Stitch Me Deadly (2 page)

I realized I’d love to make a pattern for it and stitch a copy to display in the shop.

I looked around at the pieces currently on display, all of which I’d made myself. The candlewick pillows on the sofas, dolls wearing dresses I’d sewn and embroidered, finished cross-stitch and needlework projects for every holiday and every season. . . . One more sampler couldn’t hurt.

Besides, a copy of this sampler would not only be beautiful, but it would also have historical significance. I could put a plaque with the finished piece giving a brief history of embroidery samplers in general and an account of this particular sampler. Maybe Mrs. Ralston would let me do that in memory of her great-grandmother. I planned on asking her when I visited her at the hospital.

I gently folded the sampler back into the tissue paper, taking care because the thread was faded and the cloth was delicate. I realized this beautiful piece of history should be framed and hanging in a museum somewhere. I made a mental note to suggest that to Mrs. Ralston . . . after I asked permission to copy the pattern.

Sadie strode through the door with a tall cup in her hand. “Your tea,” she said, pushing back her hood to reveal her dark hair. “Since you gave yours to the sick customer.”

I accepted the steaming cup gratefully. “Thank you so much.”

“Besides, you’ll need it to knock the chill off. The rain is coming down pretty hard again.”

“Thanks,” I said again. “I’ll be back as quickly as I can, Sadie.”

“Take your time. Things are slow at the shop this morning. I’ll have much more fun over here playing with Angus.”

At the sound of his name, Angus dropped his chew toy and loped over to Sadie. She vigorously scratched his head.

“By the way,” Sadie said, as I started out the door, “your tea came from the same pot as your customerʹs. So if you start feeling queasy, call me, would you?”

“Yeah . . . and thanks for that shot of paranoia.” I hadn’t even thought that the tea could have had anything to do with Mrs. Ralston’s collapse.

“Well, hey, I’m just trying to be on the safe side.”

“The ‘safe side’ would’ve poured the tea out if there were any concerns about it,” I said, “not given it to the ‘safe side’s’ best friend.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I tasted yours, and it seems fine. Besides, you did say the old gal was sickly, which was why you gave her your tea in the first place.”

“Good point. I’m sure everything is fine . . . with the tea and with Mrs. Ralston.”

That statement would come back to haunt me—and to remind me that one was seldom “sure” of anything. Upon my arrival at the Tallulah Falls Medical Center, I learned Mrs. Ralston was dead.

 

 

I returned to the Seven-Year Stitch to find Sadie curled up on the navy sofa facing the shop’s picture window. She was thumbing through a magazine. Angus was dozing on the rug in front of her. Both started when I opened the door and set the bells above it jingling.

Angus hurried to greet me.

“What’s up?” Sadie asked. “You look like you’ve just seen Casper the Not So Friendly Ghost.”

“Mrs. Ralston died.”

“What?” Sadie exclaimed. “Why? It wasn’t the tea, was it? Please tell me it wasn’t the tea.”

“It wasn’t the tea. Apparently, she had a heart attack.”

 

 

Sadie had gone back to MacKenzies’ Mochas, and I was sitting at the counter studying Mrs. Ralston’s sampler again when Riley Kendall entered the shop. Five months pregnant and finally beginning to show, Riley was a bundle of energy. She emanated a maternal glow that only added to her already breathtaking beauty. Despite the rain, she was wearing suede kitten-heel pumps, a geometric-print maternity dress, and a sunny smile. And she was carrying a magazine.

I felt a trickle of dread creep down my spine. She’d found yet another
something
that Baby Kendall simply had to have. I’d already embroidered fourteen bibs, two quilts, and a blanket for this child.

As Riley approached the counter, I held up my hands. “Don’t get too close. I’m afraid I might be coming down with a cold.”

She recoiled like Béla Lugosi being confronted with a crucifix in
Dracula
. “Okay. I’ll put this magazine on the coffee table.” She did as she’d said and then sat on the sofa facing me. “It’s open to a darling burp cloth. Could you make one like it?”

“I’ll take a look at it after you leave and see what I can do,” I said. “How are you feeling?”

“Great. But Keith still hovers.” She grinned. “Which I love, of course.”

“Of course.” I laughed. “And your dad? Are you getting letters from him every day?”

She laughed, too. “At least one . . . sometimes two, if he thinks of something else after he’s sealed the envelope. And Keith and I visit him once a week.”

Riley’s father, Norman Patrick, was incarcerated in a minimum-security prison for real estate fraud. I had gotten to know him during the Timothy Enright fiasco.

Riley nodded toward the sampler. “What’s that?”

I related the story of Mrs. Ralston’s visit and subsequent death earlier this morning.

“That’s terrible,” Riley said.

“I know. I need to return this sampler, but I guess I should just take it to the funeral home. Surely someone there would deliver it to Mrs. Ralston’s family.”

Riley furrowed her brow. “Wait. Did you say Ralston? Louisa Ralston?”

“That’s right.”

“I know her lawyer. His name is Adam Gray. He went to law school with my dad.”

“Do you think he’d be okay with giving the sampler back to Mrs. Ralston’s family?”

“I don’t think he’d mind at all. I’m guessing he’s in charge of the estate, so he’ll be meeting with the family regularly over the next few days.” She stood. “Give him a call. I’m sure he’ll help you out.” She jerked her head in the direction of the coffee table. “Take a look at this burp cloth when you get a sec. I’ll call you later to see what you think.”

“Okay. Be careful in this rain, Riley.”

She winked. “I’m used to it. Besides, I’m not sweet enough to melt.”

After Riley left, I took the sampler into my office to make a color copy of it. Even though I was planning to call Mr. Gray to see if I could drop the sampler off at his office after work, I still wanted to make a pattern so I could duplicate the sampler and display it here in the shop. I cleaned the copier glass and allowed it to dry before laying the sampler on the surface. I closed the lid and made the copy on eight-and-a-half-by-eleven paper. I removed the sampler from the copier and sat down at the desk with a pen, paper, and a thread chart.

Although I had the colors on the copy, I wanted to try to capture the original hues of the threads as much as possible. I painstakingly searched within color families for the variant that would best correspond to Mrs. Ralston’s original. The letters were done in blue . . . not a cornflower or a periwinkle . . . not a Wedgwood blue. . . . This was a blue that fell somewhere between Wedgwood and Colonial blue. I felt triumphant when I found a close enough match.

My eyes were nearly crossing by the time I got to the stitching that made up the verse. As with the rest of the stitches, I tried to determine what the thread had looked like at its most vibrant, before it had been faded by time. This thread was a shade of green . . . not too dark and not too light. I decided to start in the jade family.

I looked up at my white ceiling for a moment to readjust my eyes. When I looked back at the sampler, it appeared that the verse stitching was not as faded as the stitching in the rest of the sampler. I picked the sampler up and turned it over. From the back, it was even more obvious that someone had torn out the sampler’s original verse—which had apparently been done in a shade of rose, judging by the scraps of thread that had been run under existing stitches prior to cutting—and replaced it. But why would someone ruin this antique sampler just to change the verse? What was so important about this particular verse?

A
s the rain began coming down harder, I felt a stab of guilt over having left Angus at home today. We have a fenced backyard and a covered porch, so I knew he wouldn’t spend the day wet, cold, shivering, and pitiful. He also had plenty of food, water, and toys on the porch. I gave in to a fit of coughing. Who was I kidding? I was the one who was shivering and pitiful today.

Still, I know Angus prefers coming to the shop with me. But since I was on my way to Mrs. Ralston’s house to drop the sampler off to her lawyer, I felt it best that Angus stay at home. I’d have loved to stay home with him . . . with a box of tissues, cough drops, throat lozenges, and a vat of chicken soup.

I keyed into my GPS unit the address Mr. Gray had provided me after I’d explained the situation. Mrs. Ralston’s home was farther out of town than I’d expected . . . farther inland. At last the monotone navigator informed me that “after four hundred yards, you have reached your destination.”

My destination was a Victorian-style house—white with black shutters and gingerbread trim. There was a black Cadillac in the driveway. I parked my red Jeep beside it, pulled my jacket hood up, and hopped out. I jogged to the door. Before I could ring the doorbell, however, the door was opened by someone who I could only imagine was Mr. Gray—and the name suited him.

A stooped, mousy man with a red bow tie that looked huge on his small frame, he looked too old to have gone to law school with Norman Patrick. Maybe Mr. Gray had gotten a late start. His hair was . . . well . . . gray, and he had cloudy blue eyes and wire-framed glasses. Plus, he was no more than a head taller than me. Between him and poor Mrs. Ralston, I was beginning to feel positively Amazonian.

Mr. Gray extended his hand. “You must be Marcy.”

“That’s right.” I smiled, surprised he had such a firm grip. “I’m glad to meet you, Mr. Gray, though I’m sorry it’s under these particular circumstances.”

“As am I.” He stepped aside. “Won’t you come in?”

I stepped into the home’s foyer and nearly gasped. This place was gorgeous . . . like something out of
House Beautiful
or
Architectural Digest
. Or maybe even MTV’s
Cribs
.

There was a stairway to my right with white posts, a mahogany banister, and mahogany stairs. A custom-made blue and rose Oriental rug ran down the middle of the stairs.

I pictured myself coming down those stairs wearing the white dress with green trim that Scarlett O’Hara had worn to the Wilkeses’ barbecue. As I floated down the stairs to the swelling musical score of
Gone With the Wind
, Todd and Ted would come to stand—one at each banister.

I gave myself a mental shake.
I must have a fever.

I couldn’t see much of the living room behind Mr. Gray, but I could make out an ornate white mantel. An oil painting of a beautiful woman in a midnight blue evening gown hung above the mantel.

Mr. Gray noticed me looking at it. “That’s Louisa in her younger days.” He stepped into the living room and motioned for me to do likewise. “She was a lovely person . . . outside and inside. I’ll miss her.”

As I stood beside Mr. Gray, I noticed him trying to inconspicuously swipe a tear off his sallow cheek. The gesture made me wonder if he and Mrs. Ralston were more than counsel and client. “Had you known Mrs. Ralston long?”

He nodded. “I guess twenty-five years or so . . . thirty, maybe. She was a dear friend.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

Mr. Gray stared at the painting for another moment before turning away. “Thank you, Marcy.”

I handed the sampler that I’d rewrapped in Mrs. Ralston’s tissue paper to Mr. Gray. “This is the sampler I told you about over the phone.”

He sat down on the floral print sofa and carefully unwrapped the layers of tissue paper to expose the sampler. “You say she brought this to your shop yesterday morning?”

“Yes,” I said, going to sit near him on the sofa. “She said she wanted me to help her
find ivy
.”

He frowned. “Maybe she intended to restore the piece or something. It is awfully faded.”

“Mr. Gray, this sampler was embroidered by Mrs. Ralston’s great-grandmother. I wouldn’t think she’d have wanted to change it.” I waved my hand near the verse. “Although someone
did
change that . . . so I suppose anything is possible. Did this verse have special significance to Mrs. Ralston or some other member of the family?”

He was silent as he read the verse. Then he answered, “Not that I’m aware of.” He rewrapped the sampler in the tissue paper and handed it to me. “Why don’t you keep this? I believe Louisa would want you to have it.”

My heart leaped at the possibility of being able to keep the sampler—which really was a work of art. But I knew how I’d feel if one of my family members’ treasured possessions was given to a stranger rather than to me. “I’m honored, Mr. Gray, but I’m sure one of Mrs. Ralston’s family members would love to have the sampler.”

“You’re quite wrong. The Ralston family is sorely lacking in sentimentality. Your taking the piece would likely save it from the trash heap.”

“Really?”

Mr. Gray pursed his lips at my horrified expression. “Really. So please, take it. And if you’ll wait here while I get it, there’s something else I’d like you to have.” He crossed the foyer into another portion of the house.

I’d have loved to follow him, and I was brimming with curiosity about what he would return with. Fortunately, I didn’t have to wait long to find out.

When he returned, he was carrying a small lidded sewing box. “I have no idea what’s in here,” Mr. Gray said, “but Louisa kept it with her almost all the time. Please take it.”

“But don’t you think—”

“I think it is one less thing for the trash heap or the auction block if you’d be so kind as to take it.”

I smiled. “Then I’ll gladly take this and the sampler.” I gave him a business card from my purse. “But please pass my number along to any of the family members who might want these items back.”