Spin a Wicked Web Page 9

Her chin lifted. "I volunteer for a variety of organizations in both Cadyville and Seattle. I'm particularly interested in the theater." She settled gracefully into the matching leather sofa.

  I cocked my head, recognition dawning. "You were an actress, weren't you? I recognize you now. What were you in? Let me think…"

  "I like to say I'm still an actress, though, truth be told, I haven't been paid for it for years." Her voice was smooth and pleasant, her manner warm.

  I held up my palms. "I'm sorry. I can't remember where I know you from."

  "Most people don't recognize me at all. I did a few commercials, years ago. And I played Malissa Harris on Mountain Time for part of one season."

  "Of course! I watched Mountain Time when I was in college. It was one of the first prime-time soaps, and since I lived in Colorado I loved that it was set in Vail. You," I pointed at her, "were a very evil lady."

  She laughed. "I was indeed. Downright ruthless. I loved playing that character. I only wish it could have lasted longer. But Malissa was written in specifically with the intention of killing her off."

  "So why don't you act more now?"

  Shrugging, she said, "Cadyville is pretty far from the center of things. I don't need to work. Heck, Jake doesn't even need to work, but he enjoys his practice, and I wouldn't want to take that away from him. Maybe one of these days we'll move closer to the city, but for now we like living here."

  I wondered. Felicia, self-possessed as she was, seemed isolated. It didn't seem to bother her, but then again, she didn't seem like the type to let you know if something bothered her. And she was nicer than I'd anticipated. Someone I'd like to have dinner with.

  "Enough about my defunct acting career," she said. "Was there a particular reason you dropped by?"

  "Well, as I mentioned, I'm part of CRAG, and I know Jake. You know about the murder there, of course."

  She nodded. "Of course. Jake's been very concerned about the other co-op members." Her hand flew to her mouth. "Oh, and weren't you the one who found her? How silly of me. You're here to see Jake, aren't you?"

  "No, I'm here to see you. Like Jake, I'm worried about how this terrible incident has affected the co-op members. I'm really here because I wanted to check in with you about how Jake is taking it."

  Her eyes narrowed. "Why would Jake be taking it worse than anyone else?"

  I shrugged. "He seemed more upset about Ariel's death than some. He's a very caring man"

  She held my gaze for a long moment. "Meaning?"

  I licked my lips. "Nothing. Only… you know… he's a nice guy."

  "Particularly to Ariel."

  Thin ice here. I could feel it beginning to crack under my feet. "I don't know. Was he?"

  Felicia stood. "I'll let Jake know you stopped by."

  "Oh. Um, okay. Thanks." I rose to my feet as well.

  She walked me unceremoniously to the front door and opened it. "Thanks for stopping by, Ms. Reynolds. 'Bye, now."

  "Um," I said, nonplussed by how smoothly she'd kicked me out. The door shut in my face.

  No wonder Barr and Robin hadn't gotten very far questioning the Beagles.

  ***

  Meghan met me at the front door. "Hannah came by."

  My eyes widened, and I began looking wildly up and down the street for Barr's ex or her rental car.

  "Oh, she's gone now," Meghan said. "I don't think she looks that much like you."

  I grabbed her arm and pulled her inside the house. "What did she want?"

  She gently pulled out of my grip and studied me. "To talk to you, of course"

  "About what?"

  Another long look. "About Barr, I expect. I don't know for sure because we didn't chat all that long."

  "Did she seem… you know?" I swirled my finger by my head.

  "Bonkers?"

  I nodded.

  Meghan's shoulders relaxed, and she laughed. "She seemed like a perfectly reasonable woman, certainly nice enough. When I said you weren't here she said she'd try again tomorrow."

  "Ha! Well, I won't be here tomorrow. And come to think of it, she's not supposed to be, either. Did she say where she's staying now that she's checked out of the Horse Acres B &B?"

  She shook her head. "No. And I asked if you could call her, but she said she didn't know when she'd be near a phone."

  "Probably doesn't want Barr telling her to leave town again"

  Meghan said, "That'd be my guess"

  "I'm sorry she bothered you," I said. "And it sounds like she's going to do it again tomorrow."

  "Will you relax? It's not a big deal. And you said she only took a week off from her job in Wyoming, so she's going to have to leave town pretty soon, anyway."

  As long as Hannah didn't quit her job at the Ambrose ranch altogether, thinking she'd soon be swimming in money.

  ***

  "She came by the house, Barr. What does she want from me? Why isn't she bugging you?" I was clenching the phone so hard it hurt. One by one, I forced my fingers to relax.

  He sighed. "I don't know, hon. I really don't. I've asked the patrols to keep a look out for the car she listed on the registration at Horse Acres, but no one has seen her. I'm doing my best to get her out of your hair."

  I felt guilty for making a big deal out of it. He had better things to do. "Oh, heck. It's okay. I'm going out of town tomorrow anyway.

  "Have you already gone over to CRAG?"

  "Yessir. And that phone call Ariel's roommate picked up was probably from Felicia Beagle. Ruth told me Jake had `fatherly feelings' for Ariel, but his wife misunderstood them."

  Barr snorted.

  "I agree. She probably didn't misunderstand at all. Apparently Felicia found some e-mails Jake had written to Ariel, and she didn't care for what they said."

  "I wonder when she found them," Barr said. "Recently?"

  "No idea. I even dropped in on her, thinking she might open up to me."

  "Any luck?"

  "None at all. Does she have an alibi for the time Ariel was killed?"

  "I'm afraid she does. Jake said he was home with her."

  "Oh"

  "Don't worry. We'll figure it out. Listen, I need to go. Call you tonight, okay?"

  "Okay." I hung up feeling disgruntled.

  For one thing, I didn't know if I bought the idea of Jake providing the alibi for his wife. And secondly, it had been several days since Barr and I had spent the evening together, and he'd only offered me a phone call later.

  A phone call? That was it? Sheesh.

  FOURTEEN

  THAT NIGHT I wAs putting a few things away in my workroom when Erin came down to say good night. She hugged me for so long that I asked if anything was wrong.

  She shook her head against my shoulder.

  "You sure, Bug?"

  A nod, then, "Do I act all snotty about being smart?"

  I pulled back so I could look her in the face. She wasn't crying, but she looked pretty miserable nonetheless.

  "No. You do not act all snotty about being smart. Who said you did?"

  She looked at the floor.

  "Zoe?" I guessed.

  "Uh huh."

  "Do you know why she said that?"

  "No" Erin 's voice was sullen.

  "So when did this come up?" I asked.

  "At dinner last night. I was telling her about some of the stuff we did in math camp yesterday." She turned her face up toward mine. "Do you know anything about Fibonacci numbers?"

  "Nope. Never heard of them."

  "Well, they're this really cool series of numbers that represent the ratio of all sorts of things in nature-the spirals in sea shells and sunflower seed heads and pinecones and-you know about phi, right?"

  "Uh… sort of."

  Her face fell.

  "I'm sorry, Bug. I'm just not into math. But you're obviously getting pretty passionate about it, and that's great. No, really," I said, seeing her skepticism.

  "Well, when I told Zoe about it, she said I was being all conceited abou
t being smart. She's smart, too, you know. It's not my fault her mom makes her go to soccer camp instead of math camp. So I told her she was being snotty about being a big jock."

  "You guys don't usually fight." "

  She shrugged and looked away. "Yeah"

  "Feel pretty bad now, huh," I said.

  I guess." She ground the toe of her flip-flops into the poured concrete floor.

  "I bet she feels pretty bad, too. Why don't you give her a call?"

  "… maybe"

  "Tomorrow. After you've both slept on it a little longer"

  She hesitated, then nodded. "Okay. G'night, Sophie Mae."

  "'Night, Bug."

  At the stairs she turned around. "Are you going to move in with Barr?"

  Oh, gosh. Deep breath. "I don't know."

  "Well, I hope you don't," she said. "I want you to stay here."

  I could only manage a nod.

  ***

  Planning to leave early the next morning, I called it a night at ten o'clock and went to bed, but for some reason I couldn't settle down. I lay in bed feeling twitchy and itchy and wide, wide awake. Finally, I gave up and went down the hall toward the stairs. Through Meghan's closed bedroom door I could hear her murmuring, talking to Kelly out in New Jersey. As I walked past Erin 's open door, Brodie raised his head, his big pointed ears silhouetted against the night-light.

  The spinning wheel Ruth had brought over still sat in the living room. She'd also brought two paper bags of fiber for me to practice on. I retrieved a straight-backed chair from the kitchen, set it next to the wheel, and added two small pillows from the sofa to provide back support while I perched on the edge. Chairs actually designed for spinning had very shallow seats, more like stools with tall, narrow backs to enable the spinner to freely pump the foot peddle that rotated the wheel. Carefully, I oiled the moving parts of the wheel to reduce friction and wear and tear. This was a traditional wheel made by the Ashford company. I wondered if something like this was what I would ultimately choose for myself. There were many reputable wheel manufacturers and different designs of wheels. There were even portable ones that folded up and had a handle for carrying.

  Of course, the most portable way to spin was the drop spindle, a device that looked like a stick with a perpendicular disk near one end. You stood and spun the spindle, which twisted the fiber attached to the top into yarn. Gravity provided the draw for the yarn. As the spindle neared the floor, you wrapped the yarn around the stick and began the process again. Of course, for me this was all merely theory; as fascinated as I was by the idea, Ruth hadn't taught me how to use one yet.

  Expecting to find more of the natural wool I'd used to make what turned out to be a murder weapon, I opened a bag. Instead, I found a luscious rolled batt of Thea Hawke's hand-painted bamboo fiber in sunset hues-the exact thing I'd been so excited to try when I went in for my lesson and instead found Ariel. I'd mentioned how much I liked it to Ruth, and she'd remembered. What a sweetheart. I'd pay her back for it.

  Oh, but how it felt, smoothly gliding through my fingers, the colors twisting together to make a gorgeous, variegated yarn that looked good enough to eat. As the spool gradually filled, the tension in my shoulders abated, my breathing deepened, and one by one the thoughts racing around in my head fell still. After awhile, I wasn't thinking about anything at all, the act of spinning fiber into yarn capturing my entire attention. I'd tried to meditate before, but never with an ounce of success. This had to be the most Zenlike thing I'd ever done.

  When I ran out of raw fiber, I came back to myself enough to look at the clock. I'd been sitting there, pumping my foot up and down for over an hour! Better than any sleeping pill; I'd drop right off now. Plus, several yards of incredible yarn filled the spool. I'd have to find something marvelous to make with it. Heck, anything I made with it would be marvelous.

  I removed the tension from the brake band and slipped the drive band off the wheel, then stood, stretching my palms up to the ceiling to work the kinks out of my back.

  Oh, yes, I was addicted. I definitely needed to start shopping for a wheel of my own.

  ***

  La Conner was located fifty miles northwest of Cadyville. When I left at 7:00 a.m., the air still held the sweetness of dew caressed by the early sun. Sipping coffee from a travel mug, I admired the increasingly pastoral view as I drove north on Interstate 5. At exit 221, I ditched the main highway and headed west through Conway and Stanwood on a series of roads that wound through lush farmland.

  For twenty-five years, spring tourists had descended upon La Conner and the surrounding towns of Stanwood and Mount Vernon for the annual tulip festival. Buses took folks out to admire the profusion of multicolored blooms in the fields, where they could ooh and aah like spectators at a fireworks show, take pictures to their hearts' content, and buy more bulbs and tulipthemed geegaws than you could shake a stick at.

  It was a lot of fun, granted, but I was glad the festival was over for the year and I'd only have to navigate the usual summer crowds.

  Meandering through the bucolic June morning, I reviewed what I knew about Ariel so far. She was a bad artist, but didn't seem to know it. She was too lazy to get the training she needed to improve. Didn't want to deal with college because the expectations were too high, and she'd have to take classes she didn't like in order to get a degree in something she did like. She mooched money from her roommate. Jake Beagle had either a fatherly or carnal interest in her, though there was no evidence she'd been interested in him one way or the other. She wanted to marry money, but she had an affair with the husband of someone she knew.

  Scott Popper was at least twenty years older than she was. I mean, that's not the worst thing in the world, but it made no sense in this situation. He wasn't rich, and his wife could have broken Ariel in half if she'd found out.

  That thought gave me pause. Chris really could have, physically, strangled Ariel. And she admitted that she knew about the affair. It was a good thing both Ruth and Irene could vouch for her.

  What would I have done in Chris' situation?

  I frowned at a field of alfalfa and shook my head. I wouldn't want a man who didn't choose to be with me. Maybe Chris had also been unwilling to fight for Scott. Had it been the first time he'd had an affair? And never mind what Ariel got out of the affair-what about Scott? What the heck was wrong with him, to even get involved with her in the first place? Was it simply because she was so pretty?

  Maybe. Men could be awfully stupid about physical beauty.

  So I thought and drove and drove and thought. Traffic was light, and I made the trip in good time. In La Conner, I stopped at the Wild Radish Cafe and treated myself to breakfast. Then I went for a walk along the waterfront. Visible across the water was Fi- dalgo Island, home of the Swinomish Indian tribe. Gulls swooped and called, cormorants lurked, and the occasional seal frolicked in the Swinomish Channel.

  Looking at my watch, I found I'd managed to waste the whole morning. How decadent!

  At a waterfront restaurant I snarfed a quick cup of clam chowder, anxious to meet Ariel's brother and his family. I got back in my pickup and gave up my early bird parking spot. The town was already filling up with day-trippers from Seattle.

  FIFTEEN

  AN UNEXPECTED THRILL OF excitement fluttered through my solar plexus at the thought of learning more about Ariel from people who really knew her. No one I'd talked to so far had been all that close to her. The picture I'd developed was largely one-sided, and less than flattering. Maybe she was kind to animals. Maybe she mentored troubled teens. Maybe she helped out on the tulip farm every year without fail.

  I mean, it was possible, right?

  A few miles southeast of town, a brightly painted sign advertising Kaminski Tulip Farm hovered over a mailbox covered with stencils of tulips. The arrow at the bottom pointed down a recently graveled drive, toward a house easily visible across the fields. It was white with dark-blue trim, and a big covered porch wrapped around from the eastern-fac
ing front door to the south side of the house. A windbreak of tall poplars, straight and precise as the pickets of a giant fence, marched along to the north. As I drove closer, I saw the impressive vegetable garden sprawled to the south, separated from the porch by a narrow strip of emerald green lawn.

  It was an oasis in the brown dirt of the newly harvested fields, but in the spring, floating in the sea of daffodils and tulips of every color imaginable, the tidy and welcoming farmhouse would fade into the background.

  My tires crunched up the driveway, and a huge German shepherd came barreling around the corner from the direction of what looked like a barn. Fitting the idea of Ariel into this rural background was beyond difficult. Maybe the family had originally lived in town. Perhaps Rocky was the anomaly, not his sister.

  I parked behind a dark blue Suburban, opened my door and reached to pet the dog. He promptly raised his hackles and growled low in his throat. I jerked my hand back. Froze. Tried not to look him in the eye. Of course, I can't hide my emotions from humans, so I don't know why I thought I could hide them from a dog. He advanced slowly, a continual rumble issuing from deep in his chest.

  "Tut! Tut, you leave her alone. Get in here." The speaker stood in the shadow of the front porch.

  At first I thought she was saying, "tut, tut," bad doggie, but soon realized Tut was the monster's name. He obeyed with alacrity, bounding up the steps to the porch, tail wagging, seemingly the embodiment of man's best friend.

  The woman stepped into the light and waved at me. "Don't you worry, he's all right. Come on in!"

  I grabbed the gift basket and ventured up the walkway, noting the neat rows of white alyssum, yellow daisies, and purple allium that lined each side of the flagstones. Enormous baskets of fuchsias hung over the porch railing. Half a dozen bird feeders swung from giant iron hooks driven into the ground around the yard. The beneficiaries of this abundance flitted in from the poplars. Beneath the feeders, Oregon juncos and varied thrush grubbed at the fallout. The shouts of children playing carried from behind the house.