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closed?”
    “I wouldn’t think so. You don’t let people in after you close, do you? Unless it’s an emergency.”
    “True. And more people think it’s an emergency that they need another skein of DMC 758 than that they need a copy of The Ten Stupid Things Women Do to Mess Up Their Lives,” said Betsy.
    “Malloy might agree, except for the part about needing an emergency skein of DMC floss. But you can see why, when Malloy and his partner went to tell Paul about his wife, they had some hope of arresting him for her murder.”
    “You mean Paul wasn’t standing outside the bookstore demanding to know what was going on?”
    “No, they found him doing paperwork in the gift shop.”
    “Hmmm.”
    “Why hmmm?” asked Jill.
    “Because he is alleged to have taken that job just so he could keep an eye on Angela. Presumably a fuss of any sort would have him right out there taking a look. There were sirens, right?”
    “Oh, yes, lots of sirens.”
    “So why didn’t he come running to see what was going on?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe he was hard of hearing. Oh, wait a minute. It was pouring rain that evening, with lots of thunder and lightning. It’s possible the racket covered up what was going on. I remember that night, it had snowed once, so seemed weird to be having a thunderstorm instead of a blizzard. I remember that because I was worried about standing outside in the storm—but also because that storm gave Paul his alibi.”
    “It did? How?”
    “Well, if he’d gone from the gift shop to the bookstore and back, he’d’ve gotten soaked, even though it’s only two doors down. But he was bone dry, hair, clothes, and shoes. He’d brought a raincoat with him to work, because the forecast was for thunderstorms, but it was dry, too. He was looking good for that murder, so they really searched for wet clothes he might have changed out of, for a hair dryer, plastic garbage bags with head and arm holes, any evidence he’d been out in that rain, and didn’t find a thing. And no one saw him outside the gift shop. Despite the rain, there were people on the street, and some of them knew Paul by sight.”
    “So if it wasn’t Paul, and it wasn’t a robber ...” said Betsy.
    “Yes. And Foster was seen on Water Street right about the time it happened.”
    They stitched in silence for a while, then Betsy said, “Did you get called to the scene again when Paul was murdered?”
    “No. He and Angela lived in Navarre. The police force out there called in Malloy, of course, when they identified Paul, because of Angela; so some of what happened got back to us. I heard there was clear evidence of a fight, a broken mirror, overturned furniture, blood spatters. Paul was shot twice, once in the leg and again in the head. The same gun was used in both murders, and it was never found.” Jill put her stitching down to frown in thought for a few moments.
    “What?” asked Betsy.
    “What I think is, it’s a shame that no one saw Foster in Navarre the night Paul was killed, the way people here saw him on Water Street.”
    “Maybe they didn’t see him because he wasn’t there. Foster told me he was in his office, waiting for a meeting with Paul that never happened.”
    Jill said, “I don’t think I ever heard that.”
    “Foster says Paul called him and said he had evidence that would clear both of them of Angela’s murder. Paul said he had proof of who really murdered his wife.”
    “Who did he say it was?”
    “He told Foster he had to see the proof to believe it, that it was someone no one thought it could be.”
    Jill asked, “And you believe that story?”
    “I don’t know what to believe. Foster said Angela told him that Paul was a very strange person. It’s a weird alibi Foster has, too. But Foster says the police found evidence he was in his office after the cleaning lady left. On the other hand, it’s hard to imagine that Foster would agree to meet the man he cuckolded, a man he described as a crazy