Berried to the Hilt by Karen MacInerney Page B

Anything’s worth checking out. Anyway, I’ll be over in a few minutes. Got any more cookies for me?”
    “Gave the last of them to the co-op this afternoon, and the oven’s broken,” I said.
    “You’re having a rotten week!”
    “Did I mention there’s a food writer from the New York Time s here?”
    “I wouldn’t bother playing the lottery, if I were you.”
    “No kidding. See you in a few, then.”
    _____
    We slept the entire night through, which was a nice change of pace, but Claudette was already up and sitting alone in the darkness when I padded downstairs to start the coffee. I heard the soft clack of her knitting needles before I saw her. She was dressed in a shapeless, oatmeal-colored dress, and dark circles ringed her eyes.
    “Did you get any sleep?” I asked as I filled the grinder with several scoops of fragrant French Roast coffee. The rich, dark smell was comforting.
    “Not really,” she said. The sweater had been replaced by a scarf, which trailed over her knee to puddle on the floor beside her. Had she been up all night working on it? “The room was lovely, but I just kept thinking of poor Eli, all locked up and alone.” Tears filled her eyes. “Eli’s no spring chicken, Natalie. If they put him in prison, he may never be able to come home again,” she whispered.
    “Don’t think that way,” I said as I pulsed the grinder, trying to sound optimistic. “We’ve got a couple of leads we’re looking into, and Tom’s found Eli a top-notch attorney.” I poured the ground coffee into the maker, started it, and walked over to put my arm around Claudette, who was wiping tears from her cheeks.
    “An attorney. Does that mean they’re going to charge him?” she asked.
    “I don’t know yet,” I said.
    She took a deep, shuddering breath. “I’m taking the mail boat over to see him this morning,” she said. “Emmeline is going with me.”
    “Good,” I said. “Give him our love, will you?” Then I thought of something. “And will you ask him a question for me?”
    “Of course,” she said.
    “I know the police have already talked to him, but I think they might have missed something. Ask him whom he gave the cutlass to, when, and where. And any details he can remember that might help prove it.”
    “You think he gave it to someone?”
    “John told me he claimed … I mean, said he gave it to Carl Morgenstern, the archaeologist from the university.” I kicked myself for the poor choice of words, but Claudette evidently didn’t notice.
    A fire stirred in her eyes, the first since Eli was arrested, and I was reminded that when roused, she could be a formidable opponent. “That university archaeologist hated Gerald, didn’t he? Eli told me. So maybe the archaeologist killed him, and set up my poor Eli.”
    “It’s a possibility,” I said cautiously.
    “If he set up my husband,” she said, “I’ll kill the man myself.”
    “Easy, Claudette,” I said. “Let’s find out as much as we can, quietly. If it’s true, we don’t want him to be alerted that we know until we have a way to prove it.”
    “You’re right,” she said, the knitting needles picking up speed. “If I find out when they met, maybe I can find someone who saw them together. Nothing happens on this island without somebody noticing it.”
    That was the second time I’d heard that in the last twenty-four hours. “It’s worth asking around,” I said. “I’ll see if Charlene heard anything. She usually knows everything that happens.” Happy to see Claudette a little less bleak, I busied myself getting the morning’s breakfast ready. As I pulled the last loaf of frozen banana bread out of the freezer and retrieved a carton of eggs from the refrigerator, I prayed Claudette would find out something we could use to prove Eleazer had handed over the cutlass. And that the oven would be fixed before tomorrow morning. As much as I enjoyed the occasional Entenmann’s Danish, I didn’t want to be reduced to