Thin Ice Page 19

  “I agree. Pictures in the mind are wonderful things. How did you become blind?” Since we weren’t being polite or anything.

  “Detached retinas. It happened during the winter and we were in the bush at the time. We couldn’t get to a doctor.”

  I swallowed hard the pity that found its way into my chest. She spoke of the tragedy with such an accepting tone. She didn’t want pity.

  “It looks like you’ve made the best of it,” I said.

  Janell shrugged. “Nothing else to do.”

  “True.”

  “Are you ready to learn to knit?” Serena said.

  “Yes.” I wasn’t, didn’t really want to, but I needed to ask everyone more questions, and I couldn’t just walk around casting on all night.

  After I endured—and then a few rows into it, surprisingly enjoyed—learning the knit and purl stitches, I thought it would be less jarring to jump into the real questions. There had been no class end time mentioned, and I thought that it just went on until everyone was done or wanted to go home. I figured I might have about an hour left when I got to the real questions.

  “What do you all think about Linda Rafferty?” I asked as casually as possible.

  “Well, I already told you, she didn’t kill herself. Couldn’t have,” Serena said. “She had plans.”

  “Right. The baby blanket. Does anyone know who the baby belonged to?” I asked.

  Serena and Larrie shook their heads.

  “I don’t know exactly,” Janell said, “but it was for someone in Detroit, Michigan.”

  Serena, Larrie, and I turned our attention to the girl, and those alarm bells rang noisily in my head. Hadn’t the Detroit Tigers recently come to my mind?

  “How do you know that?” Serena said.

  Janell smiled. “I listen.”

  Larrie finally spoke to me. “As you might imagine, she listens to everything. She credits her blindness for giving her the gift of hearing things the rest of us miss.”

  “That makes sense,” I said.

  Larrie sent me a raised eyebrow. “Yes, but Janell is particularly afflicted with it.”

  Janell laughed. “What my mom is saying is that I am too nosey for my own good.”

  “You never know when your nosey might help someone,” I said.

  “Or get you hurt,” Larrie added.

  “Oh, Mom, I’m careful, you know that,” Janell said.

  She was a kid. Kids were never as careful as they should be, even if they were considered careful people. That probably still applied to a kid who couldn’t see.

  “What did you hear?” I asked.

  “Oh,” Janell said. “Everyone heard it, well, could have heard it, everyone except Serena. She wasn’t feeling well so she didn’t show up that night. We didn’t get any calls to cancel so the rest of us showed up.”

  “That’s right,” Serena said. “That’s why she came to my house. I missed class and she wanted me to see the pattern and get the yarn. That actually makes sense. I should have remembered to tell Gril that part.”

  Janell continued. “We were sitting around in a group together. All of us.” She nodded toward where the men were sitting. “Lyman and Randall were sitting with us too, but we were just sharing patterns; we do that sometimes. We sit in a circle and talk about what we want to make, we show each other. Linda pulled out the baby blanket pattern. I was sitting right next to her. Since I couldn’t see the picture, after she showed it around, she leaned toward me and tried to describe it. Everyone else kind of ignored us, had moved on to someone else’s pattern, but she was talking to me specifically. After she told me about the stitches and the pattern, I asked what baby it was for. She said that her niece was having the baby so it would be a blanket for her grandniece—back in Detroit.”

  “Detroit?” I said. “Michigan?”

  “I don’t know of any others. It wasn’t even something I thought much about, and I didn’t ask for the state. I just told her it sounded beautiful.”

  I looked at Larrie.

  “I didn’t hear anything,” Larrie said.

  “She didn’t tell me and I’m pretty sure I asked what baby she was talking about when she came over,” Serena said with a shrug before her attention went back to her project.

  “Hey, roomie,” Loretta said as she pulled a chair next to me. “Are you guys talking about Linda Rafferty?”

  “We are,” I said. “Why?”

  “It’s so darn sad.”

  “She sounds like she was a nice person,” I said, though I was wary. My lack of trust for the parolees had only grown.

  “It’s extra sad when someone kills themselves,” Loretta said.

  I caught Serena’s side-eye toward Loretta, but she didn’t say anything. She’d mentioned that she didn’t go out of her way to invite the parolees to the knitting classes, but Loretta seemed pretty comfortable. I wondered how many classes she’d attended.

  “She didn’t kill herself, Loretta,” Benny said, still sitting in her chair. She stood and stuck her bag of yarn under her arm and walked over to join us.

  I noticed the guys were curious enough about the gathering to look over, but they remained where they were.

  “Linda Rafferty didn’t kill herself,” Benny said again as she nudged a chair with her foot to join us.

  “Who killed her, then?” Loretta asked.

  Benny shrugged. “Who knows. None of us knows everything about everyone around here. We all know that many of us have secrets. We always have to be alert and careful, no matter what.”

  Larrie, now fully engaged, leaned over to talk to me specifically. “We find the people we trust, and we trust them fast. Have to. This place can be brutal.”

  This was becoming a common refrain. I nodded.

  “But some people plain don’t want to trust or be trusted. They hide away, live on their own, don’t want help from anyone. That doesn’t make them automatically bad or killers or anything, but you just never know,” Larrie said.

  “Hell, you never know even if you know someone. Everybody hides things,” Benny said.

  “Speaking of,” Serena said to Loretta. “I just remembered this. I thought I saw your friend in a little tiff with Linda outside the Mercantile the other day.”

  “Who’s my friend?”

  “That other criminal. The scrawny one with the short hair.”

  “Willa?”

  “Yeah, that’s the one,” Serena said. “I don’t know about her.”

  “Oh, she’s all right,” Loretta said unconvincingly. “You know, I noticed that Willa and Linda Rafferty seemed to hang out a little, like they knew each other or something. I didn’t think about it much, because mind your own business and everything but, yeah, it was kind of weird. What were they arguing about?”

  “I don’t know. They were quiet, but you know how you can tell when even whispers are mad whispers? You know what I mean?” Serena said. “I can’t believe I didn’t remember it until right now.”

  Loretta nodded.

  “Hang on. I thought the argument was between Trinity and Linda—about Linda’s wallet,” I interjected.

  “No, for sure I saw Linda and Willa—the one with short hair—arguing,” Serena said. “I didn’t think much about it, but I didn’t hear any words about a wallet. I know Gril said it was suicide, but I’d better tell him.”

  Every pair of eyes looked at Serena. It felt like the story wasn’t over, but she didn’t continue.

  The two men finally stood and came over to join the rest of us. They moved like big, burly men, even with their needles and yarn in tow.

  Lyman, the bigger of the two, spoke up. “Hey, we’ve been listening and we both saw something. We didn’t think anything of it, but now we wonder.”

  “What did you see?” Benny asked.

  “We saw Willa”—he looked at Randall, who nodded—“come out of the Benedict House. She hurried over to that big garbage can in front of the Mercantile. She threw something away. Don’t think she even saw
us see her and she didn’t act suspicious or anything. We just thought she was throwing away some trash. Probably was,” he laughed once, “but Randall and I actually joked about it being a gun or something. It might not be important, but maybe we should have told Gril, just in case.”

  “Did it look like a gun?” I asked.

  What would it mean if it were a gun anyway? The weapon that had killed Linda had been with her. However, a parolee having a gun in itself was not a good thing, no matter what.

  “No, it didn’t look like anything,” Randall said. “But it was about that size, it was in a black bag or something. She pulled it out of the bag she had over her shoulder and put it into the garbage can.”

  Lyman shouldn’t have said the word “gun,” but he had. Our collective curiosity was set in motion, and there was no stopping it.

  “Let’s go look,” Loretta said.

  That wasn’t the right thing to do, I wanted to say. I wanted someone to say it.

  “No!” Benny interjected a beat later. “You know what, everybody, sit tight. I’m going to run into town and call Gril.”

  I relaxed in relief.

  Twenty-Four

  The evening was illuminated by three trucks and Gril’s flashlight, though it wasn’t as dark as the middle of the night.

  “For Pete’s sake, everybody from the knitting group, go home,” Gril said as he stood next to Donner and faced us.

  We were lined up along the rough concrete walkway. As he faced us, his figure became lost in the flashlight’s white glow.

  None of us moved.

  The members of the knitting class had all come downtown, and we’d been joined by Viola, Trinity, and Willa, though Willa had been the only one given a chair, and an admonition from Gril to “sit there.”

  My truck’s lights were part of the illumination. It was barely after 9:30 P.M. and had only just gotten dark. In fact, a thin layer of light still glowed up from the western horizon. If it weren’t for the nature of the gathering, it might have been a beautiful sight to behold.

  “All right,” Gril grumbled when none of us moved. “Stay out of my way, then.”

  It was cold, almost freezing, I thought, but I didn’t take the time to check the temperature. I was glad for my gear as the cold bit at my nose.

  “What the hell,” Viola said quietly as she sidled up next to me. “Someone saw Willa throw something away and now she’s been sat down in the corner, like a bad girl?”

  This was the first time I witnessed that compassionate side of her, and she reminded me of Gramps. She might be in charge of the parolees, but she was on their side too, when necessary. I wouldn’t have guessed she had it in her.

  “I don’t think Gril’s ready to find her guilty of anything. He has to check things out,” I said just as quietly.

  “She said she didn’t remember throwing anything away,” Viola said.

  “Do you believe her?”

  Viola hesitated. “No, but I still don’t want her getting in trouble for something she didn’t do. What’s the deal with throwing around the idea it was a gun?”

  “From what Lyman and Randall said, she purposefully walked out of the Benedict House and threw something away, that it only might have looked like something the size of a gun. I agree, though, jumping to conclusions is bad. We’ll see.”

  “Hmm. Good guys, but I’m not sure. Lots of people automatically don’t like my girls.”

  “Do you like her? I mean, I know it’s your job to … well, do you like some of the women?”

  “Rarely. And, I don’t know if I like Willa or not. She’s a tough one to get to know. Some of these girls talk to me. Not Willa. In fact…”

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” Viola said.

  I remained silent, hoping she’d want to get whatever was bothering her off her chest. I gave her a good long minute, but she didn’t continue.

  “You don’t think that garbage can has been emptied, do you?” I said.

  “I know it hasn’t. It’s only picked up once a week. Pickup is later tomorrow. The timing is good.”

  My eyes angled toward Lyman, who stood at the end of the group. I wondered if one of the big guys who liked to knit set something up to make Willa look guilty of something. Gril was smart enough to wonder that too. As I looked at Lyman though, he didn’t seem anything but wide-eyed curious, like the rest of us.

  I’d wished for a chance to tell Gril that the baby Linda was knitting for was in Detroit, but a good moment didn’t present itself.

  Since the light was no longer in our eyes, we could better see what Gril was doing. It had been quite a production to find some gloves. Ultimately, pairs from the Mercantile were procured. With gloved hands, Gril and Donner sifted through the garbage can contents, taking things out and placing them on the ground. Beer cans, food wrappers, typical stuff.

  My eyes moved to Willa. She sat quietly with her head down.

  I returned my attention to Gril and Donner. Gril pulled out a small black bag. A collective gasp moved over the gathering, but Viola remained silent and still next to me. She watched, but might not have been breathing for her focused concentration. Gril and Donner looked at each other and then carefully opened the bag.

  It was too shadowed to clearly see the looks on their faces, but their body language screamed surprise mixed with disappointment.

  “What is it?” Viola said, firmly and loudly.

  Gril and Donner looked at each other but didn’t respond. Viola pushed her way around Benny and walked toward the officers. Her hand rested on the gun in the holster on her hip.

  Gril reached inside the bag and then pulled something out. I couldn’t quite tell what it was, but I didn’t think it was a gun, or any sort of weapon. It seemed pliable.

  Because Viola had a big voice, we could all hear her say, “Whose is it?”

  Gril unfolded what I could now see was a wallet. I took a step toward them, but then remembered his command and stepped back. It had to be Linda Rafferty’s. Who else’s could it be? But hadn’t I just been thinking that no one should jump to conclusions?

  Gril talked to Viola and Donner and then re-deposited the wallet back into the black bag. Donner made a beeline for Willa.

  “You need to come with me,” Donner said to her as he lifted her up by her arm. She didn’t struggle. She nodded but didn’t look at him.

  Someone made a noise beside me, a squeak. I turned to see Trinity, her thin fingers worrying together up around her mouth.

  “What?” I said. “Do you know what’s going on?”

  “No!”

  “If you know anything, now would be the time to tell the police,” I said.

  She sent me a withering look and then walked away. It was in that small moment that I suspected she was faking the diminutive act. Of course, she was, I thought to myself. She is a criminal. She wouldn’t be here if she wasn’t good at faking some things, and then failing at it. I watched her walk into the Benedict House. She didn’t look back once.

  I shook my head. I was trying too hard, looking too suspiciously at everything.

  As Donner put Willa into his truck, Gril pulled out his cell phone, and Viola started walking toward me.

  “I want you to meet me in my office in five minutes,” Viola said to me.

  ”Yes ma’am,” I said as I watched her walk inside the Benedict House.

  * * *

  “I don’t know what’s going on here, but you might want to find another place to stay. I can help.” Viola had taken off the holster and placed it on her desk. The mess I’d seen a few days ago was now cleared away and there was only her phone and an old lamp on the desk with the gun. The lamp’s base was a cracked globe, and its small shade leaned to the left. I hadn’t noticed it before.

  “Are you kicking me out?”

  Her mouth pinched as she thought a moment. “No, I don’t think so, not yet, but I might have to.”

  I nodded. “Whose wallet was it?” But I knew the answer.


  “Linda Rafferty’s.”

  “And Willa threw it away there?”

  Viola shrugged and sat in her chair. Defeat flitted over her face, but only momentarily. “I think that’s what Gril will try to determine. Again, Beth, I don’t know what’s going on, but it could be something worse than bad pickpocket behavior.”

  “Or that’s all it was. Someone stole Linda’s wallet and then tried to get rid of their crime so they wouldn’t get caught when Linda died.”

  Viola squinted and ran her tongue under her cheek. “Who are you?”

  “At one time, I was a secretary in a police department,” I admitted and shrugged. “I guess I’ve seen a few things.”

  “Okay.” As suspicion left her face, I decided I’d done the right thing by offering her that small truth. “Well, you might be correct, but things are uncertain at best, and you can probably understand my concerns.”

  “I do, but I think I’m okay. I like it here. That bed is comfortable.” Also, I didn’t want to move in with the Harvingtons, though they were nice men. I didn’t want to move in with anybody. I’d discovered some joy in having a small space to myself, a door with a lock and a chair to put under the knob. I didn’t have to take care of a yard, and I didn’t have any spaces that would serve as hiding places. I felt safe and secure at the Benedict House.

  “Right,” Viola said distractedly.

  “Trinity was acting weird out there.”

  “How so?”

  I told her about the brief exchange out front.

  “I’ll look into it.”

  I sat still. She clearly had more on her mind. If I played my cards right, she’d keep talking. I didn’t really know which cards to play, but silence sometimes prompted the right deal. I clamped my teeth tight.

  “I think Willa and Linda Rafferty knew each other, before Benedict, I mean,” she finally said.

  “How? What makes you think so?”

  “I’ve been wondering about an exchange I saw between them two days before Linda died. They were walking toward the Mercantile, shoulder to shoulder. Their heads were down and they looked to be talking. I thought there might be tears, on Linda’s part. They stopped outside of the Mercantile and hugged.”