Stitches In Crime Box Sets

Chapter 3

I took a lap before going to get Sawyer, and by the time I had walked down Main Street, waited at the light, and then back up the road to Mika’s store, my heart wasn’t racing . . . but my mind was. I couldn’t believe I had put us in that much danger.

I knew myself – the only way I was going to calm down was to talk this out, and talking things out was one of the rarest opportunities I had as the single mother of a toddler. He was almost always nearby, and if he was, he was listening. The number of things he’d repeated back to me when I had been sure he had been paying no attention at all was stunning. I was always grateful that I hadn’t developed a natural tendency to swear.

That gratitude was magnified when I walked into Mika’s shop and saw that Sawyer had turned the showroom into a rainbow spider’s web of yarn. I stopped so abruptly that the shop door banged me in the tush, and it was only the sound of scampering feet and Mika’s laughter that got me moving again.

There, chasing Saw as a skein of gorgeous magenta yarn unwound behind her, was my best friend, and she looked like she was having the time of her life. Just a few feet ahead of her, my tow-headed guy was yipping with glee as he dodged in and out of the blue, red, and orange strands already crisscrossing the shop. He was playing his favorite game, “Chase me,” with the added bonus of yarn.

I made my way carefully to one of the chairs at the front of the store, bending and climbing over strands all the way. Then, I sat down, scrounged out the bottle of white wine that Mika keeps in a small cooler near the chairs at the end of business and poured myself a small glass. I sipped and laughed along with two of the people I loved most in the world until they collapsed onto the floor near me with huge smiles on their faces.

“Well, this looks like it was fun,” I said.

“I was having so much fun in Auntie Mickey’s store, Mama,” Saw said as I handed him a juice box, also supplied from Mika’s cooler.

“Oh, I’m glad, Sweet Pea. Ready for some videos?” I glanced over at Mika, and she reached up and behind the cushion of the other chair and drew out a pair of bright-red headphones. “How did you know?”

“The look on your face when you came in and your not-so-stealthy visit with the sheriff across the street.” She winked at me, took my iPhone, and plugged in the headphones. “Where do you want to sit, Saw-guy?” she asked.

“Right, there,” he said as he pointed behind a tall bookshelf filled with yarn before climbing into the secluded corner with the phone and a thirty-minute time limit of random videos of families from Eastern Europe doing skits with exaggerated facial expressions. Saw loved all those videos, and tonight I was grateful.

As she sat down in the chair across from me, Mika handed me the end of a green skein of yarn and took a blue one for herself. Then, we began to wind the yarn around our fingers, letting the balls of softness form around them. “Okay, so what’s up?”

I unspooled the story of the day from our first adventures at the Scruggs store through to Sheriff Shifflett’s revelation about how Bailey Thomas had been killed while we were there. Every so often, I had to walk around the store to pull the yarn loose from a corner or from under a table, and each time I did, I saw Mika take a long swig of her wine. Clearly, the story was intense even to hear.

When I finished talking and picked up my third color to begin winding, Mika said, “Holy cow! So how was she killed?”

I dropped my tiny, not-quite-ball of yarn in my lap and looked at her. “Well, I don’t know. I didn’t think to ask.” I finished my glass of wine and shook my head. “Why didn’t I ask that question?”

“Right. Why didn’t you?”

I glanced over at Saw whose eyes kept getting wider the longer he watched. “I think I was just so flabbergasted that we’d been there when she died, you know?”

Mika looked at the teal yarn in her hand and nodded. “I can see that. But it must not have been a g*n shot or anything. You would have heard that, wouldn’t you?”

“Unless they used a silencer,” I said with mock horror.

“Who do you know in these mountains that has a silencer? Shooting as loudly as possible is practically part of mountain pride around here.” She held an imaginary shotgun to her shoulder and fired a round out the front window.

I grinned. “I know. I was teasing. But you’re right. I don’t think she was shot.” I shuddered. “I probably would have seen that, you know.”

Mika shook her head a little. “I see what you mean, but let’s not think about that. She could have been strangled or poisoned or . . . “

Sawyer was still intent on his videos, but I didn’t like talking about all this with him even in the room. In fact, I didn’t like talking about it at all. “I expect if the sheriff thought I should know that, he’d have told me. Probably won’t have to wait long to find out, though,” I said with a nod toward the front window.

Night had fallen outside, but that didn’t obscure my stepmother’s bouncing step as she came to the shop window, planted her nose against it, and peeked in.

Mika stood up and waved her newly wound ball of yarn. “Come in,” she shouted.

My stepmom, Lucille, made everyone happy when she arrived. She was usually wonderfully colorful in both her dress and her personality, and she was always bearing some great cake she’d made. I swear the woman has twenty of those cake carriers I see at the occasional church potluck because she’s always leaving them with people and yet somehow always has another on hand.

As she waved and moved around the door into the shop, she seemed particularly cheerful, and I felt my spirits buoy at her presence. While she sometimes gave me straight talk that made me bristle at first when she thought I needed it, she was one of those people who listened well and continued to think about your conversation long after it was done. She was my go-to person when life got hard, and today, well, today felt hard.

“Hey, Women. How’s it going?” Lucille asked as she unwrapped her long pink scarf, probably something she picked up in Sri Lanka or India on one of the many trips she’d taken in her life. She then set a cake carrier on the coffee table, removed the top, and revealed a coffee cake that was so thick with crumble that I thought she must have used an entire bottle of cinnamon to make it. Next, she took small paper plates, napkins, and forks from her tote before brandishing a long knife and cutting up the cake and distributing it to Mika and me. She finally pulled a folding chair out from behind my seat, stretched it out, and sat down next to me. “Ooh, that is not the face of a happy woman.” She raised her eyebrows as she looked at me.

I glanced over at Sawyer and saw him poke the screen of my phone, the sure signal that the two-minute warning had just flashed up. “I can’t really explain now, but it’s been a doozy of a day. Call you tonight after bedtime.”

Lucille smiled. “Anytime. Now, where’s my glass?” She gestured toward the half-empty bottle, and Mika began to pour. “Thank you, Mika. I actually came in to shop if that’s okay. I know you’re almost closed, but I thought I might see what I could scoop up for Mom out of your bargain bin.”

“Of course, Lucille. Please help yourself. Plan to pay only fifty percent of the sale price, though. Ms. Jewel’s wine carrier bags sell like hot cakes around here. I’d love to have a few more if she has the time.”

Lucille’s mother Jewel had just turned ninety-six, and while she wasn’t much for walking distances or stairs these days, she still spent her hours crocheting and doing plastic canvas creations for one and all. Her crochet doilies and lace collars were amazing. My forty-six-year-old eyes couldn’t even begin to do the detailed work she did.

“Do not tempt me, Mika, and do not tell Mom about that bargain. I’ll have to convert the entire spare bedroom for yarn storage,” Lucille grinned as she began to rummage through the waist-high basket that Mika used for bargain yarn storage. Within moments, the reusable tote that Lucille had produced from somewhere amongst the folds of her flowing, bright-yellow sundress was full, and she and Mika were headed to the register when I heard Saw’s voice say, “Baba!” and was just able to intercept my son before he took his grandmother out at the knees.

“Hey Sawyer Boy,” she said as she scooped him into her arms. “So what was it today? Camel sounds or big equipment falling down?”

“No, Baba,” Saw said with all seriousness. “Kitties and doggies.”

“Ah, yes, I should have known. The end of the day does call for cats and dogs doing silly things, doesn’t it?” It’s the sign of a good grandmother when she knows about her grandson’s YouTube obsessions.

I began to gather the various and sundry things Sawyer had distributed widely around the store as his Baba and his Auntie fawned over him. These two women thought the sun rose and set on that child, and he needed that, especially on the days when my patience ran as thin as rice paper.

My father had married Lucille about five years earlier after a whirlwind affair that began on an online dating site, an entity I was surprised my dad even knew existed. They’d dated three months and then gotten engaged, and then they married the next spring, and given the amount of hand-holding and sweet-talking I saw them do, they were still very much in love with each other . . . which was something my dad deserved more than any man I knew.

When I had shoved all of Sawyer’s paraphernalia back in our backpack, I went over to the counter and was met by the exuberant hug of a leaping toddler. My son had yet to learn to warn people before jumping, and I was glad all the people he leapt at with adoration had grown used to impromptu attack hugs or else he probably would have already had his first ER visit. “Oh, thanks, sweet boy. You ready to go home?”

“Yeah, Mama. Bye Baba. Bye Aunt Mickey,” he said as she clung to my neck.

I blew a kiss and headed toward the door. “What do you want for dinner, Little Man?”

“Noodles!” he shouted as we headed out to the street, and I heard Lucille and Mika laugh. Sawyer loved “noodles” better than any other food, and I gave thanks for boxed macaroni and cheese again.

A couple hours and five rounds of hide and seek later, Saw was sound asleep, and I was sitting down with a cup of tea and my latest cross-stitch project. But first, I wanted to catch Lucille – and by proxy my dad – up on the day’s events. Her phone rang only once, and when she answered, I heard my dad’s YouTube videos playing in the background. Like his grandson, he was a fan of the big equipment ones, and videos without dialogue were ideal for him since he was largely deaf. His deafness was also the reason he appreciated me telling Lucille about things instead of calling him directly, well that and he wasn’t a chatty guy in general.

When I had finished giving Lucille the run-down, she said, “Well, that’s quite a day. You okay?” I felt some of the tension melt away at this question. My dad and Lucille weren’t typically the nervous types, but still, what I did sometimes came with risk – mostly of breaking a leg or tetanus – and some people’s parents would not look too kindly on it. I thought maybe today would be the day my own would tell me I might need to pursue a less risky career path, but it didn’t seem like they would. I was glad because I loved what I did, and I wanted them to be supportive, not anxious.

“I am, I think. It’s made me want to learn more, though, but not about the murder. Just about the store. I’m thinking I need to do some research at the historical society.”

“Well, tomorrow, my exercise class is at six-thirty, so bring Sawyer over anytime. Baba and Boppy will keep him busy while you research.” I could hear her smile through the phone.

“Oh, great. That would be awesome. Plus, you know he loves Baba and Boppy time.” My dad had wanted Sawyer to call him Grandaddy, the name us grandkids used for his dad, but somehow, it became Boppy and stuck. It was perfect in the way only an accident can be.

“Paisley, just be careful, okay? Maybe don’t tell too many people you were the one to find that woman’s body?”

I sighed. Here was the concern I had been expecting. “No worries. I don’t plan to. I’m not really interested in being connected to the investigation in any way, certainly not a public way.”

“Good,” Lucille said. “But what are you going to tell the historical society when you go in?”

I paused. She asked a good question. “Well, everyone around here knows I’m nosy, so maybe I can just tell them I heard about the murder and got curious about the store. Think they’ll buy that?”

“Your reputation definitely precedes you, my dear. I think that just might work.”

I was still laughing as I hung up. She was right, though. I did need to work on my cover story if I didn’t want to answer a bazillion questions about the store and the young woman.

I picked up my current cross-stitch project, Teresa Wentzler’s Carousel, and let my mind wander as I blended threads and counted stitches. For four decades now, ever since my mom gave me my first Aida cloth and embroidery floss, I had used cross-stitch as my wind-down in the evenings. I’d sew and sometimes watch TV. Or on nights like tonight when I had a lot to think over, the stitching gave me just enough to focus my attention on while I puzzled through something else.

As I started on the next color – a blend of mauve and brown – I thought about what I needed to find and where I might find it at the historical society. I wanted to look at the society’s collection of their own publications because if someone had highlighted old stores or the Scruggs family, I’d probably find some good information. And I wanted to ask about Alice Scruggs in particular. Maybe they had some old news clippings or something. Plus, I knew the society had records of old churches, and the only black church in that part of the county was just down the road from the store. I was hoping I might dig up some information there, too.

As I stitched, I felt my excitement building at the prospect of the historical hunt, but behind that excitement, I could feel something less pleasant . . . and I made a conscious decision to let the trepidation and sadness I felt about the day’s events bubble up for the first time. I’d had to learn that as a mother, my son reacted strongly to my emotions, especially the negative ones, and while I didn’t want to make my son think it wasn’t okay to cry or get angry, I also didn’t want him to feel he had to help me cope. I usually just tabled what I was feeling until the evening when I could let loose.

Now, I felt the tears rise up as I thought about that woman, about what her last minutes must have been like. Then, I finally allowed the massive fear that I’d tucked against my spine come up, and I sobbed as I recognized that Sawyer and I, even Beauregard, could have been in real danger this morning.

Only then did it dawn on me that I might still be in danger if the killer had seen me there, and I started to feel panic rising in my chest. I put my sewing hoop down and took a few deep breaths while I stroked Beau’s head as he purred against my leg. Then, I took out my phone and called the sheriff’s office.

“Sheriff Shifflett,” the voice on the other end of the line said.

“Oh, goodness, Sheriff, I didn’t think I’d actually get to speak with you. I was going to leave a message.” I was all kinds of flustered both by my fear and the surprise of him answering. “Sorry, it’s Paisley Sutton. Sorry to bother you.”

“No problem, Paisley. I’m the only one here tonight, and with a murderer out there . . .”

I felt my heartrate kick up. “Actually, that’s why I called. I just wondered if I needed to be worried for my son and me, I mean since we were there when the killer was . . . and they might have seen . . . and well, I just didn’t know.”

I wasn’t making much sense, but the sheriff seemed to get the gist. “Honestly, I’m not sure. That’s why there’s a cruiser outside your house right now.”

I stood up and walked to the window. Sure enough, right there in the driveway of our farmhouse was a white sedan with the sheriff’s insignia on the side. I was glad it was there, especially since I found it really disconcerting that I hadn’t heard it pull up. I was still getting used to this house, and I made a note to get a driveway sensor installed asap. “Oh, wow, well, thanks.”

“Just doing our job, but I’m sorry we have to do that. I’ll keep someone there until we solve the case, as long as you don’t object.” His voice was kind.

“Oh, no, I really appreciate it. But if you think it’s safe, could the officer leave by about seven a.m.? Otherwise, there’s going to have to be a demonstration of the siren and the lights, and my neighbors might not appreciate that.”

“So noted. I’ll have an unmarked car in place before the toddler gets out the door. Got it.” He laughed. “Anything else?”

“No, but I am going to write a story about the Scruggs Store for my newsletter unless you think that’s a problem for some reason.” I hadn’t even considered that possibility until I said it, but then, I wondered if stirring up memories might be a problem for the sheriff’s investigation.

“Actually,” he paused, and I could hear him shuffling papers, “that might just be the thing – if I could ask you to include something in particular. We found a link between our victim and the owners, the Jeffersons.”

“The Jeffersons knew Bailey Thomas?” I tried to imagine the sweet older couple who had given me permission to salvage spending time with the raging woman I’d seen in the grocery store those few times, but I couldn’t square the image.

“Yes, but not in a good way. She actually was arrested for keying their car.” The sheriff’s tone had gotten bleak.

“Whoa, why did she do that?” The Jeffersons drove a land-yacht of some sort, a long, blue behemoth of a car. I’d seen it at the restaurant in town where we’d met to talk about my proposal. It wasn’t the kind of flashy car that usually drove people to vandalism, or at least it wouldn’t drive me to that. I’m more inclined to consider keying the fancy sports car that parks way out in the lot to protect itself. But that’s clearly a character flaw on my part.

“Apparently, they parked a little over the line in the library parking lot and ended up taking two spaces.” I could practically hear the eye roll in his voice.

“You mean, the huge parking lot that’s nearly always almost empty?” Our library was small but wonderful, but the building planners had anticipated the thronging thousands when they paved the field beside it. The lot could easily fit two hundred cars, and I’d never seen more than ten there.

“Exactly. Clearly, she had anger issues. Well, they filed a police report, and she was arrested. They watched her do it, and they gathered witnesses,” the sheriff continued.

“She keyed their car for long enough for them to call together people to see it? That’s one angry woman.” I was trying to picture the scene, a thin blonde woman performing rage-induced vandalism in the very open, very public library parking lot. It was disturbing even in my imagination. But the next thought I had was even more disturbing. “You don’t think the Jeffersons killed her do you?”

Shifflett guffawed on the other end of the line. “Now, that would be a sight.” He laughed quietly. “No, Berlinda assured me that they were with their daughter.”

I sighed with relief. “Okay, good . . . but then, it seems really weird, doesn’t it? That she’d die in their house, I mean.”

“It seems too odd to be just coincidence, that’s for sure.” I heard another voice speak in the background, and then the sheriff said, “I have to go, Paisley. But rest assured, you and your son are safe – but write down my cell number just in case, okay?”

I took the pencil that I use to mark off the completed squares on my cross-stitch pattern and scribbled his number at the edge of the sheet. “Thanks, Sheriff.” I almost said goodbye, but then I remembered something. “Sorry. Just out of curiosity, did the Jeffersons know that Bailey was living in their store?”

“Oh, well, I didn’t ask. But I imagined they’d be shocked. Call if you need anything.”

“I will. Thanks.” As I hung up, I picked up my stitching. All of this was too weird and unsettling for me to get to sleep easily, so I studied the pattern and went back to it.