Twisted Threads (20 page)

Maybe Mama had Joe Greene’s telephone number because she’d called to order a birthday cake or a tray of cookies. True, I didn’t remember her ever doing that, but, despite the fact that I’d felt pretty grown-up then, I’d only been nine when she had left that Sunday afternoon.

The bakery wouldn’t have been open on a Sunday. That number could have been in her pocket for months.

I kept thinking about what Cindy had said at lunch. All these years I’d thought it was just me. However awful it had been, Mr. Greene had picked only me. At first I’d thought I was special. Then I thought I must have done something to encourage him—or Mama had.

Now I knew Joe Greene had been a lecher and a toucher, at minimum—a pedophile, at worst. The more I thought about it the angrier I got.

How did that fit into the picture? And if he was interested in young girls, why would he have gotten involved with Mama?

She’d been involved with men, sometimes married men. But she was definitely a grown woman.

The longer I stayed in Haven Harbor, the more questions I had.

I looked at my new computer. It had answered my question about the telephone number. Could it help with the murder Gram and I were suspects in?

I Googled, poison causing vomiting and convulsions.

No wonder the police were depending on the results of the toxicology reports. Even an overdose of aspirin could cause those symptoms. So could a list of poisonous plants. Too much alcohol. Or the alcohol could have interacted with another substance to cause the vomiting and convulsions. Alcohol combined with antidepressants or amphetamines would have caused reactions stronger than any one of those alone.

But where to begin, unless someone left a vial labeled
Poison
on the coffee table in our living room? So many substances could be poisons.

I turned off the laptop and got into bed. I lay there, remembering being small, and hearing the lighthouse bell or foghorn. On hot summer days I’d opened my windows to catch sea breezes. The laughing and talking from people walking home from a day at sea or a night at one of the restaurants would drift through my windows. I’d pretended I was floating, safe in my room, away from what was happening in the world.

Gram’d put me to bed every night and tucked me in. She’d read to me, until I’d said I was too old to be read to.

Mama was usually out, working or with friends, when I went to bed. But I’d known—for almost ten years I’d known—that she’d be home soon. I would hear the front door open and her footsteps on the stairs. If I were still awake, I’d listen. The ninth step from the bottom creaked. It was a kind of goodnight message.

When I’d needed socks or underwear or a warm hat, Gram had been the one to see the need and find the money. Mama’d bought me hair ribbons and party dresses and dolls. I’d taken Gram’s gifts for granted. I’d cherished the gifts from Mama, because they were special. They’d come from her.

Remembering, I looked up at the line of elegant dolls, with immaculately curled hair and old-fashioned dresses that still stood in their stands on the top shelf of my bookcase.

I’d never played with them. They were too good, too fancy, too special. Instead, I’d collected sea stones and jars of green and blue and orange sea glass. Once I’d found a tiny pocket-sized naked porcelain doll on the beach, smoothed like the pieces of glass. I’d put her carefully in one of Gram’s mason jars, so she could look out, and surrounded her with pieces of sea glass.

Now I saw I’d trapped her in the jar. The sea glass was pretty, but it kept her from escaping.

I got out of bed, poured the jar full of glass pieces onto my comforter, and gently picked up the tiny doll. She had a chip on one of her feet and another on the back of her head, but otherwise, amazingly, she was intact. She’d ridden the waves and survived. I stood her up on the shelf and put the sea glass back in the jar.

Then I took all the fancy dolls down from the top shelf and put them in a carton for Goodwill. Another little girl might love them. I didn’t.

I couldn’t think about Mama anymore.

I’d think about Lattimore.

Somehow the murderer had poisoned Lattimore’s tea. They must have done it by sleight of hand, or in a moment no one noticed. Yes, Gram had made the tea, but she wouldn’t have killed him. I didn’t kill him. So . . . what did I know about the others who’d been in our living room? The other needlepointers, who’d been cheated by the man with whom they were sharing afternoon tea?

Ruth Hopkins. Gram would call her a “tough old bird.” She was the oldest of the group and partially disabled. But she’d been able-bodied enough to bake the molasses cookies she’d brought, and to get to the meeting. Ruth had gotten very little of Lattimore’s money. She hadn’t been working much recently. Working at needlepoint, that is. S.M. Bond and Chastity Falls had been publishing!

She didn’t sound like the most logical person to have brought poison, as well as cookies, to the meeting. But, then, it wouldn’t take much strength to grind up her medications and dissolve them, would it? Although her arthritic hands would have made it harder for her to poison a teacup quickly, without anyone’s noticing.

Dave Percy. He’d been in the navy, but he wasn’t as macho as some ex-military types I’d met. But he was no wimp. To have done needlepoint onboard submarines would have taken strength of character. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t been razzed about that, at minimum. He was working, as a teacher—a steady job, although not highly paid in Haven Harbor—and Lattimore owed him quite a bit. How much had his small house and immaculate furnishings cost him? Did he have any vices I didn’t know about? Traditionally, poison was a woman’s weapon. But Dave Percy’s poison garden put him definitely on my list.

The other man in the group, Ob Winslow, was a wood-carver—as good with a knife as with a needle. He also was owed a lot by Lattimore, and he’d given up his carving business to do needlepoint. He still did fishing charters in the summer, but this year’s season hadn’t started yet. From what his wife, Anna, had said after church, they were hurting for money. And he had a bad back. Maybe he had prescription pain pills that, mixed with alcohol, could be lethal. Or he’d borrowed some of his son Josh’s Ritalin.

Ob was still on the list.

Katie Titicomb. Her husband was a doctor, so she wouldn’t have any serious money worries. But, since he was a doctor, she also might have access to various types of medications. She was able-bodied and, like the others, Lattimore owed her money. She was Cindy’s mom. I hoped she wasn’t the killer. But I couldn’t cross her off the list.

That left Lauren and Sarah, the two youngest of the group. Lauren, whose husband was rumored to have alcohol, and maybe drug, problems. Caleb definitely had a temper. And he still owed money on his lobster boat. Lobster boats cost more than the small houses or the trailers many young Maine couples started out in. Would Lauren have killed? Or Sarah, who, Gram said, seemed to be coping financially, but who was on her own?

I couldn’t see the logic in any of them killing Lattimore. True, they were all angry at him. But killing him wouldn’t get them the money they were owed. What other possible reason would they have for killing? I didn’t know. But they’d all had the same opportunity. And most had some means of poisoning.

I turned off my light. It didn’t make sense. None of it made sense.

Ethan took Gram in for questioning early the next morning. When I objected, he frowned. “We’re not arresting her. Yet.” He wouldn’t share any details, but he did say he hadn’t heard the results from the toxicology tests.

I suspected he’d come to the same conclusion I had. Whatever killed Lattimore had been in the tea. And, of course, Gram had made the tea.

Ethan didn’t seem to wonder why, if the tea’d been poisoned, no one but Lattimore was affected. I was convinced whatever killed Lattimore hadn’t been in the teapot.

I called Pete Lambert again. “Pete, I’ve got new information for you about my mother’s case.” Talking to him reminded me I still didn’t have that carry permit. I felt vulnerable without it.

“Wasn’t Ethan Trask just at your house, to pick up your grandmother?” Pete didn’t sound thrilled to speak to me.

“They’ve left.”

“So, why didn’t you tell him whatever information you have?”

“Because you’re helping me get my carry permit.” I stopped. “And because we had lunch together the other day.”

“What’s the information?”

“Did you look to see if Joe Greene had a record of any kind?”

“I looked. No record that I could find. Why?”

“Because he was a sexual predator. I know two grown women who’ll swear that he touched them when they were about seven, eight, nine years old.”

Long pause.

I tried again. “He touched little girls, Pete. And tried to do more. Are you sure there weren’t any reports of that over the years? Complaints the local department might have hushed up?”

“Angie, even if there were reports, what would they have to do with your mother’s death?”

“I’m not sure. But it’s important.” I tried again. “It would have been before you were with the department. But maybe you heard talk. Rumors. Especially after my mother’s body was found.”

“I’ll check it out. Ask around. But, Angie, Joe Greene’s dead. Nothing could be done about it now, even if you could prove he was a child molester.”

“I know,” I said. “But I keep thinking it might have had something to do with my mother’s murder. She wasn’t a little girl when she was killed, but he’d known her all her life. Maybe he expected more from her than . . . from other women.”

Could he have touched Mama when she was a child?
I suddenly wondered.
It was possible.

“Even if that’s true, Angie, it’s not a motive for murder.”

“People around town said nasty things about my mother after she disappeared.”

“I’ve heard that, Angie. I’d be plenty angry if people talked that way about my mother.”

“Please check. And let me know what you find out.” I hung up. Maybe he wouldn’t find anything. Few little girls might have talked, if they were like Cindy and me. But maybe sometime, somewhere, an adult had seen or heard something suspicious. And been listened to.

Gram was being questioned by the state police. So far as I knew, her only secret was her engagement to Reverend Tom. Nothing to be condemned for, although some might find it worthy of gossip.

I glanced through Gram’s collection of books on early-American and European needlepoint and picked out a few to read, but I couldn’t concentrate. The words blurred.

Our house was silent except when every so often Juno jumped up and streaked through, as though pursued by an invisible force. Some people in Haven Harbor, with a strange pride, talked of sharing their homes with its former inhabitants. Souls that hadn’t moved on, and only begrudgingly shared the spaces their bodies once inhabited.

My ancestors must have been accepting of their fates. They didn’t come back to relive their own lives, or concern themselves with those who’d come after them. Unless Juno saw or heard things I didn’t.

Today I could have used their company. I understood why Ruth Hopkins and Reverend Tom, two people who lived alone, found comfort in talking with spirits. Real or imaginary.

I was worried about Gram—not for what she might say, but for assumptions that might be made. Like the assumption she might be a murderer, despite there being no proof. But I had faith the police wouldn’t hold her long. Despite all that was happening, at heart I was a glass—or teacup—half-full person.

In the meantime sitting and worrying accomplished nothing. Gram and I’d already separated the bills and statements Lattimore gave us, so we could correlate them with Gram’s notes as to what work Jacques had gotten for the group, to whom it had been assigned, and what had been completed. Gram had two cartons of finished needlepoint that Jacques should have picked up and delivered.

Now that we’d divided the money from Jacques, my next priority was contacting those customers, asking their understanding for what had happened, and, hopefully, delivering the needlework and picking up checks.

I sat on the couch and sorted through the papers Jacques had brought that we hadn’t looked at yet, picking out orders that hadn’t been completed. I found the one for the chair seat I’d seen at Dave’s house. A work in progress. And there were several orders for specific wall hangings or pillow covers: a geometric design in pinks and reds, a harbor scene including a sailboat owned by the man who ordered it, a pair of pillow covers with teddy bears on them, and children’s names. I hoped most of those orders had been completed.

I was almost through sorting the last of Lattimore’s papers when I came to several computer printouts of e-mails clipped together. I assumed they were notes between Jacques and customers. Then I looked again.

Every one of the notes was between Lattimore and Katie Titicomb. Had she been working on a project so complicated she needed to stay directly in touch with him? I’d thought Gram did that coordinating after orders came in.

Curious, I sorted the e-mails by message dates and began reading.

That was the end. I went back and re-read the messages.

Had Lattimore followed through with his plan? Had he intentionally withheld payments to make Gram look bad, so he could push Katie Titicomb into replacing her?

But so far as I could tell, no one had blamed Gram for the lack of money. They’d blamed Lattimore. And Katie hadn’t replaced Gram. The group had decided I’d replace Lattimore, and would take on some of Gram’s responsibilities as well.

So . . . when he died, did Lattimore have more of the money he owed people? Was he waiting to get Katie installed as the new head of Mainely Needlepoint before he paid it?

I’d assumed he’d gambled it away.

Or maybe, knowing the plan wasn’t working as she’d hoped, Katie had decided to get rid of Lattimore so he couldn’t blame her if anyone discovered she’d conspired with him. She could have gotten medications relatively easily. And if she knew Lattimore drank, she could have made sure she had pills that would interact with alcohol.

I called Ethan Trask; as part of his investigation he should have checked Lattimore’s assets. If there was any chance Jacques still had the money he owed the needleworkers, we could put in a claim on his estate. It was a small chance.... If Lattimore had any money, why hadn’t he paid his rent? But if there was any chance at all, I wanted it checked out.

I waited as Ethan’s phone rang. He didn’t pick up. But, of course, he was busy. He was questioning Gram.

How would she feel if she found out one of her needlepointers had been plotting against her?

I folded the incriminating e-mails and hid them in my room. I wouldn’t tell Gram about them until I was sure.

In the meantime I needed to talk to Katie Titicomb.