The Double Cross (31 page)

I couldn’t swear to it but I didn’t think the window had been open the night before. I walked closer and checked the windowsill. There was a thick layer of dust on each side but the center of the sill was nearly clean, as if something had brushed against it. Like the leg of a murderer as he climbed in the window to kill us all.

“That’s enough,” I said to myself out loud. “Either go back to bed or get up.”

I stood weighing my options for a minute but realized that as long as I was thinking, I was already up.

If my imagination was going to go wild, then it needed caffeine. I went back to the open window, looked outside of it once more. Seeing nothing but feeling the definite chill of an April morning, I closed the window and headed toward the kitchen, already making a list of questions for Rita.

But when I opened the kitchen door, I had an entirely new question to ask.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

CHAPTER 48

“I don’t care for profanity,” was the answer.

“I don’t care what you care for, Alysse or Alice, whichever one you are. It’s five thirty in the morning.”

“I’m an early riser,” she said. “What are you doing up anyway?”

“I’m an early riser too.”

“No, you’re not. The house is always very quiet at this time of day.” She sounded smug for just a moment but must have realized she’d only made things worse for herself.

“You’ve been in this house before when you weren’t supposed to be,” I said.

“That’s ridiculous.” On the floor was a paper bag that I wouldn’t have noticed if she hadn’t been trying to keep me from noticing it by moving her leg in front of it.

“What’s in the bag?”

She turned white, then red. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I reached over and grabbed the bag. Inside was an old, ugly clock, the kind that normally sits on a mantelpiece. It was wooden, with two bulldogs flanking the clock face. Each of the bulldogs was wearing a bowler and holding a cane. At the foot of the bulldog on the right was a smaller dog on a leash.

“What is this?” I asked.

“A clock.”

“I’ve figured that out. Why are you taking it?”

“I’m not taking it.”

“You’re breaking into the house at dawn to surprise Rita with this clock? You’re going to have to come up with a better story than that.”

“I don’t have to come up with any story,” she said. Her words were defiant but her voice was shaking. “You may fancy yourself some kind of real-life Nancy Drew, but you are not a police officer.”

“I am.” Jesse walked into the kitchen. He was wearing pajama bottoms and an old T-shirt, and looked very sexy and very sleepy. He also looked surprised to find company in the kitchen.

“What are you doing up?” I asked.

“Allie. She had a bad dream. She called the inn’s phone. Woke Joi up, and she came and woke me up.” He looked at our visitor. “Which twin are you?”

“I don’t have to tell you.”

“I’ll call McIntyre,” he said grumpily. “It’s too early in the morning for twenty questions. He can arrest you for breaking and entering . . .”

“And stealing.” I held up the clock.

Jesse made a face. “Really? I guess there’s no accounting for taste. Still, it’s a pretty good list of crimes. You’ll probably get three to five years.”

The twin’s lip began to quiver. “Wait.”

Jesse leaned against the kitchen counter. “If you’re going to confess to the murder, then I need coffee.”

“I was just about to make it,” I said. I looked at the twin. “But she’s not going to confess to the murder. She didn’t do it.”

Jesse nodded. “I knew it couldn’t be that easy. Worth a try though.”

Ten minutes later Jesse and I were sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for the captured twin to stop sobbing and tell her story.

“You’re hunting for treasure,” I said when I got tired of waiting.

She looked at me through wet eyes but said nothing.

“I couldn’t figure out why one of you was always in the house but it makes sense. You heard about the crazy guy who used to own the place and the rumor about his treasure, so you and your sister took the class so you could get inside the inn. That’s probably why you dress alike, so you can be in two places at once.”

I looked to her for confirmation but got none. Jesse leaned back in his chair and motioned for me to continue.

“You’ve been going through the place when you were supposed to be out searching for things to embellish your quilts or helping with the renovation.” I was proud of myself for figuring it out. “George changed the locks when he heard noises, so you must have needed an excuse to get in every day and leave a window open. And since today is the last day of class, it’s your last chance to have a good reason for being in the house, so you wanted to make the most of the opportunity to steal everything you could.”

“That’s a lie,” the twin shouted.

“What’s going on?” Joi walked into the dining room with Rita steps behind her.

“It looks like everyone got up early today,” Rita said.

“Rita, how do you know the twins?” I asked.

The twin started to speak, but I held my hand up to stop her. “I want to hear it from Rita,” I said.

Rita shrugged. “This one, or the other one, showed up the day before the quilt retreat and said she’d seen the ad in the paper. She wanted to know if the class would be held in the inn. When George told her it would be in a separate building on the property, but lunch would be served at the inn, she signed up herself and her sister.”

“So what?” the twin asked me.

I turned back to her. “What’s a log cabin?”

“It’s a wooden house. Why?”

“You’re not a quilter,” Jesse said. “Even I know that a log cabin is a quilt with strips around a center square.”

“You know that?” I asked.

He shrugged. “You pick up a few things when you date a quilter. And that’s not the point. She lied about being a quilter. She is a treasure hunter.”

“That’s a horrible thing to call me,” she said as she jumped up and ran from the house.

Rita watched her go. “That was dramatic.”

I turned to Jesse. “So what do we do now?”

“Call McIntyre and let him arrest her for breaking and entering and attempting to steal a really ugly clock.”

“That’ll teach her to call me a liar,” I said.

“How do know he shouldn’t arrest her for murder?”

“Because when George was killed in the woods, they were searching the house. I thought it was weird that they kept their found objects in a plastic bag, but it makes sense if they didn’t go out looking for embellishments during class time.”

“You think they brought them from home.”

I nodded. “After the first day they knew that Susanne would send them out for leaves and twigs and other things. And on the first day one of them made sketches while the other searched. It’s why the sketches were so alike despite their having such different quilting styles.”

“But what if George found them stealing?” Jesse asked.

“Then they would have killed him in the house. That is, if George cared that they were taking things from the house . . .”

“And he wouldn’t have,” Rita interjected.

“Exactly. George might have wanted the objects back, like the quilts, but I don’t think he would have pressed charges. And if he had . . .”

Jesse nodded. “He would have called McIntyre from the house right then. He wouldn’t have left the thieves to wander around while he went on a picnic.”

“I just don’t see either of them being killers,” Rita said.

“Neither do I, but, then, that’s the case with everyone here,” I admitted.

Rita walked over to me and took my hand in hers. “I feel that I’ve gotten Bernie into this mess and I don’t know how to get her out of it. If I hadn’t wanted to make things right with Joi . . .”

Now it all made sense. At least the part that didn’t include the murder. “This house isn’t for you,” I said. “Not the classes, not the quilt shop. You’re creating something to give to your daughter for her charity.”

Joi looked at her mother. “What are you talking about?”

Rita shook her head at me. The softness of the last twelve hours was momentarily replaced by the impatience I’d first witnessed in her. “I should have assumed that you would blurt out my secret,” she said. Then she turned toward her daughter. “Your father and I wanted everything to be done for you,” she said. “He was so worried I’d be gone before we got everything in place that he rushed to get Bernie and the others up here before we were really ready. He wanted to bring you here as well.”

“He even drove to Saratoga Springs once to tell you,” I said to Joi.

“How do you know that?” Rita looked at me.

“The gas receipt in your car. It makes sense that he would do that. But he changed his mind.”

“I begged him not to. I thought Joi would feel as if we were mocking her life if we presented her with a broken-down inn. I even changed my mind at one point and put it on the market, but I knew this was the last thing I could do for you. I just wanted it all to be perfect, and it’s all turned out such a mess.”

“Why would you do all this?” Joi was in tears.

“It’s your dream to have a place like this.”

Joi looked around.

“Well, not like this,” Rita continued. “Better than this. We were running out of time, and I wanted so much to have it nice for you. I thought that with Eleanor’s help I might at least get the shop ready.”

Mother and daughter held each other, and I felt suddenly as if I were in the way. I nodded to Jesse, and he and I went to the kitchen to get coffee. We were so close to finding the rest of the secrets but I, too, was running out of time and I still had so many unanswered questions. But now that I knew why the twins were in the house, I was sure of at least one thing.

CHAPTER 49

“The bullets don’t match the gun from the inn,” I said before McIntyre had a chance to speak.

Jesse had called him and told him about the twins’ escapades. In the sort of police work that can only happen in a small town, McIntyre had called the sisters and asked them to make sure to come to the inn to clear up what he had called “the confusion” about the missing objects, which they’d agreed to do. One of them even made a feeble joke about coming back to the scene of the crime. Then McIntyre drove over to the inn, bringing pumpkin doughnuts from Maria’s bakery.

“Well, Chief?” I waited. “The bullets don’t match, do they?”

“How does she know that?” McIntyre looked to Jesse for the answer.

Jesse just shrugged. “It’s like a magic trick. If she tells you, it spoils the fun.”

“I think the twins have been stealing items from the house to check their value,” I explained. “They probably stole the gun, and when they realized that you thought it was the murder weapon, they ditched it.”

“So the killer didn’t need to have access to the house, just a gun. Any gun,” Jesse said.

“That doesn’t eliminate anyone in the county,” McIntyre told him.

I took a breath. “Or anyone here.”

“So who did it?” McIntyre asked.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But you know something I don’t. The identity of the witness.”

“I guess, since you’ve gotten this far, it might help if I told you everything. I promised the witness I’d keep it confidential so I’m trusting you both to be discreet.”

Jesse and I promised that we’d keep it to ourselves, though I wasn’t so sure I would keep that promise, especially since that person was responsible for getting Bernie hauled into the police station.

“It’s Mrs. Ackerman,” he said.

“Helen?”

He nodded. “She said she was out in the woods and she saw Mrs. Avallone.”

“Doing what?” Jesse moved closer to me, as if he were protecting me from bad news that was about to come.

“According to her statement, she saw her bent over the body.”

I paused for a moment to consider whether Bernie had told McIntyre the whole story, but even if she hadn’t, it had to be told. “She may have seen Bernie bent over the body,” I said. “But when Bernie left George at the picnic site, he was alive,” I stressed. “She realized she had something more to say, so she went back. When she got there, he was already dead. If Helen saw Bernie, then she saw her discover George, not kill him.”

McIntyre seemed to have an additional piece of information. After a moment’s hesitation, he shared it: “There was a gun next to her.”

I walked out of the kitchen and into the living room. Joi, still overwhelmed with gratitude at her parents’ generosity, was there with Rita, who, clearly unaccustomed to being seen as kind, seemed slightly uncomfortable but happy. I was intruding, but I figured at this point Rita was used to it from me.

“You’re friends with Helen and Frank,” I said.

She looked up at me. I could feel her about to tell me, once again, how odd I was but, thankfully, she refrained. “Yes. I suppose.”