The Lover’s Knot

by Clare O’Donohue

  "Who's this?" Eleanor suddenly noticed that Amanda and I were in the room.

  "This is Amanda, my friend from New York," I said. "This is my grandmother and her Friday Night Quilt Club."

  "And Ryan," said Bernie.

  Ryan was busy moving coffee cups out of the way of flying fabric and didn't even look up.

  "Amanda and Ryan and I work together," I said.

  "Well, Amanda," Nancy held up a bolt of mottled light green fabric, "what do you think of this?"

  "I think it's lovely," she said, clearly unsure of what answer she was supposed to give.

  "I agree." Nancy added it to the quickly growing pile of chosen fabrics.

  "Don't you have enough?" I asked as the bolts of fabric teetered over.

  All the women laughed. Not just laughed, but laughed as if I had uttered truly the stupidest thing ever said.

  "You can't have too many fabrics, dear," Maggie admonished sternly.

  "Why not?" Amanda asked with just the right amount of naivete and interest. They had her.

  "This," Nancy explained, pointing to the fabric, "this is our paint box. I use one green for, say, a leaf. But I shade it with a slightly darker green from a different fabric."

  "So the more fabric, the more depth," I jumped in.

  "Exactly." My grandmother's eyes lit up. "The more fabrics you use, the more you can say in your quilt. You can draw someone in, make it so their eyes move across it. Two fabrics in a quilt is fine, but it has to be a deliberate choice. And it can be tricky to create emotion in a quilt with two fabrics. But you can make even the simplest patterns seem complicated by using lots of different fabrics."

  "Oh, cut out the baloney," Bernie interrupted. "I use a lot of fabrics for one reason. Because I love to buy fabric and I need an excuse to buy a lot, and I'm not alone."

  "That's okay too," Eleanor laughed. "That's what keeps me in business."

  "Well, I guess we should leave you to it, then," I said. I nodded toward Amanda and we made a quick exit before we were drafted to help.

  Amanda and I grabbed our coats and were heading out the front door when Ryan caught up with us. "Let's all go out for coffee," he suggested.

  "Can Amanda and I have some time alone?" I asked. He looked toward Amanda. "Why are you looking to her for permission?" I demanded.

  Amanda smiled. "Don't worry, Ryan. I won't give her any more ammunition to throw you out on your ass."

  I laughed, but Ryan looked back at me worried. "What am I supposed to do while you're gone?"

  "You're the one who wanted to be here," I reminded him as I got in the car.

  Ryan stepped back, but I could tell he was not pleased, and- this surprised me-I really didn't care.

  CHAPTER 32

  We parked in front of the bakery, but I'd run out of interest in coffee and pastries, so we walked down the block to Moran's Pub. Inside it was dark and a little run-down. The sort of place where three or four rumpled old men sit continuously at the bar from opening to closing, drinking without getting drunk. But there were no such men sitting at Moran's, just a cooing young couple at the bar and two college-age kids playing pool.

  We ordered two beers and sat at a corner booth. I hadn't even had a chance to take a sip before Amanda started.

  "Ryan is trying to win you back," she said.

  "That's the only thing that makes sense, except he isn't exactly doing anything to get me back."

  "Like what?"

  "Like telling me that postponing the wedding was a big mistake. Or telling me that he never wants to be with anyone else." I took a breath. "And that's just for starters. Where are the flowers, the candy, you know… the stuff?"

  "Would that make a difference?"

  That stopped me. I didn't know. "It might," I said. "But it doesn't look like I'm going to find out."

  Amanda sat back and took a sip of her beer. Behind her the door opened, and Jesse walked in. He waved. I waved back, and Amanda turned around to see who had caught my attention.

  "Who's that?" she asked with an exaggerated smile.

  "The local police chief."

  "He's cute." I could tell she was heading into flirtation mode.

  "He's not cute," I protested.

  He'd ditched his overcoat and was wearing jeans and a sport coat layered over a navy blue V-neck sweater and T-shirt. Between the clothes, the glasses, and the low light of the pub, he looked like he belonged with the college students playing pool. When he glanced up and saw me watching, I turned back to Amanda, but he was already walking over.

  "Hey there," he said and grabbed a nearby chair. "I thought you were all going back to Eleanor's for the great quilt extravaganza."

  "We ran from that," Amanda said, smiling. "I'm Nell's friend Amanda. I'm up for the day from New York."

  "I'm Jesse."

  "Like Jesse James. Are you an outlaw, Jesse?"

  It looked like he blushed a little.

  "What are you doing in a bar in the middle of the day?" I changed the subject.

  "I could ask you the same thing," he said.

  "Drinking." I held up the beer bottle as evidence. "But you don't strike me as the kind of man who drinks in daylight or on duty."

  He shrugged. "It's a nonalcohol brew."

  Amanda lifted her glass. "Well, here's to hanging out in bars in the daytime, whatever you drink." Jesse and I joined her toast, sipped our beers and stared at our glasses.

  "Where's your boyfriend?" Jesse cleared his throat and asked. "He hasn't decided to go back to the city, has he?"

  "No. We ditched him at the house," Amanda volunteered.

  Jesse shot me a surprised look. "I thought you two were back together. Judging by the looks of things in your room the other day."

  I was embarrassed that Jesse knew Ryan had spent the night in my room. I was also aware of Amanda's curious eyes boring into me.

  "Amanda and I wanted to talk, so we left him at the house where he is probably being fussed over by half a dozen women as we speak," I said quickly, and once again looked for a new topic. "How's the investigation going?"

  "We've sorted through the fingerprints on the scissors," he said.

  "So do you know who killed Marc?" I was almost afraid to ask.

  "No. Unless you, Eleanor, Nancy, Carrie and the others all killed Marc together. There are at least half a dozen partial prints on that thing."

  "What about Ryan?" I asked and held my breath.

  "Nothing on the scissors, but there were a few prints too smudged to identify."

  "But if his prints weren't on the scissors that means…," I started.

  "It doesn't mean anything. Nell, it's not that simple. He isn't-"

  I stopped him midsentence. "I get it. He's not out of the running."

  "No one is yet," he said.

  "Not even Nell?" Amanda interrupted.

  "Why would you think I killed anyone?" I stammered.

  Amanda looked embarrassed. "I just thought if he suspected Ryan, he must suspect you. I'm sorry. I was completely off base."

  "No, you weren't," came Jesse's flat reply. "Obviously she was on the short list of suspects right at the beginning. She knew the victim, had something of a relationship with him, and had access to the shop."

  "But I didn't do it," I jumped in.

  Jesse nodded. "She has a pretty good alibi."

  "Thanks to Eleanor." I smiled wryly. I decided to ask about one of my suspects. "Why did you jump all over Natalie today?"

  He stared at the table for a moment, then asked, "Want another beer?"

  Without answering my question, Jesse was up and headed toward the bar. As he was ordering, Ryan walked in.

  "Well, I guess we had the same idea," he said, trying to sound casual.

  "Hey," Amanda said. "Why don't you join us?"

  "Thanks," I muttered and shot her a look, but she was playing innocent. Ryan took Jesse's chair and looked from me to Amanda. "So what were you guys talking about?"

  "Nothing," I said sharpl
y. "I told you I wanted some time alone with Amanda."

  "You weren't alone. You were drinking with that cop."

  Amanda rolled her eyes. "We were talking about the grisly murder." I wasn't interested in explaining any further, so I went up to help Jesse with the drinks.

  Jesse took two beers and left me with two, but I lingered just for a moment. "I'm Nell," I said to the bartender. "Were you working here Friday afternoon?"

  "I own the place," he said warmly. "I'm here every night."

  "There's a guy sitting at my table…"

  "You mean the guy who isn't Jesse."

  "Yeah. Him. Was he here Friday afternoon?"

  The bartender leaned toward me. "Why don't you ask him?"

  I could feel myself turning red. "Humor me. It doesn't look like it gets too crowded in the middle of the day, so if he was here, you might remember him."

  "I might," he said, looking straight at Ryan. "Yeah, he was here. But if you're going to ask me how long he stayed and what he drank and who he spoke to, I can't tell you." He hesitated for a moment. "But I remember he seemed kind of upset. I do remember he was on his cell, 'cause that irritates me. He kept telling someone he'd made a big mistake."

  "Did he say what mistake?"

  "Not that I heard."

  "Thanks," I sighed. "Sorry to bother you."

  The bartender smiled and shrugged and I turned back toward the table. I caught Jesse's eye as I headed back.

  "Everything okay there?" he asked.

  "Perfect. I just had a question about the history of the bar," I said as innocently as possible.

  Ryan had taken Jesse's seat and Jesse was sitting on my side of the booth. Amanda had left plenty of room on her side for me to sit, but that would have put me next to Ryan. So I motioned for Jesse to get up and let me in on his side. Ryan took a long gulp and set his drink loudly on the table.

  "So are the three of you having fun?" Ryan asked.

  "Yes, actually," I replied, trying to imitate Jesse's flat, indifferent tone, but without much success.

  "Jesse has been filling us in on his hunt for the killer," Amanda told him excitedly. "Apparently, everyone in town is a suspect."

  "Everyone sure seemed to hate that guy," Ryan said.

  "He was hated?" Amanda seemed fascinated by this new piece of information.

  Okay, I got it. No one liked him. No one but me. And apparently I was being played. Still, there's a huge difference between wanting to kill someone and actually killing him. And killing him in my grandmother's quilt shop-there was something about the location that seemed especially strange.

  "Okay, so he went around making enemies everywhere he went." Amanda's face lit up as she embellished what she knew, as if she were talking through the plot of a new movie, rather than the death of a real person. "So someone goes after him and knifes him?"

  "It was scissors," Jesse corrected.

  "He was scissored, if that's a word," Ryan added.

  "Okay, so someone came into the shop and scissored him?" Amanda was playful now and Ryan seemed to be jumping in.

  "It was a real murder." I admonished them both. "Someone is dead. It would be great if you could stop using that fact to entertain yourselves."

  Amanda leaned back, looking chastised. Ryan just looked annoyed. But something in what Amanda had said stuck with me. Someone had come into the shop and scissored him. I leaned toward Jesse. "But why that night? Why in the quilt shop?"

  "What do you mean?" Jesse asked.

  "Why pick that particular night?"

  "Because he was in the shop alone?" Jesse suggested.

  I turned to face him. "Okay. But let's say someone has had a problem with Marc for weeks, or months or years, or however long they've been building up to this moment. They must have gone to my grandmother's shop to confront him, and things got out of hand and Marc ended up with scissors in his chest."

  "So what?" interrupted Ryan. "Things got out of hand. That happens."

  "But why that night?" I asked, more emphatically.

  "You think something happened that day to cause a confrontation? " Jesse leaned toward me. "That makes sense."

  "Are we back to my having killed him?" Ryan demanded. "Is that where you're going with this, Nell?"

  I ignored him. "I'm trying to think of anything that was different about Marc that day, and there wasn't anything. He was in a good mood when I left him."

  "You put him in a good mood," Ryan snapped.

  Jesse turned his body fully toward mine, so we were now facing each other on our side of the booth. Amanda and Ryan were shut out, but I didn't care, and it seemed, Jesse didn't either.

  "He didn't mention any plans he had, any meetings, jobs… anything that was coming up that day or that week?" Jesse asked me.

  "No," I replied. "Except he said something about a doctor's appointment. I don't know what kind of appointment. But it was supposed to be on Thursday."

  "Hold that thought." Jesse picked up his cell phone and hit one button. "It's Jesse," he said into the phone. "Call the local doctors and Sacred Heart Hospital. Find out if Marc Reed had a doctor's appointment with any of them for last Thursday. Call me back." He hung up the phone and leaned back. "Let's see if that gets us anywhere."

  But when his phone rang five minutes later, it wasn't with news about Marc. Someday Quilts had been broken into, and the officer on the scene was sure that the person was still inside.

  CHAPTER 33

  When we arrived at the shop all four of us were breathless from having run the two blocks, which didn't say much about our level of fitness. But while Ryan and Amanda caught their breath, I followed Jesse to the door of the shop.

  Tom had done an excellent job of covering up the large picture window. I tried, but I couldn't see anything that might be going on inside.

  "Nell, stay back," Jesse directed, but I kept following. He grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the door. "I'm not kidding around," he said angrily. "You don't know who's in there. You don't know if they have a weapon."

  "I'm not going to get hurt," I snapped, annoyed that he was literally pushing me around.

  "Oh, yeah," he snapped back. "If you take one step from here, I'll shoot you myself."

  I reluctantly stepped a few feet from the shop. Jesse went back to the officer standing at the door.

  "Any movement inside?" Jesse asked him.

  "None in the last few minutes," said the young officer, who seemed young enough to have gone straight from a Boy Scout's uniform to a cop's.

  What were they waiting for, I wondered. My heart was beating a mile a minute. For the second time in a few days someone had turned my grandmother's shop into a crime scene, and I was ready to kill whoever it was that had violated such a happy place.

  Ryan and Amanda walked toward me. While we waited, Ryan put one arm around me and the other around Amanda. She and I exchanged a look that said the same thing. As much as he annoyed me, I had to admit I did feel a little safer in his arms. But I didn't want to feel safe. I wanted in that shop. I pulled away.

  Jesse moved for the door slowly, and as he did there was a noise from inside. He drew a gun that had been holstered under his sport coat. The minute I saw how comfortably the metal fit in his hands, I knew he was a real cop. Not a small-town bumbler happy to pick up the occasional drunk, but someone who could handle dangerous situations. Like this one was turning out to be.

  Jesse pointed his gun toward the door and signaled the young officer to open it. The cop turned the knob and pushed. The door opened, and for a split second I could see shock on Jesse's face. Then a large hairy creature came running out of the shop and jumped on Jesse, knocking him to his knees. For maybe half a second my brain couldn't process what I was seeing. Then I realized-it was Barney.

  The young officer pulled the dog off Jesse, who put away his gun, petted the dog and pointed him in my direction. Barney came running over with a goofy grin and a greeting that suggested he'd never been happier to see me.

&
nbsp; But I left him behind and walked over to Jesse, who had already taken a few steps into the shop.

  "There's no one in here?" I started.

  "What the hell are you doing?" He turned to me. "Didn't I tell you to stay back?"

  "Barney's not part of some international crime ring."

  "Well, he didn't break into this place on his own," Jesse whispered angrily, pushing me back, "so until I know who else is here, get out."

  I moved back. Not out, but out-ish. Jesse started walking toward the stairs. As he did, we both heard footsteps coming up.

  Jesse pulled out his gun again just as Nancy came walking up with a large box. She saw Jesse and dropped it.

  "Oh, for God's sake," Jesse muttered, lowering his weapon. "What are you doing here?"

  "You gave me a horrible fright, Jesse Dewalt! Honestly, I'm not a young woman."

  "I'm sorry," he said. "But this place is a crime scene. You aren't supposed to be here until tomorrow afternoon."

  Nancy's eyes filled with tears. "We're going to applique flowers on the border for the quilt. I had a pattern I'd made here in this box. I hadn't had a chance to clean out the office."

  "You had to get it today?" Jesse said through gritted teeth.

  "Eleanor wanted me to start on it tonight."

  "You should have called me and asked me to let you in," he said gently, though a hint of exasperation just made it into the tone of his voice.

  "You try saying no to Eleanor," she sniffed. Then she looked around. "You've let that dog out. He's doesn't have the sense God gave a tree."

  "He's okay," I said, stepping forward.

  "Please remind Eleanor that no one is allowed in here until I say so," Jesse said. He leaned over, picked up the box Nancy had dropped and handed it to her. "You need a whole box for a quilt pattern?"