A Stitch to Die For (An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Book 5) by Lois Winston Page A

no chance of parole. Ever.
    Cynthia’s death I could understand. People hooked on drugs often overdose. Maybe Pablo panicked and dumped her body in the canal. Maybe she wound up in the canal under other circumstances, but according to the police, she’d died of an overdose. Cocaine hadn’t ended Betty Bentworth’s life; an assassin’s bullet had killed her. But why?
    And why would someone who had taken such pains to enter Betty’s home surreptitiously, leave her front door wide open? Given that everyone steered clear of Betty, months might have passed before someone discovered her body. Unless the killer wanted her body discovered. But that made even less sense than the murder itself.
    Betty’s mean streak almost made my mother-in-law look like Mary Sunshine. At least Lucille didn’t constantly phone the police, trying to have our neighbors arrested on specious offenses. People loathed Betty. And with good reason. So maybe one of our neighbors had reached his limit. However, I’d learned enough about murder to know that when a person like Betty is killed, it’s usually over some disagreement and in the heat of the moment, not an obviously planned, assassination-style execution.
    As I continued to toss and turn, I kept falling back on the supposition that Betty witnessed something she wasn’t supposed to see and was eliminated for that reason. But what could she possibly have witnessed on our quiet little street or during one of her weekly trips to church or the supermarket? Betty rarely left her home for any other reason.
    Because Westfield lies along the main corridor between Plainfield and Elizabeth, the police routinely pull over suspect vehicles containing drug-running gang members. However, other than the occasional drug bust, we’re a relatively crime-free town compared to many others in the area.
    I rolled over to check the time on my nightstand clock. Two-thirty. Tossing back the quilts once more, I shoved my feet into my slippers and grabbed my robe for the fourth—or was it fifth?—time that night. Since I couldn’t sleep, I decided I might as well work on my presentation for Monday.
    I quietly tiptoed my way through the house, taking pains to keep from making any noise. A duet of unison snoring—one human, one canine—greeted me as I once again passed Lucille’s room. Good thing I wasn’t a burglar because Mephisto was certainly no watchdog. Each time I’d passed by the bedroom this evening his snore pattern remained steady.
    After arriving in the kitchen without so much as the sound of ruffling feathers from Ralph, I descended the basement stairs, collected my laptop, and returned upstairs. If I was going to be up all night working, I might as well do so in the comfort of my own bed, rather than in my dank dungeon of a workroom.
    I decided to make myself a cup of herbal tea before leaving the kitchen but didn’t want to tempt fate with the sound of the microwave. Instead I filled the teakettle, set it on the stove to heat, then grabbed the kettle off the burner just before it began to whistle. Computer in one hand, tea in the other, I returned to the warmth of my bedroom.
    Experts advise turning off computers, tablets, and e-readers two hours before bedtime to avoid sleep problems. Sound advice in theory but totally impractical for kids with homework or working moms. Besides, I was already wide-awake and had slim hope of falling asleep tonight. I might as well use the time productively.
    An hour later I’d finished my baby layette presentation and emailed it to myself at work. No sleepier, even after downing a ten-ounce cup of chamomile tea, I remained on the computer. A quick Internet search revealed little in the way of recent criminal activity in town. Other than a drunk-driving arrest and a group of teens caught smoking pot behind the high school field house, nothing of significance had happened in Westfield in the past two weeks. Neither seemed a likely catalyst for Betty’s