Chapter 9 - The Night Before Monday
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Alessandro did not shout when I showed him Emma's text.
He handed it to Thomas Reed, called the police dispatcher on speaker, and was moving toward the front hall before the first siren sounded anywhere.
"Claire, you will ride with me and stay where officers can see you."
"Patricia, you will ride with Thomas and Mrs. Carter will stay here with the other women."
Patricia grabbed her coat with her good hand.
"That is my shop."
"That is exactly why you will not walk into smoke for it," Alessandro said.
"I will walk beside police, not instead of them."
I had never seen a man so angry and so controlled at the same time.
The drive to Walnut Street felt endless and impossibly fast.
Rain had started sometime after dinner.
It silvered the streets and made every red light bleed across the windshield.
I called Emma while Alessandro drove behind the first patrol car.
She answered in a whisper.
"Claire, I am in the fitting room."
"The front window is broken."
"Glass is everywhere."
"Something is burning near the counter, but it is small."
"Did you see who did it?"
"A man in a dark jacket."
"He came from the alley."
"He kept saying the papers had to go."
My heart hammered.
"The statements are in Patricia's desk," Emma whispered.
"The pattern book is in the safe, but the safe is open because I took the statements out to photograph them for Thomas."
"Emma, leave the papers if the fire spreads."
"No."
Her voice broke.
"This book is Patricia's mother."
"This book is all of them."
A crash sounded on her end of the line.
She gasped.
Then the call went dead.
I said her name three times into silence.
Alessandro's hands tightened on the wheel.
"We are two minutes out."
"Police are already entering from the rear alley according to dispatch."
"Fire is responding."
I wanted to believe dispatch more than I wanted to believe the smell I could already imagine.
Bennett Sewing Studio sat in a row of small brick storefronts that had survived chain stores, recessions, and Philadelphia winters.
Its sign was hand-painted.
Its windows usually held one beautiful gown and a card that said alterations were done with care.
When we turned onto Walnut Street, one of those windows was a black mouth of broken glass.
A thin line of smoke curled from inside.
Two police officers were at the front.
Another officer was shouting into the alley.
A security guard Alessandro had hired stood across the street holding up his telephone, recording everything because his training told him footage mattered.
Emma came out the front door coughing, held upright by a female officer.
Her coat was torn at the sleeve.
Her face was streaked with soot and tears.
She was not bleeding.
She was clutching a large book wrapped in a damp fitting cloth.
Behind her, a firefighter carried a metal desk tray with scorched edges.
I ran to Emma before anyone could tell me to wait.
She fell against me hard.
"I got the pattern book," she sobbed.
"I got most of the statements."
"He grabbed the tray."
"He tried to light the curtain by the counter."
"He said Derek told him Monday could not happen."
Patricia arrived seconds later with Thomas and ignored every instruction to stay calm.
She took Emma's face in both hands.
"You foolish, brave girl."
"You could have been killed for paper."
"It is not paper," Emma cried.
"It is your mother's flowers."
"It is Ruth and Helen and Betty."
"It is proof we were here before Sterling Rose ever existed."
Patricia held the pattern book as if Emma had handed her a living child.
The cover was wet at one corner.
A page edge was darkened by smoke.
The little-flower embroidery samples inside were intact.
I opened the damp cloth and saw page after page of careful drawings, thread notes, and handwriting that changed slightly as Patricia's mother aged.
One page held a pressed flower between tissue.
One page held measurements for a church dress made in a winter when money was short.
It was a family history disguised as a work tool.
It was also evidence.
A second firefighter came out carrying a small metal can.
The fire at the counter had been started with lighter fluid on a pile of tissue and packing paper.
It had burned fast and ugly but had not reached the bolts of fabric because Emma had dragged a heavy pressing blanket over it before running to the fitting room.
The shop had smoke damage.
It had a broken window.
It had wet flooring near the counter.
It did not have a destroyed heart.
Across the street, the security guard lowered his telephone.
"Mr. Vitale, I have the alley camera request ready, and my own video caught a face when the man ran."
Alessandro turned.
"Show the officers first."
The video was shaky at the beginning.
Rain spotted the lens.
A man in a dark jacket crossed the alley with a can in one hand.
He tried the back door.
He used a tool on the lock.
He slipped inside when Emma was already in the shop, which meant he either had not checked or had not cared that a young woman was there.
That thought made my stomach turn over.
The front camera from the bakery next door was clearer.
It caught the man throwing a brick through the window after the back door alarm began.
It caught him shouting toward the fitting room.
It caught the logo on his jacket sleeve when he ran.
The logo belonged to a private courier and removal company Derek Lawson had used to move boxes at the New Jersey warehouse.
An officer asked Alessandro if he recognized the man.
Alessandro shook his head.
Thomas did not.
"That is Martin Keller," Thomas said.
"He is listed as a contractor on two Sterling Rose invoices."
"He signed the delivery receipt for Margaret O'Connell's lace samples last winter."
The police radio crackled before anyone could say more.
A man matching the description had been stopped two blocks away smelling of lighter fluid with glass in his shoe tread.
He had a telephone in his pocket.
On that telephone, according to the officer who called it in, was a message thread that included Derek Lawson's number and a photograph of Patricia's desk.
I closed my eyes.
Derek had been questioned and released pending further investigation that afternoon because questioning is not the same as a charge.
Greedy men and frightened men often mistake release for freedom.
He had used his freedom to send someone else into a sewing shop on a rainy Sunday night.
Or he had planned it before the warehouse and failed to call it off.
Either way, the camera did not care about his excuses.
By ten o'clock, Derek Lawson was arrested again, this time in connection with the attempted break-in, the threats relayed at the warehouse, and the messages found on Martin Keller's telephone.
An officer told Thomas the arrest was based on probable cause and that counsel would explain the charges.
No one cheered.
Emma was sitting on the curb wrapped in a foil blanket, shaking too hard for cheers.
Carmen Ortiz arrived with Margaret O'Connell, who had insisted her niece drive her across town the moment Patricia called.
Margaret was seventy-one and leaned on a cane, but her voice carried down Walnut Street.
"Let me see the book."
Patricia opened it for her.
Margaret touched a lace diagram in the back section that Patricia had kept for a friend for years.
"You saved my page too," she whispered.
"I saved all of us," Patricia said.
One by one, Patricia's women arrived despite the hour and despite Alessandro's careful safety plan.
Ruth Parker came in a housecoat under her coat, carrying a broom.
Helen Brooks brought plastic sheeting from her son's truck.
Carol Simmons brought thermoses and sandwiches because she said shock needed food.
June Ellis brought a first-aid kit and checked Emma's hands for glass.
Betty Hart stood in the broken doorway and cursed Vanessa Sterling with a creativity that made even a firefighter hide a smile.
Diane Foster swept glass into careful piles so no one would track it into the back room.
Maria Delgado checked the sewing machines one by one.
Nancy Cole cried when she found the red silk sample unharmed.
Gloria Lane took photographs of every damaged corner for the insurance and police reports.
Susan Miles called the landlord and the alarm company from the counter.
Emma, still wrapped in the blanket, refused to go home until she had checked her good scissors.
They were under the fitting room chair, untouched.
She held them up and cried all over again.
I swept beside Ruth until my arms ached.
Alessandro worked without asking anyone to notice.
He held sheeting while Helen taped it over the broken window.
He carried wet boxes to the dry back room.
He listened to the police.
He signed what Thomas put in front of him.
He paid the emergency glazier who promised a temporary board and a proper window by Tuesday.
At midnight, the shop smelled of rain, smoke, wet wood, and strong coffee.
It did not smell defeated.
Patricia stood in the center of Bennett Sewing Studio holding her mother's pattern book against her chest.
Her bandaged hand rested on the cover.
Her other hand was black with soot.
She looked at the boarded window.
She looked at the swept floor.
She looked at eleven women who had come in the night because a shop is not walls and machines when women have built their lives inside it.
"We open Monday morning," she said.
No one argued.
"We open at eight."
"We open with the machines we have and the gowns we saved."
"We open with our names on our own work."
Ruth Parker nodded.
"Then we come at six to clean."
Helen Brooks said she would bring extra lamps.
Betty Hart said she would bring a new lock for the back door and a nephew who installed them.
Carol Simmons said she would call every customer who had ever trusted them.
June Ellis said she would sit by the telephone in case reporters called.
Diane Foster said she would not let Derek Lawson's name be spoken without the word arrested after it until Patricia told her to stop.
Maria Delgado laughed and cried at the same time.
Nancy Cole put the red silk sample back in the window display case, behind unbroken glass.
Gloria Lane wrote OPEN MONDAY in chalk on a small board and set it where the missing window could not hide it.
Susan Miles hung it straight.
Emma Walsh, still pale, stepped beside Patricia.
"I will be here at six," she said.
Patricia kissed her forehead.
"You will be here at seven, and you will eat breakfast first."
"That is an order from your employer."
Emma smiled for the first time since the smoke.
Alessandro looked at the chalk board.
Then he looked at Patricia.
"Security will be here before six."
"Police will have the footage."
"Thomas will file for an emergency protective order in the morning."
Patricia nodded.
"Good."
"Then tomorrow my shop opens."
She held the pattern book a little tighter.
"Vanessa Sterling tried to make women our age disappear quietly."
"She broke a window instead."
"Windows can be replaced."
"Names are harder."
May you like
She turned toward all of us in the smoky little shop.
"Monday morning, we put our names back in the window."
