When the door had closed on his brown suit, Godwin huffed, “He’ll be sorry if he finds you dead in the middle of another fake burglary!” He sat down with a snort to resume work on his sampler.

Betsy started to laugh; she couldn’t help it. When Godwin looked up at her with that innocent, limpid gaze, she laughed even harder.

But she couldn’t make Shelly understand what was so funny.

Chapter 15

15

“I apologize for the short notice,” said the voice of Mayor Jamison in his heavy Midwestern twang, “but things got bollixed up when Margot died. So now we have to get really moving on this thing. Can you come to Christopher Inn this evening? You’ll get a free supper out of it again.”

“Yes, I think so,” said Betsy into the phone. “What time?”

“Seven o‘clock. See you there.”

Betsy didn’t know of what use she would be to the committee; Margot was the driving force, she was only one of the driven. But it did occur to her to ask Shelly to stay awhile after closing and help her find the slash jacket Margot had promised to donate, since Betsy wouldn’t have known a slash jacket if it jumped up and bit her. Which from its name it might.

Betsy found a big box of donated items: a table lamp, a gift certificate, a framed print. But no jacket. Shelly was the one who unzipped a garment bag in Margot’s closet. “Here it is,” she announced.

At first, Betsy thought it was knitted somehow, with lots of ends left loose to make it look shaggy. But no, it was some kind of red-orange cloth with small black figures printed on it, and short, multicolored fringe in curves all over—no, that wasn’t it, either. “What the heck is that?” she asked, coming closer.

“It’s the slash jacket,” said Shelly.

“No, I mean, how is it made?”

“You take six, eight, ten different fabrics, layer them, cut out your jacket, and sew the layers together in lines, like ... like”—she cast about for a simile—“contour farming.” Her hand described curves. “When the jacket is finished, you cut through the layers between the contour lines. You line it, then you wash it over and over, until the cut edges stand up and fray. See how she used a layer of navy blue among all the reds and yellows? That gives a really interesting effect.”

“It sure does. Who in the world dreamed up the idea?”

“Beats me. I’ve wanted to make one for a long time, and Margot told me it’s easy to do, but I never got up the nerve. I mean, to take a razor to a finished garment! I’d probably chicken out and just call it quilted.”