The Double Wedding Ring (2 page)

I
t was dark. Whatever sliver there was of a moon had hidden behind the buildings along Main Street, leaving only the slightly open door to light my way. I grabbed the trash from the cutting table, bits and pieces of fabric so small that even seasoned quilters would find little use for them, and headed into the alley.

I threw the trash into the Dumpster, my last chore of a very long day, and turned toward the back door to the shop. The wind picked up—an icy January wind that made me glad I'd thrown on my coat before venturing outside. I heard a noise behind me, and just as I turned to see what it was, the wind slammed the shop door closed, locking it. I had my car keys in my pocket, but my purse, cell phone, and, most important, the keys to the shop, were still inside.

“Eleanor is going to kill me,” I muttered, my breath forming icy circles in the night air. The question was would I call her, and let her kill me now, or leave it until tomorrow. It wasn't a hard decision. Jesse was waiting for me at his place with a hot meal and a tall glass of wine. Tomorrow would do.

I walked around to the front of the shop, checked the front door just to be sure. Also locked. I'd volunteered to stay behind and close up. We had post-Christmas markdowns out and everyone, especially my grandmother, had put in lots of additional hours. Eleanor Cassidy owned the shop and said the extra work was her responsibility, but she was in her seventies and had a lot on her mind these days. I wanted to help, both as a granddaughter and an employee. And now I'd locked my set of keys in the shop.

Someday Quilts would be fine, I decided. The place was locked up tight and the only thing I hadn't done was put on the new alarm we'd had installed. It was Jesse's idea after a string of vandalisms hit the town during the summer. He'd had something similar installed at his house, and both alarms went directly to the police station in the event of a problem. Jesse, the town's chief of police, was still careful about setting his, but at the shop, once the culprit had been caught, we'd pretty much forgotten about the alarm.

Besides, Eleanor had made the bank deposit on her way home. There wasn't anything to steal except some fabric and the twenty dollars in my purse. Assuming someone would bother to try. Things had been pretty quiet in Archers Rest lately.

“It's fine,” I said to no one.

But as I spoke I thought I saw something through the window. I clenched my jaw and kept looking. As the moon moved slightly I could see that a pile of small fabric pieces, known to quilters as fat quarters, had fallen over. Fat quarters I thought I'd stacked low enough to stay in place.

“When the door slammed shut they must have gotten knocked over,” I said to myself. That made sense. One stack of fat quarters out of place was not a crisis. But my freezing in front of the shop was quickly becoming one. I headed to my car.

The streetlight that normally lit the way to Jesse's driveway was burned out. No matter. My headlights worked just fine, and once I turned off the car, I was only a few feet from his front door.

I stepped out into the cold night and the silence that descends on Archers Rest when the sun goes down. I glanced to my left, suddenly nervous. I couldn't tell what had attracted my attention. Maybe it was the smoke, small wisps of cigarette smoke escaping through the open window of a dark SUV parked just outside Jesse's house. I could barely make out a figure inside. A man; that was all I could tell.

“Good evening,” I said, sounding cheery while letting him know I'd noticed him.

There was no answer.

I shrugged. It was cold and dark, and I wasn't much in the mood to chat anyway. The man I loved was inside waiting for me, and he was making me dinner.

After more than a year of uncertainty, difficulties, and dead bodies, my life in Archers Rest was finally filled with good news. And I wasn't going to let anything get in the way of just how happy it made me feel.

“S
now.”

I opened my eyes and blinked slowly. Jesse was holding the curtain open so I could see what had happened overnight. A blanket of beautiful white snow was covering our town.

“Finally,” I said. “I thought we'd go the whole winter without it.”

Getting out of bed is harder in the winter. My toes hit the hardwood floor, and my bare legs felt the cold. I was wearing a long T-shirt, enough to keep me warm when Jesse was beside me, but not nearly enough for a cold January morning with snow on the ground.

“You need a quilt,” I said, as I joined him at the window.

“Make me one.”

“I keep meaning to,” I admitted, “but I can't figure out exactly what I want to do, and it has to be right.”

I kissed him and immediately smiled. We were still in that stage, I realized, where we couldn't keep our hands off each other, couldn't stop smiling in each other's presence. We would be annoying to the rest of the world, so thankfully we were alone—a pretty rare situation lately.

“Happy anniversary,” Jesse said. “One year today since our first date.”

“Not technically. It's actually one year today since you stood me up for our first date.”

“We went on it eventually.”

“Obviously.”

“Big plans for today?”

“The wedding,” I said. “I have a lot to do.”

He chuckled. “You do realize you're not the bride?”

“You wish.”

He leaned against my ear and whispered, “Just name the day.”

He stood behind me, wrapping his arms around me. I leaned into him, resting the back of my head on his shoulder.

“I have a lot to do,” I said as he kissed my neck.

“I'm not stopping you.”

“I have to go through the RSVPs and get some idea of how many people are coming to the wedding.”

“The whole town is coming.” He kissed my ear.

“It's not exactly the whole town,” I pointed out. “Plus I still haven't heard from my parents or my uncle Henry, or a few of Gran's friends from quilt shops in the area.” He wasn't listening, and I was losing my focus. “Did you lower the heat?”

“No.”

“Where's that breeze coming from?”

He wrapped his arms tighter. “Maybe we should go back to bed. I still have two hours before I have to pick Allie up from my mother's house.”

“That's weird.”

“That I have to pick up my daughter?”

“No, Jesse, out the window. That car.” I pointed toward a black SUV parked in front of Jesse's house. “It was there last night. There was a man sitting in it. I noticed him when I was pulling into your driveway. I think he's still there.”

Though much of the car was covered in snow, I could see what looked like an arm, dressed in a dark coat, leaning out of an open window.

“You didn't say anything about it last night.”

“It wasn't suspicious last night. I figured he was waiting for someone, or one of your neighbors was sneaking a cigarette.” I stared at the SUV. “But what's he still doing there? Who sits in a car all night in thirty-degree weather with the window open?”

We watched for more than a minute and the arm didn't stir. Eventually Jesse moved away from me, grabbing his jeans and a sweater, dressing as he talked. “I'll go down and find out.”

I quickly pulled on my clothes and ran downstairs after him. As I passed the kitchen I noticed the back door was open, but Jesse had gone out the front. I quickly closed it and grabbed my coat. I was still trying to get my boots on when I reached the front door. Jesse was already at the curb. I watched as he reached in the open window to unlock the driver's side door. As he did, the man sat motionless.

“What the hell?” Jesse took a step back.

“Is he okay?”

“He's . . .” He didn't finish the sentence. Instead, Jesse crouched in front of the man, first lightly tapping his face, then rubbing him harder on the chest with his knuckles. He didn't get a reaction.

“Roger!” Jesse yelled. “Roger. It's Jesse. Talk to me.” He turned back to me. “He's a block of ice. Call 9-1-1. Get an ambulance here, and call the station. I might need detectives.”

“You know him?” I didn't wait for an answer. Instead I rushed back inside, grabbed Jesse's phone, and made the calls. When I came back out, Jesse had moved the man from the car to the sidewalk, and was performing chest compressions on him. Though he was putting considerable effort into saving the man's life, I could see there was no point. The man's lips were blue; his eyes were open and blank.

The ambulance pulled up as we stood in the snow, and Jesse let the EMS workers take over. They quickly determined there was nothing they could do and we all stood helpless in a circle around the dead man.

He looked to be in his late thirties, maybe five nine, slim even in a leather jacket. He had sandy brown hair, cut short, and his clothes looked neat, though not expensive. There was something familiar about him, but I couldn't quite figure out why. Death changes a person's face, leaves it waxy and pale.

I wanted to look closer, but Jesse had my arm. It wasn't unusual that he wanted to keep me from a dead body. In our year together he'd tried to keep me from several of his investigations. What was unusual was that he wasn't examining the body. He was just standing, holding my arm, and looking down the street.

“Jesse . . .” I started. “Who's Roger?”

As I spoke, two squad cars from the Archers Rest Police Department pulled up, and four officers joined us.

“Everything okay, Chief?” Greg asked, as he stamped out a cigarette and gave me a quick “I'm going to quit” eyebrow raise. Greg had an innocence about him, but he also had great instincts. He was getting too good to be second in command in a small-town police force, and both men knew it. But sometimes Greg got a little ahead of himself, which irritated his boss. I could see that he was trying hard to do the right thing now without overstepping Jesse's authority, a difficult balance considering the situation. “Why don't you both go inside and I'll take it from here?”

Jesse bit his lip. I could see that he was shaken, but he wouldn't give in to his emotions nor would he walk away from a case. When a crime had to be investigated, Jesse was all business. He took a deep breath and looked at his detective.

“It's okay, Greg. I'm still the chief here. This man seems to have been parked out in front of the house all night. He must have died from exposure.”

I pulled away from Jesse's grip and leaned closer. On the left, where his hair had been more exposed to the elements, there was a crusting of ice, but on the right side there was no ice. And yet I could see that the hair on the right side was clumped together as though it had gotten wet. I ignored Jesse's warning to move back and examined the hair. “I don't think he died from exposure, Jesse.”

“He's frozen solid, Nell.”

I pointed to a small hole on the side of his head, near the back. Jesse walked toward me and examined it. He seemed suddenly pale, as if he might faint. I took his hand. He squeezed it, then let go.

“How could I have missed that?” Jesse asked.

“You were trying to save his life.”

He nodded but didn't look satisfied. Jesse prided himself on being a good cop, and that meant being unemotional and keenly observant. At the moment, he was struggling with both. “This is a crime scene, Greg.”

Greg nodded and headed toward the body. “I'll check his pockets for ID.”

“You don't need to.” Jesse's voice was deep, solemn. “His name was Roger Leighton.”

Greg looked at the dead man's face. “Was he from town? He doesn't look familiar.”

Jesse shook his head. “No. He wasn't from here. I'm the only person in Archers Rest who would have known him.”

“I
have to call Anna.” Jesse was pacing in his kitchen; his hands were shaking.

We'd waited in the cold until the coroner's office came and removed the body and the car had been examined for evidence, then towed to the police parking lot. By the time we'd come in, I was freezing. And worried.

“You still haven't told me who he is.”

Jesse sat at the kitchen table. I put a cup of hot coffee in front of him and he drank about half of it before looking up at me. “I met him right after I got out of the police academy. He'd been on the force for maybe ten months when I arrived, but he called me ‘the rookie' whenever we saw each other.” Jesse smiled at the memory. “Later, when I made detective, we became partners.”

“You worked in vice.”

Jesse didn't talk about his days working in the New York City Police Department very often. Unlike me, he'd grown up in Archers Rest. He attended college nearby and married Lizzie, his college sweetheart. His dream had always been to be a New York City police detective, so they moved to the city. Within a few years, Jesse had everything he'd wanted: a beautiful wife, a newborn daughter, and a detective's badge. Then Lizzie was diagnosed with cancer. They returned to be near family and live a quieter life in Archers Rest. Months later, Jesse was a widower and the chief of police of a small upstate New York town.

“Did he say anything to you?” Jesse asked.

“Last night? No. Not a word.”

“But you're sure he was alive.”

I nodded. “He was smoking a cigarette. I couldn't see much, but I could definitely tell that.”

“He said he'd given that up when Lizzie was diagnosed with breast cancer. Roger and Anna both. They said they didn't want to smoke around her, so they both stopped.”

“I guess he started again. Unless . . . all I really saw was that it was a man. I didn't look that closely. I didn't know I'd need to. Besides it was freezing and you were waiting inside.”

He nodded and then, more to himself than me, he asked. “Why didn't he just come to the door? Why didn't he call? It must have been important for him to drive all the way here. If he had just come to the door . . .”

Jesse was doing what we all do after a tragedy, torturing himself with the “what ifs” and the “whys” that never find satisfying answers. I had a theory about why Roger hadn't come to the door, but I hesitated to say it. Maybe he wanted to speak with Jesse alone about some problem, working up the courage with a cigarette. Then, when he saw me go into the house, he might have sat in the car and waited for me to leave. But I didn't leave, and whatever trouble he was running from caught up with him as he waited. That was my “what if”—what if I had left instead of spending the night, would Jesse's friend still be alive?

“Was he involved in anything that might . . .” I tried to say it gently, but it was a hard question to ask about a friend.

Jesse seemed to be thinking the same thing. “He was very straight and narrow when we worked together. Everything by the book,” he said. “He was a good guy. He was the best cop I ever worked with.”

“Maybe it didn't have anything to do with work. He might have driven up here looking for someone he could trust.”

“Well, he obviously didn't come to the right person.” Jesse leaned back in his chair. “I need to call my mom and tell her to keep Allie a little while longer. I don't want her coming back to crime scene tape.”

“I already called,” I assured him. “She's taking Allie to the movies. She said she can keep her another night if you like.”

He sighed. It was just after nine a.m., and the day was already too long. Jesse looked ready to collapse into bed, and I wished he had the freedom to do that. But I also knew he wouldn't.

“When was the last time you spoke to Roger?” I asked.

“I don't know. A couple of years ago, maybe longer. We lost touch. We had . . .” There was a catch in his throat. “We had a falling out.”

“About what?”

“It doesn't matter.”

That hurt a little, his shutting me out, but I tried not to take it personally. “Is Anna his wife?”

“I think so. I mean I'd heard through friends that they were separated. I don't know if they got divorced, though. They were always breaking up and getting back together. Lizzie used to say she never knew whether to address the Christmas cards to Mr. and Mrs. Leighton, or just Current Occupant.”

“And you don't know why he would be parked outside your house?”

“No idea. The last time he was in town was for Lizzie's funeral, and that was more than three years ago.”

“But someone knew he would be here. Or else how would the killer have found him?”

“Why didn't he just call me?” As he said the words, Jesse grimaced. It was as if he knew why but couldn't say the reason out loud.

Maybe a change of subject would help, I thought. “Did you open the back door this morning? Or forget to lock it last night?”

“No. Wasn't it locked?”

“It was wide open when I came downstairs.”

“I'm sure it's nothing. Just a faulty lock and a good wind.”

“But the alarm . . .”

“We were distracted.” He smiled. “And when Allie's not here I'm less paranoid about safety.” He got up and put his coffee cup in the sink. “I should go to the station and see if Greg has come up with anything.”

I stood in the doorway. “Jesse, I know you're used to being strong and doing everything on your own. But we're together now. You don't have to go through this alone.”

He stared at me, tears welling up in his eyes. For a moment, I couldn't tell what he was going to do, but he wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me toward him. We held each other for a long time, saying nothing. I could feel his tears on my shoulder so I held on as tightly as I could.

After he left, I stayed behind to clean up. We'd left the bed unmade and last night's dinner dishes in the sink. It was very little, but I wanted Jesse to come home to a clean house after what I knew would be a very tough day. But even after the house was sparkling, I still lingered. I found myself wandering into the living room, looking at the photos he kept there. There were two of Jesse and me together, at a carnival over the summer, and with Allie at Christmas just a few weeks ago.

And there were photos of Lizzie. She was very pretty. She was petite, maybe five foot three, with short blond hair and a bright, beaming smile. They'd made an interesting couple to look at. Jesse was over six feet, dark hair, glasses, and had the serious expression of a man much older than he was.

As I looked at a photo of the two of them on a beach vacation somewhere, I felt a little inadequate. I knew it was the natural thing to do after someone has died, but no one had ever said a bad word about Lizzie. All I ever heard was how friendly, how patient, how understanding . . . how everything she was. And how much in love Jesse had been with her.

I put the beach photo down when another caught my eye. I hadn't spent much time looking at it in the past. It was Jesse, Lizzie, and another couple at a party. The woman was a dark blond, very stylishly dressed. The man had his arm around her. He looked happy. This was where I'd seen Roger Leighton. Both couples were smiling, celebrating something. It had been taken maybe five years before and already two of the people in it were dead.

“Well, that's an unhappy thought,” I said to myself.

I put the photo back where it was and looked around for my things. I had to go to work, and I had lots of calls to make about the wedding. The wedding—just the idea of it made me smile. My grandmother Eleanor, after decades of being a widow, had fallen in love. She was a nervous and excited bride, and I was the maid of honor. Not many women get to help plan their grandmother's wedding, but she was more than that to me. She was my friend, my employer, and my housemate. It was too happy an occasion to be ruined by anything. Even by this.

I grabbed my coat and got ready to leave for work, but there was something else I had to do. I walked to the back door and checked it once again. The lock certainly seemed sturdy to me, but that door was definitely open when I'd come downstairs a couple of hours ago. I knew it had been locked the night before. Jesse is the king of careful. But when I mentioned it, he hadn't been concerned. May-
be I shouldn't be either. Except I was. I looked for scratch marks around the key, or a sign of a break-in at the doorjamb. There was none, which should have reassured me. But I couldn't erase the nagging fear that someone had walked into the kitchen last night while Jesse and I were asleep upstairs. The alarm on the panel next to the door was switched off. Had we really forgotten to set the alarm when we went upstairs? Or had someone else done it? The code was Allie's birthday, not something an ordinary burglar would know. But nothing was taken, so ordinary or not, Jesse hadn't been robbed. Another thought crept in. Could it have been Roger's killer? What did he want? And would be come back? A chill went down my back.

As I left Jesse's house, triple-checking that the door was locked behind me, I looked around. The car was gone; the street was quiet. I walked over to the burned-out streetlamp that prevented me from seeing into the car. I couldn't get a great view of it, but I could tell one thing: the bulb under the large glass cover wasn't burned out. It was missing.