CHAPTER 50

I knew it would probably get me into trouble, but I had to call Jesse anyway and tell him what I'd learned at the gallery. I dialed his number as soon as the train back to Archers Rest had pulled out of Grand Central. It's generally frowned on to make calls on the train, since tired commuters aren't that interested in listening to the details of someone else's day, but I didn't care.

Only it wasn't working out as I had planned. Jesse wasn't at the police station. I had to call Bernie to get Jesse's mother's number, who gave me Jesse's. I could hear his daughter playing in the background, and I immediately felt guilty for interrupting their time together.

"How did you get my number?" he asked me as soon as I identified myself.

"What difference does it make?" I said. "I got it. I butted in. I snooped. Yell at me later."

As my voice got more exasperated, I could hear his voice relax. "What did you do?" he asked.

I told him about my visit to Maggie and to her daughter's gallery. Jesse didn't seem too surprised by the idea that Marc was trying to sell carved boxes to an expensive gallery. "Except he didn't actually make the boxes," he pointed out. "He just talked about making them."

"But he would have needed money to do that. Maybe that's why he only offered the doctor five thousand dollars."

"You don't need ten thousand dollars to make boxes," Jesse countered. I could hear Allie calling for him. "Look, Nell, I don't know how many ways I can say this. You need to stay out of this. I can't keep you from talking to Maggie or her daughter, any more than I can keep anyone in town from gossiping about this, but…" He stopped. "I'll be in the office tomorrow. You should come by."

That evening I sat in the kitchen with a little notebook, writing out every clue and every suspect. If Jesse was going to let me be a part of the investigation, I wanted to have something to say.

When Eleanor and Nancy finally closed up shop and Nancy left for the night, I stopped my work and made my grandmother dinner. While I cooked, she sat at the table looking over my notebook.

"What is this?"

I turned red. "It's my list of suspects," I admitted.

"Carrie, Natalie… these aren't suspects. These are my friends. Your friends," she said.

I put a plate of chicken tacos and rice in front of Eleanor and a second plate at my place. I sat down but was too excited with my theories to actually eat. I told my grandmother about my weeks of detective work.

"Carrie needed money to open her own business. She said so," I said. "Plus she was having an affair with Marc, then he started going after me, so she was upset and jealous and she killed him," I said as we headed back to town.

"Based on the fact that she gushed about him."

"And she had his keys."

"Why did he give her his keys?" Eleanor asked.

"So they could meet at his place. They couldn't exactly go to her house. They couldn't get a hotel room in town. It makes perfect sense."

"If Carrie knew about the money. If she was having an affair with him. If she had his keys," my grandmother reminded me.

"Okay. Natalie. She had tons of motive."

"Yes, she did."

I looked at her. "You don't think it was Natalie."

"She doesn't have the stomach for that kind of thing." I realized Eleanor was considering each suspect as carefully as I was. "Susanne had the same motive."

"I don't think so. For all her faded glamour girl stuff, she's a pretty smart person. If she were going to kill Marc, I think it would have been planned out," I said.

Eleanor smiled. "So we're ruling Susanne out because she's more of a premeditated killer and we've got a spur-of-the-moment murder on our hands."

"Do you think she did it?"

"Not really. I think you're right on that one."

"Ha." I smiled. "Okay, who's left?" Eleanor glanced over at me. "You said he didn't do it," I said.

I didn't feel like playing this game anymore, and I wasn't hungry either.

The next morning I went to Jesse's office early. Maybe it was better leaving the investigation to the experts. As an amateur I kept coming back to the same suspect. I was anxious to hear what Jesse had come up with, especially if he finally was willing to be open with me about the investigation. The problem was, Ryan was the only suspect Jesse wanted to talk about.

"We have to consider it so we can rule him out," he said. "Ryan punched Marc on two occasions on the day he was killed. Plus he admits that he saw you and Marc kissing in the shop, so he knew where Marc was."

"He was at Moran's Pub when Marc was killed."

"So he says."

"No. I checked with the bartender."

"You checked your fiance's alibi?"

"Yes." I didn't want to say any more, but Jesse would find out anyway. "The bartender remembers him, but he can't be specific about the time, and Moran's is only a few blocks away. Besides, Ryan was on the phone saying he'd made a big mistake."

"About calling off the wedding?" Jesse asked. "Who was he talking to?"

"A friend. I don't know. What difference does that make?"

"Did he tell you calling off the wedding was a big mistake?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"Later."

"Nell." I looked away from him. I knew his next question, and I didn't want to answer it. "When did he tell you that calling off the wedding was a mistake?"

"After the murder."

"After you expressed doubts about his innocence."

"I was mad at him about the wedding. I felt like he wasn't being honest. But I never…" Jesse looked over at me.

"What are you holding back?" he asked flatly.

"Nothing." I bit my lip but said it anyway. "He didn't come into the shop."

"What?"

"You asked me if Ryan came into the shop with me on the day Marc was killed. He didn't. The only way he could have gotten his fingerprints on the stuff in that box is if he…"

"Was in the shop after you left." Jesse stared straight ahead.

"Say something," I prompted.

"You should have told me when I asked."

"I was trying to protect him."

"And now?"

I didn't have an answer. Jesse waited for a moment, then opened a drawer in his desk.

"I wasn't sure whether I should play this for you, but I think I probably should," he said.

Jesse put a small tape recorder on his desk and popped in a tape. I sat down, with my wedding invitations still on his desk where I'd left them days before. They blocked my view and made me feel uncomfortable, so I put them on the floor.

Jesse pressed play, and I heard his voice, "So if the wedding was off, why did you come up here?"

"I felt like I owed Nell a better explanation," I heard Ryan say. "She left her apartment, her job, her friends. I felt bad."

"You didn't come to win her back?"

"No."

"So why did you punch Marc?"

"He said some really crass things about her. It made me mad."

"How mad?"

"Look," I heard Ryan say, "it wasn't like he was taking my girlfriend. She wasn't my girlfriend anymore. And that was my choice."

Jesse stopped the tape. "I'm sorry. But you seemed to want to know the truth."

I felt a ball form in the center of my stomach and tears well up behind my eyes. I wanted to run into the bathroom and cry, but I didn't want Jesse to see me fall apart. "He didn't want you to think he had a motive," I said.

"That's possible. He could have lied about why he came up here. Just liked he lied about being with you in the store."

I nodded. "I think he was nervous. And maybe he didn't know at that moment that he wanted me back."

"You're playing one hell of a tennis game with yourself," he said. Jesse pointed to the blue box at my feet. "Do you still want those?"

I picked them up and started to walk toward the door, hoping I'd get out before I burst into tears.