Hooked on Ewe

by Hannah Reed

  Wonderful.

  I casually wandered into the knitting room, turning a few pages in a pattern book. Next, I ran my fingers over some of the skeins of yarn, enjoying the sensations of the different textures as I waited for the perfect moment.

  Soon, I heard Kirstine speaking with someone, a customer at the front counter asking questions about tartans and clans. I knew that would give me at least a few minutes to complete the first stage of a rather haphazard plan of action.

  I slithered into the back room where Kirstine kept her personal belongings amid a small supply of inventory. I quickly scanned the shelves for twenty-two packages of the same size, prepped for mailing. After making certain they weren’t there, I scooted over to a large desk covered with stacks of paperwork, and began opening drawers, searching for her purse so I could swipe the keys to her car. Of course I didn’t locate her purse until I’d opened every single drawer. Then I fumbled through it for the keys, which of course were buried at the very bottom.

  A sound directly outside of the room startled me. I froze, my heart pounding so loud I thought it would be heard through the door. If someone entered the room, they’d see me right away. It would be tough to explain what I was doing, rifling through Kirstine’s belongings.

  But the knob didn’t turn, and the sound that had caused my blood pressure to spike didn’t come again. The breath I hadn’t realized I was holding rushed out.

  Quickly, I palmed a key fob and chain with several keys attached, which I assumed were shop and house keys. Then I slowly opened the door to the storage room, peered out, saw that the coast was clear, and ducked back into the knitting room.

  Just in time. I’d barely made it before I heard her voice.

  “What are you still doing here?” Kirstine said from the doorway. She was suspicious now rather than disinterested.

  “I can’t decide what to knit first,” I said, slipping her keys into my pocket with one hand while turning the pages of the same pattern book with the other. “A scarf or a shawl. Which should I start with?”

  “You don’t need a pattern for a simple beginner’s scarf,” she said, eyeing me with disapproval. “Anybody should be able to handle that.”

  “Perfect.” I closed the book and edged around her, heading for the door. “So no pattern necessary. And Vicki is sure to have some extra yarn.”

  She followed me through the store as though she thought I might lift something on my way out. As if! I’ve never stolen anything in my life. I didn’t even consider the pilfered keys in my pocket stolen. “Borrowed” was a better term. I was only borrowing her keys, and certainly had no intention of stealing her vehicle, either.

  If I couldn’t have a search warrant, I’d operate under the guise of reasonable grounds. I’d helped Sean with his homework to apply for police training, and it was paying off. I remembered clearly that the police have the right to search if they suspect drugs or weapons, or a variety of other conditions, including stolen property. Still, the inspector would have hardly condoned my actions. He was a by-the-book investigator as he’d been trained. Jamieson was intelligent and thorough, but he was also proper. He followed the rules, didn’t bend them.

  But I knew that Kirstine had lied about mailing out the kits, and those skeins of yarn were important to the investigation of a murder. Further, she’d lied to me, a law enforcement agent, which I hoped carried some sort of punishment. I wouldn’t have to sneak around searching for the truth if she hadn’t gone out of her way to deceive me from the beginning and obstruct justice. If she’d just admitted her wrongdoing and given up the kits, I wouldn’t have had to stand in line at the post office and then grill the postmaster. I wouldn’t have had to search her office for her keys and be going on a hunt for those kits this very minute.

  Kirstine deserved jail time for wasting precious time and resources.

  With that pleasant thought in my mind, visualizing her behind bars, I stepped outside and away from the shop, made sure no one was observing my movements, and pressed a button on the fob. Kirstine’s trunk popped open.

  I peered inside the car boot. It was filled with brown cardboard mailing packages.

  Kirstine was so b-u-s-t-e-d!

  I didn’t bother counting them right away, but I did open up one mailing box, just to make absolutely sure that these were the kits we’d been looking for. There was no mistaking the contents Vicki had packed, or the label A Sheepish Expression Exclusive: Poppy Sox Knitting Kit.

  I smiled with sheer delight. Then I used my cell phone to contact the inspector and request his presence at the shop.

  “Can ye tell me the reason?” he pressed.

  “It’s complicated. I’d rather you see it for yourself.”

  “In that case, I’m on my way.”

  Only then did I count them. Twenty-two. No more. No less. Just as I’d expected.

  This discovery meant almost all the kits Vicki had assembled for the yarn club members were accounted for. Only a few still remained out there. I did a mental appraisal. Thirty-five at the beginning minus twenty-two right here was thirteen, minus the other seven that hadn’t been picked up on Saturday left six. Of those six, we’d obtained the ones from Senga, Charlotte, and the two belonging to the volunteers who had designed the programs. That meant only two were still out there—Andrea Lindsey’s and the kit Harry Taggart had picked up for his sister in Glasgow.

  I couldn’t help feeling a sense of pride in my accomplishment. Yet a cloud fell over my sunny outlook. So . . . we were making some progress. Thanks in part to . . .

  Well . . . now that I really gave it some thought . . . to Kirstine . . . but only because of her obstinate behavior. If she hadn’t been trying to stick it to Vicki by neglecting to mail out the kits, our work would be more difficult than it turned out to be. So in a way she’d helped rather than hurt us.

  Not intentionally, that was for sure, but still . . . in spite of her efforts otherwise, she had.

  I didn’t want either Harry or Andrea to be involved in Isla’s murder. How could they be? Harry was committed to the hospice, and by all accounts, had done a superb job of securing its future. Isla took orders from him, but if he didn’t want her around, he could have gotten rid of her easily enough without resorting to violence. Shove off, he could have told her, in a nicer way of course.

  And Andrea Lindsey? Andrea never made waves, didn’t have strong opinions, and definitely wasn’t the murdering type. Was she? Besides, why would she kill her own sister-in-law? Although the use of the crushed sleeping pill did give me pause, as did the fact that Andrea was a nurse. . . .

  I had to remind myself that neither of them had to be the killer. If I was going to murder someone, I wouldn’t use my own weapon if I could steal someone else’s.

  I considered ringing up Sean and announcing my successful score to relieve him of a wasted day of traveling around to collect them. But he’d been climbing up on a high horse and since he’d expressed his reluctance to take my advice when I’d tried to offer it, he was on his own. He could continue on the snipe hunt until the inspector called him home.

  Which, knowing the relationship between the inspector and Sean, wasn’t going to happen too quickly.

  While I waited impatiently for Inspector Jamieson to arrive, I leaned against Kirstine’s car, still feeling the satisfaction of a job well done.

  My smugness faded soon after.

  “What are you bloody doing?” I heard from the direction of the shop, a familiar voice filled with a roiling, boiling combination of surprise and rage.

  Turning, I saw Kirstine charging my way, snorting fire, shooting me with eye-glare daggers, a ruddy, splotchy red flush on her contorted face. She was also clutching one of the knitting needles she’d been working with, one of those enormous needles with a wickedly pointed tip.

  My impending death flashed before my eyes. For a brief moment, my mind wen
t numb and my limbs locked in place. Then I took in what was about to happen. If I didn’t get moving, my innards might end up spilled on the ground.

  So I ran around to the far side of her car, making sure to stay on the balls of my feet in case quick direction changes were required.

  Kirstine was at the open trunk. She slowed down. Her eyes slid from me to the contents of the trunk and back to me again.

  Perhaps if I’d been wearing a police uniform, she might have remembered that I deserved a little respect as part of the inspector’s team. She certainly wouldn’t have reacted with such open hostility if Inspector Jamieson were here instead of me. She would have shown the proper decorum and behaved rationally.

  Although on second thought, the inspector might not have allowed himself to be caught in this predicament. But that’s where I was at the moment—in a difficult situation with no way out.

  She rounded the car, coming straight at me.

  “Stop right there!” I shouted a warning, trying to figure out whether I should keep running around the car or make a stand. She hadn’t raised the knitting needle in a threatening manner, but was I prepared to take the chance that she would? This wasn’t going to become Eden’s Last Stand. “Stop! Right there,” I repeated, still moving away from her.

  Kirstine didn’t acknowledge the warning.

  So I did exactly what the inspector had hoped I’d never have to resort to. Although he couldn’t have anticipated the precarious position I now found myself in, with a crazy woman attacking me wielding a needle sharp enough to do serious damage to the body I highly valued.

  Not able to come up with a better option in the spur of the moment, I whipped out the pepper spray and hit the button, giving Kirstine a healthy blast. Healthy for me. Not so much for her.

  It did the trick.

  Kirstine came to an abrupt halt, stopping dead in her tracks. She dropped the knitting needle to the ground. Her eyes slammed shut, her hands shot to her face, and she started screeching.

  Pepper spray isn’t life threatening, it doesn’t even result in raised blood pressure, so I wasn’t a bit worried that she was really injured, even though to listen you’d think she was in her death throes. Temporarily blind, maybe, but that would pass.

  What did concern me were the volunteers out in the field. I looked out and saw all heads turned our way. I waved and shouted as loud as I possibly could, “Everything’s fine.”

  Several waved in return and all of them went back to what they were doing prior to Kirstine’s screams.

  She began coughing, a sign she’d inhaled some of the fumes.

  If sprayed, according to prior research, the best bet was to move away to fresh air. I really wanted to leave her to suffer but instead I led the blind woman away from the area.

  “It’s only temporary,” I told her.

  “You attacked me!”

  “Blink,” I ordered. “And keep blinking. That will help wash the spray out.”

  Milk would also help. I could call up to the house and tell Vicki to bring some over to the shop. And we needed access to soap and water so Kirstine could wash her face.

  “I’m filing charges!” Kirstine said.

  “I acted in self-defense,” I replied.

  “My arse, you did. Pepper spray is against the law. You’ll be shipped out of Scotland for good, and the sooner, the better, if you ask me.”

  I changed my mind about helping her. An hour or so of pepper pain might do her a world of good.

  Right then, the inspector arrived.

  “What happened here?” he said, taking in the scene.

  “She attacked me with pepper spray,” Kirstine said, still blind as a bat, but her tongue wagged away as sharp as ever. “I want her arrested!”

  “Did ye have cause tae use the spray?” the inspector said to me, his face unreadable, his expression neutral.

  “I have a warrant card,” I told him as though that explained everything.

  “That’s not enough. Ye have tae have cause.”

  “And I have cause. She tried to attack me with that.” I gestured toward the knitting needle on the ground.

  “I did not,” Kirstine said.

  “She most certainly might have.”

  “That’s preposterous.”

  We went back and forth that way for a few minutes, talking over each other, accusing, denying, until the inspector had had enough and ordered us to be quiet.

  I got in a final word or two. “Look inside her trunk . . . uh . . . I mean boot,” I said.

  With a questioning expression, the inspector did as I asked.

  “Packages addressed fer posting,” he announced, instantly on the alert.

  “Yarn club member kits,” I informed him. “The ones Kirstine claimed she’d mailed.”

  “Is what Special Constable Elliott says true?” Jamieson practically roared, almost losing his normal reserve.

  “I’m in pain,” she whined. “Please do something. Help me.”

  “I’ll be helpin’ ye when ye answer my question.”

  So the truth finally came out.

  “I didn’t send them out because Vicki interfered with the trials when she should have been holding off,” Kirstine admitted. “I was going to post them eventually, once the event was behind us.”

  “Ye must have had some idea that they were important tae the investigation?”

  “I didn’t know! And what about her, using excessive force?”

  I managed not to roll my eyeballs. “Can I have a word with Kirstine in private?” I asked, realizing that she and I could go at each other forever without either of us winning. In the end, we both could lose.

  “If ye can manage tae be civil tae each other,” he said. “I’ll count the shipping boxes in the meantime, and I’ll keep an eye on ye.”

  “Listen to me,” I hissed at Kirstine while he investigated, “those kits you’ve been hiding here caused us a whole lot of extra trouble. I could push to have you arrested. But we both made mistakes. Let’s try to learn from them. Nobody needs to go to jail.”

  Kirstine looked beaten down. That might not last long, but for now, she was considering my olive branch. Finally she said, “You’ll see that nothing happens to me?”

  “I’ll try, but only if you overlook the fact that I pepper sprayed you. Remember, you attacked first.”

  Kirstine opened her mouth to argue, thought better of it, and nodded. “See what you can do.”

  So I went over and had words with the inspector.

  “I wasn’t going tae cite her anyhow,” he said, happy to agree. But he still gave her a verbal reprimand and a caution regarding her cooperation in the future. Whether it happened to be he, himself, asking the questions or one of his special constables, he said we all needed to, as he put it, “pull together.”

  Then he took Kirstine’s car keys from me and led her into the shop. I saw John coming from the direction of one of the far fields. He hardly glanced my way before disappearing inside.

  Several minutes later, the inspector came out and started in on me, as I’d anticipated, “Another situation like this one, and I’ll have tae take away the pepper spray.”

  I nodded my understanding, trying to hold my tongue and take the dressing down like a professional.

  “Ye’re tae use it in life-threatening situations only,” he continued. “And this dinnae qualify, at least not in my mind.”

  I picked up the knitting needle and held it out, unable to keep quiet any longer. “If an enraged woman clutching this and refusing to back off after multiple verbal warnings doesn’t warrant pepper spray, who does? Should I have stood there without defending myself while she stabbed me?”

  He pondered that, and wasn’t nearly as gruff when he answered. “She wouldnae used it. Most likely.”

  “That’s certainly reassuri
ng.”

  “Cannae ye see it from her point o’ view?”

  I saw a point, all right. One that could have been jabbed into my body. Or my eye. Or in my ear to puncture my brain like I’d seen on television. Or . . . the possibilities were endless and grotesque, and not one of them was to my liking.

  “Ye were snooping through her auto,” he said. “Without the proper documents, without any legally binding cause, and ye stole her keys from inside her personal belongings besides. You woulda reacted the same as she did if the situation were reversed. What ye should have done was ring me in advance.”

  He was right, of course. I’d overstepped. But it had felt so good at the time.

  “Ye’re a wee bit on the straightforward side, I can’t help noticing that.”

  “Beating around the bush isn’t my style,” I admitted.

  “It’s yer American upbringing,” he said, not quite as stern as before, blaming my impetuousness on my nationality. Did I even detect a bit of playfulness in his tone? “Ye’re direct. It takes some getting used tae.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.” I smiled before saying, “Should I call off Sean? He’s searching for these kits all across the countryside. Should we let him know we found them?”

  “Ha! And spoil my day? Are ye mad, woman? Or was that a threat?”

  But he already had his mobile phone to his ear, informing Sean of the newest development and giving him his next order. “Go over tae Senga Hill’s home and see if ye can find a sample o’ those sleeping pills the doc’s been givin’ his patients. Senga claims she threw them in the rubbish outside her apartment. See if she’s tellin’ the truth.”

  When he returned the phone to his pocket, he addressed me. “That’ll keep him busy fer a time.”

  “I already went through her garbage and didn’t find them,” I reminded him.

  “Oh well,” he said, chuckling. “Best tae double-check, don’t ye agree?”

  CHAPTER 17

  Vicki stared at the mound of shipping boxes in the back of the inspector’s police car, her face clouding over as the truth dawned. “Kirstine never sent them?” she said. Vicki’s feelings were hurt, and not for the first time, either. And probably not for the last.