Dropped Dead Stitch (16 page)

Pete held up both hands, his genial smile still intact. “Guys, I appreciate your suggestions, but I don’t want to take the time—”

“We’re not giving you a choice, Pete.” Kelly faced off with him, hands on hips. Serious Coach stare in place. “You have to do it for your health. Mimi told us about your blood pressure.”

Pete’s smile disappeared. “Man, a guy has no privacy around here.”

“Give it up, Pete. The Lambspun network knows everything,” Jennifer said.

“Yeah, so, give up any idea of resistance. I’m going to go jogging with you every afternoon unless there’s a downpour. And don’t try to hide. I know where you live.”

Pete shook his head with a rueful smile. “You’re serious about this, aren’t you?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Trust me, Pete. You’d better do what she says. When Kelly gets her mind set on something, she’s like a dog with a bone. She won’t leave it alone.”

Kelly had to laugh. “She’s right about that, Pete. I’m relentless.”

Pete stared off at the golf course. “Every day?” he complained.

“Monday through Friday. You get weekends off.”

“Man . . .” He shook his head.

“Listen, Pete,” Jennifer said, slipping off her jacket. “I’ll come along with you guys. That way you’ll have someone else to complain to who’s equally miserable. And we can torture Kelly with stereo complaining.”

Pete looked at Jennifer and started laughing. Kelly just stared at her friend.

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Kelly said, leaning against Jennifer’s car. “I gotta make sure I wasn’t hallucinating just now. Did I actually hear you say that
you
were going to come jogging with Pete and me?”

Jennifer gave her a disarming smile. “Yes, you did.”

Kelly stared at her friend in disbelief. “I’ve been asking you to join me running for two years now. How come you haven’t done it before?”

Jennifer shrugged. “Pete’s coming this time. That makes it different.”

“Incredible,” Kelly muttered as she pushed off the car and headed across the driveway. She noticed that Jennifer was wearing sneakers, too. “Okay, Pete, you heard it. You’re the magic ingredient. Let’s get to it, so I can make ball practice before Megan gives away my base.”

Pete and Jennifer followed after Kelly as she started a slow jogging pace around the cottage and alongside the golf course. Golfers were still doing their best to hit their balls in the approximate direction of the individual greens. Some succeeded, some did not.

Rounding a corner by the edge of the course, Kelly kept her pace slow. “We should be safe from most of the drives over here. But, no guarantees, so heads-up, guys,” she warned.

“Oh, great, now we’re threatened with injury,” Jennifer teased.

“Some of those guys are my customers, too,” Pete said, between pants of breath.

“Good, then they won’t hit you.”

They all jogged silently and slowly alongside the long stretch of greens. Then, Kelly heard Jennifer’s voice pipe up behind her, like a preschooler in a car seat. “Are we there yet?”

“Hey,
Kelly, did I catch you at a bad time?” Burt’s voice came over the phone.

Kelly steered around the corner of an intersection. “Not at all. As a matter of fact, I’m driving to the mall to shop for a dress to wear to your wedding.”

Burt’s soft laughter sounded. “Mimi told me Megan wanted all of you to dress in springtime colors, like flowers.”

“Ohhhh, yeah. That’s Megan for you. Organizer par excellence. She even told us which colors would look best on each of us.” Kelly slowed for a stoplight. “Lisa’s violet, Jennifer’s light green, Megan’s pink, and I’m blue.”

“Megan is something else. Once she started helping Mimi with the guest list, next thing we knew, she started giving Mimi and me daily lists of things we had to do before ‘M Day,’ as Megan calls it.”

Kelly laughed out loud this time. “Trust me, Burt. You’d better do what she says. Megan gets fierce if you don’t follow through on her marching orders.”

“I’ll bear that in mind. Meanwhile, let me tell you why I called. I heard from my friend in Peterson’s department. Vern said they’ve finally finished interviewing everyone at the retreat except for one woman who’s out of town on business.”

“Did they learn anything new? I mean, other than Jennifer’s story.”

“Well, a couple of things got their attention, he told me. Naturally, Jennifer’s story stood out the most. Unfortunately.”

“I was afraid of that.”

“Yeah, well, we knew that would spark Peterson’s interest. I mean, it would spark mine if I was investigating. You have to be impartial. So, even though Peterson knows Jennifer and obviously likes her, he can’t help but see her as the one person at the retreat who had the most reason to wish Cal Everett ill, so to speak.”

“Yeah, I know, I know. Did they interview Jane what’s-her-name? Jane admitted to several of us on Sunday morning that she’d confronted Everett the night before, just like I had. Apparently she called him a scumbag and some other colorful terms.”

“Yeah, he did mention that they interviewed a Jane Kirchner, and she readily admitted confronting Everett.” Burt’s voice revealed amusement. “In fact, she repeated the entire colorful conversation.”

“Hey, then she should go on Peterson’s list next to Jennifer, right?”

“Well, it seems Jane has an alibi. She and her cabinmate, Sue, left the campfire and played cards in their cabin the rest of the evening. They went to sleep about midnight. So, I’m afraid that still leaves Jennifer alone at the top of Peterson’s list.”

“Damn,” Kelly breathed, merging her car into another lane.

“I know, I know . . .” Burt commiserated. “But there was one other bit of information that surfaced. Dr. Norcross said she remembered hearing the sound of a large engine, like a truck, late at night. She heard it when she got up to use the restroom. She doesn’t remember what time it was. But she did glance through the curtains and said she saw bright headlights coming up the driveway, and a big truck pulled into the barnyard. Then Cal Everett went out to meet whoever it was.”

“How’d she know it was Everett? It was pitch-black outside. I know, because I checked out the door before Lisa and I went to sleep.”

“Apparently Everett was carrying a lantern, that’s how she recognized him. So, that’s some good news. Everett had a nighttime visitor. Now, all they have to do is find out who he was.”

Kelly pondered that new information as she turned her car into the mall parking entrance. “A big truck, huh? Sounds like Rancher Bill, but it couldn’t be him because he was with his girlfriend all night.”

“Yeah, well, I have a feeling that Peterson is going to go back and interview Rancher Bill again, given Dr. Norcross’s statement.”

Kelly remembered something. “Speaking of Dr. Norcross, I recall her saying that she had her own discussion with Everett. After she learned he was the one who assaulted Jennifer. According to Jen, Dr. Norcross warned Everett to stay away from all of her retreat attendees that weekend. She told him to ‘stay out of sight.’ Yeah, I think that’s what she said.”

“Hmmmm, my friend didn’t mention that. Maybe I’ll call him and find out if Dr. Norcross told Peterson about that conversation.”

“Don’t get me wrong, Burt. I really admire Dr. Norcross,” Kelly backtracked, feeling slightly guilty. “She’s really great. I had a chance to see her in action. But, we’re trying to make sure all confrontations with Cal Everett are accounted for, right?”

Burt chuckled. “Right you are, Junior Detective Flynn. I’ll get on it and report back to you. Meanwhile, enjoy your shopping excursion.”

Kelly nosed her car into a parking space as she flipped her phone closed. Somehow springtime colors didn’t seem as bright. Not with her friend Jennifer still at the top of Detective Peterson’s Most Likely list.

She flipped the car’s electronic lock as she crossed the mall parking lot and was about to shove her phone into the pocket of her new summer cropped pants when she remembered something. She punched in Lisa’s number.

“Hey, do we have practice tonight?” Kelly asked when Lisa’s voice came on the line.

“We sure do. You’d better not be late again, or Megan will kick your butt.”

“As Marty says, she’ll have to catch me first,” Kelly teased as she entered the air-conditioned chill of the sprawling mall. “I’ve got Pete pretty well trained to the routine after three days, so I could leave before he’s finished. Jennifer’s another story, of course.”

“Of course,” Lisa chuckled. “I still can’t believe she’s actually running with you and Pete.”

“Well, running would be an exaggeration. Slow jogging is more like it, but that’s okay. It’s a start. I’m hoping Jen will actually get used to it and keep doing it every day. I’ve pretty much convinced Pete that we’ll all swoop down on him like avenging Mother Hens if he stops working out.”

“Avenging Mother Hens? Aren’t you mixing your metaphors, there? Mother Hens are supposed to nurture, not avenge. That’s for eagles or angels or somesuch.”

“Whatever. I usually slept during Lit classes. They were too early in the morning,” Kelly said before turning serious. “I just had a phone call from Burt. He told me Jennifer’s still alone at the top of Peterson’s list. It seems Jane bragged about confronting Everett, but she’s got an alibi. She and her roommate played cards all night, then fell asleep.”

“Darn. I was kind of hoping she could deflect attention from Jen.”

“Me, too. But there is some good news, I guess. Apparently Dr. Norcross said she heard a truck engine late at night when she got up. She saw a big truck pull into the barnyard and Cal Everett went out to meet it.”

“Whoa, that’s interesting.”

“Yeah, I thought so. Let’s hope it leads to something. Burt thinks Peterson will go back to Rancher Bill for more interviews.”

“I thought that guy Bill had an alibi, though.”

“He does. According to Burt, Bill says he was with his girlfriend all night. But we all remember Everett arguing on the phone that night. Not once, but several times. Maybe he was arguing with Bill. Maybe Bill came back to settle the score like he promised. Who knows?”

“You’re right. Say, what’s that noise?”

“It’s the mall announcement,” Kelly said, pausing in front of a boutique she particularly liked. “I’m doing my Megan-authorized spring bouquet dress purchase. Wish me luck.”

“Good luck, and thanks for reminding me. I’d better shop tomorrow night. No practice. Listen, gotta go. Client coming in.”

Kelly clicked off and scanned the shopwindows again. Where-oh-where had all the spring flowers gone?

Kelly
fingered the bamboo and silk yarns as they tumbled from the bins. Soft and smooth. She noticed the pretty lacy vest that hung above the bins. Maybe she should have used that pattern for her vest. She could picture herself wearing it over a white shirt. She’d seen that lacy, open pattern in countless magazine pictures.

Of course, most of those patterns were a lot more complicated than the simple one Mimi had recommended for Kelly. But then, Mimi knew Kelly’s propensity for making nearly fatal fiber errors. Mimi never used the word
mistake.
She called those knitting missteps “learning experiences.” After two and a half years of working with yarns, Kelly had learned and experienced a lot.
Ohhhh, yeah
.

Shifting her empty mug to her other hand, Kelly sank her free hand deep into a bin of seductively soft yarns, letting their silky fibers caress her fingers. Kid mohair—lavender, yellow, and pink balls of fluff. Skeins of merino wool, silk, and cashmere. Sinfully soft.

Burt’s voice broke through the fiber trance. “Hey, Kelly, good to see you early in the morning.”

Kelly glanced up. Burt was holding his coffee mug as he leaned against the archway that led into the adjacent yarn room dominated by the Mother Loom. That was the large loom Mimi and her most advanced weavers used. Shelves of novelty yarns, spools of embroidery floss, and sewing thread lined two of the walls.

“Actually, I came over for my morning coffee fill-up, but got sidetracked by these new yarns Mimi put out. They are scrumptiously soft.”

“Aren’t they now?” Burt said with a smile.

“How does Mimi expect us to finish projects when she keeps distracting us with new yarns? Some of us have short attention spans, you know. I’m struggling with my crocheted place mat.”

Burt chuckled. “You know Mimi. She can’t help sharing everything new she finds.” His smile faded. “Why don’t we head into the café, Kelly? We can chat while you load up with caffeine.”

Kelly left the yarn temptations and followed Burt down the hallway leading to the café. She could tell he had something to tell her, and from the expression on his face, Kelly sensed it wasn’t good news.

She plopped her bag on a table and sat down, then lifted her mug to the waitress in a silent signal. “You’ve got something on your mind, Burt, I can tell. Somehow I sense I won’t be happy to hear it.”

Burt settled into a chair across the table and leaned forward over his folded arms. “Your instincts are as good as ever, Kelly.”

“What have you heard, Burt?”

He took a sip of coffee before starting. Not a good sign. “I got a call from my friend, Vern. He said Peterson went to Jennifer’s favorite bar, The Empire Room, and started interviewing to see if anyone remembered seeing her with Everett.”

Kelly’s stomach tightened. “And did they?”

“It seems Ted, the regular bartender, didn’t remember the night Jennifer met Everett, but he does recall his coming into the bar a couple of months ago. Apparently, Everett sat at the bar one night and told Ted that he’d ‘had’ Jennifer the month before in what he described as a bout of rough sex. Ted recalled Everett saying Jennifer liked it ‘rough.’ But when he got rougher than she wanted, she got mad and . . .” Burt paused. “And Everett claimed Jennifer threatened to kill him.”