Chapter 08
Homespun
Ithaca, NY
Week 04

They decided to send Rossi to talk to her boss, based on the idea that college kids might clam up around someone the same age as their professors, but an older adult might be more comfortable with someone with some authority. He approached the woman behind the counter. "Excuse me; I'm looking for a Hickory Chu?"

"You found her. One sec." She was a comfortably padded woman with an Earth Mother vibe who turned to Rossi as soon as she finished with her customer. "What can I get you?"

"Some answers, I hope." He showed her his badge. "I'm Dave Rossi; we're looking into the Laura Patterson case. Is there a place where we can talk for a few?"

"Oh god! Poor Laura. Sure, right this way." She led him through the shop, a cozy place crowded with yarn and fabric and about a million bits and bobs that went along with both, to a back room set up as a classroom, with tables and examples hanging on the wall. "It's terrible what happened. I expected her for class that morning and she just never came."

"Class? Student or teacher?"

"Teacher. She taught English paper piecing, hand appliqué, hand quilting, basic sock construction, and intro to knitting, oh I'd have to look at what else. She was usually booked for classes all day Saturday and at least one other night a week."

"And she was usually on time?'

"Oh, she never missed a class. Regular and reliable as clockwork, always organized, everything in place. I loved having her teach."

"Did she ever say why she taught here and not at the school?"

"I asked her once; she said that this was closer to what she wanted out of life, this was the sort of teaching she wanted to do. Besides, it pissed Karen off something fierce."

"Karen?"

"Her stepmother; what a bitch she was. After Laura mentioned that she didn't talk to her at the Stitch 'n'Bitch I looked her up out of curiosity, you should see what she used to say about Laura on Facebook. That woman would tell outright lies. She insisted Laura went to Cornell because she couldn't get in to a 'decent' school. Truth was Laura was accepted to Stanford, Berkley and Princeton, she chose Cornell for the major. She claimed Laura had some kind of a mental disability or illness when that girl was just about as sharp and balanced as you can get. And she told everyone she was sleeping her way through the school; ever since she's been missing she's been telling all her friends that she ran off with some guy."

"Did she?"

"No. As far as I know she never dated anyone. She was as quiet as a mouse. Her stepmother just said those things to get her friends to pile on the sympathy, pity poor me I have such a horrible stepchild. She had a jewel in that girl is what she had, and she never saw it."

"No boyfriend. Any friends?"

"Hmmm, she and Martha Walderman were very close; she goes out of her way to bring Martha's orders out to her."

"Do you have contact information for her?"

"Sure, back at the desk. Hold on."

While Hickory went to get the information Rossi looked around the room. The walls were decorated with bright quilts, mostly with a modern art design. "Are any of these hers?" Rossi asked when Hickory returned.

"Yes, that one," she pointed to the standout, a large piece in traditional shapes and quiet prints. "It's called a Farmer's Wife sampler quilt; those are all quilt blocks published in The Farmer's Wife magazine between 1915 and World War II."

"I notice it's very different from the others."

"Yes, these days most quilters are inspired by the Japanese philosophy of Wabi-Sabi and the works of the Gees Bend quilters. The Wabi-Sabi aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is 'imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete'; it embraces the idea of the imperfection." She indicated a few examples. "The Gees Bend quilters are part of an isolated, rural African-American community who made quilts out of the materials they had around, old clothing and what every else they could find. They wouldn't cut the materials in order to cover the maximum amount of ground with a minimum of waste, resulting in large, irregular swaths of color. The result was this kind of style." She indicated a few others. "Both styles have been embraced by the modern art movement."

"But she didn't follow either aesthetic?"

"Not at all. While she respected both as part of their cultures she said that embracing and celebrating imperfection denigrated all the women who tried so hard to express themselves through their precision over time. To her it was as if we were saying that they were all silly, they could have just thrown anything together and been done with it. She also said it was an excuse for women who didn't really want to be doing things for their home, they just wanted to feel creative so they threw some pretty fabrics together with a sewing machine and called it art." Hickory laughed. "You should have heard what she had to say about scrapbooking."

"It sounds like she didn't even embrace sewing machines."

"Nope, that beast is entirely hand patched and hand quilted; she said it was the only way to get the heirloom quality she was looking for. People were always so amazed when I told them that it almost scared them off."

Rossi had a thought. "Was there ever anyone who wasn't scared off? Anyone who really appreciated this?"

"Well, last fall some guy tried to buy it."

"Really?"

"Yeah, these two guys came in here and were looking at it for quite a while. They asked about it and I explained her thoughts behind it, you know the artist and all. They seemed quite taken with the whole thing, the shorter one offered up to a thousand for it but she turned him down."

"Do you remember what they looked like?"

"Um, yeah. We don't get a lot of men in here so they kind of stand out. One was taller and skinnier, with a dark beard, kinda dressed rough, like he worked with his hands. The other was shorter and had a grey beard and a belly like Santa himself."

"Did they leave contact information, in case she changed her mind?"

She thought a moment. "You know…" She went to look and within moments came back with a slip of paper. The name was J. Kipling and there was a phone number.

Rossi was on his phone as soon as he could dial. "Garcia I need you to run this number for me right now." He rattled off the digits.

As Garcia checked Hickory's eyes widened. "Oh my god, was that them? Were they stalking her? Oh my god, they were in my shop? Oh my god!"

"Did you give them any contact information for her?'

"No, I never do that, just in case. But oh my god…"

It never took Garcia long. "No good, it's a prepay phone and it's been dead for a while."

Rossi sighed. Maybe someone else would have more luck.