Twisted Threads (23 page)

By midmorning all the needlepointers had gathered. Except Lauren, of course. Even Dave Percy had taken the day off. It was the first time I’d convened the group, and I was a little nervous, but Gram wasn’t letting me off the hook.

“Our new director has something to tell us,” she said, turning the meeting over to me. She sat down and Juno jumped into her lap and started purring.

“I’m sure you’ve all noticed Lauren Decker isn’t with us this morning,” I said. Several people nodded. “I wanted you to hear the news from me before you heard it on the street, or even on the TV. Lauren’s been arrested.”

Ruth Hopkins gasped.

“For what?” Sarah asked.

“For murdering her husband, Caleb. And poisoning Jacques Lattimore and,” I answered, pausing as Dave Percy sat a little farther back in his chair, “for killing my mother.”

The room was silent.

“But why?” asked Sarah.

“And how?” added Ob. “I don’t know about Caleb or about your mother. But we were all right here that afternoon with Jacques. We were together. How could we not know?”

I swallowed. “Joe Greene wasn’t the friendly baker and neighbor most people here thought. He was a sexual predator. He particularly liked young girls. Really young girls. Ones who hadn’t reached puberty yet.”

Ruth put her hand over her mouth for a moment and then said, “And no one knew?”

I shook my head. This wasn’t easy. “I don’t know how many victims he had. But I was one. Lauren was one, too.”

“Her own father?” asked Sarah, almost whispering. “And she didn’t tell anyone?”

“No, but I did. I told my mother.” I paused. “Mama confronted Joe Greene in his office at the bakery. She threatened to tell the police. They argued. Lauren was ten, then, and she overheard them. She heard her father being threatened. She was scared, and she panicked. So she got the gun she knew he kept behind the counter in the bakery, and she pulled the trigger.” I paused. “I don’t know exactly what happened then. But my mother was dead. Joe told Lauren to go home. To forget what had happened. To never tell anyone what she’d seen.”

“So to hide what she’d done, Joe must have taken your mother’s body and hidden it in that freezer,” Ob said slowly. “It’s ironic that Lauren was the one who found it there.”

I nodded. “And Lauren says he never molested her again. He never touched me, either, although I avoided the bakery as much as I could for the rest of the time I lived in Haven Harbor.”

“So your mother—your daughter, Charlotte—was brave enough to confront him,” said Katie.

Gram shook her head. “Brave enough. Or stupid enough. Maybe if she’d gone directly to the police, she’d still be alive.”

“But would the police have listened to one child’s story?” I said. “Mama wasn’t known to have the highest moral standards in town. She might have thought no one would believe her, that she could solve the problem herself.” I glanced up at the picture of Mama and me on the mantel. “She did what she thought was right. How could she have guessed it would turn out the way it did?”

“What about Lattimore? I know we were all furious with him for gambling away money that should have come to us. But what made Lauren go further?” asked Katie Titicomb. “We’ve all been angry with people in our lives at times, but we didn’t kill them.”

“I’ve thought a lot about that,” I said. “Anger’s the other side of depression. Lauren had lost her mother. Her daughter had died. She and Caleb were struggling financially, and Caleb’s way of dealing with that was to drink, use drugs, and be abusive. He even ran a meth lab out of what had been Lauren’s family’s camp. Since Lauren was close at hand, she got the brunt of his anger and frustration. And then last winter, because of Lattimore, they lost more of their income. That hit hard. And while they were still dealing with that, Lauren’s father died.”

I had a rapt audience. Dave nodded at me, confirming.

“At first the death of her father offered Lauren and Caleb some relief. They were able to sell their trailer and move into the house where Lauren had grown up. They had a little money. But for Lauren, moving into her childhood home brought back memories of what had happened to her as a child. She didn’t tell anyone, but in her mind she relived the abuse she’d suffered. The great secret she’d kept. And you all know Caleb. The way he treated her convinced Lauren she was always fated to be a victim. She needed to feel in control of her life. And then she met a man who seemed to value her as a person, as a woman. She was relieved and excited. But, of course, that was one more part of her life she had to hide.”

Sarah shook her head. “Seems to me having an affair would only complicate her life.”

“It did. And she didn’t go as far as having an affair, although I suspect she thought about it. But the relationship added excitement to the life she felt was hopelessly dreary and fated to remain so. And then she opened that freezer. She hadn’t known my mother was in it. She’d almost, but not quite, forgotten that Sunday in May, nineteen years ago. She called the police, never thinking they’d be able to connect her to the killing. The body was in her father’s freezer. People would assume he’d put it there.” I paused. “Which, of course, he did. And, in a way, it made her a heroine. She was interviewed on television and radio and by the press, as well as by the police.”

“That’s true,” said Ruth. “The media coverage was sympathetic to her. The innocent daughter who didn’t know what her father had done, and yet he’d left it to her to clean up his mess.”

I nodded. “All that attention focused on Lauren made Caleb even angrier. And Lauren, perhaps for the first time in years, felt empowered. Although it was serendipitous, nineteen years before she’d solved one problem—her father’s abuse—by killing someone. I think she decided to do it again.”

“She decided to kill Lattimore?” said Ob, who’d been quiet up until then. “Killing him wouldn’t get her money back.”

“No,” I agreed. “But she didn’t plan to kill Lattimore. She planned to kill Caleb. With him gone, she’d be free to start again. She’d own a house and a camp. She’d have a little money. Best of all, she wouldn’t be Caleb’s victim any longer. And she’d still have that relationship she had hopes for. And then her friend, without knowing it, provided her with the means to get rid of her husband.”

“I didn’t give her poison—or anything else that would help her kill Caleb!” Dave looked beseechingly around the room. “Yes, I’m the one Lauren was spending time with. I didn’t think it was serious. I felt sorry for her.” He turned to me. “I had no idea she was planning to kill Caleb. Or anyone else! I would never have helped her do that!”

“I’m sure you never thought she’d try to kill anyone. But you told her about poisons. You showed her your garden. She was interested, so you told her what you told your students. One of the plants you told her about was water hemlock.”

“I warned her about dangerous plants. I didn’t tell her how to kill people with them!” He looked around the room. “Especially not water hemlock! She’d told me her family’s camp was on a lake, and there was swampy land nearby. I figured it was the right environment for water hemlock. I remember telling her it looked like Queen Anne’s lace, but she should be careful not to pick it. Or dig it up, for that matter. The roots are its most poisonous part.”

“And she found it. Maybe she did her own research, after you’d warned her. She made a solution from the sap in the roots. She filled one of the old pill bottles she’d cleaned out of her parents’ house, and she waited for a good time. A time she could poison her husband.”

“She was carrying a bottle of poison around with her?” Sarah asked incredulously.

I nodded. “She didn’t want Caleb to find it until she was ready. So she hid it in her purse. And when you were all meeting with Lattimore, she decided to test it. See if it would make him sick. So when you were all focused on what Lattimore had done, and what you were going to do next, Lauren poured a little of the solution into his teacup.” I sat back. “You all know what happened then.”

Dave kept shaking his head. “I never, never thought she’d kill anyone.
Never.
”

“I believe you,” said Ruth, patting Dave’s hand. “Life works out in strange ways, doesn’t it?”

“In any case, that’s what happened. Caleb’s dead and Lauren’s in jail, but Mainely Needlepoint will go on. Between Gram and me we’ve computerized all the files. Next I’m going to contact all of our former customers to ask them what we can do for them. Those of you who still have jobs outstanding, make sure you finish them up, because I’m hoping to have new work for us soon.”

Smiles around the room.

“I’m also going to design a brochure advertising our services that we can leave with designers and decorators and gift shops, and hand out with our products. On it we’re going to include two new services. There are going to be lessons in needlepoint, which Gram has agreed to schedule, and identification, conservation, and preservation of old textiles, especially embroideries of various sorts. Sarah’s going to head up that effort. But we’ll all have the opportunity to help out with the classes, if they become as popular as I hope, and to learn about the needlework our ancestors did, here in Maine and, I hope, in other places.” I looked around the room. “Thank you all for trusting me. For giving me a purpose. And a reason for staying in Haven Harbor.” I paused. “Any questions?”

“Only one,” said Sarah. “Why don’t you offer us some tea?”

Later that afternoon, after everyone had left, I found a package on our porch wrapped in pink floral gift paper. An envelope with my name on it was attached.

“Do you know what this is, Gram?” I asked as I brought it into the living room, where we’d been sitting, enjoying a little wine. We had a lot to think about and talk over: what had happened during the last week, the future of the business, Gram’s wedding.

“I have no idea,” she answered. “What does the note say?”

I opened the envelope. Inside was a piece of creamy thick stationery:

Inside the package was the small piece of needlework Sarah had shown Gram and me a week ago, cleaned and lined and framed.

I read the verse again:
Just as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined.
Perhaps. But now I knew Mama hadn’t left me. She’d tried to save me. And a twig could also grow toward the sun.

Acknowledgments With thanks to everyone who contributed, knowingly or unknowingly, to the writing of
Twisted Threads:
John Talbot and John Scognamiglio and Barbara Ross, who suggested I write a book centered on needlepoint. Robin Cook and Stephanie Finnegan, for their close reading and copyedits and keeping all the details of Haven Harbor life straight.

Mary Anne Tomlinson Sullivan, who suggested the poison my killer used. The real Sarah Byrne, a charming young woman who still lives in Australia, and who won a Bouchercon auction to name a character in Haven Harbor. Elayne Star, Kennebunk, Maine, antique dealer extraordinaire, who shared her collection of Ouija boards with me. Kathy Lynn and Sandy Emerson for their knowledge of the world of crime fighting in Maine.

My fellow bloggers at
www.MaineCrimeWriters.com
, past and present, for their advice, support and enthusiasm: Kate Flora, Kathy Lynn Emerson, Barbara Ross, Dorothy Cannell, John Clark, Paul Doiron, Gerry Boyle, Vicki Doudura, Sarah Graves, James Hayman, Julia Spencer-Fleming, Susan Vaughan, Al Lamonda, and Jayne Hitchcock.

Pamela Parmal and Meredith Montague of the Boston Museum of Fine Art’s Textile and Fashion Arts division, who spent time with me explaining conservation concerns related to antique needlepoint. Janet Palen, owner of Stitcher’s Corner in Wiscasset, Maine, who introduced me to needlepoint. And Barbara Hepburn, president of the Maine Chapter of the Embroiderers Guild of America, for correcting my errors.

Any remaining mistakes, in any area, are solely my responsibility.

And, as always, to my husband, Bob Thomas, for listening, loving, and giving me time and space to live in my fictional worlds.