Knit Your Own Murder by Monica Ferris Read Free Book Online Page A

ago? Or longer?”
    â€œBefore Harry Whiteside was murdered? Or after?”
    Emily thought some more. “Before. I’m sure it was before.”
    â€œMaybe it was around the time he found out that Maddywon the bidding war for that property on Water Street,” suggested Godwin.
    â€œI hope so,” said Betsy. “Much better that he was sad, not angry.”
    There was a thoughtful silence.

Chapter Eleven

    â€œW ell, well, well,” murmured Detective Sergeant Mike Malloy, looking over a photocopy of a single document laid in the center of his small desk in a back room of the Excelsior Police Department. He spoke to himself—the desk pushed up against his was unoccupied. Elton Marsh, the second investigator in the department, was taking a day off to attend a school concert his youngest daughter had a solo part in.
    The document was a record of the sale of three e-cigarette stores to one Joseph Alan Mickels on receipt of “one dollar and other good and valuable considerations.” Malloy had run across that phrasing before; it virtually always meant more money.
    Malloy wasn’t interested in how much more money; he was interested in the fact of the e-cigarettes. His fellow investigator was a smoker, and it had taken an order from the chief to get him to take a smoker’s break outside thebuilding. The problem now was, he was a heavy smoker and was frequently gone during the working day for five to ten minutes at a time. In Malloy’s never humble opinion, he had just about gone from full-time to part-time employment and ought to be given a commensurate cut in pay.
    Apparently the chief thought so, too, because the instant e-cigarettes appeared on the market, Elton had been persuaded to transfer his addiction to them and began smoking at his desk again. He and Malloy exchanged research on them, and Malloy was forced to admit that e-cigarettes were not a source of the tar that instigated lung cancer, and that what a “vaper” exhaled was merely scented water vapor.
    â€œThat’s why we call it ‘vaping,’” Elton had said smugly.
    The only concession Malloy had managed to get from Elton was a switch from scented nicotine to the unscented variety. Filling the office with the smell of wintergreen or oranges was distracting and unprofessional, in Malloy’s never,
ever
humble opinion.
    Maddy O’Leary had been killed by nicotine. It had been absorbed through the skin on the palms and fingers of her hands—shocking to learn that nicotine could be absorbed through the skin. It could be absorbed quickly, too, judging by the way Connor Sullivan had gotten so doggone sick just from handling the yarn while helping clean up after the auction.
    Nicotine is never a natural ingredient in yarn. So someone put it there. Who? And when? And why?
    When investigating crimes against a person, Malloy knew you began with the victim. Why would someone have wanted Maddy O’Leary dead? She was a wealthy businesswoman, somewhere in her fifties—accounts differed as toher age. She was tall, five seven and a half, gray haired, with a robust build—one sixty-eight, the ME reported. She had been widowed after a brief marriage, had no children, no near relatives in the area.
    Several people he’d talked to indicated she’d had a strong A-type personality that included a quick temper. She was the widow of a wealthy attorney and had immersed herself in business and become very successful at it.
    Maddy’s success came from her skill in real estate. She always appeared to know what the competition was up to and took quick action to counter them. She had a reputation for sharp business dealings but hadn’t broken any laws—or at least was too sharp to be caught doing something illegal. She was not a drunk or a doper. Once a year she took a two-week vacation, but nobody knew where she went. Seven years ago she had left her Methodist church and formally