Wondering what had happened in Malcolm’s life to start him on that downward path, Kelly made a mental note to ask Jayleen what she knew of Malcolm’s earlier years.
Hal Nelson stepped outside the structure, carrying another piece of board he’d obviously removed. “Hey, there, Kelly. You going over for another coffee break?” he greeted her.
“You got it, Mr. Nelson. I need caffeine to keep the numbers straight on those spreadsheets.”
“Now I know why I don’t miss that work anymore,” Malcolm said with a little smile.
“You can call me Hal, Kelly,” he said good-naturedly as he walked over to the truck and tossed the piece of wood inside.
“Rotted wood?” Kelly pointed to the truck. “Is there a lot inside?”
“There’s enough. It’s the support beams that will be the real problem. We’re gonna have to replace most of them. Aren’t we, Malcolm?”
“Yes, sir. Several of the ones I checked so far today are rotted.”
Remembering to check her watch, Kelly turned toward the knitting shop entrance. “Well, I’ll leave you gentlemen to the rotted wood, and I’ll return to my spreadsheets. I’ll check in with you again. Oh, my boyfriend Steve Townsend is coming into town tonight, so I bet he’ll stop by as well. Builders can’t resist.”
Nelson smiled. “You tell Steve to drop by anytime. I’ve worked with Steve on a couple of his projects over the years. He’s a good guy and a damn good builder, too. I’m really glad to hear he’s done well in Denver. Maybe he’ll be able to start up here in Fort Connor again once this recession lets go of us.”
“I’ll tell him, Hal. Meanwhile, you two have fun with the rotted wood. I’ll play with the numbers,” Kelly said with a smile, and she headed for the back door of the café. There was just enough time to grab a quick shot of caffeine before she relaxed with the spinners.
* * *
“That’s it, nice and easy,” Madge said as she watched a young woman slowly ease the drafted wool through her fingers and onto the turning wheel. “Find a rhythm with your feet, nice and easy, that’s it.”
Madge stood beside the beginning spinner, not hovering, but close enough to help if an extra hand was needed.
Kelly watched the young spinner’s face. She had an expression of intense concentration. That seemed typical for most beginning spinners, Kelly had observed over the four years she’d been visiting Lambspun. The spinners’ craft had always attracted Kelly. She loved sitting with them while she knitted or worked on her client accounts. She found it soothing and relaxing, almost as if the atmosphere around the spinners was peaceful. She wasn’t sure whether the spinners created that peacefulness with their ancient craft or gravitated to it like she did. Kelly had found the same peaceful feeling while knitting quietly by herself at the shop—that relaxed state where ideas seemed to pop into her head more quickly and easily. “Knitting meditation,” someone had once called it.
The relaxation she experienced sitting with the spinners was also conducive to getting her work done. Kelly found that even the numbers on her spreadsheets seemed to be more ordered, and fewer errors appeared. Strange, Kelly had often thought. But she didn’t have to understand why it occurred; she was simply glad it did. Cooperative numbers were always easier to work with.
“That’s good,” Madge encouraged again. “You’re doing good, dear.” She sat down in her chair in front of the five spinners and started drafting more of the wool fleece from the plastic bag, turning it into “batten” or “roving,” as spinners called it.
Kelly watched Madge do what she’d seen Burt do countless times—take a handful of cleaned and carded fleece and stretch it between both hands, gently pulling the fibers apart, just enough to make the fleece easier to slide between his fingers and join with the yarn twist that was already wound around the wheel. Feeding the drafted yarn onto the wheel so that it wound around and around and onto the spindle. The spindle fattened as the wheel turned and more yarn wound onto it. Fatter and fatter as the wheel turned.
“Did any of you see that article in the paper this morning?” asked another spinner. A more experienced spinner, Kelly surmised, watching her rhythmic movements, feet and fingers working together, batten sliding smoothly between her fingers and onto the hungry wheel. “This guy’s in town to teach a financial seminar or something. But the paper said that he’d been in prison for financial fraud.”
“Oh, yes, I saw that article,” a gray-haired older woman spoke up, her movements a bit more hesitant than the other woman. Still, the spindle on her wheel was fattening with Madge’s prize-winning gray wool. “He’s the thief who cheated all those people out of their money years ago. What was his name?”
“Rizzoli,” Barbara spoke up from her chair along the wall where she sat knitting a lime green shell.
“Rizzoli, that’s it,” the gray-haired woman said. “Now I remember. He ran an investment firm and he cheated all his clients out of their money.”
“Oh, I remember that,” a middle-aged woman beside Barbara commented. “He was convicted and sent to prison if I’m not mistaken.”
Kelly looked up over her laptop screen, drawn to the conversation. “What was this? Who’s this Rizzoli guy and what did he do?”
“Rizzoli was an investment advisor who worked with several financial agencies and banks around town. He handled all sorts of securities and had lots of clients. No one suspected he was also running a Ponzi scheme until people began losing money.”
“It was terrible. I remember one of the women in my church lost her life savings! She had to sell her house here and go live with her children in Kansas.”
“Lots of people lost money,” the middle-aged woman added, the gray wool sliding through her fingers faster than some others.
“Many people lost more than that,” Madge’s soft voice spoke.
Kelly glanced to Barbara’s mother, sitting quietly, drafting the gray wool fleece in her lap. Curious, Kelly asked, “What do you mean, Madge?”
Barbara’s firm voice spoke up instead. There was an edge to it, Kelly noticed. “My mother means that some of us lost more than money. We lost cherished loved ones. My father killed himself when he learned his clients’ investments were wiped out. He’d trusted Jared Rizzoli. And Rizzoli had cheated them.”
Kelly stared at Barbara, appalled by what she’d heard. Barbara’s strong features had hardened, as if chiseled in stone. Resentment and anger were etched into her face. Kelly glanced around her and noticed the other spinners sat and stared as well. Even the wheels stopped turning.
“Good Lord, Barbara . . . that’s awful,” Kelly spoke at last. “I’m so very sorry.”
The other women added their soft commiseration. Then Madge’s soft voice sounded. “Others lost loved ones as well. It was a long time ago. Over ten years.”
“Twelve, to be exact,” Barbara’s hard voice came.
Everyone was quiet, Kelly noticed; then, one by one, the wheels began to turn until their gentle hum was the only sound in the room.
Four
Kelly shifted her briefcase over her shoulder as she held the cell phone to her ear. “I just e-mailed the draft of May’s revenues and expenses to you, Don. Only two more working days left in May, so most of those numbers will stay firm,” Kelly said into her phone as she walked across the driveway heading to Lambspun. Spotting Malcolm working beside the storage building, Kelly returned his wave.
“Oh, yeah, I see your e-mail now,” her client Don Warner said. “Excellent.”
“I’ll finish up on the thirty-first and send the final statements then. Meanwhile, don’t make any plans based on the draft, okay?” Kelly warned as she sped up the wide brick steps to the knitting shop, pausing right outside the door.
Warner chuckled. “Don’t worry, Kelly. I know how you hate to send drafts, so I promise to be good. Listen, my other line is ringing. Gotta go. Talk to you later.”
Kelly clicked off her phone and shoved it into her pocket, about to open the front door
, when she spied a familiar truck turn down the driveway. She spotted the blond woman driving and recognized her friend Jayleen Swinson.
Kelly watched as Colorado cowgirl Jayleen stepped down from the truck and approached Hal Nelson and Malcolm, exchanging greetings. Jayleen glanced Kelly’s way and waved toward her. “Hey, Kelly,” Jayleen called out.
Kelly gave her friend a thumbs-up sign before she heaved open the heavy front door to the knitting shop and stepped inside. Hopefully she could settle at the knitting table and start her account work. Kelly had spent practically all day working at the shop yesterday, and planned to be here again today. That way she could be close at hand in case Jennifer needed her to run an errand. And she’d be close by whenever Pete called with an update on Grandpa Ben’s condition.
The only time Kelly had seen someone close to her hospitalized was years ago when her dear father was dying from lung cancer. Both Uncle Jim and Aunt Helen had died while she was back East, working at a Washington, DC, corporate accounting firm. Although Pete’s grandfather was a stranger to her, Kelly felt connected because Jen and Pete were dear friends. She recognized the worry and anxiety she saw on Jennifer’s face. Kelly remembered how that felt, and how alone she’d felt. She didn’t have a close network of friends back in Washington, not like she did here in Colorado. She wanted to be able to support her friends any way she could.
Trailing her fingers across some of the tempting yarns, Kelly headed for the main room and set her briefcase on the long library table that dominated the room. Floor-to-ceiling shelves lined one wall and were filled with magazines and books dealing with fiber in all its forms and all the ways it could be used—knitting, crochet, spinning, weaving, felting, dyeing, all manner of manipulation. Both walls surrounding the archway entrance to the room were lined with wooden bins, stacked with yarns, yarns, and more yarns. Sometimes Kelly felt overwhelmed by it all. There was so much she didn’t know. But the comforting thought was that Mimi knew everything about all things fiber.
Kelly pulled out her coffee mug and was about to head to the café for a refill when she noticed Megan walking toward the knitting table, Jennifer in tow. Literally in tow. Megan had her hand around Jennifer’s arm, guiding her toward the table. Kelly stepped aside. She wasn’t about to get in the way of Megan on a Mission.
“See, Kelly’s here. This is a perfect time for you to take a break,” Megan declared, releasing Jennifer’s arm before she pulled out a chair.
“I see Megan decided you needed the break,” Kelly said, smiling at her friends.
Jennifer looked over at Kelly and rolled her eyes. “I was going to come over in a few minutes, but Megan had other ideas.”
Megan pulled out a chair for Jennifer to sit. “I’ve been knitting in the café, waiting for you to take a break for nearly an hour. If I hadn’t dragged you out, you’d never have left.” Megan plopped two knitting bags onto the table and sat in the chair beside her. “I brought your bag, too.”
Kelly pulled out a chair and joined her friends. “Megan did you a favor, Jen. I know how easy it is to get so caught up in work that you forget about yourself. I recognize it because I do it, too.” She pulled her laptop from her briefcase. “Eduardo and Julie and Frank can spare you for ten minutes.”
“Fifteen,” Megan decreed, pulling out a royal blue yarn from Jennifer’s bag. It looked like a top that was halfway finished.
“All right, all right,” Jennifer said, picking up the yarn on her knitting needles and giving it a shake. Now it looked to Kelly like a lacy-patterned sleeveless top was being created.
Kelly slid her laptop computer several inches away and reached into another pocket of her briefcase, withdrawing the small circular needles with the beginnings of the yellow and white baby hat she’d started.
“Have you heard anything from Pete?” she asked Jennifer. “You said he was going over to the hospital after he took Cassie to school.”
“Yes, he called about twenty minutes ago—”
Megan turned to her with a shocked expression. “You didn’t tell me that!”
Jennifer gave Megan a long-suffering look. “I was about to, Miss Bossy, when you grabbed my arm and dragged me out of the café.”
“I did it for your own good,” Megan said, in her familiar self-righteous tone, fingers moving at their usual warp speed. Kelly never could understand how someone could knit that fast and be that accurate. Amazing.
“What did Pete say, Jen?” Kelly asked, putting her concentration on her friend rather than the yarn in her lap.
Jennifer’s bantering expression changed to a more somber look. “He said it really shook him up to see Ben this morning. Ben’s still not conscious because he’s taking so many painkillers following surgery. Plus, he’s hooked up to all sorts of machines keeping track of everything. Pete said it really sank in how serious Ben’s condition is. I could tell just from Pete’s voice how worried he is.”
“Oh, Jen, I’m so sorry,” Megan said.
Kelly stared at her friend. “What did the doctor say?”
“The doctor explained why Ben’s hooked up to all of the machines. His condition is very serious. Ben has been so weakened by the heart attack that it’s going to take a long time for him to recover.”
“Wow, that sounds like he’s going to be in the hospital quite a while,” Megan said. “How long will Pete stay in Denver?”
Jennifer let her knitting settle into her lap as she stared off. “I don’t know. We haven’t had a chance to talk about it yet. But he can’t stay there indefinitely. We’ll need him back here at the café. Frank said he could work for two weeks max. That’s all. He’s got a conflict on dates.”
Kelly could feel Jennifer’s worry coming across, so she reached over to give her friend’s arm a squeeze. “I’m sure Pete will be coming back soon, Jen.”
“What about his niece, Cassie?” Megan said. “She can’t be left down in Denver all by herself. Do you think Pete’s sister will be able to stay with her?”
Kelly was going to follow up on that comment when Jayleen strode into the room. “Hello, there, gals. It’s good to see you,” she cheerfully announced, then grabbed a chair and spun it around backward so she could sit. “How’s Pete’s grandfather, Jennifer? I heard from Rosa what happened.”
“Not good,” Jennifer answered.
“I’m going to have to run, guys,” Megan said, shoving her blue knit top and needles back into her bag. “Jen, keep me posted, okay? Why don’t you join us tonight over at Kelly and Steve’s house. You need to relax with friends, not sit home alone and worry.”
“That’s a great idea,” Kelly said. “Don’t worry about dinner. We’re ordering Indian food. You’ll probably know more from Pete by then, so you could tell us all at the same time.”
“Gotta run,” Megan said, waving at everyone as she hurried out.
“How bad is Pete’s grandfather’s condition?” Jayleen probed.
“Five arteries were clogged, so the surgery was pretty intensive,” Jennifer said, starting to put away her own knitting. “The doctor told Pete that Ben would need a long time to recover. Months, he said.”
Jayleen screwed up her face. “Damn. That’s gonna be hard on you folks. Didn’t Pete say he has a niece in Denver? What’s going to happen with her? Are there any other relatives in Denver she could stay with?”
Jennifer shook her head. “Nobody that Pete or Ben would trust. Listen, I’d better get back to the café.” She rose from her chair. “But I think I will stop by at your house tonight, Kelly. It’ll be good to be with all of you. I don’t feel like being alone.”
“That sounds like a good idea,” Jayleen said with a big grin. “Better to be with friends at times like these.”
“Come on over as soon as you’re free, Jen,” Kelly said.
“Thanks, Kelly. Good to see you, Jayleen. Talk to you later,” Jen said with a smile and walked away through the central yarn room.
“My, oh, my, are we all glad Jennifer and Pete have
each other. Hard times are easier to bear when you’re not alone,” Jayleen said, shaking her head full of blond curls. Silver was darting through the blond hair now.
“That’s for sure. By the way, I saw you talking with Hal Nelson and Malcolm outside. It looks like they’re making good progress on that old garage. Malcolm says there’s a lot of rotted beams.”
“Yeah, there sure are. Hal showed me what they were dealing with. They’re gonna have to replace a lot of those support beams. You don’t want to have the roof cave in on one of those spinning classes.”
“You know, it took me a few minutes, but I finally realized where I’d seen Malcolm before,” Kelly said. “I was surprised that he remembered me.”
“Sure, he does. Malcolm didn’t think he’d done much, but Jerry over at the shelter and I made sure we kept heaping the praise on him for stepping up. He really made a difference.” Jayleen smiled. “Malcolm’s a good guy, and I’m proud of the progress he’s made. You’d already met Malcolm over at the Mission, so you knew he was in our counseling program and has been coming with me to AA. It’s been over a year now.”
“It looks like he and Nelson work well together. I made sure I told Nelson how important Malcolm had been in that investigation. Without his help, the killer would have gotten away with murder,” Kelly added with a smile.
Jayleen grinned. “That was mighty good of you, Kelly-girl. That really helped boost Malcolm’s self-confidence—you can bet on it.”
“You know, I’m curious about something, Jayleen,” Kelly said, remembering her conversation with Malcolm the previous day. “When I was talking with Malcolm yesterday, I mentioned that I had to work with numbers all the time since I was an accountant. And Malcolm said that years ago he used to work at a financial office here in the city. Then he kind of gazed off and didn’t say any more. I wondered if he’d ever mentioned that to you or Jerry over at the Mission.”
Jayleen nodded. “Oh, yes. Malcolm’s got quite a story. Seems he worked for one of the many financial firms in town that went belly-up when that crook’s Ponzi scheme went bust. Malcolm lost everything when his company went bankrupt. His job, all his savings, which he’d invested with them of course, even his home. Couldn’t make the payments on that pricey real estate once the paychecks stopped coming in. Hell, even Malcolm’s wife left him. Walked out and took whatever she could find. Poor devil. That’s what started Malcolm on that dark road that leads only one way . . . down.” Jayleen gestured.
Close Knit Killer Page 4
