I was sure that Ryan would tell the same story to Jesse he'd told me last night, but I wanted to hear it again. It was clear, though, that Jesse wasn't going to start asking questions while I was in the room.
I walked out into the hallway. Jesse closed the door behind me. As much as I wanted to lean against the wall and listen in, I knew it wasn't right. Besides, in old houses like this one, the walls are thick. When I tried, all I could hear were indecipherable mutters.
I went to the kitchen to consult with Eleanor.
CHAPTER 25
"You won't believe what he's doing upstairs," I said to my grandmother as I walked into the kitchen. She was at the sink, balancing on one crutch and washing ink off her hands. "You too?"
"Me too, what?"
"He took your fingerprints. You don't think that's a little ridiculous?"
"He's conducting an investigation. He's trying to see whose fingerprints were on the scissors."
"Everyone's fingerprints were on the scissors," I spat out, but I knew that wasn't true. Mine were, as were my grandmother's, Nancy's and probably the entire quilt club. But Ryan's fingerprints shouldn't be there. As far as I knew he had never even been inside the shop. "What do you know about that cop, Jesse?"
"A little. He's a local boy. Went to New York and became a cop, got married and had little Allison. Then his wife got sick and they came back to town. She died about two years ago."
"That's not a little. You know his life story."
She shrugged. "Why are you interested?"
"He's questioning Ryan." I plopped down at the kitchen table.
She nodded. "Ryan didn't do anything wrong, so there's no reason to worry." She said it with certainty and a touch of reproach.
I paused and then asked the question I'd wanted to ask her since last night. "How do you know?"
Eleanor considered it for a moment, then said firmly, "It was in his eyes. And his voice. Everything. I'm not an expert on people, but I've lived awhile, and Ryan was genuinely surprised when I said Marc had been stabbed." She hobbled back to the kitchen table and with some difficulty sat down and rested her injured leg on a chair. "Didn't you think he was surprised?"
I sat back. "I guess I was too freaked out to pay close attention," I admitted.
"Well, you have so many emotions mixed up with Ryan and Marc that it would be hard to see it objectively."
I nodded. She was right, I decided. I would feel better when Ryan went back to New York and I could sort out my feelings- and mourn Marc-without him.
Eleanor grabbed a pile of red fabrics that lay on the table in front of her. Slowly and with annoying patience, she began neatly folding them into triangles. With nothing else to do, I grabbed a piece of red fabric and copied her. We sat in silence, waiting for movement from upstairs. At least I was waiting. My grandmother seemed content to fold.
"What are we doing?" I asked, suddenly impatient with the silence.
"Folding fat quarters." Without waiting for me to ask the next, obvious question, she continued. "Fabric comes forty-four inches wide, standard. If you get a yard, you get a piece that's forty-four inches wide and thirty-six inches long. If you get a quarter yard, then you get a piece that's forty-four inches wide and nine inches long."
"These aren't forty-four inches wide."
"No, they're not," she said slowly as if I were a not-too-bright child. "A quarter yard of fabric is useful, but it has its limitations. If you only need a little fabric, but you need something longer than nine inches, you get a fat quarter, which is twenty-two inches, half the length of a normal quarter, and eighteen inches, twice the length."
"Why not just buy a half yard?"
"Because you don't need a half yard."
"But the shop would sell more fabric that way."
Eleanor moved my pile of folded fabric and replaced it with unfolded rectangles. "When we reopen, let Nancy run things." She patted my hand and smiled.
Two sets of boots could be heard walking down the stairs, but only one person came into the kitchen.
"Can I talk to you now?" Jesse's tone was still flat but it was clear that he wasn't asking me a question.
"I guess," I said and left my pile of red fabrics. "What do you want to know?"
"How about a walk?" Jesse seemed determined to take each of us out of earshot of the other.
We walked outside without speaking, crunching the leaves underneath our feet. I had nothing to hide, but I was unnerved anyway.
"Ask me," I quietly demanded after a minute or so of silence had passed. I couldn't take his patience, his quiet demeanor anymore.
"Ask you what?"
"If I killed Marc."
"You didn't."
"I know I didn't," I said immediately, then stopped and turned to him, realizing what he'd said, but his caramel eyes betrayed nothing. "How do you know I didn't kill Marc?"
"The coroner puts his time of death at around six p.m. You were with your grandmother at that time," he said with a slight smile. "And Eleanor wouldn't lie about that, even for you." His eyes stared directly into mine. "Besides, you had no motive to kill him. You didn't know him well enough."
If he was being sarcastic, I couldn't tell. "All right, what is it that I'm missing about Marc? Everyone in town seems to know something about him that I don't."
Jesse was looking straight at me, his voice calm and even. But I was struggling to stay composed. "Did your fiance ever explain why he punched Marc?" he asked.
"Over me," I said quickly, but I realized I'd never asked Ryan exactly why a normally nonviolent man had gotten into two fights in the same day. "No, he didn't tell me." I felt exhausted by my confusion. "Why did he?"
"Marc apparently made some comments about you."
"So what?"
Jesse hesitated, clearly unsure of how much he should tell me. "About how Ryan had gotten you primed for Marc to go in for the kill." Jesse hesitated again and looked back toward the house. He took a breath and finished his thought. "Marc liked women who were vulnerable."
"You keep using that word. What do you mean exactly?"
He nodded. "He helped himself to their affections… and to their bank accounts."
I stared at him in disbelief. "I have a hundred and forty eight dollars in my bank account," I stammered.
"You have access to the shop. And to the house. And what's in it."
I wanted to laugh. I wanted it to be a joke, but Jesse didn't seem like a guy who would joke about such things. All I could do was stand there.
"I'm not saying he was only interested in getting his hands on Eleanor's stuff," he said quickly, "although I'm sure it crossed his mind. But Marc liked to play all angles. Maybe he thought he could get some money out of your grandmother if he left you alone. Or maybe he thought there was something valuable in the shop he could take if he had access to the place without your grandmother being here."
"And I'm that much of a sucker? Some guy smiles at me and I give him the keys to the place?" I said the words as sarcastically as I could, but as I was asking Jesse, I was also asking myself.
"Marc didn't go after just anyone." Jesse moved closer, a look of concern on his face.
"Just the really stupid ones."
"No. Smart, actually. He liked his women smart. He was a bit of a con artist, but he had good taste."
I knew he was trying to give me a silver lining for my cloud, but it seemed like insult upon insult. A smart woman would have seen through the flattery and puppy dog eyes.