Died in the Wool

by Mary Kruger

  Once again, he looked at the preliminary autopsy report. Edith Perry had indeed died of strangulation, but the surprise was that she had been hit on the head first, probably by something long and round in shape. No wonder the perp had been able to kill Edith in such a close-up, intimate way. By all accounts, Edith, though nearing seventy, had been feisty. She would have fought her attacker, whoever it was.

  The report on the weapon disclosed that the yarn, one of the strangest murder weapons Josh had ever seen, had been hand-spun and -dyed. The other part of the weapon, the two pieces of wood, were at the state police lab in Framingham being analyzed. They were unfamiliar to Josh: narrow and thin, rough on one side and painted white on the other, with one long edge having a tongue designed to fit into some groove.

  “What’s a window stop?” Josh asked, looking up from the report.

  “What?” Paul said.

  “A window stop.”

  “Never heard of it. Why?”

  “The report says it was used to make the garrote.”

  Paul frowned. “Oh, yeah, I know what that is. It’s used to cover the space in a sash window.”

  Josh must have looked confused, because Paul went on. “You know, the old windows that work with pulleys and rope and sash weights. The window stop—never knew it was called that—covers the space where the rope is.”

  “Where would someone find one of those?”

  Paul grinned. “Are you kidding? Have you noticed how many old houses there are around here?”

  Josh flipped a pencil back and forth between his index and middle fingers. “So it could have come from anywhere?”

  “Yeah, even Perry’s house.” Paul looked across at him. “Ari’s house is old, too.”

  “How old?”

  “Don’t know. Over a hundred years, anyway.”

  So she’d had access to a weapon, Josh thought, returning his attention to the autopsy report and the time of death. The best estimate the medical examiner could give was between five and eight in the morning, a good span of time. Josh leaned toward the earlier time. Edith’s stomach had been nearly empty, indicating that she hadn’t eaten in some time. She certainly hadn’t had breakfast before going out to meet her attacker, in one of the most unlikely places Josh could imagine.

  “I don’t think Ms. Evans has told us all she knows about who had access to the shop,” he said.

  Paul looked up. “Then get her in for more questioning.”

  “Yeah.” Josh stared into space. He didn’t know why he was so reluctant to suspect Ariadne. God knew he’d seen his share of homicides when he’d worked in Boston. God knew she was, as Paul said, the best suspect, and that the obvious answer was usually the right one. For some reason, though, he doubted that Ariadne had done it. It seemed too pat. “I don’t know,” he said slowly. “Seems to me she cares too much about that shop to hurt it.”

  “Hurt it?” Paul stared at him. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “I can’t see her ruining her business. She talks about yarn as if it’s alive,” he said mildly. If the facts warranted it, he’d be the first to pull Ariadne in. If. “Is she as ditzy as she seems?”

  Paul shrugged. “Not according to what I’ve heard so far. From all accounts she’s made a go of that store.”

  “So why would she jeopardize it? No. I don’t see it yet.” Evidence aside, there was such a thing as a person fitting the crime. “I can see her killing Perry—maybe—but not there. There’s something behind this we don’t know yet.”

  “Such as?”

  “I don’t know. It was a private kill. Our perp chose Perry.”

  “You ever had one of those in Boston?” Paul asked curiously.

  “Once or twice, but not like this. Listen. You’ve lived here a long time. What do you know about Perry?”

  “Not that much, really,” Paul said after a moment.

  Josh grunted in surprise. In the past, he’d found that Paul’s knowledge of the town was encyclopedic. He needed that information now. “Any family?”

  “Husband and son. Anyone else—let me see what I can find out.” He spun in his chair, then punched in some numbers on his desk phone. “Yeah, hi—yes,” he said, a pained expression crossing his face. “No, Ma, I’m fine. Yeah, I know everyone was sick at the party, but…No, Jennifer’s fine, too. Listen, Ma, this is business.” He made a desperate face at Josh, who made no attempt to hide his grin. “About Edith Perry…yeah, it’s awful, yeah, but look, Ma.” This time he closed his eyes and held the receiver away from his ear, letting out a rush of tinny monologue. “Listen, if I could talk a minute. Thanks. Who were Edith’s friends?”

  The pause was considerably briefer this time. “Yeah, I remember now. Anyone who didn’t like her? No, forget that one…. Well, I have to ask, Ma. It’s my job. What’s that?” Paul suddenly looked intent. “No, I didn’t know that,” he said finally, glancing over at Josh. “No. When did this happen?…Mmm. Yeah, that helps a lot. Thanks. What?” He swiveled his chair away from Josh. “Yeah, Jennifer and I are still coming for supper tomorrow. Yeah…Uh, Ma? I’m supposed to be working. Okay, yeah, see you then…. You, too.”

  With that he cradled the receiver with a softness far more eloquent than banging it down would have been. “One of your informants?” Josh said, still grinning.

  “She knows everyone in town,” Paul said defensively, color slashing across his cheekbones. “I figured if anyone knew about Edith, she would. God, that woman can talk.”

  “Except when you asked about Perry’s friends.”

  “You noticed that? Yeah, just as I said.” He stretched out, arms crossed on his chest, legs crossed at his ankles. “She was friendly with Helen Sullivan, but Helen moved to Chicago a few years ago to live with her daughter.”

  “So she’d have nothing to do with it. Okay. Enemies?”

  “No more than anyone else. At least, almost anyone else,” Paul amended.

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning that all of us have people who don’t like us. But, look.” He leaned forward. “Usually it’s personal, right?”

  “So?”

  “From what I gather, Perry never got close enough to anyone to have that kind of enemy.”

  “So who didn’t like her?”

  Paul shrugged again. “Well, the thing is, she was active in town affairs.”

  “In what way?”

  “You’re from Rehoboth,” he said, naming a town northwest of Freeport. “You know what small towns are like. There’s always someone who’s into everything. Town meetings, of course, and finance committee meetings, not to mention selectmen’s meetings. Here.” He swiveled in his chair and picked up a thin newspaper. “Last week’s Courier. Bet you anything she’s in there somewhere.”

  Josh laid the paper aside for the moment. “I understand she was outspoken.”

  “Putting it mildly. Any time the town wanted to spend her money—”

  “Her money?”

  “Taxpayers’ money. She led the opposition. She voted against everything, practically. School expansions, a new library building, that kind of thing.”

  “So a lot of people had reason to dislike her in general?”

  “Yeah, but a lot admired her, too.” He grew serious. “The thing is, it’s changing around here. Freeport’s becoming a bedroom community for Boston.”

  “Like Rehoboth.”

  “Yeah, and it’ll get worse if New Bedford ever gets commuter rail from Boston. That means new people moving in, building houses, having kids. They want all the services they’re used to. But people like Perry, and others who own a lot of land—”

  “Did she own land?” Josh interrupted.

  “The old Robeson farm out on Drift Road, and some two- and three-family houses. She didn’t want her property taxes raised.”

  “Land rich, cash poor,” Josh mused.

  “Not so’s I’ve heard. Yeah, I know how she looked when we found her. Old slacks, old blouse, old sweater. I’d think those houses s
he owns—”

  “With her husband?”

  “Yeah, I guess. She and her first one started buying up property. It’s all got to be worth a lot. That land on Drift Road will be worth a fortune if it’s developed.”

  Josh frowned. Money was so often at the root of crime. “Was Perry going to develop it?”

  “Yeah, I heard she filed a plan. Yeah, but listen. Want to hear the best?”

  “What?”

  “Edith was going to buy Ari’s building.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. She’d put in an offer for it and it was accepted. Word is, she was going to raise the tenants’ rents.”

  “Hmm. What would that have done to the yarn shop?”

  “Don’t know, but it would hurt.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” So Ms. Evans had a motive, after all. Maybe she wouldn’t risk ruining her business by committing murder, but would she kill to save it? “Who inherits, do you know?”

  “Don’t know yet, but my bet’s on her husband. The son, Eric—I went to school with him—moved out to Amherst a few years ago. He teaches at UMass Amherst.”

  “Ariadne mentioned they’d quarreled.”

  “Ariadne?”

  “Oh, hell, Ms. Evans.”

  “Yeah.” Paul smirked for a moment. “Yeah, Eric would be worth a look if he was in town yesterday.”

  “Which we don’t know. If the husband inherits, will he still buy the building?”

  “Don’t know that, but he wasn’t as big as Edith in real estate. He’s more a construction-type guy. Retired now, of course. He has to be in his early seventies, like Edith.”

  “Mmm. So maybe Ms. Evans is our perp. But here’s a question. If she’s not, how did our murderer get into the yarn shop? There was no sign of tampering on the lock.”

  “Who has keys?”

  “From what Ariadne told me, only she does, and her mother and one of her employees.”

  “Mrs. Jorgensen wouldn’t hurt a fly.” Paul grinned. “Not even Edith Perry.”

  “Why?” Josh’s attention sharpened. “Was there a problem there?”

  “Yeah, but years ago. I don’t remember what happened.”

  “Ha.”

  “Hey, even my memory’s not perfect,” he said good-naturedly. “I’ll find out. Whatever it was, they didn’t speak. More Edith’s doing than Mrs. J.’s, I think.”

  Josh flipped his pencil back and forth again. “We can’t rule anyone out yet.”

  “Yeah, we’ve got some work to do.” Paul’s phone rang at that moment, and he swiveled back to his desk to answer it, leaving Josh alone with his thoughts.

  It was going to be a bear of a case. No easy access to the yarn shop for those who might have had reason to want Perry dead; no apparent reason for those who did have access. Why that particular place, he wondered again. Why that particular way, making a garrote out of yarn? It was bizarre. But then, the whole thing was bizarre.

  Paul was obviously talking about some other, unrelated police work on the phone. Josh rose and, hooking a finger under the collar of his sport coat, lifted it off his chair. He liked to talk things out when he was working a case, as he and Paul had done just now. He not only learned the facts, but he got them straight in his head. The picture he had was incomplete, though. They’d find out who benefited from Perry’s death soon enough. What he really needed to do, Josh thought as he shrugged into his coat and left the office, was to find out just who could have gotten into the shop.

  The yarn, Ari’s precious yarn, had been returned by the police and restored to its bins. Her sample items were again displayed properly, and every trace of fingerprint powder was gone. The day after the murder, Ariadne’s Web was open again, and it was crowded.

  “Murder’s good for business,” Laura muttered as Ariadne rang up another sale, this time, ironically enough, of Diane’s homespun.

  “Oh, Laura, stop,” Ariadne said irritably, mostly because she’d had the same thought. She’d had more than a few inappropriate thoughts since she’d found Edith’s body. She knew that was likely due to the shock—she didn’t find dead bodies every day, after all—but she also guessed that no one currently in the shop had liked Edith very much. Few people mourned her loss, and that, Ari thought, was sad.

  “I can’t believe what you’ve sold,” Laura went on, pulling out more yarn from the skein on the counter. The fuzzy scarf she’d started just this morning had already grown on the needles she held in her quick, competent fingers. “Five skeins of that silk yarn! That’s over one hundred dollars.”

  “This will all die down soon enough.” She winced at her choice of words. “The thing is,” she said, as the customer left the counter and they were briefly alone, “why here? That’s what I can’t figure out.”

  “Maybe Edith saw someone stealing the homespun.”

  “Oh, come on, Laura. You don’t believe that.”

  “Of course I don’t. She’d have been right in there helping herself, too.”

  “Laura! That’s not true. Can I help you?” She smiled at the customer who had brought a pattern up to the counter, and for the moment forgot about everything except answering the customer’s question. When she’d rung up that sale and there was again a lull in business, she turned back to Laura. “The thing is, why here?”

  “You asked that already.”

  “What? Oh. Yes, I did.” She put her hand to her forehead. “This whole thing’s got me discombobulated.”

  “I can’t imagine why,” Laura said dryly. “Ari, have you thought that maybe you’re a target, too?”

  “Diane said something similar. But, why? I haven’t done anything to anyone.”

  “Well, dear, we won’t know that until we know who did it.”

  “We have to know the motive to figure that out,” Ari said, irritated again. “You know they always do in mystery novels. Means, motive, and opportunity.”

  “Books, dear,” Laura chided. “This isn’t like a TV mystery where there are all sorts of people with grudges against the victim.”

  “It’d better not be an Agatha Christie, with the least likely suspect.”

  “Agatha was rarely so obvious, dear. Still, I can’t help thinking this was aimed against you for some reason.”

  Ari glanced around at the shop and its customers. All were obviously trying to listen, and just as obviously trying to hide that fact. “I think Edith was the victim, Laura. Getting at me might have been a side benefit.” She smiled at a woman who had laid her purchases on the counter. “Or it might not have anything to do with me at all.”

  “If you say so, dear,” Laura said, and turned to take care of customers herself.

  It’s all well and good for Laura to say, Ari thought. She tried harder to focus, but only a small part of her mind was busy with the work that usually consumed her. She was, she knew, still a suspect, though she hadn’t yet been charged, or even questioned again. Sooner or later, though, someone from the police would show up. Detective Pierce, maybe, she thought, then frowned. She shouldn’t be taking a feminine interest in a man who might arrest her. She remembered quite clearly how he had looked in her shop, as autumnal as the weather in pressed chinos, a blue shirt that she suspected was Egyptian cotton, and a good tweed sport coat. His reddish brown hair was thick, but neat. A precise man, the detective, and Ari, precise herself, found that appealing.

  It was foolishness, she reminded herself sharply. No matter how attractive he might be, she had nothing to gain by talking to him, and everything to lose. She hadn’t needed Ted to tell her that. In the books she read, it always seemed that the character who declared she had nothing to hide, as Ari herself had, was the first one arrested. Wrongly, of course. That went without saying.

  The bells over the door jangled, and she looked up. “Speak of the devil,” Laura said in a stage whisper.

  “What? We weren’t.”

  “We would have been. Good afternoon, Detective.”

  “Afternoon.” Detective Pierce nodded at them bot
h, his face so pleasantly bland that Ari was immediately on guard. At the same time, she wondered if he really did suspect her. He was a hard man to read, which was likely a secret to his success.

  “Has there been any progress?” she asked, aware that her one remaining customer was listening openly. It was Ruth Taylor, and that meant that the news of this would soon be all over town.

  “Some,” he said vaguely. “I see you’ve gotten right back into business.”

  “Yes.” Ari gazed thoughtfully at him. As long as he didn’t arrest her, she might be in a position to help him. Or he, her. “A lot of it is just curiosity.”

  “Ariadne, are you going to introduce me to this handsome young man?” Ruth’s voice gushed.

  Ari turned. “Of course,” she said, and made the introductions. “Did you find all you need?”

  “What?” Ruth looked away from Detective Pierce, a little flustered. To Ari’s amusement, she was patting at her tightly permed gray curls. “Oh. Yes, I did.”

  “I’m so glad. Laura?”

  Her aunt turned from where she had been straightening a bin of yarn. “Yes?”

  “Could you lock the door and flip the Closed sign? Thanks, Mrs. Taylor.” She handed the woman her package. “Please come back if you have any questions.”

  Ruth looked from the detective to Laura, who waited by the door, her hand on the bolt. “Is there anything I can help you with?”

  Ari smiled. “Thank you, but no, not now.”

  “Here, Ruth, I’ll get the door for you,” Laura said. Ruth had no choice but to leave, casting an avid glance back at them as she did so.

  “Whew!” Laura walked back to the counter. “That’ll get around town fast.”

  “Mrs. Taylor talks a lot,” Ari explained to the detective.

  “Does she?” He glanced at the door, and once again she had the feeling that he was sharper than he let himself appear. “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”

  She eyed him warily. “Will I need my lawyer?”