Till Death Do Us Purl (29 page)

“Yeah . . . right. Tell me another one.” Phoebe rolled her eyes.

“Of course, he followed her to the motel and caught sight of Jeremy there,” Dana continued. “He says he went back that night, intending to just talk to him. He claimed that he had no idea what Jeremy was up to. But it was already a crime to fake his death and he didn’t want to see Rebecca dragged
into something that would ruin her life, too.” Dana paused. “He was angry about that. I guess in some way, he felt he wanted to protect her. Or defend her. He said Jeremy didn’t deserve her or care about her. He was an egomaniac, and all he really cared about was his glue formula.”

“Well . . . he had a point there. Jeremy was obsessed with the glue formula at the end. That much is true,” Maggie agreed quietly.

“So? They fought over Rebecca and Stewart killed him?”

Dana squinted a bit. “He didn’t explain it exactly that way. Jeremy told Stewart that Rebecca was going to leave the country with him and he had to stay out of it. He offered to pay him for his silence. Which really put Stewart over the edge. They fought and Stewart claims Jeremy was trying to kill him, so he wouldn’t give him away. He claims he strangled Jeremy as self-defense.”

“He can say anything he likes now.” Lucy shrugged. Her afghan was coming along nicely, Maggie noticed. She liked this second yarn color better than the first, too.

“Well, not exactly. There’s forensic evidence that will support or refute certain aspects of Stewart’s story. Just the marks the scarf left on Jeremy’s neck for instance. They might show that Jeremy was strangled from behind. Which is rarely the case in a situation of self-defense.”

“That’s right, Dana. I never thought of that.” Maggie was eating her lunch, too—some lentil soup she’d brought from home. “So he must have tried to make it look like a break-in, or a robbery? The police said initially Jeremy’s cash and watch were missing and some other items. And the iPad, of course.”

“Yes, that’s what he did. When he realized Jeremy was
dead, he panicked. He took whatever valuables he saw around the room and messed it up a bit. Then he dashed out. That’s when the desk clerk saw him, mainly from behind.”

“Still in the wig and long coat? Gee, what a nut job.” Suzanne shook her head.

“Yes, I think he said the wig had fallen off, but he stuck it back on. Detective Reyes got a warrant last night and found the wig and coat at school. He returned them to the costume box. Stupidly,” Dana added. “Fibers from Jeremy’s scarf were found on the coat and Riding Hood’s velvet gloves. No surprise there, of course.”

“So this all would have worked out for him, actually, if he hadn’t chosen to disguise himself as a woman. Who the police then suspected was Rebecca. She was the last person he wanted the police to go after,” Maggie reasoned.

“Exactly. As the investigation began to focus on her, he got more and more rattled. Now he was going to lose her again and it would be his own fault. So he reasoned out the next best suspect in the situation and planted the iPad in Atkins’s garden shed,” Dana told them.

“Did he know Atkins had broken into Rebecca’s house and had all her stuff in the basement?” Suzanne asked.

Dana shook her head. “That was just blind luck. But the police thought they’d finally nabbed the killer. Atkins had plenty of motive. He also knew Jeremy was alive after the lab fire and where he was hiding.”

“No wonder Stewart was out celebrating in Margaritaville last night,” Suzanne replied.

“Celebrating too soon,
” Lucy added.

“He should have played the wolf instead of Riding Hood,” Phoebe observed.

“It’s all . . . well, such a tragedy, really.” Maggie shook her head. She kept thinking back to the night Rebecca had been in the shop, trying on her gown. How happy she and Jeremy had seemed together. Their whole lives ahead of them. It didn’t seem possible that it had all gone so wildly off the rails. With so many lives broken in the aftermath.

“Not for Lewis Atkins. I bet he’s a happy man today. I bet he’s out celebrating tonight,” Lucy predicted.

“He looks too classy to pick some blender drink joint with a DJ.” Suzanne glanced at Maggie. “So you were right about him after all, Maggie. He didn’t do it, just like you said.”

Maggie shrugged. “I had a hunch, that’s all.” But she was secretly pleased that hunch had proven to be true.

“So Jeremy wasn’t murdered over the glue formula,” Lucy said. “That’s what we all expected. That’s what we were all looking for. That’s why we didn’t see what Maggie saw. It wasn’t about the glue after all.”

“In fact, it seems as if there is no formula. Despite what Atkins says. Nothing was found on the recovered iPad, or any of the belongings stolen from Rebecca and Jeremy’s apartment. The Lassiters haven’t been able to come up with it, either, and they have the most resources and information. You might say the quest for that formula ruined that entire company. Now that Claudia and her father are facing trial, the entire place has been shut down,” Dana pointed out.

With all the focus on figuring out Jeremy’s killer, Maggie had lost track of the scandal
at At-Las. But it sounded as if it was proceeding just as she expected.

“If there ever was a formula, it looks like the secret was lost with Jeremy,” Dana concluded.

Maggie nodded. “That might be true. Unless Lewis Atkins can figure it out someday. It seems to be his grand obsession.”

“He’s got the rest of his life to work on it,” Lucy said. “Maybe we’ll read in the newspaper one day that he finally solved the puzzle.”

“Maybe we will. The newspaper prints good news, too, sometimes. Doesn’t it?” Maggie asked her friends.

Of course, that question required no answer.

Maggie heard from Lewis Atkins much sooner than she’d expected. He appeared in the doorway of the shop later that day. Once again, just before she was about to close up.

“Lewis . . . what are you doing here?” She stared at him, unable to hide her surprise.

“I came to thank you, of course. I heard how you helped the investigation and got me off the hook, Maggie. You should be very proud . . . and I am truly grateful.”

“I’m just glad to see the right person arrested. But I am glad I helped you,” she admitted.

“You did. In two ways, in fact. While I was stuck in jail, staring at the blank walls, having nothing to think about but how I might be stuck in there for the rest of my life, the police kept asking if I’d strangled Jeremy. They kept showing me the picture of him. With that . . . that scarf Rebecca made for him, all around his neck.”

He gestured with hands around his own neck. She could
tell it was very difficult for him to describe this. But he needed to, for some reason.

He took a breath. “Then they’d put me back in the cell, to think some more. You know, trying to force a confession out of me.” He paused and looked at her. “And it came to me. Where Jeremy recorded the formula. It was just like . . . a bolt from the blue . . . from all the colors in the rainbow. That boy, he had some amazing mind.”

Lewis looked down and shook his head. Maggie thought for a moment he might start crying. But finally he looked up at her and smiled again.

Then it hit her, too. “The formula was in the scarf Rebecca made him,” she said quietly.

Lewis nodded, his head bouncing like a bobble-head doll.

“That’s right. Every time he took a step forward in his research, he’d ask her to make a scarf. The colors were all coded, for different chemical chains . . . well, it’s hard to explain if you don’t know a lot about chemistry. But that last scarf he had on, the one he wore everywhere. It wasn’t just because he loved Rebecca so much. That was the one that holds the complete, final formula. I got the police to show me the picture of it one more time, just to make sure. I memorized the color sequence and wrote it down. It wasn’t too hard to crack Jeremy’s code because I already know most of the formula. It all works out. Perfectly.”

He blinked at her, his small brown eyes bright and sharp under his shaggy eyebrows.

“Lewis . . . I’m so happy for you.” If anyone deserved the dubious honor of carrying on the glue legacy,
it was Lewis Atkins. No question.

“What next? Will you apply for the patent now?”

“Well . . . I’m not sure. I have to think it over. The scarf actually belongs to Jeremy’s widow, Rebecca. To me, that means she owns the formula. Technically. Though the police will hold the scarf as evidence,” he added. “She still has the pattern Jeremy wrote down for her. But it’s unlikely she would have ever understood its significance without me. I’ve already told her what I discovered. We’ll work it out I suppose.”

“I’m sure you will.” Maggie was impressed. The race to figure out the formula seemed so intense, even cutthroat. But it wasn’t really about the profits, was it? Not for Lewis. For him, it was mainly about the intellectual challenge.

“That sounds fair,” she added.

“I try to be.” He cleared his throat and adjusted his bow tie. “Solving the puzzle, that’s the main thing for me. I don’t know what I’ll do with myself, now that I figured this one out.”

“I have a feeling you’ll think of something. Maybe you should take up knitting,” she said jokingly.

He stared around at the array of yarns and supplies. “Maybe I should. Then I can disguise all my secret formulas,” he quipped.

I
like the guitars, Lucy. Nice touch.” Dana glanced around
the living room, taking in the new decor. Lucy couldn’t tell if she was teasing or not.

“It was either in here or the bedroom. But the guitars were a deal breaker.” Lucy gazed up at the collection that hung over the fireplace, still wondering if they looked as bizarre as she’d first thought. “I’m actually used to them by now. Which really scares me.”

“You have to compromise when you live with someone. No question,” Dana reminded her.

“How true,” Suzanne agreed. She was already sitting on the couch and took out her knitting. “And once things calm down a little, you can quietly move them into another room . . . and then out to a garage sale.”

Dana gave Suzanne a look, but Lucy laughed. She wasn’t sure that would ever be true. But the advice gave her hope.

Phoebe was appalled. “A garage sale? Are you crazy? Those babies are classics. They’re really worth something.
”

“Matt seems to think so,” Lucy said.

“Yeah, I’m sure he does,” Suzanne rolled her eyes. “Whoops—I hope he isn’t hiding out in the next room or something. He’s going to think we’re terrible.” Suzanne looked suddenly self-conscious. A rare state indeed, Lucy realized.

“All clear. He’s meeting a friend for some racquetball and dinner,” Lucy said.

It was Thursday night and Lucy’s turn to host their weekly meeting. There were still piles of unpacked boxes around, but she didn’t want to put her friends off forever. She’d never told Matt he had to vacate. It had been his idea entirely, but probably a good one—at least for this first time, when her friends were critiquing their combined decor with such enthusiasm . . . and volume.

There was a quick knock on the front door and Tink jumped up to investigate. She didn’t bark at all when Maggie walked in. Just sniffed her leg, looking for a pat.

“Sorry I’m late, everyone. I got held up at the shop.” Maggie brushed aside the dog with one hand and handed Lucy a foil-covered dish with the other.

“What this? You didn’t have to make dessert. It’s Phoebe’s turn.”

“They’re oatmeal cookies. Rebecca just dropped them off at the shop.” Maggie put her coat on the rack near the front door and joined the others, carrying her knitting tote.

“You just saw Rebecca? How is she?” Dana put her knitting aside and slipped off her glasses.

“She’d doing all right. All things considered.
She’s decided to take a few months off. She didn’t want to go back to the same school where she’d worked with Stewart.”

“Understandably. But didn’t she have tenure there? That’s hard to give up,” Suzanne said.

“She’s inherited so much money, her job security doesn’t matter anymore. She’s still committed to teaching and wants to continue in some shape or form. She might go out west to a reservation. Or to Central America and do service work someplace where teachers are really needed.”

“Wow . . . now I know that girl is special. If I ever inherited a pile of loot, the last place you’d find me is in some muddy village in the middle of nowhere. I mean, that’s what a checkbook is for. Sending donations.”

Lucy had to laugh at Suzanne’s honest, unedited reactions.

“Won’t she be called to testify at Stewart’s trial?” Dana asked.

“She told me she probably would be called, if there is a trial. Stewart can still decide to plead guilty and forgo a trial. His lawyer is working on a mental health angle,” Maggie added.

“Oh, he like
totally
qualifies for that one.” Phoebe gave a little fake shiver for effect. “Stalking Rebecca and dressing up in drag to kill her husband. How crazy can you get?”

“Actually, a lot crazier,” Dana said knowingly. “If he has no other history of mental health issues, that evidence might not convince a jury. He might be smarter to work out a plea deal with the prosecutor. How would Rebecca feel about that, knowing he killed Jeremy and might get a reduced a sentence?”