Paper-Thin Alibi

by Mary Ellen Hughes

  “I want to be here, not half an hour away in case…. ” Jo stopped, not wanting to think the unthinkable. “I just want to be here.”

  “Then let’s go down to the cafeteria. Have you had any dinner yet?”

  Jo thought of the chicken drumstick she had left sitting on her kitchen counter. The one bite she’d taken out of it didn’t exactly qualify as dinner, but she didn’t feel like adding more to it. “I don’t think I can eat, but coffee might be a good idea.” They were waiting for the elevator when Jo suddenly turned to Ina Mae. “You’ve been here all day. There’s no need to stay longer with me. I’ll be fine.”

  “Phhht.” Ina Mae blew dismissively. “Virginia has to stay the night and I was going to stop in on her a little later anyway.”

  The elevator arrived and Ina Mae stepped in along with Jo. “Virginia’s husband,” she said, explaining further, “has an eye condition and isn’t supposed to drive. And their daughter lives way up in Cumberland, and won’t be here until tomorrow.”

  So Ina Mae had, of course, seen the need and filled in. What, Jo wondered, would the people of Abbotsville do without her? She smiled, then, at the thought that she too was officially an Abbotsvillian, and particularly grateful at the moment to be one.

  Once in the cafeteria and sliding her tray along past salads and sandwiches toward the cashier, Jo added a muffin at the last minute to her coffee purchase. Behind her, Ina Mae grunted approvingly but asked, “Sure you don’t want to try some of this vegetable soup, too?” Jo smiled and shook her head. After paying for both of them, she led the way to a quiet table near the back.

  Thankfully, the commotion in the hospital lobby hadn’t yet spread to the cafeteria. Jo unloaded her items, then sat, wrapping her hands around her mug to soak up some of its warmth.

  “The hospital staff here is quite good,” Ina Mae said, as she sat down before her soup and tea. “You might not think that was the case in a small town like ours. But the hospital serves a fairly broad area beyond Abbotsville, and everything is top notch.”

  Jo nodded. “I got that impression during my brief stay here last fall.”

  “My own Frank was well cared for here, to the end.”

  Jo looked up. “Your husband’s name was Frank?” she asked, realizing she hadn’t known that.

  “Yes. Francis G. Kepner. The G was for Gilbert, his grandfather’s name, which he never cared for much.” Ina Mae opened a packet of crackers. “He wasn’t overly fond of ‘Francis’, either. Too much junk mail would come addressed to Miss Francis Kepner.” Ina Mae snorted in disgust. “As if a woman would spell it with an ‘I’.”

  Jo smiled, aware that she never managed to remember which version was masculine and which feminine. She broke off a piece of her muffin and nibbled at it.

  “What did he, ah, what was his ailment?” she asked.

  “No illness. Frank was healthy as a horse.”

  “But ---?”

  “He was sky diving. He’d done it before, loved it from the first, and decided he was going to treat himself to a jump every birthday. That last time, though – it was his sixty-eighth birthday – things unfortunately went wrong. Parachute problem.”

  Jo winced.

  “He spent five days in a coma, then peacefully slipped away.” Ina Mae took a spoonful of her soup. “People, of course, said things like, ‘if he hadn’t taken such risks you’d still have him with you.’ But the way I saw it was if he hadn’t taken risks he wouldn’t have been Frank, so who would I have with me? Some man who wouldn’t have enjoyed life nearly as much!”

  Ina Mae took another spoonful of soup, and dabbed her mouth with her paper napkin. “When it was clear he wasn’t going to survive I told him as much, even though I wasn’t sure he could hear me. I said, ‘Frank, I will miss you terribly, but I’m glad you got to do what you wanted to do.”

  She cleared her voice. “Well, my original point was that this is a very good hospital. Frank’s situation was extreme, nothing like Lieutenant Morgan’s, but I watched him get outstanding care. The lieutenant, rest assured, is in excellent hands.”

  “Thank you.”

  Jo sat for a moment, quietly picturing Russ surrounded by skilled doctors and nurses, all damage swiftly and competently repaired, pain managed, and brow soothed. It was a much calmer image than what had been bouncing about her head until then.

  The aroma from Ina Mae’s soup drifted toward her as the older woman stirred through the broth. Jo sniffed, thinking it smelled pretty good. She put her hands at the table’s edge and pushed back her chair.

  “ I think I’ll get a bowl after all,” she said. “Can I pick you up a muffin?”

  Jo was dozing in a quiet waiting area Ina Mae had located on the third floor when her cell phone rang. Jerking upright and blinking, she scrambled through her pocket to find and answer it.

  “Jo? You still at the hospital? It’s Mark. Russ is awake. They said you can see him for a couple of minutes. The ICU’s on the fifth floor.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  Jo found Ina Mae down the hall, stretching her legs with a short walk. “He’s awake,” Jo said, hurrying up to her.

  “Good. Go ahead. I’ll be here if you need me.”

  Jo ran off, eager to see Russ, but anxious, too, knowing nothing beyond the fact that Russ was conscious. Mark was waiting near the elevator when Jo burst from the nearby stairwell, having decided climbing the two flights would be quicker.

  “Did they find the bullet?” she asked, puffing. “Was there much damage?”

  Mark talked as he led her down the hall to the double doors of the ICU. “They found it. It didn’t hit anything vital. Everything looks good.”

  “Thank God.”

  The nurse at the ICU cautioned her to be brief. Jo promised, then followed her to the bed where Russ lay among numerous connected tubes and wires. The first thought that came to Jo’s mind was that his face looked as pale as Linda’s had when they’d wheeled her toward the ambulance, an awful association that she immediately banished.

  “Russ?” she asked, softly.

  Russ’s eyes opened and he seemed to struggle to focus. Then he smiled weakly. “Hi.”

  Jo took the hand that lay atop his covers. It felt warm and dry. “How do you feel?”

  He seemed to have to consider that, finally answering, “ ’kay.”

  Mark had stayed back but nurses hovered nearby, busily checking instruments. It wasn’t a good time for conversation, all things considered, so Jo simply squeezed Russ’s hand and felt him squeeze back. That made her smile, and she lifted his hand to her face, rubbing it gently against her cheek.

  Terrible as it was to see someone normally so strong rendered helpless, Jo reminded herself how wonderful it was to see him alive. She remembered her earlier intention to ask Russ for help with her problem. That was obviously out of the question. The only thing Jo wanted to ask of him was that he heal quickly and completely.

  After a few moments of simply smiling and holding onto each other, Russ’s need for sleep overcame his struggle to stay awake. The ICU nurse let her know she should leave, and Mark walked her back to the elevator, murmuring a few words of encouragement, as much for himself, Jo suspected, as for her. As she rode the elevator back down to the third floor, Sheriff Franklin and his suspicions popped back into her thoughts, but she quickly brushed it away. The importance of that situation had shrunk for the moment to infinitesimal.

  She’d worry about it tomorrow.

  CHAPTER 9

  Jo called Carrie the next morning as soon as she was sure the entire family would be awake, to update her on Russ’s condition, something she’d promised to do after convincing her good friend not to come to the hospital the previous night.

  “Did you manage to get any sleep?” Carrie asked, and, when Jo admitted to only one or two hours in fits and starts, had urged her to immediately go back to bed.

  But Jo knew sleep would be impossible with the adrenaline of the last several hours still c
oursing through her and instead showered and dressed before heading for the craft shop. It felt good to be back, once she pulled off Main and into the small parking lot beside the shop. Fitting her key into the lock on her front door, she took a look at the wreath hanging there and saw it was time for a change. The red flowers trimming the wreath, while perfect around Valentine’s day, didn’t match the newly warm weather which was calling out for pastels.

  Jo walked through her store, her spirits lifted as they always were by the bright colors of her many craft items – silk flowers, bright ribbons, scrapbooking papers and stamping supplies – and found it hard to believe she’d only been gone three and a half days. She set up the coffee pot in the back with fresh water and grounds and plugged it in. She was heading toward the front to open up the cash register when Carrie bustled through the door. Carrie stopped dead and looked at her with scolding eyes, her head shaking with exasperation.

  “I told you I’d handle the shop,” Carrie said, her hands on her hips. She wore a loosely-crocheted sweater over a dark T-shirt and drapey pants, an outfit which Jo knew she favored for its extra pounds-camouflaging virtue.

  “I wouldn’t have been able to rest, Carrie, really. Besides, you have a knitting class this morning, don’t you? You can’t handle that and wait on customers at the same time.”

  “Our customers will know enough to be patient at a time like this. My class too. My gosh, Jo, I’d be surprised if you could see straight enough to write up a sales slip after the night you’ve had. How in the world did you even manage to drive over here?”

  “Very carefully,” Jo said, smiling guiltily. “I’ll be fine, though, as soon as the caffeine kicks in.”

  Carrie tsked and shook her head some more as she walked to the back of the shop to drop off her things. Jo checked the cash register, making sure they had plenty of change, and looked through a few order slips.

  “I thought I’d put together a new wreath for the front door,” she called out to Carrie. “Something more spring-like.”

  “Good idea. Why don’t you work on that in the back, and I’ll watch things out front.”

  Jo smiled, knowing Carrie hoped she’d end up sound asleep at the work table with her head nestled among the trimmings. But she intended to actually finish the wreath and to this end picked up a basket and wandered into her flower area to look over her choices. The front door opened and Jo heard the voice of one of the knitting class students, Kathy Vincent, greeting Carrie.

  “Am I the first?” Kathy asked.

  “Yes, you are. How’s the sweater coming?”

  Kathy chatted about her knitting progress as she headed toward the chairs Carrie kept in the yarn section for the classes. As she passed the shelves where Jo stood with her basket, Jo turned to say good morning and was surprised to see Kathy freeze.

  “Oh! You’re here! I didn’t, I mean, I thought ---”

  Carrie broke in, saying, “Yes, I tried to convince Jo to stay home and get some rest, but she wouldn’t listen.”

  Kathy smiled weakly and nodded as Carrie went on to talk about how Jo had spent several hours at the hospital. But Jo had the feeling that wasn’t what Kathy had been thinking of when she was so surprised to see her. It was almost as if she hoped she wouldn’t see Jo that morning. Which didn’t make sense, so Jo made a mental shrug and turned back to her wreath trimmings, refocusing on the question of whether the pale yellow rosebuds would work with the light blue daisies.

  Carrie and Kathy had just settled down on the chairs, when the phone rang.

  “I’ll get it,” Jo said, and stepped over to the front counter to pick it up. “Jo’s Craft Corner. Jo here.”

  “Oh!” the voice on the other end said. After a pause, it said, “Um, this is Patty Collins. Can you just tell Carrie I won’t make it for the knitting class today?”

  “Sure, Patty. Everything okay?”

  “Um, yes, I, ah, just remembered I had another appointment, that’s all.”

  Jo hung up, thinking that Patty had sounded a bit strange, but gave Carrie the message.

  Kathy looked up on hearing that and said, “I don’t think Lisa will make it either.”

  “Oh?” Carrie said, loosening a length of yarn from her skein of navy worsted.

  “Uh-huh. She thinks the baby might be coming down with something. You know Lisa.” Kathy grinned, a bit nervously it seemed to Jo. “Always the worry-wart. And actually,” she said, “I can’t stay too long myself. I have a million things to do. So if you would just show me how to do this sleeve part, Carrie, that’ll hold me for a while.”

  “Sure, Kathy.” Carrie reached for the young woman’s needles and went into the explanation, but the look on her face told Jo Carrie was thinking much the same thing as she was. That something odd was going on.

  It wasn’t until Javonne Barnette showed up around lunch time, long after Kathy Vincent had scurried off and after a very quiet morning, business-wise, that an explanation was offered.

  Javonne had been one of Jo’s first workshop students back in the fall, and had helped and supported her in many ways over the last several months, as much as her part time job and full time family duties allowed. From her white uniform, which contrasted starkly with her mocha skin, Jo knew Javonne had come from her husband’s dental office where she helped out.

  “Jo, you’ve got a problem,” Javonne said.

  Jo smiled. “That I know, but exactly which one are you referring to.”

  “The one you probably don’t know you have yet, girl. People are talking about what happened at Michicomi. I’ve been hearing them in Harry’s waiting room, and some of it’s even come up when they’re sitting in Harry’s chair.”

  “What? About Linda Weeks?”

  “Not just about Linda Weeks but about you and Linda Weeks. Somehow everyone seems to have heard that you had some kind of bust-up with her. And now the woman’s dead and there’s a lot of whispered speculation going on.”

  “Speculation about what?” Carrie demanded.

  “Speculation about Jo. People aren’t spelling it out, at least not within my hearing, that they actually think you did it, Jo, but they seem very nervous about your connection. Rumors, I’d say, are flying.”

  “Oh, Lord.” Jo looked over to Carrie. “I’ll bet that’s why Patty Collins and Lisa cancelled this morning. And Kathy, now that I think about it, wasn’t just surprised to see me here, she looked frightened to see me. She probably expected me to be safely locked up.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” Carrie cried.

  “Of course it is!” Javonne agreed. “But that never stopped people from thinking such things. Look, I didn’t get to the craft festival what with my James down with the flu all weekend, but I got the whole story eventually from Loralee. Not that I needed any explanation to tell me you’re innocent, of course, just to get straight on what happened. But people who don’t know you like I do just need to get the same facts. Once they understand, the rumors will stop spreading.”

  “How can I do that?” Jo asked. “Take out a full page ad in the Abbotsville Gazette?” Jo framed a headline with her hands. “‘The Truth about Linda Weeks and the Lies She Told About Me?’ It would still be only me claiming to be innocent.”

  “Oh, Jo,” Carrie said, looking wretched and wringing her hands.

  Jo knew what she was thinking, because the same thoughts were going through her own head. Jo’s reputation was going south. And along with that would go her shop. People wouldn’t come to the Craft Corner to buy things or sign up for her workshops as long as they held even an unsupportable suspicion she was a murderer. The business Jo had struggled so hard to build and which had just started to allow her a bit of breathing space above water, was in major jeopardy, not to mention what it was going to be like living among townspeople who thought the worst of her. Something had to be done.

  “What you’ll have to do,” Javonne said, “is find out who sent those candies to Linda.”

  “I’d love to,” Jo said. �
��But I’m sure the sheriff has already tried to do that, and would have stopped looking at me if he’d had any success. The person who bought the candy could have gotten it at any of several Kitty’s Kandy stores around here. If they paid cash and didn’t attract any particular attention at the time there would be no way of identifying them.”

  “But it would have to be someone who was familiar with this area, don’t you think?” Carrie put in. “I mean, most of the vendors at Michicomi come from somewhere else and wouldn’t know about our local candy stores.”

  “Not necessarily,” Jo said. “Bill Ewing, the guy who was so steamed at Linda, for one, is staying with a friend somewhere around here, to take photos. If he’s stayed here before he probably knows the area. Gabe Stubbins is going to let me know where this friend is.” Jo’s thoughts went gratefully to the good-natured toymaker who had been so supportive during the stressful few days at Michicomi, and who also, Jo remembered a bit uneasily, had shown he was familiar with Abbotsville and its environs as well. That small coincidence, though, she was sure, had no bearing on things.

  “Linda had been married,” Jo said, moving on to another tack. “I wonder, knowing her, how bitter the divorce might have been and where the ex might be?”

  “Didn’t you say Meg Boyer mentioned knowing her in high school? Maybe she would know,” Carrie said.

  “She didn’t seem aware of Linda having been married, since she didn’t recognize Linda’s married name. But it might still be worth talking to Meg. She might have connections to old classmates that do know about Linda’s marriage.”

  “You still holding the paper flowers workshop tonight, Jo?” Javonne asked. “I’d understand if you’re not, but maybe if our old gang gets together again we can help you brainstorm.”

  Jo had forgotten about the workshop, and, though she knew she was prepared for it, having planned ahead several days ago, she wondered how she would get through this long day. But with the rapid way things had spiraled downward, taking time out for rest needed to be the last thing to consider.