“Here, let me help you,” Harriet told Lauren, who was struggling to carry her sewing machine, a messenger bag that doubled as both a computer carrier and a purse, and her quilt bag up the porch steps to the studio. Harriet took the quilt bag and the messenger bag. “I have a place for you on the opposite side of the table from me.”
She had set up two mobile sewing machine tables facing each other at the end of her large cutting table. She was thankful once again that her aunt had designed the quilt studio for maximum flexibility when she’d added the room to the large Victorian house Harriet now called home.
“Do you want some iced tea before we start? It’s already made.”
She pointed to the pie-crust table that sat between the two wing-back chairs in her customer reception area. A pitcher of tea sat on a quilted table mat, with glasses full of ice on either side.
“You“ll need another glass of ice. I invited Detective Morse to join us before we start stitching. If she lingers, we’ll get her to press seams for us.”
“I’m sure you have a good reason for inviting her to our sewing night. So, what is it?” Harriet poured tea into the two glasses.
“Go get the other glass of ice; and by the time you’re back, she’ll probably be here, and I can tell you both at the same time.”
Sure enough, by the time Harriet returned, Jane Morse, sometime quilter and full-time Foggy Point PD detective, was sitting in the wingback chair opposite Lauren and sipping tea. Harriet pulled a wheeled work chair over and poured tea into the glass she’d brought.
“Okay, we’re all here. Now will you tell us why we’re talking instead of sewing our nine-patch blocks?”
Lauren reached into her messenger bag and pulled out her tablet computer.
“As we expected, DeAnn’s sister asked me to help her with a computer search. I think I might be the first one she’s asked.” She looked at Detective Morse. “Do you know about DeAnn’s sister?”
Morse shook her head. Harriet gave her a brief synopsis, ending with Molly’s arriving early for her fundraising event and the Loose Threads’ supposition she was going to involve all of them in her endless search for Amber Price and her own missing day.
“I know that name,” Morse said. “When I switched to the cold case unit a couple of months ago, the team went through all the cold cases in Foggy Point for the last forty years. All of them are important, but we evaluate them for signs that the passage of time could help with their solution.
“For instance, sometimes, if a critical suspect has been jailed for something else or even died, witnesses who were afraid to testify before will speak to us. Often we already knew who the perpetrator was; we just needed a witness to recant an alibi or something like that.
“That being said, we looked at the Amber Price disappearance. We have nothing. No one saw anything. There was another child with her, but our notes say that child couldn’t remember anything, even with help from a memory recovery specialist. I take it that child is DeAnn’s sister?”
Lauren stood up and paced a few steps away before coming back.
“Half-sister,” she corrected. “She’s DeAnn’s half-sister, but that’s not actually what I asked you to come by for. Molly did ask me to help her dig for information about that time period in Foggy Point, but before I did that, I did my usual due diligence and ran a background check on Molly herself.”
Harriet raised her eyebrows but didn’t say anything.
“Hey, you never know. I didn’t know if she’d go vigilante if I did find something about who took Amber Price. In my business, you can’t be too careful.”
“I thought you were a computer programmer and software designer,” Morse interrupted.
“I am. That’s my day job. You can’t imagine how many people come to me for help digging things out of the web. Dark and white.”
Morse glanced at Harriet, but Harriet just shrugged.
“Anyway,” Lauren continued in an emphatic tone. “While I was talking to her, I casually asked her about her abusive ex-boyfriend. Josh Phillips is his name. I thought that might be useful to know, and, boy, was it.
“Anyway, I also dug around seeing what I could find out about her non-profit. It seems on the up-and-up, by the way. When I was looking at the web page, it had been updated to reflect the three ten-thousand-dollar donors, but it said the new one wished to remain anonymous.”
“Really,” Harriet said.
“Really. It seemed a little fishy to me. Most people who donate that much want the publicity. Besides, this is Foggy Point. No one can keep that kind of secret. I thought it was possible it was someone out of our area, but if they’re from Seattle, it seems like they’d donate at the event the organization has coming up there in another month. Anyway, let’s just say I was curious.”
She stopped by the table and sipped her tea.
“I’ll admit this next part involved a bit of subterfuge.” She glanced at Detective Morse. “I called the Seattle office of the non-profit and told the sweet girl who answered that we were personalizing the quilts and I needed the donor’s name to put on the embroidered label. I swore I wouldn’t reveal it until the quilt was awarded. She confirmed the donor would be attending the auction and dinner.”
“And now you are going to betray that confidence?” Morse asked.
“I hadn’t planned on it. I was curious, and I expected it to be someone who was publicity shy, or Molly’s parents, or something like that.”
Harriet leaned forward in her chair. “So, who is it?”
Lauren tapped her tablet awake and turned it toward Harriet and Jane. A photo of a large blond man in a plaid button-down shirt and tan chinos filled the screen.
“And that would be?” Harriet asked.
Lauren turned the pad back around.
“None other than Joshua Phillips.”
“Whoa! Molly’s abusive ex?” Harriet asked.
“Didn’t I see an order of protection against him at the station?” Morse asked.
Lauren sat down and slid her tablet into her bag. Harriet leaned back in her chair.
“I see why you needed to tell someone,” she said.
“I wonder if he got some kind of special release to attend the event,” Morse said thoughtfully. She pulled a small notebook from her purse and wrote a note. “I’ll see if he has friends in high places who might have helped him out a little.”
“I thought you should know,” Lauren said.
“For once I have to agree. I don’t like you guys digging around in police matters, but this time it seems like you found something we would have missed. I’m sure Mr. Phillips was counting on that.”
Harriet stood up.
“Want to stay and press seams for us?”
Morse looked at her watch.
“I can do that for an hour or so.”
They carried their tea over to their workstations and began making squares for the quilts.