His steps sped up with his distress until Caroline got up and touched his shoulder. “It’s not your fault. You couldn’t possibly have known.”

  “We don’t blame you, Lloyd, really,” I said, adding to her consolation.

  I wouldn’t say I wasn’t disappointed. I had been hoping for a receipt we could track down, a name we could connect to our suspects, but we weren’t going to get that. All we had was that the crooks had come from here and had been purchased by a man. Which made me think of something. I picked up my cell phone again, pulling up Jillian’s videos of the sheep protest. I hit pause at a frame where you could see Barney and his buddies.

  “Were any of these men your customer?”

  Lloyd scanned the shot. “No. He wasn’t the farmer type. That’s what made it so odd. Usually the city people go for the more polished pieces. You know, decorative, not functional.”

  I tapped on to the Internet icon and searched through the images of Dish Up Comfort until I found one of Yale Wagner. “Was it him?”

  “Nope. I’m sorry. Closer to this guy’s age, but this isn’t him.”

  We’d hit a dead end. I was so sure we were on to something—and I suppose we were now that we were almost certain the crooks came from here. I wanted to bring Frank back a solid lead, but our visit didn’t really gain us anything. We weren’t any closer to identifying our killer. Still, I didn’t feel right just walking away from Lloyd after having dumped this terrible news on him.

  “Do you think you could come to Collinstown and examine the crooks the police have in evidence? Maybe there’s something you could tell them that we’re missing.”

  “Absolutely. Anything you need.” He gave me a mournful look. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  “We all are.”

  “I’ll come tomorrow.” He looked at Caroline. “I can stop by on my way into DC to bring you your chair.”

  Caroline waved his offer away. “You don’t need to deliver it so quickly.”

  “No, I do. It’s the least I can do.”

  I swear he held her gaze just a moment longer than necessary. There really was something sparking between those two.

  I felt myself starting to say, “Why don’t the two of you have dinner while you’re in town?” but gulped the words back down in horror.

  Why? Because that was something Mom would have said.

  Chapter Seventeen

  While I never claimed to have a full social calendar, I felt ridiculous that night standing behind the small podium the shop used when guests gave lectures. I was spending my Friday evening at Y.A.R.N. after hours, and my only “audience” was Paula Nelson, Jillian’s debate teacher and my new public-speaking coach. Linda and Margo were also here for moral support, bless them, so I suppose it could have been called a small social gathering.

  “I’m not sure I really have time for this,” I confessed to my “audience.”

  Being knee-deep in a murder investigation tended to eat up a lot of a person’s free time. And energy. And ability to focus. Lately it felt as if between the campaign, the murder, and Mom’s continuing full-court press to move in, I was getting hit from all sides.

  “You’re smart to make time for this,” Paula advised. I’d found her to be a pleasant mix of encouraging and straightforward. “The town hall is both a great idea and a bit of a minefield. It’s George, after all.”

  “So he’s bound to say something egotistical and annoying,” Margo said from one of the three chairs currently placed in front of my podium. “You’re giving him enough rope to hang himself.”

  I grimaced at the wording of the cliché, even though I’d had the thought myself. Anything involving death struck a raw nerve with me lately.

  Paula frowned. “You’re also meeting George on his home turf. This is a man who loves a podium. You can have the best ideas in the world and it won’t mean a thing if you don’t look comfortable and prepared up there.”

  “And you do have the best ideas,” Linda chimed in. “I was over at the florist shop yesterday and Deborah went on and on about your brilliant mini-skein promotion. I kid you not. She actually said, ‘George would never think of something like this.’ ”

  George would never think of something collaborative like that. I’d been hearing it from every business where I set up a mini-skein partnership. The notion that I would make a good—maybe even a great—Chamber president was starting to settle into my bones. And after all, the town hall debate had been my idea.

  “He’s going to bring up the murder—you know that,” Margo said. “Would it be fair to ask Frank if he can have it solved by Tuesday night?”

  I leaned against the podium. “It won’t matter. Solved or not, George will see it as my fault. And of course he’s going to bring it up.”

  “Bev at the inn said she actually heard him saying your shop seems to attract ‘an undesirable element’ to town.” Linda gestured around the shop, filled to the brim with color and texture and beauty. “Can you imagine?”

  Paula set her jaw with a determined pride. “Collinstown’s a better place because your shop is here, and we all know it. Well, all except for George.”

  “I bet even he knows it,” Margo muttered. “He’s just too stubborn to admit it.”

  “So let’s go over how to handle Julie’s murder. What do we know so far? Just like we talked about, list the facts for me.”

  I tried to channel my inner Frank and do as Paula advised—list facts confidently and clearly without making assumptions. I took a deep breath and tried to discover my own mayor voice—or in this case, Chamber president voice.

  “Julie Wilson’s death was not an accident. We know there was industrial-grade sodium hydroxide involved. It’s a dangerous version of a substance commonly used in fiber dyeing. We don’t know if she used the chemical deliberately—Julie always claimed to have private formulas that made her success possible—or if someone sabotaged her supplies to include it. The ventilation system where she was working was intentionally jammed by two shepherd’s crooks, increasing the danger of the chemical. Her exit from the building was blocked as well. Frank is currently investigating, and I have every reason to believe whoever is responsible will be brought to justice.”

  Paula nodded her approval while Linda smiled wide.

  “Do you have any idea how presidential you sound?” Margo asked, applauding. Even Hank woofed his endorsement. “It should stop George in his tracks.”

  “I doubt that,” I replied. “But it does feel good to have a response crafted and ready.” I offered a smile to Paula. “You’re right. Preparation does matter.”

  Linda pointed to the newly replaced shopwindow. “Should Libby talk about that?”

  “Only if George brings it up,” Paula said. “And I don’t think he will. He wouldn’t want you to get any sympathy for it.”

  “Unless he wants to use it as an example of this so-called undesirable element,” Margo continued. “That sounds like something he would do.”

  I was surprised by Paula’s mischievous grin. “Then you bring up the yarn bombing.”

  Collin Avenue had indeed been yarn-bombed last year. Mom and her friends had decorated nearly every tree on the street as part of an event I’d done. Everyone had loved it. Well, everyone except George, who naturally thought it gave me an advertising advantage and therefore demanded it be taken down immediately.

  “Ask him if he thinks of art as an undesirable element since he demanded its removal last year.”

  “Ooh,” whispered Margo, “I like that. You’re good.”

  We went on through the other questions and strategies until Paula declared tonight’s rehearsal finished. Best of all, I sent Paula home with two skeins of very good alpaca yarn and a simple scarf pattern, along with an appointment for three knitting lessons. All in all an excellent trade if I did say so myself.

  “What did that Lloyd fellow tell you about the crooks?” Linda asked as we put away the podium and tucked the chairs back in their places around the shop table. “I feel so bad for him.”

  I grabbed my list of talking points—a term that made me a bit queasy, I confess, because it sounded so political—and slid them into the bag with my other work papers. “I kept telling him we don’t blame him, but he’s being hard on himself.”

  Margo sighed. “To know your beautiful art was used for something so awful—that would upset anyone. I’d be beside myself if I discovered someone put poison in one of my pies to kill someone.”

  Linda picked up a pair of Lloyd’s handcrafted needles, which we now displayed in a glass vase on the table. “His stuff is great. I suppose it’s nice that at least you get a new vendor out of all this mess.”

  “That’s true.” I was always glad to have Linda’s efficient optimism around. “As for the crooks, Lloyd is coming tomorrow to confirm the ones Frank has in evidence are definitely his. But that doesn’t help us much if we can’t identify who bought them.”

  “So it’s like two different murder weapons?” Margo asked, wrinkling her brow in thought. “The strong chemical and the blocked ventilation?”

  “That’s one way to look at it. The blocked ventilation we know was deliberate. The door, too. The chemical, we’re not so sure about.” I shut off the store lights and grabbed Hank’s leash. “Like I said, it may have been her secret ingredient and she somehow slipped up in her handling of it. Or someone put it in with her usual ingredients in order to make them toxic.”

  Linda’s eyes narrowed. “Redundant systems. Sounds kind of complicated for a criminal.”

  “Huh?” I asked.

  “If they were both deliberate—meaning the chemical thing wasn’t a mistake on Julie’s part—the killer had a plan and a backup plan. Two systems meant to do the same thing. Redundant systems. It’s a software term.”

  “You mean like a fail-safe?” Margo asked as we walked out the door.

  I stopped on the sidewalk, struck by a thought. “Or not.”

  Margo and Linda halted beside me. “What do you mean?”

  I faced both of them. “What if two different people meant to kill Julie, and each aided the other without realizing it?”

  * * *

  * * *

  Frank sat back in his chair after I told him my unsettling theory the next morning. “I considered that myself, actually.” He gave me a sad smile. “You aren’t thinking about running for county sheriff instead of Chamber president, are you?”

  I balked at the very idea. “Not on your life. The only thing I want to investigate is why the dye lot numbers don’t match on my most recent yarn shipment.” That sort of problem seemed like a vacation next to the knots I was untangling these days.

  “I don’t much take to the idea of us having to identify two suspects to the DA to charge. But we do have to consider it. We do know one is male, thanks to Mr. Jameson.” Frank grunted. “I’d be happier if we had the name of that man, though.”

  “And just because he bought the crooks doesn’t mean he was the one to use them,” I added. “Lloyd didn’t recognize Barney or Yale as his customer.”

  “So all we have is a cold lead.”

  He got up, walked to his office door, and shut it. I got the sense he was considering breaking a rule, which was very unlike our Frank.

  “I’m going to ask you a question. In confidence. Because I think the answer will shed some light on the case.”

  His serious tone sank to the bottom of my stomach. “You know I’ll do anything to help.”

  “What if Julie was pregnant?”

  A sense of shock—and a jolt of horror—ran through me. “Was she?” That seemed too awful to consider.

  “Actually, no. Not according to the medical examiner’s report. But Monica came to me and asked if the autopsy would say if she was.”

  That was certainly a new twist. “Monica thought Julie could be pregnant?” It seemed such an odd thing not to know for sure. And an even odder thing to ask a police chief. “I don’t get why she asked you.”

  “Evidently, Julie told Monica she was pregnant. Monica didn’t believe her—or at least had reason to doubt her. At least that’s what she told me.”

  “What did you tell Monica?”

  “I told her that wasn’t the kind of information I was able to release.” Frank folded his hands on the desk. “Regulations are pretty strict about that sort of thing. The executor of Julie’s estate will have access to the reports eventually, but we don’t even know who that is yet.”

  “So why are you telling me? Why ask me about it?”

  “Because we can’t assume Julie was lying. She may have thought she was pregnant. And if she did, would she knowingly use the sodium hydroxide? It’s a slim connection, but it might help tell us if that chemical was intentionally used or added without her knowledge.”

  “I . . . don’t know.” I knew a great deal about yarn and knitting, but not that much about dyeing. “I can look it up, I suppose. Or call one of my vendors.”

  “And not just the sodium hydroxide, since we don’t know if it was Julie’s secret ingredient. What about any of the normal dyeing ingredients? Can you find out if there’s any danger to a pregnant woman using the dyes you said people normally use?”

  “I’ll try.”

  My brain was scrambling to connect the dots of this new information. It did seem a slim connection—if Julie knew she wasn’t pregnant, the dangers of sodium hydroxide on a pregnant woman wouldn’t tell us much. But we had no leads to follow, and I agreed with Frank that the information would be useful to have.

  “Did Monica say if Julie told her who the father was?”

  “I didn’t ask her that.”

  Was there someone out there walking around thinking that not only his lover, but the mother of his unborn child had been killed? It made my stomach knot to think of it. Really, could there have been anything sadder?

  “Wouldn’t it have been kinder to let her know Julie wasn’t pregnant?”

  “I’m crossing enough lines as it is asking you, but I need your expertise here. I’d want to figure out why Julie was professing to be pregnant before I go releasing that information anyway. It could be pertinent to the case.”

  The investigation seemed so much more personal now, so much more unnerving. “It’s all just terrible.”

  “She wasn’t pregnant,” Frank reassured me. “But she told Monica she was, which means Julie may have told other people as well. There’s something behind that, and it could be connected to why she was murdered.”

  My urgency to see this case solved doubled. The twists and turns were starting to feel as if they were wrapped around my lungs, making it hard to breathe. I didn’t know why it seemed worse for Julie to be murdered for personal reasons than for her ideals, but it did.

  I pointed at the computer on the credenza behind Frank. “Want me to look it up right now?”

  Frank vacated his chair and gestured me into it. I suppose he could have just as easily gone to a search engine and typed in “okay to dye yarn while pregnant?” but I appreciated that he asked for my help instead.

  I sat down, went to the websites of three of my favorite small independent yarn-dyer vendors, and emailed them the question. While we waited, I went to two online knitting forums and typed in my question there.

  For reasons I’ve stated before, I’ve never had the privilege of needing to ask such a thing. I found it ironic that Julie’s death foisted such a tender question on me, and I wondered what drove her to say something like that to her sister. Sibling rivalry didn’t go that far, did it? There was a girl in our high school class who had gotten married and then pregnant at blinding speed just to be the first of her three sisters to do so. It hadn’t ended well, as you could imagine.

  I took a minute to scan through what I found on the forums. “I’ve asked some dyers I know, but as far as what’s here, there’s no consensus. Some people say it’s fine if you take sensible precautions. Others advise against it. Of course, that’s all assuming the usual household substances are used, not the high-grade chemical stuff.”

  Frank grunted. “That doesn’t tell us much. Julie Wilson does not strike me as a sensible-precautions person. If sodium hydroxide is the chemical in her formula and she was intentionally using it, maybe she knew she wasn’t pregnant.”

  “But if someone messed with her formula and put that chemical in there, it’s anyone’s guess and we’re back where we started.” I stared out the window of Frank’s office in the direction of the Riverside Inn. “We need to find who took those formulas from her silk recipe folder. It’s probably the same person who has the room key—Bev still hasn’t found it.” I sighed. “If we could see her recipes, we’d know so much more.”

  Frank’s gaze followed mine. “But who would know where Julie hid them?”

  The proverbial lightbulb went off over my head. “Monica might. She had a recipe folder just like Julie’s. It was a gift from their mother. Monica would know what she was looking for.”

  I started to wonder if Monica was more involved in all this than she’d let on. A sister relationship that complicated could make anything possible—but murder? I couldn’t fathom it.

  There was still one thing that didn’t make sense. “What I can’t work out is, don’t you think using that folder seems too obvious? Julie was so secretive about those formulas. Why put them someplace easy to find like that?”

  “If her mother gave it to her, then maybe it’s just sentimental. People do illogical things for emotional reasons all the time.”

  Sterling had called my opening of Y.A.R.N. “a rebound ploy.” He would have classified the shop as emotional and illogical. And being Sterling, he framed it all in terms of himself. I, on the other hand, think it is the most logical thing in all the world to reach for your dreams. Most especially when you realize life has distracted you from them. Is Y.A.R.N. emotional? Absolutely. Emotions like joy, satisfaction, happiness, bliss, and a host of others. Y.A.R.N. is the most sensible thing I’ve done in a very long time, so it’s not one bit illogical to me.