Maris glanced toward the back. “Is Bear working today?”
“I don’t think so,” Cookie said. She poured the hot water into the two waiting china cups. “Why do you ask?” She brought the cups over and took a seat as well.
Maris accepted one of the cups. “Thank you. That smells wonderful.” She inhaled the wonderful aroma of chamomile deeply. “I’ve got an errand in town and thought I’d pick up lunch from Flour Power.”
Cookie smiled, wrapping her hands around the cup. “I’m sure he’ll be sorry to miss that.” She took a sip of her tea and set it back on the block. “But one of Fab’s sandwiches sounds, well, fab.”
Maris sipped her tea as well. It had just the right amount of Bear’s honey. She smiled at the diminutive chef. “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”
“What are you doing in town?”
Maris set her cup down. “I’ll be catching a thief.”
Sitting in the circle with the others, Maris took the potholder from her canvas bag. The other ladies all peered at it for a moment, before returning to their own work.
“Another potholder?” Zarina asked, leaning forward. Her huge glasses were a vibrant purple today, matching the floral head scarf.
Maris flushed a little. “No. Same one.”
“Ah,” said the plump woman, settling back with a little smile.
“You know,” Eunice said, putting her crochet project in her lap, “if you worked on that at home too, you might actually finish it.”
“Now, now, Eunice,” Millicent said smoothly. “We’re not all as blazingly fast as you, you know.”
Maris only smiled at the the older woman with the too red hair. “I’ve been a bit busy.”
“Oh heavens,” said Helen, as she continued work on her doily. “Haven’t we all been? But the festival was another great success.”
“Better every year,” Vera agreed. She moved her glasses up her nose a bit to look out the front window. “I don’t know how the plaza could have held any more people.”
“I wasn’t busy with the festival,” Maris said to no one in particular. “Or the B&B. No, I was busy figuring out who stole all the missing items.”
As one, everyone stopped crocheting, and yet no one lifted their gaze. Maris suppressed a knowing smile as she recalled how quickly Millicent and Eunice had implicated the journalist, and also Claribel’s remote vision of the president of the club.
It was Millicent who finally broke the awkward silence. “And have you?” she asked, her tone almost bored.
Maris let the potholder rest in her lap. “It was you,” she replied. She let her glance take in the entire circle. “All of you.”
Eventually everyone’s work slowly lowered and their gazes went to Millicent, who then calmly looked at Maris. “Well, I suppose there’s really no point in denying it.”
“No,” Maris said. “There isn’t. But what I don’t know is why?”
A flurry of looks were exchanged, but Maris simply waited. Millicent nodded to Helen, who cleared her throat.
“As an earth elemental,” she said, “I was in charge of taking Howard’s crystal ball.” She snapped her fingers. “Easiest thing in the world to get it.”
Maris’s eyebrows arched at the revelation. For a moment, she could only sit, stunned. She’d run into Helen outside the market that day before the festival. But as she thought of that morning, and poor Howard when he’d found his crystal ball was gone, she said, “Will he be getting it back?”
Helen shook her head, smiling. “You’ll let him know he needs a new one?”
Maris frowned at the incongruous smile. “Sure.”
The elderly woman waved a hand at her. “Oh it was cracked anyway. He’d do better with a new one.”
“I’m a gravity elemental,” Zarina said. “Did you know?” When Maris shook her head, she said, “I took the fishing weights from Ryan Quigg’s shop.”
“Okay,” Maris said quietly, feeling a bit bewildered.
“Air elemental,” Vera said, holding up her hand as though she was swearing an oath. “Aurora will discover that she’s missing some wind chimes.”
Maris looked at Eunice, who actually smiled for a change. “I’m a fire elemental,” the older woman said. “I took some gasoline from Flour Power. The honey from Bear was just a bonus.”
“But we like him,” Millicent added, “so we decided to keep it.”
“You like him,” Maris echoed, trying to puzzle it out. “And that’s why you’ll keep it.” She frowned a little as the ladies all grinned at her. If they liked someone, they stole from them? Then she recalled the credit card machine.
“And Eugene?”
Millicent chuckled a little. “Oh, that was all him. We didn’t take his credit card machine. He misplaced it. Delia found it at their booth in the plaza. We took one of their menus.”
“So that means you like Eugene?” Maris asked.
“And his daughter,” Vera declared. “Goodness, what a cook!”
Maris regarded Eunice. “And your phone that went missing?”
The thin woman shrugged. “That was a lie. No one took it.”
Maris’s mouth dropped open a little. They’d lied to her?
“If anyone was going to figure it out,” Millicent said, “we knew it’d be you.” Heads bobbed all around the circle. “A little misdirection was in order.”
“Right,” Maris said quietly. “Right.”
She’d already figured out the missing blues album. Watching a musician who needed to protect his hands, but who had then worked on his car’s engine, hadn’t made sense. Nor did his bling match the way he’d wolfed down the lunch that Mac had bought, or the way that the wine and cheese was clearly dinner. He’d taken the album, likely for its value, but had then returned it.
“We got a little behind this year,” Millicent said. “So we decided to use the festival as cover. It only made sense that, with the town swamped with tourists, that the thefts could be attributed to them.”
Maris gazed at the faces all around her. “Got behind on what? On stealing?” She paused and thought for a moment. “And why are you all stealing these things in the first place?” It felt as though she’d wandered into
