Arlene Sachitano - The Quilt Before The Storm

“I did get the fire department to pick up your bodies.”

“Hey, they aren’t my bodies,” Harriet protested.

“I know, but you reported them, and we have to call them something. In any case, they’re chilling in the fire station garage. It’s the coolest protected place they could access. We’ve managed to get hold of a few more officers since we talked, too. And the guys downtown requested permission to take a kayak from the mercantile and use it to paddle out.”

“Have you been able to reach Darcy?” Harriet asked.

“Yes, she checked in just before I called you. She’ll be heading up to the homeless camp tomorrow to see what, if anything, she can come up with. We don’t expect to find much useful forensic material at either site after all this time, but we have to try.”

“I’m glad you’re coming back,” Harriet said.

“See you tomorrow,” Morse said and hung up.

Harriet turned to her roommates, all of whom were currently standing in front of the fireplace, rears to the heat. They’d probably come into the room more for warmth than a pressing need to hear who had called, but she told them what Detective Morse had said without prompting.

“Well, I’m glad she’s coming back,” Aunt Beth announced.

“Me, too,” Harriet agreed.

“Since when?” Lauren said.

“Since we aren’t police officers, and it’s their job, not ours, to figure out who killed Duane and Richard-two men we barely knew, I might add.”

“Did Morse brainwash you?” Lauren asked.

“Since when did you become the gung-ho private eye?”

“Are you trying to tell me you’re not the least little bit curious about who killed those two men, practically right under our noses?”

“Of course I’m curious,” Harriet said. “I just don’t think it’s our place to interfere in a police investigation.”

“I’m glad you’ve come to your senses,” Aunt Beth said then turned to look Lauren squarely in the face. “You would do well to learn from Harriet.”

Harriet raised her eyebrows and grinned at Lauren from behind her aunt’s back. Lauren narrowed her eyes, but kept her mouth shut.

“Anyone interested in a friendly game of cards?” Jorge asked.

Everyone was, and he offered to take all the dogs out before they started.

Weak light oozed through the kitchen window when Harriet came downstairs the next morning. Day three with no power had begun, and the whole slumber party/campout bit was starting to be not so much fun.

“I want my power back now,” she complained to Aunt Beth and Mavis, who were sitting side-by-side at the kitchen bar. “I’m not out of clean clothes yet, but my dirties are stacking up, and I don’t want to find out how the pioneers dried their laundry in the winter.”

“You don’t want to know what the pioneers did,” Mavis agreed.

“You want some tea?” Aunt Beth asked. She had already filled the thermal carafe with water and set out clean mugs and a basket of assorted teabags.

“Sure,” Harriet agreed. “Were those waffles?” she asked, pointing at the crumbs on the mostly empty plates in front of the two older women.

“You should know,” Mavis said. “I found them in your freezer in the garage. I was looking for dinner meat to start thawing, and I found a package of frozen waffles. We heated them in the iron skillet and put the remains in the freezer compartment.”

“You want some?” Aunt Beth asked.

Harriet did, and a few minutes later she sat down to hot tea and waffles with warm maple syrup.

“Yum,” she said when she’d finished eating. “That really hit the spot.”

“Well, we thought you’d need fortification if you’re going to go see Aiden,” Beth said.

“Where’s everyone else?” Harriet asked.

“Lauren is up in the attic sweeping, and then she’s going to set up the air-bed,” Mavis said. “Jorge’s outside with the dogs.”

“He said he would drive you to the animal hospital when you’re ready,” Aunt Beth added. “He said there are a couple of places where the water is over the road.”

“You ready to head out?” Jorge asked a few minutes later when he returned with the dogs. “Let me get these girls settled, and I’ll be ready.” He stooped to unhook the leashes.

Harriet got her coat from the kitchen closet and put her waterproof boots on.

“Wish me luck,” she said to Beth and Mavis as she followed him out the door.

“Go easy on the boy,” Jorge recommended when they were in the truck. “If you go at him with both guns blazing, all he’ll do is argue, no matter how right you are.”

“How can I make him see that Michelle is trying to use him?”

“The best thing is to try to get him away from her, somehow. He knows how she is. The only reason she’s having success at all is because the storm is keeping him from talking to anyone else.”

“But this started before the storm. She was here, and he was listening.”

“He would have come around if he’d had the chance to talk to you and me and your aunt.”

“We’ll see,” Harriet said. “I’ve at least got to try.”

She spent the rest of the trip staring out the window at the storm carnage that had yet to be cleaned up. For his part, Jorge was kept busy dodging debris, standing water, and minor mudslides.

“Here we are,” he said finally as he pulled off the road in front of the vet clinic.

A large Douglas fir had fallen across the front corner of the parking area, blocking the entrance, so Harriet would have to walk the rest of the way in. The offending tree was large enough it would require commercial equipment to cut it up and remove it.

“I’ll be back in an hour,” Jorge said as she got out of the truck.

“Thanks for driving me,” she said and pushed the door shut.

“Hi, Harriet,” one of the clinic vet technicians said from the front desk when she walked in. “Did you come to spend some time with Scooter?” The young woman was dressed in mismatched scrubs, her blond hair scraped back in a severe ponytail.

“Yeah, I thought he might like a little company. Besides, I can’t work without power.”

“We’re all getting a little tired of this storm. We have a generator going in the back to keep the patients warm and do their laundry, but we’re running it one hour on, one hour off to preserve fuel and it only runs two circuits. You can go on back. I’ll tell Aiden you’re here.”

Harriet went through the door the tech held open for her then down the short hall to the converted storeroom. The tech brought in a space heater and plugged it into an extension cord that trailed down the hall and out the back door.

“You’re lucky it’s an ‘on’ hour,” she said as she flicked the heater’s power switch. Aiden came in a few minutes later, Scooter in one hand, a fuzzy lap pad in the other. He deposited both in Harriet’s lap and turned to leave.

“Wait,” she said. “Can’t you stay and talk a minute?”

“I’ve got work to do,” he said, opening the door, then hesitating.

“Please,” she said in a quiet voice.

“There’s no point,” he told her without turning back around.

“Can’t you at least tell me what’s going on?”

“If I talk about it, you’ll try to tell me I’m wrong, and then we’ll argue and I don’t want to remember us that way.”

Harriet could feel the heat rising up her neck, flushing her face.

“ Remember us?” she snapped, her voice rising. “I have no say in this matter? You’ve just decided we’re done, and I don’t even get to know why?”

She stood and put Scooter and his pad down in her chair then grabbed Aiden’s arm and spun him around. She started to speak, but hesitated when she saw the pain etched into the lines of his face.