After asking Roo to keep her discovery quiet, Santi and I gave her a lift back to her shop, then drove down to keep my appointment at the jeweler in Charlottesville. Roo had assured us he was reputable and discreet, and we now needed a full evaluation of the broach. If it had been a motive for murder before, it now provided an even bigger motive if it was encrusted with diamonds.
As we headed down 29 toward town, Santi said, “So, this thing could be worth, what, a hundred K?”
I shook my head as I flicked through images and prices for other Cartier broaches. “I have no idea, but if it’s a one-of-a-kind Cartier, probably more. There’s one in here for $155,000.” The piece was about the same size and was a panther covered completely in diamonds. “But it’s got fewer karats of diamonds if Roo’s estimate was right.” I looked at the listing on the actual Cartier site, “and this one is new, I think. So. . .”
“So if this one is vintage, it’s probably worth more,” Santi finished.
“Exactly,” I said. “Do you think Viola knew what she had?”
Santi sighed. “I have no idea. It’s hard for me to imagine someone putting something that valuable in the wall, but then, my mom still doesn’t have a bank account because she doesn’t trust them. People make strange choices when it comes to money.”
I put my head against the window and watched the strip malls and car dealerships fly by as we headed downtown. I knew we were missing something, but I just couldn’t figure it out. It felt like there had to be a connection between this pin and Viola’s death, but it was absolutely possible this was all a coincidence. That Viola had died for some reason other than the broach.
Santi found us a free parking space near the courthouse, and we walked the few blocks to the Downtown Mall and up to the jewelry store on the corner. The shop was small but beautiful, with navy blue velvet in the bottom of all the jewelry cases and a sparkling collection of pieces displayed attractively. From the research I had done online, this shop was the most elite in the area. It catered to a very specific clientele.
I, however, was not looking very elite in my yoga pants, tennis shoes, and T-shirt, but my hope was that Santi’s uniform made up for my casualness. When a small, bespectacled man came out to greet us, he immediately smiled and said, “You must be Ms. Sutton and Sheriff Shifflett.”
“Yes. Thank you for seeing us,” I said.
“Of course. Let’s take this into the back. My assistant will tend the shop,” he said.
A middle-aged woman with a sleek haircut and pleasant smile stepped from behind a nearby counter and nodded.
The three of us filed into a small, well-lit room with a central counter and an array of what looked like microscopes. “May I see the piece?” our host asked.
“Of course,” I said, unwrapping it from the red and white bandana I’d used in place of Santi’s napkin. Still, even with the upgrade, it felt a little lame to have a very pricey piece of jewelry stuffed into the side pocket of my purse, even in the bandana.
The jeweler put on white gloves and then carefully picked up the pin. He turned it over, slipped in a jeweler’s loop, and held the piece under a bright light.
“Definitely authentic Cartier,” he said. “And twenty-four-karat gold certainly.” He pulled the piece closer and then looked at each of the stones. “And each of these stones is authentic and of the highest clarity and color.”
He set the piece down and looked at us. “This is one of the few Christmas-themed pieces Cartier has ever made.” He smiled. “You have an extremely valuable piece here. If you don’t mind waiting”—he gestured to two chairs at the edge of the room—“I’ll write up the appraisal for you.”
We nodded and sat down to watch him weigh, measure, and study the piece some more. After a few minutes, he finally took out a triplicate document and began to write. Then, when he handed us the top copy of the form, I almost dropped it.
I cleared my throat. “Does that say $234,000?”
Santi took the paper from my hands and then looked at the jeweler. “Really?”
“As I said, the piece is very valuable.” He smiled at us. “If the owner should ever wish to sell, I would be honored to broker the exchange.”
He then spent a few minutes giving us the weight of the diamonds, their value, and the weight and value of the rubies and emeralds, too. We had a full appraisal document and a healthy amount of shock when we left.
It was my turn to wolf whistle as we walked up the mall. “We should get this back to the sheriff’s office,” I said.
“In a minute. First, dumplings,” Santi said. “I know how you love them.”
He wasn’t wrong, and normally, I wouldn’t hesitate to have a double portion of Marco and Luca’s amazing pork dumplings, but knowing how much this broach was worth made me nervous. “It’s okay.”
“Pais, you’re with a police officer. We can get dumplings to go.” He put his arm around my waist and led me further up the mall toward the dumpling shop.
As he ordered, I stood close by with my purse conspicuously pulled to my chest. I felt like a tourist who was too overzealous about guarding their passport, but I couldn’t help it. A quarter of a million dollars was in my bag, wrapped in the scarf I’d had on my hair the day before.
We got dumplings, sesame noodles, and sodas, and I was already halfway into mine before Santi even got the car out of the space. These things were so good, and their tastiness, combined with the relief I felt at not having been mugged for the broach, made me famished.
However, I did manage to stop stuffing my face long enough to shovel dumplings and some noodles into Santi’s mouth as he drove. By the time we were headed back north, both of us had full bellies and a lot of questions.
“So, a quarter of a million-dollar pin is shoved into a wall above the kitchen sink?” I said. “Have you ever seen anything like that?”
“Never,” he said. “I’ve found caches of money, savings bonds, and even jewelry, but nothing like this.”
I glanced at my watch and saw it was a little before one. “Want to meet my new friends?” I said. “I think we have enough time to get there and back before I have to get Sawyer off the bus.”
“Get where?”
I smiled and picked up my phone.
Abigail answered on the first ring, and within five minutes, we had her assurances that she’d call Lucy and meet us in a half-hour. When she asked what it was about, I just mumbled something about Viola and the broach. I figured there was no need to give away more information than necessary.
As we drove past Octonia and up into the mountains, Santi’s cell phone rang, and when he answered, his face immediately fell. “Can you handle the scene for a couple of hours? I need to make one stop before I come down.”
When he hung up, I watched his face carefully. “Crime scene?”
He nodded. “Murder scene. We found Olivia McNamara.”
My heart kicked against my chest. “She’s dead.”
“Drowned, apparently. Just up the road here.” He pointed across a small bridge that we were just passing. “Looks like it happened a couple of days ago.”
I twisted in my seat as we passed the bridge over the Rolling River running beside the road. “What was she doing up here?” I asked, almost to myself.
“I don’t know, but we are going to find out.” He gunned the engine. “I’ll need you to let me take the lead now, Paisley.”
“Of course,” I said and took a deep breath. Our friendly chat had just taken a much more serious turn. Even so, I couldn’t help but think that Sawyer would be thrilled that Jade was most likely going to become a permanent addition to our family.
When we pulled into Abi’s driveway, Santi turned on the lights and squawked the siren briefly as his way, I suppose, of letting them know this was official police business. As he stepped out of the car, he said, “Bring the broach, but don’t show it to them.”
I studied him as he marched toward the front door, and then I followed a few steps behind. I’d seen my husband interrogate people before, and while he was never violent or even loud, there was a certain energy he exuded during these tougher moments of his job that was both intriguing and, frankly, terrifying. I did not think Abi and Lucy were going to like these next few minutes very much at all.
Santi rapped hard on the door near the kitchen, and when Abi opened the door, he said, “Ms. Toperman, Sheriff Santiago Shifflett. I need to ask you a few questions.”
Abi’s eyes flew to me, but I just looked back at her. She wasn’t going to get my comfort in the face of my husband’s questions.
“Yes. Please, come in,” she said and held open the door for us.
I had tucked the broach into the phone pocket of my yoga pants, where it bulged, but I was hoping that the women would think it was keys or something under my baggy shirt. If Santiago didn’t want them to see it, he had a reason.
Lucy was sitting at the kitchen table when we walked in, but as soon as she saw Santi’s expression, she stood up. “Oh my, what is wrong?”
Santi motioned for her to sit back down and pulled out a chair so Abigail could, too. He then let me step in front of him to take another seat before he pulled a chair around to the head of the table and sat down himself. “The body of Olivia McNamara was just found up the road by the old Quaker camp.”
“Oh my,” Lucy said as her hands flew to her mouth. “That poor girl.”
I looked from her to Abi, who was sitting, lips apart, staring.
“It appears she drowned,” Santi continued. “Have either of you had any contact with her in the past few days?”
The women looked at each other and then shook their heads. “No, none,” Abi said. “Paisley here told us she was missing, but we haven’t seen her.” She twisted her fingers together. “Who would have done something like this?”
“That’s what we will figure out,” Santi said. “Do you know anyone who might have wanted to hurt her?” His tone was still all business.
The two women again exchanged a glance, but neither said anything. “No, not anyone,” Lucy finally said.
Santi stood. “I have to make a phone call and check in at the scene. I’ll be right back.” As he turned away from the table, he shot me a wink. Fortunately, I knew that signal and gave him a crisp nod.
As soon as the door shut behind him, I said, “I’m sorry about that. When he gets a serious case like this, he has to be all business.”
“Of course, dear,” Abi said as the tension in the room eased. “Does he have any leads?”
I shook my head. “Not that I know of. He doesn’t tell me much about his cases. I just can’t imagine who would have wanted to hurt poor Olivia. I mean, from what you said, she wasn’t the most reliable person, but being flaky doesn’t usually warrant murder.”
I was playing up my confusion just a bit since I wanted to act the part Santi needed. But I was also very confused. Who would want to kill a young woman? Who would want to kill an old woman, for that matter?
Lucy cleared her throat. “We may have, um, not told you the whole story about Olivia on your last visit.”
Abi sighed. “We try not to gossip, you see,” she said.
Inwardly, I rolled my eyes, but to them, I said, “I totally understand. Is there something else we should know?” I wasn’t going to pretend I wouldn’t immediately repeat what they said to Santi, but I also knew they were dying to do just what they said they didn’t want to do—gossip.
“Well, Olivia ran with kind of a bad crowd,” Lucy said. “They rode motorcycles and had those discs in their ears.”
“And the tattoos,” Abi said as she threw a hand in the air.
I felt a little mental whiplash at this very conservative perspective on tattoos and gauges from these women who had made it seem like they were the pinnacle of feminist virtue on my last visit.
“Don’t get us wrong. People can dress how they’d like and ride those death traps if they want, but this group was just”—Lucy cleared her throat again—“pardon my French, despicable.”
I stifled a chuckle at the fact that Lucy would feel the need to ask for grace when using the word despicable and simply nodded. I wasn’t sure I could hold my tongue about this level of prejudice if I spoke, and I needed these women to keep talking.
“We thought they’d grow out of it when they reached adulthood, but if anything, they seemed to get worse. Their whole bodies were covered in pictures, pictures that would get wrinkly and saggy as they got older,” Abi added.
“We tried to explain this to Olivia, but she wouldn’t hear of it,” Lucy said and then literally tsk-tsked.
I took a deep breath and asked the question at the forefront of my mind. “And what did Viola, her aunt, think of Olivia and her friends?”
Lucy sighed. “She just said there were worse things than green hair and tattoos.”
I forced back my smile. At least Viola was a woman with a truly open mind.
“I see,” I said. “Did Olivia have lots of tattoos, too? I saw her gauges—the discs in her ears,” I added, “but I didn’t see many tattoos.”
Abi rolled her eyes. “The young woman thought she was going to be an actress, so she kept her ‘body art,’ as she called it, under her clothes. At least she had that much common sense.”
“But you didn’t think she had much chance of becoming an actor?” I said.
“Actress, dear,” Lucy said. “It’s the feminine form of the word.”
I bit my tongue to keep from explaining gender-neutral language and how the twenty-first century strode toward equality and simply asked my question in a new way. “Did she ever have any acting parts?”
Abi nodded. “She got the lead in the Four County Players a couple of times, but always in those new plays, not any of the classics.”
I allowed my jaw to clench for just a minute as the prejudices of my new acquaintances grew by the minute. “Well, the Players are a pretty serious company. That’s impressive. Did she want to act on stage?”
“No, dear,” Lucy said. “She thought she was Hollywood-bound. Said she had a lead on a show with that Hawaiian-looking guy.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Abi said as she looked at me. “You know the one who talks like he’s stupid?”
I winced and then said, “Keanu Reeves. She had a potential role with Keanu Reeves?”
“That’s what she said,” Lucy said. “But as I told you, she was always a bit free with the truth.”
I was at a total loss now because if these two women were truthful, Olivia was not. But then, maybe they were just close-minded enough not to really want to see the truth. “Did she tell you the name of the movie?” Maybe I could track down more information if I had a bit more details.
Lucy looked at Abigail. “It was some sequel. The third one or something. I didn’t really pay attention because she couldn’t be trusted and because, well, we all know sequels are terrible.”
I couldn’t dispute the sequels thing, but Keanu Reeves was one of my favorite celebrities if he wasn’t the best actor. “John Wick?”
Abi tapped her nose like we were playing charades. “That’s it. I remember because I thought it was probably about candles.”
I didn’t dare disillusion this woman with her sweet but naïve vision and tell her about the extremely violent action films. “That would have been a big role,” I said, hoping to help these women see that, at the very least, Olivia was aiming high with her stories.
“She tried to get us to watch one of those late-night shows, but I have a strict no TV after the late news policy,” Abi said. “She said she’d send us a link to see it on the computer, but I don’t trust those link things.”
“Wait, she was on a late-night talk show?” I said as my heart rate kicked up. “Do you have that link?”
“Of course,” Abi said. “I keep all my emails filed by the name of the person who sent them, just in case.” She studied my face and then said, “Would you like to see it?”
“Yes, please,” I said.
Abigail led me over to a computer so ancient I was surprised it could go online, but just a split second later, her AOL account popped up, and she navigated to a folder with Olivia’s name on it. In the last email that Olivia sent was information about Jimmy Fallon and a link.
“May I?” I said as I resisted the urge to push Abi out of the way to get to the keyboard myself.
“Of course, dear,” she said, letting me take her chair.
I clicked on the link, and it sent me to YouTube, where I proceeded to see a clip of Olivia from Octonia on the couch with Keanu Reeves, talking to Fallon about the latest John Wick movie in which Olivia played the love interest. After the clip played, I sat there, stunned.
Abi and Lucy watched as well, but the significance of Olivia’s accomplishment was obviously lost on them because all they could talk about was how Reeves needed a haircut and a shave.
Still, this was big news—it meant Olivia had a successful acting career with a major studio. She wasn’t some wannabe. She had made it.
It didn’t seem worth it trying to dispel these two women of what they believed. They had clearly decided who Olivia was, and sharing a couch with Keanu wouldn’t change that.
Santi had not yet returned from his phone call, and I was beginning to wonder if something worse had happened. “Well, ladies, thank you for your time. I better be going since Santi has a crime scene to get to.”
Lucy fluttered her hands again. “That poor girl,” she said. “Why would anyone want to kill her?”
“That’s a good question,” I said as we walked toward the door. “If you think of anything Santi should know, you’ll be in touch with him, right?”
“Absolutely,” Abi said as she stood by the door. “And you’ll keep us posted on services when you hear?”
“Of course,” I said as I glanced over above the stove. “What a beautiful collection of cast-iron skillets. Do you use those?”
Abi turned a deep shade of scarlet but said casually, “Of course. They were my mother’s. My pride and joy,” she added.
“I love cooking with cast iron, but I’m afraid I don’t take very good care of mine. I’m too reliant on my nonstick stuff that can go in the dishwasher.”
Abi opened the door and put her hand on my back to usher me out. Clearly, she was not interested in talking about housekeeping. “Thank you for coming by,” she said, waving at Santi before quickly closing the door, almost in my face.
I stood and stared at the blue wooden door for a long minute and then turned to Santi, who was holding the phone to his ear but had eyes only for me. He was faking.
“So, what did you learn?” he said as he got into the car beside me.
I recounted what the women had said about Olivia and her acting “aspirations” and then told him about the Fallon clip.
“Wow,” he said. “So she was doing just fine, probably financially, too?”
“I’d say so. I mean, it wasn’t going to set her up for life or anything, but I imagine she was financially quite solvent.” I studied the road as we drove. “So that takes away one motive for murder. She didn’t need the broach to pay her bills.”
Santi bounced his head back and forth. “Well, not necessarily. While you might be satisfied with enough money, some people always want more.”
I sighed. “Right. That’s true. But do we really think she might have killed her aunt?”
“I doubt it. Didn’t those women tell you Olivia disappeared for periods, and no one knew where she was?”
“They did,” I said, sitting up straighter in my seat. “But she was probably just away shooting.”
“That’s what I’m thinking. I think our energy might be better spent on figuring out why two old women want to discredit a young woman who was their best friend’s niece.”
When we arrived at the bridge a few minutes later, Santi suggested I drive his cruiser back to town. “I’ll be here a while, and then I can just ride back with Forest.” He kissed my cheek. “And I’ll tell you everything when I get home.”
I couldn’t beat that offer. I didn’t have to stand out in the chilly afternoon, stressing about whether or not I’d be home in time to get Sawyer off the bus, and I wasn’t going to miss out on anything. “Deal,” I said and walked around the car.
As I drove home, I reviewed my conversation with Lucy and Abigail. They obviously did not like Olivia McNamara, and while they made it sound like it was just because they had a poor opinion of her and her friends, I sensed there was something more behind their words.
I’d have to ponder how to suss that out, but for now, I wanted to look into Olivia’s acting career. It was possible she had landed the role as Reeves’s leading woman as her first role, but that seemed unlikely. So, as soon as I got home, I pulled out my laptop and googled Olivia’s name.
Sure enough, the woman had been in numerous films and had even played a minor character in a Law and Order: SVU episode a few years back. It seemed she was a rising star, which made it even odder that Abigail and Lucy hadn’t wanted to brag about her. My friends’ kids were like my own when it came to singing their praise for everything from straight As to a great lacrosse game. Why wouldn’t they want to cheer her on in her career?
Still, I did know people whose prejudices ran deep. A parent of one of Sawyer’s closest friends once told my son that people who had tattoos were “dirtbags,” a fact that we had to counter quickly, especially since Santi had several. Some people thought their opinions justified them to say anything.
Now, I was at the difficult point of trying to decide if I could trust anything that Abigail and Lucy had said. I knew I would have to fill Santi in on things, too, but for now, I was simply musing on my own. Well, mostly. I did call Mika because it had occurred to me that she might know some of these tattooed and pierced friends of Olivia’s who put Abi and Lucy off so much. She ran with a much cooler group than I did in high school, and while she wasn’t an Octonia native like I was, she did socialize far more than I did.
When I called, she was ringing up a customer, so I waited a few minutes, then gave her the rundown about Olivia’s acting career and what Lucy and Abigail had said about her friends. “Do you know who any of those people might be?”
“So you called me to see if I knew who the freaks might be? Is that what you’re saying?” Mika asked with a laugh.
“I did not use the word freaks,” I replied sharply. “Sorry. I’m a little on edge after my conversation this morning.”
“No wonder. It’s always difficult to feel at ease when you aren’t sure what the truth is.” She took a deep breath. “Okay, so I do know a couple of people who ride motorcycles in town. One is this guy, Devon, who also knits. He’s huge, wins weight-lifting competitions, and has lots of tattoos.”
“Sounds like the kind of person who would put Abi and Lucy way off. Do you have contact information for him?”
Mika snorted. “Believe it or not, he’s due here this afternoon. He always comes in on Tuesdays and knits with me for a bit.”
“Oh, what time?” Sawyer was due off the bus in thirty minutes, but maybe I could bring him along.
“Comes in before his shift as a bouncer at some club downtown, so probably about five,” she said. “Bring pizza and the kid. We’ll teach him how to knit.”
I loved my best friend. She knew me so well. “Oh, can I learn, too?”
“Yes, Paisley, I will once again attempt to teach you to knit so that you can promptly forget everything because you don’t practice. And then I’ll teach you again. This cycle is simply part of our friendship now.”
I laughed as I hung up. Now, I just had to figure out a way to talk to Devon without giving away more than I should about the murder investigations.
I shouldn’t have worried because my young son had a million questions that he was not too shy to ask as soon he saw a huge black man with lots of tattoos and piercings. To his credit, Devon seemed completely unfazed and told Sawyer the story of each tattoo and explained why he liked body ornamentation so much.
“It’s kind of like clothes you wear,” he said. “But you don’t have to change them. You just pick something you really love, and then you get to keep it on forever.” Devon smiled at my son. “But you need to wait a few years before you start getting piercings or tattoos, okay?”
Saw frowned. “But I’m half a grown-up. I can do what I want. My body, my rules.”
Devon chuckled. “That’s so true, but your body is still growing, so if you got a tattoo right now, it would stretch out. Your Sonic the Hedgehog might end up looking like a big, blue blob, and who wants a tattoo of a big blue blob?”
Sawyer nodded, “Maybe when I’m eight.”
I laughed. “Let’s try eighteen,” I said as Mika once again took my knitting needles from me and showed me how to cast on. I was hopeless.
“She’s right, Sawyer,” Devon said as he carefully checked the dishcloth that my son was almost finished knitting. “Most tattoo artists won’t tattoo anyone under eighteen.”
“Mom, how long until I’m eighteen?” Sawyer asked.
“Eighty-five years,” I said, and all the grown-ups chuckled. Sawyer nodded as if I had said six months and kept knitting like a pro.
The ice broken by the kiddo, I told Devon that I was curious if he’d known Olivia McNamara.
Devon’s face opened in a wide smile. “Oh yeah, Liv and I are tight. When she’s here, I mean. That Hollywood stuff has her gone a lot.”
So he knew she was an actor. That was the first question answered. “Yeah, I saw her interview with Keanu Reeves and Jimmy Fallon. She was so funny.”
“That’s Liv,” he said. “She is a tiny parcel of wit and vigor.”
Mika cleared her throat and looked at me with a fierce stare, the universal communication for “Say something.”
“Devon, I’m really sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but Olivia’s body was found this afternoon.” My voice squeaked a little as I spoke.
Sawyer looked from me to Devon and then back to me. “She died, Mom?”
I looked at him. “Yes, love bug, she did.” I had never balked at telling Sawyer about death, and while we didn’t dwell on the subject, I figured it didn’t do any good to hide its existence from him. That said, I wasn’t going to tell him the woman had been murdered. Death was natural; murder was the opposite.
“Sawyer, I have some chocolate milk in the back. Want to help me get everyone a glass?”
My son hopped up, and as he followed Mika to the back, I finally met Devon’s eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
The sock he was knitting floated halfway between his legs and his shoulders as he looked at me. “What happened?”
“Well, actually, she was murdered. I was hoping you might have some idea why,” I said.
He leaned forward and whispered, “Liv was murdered? Everyone loved her. She was the belle of Octonia.”
I thought, Well, not everyone, but I didn’t say anything. “So you can’t think of anyone who might want to hurt her?”
Devon put his sock in his lap and shook his head. “Not a single person. She really kind of kept to herself. A few of us hung out sometimes, friends from high school who had kept in touch. But she spent so much time away these days, we didn’t see each other often.”
“If you or your friends think of anything that might be relevant, could you call the sheriff? He’s my husband,” I said.
Devon nodded sternly and then slipped his knitting and yarn into a bright green grocery bag. “Will you tell Paisley and Sawyer good night for me?”
“Of course,” I said and watched him leave. I was sad to be the bearer of such bad news, but I would rather have him hear it from me in this safe place than hear it tonight when he needed to create a safe space. He had looked devastated.
As the bell over Mika’s front door chimed, Sawyer and she returned to the front of the shop. “Oh, did Devon leave?” she asked.
“Yes, he said to tell you two goodbye. He had to go take care of some things.” I kept my voice light, but I held Mika’s gaze to let her know that it was more than just errands that had led Devon to depart early.
“He must be sad,” Sawyer said. “I’d be sad if my friend died.”
I pulled my little man into my hip and said, “Yeah, me, too, Saw. I think Devon is sad.”
“I’m going to give him my dishcloth,” he said. “Maybe that will make him feel better.”
Mika smiled. “I think so, Sawyer. Now, let me show you how to cast off?”
A half-hour later at home, we had the pizza we’d forgotten to eat with Mika as our lukewarm supper, and Sawyer showed Santi his bright blue dishcloth. “I’m going to give it to my friend Devon because he’s sad.”
Santi ruffled the kid’s hair and admired the dishcloth with genuine enthusiasm. He had witnessed enough of my failed knitting attempts to know that the child had surpassed his mother.
“Brush teeth and put on pj’s, Saw. It’s bedtime,” I said.
“Okay, Mom,” he said. “Then videos.”
“Yep, Buddy. Then videos before a story,” I replied.
As soon as he was out of the room, Santi said, “Then, something mindless and some cross-stitch for you.” His face was firm. “You need to slow down your brain for a bit.”
He was right. My mind felt like it was spinning from possibility to possibility, and I couldn’t land on anything useful when I was like this. “Excellent, I have a new pattern to start.”
Santi smiled. He knew I was a completer, someone who finished everything she started—books she hated, shows she got bored with, and cross-stitch projects that had lost their excitement. So, the chance to start something new was a big deal.
“I’ll take bedtime. You go ahead and get going.”
I smiled, went to hug Sawyer good night, and then sat down with my new pattern. As usual, I’d picked it out from Etsy, and it showed a great white shark nestled among coral. The entire pattern included only twenty-six colors, and while there were a lot of stitches, it was something I could work easily and then hang in Sawyer’s room. The boy was obsessed with these fish.
I opened my antique sewing stand, a lucky find at an estate auction, and pulled out the massive collection of Aida fabric I had gathered. My rule was that my stash of fabric couldn’t grow bigger than this drawer, so I really had to get stitching so I could buy more.
The photo of the design had it stitched on black, but I had a really deep blue that I thought would work wonderfully. It was 18-count, which was a bit smaller than the pattern called for, but that was fine. Santi had gotten me a great magnifier with a bright lamp for Christmas, and now my middle-aged eyes could handle the smaller stitches.
I gathered the necessary colors from my trays in the trunk at my end of the couch, set up my fabric on my lap-stand, and made a cup of chamomile. Then I turned on the TV and decided I would finish Blacklist. I was halfway through what I thought was the last season, and the show was fast enough to occupy my brain but not so fast that I had to watch every second.
Bedtime must have required a few stories tonight, or Santi had been a pushover, maybe both because I was almost done with one episode of the show and the shark’s dorsal fin when Santi came down the stairs.
“He’s out and snoring,” he said as she settled next to me on the couch. “Catch me up.”
I smiled. Santi claimed to find Reddington, the show’s supposed villain, reprehensible, but he never missed an episode if he could help it.
I gave him the rundown on the plastic surgeon and Reddington’s surgery and told him about Elizabeth’s latest escapades, and then we began another episode together. This time, the criminal was a very old man whose health was quite frail but who successfully conned people, particularly other elderly people, out of their fortunes. He made them believe he could assist them in setting up trusts for the people they loved so that their money would be available to them until they died but would then be preserved for children or grandchildren. But in reality, he simply took the money and moved on.
“That’s a good con,” Santi said about two-thirds of the way through the show. “People assume the elderly are always innocent because we universally underestimate them. The first case I ever worked on was of a ninety-two-year-old lady who was an expert shoplifter. She could steal anything right out from under anyone and walk out with alarms blaring and all. No one ever suspected her.”
“What was the best thing she stole?” I asked.
“A fur coat with matching mittens and hat. She just wore it right out past the guards.”
I nodded. “Oh, that’s amazing,” I said as I stitched. I listened to the show as I worked, but just at the rear of my mind, I could feel the wiggle of something I needed to think about. It would come to light when it was ready, so I let it writhe away back there until then.