Spin a Wicked Web

EIGHT

AFTER RUTH LEFT, I took a long shower, dressed in a soft, oversized T-shirt and crawled into bed with one of Gladys Taber's Stillmeadow books. Her descriptions of bucolic life in the lateseventeenth-century farmhouse she and her friend Jill had rehabbed in 1920s and '30s Connecticut seemed the perfect continuation of my determined affection for the home life I had with Meghan and Erin.

Meghan came and stood in my bedroom doorway. I put my book down.

"Think tomorrow will be as exciting as today?" she asked with a rueful look.

"I hope not."

"What did Ruth want?"

I pasted innocence on my face.

"Come on. I know she came over specifically to talk to you, and it wasn't just about twisting fiber into yarn."

"She wants me to talk to Chris."

"Oh. Well, that makes sense, since you're a, you know… widow."

"Yeah, that and the police think Chris had something to do with Ariel's death."

"What!"

"Ariel and Scott were having an affair. Barr wants me to talk to Chris, too. Well," I amended, "not just Chris. He wants me to talk to other people at CRAC, too. More like get them talking." I'd sort of left that out when I'd recounted my conversation with him earlier.

She stared at me. "He wants you to?"

I nodded.

"Well. I, um… " Meghan rarely looked as flummoxed as she did at that news. "I guess nothing I say is going to make any difference."

"I'm not investigating. I promise. I'm not asking a bunch of questions or putting myself in danger. I'm just acting as some extra eyes and ears because Robin Lane may be gorgeous, but she has the tact of a sledgehammer when it comes to questioning people about murder."

Understanding settled onto Meghan's face. "Ah. Promise you'll be careful?"

"Cross my heart."

She started to leave, then turned back. "You do lead an exciting life, don't you?"

I snorted. I couldn't help it. "Yeah. Maybe a little too exciting."

She grinned. "Goodnight."

"'Night," I said, and reached for the lamp. It was only ninethirty, but I was ready for some shut-eye. I heard Meghan dialing New Jersey as I drifted off.

Fitful dreams punctuated my nighttime and early morning hours, and sunlight began to creep through my window at four-thirty. Days were long on both sides in the summer.

At six I gave up trying to sleep, showered again, and donned a lightweight skirt and T-shirt in response to the weather forecast; the temperature was supposed to advance into the nineties, which was hot for this early in the summer. Humidity curled in the air like a languid animal after a big meal.

Meghan, mom of the world, had breakfast waiting for me when I came downstairs a bit before seven. Fresh strawberries from the farmer's market piled in a bright blue bowl and splashed with cream looked like a Fourth of July decoration as much as something to scarf down to start the day. Chicken and apple sausage, also from the farmer's market, was joined within minutes by eggs scrambled with fresh chives and oregano. The eggs had probably still been warm from the chickens when she'd cracked them into the bowl. A steaming cup of coffee topped the whole meal off. How could I even think about leaving this?

"Where's Erin?" I asked, between bites of sausage.

Meghan joined me at the table with her own plate. She nodded toward the backyard.

"Already?"

"Not the chickens this time," she said. "I told her if she'd weed bed three I'd take her to the river this afternoon after camp to swim."

"Nice" We only had four small vegetable beds, but they seemed to require constant attention. "I'll weed one today, too."

"Do you have time?" Meghan asked.

"Oddly enough, I'm pretty much caught up, except for the usual order filling. Cyan is coming by tomorrow, so I can have her do some of that." I bit into a juicy strawberry and let out a low moan. "God, these are good."

"Aren't they? Of course, by the time the season is over we'll be sick to death of them."

It was hard to imagine, but she was right. "That's what freezers are for. Do you have any clients today?"

"Two" Her massage business had begun to slow for the summer, too. "At noon and at one."

I have an errand to run. I'll be home later," I said.

"Sounds good."

I refrained from mentioning the errand involved spending time alone with a possible murderer.

The ranch-style house was located on ten acres of land on the east side of Cadyville, set back from the county road that wound north from Highway 2. A large black dog and a smaller brown one greeted my arrival with joyous barks and wagging tails. Laughing at their enthusiasm, I pushed their cold noses away from my bare legs. A metallic clang sounded from behind the house as I reached for the doorbell.

Chris didn't answer. Another loud reverberation carried through the air, followed by another and then another. A low droning underscored the mesmerizing rhythm. The dogs gamboled around me as I walked around the house to the backyard.

The drone became the roar of an enclosed fire as I neared the source: Chris' blacksmith shop. No walls enclosed the thirty-bythirty space, but eight thick corner posts supported the octagonal roof. The floor was bare dirt, swept smooth. Her arm, pale in the relative darkness, rose and fell, the clank of the hammer on redhot metal sparking with each blow. The pounding stopped, and, with a pair of tongs, she transferred a flat, tapering rod from the anvil to the forge.

Chris turned and saw me watching. I raised a hand in greeting.

"Oh. It's you," she said, swiping at the sheen of sweat on her forehead with the back of her wrist. She beckoned me in. "Be careful. Forge's hot."

The air close to the blaze warped and shimmered with heat. The tang of hot iron mingled with the earthy scent of Chris' perspiration. It smelled like hard work.

"Do you want some iced tea?" she asked.

"Sure"

"Oh. Well, there's some in the big thermos over there. Should be some cups by it."

I found the cups and opened the thermos. "Do you want some?" I asked. "You must be roasting in here."

"I'm fine." She sighed. "I'm sorry. I know I'm not being very gracious."

Her hair hung lank, as if she hadn't washed it for days, and it was held back off her face on each side by blue plastic barrettes more suited to a ten-year-old girl. She wore a white tank top that needed an appointment with a washing machine, and faded jeans, frayed at the edges. I wondered whether it wouldn't be safer to wear long sleeves when working with hot metal.

"Don't worry about it," I said. I could hardly recall the period right after Mike died. Mostly I remembered having to put on a good show for all the people who were trying to be nice to me. At the time it had felt almost like an imposition, but now I realized it had been one of the things that had kept me from falling apart completely.

Chris, on the other hand didn't seem to be concerned with putting on a game face. She dipped a sopping bandanna out of a bucket of water near her feet, used it to swab the back of her neck, and then rubbed her forehead furiously, leaving behind a bright pink patch of skin.

"Is there anyone who can stay with you?" I asked, and took a sip of tea. The stuff was strong enough to strip paint, and so cold it made my teeth hurt. I rolled the sweating cup across my cheek.

"I don't want anyone to. I just want to get through this mess." She sat on a bench and waved to the space beside her. I joined her. She grew still, looking at me. Really looking at me for the first time since I'd interrupted her work. "Does Barr know you're here?"

I shook my head. Well, he didn't, did he?

"Do you know about the murder investigation?"

I paused, and her gaze became suspicious. No way to lie here, and probably no reason to, either. Thank God. I was a horrible liar.

"Oh, I know about it," I said. "For one thing, I found Ariel. And, yes, Barr mentioned something about you being a suspect."

For a split second she looked triumphant, before it quickly faded to sadness underscored with a heavy dose of anger.

"So did Ruth," I added.

Chris looked at me curiously. "Is that why you're here?"

"Did you kill Ariel?"

"No!"

"Okay then. I told you after the funeral that I'd lost my husband. I know how rough it is. But… can I be frank?"

"Please. I'm sick and tired of people tiptoeing around me."

"My husband died of cancer, not in a sudden accident. He wasn't having an affair. And I wasn't accused of killing his lover. So in my book, this has got to be even harder on you than it was on me. I thought you might want someone to talk to. Or cry on. Or yell at."

She stared at me, and for a moment I thought I'd gone too far. Then a smile tugged at her lips.

"I'm available. That's all," I said.

"Noted," she said. "I think I'll have some tea after all."

I poured frigid brown liquid out of her thermos into a plastic cup and handed it to her.

"Why do they think you did it?" I asked.

Barr hadn't told me much, and I was curious. He was no dummy, after all. Maybe she really had killed the girl. I eyed her bulging biceps.

She sighed. "You already know that Scott and Ariel were having an affair."

"How did the police find out?"

"I told them."

"You knew about it before the accident?"

"Oh, yes. I knew. He knew I knew. She knew I knew. Everyone concerned knew. Hell, the cops he worked with probably already knew before I told them." "

I don't think so," I said. "Barr seemed pretty surprised."

She stood and grabbed the tongs, used them to remove the flat bar of metal from the forge. It glowed a high, bright yellow that was almost white at the tip. She lifted the hammer. Slam! I jumped at the burst of sound.

"But he didn't want to stop seeing her. He was going to leave me." Fury rode her tone. She shifted the angle of the bar on the anvil. Bang! I jumped again, even though I'd seen it coming.

A trail of perspiration trickled down my side under my T-shirt, and I leaned back, away from the heat. No wonder Barr and Robin thought she had a good motive if she'd acted like this when they'd talked to her. Naked anger rolled off her in waves.

"I told them all of that," she said. "I wanted them to know what kind of man they worked with. I wanted them to know he wasn't as perfect as they seemed to think he was."

She clenched her fists around hammer and tongs so hard they turned white and began shaking. For the first time I felt a trill of fear, and I shivered in spite of the heat.

Then her eyes filled with tears. "I didn't even realize why they were here. I thought it was a condolence call. I handed myself to them on a platter." She was choking out the words now.

She put the tools down with studied care, and I jumped up and led her back to the bench. The sobs that followed sounded like they were being ripped out of her chest against her will. I took a chance and left her, running to the back door and into her kitchen. I rifled quickly through her cupboards. There. I grabbed the bottle of Hornitos and ran back out to the smithy. I tossed her iced tea on the grass, replaced it with a shot of tequila and set it on the seat beside her. Then I patted her on the back, and waited.

It took a while for her to run down, but when she did, she slammed the shot in one swallow with a grateful glance my way, shuddered once, and was quiet.

"Wow," she said. "That's the first time I really cried about it."

I wondered whether "it" referred to Scott's death, or his affair with Ariel-or both.

"Believe me," I said. "It won't be the last time. But it will get better"

I still couldn't get over the affair between Scott and Ariel. They were so mismatched: he, a rough-and-tumble, racecar-driving cop who was at least twenty years her senior, and she, an airy, unfocused artist. He'd been good-looking enough, but I didn't get what she'd seen in him beyond that. Maybe she'd had a daddy complex?

Yuck.

"There's something I don't really understand," I said. "Why would you kill Ariel three days after Scott's accident?" It wasn't the most tactful thing to say, I know. But geez, how else was I supposed to put it? Talk about closing the barn door after the horse is long gone.

"They think I was so mad that I didn't care."

"That's nuts," I said.

"They think I'm nuts. Anyone who kills someone else out of jealousy is nuts. If I'd actually done it, I'd agree with them."

I couldn't help it. I had trouble thinking about Ariel and Scott without my doppelganger nibbling constantly at the edge of my attention. Of course it was nuts to kill someone out of jealousy. But there was a tiny part of me that could understand going nuts in precisely that way.

"How long had you known?" I asked.

"About three months. I found out shortly after it started." She looked longingly at the bottle of tequila, sitting on the ground.

I poured out another and handed it to her. "Were you angry at Scott?"

She gave me a look, then downed the second shot. "No, I thought it was great that he was seeing a woman who could have been his daughter, and didn't seem to give a damn whether I knew it or not. What's to be angry about?"

"Yeah, okay. Sorry. Stupid question. Do you have any kind of an alibi for when the murder occurred?"

"I might."

I looked the question at her.

" Detective Lane asked me what I was doing between eight and ten, night before last. If that's when that little bitch was killed, then I'm home free."

I readjusted my idea that Ariel had been killed the morning of Scott's funeral. Apparently her body had been at CRAG for hours before I found her.

"What were you doing?" I asked.

"Ruth and Irene were over here. Jake was, too, for a while. They were here from a bit before seven until after ten."

I took in the blue half moons under Chris' red-rimmed eyes, the tiny tremor in her hand even after knocking back a couple shots of tequila. Could she handle an arrest, a trial, the scandal that would result in a town this size?

"So let's hope Robin asking you about that time means that's when the murder occurred. Then they'll have to look elsewhere," I said. As long as Robin didn't turn her attention back to me.

Chris' eyes flicked up at me and then away again. "I know that department. Scott worked there for fifteen years. They know what they're doing. It's just that right now they're going down the wrong track" She stood and nodded toward the house. "Do you want something to eat? People have given me so much food, and I don't have much of an appetite right now. I think I'm done beating up on metal for this afternoon."

"No, thanks. I have to be going. But Chris?"

"Yeah?"

"The offer to talk still stands. If you want to be left alone right now, that's fine, but if you change your mind, well…"

"Okay. Thanks. I'll keep it in mind."