Knit One Murder Two

by Reagan Davis

  “Ryan mentioned that Jay has twins, so that’s probably him,” I say to April whose eyes are also fixed on the two identical, adorable puddle jumpers.

  “Aww, look at them!” she says. “We should go and talk to him before our ovaries explode, or the neighbourhood watch starts to wonder why we’re sitting here.”

  We unbuckle our seat belts and April unplugs her phone from the car’s console. We get out of the car and the sound of the horn confirming that the doors are locked gets the attention of the boys, so I smile and wave at them. They ignore me and jump in a puddle.

  I introduce myself to Jay as a friend of Ryan’s, and April introduces herself as a friend of mine. We shake hands and April and I gush over the cuteness of his sons. I tell him he has two of the cutest frog-duck puddle jumpers I’ve ever seen, and he smiles at them proudly.

  “If you’re looking for a loan, there are online forms to fill out on the website, and I’ll get back to you within twenty-four hours.”

  He must be a modern, twenty-first century money lender.

  “No. I’m not here for a loan, but since you brought it up, I am super curious about your business, is it a legitimate business? You have a website and everything?”

  “Of course. Everything is totally above board. The service I provide is more common than you think.”

  He proceeds to tell us he’s a stay-at-home dad, and his sons just turned four. He and his wife, Jenna, were both nurses at Harmony Hills hospital, but after the twins arrived, finding an affordable daycare situation to accommodate their erratic shift schedules was nearly impossible, so they decided Jay would stay home.

  They had some money from an inheritance, and to replace Jay’s income they were going to purchase one of the luxury condos in the new Harbourview Condominium development at the end of Water Street and rent it to tourists. Unfortunately the development was still almost a year away from starting construction, and they couldn’t wait that long. Jay did some research and realized that the return on investment would be higher and the risk more diversified if they used the money to make several high interest, short term loans, so they did that instead.

  I can relate to their daycare struggle. I found out I was expecting Hannah within a few months of getting married, and about five years sooner than we’d planned for it to happen, so I had to leave school when she arrived, three semesters short of my economics degree. When she started school full time, I was eager to finish my last three semesters and graduate, but I couldn’t find a daycare solution that worked for all three of us. I was about to give up and accept that I’d have to wait to finish school, when Connie insisted that she and Colin, her husband, would love to help look after Hannah. They were like grandparents to her and spoiled her rotten. Sadly, Colin passed away about five years ago, but Connie and Hannah still have a special bond.

  “What I do is totally legal, though some people might think it isn’t totally ethical. Most of my clients are in Harmony Hills and Harmony Lake, and my job makes me privy to a lot of secrets about a lot of people.”

  He winks after that last sentence, and I get the feeling he’d love to tell some of those secrets, but I already feel like I’m learning more about some of my neighbours than I care to know, so I decide to interrupt him.

  “That’s actually why I’m here. I’d like to ask you some questions about a mutual acquaintance. Ryan tells me you know Paul Sinclair?”

  “What about him? Does he owe you money?” He smirks.

  Hearing him talk about Paul in the present tense makes me think he doesn’t know about Paul’s death, so I tell him Paul was murdered on Tuesday evening.

  “Well, that’s too bad. I guess I should expect a visit from the police soon,” He says bluntly.

  He seems neither surprised by Paul’s death nor worried about a visit from the police.

  “Ryan told me that when Paul was trying to blackmail him, you helped him out by giving him some information to use against Paul. Well, unfortunately, when Paul was killed, he was also blackmailing my family, and I’m looking for information that might point the finger of suspicion away from us.”

  “He borrowed money from me. I think he said it was to pay off some bad bets. He had trouble paying me back and fell behind with his scheduled repayments. He stopped returning my calls and emails, so my lawyer wrote a letter to Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair advising them that I was starting the process of executing a writ of seizure on the building on Water Street.”

  I know about writs of seizure from Adam mentioning them. A writ of seizure would give Jay the right to force the Sinclairs to sell the building and use the proceeds to repay the debt.

  “But the business belongs to Kelly, not Paul,” April interrupts. “Did they borrow money from you together?”

  “No, Paul borrowed the money alone. One of the reasons people borrow from me, instead of a bank, and pay higher interest costs, is because they don’t want their partner to know about the loan. His wife might own the business in her name alone, but they both own the building, so they both have to be notified. The letter and the threat are usually enough to scare the debtor into finding my money.”

  “Was it enough to scare Paul?” I ask.

  “Sure was. I heard from him the day he got the letter. It was sent by registered mail, and he’s the one who signed for it, so I doubt his wife ever saw it. A few days later he asked to meet and paid the loan in full. With cash.”

  “Where did he get that much cash in such a short time?”

  I’m looking at April and thinking out loud, not expecting Jay to say anything, but he does.

  “He said his brother-in-law lent it to him. I don’t know if that’s true, and I don’t really care. People who need my services tend to have secrets and often lie to protect them, so I take most of what they say with a grain of salt.”

  One of the twins asks if they can go in the backyard to dig for worms. Both boys are carrying a small bucket and shovel. So cute!

  We walk from the sidewalk to the gate at the side of the house. April hangs back close to the sidewalk. I know she’s being safe so if something happens, she can get help. Jay opens the gate and the boys run into the backyard. There’s a large wooden play set with a slide on one side, two swings in the middle, and a playhouse with a rock-climbing wall on the other side.

  “That must be the playset Ryan assembled on Tuesday?” I ask, pointing to the large wooden structure.

  “He assembled it, but, like, two weeks ago, not on Tuesday,” Jay replies.

  As soon as the words finish coming out of his mouth, the expression on his face changes and I can tell Jay realizes that he probably just contradicted Ryan’s alibi

  “Actually, I can’t remember for sure. Maybe Ryan was here on Tuesday night?”

  He furrows his brow, purses his lips, and directs his gaze down and to the right, trying hard to look like he’s working out the correct date.

  Nice try, Jay.

  “Look, Ryan’s a good guy,” he asserts. “He’s made a few mistakes and bad choices, but I consider him a friend. He must consider you a friend, too, if he told you about me and sent you here. There’s no way he killed Paul.”

  We hear one twin offer up his dessert tonight in exchange for the other twin eating a worm. But it has to be the whole worm, not just a bite.

  Jay runs over to stop anyone from eating any portion of any worm. I yell after him, thanking him for his time, wishing him good luck with the worms, and telling him April and I will see ourselves out.

  He waves to me in acknowledgement.

  Chapter 14

  “Well, that was definitely worth the drive,” I say as April navigates the car out of Jay’s subdivision.

  “I know, right?! He said he has clients in Harmony Hills and is ‘privy to lots of secrets.’ I wonder who else in Harmony Hills borrows money from him?”

  “I’m not sure I want to know,” I answer. “Life was easier forty-eight hours ago when the only secrets I knew were my own.”

  “And mi
ne, you know all my secrets,” April adds.

  “How can we find Paul’s brother-in-law to ask him if he loaned Paul the money? And if Ryan lied about being at Jay’s house on Tuesday evening, where was he and why would he lie?”

  “I don’t know the answer to either of those questions,” April says as she turns onto the main road that leads to the highway, “but I do know that solving a murder in real life is harder than it looks on TV and in books.”

  She’s not wrong.

  My phone dings; another text from Eric trying to arrange a time and place to meet. I don’t fancy being questioned at the police station. I assume Adam will be home tonight, and I don’t want to make him go out. Luckily, Connie has a book club meeting and since it isn’t her turn to host, Knitorious will be empty.

  I text him back and suggest we meet at Knitorious after it closes. He confirms.

  April puts on No Scrubs by TLC and turns it up loud. We sing about a scrub hanging out the passenger side of his best friends ride at the top of our lungs as we merge onto the highway.

  I get to Knitorious about twenty minutes before the store closes, park in one of the spots behind the store and let myself in through the back door.

  Harlow is happy to see me because my arrival coincides with his dinnertime. He corners me in the kitchenette and charms me into feeding him.

  Connie is relieved I’m still alive, and the money lender didn’t kill April and me.

  I fill her in on our trip to Harmony Hills and remind her to please ask Archie about Ryan’s whereabouts on Tuesday night since Jay didn’t confirm his alibi.

  “He told you himself that he’s not ethical, my dear. Maybe Ryan was there, and the money lender is mistaken or lying. But, of course, I’ll ask. If I can get him alone.”

  “He told me that some people believe his business is unethical, not that he’s unethical. Also, you didn’t see his reaction when he realized what he’d said.”

  I offer to close up so she can leave early and meet her book club friends. I tell her that Eric is coming to the store with more questions for me, but we should be gone before she gets home.

  I didn’t have dinner before coming to the store, so by the time Eric is due to arrive I’m starving and scrolling through the menu on the Ho Lee Chow website, adding items to the online cart. I stop scrolling to unlock the door for Eric when he arrives. I don’t recognize him at first because he’s not wearing a suit.

  He’s wearing khaki, slim-fit trousers and a dark green, collared Polo shirt with brown leather slip-on shoes. The dark green shirt brings out the amber flecks in his eyes and the short sleeves show off a pair of nicely defined, muscular biceps and forearms. He’s hot, and I have to remind myself not to stare.

  “Hi! Thanks for meeting me again,” he says, standing aside, so I can lock the door after him.

  He smells good, like a forest after it rains, and the sun comes out.

  “No problem. You must be running out of questions by now, no? Or will I be answering the same questions I’ve already answered?”

  I wonder if he’s met with everyone else three times in two days, or just the top contenders on his suspect list.

  “A bit of both.” He smiles and puts a hand on his flat, probably-has-a-six-pack stomach.

  Don’t stare, Megan.

  “Have you eaten? I’m starving and I thought I might order something to be delivered if that’s OK.”

  “Great minds think alike, Eric.” I spin the laptop to show him the Ho Lee Chow menu I’ve been picking and choosing from.

  He adds a few items to our order, and I hit the Submit button. While we wait for the food to arrive, I get dishes from the kitchenette, Harlow forces Eric to notice him by jumping onto the harvest table and pacing back and forth in front of him with his tail in the air, and Eric asks me questions about yarn.

  What’s the difference between a hank, a skein, a ball, and a cake? I explain that a hank is a loop of yarn that’s loosely twisted, similar to the yarn that Kelly bought. A skein is yarn that’s wound into an oblong ball. A ball is yarn that’s wound into a round ball, and a cake is yarn that’s wound into a cylindrical shape. To confuse him further, I explain how the words “hank” and “skein” are often used interchangeably. I gather yarn from the shelves as I explain to show him examples of each.

  What does ply mean? Well, yarn is composed of multiple yarns twisted together: single ply is one strand of yarn, two-ply is two strands twisted together, three-ply is three strands twisted together, etc. The yarn Kelly purchased was twelve-ply.

  He also has questions about knitting needles: straight vs. circular, metal vs. wood, how to decide which size needle to use with which size yarn. At first, I assume his curiosity is related to the case, but then I start to wonder if he’s actually interested and wants to learn to knit. I’m sure it’s related to the case, but I offer to teach him to knit anyway. He declines. Apparently, his job keeps him too busy for hobbies like knitting.

  When he’s finished testing my yarn and needle knowledge, we sit in the cozy sitting area and I pick up the hat I’m working on. I start the crown decreases while he asks me questions about my routine on Tuesday, and strokes Harlow, who is curled up contentedly on his lap.

  Our food arrives, and while we eat, he asks me about yesterday. I tell him, again, about Adam visiting me at the store and telling me that Paul had copies of the photos and was using them to blackmail him. Then I tell him how caught off guard I was last night by the suggestion that Adam and Kelly were having an affair.

  “I’m sorry about the way that played out, and that you were upset,” he says. “I didn’t think there was anything between them, but I needed to be sure, and your reaction helped confirm my hunch.”

  I appreciate his apology, but I don’t respond because I still think it was a cruel way to confirm his hunch.

  “Finding out about the affair with Mrs. Murphy must have upset you though…”

  Eric likes to use unfinished sentences to ask questions. He makes a statement and lets his voice trail off at the end while he looks at you to finish the thought for him.

  “Adam and I have been married for almost 20 years. We met in university when I was 18, and by the time I was 20, we were married, and I became pregnant soon after. We had a great relationship for a lot of years, but somewhere along the way we started to grow apart. Our lives stopped revolving around each other and neither of us did anything to stop it. He focused on his career, I focused on being a Mom and being involved in the community, and the next thing we knew our daughter was the only thing we had left in common.”

  I stop to drink some water.

  “If you both decided it was over months ago, why are you still living under the same roof and keeping your separation a secret? The divorced couples I know can’t wait to get away from each other.”

  I want to ask him if he’s speaking from experience, but I don’t.

  “This year has been a big one for Hannah. She finished high school and went away to university. We were determined not to allow our separation to overshadow her final year of high school, so we decided he wouldn’t move out until she left for university. The last thing she needed was everyone in town talking about our failed marriage and her broken home. Reputation is everything in a small town—especially in Harmony Lake. We’re handling this transition like civilized, reasonable people. I’ve always put Hannah’s interests above all else, and this divorce is no exception. We may not be a couple anymore, but we’re Hannah’s parents and we’ll always be family. It helps that Adam is a lawyer. He works on divorce cases all the time and sees how divorce can bring out the worst in people. That won’t happen to us. We’re intent on making it through this divorce and coming out the other side as friends. Or at least friendly to each other. We’ll see.”

  “No one else in Harmony Lake knows you’re separated?” Eric asks.

  “The only people who know, other than Hannah, are April and Connie, unless Adam confided in someone. I don’t feel angry or betray
ed that he was seeing someone. I mean, I haven’t been in love with him for a long time, you know? I want him to be happy and live a good life. I just wish he’d waited until he moved out, didn’t send his girlfriend compromising photos, and maybe picked someone who isn’t already in a relationship.”

  It feels cathartic to say it out loud for someone else to hear. It’s not easy pretending your marriage isn’t broken. Living a lie is exhausting.

  I wonder if Eric is married and has kids. Has he ever had to disentangle his life from someone else’s while causing as little damage as possible to the other people affected?

  It’s like playing catch with a hand grenade, except every time you throw it, you have to take one step backwards until eventually you and the person you’re playing catch with can’t communicate anymore. So, you both just try to be slow, gentle, and intentional with every toss, grateful every time the other person catches it, and it doesn’t hit the ground and blow up destroying your home, everyone else's lives, and your kid.

  When we’ve finished eating, we each choose a fortune cookie. Eric’s says, "You are cleverly disguised as a responsible adult," and mine says, "Three people can keep a secret only if you get rid of two," which sounds ominous and creeps me out. I jokingly offer to trade fortunes with him, but he declines, saying he likes his non-creepy fortune better.

  While I clear the dishes and throw away the food packages, I contemplate whether to tell him about my conversation this morning with Ryan and the road trip April and I took to Harmony Hills to visit Jay this afternoon. I want this case solved as quickly as possible, and the more information Eric has, the quicker he can find the real killer and clear the Martel name, so I decide it’s best to tell him.

  If I’m lucky, maybe he’ll tell me something in return that I don’t already know about the case.

  “I had an interesting conversation with Ryan Wright this morning.”

  While I tell him about my conversation with Ryan, I watch his face closely for a hint of a reaction. Nothing. Either he already knows and this isn’t new information, or he’s got an impressive poker face.