A Quilt in Time (A Harriet Turman/Loose Threads Mystery) Read online

  “At least we know he exists,” Harriet said. “Not that there was any real doubt, given the beating she’s taken.”

  Lauren returned from the kitchen.

  “Nothing special in there, unless you consider that somebody eats a lot healthier than Sarah. There’s soy milk in the fridge along with tofu and a lot of kale.”

  “Judging from his toiletries, our mystery man has short, straight black hair, and covers his acne with flesh-colored concealer. Other than that, nothing out of the ordinary,” Aunt Beth said as she came back out of the bathroom. She had a small zippered mesh bag containing several bottles of vitamins and other over-the-counter remedies in one hand and a hairbrush, toothbrush and toothpaste in the other. “Has anyone found any sort of makeup bag I can put this stuff into?”

  “Can anyone think of anything else we should look at before we take this stuff back to the hospital?” Harriet asked. She stretched her hand out to her aunt. “Let me put those into the bag with her clothes.”

  “I can’t think of anything,” Connie said.

  No one else could think of anything, either, so they locked the cottage back up and returned to the hospital.

  Chapter 6

  “I’m going to take this as a sign you’re feeling better,” Harriet said to her little rescue dog Scooter as she rewound the roll of toilet paper he had spread all over the floor of the half-bath off her kitchen. “You, however…” She turned to her gray cat Fred. “…are in trouble. Don’t think I don’t know who jumped up and jiggled the latch free so he could get in. I double-checked that door, and it was shut before we went to bed last night. Don’t even try to suggest it was a ghost.”

  “Have you finally gone around the bend?” Lauren asked as she came in from the studio. “I knocked on the door before I came in, but no one answered. Now I can see why—you were busy talking to yourself.”

  “I wasn’t talking to myself, I was talking to these two clowns.” Harriet turned around. Her dog and cat were nowhere to be seen.” She sighed. “I suppose you never talk to Carter?”

  “Of course I talk to my dog. Only he’s in the room with me when I do it.”

  “They were right here.”

  “Sure they were. You know, if you put a basket or box with a lid on the back of the toilet you can put the toilet paper in it and avoid this problem.”

  “Scooter hasn’t been well enough to get into trouble until the last few days. The wound on his back is finally healed.”

  “Not to change the subject, but did you connect with Georgia and did she have time to see us this morning?”

  “She’s meeting us at the Steaming Cup in an hour.”

  Lauren looked at her watch then stared into space, thinking.

  “That should work,” she said after a moment. “I’ve got a client call this afternoon, but if we don’t spend hours at the shelter, it should be good.”

  “Aunt Beth is going to the hospital to check on Sarah and then meet Connie at the senior home. Connie has some of the adult bibs to drop off, but that’s just an excuse to see what they can find out from Sarah’s family.”

  “Let’s get this show on the road, then. I’d like to have my coffee before Georgia gets there. She didn’t strike me as the ‘relax and have a cup’ type.”

  “You two behave,” Harriet told her pets and grabbed her coat and purse from the closet by the back door. “I’ll drive.”

  “Everyone here appreciates what your group is doing for the shelter,” Georgia said when she’d locked the kitchen door of the shelter behind them.

  Harriet pulled a measuring tape, a small notebook, and a pencil from her purse.

  “It’s our pleasure. I wish we could do more.”

  “Brightening this place up is huge. Anything and everything we can do to restore their sense of self-worth is one more step on the path to a normal life. Most of the women have been systematically torn down, mentally as well as physically. Feeling they deserve a nice place to live is one more piece of the puzzle.”

  “We’re happy to help,” Harriet told her. “I’m sure having their pets with them will be a big help, too.”

  “We can’t even begin to thank Dr. Jalbert for supporting the pet annex. We’ve been talking to him about us taking in a few rescue dogs to keep here permanently as therapy for some of the women and children who don’t have pets of their own.”

  “Are all the bathroom windows the same size?” Lauren asked before Harriet could respond to Georgia’s last comment.

  “Unfortunately, no. Our house design is a delicate balance between our security issues and the building code requirements for the number and size of windows. Let’s start down here and work our way up to the attic.”

  “Can I ask you something?” Harriet said to Georgia when she and Lauren had measured their way up to the top of the house.

  “About time,” Lauren mumbled so only Harriet could hear her and covering the words with a cough.

  “Let me guess—you know someone you suspect is being battered.”

  “You get that a lot?”

  “It’s a sad fact that virtually everyone knows someone who is if not battered then at least bullied.”

  “You’re right,” Harriet conceded as she measured a long narrow window. “She’s one of our quilt group members. She has been withdrawn from our group for months, and last night she resurfaced in the hospital, badly beaten. So far, she’s unwilling to bring charges against the man.”

  “That’s fairly common,” Georgia said. “Are you hoping she’ll come here?”

  “Am I that transparent?”

  “No. Well, okay, yes, but it’s not a bad thing. Your friend is lucky to have people who care about her. Plenty of women let good friends and even relatives be cut away from them by an abusive boyfriend or spouse, and those friends and relatives don’t ask a single question. So, don’t apologize to me for caring.”

  “We’ve approached her about moving to a shelter, and she said she’d think about it.”

  “She’s going to have to do more than think about it,” Georgia said. “We can provide all the support she needs, but she has to be the one to make the break from her abuser.”

  “Say she agrees,” Lauren said. “What are the steps in getting her from the hospital or her home to here?”

  “It’s reasonably simple. Once she decides it’s a go, she can meet us at a safe location we maintain away from here, and we begin the intake process. She’ll need to fill out some paperwork. We’ll run a criminal background check, do an internet search on her name and call her references.”

  Harriet made a quick sketch on her notepad then closed it and put it in her purse. She turned to Georgia.

  “Is all that necessary?”

  “Unfortunately, it is. Abusers will go to great lengths to find the women they batter, including trying to send other women they can control to the shelter so they can discover our location.”

  “That’s sick,” Lauren said.

  Georgia laughed. “That’s not the half of it. We’ve caught two journalists trying to get in to do undercover stories on us. We’ve also had half a dozen women running from arrest warrants.”

  “I suppose you get homeless women looking for a free bed,” Lauren commented.

  “You’re getting the idea. We get at least one or two of those a month.”

  “Back to our friend,” Harriet said. “She’ll pass all those checks, so then what?”

  “After the checks, one of our staff will do an in-person interview, again at that same safe location. If both we and your friend still think it’s a good idea for her to live with us, we arrange to move her in. Depending on the circumstances, that can all happen relatively quickly.

  “We usually have the woman stay at a safe house—that location changes monthly—for a few days to make sure she’s going to stick. That way, if her abuser is really tenacious, he’ll find her there, where fewer people are in jeopardy, instead of here.”

  “Hopefully, we can talk her into takin
g the first step,” Harriet said.

  “It’s important that you understand she has to make this decision on her own. What she needs from you is support, not judgment. She’s already getting plenty of that at home.”

  “Thank you for answering our questions,” Harriet said. “I think we’ve got what we need for the windows.”

  “I’ll take you back to your car. And I hope for your friend’s sake she makes the decision sooner rather than later.”

  Harriet and Lauren spent the remainder of their time with Georgia identifying needs the shelter had and discussing how they might be met.

  “I can’t promise anything,” Lauren said as they stood beside Georgia’s gray sedan. “But this is the sort of project one of my clients likes. I’m pretty sure they’d be willing to donate computers and software your women could use to take online classes and job training.”

  Georgia handed them several business cards.

  “The first one is for business contact. If people want to make donations, have them call this number. The second one is for your friend. It’s our emergency number. Someone answers this phone twenty-four-seven. Someone is on call to pick up victims, if that’s what’s required, in less than an hour.”

  Harriet took the cards.

  “Thank you. With a bit of luck, you’ll hear from our friend. And for sure, you will hear from us regarding donations.”

  “What she said,” Lauren echoed.

  “Thank you,” Georgia said. “Talk to you soon.” She got into her car and drove out of the Steaming Cup parking lot.

  Lauren’s phone trilled, immediately followed by a similar sound from Harriet’s. Lauren tapped in a security code.

  “Looks like we have a summit meeting at Tico’s.”

  Harriet glanced at her own unsecured phone screen. Aunt Beth had texted her, requesting she come to Jorge’s restaurant as soon as they were finished.

  “Let’s go see what they want,” she said.

  Aunt Beth was in the kitchen at Tico’s Tacos deep in conversation with Jorge when Harriet and Lauren entered the restaurant and headed for the back room. She looked up as they passed but kept talking.

  Robin and DeAnn were seated at the big table, and Carla was at the server station pouring glasses of water. There was none of the laughter that usually accompanied Loose Threads gatherings. Robin was dressed in her usual yoga pants and pastel stretch top, but her face was all lawyer. DeAnn had on an oversized tie-dyed T-shirt she’d gotten at the previous month’s 1960s festival; her demeanor was no match for its bright colors.

  Sarah had irritated everyone in the group at one time or another, but none of them wished the kind of beating she’d taken on her or anyone else.

  “So, why exactly are we here?” Harriet asked.

  “Lunch, I hope,” Lauren said

  “We’re not sure,” Robin offered. “Your aunt said she’d explain when we got here.”

  “Which I will,” Aunt Beth told them as she came into the room carrying menus. “Anyone need one of these?”

  “Do we know the specials?” DeAnn asked.

  Jorge’s disembodied voice came over the intercom.

  “We have chiles relleños with a chicken tamale, albondigas mexicanas—that’s meatball soup for you gringas—and tacos al pastor, a slow-cooked street-style pork taco.” He paused. “And of course, whatever salad Blondie wants.”

  Jorge prided himself on knowing his regular customers’ dietary preferences, and Robin was definitely a salad person.

  “I’m torn,” Harriet said. “I love the chiles relleños, but the tacos sound good, too.”

  “Say no more,” Jorge said from the intercom.

  The rest of the group told him their requests, and Aunt Beth set the menus on the server station and joined them.

  “I’d like to wait for Connie to get here,” Beth said. “Mavis can’t come. She’s getting her hair cut in Angel Harbor and was just getting in the chair when she got my message. Here’s Connie now,” she added as her friend came into the room.

  “Do you want to begin or should I?” she asked Beth.

  “Go ahead.”

  Connie stood behind her chair.

  “Today I took a few of the completed adult bibs to the senior center, using the excuse that we needed them to try them out and see if they were the right size. Normally, I would have talked to Sarah at the front desk, and she would have taken care of whatever I needed.

  “A new young woman was there. I’ve never seen her before, so I took a chance and pretended I didn’t know what had happened to Sarah.”

  “Did she buy it?” Lauren interrupted.

  Connie straightened her shoulders, drawing herself to her full height of just shy of five feet.

  “I think so. She said she usually works in the back office and was filling in for Sarah while she recovered from a recent ‘illness.’ I told her I knew it was a family business and wondered if she was part of the family. She doesn’t look like Sarah, I might add. She’s fine-boned and blond—the opposite of Sarah. She said her dad owns the place. I didn’t let on that I knew Sarah’s step-dad and her mom are the real owners.”

  “Wait, does that mean she’s Sarah’s sister? Or half or step? Why have we never heard about her?” Harriet asked.

  Lauren looked at her.

  “Really? Think about it. When did Sarah ever talk about anything other than herself? She talked about her boyfriend when they were first seeing each other, but even then, it was always in the context of what she was going to wear or where they were going to go. She mentions her parents only when it has to do with their work demands interfering with her social life.”

  Aunt Beth cleared her throat.

  “Let’s remember who the victim is here.”

  “Sorry.” Lauren sat back in her chair.

  “Did you see anything else?” Harriet asked Connie.

  Connie walked the length of the table then returned to her place before speaking.

  “I saw the elusive boyfriend.”

  “Whoa,” Carla said. “What was he like?”

  “I only spoke to him briefly. He was delivering medication for a patient we were going in to see. He was charming, handsome and very smooth. He’s the resident pharmacist.”

  “That seems odd,” Harriet noted. “How can they afford to pay their own pharmacist?”

  “Of course, that didn’t come up. Nothing was said about why a licensed pharmacist would be sleeping over at a small-town nursing home, either.”

  “That will bear some investigation,” Harriet said.

  “On it,” Lauren said and pulled her laptop from her bag.

  Connie sat down.

  “That’s all from me. They again invited us all to the open house and, of course, thanked us for the bibs.”

  Jorge came in carrying three baskets of chips balanced on his arm, a bowl of guacamole in each hand.

  “That family has always been a little strange, if you ask me.”

  “Strange how?” Harriet asked.

  “The stepfather is very active and prominent in the business community—Chamber of Commerce, Small Business Association, the local business association. The señorita’s mother is as invisible as he is visible. I’ve heard it’s the mother who owns the business, but he controls it, along with his son.

  “There are other kids attached to the family, too. The man has a daughter with his second wife, and there is a blond boy in there somewhere. I don’t know who is the mother of the dark-haired son that is the señorita’s boyfriend.”

  Lauren snapped her laptop shut as the waitress started bringing everyone’s lunch in.

  “So far, I found the pharmacist in the family is Seth Pratt. He is, indeed, licensed and in good standing. There have been no complaints against him—at least at first glance. Beyond that, I need to do more digging.”

  Jorge’s waitress set a plate with a small chile relleño and two tacos al pastor on it in front of Harriet.

  “This looks good,” she said. She
glanced at her aunt.

  “I’ll wait until we eat to tell you about my morning,” Beth said.

  Lauren crumpled her napkin and dropped it onto her plate. Twenty minutes had passed since the food had been put before them.

  “I’m glad you ladies have all day to lunch, but I need to get back to work.” She looked at Beth.

  “Okay.” Beth pushed her chair back from the table and stood. “As some of you know, I spent the morning at the hospital with Sarah. She came through her surgery with no problem and was released, but not before I was able to make one last plea for her to leave her fiancé and move to the shelter.”

  “Did you make any headway?” Robin asked.

  “I think I did. Possibly because she was taking pain medication and her resistance was lowered. I think I got through.”

  “But?” Harriet prompted when her aunt didn’t continue.

  “Her mother showed up. Sarah knows she can’t go back to the cabin by herself right now. I didn’t know if the shelter could take her immediately, so when her mother came in and told her she was going to take her to the senior center and have her stay in the skilled nursing wing for a few days, what could I say?”

  “So, she’s going to stay with her abuser?” Lauren said. “I mean, didn’t Sarah say he was the night manager there?”

  Beth’s shoulders drooped.

  “When her mother showed up, there was nothing I could do.”

  “Surely, she’ll be safe while she’s in their nursing wing,” Harriet said. “And that’ll give us time to make arrangements with the shelter, if she’ll let us.”

  “I wouldn’t make any assumptions about her safety there,” Robin said. “Abusers can be incredibly persistent.”

  “Short of staging a raid on the place, can anyone think of anything else we could do immediately?” Harriet asked.

  Carla raised her hand as if she were a child in school.

  “Oh, honey, you don’t need to raise your hand,” Beth told her.

  “What if we visited her a lot?”