by Clover Tate
I couldn’t tell if Avery was listening. She absently stroked Bear between his ears.
“Avery?”
“You’re right.” She smiled again, and my shoulders relaxed. “New evidence will come up. It’ll work itself out.”
A much better attitude. Why she refused to stand up for herself, I had no idea, but at least she was sounding optimistic.
“Very true.” I rose to slide the pizza into the oven. “After all, they don’t even have the knife that killed him. It’s probably loaded with fingerprints.” I returned and plunked on the couch next to her.
“Maybe it is. Or something else will appear.” At last she seemed to be getting back to normal. “But Emmy, when we were talking about Miles the other night, I didn’t tell you everything.”
She hadn’t. I knew she hadn’t. At last she’d finish her story about Miles. “I’m listening.”
The old fir trees behind the house swished in the wind, and the house groaned in response. Bear was starting to get used to the house’s grumblings and didn’t even raise his head this time. I settled back. As with a kite that barely began to catch the wind, I had to let Avery find her own pace.
“It’s hard to talk about it. I think—I think with everything else, it was simply easier to bury the whole thing. But I want to tell you.” Her tone was low and serious.
“I get it,” I said. The rain, which had been soft during the day, now blew hard and sharp against the windows.
Avery looked me in the eyes. I almost held my breath. “You know how I was telling you that Miles and I—we—”
I nodded, and she looked away. “Well . . . ,” she started. “Just a minute. It’s getting cool. Let me get my slippers.” She rose from the couch and headed toward the hall. I crossed my fingers that she hadn’t lost her courage and would tell me the whole story. “Have you seen them? The ones with the sheepskin lining?” Her voice was muffled. She must have moved into the bedroom.
Bear had a reputation for hoarding shoes. “Did you check Bear’s bed?” Avery didn’t reply. “You’ve got to watch him with socks, too.” Still nothing. Tension gripped my stomach. “Avery?” Silence.
I leapt from the couch and went to find Avery. Dread crept over me as I rounded the corner to her bedroom.
“Avery?” I repeated.
I found her kneeling by her bed. She looked up, her features frozen in fear. She lifted a hand. In it was a knife.
chapter nine
Avery stood in the doorway of her bedroom, dangling the knife between her thumb and forefinger as if it were a dead animal.
“Where’d you find it?” My lungs had tightened, and my voice was barely a squeak.
“Under my bed. I was looking for my slippers, and—”
We stared at the knife. I know we both thought the same thing. This was the knife that killed Miles. It had an industrial plastic handle battered by use. Rust-colored stains I prayed were only rust marred its long, narrow blade. The pounding wind and rain echoed my state of mind.
“You don’t happen to have—”
“No,” Avery said, anticipating the rest of my sentence. She didn’t have a knife like that.
“Or do you think it—”
“Don’t know.” Avery let out a long breath. Her hand dropped to her side, still holding the knife. “What should we do?”
I met Avery’s gaze. We both knew what we had to do. For a split second I considered urging her to throw the knife into the ocean. But we couldn’t. There was only one real option. I ached right through.
“I’ll call the sheriff,” I said.
* * *
Sheriff Koppen and Deputy Goff were at the door within minutes. I’d barely answered his knock, and they’d wiped their feet on the mat, then pushed past me, shaking the rain from their coats. Avery sat, stunned, on the couch, Bear beside her.
“Where is it?” the sheriff asked.
Avery lifted a hand to the coffee table, where the knife lay.
The sheriff pulled on a pair of latex gloves and held the knife gingerly from its top, probably to avoid where fingerprints might still be had—if any fingerprints remained except Avery’s.
“Denise, hand me the evidence bag,” he said to the deputy before turning back to us. “A filet knife. Restaurant grade. Listen”—he looked at each of us in turn—“I’m asking you to keep to yourselves what type of knife this is. It’s important to the investigation that the public not know every detail.” We both nodded. “I can trust you, right?” He seemed to direct that last portion to me. “It’s critical.”
“Definitely,” I said.
Deputy Goff took in the room, and her gaze rested on me. She might have curled her lip just a bit. Even Bear, who usually made the rounds with a wagging tail, kept his distance.
“Now, tell me where you found the knife,” Sheriff Koppen said.
“It was under her bed,” I started, but the sheriff cut me off.
“You found the knife?” he asked me.
“Well, no, but—”
“Then let Ms. Cook answer.” He handed the knife to Goff, who slipped it into a clear plastic bag. She jotted something on a small piece of paper, almost like a label.
“I was looking under my bed for my slippers, and there it was,” Avery said.
“Start at the beginning,” the sheriff said. “When you got home. When was that?”
“I went kayaking with Dave Reed and got back midafternoon—about three.”
“Was Emmy home?”
“No,” I said.
“Didn’t you hear him? He’s asking Avery,” the deputy chided. “When he wants you to tell him something, he’ll let you know.”
The sheriff cast her a curious glance, then returned to Avery. “Was Emmy home?”
“No. She didn’t get home until six or so.”
“What did you do this afternoon at home?”
“Nothing interesting, I guess. Laundry. Dishes. I took Bear for a walk.”
Despite the dire situation, I felt some satisfaction. She’d been feeling good enough to work around the house. Good enough until now, that is. I took comfort, though, in knowing the sheriff was trying to figure out if there was a time someone could have planted the knife.
Deputy Goff lifted her head from taking notes long enough to give me a dirty look. Why she disliked me so much, I didn’t have a clue.
“So the only time you were out of the house was while you were kayaking and when you took out the dog,” the sheriff said.
“Yes. Bear and I were only gone for about half an hour.”
“Bear could easily run—” I began.
The sheriff shot me a warning glance. I clamped my mouth shut.
“Then Emmy came home, and you were looking for your slippers,” he said.
“Yes.”
“You don’t know where your slippers are?” the sheriff asked.
“Normally I do. Normally they’re by the side of my bed. But they weren’t there.”
“Bear likes shoes,” I said. “Sometimes he stockpiles them somewhere.”
The deputy tapped her pen on the side table. “If you won’t be quiet, you’ll have to leave. Nick, should I take her to the patrol car?”
Again, an eyebrow raised a touch, he looked at Goff. “No, that won’t be necessary.”
“I’ll be quiet.” I took an armchair across from Avery and clutched a throw pillow to my lap.
“I couldn’t find my slippers, so I looked under the bed. I saw the knife’s handle,” Avery said. “I pulled it out.”
“Have you seen the knife before?” the sheriff asked.
“No.” Avery shook her head to emphasize it. “Never.”
“Now let’s go back to when you left this morning. What time did you leave?”
“It was about one in the afternoon,” Avery said. “
Dave drove here with the kayaks already loaded up. I didn’t think I wanted to leave the house, but he convinced me. Told me cormorants were hatching upriver. He’d even brought sandwiches.”
Dave was a good man. I knew he would have had his reward when he’d seen Avery perk up.
Goff flipped the page of her notebook. “Tell me again when you returned?”
The sheriff had already asked this question. Was it a trick? I opened my mouth to say when Avery had returned home, but at a look from Goff, I shut it.
“Like I said, around three, I guess.”
Koppen was hard to read. His jaw was set tight, but it could have been from anything from worry to anger. I couldn’t tell.
“And you,” he said to me. “Were you home when Ms. Cook arrived?”
“No.” I leapt at the chance to speak. “I came home after I talked to you. Less than an hour ago.” Goff made notes, but neither the sheriff nor deputy responded. “Don’t you see?” I said. “Someone saw the house was empty and planted evidence against Avery. It’s a setup.”
Goff swung her gaze toward me. “You’re doing our job?”
“If it was Avery, why would she call about the knife? I mean, that would be stupid, right?”
The sheriff looked at me, those clear black eyes boring into me. “Or clever,” he replied. “The judge signed a warrant this afternoon. We would have searched the house first thing in the morning. And found the knife.”
“But why would we have kept it? Why not just get rid of it?”
“We?” Koppen asked. “What do you have to do with it?”
My insides sizzled with frustration. “I mean Avery. She’s not stupid. If she killed Miles, I’m sure she would have thrown the knife away, not suddenly pretended to find it tonight.”
“Stop it!” Avery said. Somehow I’d forgotten about her sitting on the couch. “Stop arguing. The sheriff is asking legitimate questions. Leave him alone. This is between him and me.”
My jaw dropped. Avery was asking me to back off. Bear seemed to sense the tension. He slunk off the couch and trotted toward his bed.
“I’m afraid we’re going to have to take you in,” the sheriff said.
Take her in? To jail? “You can’t be serious,” I said.
As if in response, against the steady whistling of the eaves from the wind, something hit the back of the house. Probably a blown-down branch.
“We have too much evidence against her at this point to let her remain out of custody. Maybe the knife will reveal other fingerprints, but until then, you’ll need to come with us.”
“But all you have is this knife—which we reported—and some mistaken calendar entry.” My voice had leapt a few notes. I tried to rein it in, appear calm. “How can you arrest someone on that?”
Avery was silent. Not a peep out of her. Not a single word of defense.
Koppen rose. “There are bloodstains on the deck of the Cooks’ boat. We haven’t tested them yet, but forensics says they’re new. And a witness saw Avery at the dock.”
A witness? It had to be a mistake. “I’ll get you a lawyer,” I told her. “This is ridiculous. You’ll be out of jail in no time, and he—” I narrowed my eyes. “He’ll be sorry.”
Koppen rose and so did Avery.
“You’ll be sorry if you don’t check the oven. Something is burning,” Deputy Goff said with evident satisfaction.
The pizza. “Don’t go!” I yelled, and dashed to the kitchen to yank open the oven door. Acrid smoke billowed out. Despite the driving rain, I pulled up the kitchen window and waved my way through the smoke to the living room, where Avery was shrugging on her purse. At least she wasn’t in handcuffs.
The sheriff faced Avery. “Ms. Cook, you have the right to remain silent—”
“I’ll find you a lawyer!” I shouted.
Flanked by the sheriff and deputy, Avery didn’t reply, didn’t even turn back as sheets of rain blew past.
I stood at the door, the smell of charred pizza streaming around me, as Koppen’s taillights faded into the distance.
chapter ten
The next morning I rose early. I had work to do. It seemed like the wind itself had felt Avery’s absence, and the house creaked and moaned like a pirate’s galleon all night. But the storm had blown over, and the morning was still.
Dodging fallen branches, I loaded Bear into the car and drove into town, parking near the Brew House and leaving Bear in the back with the window rolled partway down. I’d only be a minute. The café was just opening. Trudy, the manager, was wiping down tables and listening to Neil Young.
“Hey,” Trudy said. “I thought you were Avery.”
“She’s not coming in today,” I said.
Something about my expression must have alarmed her, because she straightened and tossed her bleach-water rag onto the counter. “Is everything all right?”
“Everything’s fine. It’s just that—well—something unexpected has come up, and she’ll be out for a few days. Can you hold down the fort without her?” I felt bad lying to Trudy. She’d been with the Brew House since it had opened, and I knew Avery trusted her completely. But I hoped that Avery would be home soon. Why complicate things by telling her that her boss was in jail?
“Sure. No problem at all. Tell her I said hi, and that Matt changed the rings on the espresso machine last night.”
“No storm damage?”
“No. The old building held up pretty well. I don’t think we lost a single roof shingle.”
That was something, at least. “Thanks, Trudy. Could you spare a large Americano for me? Leave room for milk, please.”
The espresso machine hissed as it delivered its shot. Trudy steamed water for it and slid the cup across the counter. “Is that Bear out there?” I nodded. “Take him this.” She reached into a jar Avery kept under the counter and placed a dog biscuit next to my coffee.
“He’ll love it.”
Task number one completed. Task number two had to wait until I was back at Strings Attached with Bear curled up on his cushion in the kitchen, crunching on his Milk-Bone. Half an hour later, I was in the shop, punching the jail’s number on my phone. I got a recording listing visiting hours and made a note of the evening slot. I had to see Avery and find out what was going on.
The last task was the trickiest. “Mom?” I knew she’d be up meditating, despite the early hour.
“Honey? Is anything wrong?”
I gulped some of the Americano. “No. Not wrong. It’s just that I—I have a friend who needs some legal help.”
“Are you in trouble with the law?” My mother’s voice leapt.
“No, Mom. Not me. I told you, a friend.” My father was a retired attorney. True, he’d mostly prosecuted environmental cases, but he surely knew the local talent. “I have a friend who might need a criminal-defense attorney. Can you ask Dad who’s good?”
“What did your friend do?”
“That’s personal.”
“You weren’t involved, were you?”
“No. Not at all.” I crossed my fingers as we spoke. “I just need a referral, that’s all.”
A moment passed. “Well, I’m glad to know it isn’t you, Em. You might be bullheaded at times, but you’re no felon.”
“Thanks, Ma.”
“He’s still in bed, but I’ll give him the message. He’s worn out. Did you know there are thirty-seven hundred hours of Nixon tapes? I’m making your father a tincture for his throat. Poor man.”
* * *
The eerie, dipping song of a robin pierced the morning’s quiet. Later, Stella would be coming by to get the lowdown on how to run Strings Attached, but that wouldn’t be for a few hours yet, when the shop opened. To pass the time and distract me from this nightmare with Avery, I turned to the one thing I knew would absorb me: kite making.
I finally had a desig
n for a promising kite shaped like a comet. The next step was to make a pattern so I could sew a prototype. Since I was simply testing the design, I’d draw it freehand on the stiff paper I used for cutting patterns. After that, I’d weight the pattern down on ripstop nylon and cut its pieces. Then I’d sew the kite, thread the spars that gave it shape, and attach a bridle.
The catch with the comet kite was that it was asymmetrical. I hoped the kite wouldn’t pull to one side or, worse, refuse to rise at all. The trick was to create enough surface to lift the kite, but also balance so that it wouldn’t veer and crash.
My sewing machine hummed as light washed through the windows. Now I just needed to position the bridle, and it would be ready to test. The bridle’s placement was critical to its flightworthiness. Some kite makers say you can fly anything if you bridle it right. My slapdash prototype would test that theory. The store wasn’t opening for another half hour. I still had time to take the kite to the beach and give it a whirl.
“Come on, Bear,” I said.
He leapt to his feet and trotted after me down to the still-quiet beach.
A stiff breeze blew in from the ocean. Here on the sand was little evidence of last night’s storm. I wondered how Avery had slept. Sheriff Koppen wasn’t a monster. He would have made sure she was comfortable. But how comfortable could she be, locked up for a crime she didn’t commit? Koppen had been so confident as he rattled off the evidence against her: calendar, boat, knife. Avery had been about to tell her something last night, too, before she found the knife.
And how many locals already knew she’d been taken in? I suspected the Brew House would be busy this morning.
“That kite will never fly,” came a voice from behind me.
I spun around. Jack Sullivan. A lock of dark hair blew over his eyes. He pushed it back.
“How do you know? Have you ever flown a kite like this?” I said, indignant. He’d chosen the wrong morning to pick a fight.
“No, and I doubt anyone else has, either. That shape—”