I choked on my iced tea. “You must be joking. Jane is the gentlest creature alive.”
“No doubt,” he said smoothly. “But if I wanted this investigation to conclude quickly, I would arrest her and that would be that.”
“No, that would be insane.” He had to be kidding. Thor would never pick on Jane. All of my nice, companionable feelings for Eric were being swept aside in a tidal wave of outrage. “Don’t you dare arrest Jane! There are a lot more suspicious people around here than her.”
He gave me a look. “Do share.”
I scowled, knowing I’d walked right into that one. “Well, it’s not that I’m accusing anyone, but have you talked to the other neighbors? And his old navy buddies, Ned and Bob? Or Ned’s son, Stephen? Have you talked to him?” As I said all this out loud, I really warmed to my ideas. Jane was a ridiculous suspect, especially when there was a veritable banquet of iffy people to consider instead. “Stephen just suddenly moved here. What’s up with that? And there’s Jesse’s mysterious girlfriend, Althea. Not that she’s all that mysterious. I mean, she’s lovely, but still. They might’ve had a fight or something.”
“Or something,” he said sardonically.
“And you must’ve heard about Jesse’s treasure necklace, right? I mean, not that it exists,” I added quickly, making another mental note to talk to Jane about coming clean. Seriously, I am not a good liar. “He used to talk about this thing he found on the old shipwreck, a jeweled necklace. I don’t think it exists, but someone else might’ve believed him and . . .”
Oh, dear God, I needed to shut up while I still had half a brain left. “Never mind. That’s pretty far-fetched.”
Eric placed his big, strong hands on my shoulders and gave me a little squeeze. “Shannon, if it’ll ease your mind, I’m in the process of talking to all those people you mentioned. I hadn’t heard the story about that necklace, but whether it’s true or not, I won’t stop investigating until I get some answers. But the fact remains that Jane probably had the most to gain from Jesse’s death.”
“But—”
“That doesn’t mean I’m going to arrest her,” he said, holding up his hand to cut me off. “It just means that the investigation is ongoing. I know I’m relatively new in town, but I’m not an idiot. I know Jane isn’t a killer.”
“You do? Okay. Good. And I don’t think you’re an idiot.”
“I appreciate that.”
I frowned. “Were you trying to teach me a lesson there?”
“Maybe.” He leaned closer and whispered provocatively, “How’d I do?”
“You’re good,” I said reluctantly. “Scary, but good.”
He walked away grinning.
*
On the way home from work later that afternoon, I called Jane to talk about the necklace situation. We simply had to tell Eric that I’d found it. But before I could say anything, she told me that she had just arranged for all the locks on Jesse’s doors to be changed.
“Good. It’ll slow the intruder down, but it won’t scare him away. Not like a security guard roaming around.”
“I talked to Eric a little while ago,” she said. “And since there was no sign of forced entry, he assumes that the intruder somehow got ahold of a set of Jesse’s keys. So if that’s true and the guy tries to sneak inside again, his keys won’t work.”
“Okay.” But I hoped the intruder would break in anyway. Did that make me a crazy person?
“And by the way, I slipped a new key under your front doormat.”
“Thanks. That was smart.”
“I thought so. Oh, there’s my landscaper,” she said suddenly. “I’ve gotta go. Talk to you later.”
She hung up before I could say a word about the necklace. I was going to have to call her back tonight because my guilty conscience couldn’t take this much longer.
I stopped at the market for a few things and ran into Lizzie in the produce department.
“Hello, stranger,” she said as she grabbed a head of romaine and plopped it into her basket. “I know it’s barely been a week, but I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever.”
I gave her a quick hug. “We have to get together for a girls’ night.”
“Yes, please,” she pleaded. “I need a break from sports. It’s all football all the time at my house.”
“Okay, how about Wednesday night? You talk to Marigold and Emily and I’ll talk to Jane and we’ll make a plan.”
“It’s a deal.”