“We met this afternoon,” Susan said. Matthew gestured for the waiter to bring two more glasses. Soon, we were all sipping champagne. While the men caught up, Susan and I chatted about fashion for a few minutes, and then changed the subject to how wonderful the food was here, and then to the art in the room. Through it all, I couldn’t help but notice that Susan seemed nervous. Her chatter was quick. She flitted from one topic to another, as if she couldn’t allow a moment of silence. After exploring a number of subjects, the discomfort that had hung over our conversation returned. At last I decided to ask her directly.
“I hope you’re not uncomfortable with me.”
“Why would I be uncomfortable?”
“I got the impression that you were annoyed with me about the conversation in my shop this afternoon.”
She opened her eyes wide, an attempt to look confused, no doubt. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Mr. Swanson’s murder.” At her blank look, I continued. “He was apparently overheard arguing with a woman just a few minutes before I found him.”
“If you think—”
“No, of course not. The problem is that, now, the police seem determined to prove that woman was me. So, if you know anything, please tell me.”
Her attitude went from defensive to sympathetic, in a heartbeat. “How perfectly awful.” Emotions flew over her face until she seemed to arrive at some decision. “You’re right. I did feel awkward this afternoon. You see, I had an appointment with him that morning. I was going to tell him that I’d decided to lodge a complaint against him, but in the end I decided against it. He’d been with the city for decades, and I know others had made complaints and nothing ever came of them. When I heard he was killed around the same time I was supposed to meet with him, I was worried that if it got around, people would think I’d killed him. You know how people are.”
“Believe me. I do.”
“And I don’t trust the police,” she said. I silently agreed with her there. “Lately all we hear about are cases where some person is released after years of serving a sentence for some crime they never did.” She nodded toward her husband. “John thinks I’m being paranoid, but, if it can happen to others, it could happen to me.”
“You said others had gone to the city about him? Do you know who?”
“No. I called the city and the woman I spoke to told me others had tried before me. The way she said it, I got the impression she was warning me that nothing would come of it. She went on to tell me that he’d been at the same job forever and that he had an excellent reputation.”
“Do you remember who you spoke to?”
“No idea. Except that it was someone in the permits department.” I made a mental note to ask Marnie if she remembered who she had spoken to when she called about my permit.
“What I can’t figure out is, if he was so disliked—”
“So I’ve heard.”
“—then why was he still at the same job?” She huffed. “And how he managed to land himself a beautiful young wife like Mona is beyond me.”
This was the second time someone remarked on how attractive his new wife was. “Did they go out for a long time before getting married?”
“No, not at all. She was dating somebody else for a long time. And when that relationship suddenly broke up, she started seeing Swanson and almost overnight, the two of them were married. I don’t think it was more than a few weeks after they met.” I stored that tidbit of information away.
“That must have been hard on her ex.”
She frowned. “No, I think they remained—I wouldn’t say friendly—but on good terms.”
“You wouldn’t happen to know who that was, by any chance?” I said.
“Of course I do. Sydney Shuttleworth is an old friend of ours. As a matter of fact he was at college with John and me too.”
“You’re kidding.” I turned to Matthew and waited for a break in his conversation with John. “Did you know that my contractor, Syd, was at college at the same time you were?”
“Really?” he said. “I don’t remember him there.”
“Maybe that’s because he was a couple of years ahead of us,” John said. “He graduated our first year.”
That explained it.
Before I could react, her husband stood. “I think it’s about time we returned and give these people their table back. Besides, I think the waiter is bringing over our food.” They both said good-bye and left.
A few minutes later our own food arrived, and I lost myself in the heavenly flavors of my salad caprese—my all-time favorite—followed by spaghetti alla vodka. We were relaxing over coffee when I noticed the Prices leaving, and a question came to me.
“I suddenly get the feeling you’re a million miles away,” Matthew said.
“Oh, er, sorry. I have to run to the washroom.” I made a dash for the exit, but instead of going to the ladies’ room, I turned right and darted to the back entrance, which gave me a view the parking lot. I opened the door just as John and Susan were getting into a silver luxury vehicle. The car was the right color, but was much larger than the one I’d seen speeding away. All at once I remembered a detail that until now had slipped my mind. The silver hatchback had a sticker on its back bumper—something about death or the hereafter.
I returned to the restaurant feeling relieved. Susan Price was a nice woman. And I instinctively felt she had nothing to do with the murder.
“Are you feeling all right?” Matthew asked as I sat.
“Of course. Why?”
“You took off so fast I was afraid you felt ill.”
I gave him a beaming smile. “It’s sweet of you to worry, but I’m fine. Just had to powder my nose.”
Matthew stared at his coffee for a few minutes, smiling to himself. “It was great running into John after all this time. It brings back so many memories.” He chuckled. “We both tried out for the Carolina baseball team. He made it. I didn’t. He never let me forget it.”
He launched into a recital of old stories, but I didn’t hear a word of what he was saying. How could I not have thought of it earlier? Light blue was not a common color for baseball caps. It was, however, the color of the UNC baseball team. At the same time, another idea occurred to me. Syd Shuttleworth often wore a light blue T-shirt under his overalls. I was convinced it was a T-shirt from UNC. And I was willing to bet he also had a college baseball cap too.
On the way back to my place, Matthew brought my hand to his mouth and kissed it.
“Now that your shop is running again, are we going back to the old routine of me dropping off Winston in the morning?”
“I hope so. I like having him around. He’s good company on quiet days, and I always feel safer having him in the shop. Although”—I chuckled—“if I had to count on him to rescue me, I might as well take lessons in self-defense.”
He gave my hand a squeeze. “In that case, should I leave him at your place for the night?”
“That’s a good idea.” We were both quiet for a moment, and then he added, “You know, you’d probably feel a whole lot safer in your apartment if I was to spend the night too.” He glanced at me sideways, the streetlights flashing over his handsome face as we drove by. My heart skipped a beat.
“I think you make a very good point.”
• • •
The next morning, I came downstairs at a quarter to ten, Winston trotting happily after me. Matthew had taken off around eight thirty, to get an early start on his writing.
“You’re here early,” I said, finding Marnie already in.
“I had to drop off Jenny’s order. So there was no point in going back home for just a couple of hours. Besides, I was sure you’d be here no later than eight, but then I saw Matthew leaving an hour ago.” She gave me the eyebrow. “That explains why you look so happy this morning.”
“Of course,” she said, rolling her eyes. Much to my relief, she changed the subject. “How did it go with the police last night?”
“They showed up with a search warrant and ransacked my house, looking for the clothes I was wearing when I found Swanson’s body.”
“Oh, for crying out loud. Don’t they have better things to do than to harass innocent folk?”
“My thoughts exactly. But unfortunately, I’d thrown away the jeans I was wearing. So now they think I got rid of them because they would have incriminated me. The only good thing is I still had my shirt, my coat and running shoes. Matthew says that as soon as the lab report shows there is no blood on them, the police will drop me as a suspect.” I sighed. “But who knows how long that’ll take. They’re never in such a rush when they think the evidence will exonerate a suspect as when it will convict him.”
“You? A suspect? It’s just plain ridiculous.” She changed the subject abruptly. “I made cranberry-lemon muffins. Want one?”
I’d just had a big breakfast, but I could never resist Marnie’s baking. “Sure.”
From his cushion behind the cash register, Winston growled. Sometimes I could swear he understood. “It’s okay, Winnie. I have a treat for you right here.” I rummaged through my catchall drawer and threw him a liver treat. He snapped it in midair and chowed down.
Marnie reappeared from Jenny’s shop, carrying a tray with two coffees and a basket of pastries. “You should see her place. It’s packed.”
“Again? I’m so happy for her.”
“There isn’t an empty seat in the place. Jenny was just telling me she’s going to have to find a way to add seats. She’s thinking of putting in a bar with stools in front of the window. She could get another five or six places that way.”
“You know what else she could do,” I said. “During the summer she could put café tables on the sidewalk. Of course she’d need a permit for that.”
“A permit? Are you crazy? I don’t think any of us ever wants to deal with the city for permits again.”
The door swung open and Margaret came in. “I just wanted to tell you,” she whispered. “I overhead one of the customers talking about the owners of Good Morning Sunshine. It seems they’re related to the city inspector’s wife.”
A bell sounded in my mind. “Related in what way?” I asked.
“Lori Stanton is Mona Swanson’s sister.”
“Well, isn’t that interesting?” Marnie said. “No wonder Swanson was doing everything in his power to slow down Jenny’s reopening.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” I said. “But it makes sense. Swanson might have wanted to please his wife’s family by crippling their competition. But I also found out something interesting. Syd used to date Mona before she met Swanson. That gives him one more reason to hate the city inspector. Also, he went to UNC, and you know what their official color is—light blue—the same color as the baseball cap the driver was wearing when he sped out of the city hall parking lot. I’m more and more convinced that Syd is the killer.”
“Makes sense,” Marnie said.
“By the way,” I said. “Yesterday I happened to see Syd and a blond woman having an argument. She looked so much like Lori Stanton, I’m sure they’re related. And, now, knowing he used to date Mona Swanson, I’m sure that was her.”
Marnie frowned. “They were arguing?”
“Yes, and it looked like a doozy. He grabbed her by the arm, hard. She twisted out of his grasp and ran inside the house, slamming the door behind her. I wonder what that argument was all about.”
“Wait till Jenny hears about this.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t tell her about any of this. She’s got enough on her mind,” Marnie said.
Margaret scoffed. “But, what if she wasn’t being paranoid after all? There really could have been a plot to keep her shop closed as long as possible. I wonder if we should mention this to the police.”
“Let’s think about it before we say anything,” I said. “With my luck, Lombard will probably twist that into another reason why I might have wanted Swanson dead. Besides, what’s to tell? Jenny thinks there was a plot, and I saw Syd and a blond woman, who may or may not have been Swanson’s wife, talking. That hardly counts as evidence. Lombard will laugh me right out of the station.”
Chapter 15
From my spot behind the counter, I watched a steady stream of customers going in and out of Jenny’s shop. I was happy to see that her business had picked up. But in the meantime, no one had so much as popped their heads into my shop all morning. This left me somewhat disconcerted.
After a while, I left the front counter and joined Marnie who was busy at my dobby loom in the back. She was walking the pedals at a ferocious speed.
“It’s so quiet up front, I think I’ll do some weaving for a while,” I told her. “What are you working on? More place mats?”
“Since you keep complaining that you never have enough of them, I thought I’d make you as many as I can. That way you won’t run out so quickly. What about you? What are you going to work on? Some new project on the Navajo loom?”
“Right on.”
After my decision to try this ancient form of weaving, I’d ordered two specialty Navajo looms, a large one for the shop and a smaller one I’d been using in my apartment. I’d already completed a number of projects on the smaller one, but this would be my first time working on the large one. I looked at it now—such a simple contraption—a four-sided frame with manually operated sheds. I’d brought in a cushion so that I could work the traditional way, sitting on the floor to start. Then, as my project progressed, I’d move higher and higher, to a stool, then a chair, a barstool and so on as the weaving progressed up the warp. I’d even seen pictures of Navajo women with their chairs on top of a table so that they could reach the top toward the end of their project.
I picked up a spool of the yarn I’d chosen for the weft and began the dressing, which, with this type of loom, took a fraction of the normal time—one more reason to love this technique. Half an hour later I had just finished when the doorbell chimed.
“Wouldn’t you know it?” Marnie said. “All you have to do is get busy, and a customer is sure to stop by.”
“I am not complaining. I can use the business.” I hurried up front to greet Judy Bates.
“Judy, hi. What good wind brings you?”
“I love the Native American-looking collection in your window. The pieces are gorgeous. You never carried this type of merchandise in the past. Did you just make those?”
“I did. I decided to try my hand at something completely new. And with the shop being closed for so long I had lots of time on my hands. So I gave this a try.”
“That’s renovations for you. It always takes twice as much time and three times as much money as you expect. My friend Susan went through hell when she remodeled her kitchen.” She frowned. “I think I told you about her, didn’t I?”
“Yes. Funny you should mention her. My boyfriend and I went out to dinner last night and we ran into her and her husband. She also mentioned what a frustrating experience the remodeling turned out to be.”
She snapped her fingers. “I did tell you about her. I remember now.” I was sure our conversation hadn’t slipped her mind. She’d been eagerly looking to pick up some gossip when we’d talked about it yesterday. “You know, something came back to me last night,” she continued. “Susan’s renovations were last fall. Being livid as she was with that inspector, Mr. Swanson, I’d never have thought I’d see him at her place again. But, just the other day, there he was, large as life, leaving her house in the middle of the afternoon.” She wrinkled her brow. “I wondered what he would be doing
at her place six months after her remodeling.”
“Maybe she’s having something else done?” I suggested.
She nodded emphatically. “That’s what I thought too. But the next day, when I ran into her, I asked her if she was having more work done. She said, ‘I’d rather get a root canal.’” Judy folded her arms, as if waiting for me to comment.
“That is odd,” I said warily. Chatting with someone like Judy was a bit like walking a minefield. I had to be careful what I said, in case my words found their way back to Susan. Gossip lovers often enjoyed nothing more than to set people against each other. It made for great spectator sport. There was, however, one thing I might find out without risk of it being interpreted the wrong way. It had occurred to me that a financially comfortable couple might own more than one car. “I saw her and her husband drive away in a really nice car last night. I’m thinking of changing cars myself, but I’m so bad when it comes to makes and models. You wouldn’t happen to know what they drive, would you?”
“Were they driving his or her car?”
“I have no clue. So they each have one?”
“Actually, they have three, a new Lexus, which he drives. Then they also have a midsize car that she uses most of the time. But they also have a sports car. Some fancy European make—probably worth a fortune.”
“The car I’m talking about was silver.”
She chuckled. “That doesn’t help. They must have a thing for silver cars. The only one that isn’t silver is the sports car. That one is red.”
“I think it might have had a hatchback.”
She shook her head pensively. “No, that doesn’t sound like anything they drive. Anyhow, enough talk about cars. I want to know more about your new merchandise. I just love those rugs and blankets in your window. I’m looking for a decorative throw for my living room. We just redid our kitchen, opened it up onto the living room. We put in a rustic floor and a fieldstone fireplace. And just last week we bought a new living room set—genuine leather, a beautiful tan color. Don’t you think some Navajo-inspired accessories would look wonderful in there?”
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