Dougie stared. “You’ve got to be kidding. And it’s just turning up now?”
“It’s a long story, but it all makes sense. Bea felt threatened and intended to give this to Helen Crawford all those years ago,” Josie said. She turned to Sharla. “I know you have to follow Officer Denton down to the station. But it’s driving me crazy. Do you think Bea’s body will ever be found? My guess is she’s buried somewhere on her property. But who knows?”
“I don’t know,” Sharla said. “I’m not sure if the investigation will be opened back up, since the killer is now dead himself. It might be pointless.” She handed the lace back to Josie. “Keep this for now. I’ll talk to Detective Potts and see what he wants to do.” She headed for the front door.
Evelyn and Helen appeared at Josie’s side as she was replacing the doily into her pocket.
“Drop-in knitting time,” Evelyn said efficiently. “Let’s get back to the shop. There are enough people downtown, some may stop in.”
Josie, Evelyn, and Helen made their way back to Miss Marple Knits and opened up. After putting on a fresh kettle of water to boil, Evelyn and Helen immediately sat down and pulled out their knitting. Josie threaded a needle with white thread, laid out her denim jacket on the sales counter, and pinned on the doily she’d chosen for the project. Then she sat down with her friends and began to sew.
Evelyn frowned. “Josephine Blair.”
Josie looked up. “Yes?” She knew what was coming.
“This doily repurposing project is all very well and good. But don’t you think it’s time you let me teach you to knit?”
The shop bells rang, like an angel in response to an unspoken prayer. Gwen Simmons and Margo Gray came in, found seats, and pulled up strands of yarn from the depths of their bags. “Now,” Gwen said. “I missed all the excitement at the g.s. I want to hear all the details.”
“And I want to relive it,” Margo said.
Josie let Evelyn and Helen tell the story while Josie placed tiny stitches into the doily and through the thick denim of her jacket. She used the tip of her thumb to push the needle in and out. It had been a long time since Josie had done any hand sewing—probably since she completed her master’s thesis—and she wished she had a thimble. They were old-fashioned things, but they worked. Her finger would be raw if she kept going.
Evelyn had finished her account of Dougie’s confession. “Can you imagine carrying that around all these years, only to find out your guilt had no foundation?”
“Well,” Margo said, “I’m just glad that Dougie won’t be arrested and taken away. This town would dry up and blow away without the general store.” She made some twisty motions with her right hand and added a few stitches to her crocheting project.
“And I’d dry up and blow away if I didn’t have Lorna’s cooking to rely on a few times a week,” Gwen added. “The kids love her macaroni and cheese.”
“Change of subject,” Josie said. “Does anyone have a thimble in her bag? My finger’s killing me, and I still have a lot of sewing to do here.”
Gwen and Margo both shook their heads. Evelyn pawed around in the depths of her bag and came up with a small plastic container, which she opened and examined. “Nope,” she said. “Plenty of buttons, stitch markers, and stitch holders, though. I’m sure I have one in my sewing box back home. Though that won’t help you now.”
Helen shook her head. “I don’t have one here either. Not much call for sewing through thick materials in knitted items, unless you add some leather accents to a sweater or something. Wait,” she said. “In my building across the street I have some of Bea’s dressmaking supplies.” Her eyes misted over. “I couldn’t bear to throw or give it all away when I bought the building. It just seemed disrespectful.”
Evelyn reached over and patted Helen’s arm, then handed her a tissue she pulled from the pocket of her cardigan. “You were—and are—a good friend, Helen Crawford.”
Helen smiled sadly. “Thanks.” She cleared her throat. “I’ll just run over and get you your thimble. I could use some fresh air anyway.”
“Would you like one of us to go with you?” Josie said. “I should, since you’re doing me a favor.”
Helen shook her head. “No, I’ll do it. I wouldn’t mind a few minutes alone with Bea’s things, honestly. Maybe it’s time to let it all go now.”
“Closure,” Evelyn said, sagely. “You’ll let us help, when the time comes.”
“I will.” Helen got up and put on her jacket. “Back in a few minutes,” she said, and left.
Josie got up and watched Helen walk across the street, put her key in the lock, and open the door to Bea Ryder’s old dress shop. It would be so nice to have another business open up there, she thought. Maybe now, with Bea’s murder solved and no longer hanging over its head, the shop would attract a new tenant. Josie mentally shook her head. It was nuts, thinking these old buildings had souls of their own. And yet, she couldn’t deny that’s what she thought about Miss Marple Knits.
With Cora’s death, her yarn shop could easily be suffering the same fate as almost every storefront on Main Street right now—it could have been empty. But something had called to Josie when she had first arrived here. Oh, it wasn’t anything as obvious—or spooky—as hearing voices or being touched on the arm by an unseen presence. It was more a feeling she got whenever she was here. A feeling of being home. A feeling of being exactly where she was supposed to be.
She sat back down on the couch, picked up one of the knitting magazines, and began to thumb through it. A little prick of guilt stuck her. Again. So many beautiful projects, and she couldn’t make them herself. Her friends were yarning away. Maybe she was just being stubborn, making excuses for not asking for help.
Decision made, she opened her mouth, about to tell Evelyn she was ready for lessons.
But Evelyn spoke first. “Ladies. We have some decisions to make.” Her tone was dead serious. “Not that we can make any without Helen. But we can talk about them now.”
All heads turned toward Evelyn. “What kind of decisions?” Margo asked.
“First off,” Evelyn said, setting her knitting in her lap and reaching for her tea. “The Charity Knitters Association will have to disband come November, when the by-laws say elections must be held. I’ll be resigning, and Helen said she will be too. That means the organization won’t be able to seat a board, with Diantha Humphries as the only member.”
“That’s kind of too bad,” Gwen said. “I never joined, but you all did good work.”
“We did,” Evelyn agreed. “But honestly, I think our time had come anyway. Even when Cora was at the helm, we were winding down. There are only so many charities, and a lot of people out there who knit for them. Our intentions were good.”
“Of course they were,” Margo said.
Evelyn continued. “But it was starting to feel as if it was all about numbers. Who could knit more hats. Whose mittens sold better at the general store. Who could come up with the most obscure charity to donate to. It had begun to be . . . not fun.”
Josie thought she understood. “And it wasn’t supposed to be a competition. It was supposed to be about friendship.”
“Exactly,” Evelyn said. She waved her hand around the group. “This is what it’s supposed to be about. Friends getting together to talk, and laugh, and share their lives. Doing a thing they love—needlework—with people they love.”
This was, without a doubt, the touchiest, feeliest thing Josie had ever heard Evelyn say. And she couldn’t agree more.
“Then let’s keep doing it, just like this,” Josie declared. “Sunday afternoon drop-ins. Just a couple of hours a week when we can get together and just . . . be friends. And maybe welcome new ones too. We’ll call ourselves the ‘Yarned and Dangerous Gang.’” She’d just committed to working more hours. But this wasn’t exactly work.
Evelyn smiled, clearly satisfied. “That’s exactly what I was going to suggest. And I quite like the name of our new club. Now,
on to the second thing.”
Josie had no idea what was coming next.
“Josie, remember when you, Helen, and I talked about going to see a show in New York? Well, Helen and I have discussed it, and we think it’s a great idea. So let’s pick one and get ourselves some tickets. We’ll reserve Rodrigo and the limo and go down in the morning, so we’ll have time to check out some of the yarn shops in Brooklyn. Strictly for research purposes.”
“Margo, Gwen, you in?” Josie asked.
“Are you kidding?” Gwen said. “I’ve got three kids in elementary school and two dogs. Rodrigo, take me away for a day.”
“Oh, yeah,” Margo said. “Oh, yeah.”
Josie smiled. “Let’s bring Lorna too. She needs a day off. Desperately. I’ll call in sick for her if I have to.”
Evelyn nodded. “Quite right. In fact, I think it’s high time I had a chat with Alden Brewster. He needs to loosen up the purse strings, promote Lorna to manager of the store, and hire her some help.”
If anyone could bring Alden Brewster to heel, it was Evelyn Graves. But Josie knew that might not be what Lorna wanted. Lorna wanted the freedom that owning her own place would give, a want that Josie understood completely. Lorna’s own little café was still a little ways off, according to Lorna, though she didn’t seem to mind. The journey, maybe, was just as important as the destination.
New York. Was Josie ready to return, even if only for a day? It would be tempting to go into the Haus of Heinrich and give Otto Heinrich a piece of her mind. He’d refused to let her advance in the company, made passes at her, told her designs were no good, and stolen those very designs. But now she was finding it hard to work up much in the way of anger. Well, she wouldn’t mind seeing him have a nonfatal episode of choking on a schnitzel. But for the most part, she didn’t much care.
“Evelyn,” Josie said. “Make it so.”
Chapter 34
Josie looked at the big clock on the wall behind the sales counter. Helen had been gone a while. Longer than it should have taken her to go across the street, retrieve a thimble, and come back. Unless she was having trouble finding one.
“I’m going to give Helen a call,” she said. “She might need help hunting through Bea’s supplies.” She pressed in the number. It rang in her ear.
And rang somewhere else within Miss Marple Knits. Helen’s purse was on the floor next to the wingback chair Helen had been sitting in before she left. Josie disconnected.
“She must have only taken her keys,” Evelyn said.
“I just finished a row,” Margo said. “Would you like me to go?”
“No!” Evelyn said, a little too sharply. Margo and Gwen turned to look at her, then looked at each other and shrugged.
“Uh, I’ll go,” Josie said. “Evelyn, you can mind the shop? I should only be a few minutes. Can you lend me your keys?” It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Margo and Gwen to know that Josie had her own key to the Lair across the street, not that she’d used it anytime recently, but it wasn’t her secret to tell.
Evelyn apparently understood, because she reached into her purse, pulled out a ring containing only two keys, and tossed it to Josie. Helen and Evelyn were best friends. It wouldn’t be too hard to explain, if Gwen or Margo asked, why Evelyn had the key. But they didn’t ask.
“See you in a few minutes,” Josie said, and left.
After the earlier excitement, Main Street had returned to its mostly ghost-town appearance. At the end of the block she could just see a few cars parked at the general store. Unfortunately, none of this morning’s onlookers had made his or her way from the store to Miss Marple Knits. But no matter. Once word got out that there were Sunday hours, the yarn people would probably eventually come.
Helen’s car was not parked out front. Had she gone home? But then Josie remembered that Helen and Evelyn had come together in Evelyn’s Buick. She crossed the street and opened the door to the side of the main shop. The stairway ahead of her was dim, so she flipped on the light. Fortunately, there seemed to be a minimum of cobwebs. She made her way up one, then a second flight to the third, top floor.
There were four doors up here. She chose the door to the Lair and went in.
The lights were on here in Evelyn and Helen’s secret clubhouse. Josie hadn’t been here in a few weeks. The floral couches covered in clear vinyl were still here, as were the small table, fridge, and coffeemaker in the kitchenette. They’d added some wicker bins lined with cloth to hold balls of yarn, some of which Josie recognized as coming from Cora’s personal stash. Josie had brought that yarn here herself.
“Helen?” Josie called. “Are you here?” There was no answer, but there was a light layer of dust on the coffee table. Evelyn was an immaculate housekeeper, which supported the idea that they had shut down the probably illegal operations they’d been running here. A glance into the control room, which had once been the only bedroom in this apartment, confirmed it. Cords hung loose from some of their electronics, which were also a bit dusty.
Now that she thought about it, Josie realized this probably wasn’t where Helen would be storing Bea’s things anyway. The apartment was small, and there was a whole empty building full of choices. The only thing to do was to search it all.
She started with the other three apartments on this floor. They were all barren, except for an occasional odd piece of furniture here and there. A dining room chair whose faded blue upholstery had seen far better days. A wire birdcage, covered in peeling white paint. An empty cardboard box with dog-eared flaps.
As she opened the door to the last apartment on this floor, she thought of Bea Ryder again. Josie thought she remembered Helen or Evelyn saying that Bea had rented the street-level shop. Had she ever come upstairs for some reason and walked on these same floors? Opened these same doors? Where are you, Bea? Josie couldn’t seem to get the question out of her head. It should be enough that the murderer had finally been identified.
Somehow, it wasn’t.
“Helen?” she called again. Josie’s voice bounced around the walls of the empty apartment. She headed downstairs.
The second floor contained what appeared to have once been small shops. Each had a glass door, with a transom over the top on which a number and a name were stenciled:
N. ROGERS, TOBACCONIST
S. TRELAWNEY, ELECTRICAL SUPPLIES
Back in the day, it appeared that each store had catered to its own particular niche. Josie supposed it was no different from shopping at today’s outlet villages, where the stores stood alone or were separated by a common wall.
Josie started at the far end of the hall and entered three shops in turn. Helen wasn’t in any of them. The fourth shop, the one marked ELECTRICAL SUPPLIES, was closest to the stairwell. Josie stuck her head in. “Helen? Are you here?” A figure appeared in her peripheral vision. She turned.
It was a dressmaker’s dummy. An older model, probably from the middle of the twentieth century. Josie had seen and used enough of them during her career in fashion design to know that this one was heavy, pretty much indestructible. To its left, a sewing machine, covered in black enamel and dressed with gold scrolls, sat with its bed flush to a solid oak table. A few bolts of dusty, faded fabric stood upright in one corner.
“Helen? Helen, it’s Josie,” she called again. But there was no answer.
Here were Bea’s things, presumably where Helen had come to find the thimble for Josie.
But where was Helen?
She felt her shoulders tense, then relax. Josie must have missed her. While Josie had been looking for Helen on the third floor, Helen had been here and gone. She pulled out her cell and dialed Evelyn, who answered on the first ring.
“Ev, I’m over here, and Helen isn’t. Did she make it back to the yarn shop?”
There was a short silence. “No. She’s not there? Did you try the second floor?”
“Yes, and the third floor too.”
Josie could almost hear Evelyn thinking. “Look on the first flo
or, in the main part of the shop. There might be a few of Bea’s supplies there too. And Josie?”
“Yes?”
“Call me again, one way or the other. Something doesn’t feel right.” Evelyn rang off.
Josie had to agree. But before she could know for sure if something was wrong, she would have to check out the first floor. Perhaps Helen had fallen, or had had some kind of medical event. Josie hustled down the stairs and into the empty storefront.
A quick search of both the public side and the storeroom revealed that Helen was not there. Josie dialed Evelyn again. “No sign of her,” she said. “Can you call her house? Is it possible she walked home to get her car for some reason?”
Evelyn gave a little chuckle. “Of course. That must be it. She mentioned earlier that she had to pick up a few things at the general store before they closed today. And it’s almost closing time too. I’ll bet she’s either home or at Dougie’s. Let me just give her a ring at home, then I’ll call you back. Wait there.”
Josie’s phone rang not more than a minute later. “She didn’t answer,” Evelyn said. “Margo volunteered to go to the general store and see if she’s there. Gwen is going to drive past her house and see if she’s walking. I hope she didn’t fall. She’d never admit this to anyone but me, but her knees have been giving her trouble.”
“Well, there’s no point in my staying here. I guess I’ll come back and wait for the other girls to get back.”
“Good idea.” Evelyn rang off.
Josie looked at the clock on her phone. Just how long had Helen been gone, anyway? She calculated back. It must have been close to an hour. Even if Helen had made a detour, her house was only two blocks away. Josie left through the front door, not the way she’d come in, and headed back to Miss Marple Knits.
When Josie got inside, she asked Evelyn for an update.
Evelyn shook her head. “No one can find her.”
“Should we be worried?” Josie said. “Because I am. I know she’s a big girl and all, but—”
A Knit before Dying Page 20