Chapter 47
As several of the crafters excused themselves to call home before the last class of the day, Cora took the opportunity to head upstairs to her apartment and call Brodsky. She didn’t want any of her guests to overhear.
Could Jo have killed Stan?
Could they have had a killer here and not realized it while they were suspecting another person?
After a bad incident, she and Jane had decided to do background checks on all their guest teachers. They hadn’t contemplated checking the guests. Cora might consider it an invasion of privacy. At the same time, her other guests might have been in danger. Her heart raced. She reached for her meditation beads and called Brodsky.
“Cora, what’s up?”
She quickly filled him in on her conversation with Roni.
“But Jo checked out. We talked with her. She hadn’t gone very far. I don’t know. It’s a long shot, but God knows we’re not getting anywhere else.” He paused. “How is Roni?”
“She seems fine,” Cora said. “She slept awhile and then came downstairs to knit.”
“Knit? I hadn’t pegged her for the knitting type,” he said. His voice lifted in a feminine kind of way. Cora imagined those bushy eyebrows of his jiggling.
“We’ve talked about this before, Brodsky,” she said. “You never know about people, do you?” She couldn’t resist playing along. His wife was a voracious knitter who had yet to come to a retreat. And Cora had yet to meet the woman.
“So, Jo, huh?” he said, steering the conversation back to business. “If I remember correctly, she’s a big woman.”
“Yes,” Cora said. “Just based on her size, I’d say stabbing a man is within her capability.” Cora’s pulse continued to race. The meditation beads were not helping. Not this time. She’d thought their involvement in this case was over. With Zee released, then Roni, she had started to feel a bit relieved. God forbid.
She went on. “But her demeanor . . . she was reticent and didn’t quite fit in. I believed her when she said she wanted to get back to her kids.”
“Maybe she’s a good actress,” he said, and then snickered at his own odd humor.
“Could be,” Cora said, rubbing her beads harder now.
“Well, I better get an APB out and find this woman.”
“Do you mind if I ask you how his body got from the alley to the stage?” Cora asked.
“I haven’t a clue,” he said. “At first, I thought he might have walked. But there’s no evidence of that. So I’m assuming someone witnessed his struggle with Roni and took advantage of it. You know, pulled up and put him in the car or truck or van. Do you see what I’m saying?”
“Yes,” Cora said. “Okay. Please let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”
“Will do. But I think we’ve got this,” he said with a patronizing tone.
I doubt that, Cora wanted to say. You thought you caught the killer not once, but twice, and things are going from bad to worse. She held her tongue.
“Good luck,” she said. You’re going to need it.
After they had hung up, Cora placed her beads on the table and sat cross-legged on her pom-pom rug. Luna loved it when Cora sat on the floor, and she waltzed over to her, rubbing against her and purring. Cora centered herself and drew in breaths, hoping to will away a panic attack. Her heart continued to race. Luna curled herself in Cora’s lap, her purr still loud. Cora concentrated on the soothing noise, and her body relaxed, almost one muscle at a time, unraveled.
At least she didn’t have to pop a pill. Not this time. Not that there was anything wrong with it. She just wanted to deal with her panic on her own, without medicine.
Now that she was somewhat calmer, she’d update her blog quickly, upload some photos she’d taken earlier in the beading class. It wouldn’t take much time at all. She glanced at the clock and timed herself. She should be able to get to the knot class. Luna wasn’t thrilled to be disturbed, but Cora needed to get to her computer.
She turned it on and waited for the blue screen to fire up. Within minutes, she’d uploaded several photos of the felt beading class. Then she responded to a few commenters on her blog.
There, all caught up.
Now if she could just shake this ominous feeling.