I could picture it in my mind. “It sounds wonderful. You must invite me. I’d love to see your home. It sounds beautiful.”
“Sure. Just as soon as I’m finished with the decorating. I was wondering if you’d let me borrow one of the blankets to try out. If it works, I’ll be back tomorrow to pay for it, and maybe get a couple of the cushions too.”
“Of course we can do that.” I climbed into the window while she went outside and pointed out the pieces she liked. Back at the cash register she signed a loan receipt for two throws and three cushions—five pieces instead of the one she’d originally mentioned.
After she left, I returned to the studio with a spring in my step. “I think I might have just sold two of my newest blankets and three cushions,” I told Marnie.
“Great. I was looking at the ticketed price. Those aren’t cheap.”
“They’re very popular right now. If this collection sells well, it’ll bring in a lot of money.”
“I overheard you and Judy talking, and it gave me an idea. You should redo your window display to make it look like the corner of a real room. You could put in a rustic floor—some laminate flooring that snaps together. And borrow a leather chair to use as a display piece for your collection. It would pull in the customers like mad.”
It was a great idea. “And you know who has brown leather furniture? Matthew,” I said. “Maybe he won’t mind lending it to me for a couple of weeks.” I snatched my cell phone and called him.
When he answered, I went straight to the point. “I have a small favor to ask you.” I told him about Marnie’s idea.
“No problem,” he said, without hesitation. “Want me to drop it off when I pick up Winston?”
“That would be wonderful.”
“I’ll do that. If that’s all, I’ll say good-bye and go back to my writing.”
“I take it he said yes?” Marnie asked when I returned to my loom.
“He did.”
I had been working at my loom for a few minutes when I remembered something Judy had said. “You know, I didn’t pay attention to it at the time, but Judy mentioned that she saw Swanson at Susan’s place just a few days ago. Don’t you think it’s odd, considering how much trouble he gave her last fall when she did her renovations?”
“What are you thinking?” Marnie asked.
“I wonder if she had more work done, this time without a building permit. If Swanson found out, he could have put the squeeze on her pretty hard.”
“How can you find out?”
“I have an idea.” I marched off to the front, picked up the phone and dialed the number for city hall.
“May I speak to Johanna Renay?” I said.
“Della. This is a surprise,” the woman said, hearing my voice.
“Johanna?” I said. “Is that you? I didn’t expect you to answer.”
“I work in whatever department needs me most. After so many years working here, I can do everybody’s job. The only one I do all the time is answer the phone. You’d be surprised at how many times I can take care of a problem without having to transfer the call. What can I do for you?”
This gave me another idea. “I have a couple of questions I’m hoping you can answer. Someone mentioned calling the city to lodge a complaint against Mr. Swanson. But the clerk she spoke to apparently discouraged her from formalizing it. All she could tell me is that the woman worked in the permit department. Would you happen to know who the clerk might be?”
“In the permit department?” she said, sounding confused. “But . . . there’s never been anybody but Howard in that department.” There was a pause before she spoke again. “I think maybe whoever told you that might have been lying.”
Could Susan have made up the story? I wondered. And if so, why?
“You had another question?” she said.
“Oh, right. I was wondering whether you could find out if there was any building permit issued to somebody with the last name of Bates.”
“Will knowing this help you find out who killed Howard?”
“It might.”
“I really shouldn’t be giving out that kind of information.” There was a pause. “But, if it will help bring the killer to justice . . . As long as you promise never to tell a soul.”
“I promise.”
“How far back would you like me to go?”
“No more than a year,” I said.
“Let me write this down so I don’t forget it.” I couldn’t believe she had agreed so easily. “All right. I’ll give you a call back as soon as I have the information.”
I was about to return to my weaving when the store phone rang. A glance at the call display told me it was my mother.
“Mom. Hi. What’s new?”
“I’m all right,” she said. “Considering my age.”
Oh, dear God. Here it was. The guilt trip. “Mom, you’re not old. Didn’t you hear? Seventy is the new fifty.”
“You know what would really make me feel young again? Grandchildren. Are you really doing everything you can to encourage Matthew?”
“Any more encouragement and he’ll be feeling cornered,” I said.
She sighed. “Well, I suppose we don’t want that.”
As we chatted, I absently unfolded the morning newspaper, which was still on the counter, untouched. CITY EMPLOYEE MURDERED, the headlines read. And then my eyes fell upon the color photograph accompanying the article. I gasped. I was looking at the picture of a woman standing in the doorway of a silver hatchback. She was the blond woman I’d seen arguing with Syd. So that confirmed my suspicion that the blonde was Mona Swanson. But what really caught my attention was the car. As ignorant as I was about makes and models, I was pretty sure it was identical to the one I’d seen in the city hall parking lot the morning of Swanson’s murder.
“Sweetheart? Are you still there?”
“Sorry, Mom. A customer just walked in. I’ll call you later. Love you,” I said and hung up.
If the car I’d seen racing away that day belonged to the victim’s wife, that meant . . .
Whenever I watched true-crime television dramas, the murderer always turned out to be the spouse. And it might turn out to be the case now too.
Marnie joined me at the cash register. “I’m ready for a coffee break. How about you?” She went out, returning a few minutes later with two mugs.
“You look preoccupied,” she said, handing me one.
“I think I might just have solved the crime.”
“What? Who killed him? And why?”
I showed her the picture in the paper. “I think this is the car I saw speeding away from city hall, minutes before I found the body. It belongs to her, Mona Swanson.”
“His wife?” she said in disbelief.
“It makes sense. In the last twenty-four hours, two people have remarked on how beautiful and how much younger she is than him. People are mystified as to why a gorgeous girl like her would marry someone like him.”
“They think she married him for his money?”
“She wouldn’t be the first.”
“True. Except that he was a city employee, not a millionaire. Nobody knew about his lucrative little sideline.”
I thought about this. “Well, let’s think about this. What do men do when they want to attract a woman who is beyond their reach?”
“Er. Take her out to dinner? Buy her gifts?”
I nodded. “He’ll try to impress her—show her what a good catch he would be.”
“Of course,” she said, her eyes lighting up. “You think he flashed his money around her.”
“He might not have told her how he was making his money, but you can bet your booty he was showing off.”
“So what are you going to do? Call the police?”
“Maybe. But not until I have some proof.”
Chapter 16
The next few hours went by fast. The door opened and closed nonstop as customers came in. Before I knew it I’d made a number of sales and placed half a dozen orders for Native-style rugs.
“How are you going to fill all those orders?” Marnie asked, after the last order.
“I’ll do what I always do—get my ladies to help.” From the day I first opened, I had accepted pieces on consignment, and over time I’d occasionally hired a few of my local weavers to help on larger projects. “The only problem is that I doubt any of them has the proper loom.” I walked over to the back and, tapping an index finger to my chin, I studied my large loom. “I wonder . . .”
“What?” Marnie asked.
“It looks so simple,” I said. “I bet a carpenter could build one of these. It might be cheaper than buying them from a retailer.”
“That’s a great idea.”
Armed with my cell phone I snapped a number of pictures, making sure I had close-ups of every feature and from every angle and pulled out my measuring tape. Returning to the counter I spread out a sheet of paper on which I drew the basic design, adding the measurements. Then I got on the phone.
By midafternoon, I had lined up three of my regular weavers, and I had also found a local carpenter who claimed to have made looms in the past, and quoted me a reasonable price.
“I have an appointment with him at eight o’clock tomorrow morning,” I told Marnie. “All in all, I’ve had a really good day.”
“And it isn’t over yet,” she said.
Suddenly, there was a fresh burst of activity. The door was opening and closing nonstop with customers attracted by my window display. I got busy racking up more sales. By the time the rush quieted, I had sold quite a few items, and had also signed on two students for my next beginners’ weaving class. I now had a total of four students. That reminded me, Johanna Renay had asked to join my next class. I made a mental note to ask her about it when I next spoke to her. The thought had just crossed my mind when the phone rang. And when I checked the call display, I saw the number was from city hall. Johanna.
“You already have the information?” I said. “That was fast.”
“It was no trouble at all. I asked the young lady who’s temporarily taken over for Mr. Swanson. She went through all the permits and there haven’t been any requests from anyone with that last name.”
It was pretty much what I’d expected—not that it mattered anymore. I was pretty sure I knew who the killer was. Then, out of curiosity, I asked her, “Would you happen to know if the police have bothered to look into the permits?”
“Not as far as I know,” she said. “But . . . hold on. I’ll find out.” She put me on hold for a few minutes before coming back. “No,” she said. “Except for going in and out of Howard’s office a couple of times, they haven’t spoken to anyone at all. But why would they want to do that?”
“It was just an idea. Being a building inspector, I imagine Mr. Swanson might have made some enemies.”
“That makes sense,” she said. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Also, it’s come to light that he was extorting money in return for permits.”
“What?” She choked on the word, and then lowered her voice. “Impossible! I simply won’t believe that. He may have had his flaws—he stepped out on his ex-wife while they were married—but he was an honest man.”
Strange, I thought, that she would describe a man who cheats on his wife as honest. “I’m sorry if I upset you. But I’m pretty certain it’s true.”
“It’s just that . . . that I thought he was a nice man. I feel like I would have sensed if he was so dishonest.”
“Maybe you’re right.”
She seemed to regain her calm. “I’ve been meaning to ask you. Did the police question you about the blood on your clothes?”
“It wasn’t blood. It was paint,” I said. “But, yes. They did show up about twenty minutes after you left. I can’t thank you enough for warning me. It was unpleasant enough when I was expecting it, but it would have been much worse if I’d been unprepared.”
“Well, let’s hope they don’t keep pestering you.”
“They wouldn’t have questioned me to begin with if it hadn’t been for whoever made up that story about me wiping blood from my clothes.”
“I know. It was really awful of Ronald Dempsey to say something like that. I don’t know where his head was at the time.”
“It was Mr. Dempsey?” I said.
She gasped. “Oh, dear. I wasn’t supposed to name names.”
“But . . . didn’t you tell me it was a city employee?”
“I was trying to be discreet. I failed pretty miserably, didn’t I?”
I was still trying to wrap my head around this new information. “I don’t understand. Mr. Dempsey had already left by the time the police arrived.”
“He’d left his card, you see. And the police called him. So he had to come back. By then you were already gone.”
“I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore. I think I’ve already figured out who killed him.”
“What? Who do they think did it?”
I told her about recognizing Mona Swanson’s car as the same one I’d seen speeding out of the lot.
“Mona?” she said, sounding surprised. “Of course. It makes perfect sense. I tried to tell him he was making a mistake by marrying that piece of trash.” She stopped. “Oh, dear. I can’t believe I just said that. I suppose it’s the shock of finding out that she killed him.”
“Please don’t repeat this to anyone yet. I shouldn’t have said anything. This is all speculation on my part. I have no proof, you understand.”
“Well, I, for one, am sure you’re right.”
“While I have you on the phone,” I said. “I just scheduled a beginners’ weaving class.” I gave her the date and the time.
“Let me check my calendar.” She was back in a minute. “I’m free. I’ll be there. You can count on it. Before you go, dear, would you do me a small favor?”
“Gladly.”
“If you hear anything else about the investigation, would you let me know? I realize it’s none of my business, but the man was a friend. I won’t sleep until his killer is brought to justice.”
“I’ll be happy to.” We said good-bye and hung up.
• • •
“You won’t believe this,” I told Marnie, joining her in the back. “I was under the impression that it was Tom Goodall who told the police he saw me wiping blood from my clothes. But I was wrong. Johanna just told me it was Ronald Dempsey. I can’t figure out why he would say such a thing, unless he lied on purpose.”
“Why would he do that?”
I shrugged. “The only reason I can think of is if he was trying to throw suspicion on me.”
Marnie rolled her eyes. “Good God, woman. You’re beginning to sound as paranoid as Jenny. Let’s just forget about this murder. Put it out of your head. It’s history. Over and done with.”
“You’re right. Let’s forget about it.”
The door opened, throwing the bell into a tizzy. It was Matthew.
I checked my watch, surprised that it was already closing time. Winston, who’d been snoozing on his cushion behind the counter, hopped to his feet and ran to greet him.
“Hello, big boy. How are you doing?” Winnie was wiggling around excitedly and grunting with pleasure. “You look like you had a nice day.” Matthew scratch him behind the ear, then came over and kissed me. “I love your window display. That’s the new collection you were telling me about?”
“I’m glad you like it.”
“I’ve got the leather chair in my car. Where do you want it?”
I told him and he brought it in. “How are you going to lift it into the window?”
I smiled. “I happen to
know this big strong guy who comes around just about every day. I’m sure he’ll give me a hand when I’m ready.”
“I see your game,” he said, and gave me another quick kiss. He nodded to Marnie. “So, what kind of a day did you ladies have? Solved any crimes lately?”
“Actually, I think we did.”
His eyes widened. “Really? I was just joking. But, tell me.”
I told him, with Marnie filling in the details whenever I stopped to take a breath.
“Good for you,” he said. I detected more than a little relief in his voice. Knowing the way his mind worked, I knew he was happy that the murder was solved. “Now promise me that your only involvement will be in supplying the police with the clue to solve it.”
“I can’t say a word to the police with no more than an idea.”
“I hope that doesn’t mean you’re planning anything dangerous.”
“I’m not planning anything,” I said.
“That’s good, because, chances are you’re wrong. The police always look at the spouse first. If there was any evidence his wife killed him, they would have likely brought her in by now.”
“Maybe they don’t have proof yet.”
“You might be right. But it seems to me that you’re jumping to conclusions. You don’t even know if her car is the one you saw leaving city hall.”
I knew everything he was saying was true. Maybe spending so much time with Jenny was beginning to rub off on me, but I had a feeling about this. Mona Swanson was not innocent. It was her car I’d seen that morning. I was certain . . . or almost.
“I had an idea,” he said, turning to Marnie. “I was going to invite Della over for dinner, but why don’t you join us too? I made chicken curry—my specialty.”
“I can vouch for his curry,” I said. “I’ve had it a few times and it is delicious.”
“I’m sure it is,” Marnie said. “But I’ve already got plans for the evening.” Knowing her, she was making herself scarce to give Matthew and me some privacy. When it came to wanting Matthew and me to get married, she was almost as bad as my mother.
“Are you sure? You’re more than welcome to join us,” I said.
Loom and Doom Page 12