Dyer Consequences by Maggie Sefton

break the lock on the front door?” she asked, as she watched Rosa start clearing another pathway.
    Mimi checked the heavy walnut door. “No, they didn’t,” she said, peering at the door handle and lock. “There’re no marks. Oh, my word, was the door left unlocked?”
    “No way, Mimi,” Rosa protested, her arms filled with bunches of fat cotton chenille. “We always lock that door. And Connie was working at closing last night, and she’s a bear about that, remember? Her house was broken into once.”
    “Well, the back door to the café was okay, too,” Kelly added. “No signs of a break-in. And Pete always locks that front door when he leaves in the afternoon. I know, because I searched for a way to get inside the shop one night when I left my bag here with my cell phone. All those doors were locked tight.”
    Mimi let go of the front door, and it closed with a solid thud. She stood, staring out into the shop, both hands at her breast now. “Ohhhh, no . . .” she whispered. “Tracy has been staying late working with the dyes. Could she have forgotten to lock the door when she left last night?”
    Rosa looked surprised. “I don’t think so. Tracy stayed late on Wednesday and Thursday nights, too, and she remembered to lock the doors. I showed her how to do it. Why would she forget on Friday?”
    “That doesn’t make sense,” Mimi said, worrying her lower lip. “Tracy’s such a conscientious girl. I can’t imagine it slipping her mind.”
    Kelly pondered for a second. “I noticed the lights on late last night when Steve brought me home after dinner. I didn’t think anything of it because I knew Tracy was probably downstairs and up to her arms in the dye tubs again. She’s gone crazy for it. You’ve got a devoted pupil, Mimi. But I agree with Rosa, I can’t see Tracy forgetting something as important as locking the door. She impresses me as being very careful.”
    Rosa started arranging the chenille yarns inside the antique cabinet where they’d been previously displayed. “Speaking of downstairs, I’d better go check the basement to see if they trashed it as well.” She started picking her way through the room, clearing a path as she did.
    “Please, God, not the basement,” Mimi prayed as she closed her eyes. “All those bags of fleece and dyed yarns . . . I don’t want to think about what they could do down there.”
    Following Rosa’s lead, Kelly started filling empty yarn bins and shelves. Sorting could come later. Right now, they had to find the floor again. “Maybe they didn’t even get to the basement, Mimi. It was hard enough for us to get around down there when we were working over the tubs.” She pictured the rabbit warren of rooms below.
    “Lord, I hope so,” Mimi said, stuffing springy balls of eyelash yarn into the antique cabinet. “I hope they found what little money we had in the cash box and ran off—”
    A muffled scream cut through the air, silencing Mimi. She stared at Kelly, mouth open. “Oh, my God! Was that Rosa?”
    “I think it was,” Kelly said, dumping the rest of the yarn onto the floor. This time she stomped through the fibers, not caring what she stepped on, as she hurried toward the back of the shop and the basement stairway.
    “What happened?” Mimi cried out as she followed behind Kelly.
    Racing through the hallway, Kelly rounded the corner and charged down the steps. Pete was already ahead of her.
    “Rosa, are you all right?” Pete yelled as he disappeared into the maze of rooms below.
    “ Madre de Dios, no! Please, no!” Rosa’s voice cried from the back room.
    Kelly raced after Pete, her heart in her throat. Bursting into the tub room, she stopped short, almost tripping over a metal rod on the floor. The air was sucked out of Kelly’s lungs in an instant. She felt like she’d been punched in the gut.
    Rosa stood weeping, her face in her hands, shoulders heaving. Pete was leaning over the laundry tub. A woman’s body hung over the tub.