Threaded for Trouble (7 page)

“We should leave,” I tried. “Russ doesn’t want us here.”

“He’s too young and grief-stricken to know what he wants.” Her deep brown eyes soft with sympathy, Edna watched the truck bounce down the driveway and disappear. “That poor boy.” Haylee could be right. Her mothers might be planning to take on Russ, and perhaps all the other Coddlefield children, too, as their next do-good project. Uh-oh.

Edna backed up the porch steps. Not wanting to drop the food, I had to follow her.

She pressed the doorbell with her elbow. Deep inside the farmhouse, Westminster chimes sounded.

No one came. The front door stood open, with only a screen keeping us from walking right in. We couldn’t see or hear anyone inside the house. Maybe we could retreat.

No such luck. Edna rang the doorbell again. More Westminster chimes.

“Coming,” a sweet feminine voice called. Smiling, a girl who looked barely older than Russ strode down the hall and opened the screen door. Her blue-gray eyes were clear, her face rosy with heat. The only sign that things weren’t quite right was her uncombed blond hair. Lank on this muggy day, it would be flyaway in the middle of winter. My hair gave me similar problems.

“We’re so sorry about your mother,” Edna began.

The girl shook her head. “She’s not, she
wasn’t
my mother. I’m the au pair.”

“Who is it, Tiffany?” A man called. “Can’t you get rid of them?” He sounded downright surly.

Tiffany blushed more, and frown wrinkles deepened between her pale eyebrows. I adjusted my estimate of her age upward into the mid-twenties. She jerked her head toward the back of the house. “Sorry about that. Plug…Mr. Coddlefield is not himself. Understandably.”

“We thought you might be able to use a casserole,” Edna said.

Awkwardly, we edged it, balanced on the tin, toward her.

“And some cookies,” I added. “They’re underneath the casserole.”

“Lasagna,” Edna explained. “It’s hot.”

Tiffany started to reach for it, then whisked her hands behind her back. “That’s nice. Leave it out there, and I’ll go get oven mitts.”

“Tiffie?” Plug was apparently working up a rage.

“In a minute!” She fluted it over her shoulder in a placating, yet strangely flirtatious way.

Somewhere behind her, a child started crying, inconsolably, wails that could go on and on, for a lifetime, probably.

Tiffany’s chin quivered. She lowered her head.

We were only making things worse. Maybe we should have obeyed Russ and left the family alone.

Edna squared her shoulders, a sure sign that she was fortifying herself with her particular brand of stubborn determination. “Is there anything we can do?”

She was only milliseconds away from barging inside, hunting down that child, and picking it up. Was it the littlest girl from yesterday, or one of the two small boys, proud of their cowboy shirts? Either way, I was about to cry, too. I tugged at the cookie tin and casserole combo we were carrying together. Edna, however, didn’t budge, so I couldn’t flee.

“You’ve done enough,” Tiffany said. “Absolutely. Thank you. I totally appreciate it.” She jerked her head back as if indicating something in the depths of the house. “He will, too, really. They all will. It’s just that…” She heaved a ragged sigh. “It’s hard, you know, so hard. But if you leave it on the table over there”—she pointed at a table next to an old-fashioned porch swing hanging from the white-painted wooden ceiling—“I’ll take care of it.”

Edna shuffled toward the open screen door. “We can bring them in.”

I had to shuffle with her.

Tiffany shook her head quickly. “I’ve got to go.” She released the screen door. It slammed in our faces, leaving us with no polite option besides following Tiffany’s instructions and leaving the food on the porch.

I pulled toward the table beside the swing, but Edna planted her feet on the old floorboards. “A raccoon or cat could get it. Maybe a skunk.” She shuddered.

If Haylee had known about our mission, she would have come along to keep Edna out of mischief, but Haylee wasn’t here, so it was up to me to bring Edna safely home.

“The others will be expecting you,” I tried. Most nights, Opal, Edna, and Naomi gathered together for dinner, taking turns in each others’ apartments.

“Not until seven.”

“I’d like to finish my IMEC project before the Harvest Festival…” And I hadn’t figured out yet exactly what I was going to do.

“It will only take a second to find the kitchen,” she assured me. “Hang on while I open the door.”

“Edna,” I whispered, drawing her name out like a kid might on a playground.

Keeping one hand underneath the tin of cookies, she used the other to ease the screen door open. The foil pan slanted. I caught it with my forearm. The crimped aluminum edge didn’t burn, but who needed a hot pan touching skin on a sweltering evening?

“Careful,” Edna warned. She backed against the door to keep it open and slid her hand underneath the tin again.

I could have yelled or resisted or grabbed the pan and tin, heat and all, but the child’s howling pulled at my heart, too. Steadying my side of the casserole and cookie tin, I sidled with Edna into a bright entryway.

All around us were touches of handmade needlework, projects that Darlene must have lovingly crafted. It appeared that she had also collected antique and vintage samplers and linens, and had decorated her walls with them. She’d been fond of the sorts of things I loved. I wished I’d gotten to know her. In her house, surrounded by her belongings, I understood some of the loss her family must be feeling.

We needed to set the casserole and tin of cookies down, then leave.

Edna must have seen my speculative glance at the
spindle-legged antique table beside a stairway leading upward. “The hot pan might mar the wood,” she warned.

Darlene’s hand-crocheted doily would have prevented that, but Edna would only come up with another excuse, like the pan might scorch the doily. Her motherly instinct was much stronger than mine, which, I feared, was rapidly becoming stronger. More children joined the chorus of screams.

With marching-band precision, we sidestepped together down the hall past open doors leading to two former parlors, one now a playroom overflowing with books and toys, and the other a living room with soft couches and chairs and a wide-screened TV over a fireplace. From the outside, the house had appeared to ramble, with new sections built every few years. I hoped I wouldn’t have to hobble, facing Edna and jointly lugging food, through all those additions to find a place to set the tin and the casserole. Edna was going to insist on locating those grief-stricken children before she would leave. And I still harbored hopes of getting a good look at Darlene’s sewing machine. How could it have killed her?

We started past a doorway to the dining room. A peculiar, tuneless humming came from inside the room. I turned my head to see who was making the noise.

In the far corner, beside a glass-doored china cabinet, Tiffany was in the arms of a much older man—Plug Coddlefield, widowed for approximately twenty-four hours.

T
IFFANY WAS LEANING INTO PLUG, KISSING him on the lips, moaning with apparent pleasure. The tips of his fingers were in the back pockets of her jeans.

Deeper in the house, his motherless children bawled and blubbered.

Edna had her back to the tableau in the dining room, but my dropped jaw must have alerted her. Plus my feet seemed to have forgotten how to move.

Edna glanced into the room and did a classic double take. Her mouth opened to match mine. I managed to be silent.

Edna, however, let out a gasp.

Tiffany and Plug jumped away from each other as if a firecracker had exploded at their feet.

Edna whipped around to face me and gave her head a jerk toward the back of the house. She tugged on the tin and casserole.

My feet had to come unglued, or hot, gooey lasagna would cascade all over them.

We were still in view through the doorway. “What’s going on?” Plug demanded.

Edna made a very plausible jump and turned toward him. “Oh!” Maybe she wasn’t acting. Maybe she really was startled. Or embarrassed, like I was. “I didn’t see you there!” Right. But to give her credit, she sounded sincere.

Then again, maybe
credit
wasn’t quite the right word, and it was certainly not one that Haylee would have used under the circumstances. I was doing a less-than-stellar job of looking after Haylee’s most headstrong mother.

“This casserole is hot,” Edna chirped, “so we’re just taking it to the kitchen.” She was really good at playing innocent.

Tiffany knew that she’d told us to leave the food outside, but she didn’t give us away. Her face a brilliant red, she brushed past us. “Stay right there. I’ll get potholders.”

Arms folded across his chest, Plug stared at us from the back corner of the dining room. He didn’t seem conscious of his children’s very vocal sorrow.

Edna mouthed, “Come on,” and slid her feet quickly in the direction Tiffany had gone.

I managed to go with her.

Ahead of us, Tiffany cooed, but the children cried louder. Before we could catch up and see for ourselves that they were okay, Tiffany rushed toward us with a pair of oven mitts.

“Careful,” Edna warned. “These pans are hot, and not very sturdy.”

Biting her lip, frowning, Tiffany removed the casserole from our grasp, revealing the tin of cookies. “There’s more?” She flicked a glance toward the dining room. “Bring it in, I suppose. I gotta see about those kids.” She toted the casserole toward the back of the house.

Edna marched along after her. Her worry about the children, whose father hadn’t emerged from the dining room, was contagious. With my tin of cookies, I brought up the rear.

I barely took in the exquisitely crafted kitchen curtains and tablecloth with their gorgeous machine embroidery, and I didn’t have time to dwell on the loss of the talented Darlene Coddlefield. Her three youngest children appeared to
be inconsolable. The little girl and smallest boy sat at the table. Still sobbing, the five-year-old boy had abandoned his seat to stand between his siblings and pat their shoulders. They hadn’t finished their cookies and milk.

Edna swooped to them. “Oh, you poor dears!” She grabbed napkins from a yellow holder shaped like a duck and patted the kids’ faces. The crying subsided into sniffles and hiccups.

Tiffany plucked the smaller boy out of his seat and stood him on the floor. “Now, now,” she said. “I told you I was coming, and here I am. Come on, be a man.” She lifted the little girl out of her booster seat and set her on the floor beside her brothers.

Misty-eyed, Edna looked ready to hug anyone who needed it, but Tiffany grasped Edna’s wrist and pulled her toward a screen door. “Thank you two for your help, but it would be better for all of us if you left us to mourn our own way.” She opened the door to a covered wooden porch sheltering bikes and trikes in every possible size. “Follow the walkway to the right, and you’ll come out near your car.”

Edna was not going silently. Still in Tiffany’s grip, she smiled down at the children shadowing Tiffany. “You were all very grown up yesterday, showing off your beautiful dress and your handsome shirts.”

The girl wrapped her arms around Tiffany’s leg and buried her face in the side of Tiffany’s skin-tight jeans. “I want my dwess back! That nasty lady took it!” The child must have meant Felicity, who had said she was taking the prize-winning outfits on tour after Darlene washed and ironed them again.

Tiffany let go of Edna’s arm and picked up the little girl. “I’ll make you more dresses,” she murmured.

Edna swallowed and opened her mouth. Before she could think of another reason to stay, like promising new dwesses embellished with buttons and bows, I pulled her out the door.

“Ouch,” she murmured when we were beside the house
on a walkway between zinnias and petunias, their reds, oranges, and purples neon-bright under the August evening sun. “That Tiffany has
claws
, not fingers.” Angry marks blazed on Edna’s wrist.

“Maybe I did it,” I said. “I’m sorry. But let’s get out of here before she chases after us. Or Plug does.”

Edna came, dusting her arm as if she could brush off the claw marks or prevent them from turning black and blue. “You didn’t do it, Willow. She did. She was vicious.” Rounding the corner, she stopped. Edna was seldom speechless. Her mouth opened, but only a little hiss came out.

Hands on hips, feet spread, Plug stood with his back to us, right in front of her car, like he was about to open the hood.

Or had just closed it.

Edna was, for once, as still as a statue. Head up, I kept walking.

I heard Edna run toward me. I put my hand behind my back and spread my fingers out like an inverted gesture to halt.

She grasped my hand. Her breathing became a thin, high whistle.

Squeezing her suddenly icy hand, I spoke to Plug. “We’re sorry about your wife.”
And for barging into your house and seeing you kissing the hired help.

He whipped around to scowl at me.

Steadfastly, I went on, “We knew how…guessed how…” All I could think of was this middle-aged man groping a woman who looked less than ten years older than his firstborn son.

Edna came to my rescue. “We figured your household would be in an uproar and no one would be able to cook. At least not…Well, we figured you’d be too distracted…” Now it was her turn to break off, undoubtedly remembering what, rather
who
, his distraction had been.

I took up the narration of excuses, not that we should have needed to excuse ourselves. Our intentions had been
good. We hadn’t meant to snoop. Not
that
much, anyway. I blundered on. “We own some of the sewing stores in town, and met your children yesterday. They’re wonderful.”

Behind my back, Edna crossed my fingers for me. If I hadn’t been trying to appear sympathetic, I might have laughed. Plug’s older children had been far from wonderful. The little ones, however, seemed sweet. That five-year-old trying to comfort the toddlers had been especially heart-wrenching.

Plug moved to the red SUV in his driveway and leaned against it. He could have been bracing himself, but one of his hands managed to rest beneath the words
Fire Chief
. “I know who you are.” His voice was genial, and he managed a lip quirk that might have been a smile, but his eyes were sly. And chilling.