Quilter's Knot

six that her name was intended to inspire her to greatness.

'Aiden was really lucky,” Jim said, interrupting her journey through self pity. “Or maybe I should say Cammi was unlucky. That was a big rock outcrop the truck hit as it rolled down the embankment. It was her bad luck the passenger side was down when they hit bedrock. If they'd made it a few more yards down the road before they skidded off, they would have missed the outcrop completely.'

'Do you really think he could have slid off the road? It was raining pretty hard yesterday.'

'I doubt it. It wasn't that wet at the time. Besides, Aiden told the police someone had sideswiped him. I drove over to the hospital when I heard about the accident, and they were questioning him. When Aiden pushed them, they did say there wasn't anything that would contradict his version of the event. They just didn't think it was the kind of thing that would occur in daylight on a relatively busy road.” He shook his head. “It's just hard to say, one way or the other. The police are right that people often don't remember events clearly that happened right before they hit their heads. We'll probably never know.'

I know, Harriet thought. And Tom's car had the scrape to prove it.

Aiden came back downstairs, and the two men left. They offered her a ride back to the Folk Art Center, but she declined. She needed to think. Maybe the walk back would help her clear her head. Thankfully, it wasn't raining.

Eighth Street was paved, but Helen's block was the last one with sidewalks. Harriet had to focus her attention on her feet as she walked along the gravel road edge until she reached a pedestrian path that skirted the woods on her right and was a safe thirty feet from the traffic on her left. She picked up her pace, going over the events of the last few days in her mind as she went.

She started with Lauren's situation, trying to list what she knew for sure. She realized quickly that if she questioned everything Lauren had said all she knew for sure was that Lauren's quilt was no longer on display and Lauren had been questioned about the death of Selestina Bainbridge, her advisor and the owner of the Angel Harbor Folk Art School. She had also learned that Lauren's brother was a janitor at the school, and she had seen Lauren going into her brother's apartment building at night. Her brother had been carrying an armload of papers, which may have come from Selestina's office. Harriet wasn't sure if the search of her own room was related or not. She hoped it hadn't been Lauren, but she couldn't be sure.

If she included information she thought was true, she could add the fact that Selestina seemed to have made a quilt that was a copy of Lauren's and then hung that quilt at a show in England.

With regard to facts related to Selestina, Harriet knew the woman was dead; everything else was speculation. It appeared Selestina's son was preparing to sell at least part of the Angel Harbor Folk Art School property. What Harriet didn't know is if he was doing that for Selestina or in spite of her. As for enemies, it seemed that to know Selestina was to hate her; the field was wide open. DeAnn had publicly stood up to Selestina, and Carla had cowered under her wrath, and that was just among the Loose Threads. Most of the students Harriet had spoken to during coffee breaks and meals had similar stories about Selestina.

Added to the list of unknowns was Aiden's accident. He clearly believed one of the black Ford Explorers from the school had run him off the road. The damage to the vehicle that sported the “TomTom” vanity plate seemed to support his theory, but why would Tom want to harm Aiden? Could Cammi have been the intended target? Tom hadn't seemed to recognize Cammi at the pottery exhibition. It made no sense.

She looked up, and was surprised to realize she was nearing the drive to the school. She looked at her watch. Good, it was lunch-time.

Chapter Eighteen

The driveway that led into the heart of the Angel Harbor Folk Art School was carved through a stand of tall old-growth timber. The tree trunks were dark and bare, and the gravel on the road bed was barely discernible under the fallen needles, bark and fern leaves. The scent of Douglas fir and pine was released with every step Harriet took, but she was too distracted to notice.

She needed to talk to the Loose Threads and see if there were any new developments, and then she needed to talk to Lauren's brother. During her walk home, she had realized the only common factor among all the facts she knew was the school. Lauren was a student, Selestina and Tom the owner and her son and Aiden believed he'd been run off the road by an AHFAS vehicle.

Harriet's years at boarding school had taught her that if you want to know what's happening in any organization, ask the janitor. They were typically invisible, and yet they had access to everything. She was anxious to find out what Lauren's brother knew.

But first, she needed lunch.

The Loose Threads were seated together at the fiber arts table.

'How's Aiden?” Connie asked. She scooted to her left to make a place for Harriet.

'He's a little banged up, but mostly he's concerned for Cammi Johnson. He's at the hospital checking up on her now.'

'Robin told us what happened at the police station,” Mavis said. “Do you have anything to add?'

'Not really,” she said, looking at Robin for direction. Robin didn't say anything, so she continued. “It doesn't seem like they have anything but gossip against Lauren. What did everyone do in class this morning?” she asked, changing the subject again.

Everyone in turn told what they'd worked on. Sarah and Robin had attended another class in fusibles, learning the technique of tracing their applique image onto paper-lined fusible material then using a sharp pair of scissors to cut the center of the image away leaving a narrow donut of iron-on material. This technique let you avoid the stiff image that most people associated with fusible applique.

Connie had spent the first half of the day covering postcard-sized pieces of foundation material with a variety of machine generated stitch patterns, until all you could see was thread. She had used her usual oranges, reds and yellows. Lauren's half-finished card was predominately purple and brown.

Mavis was still up to her elbows in dye, and Carla was using the half-square rectangle technique she and Harriet had learned to construct star blocks.

Lauren's brother brought out a tray laden with steaming bowls of soup. Today's selection was potato leek, served with dark slabs of Russian rye bread. The group was quiet as they ate their soup and then the fruit cups that followed. Harriet lingered with Mavis as the rest of the group went to either the Tree House or back to their classrooms.

'I've been going over this in my mind,” she said.

'And?” Mavis prompted.

'And… none of it makes sense. There is a major piece missing somewhere. I just can't make anything add up to Lauren being the center of things. I get closer when I look at Selestina's son Tom. He seems to be preparing to sell the property. And his car seems to have run Aiden off the road. I can imagine Selestina wouldn't want her property sold out from under her, but we don't know if that's the case. How Aiden ties in is still a mystery.'

'Maybe Aiden doesn't fit in. He wasn't in his own vehicle. Who should have been driving that vehicle?'

'Good point, I'll add it to the list.'

'I'm going to get out of here so you can get busy getting some of that information.” She stood up. “Let me know what you find out.'

She left, and Harriet picked up their bowls and headed for the kitchen.

'Is Les around?” she asked the cook. The woman was bent over a deep sink, rinsing dishes with a stainless steel goose-necked sprayer then loading them into a rack.

'He's out at the compost pile. Through that door, down the stairs and follow the path-you can't miss it,” she said without turning around.

Harriet followed the path and found Les emptying the second of two metal buckets onto the compost heap. A wooden fork was propped up against the end of the chicken wire fence that enclosed three sides of the smoldering organic material.

'Les?” she called. “Do you have a minute?'