Threads of Evidence (A Mainely Needlepoint Mystery, Band 2) - Softcover

Wait, Lea

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1617730068 ISBN 13: 9781617730061

Verlag: Kensington, 2015

Inhaltsangabe

It's hard to imagine anything bad ever happening in picturesque Haven Harbor, Maine--until a famous face rolls into town and unthreads some very dark secrets. . .

Angie Curtis and the Mainely Needlepointers are all too familiar with the Gardener estate. The crumbling Victorian mansion, known as "Aurora," has been sitting vacant for nearly twenty-five years--and some say it's haunted by the ghost of Jasmine Gardener, the teenage girl who died there in 1970 under mysterious circumstances...

Harbor Haven is abuzz with excitement when Hollywood actress Skye West decides to buy Aurora and sell off its furnishings. And Angie is intrigued when Skye asks her to appraise the estate's sizable collection of needlepoint pictures. But the more she examines the pieces, the more they seem to point toward Jasmine's murder--and the murderer--and it's up to her to stitch the clues together. . .

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Lea Wait lives on the coast of Maine. A fourth generation antique dealer, and author of the Agatha-nominated Shadows Antique Print mystery series, she loves all things antiques and Maine, and she's learning to do needlepoint. She also writes historical novels for young people set in (where else?) nineteenth-century Maine. Lea adopted her four daughters when she was single; she's now the grandmother of eight, and married to artist Bob Thomas. Find her at Facebook, Goodreads, and at www.leawait.com.

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Threads Of Evidence

By Lea Wait

KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

Copyright © 2015 Lea Wait
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-61773-006-1

CHAPTER 1

Evil enters like a needle, and spreads like an oak tree.

— Ethiopian proverb

One black Town Car, one blue Subaru, and a dented red pickup were parked in the driveway of the old Gardener estate. The massive Victorian had been empty ever since Mrs. Gardener, who'd lived there alone after her daughter's death, had herself died back in the early 1990s.

I remembered hearing stories about the ghosts who lived there. My friend Cindy, who was Catholic, had crossed herself every time we passed it. Local kids challenged each other to trick-or-treat there on Halloween to see who — or what — would open the front door.

I'd never heard of a boy or girl brave enough to walk through the wide gates guarding the entrance to the drive, past the large cracked concrete circle that had once been a fountain, to approach the actual door of the house.

When I'd asked Mama about it, she'd just shaken her head. Said some places drew evil or sadness to them. Someone should tear the old place down.

But no one had. And I'd never seen a FOR SALE sign there. The house seemed fated to someday collapse in on itself, keeping past secrets within its cracked walls.

A couple of times in my teens I'll admit I'd made use of a broken window in the carriage house, which had its own entrance a little farther down the road. For a few months, that window was an open invitation to the caretaker's apartment, which, while drafty and dank, was equipped with a bed. No caretaker had lived there for a while. Mice and bats — and teenagers in search of privacy — had made it their own.

After someone replaced that pane, no one was brave enough to break another window.

Today several people were walking through the uncut field of buttercups that had once been a manicured lawn. They were ignoring the blackflies and ticks, which lurked in tall grasses on early-June days in Maine, and were pointing at the old house.

I turned my small red Honda into the Winslows' driveway across the street and parked by their barn. During the first weeks I'd been back in Haven Harbor I'd borrowed Gram's car, but having my own wheels was really a necessity. I had to pay calls on the shops and decorators and private customers who'd commissioned work from Mainely Needlepoint, the business I'd taken over from Gram. And I couldn't leave her without a car. She had her own life to live, her own future to plan.

I'd never dreamed of me, Angela Curtis, becoming the director of anything, much less a company that did commissioned needlepoint for decorators and high-end stores. Turned out what I'd learned as an assistant to a private investigator in Arizona could be put to good use in Maine. Although running Mainely Needlepoint had been both a surprise and a challenge, the business was now well on its way to paying its debts. So far, I'd had no trouble locating the business's customers, despite having inherited a motley and incomplete set of books from both Gram and my predecessor, the agent who'd driven the business into financial trouble.

That agent was gone, swallows had returned from their winters down south and were refurbishing their nests under the roof in our barn, and Gram was busy planning her wedding to Reverend Tom.

They'd set the last Saturday in June as their wedding date — only three weeks off. Gram and I had spent a day at the Maine Mall in South Portland and found her a pale blue silk dress and jacket to wear for the ceremony. I hadn't yet found a dress suitable to wear for my role as maid of honor, but I wasn't panicked. After all, I had three weeks to shop.

I picked up the package I was delivering to Captain Ob and his wife, Anna, glancing over one more time at the Gardener estate.

Without thinking, I touched the small gold angel on the necklace Mama'd given me for my First Communion. "To keep you safe," she'd said.

Since her funeral I'd worn it every day. Maybe for reassurance? Maybe to remind me no place was truly safe? Mama, I'm okay. I'm home. Life is good.

I took another look at the people across the street.

Whatever was happening there, I'd hear about it soon enough.

When anything changes in a small town like Haven Harbor, word gets around fast.

CHAPTER 2

Nothing is so sure as Death and
Nothing is so uncertain as the
Time when I may be to [sic] old to Live,
But I can never be to [sic] young to Die.
I will live every hour as if I was to die the next.

— Embroidered on a sampler by Lydia Draper, age thirteen, born December 6, 1729

Anna answered my knock. Through the open door I could see Ob sitting at his computer in the kitchen.

"Good to see you, Angie," said Anna. Her long, dark hair streaked with gray was pinned up against the seventy-degree heat, and she was wearing faded jeans and a T-shirt. It was a basic outfit for anyone over the age of three. Anna was over fifty. She eyed the package I was carrying. "Is that the needlework kit I ordered?"

"It is," I said. "Gram says you're one of the fastest learners in her class." I glanced into the package, to be sure I'd picked up the right one. "You ordered a marked canvas with symbols of Maine, right?"

"I did," she answered. "It was a patchwork picture. Maine, a lighthouse, a lobster, the date we separated from Massachusetts, a chickadee. Everything Maine."

I handed it over. "Have fun with it. Gram said to call or stop in if you had any questions or problems."

I might be the director of Mainely Needlepoint, but I was still in the early stages of learning the craft myself. Anna Winslow had picked it up enthusiastically. I suspected she spent a lot more time with her needle than I did. "And, Ob ...?"

Her husband, an experienced needlepointer himself, waved at me in acknowledgment and got up slowly to join us. His back must be bothering him again.

"Here's a check for the wall hangings you stitched this spring."

He grinned as he accepted it. "Always like a check coming in. I was just updating my website."

"For your fishing charter?"

"Reservations are down a mite this year. Still too early to predict how the season'll be, though. Some folks don't plan their vacations till the last minute. This summer I'm cutting the price for children aged eight to twelve. Seven hours of deep-sea fishing is a long day on the water for young'uns, and they need help, but I have Josh and a couple of college boys to help me. If we encourage families to come on board, it'll be good for the future of the business. Get kids interested in fishing when they're young, they're customers for life."

"I hope Josh is more help to you on the boat than he is to me around the house," put in Anna. "Takes me more time to remind him of his chores than it would to do them myself."

"He'll be fine," Ob said. "I'm looking forward to having him with me on the Anna Mae."

Anna rolled her eyes.

"Makes sense to me," I said. "Sure you don't want to take on any needlework projects this summer, Ob?"

He shook his head. "Can't be bothered now. If the charters don't pick up, I might be calling you, though."

I glanced out their front window. "I noticed cars and a pickup over at the Gardener estate. Don't remember ever seeing anyone over there before."

"Exciting, isn't it?" Anna said. "Word is the place has finally been sold."

"Sold? I hope to someone who has lots of money for repairs. Or who's going to tear it down,"...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Kensington
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2015
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1617730068
• ISBN 13: 9781617730061
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 304
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Dietmar Rusche; 15110751138; rusche.dietmar@gmx.de; ; Dr.-Willi-Bergmann-Str. 13; St. Andreasberg; 37444; Deutschland