Clare O’Donohue - The Lover’s Knot

As Barney walked over to me wagging his tail, I felt my face turn hot. The brick in my stomach was jumping around. I wanted to pass out. I knew. I didn't know, and then a second later I did. And I didn't want to know. I took my cell phone from my pocket.

"Chief Dewalt," I heard Jesse say on the other end.

"Can you meet me at the shop?"

"Now?" I couldn't answer. "Is everything okay?" he asked.

"Can you meet me there?"

Silence. And then, "Do you remember when you asked me if anyone else's fingerprints were on the money?" he asked.

"Yeah."

"It annoys me to admit this, but what you said nagged at me, so I checked it against the prints I took after the murder."

"So you know," I said, my throat closing.

"I guess we both do."

I walked with Barney as slowly as I could to the shop, but it still took me less than a minute to arrive at the door. Nancy, holding a large box, was standing with Eleanor.

"Now I see who you went after." Eleanor patted the dog's head. "I used to be your favorite. Guess I have competition."

Natalie and Susanne arrived just moments before Carrie. All three were talking about the huge bag Susanne had in her arms.

"I have the quilt," Susanne said to me. "Finished it last night."

The women gathered around the large shopping bag, but Natalie looked up at me.

"Are you okay?" she mouthed. I nodded.

"Let's see the quilt," I said.

Maggie arrived on the scene. "Not without all of us here."

"Bernie had to go to the bank. She'll be here in a minute," I said.

For the first time since I arrived, Eleanor looked up at me. She gave me a sympathetic smile that made me wonder how bad I looked. "We should go inside," Eleanor said. "I'm willing to wait for Bernie, but not if it means getting pneumonia."

When we opened the door to the shop, we saw Tom and his assistant were putting up the last of the shelves. The place looked huge and new, and not quite finished.

"We beat you," beamed Eleanor.

Tom looked up, a little surprised. "Another few hours and I would have done it."

"Well, we cheated," Maggie huffed. "We do our group projects by hand, but we had Susanne machine quilt this one. But you'll have to wait to see until Bernie gets here."

I took a deep breath. "Can you guys give me a minute. I need to… I'll be right back."

I headed into the basement and went straight to the office. I walked toward the back wall. I wasn't sure exactly what I was looking for, or even if I would find it, but I moved my hand across the smooth wall. I kept moving my hand back and forth, getting closer and closer to the ground until I was on my knees. I ran my fingers along the baseboard. It was loose. I pulled at a section until I'd removed the whole piece.

Behind the baseboard was a small hole, and in it an envelope. I could hear the women upstairs talking about the quilt and the construction on the shop. They seemed so happy, and I was about to ruin it. I opened the envelope and found what I'd been expecting. Thousands of dollars in cash.

When I got upstairs, Susanne was pulling the finished quilt out of the bag. Tom, his assistant, and the rest of us rushed over. Nancy took one of the sides so she and Susanne could show off the work. And it was some work. The squares of purples, blues, reds, and pinks that each of the women had made separately had come together to form an impressionist garden. My painted borders and Susanne's quilted leaves set it off beautifully. We all stood and stared.

"Why didn't you wait for me?" Bernie said as she came into the shop. She walked over to the quilt and joined the rest of us as we stared at it.

"Here to see the shop?" Eleanor turned toward the door. I looked in the same direction and saw Jesse.

"No, ma'am. I'm here about the other matter."

"No more questions today, son. We're unveiling the quilt," Maggie shouted from the other side of the room.

I turned to the women. "You kept money here," I said. "You kept it in the hole in the wall and in the downstairs office. My friend Amanda said something to me about a secret hiding place, and I guess when I ran into Bernie…"

Everyone was looking at me. Only Jesse moved to see where I was looking.

"Yes," Nancy said as casually as possible. "You said you hadn't sold any of your quilts," I said.

Maggie's head jerked toward Nancy. "That isn't true. I send at least ten of your quilts to my daughter a month. She says they sell…"

"You send Nancy's quilts to your daughter?" Eleanor looked toward Maggie.

"Nancy asked me so it wouldn't stir up any gossip at the post office-her sending packages to my daughter. But she asked me not to say anything."

Nancy interrupted. "I didn't want anyone to know. I did sell some of my quilts in New York. And I did keep the money here. If I'd put it in the bank or brought it home, my husband would have found it and gambled it away. That money was for my sons' education."

"It was safer here," I continued. "Until the remodel. Until I suggested tearing down the wall. And you tried to stop it."

"I didn't care about the remodel."

"Yes you did," Carrie started then stopped. She turned to me. "Nancy is just very careful, conservative. That's why she cared about the remodel. She didn't do anything."

"That's not why," I said, so quietly I doubted anyone heard me.

Nancy and I locked eyes. There was a steel reserve in them that came from years of struggle. But after a few seconds it melted away into a soft regret. She blinked. "I didn't mean to hurt you Eleanor," Nancy said as she looked at Eleanor's injured leg. "It's just that you always say leaving money in the shop overnight makes us a target for thieves. I thought if you found out, you might make me take the money somewhere else, and I didn't have anywhere else to take it.

"I know, dear." Eleanor patted Nancy's hand.

"You could have killed her," my voice quivered. "She could have broken her neck on those stairs." Nancy nodded meekly. "And then you killed Marc."

"That's enough," Susanne broke in. "I think we should stop now before anyone says something they'll regret." Natalie reached over for her mother's hand and both women looked down.

"I didn't mean for it to happen," Nancy said as tears rolled down her eyes. "Marc found the money. My money. The money that was paying for my children's education."

"In the wall," Jesse said.

Nancy nodded. "Yes, and in the office downstairs. He took everything and didn't want to give it back to me. He said it was his."

"He didn't have the money from the basement." I took the envelope from my back pocket. "I just found it a minute ago."

Nancy stared at me. "That's not possible. He had almost fifteen thousand dollars. Just about a thousand less than I had in the shop. When I came in he was taking money out of the bank bag I had hidden in the wall. I saw him."

"You came into the shop and saw Marc taking money from the bank bag," Jesse repeated. "And you asked for it back."

"Yes," said Nancy, her eyes darting from one person to another. "The money was still in the bag and he had more money, thousands more. The money from downstairs."

"He won that money gambling on some horse races," Jesse said calmly, with a sadness on the edge of his voice.

"No, he didn't. He stole it from me. He was stealing it from me, and I caught him. I asked him for the money back. I begged him." Nancy was frantic now. "And he laughed. He said I could have the money in the bag but the rest was his. He said he was doing his good deed for the day. Can you imagine?" She turned to a sympathetic quilt club, who were crowding around her in support. Even Barney sat at her side.

"I never liked that boy," Maggie said quietly.

"And then he said he had a lot of work to do, so I should get out of his way. He picked up a hammer and started working with his back to me, ignoring me. I kept begging him, and then he turned around and came at me." She stopped and took a deep breath. "I thought he was going to kill me. I just wanted my money."