Night of the Living Thread (A Threadville Mystery) by Janet Bolin

let out a breath that was halfway between a sigh and a laugh.
    Tally-Ho turned his head toward the dark, wooded entrance to the riverside trail and gave a tentative, warning woof.
    Someone had to be on that trail.

11
    A strident voice came from the foggy trail. “What’s going on?” A flashlight shined on the bottom half of a long, swishing skirt, and I recognized the voice.
    Juliette, the fortune-teller who had helped me add glow-in-the-dark thread to Edna’s wedding skirt, aimed her light toward Haylee, the dogs, and me.
    Patricia, the sewing machine historian, was a half step ahead of her on the riverside trail.
    I beckoned to them. When they were close, I pointed toward the group near Isis’s body. “I’m afraid Isis, the woman with the handmade books she calls
The New Book of the Dead
, has drowned.”
    Both women gasped, covered their mouths, and backed a step away.
    Juliette waved the beam of her flashlight toward the solemn people inside the crime scene tape, but as if afraid of seeing what was actually there, she turned off the flashlight. “What happened? Did she go for a midnight swim?” She scratched at her throat and tucked in a tag that had popped out at the ruffled neckline of her turquoise, red, and orange peasant blouse.
    She was wearing the blouse backward.
    Had it been like that at the fire station, too? Or had she changed into dark pants and jacket and then back into her dress?
    And I would suspect everyone?
    Haylee answered, “She must have tried on the overskirt we made. It had casters. It rolled into the river.”
    Patricia stared at the fog-layered dark river. “How?”
    “Why did she try on Edna’s skirt?” Juliette asked. “Anybody else’s skirt? That doesn’t make sense.”
    I shook my head. “I don’t understand, either.” Isis must have gotten into the overskirt willingly. Donning it involved crouching and stepping over a steel brace. Forcing someone into it would have been difficult, if not impossible.
    But Isis had told me it was not “ordained” for me to wear someone else’s skirt. Had she thought
she
was ordained to wear it? I tried not to tremble.
    Juliette peered back toward the dark, misty trail. “Here comes Dare Drayton.” Her voice was warm with appreciation. “He’ll know what to do.”
    It seemed to me that the emergency responders were already doing everything possible.
    In his black jeans, turtleneck, jacket, and loafers, Dare sauntered into the park and waved toward the crime scene tape, the people clustered near the form on the stretcher, and the drenched white wedding skirt now lying in a sodden mass on the riverbank. “What’s all this?”
    Where had Dare been when Clay was waiting for him in his truck? And when Isis was being pushed into the river?
    Yes, I would definitely suspect everyone.
    “Someone drowned,” Juliette answered.
    “That Isis person,” Patricia added.
    Dare shook his head. “Why am I not surprised? She wasn’t the brightest incantation in the book.”
    Juliette scolded, “You should speak nicely of the dead.”
    He stuck his hands in his pockets. “Why? She wasn’t nice when she was alive.” He seemed to focus on the group around Isis. “What’s my cousin up to now, playing fire chief and undertaker’s assistant, too? That guy is starved for attention. I wouldn’t be surprised if he pushed her in just so he could strut around—”
    I interrupted him. “Well,
I
would!”
    Dare only looked amused. “My cousin has a loyal supporter? Someone actually has a crush on him? How quaint.”
    Haylee said evenly, “Clay Fraser has many admirers.”
    Battling the desire to say what I thought of Dare and his conjectures and judgments, I looked down to conceal my heated face.
    And to check out Dare’s loafers.
    They appeared to have hard soles. Like Floyd’s, Dare’s shoes could have been the ones I’d heard hitting the pavement. Juliette had turned off her flashlight, but in the uncertain light from the emergency vehicles,