“Is that good or bad?” I asked, smiling back at him.
“All good,” he said.
I would have recognized Josh, as well. His sandy hair was in the same short, spiked style he’d had when he was twelve, except now it was styled with a lot more expensive cut. He was tall and lanky but he’d lost his geeky awkwardness. He still wore black-framed glasses, except the frames were a designer name now and they weren’t held together with duct tape at one corner. His blue eyes were keen behind his glasses, taking everything in. Even as he smiled at me I felt myself relax, just a little.
Josh said hello to Liz, Rose and Charlotte. Then he quickly explained what was going to happen. “After the charges are read the judge will ask Mrs. Hamilton how she pleads,” he said. “She’ll say not guilty. The prosecutor and I have already talked about bail. I’ll agree with her suggestion and I don’t see why the judge will have any problem with it.”
He gave us an encouraging smile. “Things should go pretty quickly.”
And they did.
Maddie came into the courtroom looking a little tired and very serious but she smiled when she saw us all sitting in the front row. Josh was right about the bail and very quickly we were all in the hallway outside the courtroom.
Charlotte took both of Maddie’s hands in hers. “Are you all right?” she asked, her eyes searching Maddie’s face.
Maddie nodded. “I’m fine. I’m just . . . glad to be here with all of you.” She smiled at Charlotte, Rose and Liz in turn and then she turned to me. “Sarah, you sweet girl, I don’t know how to thank you,” she said. “Josh told me you sent him.”
I reached out and touched her arm. “All I did was make a phone call. It was Rose’s suggestion.”
Maddie looked at us all again. “I don’t know what I’d do without all of you,” she said.
I could see the glint of unshed tears in her eyes. I remembered what Mac had said to me last night when I’d said pretty much the same thing to him. I smiled and patted Maddie’s arm. “It doesn’t matter,” I said, “because you’re not going to find out.”
Josh touched my elbow and we moved a few steps away from the women. “You and Mrs. Elliot found Arthur Fenety’s body,” he said.
I nodded. “Yes.”
“I’ll need to talk to you at some point.”
“Just let me know when.”
“So, you’ve talked to Michelle.” A hint of a smile played across his face.
“I have.” I glanced over at Maddie again. Surrounded by her friends she didn’t look quite as tired as she had in the courtroom.
“Michelle’s fair, Sarah,” Josh said. “And she’s a good cop. If we come up with anything, she’ll investigate. She wants the truth.”
“That’s good,” I said.
He pushed back the sleeve of his suit jacket and checked his watch. It had a wide black leather strap with a silver dial, and on the black face I saw something familiar.
“Wait a minute. Is that Darkwing Duck?” I asked, leaning in for a closer look.
Josh grinned and held up his arm so I could get a better look. It was the purple-suited cartoon superhero on the face of his watch. Josh had been obsessed with Darkwing Duck when he was a kid. The summer he was nine he’d worn a purple cape everywhere. I guess it said something good about the majority of kids in North Harbor that he didn’t get beaten up once.
“It’s good to see you haven’t changed too much,” I said, grinning back at him.
He tugged his sleeve back down. “Sarah, most people in town remember the dorky little kid I used to be. It would be pretty difficult to get too full of myself.”
“You weren’t a dork,” I said. “You were quirky.”
“Quirky,” he said, nodding slowly. “Okay. I like that.” He glanced over at Maddie and the other women. I hoped they weren’t pumping her for information for their “investigation.”
“If you saw Michelle, then I’m guessing you saw Nick, as well,” Josh said.
I nodded. “I did.” I slid the strap of my purse back up onto my shoulder again.
“Heck of a first week.” Josh shook his head. “A murder investigation for his first case, and then he spent most of last night talking a suicidal teenager off the Memorial Bridge.”
“What?” I said. It didn’t sound like the kind of thing an investigator for the medical examiner’s office would be doing.
“He was going somewhere and he saw this kid who had climbed up on one of the girders of the bridge. He pulled over. She started talking to him and she wouldn’t talk to anyone else.”
That sounded like Nick: always the hero. And it explained why he hadn’t called me back. I wondered if Charlotte knew. I glanced down at my own watch. I really needed to get to the shop. I knew Mac could more than handle things, but I didn’t want to dump everything on him for too long.
Josh needed to spend some time going over the case with Maddie. He offered to drop her off at the shop later.
“Are you sure?” I said.
He nodded, setting his briefcase down to pull on his navy trench coat. “I’d love to see the place. I’m assuming I’ve earned enough brownie points to get a tour.”
“Absolutely,” I said with a smile.
We said good-bye to Maddie and Josh and walked back to the parking lot.
Neither Charlotte nor Rose said much on the way across town. There was a tour bus full of leaf peepers at the shop when we got there, but Mac seemed to have everything pretty much under control, although there was a line at the cash register.
Rose peeled off her coat and handed it and her purse to Liz, bustling over to help out. We’d stopped to pick up Elvis on the way. I set him down and he swiped a paw over his face before making his way over to a group of three women looking at the quilts.
Over by the window a woman had a teacup garden in each hand and was looking around for another set of hands. Charlotte piled her purse on top of Rose’s bag in Liz’s arms and headed across the floor to help.
“You might as well pile your things on, too,” Liz said to me.
“Thank you,” I said, hooking the strap of my purse over her shoulder.
“I suppose you’re going to want tea and coffee,” she said.
“You don’t have to do that.” I brushed a clump of cat hair off my red jacket. “Why don’t you go wait in my office?”
She smiled. “This is a onetime offer, kiddo. Who knows when it will come again?” She started for the stairs, looking a little like a Nepalese packman.
“I love you, Liz,” I called after her.
She waggled her elbow at me as she went up the steps. “Everybody does.”
It was just a bit more than half an hour before the tour bus pulled out of our parking lot. Liz handed me a steaming cup of coffee and gave one to Mac, as well. He came to stand beside me by the front window. I was counting how many of the teacup gardens we’d sold.
“How was court?” he asked.
“Maddie’s out on bail,” I said, folding my fingers around the coffee mug.
“What happens next?”
I shrugged. “I’m not sure. Maddie’s with her lawyer right now.” I glanced over to where Charlotte, Rose and Liz were sitting around a small round table with a mosaic glass top. Rose was talking, gesturing with her hands, while the other two listened.
Mac followed my gaze. “Problem?” he asked.
I crossed my arms over my midsection, still holding on to my cup. “Umm, maybe,” I said.
He raised an eyebrow and I could see genuine interest in his warm brown eyes.
I sighed. “On the way over to the courthouse they were talking about looking for evidence to prove Maddie is innocent.”
“They’re not serious?”
I nodded. “Oh, I think they’re very serious. That’s what worries me.”
Mac looked over at the three women sitting around the small round table with their teacups. “Realistically, Sarah, how much trouble could the three of them get into?”