by Mary Kruger
“Ms. Evans.” He sat across from her, his gaze never leaving her face. “I want to go over a few things with you.”
“Of course.” She sat back, hoping she presented a picture of relaxation. “What do you want to know?”
He seemed to want to know everything, she thought a few minutes later, reeling from the barrage of questions. What time did she leave the main barn to go to the snack bar? Did she see anyone on the way? Did she talk to anyone in the barn? Who? And what time was that? Did she have to wait for the coffee? What time was it when she went back out? Did she see anyone? When did she realize Felicia had been hurt?
“When she collapsed on me,” Ari snapped. “You know all this.”
“Ms. Evans, we need to—”
“Ask me these questions. I know. Been there, done that.”
“I was going to say that we need to understand what happened,” Briggs said. “You’re in a position to help us.”
“Oh.” Though there was no reproach in Briggs’s face or manner, Ari felt chastened by his very calmness. “I’m sorry. This isn’t easy.”
Briggs didn’t acknowledge her apology, but continued, “You didn’t see the knitting needle when she was walking toward you.”
“It was in her back, and she was walking toward me. I couldn’t.”
“You’re sure there was no one else around? Think about it,” he said before she could answer. “Think about what you were doing. Try to see it again.”
“I can’t help but see it,” she said frankly. “It’s not something I’m likely to forget.”
“You’ve just left the snack bar. You have two cups of coffee. How did you open the door to get out?”
“Someone opened it for me.”
“From the inside or outside?”
“Outside,” she said, surprised she hadn’t remembered that detail before. So someone could corroborate where she’d been in the minutes before Felicia’s death. “A man. I don’t know who he was.”
“Can you describe him?”
She frowned. “I only saw him for a second. Middle-aged, I’d say not fat, wearing a green parka. I think he might have been a vendor in here.”
“Would you know him again?”
“Yes.”
“Now, why would a vendor from Barn A be outside?” Briggs said reflectively. “He wouldn’t have had to go out for coffee or to use the bathroom.”
“I don’t know. Maybe he went to his car? I don’t know.”
“Did you see which direction he came from?”
“He opened the door as I was going out, Detective. How would I know that?”
He nodded again. “Okay. You come out of this barn. The main door or the side?”
“The main door.”
“Why? The side door is closer to Barn B.”
“I don’t know.” She gave a little smile. “I think I wanted to look at everything again.”
Briggs nodded and jotted something down in his notebook. “What did you see when you went out?”
“Rain.”
“Think about your answer, Ms. Evans.”
“I am,” she protested. “It was pouring, and I put my head down right away.”
“You were facing toward the parking lot.”
“Yes, but I didn’t really look at it.”
“So you didn’t see anyone near any cars?”
“No. All I wanted to do was get back to the other barn.”
“Okay.” He shifted in his chair. “Let’s try something. Close your eyes.”
“All right,” she said.
“Now, go back to this morning. You’ve just come out of this building. What do you see? Don’t answer right away. Try to really see it.”
“I’m looking at the field across the road,” she said after a minute. “The grass is already green. And farther back are all the cars and trucks.”
“Anyone stand out?”
“No. No, wait. I did see someone getting into a car.” She opened her eyes, frowning. “There was a car just pulling in, too. A green minivan. Wow.” She looked at him. “I didn’t know I saw so much.”
“So now, you’ve turned left and you’re heading toward Barn B. What do you see?”
“Mud,” she said promptly. “I was looking down.”
“Before that?”
“Well, I saw the barn, of course, and the other buildings beyond it, but that was all.”
“You didn’t see Mrs. Barr?”
“No.” She frowned again. “That’s odd. Where did she come from? Even if I had my head down, I should have seen her.”
“Could she have come from between the two buildings?” Charlie asked.
Ari thought about that. “I don’t know. I was headed straight for Barn B—no.” She frowned. “Barn B is set farther back from the lane than this building, so I was actually going at an angle. I thought Felicia was heading right at me, but she wasn’t. She was directly in front of the barn. She had to have come from somewhere else.”
“Where do you think she came from?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where were you in relation to the buildings? Closer to Barn A or Barn B?”
“I think I’d just reached the corner of Barn B.” She looked up. “She couldn’t have come from in between. We were in front of Barn B.”
“And yet no one saw her,” Briggs said, more to himself than to the others.
“No,” Ari agreed. “She didn’t come from a car, either, because then she would have been to my right. Oh, I don’t know.”
“It’s okay, Ari,” Charlie said. “You’re doing fine.”
Briggs nodded shortly. “What happened when you did see her?”
“I noticed she was stumbling. I think I said her name, and then she was on me. That was when I saw the needle. Aluminum, orchid color, size nine, and not a new one, either.”
That got the others’ attention. “Why do you say that?”
“The button at the end of it was made of steel.”
“So?”
“That’s the old-fashioned style. Round and flat—flattened, I should say—with the size on the end. The newer ones have plastic buttons that are squarish, and the sizes are on the side.”
“An older needle,” Briggs said musingly. “Where would someone find one of those?”
“Oh, they’re not unusual, Detective. People don’t get rid of their needles. Well, no, that’s not necessarily true.”
“Why not?”
“A few years ago there wasn’t much choice in needles, at least around here. There was aluminum or plastic, even in yarn catalogs. But now you can get wooden ones again, or bamboo, or even handmade ones with blown-glass caps. I carry those. They’re lovely, one of a kind, and they sell well.”
“Didn’t some of the vendors here sell needles?” Charlie asked.
“Yes, a few of them.”
“Apart from the needle, what else did you notice?” Briggs asked.
“She said something about mud.” She frowned, trying to think. “She said, ‘I tried to get the mud.’ ”
“She tried to get the mud?”
“Yes.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. I remember thinking earlier that she must have had trouble walking with those boots.”
“And that was all she said?”
“Yes.”
Briggs sat back. “Is there anything else you can tell us?”
Ari sat, head down. It had all happened so fast, and had been such a shock, that she’d lost awareness of all else. Yet, she realized now, shock had also implanted odd details on her mind. She didn’t remember noticing Felicia’s perfume, but now she could almost smell it. Chanel No5. She hadn’t remembered the fine gold chain Felicia wore, or the large mole on her neck. She felt again the softness of Felicia’s sweater, saw the fine gauge of the knit, and was struck by a sudden realization.
“Did you find her coat?” she asked, opening her eyes.
Briggs glanced quickly at the other men. �
��Was she wearing a coat?”
“Earlier she was. Black cashmere.”
“First I’ve heard of it,” Charlie said.
“The first you’ve heard?” Briggs glared at him. “How’s that?”
“The EMTs were working on her when we got here,” Josh said.
“And no one noticed that she didn’t have a coat on, in this weather?” Briggs pulled out his walkie-talkie, barked some orders into it, and then put it away. His face was thunderous. “Anything else?” he said to Ari.
Ari was almost sorry she’d mentioned the coat. Before the atmosphere had been if not relaxed, at least comfortable. But now there was tension between the men in the room. Of course, not looking for Felicia’s coat, or even realizing it was missing, was a big blunder. It probably had set the investigation back. “Yes,” she said, almost meekly, because there was one other detail she’d just remembered. “There was a piece of yarn on her shoulder.”
“Yarn?” Briggs turned again to the other men. “Was there yarn on her?” he demanded
Josh shook his head. “Not when I saw her. It probably fell off her into the mud somewhere.”
Briggs nodded. “We’ll look for it. What kind of yarn, Ms. Evans?”
Ari visualized the strand, bright against the black of Felicia’s sweater. “Light blue DK,” she said.
“Excuse me?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. DK means ‘double-knit.’ It’s a sport-weight yarn…Relatively thin,” she added at their mystified looks. “It has a little fuzz on it, but not much. It may have been wool. I’m not sure.”
“Would you know it if you saw it again?”
“Of course,” she said, surprised.
“Hm. Anyone here selling yarn like that?”
“I don’t know. A lot of people here were spinning or knitting. I have two projects with me.”
“We’ll look for it,” Briggs said, dismissing the half-formed plan in Ari’s mind to search for the yarn herself. She wasn’t part of the police team. She wouldn’t be part of the investigation. Briggs wouldn’t allow it.
At that moment she met Josh’s eyes. He looked steadily back at her, and she thought she understood what he was trying to communicate. Who better than she to find the yarn, after all? Certainly the police would look, but she’d recognize it immediately.
Ari gave a tiny nod, and then looked away. “Are you done with me?”
“Not yet.” Briggs regarded her coolly. “You knew Mrs. Barr before this, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but not well. I’ve already told Detective Pierce about it.”
“I’ve heard she wasn’t a friendly woman.”
“She wasn’t, but I had no reason to dislike her personally. I hadn’t seen her in years before today.”
“When did you last see her?”
“When I lived in New York, before I was married.”
“You’ve had no contact with her since?”
“No.”
“No ads in her magazine?”
“No.”
“No articles?”
“No, nothing.” Ari crossed her arms. “Detective, are you accusing me of something?”
Briggs shrugged, and then rose. “I think we’re done for now.”
“For now?”
“We might need to talk to you again.”
Ari sighed. She knew what that meant. In Briggs’s eyes, she was still a suspect. “What happens now, then?”
“I’ll bring you back to the barn,” Josh said. He stood beside her, holding her parka.
“Thank you,” Ari said, and went out the door with Josh, both drained and relieved.
While Josh, along with Charlie Mason and Detective Briggs, questioned Ari, other interrogations were taking place in the crime van. About the size of a motor home, the van was painted blue and slate gray—the colors of the Massachusetts State Police—and was large enough to accommodate multiple witness interviews simultaneously. Paul Bouchard, Josh’s colleague and fellow detective, was in charge of this phase of the investigation.
As Paul supervised one interview after another, he realized most of the festival participants had nothing to do with Felicia’s death. They could prove where they were when she died, they hadn’t seen Felicia before her death, they hadn’t seen anyone approach her, and they certainly hadn’t seen her killed. Many of the participants had never even heard of Felicia until learning of her murder, and so one by one they were allowed to leave until there were only a few suspects left.
Nancy Moniz and Rosalia Sylvia, both local residents, remained suspects because neither could prove their whereabouts at the time of Felicia’s murder. Nancy claimed she’d been in her car at the time of Felicia’s death, calling her son on her cell phone. Though the call records on her cell phone proved that the phone had been used at that time, the police couldn’t prove she’d actually talked with anyone. Unlikely a suspect as she was, Nancy still couldn’t be ruled out.
Rosalia told the police she had been between buildings at the time of the murder. That in itself was suspicious since she should have seen Felicia if she was outside, but she claimed she hadn’t seen anything in the pouring rain. Though she had no known connection to Felicia, Paul still considered Rosalia a suspect and asked her to return to Barn B along with Nancy Moniz.
Paul’s attempt to question Beth Marley further proved fruitless, too. Beth still refused to say anything without first talking with her lawyer in New Jersey, but she couldn’t seem to reach him on the phone. Instead she sat across from Paul with her arms folded and a scowl on her face. His repeated attempts to question her were met with silence. Annoying as this was, there was nothing the police could do about it but continue to hold her with the other suspects. They couldn’t force her to talk if she didn’t want to.
Lauren Dubrowski was another matter. From the start of her interview, she told Paul that she had nothing to hide and freely admitted that she’d disliked Felicia, who had been critical of her work. Lauren had managed to secure a good job in spite of that criticism, though, and she claimed to have no motive. Paul had seen people killed for less reason and remained skeptical about Lauren’s protested innocence. Lauren still had to be considered a suspect, he decided, and he sent her back to Barn B.
During his interview with Annie Walker, Paul realized she was the first person he’d spoken with who had anything good to say about Felicia. Annie admitted her designs were to be featured in an upcoming issue of Knit It Up! and that she believed Felicia had liked them. At least, she amended, Felicia had accepted them. Now she wasn’t sure what would happen or if the magazine would even still be published. For Annie, Felicia’s death was a blow, but Paul decided she should still be detained since her business relationship with the victim ought to be explored further.
Finally there was Diane. Though Paul took his duties seriously and questioned her at length, he had known Diane for too many years to consider her a true suspect. She explained that she’d sneaked out of the barn for a forbidden cigarette and didn’t have any personal connection to Felicia, but since nobody had seen her or could vouch for her whereabouts at the time of the murder, Paul was forced to keep her in the suspect pool.
When the last festival participant left the van, Paul stared down at the notes he’d taken, pinching tiredly at the bridge of his nose. He would make a verbal report to the chief, who would decide whether the detained suspects should be questioned further. Paul reminded himself that people tended to hold back information, though not always deliberately, and that sometimes one little fact that was considered unimportant could prove crucial to solving a case.
His cell phone buzzed, and he flipped it open. “Bouchard. Yes. What did you find? Where?” he asked, and picked up his pencil. “Okay. Yeah, I’ll tell the chief,” he said, and ended the call. He immediately dialed the chief’s number. This, he thought as he looked at the note he’d scribbled, was the kind of information he liked. They had something concrete to work with at last.
Outside the rain had let up a bit, s
o that Ari and Josh didn’t have to dash to the barn.
“Look, don’t worry,” Josh said. “We know you didn’t do anything. I think Briggs does, too.”
“He didn’t sound like it. He’s lucky Ted’s not here.”
Josh chuckled, and then grew serious. “Yeah. But we screwed up.”
She turned, though the hood of her parka blocked her view. “The coat?”
“The coat,” he agreed. “That was stupid. We should have realized she had one.”
They walked in silence for a moment, their feet squelching in the mud. “Is it important?”
“Of course it is. Why wasn’t she wearing it, in this weather? When we find it, it might tell us where she was attacked.”
“There’ll be clues, then.”
“Evidence. Yes, I hope so.”
“What about the other needle?”
“We’re looking for it, but no luck yet.”
“It could be hidden in plain sight.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, think. How many people here are knitters? It’d be easy to hide one needle among many.”
“Not if it doesn’t have a match. Here we are.”
They had reached the entrance to Barn B. Ari, looking in, saw that it was much emptier than it had been. Of those who were left, a number were packing their belongings. “So many people are gone,” she said.
Josh, hands in pockets, nodded. “There wasn’t any reason to hold most of them.”
“What are the reasons, Josh?”
“If they can’t account for their time, and if they had any contact with Mrs. Barr.”
“Such as?”
“Acquaintance, ads in the magazine, articles, anything.”
“I wouldn’t think too many people here would fit.”
He shrugged. “Maybe. Listen, Ari.”
“What?”
“About that yarn.”
“Josh, I’d recognize it if I saw it.”
“I know. I don’t want you to go looking for it, but…”
“But if I see it, I’ll tell you.”
“Yeah. Be careful, though. I don’t want you to be another victim.”
“Of course I’ll be careful. Detective Briggs doesn’t want me involved, does he?”
Josh shook his head. “No, I—excuse me,” he said as his cell phone rang. He flipped it open and turned away from her. “Detective Pierce,” he said. “Yes. What? Where?”