So I headed out to the hardware store down the street and picked out a soft, creamy beige that would have looked dull in any other room. But when Tom put it on the wall it gave the place a nice crisp pop. Hopefully Eleanor would agree.
Then I headed over to the police station to see Jesse.
'Want to have lunch?' I asked.
'Sure,' he said, pushing aside a pile of papers on his desk. 'What's under your arm?'
'Invitations.'
He eyed the box. 'To what? The reopening of the shop?'
'No,' I said, then wished I'd lied. 'Ryan asked me to address them and put them in the mail.'
Jesse sat back. 'Wedding invitations. I guess you figured out what you wanted.'
'I guess. He is a good guy. And sometimes it's better to fix something than to just throw it away.'
'Absolutely.' The flat cop tone was in his voice.
'I have something for you,' I said, and reached into the box, pulling out an envelope. 'It's for you, and a guest, if you want to bring somebody.'
'Thank you,' he said, eyeing the invitation as if it were a piece of evidence. 'I'd be very honored.' He dropped it on his desk.
'There's a catch.'
'Solve Marc's murder first?' He smiled. 'I might be able to do that.' He dumped a plastic bag on his desk. 'What do you see?'
There wasn't much to see. A wallet, a car key, a handful of change. 'What are you showing me?'
'It's what I'm not showing you.'
'Are you the riddler now? Because we could be here all day if I have to list all the things you're not showing me.'
'When we were at Marc's apartment, we found that key to your grandmother's house. At first we thought it might be his apartment key, but you said that he probably would have had that with him.'
I looked at the items again. 'He didn't, though.' I looked up at Jesse. 'And if he didn't…'
'Somebody else does.' Jesse leaned back in his chair. 'But who that is…'
'Carrie.'
'Carrie? Why would…?'
'I saw her the day after the murder with the same key chain that Marc had. She said it was the key to her husband's office.'
'You are sure it was the same key?'
'I am absolutely certain.' I looked at the pile of Marc's things on Jesse's desk. Was it the same key? 'I'm positive,' I said. 'I think.'
Jesse smiled. 'As long as you're sure.'
'We should talk to Carrie.'
He nodded. 'I think I can handle that on my own. Give me about a half an hour and I'll be ready for lunch. Is that okay?'
'Perfect,' I said. I dropped the box of invitations on Jesse's desk and left his office.
'I barely knew him,' Carrie said. I was standing at the front door of her sprawling two-story home. It was getting a little cold outside, but she wasn't letting us in.
'When we first met you said Marc was really talented.' I stepped into the hall as Carrie unhappily moved back to make room. 'You practically gushed.'
'I did no such thing. I thought he was a talented carpenter. So, obviously, did Eleanor since she hired him to redo the shop. And what business is it of yours anyway?'
It wasn't, of course. 'Do you have a key to your husband's office? ' I asked.
'Of course I have a key.'
'Can I see it?'
Carrie stared at me for several seconds, then walked away. I stood in the hallway, listening to the sounds of some children's movie playing in the family room. When she came back she handed me a small set of keys on a gold chain.
'That's not it,' I said.
'Of course it is. These are the keys to my husband's office. You can drive over there yourself and try them.'
I put them in my pocket, ignoring Carrie's surprised expression. 'I'll do that, thanks for your help.' Then I moved outside.
'Are we still expected to bring our blocks for the quilt on Friday? ' Carrie said, in a slightly higher pitch than normal.
'I think so,' I said.
'I guess I'll see you then.' She closed the door.
Carrie's husband, a pediatrician in a larger town near Archers Rest, was with a patient when we arrived. He stepped out only long enough to say that his wife had called and explained why I was there.
'You can leave the keys with me when you're finished,' he said. He was, it seemed, close to fifty, with softly graying hair and warm hazel eyes. He was friendly and open and asked about Jesse's daughter, who was also a patient. He even offered his own keys for us to try, saying that he often took Carrie's set when he couldn't easily find his own. 'Here you go,' he said as he took them from his pocket. 'They might be the ones you saw.'
It was a set of keys on a leather chain, but it was a larger set than I remembered and the leather was brown, not black. 'I don't think that's the same set,' I said to myself. But my half hour was up and I knew Jesse would be wondering where I was, so I headed back to his office.
Jesse took me to a Chinese restaurant in the next town over and we shared plates of beef with broccoli and kung pao chicken. I felt he was studying me the entire time and it made me incredibly self-conscious, especially since I couldn't figure out why.
'How's Ryan?'
'Fine. He's getting a cold.'
'You must miss him.'
'How long were you married?' I don't know why I changed the subject, but I'd been curious and if Ryan was fair game then so was Jesse's wife.
'Just over five years.'
'When did she get sick?'
'She had cancer before I met her. She thought it was all in the past, but just after Allie was born Liz got sick again. She died almost two years ago.'
'That must have been hard. Not just losing your wife but suddenly being a single parent.'
'I have a lot of help.'
'But don't you miss being with someone?'
'Sometimes. But you can't get into a new relationship until you're over the things that happened in the old one.'
'My grandmother says the two of you had the kind of love even she envied.'
He stared out the window for what seemed like several minutes. Finally he leaned back in his seat. 'So they weren't the right keys.'
I nearly choked on a piece of beef. 'What?'
'I called Carrie to ask her about the keys and she told me you had stopped by for a visit.'
I couldn't tell if he was angry or amused, and there was no point in denying it, so I told him about my frustrating visit to Carrie and then her husband.
'You might be wrong about the color of the leather. Witnesses often get small details wrong,' he said. 'At the time the keys weren't important, so why would you remember?'
'I had seen Marc's keys,' I argued. 'If they're not with Carrie and they're not with his stuff at the apartment or in the evidence bag, where are they?'
Jesse stared at me for a while, then said quietly, 'The shop.'
After lunch Jesse dropped me at the shop, and while he was there he searched outside, just in case. Then we
