The Double Wedding Ring (6 page)

Was Roger coming to Jesse for protection, or did he spend the last night of this life watching Jesse's back one last time?

I
choose three different blues, all tone-on-tones so the pattern wouldn't distract. They were my background sky colors. The blues were close in tone so they almost melted together, but still they were three distinct fabrics. I cut a five-and-a-half-inch by twenty-two-and-a-half-inch strip of each and sewed them together so I had a piece that was fifteen by twenty-two. Then I sewed that to two green strips that I'd cut at the same size as the blue. Five strips sewn together to make the background for my gazebo quilt. It was a modern start—stark, simple lines that abstracted nature rather than imitated it.

My gazebo, too, was a simplified version of the real thing. Oliver had once done a painting of it as a raffle prize for the town, so I felt extra pressure by using the image, but I knew I had to use it. He loved the structure as much for its beauty as for the symbol of small-town America, and Eleanor loved it because it was a familiar part of home. As I sketched out a large drawing of the gazebo to use as my pattern for the appliqué, I realized suddenly that I was making them a piece of Archers Rest to take with them to their new place in South Carolina.

“It's just their winter home,” I said aloud to Patch, the only other creature in the shop with me. She didn't hear me or didn't care. She was busy chasing a piece of scrap yarn around the shop floor, attacking it, then moving back so she could attack it again.

After our guests had left last night, Eleanor and I were so tired we went to bed and never discussed the shop or the house, and what would happen during the months every year she and Oliver were gone. Eleanor could close up the house for the winter, but not the shop. In order to stay profitable, it would have to stay open, and be staffed, through the winter, or close altogether. The thought brought tears to my eyes.

In the morning I'd gone to register for a figurative drawing class, then went to the shop to relieve Natalie, who had to bring her daughter to a doctor's appointment. Eleanor and Oliver were meeting with the pastor to discuss their wedding, but she would be in on time to let me head off to meet the quilt group at Jitters for another one of our secret meetings. The schedule was a carefully choreographed dance as it was. How would the shop manage with just Natalie and me to keep things going? I tried not to think about it.

One thing Eleanor had taught me was that when the big questions of life seem overwhelming, focus on something small that's right in front of you. So I looked at my drawing, which had turned out pretty well. We had several white and off-white fabrics I could use to imitate the color and shadows of the gazebo. The flowers I could either paint or embroider, something that would add color and texture without being too fussy. When would I find the time with the wedding now less than two weeks away? That was another thing I could think about later.

Something loud crashed in the back of the shop; Patch hissed and ran toward me. I grabbed her, tucked her under my arm, and went in search of whatever it was that had been knocked down by our little furry helper.

It was a pattern rack—a heavy round spinning rack that had withstood countless years—through sales and customers and renovations, but somehow a kitten weighing a couple of pounds had gotten the better of it. The yarn was tangled up at the bottom, and in the fall the rack had broken.

“You are trouble,” I scolded her. She meowed in response and I smiled. It's hard to stay mad at a ball of purring fur.

I picked up the patterns and brought them over to the checkout table. I'd figure out a display later. In the meantime, I found myself not just organizing the patterns but looking at the photos on the cover, the font size for the pattern names, and the companies that made them. When I had a minute maybe I'd go through them just to see what exactly it would involve to actually make a pattern of one of my quilts. Maybe if the shop closed I would design patterns . . . But as soon as the thought entered my mind, I crushed it. Someday Quilts had been a part of my life since I was a child, when my parents, sister, and I would visit Archers Rest. I would run my hand across the fabrics, make piles with the books, nap under the sample quilts, and get in trouble anytime I went near sharp scissors. I could not imagine it closing, but I didn't see any realistic way for it to stay open.

Eleanor came into the shop with three full bags just as I put the pile of patterns on the table next to the kitten. “Okay, you're free to go across the street to your super-secret quilt meeting.”

“Which you don't know about.”

“Not a blessed thing. Can't wait to see the quilt you girls are putting together, though.”

“Assuming it is a quilt.” I gathered my own fabrics off the cutting table before that surprise went out the window as well. “Did you buy out the town?” I nodded toward her bags.

“Nearly,” she said. “I bought a few things for the house, to make Oliver more comfortable. It's been so long since a man lived in that house, I wasn't sure what to get.”

“Shaving lotion and spittoons?”

“Nearly. But then I bought navy towels—plain, boring navy. The ones I have in my bathroom have flowers on them. I didn't think he'd like those.” She held up a bag. “And I got new sheets for the bed and a few plaid pillows for the couch in the living room.”

Another change I knew was coming but wasn't quite prepared for. “When's he moving in?”

“Right after the wedding, I suppose. He wants us to take a few days and go to Montreal on a honeymoon. Can you imagine—a honeymoon? At our age.”

“But that's what you do when you get married.”

She looked flustered. “I imagine the whole town is whispering about how foolish we look.”

“The whole town is happy for you.”

“I got an e-mail from your uncle Henry. He's not able to make it. Said he'll meet Oliver after the wedding.” Eleanor's voice was full of disappointment. “And your parents . . .”

“I haven't heard,” I admitted. “They're traveling. I know Mom is excited for you. . . .”

Eleanor rolled her eyes.

“Well,
I'm
excited,” I said, then resolved to give the speech I'd been planning since the engagement. “Grandma, I'm going to look for my own place. I know you'll be gone for months at a time, but when you're in town, you'll want . . . I mean, you'll be newlyweds. You might want to run around the house wearing nothing but a—”

“Nell Fitzgerald, don't you finish that sentence. I am still your grandmother.”

“I just don't want to be in your way.”

She let go of the bags. “You could never be in my way. Or Oliver's. I've treasured every moment since you came to live with me.”

“Really. Even last month when I ate the muffins you were planning to give to the church bake sale?”

She smiled. “Good point. Pack your bags and get out.” She hastily put her purchases behind the checkout counter when a customer walked into the shop. “It's not like you're at the house much anyway. What time you don't spend here, or at class, you're at Jesse's.” She sighed. “Poor soul. Any word on his friend?”

“Nothing new since yesterday. That I know of.”

“That man . . .”

“Roger.”

“Yes. He took such a long drive up here, only to go straight to Jesse's and get killed.”

“He didn't go straight to Jesse's. He stopped at Jitters for tea.”

Eleanor looked puzzled. “I thought he was desperate to tell Jesse something.”

I felt myself blush. I had been so busy blaming myself for keeping Roger from talking to Jesse I hadn't put any thought into his visit to Jitters. But now it nagged at me. “Why didn't he go to Jesse's right away?” I wondered. “The police station is just down the street, and Jesse's house only a five-minute walk. Why stop for a snack?”

“And if he stopped there,” Eleanor continued the thought, “where else did he go before he found his way to Jesse's house?”

My grandmother was the most reluctant member of our unofficial, and barely tolerated, investigative unit of the Archers Rest Police Department. But she was quickly becoming one of the best. She wasn't interested in credit reports, like Carrie, or good at Internet searches and combing through old documents, like Natalie and Maggie, but she knew people.

“We need to know more about Lizzie,” I said. “I need you to ask Jesse's mom—”

“I thought we'd been through this. There's no point in going back.”

“But this whole case is about the past. Roger came up here for Jesse. Why? It's probably because of something that happened while they were on the force together, an old case, or another detective. But if it's not about the police force, it's got to do with the time they all lived in New York City. And that means Lizzie.”

“Nell, dear, I know how you like to help, and I know that a few times Jesse has even appreciated that help. But maybe this is the case you leave alone. Whatever it is, maybe it would be better for Jesse, better for both of you, if you stayed out of it.”

I took a deep breath and considered what I knew was good advice. “It would,” I finally answered, “and you're right, maybe I should. But if Jesse's in danger, and too sad or too stubborn to face that, I can't just sit by and do nothing.”

“And you're willing to live with what you find out?”

“As long as Jesse's alive and safe, I'll live with whatever happens.”

Eleanor nodded. “Okay then. At least we know that whatever we find, it won't change how you feel about each other.”

She sounded sure. But for a brief moment I wondered if she was right.

S
usanne, Natalie's mother and an award-winning quilter, had sewn all the blocks of Eleanor's wedding quilt together into a queen-size top. In order to see it, the rest of the group—Bernie, Natalie, Maggie, and I—had taken over the back table at Jitters. Carrie handed over the cash register to Rich, her favorite employee and a former juvenile delinquent turned expert barista.

Susanne unfolded the quilt top slowly, as if she were preparing us to gasp and applaud, which we did. I'd been expecting our twelve blocks to be sewn three across by four down, with maybe some borders added. But Susanne had gone above and beyond, as usual.

The blocks were arranged asymmetrically, with Suzanne's hand-embroidered details, including the names of Eleanor's children and grandchildren, Oliver's daughter and granddaughter, the date they met, and the date of the wedding. It was a love story in thread and fabric: Oliver's hugely successful career as a painter, Eleanor's years in Archers Rest, the name of their favorite restaurant, their engagement over the summer—everything was there.

“Well, you've outdone yourself again,” Maggie declared, making Susanne blush.

“I think it's the best quilt I've worked on,” Susanne said, which was saying something given the dozens of ribbons for her re-
markable quilts. “I think it's because it's all of us working together. It's all our creativity.”

“I'm going to start quilting it tomorrow,” Natalie told us. “I'll do it when Eleanor's not in the shop, and I'll take it off the frame when she comes in.”

“Just cover it,” I suggested. “She's too busy to pay attention to what's on the longarm machine.”

“But make sure Nell puts in the last stitch,” Maggie said, to the absolute agreement of the group.

“Which will do what?” I suspected it had something to do with the many quilt superstitions that dated to the beginning of the art form.

“Whoever puts the last stitch in a wedding quilt will be the next to marry,” Bernie said.

“Then you do it,” I told her. “You're between husbands at the moment.”

“Three was enough.” She laughed. “At least for now.”

“I thought it was that if an unmarried woman put the last stitch into a quilt, she would never marry,” Susanne said.

“That's ridiculous.” Maggie rolled her eyes. “If that were the case then no woman from the nineteenth century would have found a husband.”

“But just in case,” Susanne offered. “Maybe the last stitch should be Bernie's. Since she's fine either way.”

We all laughed so loud that several patrons looked over at us.

“It's a beautiful quilt.” Carrie ran her hand over the patches. “We're a talented group.”

Bernie laughed, though more quietly this time. “Now that we've got the wedding gift out of the way, I assume, Nell, you can fill us in on what's going on with Jesse?”

“I wish I had something.” I told them about my conversation with Greg, and my concern that Jesse's past had something to do with the case. “There's a license plate that needs looking into. . . .”

“My nephew works at the DMV,” Bernie offered. “I'll see what I can get out of him.”

I checked that off my mental list. “And there's a matter of a business card.” I gave the details and Maggie wrote down the information.

“Nothing else in the car?” Susanne asked.

“According to Greg, clean as a whistle except for a notebook. And no one has been able to see what's in it except Jesse.”

“And he's not sharing?” Susanne asked.

“Not on this one. I think he really wants to be the one who solves his friend's murder.”

Natalie jumped in. “I did some digging on Roger Leighton. I figured we'd need to know, so I looked into it last night after I put the kids to bed. Roger left the police force about six months ago. Health issues, something with his back, and he had asked for early retirement.”

“How did you find that?” I asked.

“I made a few calls. I talked to a friend of my cousin who knew a New York City cop. And he knew another cop who worked with Leighton, and that guy said that Roger ran marathons, worked out a lot. It surprised him that Roger was claiming he wasn't up for the job.”

“The cop who knows another cop who knows your cousin's friend. . . .” Saying it made me laugh. We didn't have the normal channels of investigation open to us, so we had a sort of six-degrees-of-separation way to getting what we needed. Between us we all knew someone who knew someone, etc. . . . Of course, in the last few investigations we had Jesse offering information, actually asking for our help, if reluctantly. “Did he know if Roger was having other problems at work? Maybe an old case that got overturned, or an issue with a fellow officer?”

“He didn't mention anything, and I'm sorry, I didn't think to ask. He did say that Roger had been extra careful on arrests and paperwork. He was super insistent that everything be by the book.”

“Was that a new behavior?” Bernie asked.

“I don't know, but it seemed like he found it annoying, and he said he liked Roger,” Natalie told her.

“Maybe that's it,” Suzanne jumped in. “Maybe Roger discovered corruption and was killed because of it. If he did everything by the book, he'd have to turn in those cops who didn't, right? Maybe he quit so he wouldn't have to hurt his friends.”

It was a good theory, and one that fit in with what Jesse had said about Roger.

“I'll keep looking,” Maggie said. “We'll find everything we can about him.”

As she spoke, Jesse walked into Jitters. We had the quilt unfolded across the table, so to anyone looking we were just a group of women talking about our hobby. Under normal circumstances that wouldn't fool Jesse, but this time it seemed to.

“Wedding?” he asked.

“Nothing but,” Susanne said. She held up the quilt and Jesse took his time examining it.

“It's amazing. You ladies are gifted.” He cleared his throat and nodded toward me. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Sure.” I got up and followed him to the back of the shop, feeling like a kid called into the principal's office. When I looked back at the table, I saw the group read the situation the same way I did.

Jesse held my hands and smiled softly. “I know how good you are at these investigations. I know you always get to the bottom of things.”

“I can help you, you know.”

“I just said that Nell.”

“But you're going to tell me to butt out.”

“I'm going to tell you, if you give me a chance, to not go behind my back to get information out of my officers.”

“You mean yesterday?”

“Yes. Is there a time limit on when I can talk to you about something that bothers me?” His voice was slightly irritated, but he took a deep breath and started again. “I just needed time to think about what I wanted to say.”

“I was chatting with Greg,” I said, trying to keep my defensiveness to a minimum and Greg out of trouble. “I've known him as long as I've known you. He's my friend. I can't say hi to him on the street?”

“That's not what you were doing.”

“What did he say we were doing?”

Jesse smiled. He'd caught me. “I haven't talked to him. Yet. But my guess is you were pumping the guy for information.”

“I was talking to him. . . .” I gave up. “What's going on, Jesse? You're not putting everything into evidence, you're not letting me help you. . . .”

“I'm trying to deal with the death of my friend.”

“Then that's what you should do. I know you feel that you should conduct the investigation, but maybe it's a mistake. Maybe you should focus on the personal and let the state police handle it. If you do that, I'll stay out of it, too. I'll be whatever you need me to be.”

“That sounds like blackmail.”

That took me aback. “In what way? I'm saying that you should focus on Roger, and on your loss, and let . . .”

“I heard you.” The edge in his voice returned. He was starting a fight with me. I had to decide if I wanted to help it along or stop things where they were.

“I'm sorry,” I said, choosing to assume that Jesse was too shaken up to think straight. “I'm here, however you need me.”

“Right now, I need my girlfriend, not another detective.”

“I've been both for a while.”

“Not this time.”

I bit my lip, but I couldn't stay quiet. “Why? Is it just because he was your friend or is something else going on?”

“Nell, promise me you'll stay out of it.”

I hesitated. If I made the promise, I wasn't sure I could keep it, and if I didn't make it, I wasn't sure what Jesse's reaction would be. “Okay.” It was a halfhearted whisper.

“Okay,” he said. Then he kissed my cheek, let go of my hand, and headed out of Jitters. As I walked back to the table I was already regretting the agreement. And already certain that I would break my promise. I took a few steps toward the door, to tell Jesse I'd changed my mind. But before I could get very far, I heard a shot.