by Mary Kruger
“Don’t mind Ari,” Laura put in. “She reads too many mysteries.”
Ari glared at her. “And I might get in trouble if I talk too much.”
“Oh, no, dear. I’m sure this nice young man won’t ask anything that serious.”
That “nice young man” was looking away, but Ari could see a smile lurking on his lips. She nudged Laura, hard, and then turned to Josh. “I’ll answer what I can, if you’ll answer something.”
“Maybe.” He looked wary.
“What time did Edith die?”
He looked at her for a moment, obviously debating about answering her. “Where were you yesterday between five and eight in the morning?”
“Was that your question?” she asked, satisfied that he’d answered her.
“No, actually, though I’d like to know.”
“At home, of course.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Resting his forearms on the counter, Detective Pierce gazed around the shop. “Things look back to normal here.”
“Oh, we’ve been doing very well all day,” Laura said. “Everyone’s wanted to see what they can.”
“Anyone out of the ordinary?”
“Some people who surprised me.”
Ari gritted her teeth. So much for that nudge, though there didn’t seem to be any harm in Laura’s answering that particular question. “Yes, some people who never showed any interest in knitting before,” Ari said. “Is there some reason you ask?”
“You never know,” he said vaguely. “Anyone show any interest in what happened?”
“Everyone did.” Ari looked up suddenly. “Do you mean any particular interest?”
“You don’t think the murderer came here today, do you?” Laura asked.
“You never know,” he said again, shrugging.
“So they do return to the scene of the crime?”
“Laura,” Ari said, though her admonition was automatic.
“Oh, it’s all right, Ari, I just said we read mysteries.” She beamed at Pierce. “Which is where we get our ideas, of course. Do criminals return to the scene of the crime?”
Still smiling blandly, he shrugged. “What’s been puzzling me is how whoever killed Perry—Mrs. Perry—got in.”
“That’s why you suspect me,” Ari said, before Laura could.
“Now, Ari, what a thing to say,” Laura chided her.
He nodded, the smile gone from his face. “There was no sign of tampering with the locks, front door or back. Seems to me someone would have had to have a key.”
Ari nodded reluctantly. “I know. I’ve thought of that.”
“Have you thought of anyone else who might have one?”
“Of course I’ve thought of it, but there are only the people I’ve told you about.”
“Ari, dear,” Laura said.
Ari wanted to close her eyes. Now what? “What?”
“How do you think I got in here the other morning?”
“What?” Ari stared at her. “You don’t mean…”
“Yes, dear.” Laura nodded. “I have a key.”
three
“YOU HAVE A KEY?” Josh said sharply, abandoning his pretense of casualness.
“Since when?” Ariadne said at the same time.
“Since the beginning, dear. After all, I’m your partner.”
“No, you’re not.”
Josh wondered if Ariadne were grinding her teeth, her jaw was clenched so tightly. “I thought you weren’t actually employed here, Mrs. Sheehan.”
Ariadne barely glanced at him. “Laura loaned me money to open the shop. Who else?” she demanded, staring at her aunt.
“Let’s see,” Laura said calmly, as if she were unaware of the tension in the shop. “Ariadne, her employee Summer, and her mother, Eileen, as she said.” She counted them on her fingers. “Ted.”
“Ted!”
“Ted.” Another finger. “Diane—”
“Why Ted?” Ariadne demanded. “And, for God’s sake, why Diane?”
“Well, dear, your mother thought it would be a good idea for Ted to have a key. Just in case, you know. Then he gave me one.”
“Why?”
“I asked.”
Ariadne groaned. “So you could get in whenever you wanted.”
Laura’s eyes were flinty, changing her from dotty to formidable. “Do you think I killed Edith?”
“Of course I don’t.” Ariadne rested her head on her hands. “I didn’t mean that the way it came out. But I do know that you think of this place as a playground sometimes.”
“Well, of course, dear. Didn’t I teach you how to knit?”
“Yes, so I could make padded coat hangers for you.”
Laura nodded. “True. I will admit, there have been times I’ve wanted to come in to straighten the bins, or rearrange the samples. I don’t think, for example, that the Aran sweater over there is shown to advantage. But I never have done so, dear.”
Ariadne sighed. “No, I know. I also don’t think she came in with Edith the other morning,” she said to Josh.
He nodded noncommittally. “Mrs. Sheehan, you say that Ted Evans has a key?”
“Yes. Now, Ariadne, don’t look at me that way. It was your mother’s idea, after all. You know how she feels about you running a business.”
“Yes, but—”
“How does she feel about it?” Josh interrupted her, though he usually preferred to allow people who were involved in a case to talk freely. He often got more information than they realized.
“She thinks I’ll fail,” Ariadne said, giving him an annoyed look, as if she thought he agreed. “Why she thought giving Ted a key was a good idea, I don’t know. And Diane.” She rounded on her aunt. “Why her?”
“Well, dear, she is your friend.”
“I don’t have a key to her house,” Ariadne retorted, “just because she spins yarn for me.”
“Does she?” Josh said, keeping his voice neutral.
“Yes. Her yarn is popular. People like the homespun—oh.”
Ariadne’s look of horror gave Josh the clue. “Was it her yarn that was used?”
“Yes,” Ariadne said reluctantly. “Oh, but you can’t think she had anything to do with it! Diane would never abuse her yarn in that way.”
“No, especially not the purple heather,” Laura put in. “She was proud of that.”
Josh scratched behind his ear and looked away, bemused. They talked about yarn as if it were alive, and ran the shop with single-minded devotion. As he’d said earlier, that seemed to him reason enough to doubt Ariadne’s guilt. Now, though, he wondered. If for some reason something threatened her precious shop, how would Ariadne react?
One thing was definite: He didn’t know enough about any of the people involved. Being a newcomer to the town was a disadvantage. Only his instincts told him that he might have good reason not to suspect Ariadne. What he needed to do was a lot more investigating. “Where does your friend Diane…”
“Camacho,” Ariadne filled in for him.
“Thanks. Where does she live?”
“She and her husband have a dairy farm out on Acushnet Road. She has sheep, as well.”
“Near Drift Road?” he said, as casually as he could.
“Yes.” Ariadne looked at him sharply. “Why do you ask?”
“I’m not familiar enough with the town yet.” He straightened. “Is there anyone in your family who doesn’t have a key?”
“I don’t know,” she said, sounding exasperated. “Maybe Megan.”
“Megan?”
“My daughter. And no, I’m not serious. The most she has to do with my keys is find them when I lose them.”
His attention sharpened. “Any time in particular?”
She looked startled. “I don’t know. Everyone loses keys now and then.”
“There was that time a few months ago when you couldn’t find them for a couple of days,” Laura reminded her.
“That’s right. I’d forgotten.”
“When was this?” Josh asked.
“I don’t know. June? July? Sometime around then. Megan, by the way, is only seven.”
“Where did the keys show up?”
“In the house somewhere. Actually, I think in my pocketbook.” She laughed a little sheepishly. “It wasn’t the first place I looked.”
“Could someone have used them in that time?”
“What?” Ariadne looked startled. “Oh, no, I doubt it. I don’t carry my bag all the time. When I walk to work, I have my keys in my pocket.”
“You did have to use your mother’s key to get in,” Laura said. “Isn’t it just as well I have an extra one?”
Ariadne shot her a look. “Yes, isn’t it.”
“Could someone have taken your keys without you knowing?” Josh asked.
“I doubt it.” Ariadne frowned. “At least, I don’t think so. Lord.” She stared at him. “Are you thinking that’s how someone got in?”
“Too soon to tell yet.” He rotated his shoulders. The case was only just beginning, and already he felt tension in his back. “If you find out anything, call me.”
“Yes,” Ariadne said as she walked him to the door. “But I really don’t think I’ll remember anything more from that far back.”
“Good enough,” he said, and, after Ariadne had unlocked the door, went out.
From inside the store Ari watched the detective walk away. Several of her customers stood outside. Though one or two of them signaled that they wanted to come in, Ariadne shook her head, pulled the shade on the door, and turned away. The last thing she wanted to deal with now was people’s curiosity.
“I’m sorry about the key,” Laura said quietly as Ari walked back to the counter.
“What? Oh, that. It’s really not that bad an idea. I just wish I’d known.” She set her elbows on the counter and rested her chin squarely on her hands. “I’m up to my neck in it, aren’t I?”
“At least he’s good-looking.”
“That’s beside the point.”
“A good-looking man is never beside the point.”
Ari smiled unwillingly. “He is if he’s trying to put you in prison. All those keys.” She put her fingers to her eyes. “All my friends and family for him to suspect.”
“Unless someone did take your keys when you missed them.”
“No. They were at home, where I left them. I had a senior moment, that’s all.” She frowned. “Diane has a key.”
Laura’s face was troubled. “He mentioned Drift Road.”
“I know.”
“If he doesn’t already know, he will soon.”
“I know,” Ari repeated, and reached for the phone. “I’d better warn her.”
“You need to tell Ted, too.”
Ari set the receiver down. “Oh, Lord, I suppose I do. Thank God.” She shuddered. “I had the lock changed first thing this morning. I hate the idea of someone out there with a key who could get in at any time.”
“Whoever it is, is probably done with it.”
“I hope so.” She picked up the phone again. The shock of finding Edith’s body was beginning to wear off, and she was thinking clearly again. She didn’t know why Edith had been killed, or by whom. All she knew was that people close to her were being threatened, and so was her livelihood, her long-cherished dream. She wasn’t going to let that continue. It was just another job to Detective Pierce, but it was her life. She couldn’t trust anyone else with it. Someone had to find out what was going on. Why not she herself? She probably knew enough about investigating from her reading to try it. And putting together clues would likely be—well, like putting the pieces of a new pattern together.
She smiled grimly at the thought as she dialed Diane’s number at last. She’d untangle the clues, she thought, and then she’d knit them together properly.
Ari slammed her keys onto the counter just inside the entrance from the mudroom of her house, looked at them in distaste for a moment, and then walked into the kitchen, shrugging off her sweater. That counter inevitably became the repository of various items, from keys to mail to notepads and pens. The room beyond it was spacious and neat, however. It was lightened by white walls, while the light pine cabinets and deep red countertops gave it warmth. When Ari and Ted had moved back to Freeport, they hadn’t planned to buy a huge white Greek Revival house built in the mid-1800s. The rooms were small, the clapboarding needed frequent and expensive painting, and only the kitchen and bathrooms had been modernized. Altogether it was an inconvenient house, and she loved it.
Ari had made one change, knocking down the wall between the kitchen and an adjoining room to form a nook where her drafting table and stool stood. At the moment Megan, her seven-year-old daughter, was sitting at it, drawing.
“Hey, kiddo,” she said. “What are you doing using my markers?”
“Hi, Mom.” Megan looked up. “Want to see my drawing?”
“Yes, let me see.” She crossed the room and picked up the drawing of several improbably colored mermaids swimming in a sea populated by equally colorful fish, plants, and shells. Ari’s expensive markers lay scattered on the table. At least Megan had inherited her artistic skills, Ari thought, even if she tolerated yarn only because of its many variations of color. “I like it,” she said, automatically putting the markers back in their holder. “The eyelashes on the mermaids are new.”
“I figured them out,” Megan said proudly.
“Good for you.” Ari bent to kiss her daughter’s head. “I suppose you left the covers off your markers again.”
Megan again bent to her drawing. “Sorry, Mom.”
“How many times do I have to tell you…” Ari began, and then stopped herself. That age-old motherly reproach never worked. “Did Nana say she’d buy you more?”
“Uh-uh. But she said she’d take me to the Dollar Tree so I can buy another box myself.”
“Ariadne?” a voice called from the other room.
“Yes, Mom,” Ari called back. “I just got in.”
“I thought I heard the door.” Eileen Jorgensen walked in through the family room, worry lines etched between her brows and her hands clutched together. Eileen, tall and spare in her classic shirtwaist dress, always looked like a nervous wreck. Yet she ruled her high school literature classes with a will of iron. “Was it very bad today?”
“No, we actually did pretty well.” Ari looked into the freezer and frowned. “I don’t know what we’re going to have for supper.”
“Pizza!” Megan chipped in.
“I should have defrosted the hamburger today.” She shut the freezer door. “I guess my mind was on other things.”
Eileen sat at the counter. “Have you heard anything more about Edith?”
“No.” She’d already decided not to say anything about the problem of the keys, or about Diane’s possible involvement. Her mother worried enough as it was.
“I heard that detective came by today.”
Ari opened the refrigerator, hesitated for a moment, and then pulled out a half-empty bottle of wine and poured herself a glass. “Where did you hear that?”
“I met Mrs. Taylor at Shaw’s.”
“I should have known.” She sat across the counter from her mother, idly turning her wineglass by its stem. “Mom, what do you know about Edith?”
“Probably what everyone knows. Why?”
“What do you know about her husband, or Eric?”
“Her son? Why?”
“I wish you’d just answer my questions for once. We all know she had money,” she went on, before Eileen could protest. “Do you have any idea who gets it?”
“Eric is in town, you know.”
“Is he? Of course, he would be. I haven’t seen him.”
“I haven’t either, and I haven’t seen Herbert since it happened,” she said, referring to Edith’s widower.
“I guess I can’t blame them for keeping a low profile.” Again she went to the refrigerator, this time to take out some cheese, then she arranged it on a plate with some crackers.
Megan, briefly distracted from her drawing, jumped down, took a slice, and then returned to the drafting table. “Mr. Perry must be a suspect, too.” If money were involved, he’d have had more motive than anyone. The problem was, how could he have possibly gotten into her shop? And why? “If anyplace, I’d think if he did it, he’d have left her body at Town Hall.”
Eileen laughed unexpectedly. “Just the place for her,” she agreed, “since she practically lived there.”
“Will he inherit, do you know?”
“Probably.” Eileen sliced a piece of cheese and put it on a water cracker. “She cut Eric out years ago.”
“Yes, I know.” Ari frowned. “I wonder if Mr. Perry will go ahead with the Drift Road project.”
“I don’t see why not. He’ll make more money doing that than leaving the land empty.”
“More McMansions,” Ari said gloomily.
“I’d be more concerned about his buying your building.”
“Believe me, I am.” She propped her chin on her hand. “Mom, did he and Edith get along okay?”
“So far as I know. Though whoever knew with Edith.”
“Is that the lady who was in your shop?” Megan asked unexpectedly.
Ari turned to look at her. “How do you know that?”
“Jacob was talking about it in school today.”
She sighed. It was too much to hope that Megan wouldn’t hear something. “Yes, she was. Don’t worry about it, Meg.”
“I’m not,” Megan said, and returned to her drawing.
Ari watched her for a minute and then turned back to see her mother watching her, those lines of worry deep again. “What?”
“Why are you asking about Edith?”
“All things considered, Mom, why shouldn’t I?”
“You really should leave these things to Ted.”
“Ted is a tax attorney.”
“He called today, by the way. He’s found someone to represent you, just in case.
Ari looked down at her glass, both annoyed and apprehensive. Annoyed because Ted was being high-handed as usual, apprehensive because he had good reason to be. “I suppose he had to. Megan?”
“What?” Megan said after a moment.
“Do you remember when I lost my keys?”
“No.”
