Died in the Wool

by Mary Kruger

  “You know better than that,” she chided him, and rose. “I’m calling my ex-husband.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s an attorney.”

  Josh looked at her and got up at last. “All right,” he said finally, and shut his notebook. “This should be enough to start with. I’ll want to talk with you again.”

  She nodded. “With Ted along,” she said, her fingers gripping the edge of the table.

  Count on it, Josh thought as he left the back room. Whether she had her lawyer with her or not, Ms. Evans had some questions to answer. At the moment she was his prime, and only, suspect.

  “Yes, I know this is a crime scene,” an irritated voice said from outside sometime later. “I’m Mrs. Evans’s attorney.”

  Ari rolled her eyes and got up from the office chair, where she’d been slumped for nearly an hour. Mrs. Evans, just as though they were still married, she thought. “Ted,” she said from the office doorway.

  Her ex-husband stood just outside the door of the shop, glaring pugnaciously at the policeman who was guarding it. “Ari, what the hell have you gotten yourself into now?”

  “He’s my lawyer,” she said quietly to Detective Pierce, who was looking at Ted with the same level look he’d used on her.

  Ted and this detective were so different, she thought. It wasn’t just that Ted was short, in comparison to the taller and rangier detective. It wasn’t anything about his appearance, though his suit, made by an Italian designer, was a contrast to Detective Pierce’s off-the-rack tweed sport coat. The real difference was attitude: It was Ted’s belligerence, stemming from his lack of stature, among other things, that stood out against Detective Pierce’s laid-back watchfulness. Yet right now Ted was the person she wanted on her side.

  “Ariadne,” Ted said as he strode past the policeman to her. “Are you all right?”

  “Of course I am.” She stepped out of the office, making a wide circle past the point where Edith’s body, now removed from the shop, had lain. The surfaces of the counter were coated with the dreaded black fingerprint powder. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  Ted looked past her, and she realized he was frowning at Josh. “Is she free to go?” he demanded.

  “Yes.” By contrast, Detective Pierce’s voice was calm. “We’re not holding her.”

  “Did you read her her rights?”

  “No. She’s not under arrest.”

  Ted glared at him, so obviously ready to erupt that Ari stepped in. “Please let me know when you’re done here,” she said.

  Detective Pierce nodded. “You’ll be hearing from us, Ms. Evans.”

  “You’ll be hearing from me,” Ted retorted.

  “Sure. Ms. Evans, I’ll need your key.”

  Ari stared at him in blank dismay as she took her key ring out of her pocketbook. “My house key’s on it,” she said, “and my Shaw’s discount card.”

  “For God’s sake, Ariadne, you won’t be going to the supermarket today,” Ted said impatiently.

  “They have a special on chicken—no, I won’t be, will I?”

  “Damn straight. Just give him the key to the shop.” He turned to the detective. “Can we go?”

  “Sure,” Detective Pierce said again. “Just stay somewhere where we can reach you, Ms. Evans.”

  “You have my cell phone number,” she said, as Ted pulled her toward the door. “Be careful with my yarn!”

  “Your yarn,” Ted grumbled, and pushed his way out of the shop, leaving Ari to trail behind him, and abandoning her to the questions of curious bystanders and reporters alike. Without looking at her, he strode toward the parking lot across the street and wrenched open the door of his BMW, all the time muttering to himself. Ari knew better than to ask him what he was saying.

  He had not, of course, been thoughtful enough to hold the passenger door open for her. Ari glanced at him as she climbed in, feeling her own temper rising. It had been a trying day, to put it mildly. “Would you drive by Marty’s first?” she asked, naming a local convenience store, as he roared out of the lot.

  “Why?”

  “I need some chocolate.”

  “Chocolate!” he exploded. “You’re suspected of murder and you want candy?”

  “Why not?” she shot back. “It’s better than drinking.”

  That stopped him, as she’d known it would. Only for a moment, though. “What the hell have you gotten yourself into this time, Ariadne?”

  “I didn’t get myself into anything,” she retorted. “I walked in and there she was.”

  “Do you realize you’re the prime suspect right now?”

  “I’m not stupid, Ted.”

  “What did you say to him before you called me?”

  “I’ll have to think about it to remember. Ted, it’s been an awful morning.”

  “It’ll get worse if you get arrested.”

  “Well, I don’t think I said anything damaging.” She paused. “I told him a lot of people didn’t like her.”

  “Oh, great. Like you?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Damn it, Ariadne!” He slammed his hand on the steering wheel. “Don’t you realize what you admitted?”

  “He doesn’t know Edith was going to buy my building,” she shot back.

  “He will soon.”

  “He’ll find things out about Herb Perry and Eric, too.”

  “They don’t have keys to the store.”

  “They could have got in some other way.”

  “How? And why?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “You’ve got a hell of a motive, Ari.”

  “That Edith was going to raise my rent? Really, Ted.”

  “It’ll interest them. So will the Drift Road development,” he went on. “But I forgot. That’s not something you’d want to think about, not with what it means for your friend.”

  “Other people are affected by that, too.”

  “No one else you care about.”

  “Diane doesn’t have a key.”

  “If it’s not you, it has to be someone.” He jolted to a stop in the small parking lot in front of the store. “Don’t take long.”

  Without a word, Ari climbed out and disappeared into the store. A few minutes later she emerged carrying a large bag of M&M’s. She didn’t get back in the car right away, though, not with Ted in his current mood. For a moment she looked diagonally across the small nearby bridge that spanned the inlet from the bay. Everything appeared so normal, it was almost unreal. Already it looked like fall. The leaves of the maple trees that shaded the street were just a little crisp around the edges, and the sky was the electric blue peculiar to September. Too warm to be sweater weather yet, she thought, and shivered. After what had happened today, she wondered if it would ever be sweater weather again at Ariadne’s Web.

  That afternoon, Diane Camacho looked around in blank horror at the disaster that once had been Ariadne’s Web. “My God, you should call the EPA to clean this place up.”

  “I know.” Ari smiled wearily at Diane, who had been her friend since high school. “I’d read that fingerprint powder was hard to get off, but I never knew how hard.” She brushed a strand of hair off her face. “It clings to everything. I don’t know how I’ll get the shop clean.”

  “We’ll work together. You’ve got some on your face.”

  She grimaced. “Do I? Damn.”

  Diane frowned, her hands on her hips. “All your beautiful yarn, Ari. Will insurance cover it?”

  “The police were good about that. They put on rubber gloves and put it all in paper bags before they started fingerprinting.” Almost all, she amended to herself. It was going to be hard to tell Diane that one bin, particularly one section of the yarn, had received special treatment.

  “We’ll need some big aprons before we get started. Does anyone sell them anymore?”

  “Laura told me she had some smocks.”

  “They should do.” She frowned. “All this because of Edith Perry. Why her?”<
br />
  Ari picked up a damp cloth and ran it across a countertop. “I don’t know. A lot of people didn’t like her.”

  “That’s the trouble. She sure spread it around equally, didn’t she? Ari?”

  Ari turned. “What?”

  “Have you thought that maybe you’re the real target?”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because of where she was killed. Maybe someone wants to frame you.”

  “Oh, get real. No one hates me that much. Not even Ted.”

  “Ted likes you too much.”

  “He’s crazy, Di, but not like this.” Now she frowned. “Of course, I’ve wondered why it happened here.”

  “You’ve got to admit there are a lot of weapons in a knitting shop.”

  Ari stiffened. The cause of death was common knowledge. What wasn’t, was which yarn had been used, or exactly how. “Such as?”

  Diane grinned, the unholy smile that Ari had learned long ago meant trouble. “The killer had to be pretty sharp.”

  “What?”

  “It’s the best place to needle someone.”

  “That’s not funny, Di.”

  Her grin broadened, in spite of, or maybe because of, Ari’s reaction. “Yeah, but you got the point.”

  “Di—”

  “I hope the police do, or they’ll get all tangled up.”

  “You and I both are tangled up,” Ari snapped.

  Diane had been looking around as if in search of another source of puns, but at that she looked at Ari. “What do you mean? I had nothing to do with it.”

  “I’m afraid you did.” Ari took a deep breath. “She was strangled with your yarn.”

  two

  DIANE STARED AT HER BLANKLY. “Which color?”

  “The purple heather.”

  “Damn, that was my favorite.” She began to pace. “Joe is going to freak when he hears about this. He doesn’t like me keeping sheep as it is.”

  “I know, but they make a nice sideline for your farm.”

  “Yeah, but tell Joe that. He thinks they take up too much land, and that I should spend more time at bookkeeping and stuff instead of spinning wool.”

  “And carding it, and then using natural dyes—what are we doing?” Ari’s eyes met Diane’s. “A woman is dead and we’re talking about yarn.”

  “So? What was your first reaction?”

  “Never mind that,” Ari said crisply. “We should be thinking of Edith and her family.”

  “I know,” Diane said after a minute. “My God. My yarn.” She went white, the horror of the situation striking her for the first time. “Where did you find her?”

  “Near one of the counters.” Ari deliberately didn’t meet Diane’s eyes. The police wanted certain facts held back that only they and the murderer—and Ari—knew. The location of the body was one. Precisely how she had died was another. People somehow had learned about the yarn, but no one knew about the garrote. The thought of that still made Ari sick.

  “I wonder how the yarn got around her neck. I don’t see Edith standing still while someone strangled her.”

  “Diane, I don’t know,” Ari said, suddenly annoyed with her friend. “I don’t seem to know anything at the moment.”

  “I’m sorry.” Diane laid a hand on her arm. “I didn’t mean to give you a hard time, but it’s my yarn.”

  Ari nodded. “Di?” she said after a moment.

  “What?”

  “You realize what the police will think once they find out, don’t you?”

  “I’ll be a suspect. You, too. You had a reason.”

  “I wouldn’t kill for it, though.”

  “Well, neither would I, but it could look like it.” Diane suddenly grinned. “It won’t be the first time we’ve been in trouble.”

  Ari closed her mouth against hysterical, inappropriate laughter. “It’s not funny, Di.”

  “No.” Diane’s smile faded. “It isn’t, is it?”

  “No.” The two friends looked at each other, serious now. “You’d better get a lawyer.”

  “Yeah. You should, too.”

  “I have.”

  Diane eyed her with dismay. “Not Ted.”

  “Yes, for now.”

  “Ari, he’s a tax lawyer!”

  “Who knows better how to avoid jail?”

  “It’s not a joke.”

  “If anything happens, he’ll find me someone else.” She gazed around the shop, grimy with fingerprint powder, colorless without yarn filling the bins. “I don’t know what will happen here. If people think I killed Edith, I’m sunk.”

  “That won’t happen. Listen. Let’s start cleaning, and we’ll both feel better. Do you have anything we can use?”

  Ari nodded and moved toward the back room, where she had left some cleaning supplies. Even the cash register had been dusted for fingerprints, she noticed as she passed it. Did the police think the killer had rung up a sale while she was there?

  She frowned at that. Funny, how she automatically assumed that the killer was female. Or, maybe not. There were certainly men who did needlework, but the vast majority of her customers were women. It was hard to imagine anyone she knew doing such a thing, and yet likely that was the answer. Why else had her shop been chosen?

  She and Diane were about to get started when a sharp rap on the door made both her and Diane jump. For a moment they stared at each other, and then Ari strode across to the door. This was her shop. She wasn’t going to cower inside it. Still, she peered around the old-fashioned shade she’d pulled over the plate glass window of the door. She was besieged by both the curious and the press—print and electronic. Reporters from the New Bedford Standard-Times and the Providence Journal vied for the story, along with those from the two Boston papers. Huge broadcasting trucks from all the local stations jockeyed for space on the narrow streets, while reporters stood at the bandstand on the town green near the harbor and beamed their stories back to their stations. Ari wasn’t up for more of their attempts at an interview, though she knew she’d inevitably have to give one.

  “It’s Kaitlyn,” she said in surprise, and opened the door. “Kait, why aren’t you in school—oh! Susan. You and Kaitlyn look too much alike,” she said, stepping back to let Kaitlyn’s mother come in.

  Susan Silveira ignored the implied compliment. “Kaitlyn’s in school. The police fingerprinted her,” she said indignantly. “Ari, what’s going on?”

  “They fingerprinted me, too, and Laura.”

  “Why?” Susan’s aggressiveness lessened.

  “To rule out anyone who has a legitimate reason to be here. Detective Pierce explained it to me.”

  A deep frown furrowing her face, Susan looked around the shop and ran a hand over her short, expertly highlighted hair. “What a hell of a thing, Ari.”

  Ari looked around, too, more helplessly. There was so much to do to get things back into shape. “I know.”

  “Is Kaitlyn in danger?”

  Ari blinked. “I don’t know why she would be.”

  “Edith was killed here in your shop.”

  “Kaitlyn was home at the time, wasn’t she? So was I, and Summer was with her boyfriend. Why would someone want to kill us, anyway?”

  “I don’t want to take any chances.”

  “Of course not.”

  “I’m surprised you weren’t here earlier, if that’s the case,” Diane put in.

  “I had a tee time in Marion this morning.”

  “You couldn’t miss it?”

  “My friend Beth invited me. Kittansett’s an exclusive course. It’s impossible to get a membership there. I only played nine holes,” she added, sounding defensive.

  Ari nodded as if she knew what Susan was talking about. As a real estate agent, Susan had to socialize to do her job. Golf, however, seemed supremely unimportant compared to what had happened this morning. “I have my work cut out for me here,” she said, with a sweep of the hand indicating the chaos in the shop.

  “Did the police confiscate your
yarn?” Susan asked.

  “No. They bagged it and took it away, but I’ll be getting it back.”

  “I’ll help you clean up.”

  “Why, thank you, Susan. That’s generous of you.”

  “We could use the help,” Diane said. “Here’s an extra smock.”

  Susan looked with distaste at the loose, colorful garment, and then pulled it on over her immaculate polo shirt and golf shorts. “Thank you.”

  “Let’s get moving, then,” Diane said. “If you don’t open for business, you’ll be in real trouble.”

  “I know.” Suspect or not, betrayed by someone she knew or not, Ari did have more immediate concerns. “Let’s get to it.”

  “By the way, Kaitlyn said she’s been working on your web page,” Susan said as she took the sponge Ari handed her. “She said you’ll be able to sell your designs online soon. I don’t understand it myself.”

  “I do, but…” In Ari’s mind she saw her shop restocked, with colorful yarn and samples. Selling over the Internet would help, but it wouldn’t be enough. “Thank her for me. And thank you for coming today.”

  Susan glanced around again. “It’s the least I can do, since you’ve been so good to Kaitlyn. If Ariadne’s Web goes under, Kaitlyn will lose her job.”

  Diane gave her a look. “She won’t. Right, Ari?”

  “No, of course not,” Ari said. “We’ll get things straightened out. Hopefully I can reopen tomorrow.”

  “Bet on it,” Diane said. “Now, let’s get going.”

  Josh walked out of the chief’s office, pulling on his tie to loosen it, and at the same time blowing out a silent whistle. The meetings with the chief, and with the district attorney, had been intense. “Well?” Paul Bouchard, his sometime partner, said.

  “They want to bring Ms. Evans in.” Josh sprawled in the ancient swivel chair behind his metal desk. “As a material witness, anyway.”

  “You gotta admit, Josh, she looks good for it. No one else could get into the shop.”

  Josh shrugged. The fingerprint evidence was inconclusive, since Ari had cleaned her shop before she closed it Saturday afternoon. What prints there were either belonged to Ari, her aunt Laura, her employees, Kaitlyn and Summer, or they were smudged. Nor was there any good fiber evidence—mainly because of all the yarn fibers collected. That didn’t mean, though, that someone else hadn’t been there.