Clare O’Donohue - The Lover’s Knot

"Do you mind if we go over some details from last night?" he asked her.

"No, I'd like to," she said. "I'd like to be able to make sense of it for myself."

He nodded and turned to me. "It would be better if you weren't here."

"I'll be in my room," I said, and got up from the table.

Jesse nodded, turned to my grandmother and asked plainly, "Can you tell me what you saw last night, when you got to the store?"

As she started to talk I stepped back into the hallway. I wanted to check on Ryan. There was no hiding that he was here-that had already been established. But it would be better if Jesse didn't see the cuts on his hand, didn't know about the fights.

I went upstairs and into the bedroom as quietly as I could. Ryan was still asleep, draped across the bed as if he were passed out.

I wasn't sure why I wanted to protect him. Maybe I didn't need to. If Ryan was telling the truth, then he didn't need my protection. The smart thing would have been to wake him up and send him downstairs to tell his story. But what if he wasn't telling the truth?

"Hey." Ryan opened his eyes, a smile creeping across his face.

"The police chief is here to take statements," I said.

"I should get dressed." He jumped up and put his pants on just as there was a knock on the door.

Jesse was standing in the hallway. "Is this your room, Nell?" he said through the open door. I nodded. He walked in, looking around, first at the unmade bed and then at Ryan as he finished dressing. "The fiance?"

"Yeah," said Ryan, and automatically extended his hand. They shook, but Jesse didn't let go. He turned Ryan's hand over and looked down at the bruised knuckles.

"Got into a fight?"

"Yes." Ryan pulled his hand back. "Two, actually. Both with that guy."

"The murder victim?" Jesse asked.

"He was after Nell."

Jesse nodded. "That was his style," he said. "Go after the vulnerable."

"Excuse me?" I interrupted. "The vulnerable?"

"The way I heard it," Jesse continued, "it was over between the two of you." He gestured at Ryan and me. "You came up here to nurse a broken heart, and Marc was helping you with that."

"The way you heard it," I repeated his words, feeling oddly uncomfortable that Jesse was aware of my friendship with Marc.

"It's a small-town, Nell," Jesse said quietly. "That's how I knew about the fight between your… fiance here and Marc."

"Who told you?" I demanded.

Jesse smiled. "That quilt shop is in the center of town. And it has a picture window. Normally there are quilts hanging all over it, blocking the interior. But with those gone, anyone walking down the street can get a clear view of people fighting… or kissing… or anything."

Got it. Jesse, Ryan and everyone in town knew what I'd been up to yesterday afternoon. Suddenly I felt like the biggest fool all over again. I took a deep breath. "Then someone must have seen Marc's killer," I said.

"Afraid not. It probably happened after dark, and downtown is pretty quiet in the evenings," he said. He turned back to Ryan. "Ryan, is it?" Ryan nodded. "First I need to get your fingerprints, then your statement if that's okay?"

Ryan sat on the bed, and Jesse took out what looked like a blank index card and a small inkpad and put it on the dresser. "I'll need to get your prints, to compare against several we found in the shop," he said to Ryan.

Then he put his tape recorder next to them. "And I'll need your statement. Is it okay if we do it here? I assume you wouldn't want to come to the station when it would be quicker, and quieter, here." Jesse looked up at me with a flash of sympathy in his face that made me feel he was trying to save me from being even more of a subject of local gossip. Then his expression changed to an unemotional stare. "You should see if your grandmother is okay."

I was sure that Ryan would tell the same story to Jesse he'd told me last night, but I wanted to hear it again. It was clear, though, that Jesse wasn't going to start asking questions while I was in the room.

I walked out into the hallway. Jesse closed the door behind me. As much as I wanted to lean against the wall and listen in, I knew it wasn't right. Besides, in old houses like this one, the walls are thick. When I tried, all I could hear were indecipherable mutters.

I went to the kitchen to consult with Eleanor.

"You won't believe what he's doing upstairs," I said to my grandmother as I walked into the kitchen. She was at the sink, balancing on one crutch and washing ink off her hands. "You too?"

"Me too, what?"

"He took your fingerprints. You don't think that's a little ridiculous?"

"He's conducting an investigation. He's trying to see whose fingerprints were on the scissors."

"Everyone's fingerprints were on the scissors," I spat out, but I knew that wasn't true. Mine were, as were my grandmother's, Nancy's and probably the entire quilt club. But Ryan's fingerprints shouldn't be there. As far as I knew he had never even been inside the shop. "What do you know about that cop, Jesse?"

"A little. He's a local boy. Went to New York and became a cop, got married and had little Allison. Then his wife got sick and they came back to town. She died about two years ago."

"That's not a little. You know his life story."

She shrugged. "Why are you interested?"

"He's questioning Ryan." I plopped down at the kitchen table.

She nodded. "Ryan didn't do anything wrong, so there's no reason to worry." She said it with certainty and a touch of reproach.

I paused and then asked the question I'd wanted to ask her since last night. "How do you know?"

Eleanor considered it for a moment, then said firmly, "It was in his eyes. And his voice. Everything. I'm not an expert on people, but I've lived awhile, and Ryan was genuinely surprised when I said Marc had been stabbed." She hobbled back to the kitchen table and with some difficulty sat down and rested her injured leg on a chair. "Didn't you think he was surprised?"

I sat back. "I guess I was too freaked out to pay close attention," I admitted.

"Well, you have so many emotions mixed up with Ryan and Marc that it would be hard to see it objectively."

I nodded. She was right, I decided. I would feel better when Ryan went back to New York and I could sort out my feelings- and mourn Marc-without him.

Eleanor grabbed a pile of red fabrics that lay on the table in front of her. Slowly and with annoying patience, she began neatly folding them into triangles. With nothing else to do, I grabbed a piece of red fabric and copied her. We sat in silence, waiting for movement from upstairs. At least I was waiting. My grandmother seemed content to fold.

"What are we doing?" I asked, suddenly impatient with the silence.

"Folding fat quarters." Without waiting for me to ask the next, obvious question, she continued. "Fabric comes forty-four inches wide, standard. If you get a yard, you get a piece that's forty-four inches wide and thirty-six inches long. If you get a quarter yard, then you get a piece that's forty-four inches wide and nine inches long."

"These aren't forty-four inches wide."

"No, they're not," she said slowly as if I were a not-too-bright child. "A quarter yard of fabric is useful, but it has its limitations. If you only need a little fabric, but you need something longer than nine inches, you get a fat quarter, which is twenty-two inches, half the length of a normal quarter, and eighteen inches, twice the length."

"Why not just buy a half yard?"

"Because you don't need a half yard."

"But the shop would sell more fabric that way."

Eleanor moved my pile of folded fabric and replaced it with unfolded rectangles. "When we reopen, let Nancy run things." She patted my hand and smiled.