The woman dropped the bolts on the dining room table and held up a quilting magazine. Nancy walked up behind the woman and offered her assistance, I assume to give Eleanor and me a chance to talk. But I wasn't interested. I preferred to watch Nancy and the customer than talk about the sudden appearance of wedding invitations. It seemed that the woman wanted to make the quilt in the magazine, but only if she could find the exact fabrics that were in the picture. Nancy patiently explained that this wasn't likely, but something very similar was sure to be here. I watched her maneuver through the room, pulling fabric after fabric for a full twenty minutes until the woman was satisfied. All the while Nancy smiled.

But as soon as she left, Nancy shook her head. "I wish people had a little more faith in their imaginations," she sighed. "It's a beautiful quilt in that magazine, but instead of duplicating it, she could have chosen her own colors. People are so afraid of making their own choices that they end up with something that isn't really theirs. I'm not putting it down, mind you," Nancy said to me, "I've done it myself. But there is something to blazing your own trail." She smiled a little and moved over to help the women picking fat quarters.

I looked down at my box of invitations. The pretty, simple lettering that looked like a thousand other wedding invitations. "Better get to it," I said to no one in particular, as Eleanor was playing with the computer and Nancy was busy with customers. "I can't believe these will be in the mail."

"Neither can I." Eleanor gave me a slightly confused smile and I left the room to look for a quiet place to work.

I sat in the kitchen and placed envelopes, invitations and RSVP cards in separate piles. I took each envelope and wrote the name and address of each friend or family member invited. It didn't take long before I got to the end of the list, but I realized there were a few people missing. I wrote the names of each of the women from the quilt club on an envelope to be hand-delivered. Then I stared at a blank envelope. "What the hell?" I said to myself. I wrote Jesse Dewalt on it.

CHAPTER 46

On Monday I took my pile of invitations with me to the shop. Tom had the place freshly painted in a soft white that made it look very clean but a little sterile.

"Strict instructions from your grandmother," he said when I commented on the color. "She doesn't want anything to interfere with the colors of the fabrics and the quilts."

"What if we just did one wall? Something in a really neutral tone. Maybe behind the cash register. With the window there, there's hardly any wall anyway. She can't object."

"Your funeral," he said. "Pick up the paint and I'll do it."

So I headed out to the hardware store down the street and picked out a soft, creamy beige that would have looked dull in any other room. But when Tom put it on the wall it gave the place a nice crisp pop. Hopefully Eleanor would agree.

Then I headed over to the police station to see Jesse.

"Want to have lunch?" I asked.

"Sure," he said, pushing aside a pile of papers on his desk. "What's under your arm?"

"Invitations."

He eyed the box. "To what? The reopening of the shop?"

"No," I said, then wished I'd lied. "Ryan asked me to address them and put them in the mail."

Jesse sat back. "Wedding invitations. I guess you figured out what you wanted."

"I guess. He is a good guy. And sometimes it's better to fix something than to just throw it away."

"Absolutely." The flat cop tone was in his voice.

"I have something for you," I said, and reached into the box, pulling out an envelope. "It's for you, and a guest, if you want to bring somebody."

"Thank you," he said, eyeing the invitation as if it were a piece of evidence. "I'd be very honored." He dropped it on his desk.

"There's a catch."

"Solve Marc's murder first?" He smiled. "I might be able to do that." He dumped a plastic bag on his desk. "What do you see?"

There wasn't much to see. A wallet, a car key, a handful of change. "What are you showing me?"

"It's what I'm not showing you."

"Are you the riddler now? Because we could be here all day if I have to list all the things you're not showing me."

"When we were at Marc's apartment, we found that key to your grandmother's house. At first we thought it might be his apartment key, but you said that he probably would have had that with him."

I looked at the items again. "He didn't, though." I looked up at Jesse. "And if he didn't…"

"Somebody else does." Jesse leaned back in his chair. "But who that is…"

"Carrie."

"Carrie? Why would…?"

"I saw her the day after the murder with the same key chain that Marc had. She said it was the key to her husband's office."

"You are sure it was the same key?"

"I am absolutely certain." I looked at the pile of Marc's things on Jesse's desk. Was it the same key? "I'm positive," I said. "I think."

Jesse smiled. "As long as you're sure."

"We should talk to Carrie."

He nodded. "I think I can handle that on my own. Give me about a half an hour and I'll be ready for lunch. Is that okay?'

"Perfect," I said. I dropped the box of invitations on Jesse's desk and left his office.

"I barely knew him," Carrie said. I was standing at the front door of her sprawling two-story home. It was getting a little cold outside, but she wasn't letting us in.

"When we first met you said Marc was really talented." I stepped into the hall as Carrie unhappily moved back to make room. "You practically gushed."

"I did no such thing. I thought he was a talented carpenter. So, obviously, did Eleanor since she hired him to redo the shop. And what business is it of yours anyway?"

It wasn't, of course. "Do you have a key to your husband's office? " I asked.

"Of course I have a key."

"Can I see it?"

Carrie stared at me for several seconds, then walked away. I stood in the hallway, listening to the sounds of some children's movie playing in the family room. When she came back she handed me a small set of keys on a gold chain.

"That's not it," I said.

"Of course it is. These are the keys to my husband's office. You can drive over there yourself and try them."

I put them in my pocket, ignoring Carrie's surprised expression. "I'll do that, thanks for your help." Then I moved outside.

"Are we still expected to bring our blocks for the quilt on Friday? " Carrie said, in a slightly higher pitch than normal.

"I think so," I said.

"I guess I'll see you then." She closed the door.

Carrie's husband, a pediatrician in a larger town near Archers Rest, was with a patient when we arrived. He stepped out only long enough to say that his wife had called and explained why I was there.

"You can leave the keys with me when you're finished," he said. He was, it seemed, close to fifty, with softly graying hair and warm hazel eyes. He was friendly and open and asked about Jesse's daughter, who was also a patient. He even offered his own keys for us to try, saying that he often took Carrie's set when he couldn't easily find his own. "Here you go," he said as he took them from his pocket. "They might be the ones you saw."

It was a set of keys on a leather chain, but it was a larger set than I remembered and the leather was brown, not black. "I don't think that's the same set," I said to myself. But my half hour was up and I knew Jesse would be wondering where I was, so I headed back to his office.

Jesse took me to a Chinese restaurant in the next town over and we shared plates of beef with broccoli and kung pao chicken. I felt he was studying me the entire time and it made me incredibly self-conscious, especially since I couldn't figure out why.