I had a sudden flash that this could be what it felt like to go insane. Taking a deep breath, I muttered to myself, "This is old hat for you, Sophie Mae. Buck up. You've been through worse."
The 911 operator sounded ridiculously calm, given the fact that I was reporting a murder. She told me to stay on the line, and she'd send help.
"Sorry. I'll meet them outside," I said.
She didn't like me hanging up, but there wasn't much I could do about that.
I stood in the shade of the giant yellow cedar in front of the coop and placed another call. Thank God, Barr answered his cell phone after two rings.
"I found a murdered woman," I said.
A pause, then, "Could you say that again?"
I took a deep breath. "Ariel Skylark. The one I mentioned at Scott's funeral, the skinny little blonde from CRAG? Well, she's dead. Strangled at the co-op. I've already called 911."
He swore. Loudly. Not at me, of course, but still. Then, "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. I'm out front."
A flurry of voices in the background. "Hang on," he said.
A pause, more voices, and then he spoke into the phone again. "I have to go. Apparently there's a murder I have to look into."
"See you soon," I said.
He was grumbling something unintelligible as he hung up.
It didn't take long before Barr screeched to the curb in front of where I stood. Like a leggy supermodel at a movie premier, Detective Robin Lane swung out of the passenger seat of the patrol car they'd obviously appropriated. Barr erupted from the driver's side, took four long strides and stopped next to me.
"What happened?" he asked.
"I'm fine," I said again. Actually, I still felt a little lightheaded, but that seemed to be passing.
Detective Lane tossed her thick auburn ponytail and moved to stand beside Barr, notebook at the ready. She seemed to be standing a bit too close, but I pushed that thought out of my mind. Whatever her intentions might be, I didn't have to worry about Barr straying. After all, he kept bugging me to move in with him.
A thought flickered across my consciousness: unless that was what he'd wanted to talk to me about and kept putting off. Had he changed his mind? He sure looked mad right now.
"Where is she?" Lane asked.
"Upstairs in the studio area. You know where that is?"
"We'll find it," Barr said.
"Good," I said. "Because I'm not going back in there. Can I sit in your car while you work your detective magic?"
They exchanged glances. "Sure," he said.
So I sat in the front seat and waited. It wasn't that I was afraid of dead people. Heck, Ariel was the second dead person I'd seen that day. And I wasn't afraid of the murderer anymore, not with Barr and Robin there.
But someone had squeezed the life out of her. On purpose. The palpable violence of it took my breath away.
A knock on the window brought me back from my reverie. Ruth Black stood on the sidewalk, peering at me quizzically. I opened the door.
"What on earth is going on, Sophie Mae? No one will tell us."
I got out of the police car and looked around. All the other core members of the co-op were there. Even Chris Popper, changed into jeans and a T-shirt now, questioned me with her eyes.
"It's Ariel," I said. "She's ... well, she's dead."
A group intake of breath at that.
I cleared my throat. "She was strangled."
Stares all around.
"In the co-op. I came early for my spinning lesson with Ruth, and found her."
The stunned silence drew out, until finally Ruth said. "You found her?"
I sighed. "Yes"
That seemed to release them, and the clamor of voices rushed over me like water, drowning me with their shouted questions.
A hand reached through them and grabbed my arm. Robin Lane pulled me away, calling out, "We'll let you know when we have more information."
Inside the co-op, Robin guided me to a corner and gestured toward a rocking chair made out of plum-colored wood.
I shook my head. "Can't sit there. It's for sale. Purple maple. Very expensive. See the sign?"
Lane looked disgusted. "What use is a chair you can't sit on? Okay, come over here." And she led me behind the register counter, where we both perched on stools.
Barr appeared at the top of the stairs. "Robin's going to take your statement."
I nodded my understanding. "There might be a conflict of interest for you, huh."
"Gee, you think?"
"I don't have much information," I said. "I found her is all. I don't know her very well or anything."
He came down the stairs, the heels of his cowboy boots sounding a sharp report on each step. He'd changed out of his dress uniform, and now wore mushroom-colored slacks, a blue shirt, and a string tie from his considerable collection. This one had a copper slide, beaten into the rough outline of a leaf.
Leaning his elbow on the counter, he said, "What is it with you and murder victims?"
"Hey," I said. "It's not like I enjoy it. And come to think of it, I didn't have this problem before I met you."
"No. You met me because you have this problem."
Okay. Technically he was right.
"Are you going to sit in?" Robin asked Barr.
"If you don't mind."
She hesitated, at war with her affinity to play by the book. "Shouldn't be a problem."
"Why aren't we doing this at the station?" I asked.
"There's still a lot to do here, and we thought you might want to leave. But we need some information before sending you on your way," Barr said.
"Okay. Shoot."
"How did you find her?" Robin asked, pen poised to take down my answer.
I told them, and after that there were more questions about when I got there and how long it took before I called 911. We spent quite a bit of time on the open front door, and why I went upstairs in the first place. I explained that I thought an artist must have come in to work and left the door open. Then we moved on to Ariel herself. What did I know about her? Not much. I told them Ruth Black would probably know more. Ariel had always seemed kind of standoffish around me; my gender probably hadn't helped. Ruth seemed to get along with everyone, though.
"Did you see the yarn around her neck?" Lane asked.
"You mean the yarn she was strangled with?"
She nodded.
"Oh, I saw it all right," I said.
"Do you know if it came from here?"
"I know it did."
Lane looked the question at me.
"It was mine. The first two-ply homespun yarn I ever made, and Ruth was going to show me how to set the twist on it this week."
Barr's eyes widened a fraction, but he didn't say a word.
"I'm sorry," I said.
"What exactly are you sorry for?" Robin asked, her tone suddenly hard.
"For being upset about the stupid yarn," I said. "I really liked it, though. Even if it was kind of lumpy and thick and full of slubs, it was the first time I'd created a decent amount of actual yarn on the spinning wheel."
"Did you touch her?"
"Only on the neck, to see if she had a pulse."
Barr looked worried. Lane didn't look very happy with me, either.
"Oh, for heaven's sake, I can't possibly be a suspect," I said, exasperation leaking into my voice. "What should I have done? Assumed she was dead? What if she hadn't been?"
Robin Lane studied me for a long minute. I struggled not to look away or protest my innocence further.
"You didn't like her, did you?" she asked.
I blinked. "Well, we weren't best friends."
I saw her name on those paintings." She indicated Ariel's work.
"Yes. She was an artist." I managed to say it with a straight face.
"Did she paint here?"
I nodded. "In one of the studio spaces upstairs. I believe she did almost all of her work here."
"Was she interested in the yarn and knitting thing?" She couldn't keep her disdain for such homey activities out of her voice.
"Not that I know of."
"Where was your yarn?"
I tried to remember. "Last I saw it was right after Ruth showed me how to unwind it from the bobbin onto the niddy noddy. We tied the hank and hung it over the back of her spinning chair. You'd have to ask her whether she moved it later."
She scribbled in the notebook. "Do you know anyone who might have a motive for killing the victim?"
I stared at her for so long she stopped writing and met my eyes. "You want my opinion about who could have murdered Ariel?"
Her smile was wry. "I'm sure you have one."
"I have no idea." A little triumph in my voice, there.
Lane exhaled. "Okay, that's enough for now. You can go."
"Unless it has something to do with the way men reacted to her," I said. Gawd. I just couldn't help myself. It was embarrassing. "I'd find out who she was dating."
"We'll check into it. Thanks."
"But-"
"Go home, Sophie Mae." Barr's tone held quiet warning.
Fine. I didn't want to be here anyway.
Ruth Black was waiting for me in the parking lot, alone. She fell into step beside me as I walked toward my little Toyota pickup.
"Ariel was strangled," she said without preamble, picking up exactly where Detective Lane had rescued me.
"Yes"
"Do they know who did it?" she asked.
"I don't think so."
"Are you going to try and figure it out?" Beside me, her legs scissored along nearly twice as fast as mine, her steps short and quick like a bird's.
I stopped cold, and she drew up a few paces ahead and turned back.
"Huh uh," I said. "I'm not figuring out anything. This is a police matter, and I happen to know the police in question, and they are quite good at their job. There's no need for me to get involved."
She tipped her head to one side.
"No need at all," I repeated. My hand crept up to my recently shorn head, and I ended by rubbing my neck. The last time I'd tried to "figure it out"-and at Ruth's instigation, I might add-things had gotten a little out of hand in the danger department. "And I'm glad of it, too."
Ruth smiled. "If you say so, dear."
FIVE
As I WALKED INTO our backyard, Meghan was latching the door of the chicken pen behind her. When she saw me, she turned and held up one small, perfect blue-green egg.
"It's still warm," she said.
I took it from her, holding it gently in my palm. "Molly or Emma?"
Two of our hens were Easter egg chickens, and they laid that unusual color. They hadn't been producing long enough for us to be able to recognize who laid what.
"Molly, I think. Erin says her eggs are a little bluer, and Emma's are a little more greenish. Apparently she can tell already."
Erin was Meghan's eleven-year-old daughter. She was at math camp during the day for the next two weeks, practicing up on being a genius, but she had become the resident expert on the individual idiosyncrasies of our laying hens.
Brodie, Erin's old Pembroke Welsh corgi, had taken to sitting outside the chicken pen, guarding them from harm whenever she was gone. Now his fox-like face swung my way, and he gave a low woof in acknowledgement of my presence. But he was on the job, and didn't leave his self-imposed post to receive his usual ear scritchin's.
"How was the funeral?" Meghan asked.
I grimaced. "Good, I guess. If you can characterize a funeral that way." I dreaded telling her about Ariel.
"I think you can." Her gaze took in my casual clothes. "When did you change?"
"I dropped by before going over to CRAG. You were with a client." Like me, Meghan worked at home. Her massage room and a tiny office were tucked into a front corner on the main floor, out of the way of our normal household traffic. She wore her warm-weather working togs: soft cotton knit shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt.
"CRAG. Of course that's where you've been." She stopped herself before adding, "Again."
"I've got some bad news," I said.
She crossed her arms. "What?"
"You know Ariel Skylark?"
"I've met her. Lots of attitude, needs to eat a burger?"
The latter statement was something, coming from Meghan who stood at just five feet and barely tipped the scale to a hundred pounds. Add dark glossy curls, a tiny turned-up nose and cupid lips, and she looked more like a wood sprite than a single mother, former lawyer, and currently much-in-demand massage therapist.
I chewed gently on my lower lip and nodded. "That's her." I took a breath. "She was murdered."
Her gray eyes widened, filled with a combination of kindness, concern, and bewilderment. Consternation flooded her voice. "How did you hear about it?"
I closed my eyes for a moment, shaking my head. "You're not going to believe it."
"Not going to believe what?" Her tone was flat. She had an inkling of what was coming.
"I found her." I opened my eyes to find Meghan had closed hers, and had added the telling gesture of pinching the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger. Meghan may have hated me finding dead bodies even more than I did.
I plunged on. "After the funeral reception I went over to the coop for my spinning lesson with Ruth."
Meghan dropped her hand and rolled her eyes at this further evidence of my recent obsession with fiber.
"Anyway, no one was there when I arrived. The front door was open, and I thought someone was working in the studio and had forgotten to lock it. I went inside, but no one was there. At least not downstairs. Upstairs in the studio spaces, I found Ariel. She was..." The screen my efficient brain had erected fell away, and my mind's eye filled with the image of Ariel Skylark lying on her back, lips blue, tongue slightly protruding. The tangible violence surrounding the scene. I took another deep breath and forced myself to swallow the lump in my throat. "She was strangled, Meghan. Strangled with my yarn."
Startled, she asked, "What do you mean, your yarn?"
"It was the first skein of yarn I'd completed spinning. Just a plain, off-white yarn, full of slubs and kind of weird looking, but I could have made a hat out of it, or something. I mean, I'm not saying a hat is more important than, well, you know, it's just, it was my first skein, and I'd just finished it a couple days ago, and now it's a... " Another dry swallow. "... a murder weapon."
Meghan sank down on the bench by the picnic table. "Sophie Mae?"
"Yeah?"
"Why is it that you, of all people, managed to find Ariel?"
I shrugged. "Just unlucky, I guess."
She sighed.
"What?" I asked.
"You're not going to do anything stupid, are you?"
"What kind of a question is that?"
"Like what you did when Philip Heaven died."
"Ruth said something to that effect, too," I said. "I don't know why everyone thinks I'm going to wade into a murder investigation. Last time cured me of that."
My housemate didn't look convinced. "That'd be a lot easier to believe if I didn't know how much fun you have when you're poking and snooping." "
I do not!"
"Uh-huh"
"No one else was looking into those other deaths, and somebody needed to find out what really happened. But believe me, Barr and Robin are all over this case."
"Okay. Good," she said. "I have two more clients, and then I have to go pick up Erin. Let's not make a big deal about this tonight, okay?"
"Right. I don't think she ever met Ariel, so we can downplay it however much you want." I gave her the egg I'd been holding. "I'm going over to Barr's, make him dinner tonight, so I might be home late anywa
y."
She grinned. "I won't wait up."
Meghan went inside the house. I moved to inspect the squash vines to see if the milk solution I'd applied to the powdery mildew on the leaves had been effective. It looked like it had stopped the unsightly white fungus in its tracks.
Fun? She actually thought I had fun investigating Walter's, and then Philip's deaths? Well, okay. Maybe unraveling a puzzle was ... interesting. At least it wasn't boring. And I was two for two, so I must have been pretty good at it.
Right?
Of course, making Barr dinner came with a not-so-hidden agenda. I was determined to find out what he'd been pussyfooting around for the last few days. His procrastination had no doubt blown the whole thing out of proportion in my mind, and it would probably turn out to be something totally, laughably boring.
At least I hoped so. What's that Chinese curse? May you live in interesting times?
I also wanted to know whether I needed to worry about the fact that my yarn had been the murder weapon. Did Robin actually consider me a suspect?
Barr lived on the edge of town in a small, two-bedroom house, with a spacious yard surrounded by a cedar picket fence. It looked like something right out of a storybook or a song. Blousy antique roses tumbled from the trellis that arched over the front walk, neglected but persistent. Their fragrance, intensified by the warm afternoon sun, curled along the light breeze. On the front porch I inhaled the sweet scent deep into my lungs as I fished in my pocket for my key.
I felt numb, spaced-out, like I'd taken too much cold medicine. The specter of Ariel sprawled on the floor of the co-op haunted the darker recesses of my mind. My subconscious kept dropping a thick veil over my recent experience, making it seem like it had happened months or years ago. Then boom!-I'd remember the whole thing in vivid detail.
My attention veered to the sound of the key chain jangling in my hand. House keys, truck keys, co-op keys, and the key to Barr's house. If this became my home, that last one would be my house key: a painfully obvious yet unsettling thought. I'd continue to rent Meghan's basement as I did now, and work there nearly every day. Barr spent less time on the job than he used to since the addition of a second detective to the force, but he was still gone a lot. Even if I moved, I'd spend almost the same amount of time with Meghan and Erin that I did now.
Spin a Wicked Web: A Home Crafting Mystery Page 3
