Pins & Needles

After the paramedics clear me and offer up some pain meds, Ryan ushers me into a holding room where Mason is waiting for me. Ryan helps me into the chair and sits down next to me. Mason glances to his choice of seats but doesn't say anything. He looks to me and says, "I hear this is not your first time giving a statement."

"Getting rather good at it I must say."

Ryan glances to me and I lose my grin. Mason pulls a pen out and I recap everything that happened with Lucy. He was hoping she had confessed to me but I shake my head.

"Not to killing Poppy or to any of it really. She only admitted to trying to hide the clubs."

Mason nods as he jots down the last of his notes. He snaps his attention to Ryan and says, "I'm going to make sure we don't need anything else. Hang around here until I give you the go-ahead to take her home."

"Sure," Ryan responds. I wait until Mason closes the door behind him and then look back to Ryan, "Okay, can I get answers now?"

"You're on pins and needles I'm sure," he says with a smirk. He knows I can't wait to put it all together. He adds, "You know, I had wondered if you were going to figure it out. As soon as I said it might not be Arthur, I thought maybe you'd start casting suspicion elsewhere but you never did. You were adamant that it was Arthur and Arthur alone."

"Well, how did you figure out it was Lucy too? What do you know that I don't?" I ask.

"Well to be fair, a lot more than you did," he smiles to me and I roll my eyes. I would have been pretty impressed with myself if I had figured it out without all the evidence he had access to. He continues, "As soon as we found the club, we didn't think it was Arthur. We knew Arthur was guilty of embezzlement but not of actually killing Poppy."

"What did the club prove?" I ask.

"That the killer may have been left-handed," he answers. My eyes go wide and I ask, "Well how did you figure out Lucy was left-handed?"

"Oh, I'll get to that part," he says wickedly and I can't help but laugh. I turn in my chair so I am directly facing him and let him spill the beans.

"After we found the club, we started doing research as to where the club could have come from. It was a pretty unique club. It was from a rare, antique left-handed set. Turns out we found a posting of the same brand of clubs on an auction site posted a little over a month ago. We traced the auction back to an estate sale that happened in Sommerville and the host of the sale remembered a husband who had purchased the clubs for his wife's birthday at the end of the month because she was left-handed. By then we knew it was a left-handed female who at one point owned the clubs. After we got statements from everyone in the society, we saw that Lucy's birthday was at the end of September."

My eyes widen and he nods.

"I started looking into Lucy and we discovered that Arthur's last client the night Poppy died was none other than Lucy Breeland. They were each other's alibi's that night. They said after he closed up the club, they went and had dinner."

"They were in cahoots this whole time!" I say in shock.

He nods.

"My guess is they have been in this together since Poppy took over. We think Lucy figured it out and wanted in on it."

"Well, we picked up on Arthur's clues almost immediately. What else did you get on Lucy?" I ask.

"Actually, thanks to you we were able to solidify our theory."

"Really? How?" I ask.

"When you noticed the fingerprint on the envelope. We ran it and discovered it was Lucy's left thumb. Which means she had been the one upstairs to tuck the checks into the envelope. Then you discovered the safe and we were hoping the accounting documents would be in there. We got a warrant and were planning on breaking into the safe at the end of the party tomorrow."

I shake my head in annoyance.

"What? You were going to ruin my party?"

"It was the only time Lucy and Arthur were going to be at the same place as Austin, Mason and I. They certainly would have never guessed we were going to be busting them and there wouldn't have been an opportunity for them to run. The last piece we needed was the clubs to tie them back to Lucy and you figured that out today," he finishes.

"But why the voicemail?" I ask. "Why try and scare me?"

He nods his head as he leans back in his chair. Then he says, "We had let all the officers know that we were on a hunt for that set of clubs. Mason, Austin and I didn't want a single person to know about the safe or the missing documents so we just leaked the info about the clubs. This town loves to talk and I didn't trust an officer to not let it slip to god knows who that we were gunning for Arthur for embezzlement, so we just kept it at the clubs. Our theory about someone talkin' was true and Lucy or Arthur must have heard we were on the hunt. Then suddenly they are worried that you'll tell me that you saw an antique set at the Wellington House. You wouldn't know who they belonged to but Lucy wasn't taking that chance."

I let out a light laugh.

"I never even paid attention to those clubs in the closet. It hadn't dawned on me until I heard her clanking them around in the hall today. She had such a good excuse to move the clubs too. She said she was making room for guest's coats for the party."

"She knew there were cameras and didn't want to risk us catching her moving them without a valid reason. She finally found an opportunity to get them out of there unnoticed."

"And then I ruined all of it by checking the staircase."

He puts his hand on my knee and says, "Hey, you figured that part out too. We could not figure out how Lucy or Arthur would have accessed the safe since Poppy's death with the cameras. We went over all of the footage since the camera was installed and never saw them wander upstairs."

"You still haven't accessed the safe yet?" I ask and he shakes his head.

"No, but Austin and I are going to take the team in tomorrow and check before the party. We are crossing our fingers that the documents are there because Lucy or Arthur doesn't know you found it."

"I still can't believe Lucy murdered Poppy," I say with a shake of my head.

"Lucy's phone records show that she had called Poppy a lot that week. We think Poppy was blackmailing her to get access to that sixty thousand to save her parent's vineyards," Ryan replies. I lean back in my chair and chew on my lip. I wonder if Lucy has confessed now that she's in custody. Or if she'll wait to see if Arthur folds. I flit my gaze back to Ryan and ask, "So Arthur and Lucy were embezzlers but you think Lucy is the one that swung the club? If she had her random antique club with her, it was clearly premeditated."

"Both Arthur and Lucy have custom clubs. With Arthur's link to the country club, he knew the police could confiscate his clubs or if we discovered it in the lake, we'd know exactly whose it was. The antique club was heavier and no one knew Lucy had them."

"I wonder when she stashed them at the Wellington House? It was a good hiding spot seeing that no one except club members had access to the house," I say and I watch him shrug. He isn't able to say anything else as Mason comes barreling back into the room. Ryan drops my hand as Mason says, "We got Huxley. We'll be processing him for a while so if you want to take Ms. Sweeney home first, now would be a good time."

We both nod and Ryan pulls me from the chair. He swings his arm around me and leads me back out of his office. Before we make it to the elevator, Mason calls out to me.

"I'm sorry I suspected you, Sawyer. You did have means and motive, but I never really could see you wackin' someone."

I let out a light laugh.

"Thanks, Detective Connor. I know you just had to follow the leads."

He swings back into his office as Ryan grabs my hand. The elevator doors slide open and after we cross the threshold, Ryan says, "How are you feeling?"

I gingerly touch the swell of my back and reply, "Like I fell down a flight of stairs." I catch his wince and I reach out to grab his arm, "But don't worry, a sore back won't keep me from dancing the night away tomorrow night."

"Are you sure you are going to be up for the party tomorrow?" He asks and I look at him like he is a crazy person. The elevator comes to the first floor and as we walk down the hallway, I reply, "Of course. I didn't spend long days with my momma and endless hours on the phone trying to finalize a headcount just to miss the party. I'll be there and at the end of it, I will be expecting my momma to have a long conversation with daddy about purchasing a business," I say pointedly.

"You're ready to be a business owner?" He asks with a smile.

"Unless you think I can make it as a detective."

He throws his head back as he laughs.

"No, no. Your amateur sleuthing almost got you killed. I'd never allow you to poke about professionally."

"But you don't mind me being around lots of fantastic wine all day every day?" I reply with a smirk.

"Hey, it's your inventory. The more you drink the less money you'll have in your pocket." He says as we cross into the parking lot. As we approach his truck, I flit my eyes over to him.

"Tomorrow is a big day for everyone. Austin is getting engaged, the town will learn about Lucy and Arthur and I will become the new owner of Old Town Winery."

"Don't forget, we'll also learn what's in the safe. If we are lucky, it will be all the missing documents," Ryan says hopefully. It's the last major piece of the puzzle. The last end to tie up. Tomorrow is a big day indeed.