A Quilt in Time (A Harriet Turman/Loose Threads Mystery) Read Online Free PDF Page A

silent until Jorge came in with a handful of menus.
    “Anyone need one of these? Or do you all know what you want?”
    “Do you have a special today?” Harriet asked.
    “Indeed I do. I have two pork tamales with a chicken enchilada, and I have chicken avocado soup.”
    The group ordered one or the other of the specials, except Robin, who stuck with her customary salad. Jorge spoke to his waitress before taking the menus and leaving. A moment later, she returned with three heaping bowls of guacamole.
    “Back to Sarah,” Harriet said when the door was closed again and the group was alone. “First, can anyone take Rachel? Second, how can we help Sarah? Anyone?” She looked around the table.
    “Curly and I can take her,” Mavis volunteered. “My dog hasn’t met another animal she doesn’t like.”
    “Okay, so what are we going to do about Sarah?” Harriet pressed.
    “Do we have to do anything?” Lauren leaned forward and scooped dip onto her chip.
    “Of course we have to do something,” Mavis said. “How would you like it if you were in trouble, and we just sat around eating chips and ignoring your distress?”
    “I think we both know I wouldn’t be in that kind of trouble,” Lauren shot back.
    Robin stood up, pacing behind the chairs as if they were a jury.
    “You might be surprised to hear that many victims of domestic violence are otherwise independent, intelligent women. It can happen to anyone.” She turned and paced back to the end of the table and faced her seated friends. “I think our first step is to establish that she is, in fact, a battered woman. We’re just assuming she is.” She held up one hand and ticked off her fingers with the other. “Number one, her cat is injured. Number two, we’ve seen bruises. Number three, she’s withdrawn from her social support network. Anything else?”
    “I think that covers what we know,” Harriet said. “So, what do we do?”
    Mavis looked at Beth.
    “Beth and I could talk to her when we talk to her about me taking Rachel.”
    “How soon do you think you can do that?” Harriet asked, looking from her aunt to Mavis.
    “She should be working,” Mavis said. “We can go after lunch.”
    “What if she admits her boyfriend is beating her?” Lauren asked. “What then? She’s not coming to live with me, I can tell you that. Two days with that woman, and I’d probably hit her myself.”
    “It’s really sad, but that used to be the standard prosecutors used to determine if they were going to go after abusive men. If fifteen minutes with the defendant made them want to hit her, they wouldn’t take the case to court,” Robin told them. “And that wasn’t that long ago.”
    “We can guess she’s not going to agree to leave her boyfriend just because a couple of us tell her she needs to,” Lauren said.
    Robin sat down again.
    “I could go by and offer her legal advice,” she said.
    “She probably doesn’t have anywhere else to go,” Harriet said. “One of my quilt customers is living in her old apartment. Unless she got a new one, she’s probably staying full time at that cabin.”
    “I wonder if they have room at the shelter,” Mavis said.
    “They were talking about putting some beds in their attic space,” Harriet said. “Plus, I think they have one empty private room. I could call Georgia and ask. I need to take measurements for the bathroom curtains we need to make, so I have to call her in any case.”
    Jorge backed into the room, followed by his waitress, both of them laden with plates of steaming food, ending the conversation for the moment.
    Harriet took a deep breath.
    “This smells so good,” she told him.
    “All for the pleasure of the lovely mujeres .”
    Jorge smiled, set down his armload of plates, and left the room, returning quickly with a large tray of plates and bowls. The waitress set a pitcher of iced tea and a stack of glasses in the middle of the table.
    “Do you need anything else right now?” he asked,