Last Wool and Testament: A Haunted Yarn Shop Mystery
Read Last Wool and Testament: A Haunted Yarn Shop Mystery Online
Authors: Molly MacRae
“A great start to a new series! By weaving together quirky characters, an interesting small-town setting, and a ghost with a mind of her own, Molly MacRae has created a clever yarn you don’t want to end.”
—Betty Hechtman, national bestselling author of
Behind the Seams
A FIBER FIB
She struck a model’s pose, there in the doorway, showing off a jacket made from indigo fabric as dark and lucent as a midnight sky—Granny’s signature dye color and one that’s very difficult to achieve consistently. The jacket narrowed slightly at Nicki’s waist, then flared with a short peplum. It was beautiful, though it would need taking in a bit to fit her perfectly…
“Do you mind if I…”
“Touch it? Of course not,” Nicki said. “Wipe your fingers first, though, would you?”
“Nicki!” Debbie sounded scandalized. “Kath knows more about handling textiles than any of us. She’s a professional whatchamacallit.”
Being a polite, as well as professional, textile preservationist, I didn’t laugh at Debbie’s flub of my credentials or bridle at Nicki’s precaution. I smiled at both, carefully wiped my hands on a clean napkin, and touched the jacket at the sleeve and shoulder. Granny’s dyed and woven raw silk. I felt like petting it. I must have sighed.
“Oh, I know what you mean,” Nicki said. “I was so touched when Ivy gave it to me.”
“She did?” For a second, everything in the room stopped. Sound ceased. Movements froze. There was nothing but my hands on the jacket and Nicki’s smile after telling me my grandmother had given it to her. I didn’t know what had happened. And I didn’t know how. But I knew, absolutely, that Nicki was lying…
LAST WOOL
and
TESTAMENT
Molly MacRae
AN OBSIDIAN MYSTERY
OBSIDIAN
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First published by Obsidian, an imprint of New American Library,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
First Printing, September 2012
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ISBN: 978-1-101-59952-5
Copyright © Molly MacRae, 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
OBSIDIAN and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
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PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.
If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
ALWAYS LEARNING
PEARSON
For Mom and Dad,
who gave my life warp, weft, and words.
Jane Canby MacRae
James Lawrence Woodward MacRae
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book wouldn’t be here without the amazing kindness one finds in the mystery-writing community. Thanks especially to Linda Landrigan, Cynthia Manson, and Sandra Harding for opportunities and encouragement. Thanks to Janice Harrington, Betsy Hearne, and Sarah Wisseman. I’m grateful for your sharp eyes and good ears, but your friendship means even more. Thanks also to the people, buildings, streets, and history of Jonesborough and Johnson City, Tennessee. You’ve shaped my writing world and don’t seem to mind my detours and embellishments. Thank you to the members of the Champaign Urbana Spinners & Weavers Guild, who let me sit among them taking notes. And thank you to my friends at the Champaign Public Library, who will find themselves in these pages, some more blatantly than others. Your generosity exemplifies the beauty of those who work to put books in people’s hands. And thank you always to my Mike.
LAST WOOL
and
TESTAMENT
Table of Contents
Rosemary Olive Oil Cake with Dark Chocolate
Thea’s Red and White Baby/Toddler Hat
Chapter 1
I
t wasn’t how I’d planned to spend my thirty-ninth birthday, driving like a crazed woman from Richmond, Virginia, to a cemetery in the mountains of east Tennessee. But I straightened the curves and flattened the verdant hills along I-81 through the Shenandoah Valley with sacrilegious fervor, willing both my car and myself not to break down. Tears and taking a hand off the wheel long enough to hunt for Kleenex at that speed would be disastrous.
I stopped for gas outside Abingdon, not waiting for the receipt to print before burning back up the entrance ramp.
Over the state line, a blur of miles into Tennessee and a few switchbacks from my destination, it looked as though I’d get there in time, when what to my wondering eyes should appear but flashing red lights in the rearview mirror? Then my ears caught the wailing siren that went with the lights and my record of never in my life having received a speeding ticket was toast. I pulled over, shut the engine off, rested my forehead on the steering wheel, and waited.
“Ma’am.”
I tried to dredge up a calming image or some Zen-ish phrase that might help me get through the next however-many-minutes this was going to take and back on the
road without falling apart. Nothing in particular came to mind.
The officer knocked on the window. “Ma’am?”
“Oh, sorry.” He couldn’t hear me. I lowered the window. “Sorry, sorry. I’ve never done this before. I’m so sorry.”
“Well, ma’am, it looks to me like you’ve got the speeding part of it down as good as any expert. What I need for you to do now is hand me your license and then keep your hands where I can see them.”
“It’s in my purse,” I said, pointing to my bag on the passenger seat. “In my wallet. May I get it out?”
He gave a curt nod and I very slowly, very carefully reached over.
He coughed and I jumped.
“There’s a remarkable difference between sudden moves and glacial ones,” he offered.
“Oh, right.” I handed over my wallet, then didn’t know what to do with my hands so he could see them and my license at the same time. I noticed my hands were shaking, though, and wished I could sit on them to still them. I tried to read the name over his pocket, but between his height and my jitters I wasn’t able to make it out.
“Officer, I’m sorry…”
“Deputy. It’s Deputy Cole Dunbar.” Deputy Dunbar would have been intimidating even without the height. There was a lot of muscle on his frame and nothing soft about him. Not the stereotypical paunch of a middle-aged lawman, no brush of a moustache to take the edge off the set lips. There might have been smile lines at the corners of his eyes, but his face appeared to be as starched as his khaki and brown uniform.
“Deputy Dunbar, I’m very sorry I was driving over the speed limit…”
“Twenty miles per hour over the speed limit.”
“Oh my God. Really?” My God, I’d been driving like
an idiot. “Um, Deputy Dunbar, I don’t know if it makes any difference, but I’m on my way to my grandmother’s funeral, and I’m running late and I really need to be there because she’s all I had left. Ivy McClellan. Did you know her?” Now I was babbling like an idiot but I couldn’t stop. “She owned the Weaver’s Cat, down on Main Street, in Blue Plum. The little shop at one end of the row house there, with the yarn and wool and weaving and all? Ivy McClellan. She was my grandmother.”
Some of the starch left Dunbar’s face. I wasn’t sure the flash of recognition in his eyes improved anything, but maybe invoking Granny’s name had eased the situation. Maybe his wife or mother or a teenaged daughter was one of Granny’s devoted customers. Maybe he was. Maybe I’d be lucky and he’d tear up at her memory, then tear up the ticket he was scribbling and give me an escort to the cemetery.
“You’re Crazy Ivy’s granddaughter?”
“What?” Seems I was wrong about easing the situation.