Chapter 1
ONE WEEK AFTER
Raise the heddle and send the yarn-filled shuttle through the warp. Adjust the outside edge so it’s even with the others. Position the yarn to form a V with the weft below and beat the strand into place. Lower the heddle. Send the shuttle through. Repeat.
I understood why there was a waiting list of villagers to use the weaving looms at The Twisty Skein. Once I’d gotten comfortable with the steps—raise, send, beat, lower—I got into a rhythm, and instead of being repetitive or monotonous, the motion became meditative. It allowed me to clear my mind and disappear into the satisfaction of doing a project. In this case, a table runner. And disappearing was just what I needed and wanted to do after the events of last week.
Raise heddle.
I anticipated long nights afterward of lying awake trying to figure out what I could have done differently.
Send shuttle.
Everyone insisted nothing would have changed the outcome.
Beat weft.
I can’t know that for sure because I didn’t listen to my gut.
Lower heddle.
My gut had whispered something was wrong.
Send shuttle.
I never could have guessed he’d show up here.
Beat weft.
I never once thought he had that gun.
Raise heddle.
Or that he’d fire it.
And never in my wildest dreams had I thought there would be a dead woman in my garage.
“Good morning, Sheriff.”
Despite Ruby McLaughlin’s attempt to enter without scaring us, my West Highland White Terrier Meeka jolted awake from a dead sleep in the corner by the spinning wheel. I jumped, sending the shuttle flying five feet and leaving a trail of deep-brown cotton yarn across the floor.
“Oh, good Goddess,” she exclaimed, “I’m so sorry. Let me get that.”
Ruby retrieved the oak shuttle from where it had come to rest beneath the loom and wound the yarn back on in a figure eight. She held it out to me but didn’t release it when I took hold. Concern etched her pretty ivory face, her mouth with the signature ruby-red lipstick set in a tight line.
“How long have you been here, Jayne?”
I glanced at the clock over the craft shop door. The hands were paintbrushes and Rorschach-like paint splatters in twelve different colors took the place of actual numbers.
“It’s six-twenty-two. I got here around four thirty.” My words faded, letting Ruby do the calculation. “Thank you for giving me a key.”
Her smile attempted to mask her pity, but I saw it there behind her eyes. Any of the villagers who knew what had happened gave me the same look. Every single one of them said, “It wasn’t your fault.” Or, “You couldn’t have known.”
Except it was my job to know. I’d been trained to anticipate, spot, and prevent this exact kind of thing. I just never guessed that . . . I couldn’t even think his name let alone say it. I never guessed he would bring a gun into my home.
Ruby’s smile dissolved as her shoulders shrugged. “If I can’t trust the sheriff with a key to my shop, I can’t trust anyone. I know you need to wrap your head around this. Or clear your head of it. That’s probably more the case, isn’t it? Sometimes, to understand something, you need to wipe the board clean and start over.”
That was it exactly. She released the shuttle and watched as I sent it through the warp threads and positioned the yarn.
Beat.
“Really good for your first attempt at weaving,” Ruby praised as she inspected my progress. “Your weft is straight and tight. Your transitions from dark brown to dusty blue are seamless. See how your edges are almost perfectly uniform? Nice job, Jayne.”
Technically, this was my second attempt. Before Ruby would let me try the floor loom, she made me spend a day practicing with a kid’s eight-inch square handloom. First, attach the pre-measured strips of fabric to the top and bottom pegs. Next, weave a long crochet hook over-under-over-under horizontally and pull a pre-measured strip through and attach it to the side pegs. Go under-over-under-over with the next strip. Repeat the weaving until the loom is full. To finish off, use the crochet hook to pull the loop on the first peg through the loop on the second peg, then the second loop through the third. Repeat, repeat, repeat until the loops are all intertwined.
Three multi-colored hot pads now sat in the kitchen drawer over at Pine Time. The first looked like a child had done it. I’d been eager to get to the floor loom and had rushed. Ruby pointed out where I’d missed an “under” and had two “overs.” I concentrated on the second one, and she declared it perfect. Then she made me do it one more time. To prove my success wasn’t a fluke, I guess.
Lower.
That had been my first lesson. My second involved learning the parts of the loom and observing another student. Violet had been making pine-green and bark-brown checked bar towels for Ye Olde Bean Grinder. She was definitely a pro at this weaving thing. It would be another project or two before I was ready to attempt a check pattern. Normally Ruby insisted her new students use only one color on their first projects. I begged her to let me do six-inch chocolate-brown stripes with two-inch dusty-blue stripes between them. My stubbornness paid off. The table runner looked great.
Send.
The third lesson was learning how to load the loom with the warp, or vertical strands of yarn. Each individual thread had to be strung between the heddles, or small plastic rods with holes in them that keep the warp separated. One warp went through the hole, the next between the rods, and so on until the width of the project was achieved. That took me almost an hour, and I was only making a sixteen-inch wide runner.
Position.
“You’ll be done soon,” Ruby noted. “As in this morning.” She gestured toward her small office behind the checkout counter. “I’ll be in there reviewing new product collections.” Her face lit up with excitement. “I get to place my orders for spring inventory soon. Let me know when you’re ready, and we’ll go over how to take your runner off the loom.”
Beat.
“Okay.”
Then what? There was a lineup of villagers waiting to use this thing. I’d have to go to the end of the queue and wait my turn. Each person got the loom for one week at a time. If a more experienced weaver wanted to make something large, like an intricate area rug, they could use two weeks in a row but would then have to wait until everyone else had used their two weeks. Once I was done with the runner, it could be months before I got time on a loom again. It was only January. There were still four months until the tourist season started. What was I going to do until it was my turn again? Maybe I could buy my own loom and weave by the windows in the great room.
No. Even if a loom wasn’t ridiculously expensive, part of the reason I did this was to be with other people. To socialize. Tripp and I had decided we wouldn’t stay holed up inside the B&B all winter. We’d get out and be with the villagers. In fact, while I was here being crafty, Tripp was fifty yards away at Hearth & Cauldron taking cooking classes with Reeva Long.
I scanned the shop, desperate for an answer. Ruby had smaller tabletop looms. Not as impressive as this big beauty, but I could sit by the circular fireplace at the center of the shop and make smaller projects. We needed some placemats for the dinette.
You can always sketch, Jayne in my head reminded me.
True. I’d just started my first ambitious sketch, Gran’s altar table and armoire in the corner of the loft over the garage, when I got the call from Ruby that it was my turn on the loom.
As I sat there lost in thought, my eyes started to sting. Thinking of the loft made me think of the garage, which brought all the memories back again in one massive, painful wave. I glanced across the shop to the office to make sure Ruby couldn’t see me. Then I burst into tears. Meeka came to my side, standing with her paws on my leg, and rested her chin on my right thigh.
“It’s probably the winter blues on top of everything else,” I told her through my sniffles. “It feels like it’s dark all the time now.” Was I referring to the amount of daylight or the state inside my head? “Maybe I need to go sit in front of a light box.”
Ruby had one tucked into the corner. Almost every shop in Whispering Pines did. The villagers warned me that winters were rough secluded so far north in Wisconsin the way we were. Seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, was a real problem for some folks. Exposure to natural outdoor light was best. But the kind reproduced from an electric box helped a great deal with depression.
“Maybe that’s it.” My voice shook a little as I spoke. “An infusion of light would do me good.”
Meeka whined as if to say, “Or maybe you need to admit that something awful happened in your home.”