The Silence of the Llamas (23 page)

“I don’t think the police give a fig about local folklore and jinxed property. But they might be interested in this photo,” Maggie mused. “Though they’ll be annoyed with us for snooping. Maybe there’s some discreet way to do it.”

“If we go straight to Walsh, he’ll go ballistic. It might even make things worse for Ellie and Ben, once he knows we’re all friends,” Dana speculated. “Jack probably knows someone we can call who won’t get all bent out of shape. I mean, we’re basically just a few concerned citizens who want to see justice done.”

“How nicely you put that,” Maggie commended. “I think she’s the one for the job,” she told the others.

“I second the motion,” Lucy said between spoonfuls of chicken soup.

“Take it away, Dana. I never get very far with the police. I can’t even talk a fine down on a parking ticket.” Suzanne shrugged and, with a few taps, sent the photo to Dana’s cell phone.

“I’ll have to wait until tomorrow night to ask him. He’s
away tonight on a little golf trip. I couldn’t deny him, with the colder weather moving in.” Dana adjusted the straw and returned to sipping her drink.

“I’m not even going to ask you what you’re eating.” Suzanne was eating a turkey-and-Swiss on rye with lettuce and tomato, and coleslaw. She had flung off the top piece of bread and bunched the rest up onto one exploding slice.

“Same here,” Dana replied, looking askance at the sloppy mess in Suzanne’s hand. “That reminds me, Maggie: What are you doing tonight? Want to join me for dinner and a movie?”

Maggie smiled over at her. “I’d like to say I already have a date . . . but that sounds good to me. It’s been so slow here today—everyone must be in their backyards, raking leaves. I was thinking of closing a little early anyway.”

“Let’s see what’s playing.” Dana took out her iPhone and tapped a few times on the screen.

The phone rang, and Dana checked the number. “Hi, Ellie. How are you?” Dana said cheerfully.

Lucy watched her expression quickly change from a relaxed smile to somber concern.

“They did? When did that happen?” She paused, listening, and then said, “Gee, that’s too bad . . .” She stood up and walked away from the table—to have some privacy, Lucy assumed.

She talked with Ellie for a few more minutes. She seemed to be listening mostly and using a comforting tone when she did speak.

Dana returned to the group at the table before hanging up. “Why don’t you come into town and hang out with me and
Maggie? We were going to go out to dinner and a movie. You can even stay over—Jack is away,” Lucy heard her say.

She paused, waiting for Ellie’s answer, then said, “Let me ask her and I’ll call you right back.”

Dana ended the call and turned to Maggie. “Ellie and Ben had a big fight. They’re under so much stress. I’m not surprised. I asked her to come into town, but she can’t leave the farm. Dot has to go to her other job tonight and won’t be back until tomorrow. I’m sorry to change the plan, but she sounds so upset. I really don’t want to leave her alone.”

Maggie also looked concerned after hearing the story. “It’s fine with me. I don’t mind visiting Ellie. We can bring some takeout and a DVD. Cheer her up a bit. . . . But won’t Ben be coming back? It might be awkward,” Maggie added.

Dana shook her head. “I don’t think so. Ellie said he packed a bag. She thinks he went to visit his mother, in New Haven.”

“Uh-oh. Whenever luggage is involved in a marital spat, it is not a good thing.” Suzanne shook her head as she gathered up her trash and tossed it into a basket.

“It does sound like more than the usual disagreement,” Dana agreed quietly. “Ben is emotional. He has a temper. They’ve been under a lot of stress, and it seems the police have been digging into his past and uncovered some unsavory information. It doesn’t prove anything about the murder, one way or the other,” she quickly pointed out. “But it puts him in a bad light.”

“How bad?” Lucy asked. “Was he ever arrested?”

“Ellie didn’t go into the specifics. She did say that he’d told her about some of this dirty laundry before they got married. Obviously, not everything.”

She glanced over at Maggie and then at the rest of her friends. “I guess we’ll hear the rest when we get there.”

Suzanne had taken out a compact and was freshening her lipstick. “I’d make some corny joke about the guy having skeletons in his closet . . . but I don’t even want to go there.”

Maggie shook her head. “Good move. Please don’t.”

•   •   •

On the drive over to the Krueger farm, Maggie and Dana did not speculate about Ben’s unsavory past. There would be plenty of time to talk about that tonight, Maggie thought as Dana’s Volvo cruised up the gravel drive in front of the farmhouse. They’d picked up some dinner and wine. Ellie said she had dessert and not to bother with that.

As they walked toward the house they met Dot, who had just come out the back door.

“Oh, hello. You’re Ellie’s friends, from the knitting shop, right? Nice to see you again. I’m glad you came out here tonight. I hate to leave Ellie alone. She seems so upset. But I have to go to my other job now, in town.”

Dot had lowered her voice a notch and spoken with concern. Maggie realized Dot had to be aware of the tension between Ellie and Ben, and maybe even had overheard their argument. It was practically unavoidable when they lived in such close proximity. But Ellie’s helper did seem genuinely concerned and glad to see Ellie would have company.

“Oh, we’ll cheer her up,” Dana promised. “We have a load of sushi, a good movie—”

“And we brought our knitting,” Maggie added.

“Sounds like a real party. Sorry I can’t stay,” Dot replied
with a grin. “But Mrs. Foley needs me. That’s the woman I work for. She’s having a rough time right now,” she said sadly. “The llamas should be fine through the night. Ellie has my number if anything comes up.”

“We’ll take good care of Ellie and the llamas, too. Don’t worry,” Maggie told her.

The women said good night and Dot headed toward her cottage. Dana and Maggie walked up to the farmhouse, where Ellie was now waiting for them, framed by the doorway, in a welcoming, golden light.

A short time later, they were all seated around the table in Ellie’s kitchen, picking and choosing pieces of sushi from the big platter that Ellie had arranged for them.

“I think I’m so nimble with chopsticks from all these years of knitting,” Maggie remarked as she slipped a bit of marinated ginger on her dish.

“Ben loves sushi. He’s probably eating some right now.” Ellie sighed and dipped a piece of sashimi in a tiny bowl of soy sauce. “That’s one thing he didn’t really like about moving here. Nobody delivers this far out. It was a big change from the city, where we could just step out the door and find anything we wanted.”

Maggie glanced at Dana. So far, they’d just passed the time with small talk, but this seemed like a good moment to initiate some big talk—to ask what the police had uncovered about Ben.

Dana seemed to feel the same, or had picked up some subtle cue from Maggie, but she started on a more positive note.

“We have some good news for you. Suzanne and Lucy talked to one of your neighbors today, Mr. Kranowski. He had
a lot to say about his relationship with Ridley. None of it good,” Dana added.

“He did? How did they manage to get him talking?”

Maggie helped herself to another bite of Out-of-Control Roll. A bit rich, but what the heck, it was Saturday night.

“Suzanne got an appointment there to appraise his property,” Dana continued. “They said he seemed lonely and had no qualms about speaking his mind.”

Ellie didn’t look surprised. “I know he hated Ridley. With a passion. Much more than Ben did. I can’t understand why the police never suspected him but jumped all over Ben.”

“After talking to him awhile, Suzanne and Lucy wondered the same thing. They even found a spindle under a chair. It could have just rolled under there . . . or been hidden. It’s one of the spindles you gave away at the fair,” Dana added.

Ellie was lifting a bite of food to her mouth but suddenly put it back down. “They did? Did they tell the police about it?”

“Suzanne took a photo, and Jack will help me put it in the right hands,” Dana replied. “Mr. Kranowski has a pretty good alibi, though. He suffers from gout and uses a walker. He must have told the police that on the night of the murder, he was home, incapacitated.”

“Gout can be very painful,” Maggie added. “A person really couldn’t sneak through the woods and kill someone in that condition.”

“He also has a story about how he obtained the spindle. But it does show the police that there was more than one person close by with motive, opportunity . . . and maybe even the means, if Kranowski is lying about his gout,” Dana quickly added.

“I see what you mean. It does help Ben.” Ellie let out a long breath and closed her eyes a moment. When she opened them again, she said, “I wish I could tell him. This would definitely make him feel better.”

“Has Ben been in touch at all since he left?” Dana’s tone was light but sympathetic.

Ellie looked down at her dish. “No, he hasn’t. I sent him a text, but he didn’t answer. I guess I could call and leave a message. But he should be calling me. And apologizing,” she added in an angrier voice.

“Are you worried about him?” Maggie asked her.

Ellie shrugged. “He’s a grown man. He can take care of himself. I just hope he doesn’t rack up too many bills on the credit cards.” It sounded to Maggie as if Ben had pulled this disappearing act before. But she didn’t feel comfortable asking.

“How did the fight start?” Dana chose two more pieces of sushi and put them on her plate. “You said it was about something the police found out about him? Something he never told you?”

Ellie nodded and sighed. “Ben is an independent type. He never liked having a boss and has always been in business for himself. I’ve always known that about him. It was a quality I found attractive, when we met.”

Maggie could understand that. After opening her shop, she doubted she could ever go back to a normal job again, answering to someone else’s rules.

“But?” Dana prodded her.

“But he hasn’t always been successful. He’s had some business failures and bad investments. And left some partners on
bad terms. It isn’t as if he never told me but . . . he did leave out a few details.”

Dana and Maggie waited for Ellie to continue. When she didn’t, Dana prodded her. “Such as?”

“Let’s see . . . where should I start? He lost his Massachusetts license as a CPA. I didn’t know that. I thought he was still certified and could jump back into the field anytime. He also has some sort of judgment from a lawsuit pending in Florida. That had to do with a business breaking up. I think his partners are still trying to sue him for money they say he owes. The police say he’s been known under several other names . . . I can’t even remember them,” she confessed. “I was so upset, I just blanked out at that part. And he’d always told me that this was his second marriage. But it’s actually his third,” she added.

She sighed again and sat back in her chair, fiddling with her wineglass. Maggie sensed that revealing Ben’s dirty laundry was embarrassing for Ellie. She could understand that, but she thought her friend really needn’t feel that way.

“That is a lot to take in at once. And you had no idea of any of this?” Dana asked.

Ellie shook her head. “No, I didn’t. I felt so . . . betrayed. As if I married a stranger. Especially when I heard about the fake names. I felt as if I were some sort of colossal dummy or just hopelessly gullible. It’s so embarrassing.”

Ellie’s eyes were getting teary. Maggie didn’t want to see her cry but knew that there was no way to change the topic of conversation. Now that they had waded into this river, they had to swim through it.

Dana reached over and touched her hand. “Don’t blame
yourself, Ellie. You did nothing wrong. He should have been honest with you. Did he deny these things were true?”

“No, he didn’t. He tried to explain things to me. But I was too angry to listen. I felt like I couldn’t believe anything he told me. It made me doubt myself, my own judgment in marrying him. Maybe we didn’t know each other long enough. Maybe I was just too eager to get married again. I think he knew that and knew how to say all the right things to win me over.”

Maggie’s heart went out to her. Ellie felt betrayed by the person closest to her in the whole world. No wonder she had trouble hearing out his explanations.

“How long did you know Ben before you got married? I don’t think you ever told me,” Dana said.

“About six months. That’s not very long, I know. But we told ourselves that we were mature, at a certain stage in life, and we knew what we wanted. We didn’t have to wait.”

Maggie could understand that. If she met someone and fell in love at this point in her life, she would feel the same way. “How did you meet?” Maggie asked.

Ellie glanced at her. She hesitated before answering. “An Internet dating site. HappilyEverAfter.com. They claim to have made the most matches that result in marriage.” She rolled her eyes. “I guess their questionnaire didn’t have a section for Ben to describe the shady side of his past.”

“I guess he could blame it on that,” Maggie said. “Did he explain why he hid all that from you?”

They were done with their dinner, and Ellie picked up the dishes and brought them to the sink. “He said he was afraid that he’d lose me. He thought I was so successful with my
business without taking any shortcuts. He didn’t want me to think that he wasn’t at my level.”

Dana cocked her head to the side. “That sounds plausible.”

Maggie agreed. “It’s something a man might say.”

“He claims that he’s changed completely and he didn’t want me to judge him from his old, bad habits. He thought when we married it would be a fresh start for him and I would be a good role model.”

“What do you think now?” Dana asked quietly.

Ellie walked back to the table and wiped it off. “I think he was just trying to talk his way out of it by flattering me . . .” She sighed and hung her head a moment. “Honestly, I don’t know what to think. Obviously, he’s not the most forthright man in the world. He’s walked a fine line but never really broken the law. Even if he wasn’t the most scrupulous businessman, it still doesn’t mean he killed Justin Ridley. I think the police are just trying to scare him by throwing all this up in his face.”