"I'm going to walk to the shop," Ryan said suddenly as he closed my grandmother's car door.
"You don't need to be there," I said.
"Why not?" interrupted Eleanor. "It will be quite the party. I talked to Nancy this morning and she and the quilt club are heading over for a peek." She was interfering again, but I knew there was no point in making an issue of it.
"I'll bet Jesse will be thrilled," I said as I pulled out of the driveway.
"I think we all need to understand what happened," she said quietly.
"It feels like they all need to gawk. No one is exactly grieving, if you haven't noticed."
She nodded. "I suppose we owe Marc that. I do, especially."
"Why you?"
"He was in my shop, working for me. If I hadn't hired him…"
"He would have been killed somewhere else."
Eleanor turned her head away from me and looked out the window. "Maybe."
CHAPTER 29
As Eleanor predicted, the shop-or at least the street outside it-was getting to be quite a party when we arrived. Susanne and Natalie were looking in the window. Maggie, Bernie and Nancy were exchanging theories on the crime, and Carrie, an ever-present coffee in her hand, was watching Jesse talk to another man.
"Jesse says only the two of you and his brother-in-law are allowed in the shop," Nancy complained as we arrived. "I really think you should insist I be allowed in. I do work there. I am affected by the design."
"I agree," said my grandmother reassuringly, though I doubted she felt she needed Nancy's-or my-presence in the shop.
Jesse nodded at both of us, but, as always, turned his attentions first to Barney. By the time the two were done with their greeting, Ryan was walking to meet us.
"Came by to help?" Jesse asked him.
"Observe, really," Ryan started to say, then looked around to see that all eyes were on him.
"You are Nell's… friend," Maggie said crisply, pausing just enough between "Nell" and "friend" to make it clear to Ryan that everyone present was aware of the entire history of our relationship.
"I am," said Ryan gamely, holding out his hand. "Nice to meet you."
Ryan met her suspicious eyes, and I could see she was quickly charmed by him. Then each of the quilt club in turn shook his hand, exchanged pleasantries and was won over by his easy smile. It was a sad, sick commentary on my feelings that I was both annoyed by the women's reactions and proud that Ryan could easily captivate such a difficult audience.
I decided not to pay attention to Ryan's growing fan club, and instead pretended to listen to the discussion between my grandmother and Jesse's brother-in-law, Tom. Tom was a solid man of about thirty, slightly balding, and with the easy smile that Jesse lacked. His hands were large and covered with nicks and calluses. I could see Eleanor noticing his hands at the same time I did, and nodding approvingly. This was a man unafraid of hard work, she seemed to be thinking.
When they headed over to the old diner site, Nancy, Jesse, and I followed. Eleanor pointed to where the office and the bathroom should be, where shelves should be hung, and showed him the napkin that had been our original plan. Tom nodded, took notes and walked the space, hitting beams and saying how solid they were.
I looked over at Nancy, who for all her insistence on being included, seemed as distracted as I was.
"I hope he can do this quickly," I whispered to her.
"I'd love to get this over with myself," she whispered back.
Eleanor shot us a look as if we'd been caught passing notes in an exam. We immediately shut up.
"Let's look at the other side," Tom said.
Nancy, Jesse and I held back as my grandmother hobbled toward the door. Tom, being new, offered to help without being asked, and even called her ma'am.
"I'm fine," she shot back, even as she leaned on his arm to get down the one step to the street.
Outside the women completely lost interest in Ryan as they saw us head toward the quilt shop door. This was what they had come to see, and each of them wanted a good look.
"I thought only the killer was supposed to return to the scene of the crime," I said to Jesse as we walked into the quilt shop.
"Maybe they all did it." He smiled as he closed the door on everyone but Tom, Nancy, Eleanor and myself.
Inside the shop seemed cold and full of secrets. Outside I could see the women were openly staring through the large display window, but there wasn't really anything to see. Marc's body was gone, though traces of his blood remained on the floor. Nancy and I stared at them, but Tom merely stepped past as if they weren't even there.
"Is this where you want the cash register?" he asked as he moved in front of the picture window.
"I hadn't thought of moving it there, but I like that idea." Eleanor nodded.
"With the bigger space you can move it. It makes for a better flow of customers," he said.
"I can see that." She smiled brightly at him.
Tom lit up at her response. In only ten minutes of knowing my grandmother, he already sought her approval as much as the rest of us did. He started making other suggestions, changes in the plan on the napkin. He talked about adding whimsical touches, like a crib to hold the baby fabrics. He suggested a stronger wood for the shelves, crown molding at the ceiling and a revarnish of the wood floors.
"I was thinking of replacing this floor," Eleanor said.
"People don't look down when they shop," Tom said. "All you need to do is freshen it up and cover up the… stain." He pointed to Marc's blood. "There are better places to spend your money than on a floor."
Eleanor nodded. "Marc was going to do this for very little money. As you can imagine, a quilt shop in a small-town operates on a thin margin of profit. And I'm an old woman. I'm not likely to reap the benefits of a complete overhaul for more than a few years." She was playing him, but he seemed not to notice. "With the added expense of your labor, which is, I'm sure, well worth the cost, I'm don't know that I can afford all these fancy extras."
"I suppose I can cut out some things," Tom replied.
"What things?" I interjected.
"We can do something simpler. Keep as many of the old materials as possible. I can work without an assistant, but it will take longer."
"That won't do," Eleanor said. "This can't take longer than a few weeks or it's not worth doing." She seemed to be genuinely considering just returning the shop to its previous, overcrowded state.
"Oh, Eleanor, we've gone too far to turn back now," Nancy said.
Tom looked as his feet. "I know a young guy who works practically for free just to get some carpentry experience," he said. "And as far as my labor is concerned, I can lower the price a bit, for a trade."
Eleanor smiled just a little. "Trade what?"
"Well, I passed this shop many times when I visited my sister. And someone here made her a quilt when she went to the hospital."
"The quilt club," said Eleanor. "The ladies outside, Nancy and myself."
"Well, it was really nice, and it cheered up my sister throughout that whole ordeal." Tom looked toward Jesse, who nodded slightly and looked away. "It got me to thinking. My wife is home with our twin boys all day, and she's awfully stressed about it. I thought maybe if I… if you… made her a quilt, she could curl up in it at the end of the day and it would be, you know, something special just for her."
"That's the trade you would like?" Eleanor said.
"If it's not too much trouble."
"What are your wife's interests?"
"Um," said a puzzled Tom, "she likes to garden, or she did before the boys."
Eleanor steadied herself on one crutch and held out her hand. "It's a deal," she said. Tom reached out his, and they shook on it.
"You'll start tomorrow?"
"Yes, ma'am… Mrs. Cassidy."
"So will I. On the day I'm done with the quilt, I'd like you to be done with the shop."
"She's fast, by the way," I warned.
Tom just nodd
ed. "First thing we should do is get paper over the picture window. I'll need to leave tools and supplies in here overnight, and people sometimes help themselves to things on a construction site. Especially if they can get a clear view in like this."
I turned bright red, remembering my afternoon with Marc.
"I've got the paper in my truck," Tom said. "I can do it now, if that's all right."
"It's fine," Jesse said. "We've done all the fingerprint and blood work here, but I'm not releasing the scene completely until tomorrow morning. I want to give it one more look."
"We'll stay out of your way until tomorrow," Eleanor said. "In fact, we should all go now."
Eleanor headed for the door, and the others filed behind her, like a rock star's entourage. But my attention had turned to the hole in the wall. I walked over and examined the space.
"What?" Jesse was suddenly behind me.
"The hole… it's larger," I said.
"You remember the size?" He looked at me, a bit impressed, maybe, but mostly skeptical.
"Yes," I said. "Marc and I discussed it. I remember it was about the size of an orange. It's bigger now, grapefruit size, maybe."
"Well, you know your fruits," he said lightly, but he bent down and examined the hole more closely.
"Are you coming?" Eleanor called back to me.
"In a second," I said. Then Jesse and I both turned and followed the others out of the shop as Tom came back in with a large roll of brown paper.
CHAPTER 30
Tom felt he would need two weeks, with one helper, to complete work on the shop. I agreed to supervise the work while Nancy helped my grandmother out at the makeshift shop at her house. helped my grandmother out at the makeshift shop at her house.
"We have some work to do," she said to the ladies as she exited the shop. Then she told them about Tom's extra charge for the work. "Construction on this place starts tomorrow morning, and then it's a race to see if we finish before Tom. I don't want to give him any excuse for delays."
"I say we keep it simple, maybe small squares in color-wash effect, greens, yellows, pinks, purples… a kind of Monet's garden," said Nancy, immediately sketching out a quilt on the back of an envelope. "If you all work on that, maybe Eleanor and I can applique flowers and vines along the borders."
Everyone had gathered around to see her design, and then just as quickly they dispersed to their cars, ready to get started.
"We should get to Eleanor's and pick the fabrics," said Maggie.
"Natalie," Jesse called out. "Can I speak with you a second?"
Natalie stopped and turned to Jesse. "Sure," she said nervously. "What for?"
"Just a quick question."
"Well, we'll wait," said her mother, Susanne.
"That's not necessary," Jesse said firmly. "I can drop her at Eleanor's."
Susanne took a long look at her daughter, then climbed into her car. Ryan was all but kidnapped by Bernie, who insisted repeatedly that he join her for the ride over. After a few protests, he went along.
Eleanor was taking her time walking toward our car. The hard-nosed businesswoman of a minute before suddenly seemed tired and fragile.
"Just give me a minute, dear," she said. "Maybe this has all been too much for me."
So while Tom took measurements in the shop, Eleanor leaned against the car as if she needed to catch her breath and Barney and I stood by, waiting. I watched as, inches away from me, Jesse moved close to Natalie.
"Where did you go the other night?" Jesse asked.
"Home," she said quickly.
"Not according to your husband. And why didn't you return my calls yesterday?"
"I was busy," she said, even more quickly.
"Try again," Jesse almost snapped, in an uncharacteristic show of emotion.
"After what happened I went for a walk," Natalie said, her voice quivering. "I could hardly go home. I needed time to… grieve, I guess."
I watched Jesse blink slowly, deliberately. "Where did you walk?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know where you walked? You've lived in this town your entire life."
"So what?"
"It's not much of an alibi, Natalie," he said coldly.
"Do I need an alibi?"
"Yes, I think you do, considering your history with Marc."
Marc, I suddenly realized, was the man with whom Natalie had had the painful affair my grandmother mentioned-not an old boyfriend from before her marriage but an old boyfriend from a time when she, like me, had been vulnerable. And maybe Marc had been taking advantage of her, as Jesse suggested he was about to do with me. My mind was racing and I leaned toward Jesse and Natalie unconsciously, only to pull back when I saw Jesse look over at me.
"I have to go to Eleanor's now," Natalie said stiffly.
"We'll drive you," I found myself saying, not even pretending I wasn't eavesdropping.
"Thanks," said Natalie, and she hopped into the back of the car.
Jesse paused, then stepped toward my grandmother. "Feeling better, Eleanor?" he said without obvious sarcasm but with a tone that suggested he didn't quite believe her need for rest.
"Yes, thanks," she said, and smiled. With a sudden burst of energy she got herself into the car.
Jesse looked at me, his face slightly flushed.
"Are you okay?" I asked, and then felt intrusive.
He nodded. Then he turned and walked back toward the shop without saying anything else.
In the car on the way back to the house, Natalie burst into tears and sobbed, "He hates me."
"Who hates you?" I asked, but Eleanor touched my hand to quiet me.
"Don't let him get to you, dear," she said to Natalie.
"I'm not a perfect person. I admit that," Natalie said. "But I did my best. I really did."
"Of course you did," Eleanor said soothingly. "Jesse is just very sensitive on the subject."
"It was hard on me too," Natalie said through her tears.
"Of course. It was a terrible thing," Eleanor said. "But you can't take it so personally."
Behind me Natalie sniffed and continued crying, while Barney whimpered and tried to comfort her. With nothing else to go on but the obvious tension between Jesse and Natalie, my mind started to go through the possibilities. Did Natalie have some kind of criminal record? Or maybe there was something about her relationship with Marc that was worth killing over. Or, as unlikely as it seemed, had Jesse, Marc and Natalie been involved in a romantic triangle? Whatever the case, it didn't seem like anyone was anxious to fill me in on the details. If I wanted to know, I would have to fill them in for myself.
CHAPTER 31
All the cars were already parked in the driveway when we pulled up, and everyone was waiting by the front door. Except Ryan. Somehow he must have managed to get away from Bernie's grip, but I wondered where he had gone.
"Everything okay back there?" Susanne called out as we pulled up.
"Fine, just fine," said my grandmother.
Natalie jumped out of the car and she and Susanne huddled just a few feet away from the rest of us. I assumed Natalie was filling her mother in on the details of the conversation, but they were just out of listening range.
While the women went to the dining room to choose fabrics, I went back to the kitchen to make coffee. And to look for Ryan. Mostly to look for Ryan. He wasn't in the kitchen. He wasn't upstairs. I was tempted to ask Bernie where he had gone, but I didn't want to seem interested. So I ended my search, went back to the kitchen and made coffee for the others.
"Look at you, Susie homemaker," came a familiar voice.
I turned to see Amanda standing in the doorway.
"What in the hell are you doing here?" I almost knocked over a chair running to hug her.
She hugged me back and we stayed locked like that until another familiar voice broke the spell.
"I don't remember you ever being that glad to see me," he said.
It was Ryan, standing just behind Amanda.<
br />
"Did you know Amanda was coming?" I asked.
"No, she just showed up a few minutes ago."
"I took the train up," she said excitedly. "I tried to call you, but I couldn't reach you, so I called Ryan's cell. He picked me up at the train station. I can't believe this house. It's so cool."
"Why did you come?" I said. "Not that I'm not glad to see you."
"You seemed like you needed me," she said as she sat on the kitchen chair. "Is that coffee for anyone?"
"Yeah, sure." I poured a cup, then sat next to her and stared. "I'm so glad you're here."
"I'll bring the coffee in to the ladies," Ryan said. "Don't talk about me while I'm gone."
"You think you're so interesting." Amanda winked at him in that flirtatious way she had with every man, even ones that were taken. Of course Ryan wasn't exactly taken, and getting the story was why, I knew, she had really come to Archers Rest. As soon as Ryan was out of the room, Amanda turned to me and leaned in. "So… tell me everything."
"There isn't anything to tell. Not really. I mean there's a million things, but nothing with Ryan."
"Where did he sleep last night?"
"Upstairs in my room," I said.
"Then there's something to tell," she said.
"I slept with my grandmother and her dog."
"That's not some creepy small-town tradition, is it?"
Amanda was anxious to meet my grandmother and the women I'd been talking-and complaining-about since I arrived in Archers Rest, so I led her into the dining room.
There the group was huddled over piles of fabric in every shade of the rainbow. They all seemed like solid colors until I got close and realized they were mottled, with variations of the same color in a cloudlike effect. Others seemed to have been tie-dyed in different shades. It seemed to me they didn't need to be cut up and made into a quilt. They were beautiful just as they were. But the rest of the room's occupants didn't seem to share my view. They were already debating how to cut the fabric, in what order and by whom. And it was a lively debate. My grandmother sat in a chair leaning over so far to examine the fabrics that I thought she would fall out. Maggie and Natalie, the oddest of friends, yet always joining forces, grabbed fabrics and threw them on the floor to where Nancy sat with Bernie and Carrie. The three women would put each one next to fabrics that had already been chosen, while the others shouted out "yeahs" and "nays" to each new selection. Only Susanne didn't seem to be interested in the free-for-all. She sat quietly next to Eleanor, staring into the pile of fabrics, a million miles away from the rest.
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