Free While My Pretty One Knits by Anne Canadeo Page B

freaked out enough about having been interrogated yesterday.”
    Maybe that was not a good reason to avoid telling the police, but Lucy didn’t want to be the cause of more angst for her best friend.
    Dana seemed to understand. “All right. I hear you. Let’s leave the detectives out of this for now. We can go down to the village police station and tell them, like responsible citizens doing our civic duty. It’s their job to pass it on to the county detectives if they think it’s important enough. The village cops will need to come out here anyway and check the shop again.”
    “Good idea,” Suzanne said. She looked at Lucy. “What do you think? We can all go in together.”
    Lucy nodded. “Okay. I’m in. Let’s just get out of here. I’m getting the creeps.”
    “Me, too,” Suzanne agreed. “And all this tension makes me hungry. And the police station is practically next door to the Schooner. How convenient.” She glanced at Dana, who just sighed.
    “I’ll follow you in my own car,” Dana said simply.
    Sounded to Lucy like Suzanne was going to get her preferred breakfast after all.
    The Plum Harbor village police station was in the same building as the Village Hall. Lucy had never been inside before. It was a modest operation, she thought. The three women practically filled the anteroom in front of a counter and heavy glass window. The fluorescent lighting reminded Lucy of a gas station bathroom, for some odd reason, and the walls were covered with inky photos of wanted criminals and descriptions of their crimes, which made for some unsettling reading as she waited to speak to the officer at the desk.
    Flanked by Suzanne and Dana, she stepped up and explained to a burly officer behind the window why she had come. First, how she’d come out of a yoga class at an exercise studio on Hobson Street, right across from the Knitting Nest, and thought she saw someone inside the shop. So she went around back and by the time she got there, the person was running out the back door of the building.
    Lucy knew she had simplified the story a bit. But she wanted to keep this report short and sweet.
    The police officer took down her information, then asked Dana and Suzanne if they had anything to add.
    “You should have called right away,” he told them. “We might have had a car in the area.”
    “We did think of that, Officer,” Lucy replied. “But it would have been too late. I mean, this guy was really moving.”
    He glanced at her but didn’t reply. Finally, he handed Lucy a form and asked her to sign at the bottom, then gave her a copy.
    “That’s it?” she asked him. Wasn’t he going to give her a summons or something for crossing the yellow tape?
    “That’s it,” he said gruffly. “Just stay out of crime scenes, Ms. Binger. If you see something that doesn’t look right, you call the police and let us handle it.”
    “I will,” Lucy promised, backing away from the window. “I mean, not that I plan on doing anything stupid like that again…. It was really none of my business.”
    Suzanne took Lucy’s arm and yanked her along. “Thank you, Officer. You’ve been very helpful.”
    A short time later, seated in a rear booth of the Schooner, Lucy found the comforting smells of unhealthy breakfast foods a balm to her soul. Edie was not around, she noticed, but their attentive waitress quickly served mugs of incredibly good coffee, then took their orders.
    “Well, that wasn’t too bad. At least I didn’t get a ticket for crossing the yellow tape,” Lucy said.
    “He let you off easy. But you’ll probably get a follow-up call from Walsh or Reyes,” Dana warned her.
    “I figured that,” Lucy said.
    “Who do you think was in there?” Suzanne asked. “Just some kid, messing around?”
    “I didn’t realize we had so many delinquent teenagers around here. There suddenly seems to be swarms of them, the main suspects in every situation. Is that possible?” Lucy asked her