by Linnea West
I stood up and walked back to my room. I wrapped the ring up in a tissue and hid it underneath the socks in the middle drawer of my dresser. It would need to be dealt with later, but for now I just could not deal with another clue that just added more confusion to the case. I especially could not deal with it up here, by myself, in the dark.
Slamming the dresser drawer shut, I scurried back down the hallway and towards the sanctuary of downstairs. I wasn't sure what to think about being back with everyone else. It meant that I was safe and unsafe all at once as I still didn't know who did it. I just hoped the police would be here soon to help me.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The living room was quietly bustling once again, but it all felt so suspicious to me now. I almost felt like I couldn't rule anyone out. What if there as something I was missing? What if someone I had ruled out had some sort of secret connection to Jake and a motive to kill him? I felt totally lost and I wondered if I was just incompetent. I've solved things before, so I've never doubted my powers of deduction. But now I just can't quite keep it all together.
The chair in the library corner where I sat was secluded and felt just right for this moment in time where I needed to pull myself together. This time, Mandy took one look at me and knew that I wanted space, so she gave me a small smile and sat on the floor in front of the fireplace instead.
Anna was sitting near Mandy on the floor, warming herself up. I watched her and wondered if maybe she was the killer. Who else would have taken Jake's wedding ring off of his body, especially one inscribed with such a personal message.
Dawn's voice started ringing through my head. She had accused me of being blind to the fact that Anna was the killer because I was also a young widow. Was she right? Was I looking past obvious facts because I identified with the position that Anna was now in? I ran through the clues in my head. The wedding ring would be an obvious thing for Anna to take. She also had taken too long to find Jake's medication. But the fish sauce bottle had still been found in Lyle's room.
Anna was sitting on the floor and even though she was surrounded by people, she wasn't interacting with anyone. My heart went out to her because I really did identify with her. The widow club is a club that no one ever wants to join but once you are in, you feel so deeply for anyone else in the club. And I had a hard time imagining that Anna not only killed Jake, but could also act so distraught over his loss that it would pull the wool over my eyes.
Everyone else was acting fairly normal, although they were a bit leery of the fact that I had asked Lyle, Claudia, and Tank to join us back in the living room. There was just enough of a cloud of suspicion over other people that I couldn't justify making him stay separate from us. Plus, we had Tank here. If Lyle tried anything, Tank would be able to subdue him.
As I watched the two older couples finish another puzzle at the table and various people slowly leaf through their books as they read, I made a decision to just quit investigating. That was it. I was just going to be done looking into it. All it was doing was dredging up hurtful memories of Peter and making me lose sleep. Besides, the police would be here soon enough and they could take it off of my hands.
Until then, I decided, I would read a book. I needed something to take my mind off of this situation. I reached back and grabbed a book without looking at the title. A surprise of a different variety would be nice.
Instead, I was greeted with a detective novel, which was just the universe's way of mocking me. I groaned quietly and dropped the book on the floor. I ventured to the coffee table avoiding everyone's glances, and blindly grabbed a handful of magazines from on top.
Plopping back into my armchair, I realized I had grabbed a thrilling array of titles including Birds Monthly, Minnesota Wildlife, and Leisurely Golf Lifestyle. I closed my eyes and selected one at random.
As I leafed through and learned more about Minnesota nature and animals than I ever thought I would know, I felt myself dozing off again. I wasn't the only one. My father was asleep in his arm chair and both Dave and Joe looked like if they were anywhere more comfortable than the folding chairs they were currently sitting on to dismantle the puzzle, they would be asleep also.
I glanced at the clock on the mantle, which was an old clock that had to be wound and therefore was the only clock still working in the living room. It said that it was only mid-afternoon. It was that time of day where it was too early to eat dinner, but also a bit too late to have a snack just in case the snack would be too big and spoil your dinner. Unfortunately that meant there wasn't any cooking I could do to distract myself.
I usually prided myself as being someone with a rich inner life who was never actually bored. But swearing off investigating this murder must have meant that the me that existed in my rich inner life was upset. My mind kept drifting back to the clues that didn't fit together. No matter how I tried to think about other things or play games with myself, it was just those darn clues that kept floating back in.
There were actually a few articles in the magazines I had chosen that were somewhat interesting. They held my attention enough that I was able ignore the fact that Candy was in some sort of slow chase with Clark around the living room.
Every time Clark would choose a place to sit down, Candy would appear next to him and try to practically sit on top of him. Clark would shift or move casually to another spot and soon enough, Candy would appear soon after. It was a bit comical for me to watch.
At first, it only happened every few minutes, but I could see Clark getting more and more upset about it. I watched over the top of my magazine as he finally got so sick of it that he started walking laps around the living room and when that didn't stop her from following him, he came up with an even better plan.
As I watched, he noticed that Anna and Mandy were sitting on the floor in front of the fireplace with just a small space between them. On his next lap around the living room, he suddenly plopped down and wedged himself in between the two women.
Poor Anna didn't even seem to notice what was happening, but Mandy had also been watching this entire escapade and once Clark was next to her, Mandy actually moved even closer to him so that Candy would have nowhere to go.
Candy stopped in her tracks, contemplating her next move. I looked around the living room to see that by now, everyone was surreptitiously watching her. Dawn was doing the worst job of it, barely covering her snickering sneer with her hand as she openly watched the spectacle.
Once Candy realized that no matter what she did, there was no way she was going to be able to squeeze in, she stomped back to the couch where she sat with her arms crossed and the biggest stink face I've ever seen an adult wear.
At first, I felt bad about Anna getting roped into this ridiculous game of cat and mouse, but when I looked at her I could see just the faintest glimmer of a grin on her face and realized that even though she was pretending not to notice what was going on, she was a willing participant.
It felt good to see her smile, even though I was having some doubts about her grief. I felt terrible questioning whether or not her grief was genuine. I felt like I would rather believe she was grieving and be wrong rather than assume it was fake and find out she wasn't the killer and her grief was real.
All I could think about was how hurtful it would be if someone had questioned my grief. Of course, Peter was killed in a car accident whereas Jake was murdered and we still didn't know who did it. Those situations were so vastly different that I couldn't really compare myself to Anna.
I noticed that I kept circling around to myself. Maybe Dawn was right. Maybe I was making this all about myself without even realizing it.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I finished all of the magazines I could find on the coffee table, really wishing that those trashy magazines I had seen upstairs would have been here instead. As much as I love reading about birds, I would have enjoyed reading celebrity gossip just a bit more.
The clock over the fireplace was slowly, slowly marching towar
ds dinnertime but it was still too early to think about the food. Time felt like it was going so slowly that I might be stuck in a time loop. The only indication that I wasn't stuck in a time loop was the fact that the clock had been slowly moving.
I was bored of sitting so I stood up and strolled towards the picture window. So far the storm had been raging so hard that we couldn't even see the bird feeders that sat just a few yards outside of the living room. But when I walked up to the window, I could just barely make them out.
"Hey, I think the snow might be dying down," I called out to no one in particular.
Everyone rushed to the window like a bunch of school kids watching the first snowflakes of winter. We all squeezed together to try and determine if the storm was stopping or if maybe the winds were just shifting a bit.
"I don't think it's dying down at all," Candy said with a sneer. "It is still blowing just as much as it was before.
"No it isn't," Mandy said. "You can actually see the bird feeders now. Before you couldn't see them at all."
"But look at how much the wind is blowing the tree branches," Cheryl said. "It is still super windy out there."
"Do you think the police will actually be able to make it here now?" Anna whispered.
"I think they are trying their hardest," I said.
As the discussion about whether the storm was dying down continued, I walked back a few steps and took a look at the group I'd been stuck with during this storm. Here everyone was standing together in front of the picture window and I marveled at how people who were forced to spend so much time together could still stand to be so close together. I tried to look at the group with fresh eyes.
The two older couples were still laughing together about the grand adventure they had ended up on, stuck in the B&B during a blizzard. Lyle had joined the group at the window, but before he had been loud and full of anger. Now he was quiet and just trying to be part of the group. Claudia was holding Lyle's hand, quietly showing that she was standing with him even though he had been accused of murder.
Dawn was standing off to the side, close enough to Anna to make me wonder if that felt awkward for them, but far enough away that Anna didn't seem to notice Dawn. Tank was standing behind Anna. Now that he wasn't protecting the top suspect, it almost seemed like he had made it his unofficial job to keep an eye on Anna. The thought sprung to mind that he was either protecting a grieving widow or a guilty suspect, but I pushed that back down.
Candy kept trying to grab Clark's hand and even after he crossed his arms to hide his hands, she grabbed his elbow. She had shown me up by kissing him in my house and she was determined not to let him go. It was almost as if she was scared that if she let him go, he would come running back to me.
I kind of wanted to tell her that it wasn't going to happen. I can't say that I wouldn't ever go out with him again, but I can say that it would certainly take some convincing for me to want to give him another chance. As I looked at Clark, I still thought he was gorgeously handsome, but other than that, I didn't feel that twinge that I used to. I guess that's what happens when you find your guy kissing someone else in your kitchen.
I tried not to think about everything that Clark had said to me. All of this time I had been dating him, I had been filled with anxiety and nerves about whether I was worthy enough to date such a handsome man. But he had seen right through me without me even realizing it.
What hit me the hardest was that he was totally right about everything. I could understand why he was annoyed. He felt like he needed to be constantly reassuring me and I could see why that was so annoying. In that moment, I felt bad. Here I had been upset when really we both had a right to be upset.
"I'm going to turn on the weather radio again," my dad said.
He ventured into the kitchen and returned with a little brown box with a knob on top. Thankfully it had batteries, so once he set it down and turned the knob, a mechanical computer voice came out of the little speaker.
Winter Storm Paul is still moving southwest over Shady Lake. Expect a small break in the storm before one more round comes down.
A collective groan filled the room as the computer voice moved into the seven day forecast. I didn't care about the fact that it was supposed to be warm and sunny a few days from now. I cared more that the storm wasn't actually over.
"Sorry everyone," I said with a shrug. "I thought it might be winding down. Apparently I was wrong."
"You didn't know," my mother said. "We were all hoping that it was almost over."
Slowly, everyone drifted back to their respective places in the living room. I wondered how many jigsaw puzzles the group in the corner had finished during this blizzard. I almost didn't want to know because it already felt like we had been stuck here for days.
I took my time to look around the group one more time and I finalized my decision. I was going to stop investigating. And I wasn't just going to say that but keep thinking about the murder. It was going to be shoved out of my mind and if I found myself thinking about it, I would stop it immediately.
Here was a wonderful blizzard that was making such a cozy situation and instead of being contented in my introverted heart, I was driving myself crazy trying to solve what was turning into an unsolvable murder. And I was done with it. I was done investigating and thinking about clues and suspects.
My mind felt so free suddenly. I hadn't even realized how much space all of the pieces of the murder were taking up. I sat back in my chair and exhaled, a feeling of calm washing over me.
Maybe this was what it was like to be someone else like Mandy who didn't care about true crime although, I suppose, the space in my mind that I usually dedicate to crime was probably dedicated to something like donuts in Mandy's mind. I needed something to fill that spot in my mind and it couldn't be donuts.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
For a while, I sat and did absolutely nothing. It felt amazing and I realized that I needed to do this more often. My mind was so cluttered usually and from what I heard all of the time on the news, the modern age attributed to that. I had given up one thing that everyone loved to malign, which was the smartphone.
I used to be attached to my smartphone, but when Peter died, I didn't want to lose myself in technology. I was finding myself going down the internet rabbit hole whenever I started to feel sad. There had been a realization that if I kept doing that, I'd never be able to actually deal with my grief. I would be stuck forever because I never actually dealt with it.
Instead, I got rid of my smartphone and downgraded to a flip phone, which I considered a dumb phone. It also meant that I hardly ever used social media anymore. Now that I couldn't access it any time I pulled my phone out of my pocket, I kind of forgot to check it.
Mandy was the one that was addicted to her smartphone and social media. I tried to tell her that once, but she didn't want to hear it. Mandy didn't like to admit it, but she was a bit of a gossip. She said she only shared things that she knew for sure were truth but even if she only passed on truth, she was still gossiping.
I didn't really understand why you needed social media once you lived in a small town. All you had to do was go out and about and you heard all of the gossip. You didn't need to take your phone out and scroll through social media because you could hear it all when you were picking out your groceries or shopping for a new blouse.
"Stop putting those together," Joe was saying. "We need to finish the outside edges first."
"Does it really matter if the puzzle gets put together?" Cheryl said.
The puzzle group seemed to be starting to fall out. Counting the boxes on the floor, it seemed like they had put together something like four big puzzles since we realized we were stuck in the blizzard. I was actually a little surprised that it took that many puzzles for them to start bickering.
"Candy, I need some space," Clark said. He was trying to talk quietly, but we were all shoved together in this one room so his voice carried.
I tried not to smile as
I had been wondering at what point would Clark's politeness wear off. Candy had been relentless in her pursuit of Clark. I know that when I wasn't around Candy just acted like a normal date, but since she had been stuck with me around for the past almost two days, she had turned into some kind of crazed 'gimme-gimme' girl.
Clark had been putting up with it well enough, but he was finally not only getting tired of it, he was getting tired of being polite about it.
"Oh come on, Clarky," she cooed. I had to cringe. Candy sounded like some sort of character from a bad movie from the 1950's. "I just want to sit next to you."
"If that was true, that would be fine," he said. "But you want to sit on top of me. No thanks. I know it is a bit chilly in here, but then get a blanket."
Candy pouted and slunk away, grabbing a blanket out of the basket. Making a big show of wrapping it around herself, she perched on the end of the sofa. When she noticed me watching her, she scowled at me. I stuck my tongue out at her before I could stop myself. Candy was so surprised that she forgot to keep the scowl on her face. I tried not to laugh at her anymore. I know it was juvenile, but it felt really good.
"Please stop staring at us," Claudia said, interrupting the relative quiet.
We all looked around at each other, trying to figure out who she was talking to. No one was looking particularly guilty, so I couldn't tell.
"Who are you talking to?" Tank finally said.
"I'm talking to Dawn," she said. "I know you guys suspect that Lyle was the one who killed Jake, but he didn't do it. You can stop staring at us like we are going to suddenly whip out a gun and start shooting. Besides, as far as I can tell, there are serious doubts about Lyle being the killer. If they still thought he was the one, we would still be sitting by ourselves in the dining room."
