alibi— I heard he claimed to have been in his trailer alone. No way to prove it or disprove it.”
At that, she got in the car and pushed a button to open the iron gate across her driveway.
The fact that North was a legitimate suspect was swirling in my brain as I drove to the bookstore. But what could I do about it?
“Mrs. Shedd waved as I came through the bookstore. Mr. Royal was showing someone the gondola of hobby kits they’d just added to the store. Pretty soon we were going to have to change the name from Shedd & Royal Books and More to Shedd & Royal General Store. I automatically straightened the display. Someone had mixed up the boxes and I moved the origami sets off the stacks of the stamp and the coin collecting sets. Personally I was curious about the kit that promised you could make prints with sunlight.
I spent the morning working on our fall schedule of bookstore events while manning the information booth. When it was time for my lunch break, I headed back to the worktable in the yarn department, choosing crochet over food.
Adele was sitting at the table alone. She had a stack of cowls in front of her and was just finishing another to add to it. She had reluctantly switched to CeeCee’s faster pattern. Even if they didn’t sell, they would certainly make a pretty display at the Jungle Days Fair.
I sat down and pulled out the cowl I was making. Adele nodded with approval. “Are you still poking around in Kelly’s murder?” Adele said. I was debating what to say and Adele saw right through my silence. “I thought if I said I was giving up, you would, too. Eric is right. Us amateurs should really leave it to the professionals.” She stopped for a breath. “We were sort of partners on it. And if one partner quits, the other one should, too.”
“I don’t know where you heard that, but it doesn’t work that way, and we weren’t partners exactly. More like you were working on your own.” I let out a sigh and put down my work. “But you know, I think I’ve gone as far as I can go with this case. I kind of hit a wall.” Better to say that, than tell her what happened with the storage unit.
“Good move, Pink.”
Adele was being entirely too supportive. It didn’t take a building to fall on me to figure out why.
Call me contrary, but Adele’s attitude suddenly made me want to do something. “You know, I think I’ll give it another try. I’m going to talk to Dan again.” I got up from my chair and Adele glanced at me with panic in her eyes as I mentioned going to the dollar store. Before I’d gotten two steps away, I heard the scrape of her chair and she came rushing after me.
“I’m coming, too,” she said grabbing my arm. “I have some shopping to do.”
All the way there, she went on about Eric. First, she was saying he didn’t need to know where she’d gone. It morphed into she could just be shopping, and finally, she got down to the truth. She didn’t want anyone, including a boyfriend, telling her what she could and couldn’t do. Even though it was probably going to cause me problems, I told her I was glad she was standing up for herself.
More Bang for Your Buck was busy when we walked in. Adele was trying to tell me we should do good cop, bad cop, but she couldn’t decide which one she wanted to be. I just threaded my way through the shopping carts and found the office and Dan. I had learned from Barry that cops didn’t necessarily tell suspects the truth. Maybe it would work for me, too. I thought if I caught him off guard, he might crumple and confess.
“You know there are video cameras at the bookstore,” I jumped in, watching Dan as I spoke. “And we have you on tape taking those crochet pieces from the cabinet from the bookstore. My bosses are convinced you’re the ringleader of those shoplifting kids.” I let it sink in a little. “They are ready to press charges, but I think if you come clean me and tell me why you took those pieces, I might be able to get them to let the whole thing go. Were there more quarters in them?”