Knot the Usual Suspects Read online

  “Here’s the book that was in it.” She showed me a slim dark green paperback that would have barely fit in the sporran. “The Naughty Little Book of Gaelic: All the Scottish Gaelic You Need to Curse, Swear, Drink, Smoke, and Fool Around,” she read. “The guys got a kick out of the title. Why do you suppose he was he so fascinated by a dead language?”

  “It isn’t dead,” I said. “It’s endangered, like a lot of living things.” I took the book from her and thumbed through it. “It’s a signed copy. Maybe he knew the author. What about the paper with Ardis’ name on it?”

  She showed me. Just a slip, a scrap with Ardis’ name and address.

  “It seems to be nothing more than a note so he could look up a favorite teacher,” she said.

  “Were there other names? Ardis couldn’t remember if you said there were.”

  “I didn’t tell her, but there was another name and a phone number—Al Rogalla.”

  “That must’ve thrilled Cole. Darla, can I ask you about his suspension?” She tipped her head and I took that as a guarded yes. “Last night you said it’s a crock. Do you really believe it’s a trumped-up charge?”

  She tipped her head to the other side, eyes steady but slightly narrowed. Then she looked back at the table and picked up Hugh’s camera. “Nothing helpful here. Tourist stuff. A few pictures of the house. Speaking of pictures, though, what about those pictures John wished he hadn’t mentioned?”

  I’d been working out a way to answer that without landing Joe in a pile of something. I’d decided to go with a less-is-more approach. “He managed to get a peek at pictures of Hugh’s truck.”

  “How?”

  “You came into Mel’s and told Cole you’d found it, right? He told us. It wasn’t exactly a secret.” I held my breath, but we skated smoothly forward on that thin edge of truth.

  “Speaking of pictures,” she said, “we didn’t find any matches between the ones you took to document the yarn bomb materials and the pieces used to strangle Hugh and Gladys. And those two strips are definitely from a single piece.”

  “There were a lot of people making strips.”

  “And you know how people are,” she said. “Excited about a project one day, toss it aside the next.”

  “Some of the strips people made probably didn’t end up at the Weaver’s Cat.”

  “No, they didn’t,” Darla said. “They very definitely didn’t.”

  I looked at the dingy windows, wishing they let more sunlight in, or that I could leave through one of them. But I was there for a reason. Better get on with it. “So, what about the monkey’s fist that was in the sporran?”

  “Cole and Shorty thought it was a weapon, and you could sure do some damage with one if whatever you made the knot around—whatever you put in the middle—is heavy enough and you give it a good swing.” She held up a knot the size of a Ping-Pong ball, made of smooth brown cord, with a foot-long tail.

  “But you don’t think this one’s a weapon?”

  “See what you think. It feels too light, and the material isn’t really something you’d use for a weapon.” She held it out and I took it in my hand.

  * * *

  I was cold. On a cold floor—I hoped it was a floor, not a slab. Surrounded by knots. And a circle of monkeys. “Not my monkeys,” I muttered. “Not my monkeys, not my circus.” Thank goodness there were no ducks. No way. No ray. No . . . Rachel.

  “This is not good, not good, not good.”

  That was someone else muttering. Not me. Not I. I was all tangled up. Tangled in knots. But I did not care. Neither here nor there. It made no difference. Indifferent. In knots.

  “Come on, Kath. Make sense.”

  That was that other person. That made sense, because I was here and she was there. Where? Oh yeah. Right here. “Hi, Darla.”

  “You scared the spit out of me,” she said.

  “Sorry.”

  “Should I get you to a doctor?” She was kneeling beside me.

  “No. No, I’m . . . fine.” I sat up and looked around warily. “Is the monkey’s fist—”

  “I had to pry it out of your hand.”

  I put my hand to my head. Didn’t feel a lump.

  “You didn’t fall. I thought you might. As soon as I laid you down, you came out of it.”

  As soon as she’d pried the monkey’s fist out of my hand. “Good. Thanks.” I got to my feet. The monkey’s fist was on the table. I didn’t go near it. I looked at Darla. She was watching me and there was something going on with her eyebrows.

  “Did I ever tell you that I grew up in a holler away out there in the county?”

  I shook my head. I was glad it didn’t make me dizzy.

  “My folks still live out there, and my grandmother, too. My grandmother used to tell me stories about the old days and the old mountain ways. Stories about granny women.”

  “Healers and midwives, sure.”

  “Sure. But sometimes, she said, they were more . . . unusual than that. Were and are, because she says there are still some granny women around. Not many, but she told me she had occasion to call on one once, down in Blue Plum. A weaver woman.”

  I couldn’t think of anything to say.

  “She was real sorry to hear about your granny passing this spring, Kath, and she told me something to tell you—though not until the right time—but that I would know when it was the right time. She says it’s a gift that passes down the female line. She also says this isn’t something folks are meant to talk about, so I won’t mention it again.”

  “And your grandmother’s always right?”

  “Smartest woman I know. Grannies tend to be, don’t you think? Are you really feeling okay now?”

  “Yeah, I am. Kind of weirded out, but otherwise okay. And I, uh, I think you’re right about the monkey’s fist. It’s too light to be a weapon. Sometimes they’re tied around a weight—a rounded rock or a big ball bearing—but not this one. If I were you, I’d take it apart and see if Hugh used something else.”

  “Like what?”

  “A ring? I don’t know. But take a look.”

  * * *

  When I left the courthouse, there was plenty of time to go back home for breakfast before heading to the Weaver’s Cat. Instead I took a detour through the park and walked along the brick path that followed the creek. The trees were beginning to change color—some of the maples looking lit from within. Patches of ironweed bloomed deep purple on the other side of the creek. The range of vibrant colors in yarn bomb squares we’d attached to the railing on the footbridge tied the whole scene together—grass, reeds, ironweed, trees, all of them rising toward the blue of an October sky. I stood in the middle of the bridge, looking from the clouds sailing high over me to the water flowing under me, and thought about ducks.

  Ardis called as I combed through the weeds below the bridge. She was drawing on her theater skills again. “Motive is to a murderer as motivation is to an actor,” she said.

  “Okay.” I’d stood on the bridge where Ernestine had when she dropped her crochet hook and scissors and determined my search area.

  “Motive is missing from your picture of the whiteboard. Why did someone kill Hugh?”

  “That’s what we’re working on, isn’t it?”

  “We have names. We have possible suspects. We’re aware of relationships between these players. But we’re short on motives. So here are some questions that might help us get where we need to be. Are you ready?”

  “Do you want me to write this down? I’m in the park and I don’t have paper—”

  “No, I’ve written it all out,” Ardis said. “I’ll bring the script when I come in. Are you ready?”

  “Sure.”

  “One, what did the murderer want? Two, did Hugh put an obstacle in the way that would have prevented the murderer from reaching that goal?”

&
nbsp; “Or did prevent.”

  “I’ll add that later,” she said. “Good point. Three, was Hugh himself the obstacle? And four—this is a multipart question, with a preamble—we have to believe that Hugh’s sudden appearance in town changed something. What, how, and why? Was his presence alone enough to prompt that change? Or did he say something to someone? Did he, or did his presence, deliver a message that motivated someone to murder?”

  “Wow, Ardis.”

  “Exactly.”

  “That’s really good. Wow for you, but also wow for me—I just found Ernestine’s favorite crochet hook and scissors.”

  “That’s wonderful. You should stop by Mel’s to celebrate, and as long as you’re there, bring me a large coffee and a couple of doughnuts. I think I’ll need them.”

  * * *

  Mel’s Saturday breakfast special was buttermilk banana pancakes with banana cream. I didn’t try very hard to resist them. I sat at one of the tables in the front window. Mel brought the pancakes herself, and joined me for a cup of coffee.

  “I got your picture. I studied it. Here’s the question I keep coming back to.” She took a gulp of coffee. “What kind of old lady witnesses a murder in the park late at night, and then goes back out to the park two nights later?”

  “That is a good question.”

  “It’s got a good answer, too, and it’s the only one I can come up with. First of all, she was a great old lady.” She stopped and leaned across the table, teeth as fierce as her spiked hair. “And I stand by what I said yesterday morning about wanting to kill the person who did this. But again, don’t repeat it.” She sat back and took another gulp of coffee. “So here’s the answer. She was the kind of old lady who wasn’t worried, because she knew the murderer had a specific reason to kill Hugh, but had no reason whatsoever to kill her.”

  “Until the murderer found out she was a witness.”

  “And how did that happen?” Mel asked.

  “That’s another good question. According to Aaron, she either didn’t want to or couldn’t go to the police, and she told him very little and no details. But she planned to tell us, hoping we could help. If we can trust Aaron, it sounds as though she was being careful.”

  “I think we can trust him,” Mel said, “and here’s why. She was careful enough that she felt perfectly safe going back to the park alone at night two nights after the murder. She wasn’t afraid of the murderer.”

  “Huh.”

  “We have to wonder why she was afraid to go to the police. We have to wonder why Sheriff Haynes blanched when he saw Hugh.”

  “Blanched, according to Olive, who calls Haynes ‘Lonnie,’” I said, “and who also blanched.”

  “And why Cole Dunbar is suddenly ‘mishandling’ cases.”

  “A charge we both heard Darla call a crock, which could be loyalty to Cole, despite evidence of his doofusness, but . . .”

  “But.” Mel nodded. “And here’s one more thing. Gladys still did the Sunday crossword puzzle in ink. She was the old lady I want to be if I live that long. And she should’ve lived longer. Food for thought, Red. Now I have to go serve food to customers.”

  It was enough food for thought that I got to the back door of the Cat and realized I’d forgotten the coffee and doughnuts for Ardis. Rather than go back down the alley, I went around the corner into Main Street to see how the yarn bombs there were doing. The signposts and streetlight had never looked so good, and I laughed out loud when I saw a new bomb—a tasseled hat on a fire hydrant with the “Knitting is nifty” tag from one of Debbie’s kits. But I turned thoughtful again when I saw Rachel pulling away from the curb in front of Mel’s in her BMW Z4—a nifty piece of automotive engineering that made my thoughts switch gears back to motives. If Rachel and Hugh were married way back when, what sort of secrets did they know about each other? Secrets that could stall a successful financial career? And what happened in a brief marriage to make it fall apart so thoroughly that it seemed completely forgotten?

  I went into Mel’s for Ardis’ coffee and doughnuts, and absentmindedly bought two for me as well.

  Clod arrived so soon after Ardis unlocked the front door that he must have been waiting and watching. That was an unpleasant image, so I was surprised when the first thought springing into my mind wasn’t “creepy Clod,” but “poor dope.” It was probably good that I kept it to myself, though, just as I kept most of my knee-jerk reactions to him. He marched up to the counter, his posture and gait not having received the suspension memo any sooner than his jeans or shirt.

  “I would like to clear up a misapprehension,” he said. Sententious clod.

  “Very good, Coleridge,” Ardis said. “Confession is good for the soul. If you’ll remember, Ernestine gave you the chance yesterday.”

  “Clearing up, not confessing. Apparently it has been suggested that I hold a grudge against Al Rogalla over the fact that he grabbed the McPhee house out from under me.”

  “That didn’t happen?” I asked. I shifted my doughnuts to the left, out from under his interested eye.

  “That did happen.”

  “Then where does the misapprehension come in?” Ardis asked.

  “That I care a rat’s—”

  “Language, Coleridge.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “How did he grab it out from under you?” I asked.

  “Pfft. He got it through EMT Realty,” he said, giving the name of the realty company in air quotes. Then he looked at our faces, mine probably a mirror of Ardis’ total blank. “It’s not a real company; it’s a shi—a shifty kind of insider trading in properties. Happens all the time. EMTs, firefighters, cops—they go out on a call for, say, a heart attack. But the attack is massive and the person dies before they can transport. If one of the guys is in the market, and likes the look of the place, he takes the opportunity to do a walk-through. And he’s first in line if it comes up for rent or for sale.”

  Now our faces were probably mirrors of dumbfoundedness.

  “Yeah,” Clod said. “Now you get it. So, McPhee’s grandfather owned the house. Had a stroke one night. Left the house to Hugh. Great house.”

  “How long ago?” I asked.

  “Twelve, fifteen years. Rogalla got to Hugh first. Hugh had no interest in coming back here.”

  “But it turned out he held on to the house all that time,” Ardis said, “and only this week sold it to Al.”

  “Everyone thought he bought it back then. With his accountant’s salary.”

  “But you didn’t then, and still don’t, give a duck’s diddly-squat,” I said.

  Apparently not; he didn’t comment. He did, however, take my two doughnuts and leave.

  “Nice segue into the ducks,” Ardis said. “But I wonder if you aren’t obsessing.”

  “I’m not. Darla thinks Cole’s suspension is a crock, but what if Gladys wouldn’t go to the police because she saw a policeman kill Hugh?”

  “Not Cole!”

  “No. But what if he’s being railroaded with this suspension? Olive said Sheriff Haynes looked as though he’d seen a ghost when Hugh played his pipes Tuesday afternoon. I didn’t tell you, but Geneva saw Hugh with someone Tuesday night.”

  “No, you did not. Why didn’t you?”

  I looked around but didn’t see Geneva. Even so, I spoke quietly. “At first she didn’t know if the person with Hugh was a man or a woman. Now she says it was someone about Hugh’s height who marched like a lawman or a piper.”

  “Not the most reliable witness.”

  “No. But what do we know about any history between Hugh and Sheriff Haynes?”

  Ardis thought for a minute. “Leonard Haynes was coach at the high school. Unreliable witness or not, it bears looking into. This might get nastier than it already is.”

  * * *

  Thea called shortly before noon. She spoke so so
ftly it was hard to hear her.

  “Modeling good library behavior?” I asked. “I thought you didn’t care so much about it being like a mausoleum.”

  “It’s my day off. I’m in my office with the door closed. If they don’t hear me, they hardly know I’m here, and I can troll without interruption. Stealth librarian at your service.”

  “Cool. Anything new?”

  Her first two offerings we’d already learned—Rogalla living in the McPhee house, and Sheriff Haynes coaching at the high school while Hugh attended.

  “Any hint of problems when he was coach?”

  “Not so far. That’s the era of sweeping things under the rug, but I’ll keep looking.”

  “Can you do another search for me?” I told her what we knew of Clod’s suspension—including our duck gibes—then asked her to look for the original complaint about stolen ducks.

  “How do you mishandle a complaint about ducks?” she asked.

  “By making dumb jokes, like we’re doing?”

  “A complaint might be in the public record,” Thea said. “But if it’s anonymous, what’s it going to tell you?”

  “I don’t know. See what you can find.”

  “Hey, I’m a miracle worker, not a magician, but I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Thanks. Anything on Tammie or Wanda connecting them to Hugh?”

  “No, but that reminds me. There’s something I’ve been thinking about that’s getting me more and more steamed. Something that’s creeping over me like a red haze ever since Gladys died.” The red haze was creeping into her voice, too.

  “Are you going to blow your stealth there by getting upset and shouting?”

  “It’ll be worth it,” she said. “Okay, so two people are dead. That’s the worst part of this, I know that. But the murderer also took advantage of the yarn bombing. Our yarn bombing. The murderer knew we were knitting and crocheting strips, and used one to kill Hugh and Gladys. That was not a spur-of-the-moment decision. Or maybe killing Hugh while he was blowing his pipes at midnight was a spur-of-the-moment decision, but we hadn’t bombed anything at that point. So using a crocheted strip, and part of the same strip to kill Gladys, means the murderer knew beforehand about the bombing and took advantage of us. Took advantage of all our planning. Of our art.”