Old-fashioned foil stars with small white twinkle lights in their centers festooned the quilt store’s windows and doors as the Loose Threads arrived for their weekly meeting. Beth entered the classroom wrapped in wool from head to toe. Snowflakes dusted her knitted cap and the shoulders of her plaid wool jacket.
Harriet set a mug of steaming gingerbread tea in front of her.
“When did it start snowing?”
Beth unwrapped her scarf and stuffed it down the sleeve of her coat, which was now hanging on the back of her chair.
“While I was in the yarn shop.”
“How are things going over there?”
“No new inventory, and the tension between Millie and her employee was so thick you could have cut it with a knife. And Millie looks like she’s aged overnight. I wish she would tell us what’s going on. She’s going to have another heart attack if she’s not careful.”
Harriet made herself a cup of peppermint tea.
“I’ve got news, but let’s wait until everyone else gets here so I don’t have to say it twice.”
“What don’t you want to say twice?” Lauren asked as she came in and settled into her favorite spot next to Harriet. Harriet slid her an empty mug along with a basket of holiday teas she’d brought from home.
“You already know.”
Lauren filled her cup with hot water from the carafe on the table.
“Oh, the horse thing.”
“What horse thing?” Mavis asked as she and Connie came in shedding their outer garments.
Harriet laughed.
“I’m trying to wait for everyone to get here before I tell my story. It’s not that big a deal, so don’t get your expectations up.”
Connie unwrapped a plate of Christmas cookies and set it on the table.
“Carla is parking, and she has more cookies.” She smiled. “She’s becoming quite the baker. We made extra to take to the homeless camp.”
DeAnn came in, followed by Carla and two more plates of cookies. Harriet took a chocolate krinkle when Carla had removed the plastic wrap.
“I hope you two didn’t think we were going to eat three plates of cookies today.”
Lauren took a Russian teacake from Connie’s plate.
“I’ll do my share.”
Carla took a box of sandwich bags from her quilt tote.
“I was hoping you would all take some of mine home and critique them for me.” Then, her cheeks turned pink, and she looked away.
“Carla is being modest,” Connie said. “She made up several of the recipes herself.”
“I’m impressed.” Harriet said. “And I’ll have James try them.”
“Do you think he’d be willing to answer some questions about them?” Carla asked. “The texture isn’t quite right on my gingersnaps, but I don’t know how to fix it.”
“There isn’t much James likes to talk about more than food, so I’m sure he’ll be happy to tell you whatever you need to know,” Harriet told her.
Aunt Beth bit into a gingersnap. “Now that everyone’s here, I’d like to hear Harriet’s news.”
Robin set her mug on the table.
“What news.”
Harriet held both hands up in front of her.
“As I said earlier, it’s not that big. It’s mostly curious.”
Lauren rolled her eyes. “Just spit it out already.”
“Lauren and I went to see Jade yesterday, and she wasn’t at the store. In fact, she’s not in Foggy Point or even the country. Her shop was locked up and her Christmas quilt was folded on a stool in the window with a note on top with my name on it.”
“And before you ask,” Lauren said, making eye contact with Robin, who had started to interrupt. “We didn’t break in, we called Morse, and she let us in. Something about exigent circumstances.”
“Anyway,” Harriet continued. “The note said Jade was joining her parents in South America, and she’s giving me her horse.”
DeAnn brushed cookie crumbs from her hands.
“Can she do that? I mean, without telling you first?”
“Sure,” Robin said. “And I’m guessing she had some reason to believe Harriet would be receptive to the idea.”
“She does,” Lauren answered for Harriet.
Harriet sipped her tea.
“When I picked Luke up at the stable the other day, I was talking to Marcia the assistant manager, and she said Jade has had drug problems in the past. Using and selling. Marcia says her parents overreacted and sent her to an out-of-state rehab, and she wasn’t seen in Foggy Point for several years.”
“Wow, she must have been in deep,” Carla said.
“According to Marcia, she wasn’t. She says it was typical teenage experimentation. She said the parents overreacted big time. And apparently, they’re doing so again.”
Lauren stirred her tea. “Unless she’s in danger staying in Foggy Point.”
Beth pulled a wool appliqué block from her bag.
“Are you keeping the horse?”
“James and Luke and I talked about it, and I think we are. I’d like to pay Jade, however. Becky is an expensive horse, and I’m not really comfortable taking her for free.
“I wonder what has Jade so panicked she would abandon her horse, her business, and just leave,” Robin said.
Harriet selected a Linzer cookie.
“What I wonder is if Millie and Sunny are being threatened by whatever scared Jade out of town.”
“And Daniel and Valery, too?” Lauren asked.
“That would be a pretty big conspiracy, don’t you think?” Robin asked.
Harriet chewed and swallowed a bite of her cookie.
“On the other hand,” she said, “it’s a pretty big coincidence that two people are dead, one’s been driven out of town’ and two others are obviously having business problems and are being threatened. I mean, how can that all be random?”
“Let’s not forget Vern. He seems to be having money problems, too,” Lauren added.
Robin pulled a yellow legal tablet from her oversized bag.
“I think we need to write this all down. Maybe it will make sense if we lay it all out.”
Mavis stopped stitching on the Christmas ornament she was making.
“Do I need to remind you all that Detective Morse and her colleagues at Foggy Point PD are quite capable of solving crime in this town without our help.”
Robin went to the door and closed it. “Normally, I’d be the first one to agree with you.”
“But?” Mavis asked.
“But,” Robin continued, “it’s unusual for someone to give someone they barely know an expensive horse, and when you couple that with the information about Jade being a former drug user and dealer—”
“If it’s true,” Connie interrupted.
“Yes, assuming it’s true,” Robin agreed. “I think before Harriet accepts the admittedly unusual gift, we should see if we can learn a little bit more about what’s going on. It may be completely above board. On the other hand, Jade could be involved in the drug world more deeply than it appears on the surface, in which case, I’d like to confirm she legitimately owns the horse. I mean, we need to be sure there isn’t someone else in town who thinks they own it and maybe used it for collateral against their latest fix, not really intending to permanently give the animal away.”
Harriet sipped her tea thoughtfully. “She seemed pretty torn up about the idea of losing the horse when I talked to her.”
Robin sat back down.
“Unfortunately, drug users can be very proficient liars if it means they can feed their habit.”
Lauren pulled her tablet computer from her messenger bag. “I can see what I can find about our friend Jade.”
DeAnn popped a thumbprint cookie into her mouth and ate it before speaking.
“This is only slightly related, and I’m not sure what the rules are about things you learn at a trial when you’re a juror and the person on trial has gone to jail and then gotten out.”
Robin twirled her pen in her fingers.
“Jurors are allowed to talk about their trial as long as they stick to the truth. If you make stuff up, the usual rules about slander apply, but otherwise, you can tell all if you wish once the verdict is in.”
DeAnn gave a sigh of relief.
“A number of years ago, I was on the jury of a murder trial. In the end, we found the guy guilty of manslaughter. He had gotten in a fight with a drunk guy, completely started by the drunk, but he punched the victim, and the victim went down and hit his head and died.”
“And?” Lauren prompted.
“And the guy we sent to jail for six years now works at the knitting store.”
Harriet leaned back in her chair. “Wow.”
“Wow is right,” Mavis said.
Carla plucked a shortbread cookie from Connie’s plate.
“Is it possible that all the shopkeepers who are having trouble now are involved in a drug ring? Maybe they were all selling drugs and accidentally got into someone else’s territory or something like that?”
“Or maybe they double-crossed their distributor,” DeAnn suggested.
Robin made a note on her pad. “Anything’s possible.”
Lauren stirred honey into her tea. “I thought you were going to say DeAnn’s been watching too much television.”
Robin sighed. “You’d be amazed how many otherwise ordinary citizens get involved in crime. Especially drug crimes. Somehow, little old ladies on a fixed income get involved in distributing or selling drugs to make a little extra money, and because they don’t have a gun and their distributor doesn’t look like a street thug, they don’t think it’s a real crime. They disconnect from the effects the drug they’re handling have on the users.”
Harriet set her cookie down.
“So, you think Jade, Daniel, Valery, Sunny and Millie are involved in drugs?”
“No, not for sure. I’m saying it’s a possibility. I represented a bunco group that was growing and distributing pot. Granted, they weren’t hardened criminals, but their activities were illegal, and it turned out they were all Master Gardeners and so successful their profits qualified them for hard time. And all of them were over sixty-five.”
“Wow, hard time? Really?” Harriet said.
“It was complicated. Some of them were snowbirds,” Robin explained.
Carla looked confused.
“They spent their winters in Arizona,” she continued. “They got involved in a bunco group there and got some of their friends there involved, so then they were trafficking drugs across interstate lines. It was a mess. And through it all, they couldn’t seem to grasp how much trouble they were in.”
Mavis threaded a needle with green pearl cotton.
“Let’s hope we don’t have anything like that going on.”
Lauren pulled her stitching project from her bag—a mat for her mother to put their centerpiece on for Christmas dinner. She’d opted for a wool felt penny rug with small candy canes, fir trees, wrapped packages, and other Christmas symbols on black wool circles surrounding a plain oval center.
“Whatever’s going on, it’s bad enough for two people to be dead and one driven out of town.”
Harriet picked her cookie back up and took a bite.
“I hate to say this,” she said when she’d finished chewing. “But what if Jade is the mastermind, and she left town after she killed two people.”
“Let’s not go crazy here,” Robin cautioned her. “But having said that, I would like more evidence the whole horse thing is legitimate. Have your attorney check things out, you need to make sure she legally owns the horse before you accept it. And do you have any evidence her parents actually agree with her plan? That could be important if they are the actual owners.”
“I know Lauren is looking on the internet for background on Jade, but if there is anything you can access about any drug arrests or other trouble that could be helpful. And please charge me. I don’t expect you to work for for free.”
“This isn’t work,” Robin replied. “This is satisfying my curiosity.”
Connie slid the cookie plate out of her own reach.
“I hope you’ll let us all know what happens.”
“I will,” Harriet answered for Robin.
“Did you all leave me any cookies?” Jenny asked as she breezed into the room. “Sorry I’m late. The tooth cleaner person was running late today. What did I miss?”
Robin caught her up on the speculations of the group while Carla moved the cookies to her end of the table. Harriet poured hot water into Jenny’s favorite mug and set it and the teabag basket in front of her.
“Do you have any theories as to what’s going on? As long as we’re all making our guesses.”
“I have more than a theory,” Jenny said with a wicked smile.
Lauren leaned forward.
“Do tell.”
“Sunny cracked.” Jenny paused as the Loose Threads all stopped eating and stitching to stare at her. “Connie told me what Harriet heard at the bakery last week. I went in this morning, and no one else was in the shop. Sunny was sitting at one of the tables holding a piece of paper and crying. I went over, and she tried to fold the paper, but I could see it and she gave up. The words were cut from magazines and glued to a page of copy paper. It said, ‘You are late. You now owe six hundred dollars. Pay by tomorrow or we go to the press’.
“It took a little coaxing, but I convinced her she’d feel better if she let it all out. She said someone has been blackmailing her. When she was younger, she was part of a group of goth kids that hung out and played fantasy role-playing games. Two of their group members were involved in the murder of a child out in the forest. Sunny and the rest of the group were completely exonerated, but the blackmailer threatened to go to the press and claim insider knowledge implicating Sunny. She’s afraid it will ruin her. Of course, paying the increasing amounts to the blackmailer will ruin her, but she’s a single mother and doesn’t want her daughter to know about her past.”
Connie picked up her cup of tea. “Poor Sunny.”
“Does she have any idea why now?” Harriet asked. “I mean, hasn’t she had the shop here for a while?”
“Six or seven years,” Beth answered.
Jenny dunked her teabag up and down and removed it from her mug.
“Sunny is pretty sure Millie is being blackmailed also. She tried to get her to talk about it, but Millie wouldn’t go there. The only thing she can think of is someone wanting to take over the downtown area for a development.”
Lauren bit the leg off a gingerbread man and chewed thoughtfully.
“Harriet and I thought of that, but it’s hard to imagine Foggy Point’s downtown generating enough income to interest a developer.”
Harriet pulled the crazy-quilt ornament she was working on from her bag and set it on the table while she dug for her needle and thread.
“I read about this sort of thing on the internet. The developer doesn’t make money on the shops—in fact, in some communities, they don’t even bother with the commercial spaces. They put in a lot of low-cost apartments over the shops. They get a tax break and other considerations as well as the rent.”
Mavis set her stitching down and reached for another cookie.
“Wow. So, we either have a drug ring or a real estate scam operating in our otherwise peaceful community.”
“Or it could be something else entirely,” Harriet said.
Robin scribbled another note on her tablet.
“I have a friend at the courthouse who works in the building permit department. I can ask her if anyone new to town has been asking about permits for the downtown area. She and her co-workers usually have a good idea who is trying to do what, building-wise, in this county.”
“I can check with Morse,” Harriet volunteered. “She might be willing to tell us if there has been an increase in drug activity lately.”
Connie reached for the basket to make a second cup of tea.
“On a lighter note, who has their Christmas shopping done?”
Her query was met with groans all around the table.