Free Knot the Usual Suspects by Molly MacRae

Hugh
did
say something to you about being here for Handmade. Asking you implies that he knows Hugh did come for the fair, but that he isn’t sure
why
he came for the fair. But what if he just thinks that’s why Hugh was here? What if he’s assuming?”
    â€œBut why would he ask me if he didn’t know for sure?” Ardis let the pencil bounce one more time and then tossed it in the air. “Did I just say that? Did I just assume that because Cole believes something and says it out loud, then it’s true?”
    The pencil had flown as far as the mannequin and stuck in the gray cowl like a dart. I went around the counter and carefully pulled it out. Ardis put out her hand for it. I didn’t give it back. She put her hands flat on the counter.
    â€œYou’re right, Kath. You’re right, and we don’t know if Cole is right. I’ll tell you what we do know, though. And knowing this brings me to a place of calm.” She took a deep breath in and let it out. Then she held out her hand again. “Please give me the pencil.” I did. She flipped the notebook open and saw my
dabbling in detective work
note from the day before. “Cole’s joke isn’t really funnyanymore, and yesterday morning seems like a long time ago.” She turned the page. “We know the police at least
think
Hugh was here for the fair. That gives us another clue to work with.” She poised the pencil over the page, then swiveled it in her fingers and pointed it at me. “Because we
are
going to find who killed him.”
    I nodded and watched as she jotted her own note. “You said that gives us another clue. What else have we got?”
    â€œThe slip of paper with my name. Why was it in his sporran?”
    â€œOh, right. How did I forget that?”
    â€œYou were distracted by Cole’s pantomime—and its location—as he searched for the right word,” Ardis said.
    â€œDisturbed by it anyway.”
    â€œAlso, what book did Hugh have in his sporran? Is it significant? Or was the slip of paper with my name on it merely a bookmark in a random book?”
    â€œLost in a random universe?”
    â€œThat has a lonely, existential sound to it.” She made several more notes with slashing underlines, and then grew still. “I think Hugh was lonely. And now he’s lost forever.” She put the pencil down and stared at her hands.
    â€œArdis, I hate to say it, but maybe we should cancel the yarn bombing.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œSneaking around so late at night, though? Out of caution, shouldn’t we at least consider postponing it?”
    â€œNo. We’re going to have a dozen people. We’re working in groups. No one is going solo. It’s perfect the way we’ve planned it.”
    â€œPostpone it out of respect for Hugh, then?”
    â€œI asked him if he wanted to join us and he said yes. We need to do if
for
Hugh.”
    â€œOkay. I was just checking.” I nudged her with my shoulder. “Here’s another clue—the bagpipes and the midnight concert. When was the last time something like that happened in Blue Plum?”
    â€œAnd his whole ‘getup,’ as Coleridge so ineptly called it. The kilt, the sporran, the pipes—that’s not your typical east Tennessee ‘getup.’”
    â€œNot
upper
east, anyway. All the way west, over there in Knoxville, maybe. Or out in the hinterlands in Nashville or Memphis. Do we know where he’s been living?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œOr what he’s been doing since—how long has it been since you’ve seen him?”
    â€œI’ll have to think.”
    I put the pencil back in her hand. “You should write down what you know and what you remember about him, Ardis. If the police are going to come pick your brain, the posse should get first dibs.”
    â€œBefore the police pick it clean. Do you mind if I go in—” She nodded to