we’re waiting, I’ve made up extras of the little pillows we sell in the summer.” She opened her bag. Inside were small needlepointed cushions in dark red with green trees on them. “I felt Christmassy. They could be for a regular gift shop or a Christmas shop. Stocking stuffers.”

I picked one up. “These are beautiful. You could put a ribbon on one and hang it in a closet, or on a doorknob, to bring the pine woods smell to a room.”

“Excellent idea,” agreed Gram. “Let’s do the next lot like that, shall we, Sarah?”

Sarah nodded. “That’d be simple, and might give customers another idea of how to use them. A little marketing built in! I’ll leave these with you, if that’s all right.”

“I’ll make out a receipt for you right now,” said Gram. She went over to the counter, picked up a receipt book, and started to write. “How many have you got in there, Sarah?”

“Ten,” she answered. “But I came to show you something else. I bought it at a flea market in Waterville last weekend. I wanted to come right over and see what you thought, but, of course, you’ve been busy, and I didn’t want to disturb you.”

Sarah reached into the bag, pushed aside the balsam pillows, pulled out an old frame wrapped in tissue paper, and handed it to Gram. “Tell me what you think. I’ve never bought samplers or other needlework before. The good pieces go for high prices. But . . . you’ll see.”

Gram carefully removed the tissue paper.

The frame was old and damaged, and held an old piece of needlework. The glass in the frame had disappeared long ago. The stained linen inside was embroidered in faded red silk floss:
Just as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined.
Around the saying were two borders, one of small pine trees, not very different from the pine tree Sarah had embroidered on the balsam pillows, and another of convergent triangles.

“I loved it,” said Sarah. “But you can see it’s stained, and some of the silk threads have rotted out. I looked up the quotation. Alexander Pope wrote it, in 1734.”

“It’s lovely. Or was lovely, once,” said Gram, holding it close to her eyes so she could examine it better. “Some of the letters are gone, and some are so faded they’re hard to make out. It must have hung on a wall, and sunlight bleached the colors of the threads. I don’t know exactly how old it would be, but it certainly is at least nineteenth century. And American. I’ve never seen European embroidery that included pine trees like these.” She touched it gently. “The concentric diamonds are typical of mid-nineteenth-century rural Maine work. I wonder who did this. It was probably saved because someone treasured it.”

“I wondered if it might be a sampler. Needlework a young girl would have done to demonstrate her skills. But the only samplers I’ve ever seen had the name of the girl, and often the date and place it was done, stitched right in. This piece has no identification.”

“No. And it’s very simple, compared to others I’ve seen. But that makes it even more charming,” added Gram. “I love it, too, Sarah. I’m sorry it’s stained, though. I don’t think you should bleach it. That might take the stains away, but it would also take the little color left of the silk, and the silk could disintegrate further. Luckily, the stitching was on linen. It’s held up better than the silk threads.”

“I haven’t decided what I’ll do with it,” said Sarah.

“We shouldn’t be touching it, I suspect,” said Gram, holding on to the frame alone. “The oils from our hands might damage it. I’ve never thought of what could be done to save a piece of history like this. It should come out of the frame. The wood has probably stained the edges we can’t see.”

“At first I thought of stitching in the missing parts, where the silk has broken. But I know with early furniture you’re not supposed to take off the paint and refinish it. People did that in the past, but now it’s thought preserving the look of the piece is important. And I don’t want to do anything until I know what’s best,” said Sarah. “I thought I’d ask you first. I saw an ad in
Antiques and Fine Art Magazine
for a dealer who specializes in samplers and old needlepoint. I’ll call there and ask for advice.”

“Let us know,” said Gram, carefully handing the framed cloth back to Sarah. “No matter what it’s worth, that’s a treasure. I’m glad you shared it with us.”

I looked down at the old handmade frame, off-kilter and cracked, and the embroidery. Needlepoint had been part of my life as long as I remembered. I’d never had any great interest in it. It was just something Gram did.

But that scrap of old linen spoke to me. Whose needle had painstakingly embroidered that slogan and those pine trees? Perhaps it had been a young girl. The work was neither complicated nor did it illustrate different stitches. Was it done as a gift? But, then, why was there no personalization?

Sarah was looking closely at the frame. “I think once there was paper backing the piece. Perhaps the person who did this had written on the paper who she was and what the date was.”

Perhaps. But the paper was gone.

And why had she chosen that verse?

“Take care of that, Sarah,” said Gram. “And if you solve its mystery, let us know.”

“Gram, you need to tell me more about Jacques Lattimore if I’m going to find him.”

Sarah had left, we’d put the groceries away, and Gram and I were sitting in the room I remembered as a living room. Gram had made it her office. It was where she stored completed work and supplies needed by the needlepointers, but there was still space for her old couch and comfortable chairs.

“I have his address in Brunswick. Or at least I have
an
address. The last letter I sent there came back marked as ‘moved, no forwarding address.’”

“Did he ever talk about his family?”

Gram shook her head. “He never mentioned one.”

“Friends?”

“When he left here once, about a year ago, he said he was going to have dinner down in Portland with ‘Billy.’ I don’t remember him ever mentioning anyone else.”

“How about a picture of him?”

She thought for a moment. “I do have one of those somewhere.” She turned to her computer and talked as she searched. “We had a meeting here, with all the needlepointers, the day we hired Jacques as our agent. He took a picture of all of us—said it would help in sales to show customers we were real, down-to-earth, Maine home craftspeople. Someone, I think it was Ruth, didn’t want her picture taken. Said she always looked ten years older in photographs. Finally she agreed, if we could take a picture of him, too. A couple of people took pictures with their cell phones. Everyone was laughing and kidding around. We were real happy, then, thinking he’d be an asset to the business.” She shook her head. “Were we wrong! But I took a picture of him with my little camera. Hold on.” She clicked a few keys. Gram clearly knew how to use a computer. That was a skill she’d learned since I was last home.

“Here he is,” she said finally. “I should organize my picture file. But it never seemed that important. I take pictures of needlepoint patterns and completed work and scan in ideas I find in home-decorating or art magazines. Let me print this out for you.”

As the printer hummed, she turned back to me. “Remember, Angel, I don’t want you to do anything dangerous, or anything that would get you in trouble. And I want you to tell me where you’re going. No big surprises or disappearances.”

I could have told her I wasn’t sixteen anymore. That I’d done this before. That finding people was something I’d been trained to do. But I understood the importance of that word “disappearances.”

“I promise, Gram. I’ll let you know what I’m doing. First I have to find this guy for you. You don’t even know if he’s in Maine now, right?”

She sighed. “I have no idea.” She plucked the photo off her printer and handed it to me.

The color picture was a three-quarter shot of a man leaning against the mantel in our living room. Good! I could measure the fireplace and get a close estimate of his height. He was older than I’d imagined—maybe older than Gram. Definitely good-looking, and probably had been more so when he’d been younger. White, wavy hair. Slim. Maybe too slim. He was wearing black jeans and a high turtleneck, both of which accentuated his pale skin and his height.

“He looks awfully skinny, Gram. Do you know if he’d been sick?”

“He never mentioned being sick. He always looked that way. His appearance didn’t change in the two years we worked with him.”

“What other companies did he represent?”

“He told me he was the agent for several crafters in Maine and New Hampshire. But I don’t remember any of their names.” She paused, clearly embarrassed. “I guess I should have asked, and called them to check him out.”

She should have. But it was too late for that now.

“Did he ever tell you about his background? Was he a Mainer?” That question usually came up early in Down East conversations.

“He’d been born in Lewiston. His grandparents came down from Quebec to work in the mills there, and his grandmother raised him after his parents died. He said he trusted me because I’d raised you. Just like his
mémé
had raised him.”

“You chatted a bit.” Didn’t all sound like business chatting, either.

“He was very friendly. Polite. Bought me lunch a couple of times. He told me he loved our work, and although he hadn’t planned to take on any more clients, he felt we could work well together.”

“So he was doing you a favor?” He sounded too charming to me. Who was this guy who just arrived out of nowhere? “Could I see a copy of the contract you have with him?”

She pulled a green file folder from her bottom desk drawer and handed it to me.

“Do you have the original?” I asked, looking behind the one page for another copy.

“No. Jacques took that. I made copies of it for each of us.”

I wished she’d had a lawyer look it over. There were no terms relating to anyone not fulfilling his or her part of the bargain, for example. Or who could terminate the relationship and when. I didn’t say anything. She was Gram. She’d been too trusting. She’d never had a business before. But, boy, would this Lattimore character get a talking-to when I found him! Did he have “contracts” like this with other craftsmen in Maine?

“How much does he owe you for the needlework that you did for clients, gave to him, and haven’t been paid for?”

Gram opened the top drawer of her desk. She might be able to use a computer, but she wasn’t using it for her accounts. She handed me a ledger.

She’d divided it into sections, one for each member of the Mainely Needlepoint group. The date work was assigned to each person. The cost of the supplies she’d given them. When the work had been returned to Gram, and, for the past couple of years, when that work was given to “JL.” At the end of each project its net and gross were neatly quantified.

I skipped through the sections, adding in my head.

“Gram? Am I right? Could he owe all of you together about thirty-three thousand dollars?”

She nodded. “Plus, we’ve gone ahead and completed almost all the work he’d ordered. That’s another fifteen thousand dollars worth of completed items we don’t know what to do with.”

“Can’t you go directly to the people who ordered them? Do what you did before Lattimore was involved. Cut him out of the middle.”

Gram hesitated. “Jacques took over all the paperwork, except the final accounting, which I did. He didn’t tell us who’d commissioned our work. He just described what he’d been asked to supply, or provided a picture for us to work from.”

Incredible. This was worse than I’d thought. They’d lost control of their customer base. “You don’t have a clue? What about customers you had before Jacques came along. You’re in touch with them, right?”

“With Betty at the gift shop here in Haven Harbor, yes, of course. But Jacques was the contact for all the others. He said it would save me time.”

This was bad. Really bad.

“Now you understand why I’ve been worried. Sarah seems to be surviving financially, and so am I. Luckily, I own this house, and still have your grandfather’s pension and some of his life insurance money, which I invested. Ruth hasn’t done much work for us during the past year, since she’s been more disabled. I’ve made sure she’s gotten what she should. But Dave and Ob depend on that needlework money. Lauren too. Caleb keeps track of every penny in that family. With lobster prices down and shrimp quotas they have to abide by, the past few years haven’t been easy for our men trying to make a living from the sea.”

“Thirty-three thousand dollars is a lot of money to be owed, Gram. More than I suspected.”

“And I’m responsible. Jacques came to me and I believed him. If I had it, I’d pay everyone what they should have gotten. We could forget Jacques and start over. But I don’t have that kind of money. The first month I paid everyone a little—you can see that under the records for December. But after that, I couldn’t. I didn’t even have enough money to order new supplies. We’ll need floss and canvas and so forth if we’re lucky enough to get more orders.”

I nodded. Thirty-three thousand dollars was a lot of money in Maine. Or any other place. No wonder Gram was worried.

“I’ll do the best I can for you, Gram. First we have to find this Lattimore. Then we’ll see what his story is.”

“Angel, I trust you. But have you ever done anything like this before?”

“I’ve found people. Usually, husbands or wives. Sometimes a teenager who’s disappeared.” That word again: “disappeared.” A word we tried to avoid in this house. “Most people I looked for left of their own volition. They didn’t want to meet whatever their obligations were, to their family, or to a job. Or to the law. They’re listed as ‘missing’ because they don’t tell anyone where they’re going.”

“I know not everyone who’s missing is murdered, Angel. And I’m not as ignorant now as I was when I agreed to work with Jacques. I know you may not be able to find him and, even if you do, he may not have our money.”

“True. But we have to try.”

“When will you start?”

“Tomorrow. May I use your car? I’d like to drive down to Brunswick, to where he said he lived, and see if anyone there knows him.” I looked at the picture. “Unless he’s changed his appearance—dyed his hair or something—he looks like someone people might remember.”

Gram nodded. “Handsome devil. You’d think after everything that happened with your mama that I’d be smarter. But I believed his promises. Tom knows how foolish I was. That’s one reason I want this all settled before Tom and I are married. I don’t want him to think I’m as harebrained as I was when I got into this situation.” She paused. “Tom and I haven’t talked a lot about it, but I know he expects me to live at the rectory with him after we’re married. I was considering renting out this house. Or selling it. I thought maybe that way I could pay the others for the work they’d done.”

I flinched. Sell our home? Mama and I and Gram had all grown up here. Gram’s parents and grandparents had lived here. It was part of our family history. Always had been. Always should be.

“I’ll do my best, Gram. I promise.” Now I had another reason to find Lattimore. I had to save our home.