"Just because we can't doesn't mean you can't," Andrea jumped in quickly, turning to give Hannah a wink. "I think you should have some, Nettie. It's been a rough day and you need to relax. Hannah? Why don't you pour a glass of wine for Nettie?"
For a brief moment, Hannah was confused by the wink, but then she caught on. Andrea believed that Nettie would be more forthcoming if she drank some wine. Hannah spotted it on the bar at the end of the living room, went over to open it and pour a glass, and carried it back to their hostess.
"Thank you, Hannah." Nettie put down her sandwich and took a sip of wine. "There's dessert if you want some later. I stuck four cakes in the freezer, but there's at least five still out on the counter."
Hannah remembered the dessert she'd brought and she reached for the bag and handed it to Nettie. "I almost forgot… these cookies are for you. I guess it's a little like bringing coals to Newcastle."
"No, it's not." Nettie shook her head. "No one else brought cookies, and I like cookies better than cakes, anyway. What kind are they?"
"Cashew Crisps. I hope you like them."
"I adore these cookies." Nettie drew one out of the bag and bit into it. "Mmm. These are absolutely scrumptious. I tasted one when you first started baking them and I told Jim they were the best cookies I'd ever had."
"I'm surprised he never brought any home for you. He used to come in a couple times a week to pick up orders."
"Oh, he took most of those to the office. And he wouldn't have bought cashew cookies home, anyway. Jim didn't like cashews."
Andrea exchanged a glance with Hannah. "But you do?"
"Cashews are my favorite nut. That's why I love these cookies so much."
Hannah took another bite of her sandwich and chewed thoughtfully. It seemed that Nettie's likes and dislikes hadn't mattered much to her husband. Sheriff Grant didn't liked ham, so he'd refused to have it in the house. And even though Hannah had been baking Nettie's favorite cookies for over a year now, Sheriff Grant never bothered to take them home to her.
"I know what you're thinking," Nettie said, staring hard at Hannah.
"You do?"
"I believe so. You're thinking that my husband was a selfish man. And you're right. Jim thought he was the center of the universe and other people just floated in orbits around him. Sometimes they were useful and he liked them. Other times they weren't, and he didn't."
A tear rolled down Nettie's cheek and Hannah leaned forward. "Are you all right?"
"Yes. It's just that you can't be married to a man for twenty-six years without feeling abandoned when he's gone." Nettie took a deep breath and faced both Hannah and Andrea squarely. "Can I be frank?"
"Of course," Hannah said.
"You've probably guessed that life with Jim wasn't any picnic. There were big problems in our marriage that we just couldn't resolve. You probably know that I almost had a breakdown when Jamie died."
"It must have been awful."
"It was. It took a whole year of counseling before I learned to cope. But I did learn to cope. Jim never did. That's one of the reasons I spoke with Howie Levine on the Saturday before Jim died. I went in to ask his advice about a divorce."
Andrea's mouth dropped open and Hannah had to work to keep hers closed. She hadn't heard a word about the Grants breaking up.
"No one knows except you two. My meeting with Howie was confidential, but someone will find out about it, sooner or later. And since I don't have an alibi, that'll make me the number one suspect in my husband's murder."
Hannah's ears perked up. "You don't have an alibi?"
"No. I was working alone in the sewing room, finishing an appliquй wall hanging for a client."
"Where's your sewing room?" Hannah asked, intending to check out the location of windows. It was always possible that one of Nettie's neighbors had spotted her working on the night the sheriff had been killed.
Andrea and Hannah followed Nettie up the stairs and down the hallway. She stopped at the second door to open it and ushered them in. "This is my sewing room. It's where I was working the night Jim was killed."
Hannah looked around the small, crowded sewing room in surprise. She'd thought that Nettie's workroom would be much more spacious. For years, she had been quite well-known, locally, for making appliquй wall hangings to order. Her work had been featured in several craft magazines and she always won a blue ribbon at the Minnesota State Fair. Just last year, a big name decorator had ordered several of Nettie's wall hangings to use in a celebrity's home. There had been a tour of the home on national television with an interview with the celebrity in front of a large wall hanging Nettie had designed. Since then, Nettie had been deluged with orders from people who were willing to pay large amounts of money to have an original Nettie Grant hanging on their wall.
"I love it, Nettie!" Andrea crowed, having somehow made her way between the sewing machine and the cutting table strewn with bolts of cloth to stand in front of the wall hanging Nettie had just completed. "The cows look so real, I almost expect them to moo. Who gets it?"
"The Minnesota Dairy Council commissioned it for their headquarters."
Hannah turned to look at the wall hanging, but she didn't try to get any closer. The room was so small she couldn't have managed it without knocking Andrea off her feet. "I like it a lot, Nettie. The cows look like they're all enjoying some huge joke at our expense."
"That's exactly what I wanted, but I doubt that anyone else will catch it." Nettie turned to smile at Hannah. "Their big concern was that I have every breed of cow in Minnesota represented."
Hannah sidled past the ironing board, steadying the iron as she went, and made her way to the single window. The drapes were heavy and no one passing outside could have seen any shadows from within. "Did you have the drapes open that night?"
"Yes. I see what you're driving at, Hannah, but it won't do any good. The Maschlers live on that side and they were gone."
"You asked them?"
"Mike did. He called right after I brought him up here to show him what I was doing when Jim was killed. Jerry dropped Kate off at the school and then he went bowling with a couple of friends. And Richie was out with his friends."
"So you didn't see or hear anything from next door?"
"I heard the television. They must have left it on as a burglar deterrent and I wish they'd switched it to another channel. It was some kind of kung fu movie and the yelling and grunting almost drove me crazy."
Andrea looked surprised. "It was really inconsiderate of Kate to leave the television on so loud."
"Oh, it wasn't that loud. I wouldn't have heard it at all if I'd had the window closed. But I had to open it because I was cutting material. If I don't, the fibers and dust make me sneeze. This is a really small room and it's impossible to keep to keep it dust free."
"It certainly is tiny," Hannah commented, glancing around her again.
"It's the smallest bedroom. When Jamie died, I thought I'd move my things to his room. It's a lot larger. But Jim didn't want me to touch anything in there. He was so insistent about it, I didn't."
"You mean… everything is still just the way it was when Jamie was alive?"
"That's right. I tried to talk him into giving some of Jamie's things to charity, but he just couldn't bear to get rid of anything, not even the clothes in the closet."
Hannah looked over at her sister. Andrea looked a little sick and that was understandable. Leaving a dead boy's room intact for three years was a peculiarity that had crossed over the line into obsession.