Authors: Joyce Lavene,Jim
Wicked Weaves (30 page)
I held back my laughter, only indulging in a small smile I didn’t think he could see. “I think it might be Roger.” I explained about the robe I’d seen.
“The glass blower?” Carl’s voice was full of surprise. “I guess anything’s possible.”
“Were you planning on taking the robe from him?”
“No. Someone’s trying to make the Brotherhood look bad. We won’t stand for that. Whoever is behind these late-night visits has to be stopped and identified as not being one of us.”
I agreed with him, and we had an unspoken decision between us to help each other at least until we knew what was going on. The monks never helped anyone outside the group, but I supposed even they could be goaded into a partnership.
Carl and I stayed together until we reached the Glass Gryphon. We split up to survey each side of the street to make sure the hooded figure hadn’t gone somewhere else.
I wasn’t sure what I was going to do at that point. I didn’t see anyone besides Carl on the street. Should I burst into the glass shop and confront Roger? If he was guilty, he’d still be wearing the robe. He could also have a gun and shoot me. I could think of ten different places he could hide my body. Chase wouldn’t miss me for a while. By that time, I could be inside a privy or buried outside the wall.
If Carl and I were together, it would be better. It seemed like it would be harder to shoot both of us. Whoever wasn’t shot could attack Roger and take the gun away. I liked that plan better. If we didn’t do something out of the ordinary, we might never know what was happening in the Village. This seemed as good a time as any to confront Roger.
Carl came back to the side of the glass shop. “I didn’t see anyone else. It has to be Trent. Should we go get Chase?”
“No. It would take too long. He’s in the forest with Tom, Tom the Piper’s Son.”
“Oh. I thought you and Chase were a couple.”
“We are. He’s helping Tom with something that has to do with Robin.” I didn’t want to give away Grigg’s secret identity. “We’ll have to take care of this ourselves, Carl. Are you ready?”
“Let’s do it, Jessie.”
He produced a key from his pocket as I was debating how best to open the back door to the glass shop. “How did you get that?” I recognized the master key Chase carried, the same key Tony had. Did everyone have one except me?
“The monks have been around since the birth of this Village. We have many secrets.”
I didn’t push him for a better answer, but I planned to tell Chase about it. I stepped aside to let Carl open the door. The lock opened silently, but the heavy wooden door squeaked as it slipped back.
We stopped moving, huddled together in the doorway despite Carl’s sense of righteousness that had allowed him to possess a master key. Nothing happened. It was possible Roger was asleep upstairs.
“Where did you see the monk’s robe?” Carl whispered.
“I’ll show you.” I took the lead, and he followed me into the workroom and show area in the front of the shop. All of the tools I’d hoped to use in the future as an apprentice glass blower were laid out alongside Roger’s elegant creations. The best I could hope for was that another glass blower would come to the Village. After this summer, it was doubtful Roger would let me apprentice with him.
I carefully maneuvered past the showcases and opened the closet door where I’d seen the monk’s robe. Carl shined his flashlight into the storage space, but there was no sign of any robe. “It was here yesterday.”
“I don’t see it now,” Carl said. “We better get out of here. Residents can be expelled from the Village permanently for breaking and entering.
It was the wrong time to mention that rule, but I agreed. We had violated enough rules for one night. The robe was gone. I hoped Roger was still out roaming the Village in it.
At that moment, the lights came back on. Apparently, Roger had left his lights on when the power went off. The bright lights were blinding after being in the darkness. Carl dropped his flashlight as he ran for the back door.
“Who’s down there?” Roger demanded from the stairs.
Lucky for Carl, who was already outside. Not so lucky for me.
I spun around, deciding the front door was my best avenue of escape since the stairway led down closer to the back door. I thought Roger was still on the stairs as I bolted past the showcases toward the front of the shop.
Roger was spry for an older man. He managed to get down the stairs and between me and the front door before I could reach that destination. I wished I had Carl’s domino costume. At least I could’ve pretended to be someone else.
“What are you doing in here, Jessie?” Roger held a large shotgun in his grip. It was aimed directly at me while he scanned the room around us.
It occurred to me that I could lie, tell him I wanted to see him about something. I just couldn’t think of what I wanted to see him about. I opened my mouth, and something came out, but it was only gibberish.
“Are you alone?” He finally focused back on me, content that he didn’t see anyone else.
“I guess.” I wished it wasn’t true. At least if Carl were there, we could make something up together. Or Carl’s staunch Brotherhood code would make him look worse than I looked at that moment.
“Did you come to steal from me while the lights were off?” Roger shook his head. “I can’t believe it. You’ve always seemed a little scatterbrained, but I thought you were honest.”
I latched on to the least of the charges. “Scatterbrained? What made you think that? I’m not at all unsure of what to do. I’m very organized and thorough in everything. I don’t think anyone has ever called me that before.”
“Where’s Chase?”
“The last time I saw him he was headed for Sherwood Forest. I was on my way home, and I ended up here. It’s strange what darkness can do to your sense of direction. I guess your back door was open. And here I am.”
Would he buy it? I looked at his face and not below his chin where he was shirtless. I wasn’t sure if he was wearing his usual tights or not. I tried my best to only look in his eyes.
“There’s been some strange stuff going on this summer.” Trent gestured with the shotgun. “I think we better go find Chase and then have a little talk with Officer Grigg.”
“I didn’t touch anything, Roger,” I protested. “Look around. I was lost.”
“I know I locked the back door, Jessie.” Roger gestured with the gun again. “I think you have some explaining to do. I’ve been here twenty years, and nothing like this has ever happened to me. I’ve never had to press charges with the bailiff, but I guess there’s a first time for everything.”
“Roger, you’re making a mistake.”
“Start walking toward the dungeon. If Chase isn’t there, we’ll wait for him.”
I wasn’t sure if the shotgun was real or not, but I didn’t want to find out the hard way. We started walking with me in the lead, feeling the cold stare of the shotgun’s eye in the middle of my back. It was terrible.
I opened the back door, hoping I would think of something to get out of this spot. Mary stood in the doorway, hand raised to knock. I put my arms around her and wouldn’t let go. “You have to help me,” I blubbered. “He’s gone crazy. He’s going to kill me.”
She patted my back and looked around me at Roger. “What’s going on?”
“I found her in here after the lights came on. She was planning to steal something.”
“This girl may not be much of a basket weaver, but she’s honest. She wasn’t going to steal anything, were you, Jessie?”
“No!” I slowly made my way around Mary so that she was between me and Roger. I knew it was cowardly, but I wasn’t good with guns. Knives, hatchets, axes, and swords aren’t too bad. Even a knight’s lance, I can handle. Guns made me want to cry.
“See?” Mary pushed the gun to one side. “She wasn’t stealing anything.”
“Then what was she doing?” Roger demanded. “And not that lame thing about wandering into the wrong place because it was dark.”
I could see I was going to have to come clean. “I thought you might be Joshua’s killer,” I muttered.
“What’s that?”
I repeated it louder for him. “I’m sorry. I saw the monk’s robe hanging in your closet. Livy said she saw you coming from behind Wicked Weaves right before she found the body. I knew you and Mary had a thing going on.”
“A
thing
?” Roger’s left eye squinted his disapproval.
thing
?” Roger’s left eye squinted his disapproval.
Mary laughed. “When you put it that way, I think he could be the killer, too.”
“What are you saying?” He put the shotgun down. “Mary, you know I didn’t kill Joshua. As much as I love you, I wouldn’t kill a man for you. Now, it’s not that I haven’t killed before, but it was in the line of duty when I was a cop. I wouldn’t randomly kill anyone, and especially not for personal gain.”
Mary put her arms around him and kissed him. “I know. I was funning you.”
I looked away while they kissed again. I didn’t understand what she saw in him, but I could see their relationship was real. They probably had never married because she was technically still Joshua’s wife. Of course, that could be seen as another motive for Roger to kill Joshua.
“As for you,” Roger suddenly remembered I was still standing there, “you need to mind your own business. If you weren’t in here where you didn’t belong, snooping around—”
“I wasn’t snooping around when I saw the monk’s robe,” I defended. “I was in here talking to you.”
Mary looked at him the same way she looked at me when I was messing up a basket. “So? Why do you have a monk’s robe, and where is it?”
“I can have a robe if I want to. The nights get cold here over the winter. It keeps me warm and stays in character.”
“And where is it?” I asked. “I followed you across the Village while you were wearing it tonight.”
“I wasn’t out in it tonight.” He shook his head and glanced at Mary. “I’ve been in all evening keeping an eye on things. I’ll get the robe, and you can check it out. It would be wet from being outside.”
He went upstairs, and Mary grabbed my ear the way she had Jah’s. “What are you about, sniffing around this thing that could get you hurt? Child, you are too curious and worried about other people. You have to get over it.”
I couldn’t answer. It felt like she had my ear in a vise. She let go as Roger started down the stairs. “See here,” he held out the robe, “it’s dry as a bone. And before you go thinking I dried it, look around. I only have the fence to dry my clothes.”
I didn’t have to touch the robe (thank goodness) to tell that it was dry. It wasn’t the robe I’d seen earlier with Carl. Whoever was wearing that robe was still out there. “I’m sorry. It was a logical assumption. Even Mary thought so.”
“Don’t be dragging me into this.” She looked away.
“I think next time you need to ask, Jessie,” Roger said.
“I don’t think you get it. If I’d asked you if you’d killed Joshua, what would you say?”
He shrugged. “No. I didn’t kill Joshua.”
“Now, what do you think the real killer would say if I asked him or her if they killed Joshua?”
“I get your point.” He grunted. “But I didn’t kill anyone. Livy saw me leaving Mary’s apartment that day. That’s all.”
It made me feel squirmy inside realizing that what I’d feared was true. Roger may not have killed Joshua, but he was sleeping with Mary.
Yuck!
Yuck!
Twenty-one
“So now we don’t think Roger killed Joshua.” Chase and I talked about the events of the night before over bowls of Cheerios the next morning.
“I’m not a professional,” I said, “but I believe him. It was a total surprise when I accused him. He told me everything. Even the part about the monk’s robe made sense. We’re back to Abraham or Jah being the killer.”
Grigg joined us, taking off his red stocking hat as he ducked into Fabulous Funnels. He ordered two powdered sugar funnel cakes then sat down at our table. “Hey! Where’d you get the Cheerios? I thought modern foods were off limits.”
“Did you think they had funnel cakes and pizza during the Renaissance?” I hated to burst his historical bubble, but beyond the basics, the Village couldn’t exist totally during the 1600s.
He shrugged. “I wasn’t ever much good at history. I can see why you all want to live here. Last night in Sherwood Forest was a blast. All the dancing and the girls. Right Chase?”
“Yeah,” Chase mumbled between mouthfuls of cereal. “It was a blast.”
“What dancing girls?” I wasn’t jealous. I knew Chase wouldn’t do something so obvious. I was just interested.
“The Merry Men went out and got some dancing girls,” Grigg stumbled to explain. “They were all like belly dancers with colored costumes and scarves and bells and stuff.”
“Robin convinced some of the girls from the Caravan Stage to come over and perform,” Chase explained a little better, if not in great detail. “I think it was some kind of cultural exchange.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “It’s always a cultural blast around here.”
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