Jo was rescued from having to answer by Ina Mae, who simply but firmly changed the subject. “Carrie thinks this blue tweed wool will work for the sweater I want to make for my ten year-old grandson. What do you think, Jo?”
Jo, who knew little about yarns, picked up the skein and held it out speculatively, turning it about with several studied “hmms”.
“Well, I’ll just be on my way,” Deirdre said, and grabbed her package. As she left, Ina Mae leaned closer to Jo. “Deirdre’s married to our state senator, Alden Patterson. She quit working when she married him, but she could probably use a few more things in her life to keep herself occupied. Things besides other people’s business.”
Jo checked the sign-up sheet Deirdre had just returned to her. “I see she signed up for our wreath-making workshop, so I guess that’s a start.”
“Did she? Well, I never figured her for a craft person, but sometimes people surprise you. I’m coming to that one too, along with one or two of my friends. Looking forward to it.”
Jo smiled at this no-nonsense woman. Until now, Jo had been wondering how many registrants would actually show up. Now she pictured Ina Mae personally rounding them all up and hustling them into the shop like a mother hen with her chicks. What did Jo ever do to deserve someone like her? More importantly, how could she keep her around?
<><><>
Traffic slowed down around lunch time, and after Jo finished ringing up a sale for a man whose wife sent him to pick up refills for her glue gun, she called across to Carrie, who was straightening up a display of wreaths.
“Hungry yet? How about I run out for subs and sodas?”
“I’ve decided to try and lose a few pounds. Again. If I’d thought of it, I would have packed up a salad for myself.”
“The sub shop has salads. At least I think they do.” As they debated the question, a uniformed police officer entered the store.
“Mrs. McAllister?”
The hairs on Jo’s neck stood on end. The patrolman himself looked harmless enough, red-cheeked and young enough to be, well, not her son yet, thank goodness, but at least a much younger brother. But the fact that he had come specifically looking for her set off alarm bells.
“Yes?”
“Ricky, my gosh, is that you?” Carrie interrupted. “Remember me, Coach Brenner’s wife? I haven’t seen you since you were on that fantastic soccer team. You all won the trophy that year, didn’t you?”
‘Ricky’ paused, apparently struggling between a chatty reminiscence with Carrie and maintaining his official presence. “Yes, ma’am,” he finally answered. “That was a great team. It’s good to see you again.”
“So you’re all grown up and with the police department now! How time does fly.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He turned back to Jo. “Uh, Mrs. McAllister? Lieutenant Morgan would like you to come down and talk with him.”
“Now?” Jo frowned. “If this is about filling out more forms I’d rather wait ‘till I close up shop, if you don’t mind.”
“It’s not about filling out forms, ma’am.”
“I assume it’s about the accident we had here on Saturday. I’ve already told him everything I know about it.”
“Ma’am, there’s been some further developments on that case, which Lieutenant Morgan would like to discuss with you. Would you come with me, please?”
From the serious look on Officer Ricky’s face, Jo realized the ‘please’ was just a courtesy. He wasn’t asking, he was ordering. Jo felt her empty stomach sink.
“Well, I guess I’d better.” She turned to Carrie. “Mind holding down the fort?”
Carrie shot a reproving glare toward the patrolman. As the coach’s wife, Carrie must have served gallons of Gatorade and orange slices to this former soccer player, but she didn’t look eager to offer any refreshments now. Both elbows jutted out as Carrie braced her hands on her hips. Her brows lowered in righteous indignation.
“Ricky!”
Ricky’s eyes turned downward, abashed, but he quickly recovered and looked up at Jo.
“Ma’am?”
Jo sighed. “It’s all right, Carrie.” She picked up her purse and turned toward the young officer, not quite holding out her hands to be cuffed, though the image crossed her mind. “I’m ready.”
CHAPTER 5
Jo sat facing Russ Morgan, second in command of the Abbotsville Police Department. Officer Ricky had ushered her into Morgan’s office, deep within the building that served as Abbotsville’s Police Headquarters, and he rose from behind his utilitarian grey metal desk to thank her for coming. His tone told her, however, that this was not a social visit, though he did offer coffee. She accepted, and sipped at it, hoping her grumbling stomach would be pacified until she could find something more substantial.
Lieutenant Morgan got right down to business. “Mrs. McAllister, I thought you should be informed that the death of Kyle Sandborn has been ruled a homicide.”
Jo had been in mid-swallow and she sputtered, immediately setting down her mug to avoid spilling coffee all over her white jersey.
“What did you say?” she managed to croak out, once her coughs subsided.
“I said, the death has been ruled a homicide.”
“But, but, that means murder, doesn’t it?”
Russ Morgan looked at her as if she’d just asked, “rain means water, doesn’t it?” which annoyed her greatly. What did he expect? Maybe he was used to talking about homicides, but she certainly wasn’t. Why should he act as if he expected she were?
“Yes,” he answered stone-faced, “it means murder.”
“But, how could that be?”
“I was hoping perhaps you could tell us.”
“Me? How would I know? I thought something in my stock room fell on him, or whatever. I was worried to death that I might be sued.”
“Being sued might be the least of your worries.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mrs. McAllister, do you carry size two Coyle knitting needles in your store?”
Jo remembered seeing Morgan, the night she had called the police, checking over the stock in her knitting section. She was sure he knew exactly what kind of needles she carried. She only wished she did.
“We carry several brands of knitting needles, but off hand, I can’t say for sure.”
“You can’t?”
“Lieutenant Morgan, you saw the immense variety of stock I carry. I’m not a walking computer, so, no, I’m not sure I carry those particular needles. Carrie Brenner would know, better than I. What in the world does that have to do with Kyle Sandborn’s death anyway? He wasn’t sitting in my stock room knitting when someone did him in, was he?”
“No, he wasn’t.” Her flip response didn’t bring even the hint of a smile to the man’s lips. Jo could see a slight resemblance in Lieutenant Morgan to Mike, with his dark, even features and thick-lashed eyes, a thought that produced a familiar pang deep down. Mike, however, would never be making her feel this uncomfortable, staring at her as if he had photographic evidence of her running all the red lights in Abbotsville. Mike would have —.
The lieutenant cleared his voice, jarring Jo back to the present. “Mr. Sandborn was in fact stabbed to death with a size two Coyle needle.”
“What!”
He simply stared, and waited.
“Stabbed with a knitting needle? How can that be? Knitting needles aren’t meant for stabbing.”
“Things sometimes are used for purposes for which they were never intended.”
“But....” Jo’s thoughts flew, trying to picture this absurd method of murder. Bad enough the poor guy had to die in his clown suit. But by a knitting needle? How was it possible? “But, he was in our back room, while we had a store filled with customers. Surely he would have fought back somehow. Someone would have heard something.”
“We found evidence of a sedative in Mr. Sandborn’s blood. He had been drinking a lot of your punch that afternoon, hadn’t he?” Jo heard a slight emphas
is on the words “your punch”, and didn’t like it.
“My punch,” she said, jumping to its defense, “was served to scores of people that day. There was nothing whatsoever in it that should not have been there. I saw your evidence people take away leftover samples. They must have tested for that.”
Morgan maddeningly wouldn’t confirm that, though Jo was sure it must be true. What he did say was, “Things can be slipped into individual cups.”
Jo sighed. “And you don’t have Kyle’s cup, of course. It was one of dozens of paper cups, all crumpled up and thrown away.”
“We don’t need it. We know he ingested this sedative,” he looked down at a paper on his desk, “temazepam, also known as Restoril, an hour or so before he was killed. The exact time he was at your shop.”
Jo thought back, remembering that Kyle had seemed tired at the end of his session, drooping over her counter as he waited for his check. But, busy as she was, she had barely had a second thought about it, and if she had, would have attributed it to the heat and stress of his day.”
“Could he have taken this tem... uh, this sedative himself?”
“That’s something we’re checking into. But it doesn’t seem likely, does it, that he’d take medication to slow himself down while on a job that called for a lot of energy?”
“No,” Jo admitted. “It doesn’t.”
“Mrs. McAllister, I understand you’re a widow?”
Jo’s head jerked up. “Yes, I am.”
“I’m sure the loss of your husband was a very stressful thing to go through.”
Jo nodded, frowning. What did that have to do with anything?
“Many people who have suffered a loss such as yours have trouble sleeping. Was that the case with you?”
Jo caught where he was going, and was even less happy with it than she had been with his insinuation about her punch. “Yes, it was the case with me, lieutenant, for a certain length of time. But no, I don’t need or take sleeping pills now, nor do I go about slipping them into the drinks of people in my employ!”
“I’m sure —”
Jo jumped up from her chair. She’d had enough. “I’m sure you’ve made up your mind that I’ve come to Abbotsville to set up shop and start killing off your citizens one by one. Well, Lieutenant Morgan, you’re going to have to come up with a lot of proof for that crazy idea. Good luck finding it. And if you want to talk to me any more, you’re going to have to talk to my lawyer first!”
With that, Jo spun around and marched out of the office, the heels of her imitation leather shoes pummeling the linoleum floor. Heads bobbed up curiously as she stomped her way through the maze of desks, calling Morgan and the Abbotsville police department every miserable name she could think of under her breath. By the time she reached her car, however, other emotions managed to slip in, namely worry and fear. Did he really suspect she had murdered Kyle Sandborn? And if so, what was she going to do about it?
Morgan was right about one thing – being sued was the least of her concerns. She had tossed out brave words in his office, even throwing up the roadblock of a “lawyer” as if she really had a lawyer, as if she could really afford a lawyer. But she didn’t feel very brave right now, as she climbed behind her wheel, her legs suddenly rubbery and her fingers trembling as she fumbled to insert the key.
<><><>
“What rubbish!” Ina Mae Kepner sat at the workshop table, a jumble of greenery, pine cones and ribbons before her. She wasn’t referring to her materials.
“Why should that man think for an instant that you could have killed the Sandborn boy? I don’t believe you ever saw him before Saturday, did you?”
Jo smiled gratefully at the older woman who had huffed scornfully as Jo related her experience at the police station. Ina Mae had bustled in promptly at seven with two other registrants for the Christmas wreath workshop, looking every inch the retired third grade teacher that she was. Jo half expected her to take over the class, but instead Ina Mae sat down quietly with the others and waited patiently for Jo to get herself organized. It wasn’t until Jo apologized for the third time for bungling her instructions, that Ina Mae asked her what was wrong. Then the whole story came tumbling out.
“No, I certainly didn’t know him. How do I prove that, though? Besides, my not having a motive might not matter. Kyle was killed in my stock room, with an item from my stock. Means and opportunity, isn’t that all they need?”
“Yes, you’re probably right,” Loralee Phillips, a diminutive, soft-spoken woman to Ina Mae’s right, agreed, nodding. She picked up a holly sprig and held it speculatively against her wreath. “And you certainly look strong enough to jam a knitting needle into someone, I’d have to say.”
“Loralee!” Javonne Barnett, the slim African-American woman across from Loralee, protested.
Loralee glanced up from her work with mild eyes. “I was only looking at it from the lieutenant’s point of view, Javonne. If Jo is going to defend herself, she’ll need to know exactly what from.”
“Loralee’s right,” Carrie agreed, calling out from the beginner’s knitting session she was conducting at the other end of the shop. She had obviously been listening to the conversation with one ear. She left her ladies practicing their cast-ons, to come over. “Jo needs to look out for herself. She shouldn’t just trust that the police will discover she’s innocent.”
“What do you suggest?” Jo asked. “Some subtle bribery with teddy bears for every police officer’s desk? Beadwork frames for their badges?”
“Russ Morgan’s single, isn’t he?” Javonne grinned slyly. “How about an ‘accidental’ encounter at The Brass Parrot. I’ve seen him hanging out there sometimes. Got any sexy red dresses in your closet, Jo?”
The ladies shrieked and cackled, and Jo rolled her eyes at Carrie. “Lieutenant Morgan didn’t strike me as someone who lets emotions get in the way of his work.”
“Lieutenant Morgan strikes me,” Ina Mae said, “as an overly busy man, with a very small staff at his disposal. He obviously needs help to look a bit farther than his nose for solutions. Perhaps you can provide it, Jo.”
“Oh, that’s a great idea,” Loralee chimed in.
“I wouldn’t know where to start,” Jo protested.
“Start by getting to know Kyle, why don’t you? Does anyone here know anything about the young man?”
“I know his regular job was working the tennis desk at the Country Club,” Javonne said. “My Harry recognized that picture they put in the paper. Harry plays doubles there Wednesdays when the office is closed.” Javonne’s Harry was a dentist. She had arrived for the class a few minutes late, explaining that her husband needed her help assisting with an emergency tooth repair. She had then gazed speculatively at Jo’s own smile and casually mentioned Harry’s office location and hours.
Loralee added, “Kyle was in a lot of the playhouse productions. I saw him in their last show, ‘Biloxi Blues’. He played the older brother, and was very good, I thought.”
“Bob Gordon wanted to talk to me about setting up a craft show at the Country Club,” Jo said. “If he hasn’t changed his mind, I suppose I could talk to some of the people that worked with Kyle, when I go over there.”
“Oh, Bob is a great friend of ours!” Deirdre Patterson spoke up for the first time. Jo remembered her as the silk-suited woman Ina Mae had edged off that busy morning. She had been silent until now. “I could ask him to take you around if you like.” Deirdre wore a pink cashmere sweater set, and Jo feared for its life as Deirdre fumbled around with the wire and glue guns.
“Maybe it’s best if Jo does it on her own,” Carrie said. “People might open up more if their supervisor isn’t standing there listening in, don’t you think?”
The other ladies nodded. Jo was amazed to see how quickly they all assumed she would begin snooping around, searching out possible murderers. But she was just as surprised to realize how she was warming to the idea. It was, after all, much better than sitting around, waiting for t
he handcuffs to be slapped on, and Jo had always thought of herself as a person of action. Unfortunately, her actions hadn’t always led to the best results.
Like that time in New York, when, after learning her usual delivery service was backed up, she decided to hand-carry an order of her specialty jewelry to a town in New Jersey, and ended up lost, in a broken-down car, needing to check into a Bates-like motel on a foggy night. Mike, to say the least, had not been happy when she’d called to explain the pickle she’d got herself in, and she eventually promised him to never again jump blindly into uncharted territory. Was that, however, what she was contemplating doing?
Mike, she explained silently, somehow feeling the need, this is different. I’ll just be asking a few simple questions. It’ll be perfectly fine, I promise. One of Mike’s exasperated looks flashed into her mind, and she quickly turned back to her class.
“Now ladies,” she said, seeing them puzzling over the arrangement of their wreath decorations, “to get back to our workshop. I want you to be creative in how you place your trimmings since I think that’s half the fun of putting it all together. My suggestion, just to get you started, is to cross and attach these two curly willow branches at the base of your wreath, on a slight angle, then make and attach the bow onto it like this.” Jo demonstrated. “Then you can add your bird’s nest, the pine cones and these other lovely items about the wreath to brighten and balance everything out. But play around with it before you glue anything in place. Rearrange until you’re happy with the design. You’ll see. Little by little it’ll all come together.”
You’ll see, Mike, it’ll be all right.
The women dug in, and Jo watched with satisfaction as their wreaths developed. She offered help here and there, and was about to compliment Loralee on her work when a wail snapped her attention to the opposite end of the worktable.
Wreath of Deception Page 4