Twisted Threads (12 page)

Ethan Trask had left. Gram had gone grocery shopping. All was quiet, except in my head. I started in on the accounts for Mainely Needlepoint. They were tedious and confusing, and I couldn’t concentrate. Not a good sign for my first day on the job.

I kept going back to Ethan’s questions that morning. They were all so obvious, and covered the same ground police in the past had put under microscopes. There were two directions to take in Mama’s murder. One was to start with her body, and figure how long it had been in the freezer, and who put it there.... Basically, work backward. Find out when Joe Greene, or anyone else, had visited that storage unit.

I was more intrigued by working forward. Where was Mama going when she left the house in her new yellow dress that Sunday afternoon? And, thinking of that day, that year, who would have had any reason to kill her?

I pulled a clean sheet of paper out of Gram’s printer and labeled it,
People to check.
Ethan had asked if Mama had any enemies. Gram and I had said no, but we didn’t know everything about her.

“Enemies” was a strong word. The sheet stayed blank.

Okay. Who might have been angry with her?

That was an easier question. I didn’t know specifics, but I knew enough about her life to be able to imagine.

Had she rejected any of her male friends recently? Her reputation to the contrary, Mama sometimes said, “No.”

Did she have problems with those she worked with at Harbor Haunts? More than once, she’d “forgotten” her hours or gone in late. That didn’t endear her to others who worked there. She’d been fired from that job, and other waitressing jobs like it, more than once or twice. Fortunately for her, there weren’t many attractive young women who wanted to work twelve months of the year at a small café. She often got her job back. But maybe this time . . .

Gram was sometimes impatient with her. But . . . no. Gram would never hurt Mama. She might have been frustrated with her, and worried about her, but she wouldn’t have harmed her. And she didn’t have a gun.

Gun. Handgun. Lots of people in town hunted for deer or moose in the fall, and birds of various sorts in season. Hunting and fishing and Maine went together. Most hunters aimed at filling their freezers. A few just liked the sport or the camaraderie of other men (and women) who hunted. A hunter who didn’t want to be bothered with the meat could take his kill to one of several processors in the state who’d prepare and freeze the venison or moose meat and deliver it to a food pantry or soup kitchen.

Some kids I’d grown up with had learned to shoot before their First Communions. By the time they were twelve, some had entered their names in the annual state moose lottery, hoping for a chance to kill one of Maine’s most famous animals.

But Mama’d been killed by a handgun. Who in Haven Harbor had a handgun nineteen years ago? Mama was scared of guns. A childhood friend of hers had been playing in her backyard during hunting season. Despite wearing an orange scarf, she’d been shot and killed by a hunter. It was ruled an accident. Mama had told me that story many times. She’d never forgotten her friend, or forgiven the hunter for shooting close to posted land, to her friend’s home. She’d made sure I wore blaze orange during hunting season, even though I was here in town, or walking along the beach, where no one hunted.

But I’d seen handguns. I knew I had. I thought hard, back to before Mama disappeared. Back to when I was just a little girl, like other little girls, and played at my friends’ homes.

“So he can protect himself from bad people,” Lauren had told me. She’d showed me the gun once, although she wasn’t supposed to touch it. I shuddered, thinking about that day. Children didn’t always do as they were told, and something forbidden was often a temptation. Joe had owned a gun. But who knew where it was now? Or if the medical examiner could identify it based on what had been left of Mama.

But the Greenes weren’t the only ones. Captain Winslow, Ob, who’d retired from the navy and carved wooden decoys and deer and chipmunks before he became a Mainely Needlepointer, had a handgun. I’d seen it once when his wife had been ill and Gram sent me over with a bowl of turkey barley soup for her. The gun had been right on their kitchen counter. I hadn’t known why, and I hadn’t asked. The Winslows had a son younger than I was. Josh was the kid who wriggled so much he kept falling off his chair in class, and drove neighbors crazy with his loud voice and nonstop activity. I remembered hearing a neighbor complain Josh was sinking baskets in his driveway in the middle of the night. Where was Josh now?

But, no matter Josh’s issues, his dad—the captain—had had a gun.

I thought carefully of all the other places in town. I couldn’t remember seeing any other handguns myself, but I was sure other storekeepers had them. And a lot of homeowners.

Even today you didn’t need a license in Maine to buy a handgun, you just needed a permit to conceal the one you carried. Nineteen years ago you probably hadn’t even needed that. There was no way the state police would be able to find out who had a handgun then. It could have been half the people in town, not counting people outside Haven Harbor.

The more I thought about guns, the more I knew I had to apply for that concealed carry permit. I checked to see if I had my passport for identification, wrote a note for Gram, and headed across town.

Sergeant Pete Lambert, who’d helped us get to Mama’s service without being bothered by the media, was on duty. He pulled out a form and handed it to me. “Fill this out and I’ll send it to the state for you. We need to take your picture to go with it. Stacy, over there,” he said, pointing at a young woman sitting at a desk in the corner, “has a camera to do that. But you’ll need to have been a resident for six months.”

“That long? But I already have a permit from Arizona.” I pulled that out to show him.

He nodded. “I see. And I know you’ve moved home. But six months is the law. You can have your gun, of course. Just don’t conceal it, and you’ll be within the law. I know you. I’ll hold your application here and file it for you in six months. You should get your permit pretty soon after that.”

Six months! I might not stay in Maine longer than that.

He stared at my Arizona permit before handing it back to me. “You be careful, though. A handgun isn’t a toy.”

“I know.” I didn’t tell him I’d once had to use mine, not counting when I’d threatened Jacques Lattimore. Wally’d insisted I go with him to the gun range once or twice a week until he was sure I knew what I was doing. Carrying wasn’t something he, or I, took lightly.

Having made an attempt to establish that I was once again a citizen of Maine, I walked down the hill to the commercial part of town. Seasonal businesses started opening in early May, and those open year-round changed their inventories to appeal to summer folks—those people with more money. Flannel shirts, wool socks, and rain and hunting gear were replaced by sweatshirts emblazoned with pictures of lighthouses or moose or sayings such as
I found my Haven in Haven Harbor, Maine.
Goods no local would ever wear.

Mama had walked down from our house toward Main Street. Had she gotten all the way there? Joe Greene’s bakery, now the French patisserie, was a couple of blocks west of where she would have crossed Main if she’d come straight down the hill.

I waved at Sarah Byrne, who was watering the lilies of the valley in the window of her antique shop. Nothing of interest there. That shop hadn’t been there nineteen years ago.

The hardware store Ethan’s family owned was still open. Mama never went into the gift shops. They were for people from away. And she didn’t buy her clothes in Haven Harbor; she shopped in Freeport. She only wore heavy coats or sweaters on the bitter-cold days when she’d walk to work in below-zero temperatures and snowdrifts blocked cars from seeing around street corners.

When I reached the Harbor Haunts Café, I decided to stop in and have a cup of coffee.

I sat at the old red Formica counter. Lauren was waiting on tables. A young woman I didn’t know took my order.

Mama was working here when she left. Had she been on her way here that day? She wasn’t dressed for work, but maybe she was planning to meet someone later, after the café closed. In May the customers would have been a combination of people who lived or worked in town and snowbirds, back from winters in the south. Snowbirds, who wintered in North Carolina or Florida, or even Vermont for the skiing, returned as early as April.

I spun around on my stool, looking at the tables. The place hadn’t changed much, although Ethan had mentioned it had changed hands.

Once in a while Mama had brought me here as a special treat. We’d always sat on the end of the counter, right by the kitchen, and she’d order me hot chocolate with marshmallows or a peppermint stick in the winter, or a one-scoop hot-fudge sundae in summer. Lemonade too. I remembered drinking lemonade here and adding sugar because it wasn’t as sweet as Gram’s.

In high school I’d come here with friends. We’d order Pepsis or Moxies or, if we had a little more money, root beer floats. In the winter we could sit here for an hour or two with our sodas, sharing an order of french fries. In the summer we knew better. Tables then were for folks ordering lobster rolls or fried clams. But we didn’t need the shelter of the café in the summer. We had the beach, and the piers, and were too busy with jobs, helping in family businesses or restaurants or keeping the beach clean, to idle time away. It took a lot of hands to keep a small town spruced up for the tourists.

I watched Lauren smiling and talking with a couple whose toddler was in a high chair.

I’d finished my coffee and was pulling out my wallet when she stepped behind the counter.

“Glad you were able to squeeze a few dollars out of that Jacques Lattimore. And congratulations. I heard you’ve agreed to replace him at Mainely Needlepoint.”

“On a trial basis. We’ll see how it works out.”

She leaned toward me and lowered her voice. “How soon will I be getting my share of the money you got from Lattimore? I really need it.”

“Soon. One day, maybe two.”

“I sure hope so,” Lauren answered as the waitress who’d taken my order moved back behind the counter. She raised her voice a little. “You’re not going back to . . . Arizona? That’s where you were, right? Before you decided to come home.”

I’d come home because she’d found my mother’s body. Because, maybe, her father had killed my mother. Not totally my own decision. “I lived outside of Phoenix. I worked for an investigator there.”

“So you’re giving up your job to stay here?”

“I want to take care of some business here. And I hope I can be a help at Mainely Needlepoint.”

“You don’t even do needlepoint.”

“True. I’m not good at crafts.” I looked down at my hands. “I’m not good with my hands.” Unless there’s a gun in them. “But Gram asked me. And Lattimore didn’t do needlepoint, either. I’ll be working with the accounts and orders, and talking to customers. I won’t be creating the products.”

“The ‘products’?” She looked at me disdainfully. “Needlepoint is a highly skilled craft. An art. One that deserves more respect than it gets.”

“I have a lot to learn, but I admire beautiful needlepoint. It connects us to all the women in the past who did it to add beauty to their lives. It’s part of our heritage.”

“Maybe. You make it sound romantic. Remember, our needlepoint is a way of paying bills—if we get enough orders.”

“Gram said you’re talented. She’s going to try to teach me, too, so I’ll understand more about it.”

Lauren picked up my empty coffee cup and swept the counter with a damp rag. As she stretched, I noticed a large purple bruise on the back of her right arm. “That’s a nasty bruise. A fall?”

”Right. I was clumsy.” She turned to go back into the kitchen. “Well, I’ll be waiting for my share of Jacques’ money, and for the chance to get new orders to fill. I can make as much doing that as I can breaking my back carrying trays of dirty dishes here.”

“If you have a few minutes, I’d like to talk with you. About . . . the storage locker. About Mama. And your father.”

“There’s nothing to tell. My father’s dead. His locker had some junk in it, and one of those big white freezers most folks have in their barns for venison and tomato sauce and blueberries. The kind you open from the top.” She paused. “You know what was in there. That’s all. There’s nothing more to say. I’m sorry about your mother. Now I have to get my orders.”

Lauren went back into the kitchen and picked up two plates. I could see the thick cheeseburgers and onion rings from a distance. She put them in front of an older couple sitting in the far corner. Then she went back to the kitchen. She didn’t look at me again.

I paid my check and left a decent tip.

I’d have to start over here. People knew who I was, but they also knew I’d had baggage when I left, and they didn’t know whether that load had increased when I’d been away, or whether I was ready to settle into Maine ways.

Truth to tell, I didn’t blame them. I wasn’t sure myself.

Lauren wasn’t going to help me. I couldn’t blame her. If her father had killed Mama, that didn’t augur well for a solid family history. She’d have to live with being the daughter of a murderer.

That had to be even harder than being the daughter of a victim.

I turned toward home. The wind had shifted. It was now brisk, and coming from the northeast. I hoped a storm wasn’t brewing. I pulled my jacket closer.

I hadn’t liked the heat of Arizona summers, but I’d gotten used to them. I’d forgotten the chill of afternoon sea breezes.

I wasn’t convinced Ethan was taking Mama’s cold case seriously. Especially since now he’d been distracted by the possible situation with Jacques Lattimore.

Why couldn’t I feel like Gram, and get on with my life, whether that life was going to be here in Haven Harbor, or back in Mesa, or somewhere else? Why did I feel such an obligation to the past?

I’d held Mama’s hand and skipped along this sidewalk, knowing that people sometimes looked at us and whispered. I’d thought it was because Mama was pretty. It wasn’t until the years just before she disappeared that I’d begun to notice she was different from other Haven Harbor mothers. Her clothes were tighter, and lower in front, and she wore bright colors when others favored more subtle hues. Women in Haven Harbor considered themselves dressed up when they combed their hair and put on lipstick. Mama wore bright eye shadow and curled her long, layered hair until it looked like a movie star’s.

She was beautiful. I’d wished I looked like her.

Everything about her sparkled: her blond hair, the bright colors she wore, her shiny fingernails, the gold jewelry she wore.

“With my coloring, silver looks dull,” she’d told me once. “Gold jewelry goes with my hair.”

I’d nodded, seriously taking in her lesson.

Then she’d whispered, “Someday maybe my jewelry will be real gold, not just gold-colored. Gold colors wear off. Real gold stays forever.”

“What color jewelry should I wear?” I’d asked her, looking in her dressing-room mirror at the two of us. My straight brown hair was a fashion world away from her curls.

She’d tilted her head a bit, considering. Then, “Silver is your color, Angel. Bright silver. It doesn’t cost as much as gold, so you’ll be able to buy the real thing. Make sure you do. Don’t waste your money on imitations. You’re worth the real thing.”

And then she’d laughed and hugged me.

Silver might have been my color, but the angel necklace she’d given me was gold. Real gold. Fourteen karat.

But on the rare occasions when I bought jewelry for myself now, I always bought silver. Mama had said it was my color.

Hugging myself in my light jacket as I walked, I wondered whether her clothes were still in her closet. Would any of them fit me? I didn’t want to wear them, but I was curious. I was pretty sure I was an inch or two taller than she’d been. Maybe trying on her clothes would bring me closer to her.

I looked in the window of what had been Joe Greene’s Bakery. The wind grew even brisker. Or maybe I just noticed it more.

How many times had I been in that store? Hundreds? Likely. Mama’d bought me cookies there, or cupcakes, when I was little. When I was older I’d be sent on errands there: “Pick up a loaf of bread and a sweet for dessert.”

Sometimes I’d refused, but then Gram would get angry.

What little girl wouldn’t want to go to the bakery? It was only three blocks from home. Nothing bad could happen in three blocks.

I stood outside the window. They were right. Nothing bad had happened in those three blocks. At least nothing I knew about.

I took a deep breath and went in. The little bell on the back of the door, which announced customers, was still there. Its sound stopped me.

But I was grown up now. This was a patisserie. Whatever had happened in the past was over. Gone.

I walked to the familiar display case, now filled with fancier pastries than the Greenes had ever sold.

“May I help you?” said the young woman in back of the counter.

“Two éclairs,” I said, pointing at a tray behind the glass.

“I’ll put them in a box for you,” she replied, reaching into the cabinet.

I pulled out my money.

Who else could I talk to? Did anyone else remember what this town was like?

“Thank you,” I said, accepting the white box tied with red string. “They look delicious. I’ve been away for a few years. I didn’t know you were here.”

“My husband and I bought the building from the Greenes,” she said, smiling. “You probably knew them. We love Haven Harbor. I’m glad you stopped in. I hope you’ll be back.”

“Most likely,” I said. “The éclairs look delicious.”

“They’re one of our top sellers,” she confirmed. “Nice to meet you. And have a good day!” I’d almost gotten to the door when she added, “Welcome home!”