Stitch Me Deadly, page 7
“Maybe the child was ill,” Mom said. “That could be why Louisa looks sad.”
“You think the baby might’ve died?” I asked.
“Possibly.” Mom took a drink of her water.
“But no one ever mentioned that Aunt Louisa had a child who’d died,” Cary said. “I’ll ask Mother about it.” He closed the locket and placed it in his pocket as the waiter arrived with our meals.
Dinner was delicious. Both Cary and Mom had lobster tails, petit filets mignon, and baked potatoes. I had a salmon steak with perfectly crisp steamed vegetables. Mom had a glass of white wine with her meal, while Cary and I stuck with water, he because he was driving and I because I wanted to have all my faculties about me when we explored Louisa’s fabulous house.
It was dark by the time we got to the Ralston home. It was stunning there in the moonlight, in all its Victorian splendor. But for some reason, the entire scene reminded me of those famous first lines from Alfred Noyes’ “The Highwayman”:
The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees.
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas.
I had the fanciful notion that Louisa Ralston’s ghost was standing behind the curtains in one of those dark upstairs windows. Louisa’s ghost or her murderer. I noticed Cary staring at me intently, and I suppressed a shudder.
“Are you okay, Marcy?” he asked.
“I’m fine. It’s a little chilly out here, that’s all.”
“Then let’s get you ladies inside.” He fished a key from his pants pocket and led the way up the steps to the door.
“Do you live here, Cary?” Mom asked.
“Nope. I keep a bachelor pad on the other side of town, but I dropped by Adam’s office earlier today and borrowed his key. The reading of the will is to take place day after tomorrow, and then I suppose Eleanor will take possession of the home.” He pushed open the door and flipped on the lights in the entryway before turning back toward us. “I imagine she’ll sell it, and although it would be nice to have the Ralston family home, it’s too much house for me.”
Cary went on into the living room and turned on the lights. Mom and I followed.
“Look at this exquisite architecture,” Mom breathed. “It’s incredible.”
I was looking at the Victorian furniture. A mahogany sofa with striped, floral upholstery sat near the fireplace. Two matching chairs were placed diagonally near each corner of the sofa so Mrs. Ralston’s guests could sit around the fireplace and chat. A Persian rug lay on the polished mahogany floor between the sofa and the pair of chairs, and on the rug sat an oval marble-topped coffee table. Three matching end tables were located throughout the room. One by the window held a fern. There was also one by the sofa and another one by the chair to the sofa’s right. These two tables held Victorian-style lamps featuring marble cherubs and frilly, ornate shades.
Cary gave us the grand tour of the house. Mrs. Ralston had carried the Victorian theme throughout. The result was an elegant, classy home that looked as if it had stopped moving through time and was stuck somewhere before the turn of the century. It was gorgeous, but I felt it would be hard for me to make myself at ease in a house like this. I’d feel like I was living in a museum rather than a home.
“Has the home always been this well maintained?” Mom asked.
“No. If I’m not mistaken, it needed a lot of work when Aunt Louisa and Uncle Frank bought it.”
“I understand it was an orphanage at one time,” I said.
“Something like that, I believe,” Cary said. “It changed hands several times before it became the dollhouse of Aunt Louisa and Uncle Frank. I think it took them two or three years to completely get it to the point it’s at now.”
“It was certainly worth the effort,” Mom said.
We were passing through the dining room on our way back to the foyer when I noticed a piece of ribbon sticking out of a drawer on the hutch.
“Um . . . Cary,” I said, “would it be all right if I tuck that ribbon back in the drawer? It’s the only thing in the room that’s out of place.”
He chuckled. “Of course.”
I opened the drawer and saw that the ribbon was stuck inside a photo album. “Do you think there are photos of little Cary in here?”
He smiled. “Take it out, and we’ll see.”
With a mischievous grin, I did as he instructed. The three of us gathered around the opulent dining room table to examine the old photos. There was indeed an adorable photo of little Carrington Ellis, smiling broadly with one front tooth missing.
“Even at that age you had a sense of fashion,” Mom said. “See that impeccable suit and striped bow tie, Marcy?”
“I do,” I said. “The kid had flair.”
Cary laughed. “My mother likely had to bribe or threaten me to wear that suit for picture day.”
We flipped through the book quickly, stopping only once or twice when Cary pointed out his parents and Louisa’s husband. Near the end there was a photograph of the baby whose picture was in the locket with Louisa’s. There was no indication of the baby’s identity, but the date on the photograph was March 3, 1947. Cary took out the photo and flipped it over, but nothing was written on the back.
“Very curious,” he murmured. “I really must talk with Mother and Adam to see if either of them knows anything about this child.”
At home after Cary had dropped us off, Mom and I took another look at Mrs. Ralston’s sampler.
“You need to get this framed as quickly as you can,” Mom said. “Even if someone in the Ralston family does decide to ask you to return it, it’s so old and fragile, I’m afraid it might fall apart if you don’t.”
“So am I.”
“I’ll be happy to drop it off at a frame shop tomorrow morning while you’re working,” she said, “if you’ll point me in the right direction.”
“Okay, I’ll do that.” I looked at the sampler a minute longer and then turned it over. “See why I’m so sure the original thread in the verse was torn out and replaced?”
She gently traced over the threads with her forefinger. “I do. The original thread was this rose color rather than the green.” She frowned. “Wonder if Louisa—or whoever made the change—didn’t like the verse that was there or if she simply redid the verse in this green thread for some reason? Or maybe this particular verse has meaning to the person who changed it.”
“I feel there had to be a very pressing reason for someone to alter the original.” I grabbed a pen and copied the verse onto a piece of paper before rewrapping the sampler in tissue paper. “Let’s look this verse up on the computer and see what we find.”
Mom shrugged. “Couldn’t hurt.”
We went upstairs to the guest bedroom that doubles as my home office. Angus trailed along behind us, unwilling to let Mom out of his sight for fear she might have a snack and neglect to give him most of it.
Mom sat down on the bed as I booted up the computer and typed the verse into a search engine. Angus lay on the floor beside the bed.
The verse was easy to find—even easier than I could have hoped. But my delight quickly turned to confusion tinged with a bit of creepiness. I turned to Mom.
“What, darling?” she asked upon noticing my expression.
“It’s from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”
“What is?”
“The verse,” I said. “It’s a quote from the original novella by Robert Louis Stevenson.”
“Why in the world would someone rip out the original verse in an antique sampler to replace it with a quote from a story about someone with a dual personality?” She propped the pillows against the headboard and lay back against them. Then she raised her eyes to the ceiling. “Read the quote to me again.”
“‘His friends were those of his own blood or those whom he had known the longest; his affections, like ivy, were the growth of time, they implied no aptness in the object.’ What do you think it means?”
“Since Mrs. Ralston came into the shop and asked you to help her find ivy, maybe Ivy is—as Ella Redmond suggested—a person Mrs. Ralston wanted you to help her find.”
“But why me?” I asked. “I haven’t been here even six months yet. I’m the last person in Tallulah Falls anyone should ask for advice . . . especially about people living here.”
“You’ve got a point there. Still, Mrs. Ralston wasn’t from here in town. Maybe she thought you were a native.” She waved her hand as if she were shooing away a fly. “This entire situation is too strange, Marcella. Why would the woman ask anyone other than a private detective for help if she was, in fact, trying to find a person? If she was merely looking for embroidery thread, then you and I are making much ado about nothing.”
“And yet the fact remains that someone seems to have murdered her,” I said.
“There is that.” Mom sighed. “I’m sorry my little accident with Selena Roxanis got you pulled into this.”
I went to sit beside her on the bed. “It didn’t, Mom. The woman died in my shop. That’s what got me pulled into this.”
“Well, I didn’t help matters by leaving that bottle of Selena’s medicine in this nightstand.”
I wasn’t going to argue with her there. “I know I’m probably grasping at straws trying to determine what Mrs. Ralston wanted when she came into the Seven-Year Stitch the other morning. But I need to do something to try to figure this whole thing out. I need to find out who would want Mrs. Ralston dead. And I need to prove it wasn’t me.”
“I know. And I’m here to help you.”
“I appreciate that, Mom, but will it interfere with the movie’s production schedule?”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter if it does.”
“It does matter. You haven’t built up your reputation for the past thirty-two years to blow it now.”
“I’m not blowing anything,” she said. “My daughter is far more important than anything—than everything.” She smiled. “Besides, the movie is getting ready to wrap. My assistants can reach me by phone, e-mail, or videoconferencing, so I can still work without actually having to be on the set. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Tomorrow I’ll have the sampler framed while you’re working at the shop, and Sunday we’ll go . . . to the prison.” She arched a brow. “It’ll be interesting to see what sort of friends you’re making here in Tallulah Falls.”
“I wouldn’t exactly call Mr. Patrick a friend.” I gave an awkward little laugh. “And actually, Mr. Patrick’s location is a tad farther upstate from Tallulah Falls. But, still, you’ll like him . . . probably. You’ve met Riley, and you like her, don’t you? And I know you’d like his brother Maurice . . . or Moe—Captain Moe, that is. He owns a diner about a thirty-minute drive from here. He makes the best burgers. Maybe we can have dinner there before you leave town.”
Mom closed her eyes. “When you babble, it worries me, Marcella. What aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing,” I said, chewing on my bottom lip. “Not a thing.”
Chapter Eight
Saturday was pleasant. There was no talk of murder or mayhem, Mom dropped the sampler off at a local frame shop, and business was brisk at the Seven-Year Stitch.
And now it was Sunday, and I was taking my mother to prison.
We’d left Angus in the backyard. The rain had turned to a mere drizzle, so I knew he’d be fine. He’d likely spend the day napping on the porch.
I did a side glance at Mom. She was completely nervous about this trip to the prison, but she was trying desperately not to let it show. “This isn’t your first time visiting a prison, is it, Mom?”
“Oh, no . . . uh-uh. I’ve . . . I’ve visited them before. . . . You know, to research uniforms and inmates’ clothing . . . that sort of thing.”
I suddenly remembered where I got my babbling gene.
“Good . . . because we’re here.” I pulled up to the guard post outside the parking lot for the huge building. There was curled razor wire atop the building, and several lookout posts were stationed about.
Mom glanced around. “I thought you said this is a minimum-security facility.”
“It is,” I said. “But I suppose you can’t be too careful. You never know when someone’s going to go rogue, I guess.”
I lowered the window as the guard leaned out of the shack and asked me to state my business. I gave him the name of the inmate that we were visiting. He looked at both our driverʹs licenses and took information about our car before pushing whatever button or buttons opened the gate to let us pass.
We got out of the Jeep, and I noticed Mom’s eyes darting around like out-of-control Ping-Pong balls.
“Mom,” I said, “it’s okay. Really. I’ve done this several times.”
“Several?”
“A few.”
We walked through the first set of doors. Two guards wearing blue latex gloves went through our purses. Since we were wearing jeans, they also asked us to turn our front pockets inside out to ensure we weren’t carrying anything in them. Our purses were then sent through the X-ray machine as we passed through the metal detector. We were given the okay to venture on ahead.
“See, Mom,” I said, “it’s not that much different from boarding an airplane.”
“Right.”
A female guard sitting behind a podium beyond the security checkpoint stood and unlocked the doors leading to the visitor information desk. She then closed the doors behind us, and I could hear the tumblers in the lock turning when she swiped her key through the automatic lock. Mom shot me a look that clearly said, If there’s a riot, we’re locked in here with these people!
The visitor information desk was basically a large steel countertop. Two more guards rechecked our driverʹs licenses, presumably to make sure we hadn’t pulled a fast one on the guy in the guard shack. Then one of the guards instructed us to sign the logbook and to once again indicate the purpose of our visit. After we did that, the same guard opened a set of doors and led us down a hallway to the visiting area. The room was filled with vending machines and small round tables and chairs bolted to the floor.
Our guard nodded to one of the other guards stationed in the snack bar, and then he left us. There were no more than five people sitting in the area, so I spotted Mr. Patrick immediately. He gave me his sharky smile. I can’t help it—there’s just something about the man that reminds me of Bruce, the shark from Finding Nemo. Mr. Patrick is a large, beefy man with square-rimmed glasses and blue eyes that hold a sparkle of impishness.
“Hello, Tinkerbell,” he said, standing to greet us. “Riley said you’d be visiting today. This enchanting creature must be your mother.”
“Yep. Mr. Patrick, I’d like you to meet my mom, Beverly Singer.”
“The pleasure is all mine,” he said, taking one of Mom’s hands and raising it to his lips. “Join me, won’t you?”
We sat around the table.
“Heard about that business with Louise Ralston,” he said. “I’m sorry you’ve suffered another blow so soon after Enright.”
“Did you know Mrs. Ralston?” I asked.
“Sure did. Adam handled all the Ralstons’ legal work, of course, but he talked to me a lot about Louisa.”
“I got the impression they were more than business acquaintances,” I said. “I think Mr. Gray genuinely cared about Mrs. Ralston.”
“Cared about?” Mr. Patrick replied. “The guy was head over heels for her. He started working with the Ralstons right after he passed the bar exam and began practicing. Louisa Ralston was a real looker back then.”
“Yes, she was,” I said. “I saw her portrait hanging over the mantel.”
“Even though she was married and had a good fifteen years on Adam, he was crazy about her.” Mr. Patrick leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. “He’s been married a couple times, but I don’t think he ever quite got over being in love with Louisa.”
“That’s sad,” Mom said.
“Indeed it is, Ms. Singer,” Mr. Patrick said.
“Do you know anyone who had any grudges against the Ralstons?” I asked. “Louisa, in particular?”
He shook his head. “Sorry, Tink. I’m afraid I don’t. I will play detective show with you, though, and ask you who had the most to gain from her death. Figure that out, and you’ve got a pretty good start.”
“I guess the person with the most to gain financially would be the heir—Eleanor Ralston,” I said.
“Has the will been read yet?” he asked.
“No.”
“Then you don’t know who the heir is.” He smiled. “I’ve seen it time and again in my own practice. The so-called heirs never really know who will inherit until the will is read. Junior may already be spending Daddy’s fortune only to discover that Daddy bequeathed everything to his alma mater.”
“But other than financial gain,” I said, “how else would anyone benefit from Louisa Ralston’s death?”
“That’s the answer you need to find.”
“How about Cary?” Mom asked. “Do you know anything about him?”
Mr. Patrick’s mouth turned down at the corners. “Cary is nice enough, I guess. Fancies himself something of a playboy.”
“Really? I was thinking maybe he was gay,” I said.
“Nah,” Mr. Patrick said with a chuckle. “Just prissy and always putting on airs over clothes and manners and whatever.”
“What about Eleanor?” I asked.
“Don’t know anything about her,” Mr. Patrick said. “What else have you got?”
“Only that Louisa or someone tore a verse out of an antique embroidery sampler and replaced it with a line from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” I said. “Know why anyone would do that?”
He laughed. “I guess we all have our good and evil sides, Tinkerbell, but other than that, I don’t have a clue.”
“I have a surprise for you.” I reached into my voluminous purse and pulled out the baby’s christening gown. “I finished it just last night.”
