A Groom wirh a View

house?“
    “Like a fire?“
    “Yes. A fire. Exactly. As slowly as she moved, she’d have probably been terrified of being in a burning building. Well, so would I, come to that. Or maybe somebody told her there was a big limb hanging over her room that could crash down on the house at any moment.”
    Shelley sat down on the edge of the bed. “You may have something there. Scaring her about some danger is about the only reason I can imagine that would get her out of her room, in the dark, in her nightwear.”
    Jane had found the box of hem tapes and seam bindings and put the leftover packet into it. She had another one she’d found on the floor as well. “Shelley, remember in the attic there was a wad of black seam binding?“
    “Vaguely.“
    “I just remembered something. It wasn’t old and dusty. And here’s another packet of black that’s only got a few inches left.”
    Jane crossed the landing to the attic, opened the door, and glanced around. After tripping over the box of doorknobs, she found the tape. “Here it is,“ she said as Shelley trailed in behind her. “And look at the end of the tape in the packet and this end of the stuff on the floor.“
    “They match. It’s a jagged cut. But why would Mrs. Crossthwait have cut off a huge section and thrown it away in here? She had a big wastebasket in her room.“
    “Because she didn’t do it. Someone else did.”
    “I don’t get it, Jane. What are you talking about?“
    “My guess is that somebody lifted the packet during the evening, strung it across one of the steps after the lights went out, and slipped what remained back into Mrs. Crossthwait’s belongings sometime later.”
    Shelley’s eyes widened. “To make quite certain she tripped on the stairs, even if the push didn’t do it!“
    “Right. And then the person untied the seam binding—see where it’s crinkled from being tied? And pitched it in the attic, thinking nobody would go in there, and if they did, it would just be more junk if it were noticed at all.“
    “That’s really diabolical,“ Shelley said. “But how does it help?“
    “I don’t know. Except it proves that Mrs. Crossthwait’s death was planned. It wasn’t a spur of the moment thing.”
    Shelley shivered. “Euwww. I don’t like this at all. What a horrible scenario!”
    Jane looked down at the tangle of binding. “I don’t imagine this stuff would hold fingerprints, would it?“
    “Jane, it’s getting dark and I don’t like us being up here alone. Leave the seam binding here and let’s finish packing things up and we can go sit in the kitchen until Mel comes back. I suddenly don’t much enjoy our solitude. I wish there were someone else around. Preferably a man. With a gun.”
    They went back to Mrs. Crossthwait’s room. “Speaking of men, I haven’t seen Larkspur for ages,“ Jane said, picking up an armload of boxes full of sewing notions. “He didn’t say anything about leaving, did he?“
    “Not to me. Where are we going with this stuff?“
    “To her car. If we load everything into it, whoever comes to fetch it will have all her belongings.”
    It took a couple trips, but they got everything except the sewing machine into the car; Jane planned to ask one of the strong young men to carry it out later. Jane put Mrs. Crossthwait’s purse out of sight under the front seat, locked the Jeep, and pocketed the keys.
    They headed for the kitchen to make some fresh coffee and found Larkspur leaning into the fridge, rummaging for sustenance.
    “Where have you been?“ Jane asked. “I was starting to worry about you.”
    He continued to search the fridge. “Just here and there. I found some fabulous columbines back behind Uncle Joe’s rabbit hutch of a house. They’re not in bloom and might get really doggy flowers, but the foliage is magnificent. And there’s a fern there that I can’t identify.“
    “But no treasure?“ Jane asked.
    He whirled around, bumping his head smartly on the egg tray on the door. “Treasure?“ he asked with exaggerated innocence.
    “That’s what you’re really looking for, isn’t it?“ Shelley said. “How did you happen to hear about it?”
    Larkspur took Mel’s dinner plate out of the refrigerator. “May I have this, my dears?“ At Jane’s nod, he sat down at the table and took the foil off the plate. “Oh, lovely chicken salad. Divine. How did I hear about the treasure? Oh, yes. I mentioned to a customer that I was doing a wedding at a hunting lodge