“I know…I don’t know why I just didn’t tell the truth when he asked me. That was so stupid.” Maggie shook her head, angry at herself. “I don’t know why I lied. It’s not like me at all.”

  “He intimidated you. Tried to shake you up with all those questions,” Lucy reminded her. “He did the same thing yesterday morning, when he was asking me about the police report I filed. He made me feel as if I had fabricated the whole thing and I was almost starting to wonder if I had made it up.”

  “If the police really want a confession, they do even worse than that,” Dana told them.

  “But I have nothing to confess,” Maggie insisted. “Disliking someone, wishing they would just go away and leave you alone…that’s not a crime.”

  “Fortunately. Or we’d all be wearing orange jumpsuits right now,” Phoebe murmured.

  “Just tell him what happened. Like you told us, “Lucy encouraged her. “You haven’t done anything wrong. Not really.”

  Dana looked concerned, which wasn’t a good sign. She knew more than any of them about the legal system.

  “Look, the omission is understandable,” Dana began in a careful tone, “but he’s going to be pissed at you for holding back. You really should have an attorney present. Or at least speak to one beforehand. Did you ever call the attorney Jack recommended?”

  “No, I didn’t get around to it. But I have the number. I’ll call her this afternoon.”

  Dana met Maggie’s gaze. “Good. Then call Walsh. Before he calls you.”

  Lucy felt a hard knot in her stomach where the gourmet pizza had lodged. Dana really thought Maggie needed an attorney to see the detective. That made it seem serious.

  The shop door opened and a young woman walked in. She carried a stylish knitting bag. Her jacket hung open, revealing a large pregnancy bump covered by a long fuchsia T-shirt that read “Baby on Board” in bold white print.

  The customer smiled and waved hello. Maggie waved back. “Hi, Jen. Is it two o’clock already?”

  “Not quite, I’m early. But I’m having a horrible problem with the booties. Could you take a look, Maggie?”

  “Of course I will. We’re meeting in the front room today. I’ll be right there.” Maggie jumped up from her seat and gathered up a few of the dirty plates and napkins. “The What to Knit When You’re Expecting group.” She checked her watch. “I almost forgot about them.”

  “I’ll get this stuff,” Phoebe offered, grabbing up more of the plates. “You’d better get in there. Those pregnant moms can be intense.”

  “It’s the hormones…you’ll see. One of these days,” she added. “Thanks again for lunch,” she said to both Phoebe and Dana.

  “No problem,” Dana replied. She rose along with Lucy and helped Phoebe clear the table while Maggie headed for the front of the store to help her expectant knitting student.

  It was also time for Dana to return to her office. Lucy was walking home, so they left together and headed up Main Street.

  Dana tied the belt on her long wool coat and flipped her scarf over her shoulder. Lucy remembered when Dana had made the scarf, back in the fall, working cream, brown, and yellow ribbon yarn into thick stripes. A matching hat was pulled down low over her brow, her pretty face framed by brown, shoulder-length hair.

  “How’s your work going, Lucy? At least I have appointments to keep me on track. Have you been able to get anything done in the past few days?”

  “Just barely,” Lucy admitted. “I’m mostly on the night shift these days.”

  “Sounds tough…and tough on your social life,” Dana added.

  Lucy shrugged. “No problem, since I don’t have one. Though I did dodge a setup from my sister Ellen this weekend, thank goodness. One of her dinner parties. The last one was just about as much fun as Amanda’s funeral. And the guy she made me meet—some investment banker or something like that—he was…well, not my type.”

  Dana smiled and shook her head. “Was he good-looking at least?”

  “Ellen thought so. I thought he looked like a pro golfer.” Lucy shrugged. “Just one woman’s opinion.”

  “I think I remember that episode.” Dana laughed. “At least you have a sense of humor about it.”

  “Barely,” Lucy admitted.

  They had reached the building where Dana had her office. It was an old building, made of brick, three stories high and painted white. A bookstore occupied the first floor, the large plate window shaded by a green-and-white–striped awning. Dana’s office was on the second floor with a view of Main Street.

  “Don’t feel discouraged, Lucy. Every pot has its lid.” Dana gently touched her arm and smiled.

  “You forgot the rest: ‘Even the bent one?’” Lucy finished the saying for her.

  “I didn’t forget. I just didn’t want it to sound like I was giving you a diagnosis,” her friend admitted.

  Lucy laughed. “Well, gee, thanks…I guess.”

  “Even people who have loads of self-confidence feel knocked off course by a divorce. Give yourself time. It takes a while to get your balance back and figure out what you really want in a relationship. From everything. You’re different now,” Dana reminded her. “It takes a while to catch up with the changes. You’ll know when you’re ready.”

  Lucy nodded, touched by Dana’s concern.

  “And don’t worry about Maggie,” Dana added, as if she had read Lucy’s thoughts back at the shop. “Christine Forbes, the attorney Jack found, is excellent. Maggie is in good hands.”

  Lucy appreciated hearing that, too.

  After leaving Dana, Lucy picked up the pace, walking the rest of the way home under a heavy gray sky that threatened to rain, or maybe even snow again.

  Dana’s advice made good sense, Lucy thought, and put into words the way she’d felt for the past year or so. She did feel different inside—all the pieces tossed around and still settling. Maybe she just wasn’t ready for a real relationship and when she was, it would happen, she reflected.

  Dana saw the world with a clear calm vision and was usually correct in her predictions, but there was no getting away from the fact that Maggie’s lie, innocent enough, had complicated her situation. Now, by her own admission, the police could place Maggie at the scene of Amanda’s murder.

  But Maggie didn’t murder Amanda. Lucy knew that as well as she knew her own name. Someone else did. So there was really nothing to worry about, she reminded herself.

  Nothing at all…right?

  Lucy checked her e-mail to find that her client had reviewed the brochure designs and had some comments, most of them easy to remedy.

  After a quick phone call with the Human Resources director and another manager in the Communications department, she set to work on the changes. She was eager to get the project completed and approved so that she could, of most importance, get paid.

  She also needed to get cracking on her next job, designing a children’s book for a local publisher, The Big Book of Things That Creep and Crawl. That one would be a bit more challenging and definitely more fun.

  The gourmet pizza splurge had used up her calories and most of her appetite for the day. Lucy was content with a bowl of soup for dinner. She settled down to do some knitting, channel surfing each time she came to the end of a row, until it was clear that there was nothing worth watching on her three hundred channels of TV.

  Finally, she shut off the set and concentrated on her brand-new knitting project, the first of two sock monkey hats. A rush order for her nieces, Sophie and Regina. The girls had seen some kid at school wearing one and taken a photo with Regina’s cell phone, then e-mailed it to Lucy with their requests.

  The fact that her nieces were eager to wear such seemingly outrageous counterculture headgear warmed Lucy’s heart and gave her great hope. Luckily, she had the right wool and needles on hand to start one off right away.

  Ellen was going to hate the hats. Even if they turned out true to the pattern…which Lucy already knew was highly unlikely. Her sister was going to hate mutant sock monkey hats even more, but picturing Ellen’s reaction was a great motivator for her. Making these hats was a little like smuggling arms to guerrilla rebels in some fascist regime.

  Puzzling over the instructions—which had promised to be “fast and easy,” don’t they all say that?—she was tempted to call Maggie for guidance.

  So far, the only thing Lucy found easy and fast about knitting was finding all types of yarn she couldn’t live without—but had no idea what she would do with. Buying it and hoarding it. At first, she’d thought she was alone in this compulsion and felt horribly guilty, then learned it was a common knitter’s foible, called “building a stash.”

  She was also itching to find out if Maggie had connected with the criminal attorney and set up a meeting with Detective Walsh. But Lucy didn’t want to bug her. The situation was hard enough. If anything important had happened, Maggie would call. It wouldn’t help to seem anxious about it.

  Lucy reminded herself of the same very sound reasoning the next morning, as she considered calling Maggie again, but instead settled down at her computer. There was a knitting club meeting tomorrow night. She would bring the sock monkey hat in for consultation. If she had strayed too far from the pattern by then, she’d just have to rip away. Sophie and Regina didn’t want to stand there and explain what the silly-looking faces on their heads were supposed to be. They wanted to just put them on and look cool.

  Lucy sat puzzling over the brochure design, trying to figure out a new way to highlight certain sections of information without it taking up too much space. She’d come up with an attractive shadow box but the copy kept bouncing out of the frame.

  The phone rang, interrupting her string of mild expletives. She looked up when she heard Maggie’s greeting on the answering machine. “I just have a minute to say hello. I wanted to tell you, I went over to the police station this morning—”

  Lucy leaned across her desk and grabbed up the receiver. “Hi, I’m here…you went to see Walsh?”

  “Very early this morning. With Christine Forbes. She was great. She didn’t let him needle me. Not like the first time.”

  That was some relief, but Lucy had expected the detective would handle Maggie differently with a lawyer present. “What did he say?”

  “He was definitely annoyed that I’d lied to him, and interested to hear the whole story. That was clear. He kept making me go over the timing and little details, like where did I park, how long did I stand there knocking. That sort of thing. But he didn’t really say much. He wanted to know if I had seen anything unusual, or noticed anyone on the street. He kept asking about that, too.”

  “Maybe that means he doesn’t really suspect you,” Lucy pointed out.

  “Oh…I don’t know what to think,” Maggie said honestly.

  “Did you see anyone there that morning?” Lucy realized she’d forgotten to ask Maggie that yesterday.

  “Not a soul. And I’ve hardly been to the Knitting Nest enough times to know what would look out of the ordinary there.”

  “Well, at least it’s over with. You must feel relieved.”

  “I do,” Maggie agreed, though her voice still held a nervous edge. “You know how the police are. They never give you a real feeling of…closure. Not in a situation like this. But I’m glad I told him. I was worried someone had seen me and would report it. Then I would have really been stuck explaining.”

  That possibility had occurred to Lucy, too. “What does your attorney think?”

  “She thinks I did the right thing.”

  “You did,” Lucy assured her. “I’m sure Walsh knows you had nothing to do with it. Coming forward like this sort of proves that. I mean, you wouldn’t go to see him if you’d done it. That wouldn’t make sense.”

  “It depends on how you look at it. And how desperate the police are to find a suspect. So…what are you up to?” she asked, abruptly changing the subject.

  “Working on extremely boring brochures about health benefits. Which would be a no-brainer, if the copy stopped jumping around the design,” Lucy replied. “And I started a sock monkey hat last night. I got a confidential rush order for two of them.”

  “Sophie and Regina?” Maggie guessed. “Ellen’s going to love that.”

  “That’s what I’m hoping,” Lucy said mischievously. “I got the first one going pretty well, but I’m having some trouble shaping it. Could you take a look? I feel sort of obsessed and if I wait until the meeting tomorrow night, it might be a mess.”

  “I’m giving classes today, back to back. And Phoebe just left for school. Can you stop by later, after four?”

  “That would be fine. See you then.”

  Lucy knew she would have run into town if Maggie had been free, but it was just as well. She had to keep working on the pamphlets until the end of the day, or they’d never get done. The trip into town would be her reward. That and a stop at the grocery store. It didn’t really take much to keep her happy, did it?

  By the time the afternoon had passed, along with a few phone calls and e-mails with the copywriter on the project, Lucy had figured out an attractive solution to her problem, with an eye-catching two-color box and a few edits in the text. She still had to reduce some photos to fit the new design and change the typeface on the headings, but that would take no time at all. She considered the pamphlets basically finished and looked forward to sending in the revised files tomorrow, along with an invoice.

  When Lucy entered the Black Sheep a short time later, she found Maggie ringing up a sale. The customer, a man in his thirties, was buying a pile of olive green yarn along with a few skeins of gray and black. The distinctly masculine color choices suggested to Lucy that he was making a sweater for himself or some other guy.

  While growing up, she’d never met any men who knitted, though maybe they were doing it in secret. Judging from the traffic in the shop, there were a lot of men who knitted now. There was a wall full of photos in the shop, Maggie’s gallery of celebrity knitters, both men and women, a display that included such unquestionably manly types as Brad Pitt, all-star hockey goalie Jacques Plante, Laurence Fishburne, and Russell Crowe. There was some debate about the latter being a true knitter, but Maggie thought the photos of the macho movie star wielding needles and yarn was too much to resist.

  She’d read someplace that early knitters were mainly male. Needle crafts and textile arts were part of most every culture in every part of the world. But in Western Europe, around the twelfth century, knitting in its present form emerged as a fine needle craft, practiced exclusively by men who were master craftsmen, well paid for their products. And later, by all-male knitting guilds.

  But once knitting machines and later, knitting mills, came into the picture, hand knitting was no longer a lucrative or prestigious occupation. Knitting was taken over by women, especially those of the lower class, who often knitted out of necessity, to clothe their family.

  Women like Lucy’s mother, who struggled for equal treatment in the workplace and on the home front, looked down at domestic arts like sewing or knitting, and even cooking. But Lucy thought such views had leveled out these days. Men in her generation cooked and cleaned and were greatly involved in child care. Women pumped their own gas and unclogged drains. Nobody made a big deal about it.

  Lucy considered her knitting another means of self-expression, of creating beautiful useful things. It was even a way of communicating her affection and admiration to those she knitted for. She didn’t worry much about the gender issues.

  A few months ago, she’d been invited to a singles knitting night, sort of a speed dating with knitting needles. But at the last minute, she’d backed out. Knitting was her sacred space. She didn’t want to pollute that sanctuary with the low vibrations of a stressed-out crowd of desperately mingling singletons.

  Finally, Maggie’s transaction with the male knitter was complete. The satisfied customer gathered his bundles and left the store. Once the door was closed, Maggie cleared the counter of some extra skeins of green wool and sets of needles.

  “He had good taste,” Maggie said. “He bought a lot, too. Men are pretty easy customers. They don’t stint when they’re making a project.”

  “I noticed.”

  “Did you bring the hat?” Maggie walked over and sat down. “Let’s take a look. You did a swatch to check the gauge, right?”

  That question was the equivalent in Lucy’s mind of the dental hygienist asking if you flossed regularly.

  “No…but that’s probably not the entire problem.”

  Lucy pulled out the hat and her pattern while Maggie slipped on her reading glasses.

  Just as Maggie was turning the project inside out for a thorough examination, the phone rang. Maggie paused and listened to see who was calling.

  “Maggie? It’s Peter Goran. Good news. The police have let me back in the shop. I’m just calling to see if you’re still interested in seeing the stock here…”

  Maggie put the hat down, then headed over to the counter to pick up the call. “Let me get this. I’ll be right back.”

  Lucy sat back and studied the hat pattern, but couldn’t help overhearing the conversation.

  “Oh, I see…well, I guess that would work out,” Maggie told him. “I’ll close up here around five and I’ll come right over. Can you hold on a minute, please?”

  Maggie covered the mouthpiece of the phone with her hand and turned to Lucy. “He says he wants me to go over to the Nest tonight, to look at the stock. Want to come?”

  Maggie’s tone was eager, as if this promised to be a fun outing. Lucy doubted that, but didn’t need to be persuaded. She didn’t like the idea of Maggie going there alone and quickly nodded.

  Maggie turned back to the phone. “Okay, Peter. I’ll see you in a little while.”

  Lucy soon heard her say good-bye and hang up. She returned and sat down again. She picked up the hat, but Lucy could tell she was too distracted now to study it.

  “I would have rather gone over there tomorrow. But he’s really in a rush to move things along.”

  “Maybe he does have another buyer lined up. Or he just wants the money…or both,” Lucy added.