"How's Ryan?"

"Fine. He's getting a cold."

"You must miss him."

"How long were you married?" I don't know why I changed the subject, but I'd been curious and if Ryan was fair game then so was Jesse's wife.

"Just over five years."

"When did she get sick?"

"She had cancer before I met her. She thought it was all in the past, but just after Allie was born Liz got sick again. She died almost two years ago."

"That must have been hard. Not just losing your wife but suddenly being a single parent."

"I have a lot of help."

"But don't you miss being with someone?"

"Sometimes. But you can't get into a new relationship until you're over the things that happened in the old one."

"My grandmother says the two of you had the kind of love even she envied."

He stared out the window for what seemed like several minutes. Finally he leaned back in his seat. "So they weren't the right keys."

I nearly choked on a piece of beef. "What?"

"I called Carrie to ask her about the keys and she told me you had stopped by for a visit."

I couldn't tell if he was angry or amused, and there was no point in denying it, so I told him about my frustrating visit to Carrie and then her husband.

"You might be wrong about the color of the leather. Witnesses often get small details wrong," he said. "At the time the keys weren't important, so why would you remember?"

"I had seen Marc's keys," I argued. "If they're not with Carrie and they're not with his stuff at the apartment or in the evidence bag, where are they?"

Jesse stared at me for a while, then said quietly, "The shop."

After lunch Jesse dropped me at the shop, and while he was there he searched outside, just in case. Then we went inside, where Jesse stood for a minute taking in the changes to the once crowded quilt shop.

"This place is going to be beautiful," he said. Tom and I both smiled proudly. We looked around. Tom was already building the new table for cutting fabric, and his assistant was attaching shelving at the far end of the shop.

"At least things aren't going to be falling all over each other anymore, " I said.

Jesse smiled at me. "I'll bet Eleanor will be thrilled with what you've done." I blushed. I hoped so.

"The keys," I reminded Jesse.

"Tom," he said to his former brother-in-law. "Did you find a set of keys on a leather key chain?"

Tom shook his head. "The ladies had the place cleaned out before we started to work."

"It could have gotten into a box and taken to Eleanor's. If Marc put them on a shelf or left them on a table…," I offered.

"I thought of that. But we took crime scene photos. I looked at them this morning. No keys."

"Carrie could be lying."

"She could," he said. "So could you." I wasn't sure if he was kidding or not. His voice was so steady and lacked intonation that I didn't know how to react.

"So could you," I said, a little cocky.

"What's my motive?"

"Bored police chief. Looking for something to do. You killed Marc so you could spend a few weeks solving the crime."

He smiled. "I'll take my statement and fingerprints later. Right now you need to tell me if there's anywhere in here a set of keys could have gotten hidden?"

"What about in that pile of quilts that was sitting on the countertop?"

"We opened each one before we released them to Eleanor. Of course we kept the one next to Marc's body."

"I wonder why he grabbed it."

"Probably to steady himself. It seems to me that after he was stabbed he must have turned around and grabbed the counter, holding on to that quilt." Jesse took a few steps toward the door. "Then he must have walked over to the door…"

"Maybe tried to grab his killer as he fled."

Jesse nodded. "But instead he fell by the door. Losing his keys and fifteen thousand dollars in the process."

"I thought you weren't convinced he still had the money."

"I'm keeping my options open. You can't pick a theory and try to prove it. You just have to follow the facts wherever they lead you."

"All right," I said. I decided to ignore what I assumed was his dig at my insistence that Ryan was innocent. "If we are following the keys, then everything that was in the shop is now at my grandmother's."

CHAPTER 47

"What is he looking for?" Eleanor asked me as Jesse methodically examined each basket, box, and bin that had come from the shop.

"Let's go in the kitchen," I said. "I'm starving."

Though I was a long way from becoming the kind of cook my grandmother was, I was getting comfortable in the kitchen. I boiled some pasta and made a rosemary butter sauce. I followed Eleanor's recipe but threw in a few ingredients of my own.

"Not bad," Eleanor said. "It has a bit of spice to it." She leaned in. "Did you get your invitations mailed?"

"Oh, God. I left them somewhere."

"You lost them?"

"No. I didn't lose my wedding invitations. I just put them down somewhere." Eleanor rolled her eyes just slightly, but it was enough. "I did not do it on purpose."

"Am I interrupting?" Jesse stood in the doorway.

"Did you find what you were looking for?" Eleanor turned to him.

"No. I didn't."

"Well, then sit and have some dinner. Some good might as well have come of the trip."

So Jesse sat and ate some pasta and had a slice of cake from one of Eleanor's regular customers. We talked about the shop and the town and everything we could think of except the murder.

"How bad is the quilt?" Eleanor asked with a serious, quiet tone. "The quilt found near poor Marc's body."

"How bad? You mean is there blood on it?" Jesse asked. She nodded. "There isn't much, actually. Marc had blood on his hand and it got on some of the fabric near the corner."

"I could probably get it out. Or I could repair it," she said. "If I can get it back soon, I probably can fix it. I've had that quilt in the shop since day one. It would feel very strange not to have it hanging there when we reopen."

"I wish I could guarantee that."

She nodded, a sadness across her face. "I'm off to bed then. You young people have yourselves more cake and coffee."

Alone in the kitchen, Jesse finished the last of his coffee and looked out at the darkened hallway beyond the kitchen. "I think it's pretty amazing that your grandmother lives here all alone. This place has to get a little spooky at night."

I smiled. "It does. Especially when you're here by yourself. The night Eleanor went into the hospital, I could have sworn someone was trying to break in. It freaked me out."

He sat up. "Why didn't you call?"

"Yeah. I was going to call the police to tell them I was scared."

"That's what we're here for."

"It was nothing. I came downstairs and looked around. There wasn't anybody here. The door was open, but it was a really windy night. And it's an old door." Jesse got up and checked the door. It was locked securely. I smiled at how protective he suddenly was, and then I looked to his left at the small shelf near the door. "The key."

"The key?" he looked at me.

"When my grandmother went into the hospital, I couldn't find the key to the car. Marc drove me to the shop. Then later that night the door is somehow open, and the next morning, I found the key. It had to be Marc."

"You think he made a duplicate?" Jesse's eyes darted around the kitchen. "What would he want to take?"

"There isn't anything here. I told him, too, but he didn't seem to believe me."

"So he's not trying to take anything."

I shook my head. "Maybe he wanted to leave something here."

Jesse looked at me as if he were taking it all in. "You think the fifteen grand is here?"

I jumped up. "Oh, God. Do you think it could be?"