Left Holding the Bag Page 5

  “Yes, both of her cards were declined.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a simple mistake to me, Sarah. Not if it happened with more than one company.”

  “I agree,” she replied regretfully. “Another thing for Bernice to worry about.”

  “Another nail in Darius’ coffin, if you ask me,” Charles replied.

  * * *

  “This whole thing is very odd,” Bernice was saying as Sarah arrived. Sophie was already there, and Bernice was catching her up on what had happened at the quilt shop.

  “You called the companies?” Sarah asked as she took her jacket off and hung it on the hook in the entryway. Her mind flashed to that being the hook she had used for Barney’s leash when he first came to live with her. She smiled remembering how he quickly learned to pull it down and drag it to her feet when he wanted to go for a walk.

  “I called both companies, and they both said the same thing! The cards have been maxed out.”

  “What?”

  “It’s true. They both referred me to their fraud department, and they will both be calling me back as soon as they have a chance to go over the accounts. I still think it must be a mistake.”

  “How do you suppose it could have happened?” Sophie asked, but then looked at Sarah and immediately knew what her friend was thinking. Darius strikes again.

  Sarah didn’t want to state the obvious and remained silent. She could tell by the stiffness in Bernice’s body and the tightness of her jaw, that she knew exactly what had happened, but just wasn’t ready to admit it to her friends, and possibly not even to herself.

  “Let’s start cutting,” Bernice announced abruptly. “The show is only a few weeks away, and we have two trunks we haven’t even touched.”

  Chapter 7

  “Do you want to come over for lunch?” Sarah asked when Sophie answered the phone a few days later. “I have my squares of feedsack fabric arranged, and I’d like for you to look at them before I start sewing them into four-patches.”

  “Is this for the quilt or the wall hanging?” Sophie asked.

  “For the quilt. For the wall hanging, I’m just putting hexagons together randomly, but the quilt is going to be four-patch blocks separated by sashing, and I’m not sure whether to have all four fabrics different in each block or maybe have two sets of two matching fabrics. So, are you coming?”

  “Sure,” Sophie responded. “Is Bernice coming too?”

  “I called her, but she wants to stay close to the phone. She’s expecting calls from both of the credit card companies.”

  “I saw a police car there again this morning,” Sophie stated.

  “Yes,” Sarah replied. “The credit card companies wanted her to report the incident to the police. She called the officer who’s been asking her about Darius.”

  “Is she going to tell the police that she suspects Darius?”

  “No, I don’t think she even does, Sophie. She’s blind to that young man’s criminal behavior. She told me that when the officer advised her to report her car as stolen, she was furious!”

  “I’ll bet she was,” Sophie responded. “I referred to it as stolen one day and I could tell she didn’t like hearing that at all.”

  “He coming to take her statement today,” Sarah said. “The poor woman…”

  “I feel bad for her, but I hope she’s beginning to see the light. That boy is no good,” Sophie added.

  “I agree.”

  “So,” Sophie announced, eager to change the subject to something lighter, “I’ll be right over, and I’m bringing dessert.”

  Sarah had been going to the gym every couple of days, trying desperately to take off the few pounds she had gained over the winter and hopefully get her cholesterol down at the same time. “Something small, please, Sophie. You know I’m trying to lose weight.”

  “Nonsense,” her cheerfully rotund friend replied. “You could stand to gain a few pounds if you ask me. A nurse once told me that we should all carry enough extra weight to handle a serious illness without wasting away.”

  “I don’t think any one of us need to worry about wasting away, but go ahead and bring a little something sweet. I’m only serving salad, and Charles brought fresh croissants from the bakery.”

  “Okay,” Sophie replied. “Start chopping up the rabbit food, and I’m on my way with the real deal.” Sarah heard the sound of Sophie’s timer ding and Sophie opening the oven door. She could imagine the smell of the freshly baked treat wafting through Sophie’s kitchen.

  After relaxing over lunch and talking about their plans to go to the museum, Sarah led Sophie to the sewing room where she had the four-inch feedsack squares spread out on her worktable. “Right now I have four different fabrics in each four-patch, but I tried to choose two light ones and two darker ones.”

  “And you’ve placed them opposite one another in each four-patch,” Sophie noted. “I like the way you’ve arranged them,” she added as she reached across the table and changed two or three of them. “I was amazed when I first saw Bernice’s feedsacks,” she continued. “I thought they’d be sort of clunky looking since they were used to transport animal feed.”

  “No, the manufacturers were competing for sales, so the patterns were often really delightful florals. Look at these red ones with white and yellow flowers.”

  “The patterns are very old-fashioned looking. I think I’ve seen some of these in the distant past, maybe at my grandmother’s house,” Sophie added. “They make me feel sort of melancholy.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  “This will be beautiful, and you’re going to put this on the bed in your guest room?”

  “That’s the plan. Do you want to go antique shopping with me this week? I want to look at that antique wash bowl and pitcher I was telling you about.”

  “Sure. Sounds like fun.”

  * * *

  “Look at this,” Sarah exclaims. “Isn’t this unique? And it matches my grandmother’s spindle bed.” It was several days later, and the two friends had decided to take the day off from cutting with Bernice and do some shopping. Sophie looked where Sarah was pointing and saw a slender, vintage two-shelf oak washstand with spindles connecting the shelves. The top shelf had a cutout and held a ceramic wash bowl and pitcher, and there was a towel bar on either side of the shelf. A mirror was attached to the stop of the stand, and the bottom shelf held an antique ceramic chamber pot.

  “This is an all-in-one portable bathroom,” Sophie commented just as the shopkeeper walked up.

  “Lovely piece isn’t it?” he said, seeing the enthusiasm on his customer’s face.

  “It would definitely match the room. I was thinking of buying a simple pitcher and wash bowl, but this would be even better. What are you asking for it?” Sarah asked.

  “The stand itself is hand tooled and probably made in the late 1800s.” He quoted the price, and Sarah agreed that it was probably reasonable for what she would be getting.

  “Of course the pitcher and bowl are priced separately.”

  “Oh,” Sarah responded, looking disappointed but went ahead and asked for the price of those items as well.

  “And the chamber pot?” Sophie asked.

  “I’d be willing to throw that in if you purchase the other items.”

  “Generous,” Sophie responded in that sarcastic tone that Sarah sometimes found annoying, but this time seemed appropriate.

  Sarah thanked the man and headed for the door with Sophie right behind her. “Can you imagine having the nerve to ask that price?” she said once they were outside.

  “I know,” Sophie responded. “It’s outrageous.”

  “I think I’m going to buy it,” Sarah announced and Sophie stopped in her tracks.

  “You’re kidding!”

  “It’s perfect for the room, Sophie. It exactly matches the bed and will look excellent with the feedsack quilt.”

  “I wonder what Charles will have to say about this?” Sophie replied.

 
“I’ll call him now. Let’s go sit down in that restaurant over there and have lunch.”

  “Chinese! Oh good.”

  After they had placed their orders, Sarah dialed the number and chatted with her husband before getting around to the issue. When she began describing the washstand, he questioned the need for more furniture, and she explained the size and how perfectly it went with the room. Sarah was quiet, and Sophie figured Charles was speaking. Finally, Sarah spoke again saying, “The price? Well, I haven’t added it up, but it’s somewhere in the neighborhood of $600 altogether.” She frowned as she listened to his response. Finally, she said, “Okay, I’ll try, but this will probably squelch the deal.” She looked disappointed.

  Hanging up the phone just as their meal arrived, she turned to Sophie and said, “He wants me to offer $500.”

  “He’ll never accept that,” Sophie responded.

  “I know, but it’s worth a try.”

  A few hours later, Sarah and Sophie were loading the wash basin and all the accouterments into the car. “It worked!” Sophie exclaimed.

  “Well, he wouldn’t give us the chamber pot, but the price for that piece was pretty reasonable.”

  When she returned home, Sarah stood in the guest room and looked around. In her mind, she could imagine the room finished with a soft floral wallpaper in shades of green and pale yellow. Suddenly she realized what she had done. “This is my room at my grandmother’s house,” she exclaimed.

  “What sweetie?” she heard Charles call from his computer room.

  “This room,” she said as he came in, “it’s going to be just like the room I slept in when I visited my grandmother in Indiana.”

  “How old were you then?”

  “Oh, I was around six or seven the first time I went there alone, but I went every summer until I was in high school and my friends became more important to me than family. You remember how that was.”

  “Boys aren’t as much like that, I guess. We became interested in sports and stopped wanting to hang around with family much earlier.” They sat down in the guest room while Sarah pointed out where she would be placing the furniture and described the wallpaper which he had agreed to help her hang. The room was causing childhood memories to come flooding back, and they remained sitting and talking until dinnertime.

  “I had no idea I was reproducing a memory,” Sarah said as they stood.

  “These are the smallest chairs I ever sat in,” Charles complained as he struggled to straighten up in a standing position.

  “They are boudoir chairs, Charles. They’re supposed to be small.”

  “They certainly achieved that,” he complained as they headed up the hall toward the kitchen. “And I’m hungry,” he added.

  Chapter 8

  It was nearly midnight when Charles’ cell phone rang. He glanced at the screen and recognized Matt Stokely’s cell number. Lt. Mathew Stokely was Charles’ superior when he was with the department and a very close friend since his retirement.

  “I’ll take this in the den,” he said, not wanting to interrupt the end of the movie Sarah was watching. When he returned to the living room much later, the movie had ended, and Sarah was gathering up the magazines she’d been thumbing through during the commercials.

  “Has Bernice mentioned hearing anything from her foster son?” he asked.

  “Not a word. Why do you ask?”

  “Well, that was Matt on the phone, and there’s been a development.”

  “A development?” Sarah asked, laying her magazines aside. “What kind of development?”

  “They found your friend’s car.”

  “That’s wonderful,” she exclaimed. “Bernice will be so pleased,” but then she noticed the serious look on her husband’s face and her enthusiasm waned. “And Darius? Did they find him too? Is he okay?”

  “No word on him yet, but his fingerprints were all over the car. Matt said it looked like he’d been living in it.”

  “Where did they find it?”

  “Just outside Nashville,” Charles responded.

  “Tennessee? What was he doing all the way down there?” Sarah asked.

  “No idea.”

  “Will they return the car to Bernice?”

  “Not right away. It’s probably going to be impounded for the time being until they complete the investigation.”

  “Why do they need to investigate? He didn’t steal the car, Charles. She handed him the keys and said he could use it.” Sarah was confused about why the car would be important to the police.

  Charles hadn’t told her about the body in the trunk.

  * * *

  “It doesn’t feel right keeping this from Sarah,” Charles was saying. It was the following morning, and he was sitting across the desk from Matt Stokely in the Middletown police station.

  “You remember how it was, Charlie,” Matt responded. “You were our star detective and were assigned the hottest cases we had back in the day, but you knew when to hold things close to the vest. We don’t want the press getting their hands on the details yet. That girl was the daughter of an influential politician, and we don’t know just what we’re dealing with here. The car was found nearly four hundred miles from here, just south of Nashville.”

  “I know, Matt, but Sarah is very close to Darius’ foster mother and…”

  “That’s just it, Charles. She was his foster mother. If we were talking about the young man’s parents or even his siblings, it would be different, but we don’t owe anything to an ex-foster parent, no matter how close they’ve become. And it’s not as if we’re withholding information about him. We sent a patrolman over last night and let her know that we found the car. And the press has already run with the fact that Councilman Waterford’s daughter is dead. We just haven’t announced any details about where the body was found.”

  “Do you suspect Darius of murdering the girl?”

  “We don’t know that. We certainly know he was in the car at some point, but we don’t know where he is, and we don’t have any other leads. Are you willing to talk to the detective about what you know?”

  “Sure, but Sarah and Darius’ foster mother know much more than I do. You should be talking to them.”

  “We will in time.”

  * * *

  The phone rang just as Sarah was scooping oatmeal into her bowl. Charles had already left to meet with his friend and ex-supervisor, Matt Stokely, at the police station. She wiped her hands and reached for it, surprised to see Bernice’s name on the display this early. “Good Morning, Bernice,” she said cheerfully.

  The line was quiet for a moment, then her friend spoke with a trembling voice. “They found the car all the way down in Tennessee.”

  “I know, Bernice. Charles told me late last night. I’m so glad.”

  “But they aren’t going to return it to me.”

  “Did they say why?”

  “They stated that they’d let me know later in the week. Mostly they were just questioning me about Darius’ whereabouts and asking me those same questions they keep asking. I don’t think they believe me that I don’t know where he is. He must be in more trouble than just the bench warrant. There was a police car sitting out front all night just watching the house.

  “I’ll be right over,” Sarah responded. She called Sophie and told her to meet her at Bernice’s right away. “They found the car, and she’s worried sick about Darius. The police are hounding her about his whereabouts.”

  “I saw a police car out there this morning. I’ll meet you at her house.

  Sarah grabbed her jacket and hurried up the street.

  “You don’t know Darius,” Bernice was saying as she sat on her couch with her two friends, one on each side. “I know what you must think, but he has a good heart. When he came to me, he had just turned thirteen. His father was in prison, the courts had found his mother to be unfit, and he’d been in the system for several years. It was hard for him to make all those adjustments.” She blotted her eyes on a
napkin and continued.

  “My husband was still living then, but he was already ill. He died the next year, and it was just Darius and me. It took a long time to win the boy over, but once he began to trust me, we became very close. At least I thought we were. He got into some trouble when he snuck out of the house, but he was always apologetic and always had an explanation. Maybe I wasn’t firm enough...”

  “What kind of trouble?” Sophie asked, but Bernice looked away, trying to avoid the question.

  After a long pause, Bernice cleared her throat and attempted to answer, but her words seemed stilted. “It had to do with breaking and entering. I never quite understood the charges because I wasn’t family. The child welfare department got all the details, and they shared what they wanted to with me. Drugs were involved, but Darius told me he didn’t have anything to do with any of it. I believed him, but looking back now, he was probably lying. They put him a juvenile facility for a while, but his lawyer got him out in a few months. The next time he wasn’t charged. Maybe I was too lenient, or too trusting. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so quick to believe his explanations."

  “Don’t blame yourself, Bernice,” Sarah responded. “He was raised in a terrible environment for the first eleven years of his life. It’s almost impossible to make up for that kind of beginning.”

  “I know, but I tried. I loved the boy, but I couldn’t really show it. He’d become agitated if I expressed any caring feelings for him. All I could do was offer him a safe home and consistency and hope that would be enough. I guess it wasn’t…”

  “He was lucky to have you,” Sarah said, trying to console her friend.

  “It wasn’t enough,” she repeated.

  Sarah put her arm around the woman and patted her gently.

  The three women sat quietly for a few minutes when Sophie suddenly stood and announced, “We’re getting all sappy again. Let’s go cut fabric.”

  “I have an even better idea,” Sarah announced. “Let's move over to my house and plan our presentation in detail.