and got out to help Maggie unload, moving stiffly around the side of the truck. It showed how preoccupied Maggie was that she didn’t notice.
We piled the boxes at the bottom of the stairs and I pulled the truck into Maggie’s parking spot—she’d left her bug at home.
“I can carry this stuff up, Kath,” Maggie said, setting the roll of green bubble wrap on top of the stack of boxes.
“I’m okay,” I said. I was starting to sound like a broken record.
She frowned and looked pointedly at my left hand with the overbandaged thumb.
“I’ll take the bubble wrap and the brown paper,” I said. “Neither one of them is very heavy.” I wanted to make sure Ruby actually was in her own studio. I didn’t want to leave Maggie by herself to brood about Jaeger and I did need to get to the library at some point.
I grabbed the roll of paper and tucked it under one arm. After a moment Maggie surrendered the bubble wrap. She took the top two boxes from the stack and headed up the stairs.
Ruby must have heard us. As we came out of the stairwell she stepped out of her studio, holding a mug of what I guessed was herbal tea. It smelled like lemon and cranberries.
“Hi,” she said. She was wearing a paint-spattered denim shirt with the sleeves cut off over her jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt. She looked from Maggie to me, and her smile faded. “Something’s wrong,” she said. “Don’t tell me that there’s more water coming in at the store?”
Maggie sighed and set down her boxes. “No, it’s Jaeger,” she said.
“Good dog!” Ruby said, shaking her head, which made her little pigtails bounce. “What did he do now?”
I held up a hand before she said something that in another minute she might be sorry had come out of her mouth. “Ruby. Jaeger’s dead,” I said quietly.
Her mouth fell open. “Dead? But…but how? We were all just at the meeting. Are you sure?”
“Yes,” Maggie said.
I nodded.
For a moment Ruby didn’t seem to know what to do with her free hand. Finally she wrapped her arm around her midsection, like she was hugging herself. “What…what happened?” she asked.
I glanced at Maggie. Her face was gray and there were tiny, pinched lines between her eyebrows.
“He, uh, fell down the basement stairs.”
“You mean at the co-op?” Ruby shook her head slowly from side to side. “No. That’s not possible. I saw him come up the steps and…and…I saw him leave.” Her face had gone pale as well.
Maggie looked down at the floor for a moment. “He came back,” she said, finally. “I don’t know why. And I don’t know what he was even doing down there.” She bent and picked up the boxes again. “I’m going to put these in my studio.” She moved past us, fished out her key to unlock the door and then went inside.
Ruby was still shell-shocked. She took a couple of steps toward me. “Kathleen, did Maggie find…” She didn’t finish the sentence, but I knew what she was asking.
“We, uh, we both did.”
Her face softened. “I’m sorry,” she said. Then finally she noticed my scraped forehead. “What happened to you? Are you okay? You didn’t fall down the stairs too, did you?”
I shook my head. “No. I slipped out at Wisteria Hill. I’m all right.”
“Good.” She looked over at Maggie’s open studio door, and then shifted her attention back to me. “None of this makes any sense. What was Jaeger doing in the co-op basement? How did he get down there, anyway? I saw Maggie lock the door and put the keys in her pocket.”
She had the same questions Maggie had been asking and I still didn’t have any answers. I shrugged. “I don’t know. The police are going to have to figure all of that out.”
Ruby made a face, her mouth twisting to one side. “I wish I could remember where I know Jaeger from. I have the feeling it’s important.”
I couldn’t see how Ruby figuring out where she may have seen Jaeger Merrill before was going to turn out to be important,